Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Community and Family | Dance/Contact Improvisation | Food for the Body | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Gardening | Photos | Poetry
Found Exhortation
Similar Posts
Pradakshina?
The term pradakshina roughly means turning towards what is right, to move in alignment with nature. When I was in yoga teacher training, we were taught that to make sure that the practice was in accordance with nature, with the principle of pradakshina, we should instruct our students to roll to the right when coming out of savasana (final relaxation; the corpse pose).
Those who take class with me may have noticed that a couple of months ago, I started just saying to roll to your side, whichever side feels better for you.
Why should turning to the left be sinister (latin for left), or gauche (french for left), or subversive and contrary to dharma (left-handed tantric practices).
Left-handed myself, I can assure you that not one of the salesmen in the expensive shop in India where I bought art and jewelry last year cared that I signed a credit card slip with my left hand (though in India it is customary to eat with the right hand and wipe oneself with the left to make sure that one never uses the same hand for both activities).
Who wants to move the right if right means not correct, but conservative, fundamentalist, self-righteous, and rigidly traditional in societies where tradition is paternalistic, narrow-minded, racist, classist, religiously dogmatic, and sexist?
I think turning to the side without the bum shoulder or the clogged sinus or turning to the side where there is more room or a beloved friend practicing beside you is turning in accordance with the principle of pradakshina–even if it means turning to your left.
Practice pradakshina by all means, seek to align with and embrace the flow and forces or nature within and without and honor those social customs that support and expand love and community, but don’t just roll to the right (or teach that) because someone told you going to the right will bring you closer to the divine. It ain’t necessarily so.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Do You Know When to Ask for Help?
In yoga class and in daily activities, it is easy to get caught up in trying to do things that are not expanding our capacity, but pushing past it for the sake of some external goal. Sometimes what keeps us from seeking assistance or using a prop (on or off the mat) is some untoward sense of shame that we cannot do it (whatever it is) by ourselves or fear of feeling or seeming weak. This includes not just seeking physical support or assistance, but also asking a question that admits we need help understanding a task or posture.
Sometimes we are right to think that we need to push our boundaries and do something without external support. More common, though, is not having the sensitivity and courage to know and admit when we need help. And fending for ourselves when when we are beyond our capacity and help is available quite often leads to unnecessary suffering.
Learning when and how to ask for help is one of my core yoga practices. What about you?
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Mercy
As part of my walk in the neighborhood, I joined a March on the Capitol advocating for health care for all/Medicare for all. What does it mean to have mercy or to be merciful? I am quite certain inaction is inconsistent with mercy.
- Art and Culture | Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Community and Family | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation | Photos
“What Is It?”
As I squatted on the brick sidewalk to take this photo during my lunch time walk, a nice-looking older man stopped and asked “what is it?” He was quite tall and standing at an angle that would not have showed the shape as well as from where I was positioned.
“Stand on this side; what do you see?” I asked. He looked from my perspective. “A leaf,” he said with a quizzical expression, wondering why a dessicated bit of English ivy would have captured my attention sufficiently for me to take a photograph.
“Look again,” I suggested. “Can you see anything else?”
“Ah,” he said with delighted recognition: “it’s a heart.”
“Yes. I see them and other interesting shapes in all sorts of things–litter, blackened chewing gum, the pavement itself.”
“Everything has more than one form,” he rejoined. “You are blessed.”
And thus we went our separate ways, having brightened our day with this small connection. If he lives in the neighborhood, no doubt we will recognize each other enough from this encounter, at least to smile and say hello.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
