Krishna Das, Live On Earth

So, how can I tell I’ve changed? I pick up books I once avoided, and I’m listening to Krishna Das. I’ve been listening to him in yoga class for years, and was never drawn in. And now I’m considering working at the Sivananda Yoga Retreat in the Bahamas when he breezes through next year.

When I’m doing yoga, listening to him makes my heart softer. It isn’t inner work to listen to him when I’m practicing, but if I’m going to listen/look outside of my, let it be to someone with a soulful, grounding voice.

Oh, and did I mention it’s fun to sing along? This album is almost all call-and-response. They are like the nursery rhymes of my childhood, these simple kirtan melodies. I sang my heart out to “four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie” when I was three. Now I’m thirty and it’s “Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare.” Who would have thought? There’s a beautiful energy to old, old songs and words. I feel engaged to some deep history within myself when I sing them.

And singing is so healing for me. It brings me perspective… sadness is transmuted, to something more than a dull feeling. I can find light in my sadness when I sing. I sing for myself, and though I don’t want to be obnoxious about it, I love to sing anywhere I find myself.