Crescent Moon
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
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Probably a Cooper’s Hawk
“Wow!” exclaimed the well-dressed woman who was walking towards the Senate office buildings as I was walking in the opposite direction to the DOL through the park on the North side of the Capitol. We had both paused absolutely still to appreciate the drama of the moment.
A raptor flew in and landed on one of the high tree branches. There were a few warning chirps and calls and then everything froze into stillness and silence. After a few minutes the bird flew off, and gradually the squirrels, sparrows, starlings, etc resumed their usual morning activities.
“Did you notice how every thing became still?” I replied.
“Yes,” said my companion in the moment of appreciation and observation. “It hardly seemed real.”
We then moved on to go about our business, becoming conscious again of the noise of the city as the small animals and birds went back to their usual activities.
I looked it up when I got to work. It was most likely an immature Cooper’s hawk.
I did not even think to photograph the moment lest I disturb it. These are the trees after the fact.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
- Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Community and Family | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation
Found Exhortation (and “Opening to Grace”)
I was contemplating today the Anusara yoga principle of “opening to grace,” one aspect of which I always understood to be seeking to pause and listen in and from a place of luminous spaciousness before acting or responding to what one does or encounters. Ideally, the intentional practice of yoga opens the possibility of doing all this simultaneously and immediately, but most of us need to reduce the speed at which we approach or take in things if we are to experience and engage the fullest and most nuanced relationship with the wild extraordinariness of what is in and around us.
If we move too quickly or push effortfully or immoderately past our limitations, we are at risk, as I have recently reminded myself in a rather clumsy way. When through our own actions or happenstance we are pushed past our healthy capacity, it is time to slow down, to pause, to reflect, to reinvite and reexplore the basics and seek a deeper level of understanding and capability if we are to expand our capacity to live with grace.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
