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Yoga of Housekeeping

ByElizabeth

Last week Orie suggested that as I have a “Yoga for Gardeners” workshop, I should also do a “Yoga of Housekeeping” workshop.  A blog post isn’t a workshop, but here are a few preliminary thoughts on yoga and housekeeping.

From an alignment perspective, I have found that the Anusara principles of alignment make safe everything I do off the mat, as well as on.  Overwhelmed by all that needs to be done? Doing heavy lifting?  Bending and stooping?  Reaching for something way up high?

First, soften (open to grace).  Appreciate that you have a home and things to clean.  Honor each item in the house.  Things have energy, too., and they like to be touched and cleaned.  If you have anything that you do not appreciate or does not fit in the house, give it a new life in a new home (freecycledc is a great way to pass things forward).

Use muscular energy, drawing the muscles to the bone, hugging into the mid-line, and drawing energy into the focal point (for most housecleaning activities, this will be the pelvis).  Using muscle energy will definitely help to keep you from tweaking a muscle or straining the low back or shoulders. When you are reaching, keep the arm bones integrated by hugging the shoulder blades onto the back and then reach from the waist, though each rib to extend the length of your torso (organic energy).

Especially for bending and lifting, after you bend your knees, hug your shins in (muscular energy), take your inner thighs back and apart (inner spiral) and then tuck your tailbone (outer spiral).  If you just bend from the knees but hunch your back, your low back will still be vulnerable.

Switch sides for activities like sweeping, vaccuuming, and scrubbing.  Yes, it can be difficult and awkward, but it’s worth it to shift sides.  Imagine doing all of your yoga practice only on one side.  How much imbalance would you be encouraging?

The first niyama of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras is sauca, which means cleanliness or purity.  It is easier to think and live and be hospitable in a clean home.

The first yama is ahimsa, or non-harming.  Do your best to use safe, biodegradable cleaning products.  Your skin and respiratory system will be grateful.  So will the earth.  Try to make cleaning your own space and act of honoring your self, your home, and the greater home of the earth.

Fully absorb yourself in the task of cleaning.  Make it a meditation.  Integrate fully the act of cleaning, the item being cleaned, and you as the cleaner.

Finally, be playful.

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    Putting the Garden to Bed Sun Salute

    ByElizabeth

    Yesterday (latest in the season ever — see interesting articles in the New York Times last month about Thoreau as a climatologist) I spent the morning bringing all my tropical plants inside.  Part of the reason it was later is that I have learned that the orchids and night-blooming cyrius like nights in the low 40s and can tolerate the occasional single night in the high 30s, but most of it is that it is a warmer season than any in the decade I’ve had a significant number of tropical plants.  I also bring inside the lemongrass and lemon verbena (annuals here; perennials where they are native).  I also like to bring in rosemary in a container.  Also, what were once small plants in growers pots are now a huge jasmine and a bay tree.  When I bring all of this inside in the winter, I transform the house into a retreat.  When I bring it all outside in the early spring, my tiny yard is full and lush before the annuals start flourishing.

    Once the tropicals were all inside, I cleaned up, tended the beds and containers, and strew some more winter kale and baby spinach seeds (no frost in the forecast for the next 15 days — so I could have new kale and spinach through December; also, some of the seeds will wait and be the early ones that come up during that warm week we always have in February).

    Putting the garden to bed has a sweetness to it.  I prepare for next year, but also engage in tending what will flourish best when the days are coldest and shortest.  It is a going inside, knowing that there is a need to go inside and let some things be dormant in order to flourish fully when the sun is bright and hot and calls me outside.

    This type of gardening is stressful for the lower back, hips, and shoulders.  Throughout the hours I am gardening,  I like to engage my alignment by intermittently doing some poses, strongly integrating my shoulders, hips, and core:  working strong “shins in/thighs out” I practice uttanasana (standing forward fold), utkatasana (chair pose), and adho mukha svanasana (downward facing dog), and maybe even handstand.  It is critical to make sure not just to bend from the knees, but also to make sure you have a good lumbar curve and your tailbone is tucked, when picking up containers or other heavy objects.

