Red and Blue
That kind of day.
Similar Posts
- Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Community and Family | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation
New Year’s Greetings (Web Version of E-Newsletter)
Dear Friends,
Despite being in the warm and comfortable bed for which I am grateful every day, I woke up sore-hearted this morning. I’d been dreaming first of dodging bullets in a shootout and then striving to escape rising flood waters. I did not suffer any physical harm to my person in these dreams, but felt scared and lost and unable to save those around me at greater risk. With the morning wake-up call, I got out of bed and followed my cat Uma down the stairs for our morning ritual. I changed her box and fed her. While she ate, I did some gentle asana to unknot the sleep from my body. I took my seat for pranayama and meditation, and Uma, as is her practice, immediately curled herself up against me. After meditating, I prepared a healthful and tasty breakfast and then got to work. After a few hours of working, the charged emotions of my dreams faded into the background.
I’ve had dreams like this before, and it is not surprising I would be having them now. Gunfire and flood waters and other violence (man-made and “natural”) are our daily news. For the most part, even those events that hit closest to home such as Hurricane Sandy have not caused irremediable harm to those I know, even those who were impacted. I find myself asking what I, as an ordinary person without special insight or extraordinary ambition, should or could be doing in the face of apparently ever-increasing societal rancor, divisiveness and violence and destructively extreme weather and increasing environmental degradation.
Can the yoga practices help in this? I think so. At its most insidious, much of the core elements of the yoga philosophy served to justify keeping in their place without protest those without power by virtue of gender or social class. I believe that in our Western context, though, these same practices can be used to help us to better handle and accept what comes our way without requiring us to be idle and complacent in the face of injustices or harms that we can change. I might not be a visionary, but I can be a good citizen. I might not be able to radically transform, but I can be responsible for taking care of my health and home in ways that minimize my impact on the environment and others and give me the most strength to take care of those with whom I am in relationship. I can practice going deep into challenge with the yoga with the intention of being able to live with greater grace and beauty whatever comes.
I invite you to join me in this endeavor (and to share any concrete ideas–especially those of you who have visions for making things better; I’ll listen and contemplate).
The yoga offerings continue on the same schedule: William Penn House (pay the suggested donation or whatever you can), Tuesday nights from 6:30-7:45pm; house class for charity on Wednesday nights (email me if you want to join); Friday nights gentle/therapeutics at Willow Street Takoma Park from 5:45-7:15. For immediate news of a change in class schedule or special offerings when I am substitute teaching or offering a workshop, please like my Facebook page. If you haven’t already, please consider subscribing to my blog to enjoy photos and musings about the yoga life and join in the dialogue.
May the new year bring you, along with the inevitable challenges, joy and peace at heart.
Peace and light,Elizabeth
Effulgence
I am awed, as I have been every year since I moved here. The fullness of the cherry blossoms.
Walking and Shopping in the Neighborhood (and brahmacharya)
Yesterday afternoon when I came home from teaching I wanted to be out for a walk in the neighborhood more than I wanted to be alone in the garden, but I also wanted to be serving the garden. I combined the two by walking the ten blocks to Gingko Gardens — our wonderful Capitol Hill nursery. It is a little more expensive than some of the nurseries out in the burbs, but I know the owner and have friends in common, I always bump into neighbors when I am shopping there, and they are experts in what grows and works in our little urban gardens. I was thrilled when they opened a number of years ago and want them to continue to thrive, so I make a point of shopping there. I bought some seeds and some planting medium for starting seeds indoors and ordered a few containers and organic potting soil for delivery.
In addition, after having done a bunch of research on rain barrels over the week, I also asked whether Gingko would deliver and install rain barrels from Aqua Barrel, which is located in Gaithersburg. Answer, “yes.” (For those of you in the suburbs, Amicus Green also carries and installs them). It took me a long time to assess what style barrel would work for me and where it should be placed. I was hoping to support a local manufacturer to cut down on wasteful transportation. I also know that given my circumstances it is critical that it be installed correctly with a good diverter system. It is good for me to do the research but then bring in a professional to make sure it is right. I made an appointment and am looking forward to being able to align a little better with nature (by using rain water run-off instead of scarce, potable water for the garden) and to support the neighborhood (by buying locally and hiring resident professionals). And I bumped into a fellow yogi and gardener while I was shopping; inspired by the chat, she, too, made an appointment to discuss rain barrel installation.
To me, this is one way of bringing yoga off the mat. One of the key principles in Patanjali’s yoga sutras is the practice of brahmacharya, which literally means aligning with Brahma. The classical translation is celibacy. Many modern translators substitute “moderation.” This way of living, is of course, moderate. It is living a western lifestyle on the grid, but choosing to consume in a way that supports friends, neighbors, and manufacturers who use recycled materials to create products that will help us all to be a little kinder to the environment, while nurturing my home and self.
- Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation | Photos
On Sadhana
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
