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Holiday Schedule and Greetings (Web Version of E-Newsletter)

ByElizabeth

Dear  Friends,

Best wishes to all whatever your holidays are bringing and however you might be celebrating.  I write this in the midst of days full with preparing for my much anticipated travel to India with Professor Douglas Brooks, where I will experience among other amazing things, the temple at Chidambaram, where the idea of Shiva as the Cosmic Dancer first arose, seeing friends and family before I leave, and taking care of all manner of things at work and home so that things will be in as much order as possible both while I am gone and when I return.

I typically make the holidays a quiet time.  I enjoy going to a few choice parties and visiting with friends and spending a few days in New York visiting family and exploring museum exhibits and delicious meals, but mostly I use it as time for introspection and refreshment.  I process what has happened over the year and get myself and my house and papers ready for a new year of working and teaching and creating.  I practice and rest.  I take exquisitely long and contemplative walks and write and photograph.  When I have spent the holiday season in this way, come the first of January, I feel ready for whatever might come.   I know that my general health and emotional well-being are definitely enhanced by consistent daily yoga and meditation practice, regular sleep and wellness activities, such as massage, keeping a beautiful and clean home, and eating healthy meals that come in part from my garden, and the holiday season is enhanced for me by honoring my regular practices and health needs.

By choosing to go on an adventure, with the amount of energy I will need to expend to be open to the outragious influx of sensory input and information and to weather the challenges of travel (including a nine-hour time difference) and to get back to work immediately on my arrival in the middle of of a week in which I already have a known deadline, I can be fairly certain that the comforting, well-rested feeling to which I have become accustomed from the holiday break will not be how I start 2012.  In this sense, going on this trip is willfully ignoring and disrupting all that I know keeps me on an even keel.  Sometimes, though, we just have to intentionally shake ourselves up to see what ways we can expand and how much.  Such shake-ups not only open us up to new possibilities and ways of thinking, but they also help us get ready for the invevitable upheavals in life whose exact timing and nature we cannot control.  My holiday blessing is that the shake-up is one I have chosen, that comes when I am healthy and secure, and that will no doubt provide much fuel for growth and creativity.  I definitely am looking forward to bringing home new insights and energies to share with you in the new year, perhaps even the seeds for the first art exhibit in many years.

I wish you all peace, health, and joy through the holidays and the new year.  To those of you who are currently dealing with extra challenges of embodiment, please know that I am holding you in the light and will be sending beams of healing energy from abroad.

For everyone, here are the yoga offerings for the holidays and the beginning of 2012:

No coincidence, my trip is at exactly the same time as Willow Street is closed for Winter Break, and I won’t be missing any of my Saturday noon gentle/therapeutic classes.  The class is continuing in the Winter Session (registration is now open) and I hope to see friends both returning and new signed up for the session.  For Willow Street free class week, I will be leading a gentle/therapeutics class on Saturday, January 7th to welcome those new to yoga, the class, or to Willow Street to all the healing potential of Anusara yoga.  Free class week is a great way to get to class for the first time that curious friend or family member with whom you have been wanting to share the wonders of yoga.

I know lots of you will be wanting the yoga during the holiday period, so I’ve invited two guest teachers for the Tuesday night William Penn House class.  Meridian Ganz-Ratzat will be leading the class on Tuesday, December 20th, and Anna Karkovska McGlew will be leading on Tuesday, January 3rd.  They are awesome teachers, so come check out the classes, even if you haven’t been to the William Penn House class before.

There will be no rose garden yoga classes between Christmas and New Year, but check out the great array of holiday offerings that week at Willow Street Yoga to celebrate the transition from 2011 to 2012.  I’ll be back to neighborhood classes, starting with the house class on Wednesday, January 4th, and hope to see you at William Penn House in the new year.

Thinking ahead for ways to sweeten your 2012 schedule or looking for a great holiday gift to give that enhances health and a celebration of life, but doesn’t result in more stuff being manufactured?  Give the gift of the ultimate nurturing yoga to yourself, friends, and family, with a registration for “Finding the Warmth Inside: Relax Into Optimal Alignment with Anusara Restoratives,” Saturday, February 25, 2012, 2:30 PM – 5:00 PM, Willow Street, Takoma Park studio, $35.00, click to Register Online.  Suitable for all levels.

