Spanda, the marvellous concept in Tantric Yoga, can be translated as "Shimmering Delight". It is a Sanskrit term for the subtle, creative pulse of the universe and means vibration, movement or motion. Everything in nature consists of Vibration and we are all manifestations of it.
Music is Spanda
This may be why it works as it does—why it makes us happy or sad or fearful or lonely or calm or ecstatic; why it makes us want to sing or dance. Musical vibrations communicate directly with our bodies and with our inner selves and act to align our emotions and feelings in certain ways. We could even say that we are all music in apparently solid form. So it’s easy to see why music might appeal to our true nature.
Music, chants and mythological stories from the Irish and Indian traditions help us to make this contact—techniques from opposite sides of the great Indo-European linguistic area. These ancient stories, chants and melodies which have survived for hundreds if not thousands of years, blend in one meditative technique.
Both India and Ireland have been highly active in transmitting new ideas and old wisdom. So much in the
Celtic mystical tradition aligns with Indian, and especially
Vedantic philosophy, that the two work amazingly well together.
The Sessions
In the workshops we use music and chanting to contact the "essential self"—the witness beyond the physical and mental layers which normally dominate our lives.
Sunday, March 21st, 2010
9 - 11:30am
We will begin with a selection of Asanas with alignment instruction inspired by Anusara Yoga. This will concentrate on using our breath to flow through the practice as if we were moving to music.
2 - 4:30pm
We will begin with traditional breathing techniques from Hatha Yoga Pradipika, or Pranayama, these help our bodies and minds to become calmer and less distracting. This leads to producing simple sounds and eventually to singing or listening to the vibrations around us, depending on what the practitioner is comfortable with. There will be no pressure to sing—listening to others is just as effective. But the aim will be to touch our inner selves with our voices and the voices of others. We will finish with some restorative asanas and Savasana.
Price:
Biography
Jack Harrison is a yoga teacher, singer and folklorist. He has worked and studied in all three of these areas for the last 30 years and has recently begun to blend them together in his Spanda Yoga Music Workshops which include yoga, music and mythology.
He is an experienced
Anusara Inspired and
Ashtanga Yoga teacher and has a Master’s degree in Irish Folklore and is a lecturer in
Irish Heritage at University College Galway, as well as the designer of exhibitions at the top Heritage Attractions in Ireland.
In January 2007 Jack was invited to Yoga Thailand to record a live album based on merging the yoga music tradition with Irish music and song. The result was the album
Wind Across the Sea. Since then, this music has gone from strength to strength with Jack playing at concerts and workshops all over the world.
- Get a preview and don’t miss Jack’s free Kirtan performance on 3.20, the evening before the workshop. Kirtan is a wonderful practice of call-and-response chanting. It involves chanting hymns or mantras to the accompaniment of traditional Indian instruments.
