First Yoga Practice with Maitri
Whom I brought home today from foster care.
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- Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Community and Family | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation
Signs Around Town (Temporary)
The sign may be temporary, but this is a state that I would want to be as long-lasting as possible. Yoga, well-practiced and studied, provides us with ever more resilience–one hopes a lifetime’s worth– to handle the wild vagaries of existence with as much grace as is possible.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
- Art and Culture | Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Dance/Contact Improvisation | Food for the Body | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation | Photos
The Goddess(es) and the Green Tomatoes
When someone tells me I need to see the Divine I can get anxious that they mean I’m supposed to see whatever that person thinks is “the Divine.” I don’t think anyone ever should be required to do so by anybody else. I am, however, all for being reminded to see the divine if such exhortation is to look on whatever I encounter with the most gratitude and compassion and wonder I can muster.
Here: two kinds of tomatoes with two versions of the goddess (Tara and Uma (a/k/a Parvati)). I had only a large tomato or two per week throughout the summer; with the equinox passing, the vines are for some inexplicable reason now abundant. I will either be making a good sauce in October or pickling green tomatoes, depending on how soon we get a frost. Or perhaps both.
- Art and Culture | Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Community and Family | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation
Signs Around Town (and the Yoga Siddhi of Bi-Location)
The “shelter in place” signs in my building demarcate suites where designated groups of employees are supposed to gather in the event of a threat to human safety where it would be safer to hunker down in the building than to go out.
While I was sitting through a seemingly interminable, pointless, but only somewhat acrimonious meeting this morning, I was thinking how important it is to have a space within our own consciousness where it feels safe and peaceful even when we are in a situation where staying physically put is the most realistic alternative. This got me thinking about one of the powers (siddhis) that allegedly may arise from a steady, devoted, and long-term practice. That power is the ability to bi-locate–the power to be in two or more places at once.
I’ve long practiced with part of my goal being to cultivate the space of meditation as a way of making bearable the unavoidably painful, such as when confined to bed because of severe illness. In such a situation, though my experience is thankfully limited, going into meditation is a going to another space of consciousness, but does not require staying mentally engaged and present.
When in an unpleasant meeting or stuck in traffic or similar situations, the problem is that one needs to stay mentally and physically alert and present and cannot just go off into bliss.
Then, I think the power of bi-locating is what would serve best. It would enable being simultaneously present and functioning while also being in the blissful and peaceful state of meditation. The space we go to in meditation would indeed then be a “shelter in place.”
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
India?
Do you notice what is written on those ubiquitous metal disks on our streets and sidewalks? Do you ever recognize them as access points to the network of drinking water, sewage, electricity, and gas flowing through our cities that so significantly shapes the way we live?
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
