Found Exhortation
Similar Posts
Refinement (and the Anusara loops)
One of the things that I love about a slow, therapeutic practice is the joy of delving into details. Seeking mastery and refinement of understanding can itself be exquisite, even when the subject matter is not of our choosing. Although I would like not to have places of constraint or tightness in my body, they are a fact of my life. I find great freedom and delight, though, in exploring in detail how to go into the constraints and untangle them.
Last night, after having taught two classes, cleaning house, and walking 5-6 miles commuting to teach and running errands, my hips and low back were not feeling pained, but they were tight. Going to bed without a good, long practice was not an option.
So I dug in deeply, working to isolate different muscles better to open them. One of the things that works best for me to open my hips and low back is to work the Anusara “loops” separately. When I work the loops independently to refine the major principles, I find it optimal if I move the right and left side independently. If they are moved as one, I find the tendency is to have the thigh bones and spine shift with the muscles, instead of having them be supported in their optimal alignment by the movement of the muscles. So, for example, in working kidney loop with refinement, the action of kidney loop lengthens the psoas muscles and brings them more into the back plane of the body, but the inward curve of the lumbar spine remains unshifted.
As I continue to practice, I look forward to ever refining my understanding and ever enhancing the optimal flow of energy.
Twisting, Opening to a New Perspective (and radical affirmation)
This week I have been working on twists both in my own practice and in my classes. In so doing, I have been thinking about the difference between turning around or doing an about-face and staying steady and true to oneself, while truly being open to another perspective.
In order to get into twisted and bound asanas, it is critical to be steady in your place and to use the three self-affirming elements of muscular energy — hugging into the midline, embracing the muscles to the bone, and drawing from the periphery into the focal point — to be able to revolve on the midline and open the heart to a new direction.
The same is true off the mat. If we just flip our position or turn an about-face, we are not grounded or reliable. Inside the beltway, for example, I’ve heard people saying they think McCain and Specter should be voted out of office because it is not clear where they stand. Their positions seem more about expediency than about a steadiness of conviction, coupled with an openness to listen to and work with others with differing views.
Ideally, we want to embrace ourselves, our history, and our nature, and be sufficiently comfortable and secure with ourselves that we can hear others. Even if it feels convoluted or binding to open to true listening, by reaching while staying steady, we can better have compassion and recognize the light and humanity in those with whom we disagree. By doing so, ultimately, just as we create greater strength and flexibility by practicing twists, we experience a greater openness of spirit with respect to ourselves and all around us.
This is a big part of my current practice, and perhaps one of the very hardest. Steadfast commitment to a balance of steadiness and openness makes possible, I think and hope at this point in my practice, radical affirmation of the good in everything.
“Jiva is Shiva”
The inside book flap on Jaideva Singh’s translation and commentary on the Pratyabijna Hrdayam, say “Jiva is Shiva.” Singh notes that “pratyabijna” means recognition. The tantric philosophy underlying this work holds that by have acted from absolute freedom (svatantriya) to become embodied (jiva), Shiva has forgotten his true nature. The point of the teachings in these 20 sutras is to help us, as embodied beings who have forgotten, to remember our shiva nature. What does this mean from a practical perspective? I think the point is to teach us to try to act and live reverently, to try not only to choose to seek the good for ourselves and others, but to see it.
