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Found Exhortation
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Morning Walk
I have been walking earlier and earlier to be with those seeking communal isolation and not with those who simply have not yet managed to grasp that the severity of the situation also applies to them. This morning I was called to go to Congressional Cemetery and walk among the markers and spirits of the dead. I found it sparkling with light and new life.
Prop or Crutch
“Liberty” is again encased in scaffolding, though it hasn’t been that long since she was taken down for a good cleaning. Seeing her thus supported while simultaneously blocked led me to think about the use of yoga props.
I am a big fan of using props to discover places one thought out of reach, either because an injury is limiting range of movement or because intelligent or inspired use of a prop can teach where the next step could be in practice.
Liberty’s scaffolding might be necessary for structural repairs or cleaning, but it is obscuring the view–her view out and our view in. We wouldn’t want her bound and stuck unless it was truly necessary for her full beauty and integrity to be maintained and revealed.
So, too, with yoga props. As beneficial as they can be, we do not want to rely on them automatically without seeing whether we can open to and discover the full flourishing of ourselves in a pose without them by being open, sensitive, and discriminating about our physical boundaries; applying the alignment principles to the fullness of our knowledge; and using just the right amount of effort.
By all means use props, but use them to find and witness new freedom (ultimately, svatantriya) not to bind or obscure it.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
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Fences, Freedom, and Viveka
Refining how and to what we say “yes” and “no” in the world is one of the purposes of the yoga practices. The dedicated yogin seeks ever-growing discernment (viveka) of his or her own limits for the purpose of living ever more expansively and in fact more freely than is possible for those who fight against or ignore limits.
If we stick up or hold onto fences and defenses where they are not needed, we miss the opportunity to connect. Conversely, if we fail to honor the extraordinary combination of limits that makes us our exquisitely individual self and shapes our embodied connection to the world around us, we will be less free in ourselves and in the world and with each other, which leads to suffering.
