I came across an online clip of a song, ‘Proserpina’ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEIFsm4PQnU), almost certainly filmed on someone’s mobile phone, that I found unexpectedly touching, and I sent a link to a friend who I thought might enjoy it. She replied straight away, saying that it was both wonderful and very emotional. I was sufficiently intrigued to try to discover just why it had that effect on us, and presumably on many other people too. Part of the answer to that question is clear. ‘Proserpina’ was the last and poignant song written by the Canadian singer-songwriter Kate McGarrigle before she died in 2010. It tells the story of the Roman goddess who was abducted by Pluto and taken to the underworld, and how her mother, Ceres, laments her disappearance and walks the earth looking for her. Proserpina eventually returns, but only temporarily, establishing a cycle that has mythically been associated with the reappearance of verdant spring after the desolation of winter. The song’s melody is plaintive and full of yearning, and ever since Kate McGarrigle’s death it has been used as a kind of anthem by her children, Rufus and Martha Wainwright. Often performed at the end of concerts and frequently accompanied by family members and close friends, it is a moving testament to her memory, and my own response to it, having long liked their music and once having spent a little time with Kate and her sister Anna, is warmly melancholic.
The somewhat rough and ragged nature of the video clip, as well as the performance itself, add to their emotional authenticity. It is affecting to see Kate’s children, sisters, ex-husband, and various close friends (including Emmylou Harris) sharing a spirit of communal celebration, and their overwhelming tenderness does much to heighten the power of the moment. You sense their love and vulnerability, and how these qualities are communicated to each other and the audience. Above all, you feel the performers’ connectedness, their oneness, and how they belong together; as a viewer, however distanced, you somehow became a small part of that encounter.
This feeling of oneness and connection is not normally considered an aesthetic experience, although it is common enough at artistic events, especially when they’re musical, but it is often found at other communal gatherings, both big and small. This was confirmed by some internet exploration, which quickly revealed that the phenomenon is well known and called kama muta, a Sanskrit phrase that has been loosely defined as a ‘sudden experience of oneness - of love, belonging, or union - with an individual person, family, team, nation, cosmos, or God’. According to one website I visited, the immediate effects of kama muta may include a warm sensation in the chest, tears in the eyes, a lump in your throat, irregular or deep breathing, and - especially afterwards - a sense of exhilaration. Overall, the emotion is intense and comforting, and most of us will recognise it.
The term kama muta is usually translated as ‘moved by love’, and although that is fairly accurate, it is rarely added that kama is a word for sensuous ‘desire’ or ‘longing’, and often, more specifically, for sexual desire. Some academic writers are aware of this ambiguity, but nonetheless continue to use the term to describe the feeling that is generally agreed to be caused by ‘a sudden intensification of communal sharing’. It is also widely suggested that this is a universal emotion, common to people in diverse and different cultures, and there seems to be no reason to suppose otherwise. Rarely is it mentioned, however, that kama muta can easily be aroused by emotional manipulation, both benign, as in the case of deliberate sentimentality or exaggerated emotionalism, and corrosive, as can sometimes be experienced at gatherings that generate a pleasant feeling of solidarity at the expense of other people.
The concept of kama muta may perhaps be useful to identify a certain kind of agreeable social experience, but it is less helpful when applied to aesthetics. To continue within an Indian context, the aesthetic experience of 'oneness' is more fully and accurately defined by the theory of rasa. The Sanskrit word generally means ‘taste’, ‘essence’, or ‘flavour’, but in aesthetics it goes beyond that and often refers to the feelings of joy and transcendence that an audience feels when absorbed and moved by a work of art. Impossible to define adequately, rasa functions by arousing dominant emotions such as passion, laughter, sorrow, anger, compassion, fear, and wonder, and then transmuting them into aesthetic pleasure or delight. In a spiritual context the idea is taken even further. For example, according to the philosopher Shankara, rasa refers to a form of bliss that arises within oneself and does not depend on material things; it is spiritual, subjective, and intrinsic to our being. It is also related to the emotional form of religious worship known as bhakti. Although the experience of rasa is open and common to us all, it does not, on the other hand, especially emphasize shared feelings.
Returning, then, to the experience of the clip of ‘Proserpina’, it is probably fair to say that its effect is caused by a combination of gratifying kama muta and, to a lesser extent, the aesthetic enjoyment of rasa. This may not be how the performers or most of their audience would think of the song or its effect, but it is one way of considering them without diminishing their satisfying impact.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-Cudn4goNo
http://kamamutalab.org/about/
https://escholarship.org/content/qt4zv550pt/qt4zv550pt.pdf
https://www.routledge.com/Kama-Muta-Discovering-the-Connecting-Emotion-1st-Edition/Fiske/p/book/9780367220945