    At the end of several hours of gardening (bringing the tropicals inside also entails vaccuuming), I need to realign, stretch, and reintegrate, but I’m tired.  I also want to practice in a way that honors and celebrates the sweet inward nature of the work I have just done.  This is what works well for me:

    1.  Seated foot massage.

    2. Balasana (child’s posture) with arms stretched out, palms, forearms, and armpits lifted.  Inhaling lift underside of arms to strenthen, exhaling soften between shoulder blades to integrate.

    2. Chakra vakrasana (cat/cow breathing).

    3. (putting the garden to bed sun salute):  Table pose (if you make sure you have good lumbar curve, table is one of the best postures for making sure hips, back, and shoulders are aligned well); Downward facing dog (play in the pose to integrate and stretch the legs and arms and strengthen your core); Palakasana (plank);Table pose; Balasana;Table.

    Repeat the series several times.  Add in lunges (coming into the lunges from table).  Add in twists from table, threading one arm through and coming down onto that shoulder).  Add in pigeon pose (with a forward bend).

    4. End with legs up the wall, a supported or seated forward bend or two, and savasana.

    Enjoy how this practice nourishes and realigns, but generally draws the attention inside, getting you ready to enjoy the inside while waiting for the next growing season.

    E

    ps While I was practicing, I had a big vat of tomato sauce cooking from the last (perhaps second to last) harvest of cooking tomatoes.

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    State of the Garden

    ByElizabeth

    Last week I went across town by bus to renew my expired drivers license and replace it with the real ID version. On the way home I visited a friend from work whom I haven’t seen in person since before the initial stay at home order. Then I left work early on Friday and went to see the Sonya Clark exhibit at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. The art was worth seeing, but it was overly crowded.

    I spent the weekend with the garden and house and practices. Readying for what comes, but am sure I don’t want the old “normal.”

    Photo of fresh letttuce in water in an old jam jar and a handful of fresh pea pods from the garden
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    An Excellent Sufficiency, Homegrown Tomatoes (and the Isha Upanishad)

    ByElizabeth

    The Isha Upanishad starts, “That is fullness (purna).  This is fullness.  Fullness comes from fullness.  Take fullness from fullness, and the remainder is fullness.”

    My maternal grandfather died when I was just a toddler, so I never got to know him.  My mother used to tell us that when he had eaten enough at a bounteous meal, he would say “that was an excellent sufficiency and any more would be a superabundency.”

    On Sunday I went over to Lovejoy Gardens to my little plot (approximately 3′ X 7′ raised bed on concrete, half shaded by a fence) and harvested tomatoes.  There were about 15 ripe tomatoes.  The first thought was that it was too many tomatoes.  Then I thought of all the neighbors I had who didn’t have their own tomato plants.  I knocked on one neighbor’s door.  He gave me tea while I played with the cat.  I gave him tomatoes.  I went for a massage in the afternoon.  I brought tomatoes.  I was sent home with freshly made spanakopita.  I invited another neighbor over for dinner.  We at pesto with basil from the garden and cucumber and tomato salad (cucumber, tomato, and shallots all from the garden drizzled with a little of the best balsamic vinegar and seasoned with just ground sea salt and pepper).  We had a lovely visit, and I sent him home with tomatoes.  In the next day or two, I will make a batch of tomato sauce and put it in the freezer and have someone over for dinner another night.

    There is only “too much of a good thing” or a “superabundency” if we hoard it or try to ingest it all ourselves out of fear, greed, or desire for power or control.  When we have enough ourselves and then share the abundance, we simply create more abundance.  Once again, I am given again from my garden another sweet insight into the yoga teachings.  I am also reminded by this small example that I could share even more broadly from my blessed lot of fullness in global society.

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    Miami En Route to Havana

    ByElizabeth

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    As I have been getting prepared to travel to Cuba the best way I know how–reading, watching films, and talking to friends and acquaintances who are Cuban or are otherwise connected to Cuba–I have been thinking much about how a titanic clash of ideals impacts real, individual lives.

    I may be able to post while there. I may not.  I’m sure that if I had more time and my trip was less programmed (as required to get permission to go), I’d be able to find yoga. I think it most likely I will have to practice on my own or with my traveling companion.

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  1. Pingback: Yoga of Housekeeping : Rose Garden Yoga | www.housekeepers.com

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