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Taking Woodstock (and spanda)
Kashmir shaivism, using the term spanda, talks of the ultimate pulsation of life itself, all being a vibration, everything a play of opposites, a constant dance of concealment and revelation.
Yesterday I when I went to see Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock, I thought about about what a dance of moments, desires, emotions, motivations, opportunities, and relationships made Woodstock the phenomenon it became.
I remembered when I was a teenager asking my mother why we had not gone; I had some idea that good family friends had made the trek from Long Island. She said it did not seem sensible to bring three girls under 10. I am sure that if we had gone, my memories would have been of being dirty, hungry, tired, wet, and overwhelmed. Instead, I grew up with the instant nostalgia of someone who was just a few years too young to make it up there on my own. In this contemplation, I marveled nearly as much at the play of spanda in my own life as in the world around me.
Questions Around Town
What does it mean to practice yoga asana? Who gets to do it? What does it mean to be good at it?

@ Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, 9/19
Exciting News—New Capitol Hill Practice Opportunity
Thanks to the gracious hosting by Woven History and Silk Road, I will be offering my first public, weekly yoga practice, since the beginning of the pandemic.
It’s an all-levels, accessible, mask positive, donate what you may, yoga practice. We’ve chosen to begin with World Central Kitchen in recognition of those struggling to get food in too much of this world of which we are a part.
The practice will be Thursday nights from 6:00-7:15pm. We will practice either outside (weather and mosquito permitting) on the back patio (brick) or in the shop (carpet floor). Please bring what props you like for practice. It’s great to have at least a towel to have something personal to lie down on for any recumbent poses.
What we will practice will depend on who is there and what are the needs and wants of the day. Expect some combination of breathing practices, meditation, and movement focused on facilitating our embodied experience.
Woven History is at 311 7th Street, Southeast, between Eastern Market and the metro.
For questions about the space, including access (the front has a few steps), please contact Rabia at Woven History Road@gmail.com. For questions about the practice, please contact me or comment on this post.

- Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation | Photos
Found Exhortation (and Tapas)
What does it mean to excel, to do well? I think there is no excelling in yoga, at least not the way we conventionally think of excelling in school or career or sports. But to practice in a way that is more than casual, there must be ardor–tapas.
Tapas is often translated as fire, and the texts are full of stories of outrageous physical exertions done to prove the tapas of the practitioners looking for boons from the gods.
There is a fiery aspect to tapas, but I question whether it must necessarily be burning from physical exertion, though that is a path that calls out to many.
The fire of tapas could be thought of as doing what it takes to manifest the will to know something deeply enough to be able to experience the fluency and grace and delight of expertise. It could be the ardor to show up in a disciplined and committed way for hours and days and years of practice, always still wanting deeper, fuller knowing.