I look forward to seeing many of you at my regular neighborhood and Willow Street classes and at workshops in the new year.  Much love and many blessings.
Peace and light,

Elizabeth

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    “The Kings of Pastry” (and Reflections on Anusara Certification)

    ByElizabeth

    “It will make you both laugh and cry,” said Josh, who is a long-time neighbor and the proprietor of the newly re-opened West End Cinema, which is currently showing The Kings of Pastry.   “I don’t think I will be crying just because a sugar sculpture breaks,” I responded with some skepticism.  “Let me know afterward,” he said, and there the conversation ended.  I needed to get seated, and he needed to help the next movie-goer.

    What I found loveliest about the film — besides getting to surrender to the delicious sensation of being completely awed by the extraordinary technique exhibited — was that there was no competition in the sense of there being “winners” or “losers.”  All of the finalists — I don’t think that this is a spoiler — could achieve the designation of “master” if they demonstrate their virtuosity as pastry chefs within a short period of time under intense scrutiny.

    The movie, in revealing a little of what it can mean to have the talent, passion, and single-mindedness to seek to be a master of a craft, a livelihood, an art, invited me to reflect on when I have been tested and when I have wanted a certain achievement marked by an outer designation.  Undergraduate and law school were highly competitive; by being ranked, excellence seemed to be prized not as much for how it would enable the students ultimately to be better able to serve society and themselves upon having developed a certain required level of mastery, but more for creating a ranking within that segment of society.  The dance world, for me, also felt strongly competitive.  With injuries early on and having developed the “wrong” body, I could not rise to the competition.

    The support, encouragement, and mentoring of the pastry chefs in The Kings of Pastry — although clearly only a select few were finalists — highlighted for me what it can mean to strive for excellence without having it be structured by win-lose/pass-fail competition; it only makes the world of pastry better if more of the pastry chefs are true masters.  In this regard, watching the movie led me to think about what it was like to work for Anusara yoga teacher certification in contrast to my earlier education.  When I was working for my Anusara certification, the standards for achievement of the “goal” were still very high, but it was not about winning/losing or achieving/failing.  It was a period of intense study, practice, learning, and humbling experiences.  On being certified, I knew that the efforts to be certified were just the beginning.  Part of the reason for being so deeply challenged to be certified, to meet the level of initiation (in Sanskrit diksha), was to see if we would continue studying and practicing at that rate out of love and deep commitment.  It took going through the process and addressing all the old emotions and patterns of reaction and response that came up in the context of being tested to help me to start fully appreciating the difference between being in a competition and seeking the best we can be for ourselves and for others in our work and study.  When I started to have a lived appreciation for the distinction it carried through to all aspects of my relationships in life.

    Without answering them, The Kings of Pastry opened for our own contemplation the questions of what does striving for excellence or mastery mean for the one on the path and for those on the path with him or her?  How does coming face to face with an obstacle when being tested or finding out that one has or has not received the public recognition impact the rest of one’s life, one’s sense of self-worth, and one’s relationships with family and friends?  It was an sweet act of film-making to bring these questions to the viewer’s awareness in a way that is completely engaging and endearing.

    Yes, Josh, I got a little teary-eyed towards the end.

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    August News

    ByElizabeth

    I am continuing to get bounce-backs from email addresses on the mailing list that I know are valid.  If you want to receive my occasional emails, please subscribe to the mailing list and make sure to check your spam filters.  In the meantime, I will try to remember also to post the content of the newsletters on the blog.

    Hope all of you are enjoying the glorious bounty and light of summer and that you are well.

    For those of you who are in town, there are some wonderful yoga opportunities:

    Saturday, August 15th — the anniversary of Anusara yoga — come up to Willow Street for “Free Your Head, Open Your Heart” for a gloriously celebratory and healing backbending experience. Great for those who love and those who have trepidation around backbends.

    Saturday, August 22nd — Treat yourself to an afternoon of summer R&R with “Serenity Saturday” at Capitol Hill Yoga.

    Drop in to Tuesday night classes at William Penn House (6:30pm) or Saturdays at Willow Street Yoga.

    Or RSVP for the Wednesday night group practice. August’s donation recipient — in honor of yoginis extraordinair Jess and Marlene — is Advocats, which rescues and provides homes to dozens of local cats.

    IMPORTANT REMINDER: I will be in Oregon the first week of September (that’s the week before Labor Day) studying and celebrating with John Friend. There will be no Wm Penn House or house practice that week (9/1&2).

    Hope to see and hear from you soon. As always, feel free to share your thoughts, needs, celebrations, and challenges with me by email, comments on the blog, or through Facebook.

    More information about the classes and workshops on the website.

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