Enchantment

I tune my body by practising yoga.  And when I say tune, as one would a musical instrument, I mean it literally.  At the end of a yoga class, when I lie on my back, arms at my side and palms facing up, in the final meditative pose called savasana  (corpse pose), I'm able to feel the vibrations of all the sounds around me.  I especially enjoy it when the instructor plays some meditative music or chant.  The deeper the notes, the more my body vibrates.  It's utterly blissful.
The practise of yoga has fine-tuned my body to the point that now I enjoy physically feeling music as much as I do listening to it.  I feel as if I'm a radio receiver or a tuning fork.
The human body is made to be sensitive to sound.  Hearing is one of the first senses to develop in utero, and the last one to go before we die.  Our skin is the largest organ of our body.  Because it's all over us and completely exposed, it's also one of the most sensitive, which is why we're able to feel waves of sound (vibrations) on our skin.  Water conducts sound 4 times faster than air; and humans, depending on their weight and age, are about 65% water.  Little wonder sounds affect our moods.
Earlier this year I began chanting with a few different groups as a way to satisfy my desire to sing.  Until a few years ago, I sang in a women's choir for fourteen years.  I didn't miss all the work involved in preparing for 2 major concerts a year, but I missed the simple joy of singing.  I felt that chanting with like-minded people would fulfill that need, and I was right.  I also got a lot more than I bargained for.
Chanting in any cultural or religious tradition is a deeply meditative practise.  For slaves and agrarian peoples who worked at hard, repetitive, back-breaking labour, it eased tedium and tension, briefly freeing them of mundane burdens.  For religious devotees, the purpose of chant is to clear and quiet the mind, thus entering into a state of peace and transcendence.

The rhythmic, repetitive practises of chanting, drumming and dancing are trance-inducing.  It's easy to see how one might become enchanted listening to deep drones (think om) or shamanic drumming.
When people chant, drum or dance together, a sense of community and unity is created. Boundaries between the worlds and each other break down.  The same goes for soldiers marching and chanting in unison.  The rhythmic, rhyming chants called out by soldiers while training on long hikes and marches keep them in step with each other.  Just watching a parade of large groups of people marching in perfect synchronization can be quite stirring for the observer as well.  Observers can feel the pulse almost as much as the participants.  That's what parades are for - to celebrate community.  And feeling the beat of drums and feet is the primary way it's achieved.
Vibrations can both stir and soothe one's spirit.  But not all sounds heal.  Loud, irritating noise can do considerable damage to our eardrums, which are very sensitive, delicate membranes.  Most people can tell when noise is damaging them, because if it's too loud or high-pitched, it actually hurts.  Feeling the healing effects of sound isn't as obvious, however.

The parasympathetic nervous system, which is the part of the body that calms the nerves, is stimulated by yoga.  As a result of my practise, I experience deep sympathetic resonance.  Everyone resonates with sound to some degree, because everything in the Universe vibrates.  We are connected to everyone and everything on a quantum, vibratory level.  And for those brief, blissful moments when I feel sounds of peace wash over me as I resonate in kind, I know I'm a part of All That Is.
- G. P.