Latest on Solar Energy in DC (Lightening Your Carbon Footprint is a Great Way to Take Your Yoga Off the Mat)
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For those of you in DC without your own roof, I just received this email (live in another jurisdiction–maybe you can get your state or county to sponsor similar legislation):
Dear ,
DC Solar United Neighborhoods (DC SUN) has been working hard to make solar affordable and accesible to every resident of DC. I’m excited to report that CMs Cheh and Alexander introduced the Community Renewables Act of 2012 on Tuesday. A summary and the full text of the bill is available online at http://www.dccouncil.washington.dc.us/legislation/community-renewables-energy-act-of-2012
If you live in an apartment building, a Condo, a Coop, if you rent or live in a shady area this bill is for you! It will let you own part of a commuity solar array somewhere else in DC and then let you “virtually net meter” the production from that array right to your electric bill. You will be able to buy solar and see your Pepco bill DROP! You will also be able to support local green jobs and help fight climate change! The bill also has really important provisions to support solar in low income households. For more info, a fact sheet and everything you want to know about the bill go to DC SUN website: https://sites.google.com/site/dcsolarunitedneighborhoods/key-issues-and-committees/community-renewable-energy-act-of-2012
We are so excited by this news! If you see Council members Cheh or Alexander say “thanks for taking leadership on Community Solar.” Stay tuned for updates.
Anya
PS: Check out this great radio story on the Community Solar bill– http://wamu.org/news/12/03/08/dc_considers_community_solar_power
I Don’t Get It Either
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My friend Reya blogs that she doesn’t get it–why people don’t get massages on a more regular basis. Assuming one has enough money for the basic necessities of food and shelter, as Reya points out, I don’t get it either. When I tell people that I have been getting massages at least twice a month for the last decade, I get all sorts of reactions, lack of money and time being high on the list. I have had people, including those who claim to otherwise like touching and being touched, tell me that they don’t like getting massages.
What’s not to like about getting a massage from a qualified professional? I think it can be for any number of reasons. Sometimes it is about a deep-seated discomfort with pleasure (and especially the pleasure associated with touch), which is unfortunately all too common in this society (despite the preoccupation with sex). Discomfort with the idea of massage also can be about control.
On the surface, getting a massage is all about being passive, about surrendering physically–albeit in a very benign way. Allowing oneself to be in the role of pure recipient, though, is different than being passive or surrendering control. The person receiving the massage, though not actually doing the touching, is the person in charge (So too, in yoga. The person being assisted in a yoga pose or receiving a therapeutic adjustment is in charge, not the person assisting or making the adjustment; it takes knowing how to be a recipient, though, to know how to offer the assist or adjustment).
Even the most sensitive and compatible of massage therapists will need to be advised how you are doing on any particular day, whether any areas are feeling particularly sensitive, whether you feel the need for healing or energetic shifting in a particular area of your body. It takes a deep sensitivity and listening to the body and the energy field to know not just whether a massage feels good, but what could make it better. For example, because I tend to bruise easily, deep tissue massage generally is not the right type of massage for me. There are times, however, that something really deep needs to be rearranged and deep tissue, or even myofascial release, is the only thing that is going to be able to get at what is knotted or tangled or needs to be released. Sometimes, just about any touch would feel invasive, and then I seek out reiki or other treatment that is more in the energetic than the physical field.
I firmly believe that getting regular massages has truly enhanced my understanding of the physical and energetic body and has made me a far better yoga teacher–especially for students seeking therapeutic guidance from yoga. As well as being a pleasure, receiving a massage is an opportunity to get to know the anatomy and connections of the body at the most sensitive of levels–if one is willing to and does pay attention. And without deeply knowing one’s own body and its relationship to the outside world, including touch, how could one really be sensitive to what might be going on in another’s body?
Petting the Temple Cows
Filed Under Art and Culture, Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice, Community and Family, Meditation, Photos | 1 Comment
After a day of teaching and more discussion and emails regarding the upheaval, I had a memory of petting one of the temple cows at Chidambaram. I was jetlagged and in sensory overload, and then I petted a most wonderful cow. I dropped into a space where I was perfectly at peace and unaware of the time and all the things going on around me. This space is always there for us, even in the absence of a sacred cow, and we practice so that we can find it more and more consistently, especially when we are being challenged.
I did not photograph the Chidambaram temple cow, although a nice Indian lady asked me if her husband could photograph the two of us with the cow, so she has a photograph of herself with the strange American lady in a sari who was petting the cow. I stopped to pet many cows after that. In one town, a man told me, as I was scritching a cow between ears and horns, that the cow would enjoy a banana.
What Better Time? (Web Version of E-Letter)
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Dear Friends,
I hope those of you who are local were able to get out and enjoy the unseasonable warmth and the badly needed rain. After work, I took a most delightful walk in the rain on my way to get a massage. It was still pleasant after the session, but the wind had picked up, and the temperature was falling. I write this as I am getting ready to go into my yoga studio for a long, deep, full restorative practice.
And what better time could there be to relish restorative yoga than when we are seeking to remember the promise of spring while still enjoying the coziness of winter? There is still room tomorrow (Saturday, February 25th) in the workshop at Willow Street:
Finding the Warmth Inside: Relax Into Optimal Alignment with Anusara Restoratives: After a little gentle stretching and self-massage to bring awareness to the breath and body, we will enjoy the exquisite application of Anusara’s Universal Principles of Alignment to restful and supported restorative postures to release old patterns and invite in the new to find greater ease of body and mind. A great workshop and practice for all levels.
where:
cost:
Peace and light,
Elizabeth
What An Exquisite Gift
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To be able to see (and be grateful).
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Para, Apara, Para Para?
