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Boy Leading a Horse

ByElizabeth

Last weekend, I went with a friend to see The Steins Collect at the Metropolitan Museum.  I made a special effort to see the exhibit because of the incredible impact on art and culture that the Steins had by virtue of their collecting.  Many of the paintings in the exhibit were familiar; I’d seen them before either at the Met for those from its own collection, at other museums, or in books.  Some, which have ended up in other private collections or in the collections of museums that I have not visited, were completely new to me.

Among the paintings in the exhibit is Picasso’s Boy Leading a Horse (which, as you can see from the link, the MOMA website currently indicates as “not on view”).  I’ve seen the painting many times before at MOMA.  The shift of location and context shook up my perceptions of the painting, and I indicated that to my friend.  Another woman who was looking at the painting too engaged in the conversation.  “It seems wrong here,” she said.  “It’s a different view,” I replied.  “It is disconcerting, but seeing it in different light, context, and company is enabling me to see new things in the painting and to find a more enhanced appreciation.”

I have been thinking this week, and talking about it in my classes, how a change of context can bring us new vision.  How often, when things just keep going in a set pattern, do they collect dust and cobwebs (literally or figuratively)?  I asked my therapeutic students whether they had preconceived notions about various challenges of embodiment, especially the chonic ones.  Do you see them as part of your identity, something that causes you pain instead of giving you the joy of movement?  What if you embraced being ever more conscious of alignment instead of being conscious of pain and limitation (and learning better and sooner when you cannot get out of injury without outside help)?

What of it?  What of the change of perspective?  After all, things get rearranged for us and the dissolution can be gradual or violent or something of both and be something of greater or lesser magnitude.   Times of flux and dissoluti9on are the perpect time for questioning, for new vision, for discovering new ways to experience what had become too familiar, for seeing how one might wish to shift one’s own perspective for the good, to know and take responsibility for one’s own place and piece of this relationship to whatever it is that is shifting, dispersing, or dissolving., to seek to become unbound from the habitual binds of whatever invisible clothing we might be wearing.

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    Different Ways of Turning Your World Upside Down

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    Yesterday at the William Penn House class, we were emphasizing strong working of our tailbones.  One of the regular students came to class even though she was still exhausted from recent and sudden major loss and upheaval in her life.  She wanted to be with the spirit of the class even if she would not be able to do everything.

    When we went to the wall to work on half and full arm balance, I advised her to give it a try if she felt up to it and then said to do legs up the wall if she knew trying to hold the arm balance would be too much.  After all, I pointed out, legs up the wall (vipariti karani) is just half handstand upside down.  And what is awesome about both the poses is that the both turn us upside down (albeit in energetically different ways) and can thus help give us a fresh perspective on how we are in our bodies and minds.

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    Holiday Schedule and Greetings (Web Version of E-Newsletter)

    ByElizabeth

    Dear  Friends,

    Best wishes to all whatever your holidays are bringing and however you might be celebrating.  I write this in the midst of days full with preparing for my much anticipated travel to India with Professor Douglas Brooks, where I will experience among other amazing things, the temple at Chidambaram, where the idea of Shiva as the Cosmic Dancer first arose, seeing friends and family before I leave, and taking care of all manner of things at work and home so that things will be in as much order as possible both while I am gone and when I return.

    I typically make the holidays a quiet time.  I enjoy going to a few choice parties and visiting with friends and spending a few days in New York visiting family and exploring museum exhibits and delicious meals, but mostly I use it as time for introspection and refreshment.  I process what has happened over the year and get myself and my house and papers ready for a new year of working and teaching and creating.  I practice and rest.  I take exquisitely long and contemplative walks and write and photograph.  When I have spent the holiday season in this way, come the first of January, I feel ready for whatever might come.   I know that my general health and emotional well-being are definitely enhanced by consistent daily yoga and meditation practice, regular sleep and wellness activities, such as massage, keeping a beautiful and clean home, and eating healthy meals that come in part from my garden, and the holiday season is enhanced for me by honoring my regular practices and health needs.

    By choosing to go on an adventure, with the amount of energy I will need to expend to be open to the outragious influx of sensory input and information and to weather the challenges of travel (including a nine-hour time difference) and to get back to work immediately on my arrival in the middle of of a week in which I already have a known deadline, I can be fairly certain that the comforting, well-rested feeling to which I have become accustomed from the holiday break will not be how I start 2012.  In this sense, going on this trip is willfully ignoring and disrupting all that I know keeps me on an even keel.  Sometimes, though, we just have to intentionally shake ourselves up to see what ways we can expand and how much.  Such shake-ups not only open us up to new possibilities and ways of thinking, but they also help us get ready for the invevitable upheavals in life whose exact timing and nature we cannot control.  My holiday blessing is that the shake-up is one I have chosen, that comes when I am healthy and secure, and that will no doubt provide much fuel for growth and creativity.  I definitely am looking forward to bringing home new insights and energies to share with you in the new year, perhaps even the seeds for the first art exhibit in many years.

    I wish you all peace, health, and joy through the holidays and the new year.  To those of you who are currently dealing with extra challenges of embodiment, please know that I am holding you in the light and will be sending beams of healing energy from abroad.

    For everyone, here are the yoga offerings for the holidays and the beginning of 2012:

    No coincidence, my trip is at exactly the same time as Willow Street is closed for Winter Break, and I won’t be missing any of my Saturday noon gentle/therapeutic classes.  The class is continuing in the Winter Session (registration is now open) and I hope to see friends both returning and new signed up for the session.  For Willow Street free class week, I will be leading a gentle/therapeutics class on Saturday, January 7th to welcome those new to yoga, the class, or to Willow Street to all the healing potential of Anusara yoga.  Free class week is a great way to get to class for the first time that curious friend or family member with whom you have been wanting to share the wonders of yoga.

    I know lots of you will be wanting the yoga during the holiday period, so I’ve invited two guest teachers for the Tuesday night William Penn House class.  Meridian Ganz-Ratzat will be leading the class on Tuesday, December 20th, and Anna Karkovska McGlew will be leading on Tuesday, January 3rd.  They are awesome teachers, so come check out the classes, even if you haven’t been to the William Penn House class before.

    There will be no rose garden yoga classes between Christmas and New Year, but check out the great array of holiday offerings that week at Willow Street Yoga to celebrate the transition from 2011 to 2012.  I’ll be back to neighborhood classes, starting with the house class on Wednesday, January 4th, and hope to see you at William Penn House in the new year.

    Thinking ahead for ways to sweeten your 2012 schedule or looking for a great holiday gift to give that enhances health and a celebration of life, but doesn’t result in more stuff being manufactured?  Give the gift of the ultimate nurturing yoga to yourself, friends, and family, with a registration for “Finding the Warmth Inside: Relax Into Optimal Alignment with Anusara Restoratives,” Saturday, February 25, 2012, 2:30 PM – 5:00 PM, Willow Street, Takoma Park studio, $35.00, click to Register Online.  Suitable for all levels.

    I look forward to seeing many of you at my regular neighborhood and Willow Street classes and at workshops in the new year.  Much love and many blessings.
    Peace and light,

    Elizabeth

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