Chanting as an Embodied Spiritual Practice
Chanting is very grounding for me. It’s an embodied spiritual practice that engages all three of our centers – moving, emotional, and intellectual -- and brings us straight to the heart. I love this about chanting with a group of people—how we find a new state of being rooted in the heart. And when we find ourselves in the heart, all is well, things feel whole, and true compassion and other fruits of the spirit just flow out.
Personally, I find it a perfect prelude to a meditation practice such as centering prayer, and a delight on its own. When I feel a little “off base,” I might chant -- in the car, or quietly in the grocery line or the dentist’s office —it helps me to show up as a whole human being. I’ve been surrounded with music all my life, and have often woken up with melodies in my heart. It has been a natural expansion of the wisdom path for me to become more involved in chanting – leading groups of people intoning them together, writing them, and simply offering them as prayer.
I’m a retired scientist and I live in Northern California and offer spiritual direction, and facilitate retreats and workshops. I recently published a book (with foreword by Cynthia Bourgeault) called The Cosmic Web: Hope For Our World Through Science and Spirituality.
Here are some recent chants (and a couple of longer songs) that I've written, and recordings of some chants written by others. Feel free to join in as you listen!
“Chanting is at the heart of all sacred traditions worldwide, and for very good reasons. What meditation accomplishes in silence, chanting accomplishes in sound: it wakes up the emotional center and sets it vibrating to the frequency of love and adoration while feeding the body with that mysterious higher “being food” of divine life... Sacred chanting is an extremely powerful way of awakening and purifying the heart because it allows us to experience, beyond the distortions of our own personal passions, the power and profundity of the divine passion itself. ”