Murtis Around Town
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- Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation | Photos
Found Exhortation (and Tapas)
What does it mean to excel, to do well? I think there is no excelling in yoga, at least not the way we conventionally think of excelling in school or career or sports. But to practice in a way that is more than casual, there must be ardor–tapas.
Tapas is often translated as fire, and the texts are full of stories of outrageous physical exertions done to prove the tapas of the practitioners looking for boons from the gods.
There is a fiery aspect to tapas, but I question whether it must necessarily be burning from physical exertion, though that is a path that calls out to many.
The fire of tapas could be thought of as doing what it takes to manifest the will to know something deeply enough to be able to experience the fluency and grace and delight of expertise. It could be the ardor to show up in a disciplined and committed way for hours and days and years of practice, always still wanting deeper, fuller knowing.
Ice on the Potomac
A treasured friend and respected colleague who left her body late last week was buried this morning. The work year started, then, with some colleagues and I leaving the office for a portion of the middle of the day to drive up to the cemtery and offer our love to her family and our good-byes to her physical presence. On the way back to the office, I noticed that the Potomac has been icing over, which is very unusual. I also remembered that I had my camera in my pocket. So I took it out and caught the moment in honor of my friend who would have loved the way the birds were dancing on the ice, in honor of beauty, in honor of the life teeming above and below the apparently still, frozen river.
State of the Garden (and a Sign)
Long time neighbors and participants in the rose garden yoga posse, who have now retired and are moving to be nearer children and grandchildren, gave me their yard sign.
I will miss them for practice and around the neighborhood. I like, if they must go, that I will think of them fondly every time I come home to this exhortation and its call to practice.
