Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice

Discussion of physical aspects of yoga (on and off the mat)

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    Happy May Day (and radical affirmation)

    ByElizabeth

    It feels wonderfully auspicious to me that my Spring classes at Willow Street are starting on May Day.  It is Beltane–the true end of winter and the beginning of the effulgence of the time of growth and light.  It is May Day–the mark of a shift in power from the oppressors to the once oppressed, now freed (I’m not going to get into whether that really worked as planned).  It is a time of tradition at my alma mater; the sophomores wake the seniors with strawberries and champagne, enjoying celebration and revelry (dancing around May poles and the like) as they get ready to take their final exams.  Today is Kentucky Derby; I remember a party where the fact I had mint in my garden for the juleps started a fabulous passion.

    The potential for delight, for freedom, for fullness is always with us.  For me, yoga helps me find it and recognize it.  The longer I practice, the more richness it offers.  This Spring session I will be focusing on radical affirmation of the potential in ourselves so that we can recognize and reveal it.  Much more on that to come; for now, I must head to the metro to go teach.

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    The Nyaya of the Cat and the Bunny

    ByElizabeth

    A nyaya is literally a recursion, something which leads back to an essential principle.  In my recent studies of meditation, we have been taught various nyayas that help to explicate the experience of meditation and the whys and benefits of steady practice.

    At the place where we have been staying for our meditation and study retreats with Paul Muller-Ortega, there is a wonderful cat named Oberon.  I first met him last summer when I was walking the labyrinth just before dawn.  I’d heard a meow off in the distance.  Lonely for cat company since my Becky had so recently left her body, I called to the cat.  He came running to me and walked the labyrinth with me.  Each time I have visited, I have had some special moments with Oberon, who lives fully up to his name — Oberon being the King of the Faeries.

    Oberon loves the meditation hall and often tries to get in.  He also brings offerings.  Last winter, he brought us a mostly dead bird.  As well intended as it might have been on Oberon’s part, it was not particularly welcomed in the meditation hall.  On the final night of our retreat this time, we were reveling in the good fortune of having fellow students (and my sometimes teachers and the creators of many CDs in my music collection) Heather and Benjy Wertheimer lead us in kirtan.  At one point, I left my place to go to the facilities.  A fellow student, stopped me, “Elizabeth, the cat has a really big mouse.”  I went to look.  Oberon did not have a mouse; he had a young bunny.  “It’s a bunny I said.”  The other students who were outside were horrified.

    Without thinking, I went to him, “Oberon, drop it!” I said, as if it were appropriate to speak to the King of the Faeries as if he were an obedient dog.  He listened though and dropped the bunny, which remained frozen.  I held Oberon by the scruff of the neck.  “Go bunny; bunny run,” I said, but the bunny did not move.  I then tapped the bunny on his back at the tail.  The bunny remained frozen, though it did not appear yet to be injured.  I let go of Oberon and went to get a towel or something to pick up the bunny.  Then Oberon tapped the bunny just where I had touched it.  Off ran the bunny through the shoes neatly piled outside the meditation hall.  I caught Oberon and picked him up.  The bunny again froze, looking back at us.  At this point I was completely oblivious to anything other than the cat and the bunny.  “Bunny run; go now.”  Oberon squirmed, but did not scratch me, letting me continue to hold him.  Finally, the bunny ran off into the scrub and disappeared.  I put down Oberon.  He sniffed the trail, but then came back to me for a petting when I called.  “Thank you for the offering Oberon; I know it was well intentioned, but we are not so keen on bringing dead baby animals into the meditation hall.”  He sniffed, lifted his regal head, and sat down to wash.

    Leaving aside what my actions may have done to the fabric of the world order and the pondering I could do about the interrelationship between destiny and free will, I felt that I had been given a wonderful lesson about life and practice. Practice can bring us great freedom if we stay steady on the path.  Like the bunny, though, we can stay frozen in fear and old patterns, even when we are given a glimpse of the freedom of self we can get from practice.  As dire as things may be (or perhaps even when they are at their worst), we return to the familiar, regardless of whether we are unhappy with it, regardless of how old patterns are limiting our ability to grow.  Sometimes it is dissatisfaction with and pain from the old patterns themselves (revealed more clearly by practice already begun) that push us to go further, just as it took Oberon getting the bunny to run again for me to realize he was sufficiently healthy to be able to run off.  And just as I stayed with Oberon and the bunny until the bunny finally took his chance at freedom, the practice and the truths and freedom practice can reveal will always be there.  No matter how many times we forget or return to the stuck and the familiar, the opportunity for growth and freedom continues to await.

