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    New Year’s Greetings (Web Version of E-Newsletter)

    ByElizabeth

    Dear  Friends,

    Despite being in the warm and comfortable bed for which I am grateful every day, I woke up sore-hearted this morning.  I’d been dreaming first of dodging bullets in a shootout and then striving to escape rising flood waters.  I did not suffer any physical harm to my person in these dreams, but felt scared and lost and unable to save those around me at greater risk.  With the morning wake-up call, I got out of bed and followed my cat Uma down the stairs for our morning ritual.  I changed her box and fed her.  While she ate, I did some gentle asana to unknot the sleep from my body.  I took my seat for pranayama and meditation, and Uma, as is her practice, immediately curled herself up against me. After meditating, I prepared a healthful and tasty breakfast and then got to work.  After a few hours of working, the charged emotions of my dreams faded into the background.

    I’ve had dreams like this before, and it is not surprising I would be having them now.  Gunfire and flood waters and other violence (man-made and “natural”) are our daily news.  For the most part, even those events that hit closest to home such as Hurricane Sandy have not caused irremediable harm to those I know, even those who were impacted.  I find myself asking what I, as an ordinary person without special insight or extraordinary ambition, should or could be doing in the face of apparently ever-increasing societal rancor, divisiveness and violence and destructively extreme weather and increasing environmental degradation.

    Can the yoga practices help in this?  I think so.  At its most insidious, much of the core elements of the yoga philosophy served to justify keeping in their place without protest those without power by virtue of gender or social class.  I believe that in our Western context, though, these same practices can be used to help us to better handle and accept what comes our way without requiring us to be idle and complacent in the face of injustices or harms that we can change.  I might not be a visionary, but I can be a good citizen.  I might not be able to radically transform, but I can be responsible for taking care of my health and home in ways that minimize my impact on the environment and others and give me the most strength to take care of those with whom I am in relationship.  I can practice going deep into challenge with the yoga with the intention of being able to live with greater grace and beauty whatever comes.

    I invite you to join me in this endeavor (and to share any concrete ideas–especially those of you who have visions for making things better; I’ll listen and contemplate).

    The yoga offerings continue on the same schedule:  William Penn House (pay the suggested donation or whatever you can), Tuesday nights from 6:30-7:45pm; house class for charity on Wednesday nights (email me if you want to join); Friday nights gentle/therapeutics at Willow Street Takoma Park from 5:45-7:15.  For immediate news of a change in class schedule or special offerings when I am substitute teaching or offering a workshop, please like my Facebook page.  If you haven’t already, please consider subscribing to my blog to enjoy photos and musings about the yoga life and join in the dialogue.

    May the new year bring you, along with the inevitable challenges, joy and peace at heart.
    Peace and light,

    Elizabeth

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    It’s Easy When the Weather is Beautiful (and Ananda)

    ByElizabeth

    The light woke me early on this summer solstice. The sky is bright blue, the air clear and pleasantly temperate, the mountains lushly green, and friends surround me. The practice yesterday was lustrous, and the next two days promise to be equally delightful.

    The delight from being surrounded by beauty and good friends can give us a taste of the possibilities of experiencing true bliss. As the surface enjoyment of being on vacation (albeit an extraordinarily good one), though, it has a shadow side, just as the picture below of a smiling ganesha at the base of a tree in the middle of a heart is flanked by a fire hydrant and a pile of trash bags.

    It is really easy to imagine ananda — divine bliss, under these circumstances. It is important for all of us to find moments within our means when it is easy to experience the spark of spontaneous happiness. When it is challenging to find it, when grief or hardship confront us, it is ever more important to be able to tap into a space of bliss so that we can bring the most light to our challenges. Having the sweet times helps us find it in the bitter.

    Ananda, John reminded us at the afternoon philosophy lecture yesterday, is the joy that has no opposite. It is a deep contentment with what is–hearts and trees and fire hydrants and trash bags and all–that fully accepts the play of opposites.

    Those of us who do not know and live ananda spontaneously and naturally all of the time have the yoga. We challenge ourselves on the mat, knowing the exhilaration of heart opening and the challenge of stiffness; we sit for meditation on good days and bad, finding sometimes the pulsing, vibration of the fullness of consciousness and other times our to do list; we practice pranayama to open our energy channels; we chant to remind ourselves of why we practice: to open our hearts and discover the best in ourselves and in all beings.

    Happy solstice to all and hope see you soon for the yoga.

    Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

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    Ether (the Mahabhuta akasha)

    ByElizabeth

    Ether (akasha) is the fifth of the mahabhutas.  In science and perception, it is the space between the other elements, it is that in which the other elements reside.  It is to some degree, the critical element of how we are able to perceive the other elements.  I find focusing on the Anusara alignment principle of “open to grace” is the best way to experience the element of ether in myself.  By softening, opening, and inviting spaciousness, I can better experience the subtle elements and appreciate how it is that I experience them.

    The subtle elements or the panca tanmattras are smell (gandha), taste (rasa), form (rupa), touch (sparsa), and sound (sabda).  The subtle elements are not what we sense (which is composed of the mahabhutas) nor are the tanmattras our sense organs.  Rather the tanmattras are, as it were, the space in which perceptions arise, the ability to be perceived.

    The next sets of elements are the panca karmendriyas, the organs of locomotion, which correspond to how we physically move, digest, and change in the physical world, and the panca jnanendriyas, the organs of perception or cognition, which correspond to our sense organs themselves.  Our movement in and perception of the world bridges the physical elements, the perceptability of the physical world, and ourselves as physical beings, beings who move in the physical world, and beings who perceive the physical world.  All of this, I think of as needing space or residing in space.  As I consciously think of space giving a place for the world, my movement in it, and my perception of it, I become more conscious of consciousness.  The physical practice of “opening to grace” and experiencing the element akasha makes possible for me in my practice knowing or experiencing a greater consciousness.

    To start discovering your own understanding of akasha, try this meditation:  listen to the sounds beyond the room without trying to analyze or change them.  Appreciate how far in space your senses and consciousness can be.  Then bring your attention into the room and hear the sounds in the room.  Then open your ears to the sounds within you — your heart beat, your breath.  Then open to all the sounds (don’t try to change or analyze them), both those physically far away and those within your own body, and be aware of them as all residing within your own consciousness.  Appreciate that your consciousness is as spacious as the world around you and within you.  Rest in the space of consciousness.

    See whether spending a few minutes using this meditation technique helps you when your day has gotten too busy with work, errands, family or other demands.  I find it very helpful.

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