Although incorporation of practice (and the mindset of making everything a dedicated practice) ideally becomes routine, actually practicing should be a never routine, freshly curious, heartfelt engagement. In that regard, I try not to get inured to seeing the signs in the neighborhood.
Dear Friends,
Happy Samhain, All Hallow’s Eve, Halloween. We are slipping into the time of year that is good for dreaming and introspection, while things get wild and windy outside. I can always tell when it is drawing to the midpoint between the Winter Solstice and the Autumn Equinox because the Christmas cactuses (which always bloom at Thanksgiving) start to bud. When I went to bring in the tropical plants because of the pre-Samhain winter storm, I saw that a few of the orchids were spiking. It is almost as much fun to watch the buds emerging and growing and taking on color as it is to see the flowers, which only last so long before the flowers must die so that energy can go back into making the whole plant healthy and ready to flower again. Inside and out, my garden invites me to a deeper appreciation of the dance of dissolution, creation, and maintenance.
It takes only modest intention, commitment, and nurture to have plants blooming through winter. Just as we can cultivate gardens indoors in winter, yoga and meditation help us cultivate inner beauty so that we are at ease with our being regardless of what storms rage and how we are impacted in space and time and material body by the storms. My solution: practice of all kinds, and this November is going to be a wonderful month for yoga..
Just as maintaining a garden in winter calls for props–containers, heat, indoor water source, etc., cultivating the fullness in our bodies, particularly if we are working with a challenge of embodiement, can benefit from the assistance of various props. I am pleased to announce that we now have lots of blocks and straps for everyone (and some tennis balls, though we could use a few more for when the class is big) at the Tuesday night all levels yoga class at William Penn House, making it an even more supportive environment for those new to yoga or with challenges of embodiment. As always, a portion of the fee from every student supports the work of William Penn House.
I will be leading the Friday night free community yoga class at Willow Street Yoga’s Silver Spring studio, which I will be teaching this coming Friday, November 4th. It is an all levels class that will include discussion of therapeutic applications of yoga alignment, and it’s a great way to bring a friend along with you to get introduced to yoga or to Willow Street.
If you are in town for Thanksgiving, please join me to support a great cause. From 10:00am-11:30am, Thanksgiving morning, I will be leading my ninth annual fundraising class to benefit Oxfam at Willow Street Yoga’s Takoma Park studio. 100% of the profits go to Oxfam. I look forward to seeing many of you, both those coming back and those joining us for the first time. Friends and family welcome, including children 12 and over.
Veteran’s Day weekend brings Todd Norian to Willow Street Yoga. On Sunday, November 13th, the focus of the workshop will be therapeutics. Todd is an incredibly loving and knowledgeable teacher, and I am planning to be there to assist. You can sign up on-line or in person at Willow Street.
I am looking forward to the weekend workshops with John Friend in College Park, MD on November 19 & 20. Both Mixed Level and Intermediate/Advanced workshops are offered. This is the first time John Friend has taught in the DC area since 2007. Apply today to join your fellow yogis. There are several of us going from the Capitol Hill neighborhood. Feel free to contact me if you are looking to carpool, and if you can either offer driving or are looking for a ride.
I always enjoy hearing from you by email or comments on the blog. If you haven’t already, click here to be taken to the subscription page. For short thoughts about yoga and meditation in your Facebook news, please “like” my public page for Rose Garden Yoga.
Looking forward to sharing more of the yoga with you.
Peace and light,
Elizabeth
One of the regular participants in the Wednesday night yoga practices called Uma “Fluff Girl” last week. “Right,” I thought. “That suits most of the time.”
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
If we just mouth words or put them on our walls, then they are little more than the happy platitudes all too prevalent in marketing yoga and just about everything else.
But if we use such words as reminders to grow and engage, then they are very much more.
I was at Eastern Market earlier today. As kimchee has been on my mind (given the recent and resounding success with homemade sauerkraut), I checked for napa cabbage and daikon radish. I didn’t see it, but decided to ask anyway (after all, if we don’t ask for what we want, it is far less likely that we will get it–whether it is ingredients for kimchee, or help from a yoga teacher, or needs met in relationship).
Yes, they had a gorgeous napa cabbage and a big, beautiful daikon radish. They sell their own fresh made kimchee (it’s delicious), so I thought they might have the other key ingredient I needed: powdered Korean hot pepper.
I said that I enjoyed their kimchee and that I guessed they made it the traditional way, with a rice flour slurry and anchovies.
Yes, indeed, they do it that way.
I said I was making a simpler version, but did want the right kind of pepper. Did they have some?
The woman serving me, said yes, went in the back, cut open an enormous bag of powdered pepper and, along with the vegetables, sold me a few ounces of the pepper. From this enterprise, I’ve already made a deeper connection to one of my local small businesses, and in a week or two, I’ll also have a big batch of kimchee.
ps. I used Michael Pollan’s recipe as a rough guide. What I like especially about the recipe is that it expects variation based on quality and age of produce and personal taste. The cook is invited to pay attention instead of just follow by rote.
When I came out of my afternoon asana practice and meditation, I picked up the John Friend Teacher Training Manual to look up one of my favorite passages. In describing the “attitude” that brings us to our deepest practice, John Friend writes that there are two reasons to practice yoga: “1. Co-create in the art of life. 2. Realize and awaken to our divine nature.” John Friend, Anusara Yoga Teacher Training Manual (9th Ed., Anusara Press 2006). He explains that sometimes we come to our mat because we are happy and we want to celebrate. Other times, we are sad or confused and we want to remember our essentially divine, blissful nature. This particular teaching has continues to resonate for me. I find great comfort in it because it recognizes that we do forget; we will not always act perfectly. All life, though, is part of our practice, and we can keep trying to co-create and remember the light in all beings in our daily lifes just as we keep can coming to the mat.
