I went to an in person yoga class today for the first time since before the pandemic started. I was alone in choosing to mask and distance—but the ventilation was good. I really enjoyed being there. In conversation after, a couple of people whom I have missed seeing quietly volunteered to me that they were fully vaccinated. I appreciated that.
Krishna Das reminding his listeners the reasons he practices and offers kirtan scrolled across my Facebook feed last week with this quote:
“My path is to be in the living Presence; We have to find a way inside us, we have to find a way to open our hearts, to quiet our minds, to let go our fears and our selfishness, our guilt and our anger and jealousy; Everything is already present in our own hearts; By repeating these Names over and over, we are moving ourselves into that place in us; the Heart in us is deeper than any emotion or psychological issues; I don’t know if there is God, I know there is Love – Unconditional Love and I know I like to be in that love, and that maybe God; all you have to do is look, and chanting remembers us to look.”
I am in a space right now where chanting is serving me to help remember the good, despite all that is going on that doesn’t feel particularly good or hopeful. I don’t believe in “God” as an actual being (though I can no more disprove the actuality than anyone has been able to prove it), and history certainly proves the power of the idea of such a mystical being.
Regardless of whether the very real ideas of God(s) represents an actual being, it has been my beautiful experience–studying with Krishna Das and others over the years–that engaging in practices that turn our hearts towards love and universality helps us be sweet living in relationship to ourselves, to others, and to the ecological fabric of the whole of embodied existence. I chant because calling out the names in their universal multiplicity is a recognition, not dissimilar to what I have found offered in the silent collective worship of Quakers, that everyone has their own individual access to and ideas of the sublime, of the divine, of what brings them to feel a fullness of love.
This pilgrimage is shortly coming to a close. I do not know what it will bring nor what I will bring home (I actually wrote this entry on December 16th). What I do know is that I will be eager to share all the learning and visions and use them to seek more peace and joy, fairness and health, love and compassion. May your most heartfelt, true wishes be realized in the new year.
Dear Friends ,
Greetings to all in this strange, but glorious Spring. As I sit down to write, I cannot help but recall that in my new year’s letter, I wrote of the practice in some Indian temples of cracking open a coconut to symbolically break open the head to get out of old living patterns that do not serve us. I blithely wrote how blessed I was that in having taken myself to India, I was intentionally choosing to be challenged, while recognizing that we don’t always get to pick when challenges will come. Less than two weeks after I returned, my family gathered to visit my father who was in the hospital for a hip replacement (he’s healing well). Only a couple of weeks after that, the Anusara yoga community was turned topsy turvy,. When I wrote of choosing to break myself open to discover new paradigms and possibilities, little did I know what was going to happen to the yoga community that has been and continues to be such an important part of my life.
Even Spring is not behaving according to settled expectations. It burst forth especially early–the cherry blossoms are already gone and azaleas and roses are blooming almost a month early. Records were set around the country for the warmest March on record, and we are approaching drought conditions (again) in the Washington metropolitan area.
Not surprisingl for one who likes things to be settled and secure, while admiring the wild blooming around me, I have been thinking about how disconcerting change can be. For someone who prefers warmer weather to winter, getting Spring early is delightful, but I cannot help but recognize that it has come with disastrous storms and high risks for farmers and our food sources, evidence of the fraying relationship between our populous society and the earth. What is a gardener, a yogi, and a member of society to do?
As a gardener, it is necessary to remember old teachings and methods (for example, just because it was prematurely warm does not mean that the danger of last frost is earlier than in other, colder years), but it was also necessary to plant and tend the garden earlier to make sure that cool weather plants, such as greens and snow and sugar snap peas, actually have an opportunity to grow. The erratic weather is also serving as a reminder to try and shift to be more in alignment with the forces of nature and to contribute less to global climate change. In a word, a true gardener, like the dedicated yogi (on and off the mat) will rely on the lineage of teachings and experience, continue to be fully engaged without giving up, be adaptable to the vagaries of season–both serendipity and calamity, and seek to live in a way that fosters the good in oneself and all beings.
It is going with the flow, but in an active and intelligent way. In this time of uncertainty, I believe that an ever deeper and more open study and practice of yoga is a great gift. Yoga when practiced sincerely and in community provides us opportunities to connect more deeply and techniques to turn unsought changes into opportunities for growth and transformation. In that light, in my own yoga offerings to you, there is both stability and change:
The big change in my yoga classes is moving my long-running gentle/therapeutics class at Willow Street to Friday nights. I am very excited about this shift. On a personal level, it gives me free weekends for the first time in six years, which will give me more time and space to study, practice and explore. For you, I intend that the class will now be a perfect transition from the work week to the weekend, fostering and enhancing the ability to heal and celebrate. Those who like things to be steady can still expect the same full hour and a half of nurturing, alignment-based, therapeutic poses and restorative practices. Registration for the full session is preferred, but drop-ins are always welcome. New to the class and want to know what it is about? Please come join me on Friday, April 13th, as part of free class week.
