Some of the paradigms of yoga practice do not resonate with my iconoclastic, Quaker, feminist, progressive self, one of which is the idea of prostrating oneself at the feet of the teacher. I do, nonetheless, choose to study with teachers whom I respect and love.
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.
Where the individual tragedy leads us toward the universal desire for love.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
One of the important principles of yoga practice is viveka — discrimination. The longer and more steadily one practices, the greater ease with which one will find path that leads towards recognition and remembrance of our own light and the light in others. In modern culture, I think one of the critical aspects of practicing viveka is having a healthy doubt and willingness to question claims that consuming certain things will make us happier, or better, or will make the world better. Paying too much attention will probably just create a tangle of intellectual confusion that will not lead to a greater openness of spirit. Learning to listen well to your body and mind and what and how you feel and hear on and off the mat will help you start to know better your body and mind and how they interrelate with all around you, is likely to shift your choices and actions.
It is now fashionable to be “green.” Discerning what that means, though, is where we need to practice discrimination. For example, claims of “natural” foods, “organic” foods, and “green” products are now ubiquitous by companies that are part of the existing Wall Street profit-driven industrial and marketing complex because they think they are money-makers and expect most consumers not to question the claims. We are also seeing more and more articles and stories debunking these claims and calls for regulation so that consumers will understand what is bunk. If we stop and pause, we can probably figure out some of this without reading about the pros and cons. Do you know who is selling it to you? Does it come in packaging with a lot of small print? Is the packaging recyclable? Are shareholder profits critical to the entity selling you the food or garden supplies or other consumer good?
Taking the example of the success of the big companies, small entities are using “green” in their names and advertising without discrimination. Around town I see fairly regularly, landscaping companies with cozy-sounding “green” names. When I watch them working, though, they are using Round-up or other chemical weedkillers, throwing into the trash compostable yard waste, and planting non-native shrubs. They may be making a garden the color green, but they certainly aren’t doing “green” gardening.
Here’s some great information on having a “climate-friendly” garden from the Union of Concerned Scientists. The tips are more helpful for a yard large enough to have a lawn, and do not fully apply for my small patio (though I have a tree in front, don’t leave bare soil, and do not use pesticides or chemical fertilizers. I haven’t yet tried planting winter crops in my containers, but I’ve rearranged the patio so that I have a place for a raised bed (to sit on the brick where the table and chairs once were). This winter, I’m hoping to add the bed and a cold frame to lengthen the growing season.
