Author: Elizabeth

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    Spring Cleaning (and Path of Sadhana)

    ByElizabeth

    For the past couple of weeks, I have been spending as much time as possible in the garden.  When it is too rainy or cold to be in the garden, I have been doing indoor spring cleaning.  As the days get noticeably brighter and longer, it is delightful to see the new growth in the garden and to polish my treasures and make room to use and enjoy what I have.  I’ve been noticing how the first major activities in the garden make a mess.  Inside, activities such as cleaning out the refrigerator and the closets also makes things seem messier before they they get cleaner.  I’ve persisted, though, and now the garden is teeming with visible new life, unencumbered by the detritus of dead growth on the perennials or spent annuals from last year.  With things I do not need given away or repurposed and things clean and repaired, I can more easily use and appreciate what I have in the house.  It seemed like quite a mess for a while, though, when I was taking things off of shelves and out of drawers and closets in preparation for cleaning.

    There can be phases in our sadhana –both asana practice and meditation and related practices — where all the practice seems to be doing is bringing up old stuff.  It seems like we are more physically or emotionally challenged than we would have been if we weren’t practicing. The thought may cross our mind that we would be happier just going to the movies and going on an eating tour of Italy.

    Although sometimes strong reactions can mean that a practice is not right for us (at a certain point in time or not at all — similar to a reaction to food), it can also mean that the practice is doing the equivalent of spring cleaning.  Part of sadhana is learning how to react in a more optimal way to what manifests and arises from our practice.  When a host of old memories or emotions arise or we press up against our limits by digging in deep physically to find where and how to rearrange our bones, muscles, sinews, and energy channels to clear an old injury, we have an opportunity to clear out and let go to make room for new growth.  We don’t have to shove the stuff back into our mind-body closet or leave it where it obstructs new growth.  The old patterns and memories come up in practice so we can either release them or change our relationship to them so they can become something that serves instead of weighing us down.

    When I get into one of those messy spots, I remind myself how good I feel when I’ve done my spring cleaning, and I try to keep going forward, doing the best I can with the teachings I’ve been given.  I admit that it is easier to persist because I love the actual activity of the practices (though the ones I need to do most can be the ones that are not my favorite, but that’s a whole other train of thought).

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    Ignorance is Bliss Only If You Do Not Care What Happens the Welfare of All Beings (Do You Know How Your Tax $$ Are Spent?)

    ByElizabeth

    If you are a true renunciate yogi, then the horsemen of the apocolypse don’t phase you.  The ultimate bliss is leaving your body anyway.  For those of us who are engaged in the world, care about what we eat, care where we live, care about the well-being of family and friends, then learning, understanding, and acting — knowing of course that we can control that and how we act, but not the outcome — is a critical part of a tantric yoga life.

    It’s great to know how to place one’s hands for optimal alignment in downward-facing dog, but do you know how your tax dollars are spent?  Here’s a little overview worth sharing widely.  And perhaps it will make all that noise in Washington about the budget and the debt ceiling seem a little more important.  Check out the “People’s Budget,” which enhances domestic programs, increases participation in paying for our society by the rich, and decreases defense spending and military action.

    And then I highly recommend standing on your head or balancing on your hands or otherwise going upside-down, getting twisted, and knowing that the practice will help you stay sane and steady and able to act.

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    Rosa’s Pizza (and a Planned Trip to India)

    ByElizabeth

    Rosa’s Pizza is on the Long Island Railroad level of Penn Station.  To my best recollection, it has been there since before I started taking the LIRR regularly in the early 1970s, and I still go there occasionally when I connect through Penn Station to visit my parents a few times a year.  Rosa’s makes an eggplant slice that tastes like eggplant parmigiana on decent pizza crust.  Yup, it’s got cow dairy and gluten and lots of fat, but it is one of those foods that is so strongly associated with both place and belonging for me that it gives me great delight to eat it once or twice a year.

