Report on CYTA online Vedic Chanting Event held on Saturday 19th November 2022 with Alison Dyke
On November 19th 2022 11 people attended a CYTA Zoom session. This was ably led by Alison Dyke. Alison is a long-standing member of the CYTA Committee and she has a great deal of experience of Vedic chanting. The theme was Vedic Chants relating to Health.
In advance Alison sent out some notes about Vedic Chanting, together with chants planned for us to practise on the day. The notes helpfully covered the benefits of chanting and also some of the rules relating to the pitch of the chant, the length of vowels and the effort needed pronouncing certain letters. It gave participants a chance to have a look beforehand at the notation on the Vedic texts she had chosen. We were also requested to practise some chest openers before the event.
The session took the form of Alison demonstrating some chants and we also listened to her saying some chants and repeated after her line by line. Listening is a key skill and as practising chanting requires attention it is helpful as a standalone activity for focussing the mind and developing breathing. It is also good preparation for pranayama and meditation.
We practised Laghunyasah together and after the workshop Sue Hargreaves sent out the translation from the Sanscrit text and a link to its source for further information. We listened to Alison chanting some longer texts. Our meditation to complete the session was based on the Ayurmantrah Vedic health chant with hands placed in a simple mudra. We practised this chanting and placing our hands on various parts of our body to provide nourishment to those areas, as they were referred to in the words of the chant. The chant finishes with palms together (“mam dhehi” – “may I be nourished”) and then palms upwards and offered outwards to others (“mayi dhehi“ –“may that nourishment bring nourishment to others”) A wonderful meditation to conclude a very interesting workshop on an aspect of yoga which many of us lack knowledge and practise.
Many thanks to Alison for running an unusual and perhaps difficult session on Zoom, given that she couldn’t hear our efforts! Also thank you to Kathryn and Chris who hosted the session on their Zoom platform. Thanks to those who attended and to the CYTA Committee for organising the event.
Author: Judith Lynch