is part of the string of characters for one of my email accounts. Is it a sign or is it a coincidence (that I would be asked every day whether “shva” is one)? Is something still a sign even if we do not recognize it? Is something a sign if we read it as one even if no meaning was intended? Do we deepen or diminish our understanding by naming thoughts?
I am sitting at the airport getting ready to fly to Phoenix. At Sky Harbor International, I will join friends, and we will drive together to Sedona for a weekend of study, meditation and other practice, and companionship.
On the most recent study call, our teacher Paul Muller-Ortega said that we are not going on a retreat. We are not joining together to get away from things, to escape from our lives. Rather, we are taking an opportunity to deepen and expand our practice to live life more fully. Would it not be more accurate, then, Paul suggested, to think of it as going on an “advance” than on “retreat?”
Dear Friends,
Happy Samhain, All Hallow’s Eve, Halloween. We are slipping into the time of year that is good for dreaming and introspection, while things get wild and windy outside. I can always tell when it is drawing to the midpoint between the Winter Solstice and the Autumn Equinox because the Christmas cactuses (which always bloom at Thanksgiving) start to bud. When I went to bring in the tropical plants because of the pre-Samhain winter storm, I saw that a few of the orchids were spiking. It is almost as much fun to watch the buds emerging and growing and taking on color as it is to see the flowers, which only last so long before the flowers must die so that energy can go back into making the whole plant healthy and ready to flower again. Inside and out, my garden invites me to a deeper appreciation of the dance of dissolution, creation, and maintenance.
It takes only modest intention, commitment, and nurture to have plants blooming through winter. Just as we can cultivate gardens indoors in winter, yoga and meditation help us cultivate inner beauty so that we are at ease with our being regardless of what storms rage and how we are impacted in space and time and material body by the storms. My solution: practice of all kinds, and this November is going to be a wonderful month for yoga..
Just as maintaining a garden in winter calls for props–containers, heat, indoor water source, etc., cultivating the fullness in our bodies, particularly if we are working with a challenge of embodiement, can benefit from the assistance of various props. I am pleased to announce that we now have lots of blocks and straps for everyone (and some tennis balls, though we could use a few more for when the class is big) at the Tuesday night all levels yoga class at William Penn House, making it an even more supportive environment for those new to yoga or with challenges of embodiment. As always, a portion of the fee from every student supports the work of William Penn House.
I will be leading the Friday night free community yoga class at Willow Street Yoga’s Silver Spring studio, which I will be teaching this coming Friday, November 4th. It is an all levels class that will include discussion of therapeutic applications of yoga alignment, and it’s a great way to bring a friend along with you to get introduced to yoga or to Willow Street.
If you are in town for Thanksgiving, please join me to support a great cause. From 10:00am-11:30am, Thanksgiving morning, I will be leading my ninth annual fundraising class to benefit Oxfam at Willow Street Yoga’s Takoma Park studio. 100% of the profits go to Oxfam. I look forward to seeing many of you, both those coming back and those joining us for the first time. Friends and family welcome, including children 12 and over.
Veteran’s Day weekend brings Todd Norian to Willow Street Yoga. On Sunday, November 13th, the focus of the workshop will be therapeutics. Todd is an incredibly loving and knowledgeable teacher, and I am planning to be there to assist. You can sign up on-line or in person at Willow Street.
I am looking forward to the weekend workshops with John Friend in College Park, MD on November 19 & 20. Both Mixed Level and Intermediate/Advanced workshops are offered. This is the first time John Friend has taught in the DC area since 2007. Apply today to join your fellow yogis. There are several of us going from the Capitol Hill neighborhood. Feel free to contact me if you are looking to carpool, and if you can either offer driving or are looking for a ride.
I always enjoy hearing from you by email or comments on the blog. If you haven’t already, click here to be taken to the subscription page. For short thoughts about yoga and meditation in your Facebook news, please “like” my public page for Rose Garden Yoga.
Looking forward to sharing more of the yoga with you.
Peace and light,
Elizabeth
The two books I read while I was traveling to California (San Francisco for the delight of it and Lucerne Valley to study with Paul Muller-Ortega): Home of the Dancing Sivan, India in Mind.
The first I picked to bring because it was one on the bibliography Paul has given us to read that I had not yet read and was also something that I wanted to read in anticipation for my planned trip to to Chidambaram in December. By coincidence, while we were on this intensive, Paul showed us a video of a ceremony at Chidambaram, so I was glad to have read the book on the way there. The second, I picked up recently at the Bryn Mawr Lantern Bookshop, where I do regular volunteer work. India in Mind is an interesting collection–well-known Western voices writing about India, but collected by Pankaj Mishra, an Indian author who lives part of the time in London. Much in the collection I have read before, but the editing gives a very interesting perspective on how we in the West have related to and imagined India. More reading in preparation for my upcoming trip and for my continuing exploration of what has drawn me to the yoga over these many decades.
The five books I bought while in San Francisco (the first three from my every year or three pilgrimage to City Lights Bookstore; the last two from a used bookshop in Hayes Valley near Yoga Tree’s Hayes studio):
The Essential Tagore (a large and beautiful collection), Great Tales of Jewish Fantasy and the Occult (fantasy and magic from my ethnic heritage–why just concentrate on other cultures such as India?), White Hand Society (more on Allen Ginsberg and Timothy Leary, which ties in at a deep level to my Westerner’s understanding of Eastern mysticism); Wintering (I was captivated by Sylvia Plath in my teens and 20s; it looked like a nice book), The Violent Foam (wonderful and profoundly important poetry).
Last Tuesday night class, I noticed that one of my students who had started out with very tight hamstrings fairly easily touched his toes at the beginning of class. He is an athletic guy who started yoga in his late 60’s. He first came only with his wife, who has been a regular student for a number of years. After a few months, he started coming even when she was out of town. He said that although it was hard and he does not always feel like coming, he always feels better afterwards, which inspires him to keep showing up.
When I saw his easeful uttanasana–standing forward fold–I asked whether six months ago he would have thought this possible. He replied that he knew it would just take time. If he had pushed it, he would have just busted a hamstring.
This was a great illustration of the class theme of receiving v. taking. If he had pushed or grasped at the poses that require hamstring flexibility, he would have just injured himself. By coming to class consistently and practicing with right effort, though, the openness came to him when it was time.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
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Mu
shva is an encryption method.
When you see ?shva=1 behind a link the site probably uses shva encryption technology.
Cheers
No thomas, it’s not an encryption method. The encryption method you mean is called “sha”, encryption method just like md5, sfv, md4 and others.
So we have no idea what it means
it could mean shared variable as well.. i mean SHared VAriable .. 🙂 just a guess 🙂
shared mu
what is shared mu?
I believe shva is the Hebrew vowel which essentially means the “absence of vowel”. Saying shva=1 is like saying “mu” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu_(negative)). Of course it could be referring to Shiva, the Auspicious One. It could mean both, or neither. Mu.
It means “Secure Host Verification and Authentication”