Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
If you are in town today and feeling the need for some R&R, please come join us at Capitol Hill Yoga (scroll down the page, past the Itsy Bitsy workshops, for SS info) today for this month’s Serenity Saturday.
It has been a long work week, and yesterday I though that I’d like to be taking a two hour afternoon restorative workshop myself this weekend. Last night I gave my self serenity Friday night (not so alliterative).
I’d been feeling a bit testy, and my thoughts were starting to be somewhat all over the place. I stepped back and thought about all that I’d put into my consciousness in the past couple of weeks: how many work telephone conferences and meetings in which I’d participated, how much the email and other computer communications, how many errands, movies I’d seen, parties I’d gone to, etc.
Diagnosis: overstimulated. So instead of going out and getting more stimulated (which can be the immediate reaction to feeling like one wants to get away from work and errand thoughts), I stayed home, cleaned the house, and did a long combination restorative, recumbent, and forward bending practice. This morning I woke up refreshed and newly receptive, ready to teach all day and share the yoga.
I went to see Julie and Julia because I, like most other Americans of a certain age who like food, have a history with Julia Child. Seeing the movie brought back an episode from junior high school. By seventh grade, I was pretty competent cooking, cleaning, babysitting, and doing needlework. Being a feminist in training, I wanted to take shop. Mr. Murphy, my ancient (OK who knows how old he was, but he was gray and bald and had leathery skin, so he was likely over 50 at the time) guidance counselor refused: “shop is for boys; home economics is for girls.” I expected my mother to back me up, but for some reason she did not.
I had no interest in making rice crispy treats, which was not the kind of thing we cooked at home and was the kind of thing they taught in home economics. Part way through the year, when we were told to cook a whole dinner at home and then bring in a report, I decided to cook from Julia Child. I am sure the meal was perfectly delightful, but the motive on my part was not to make a delicious dinner for the family, but to show my guidance counselor and parents that I should have been allowed to learn something that I did not know how to do and could not learn from a book (woodworking and other “shop” skills).
I enjoyed the movie (it’s a pleasant couple of hours and Meryl Streep is wonderful), but the interesting after thought for me was the difference in the happiness of an individual depending on motivation in life choices. Is something done for joy (with recognition being delightful, but somewhat incidental) or is it being done because one needs recognition and then feels satisfied on getting it? From a yoga perspective, is it “actionless action” (see Bhagavad Gita) or is it acting out of a need to fulfill the ego, which inevitably binds one in the fierce dichotomy and inner tug or war of the opposites of longing and gratification, pain and pleasure?
