| |

On the Way Home from Tuesday Night Yoga Practice at William Penn House

ByElizabeth

image

Tonight, in addition to the regular students, a group of high school girls who were staying at William Penn House for the week, joined us. Their school, which is a Catholic girls school in Kentucky, requires the students to select a work of service in their senior year that involves the quality of mercy. 

On the initiative of two of the girls, the group came to DC to lobby their senators on global climate change for their mercy service.  They mostly hadn’t taken any yoga, but were enthusiastic to have it be part of their experience, and we explored a little how yoga practice might support them in such service.

Similar Posts

  • | |

    Pre-Season Gardening (and diksha)

    ByElizabeth

    In yoga practice the concept of diksha — initiation or threshold — carries with it a sense of right timing and conscious understanding of readiness for the next level.  For example, knowing I was not yet strong enough, this past weekend I chose not to try to jump from adho mukha svanasana (downward facing dog) to svanasana (headstand), but instead concentrated on doing the poses one at a time, even though I was surrounded by people who could do the transition with ease and my ego was challenged.  Until I am stronger and better able to hold the alignment in poses at that level, I would be too much at risk of hurting my neck and shoulders.

    In the garden, it is easy to be fooled by a beautiful weekend to move right to activities that are still 3-4 weeks premature.  Even though it will hit 70F this weekend, it is not time to plant (other than perhaps an experimental row or pot of kale, chard, or beets, which like the cold).  The best gardening you can do in the beginning of March when the weather is swinging wildly from below freezing to unseasonably warm is to read and plan and start seedlings indoors, just like it is best to warm up and work on strength, alignment, and flexibility before going for harder asana in your yoga practice.  It will be tempting to get out this weekend, but do the prep stuff and the clean up.

    Here are some favorite books of mine to get ready for planning.  It is mostly more practical stuff (rather than the super glossy, beautiful garden as splendid art and architecture picture book reading) with some food and yoga overlap and a bias for small urban gardens.

    The Yoga of Herbs — An Ayurvedic Guide to Herbal Medicine, D. Frawley and V. Lad (Lotus Press, 2d Ed. 1988)

    Gardener Cook, C. Lloyd (Willow Creek Press 1997) (OK — this one is kind of cooking, gardening porn)

    The Edible Container Garden — Growing Fresh Food in Small Spaces, M. Guerra (Fireside, 2000)

    The Bountiful Container, McGee and Stuckey (Workman Publishing Co., 2002)

    Small-Space Gardening — How to Successfully Grow Flowers and Fruits in Containers and Pots, P. Loewer (The Lyons Press, 2003)

    Kitchen Herbs — The Art and Enjoyment of Growing Herbs and Cooking with Them, S. Gilbertie (Bantam, 1988)

    The New Kitchen Garden, A. Pavord (Dorling Kindersly Ltd., 1996) (Also pretty and glossy, but still practical)

  • | | | |

    Tapas, Sadhana,  Demons, and Us

    ByElizabeth

    In the yoga stories, all of those who work, who commit to the arduous practices get boons, including the demons. If it looks like the demons are winning the day because of their efforts, the only way to change the game is to commit and surrender more deeply to our own work and practice.

  • |

    A Little (or Maybe Big) Perspective

    ByElizabeth

    I admit it. So caught up I have been in what my friends and colleagues have been posting on the internet about what has happened in our little corner of the world, that I haven’t been reading the news of the world with my usual diligence.

    When I head out the door of my building to walk home, I walk past a big homeless shelter. There is a grassy patch and a ledge on the side of the street where I leave the building, and there are always people hanging out. Sometimes they get somewhat belligerent with each other or talk or shout loudly to no one in particular. When I stay late, and it is fully dark, it can feel a bit intimidating.

    Tonight the line for a bed inside was especially long; it has been a wet day, and the temperature is dropping. I thought about our tempest as I looked at those who are homeless standing patiently in line in the hope of being able to spend a night inside, and I thought how much service, compassion, and love matter, and how little it matters exactly how or through whom we learn to better embody and live them.

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

  • | | |

    Nightblooming Jasmine in Winter (and sadhana)

    ByElizabeth

    I walked into the dining room yesterday and caught a hint of an exquisitely sweet fragrance.  I knew the paperwhite bulb I was forcing was only in bud.  What was it?  I went to look and saw that there was a single blossom on the nightblooming jasmine.  Inside, in winter, the single bloom emitted as much apparent fragrance as dozens outside.  I have had this plant for 12-13 years, since it was in a three inch growers’ pot.  The last time I repotted it was several years ago, but I faithfully bring it inside and out every winter/summer cycle, and feed and water it plentifully.  In response, it keeps getting fuller and offering blooms.  When it is outside, it can have dozens of blooms at once.  Sometimes I harvest the buds before they open and use them to scent green tea.  When I find open blossoms in the morning, I harvest them by the handful and put them on my alter or in the bedroom, where they will provide scent for a day or two.  Outside in the summer, while profuse, the blooms last only a single night.  Inside in winter (with an average 24-hour a day temperature of 61-62F), the blooms, though coming more occasionally and only a couple at a time, can last for three or four days.

    I think the blossoms of yoga and meditation sadhana (practice) are not dissimilar to the way this plant blooms.  With steady care, they will always bloom, though sometimes more than others, sometimes with a different character, and sometimes with just growing periods with no apparent blossoms.  Sometimes, there will be a wild profusion of vision and offering, but those tend to be fleeting.  The memory of the intoxicating perfume, though, keeps us tending the practice, knowing it will come again.  During the time between the wilder experiences, the nectar still comes, and though in less dramatic ways, perhaps all the sweeter for coming in a time wh

    en we are just practicing and tending and not expecting any great revelation.

    jasmine

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.