Found Quotation
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
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Signs Around Town
Both the beautiful and the beastly archtypes. Dwell together inseparably within us. No light without shadow. No shadow without light.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
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Found Objects Around Town
Probably intended to represent beseeching compassion or assistance from a judgmental male god, not a gesture meant to honor the light within each one of us. But I could be wrong; its the same hand position after all.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
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Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Food for the Body | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Gardening | Meditation
State of the Garden (and Samtulana)
The grapes are not nearly as bountiful as last year. The first 90F week was too early and sudden, which blasted dozens of newly formed grapes. And then it was too wet and cool. The few figs dried before ripening. But it was a great spring for kale and chard, and the cherry tomatoes are pretty happy. That the weather makes some things happier and some less happy is a tangible reminder why mono-cultures are so risky a venture. One of the greatest gifts I get from the “failures” in my edible garden is gratitude. I am reminded of how fortunate I am that the only repercussions of something not growing or producing well is that I have to buy more produce at the farm market or the grocery store.
The rains and now the heat are wondrous lovely for the mosquitoes. Here’s me dressing for a morning’s work in the garden. You might laugh, but I only got two bites in over three hours in the garden, which included watering. It likely would have been at least a dozen in loose trousers or shorts and a t-shirt. This is also the outfit of choice when hiking in the woods filled with deer and mice and lyme-disease bearing ticks.
I picked the marigolds yesterday to put on the altar. The puja card of the day was “balance” or “samtulana.” It was a perfect concept to meditate on for the day because little brings me back into balance better than spending a few hours gardening, and I’ve been feeling off-kilter.
Uma, of course, was there to lend moral support.
The “before” picture gives some idea of how simultaneously overgrown from the rains and heat-blasted from the past week everything was.
The “after” picture doesn’t reflect as much as I would like how much of a difference three and a half hours of weeding, deadheading, clipping, rearranging, harvesting, feeding, and watering made. When I got hungry, I just picked sun-warmed, just ripened grapes and then got back to work. Lunch, of course, emphasized contributions from the garden.
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Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation | Photos
View From the Fifth Floor
I got up to stretch my legs and ease my eyes (excellent to do this a few times an hour if you have a desk job). The sky is magically beautiful and captivating out the window no matter what goes on inside (a mostly stressful, thankless day today) or what is on the ground (the view from this window is the homeless shelter, highway, and tax court).
Find a moment to change your gaze, whether it be closing your eyes to the inner world of meditation or directing them to some small or large beauty or wonder. It will help make what is hard less so–at least that is my experience.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
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Art and Culture | Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Community and Family | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation | Photos
Found Exhortation (Partially Obscured)
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
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Art and Culture | Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Community and Family | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc)
Found Exhortation (and Happy 4th of July)
What could be more quintessentially American and also generally incompatible with authentic yoga teachings than the desire/exhortation to express one’s individuality? How can we really practice yoga and still honor this inbred privileging of the individual? Are there ways of melding principles of radical individuality with philosophies that say enlightenment is a surrender of that individuality that would serve to harmonize and expand rather than just provide fuel for inner conflict?
Your input most welcome.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
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Photo of a Photo
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
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Art and Culture | Community and Family | Food for the Body | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Gardening
Found Quotation
Last week’s DOL elevator poster.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
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Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Community and Family | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation | Miscellaneous (blog matters, etc)
Reminder–No Class Tuesday July 2nd (and Svatantriya)–Web Version of E-Mailing
Dear Friends,
Just a friendly reminder that there’s no practice at William Penn House or the house next week. I’ll be off exercising the civil liberties currently available by traveling with my beloved to upstate New York to participate in tantric yoga philosophy camp (I know that’s not everyone’s idea of fun, but for those of us who love philosophy, it is quite wonderful to have found a group of people mostly outside of academia who truly relish such a conversation). An afternoon and dinner in the City and a visit with my sister and brother-in-law who are only an hour out of the way will further emphasize just how much freedom I have to come and go and to gather in groups and talk and write. For me to be going on such a vacation was partly good fortune and partly a lot of hard work and partly my balancing many conflicting desires, needs, aims, and possible outcomes, shaped by both the freedoms and strictures of this society.
With regard to the strictures, I’ve seen and experienced just enough work-place harassment and discrimination and scholarship student financial struggle and their impact on my well-being to know that, as many challenges as I have faced, life can be far more burdened and limited by hardship and challenge. I know from what was given to me and what was denied or only came after much hard work, how important it is that we make the safety nets of education, health care, housing, nourishing and tasty food, and a healthy ecology for all in our society. I go on these trips to study philosophy or to practice yoga or to surround myself with beauty and flavor not ignorant of how much I have and how much it depended on scholarships and a decent public education and student loans and millions of women (and many men) before and with me seeking autonomy and meaningful choice as to how to live their lives and care for their bodies.
I head out on vacation because I need both rest and inspiration, but I go knowing how much there is to be done at this, as Marge Piercy called it, “cruxtime.” I go to study and talk, not just for anticipated pleasure, but also with the intention to open up new insight on how, since participation is unavoidable, to navigate more skillfully this volotile time in human history.
I wish you a holiday week in which you are able recognize and experience your truest freedom–even if it is just the freedom of how to respond in the face of outrage or crisis or tragedy–and invite you to come join us for yoga some Tuesday night at William Penn House (click here for info) or the house practice on my return to nurture your body and join in community and conversation.
Peace and light,
Elizabeth
