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    March News (website version of e-newsletter)

    ByElizabeth

    Dear Friends,

    It has been a longer winter than usual for DC, but that will make spring even more special.  This month is filled with opportunities to start to flower along with everything around us, including your own garden.

    Tuesday night Wm Penn House classes are always available for all levels on a drop-in basis with special pricing for not-for-profit workers, students, seniors, and those between jobs.  Drop-ins also welcome any time at Willow Street Yoga — level 2 at 8:30 am (great way to start your weekend) and gentle/therapeutics at noon every Saturday.

    On Saturday, March 13th, on the eve of Daylight Savings time, come join yogins and gardeners alike at this year’s Yoga for Gardeners. 2:30 PM – 5:00 PM, Willow Street Yoga Center, Takoma Park, $40.00.  Whether this is your first time taking the workshop or a repeat visit for the love of yoga and gardening, get ready to grow, align, cultivate, and rejuvenate mind, body, and spirit with joyous anticipation of spring and the coming gardening season! Suitable for novice and experienced yogis and gardeners alike, this workshop shows ways to align most optimally when digging into the dirt and also provide an opportunity for your true self to blossom. I will bel donating a portion of her profits to benefit the Youth Garden at the National Arboretum, so coming to the workshop will be yet another way to foster gardeners and gardens in the city.  To register, please visit www.willowstreetyoga.com.

    The third Saturday of the month wouldn’t be the same without the Serenity Saturday restorative workshop from 3-5 at Capitol Hill Yoga.  This month will be extra special invitation to welcome the light on the Spring Equinox.  For more information and to register, please visit www.capitolhillyoga.com.

    Coming in April, along with the usual array, I’ll be teaching one of the special charity classes at Capitol Hill Yoga on Sunday, April 4th, from 3-4:30.  Details to come.

    Stay warm, enjoy the new budding of spring, and the last of the snow and winds of winter.  Looking forward to seeing you soon.

    Peace and light,

    Elizabeth

  • Website Updates

    ByElizabeth

    I’m working with yogini and web designer extraordinaire Jess to update the look and improve functionality of the website.  You may have noticed a few small changes already:  you can now search the site.

    If there is anything you would like to see in the way of functionality or accessibility of information, please let me know.  I cannot guarantee you will get that for which you ask, but you’re more likely to get it (as with anything else — could there be a yoga lesson in this?) than if you do not.

    During this time, please be patient and do let me know if you encounter any difficulties.

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    Full Moon

    ByElizabeth

    The moon had risen in all her glory when I left Willow Street Yoga in Silver Spring (from a talk with Dr. Manoj Chalam about archetypes yesterday evening and headed for the metro home.  I thought about how the moon shines fully no matter what is below:  a pristine mountain lake, a construction site, a palace garden, a land devastated by one of the Four Horsemen, or the street in front of my house.  What I think is the goal of most “spiritual” practice is to find a place where, being able to see the light all the time, one can live with uncertainty and challenge and have a greater capacity to serve from one’s unique place.

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    What’s Blooming Inside Right Now for Me (is it “forcing” or inviting?)

    ByElizabeth

    I’ve been living with blooms from bulbs since just before Christmas.  The amaryllis in the vase is the third bloom from a bulb I bought at the beginning of January; the third stem got too tall, so I put it in a vase, so it would not topple over.  The orchid I have had since it was about half this size and have been tending it by bringing inside and out with the seasons for over a decade.  It has bloomed every February without fail.  The paperwhites were a gift.  I enjoy a little of the scent, but find the usual presentation of several flowers simultaneously overwhelming.  I have brought them to flower one at a time.  As soon as the bulb flowers (and inevitably needs to be propped up somehow), I have cut the flowers to put in a vase and started the next bulb.  By the time the flowers in the vase have faded, the next bulb is budding.

    The cherry blossoms — this is why I dreamed of cherries blossoming; I had them in my bedroom.  In a previous post, I showed the nearly bare branches from a tree that had fallen in the blizzard.  Although gardeners would call bringing the branches inside “forcing,” I wonder whether I really “forced” these blooms.  What I did was take branches that would have gone to a landfill, brought them into an auspicious environment and invited them to bloom.  This seems to me, not unlike using props in yoga:  I might not be able to experience the full opening of a pose myself, but if I properly use props, I can expand what I can experience.  It is not the same as doing it on my own, but it still gives me a different sense of the beauty that can be experienced, just like bringing in branches that otherwise would have fallen or need to be pruned into the house to reveal their glory in advance of the spring blooming outside.