    When I am feeling stuck, when I am finding myself returning to patterns that do not serve, I will think about my own personal nyaya of the cat and the bunny.  I hope it will serve to keep me moving forward, less stuck, less attached to the familiar that no longer serves.

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    May News (Web Version of E-Newsletter)

    ByElizabeth

    Dear  Friends,

    What a glorious Spring we’re having! I’ve just returned from an expanding, nurturing, and deepening time of study in Sedona with meditation teacher Paul Muller-Ortega.  Later in May, I will join fellow certified Anusara yoga teachers in North Carolina to be with John Friend.  Making sure to continue to study and gather with fellow yogis provides ever increasing appreciation of the benefits of practice and enhanced delight for the community.

    May Day (May 1) is the first day for my Spring Session classes at Willow Street:  Level 2 @ 8:30 am and Gentle/Therapeutics @ noon.  Both are in the Takoma Park studio.  While session registration is optimal, you are always welcome to drop in, whether you want to rock out in level 2 or get some healing and nurturing energy in Gentle/Therapeutics.

    The William Penn House class continues to have the special $12 offering for public interest workers (broadly inclusive), students, seniors, and those in-between gigs ($15 for those who can afford it).  Come join this collegial group 6:30 pm every Tuesday evening.  A portion of the proceeds goes to benefit the work of William Penn House.

    Looking to strengthen your practice:  join me for Standing Steady in the Light: A Standing Balance Workshop, Sat May 8, 2:30-5pm, Willow Street Yoga Center, Takoma Park, $35.  Find a place of deeper steadiness and balance in your own light and worthiness.  Learn how to use the Anusara principles to enhance your ability to stand or your own two feet or on just one foot at a time.  After we playfully explore a progressively expansive array of standing poses, we’ll finish with a few upside-down restorative postures to let our legs and feet feel the bright light created by the practice.  Whether you find standing poses a challenge or revel in the dance, this workshop will illuminate your practice.  Everybody welcome.  To register, please visit www.willowstreetyoga.com.

    As always, please take the time to enjoy and comment on the blog and if you haven’t already done so, friend me on Facebook for the latest news, photos, and quotes.

    Looking forward to seeing you soon.
    Peace and light,

    Elizabeth

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    Coming Home from Retreat (and Savasana)

    ByElizabeth

    How do you plan your return home from a retreat or vacation?  Do you come home at the very last minute, so that the travel is exhausting and the first day back at work is a struggle?  Or do you plan to have a day — or at least several hours — to unpack, make sure you have fresh food to eat, and have brought the feeling of vacation back into your home life before getting back to work?

    When I was studying on retreat in Arizona, Paul Muller-Ortega took particular pains to emphasize the importance of doing savasana for at least a few minutes after sitting for meditation for a “slow re-entry.”  Without the resting time in between practicing/adventuring/celebrating/retreating and working, it is like eating a loaf of bread right out of the oven, rather than giving it at least 10-15 minutes to rest.  Right out of the oven, the is too hot and the texture is not right, and we cannot taste how good it is.  Give it a chance to rest, and it is exquisitely hot and fresh and perfect.

    We need to rest, to reintegrate, to settle or we can feel like there is no point in going on vacation.  How many people do you know (perhaps you have said this yourself) who say there is no point in going on vacation because it just makes work harder on return?  When I take a shorter vacation/rest/retreat to account for reintegration time, and then fully reintegrate, the rejuvenating properties of getting away definitely last longer.

    I returned very late Sunday night.  Yesterday I practiced at home, did my laundry, cleaned the yoga room, petted the cats, had a massage, did a little reading, cooked delicious food (homemade granola, kitcheree, greens from the garden), and went to sleep early.  Now I am off to work, seeking to bring what I learned into my day.

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    Azalea Walk at the National Arboretum (and Sadhana)

    ByElizabeth

    As it is every year, the Azalea Walk at the National Arboretum fills me with joy and wonder.  “Was it really this splendid last year?” one of my companions asked.  “I go every year,” she said, “but I forget how gorgeous it is!” She comes back each year to remember the beauty and the awe.  So, too, it can be with our practice.  We stop going to class or practicing our meditation or asana for a while because we get too busy.  Then we come back, and we ask ourselves how we could have forgotten the joy and beauty a steady practice brings us, and we are inspired to commit again.

