On the Way to William Penn House for Tuesday Night Yoga Practice
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108 Sun Salutations and Four Two-Minute Handstands (more or many fewer) and Samskara Revisited
Last night at group practice, after doing a centering focused on using yoga to dissolve samskaras (see yesterday’s blog post on this topic), I told the group how I had been inspired by a Facebook exchange between Noah Maze and Desiree Rumbaugh — stalwart beacons of inspiration to the Anusara community — about the benefits of doing 108 sun salutations with four two-minute handstands interspersed in the practice. I then had everyone come to the front of the sticky mat, hands in front of their hearts and began. For the first five (surya namaskar A), all I did was call out the poses and the breathing and count, though I almost never teach sun salutations without enough breaths per pose to be able to think about alignment. For the next few salutations, I started throwing in some variations. As we continued, I started asking the students to notice their alignment. Were the places where they are challenged with alignment starting to show up? (Yes, most definitely so.)
After the 16th salutation, I revealed that we could not possibly fit in 108 salutations into the practice time. I advised that we will do handstand at 16 instead of 32. We then went into handstand, with students having the option of half handstand or full handstand. I remained quiet for the first 45 seconds and then started calling out the time in 15-second intervals. For students who needed to come down, I suggested they try to go back up until the two minutes were over, even if it took multiple tries. The timed handstand generated all sorts of groaning and commentary, but it all had a light-hearted enthusiasm for being invited to a challenge.
After the handstand, we got going again. “Are your knees hyperextending?” I asked one student for whom that is a tendency. “Kidneys full?” I asked of another. “Root your index finger knuckle; shoulders up in chaturanga” was a good reminder for those getting tired. I threw in more variations to slow things down and to give more time to be careful with the alignment. There is no point in an elective challenges if it is going to cause injury.
It was becoming progressively more obvious that the more we pushed ourselves, the more the places where our bodies most habitually misaligned were starting to go (just the way our less than optimal emotional tendencies start coming into play when we are faced with upheaval and loss if we do not stay conscious and try to remain in alignment with spirit). “Are you still opening to grace?” I asked after a few more rounds. Everyone laughed and found renewed strength to stay in alignment and to keep up the practice.
After several more, with only 15 minutes remaining for the class before allowing time for meditation and savasana (final relaxation), I took the class from adho mukha svanasana (downward facing dog) to balasana (child’s pose). What a rush of relief and ecstasy! “Just enjoy,” I suggested. “We need to be able to take the moments of grace, of respite, of sweetness, of pause, and not fritter them away worrying about what just happened or what is to come. Knowing how to do that is one of the blessings of yoga and one of the ways we can prevent samskaric build up.
We then moved into a cool down. With the various challenges of embodiment with which this group was working and the time limitations, a full 108 salutations with the corresponding handstands would not have been appropriate for this particular practice. But everyone left both exhilarated and more relaxed for having mindfully challenged themselves, seeking to stay aligned while not knowing just how much of that daunting number the teacher would ask of them.
Responding from the Highest v. Standing Up for Your Rights
As those of you who are regular readers may recall, I have been working to use solar energy to provide most of my electric power. The solar installation was complete in late August, and the public utility responsible for changing the meter to reflect the input of my solar energy to the grid advised on September 3rd that the meter would be changed within three to five weeks. Week five came and went. Week six, I wrote to the utility and asked why nothing had been done. My tone was appropriate, and I did not let it upset me, but still I felt the need to take action. I was advised that the metering people would be contacted, and it would be done or I would hear back within the week. Week six passed with not a word. Now it was week seven. I wrote again asking why I hadn’t gotten a response. The answer was that I deserved to be frustrated and should complain to the public service commission.
I filed a complaint; after all, I was directed to do so by the very entity against which I had the complaint, but was advised by the public service commission that it could take 30 days to respond to my complaint. Meanwhile, my house was continuing to be powered by mountaintop coal mining and nuclear power. This wouldn’t do. I contacted my solar contractor and asked for assistance. The solar contractor had connections with the commission. This morning I received a very apologetic call from a supervisor at the electric company. The meter was installed later in the day (although I still need for the electric company to “authorize” “my use” of the meter–not going to try and understand that one). The authorization is supposed to be processed tomorrow.
Here’s where the apparent disconnect between responding “from the highest” and not being a doormat came into play in my mind. The reason I got an immediate response was not the delay, but my documenting the foolishness of having been advised that the next step was to file a complaint instead of having been told the actions that the employee was taking to try and address my concerns. I work for the government. I know that is something that is wholly unacceptable, and my having used the inappropriate response to my inquiry to make sure I got a result will likely result in unpleasant repercussions for the employee.
This situation triggered a memory of an airport episode in the days when I was still flying around the country as a litigator. When nearly everyone else at the airport was traveling for the holidays (it was December 22nd), I was flying out of National Airport to Hartford to take a deposition the next day. I was waiting in a long line to check-in (this was long before the days of e-ticketing), and the airline announced the flight was canceled and that they would be putting all of us on a bus to Dulles airport on a flight that left two or three hours later (it was already the end of the work day). I was a bit cranky, I am sure. I asked in a way that everyone could hear, keeping in mind I had a ticket that could be changed, whether there were flights on any other airlines going to Hartford from National that night. Gosh, apparently, no one had thought of that or was hoping that no passengers would ask for such a response since it would have a cost for the airline. Within a half hour, several of us were re-booked on a flight with another airline leaving from National. No bus. Hardly any delay. A college-aged woman who ended up with the benefit of the re-booking looked at me with her eyes shining, “are you are lawyer?” she asked. I’ve always thought I might have been responsible for changing her life by having not stood for being treated badly, who knows whether it ultimately was for good or ill.
I often hear people saying that speaking up, taking action, refusing to suffer inappropriate, unjust, or unnecessary conduct is “bad.” What is the difference between being passive and responding from the highest? Where do we draw the line?
State of the Garden
I come home all too profoundly aware that these are war times and of the enormity of human suffering.
And, to my great good fortune, I came home to my own kitchen and made a savory lentil stew with whole grain rice garnished with the first fresh herbs from the garden (cilantro and garlic chives).
