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July Greetings–Ultimate Freedom (and Some Free Yoga) (Web Version of E-Newsletter)

ByElizabeth

Dear Friends,

It is Saturday morning of Independence Day weekend.  I have sat for my morning meditation, watered the garden, pet the cats, and done a few errands around the house.  In an hour or so, I will be heading up to Willow Street to teach my noon class.  As I take the time to care for garden, cats, house, and prepare to teach, I have been contemplating the concept of freedom.

In the tantric shaivite tradition, we are taught that one of the key aspects of spirit is svatantriya — ultimate freedom.  We are also taught that we are ourselves inseparable from spirit, just as a drop of ocean water is no less part of the ocean for being a drop.  Spirit chooses, out of its freedom and play (lila) to embody itself in forms that are limited in space and time.  One of our greatest sources of suffering is feeling bound, thinking that we are stuck with who and what we are in the constraints of this mortal body, with all its quirks, forgetting our own auspiciousness.

I could get grumpy about the need to do errands and to teach on a holiday weekend.  I could feel constrained from my usual activities around town by the combination of single-tracking on the Metro and the influx of tourists for the activities on the Mall, the combination of which will likely add an hour’s communiting time to teach today and to do volunteer work in Georgetown tomorrow at the Lantern Bookshop.  I could choose instead to be grateful that I have a house that needs caring, a garden to water, a class that gives me great joy and abiding satisfaction to share the incredible yoga principles that have so enhanced my own life, and volunteer work that I have enjoyed for over 15 years.

I am not going to be telling anyone that we are without limitation, being as we are in time and space.  We are always and perfectly free, however, to choose to turn towards the auspicious, the light, the good, the uplifting, the highest or we can turn away.  We can act in ways that bring us ever more in alignment with spirit , or we can act in ways that take ourselves and that in our orbit farther from the good.  The more we exercise our freedom to turn towards the auspicious, the happier and healthier we will be, regardless of the fact of life in a mortal body.  That choice is our true freedom and the way to our hearts.

To help you experience svatantriya, to choose freedom of heart, there’s nothing better than some free yoga.  The weekend of July 15-17, Willow Street Yoga will be offering it’s summer free class weekend. I’ll be offering gentle/therapeutics at noon on July 16th in Takoma Park.  Preference is giving to new students and to returning students who have brought new students with them.

For July at William Penn House, I’m offering a two-part freebie:  (1) brand new students get first class free; please invite your friends and neighbors; (2) if you are an existing student who brings a new student with you, you get a free class when the new student comes back for a second class.

Have a wonderful Independence Day, however you choose to celebrate and see you soon.
Peace and light,

Elizabeth

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    ByElizabeth

    The other day I mentioned to my students the workshop I will be leading at Willow Street’s Takoma Park Studio on standing balance poses on May 8th.  I received some responses that sounded basically like: “standing poses?  But I am so bad at them.”  “A great reason to go.  You aren’t bad at them if you are present to your fullest whatever you are doing; you just find them more challenging than other poses.  It can be great to work in those areas to try and reveal ease in being challenged,” was my basic reply.

    In keeping with John Friend’s teaching that we come to the mat either to celebrate the fullness of our spirit or to remember its delight when we have forgotten, I think there are two basic reasons to come to a workshop.  The first is going to one where we know it will concentrate on our favorite poses and practices.  We know we will go a little deeper, discovery something new, and have an opportunity to relish our favorites for a solid period of time.  Delightful!

    The second reason is to challenge ourselves intentionally with poses that are difficult for us either physically or emotionally or both.  For me, the mini-arm balances have always been the least accessible.  They push my buttons in all sorts of ways.  I found, though, that when I finally faced my fears and weaknesses and agreed to go to them and discover why for so many of my friends they are naturally joy-inspiring, bliss-exuding postures, my appreciation for the practice as a whole grew immensely.  They still aren’t the “strongest” area of my practice, but because of that in some ways I know them better and can offer more when teaching when than when teaching the poses that I do with less concentrated effort.

    I think we need to rest where it is delightful sometimes.  Always going for the challenge can just give a sense that life is too hard and practice is not worth the effort.  But intentionally studying and practicing from both perspectives is what gives us more ease and light in the full spectrum of being.  Going to a full range of workshops, gives you both in a great way.  I try to take workshops whenever I can. (Reminder for those in town:  April’s Serenity Saturday at Capitol Hill Yoga is next Saturday, April 17th from 3-5–it’s a great way to get some yoga during Willow Street’s break week.)

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    Ether (the Mahabhuta akasha)

    ByElizabeth

    Ether (akasha) is the fifth of the mahabhutas.  In science and perception, it is the space between the other elements, it is that in which the other elements reside.  It is to some degree, the critical element of how we are able to perceive the other elements.  I find focusing on the Anusara alignment principle of “open to grace” is the best way to experience the element of ether in myself.  By softening, opening, and inviting spaciousness, I can better experience the subtle elements and appreciate how it is that I experience them.

    The subtle elements or the panca tanmattras are smell (gandha), taste (rasa), form (rupa), touch (sparsa), and sound (sabda).  The subtle elements are not what we sense (which is composed of the mahabhutas) nor are the tanmattras our sense organs.  Rather the tanmattras are, as it were, the space in which perceptions arise, the ability to be perceived.

    The next sets of elements are the panca karmendriyas, the organs of locomotion, which correspond to how we physically move, digest, and change in the physical world, and the panca jnanendriyas, the organs of perception or cognition, which correspond to our sense organs themselves.  Our movement in and perception of the world bridges the physical elements, the perceptability of the physical world, and ourselves as physical beings, beings who move in the physical world, and beings who perceive the physical world.  All of this, I think of as needing space or residing in space.  As I consciously think of space giving a place for the world, my movement in it, and my perception of it, I become more conscious of consciousness.  The physical practice of “opening to grace” and experiencing the element akasha makes possible for me in my practice knowing or experiencing a greater consciousness.

    To start discovering your own understanding of akasha, try this meditation:  listen to the sounds beyond the room without trying to analyze or change them.  Appreciate how far in space your senses and consciousness can be.  Then bring your attention into the room and hear the sounds in the room.  Then open your ears to the sounds within you — your heart beat, your breath.  Then open to all the sounds (don’t try to change or analyze them), both those physically far away and those within your own body, and be aware of them as all residing within your own consciousness.  Appreciate that your consciousness is as spacious as the world around you and within you.  Rest in the space of consciousness.

    See whether spending a few minutes using this meditation technique helps you when your day has gotten too busy with work, errands, family or other demands.  I find it very helpful.

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    State of the Garden

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    One of the key teachings about yoga sadhana (practice) is that results best or sometimes only can possibly come with steady commitment for a long period of time.

    The red maple in my front garden (really more of a giant tree box) was barely the height of the porch roof when I bought my house.  Now, almost 25 years later, it is as tall as the house.  And even more stunningly, blazingly, Kali-like red every fall.

    red maple

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