Emma Després
“Ommmmmm” hummed my brother with index finger and thumb held together in a mudra, eyes closed, back straight, standing in the kitchen at my parents’ house where I was living, before bursting into a fit of laughter, the rest of my family laughing with him. You see, back in those early days of yoga, I was the source of much hilarity what with the chanting they could hear from my room when I was practicing. My brother had actually started practicing yoga at the same time as me, but chanting was a stage too far for him and they all thought I was a bit crazy. In fact, this yoga thing was a bit of a shock for my family. I became hooked immediately and the transformative nature of my daily practice affected me rather quickly so that my life changed considerably in the course of two years. You can understand, perhaps: there is so much stigma attached to chanting, I guess they were expecting me to join a cult next.