Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation | Photos
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Midnight Yoga
Every once and a while, I find myself restless at bedtime or wakeful in the night. The following series serves to make it easier for me to go to sleep and for me to feel fully rested as if I had not been short sleep:
1. Vipariti karani (legs up the wall). Start with legs up the wall for five minutes or longer, then move legs into baddha konasana (butterfly) for several breaths, then put them back up the wall. While your legs are up the wall, first just watch the breath. Then concentrate on the breath, inviting the exhales to be twice the length of the inhales.
2. Twisted forward bend. Using a bolster and a folded blanket (or two or three folded blankets) lengthwise on your mat, place the left thigh next to the edge of the blanket pile, allow yourself to sit heavily. Staying sweetly grounded, hug your hips together to embrace your core and then draw the left waist back as you bow forward onto the support of the blanket. You can allow your forearms and hands to rest on the floor or you can bend your elbows a little more and tuck your hands between the blankets under your forehead. Keeping the attention on the breath, inhaling lovingly draw in, exhaling more fully accept the support of the blanket. Hold for a few minutes and then repeat on the other side.
3. Supported balasana (child’s pose). With your knees wide apart and the big toes together, draw the blanket pile between your knees up to mid-thigh. Place another blanket (or a pillow) across your calves. Bow forward onto the support of the blankets. Half way through, turn your head to the other side. If your thoughts are still active, just let them be and turn your attention back to the breath.
4. When you are ready to come out of balasana, tuck your toes under and lift your hips into adho mukha svanasana (downward facing dog). If you’d like, you can stay here for several breaths with your head supported by the blankets. When you are ready, walk your hands back to uttanasana (standing forward bend). Quietly and mindfully get back into bed and lie in savasana.
Sweet dreams!
“A Balanced Diet, in Moderation, Is the Best” (Yoga of Eating Part IV)
Geeta Iyengar, in Yoga, A Gem for Women, sums up the proper diet according to Ayurveda as follows:
“A balanced diet, in moderation, is the best. Ayurveda says that the stomach should be filled with two parts of solid food and one part of water, and that one part of the stomach should be kept free for the movement of air. Food which is not congenial to the system should be avoided. Too oily, dry, spicy, and sour foodstuff are not good for the system. A diet which is balanced, light, varied, and well cooked is ideal for health.”
In other words, to be healthy, we should eat fresh, varied, well-prepared, tasty food. We should eat with sufficient awareness to know enough the effects of what we eat on our energy level, sleep, digestion, and ability to move and think that we know what is good for our system in small, large, or any quantities (and eat mindfully in accordance with that knowledge). We should not eat to the point of fullness and beyond (this is a common suggestion in the West for losing weight, i.e., stop eating when you are full or right before — think getting away from the unrealistic American portion size). Any other dietary practices should serve to find this place of moderation and enjoyment, the two real keys to health and happiness with and in eating. Diets that take us away from balance will be hard to follow, unhealthy, and cause all sorts of other shifts in our mind-body. What is best for you depends on your own knowledge of yourself and your environment.
Making Your Practice an Offering to Yourself
This morning, when I was walking to work, a young mother stood on the sidewalk talking with a friend. Her daughter, who was perhaps a little over a year and new to walking, lit up with a huge smile when I came within range. She dropped her mother’s hand and ran over to me, holding out a flower petal. That her hand was slightly grubby and the petal crumpled only made it more adorable.
Nearly eleven hours later, as I get ready to leave the office and head up to Takoma to teach a restorative yoga class, I find myself recalling the offering, with such innocence and joy, of the flower petal.
What we want to do with our practice and teaching is to have it be, at least on one level, such a spontaneous, delighted, and innocent offering that any perceived obstructions or interference with a sense of grace (such as a long hard work-day and attendant fatigue) dissolve. We can melt into the knowledge that practicing and making offering is just the right thing to bring us back to our own fullness (purna).
What we choose as the particulars of the practice, of course, will be tempered by our physical and mental condition.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
From a Little Free Library (and Opportunity to Expand Awareness)
I am really enjoying the proliferation of “Little Free Libraries” in the neighborhood. I found Ann Petry’s “The Street” and then immediately put it back after reading it so that as many people as possible could read it. It is one of those books that makes an indelible imprint.
