Discussion of physical aspects of yoga (on and off the mat)
I saw these tools on the sidewalk in the afternoon. They were still there in the evening when I was walking home from teaching at William Penn House.
I wondered how or why someone might abandon, forget, or lose such well-made tools.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
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.
Or instead of or in addition to writing, practice of any kind that feeds and expands your soul.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
For those of you in DC without your own roof, I just received this email (live in another jurisdiction–maybe you can get your state or county to sponsor similar legislation):
Dear ,
DC Solar United Neighborhoods (DC SUN) has been working hard to make solar affordable and accesible to every resident of DC. I’m excited to report that CMs Cheh and Alexander introduced the Community Renewables Act of 2012 on Tuesday. A summary and the full text of the bill is available online at http://www.dccouncil.washington.dc.us/legislation/community-renewables-energy-act-of-2012
If you live in an apartment building, a Condo, a Coop, if you rent or live in a shady area this bill is for you! It will let you own part of a commuity solar array somewhere else in DC and then let you “virtually net meter” the production from that array right to your electric bill. You will be able to buy solar and see your Pepco bill DROP! You will also be able to support local green jobs and help fight climate change! The bill also has really important provisions to support solar in low income households. For more info, a fact sheet and everything you want to know about the bill go to DC SUN website: https://sites.google.com/site/dcsolarunitedneighborhoods/key-issues-and-committees/community-renewable-energy-act-of-2012
We are so excited by this news! If you see Council members Cheh or Alexander say “thanks for taking leadership on Community Solar.” Stay tuned for updates.
Anya
PS: Check out this great radio story on the Community Solar bill– http://wamu.org/news/12/03/08/dc_considers_community_solar_power
My friend Reya blogs that she doesn’t get it–why people don’t get massages on a more regular basis. Assuming one has enough money for the basic necessities of food and shelter, as Reya points out, I don’t get it either. When I tell people that I have been getting massages at least twice a month for the last decade, I get all sorts of reactions, lack of money and time being high on the list. I have had people, including those who claim to otherwise like touching and being touched, tell me that they don’t like getting massages.
What’s not to like about getting a massage from a qualified professional? I think it can be for any number of reasons. Sometimes it is about a deep-seated discomfort with pleasure (and especially the pleasure associated with touch), which is unfortunately all too common in this society (despite the preoccupation with sex). Discomfort with the idea of massage also can be about control.
On the surface, getting a massage is all about being passive, about surrendering physically–albeit in a very benign way. Allowing oneself to be in the role of pure recipient, though, is different than being passive or surrendering control. The person receiving the massage, though not actually doing the touching, is the person in charge (So too, in yoga. The person being assisted in a yoga pose or receiving a therapeutic adjustment is in charge, not the person assisting or making the adjustment; it takes knowing how to be a recipient, though, to know how to offer the assist or adjustment).
Even the most sensitive and compatible of massage therapists will need to be advised how you are doing on any particular day, whether any areas are feeling particularly sensitive, whether you feel the need for healing or energetic shifting in a particular area of your body. It takes a deep sensitivity and listening to the body and the energy field to know not just whether a massage feels good, but what could make it better. For example, because I tend to bruise easily, deep tissue massage generally is not the right type of massage for me. There are times, however, that something really deep needs to be rearranged and deep tissue, or even myofascial release, is the only thing that is going to be able to get at what is knotted or tangled or needs to be released. Sometimes, just about any touch would feel invasive, and then I seek out reiki or other treatment that is more in the energetic than the physical field.
I firmly believe that getting regular massages has truly enhanced my understanding of the physical and energetic body and has made me a far better yoga teacher–especially for students seeking therapeutic guidance from yoga. As well as being a pleasure, receiving a massage is an opportunity to get to know the anatomy and connections of the body at the most sensitive of levels–if one is willing to and does pay attention. And without deeply knowing one’s own body and its relationship to the outside world, including touch, how could one really be sensitive to what might be going on in another’s body?
After a day of teaching and more discussion and emails regarding the upheaval, I had a memory of petting one of the temple cows at Chidambaram. I was jetlagged and in sensory overload, and then I petted a most wonderful cow. I dropped into a space where I was perfectly at peace and unaware of the time and all the things going on around me. This space is always there for us, even in the absence of a sacred cow, and we practice so that we can find it more and more consistently, especially when we are being challenged.
I did not photograph the Chidambaram temple cow, although a nice Indian lady asked me if her husband could photograph the two of us with the cow, so she has a photograph of herself with the strange American lady in a sari who was petting the cow. I stopped to pet many cows after that. In one town, a man told me, as I was scritching a cow between ears and horns, that the cow would enjoy a banana.
Dear Friends,
I hope those of you who are local were able to get out and enjoy the unseasonable warmth and the badly needed rain. After work, I took a most delightful walk in the rain on my way to get a massage. It was still pleasant after the session, but the wind had picked up, and the temperature was falling. I write this as I am getting ready to go into my yoga studio for a long, deep, full restorative practice.
And what better time could there be to relish restorative yoga than when we are seeking to remember the promise of spring while still enjoying the coziness of winter? There is still room tomorrow (Saturday, February 25th) in the workshop at Willow Street:
Finding the Warmth Inside: Relax Into Optimal Alignment with Anusara Restoratives: After a little gentle stretching and self-massage to bring awareness to the breath and body, we will enjoy the exquisite application of Anusara’s Universal Principles of Alignment to restful and supported restorative postures to release old patterns and invite in the new to find greater ease of body and mind. A great workshop and practice for all levels.
Peace and light,
Elizabeth
To be able to see (and be grateful).
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
I thought about not posting this because of the lack of parallel construction, and then decided the grammatical flaw was outweighed by the message. Just infer the word “have” before faith. 🙂
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.