I’m cleaning out a drawer that had held an odd collection of pieces of paper with writing on them. Most of them I am tearing up into little pieces to feed the worms (who last night arrived alive, though dehydrated and groggy and are now set up as directed).
A regular brought a friend to this week’s group house practice. When I asked whether there was anything about her health or practice I should know to enhance her experience in the class, she advised me that she had been having trouble sleeping for the past few months in response to an event in her life. I did not ask about the event, but offered some of my favorite practices when I am not easily falling asleep:
1. gentle ujayi breathing with the exhale twice the length of the inhale. We were sitting up, but this is great to do in vipariti karani (legs up the wall pose).
2. chandra bhedana (the moon breath). This is similar to nadi shodana (alternate nostril breathing) except that for every breath, the inhale is through the left (ida or chandra nostril and the exhale through the right (pinga or surya) nostril.
3. This one I learned from work place yoga teacher Kathy Rowley with whom I took lunch time classes at the Department of Labor for a couple of years. I am not sure I remember it exactly the way she taught it, but it works:
Start lying on one side. Take sixteen deep breaths, keeping count of the breaths, with the exhales longer than the inhales. Quietly roll to your other side and take another sixteen breaths. Continue switching sides, slowly and without disturbing growing sleepiness, each set of two doubling the number of breaths you take. After 16 on both sides, then 32 on both sides, then 64, and so on (though so on is unlikely). Let the breaths get slower and deeper and when you get to the point where it does not seem right to switch sides, then you let yourself sink into deep relaxed sleep.
Much is made by Westerners of the exhortation in Eastern practice to be in the present moment, but it often is used as justification for a feckless disregard for others, for our history, and for our own power to change and grow.
Being fully in the moment at all times (easier said than done) by virtue of the fullness of presence itself, leaves no room for belaboring the past or being anxious about what might not come to pass, which is wonderful indeed.
To be truly present, though, to live in the “now” is an artful dance. It requires being fully in the moment, while simultaneously honoring and learning from the past and taking responsibility for the future. It is thus that we live best–both recognizing ourselves as beings in the fabric of space and time, yet simultaneously experiencing the universal joy unbound by the limitations of space and time. This is, I think, the ultimate point of the practices.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Daffodils and tulips have arrived in the shops. If you’ve forced bulbs (I didn’t this year), they are blooming (give or take a few weeks). The arrival of the Dutch flowers and the forced blooms lets us know that spring is soon to arrive. If you look carefully, you can see that the early bulbs are starting to come up. If you are lucky enough to have them growing in your garden or a neighbor (who wants to share), it is a great time to bring in forsythia and pussy willow cuttings for forcing.
How wonderful to enjoy these harbingers of spring in the last few weeks of winter. I get a similar feeling when I am given an assist to be able to do a yoga pose that will be out of reach for me to do by myself for some months or perhaps longer. When an assist opens me to an understanding of how I can grow, just as the arrival of the dutch bulbs and the forced flowers give an early reminder of spring, my heart opens. Given this inspiration, this understanding of the possibility of growth and flowering, I am inspired to turn around and share this delight with others. How could I not want to share?