    The last photo is of dogwood and cherry that were on the side of the street two days ago (cherry tree down at the Japanese War Memorial); dogwood in a pile on the north side of the street in the 300 or 400 block of D Street, NE.  Start your own blooms, there is more winter in the forecast.  I am fairly certain from my previous experiment that the cherries will start blooming in a couple of weeks, but it remains to be seen whether the dogwood will want to open.


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    Bulk Trash

    ByElizabeth

    I am working from home today or I would have missed the arrival of not one, but two very large bulk trash hauling trucks pulling up on the block.  For the past two hours, a team of workers have been loading furniture so decrepit that it would be impossible to give away on Freecycle or to have the Salvation Army or Goodwill Industries take away and resell.  There have been dozens of huge plastic trash bags and who knows what else (I am only watching intermittently as work presses on) going into the trucks.

    When I first moved in to my house 20 years ago December, Mrs. J was already elderly — probably in her mid to late 70s) and her son, who lived with her was not a young man.  I tried being polite when I first moved in, but there was no receptivity even to ordinary saying hello and good day.  The son (I had originally thought husband by his looks; he was gray, heavy, and unhealthy), used to sit on the porch at night and smoke cheap cigars that stank so much I needed to keep my front windows closed.  After he died, only a few years after I had moved in, Mrs. J, started having even more difficulty connecting and making sense and was progressively more hostile in her interchanges with me.  She did still go to church and people from the church would visit, unfortunately often to take advantage of her.  A grand daughter also would stop by on very rare occasions in recent years (more it seemed to check out the property then to take care of her grandmother).  As the years went by, the house has fallen into serious disrepair to the point that it, being attached to mine, has started impacting my house as well.

    Every once and a while, Mrs. J would ask me for help.  She was afraid of the young men who lived next door (who appeared based on both things I have witnessed, circumstantial evidence, and interrelationship with law enforcement authorities to be consistently involved with drugs, guns, and a variety of criminal activities).  But that family had lived next door to her for years, and she did not know how to lock her door to them.  She asked me what to do, but I did not really have an answer that would serve.  Over the years she occasionally would come out and yell at me about the rats in her yard, even though she had open garbage cans stored on the side of her house.  I did not disabuse her; what would have been the point, but I did regularly treat for rats in a way that would take care of both of our yards.  A couple of years ago, when she had gotten truly frail, she came outside one day when I was working in the garden and complained to me that a homeless person she had met at church brought bed bugs into her house.  I found someone from the church and asked the church to find someone to treat for the bedbugs.  It appeared that the matter was resolved, because she did not bring it up again.  Over a year ago, Mrs. J was hit by a bus and sustained a minor fracture to an arm.  It was discovered, though, that she was incapable of taking care of herself, and she never came back.

    Now the bulk trash trucks are here.  What would it be like to have lived for decades with things that others see only as trash?  To have had (along with whatever good) so much fear, bitterness, and frustration for that time?  What will happen to the house now that the trash and the memories are being cleared out?  To some extent we choose how we will live.  The house itself is in structure almost identical to mine and in the same wonderful location just blocks from the US Capitol.  Although the contents do not seem able to be salvaged, will someone treat the house as a treasure?  Witnessing the trash hauling makes me want to be ever more mindful of what I consume (materially and energetically), what I hold on to, and what I release and send out.

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    Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Other Vegetables (and the Goddess of Sequencing)

    ByElizabeth

    Cooking is not only an exquisite opportunity to notice and appreciate the various characteristics of the elements of our meal and how they react to heat and fat and cooking times and methods, but a wonderful way to appreciate how everything is ordered in time and space and to honor Kali — the Goddess of Sequencing.

    Brussels sprouts seem to be fashionable this year.  I’ve always liked them.  My preferred method is to braise them:  saute lightly in olive oil and/or butter in a heavy pot with a lid, splash some dry sherry, wine, or vermouth into the cooking pot and stir until the liquid is absorbed, add some broth or water (not quite to cover) plus salt and herbs of your choice, simmer until the brussel sprouts are tender and the liquid is absorbed.

