A bumper sticker that said: “To be truly radical is to make hope possible rather than despair convincing.”
A helicopter landing on the west lawn of the Capitol, which is a fairly rare sighting. My first two thoughts: (1) who was getting the ride (i.e. was it the President or Vice President)? and (2) I’ve never ridden in a helicopter; I should do that sometime.
When we are on our mats, being open to grace — the first Anusara alignment principle — includes being open to the teachings so that we can receive and act on them in a healing and loving way. Adding to that muscular energy by lovingly embracing skin to muscle to bone in a conscious embrace, drawing into our center to recognize our inner spirit, and drawing from periphery to the focal point brings us into optimal balance. This pulsation serves as a way off the mat to open, inspire, and engage us in progressively more intentional and uplifting ways of living.
Being open to inspiration from friends and about town, open to learning new ways to be kind to the earth and to ourselves, is a way of bring the principle of “opening to grace” off the mat. Actually keeping the intention and acting on it has the attentive embrace of muscular energy, which draws us onto our inner light in a loving embrace so that we can better serve.
I was thinking about Anusara principles off the mat, yesterday when I went visit a friend in NW one of whose roommates fosters cats. There is a community garden in the back and the house is warm and friendly. In the bathtub were two buckets filled with water leftover from showers. Instead of using fresh, potable water to flush the toilet, when it is time to flush (honoring the drought axiom about yellow mellowing, etc), the house residents fill the tank with the gray water from the shower.
Find it too complicated an idea to shower with a bucket in the bathtub with you? You can still save water by filling your watering can or bucket when you run the water to warm up enough to get into the shower. That will save a few gallons. Not up to using the water to flush the toilet? Use it to water houseplants or for cleaning floors, etc. Or take it outside to water potted plants.
First step is opening and witnessing the possibilities and understanding where you are ready to expand. The second step is to try to more consistently live your inspiration. I know when I see people living with such intention I take better care to move in that direction, even if I am not ready to go as far.
I found a couple of plants shivering on the sidewalk last week. They seem to be recovering nicely. I divided several plants over the holiday period, and repotted others. I find the plants help me stay inside.
“Liberty” is again encased in scaffolding, though it hasn’t been that long since she was taken down for a good cleaning. Seeing her thus supported while simultaneously blocked led me to think about the use of yoga props.
I am a big fan of using props to discover places one thought out of reach, either because an injury is limiting range of movement or because intelligent or inspired use of a prop can teach where the next step could be in practice.
Liberty’s scaffolding might be necessary for structural repairs or cleaning, but it is obscuring the view–her view out and our view in. We wouldn’t want her bound and stuck unless it was truly necessary for her full beauty and integrity to be maintained and revealed.
So, too, with yoga props. As beneficial as they can be, we do not want to rely on them automatically without seeing whether we can open to and discover the full flourishing of ourselves in a pose without them by being open, sensitive, and discriminating about our physical boundaries; applying the alignment principles to the fullness of our knowledge; and using just the right amount of effort.
By all means use props, but use them to find and witness new freedom (ultimately, svatantriya) not to bind or obscure it.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
