| | | |

Fall Greetings (Web Version of E-Newsletter)

ByElizabeth

I hope this newsletter finds you all as well as possible. It’s been a time when I’m feeling oh so fully aware of the vagaries of fate, the wildness of being, the play between the wholly unpredictable and the ordinary and expected, and the joys and benefits of aligning with a sense of order to feel healthy, adaptive, and present to what comes our way. I’m feeling that I am at a crossroads (this is partly physical), but I don’t have particular plans.

This summer, I listened to my own teachings, and in the midst of tending to the responsibilities of work and home and community and relationship, I made sure to take the time to to study and practice, including time away with opportunities to see the stars, to watch the sunrise, to walk in the woods, to swim in a lake, and, on the way to and from, to enjoy New York City.

As always, I’ve been reading widely, much of the reading focused on how we communicate and relate, what we dream, and what tools or ideas we might consider for making more efficacious our web of living relationship. In the fall, I’m looking forward to attending a number of weekend yoga workshops to inform my own practice and also going deeper into studying nonviolent communication.

For now, in the midst of this outrageous dance of life and relationship, with all that we cannot control and the unfolding turmoil of climate and society, I think that what is most important to me is to work with dedication and with my best attitude, to do community service and engage fully as a citizen, to laugh and share food with friends, to make art, and to connect the broader ecosystem, even if it is mostly through my little garden and the trees and the sky of the city. I meditate and practice asana so that I can live such a life as fully, honestly, joyously, and with as much integrity as I can.

The Tuesday night yoga practice at William Penn House continues as an opportunity to nurture our embodies selves and to share conversation about how the practices can help us live more efficaciously. I love it when new people or those who can only come occasionally join us regulars. It is generally all level and suggested donation, with all proceeds going directly to support the work camp program at William Penn House. This summer, William Penn House work campers constructed dozens of vegetable gardens for neighbors throughout the city, sharing the joys of urban edible gardening with and making possible healthier eating for those who otherwise might not have had access. Do come join us on a Tuesday night if you can. More experienced yogis can inquire directly about the Wednesday night house practice.

If you want to get more regular communications, do consider subscribing to the blog to get an email version of what I post–most days that will come as a photo or a few words, every once and a while, something longer–mostly somehow about or informed by my own interpretation of yoga practice and philosophy. Feel free also to join me on Facebook.

Peace and light,

Elizabeth

ps The murti of Nataraja was a present just given to me by a friend.  He’d brought it back from India a couple of years ago and thought it belonged more in my home than in his at present.  I hadn’t seen one that I’d want to bring home, but he’s dancing away on my bookcase.

Nataraja

Similar Posts

  • | |

    “Beginner’s Mind” (and vikalpa samkara)

    ByElizabeth

    Vikalpa samskara is a term that describes the fundamental process of an ever refining yoga practice.  It encompasses both study of text (with a teacher) and experiential learning and practice.  With just experience, we may feel full unto ourselves, but we cannot explain the richness of our experience to others nor can we understand why.  If we just hear something from a teacher or see a picture or read about it in a book, however, no matter how book smart we are, we do not have the understanding that comes from personal experience.  It is by continuously combining and refining study and practice, that we can have a progressive deepening of true knowledge.

    We often talk about “beginner’s mind” with respect to asana practice and meditation (and bringing the beauty of that state off of the mat).  We are invited to be receptive and open the way is an ideal beginner, who wants to learn, but does not yet know the topic.

    What does “beginner’s mind” really mean, though, in the context of someone who is experienced?  I do not believe that it should mean discarding either book learning or discrimination built of experience.  What it suggests to me is to approach our practice and life with freshness, with open-mindedness, without being bound by preconceived notions.  I think this is the true process of vikalpa samskara. To be able to deepen our knowledge ever more deeply, we have to be willing to be open to shifts and changes in understanding.  Then “samskara” does not become a rut, a bad habit, the inevitable effect from a previous action, but the development of a deepening path for more refined understanding.

  • | |

    Found Exhortation

    ByElizabeth

    My aim, with the awareness cultivated through meditation and yoga practice, is to delight in a way that does not impinge on the delight and health of those with whom and that with which I am in relationship.

    What would delight you today and how would you share your delight?

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

  • | | | | |

    Living Mindfully in a Heat Wave, Ahimsa, and “Opening to Grace”

    ByElizabeth

    Ahimsa, which is the first of the yamas in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, and thus is the first practice or principle of the eight-limbed path, is usually translated as non-violence or non-harming.  Over my years of practice and study, I have read and heard many versions–some general, some personal beliefs–as to what it means to practice nonviolence as part of a path of yoga.  As I watch the way people around me are behaving and reacting to the heat and drought, I thought about how, for me, the practice ahimsa is as much about seeking to be in alignment with the movements and shifts around us that we cannot change as about refraining from specific acts of violence (though that is obviously a basic element).

    In terms of aligning with the world arounds us and the cycles of our own body-mind, when we are sensitive to what will best serve our own self while having the least impact on the environment, we are practicing ahimsa, in other words, “opening to grace.”  How does practicing ahimsa by behaving mindfully incorporate many aspects of the Anusara first principle of opening to grace? Opening to grace, as a practice principle, invites us to be open, sensitive, spacious, and radically affirm what is so that we can expand, shift, and serve ourselves and others in the best way possible under the circumstance. To be open in this way, try not to rage at the heat–or whatever is your weather. Soften, listen, and mindfully discover how you can live at your fullest, kindest, and most generous with what you cannot change.

    When the temperature soars above 95F for days in a row, it is an act of violence to rage against it or to consume outrageous amounts of fossil fuels to cool our businesses and homes enough to wear warm clothes, sleep under blankets, cook and eat hot foods, or do an athletic asana practice or workout (lest we feel that we are not fulfilling some externally motivated personal notion of fitness–having external notions of how we should look, act govern us without accepting the actual situation is its own form of violence against ourselves) that we would not do if we could not artificially cool our environment.

    Perhaps I have no call to speak on this: my central air conditioning is on, though I’ve been keeping it between 78-82F and I have been moving, dressing, and eating in a way that honors the fact that those temperatures are as cool as it is going to be until the heat wave breaks. Some might argue that using any air conditioning or even an electric fan or a refrigerator is doing excessive harm to the environment. That may in fact be true, but asking for more than we can do just makes things seem impossible, and then we are less likely to make any shift at all.

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

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.