This holiday season I’m holding a special festive Kirtan in between Christmas and New Year.
This is a beautiful practice because it is so simple. You don’t need any physical ability, it’s no problem if you happen to have just consumed 27 mince pies, and you don’t even need any musical ability because honestly the voices all blend together that no one voice sticks out from the crowd.
All you need is breath and an open heart. You don’t need to know any of the mantras because we’ll go through them together - and maybe even sing something a little bit more familiar.
What is Kīrtan?
The word Kirtan comes from the Sanskrit root meaning to praise or glorify and invokes moods of devotion, longing, love, adoration, peace, wonder and joy. Unlike the solitary practice of mantra japa, the recitation of mantra, it uses some of those same mantras but is all about coming together and rejoicing and chanting as a group.
When we sing and chant together, our breath extends to the duration of the musical phrase, and because we are breathing in the same rhythm, our heartbeat starts to fall into the same rhythm.
If you’ve sung in a group before you’ll know - by the end you feel warm, open, and relaxed. It’s a truly beautiful community practice.
When, where, how?
The festive kirtan is on Wednesday 29th December from 4-5pm at Merchant City Yoga. We’re doing this one IN STUDIO ONLY - it’s all about the in-person feels for this kind of practice. I chose the late afternoon for this one so that the Scottish dark winter eve can embrace us as we light up the studio with our voices and our cosy vibes. It also means that you can have plenty of time to float off to any evening festive fun afterwards.
This is a community event so we’ve decided to set flexible pricing so that it is accessible to absolutely everybody. If you have an MCY pass, you can use your pass. If you are of limited means you can choose how much you want to pay, or pay nothing at all and come for free.
So let’s come together, open our hearts, sing and rejoice this festive season!