All the tomatoes were picked green. Those that are red changed color, but did not otherwise ripen. Still, cooked for a long time in the slow cooker with lots of red wine, they will make a fine sauce.
I am reminded by the tomatoes, I was reminded at a yoga workshop with Elena Brower that I attended this weekend, a really good question is what are you going to do with the resources you have?
When I was out doing an errand at lunchtime, I bumped into a neighbor I haven’t seen in a long time. We did not spend much time talking; I needed to get back home to my work within the short allotted time, and she was meeting someone. “Did I just hear thunder,” she asked. The sky was thick and white with heat and “Code Orange” air. “You might have heard thunder, but there isn’t any rain with it” I replied. We talked about how much we need some good rain. The trees are really struggling. (Note: forget about cleaning any outside things with water. Forget non-edible annuals. Water established trees and perennials very deeply once a week instead of less watering more frequently. Shallow watering in drought conditions promotes growth of fungus and other pesky things.)
As gardeners, my neighbor and I notice how much rain we are getting in any given season and week. We think about whether the rainfall is what the farmers and the trees and birds and wild animals need, in addition to whether it will interfere with a child’s soccer game or a planned outing. We were at the point that we would far rather get caught out in a deluge than miss out on any chance of rain. On the other hand, those in flooded parts of the north are praying for a few warm (but not blazing hot) dry days in a row. Today’s storm is welcome and needed, though one storm does not end a drought. We need some more good ones for days on end.
I think the approach of various classes and intensity levels of asana practice can feel like a whether a thunderstorm is welcome weather. Sometimes an outrageously intense and fierce practice is what will bring me to my fullest possibility of growth and expansion. At other times, I need to step back and rest my body. Restorative and other gently therapeutic practices are what nurtures best. Sometimes, I have long, steady periods of moderate practice.
The more sensitive, aware, and knowledgeable I get about the weather outside and how it impacts life around me, the better able I am to take care of my garden. The more I am sensitive and open to the weather inside and the more knowledgeable both from study and experience of how my practice best aligns with inner and outer weather, the better able I am to live out the yoga principles I seek ever better to follow–the most important being to see the highest first and to be of service.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Dear Friends,
I am perhaps a little late in sending out this announcement. The time when I usually would have sent it was smack in the middle of the enmeshed and engulfing energies of the election and Hurricane Sandy. In contemplating what I should write in my invitation to the annual Thanksgiving Day Yoga Fundraiser for Oxfam, I had such an assortment of ideas about gratitude, about abundance, about service, about expressing and receiving thanks, especially when so many are experiencing conflict, hardship, pain, and loss, that I found myself as if I had nothing to say. It occurred to me, among my many musings, that as long as I have something to give, it wouldn’t matter if I have nothing to say.
One of the key reasons I meditate and practice asana is to spend defined periods of time being intentionally one-pointed (ekagrata) in my focus. Out of the apparent maelstrom of experiences, sensations, emotions, and ideas to which we are exposed and in which we can be immersed or even submerged, a point of focus can arise for speaking or acting that frees us from being so caught up in the whirl that we cannot move. Being intimate with and knowing how to get to the space of stillness and focus–and remembrance of what is most important to us, which I think is a critical element of true gratitude–can help us better take care of ourselves and the society and ecosystems with which we are intertwined.
In a light of focused intention to make offering, I invite those of you who will be in town to join me for an all-levels class at Willow Street Yoga, Takoma Park, from 10:00-11:30am on Thanksgiving to celebrate the day and to share our abundance and gratitude with those in need. A tradition for me and for Willow Street and a perfect way to expand the holiday. Friends and family of all levels welcome, including teens, tweens with yoga experience, seniors and everyone else in between. All proceeds go to Oxfam.
To all of you, I wish you much spontaneous experience of gratitude. I think of all of you and send my well wishes, especially those who are facing difficult challenges.
Peace and light,
Elizabeth
What could be more quintessentially American and also generally incompatible with authentic yoga teachings than the desire/exhortation to express one’s individuality? How can we really practice yoga and still honor this inbred privileging of the individual? Are there ways of melding principles of radical individuality with philosophies that say enlightenment is a surrender of that individuality that would serve to harmonize and expand rather than just provide fuel for inner conflict?
Your input most welcome.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
This morning my sit was full of lots of random thought waves. This was no doubt, in part, due to my having four meetings, a call, and a lunch scheduled. When I was finished, I went into the library, picked up the Christopher Isherwood/Swami Prabhavandananda version How to Know God and opened it randomly to see if it could help guide my thinking today. I opened to sutra I.40: “The mind of a yogi can concentrate upon any object of any size, from the atomic to the infinitely great.” My first thought was, “how nice.” My second thought was, “I need to look at another translation; that does not sound quite how I’ve read it elsewhere.”
I opened my trusted B.K.S. Iyengar, Light on the Yoga Sutra’s of Patanjali. The translation there is “Mastery of contemplation brings the power to extend from the finest particle to the greatest.”
These translations are not so different from each other. It was also most timely for me to read this classical sutra in connection with what I have been contemplating in the Pratyabijna Hrdyam.
I read the Isherwood translation as saying that as long as one concentrates as a yogi with full and loving attention, then all actions are in union (yoga). I understand the Iyengar translation to say that mastering yoga allows one to perceive in the most individual, differentiated being or object, the infinite universal. With that knowing, just as the Kashmir Shaivist teachings say, one is living liberated (jivanmukti).
However I read this thread of teaching, it is most relevant for how I live and what I must do today with the worldly commitments I have made. With the intention to stay present with yoga concentration and aims, I now head to my day of meetings.
The sanskrit is: “paramanu parammahattvantah asya vasikarah”