Filed Under Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice, Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc), Meditation, Photos | Leave a Comment
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Found Exhortation
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I thought about not posting this because of the lack of parallel construction, and then decided the grammatical flaw was outweighed by the message. Just infer the word “have” before faith. 
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Will There Be Any Change in My Local Yoga Class Following the Events of the Past Few Weeks?
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A regular reader of this blog, who was a member of the Willow Street Yoga community until she moved out of the country, wrote and said that though she enjoyed the classes in her new home, she missed the adjustments and alignment instructions at Willow Street. She asked in this context the following: “I’ve been wondering lately, when teachers leave anusara, can they still use the same terminology in their classes? If not, why not? Does JF have a copyright on some of the words?” I cannot speak to any copyright and trademark issues–I took a copyright class in law school, but that was 25 years ago.
All that I can speak to is how I will continue teaching, both at William Penn House, where the only class of the week is the one I teach, and at Willow Street Yoga Center, where I will continue to teach my gentle/therapeutic class, and the other workshops and classes I may teach. Although I have not tendered a formal resignation, I have removed the title “certified Anusara instructor” from the header of the blog. At this time, I do not even know, given John’s decision to step down for at least some period of time, what is the organization from which I would resign or whether a renewal license would be sent. For the moment, there is no need for me to make any specific changes in how I teach.
If my formal affiliation with Anusara as a corporate entity were to change, the thousands of hours I have spent contemplating, exploring, and studying the principles of alignment and how to teach them will still be the major part of my asana practice and teaching. Anusara is a deep, strong, significant presence and has been the most significant physical and energetic component of my practice and teaching and to some extent my yogic framework for being in the world for a decade. Given the healing and delight I have experienced from practicing in accordance with the principles, I do not expect anything to be otherwise. As I have been taught only to teach what I have practiced and experienced myself, and not just what I have heard from a teacher or read in a book, although obviously I cannot have experienced in my own body healing for all the various challenges of embodiment that my students have experienced, how could I not be teaching from my own interpretation of the principles of alignment, regardless of a possible need to shift vocabulary?
What will happen with the organization from a business perspective remains to be seen. The name of the system carries a trademark. Whatever happens and wherever I am led in my practice and commitments in the future, as have always done, I will honor John Friend and Anusara as the source of much of my learning and it will be a recognizable influence on my teaching. I will say in class or when I am writing that the alignment principles I have just articulated would be called [insert Anusara alignment principle] in Anusara. This will be true regardless of how the Anusara community is reconfigured and what my relationship is to any future organizational structure.
In answer to the question of what will my local yoga class be like now from my own perspective: Yes, I will be offering the same alignment instructions and adjustments–and hoping to get better over time with continued study and practice. But also, I will be even more precise about attribution, and I will be less likely to be using the “short hand,” which I already use relatively minimally. I have always found that a description of the actual physical and energetic aspect of one of Anusara’s “Universal Principles of Alignment” that applied to what was going on in the practice far more helpful than just using the name of the principle as a pointer to the action being emphasized.
It is a great question, and I am sure that the answer will be slightly different for each teacher, though I trust that all are committed to offering the best yoga class possible, just as they were before. For me, it will take a little feeling my way around the changed landscape to see how it influences my teaching. All I can say is that I am still committed to offering yoga practices that bring healing, joy, and connection, and I hope that I can do an ever better and fuller job of living up to my commitment. This is true wherever I teach and whatever name is given to the hatha yoga I teach.
A Little (or Maybe Big) Perspective
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I admit it. So caught up I have been in what my friends and colleagues have been posting on the internet about what has happened in our little corner of the world, that I haven’t been reading the news of the world with my usual diligence.
When I head out the door of my building to walk home, I walk past a big homeless shelter. There is a grassy patch and a ledge on the side of the street where I leave the building, and there are always people hanging out. Sometimes they get somewhat belligerent with each other or talk or shout loudly to no one in particular. When I stay late, and it is fully dark, it can feel a bit intimidating.
Tonight the line for a bed inside was especially long; it has been a wet day, and the temperature is dropping. I thought about our tempest as I looked at those who are homeless standing patiently in line in the hope of being able to spend a night inside, and I thought how much service, compassion, and love matter, and how little it matters exactly how or through whom we learn to better embody and live them.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
“Finding the Warm Inside” — A Restorative Yoga Workshop, Feb 25th (Web Version of E-Newsletter)
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Dear Friends,
It is a time for me of great emotional expansion and challenge. In such times, both more active, energizing yoga and sweetly, deeply meditative still yoga is a continuing gift to give myself and to share.
Please join me and like-minded yogis together creating a shared stillness on Saturday, February 25th for a nurturing, healing, and generally delightful afternoon of restorative yoga:
Finding the Warmth Inside: Relax Into Optimal Alignment with Anusara Restoratives, Saturday, February 25 2012, 2:30 PM – 5:00 PM, Willow Street Yoga, Takoma Park Studio, $35.00, click to Register Online or download a paper form 
to bring to Willow Street in person. After a little gentle stretching and self-massage to bring awareness to the breath and body, we will enjoy the exquisite application of Anusara’s Universal Principles of Alignment to restful and supported restorative postures to release old patterns and invite in the new to find greater ease of body and mind. A great workshop and practice for all levels.
For a treat of free yoga–do bring or send a friend, I’ll be teaching the Friday Yoga Happy Hour at Willow Street Yoga, Silver Spring, next Friday, February 17th. All levels are welcome.
I hope to see many of you. As always, feel free to email me with any questions you might have. There is always a new photo or idea on the blog. Take a look at what’s new–there’s still more to come on my trip to India as I find it relating to things going on at the moment.
Peace and light,
Elizabeth
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