The Om Chants

I believe we each create ourselves in our own image as if Gods. I can literally look out and modally perceive what the other has made themselves into for their own sake, But, if they attempt to explain why they made the choices to look the way they see themselves, I only hear what I think they're seeing. I only see what I hear them saying, as if I really consciously cognate a rose that is anything more than my idea of what a rose is, that is a rose like only I know for sure that roses are like. Who isn't selfish about how they smell roses?

It's warm enough today, barely, to leave the front door open and let my brother's dogs come in and out as they please. I don't think they're allowed to do that at his house without getting yelled at and maybe spanked, so when they come inside my house they do it very gingerly. They only stay for a little while as if they really were visiting, which they are. They not my dogs. I feed the the excess bacon grease from my frying pan occasionally. Especially if it's cold. Dry dog food ain't enough when it's cold. Some time I give each of them a strip of bacon if it stays cold too long. They look out for me too. They thing they own this place. "This land is my land. This land is your land. This land was made for me and you." ~ Woody

When they were puppies I recognized that I could stop them from following me home by screaming a C#6 at them, and they would tuck tail and run back under the shed where they were born. For the last couple of days I've been singing basso at them and patting them on their heads and backs in rhythm with the nursery rhyme I be singing. They get ever so jealous (anthropomorphically) of my ability to bark better than they do, and squirm their bottoms on the floor and howl at me. They try to bark like I'm singing. I would swear it's to impress me that they somehow understand what I'm doing.

Back when I kept a hatha yoga practice going on a daily basis for years at a time, it just seemed natural to sing a Hindu (maybe) chant Om ne padme Om. I thought that made me look slick with the green girls who frowned a lot and wore loose, slinky, see-through dresses. I used to remember the significance the creators attached to this om ne padme om chant. They seem to claim it's universal in the sense that it works no matter what your native language may be. It seems to work for me and I only have English.

I used chanting techniques daily for years and they really hoped me in the way it's claimed they will. There have been times when I have been so discombobulated by external events that the only thing that really worked toward leveling me out was to chant the same saying over and over until my frustration went away. Then, I might meditate. Chanting and singing both are ways of controlling the shape of the primeval scream. Pretty much like how wolves individually shape their own howling at the Moon, and loons screech to hear their calls echo over the waters.

In my opinion, humans use words for that. Words give humans ready-made shapes, tones, and tunings that can literally move mountains, and humans do. Sometime for no other reason than they can. Why would they not? Every life form needs some method for howling at the Moon. Isn't moving mountains by yodeling pretty much the same dynamic as a wolf howling at the Moon?

Chanting took a different turn after I began taking bel canto voice lessons sporadically in my twenties and thirties. I still do the Om chants most days, but I also do the warm-up exercises for that style of classical singing, and if I feel encouraged by how my voice warms up, I sing a good long time.