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    “Magic Carpet Ride”

    ByElizabeth

    As I was hefting my heavy day pack over my shoulder to get ready to leave for the airport, I said to my roommate for the week, “now is the time I wish I could just take a magic carpet ride.”

    “It would be pretty windy,” he replied.

    What I wanted from the magic carpet ride was not to have to sit in traffic to get to the airport or deal with the security check in and boarding and potential delays, etc.  The fact that the plane can get me from one climate to another in two hours is pretty magical.

    I decided to play “Magic Carpet Ride” on my ipod while I was waiting for my flight to send it magic carpet ride energy–on time boarding, no problems with the plane, a smooth and comfortable ride, which it turned out to be.  Usually I listen to quiet music or recorded teleseminars for my studies with Paul Muller-Ortega when I am traveling.  Yesterday, I decided to see what ipod’s “genius” function would come up with following “Magic Carpet Ride.”  First came something by the Clash, not a bad segue. I wasn’t sure that fit my mood, but decided I would go with it until the plane took off.

    To my shock, because one would expect a series of rock and roll songs, the next track was an invocation to Lakshmi–kind of rocked out, but still, not what I would have expected.  That was followed by a series of chants to Siva intermixed with three different versions of the maha mrityunjaya mantra.  “Ah,” I thought, “genius knows I have been practicing yoga all week and then celebrating mahasivaratri.  How very extraordinary sometimes the interplay of the subtle energies and technology!”

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    Found Exhortation (Less Clearly Seen Than Would Be Most Optimal)

    ByElizabeth

    I cannot tell from looking at the image on my Blackberry whether the words “faith” and “hope” that appear on this statue can be discerned in the photo, but they are there when standing and seeing the statue in person.

    This morning, when I was reading through the news, I came across a curious headline that averred that the killing of Osama Bin Laden had brought us a “rare moment of unity.” This saddened me, as did the reportage of spontaneous celebrations.

    I am calling on my reserves of practice so that my sense of faith and hope for humanity, for peace, and for social priorities is not as faint as the way the words appear in the photograph.

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

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    What is Beauty? (and “Ankle Loop”)

    ByElizabeth

    When I was meditating this morning, the last lines of Keats’ ‘Ode on A Grecian Urn’ welled up in my thoughts: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty, — that is all/ Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”  How odd, I thought, for this to appear, as if out of nowhere.  I have been contemplating this week on what it means to be refined, but not in the way of an aesthete.  Rather, as I have been concentrating on the Anusara alignment principle of “ankle loop,” I have been thinking about how deepening our practice with repeated exploration and study we are able to refine our understanding and the flow of energy within us so that we can be more connected to ourselves and each other.

    As I understand the essential structure of the Anusara principles, the “loops” are really tertiary principles.  The primary principles are those of “attitude, alignment, and action,” which are the principles of how we practice.  The secondary principles are the fundamental physical and energetic principles — “opening to grace, muscular energy, inner/expanding spiral, outer/contracting spiral, organic energy.”  The loops serve to refine the secondary principles.  Ankle loop, for example, which starts at the base of the shin bone, travels down the back of the heel and then back up through the arch, energizes the foot, lifts the arch, supports our stance and helps us focus muscular energy.  When we are feeling challenged finding as much muscular energy in our feet and legs as would be optimal for a full expression of the pose, we can use ankle loop to refine our understanding and practice of muscular energy in the legs.  Keeping in mind the primary principles of practice, though, the refinements should also always lead us towards the heart and not just get us into details.  Getting more sophisticated and refined, likewise should not lead us to disdain for that which is unrefined.

    Funny, then, that the aesthete’s call to beauty should arise in my meditation while I have been consciously thinking about refinement.  What does it mean to appreciate and study refinements, but still honor and delight in a novice’s full expression of “attitude, alignment, and action” as much as an impeccably aligned and skillful pose that does not reveal a yearning for spirit?  Beauty may be truth, and truth beauty, but what is “beauty?”

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