Living in the Moment and Planning Ahead Are Not Mutually Exclusive
Before a day devoted first to fall cleaning and then a walk out in the neighborhood to get a massage, I set up for an evening restorative practice. Looks inviting doesn’t it?

Before a day devoted first to fall cleaning and then a walk out in the neighborhood to get a massage, I set up for an evening restorative practice. Looks inviting doesn’t it?

Have you ever noticed just how ineffective and indeed counter-productive is the exhortation to “cheer up?” Being told to cheer up, be happy, etc, when one is feeling sad or out of sorts can just make one feel worse.
The exhortations that work are those that remind us of that for which we are grateful or that which we love, and those the remind us of or call us to the practices the result of which is to alleviate suffering.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
My students this fall and those of you following the blog know that I have been teaching the basic Anusara physical principles of alignment in sequence as the focus of my weekly classes. I did not set out to do so at the beginning of the session, nor did I pick it just for this week, but it just so happens that using my session theme and sequence brings us to “kidney loop” for the Thanksgiving week.
John Friend’s Anusara Teacher Training Manual explains that kidney loop starts in the core of the abdomen, just below the navel. It flows up the back body to fill and open the kidney area to the bottom of the shoulder blades, moves forward through the top of the diaphragm (heart focal point) to the base of the sternum, and then down the solar plexus to just below the navel. The act of opening the back body at our core before engaging the front body helps enhance and refine the physical aspects of the fundamental Anusara alignment principle of “opening to grace.” By opening the back body, we open to the unknown, to that which is greater than ourselves, to untapped sources of power. Opening in this way, draws in and strengthens the front body and helps us find our own inner power.
Among other things for me to give thanks is the very beauty of this magical sequencing moment: What better way to celebrate and honor the tradition of Thanksgiving than by recognizing that we are not fully in charge, by opening in such a way that we are not hardening, demanding, or constricting ourselves, but rather are seeking an opening of the spirit that can bring us to a place of recognition and empowerment.
Whatever might
have happened
or didn’t happen,
whomever I might
have encountered
or didn’t encounter,
whatever might
have worked
or did not work,
whatever I might
have completed
or left unfinished,
whatever I might
have stirred up
or might have
begun to heal,
whatever might
have been, or was–
still there were
the blossoms,
still the moon.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
As a nontheist, I’ve not been much called to prayer throughout my life. In these days of social crisis though, in addition to taking concrete action, though not directed at a being, I find myself praying as a mode of personal comforting.
We leave Delhi before dawn tomorrow to go up into the Himalayan hills where we will be meditating and chanting in a place of great beauty.
I’m told there’s WiFi. I will no doubt find myself reading the news, signing petitions, and sending comment letters, as well as posting photos, but perhaps not every day.
I woke up around 4 o’clock this morning, inexplicably agitated and unable to fall back asleep right away. Sully, too, was restless. I went into the yoga room and did a series of restorative forward bends and twists, which provided some ease, but I was still a little restless and unable to go back to sleep.
It was too far out of my usual experience for living in DC and too little impact at my house (compared to what it was reported to have felt like in some of the suburban areas) to have identified the earthquake for what it was.
When I called the weather, which advised of the earthquake, I knew that its immanence was what had caused me to wake in anticipatory anxiety.