Outside the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, PA
I had the good fortune to be able to study with Christina Sell last weekend at Willow Street. Christina writes here about the Willow Street community. Her gracious words reveal the light in her own teaching and personal expression. I look forward to studying with Christina again.
And Christine–ditto on everything you write about Suzie and her extraordinary capacity to expand community.
This month’s recipient will be the Environmental Defense Fund. Why? Because in his State of the Union Address to much applause by Democrats (Republicans don’t clap for a Democratic President even if he is giving them everything they want), President Obama announced that part of the support for “clean” energy would be for nuclear power plants, “clean” coal (an oxymoron if I ever heard one), and off-shore drilling.
You might wonder why not have the February cause be an organization that is doing work in Haiti? I feel it is important to support organizations such as the American Friends Service Committee and Doctors Without Borders, who are doing yeoman-like work to ease suffering in Haiti and other places around the globe, and I have given some support. Following disasters or major incidents, though, society as a whole often experiences “donor fatigue.” I want to make sure that in the aftermath, the other changes I seek in the world do not go unsupported by me. So I try to give extra, and I try to remember all the things about which I care.
Yesterday, a former student of mine stopped me in the hallway at Willow Street and asked whether the “Yoga of Eating” workshop I will be leading on June 13th will cover Ayurveda. “I will mention it,” I said, “but I will not be teaching it.” I didn’t have time to explain further because I was about to lead class. As far as I got was to add that I was not sufficiently trained to teach it.
Ayurveda is a wonderful science, and I honor and respect my yoga friends and colleagues who study, practice, and teach Ayurvedic principles. Ayurveda is a much broader discipline than yoga, though, and is really medical practice rather than yoga. Asana are among the practices that might be recommended by an Ayurvedic practitioner for a client or patient, but eating in accordance with the Ayurvedic principles is not the same as bringing yoga to how we eat. For me, many of the principles of Ayurveda I have read or been taught are useful, but it has not resonated for me as a governing system, just as I do not believe in applying all of the principles of Western medicine to how I heal and nourish my body.
Bringing yoga to my eating, like bringing yoga to all of my life off the mat, is both simpler and harder than being taught a science such as Ayurveda with fairly clear, but quite complex, do’s and don’ts and then following them. For me, practicing the yoga of eating, is practicing conscious eating. It is practicing reverance and moderation. It is balancing nourishment and pleasure. It is knowing deeply when the will to eat is serving us or getting in our way. It is both simple and subtle. It is easy to say, but deeply challenging and sometime complicated to practice — just like practicing the Anusara yoga principles of alignment.