    My friends are gushing about roasted brussels sprouts.  I think the tenderizing, fat-adding delight of roasting has made the much maligned brussels sprout more accessible:  toss with olive oil, salt, garlic, and herbs such as rosemary and thyme.  Roast at 400F until tender and browned (15-20 minutes).  Use peanut oil, ginger, garlic, and soy sauce or Braggs amino liquids for an Asian meal.  Try safflower oil, turmeric, ground ginger, garlic, and ground coriander seeds to serve with Indian food.  Use just butter (or if vegan a light, relatively flavorless oil such as safflower or canola), salt, paprika, and pepper for an Eastern European flavor.

    Whenever I roast vegetables, I toss in an extra head of garlic (separated into cloves), and serve some with the vegetables and reserve some for cooking something else with roasted garlic.  Include a variety of vegetables.  Just remember that different vegetables need different cooking times.  To recognize the mysteries of the Goddess of Sequencing in time and space — you have two choices in roasting vegetables.  You can cut the vegetables into different sizes (so you would leave brussels sprouts whole, cut winter squash or turnips into cubes a little smaller than the brussels sprouts, and potatoes into wedges or rectangles that are narrower than the brussels sprouts for them all to be golden and tender, but not overcooked at the same time.  As an alternative (as we do with sauteing or stir-frying), you can add different vegetables at different times.  You might need a combination of both techniques.  If you wanted to add mushrooms to the mix, since those would need to be larger than brussels sprouts, you would want to add the mushrooms later lest they get withered — how much later depends on the size of the mushrooms relative to the other vegetables.

    Enjoy (and give homage)!

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    Madya Vikashac Cittananda Labhah (and moving from the core)

    ByElizabeth

    After my morning practice, while I was riding on the bus to Georgetown yesterday to volunteer at the Lantern, the sutra “madyama vikasha cittananda labah,” Pratyabijna Hrdayam, 17, started resonating in the forefront of my consciousness.  Swami Shantananda in The Splendor of Recognition, translates this sutra as “[t]he bliss of Consciousness is attained through the expansion of the center.” What an elegant reminder of the true purpose of practice and the essential basis for the alignment principle of “stabilize the periphery; move from the core” about which I wrote yesterday.

    When we practice, we seek to go inward to discover that of our true nature that is light-filled and joyous.  We do so not just to stay in that place still and inert, but so that we can then extend out into every thought and action from a place of illuminated, blissful wisdom.  It will not change the fact of difficulties, challenges, strains, etc, but when we stabilize the outside, remember to go inward, and find the inner space of stillness and light, then when we move back outward into the world, we will be better able to respond in the highest.

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    “Stabilize the Periphery; Move from the Core” (and blogging)

    ByElizabeth

    For the past week, I have been contemplating, practicing with, and teaching the axiomatic sequenced alignment principle of Anusara yoga “stabilize the periphery; move from the core.”  It means exactly what it says.  We stabilize the outer edges of the pose (feet, hands, head) and move from our core to get into the full expression of the pose.  For example, have you noticed how often the yoga teacher will have you put your hand on your hip when you are first in a standing pose and working the alignment of the foundation and core body?  Only when the central alignment has been reached, do you extend the arm and hand to complete the full form of the pose.  The reason Anusara teachers are taught to use this technique is that it stabilizes the periphery, so that the students can concentrate on the major alignment and then move from the core.

    Off the mat, this principle means to me that we start with our overall goals and needs and the essential principle of trying to move from and respond in the highest before getting distracted by the details of whatever is going on.  As I contemplated and taught the principle this week, I found myself thinking and talking about lots of different examples on and off the mat.  The central idea was there, and then as the classes progressed, depending on the level and the students, I wove in illustrative examples that made sense with what was happening in the classes.

    I found myself struggling, though, to write about this principle.  I had too many different things I wanted to explain about how it helps in yoga asana both as an important therapeutic practice and as a way to expand one’s core abilities.  A plethora of examples of how it works off the mat came to mind.  To write coherently when one has limited space/attention span of reader/number of words, one has to first stop getting into the details and start with the central theme.  Then it is necessary to flesh out the central theme with very select details that enhance the understanding of the central premise.  The writer chooses not to scatter the central theme into so many details that the central point is obscured or lost in the details.  My struggle to write about this principle served then as a perfect example to myself about the very principle about which I was choosing to write.  I needed to “stabilize” the details, so that I could express coherently the core principle.

    Do you have good examples of how applying this principle has helped you on or off the mat?