Ellen Oak

INTRODUCTION

Singing Dawn is a free video series that provides guidance and support in growing a chant practice in your own space and time. The videos are all available all the time on YouTube. You are living and breathing on this planet. If you can get to the videos, and you have a place to sit and a desire to give it a go, you have what you need to begin. This spring I am hosting a couple of ways for you to connect and reflect with fellow explorers as you make your way into the vibrational landscape of Singing Dawn.

I have found the practice of chanting helpful in cultivating relaxation and enlivening; physical and spiritual listening; wonder and beauty. If you are curious about or feel drawn toward a deeper experience of these dimensions of living, you may find this practice fun and satisfying.

The structure and sensibility of Singing Dawn are immersed in Benedictine spirituality and draw from the wellspring of Gregorian chant. The charism of the practice is to foster mind-body-spirit communion, vocal training, and wide-ranging openheartedness in making meaning across disciplines and modes of learning. 

The Singing Dawn video series is designed to begin on the equinox and end on the solstice. This year, the spring equinox in the northern hemisphere occurs on Monday, March 20; and the summer solstice on Wednesday, June 21. 93 days. 93 videos.  

With a couple of exceptions, the videos range in length from 10 to 25 minutes. They build on one another and culminate in the chanting of the full sequence on the penultimate day. Having said that—if you miss a day, no worries. Every day we begin anew. Feel free to double up; or skip. Feel free to hop around. Each day's video has a one word title taken from the text being chanted that day. Perhaps you will create your own sequence by moving from word to word as each next one attracts you. Find your way. Feel your way. Sing your way in a way that works for you.

I created Singing Dawn in 2021, in the midst of Covid-transformed living. I wanted a daily creative discipline. I wanted to investigate chanting as a mode of physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual inquiry. I wanted to integrate Benedictine wisdom with the physicality of grace in vocal artistry. I wanted to enact a day-by-day embodied experience of being intimately, seamlessly in communion with earth, sun, moon, cosmos. I wanted to experience chanting as birdsong, as wind in the trees, as waves breaking, as molten rock flow, as atomic particles dancing in relationship. What might I learn from inscribing sonic channels in my breath and flesh and soul to welcome and amplify the dynamics of dawning, and the cosmic arc curving from equinox to solstice? How might I be changed? Well, I did learn, and I was changed. I am still growing into all of it, and looking forward to traveling this path again—the same and yet of course not the same.

Perhaps we will meet along the way and make some part of the journey together. Blessings of singing dawn to you.

PRACTICE

Here is the link to the full playlist of videos: 

SINGING DAWN: Day 1 WELCOME - YouTube