The Aptly Named
Giant sunflower.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
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- Art and Culture | Community and Family | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation | Photos
Samsara
The seasons change no matter how humans are behaving. Grieving for all the nameless suffering and for a couple of friends who have died very recently. Please be kind with your tender hearts.
Here’s a bit of beauty.
- Art and Culture | Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Community and Family | Food for the Body | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Gardening | Photos
Earth, Water, Fire, Air, and Ether
We are composed of nothing different than earth, water, fire, air, and space, and much of yoga practice (as are related practices such as ayurveda) is designed to recognize and align our elemental identity. It is human nature to manufacture, just as it is the nature of a beaver to make a dam or a termite to make a mound of mud that displaces what was in its path. Why then is it so common to think of man-made as completely separate from “nature” rather than to recognize the wild and extraordinary creations of humans as an integral part of the complex fabric of being on this planet?
Photos taken on a Thanksgiving trip shared with friends and family: DC to NJ, Cape Cod, and back to NJ before heading home. Without the time on highway and train, I could not have seen so much “nature” in so short a time. Nor, might I add, would I have appreciated being out exposed to the wind and water without the shelter and protection of manufactured goods (including houses, cars, and clothing, etc). This does not mean, of course, that to live better, we should not seek to balance and diminish our consumption of resources for our protection and comfort.
- Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Community and Family | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation | Photos
Teaching Less to Practice More
This morning is the last Saturday in the foreseeable future when, even waking up before dawn, I have to cut short my morning practice to get on the metro to go teach. I have a strong memory of a relatively novice teacher telling me, before I started teaching, that she was going to stop teaching indefinitely because she needed more time for her own practice. At times over the years, when my other job was at its most demanding, I would think about that statement. Mostly, though, I have circumscribed other activities to fit in time for work, teaching, and a full practice.
It came time to admit, though, after nearly two years of steady study with 0Paul Muller-Ortega, which expanded my meditation practice from 25-30 minutes a day, in addition to asana practice and studying, to an hour a day plus additional practices and more studying, that there are not enough hours in a day for all I want to do.
I have been teaching on Saturday mornings for a number of years now. I love my Saturday morning students and have embraced the discipline of getting to class to teach.
The energies have shifted. I will still teach my noon class on Saturday and my weeknight classes, but I will have more time for a full practice and perhaps some extra garden time from this shift. I expect that this time to deeper into my own path will bring new energy and light to my teaching. I hope trust I will see my Saturday morning students at other classes and workshops, both when I am teaching and taking class together at Willow Street.
