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    Asta Vakrasana Variation

    ByElizabeth

    I was working with photos today and came across this shot a friend took a little over a year ago.  Long gone is the memory of exactly why I did not stay fully in the pose.  Perhaps this was the beginning, and I was planning to plant my hand, lift my shoulder and hug my shoulder blades onto my back, and then do enough inner spiral and kidney loop to float off the ground.  Possible, as I have been known to get into asta vakrasana going from the ground up.  More likely, my exit strategy of the moment was releasing all the way to the floor.  What I like about this picture is that it shows me having a really good time, not me being a failure for not being perfectly in the pose.  Though it is always worth striving for the best we can do, for most things in life, the best we can do is try for the full pose and then find the joy and the beauty when we don’t end up embodying our notion of what should have been.

  • Savasana

    ByElizabeth

    When I first started teaching, one of the things I found most inspiring was seeing my students in savasana.  It is such a rare and precious things to see a group of people deeply relaxed, especially for someone who came to yoga essentially restless and who inhabits a workplace that is, so to speak, rather caffeinated.  For me, the practice of savasana has been transforming.  After 10 years of steady practice, my sleep has deepened and become more consistently restful, which has enhanced my ability to come from a yogic place off the mat.

    Savasana is in some sense for me always the so-called “pinnacle pose” of practice.  The pinnacle pose is not necessarily the most physically challenging pose in terms of combined strength and flexibility, although it is an essential component of the sequencing of any good practice to have the poses gradually open all the parts of the body needed to do the most physically challenging pose.

    When thinking about any practice and determining whether a cooling or heating, expanding or inward-going, playful or serious practice would be most appropriate, I ask whether the practice will lead to a place where is will be possible to be completely free and relaxed for 10-15 minutes?  Will the practice enable the body feel open and released, strengthened and supported, integrated and aligned, so that lying on a hard floor will seem like being on the finest bedding?  Will the focus of the practice help simultaneously free the mind of thought and burden and yet keep it focused and alert so that body and mind can surrender to the full, blissful of conscious being in the moment?  Will the practice serve to align the koshas (or sheaths) so that the outer body is soft and relaxed, the energy body full and bright, and the mind and intuitive bodies one with the anandamaya kosha (the bliss body)?

    Some teachers have said that savasana is one of the most advanced of yoga poses.  I would agree.

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    Shacharit for Peace and Mourning

    ByElizabeth

    On Monday morning, I joined in the first two hours of the day of prayer (Shacharit are morning prayers) and action led by #RabbisForCeasefire on the National Mall. They gathered and prayed and then spoke to all their members of Congress know that their’s is a religion that privileges peace and freedom for all beings over retribution. I would have stayed longer—I felt right at home—and taking care of my biological needs took precedence.

    They brought their own temple and articles of worship. Centuries of practice.

    What do you see in your philosophies? Your holy works?

    Torah is a source of life not death. National Mall, Monday, November 13

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