These workers were caulking the fifth floor windows of my building today. It was snowing. (the flakes were too fine to show up in the photograph.) I wish them (and will donate money and sign petitions, write letters, etc to back up my wishes for all workers) health care, child care, retirement benefits, and a safe (as it can be) job free from discrimination, harassment, and wage theft.
Down by the river
I met a crane enjoying
An early dinner.
Those of you who talk to me more regularly have heard me mention that I’ve been taking a modest on-line course in non-violent communication. The course basically offers mindfulness and communication skills for more compassionate communication with oneself and others. Though much I’d heard before, I found the course well constructed and accessible. I found the weekly emails, even when I did not feel moved to complete the suggested exercises in writing for myself, served as a regular call for mindful speaking and reacting at a time in my work life (and in my life as an engaged citizen) when I can use all the reminders I can get.
I’m repeating the course, which starts in June 2015. For those of you who may be interested, here’s the link: http://compassioncourse.org/
The dance of yoga is about motion in stillness and stillness in motion, and in not letting oneself be frozen. Stillness is the space between vibrations, instead of the shutting down or closing off vibration. To experience the space between the vibrations (spanda) when changing shapes (poses; going from one thing to the next), one must emerge into the shape and disssolve out of it, with the expanding delight of the coming and going more important than achieving some precise, required shape to demonstrate self-control and mastery (not unlike the teaching in the Siva Sutra that knowledge both binds and liberates).
Invitation to Gratitude and Inspiration
Free Streaming Yoga Christmas Eve (TODAY!) and New Year’s Eve
Nurture Your Gifts and Release What No Longer Serves
Time: 4:00-5:30pm
Date: Thursdays–December 24 and 31
Register at: https://www.suzannelynchwellness.com/holiday-yoga-classes
We’ll be signing on early if you just want to say hello.
Please feel free both to forward and to ask any questions.
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One of the primary themes at the Anusara certified teachers’ gathering this week with John Friend has been how discipline and technique serve our yoga. In keeping with the elemental Anusara principles of “attitude, alignment, and action” (iccha, jnana, kriya), the point has not been to emphasize rules for the sake of rules, form over substance, or technique for its own sake. Mastering technique, by itself, will not bring us to the ultimate intentions of yoga: living liberated (jivamukti), experiencing the very wonder, bliss, and dance of being.
But just playing or seeking freedom for its own sake, while we are embodied in human form, will not likely lead us to the most expansive and steady experience of ultimate freedom (svatantra). It is discipline and technique with the constant remembrance of the reaon for being disciplined about how we practice and live that will take us further on the path.
It can be nice, for example to go to a class where there is little emphasis on form, and the call is just to flow and feel. For me, though, because of my physical limitations (degeneration in my spine, old groin injury, etc–these do not define my being; they just inform how I practice), I feel far freer and more able to expand how much I can play the more attention I give to the physical alignment. In such a situation, the rigorous attention to detail is not for the sake of an external idea of what is right and what is wrong. Rather, it is the constant disciplined attention to alignment that frees me to play as free from injury, pain, and fear of injury as is possible in my body.
The discipline then becomes a way of self-affirmation. It is the limitations that lead me to have to focus more on technique than if I did not have the limitations. That attention then provides a ground for a more expansive practice and a deeper appreciation for the beauty of what the practice can offer.
As I was walking into work this morning, I appreciated how fresh was the air after last night’s rain and wind. It wasn’t just the cleansing of the pollen, but the shift from Code Orange to Code Green air quality. What would it be like to live somewhere that the air was mostly Code Green?