    When I was meditating yesterday morning, I had a vision of myself jet-lagged and groggy from landing in JFK and taking the train from the airport to Penn Station to head home after two and a half weeks of a study tour led by Professor Douglas Brooks of Tamil Nadu (including Chidambaram), which I am planning to do at the winter holidays.  In this meditation moment, I was ecstatically happy to be eating an eggplant slice from Rosa’s after taking my seat on Amtrak. I enjoyed the moment and then let go of this reverie to slip deeper into meditation.

    At work, I told a friend of mine about this vision.  He said that was not the right approach to a trip to India — shouldn’t I be eagerly anticipating what I would experience in India itself?  I begged to differ.  The excitement and anticipation of what I will see and experience and learn is a given.  It was sweet to have pierce my meditation how happy I will be to return home.  It helps me remember that for all the ups and downs of my choices, I am comfortable enough with them to be finding meditative bliss in the idea of something that is part of “home.”

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    Letter from Friends Committee on National Legislation on Budget Priorities

    ByElizabeth

    Wanted to share with all of you the text (plus link) of an email I received today from FCNL:

    Here in Washington, everyone agrees that the current level of federal budget deficits is unsustainable. Our FCNL policy is that – with a few exceptions – government should take in sufficient revenue to cover the nation’s needs.  But as our lawmakers debate how to cut the deficit, we need to insist on truth telling; a serious consideration of all federal spending, including the Pentagon’s budget; and open discussion about priorities. Contact your representative today.

    take actionThe plan that the House leadership offers for a vote on Friday fails that test. The plan proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan (WI) reduces the $15 trillion federal budget debt by about $155 billion over 10 years – that’s a drop in the ocean. This plan “saves money” by transferring resources from programs that assist people with low and moderate incomes to wealthy individuals and corporations.

    Rep. Ryan’s plan, according to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, would cut $4.3 billion in federal spending – two-thirds of that directed at programs for people of low and moderate incomes. The plan would then give $4.2 billion of that sum away in tax cuts that benefit primarily wealthy individuals and corporations.

    We at FCNL want Congress to be serious about federal government spending, which means looking at ALL expenditures and balancing priorities. Cutting waste, fraud and abuse makes good sense. The place to start  is with Pentagon spending. Fair and adequate taxes and other government programs should also be examined.

     

    Take Action

    Urge your representative to reject the Ryan budget and to support efforts to make at least $100 billion a year in cuts to the Pentagon budget, as recommended by the Sustainable Defense Task Force.

    Ask 5 friends to contact their representative too.

     

    Find Out More

    Who says we can and should cut Pentagon spending? The answer may surprise you.

    The Sustainable Defense Task Force outlined how nearly $1 trillion could be cut from the Pentagon budget over the next 10 years. Read the summary and share it with others in your community.

    Read the analysis of Rep. Ryan’s budget that was done by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

    Find out more about the Our Nation’s Checkbook campaign to shift money from the military budget to advance other priorities.

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    A Good Place to Sit

    ByElizabeth

    I came out briefly to sit and contemplate and write in my journal before a staff meeting at lunch time (no lunch provided).

    The Scott Burton chairs in the National Sculpture Garden are one of the more delightful places to sit outside near my office.

    First, I was joined by several birds. Then some tourists came along. The one with all the jewels sat down at the direction of her friend in orange for a photo. “We’re not allowed to sit here,” the sitter said with a little glee in her voice.

    I directed her to the sign near the seats giving permission. This led the photographer both to sit down with her friend, but also to lose any real interest in taking the photograph.

    What was it about the loss of transgressiveness that made the photo less desirable? The chairs are the same whether permitted or not. In fact, with sitting permitted, there is more time to explore fully their function as chair as well as their form as art.

    This set me wondering about how much our desires are driven by social ideas, rather than needs and comforts.

    A father and his son approach the chairs fro the other direction. After reading the sign giving permission to sit, they promptly sat down. The bare statement “granite chairs,” was all that was said before they got back up and went on they’re way.

    Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

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    April Greetings–Delving into the Essential (Web Version of E-Newsletter)

    ByElizabeth

    Dear Friends,

    It has been a mind-boggling several weeks.  The magnitude of the upheavals and the impact on all of the world, including human beings, is beyond my ability to grasp.  Closer up than the unfolding devastation in Japan and the escalating war in Libya, which daily adds to the bankrupting of this country and planet by our wars, I found myself supporting committed organizations, signing petitions, and writing emails saying that I preferred to be locked out of my work place with no pay than to have taken away any existing protection of the environment or provision health care for low income women.  As my mind tries to expand enough to stay present and active, I am more grateful every day to have and share the practice of yoga.

    Practicing helps us minimize suffering by changing how we relate to pain and the full range of human emotion.  The goal, I think, is to fully and joyously engage in life with an intention to live as harmoniously as possible with all beings, including our individual selves, and simultaneously appreciate and be wonderstruck at the extraordinary and wild vastness of being that makes the time and space of the known universe seem finite relative to life (lives) on earth.  When we can find both perspectives simultaneously, then we can be engaged, but not attached (vairagya).

    How do we focus this intention to live fully and harmoniously in this way?    In the past six weeks, I have had the unbelievably fortuitous combination of circumstances to be able to study with John Friend for three days; to attend the Mahasivaratri celebration with Douglas Brooks, Krishna Das, John Friend, Amy Ippoliti, and Sianna Sherman; Ross Rayburn for a weekend workshop at Willow Street;; Desiree Rumbaugh at a special three-hour practice the following week at Willow Street; and Paul Muller-Ortega via telephone conference.

    Wow, that was a whole lot of input for my practice and contemplation, while living itself was getting more intense.  But, it turned out not to be too much because of the singularity of the teachings.  The message I heard from all of these teachers in their own unique and inspiring voices was that is is a good time to get down to get back to basics, or to put it another way, to explore more deeply the essential principles of practice (and of life).  By getting back to the basics in the practice, we can start knowing at a deeper level what is essential for us to relate as deeply and joyously and non-harmingly (yes, I know it isn’t a word, but I’d like it if it were) on and off the mat to ourselves and all in our web of relationship.

    In both my practice and my public class offerings, this Spring, I am especially focused on exploring what is essential to experience life at its most joyous while still be conscious and committed to the need for effort to change.  In addition to continuing my regular class offerings, I am pleased to be offering a short course in restorative yoga at Willow Street, “Cultivating Relaxation with Restorative Yoga.”

    Restorative yoga is perfect whether you are looking for a gentler way to get started with yoga, an opportunity to relax, or alternative practices for when you are feeling stiff or in pain, or a way for advanced practitioners to explore the alignment principles at the subtlest levels. We will explore a variety of types of supported postures and prop-assisted stretches to enable you to relax into optimal alignment, discover your own space of deep rest and peacefulness, and open your body. The course will also offer simple techniques to ease into sleep, find mini-relaxation moments when things are hectic, and sweeten your home practice–what could be of better service these days?  Everybody welcome. 6 Thursdays, 4/21-5/26.

    To get news in between the occasional email offerings or to see my latest short thoughts, please “like” my new “Rose Garden Yoga” page on Facebook.

    I look forward to seeing you in person soon.  As always, please feel comfortable being in touch by comment on the blog or by email.
    Peace and light,

    Elizabeth

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    Uncertainty

    ByElizabeth

    Like the financial markets, I historically do not respond well to uncertainty, even when nothing bad has yet happened. To have the government shutdown looming (and all the preparations to be forced off the work place next week) in the midst of the escalation of war, chaos following natural disasters, and looming threats to the environment and most of what I hold dear socio-politically is pushing my buttons.

    This morning, as I rose from my morning meditation, refreshed and ready for the day, I reminded myself of the absolute certainty that as long as I am conscious, I can meditate. And as long as I can meditate, I have a space of peace, beauty, vibrancy available to me. That is a wonderful certainty indeed in these uncertain times.

    Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

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    What Do You See?

    ByElizabeth

    What do you first notice when you look at this photo? What do you notice next? Do you find yourself making aesthetic judgments or comparisons? What about moral judgments?

    Is it possible truly to witness without judgment? To see the good (or at least the potential for good) in everything, even if it does not please us or fit in with how we would like the world to be?

    Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.