My own reflections will come at some point. Here is a thoughtful interview with John Friend on the decisions by Darren Rhodes, Christina Sell, and Elena Bower no longer to hold themselves out as certified Anusara instructors.
Last Monday I had the honor and delight to be invited to a multigenerational dinner of homemade dumplings at a neighbor’s house.
I was told it was customary for guests to shape a share of the dumplings; the hosts do everything else. As I have not grown up making dumplings as part of group family activity, that meant I needed first to be shown what to do with the already made dough and filling.
Skills used to make homemade noodles, tortillas, and pizza helped make dumpling shaping an accessible activity. It was tricky at first. Two people were showing me two different ways, which was somewhat confusing in an enjoyable way, and helped emphasize that for friendly dumpling making, ultimately, everyone needs to find their own method that works for them. Also, as with many hand skills, because it was the first first time I was being shown, I was simultaneously transposing it from right to left-handed.
It only took two tries to get a dumpling that wouldn’t explode in the pot and lose its filling. It took several more to make one that had nice pleats and blended in with the rest.
We had an interesting discussion about the difference between learning by eating several variations and then reading several recipes and then trying to replicate a version that resembled what I had eaten prepared by someone who learned from childhood as part of a multigenerational group process.
I have long contemplated, and continue to do so, how my comfort in learning anything from a book and then seeing if I can do it or something like it, has shaped my meditation and movement practices.
It’s pretty easy to see which dumplings I made. No difference in taste. I was also happy to contribute garlic chives from the garden.
including the yogis or perhaps especially the yogis, Patanjali’s urging to avoid getting caught up in the pair of opposites, pleasure and pain not withstanding,
Twitter? What would be
The point without an I-phone?
Buy one? Save the nation?
Last night I wrote this “twaiku” (why is it not a “twittiku?”) after having read yet another series of articles on why or why not to Twitter and still more articles on why it is important for a nation of consumers to keep consuming even if that is what got them into trouble in the first place. One of the articles was lamenting the loss of true communication that comes with being limited to 140 characters, and it set forth some examples of how peculiar, when taken out of context, some twittering can sound, especially to the uninitiated. In my attempt to keep an open mind about devaluing language while still communicating in language, I was led to think about haikus v. sonnets and other longer poetic forms. A haiku easily fits into 140 characters. This led me to wonder whether anyone had created a haiku trend on Twitter? A quick Google search revealed that I am way behind the times in terms of the twaiku?
One of the articles suggested that Twittering is about being in the moment. Contrarians say it fosters attention deficit disorder and a host of other language-loss ills. This led me to think of the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali “yoga citta vrtti nirodaha” (yoga is stilling/aligning with the thoughwaves of the mind). When evaluating what to consume, when to consume, and how to consume (whether it is language and communication methods or electronic goods or anything else), if we are serious about taking yoga off the mat, it is good to think about whether our consumption eases the trials of being embodied or makes daily living more agitating, and whether our consumption brings us more into alignment with nature/spirit (brahmacharya) or turns us away.
Agni or fire is the third of the mahabhutas. Fire does not just give us warmth and light. It also transforms. Just think of what happens to the humble ingredients of flour, water, yeast, and salt when they are baked. When working with agni in our asana practice, using the Anusara principles of alignment, I have drawn on the intersection of pelvic loop and kidney loop (which together create the action of uddiyana bandha, using these principles as I understand them to activate and strengthen my core.
One of the niyamas of Patanjali’s eight-fold path is tapas, which means heat or austerity. We are exhorted to bring fire or fervor to our practice to experience bliss, to know true consciousness.
Fire without balance, without a sense of detachment or surrender, though, will burn us up. We must be careful how we work with agni as the element.
Note: Agni is also the name of the god of fire. Not only do we need to be careful how we draw on the fire element — this town’s culture places perhaps too much value on “fire in the belly,” but we should be wary of how we invoke the gods: India’s nuclear missile program is named “Agni.” Of that invocation of the gods and of fire, I am afraid.