  • Serenity Saturday tomorrow (4/17)

    ByElizabeth

    Today it is going to reach a high of 84F and the pollen count is off the charts.  Tomorrow there will be a high in the low 60s.  Whatever the temperature, whichever your natural preference or aversion, find rest, solace, and delight in two blissful hours of restoratives at tomorrow’s Serenity Saturday at Capitol Hill Yoga from 3pm-5pm.  Register on-line or just show up and pay at the door.

  • Why Take a Yoga Workshop

    ByElizabeth

    The other day I mentioned to my students the workshop I will be leading at Willow Street’s Takoma Park Studio on standing balance poses on May 8th.  I received some responses that sounded basically like: “standing poses?  But I am so bad at them.”  “A great reason to go.  You aren’t bad at them if you are present to your fullest whatever you are doing; you just find them more challenging than other poses.  It can be great to work in those areas to try and reveal ease in being challenged,” was my basic reply.

    In keeping with John Friend’s teaching that we come to the mat either to celebrate the fullness of our spirit or to remember its delight when we have forgotten, I think there are two basic reasons to come to a workshop.  The first is going to one where we know it will concentrate on our favorite poses and practices.  We know we will go a little deeper, discovery something new, and have an opportunity to relish our favorites for a solid period of time.  Delightful!

    The second reason is to challenge ourselves intentionally with poses that are difficult for us either physically or emotionally or both.  For me, the mini-arm balances have always been the least accessible.  They push my buttons in all sorts of ways.  I found, though, that when I finally faced my fears and weaknesses and agreed to go to them and discover why for so many of my friends they are naturally joy-inspiring, bliss-exuding postures, my appreciation for the practice as a whole grew immensely.  They still aren’t the “strongest” area of my practice, but because of that in some ways I know them better and can offer more when teaching when than when teaching the poses that I do with less concentrated effort.

    I think we need to rest where it is delightful sometimes.  Always going for the challenge can just give a sense that life is too hard and practice is not worth the effort.  But intentionally studying and practicing from both perspectives is what gives us more ease and light in the full spectrum of being.  Going to a full range of workshops, gives you both in a great way.  I try to take workshops whenever I can. (Reminder for those in town:  April’s Serenity Saturday at Capitol Hill Yoga is next Saturday, April 17th from 3-5–it’s a great way to get some yoga during Willow Street’s break week.)

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    Sukha (the why of sequencing and the foster cats)

    ByElizabeth

    Last week, I used as a theme sukha — ease, comfort, happiness.  I was inspired by Lorin Roche’s discussion of translating in his “version” of the Vijnana Bhairava, which he entitles “The Radiance Sutras.”  In it he notes that “[e]ven more literally, sukha is (according to some etymologies) composed of su, good + kha, space.  A good space.”  At first blush, teaching about sukha might seem to be off-topic from my session theme of sequencing principles.  The whole purpose, though, of seeking to understand, practice, and optimize our sequencing in time and space on and off the mat is to find just that.  It is to be in a “good space,” to feel at ease, whether we are being challenged or delighted.

    I found myself contemplating sukha yet further this week (it is a recurring practice and contemplation theme for me — I love Patanjali’s sutra “sthiram sukham asanam”), as I have been observing and helping the foster cats make mine their new home.  When we are uprooted or out of alignment, we are not in a good space.  It is a struggle to feel happy or at ease.  When we find our rhythm again, then ease unfolds.

    There is a set of principles that generally works for taking uprooted animals (or people) and helping them feel at home.  Part of making them at home is their new person holding him/herself in a “good space” for the newcomers, which indeed helps them find their own, which is its own yoga.

    The blessing of yoga for us, and why we take ourselves to challenging difficult places on the mat, is so that we can, by use of intelligent sequencing of practices, techniques, and mindsets, discover how to feel connected to our own spirit wherever we are in time and space — the essence of ease in this body and mind.  The more we can do this for ourselves, the more we can do it for others.

  • The Green Film of Pollen (and how yoga can help)

    ByElizabeth

    With the spell of hot, sunny weather, the tree pollen has arrived.  Everything is covered in a haze of green.  It is beautiful in its own way.  Even if one is not particularly allergic, though, the sheer density of the pollen, coupled with the degraded air quality from car emissions and other city pollution without any cleansing rains, can make it hard to breathe easily.  You may have noticed that you are feeling especially sluggish.  I do not have significant seasonal allergies, but when there is this much pollen, we are all breathing in a lot of particulate matter, and I notice I am fatigued for no apparent reason.  That by itself is a challenge.

