Embrace the grief, honor the rage, and act out of joy and conviction that justice must manifest to maximize opportunities for healing, nurture, and joy.
Dear Friends,
What a glorious Spring we’re having! I’ve just returned from an expanding, nurturing, and deepening time of study in Sedona with meditation teacher Paul Muller-Ortega. Later in May, I will join fellow certified Anusara yoga teachers in North Carolina to be with John Friend. Making sure to continue to study and gather with fellow yogis provides ever increasing appreciation of the benefits of practice and enhanced delight for the community.
May Day (May 1) is the first day for my Spring Session classes at Willow Street: Level 2 @ 8:30 am and Gentle/Therapeutics @ noon. Both are in the Takoma Park studio. While session registration is optimal, you are always welcome to drop in, whether you want to rock out in level 2 or get some healing and nurturing energy in Gentle/Therapeutics.
The William Penn House class continues to have the special $12 offering for public interest workers (broadly inclusive), students, seniors, and those in-between gigs ($15 for those who can afford it). Come join this collegial group 6:30 pm every Tuesday evening. A portion of the proceeds goes to benefit the work of William Penn House.
Looking to strengthen your practice: join me for Standing Steady in the Light: A Standing Balance Workshop, Sat May 8, 2:30-5pm, Willow Street Yoga Center, Takoma Park, $35. Find a place of deeper steadiness and balance in your own light and worthiness. Learn how to use the Anusara principles to enhance your ability to stand or your own two feet or on just one foot at a time. After we playfully explore a progressively expansive array of standing poses, we’ll finish with a few upside-down restorative postures to let our legs and feet feel the bright light created by the practice. Whether you find standing poses a challenge or revel in the dance, this workshop will illuminate your practice. Everybody welcome. To register, please visit www.willowstreetyoga.com.
As always, please take the time to enjoy and comment on the blog and if you haven’t already done so, friend me on Facebook for the latest news, photos, and quotes.
Looking forward to seeing you soon.
Peace and light,
Elizabeth
I find–when external circumstances are unsettling or chaotic–it helpful to practice balancing. It’s even more challenging when Maitri circles my ankle, and I also taking a photo.
Now the real work begins! That is what President-Elect Obama, the headlines, the pundits, the commenters, all said, hardly pausing to savor “victory.” Unlike 1992, no one is suggesting that it is now time to party like it’s 1999. I am elated by the result, but personally most encouraged by the earnestness of the reaction, the call for selflessness and effort to begin.
In yoga, one of the primary practices is seva or selfless service. I think a critical aspect of seva is joyousness. This is not a call to knuckle down soberly as a puritanical denial of pleasure. Rather, it is a call to discover the pleasure in giving of oneself without asking anything in return. I begin, this morning, by giving financial support to certain groups that are hard at work to end war and torture and support the environment, but in dire need of support because of the financial crisis. I have celebrated this morniong with heart-opening asana, and plan to take a lunchtime walk in the neighborhood and prepare delicious food from the garden, while most of my day will be devoted to working and teaching.
Each day, as this new path opens and work continues, I will strive to remember the words of Hafiz: “[Spirit illuminates] the affairs/ Of the whole universe /While throwing wild parties/ In a tree house — on a limb / In your heart.” (The Subject Tonight is Love, 60 Wild and Sweet Poems of Hafiz, Versions by Daniel Ladinsky).
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It is good to get outside as often as possible. Though I spend most of my time in the city, by commuting and doing many of my errands on foot and by gardening I spend a good amount of time outside (perhaps even more than people who commute by car and then drive to “nature” to go hiking), attuning with weather and the seasons. Like my friend Reya, I think it is important to spend time outside nearly every day. Though I do not leave the city much, I know the weather and the seasons fr0m my walking around and through the neighborhood to work and to shop and in the green urban spaces that are so precious.
Do you have a favorite green spot near you if you live in the city or the suburbs? Do you give energy to support and share green spaces?
Bronx River, New York Botanical Gardens
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
