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Intention
When I came out of my afternoon asana practice and meditation, I picked up the John Friend Teacher Training Manual to look up one of my favorite passages. In describing the “attitude” that brings us to our deepest practice, John Friend writes that there are two reasons to practice yoga: “1. Co-create in the art of life. 2. Realize and awaken to our divine nature.” John Friend, Anusara Yoga Teacher Training Manual (9th Ed., Anusara Press 2006). He explains that sometimes we come to our mat because we are happy and we want to celebrate. Other times, we are sad or confused and we want to remember our essentially divine, blissful nature. This particular teaching has continues to resonate for me. I find great comfort in it because it recognizes that we do forget; we will not always act perfectly. All life, though, is part of our practice, and we can keep trying to co-create and remember the light in all beings in our daily lifes just as we keep can coming to the mat.
On the Way Home from Tuesday Night Yoga Practice at William Penn House
Tonight, in addition to the regular students, a group of high school girls who were staying at William Penn House for the week, joined us. Their school, which is a Catholic girls school in Kentucky, requires the students to select a work of service in their senior year that involves the quality of mercy.
On the initiative of two of the girls, the group came to DC to lobby their senators on global climate change for their mercy service. They mostly hadn’t taken any yoga, but were enthusiastic to have it be part of their experience, and we explored a little how yoga practice might support them in such service.
Experimenting with Social Media
This morning I decided it was time to have a public “Rose Garden Yoga” page on Facebook, in addition to the page under my name.
Before I even figured out whether I had done it correctly, a couple of friends had hit the “like” button. I still do not know when and where it appeared so that would happen. After browsing around, I did figure out how to “share” with my friends that I had created the page and that brought in a few more. I have also added a widget to the welcome page of the blog/website, so people can “like” “Rose Garden Yoga.” (Please do).
Did I need to do this? Absolutely not. Do I find knowing my way around these mediums of expression useful? Yes, because they have become so important to how we communicate with each other across generations, the planet, and various social divides. Do I mind that getting it just right or perfectly current takes more time and skill than I have from just experimenting? Not really. When I want to do more, I spend the time to learn or hire someone to help. It is also sort of fun to just mess around and experiment and discover whether I can figure it out just by trusting that if I try enough different things and don’t get frustrated by not getting it “right” right away, I will end up either with something that serves well enough or will decide it is not that important and let go.




