Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Roundabout route to William Penn House to lead the Tuesday night yoga practice. Come join us some time.
After days of self-quarantine in anticipation of a visit to the dentist for regular care, it was good to be out and about for a bit.
My temperature was 95F on the thermometer used by the receptionist. It’s usually low relative to “normal,” but still.
My first reaction to the switch to Daylight Savings Time this early, I admit, was to protest and whine, but still to force myself into the new schedule. This is a great example of tamas (the protesting and complaining without doing anything productive) and rajas (the forcing myself into the routine) being out of balance. This resulted in my feeling both sluggish and edgy at times during the day.
By stepping back and observing that the feeling of being out of balance could be related to the time change, as well as the erratic weather, I was beginning to bring the elements back into balance, allowing rajas in the form of mental discrimination to bring me to a place where I could take action.
Last night I practiced seated forward bends andchandra bhedana (alternate nostril breathing, in breath through the left nostril — the moon side — and breathing out the right nostril). I went to bed at my regular time and slept sweetly. This morning, it was still hard to get up in the dark, but before meditating, I practiced kapala bhati (skull shining breath) and surya bhedana (alternate nostril breathing, with the in breath through the right nostril — the sun side — and the out breath through the left nostril) in the morning to bring in light and energy. I now feel energized and light and ready to face a long work day.
By practicing in this way I used rajas, as will, knowledge, and determination, not to force myself to get through the imbalance, but rather to try and balance my energy. Tamas predominated at bedtime where it was in balance, and the rajas needed to get out of bed with the alarm led me to my seat for pranayama and meditation without forcing.
Better!
A work colleague of mine graciously said to me that he did not know how I got through certain meetings without yelling, he did not know if he could do it. I replied that lots of yoga helped. “Maybe I should get back to transcendental meditation,” he said, “but I found it did not really help; I should find something, though.”
I said that I tried to think of the challenges at work as just part of the dance that yields such rich abundance for me. The discussion carried on, and we not only resolved the minor problem that had led to the phone call, but also felt a deeper connection that will make it easier in the future to resolve work issues that we mutually encounter.
What I like best about the myth of Nataraja is that the dance is not for the purpose of creating the world or with any particular design, but for the sheer bliss of dancing — anantatandava. The dance makes possible both destruction and creation, but it is not its reason. When we engage in the dance of our own lives, yoga invites us just to dance fully with wonder at the rich diversity of experience. We make choices and seek to be more aligned, but ultimately we are just dancing.