    What can you do to feel better?  Listen to your body.  You may feel a need, after our long, snowy winter, to get out and run and play, but take it a little slowly.  Drink lots of water, juice, and herbal tea to flush out your system.  Use a neti pot to clear the pollen out of your sinuses so that it doesn’t stay there bothering them.

    Do cleansing practices.  Kapalabhati can be especially effective.  Make sure to use ujayi breathing while doing your poses.  I find that the action of channeling the breath with ujayi makes it much easier to breathe through the nose.  Incorporate some extra twists into your practice for their cleansing action.  Instead of giving up your practice because of allergy symptoms and fatigue and choosing to just lie around, make the effort to set up some restorative poses.  I find supported twists for the cleansing effect and supported backbends, which expand the area of the heart and lungs, making it easier to breathe, feel especially good.

    It may be hard, but instead of looking at the green film and your dirty tissues, notice the beauty burgeoning around you.  The flowering and leafing trees, the greening grass, the proliferation of flowering bulbs and bushes are extraordinary.  Where we put our attention is what we feel and experience the most.

    ps Using cloth handkerchiefs and napkins instead of paper and just throwing them in with your other laundry, will make breathing easier in the long run if enough of us do it.  Fewer trees killed.  Less pollution.  Better air.

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    A Slow Metro Ride, A Missed Yoga Class, and Meditations on the Costs of War

    ByElizabeth

    Yesterday I wrote to my DC elected officials and to the budget office to let them know how important it is to me that local municipalities fully fund public transportation, as the budget year comes to a close.  Metro officials are threatening to close down many bus lines entirely, which will mean that far too many people will be unable to get to work, especially for low-paying jobs.  Hundreds of workers are scheduled to  be laid off, which means (as an icy cold budgetary matter — the budget after all being a moral document) that they will need services and no longer will be paying taxes.  Disrepair, injuries, and accidents will become even more prevalent, and service will be slowed at already overtaxed and overcrowded times.  Our air quality will go from yellow/orange to orange/red from the increase in gridlocked traffic.  I discussed the issue and the urgency of making our voices heard with several co-workers today.

    I left the office at 5:40 pm this evening to go to take Suzie Hurley’s 6:15pm class at Willow Street, Takoma, Park.  I was standing on a metro train at 5:46pm.  The ride is supposed to take 13 minutes from Judiciary Square metro.  We reached Takoma Park at 6:27pm.  I went over to the studio when I arrived.  If the door was open, I would have looked in and caught Suzie’s eye and quietly seen whether I could slip in.  The door was closed, and I could hear that the class had already started doing standing poses.  Under circumstances where being late is clearly not my fault (and I try to avoid those by being willing to be early if it turns out the travel has been optimally sequenced), I will join the class just after centering and before the asanas begin.  As much as I would have liked to have taken a yoga class after the slow metro ride, I felt that I shouldn’t risk disturbing the other students by coming so late.  I instead will be doing a long, deep, slow, inward-moving practice when I am finished writing, corresponding, getting ready for practice and sleep, and doing some preparations for tomorrow’s work day.

    In my growing acceptance that I would be arriving too late to Takoma to take class, I thought about the email I had received earlier in the day about the Friends Committee on National Legislation’s “Our Nation’s Checkbook” campaign.  The email reminded me that a third of my tax dollars are being spent on war.  “What about investing in green jobs, preventing more home foreclosures, and funding diplomacy to prevent wars?” I was asked.  “What about public transportation,” I thought, as I sat on the stationary train between stations.  “How many trains could be operated efficiently and safely for each fighter aircraft?”

    How do I want to live?  What are my priorities?  When does short-sightedness or immediate personal satisfaction impact my long-term health and happiness and peaceful co-existence on a crowded planet?  For what purposes do I practice?  How would I like to invite others to live?

    The ride home, of course, had nary a problem.  A train arrived in under five minutes.  The ride back to Union Station was exactly 11 minutes.  Everyone had a seat, and the car was nearly full,  so it was at perfect capacity.  It was still light, and lots of people were out because of the balmy night and the beauteous blossoms, and I felt safe strolling home instead of taking the bus.  What a beautiful night!