The Tuesday night all levels group practice at William Penn House continues. As always, a portion of the proceeds support the work of William Penn House, and if you cannot pay the suggested donation ($12-15), do not let that keep you away. We want to make the yoga available to those who truly seek it.
I hope to see many of you soon. Please feel free to be in touch by email or Facebook message when you cannot make it to class. For in-between newsletter information, please “like” my “Rose Garden Yoga” page on Facebook, and there are always new photographs and musings about yoga on and off the mat on the blog.
Peace and light,
Elizabeth
As the nights get longer and colder and darker, it can be very tempting to hibernate. It is not a bad thing to focus more on the indoor things, but for health and happiness make sure to get out and soak up some light every day.
The moon just past full greeted me this early morning as I headed for the metro to ride up to Silver Spring to assist at the therapeutics workshop with the wonderful Todd Norian who has come to visit and make offering to our community. Seeing the moon over the vivid trees made me glad I had a reason to get out of the house extra early on a Sunday morning.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Dear Friends,
After a summer of drought, we just experienced inside the Beltway the power when the earth shudders and shakes in an east coast earthquake of unusual magnitude. Now, less than a week after the earthquake, I take appropriate precautions and follow with deep caring the unfolding predictions, photos, commentary, and human reaction on a collective and individual level to the impending traverse up the east coast of Hurricane Irene.
Watching the hurricane reports has led me to remember what it was like when Hurricane Isabel was approaching DC in the summer of 2003. The day before was gloriously sunny and bright–the way we want summer to be and there was no reason yet to cancel classes nor, once suitable precautions and preparations were made at home. to do anything other than enjoy the day to its fullest. Fewer students than usual came for class; others must have been preparing or attending to other business. The ones who came said that the impending storm made them want to practice together even more than usual.
Though I rarely lead chants other than the Anusara Invocation in class, I was moved to lead my students in a chant to Kali–fierce goddess of destruction. Chanting to Kali allowed us to focus our profound respect for the forces of nature and the dance of the universe throughout the whole of the practice. Our ability to express our awe and our yearning to flow with the currents and eddies of these extraordinary forces instead of feeling powerless or angry was enhanced by sensitive and careful attention to alignment.
Practicing the three A’s of Anusara yoga–attitude, alignment, and action–for me seems to apply profoundly to the way we want to prepare for and experience what comes with events demonstrating extreme forces of nature. When we challenge ourselves on the mat we both honor our edge and seek to expand it. We use the alignment principles in every aspect of a pose to express a perfect respect for the amazing concatenation of abilities and limitations that is human embodiment. For me, taking what I have learned on the mat practicing with the three A’s has helped make it possible to shift how I am able to respond to whatever comes. There is not much that serves as a better reminder of how much will just come, no matter how much we prepare and study than earthquakes and hurricanes. We need to appreciate, though, that while we are not in control, we are not without power. The power is in choosing how to respond, how we are going to put into practice off the mat, as well as on, the principles of attitude, alignment, and action.
I believe to the very core of my being that we must have profound awe and respect for the mystery and power of the dance of the universe (put that how you will) and love for it, too. We should be expanding and using existing knowledge of how most safely to weather a huricane or other extreme forces (I am choosing not to say “disasters”). It is important to take care of ourselves to get into the space where we are most likely to be able to have awe triumph over fear, hopelessness, frustration, or anger because plans have been thwarted and, more important, to find the best path possible in the face of serious loss or harm. Perhaps this is too easy for me to say, knowing that it will be mostly ok for me; my house does well in storms, and we are only on the edge. I am more concerned for friends and family all up the east coast and especially Long Island and New York.
In class on Saturday, with or just ahead of the first band of rain, we will be chanting to Kali. Maybe like last time, we will all have power when the lights around us go out, but that was just a happy side effect (or coincidence, depending on how you look at it) and not the purpose. The purpose of chanting will be to remind ourselves to prepare to the best of our abilities and then let go of outcome and hang on for the ride.
Hope to see you in class soon. My summer class at Willow Street goes through the Saturday of Labor Day weekend, and I will be here. Registration is open for the fall session at Willow Street. My Saturday noon class continues, and I will also be leading the ninth annual Thanksgiving Day fundraiser for Oxfam.
The William Penn House class is an ever-deepening weekly adventure. Come join us.
May all be safe and well.
Peace and light,
Elizabeth
