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    A “Mending Party”

    ByElizabeth

    A woman on a list serve I read invited others to a “mending party.”  “How delightful,” I thought.  I have a few things in my mending basket.  I usually use mending or knitting time as an opportunity to sit and think and listen to music and sometimes write down in my journal what seems like an interesting thought.  It would be a most enjoyable alternative to sit and converse with others, all of whom have at the least a shared interest in beautifully mending clothes so that they last.  And at the end of the evening, my mending would be done.  I am sure it would be quite alright to knit or crochet or embroider, if there was no mending that needed to be done.

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    Two Ways of Looking at Things (and Women: Count Your Apertures)

    ByElizabeth

    My studies today (it is a very rare day that I do not read some of a yoga text or commentary) included a mention of the body’s nine openings. The yoga treatises ubiquitously mention the “nine openings” of the body through which prana enters or leaves (is dissipated). Certain practices are designed to open the tenth, which is an energetic opening that corresponds to the fontenelle at the crown of a baby’s head.

    A few month’s ago, my astute friend Jane, who has given birth and nursed, pointed out that a woman has 12, not nine openings.

    What is a woman to do in response to this apparent disconnect or male exclusivity? Reject out of hand the teachings as only being misogynistic and of limited utility because they originated for male physiology and not female? Interpret the teachings and correlative practices as being based on the anatomical and energetic openings common to both sexes? Deeply explore the practices relating to this teaching and discover whether there are subtle ways to modify and reinterpret and apply the teachings and practices to address the lack of reference to and recognition of the three crucial additional openings that are fundamental to a woman’s being?

    Guess which of these I am most likely to advocate and practice.

    Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

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    Hope Springs Eternal

    ByElizabeth

    Uma and Sully know that if they keep coming to their food bowl at some point it will be full.  So too, I am firm in my belief that if I keep coming to my mat and my meditation cushion, I will experience the fullness of being, even though I do not experience it every time I show up.  Without showing up, though, I would never get to sip the exquisite nectar of consciousness.

  • Getting Out of My Own Way (and thigh loop)

    ByElizabeth

    A couple of years ago, I took a brilliant class with Desiree Rumbaugh in which she used the theme of “getting out of our own way” to lead us to a place to better integrate our shoulders.  As I was practicing with the Anusara principle of “thigh loop” this week, I was reminded of that class.  We’ve all been in the situation where our habitual mindset, physical posture, life style, or emotions get in the way of our finding more freedom and happiness.

    When our thigh bones move into the front plane of the body, the forward movement keeps us from opening our hips more fully and from getting into deeper and stronger poses that require our hips to be open (in fact, out of the way).  When we take our thigh bones back, we physically have more freedom, more range of motion and are better able to access the deepest places of power and openness that allow us to soar on the mat.  I’m working on it on the mat as a great reminder to get out of my own way off the mat.

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