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    Reminder–No Class Tuesday July 2nd (and Svatantriya)–Web Version of E-Mailing

    Dear  Friends,

    Just a friendly reminder that there’s no practice at William Penn House or the house next week.  I’ll be off exercising the civil liberties currently available by traveling with my beloved to upstate New York to participate in tantric yoga philosophy camp (I know that’s not everyone’s idea of fun, but for those of us who love philosophy, it is quite wonderful to have found a group of people mostly outside of academia who truly relish such a conversation).  An afternoon and dinner in the City and a visit with my sister and brother-in-law who are only an hour out of the way will further emphasize just how much freedom I have to come and go and to gather in groups and talk and write.  For me to be going on such a vacation was partly good fortune and partly a lot of hard work and partly my balancing many conflicting desires, needs, aims, and possible outcomes, shaped by both the freedoms and strictures of this society.

    With regard to the strictures, I’ve seen and experienced just enough work-place harassment and discrimination and scholarship student financial struggle and their impact on my well-being to know that, as many challenges as I have faced, life can be far more burdened and limited by hardship and challenge.  I know from what was given to me and what was denied or only came after much hard work, how important it is that we make the safety nets of education, health care, housing, nourishing and tasty food, and a healthy ecology for all in our society.  I go on these trips to study philosophy or to practice yoga or to surround myself with beauty and flavor not ignorant of how much I have and how much it depended on scholarships and a decent public education and student loans and millions of women (and many men) before and with me seeking autonomy and meaningful choice as to how to live their lives and care for their bodies.

    I head out on vacation because I need both rest and inspiration, but I go knowing how much there is to be done at this, as Marge Piercy called it, “cruxtime.”  I go to study and talk, not just for anticipated pleasure, but also with the intention to open up new insight on how, since participation is unavoidable, to navigate more skillfully this volotile time in human history.

    I wish you a holiday week in which you are able recognize and experience your truest freedom–even if it is just the freedom of how to respond in the face of outrage or crisis or tragedy–and invite you to come join us for yoga some Tuesday night at William Penn House (click here for info) or the house practice on my return to nurture your body and join in community and conversation.

    Peace and light,

    Elizabeth

     

  • Be Smile (from the outside in, and vice versa)

    Yesterday, for the first time this year, there was more daylight than darkness.  Today, it will be warm and sunny.  Notice if the light and warmth brighten your mood.  Then try to observe just where and how you are shifted so that when things seem dark and gloomy, you can find the place within yourself that responds to light and dark and invite in your own light to shift.  This is a power of meditation.

    be-smile

  • Santa Fe and Home

    I just came back from a wonderful week in Santa Fe, studying therapeutics with John Friend.  It was most wonderful to be among friends with a shared passion for nurturing and healing through yoga, all of whom are deeply committed to continuing intense study. It was also delightful to be in a beautiful place, away from the cares of the day to day.

    Although I have many friends from around the country I have met on previous study trips, I found that I spent the most time outside of class with fellow teachers from Willow Street.  It was not because I know them best and it was expedient for me as a person who is by nature introverted to stick with people I know better, but rather because when we are home, we all are fully engaged in our daily lives and do not have much time to see each other.  That we need to go away together to be free to see people close to us is a mindset that I am working to shift.  If I have time to go away for a week, then I should be able to make time to see someone for lunch or tea.  How do we make this shift?  Part of it is just a conscious recognition that we need each day to pause and reflect, to make time to connect to our own spirit and to our home community.  Living this way will not diminish the joy of going away, but it will make us more grounded and rested at home, while we are working.  We will work better, be happier on a day to day basis, and be better able to serve.  Yes, this is another aspect of enriching life by simplifying.

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    The Wondrous Light of the Moon and of the Street Lights

    The moon was incredibly full and bright in a clear sky tonight. When I was walking home from work, I saw a tourist taking pictures of the Capitol. “You’ll want to photograph the moon,” I said, after having just taken a few pictures myself. “Yes, I did,” he replied with a big grin.

    As bright as was the moon, the street lights would not have needed to be on so fully as when the moon is just a sliver of a crescent. As I gazed in awe at the luminous beauty of the moon, I thought also about the wondrousness of electric street lights. How is it that we so often take for granted electricity, but marvel at the moon? Is not light in all its forms a source of wonder when we stop to remember? Why resent the street lights for dimming the beauty of the moon when we can instead see their own beauty?

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