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    Web Version of November Newsletter

    Dear ,

    I think this is one of the most spectacular years for fall foliage that I can remember.  The world seems to be pulsating with an ecstasy of color.  I am beside myself with joy just walking around (especially when I have my camera with me).  I hope you are getting the opportunity to be outside; the work commute is definitely a great time to be able to look around (especially if some of it is walking).

    Expand the inherent joy in witnessing and experiencing the transformation between summer and fall, partaking in the abundant harvest, and accepting the sweetness of a more introspective climate by practicing forward bends with twists, restoratives, and inversions.

    To deepen the revelry and to find respite when needed, come join me and pretty wonderful group of people on Tuesdays at William Penn House or Saturdays at Willow Street Yoga (level 2 at 8:30 and Gentle/Therapeutics at 12 noon) on a drop-in basis.

    This month’s Serenity Saturday at Capitol Hill Yoga, which is on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, will be a special treat.  Whether you are preparing to travel or to host guests or to have a quiet weekend to yourself, a long, sweet, easeful restorative practice is just right.  Feel free to bring early, out of town guests and family. To register, please go to the workshops page at www.capitolhillyoga.com.

    If you’ll be in town for Thanksgiving, I hope to see you, along with friends, family, and guests of all age and yoga ability, at my 7th Annual Thanksgiving Day Fundraiser to benefit Oxfam.  It’s from 10-11:30 on Thanksgiving Day in the beautiful and spacious Willow Street, Takoma Park Studio.  As has been my practice, I will be matching all donations over the suggested donation of $20.

    For more information about the classes and workshops and to catch up on the blog, please visit the website at www.rosegardenyoga.com.

    Peace and light,

    Elizabeth

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    Happy “Independence” Day

    I received a half dozen emails over the past week from various sources inviting me to think about what Independence Day, and correlatively, the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, mean to me? What does the Bill of Rights mean to a progressive, feminist, environmentalist (contrasted, for example, with someone whose life passion is to prove that true freedom is the right to carry a gun)?

    When was the last time you thought about the Bill of Rights?  What does it mean to you?  Does it have a different meaning for you as an individual and you than as part of a collective?

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    Health Care Reform, Brick-Throwing, Death Threats (and Svatrantrya)

    One of the six fundamental aspects of being (sat) in the “Shiva-Shakti” tantra that is the foundation of Anusara yoga is svatantrya — freedom.  (The others are cit, ananda, spanda, purnatva, sri). Freedom in this sense is an ultimate freedom — the very cosmos is unconstrained and freely creates what we recognize as the fabric of being out of its own play (lila).  We, as inseparable from being, although in some ways confined by our embodiment, are essentially free — free to choose whether to recognize our essential nature, to find bliss (ananda) in our embodiment, to recognize the fullness (purnatva) of being, and to honor the essential auspiciousness of being (sri) in ourselves and all that is around us.

    In having that freedom, we can also turn away.  We can stay cloaked.  We can choose violence and anger rather than nurture and love.  We can choose, out of our own essential freedom to remain cloaked in ignorance, to throw bricks and threaten death because of a perceived socialist tyranny because of the passage of health care “reform” that denies the right to choose, does not provide basic medical services for all (no single payor or even public option), and gives the pharmaceutical industry a pass, but does some modest regulation of insurance companies and employers.  (“Better than nothing, I guess,” as one friend wrote on the internet.)

    I see the t-shirt “it’s all good,” and I think, “not!”  I also know that I have the freedom for myself to recognize and remember sri, to try and see it in all, including the play of freedom that includes the freedom to turn away from the light.  It will be a lifetime of practice.

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