Christmas Day Walkabout
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- Art and Culture | Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Community and Family | Food for the Body | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Gardening | Photos
Earth, Water, Fire, Air, and Ether
We are composed of nothing different than earth, water, fire, air, and space, and much of yoga practice (as are related practices such as ayurveda) is designed to recognize and align our elemental identity. It is human nature to manufacture, just as it is the nature of a beaver to make a dam or a termite to make a mound of mud that displaces what was in its path. Why then is it so common to think of man-made as completely separate from “nature” rather than to recognize the wild and extraordinary creations of humans as an integral part of the complex fabric of being on this planet?
Photos taken on a Thanksgiving trip shared with friends and family: DC to NJ, Cape Cod, and back to NJ before heading home. Without the time on highway and train, I could not have seen so much “nature” in so short a time. Nor, might I add, would I have appreciated being out exposed to the wind and water without the shelter and protection of manufactured goods (including houses, cars, and clothing, etc). This does not mean, of course, that to live better, we should not seek to balance and diminish our consumption of resources for our protection and comfort.
- Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Dance/Contact Improvisation | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Photos
Yoga Slow Dance (Making It All Improv)
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).
State of the Garden (You Can See the Teeth Marks)
I cut off the gnawed parts, diced the rest, and put it in the freezer. One day in snowy winter, I will thaw it and cook some warm for winter soup or stew with beans and grains and possibly greens.
- Art and Culture | Community and Family | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation | Photos
Clear-Headed Buddha/Cloudy-Headed Buddha
I had a delightful chat with artist Quest Skinner out at Eastern Market today. I was quite attracted to the clear-headed Buddha and called it that. Quest held up the cloudy-headed Buddha and relayed a story of having given a friend from Burning Man one with a clear head and one that was clouded. I took the two together and asked Quest, who had said to another customer that though out of cards would make one, to make me a card. This is what it says:
