Are meaningless without engaged conversation and action. In yoga practice terms, if you’re living in and enjoying the world, practice includes service and giving. Prayer alone is for those who live naked in a cave subsisting on alms.
I am continuing to get bounce-backs from email addresses on the mailing list that I know are valid. If you want to receive my occasional emails, please subscribe to the mailing list and make sure to check your spam filters. In the meantime, I will try to remember also to post the content of the newsletters on the blog.
Hope all of you are enjoying the glorious bounty and light of summer and that you are well.
For those of you who are in town, there are some wonderful yoga opportunities:
Saturday, August 15th — the anniversary of Anusara yoga — come up to Willow Street for “Free Your Head, Open Your Heart” for a gloriously celebratory and healing backbending experience. Great for those who love and those who have trepidation around backbends.
Saturday, August 22nd — Treat yourself to an afternoon of summer R&R with “Serenity Saturday” at Capitol Hill Yoga.
Drop in to Tuesday night classes at William Penn House (6:30pm) or Saturdays at Willow Street Yoga.
Or RSVP for the Wednesday night group practice. August’s donation recipient — in honor of yoginis extraordinair Jess and Marlene — is Advocats, which rescues and provides homes to dozens of local cats.
IMPORTANT REMINDER: I will be in Oregon the first week of September (that’s the week before Labor Day) studying and celebrating with John Friend. There will be no Wm Penn House or house practice that week (9/1&2).
Hope to see and hear from you soon. As always, feel free to share your thoughts, needs, celebrations, and challenges with me by email, comments on the blog, or through Facebook.
More information about the classes and workshops on the website.
I returned home yesterday from teaching my Willow Street classes and having a late lunch with a friend to a message on my answering machine from my mother advising me that a cousin had died. Although I was not close to my cousin, her parents, my great Aunt and Uncle, were a significant part of my formative years.
As I made telephone calls and sent emails to get coverage for work meetings on Monday and care for the cats so that I could leave for New York, I found myself flooded with long-ago memories of my cousin, my family, and myself. I could also hear and feel old patterns surfacing, as they tend to do in such situations.
In counterpoise to the tumble of memory, I felt a strong pull to go into the space of meditation.
In the spaciousness, I no longer feel trapped by the inevitable consequences from the events giving rise to all those memories that have partly shaped my path. The light of consciousness itself, as the ground of the play and the illumination of inner space, begins to reveal the links and sequnces of the memories, the cause and effect, thus allowing me to see other ways to react. Instead of remaining entangled by trying to dismiss or reject or cling to any part of my history, I could see shapes, sequences, and opportunities.
At lunch, one of the things my friend and I had been discussing was the idea of bringing into “luminous spaciousness” our relationships. John Friend had invited us to think about that concept at the Teachers’ Gathering last month, and I have been contemplating the practice in a variety of contexts and discussing with fellow Anusara yogis what it would mean to them to bring luminous wisdom to relationship by seeking to create the true spaciousness we can find in our practice of yoga and meditation. I had talked about it previously with the friend with whom I lunched yesterday. She asked, “where was your blog entry on luminous spaciousness; I’d been looking forward to it.” “I haven’t found the right context for describing it that would convey what I think it means for my practice,” I’d replied. When I came home to my mother’s message, because I had been continuing both the contemplation and the dialogue, I was focused on the practice when I found myself in a situation where I really needed it. (Great reminder of the need for a steady practice).
I am now on the Long Island Railroad, heading to my parents’ house. Tomorrow we will go back into the City for the memorial service.
As I allow my thoughts to be stirred up–giving myself space, as it were to have natural mind processes–I seek space and light for myself in my relationship with my family to try and foster more love and clarity.
