| |

Ganesha (Deity of the Marines?)

ByElizabeth

A senior colleague and I spent several hours today working together on a very challenging aspect of a long-term project.  When we were wrapping up for the day, I showed him a murti of Ganesha that another co-worker had brought me from the Norton Simon Museum when she had gone on a business trip to Pasadena, where our Los Angeles office is located.

I said that I do not believe in the Hindu deities as gods, but find them helpful for contemplation as archetypes (in the Jungian sense).  I said that being on this project has taught me much about yoga and about Ganesha.

“Ganesha,” I explained, “is not so much the remover of obstacles, but the one who places obstacles in your way to teach you the wisdom to grow and find a more enlightened path from having confronted the obstacles.”  “Oh,” said my colleague, “like the Marines:  adapt, improvise, and overcome.” “Well, sort of,” I replied, enjoying that we found a way to share laughter after our difficult afternoon.

Similar Posts

  • |

    Twisting, Opening to a New Perspective (and radical affirmation)

    ByElizabeth

    This week I have been working on twists both in my own practice and in my classes. In so doing, I have been thinking about the difference between turning around or doing an about-face and staying steady and true to oneself, while truly being open to another perspective.

    In order to get into twisted and bound asanas, it is critical to be steady in your place and to use the three self-affirming elements of muscular energy — hugging into the midline, embracing the muscles to the bone, and drawing from the periphery into the focal point — to be able to revolve on the midline and open the heart to a new direction.

    The same is true off the mat. If we just flip our position or turn an about-face, we are not grounded or reliable. Inside the beltway, for example, I’ve heard people saying they think McCain and Specter should be voted out of office because it is not clear where they stand. Their positions seem more about expediency than about a steadiness of conviction, coupled with an openness to listen to and work with others with differing views.

    Ideally, we want to embrace ourselves, our history, and our nature, and be sufficiently comfortable and secure with ourselves that we can hear others. Even if it feels convoluted or binding to open to true listening, by reaching while staying steady, we can better have compassion and recognize the light and humanity in those with whom we disagree. By doing so, ultimately, just as we create greater strength and flexibility by practicing twists, we experience a greater openness of spirit with respect to ourselves and all around us.

    This is a big part of my current practice, and perhaps one of the very hardest.   Steadfast commitment to a balance of steadiness and openness makes possible, I think and hope at this point in my practice, radical affirmation of the good in everything.

  • | | | | | | |

    Loops and Spirals and the Still Point at the Center (NYC, Vt, Long Island, DC)

    ByElizabeth

    My trip to the Anusara Grand Gathering was some loop of a trip, spiraling and pulsing between urban and rural, quiet time and enthusiastic gathering, old places and new scenery.  Last Saturday, I took a morning train to Manhattan, where I went to the Rubin Museum–one of my favorite spaces in the City, walked to see the Ai Weiwei sculptures in front of the Plaza, and ate good food.  On Sunday morning, I got back on the train, this time heading north to Saratoga Springs.  Just north of Croton-on-Hudson, I saw soaring over the river a raptor with an enormous wing span, white head, and brown body and wings — most likely a bald eagle.

    My friend Suzanne picked me up at the Amtrak Station in Saratoga Springs.  We went back to her house for lunch.  Before driving to Stratton Mountain for the Anusara Grand Gathering, she showed me her studio, which is a wonderful space; I look forward to visiting again.  And then we were in Vermont with John Friend, the scholars, the certified teachers leading the break out sessions and assisting, the musicians, the outdoor art, and a few hundred committed yogis.  (See previous four posts for my thoughts o the Grand Gathering).

    On Wednesday afternoon, I rode back to New York with a fellow yogi and teacher I have long admired.  I decided on pure impulse, since we were getting to the City a couple of hours early, to visit my parents.  We were able to spend the evening and morning talking, and then my mother and I went to Old Westbury Gardens (check out the new Facebook profile picture my mother took in the rose garden on my personal page and please “like” my public page, if you haven’t already).

    I caught the Long Island Railroad to Penn Station and then Amtrak back to DC.  The next morning (Friday), I worked a full day, returning to quite a slew of emails.  In the evening I had a massage and went into the garden to reground myself.  Went up to Takoma on Saturday to teach, circling immediately back into the rhythm of home.

    The photo montage below gives an idea of the wide variety and quantity of input into mind and senses.  There was actually much quiet time in this whirlwind.  I spent all the time on the train listening to teleseminars, studying, writing in my journal, watching the scenery, contemplating, and napping.  More important than the quiet space of the train rides, every day of the trip, I sat, as I do each day wherever I am, for meditation morning and evening.  While on the road, my meditation gave me a space that was home; when I came home, it helped get me settled and able to carry forward the openings and shifts from going on vacation into my at home routine.

    A steady practice gives us a still point, a space that stays steady and nourishing.  The more consistent we are, the easier it is to access this space (hridaya), no matter how much life seems to whirl and spiral around us.

     

     

    Photos are in order of travel:  Manhattan, Upstate New York, Vermont, Anusara Grand Gathering, Old Westbury Gardens, points on route, and back home with offerings from the garden on my kitchen counter (welcome home).

  • |

    Will There Be Any Change in My Local Yoga Class Following the Events of the Past Few Weeks?

    ByElizabeth

    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.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.