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How to Wear a Sari
I just got an email telling us things I need to know about wearing a sari and related dress and grooming items. Today, I saw a demo on the bus:
Shoulders covered–check
Chest covered–check
Ankles covered–check
Hair pulled back and kept secure with bobbie pins–check
Gold necklance–check
Gold bangles–check
Handbag tucked into sari–there could be another bag under there, but this is DC, so it may not matter.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
- Art and Culture | Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation
“It’s All Good” (and Voltaire’s Candide at the Shakespeare Theater)
Last night I went to see the revival of the Bernstein musical version of Voltaire’s Candide, now playing at the Shakespeare Theater’s Harmon Hall (discount tickets available), which was absolutely a delight — fantastic staging and direction, luxurious costuming, enthusiastic performances. Throughout his journey, which is beset with cruelty, hardship, natural disaster, and other mishaps wherever he goes, Candide sings of his tutor’s optimistic advice that “all’s for the best in this best of all possible worlds.” The application of this philosophy leads to some silly results, including the Monty Python-worthy lyric “it’s a great day for an auto da fe.”
I have a friend who, after telling me of various life challenges and griefs, inevitably signs off with the phrase “it’s all good,” though I am not sure she believes it. I thought of her repetition of the phrase “it’s all good,” while I was watching the musical. Later in Candide’s travels, he encounters a second philosopher scholar who (I’m paraphrasing loosely) contradicts the “it’s all for the best” philosophy of Candide’s tutor by telling Candide to just look around and he will know that things are not in fact always for the best. A fluffier version of the debate in the novel, as to whether things are all for the best when there is so much cruelty and devastation, is interwoven into the rest of the play.
I’ve never had a desire to wear the t-shirt proclaiming that “it’s all good.” I look around me, and I simply do not believe it. I do believe wholeheartedly, though, Voltaire’s premise that we have the responsibility to “cultivate our garden.” As my teachers John Friend and Paul Muller-Ortega espouse, we should “respond from the highest,” regardless of what we experience and encounter. By having our response make the best of all possible worlds from things that are not evidently for the best, we bring more light into the world, whatever is our world view. I can only hope that with steady practice of yoga and meditation, I can keep ever truer to these teachings when I am seriously challenged.
- Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Community and Family | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation | Miscellaneous (blog matters, etc)
Web Version of May Newsletter–Invitation to the Dance
Dear Friends,
One of the most captivating elements of dance as artistic expression for me is that it has the capacity to show the beauty in the full range of emotions. Whether the choreographer is telling a story or sharing an impression, making a political statement or expressing a feeling, the dancer’s inherent grace can show us that there is beauty in all things, helping us through the artistic medium to abide with what might otherwise seem emotionally intolerable and to celebrate more fully that which would naturally make our hearts sing.
Since I first began practicing asana, it has been for me an embodiment of the dance. The exquisite technique of the Anusara® principles of alignment transformed healing work into a dance of exploration. The expansion of my strength and flexibility in middle age — when because of my dance history I thought only would contract with age — allowed me to express progressively more fully the joy I find in my body.
This year, John Friend’s overarching theme for his workshops and trainings around the world is “Dancing with the Divine.” The theme resonated especially fully for me because I started attending regularly last fall the Sunday contact improv jam on Capitol Hill and have been re-exploring dance after all the shifts I have made with an ever-deepening asana practice. It has been with an eye towards not only my own dance, but the connection of the community, and our dance of relationship with our living planet that I am choosing which trainings and workshops to attend this year.
When deciding what my study priorities are for the year, I look first at where my practice and teaching could benefit from some deep attention and wisdom offerings. I look to the local offerings to deepen my connection to my home community and to minimize the environmental impact of getting to be in the same room as the teacher. I am thoroughly appreciative of how wonderful it is to have a burgeoning and dedicated local community that has incredible teachers and draws others. When planning which workshops or trainings with John Friend I will attend, I look at whether there is an opportunity to combine a training with a visit to friends or family or an opportunity to see art exhibits or museums that are of particular interest to me. I like to go to any trainings that I can get to by train and, like even better when it happens, where I do not need a car once I get to the training/workshop location.
Next dance for me with the bigger community is the Anusara Grand Circle in Stratton, Vermont for the summer solstice. My heart expands with the anticipation of being in the mountains of Vermont with clear, starry nights and bright, vivid almost endless days for a gathering of fellow yoga dancers, those I already know and love, those whom I will get to know better, and those I will meet for the first time.
It is especially exciting to know I will have the opportunity to study with some of the incredible teachers in the international community I am honored to know, but from whom I have not yet had the privilege of taking a class. It is also a great opportunity to be with people who are just beginning to get excited about Anusara (gatherings like this are a great opportunity to study with John Friend without having the formal application process.)
Local yogis, I look forward to seeing you in regular class offerings in the neighborhood and Willow Street, including just until the end of May, Thursday night restorative yoga. I expect delightedly to see you, too, as fellow students at many of the incredible offerings both in and around DC and the country.
And if any of you are interested in coordinating a trip to the Grand Circle to celebrate the solstice, send me an email.
Peace and light,
Elizabeth
