Current stack of to be read in anticipation of upcoming travel. Though I’m on a brief detour into a reread of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” which appeared the other day in a nearby “little free library.” The Arundhati Roy is so finely wrought, I can only read a few pages at a time. The Madhur Jaffrey, by serendipity, has a bit about one of places I will be eating.
Savasana–pose of the corpse, the pose of final relaxation, the pose without which no practice is fully complete– is both a very simple pose and one that is rather advanced.
Sometimes when I teach beginners I ask them what was the first Sanskrit word they learned. Usually they guess the word is “yoga.” The first Sanskrit pose name they get, though, and it doesn’t take more than a couple of classes is savasana. For most beginning the practice of yoga, the permission to stretch out on the back after an hour or more of new ways of engaging body, mind, and spirit is welcome indeed. This is particularly true for those who are overly busy and chronically sleep-deprived as are so many people I know.
What teachers often miss about savasana is that it can be very hard for some students. Injuries (chronic or episodic), tightness, or habitual misalignment (or expectations of how lying down should feel) make it challenging to be in the pose. The default can be to put supports under the knees or head without taking the time to recognize that it may be necessary to focus on and adjust the alignment before relaxing to see if ease can be found without props.
Other practitioners find it agitating to be asked to lie still for 5-10 minutes, because they are so used to being active all the time. Even if they can make their bodies still, their minds race around, and the idea of final relaxation seems anathema.
At the beginning,
savasana can be just stopping movement and enjoying letting go and relaxing.
But the pose is something much deeper than relaxing after a good workout. The pose of the corpse is not about being unmoving like a dead body, but about ceasing consciously acting and surrendering to the elemental vibration of universal being so that the inner fullness becomes indistinguishable from that which infuses all of the matter of the universe. As one gets more advanced, the alignment in the pose evidently becomes one of inner fullness and luminousity supporting the draping of the physical body. We practice going to earth and light, dissolving the constant awareness of our individuality.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
When feeling overwhelmed by the state of things, I’ve been trying to look for comfort not with the “old normal” methods, but in positive possibilities for the future–building community and sharing sustainable nourishment.
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I hope this email finds you well. I’ve been enjoying the decorative lights outside and candles inside as we move towards the Winter Solstice. Even with the excitement of the holidays, it is a great time to turn inward, to pause and refresh our remembrance and recognition of the light inside us all.
Many thanks to all of you who came to the Thanksgiving Oxfam class (in spirit as well as in person). Thanks to the generosity of Willow Street and all of you, we raised almost a $1,000 for Oxfam. All of you who come to regular classes help support the Wednesday night practice being 100% for charity. All fall, in recognition of one of the biggest issues of our day, the charities selected have been health-care focused, and I’ll continue that for December. If you have any suggestions for cause of the month for 2010, don’t hesitate to share with me.
Workshops:
December Serenity Saturday: Give yourself or a friend or loved one a holiday gift of sweet relaxation at the next Serenity Saturday, which is December 19th, 3pm-5pm, at Capitol Hill Yoga. Do a little local shopping or dining at Eastern Market and then join us for the delight of a deep restorative practice. To register, please visit www.capitolhillyoga.com. $5 discount if you register more than seven days in advance.
New Year’s Day Workshop: Flow into grace with an all-levels asana practice, followed by yoga nidra from 2-4 pm on New Year’s Day. Suitable for the well-rested and late-night revelers alike. Go to www.capitolhillyoga.com to register.
Classes:
Needing a little extra yoga or to get back into the swing: come drop in at William Penn House on Tuesdays at 6:15 for all-levels or at Willow Street on Saturdays (level 2 at 8:30am and gentle/therapeutics at 12 noon).
Holiday Schedule:
Willow Street is on break from December 21st through the end of the year. I’ll be teaching through December 19th and then teaching free classes as part of free class week on January 9th. Yes, there will be class at the William Penn House on Tuesday, December 22nd, but alas no class on December 29th.
As always, please visit the website at www.rosegardenyoga.com to get more information on classes and upcoming workshops and to enjoy the blog.
Peace and light,
Elizabeth
