Balance Your Asana and Other Physical Practices
Sometimes active, sometimes quieting; sometimes focused, sometimes with wild abandon–but always do both sides.


Sometimes active, sometimes quieting; sometimes focused, sometimes with wild abandon–but always do both sides.


To make space at William Penn House for a full group of college students visiting DC to take advocacy training and to do service projects, Tuesday Night Yoga practice was cancelled. The regulars decided to go out for dinner instead–a most pleasant way to spend my birthday eve.
I was asked what I wanted from this year. Hard to know what I want, I said, with all the chaos and tragedy and upheaval. I think I want to find more ways to share my resources–talents, time, and finances–and maintain equanimity and joy, while deepening friendships and connections to community. If this year brings that, I will indeed be among the very fortunate.
One of my yoga teacher trainers used to say that though he loved all of his students, that did not necessarily mean that he liked all of them or everything about them.
Recognizing and honoring universal worthiness and connection — which I think is essential to our getting along in this crowded world of ours –does not mean that we will not have preferences both innate and trained.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
A gate might be an obstacle or it might be a way through or it might be that which is containing something that would otherwise be detrimental to our well-being. One of the key things that we do with the various yoga practices is explore how an apparent barrier is serving us or how a locked gate might turn our path in a more auspicious direction.
We will learn little and live less fully if we just lament the locked gate and unreasonably expect from the practices the removal of challenges or barriers. Ganesha–who is often invoked as the remover of obstacles–is less one who just opens all the gates for us than one who empowers us to discover gateways regardless of whether gates are meant to stay locked or whether they seem to block our path.