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Twisting, Opening to a New Perspective (and radical affirmation)

ByElizabeth

This week I have been working on twists both in my own practice and in my classes. In so doing, I have been thinking about the difference between turning around or doing an about-face and staying steady and true to oneself, while truly being open to another perspective.

In order to get into twisted and bound asanas, it is critical to be steady in your place and to use the three self-affirming elements of muscular energy — hugging into the midline, embracing the muscles to the bone, and drawing from the periphery into the focal point — to be able to revolve on the midline and open the heart to a new direction.

The same is true off the mat. If we just flip our position or turn an about-face, we are not grounded or reliable. Inside the beltway, for example, I’ve heard people saying they think McCain and Specter should be voted out of office because it is not clear where they stand. Their positions seem more about expediency than about a steadiness of conviction, coupled with an openness to listen to and work with others with differing views.

Ideally, we want to embrace ourselves, our history, and our nature, and be sufficiently comfortable and secure with ourselves that we can hear others. Even if it feels convoluted or binding to open to true listening, by reaching while staying steady, we can better have compassion and recognize the light and humanity in those with whom we disagree. By doing so, ultimately, just as we create greater strength and flexibility by practicing twists, we experience a greater openness of spirit with respect to ourselves and all around us.

This is a big part of my current practice, and perhaps one of the very hardest.   Steadfast commitment to a balance of steadiness and openness makes possible, I think and hope at this point in my practice, radical affirmation of the good in everything.

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    A Senate Majority with 41 Out of 100 (and Maya)

    ByElizabeth

    In classical yoga, the term maya, one of the meanings of which is “illusion,” refers to all of our embodied being — the physical, mental, and emotional.  The perceptible world is not real; only spirit is real.  In the tantric philosophy of Kashmir Shaivism, maya tattva means something different.  Kashmir Shaivism does not hold that the perceptible world is unreal, but rather that it is a more concrete form of spirit and that its very manifestness gives rise to the illusion that it is other than spirit.  Maya, as such, is the beginning of the measurable world of intellect and perception.  In this sense, it does not mean that any aspect of being of either ourselves or the very whole of being is more real than any other.  As maya tattva, it denotes the conceptual bridge between the unknowable idea of spirit and the manifest world of our day to day.  As we think and perceive the world in progressively more concrete terms, we tend to see difference, division, and diversity.  When we see only difference and not the pervading unity of spirit, it is maya, illusion.

    Yesterday, following the election in Massachusetts, the headlines screamed that the Democrats had lost control of the Senate and that health care reform was in jeopardy.  Perhaps the simple arithmetic and vocabulary I learned in elementary school has changed, but last time I checked, 41 out of 100 is not a majority.  It is as though we are hunting for division, for us v. them.  We are looking for ways to create difference and divisiveness.  Would we be more likely to fund health care for all instead of two wars, if we could stop being so bound in the maya that we are not all equally of spirit?  I think so.  In this, I am divided from millions of my fellow voters, who prefer waterboarding to health care, war to building an environmentally sustainable infrastructure, etc. or at least vote that way  In thinking this way, I too am caught up in the web of difference.  How then do I see spirit in all people (regardless of how they vote and what they believe) when I feel so passionately about this divisiveness and all the conflict, destruction, and misery it engenders?  How do I personally (as my own yoga) create less conflict, even while working for what I believe?

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    “Hip Openers for Peace”

    ByElizabeth

    Desiree Rumbaugh, in the afternoon break-out session on hip openers yesterday, referenced the earlier teachings at the gathering on love, and said with a giggle that her class was “hip openers for peace.”

    She shared a story of a teacher having his students create pictures representing peace. He picked two images that best depicted peace. The first was a serene picture of a mirror lake in the mountains (not unlike the tantric yoga principle of using our practice to find in ourselves the mirror of divine spirit). The second was of a barren and craggy landscape with a stormy sky. In a corner of the painting, though, was a nest with a small bird singing. Amidst challenge and chaos, one being living peacefully and joyously. This is why we do yoga, suggested Desiree, to find our own place of peace amidst whatever chaos is life. Noting how challenging hip openers can be for body and mind, especially if our bodies feel tight, she said that the practice can be like the second picture. We want to learn how to feel calm and centered even when we are deeply challenging ourselves on the mat, so we can tap into that place when life gets harder than we think we can bear.

    The technology she offered for finding peace in hip openers was not tricks for stretching, but rather to strengthen the core muscles so that the outer hips and the hamstrings do not need to clench to protect themselves. When the core is powerful (as John Friend would say, “adamantine”) then the outside can soften and be open to what comes. This principle, in my experience and as given by my teachers, holds equally true for facing life and the most challenging of yoga poses.

    Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

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