Current stack of to be read in anticipation of upcoming travel. Though I’m on a brief detour into a reread of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” which appeared the other day in a nearby “little free library.” The Arundhati Roy is so finely wrought, I can only read a few pages at a time. The Madhur Jaffrey, by serendipity, has a bit about one of places I will be eating.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Yesterday I looked at the continuing news about the crash. Among all the other stories, it seemed fairly unlikely that there would be metro service between Capitol Hill and Takoma Park by the weekend. This created a complication for me. Living without a car and commuting a number of times a week to Takoma Park to teach and take class, I had to figure out how to get there. It will be easy enough (I think) to get to Willow Street on Saturday to teach by taxi cab and to find a bus combination to get home.
In addition to teaching, though, I had been looking forward to studying with Amy Ippoliti on Friday night and Sunday morning. I could take a taxi and a bus combination to study with Amy this weekend or just forego my tuition. All that would be easy enough. But I had invited a friend to come and visit to take the whole weekend with Amy — which includes another 12 hours of teacher training on Saturday and Sunday, where I will be off doing my own thing. Since my friend and I will have very different schedules for this yoga weekend, and neither of us are much of a driver, renting a car was not really a viable option. I thought about just staying in a hotel in Silver Spring.
Then I got to my personal yoga. One of the hardest things for me to do is to ask for help (of almost any kind). I am good at offering to help and am good at both helping when asked and saying I cannot help (the latter took some practice). What I know from being a “helper” is that I get great joy from giving and offering assistance. My never asking, then, means not giving those in my life the joy of providing assistance. I overcame my deeply ingrained reluctance and asked for help. Not big help. Just is there someone already attending the training who can give a ride from the workshop into the District each night or provide an extra bed for my friend. Fellow yogis were indeed happy to help; there are now a surfeit of options.
The minor inconvenience to me from this tragedy reminded me again to send healing energy to those who are suffering and to see things in perspective. I was given a sweet reminder of the warmth and generosity of my yoga friends and colleagues. I was able to practice with success addressing one of my continuing challenges. I have been blessed, then, in the aftermath. Contemplating these gifts with gratitude gives me more energy to send out for those in need.
For those of you who are local, I think there is still space in the workshop with Amy: come join us for all level hip openers on Friday night and intermediate/advanced backbends and standing poses on Sunday morning. See link to Willow Street above for more information.
This morning when I woke, my first thought was that I thought it had rained in the night. My second thought was that I felt well-rested for having slept through the night — not having had my sleep disrupted by thunder or the earthquake, as was the case for recent nights — perhaps I had just dreamed about the sound of rain..
The yoga teachings say that there are four states of consciousness: waking, dreaming, deep (dreamless) sleep, and the fourth or turya state. The fourth state is both beyond the other states and also encompasses the others. It is where we find in meditation the merger of the individual consciousness with universal consciousness. The better we are able to access the fourth state, the more the other three states, and how we think and act in them, are illuminated by the very light of being.
The more I meditate, the more aware I am of what is going on around me while I am in a non-waking state. I am also finding that waking and dreaming are more luminous.
My awareness of the rain without knowing whether the awareness came while I was awake or asleep show both that I am finding more awareness in the different states and that I have a long way to go and much to discover.
