Did you notice what brings you pain or hwat brings you joy? If both naturally sprang up, where did you choose to rest your thoughts?
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Sometimes when I am blogging about my garden — the joys I experience and its wonderful produce — I feel like I might be presumptuous. I am no Christoper Lloyd or Alice Waters. I just have a tiny space behind my urban, rowhouse that I have turned into a personal celebration.
A visitor from out of town graciously commented that in some ways the limits of my garden make it even more wonderful. In this sense, I know, perhaps best, from my garden the yoga teaching that ultimately to find freedom in this life we need to celebrate all we are within our limitations to find an inner space of unbounded, liberation.
(Shown here, cucumbers, mint, nasturtiums, peppers, greens, sage, savory, basil, okra, onions, more peppers, red and yellow cherry tomatoes (well picked), brandywine and roma tomatoes, eggplant (slow to start this year), echinacea, lavender, orchid.)
If you can find a vision, it will form any resolution that might be supportive.
I had lunch the other day with a friend whose life is suddenly brimming full with a variety of opportunities. Any one of them by itself would feel like a bounty. With multiple ones arising simultaneously, because they are not necessarily in perfect sequence with each other, making decisions seems like a conundrum rather than a blessing. Over a rather delightful lunch, my friend gave me many details of the various things that were going on, and the places where they seemed not to synchronize in a way that would allow her to have it all with ease. “Any words of wisdom?” she asked. When I was younger, I might have tried to make specific suggestions. Specific suggestions, though, are always colored by our own particular preferences, prejudices, and desires. Instead, I said, “In the style of yoga I practice, the first principle for starting every pose, which I find works for what I do off the mat as well, is to ‘open to grace.’
“Opening to grace means to soften, to listen, to open ourselves to the universal in which the details arise, to allow what is to be in the flow,” I added.
“Without getting into the details, the essence of the next alignment principle [muscular energy] is the application of proper boundaries. Even though we want to be soft and open, we still do not say ‘yes’ to everything. Although open to everything, we steady ourselves and use our knowledge to discriminate and find a good container for ourselves so that we can act with more light.”
“Ah,” my friend replied, “I’ve been trying to control everything without allowing things to unfold. What you are saying makes sense.”
My friend will find her own way, and I look forward to witnessing the great joys potentially unfolding for her. Any time she invites me to share some of the wisdom I’ve received from my teachers, it will be my delight to pass it on.
I wish you all a day in which you recognize and celebrate inner and outer abundance. Show your body how grateful you are for taking you around in this life-time with a few minutes of self massage (and share with your friends and family).
First, take care of your feet–those of you who are regulars know the routine (sorry no pictures). Then, with reverence and gratitude for the practices, the earth for supporting you, and what and who brought you to the mat, come into balasana (child’s pose).
In balasana — you can also do this sitting in a chair at a desk or table; just put your head down the way you did in elementary school — leaving your elbows and forehead resting on the floor or table, bend your elbows so that you can massage your upper back, neck, and head without having to use the muscles you are massaging to massage them.
Try squeezing the back of your neck.
Or finding some spots that would benefit from giving gentle pressure and motion.
Massaging the scalp usually feels good.
When you are done with the self-massage in child’s pose, come up to vertical to sit on your heels. Then dig your fingers into your hair or the scalp and squeeze. This will help get energy flowing and brighten your day. (Be careful: doing this too frequently might give you big hair.)
The storm is an awesome, awe-full, awe-inspiring reminder that ultimately we are not in charge.
