On the Way to William Penn House for Tuesday Night Yoga Practice
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- Art and Culture | Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Community and Family | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation
Working with Chaos
I’ve had more than one yoga/meditation teacher who has suggested that in order to make true spiritual shifts, it is necessary to pick one path (theirs) and stick to it. I agree with that up to a point. If we just stay on the surface of lots of different things, it will be hard to go deep.
Nonetheless, living in a multicultural nation of immigrants and working in a field where being open to diversity is in my mind a job requirement and having grown up with the multifarious influences of New York and both Jewish culture and Quaker practice, it would be hard to think that sticking to a single-sourced spiritual path could be possible for me. Better then, perhaps, to go deep by also looking broadly and openly.
In that regard, though I do not consider myself a Buddhist, I often find Buddhist teachings instructive. This article by Pema Chodron on working with chaos seems particularly useful for me today.
Laying Down the William Penn House Practice (Last Practice May 15)
Perhaps because it has been hosted at a place that fosters the Quaker way of doing business, but when I first tried to describe why I thought it was time to leave off having a regularly scheduled practice at William Penn House, the first phrase that came to mind, was that the practice was being “laid down.”
Very generally, much Quaker business is done by a committee consisting of members who are nominated by the meeting and willing and able to address whatever the issue that is the purpose of the committee. A committee may be formed to address a particular issue that a meeting is encountering or for general ongoing work for the life of the meeting. After a committee’s purpose is done–which may or may not be clear, depending on the nature of the issue–the meeting may choose to lay down the committee. Laying down a committee is not passing judgment. Sometimes, the committee has served its purpose well, but is no longer needed as much as the resources of the committee (it’s members) are needed elsewhere–either for the meeting or for their own personal lives.
The William Penn House group practice started over 10 years ago. Its initial purpose was to keep going a class from a studio that closed for several months. Having the practice at William Penn House was also a good way to create neighborhood, Quaker, and yoga connections, provide support for the work of William Penn House, and provide an unconventional community donation practice space.
In the years since the class was established, the whole tenor and climate of the world has changed. The neighborhood, too has changed. Among the changes, there are now several yoga studios on the Hill and there are lots of choices for a practice every night of the week without leaving the neighborhood. In the broad group that has participated in the practices, there have been graduations, marriages, births of children and grandchildren, illnesses, injuries, world travel, joys and sorrows, death, career changes, and it is time for those still in the habit of Tuesday night practice to reconfigure what and when we practice for our own good and for the great web, including together.
I will always be grateful to all the practitioners/friends who joined with me in collective exploration of the practices and to William Penn House for being a welcoming and nonjudgmental host for a really long time.
As a member of the Board of Directors and a neighbor, I will still be part of the life and practice at William Penn House. I am still offering small group and private classes in my lovely home studio. Send me a message, if you’d like to practice. I’m looking forward to scheduling practice on a more flexible basis.
Talking About the Wisdom Goddesses (and February Willow Street Book Club)
I am looking forward to February’s meeting of the Willow Street Book Club this coming Sunday, where we will be discussing David Frawley’s, Spiritual Secrets of Ayurveda: Tantric Yoga and the Wisdom Goddess. Especially since many of us will likely have been to hear some or all of Professor Douglas Brooks’ discussion of the great goddesses last weekend, the meeting promises to be full of lively, thoughtful, and insight-provoking discussion.
One of the things I have been pondering on this latest read is how I can fully imbibe the wisdom that is offered with the imagery and stories of the goddesses, without getting caught up in being troubled from a feminist perspective. Many yoga practitioners I know rely on the call in the texts to worship the “goddess” as a way of saying that women are not diminished in the classic texts. My conundrum is that when one looks at the texts and the images about the goddesses, all the stereo-typical notions of beauty and youth are inextricably intertwined. Like the Western fairy tales I gobbled up in my youth and their entrancing but insidiously prejudicial archetypes, the sweet, loving, desirable goddesses are the young and fair; the fierce and powerful goddesses are the ugly crones.
