On the Left-Handed Path?
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
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Loops and Spirals and the Still Point at the Center (NYC, Vt, Long Island, DC)
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).
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Earth, Water, Fire, Air, and Ether
We are composed of nothing different than earth, water, fire, air, and space, and much of yoga practice (as are related practices such as ayurveda) is designed to recognize and align our elemental identity. It is human nature to manufacture, just as it is the nature of a beaver to make a dam or a termite to make a mound of mud that displaces what was in its path. Why then is it so common to think of man-made as completely separate from “nature” rather than to recognize the wild and extraordinary creations of humans as an integral part of the complex fabric of being on this planet?
Photos taken on a Thanksgiving trip shared with friends and family: DC to NJ, Cape Cod, and back to NJ before heading home. Without the time on highway and train, I could not have seen so much “nature” in so short a time. Nor, might I add, would I have appreciated being out exposed to the wind and water without the shelter and protection of manufactured goods (including houses, cars, and clothing, etc). This does not mean, of course, that to live better, we should not seek to balance and diminish our consumption of resources for our protection and comfort.
- Art and Culture | Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation | Photos
Lady Macbeth (and Bhavana)
The young woman sitting next to me on the train north from New York, who is impossibly tall and has lovely, strong features (i.e., is perfectly cast), is memorizing Lady Macbeth’s lines.
I had on my own lap print-outs of mantras that Paul Muller-Ortega has invited us to memorize as part of our continuing studies.
To enter the character of Lady Macbeth, one of the first steps is to memorize the lines, to know completely what she says and not just to hear it and appreciate it. Memorizing the lines is an essential part of the route to becoming Lady Macbeth.
Paul Muller-Ortega has suggested that the reason to memorize various mantras is not to acquire them, not to be able to demonstrate a superficial knowledge or skill, but to aid in the profound practice of
bhavana–deep contemplation at the heart level. It is not the fact of memorization, but the activity of memorizing. It is no accident that we call memorizing, “knowing by heart.” We seek to learn by heart to invite ourselves into the space of concentration that requires. It is a slow and difficult process for me. I persist, though, because of the deepening and expanding understanding it facilitates.I note for those yogis (and other readers) who might find the idea of learning mantras alien or uncomfortable or apparently at odds with your own religious beliefs or practices, that studying the mantras does not require or make one a Hindu. I think of it as an invitation to understand and embody the highest archetypes and principles they invoke and represent and compatible with my other observances.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
