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    Making the Bed (and Sauca)

    ByElizabeth

    I have noticed over the years that I sleep more deeply and peacefully if I have made the bed before getting into it again.  Smoothing out the sheets and the covers and fluffing the pillows after waking, releases the energy of the dreams from the previous night.  This helps make sure that each returning to sleep is a new experience, an opening to the possibility of entering a wonderful state.

    The principle of sauca (cleanliness or purity) invites us to be clean and clear before and as part of our physical and meditative practice and all our living.  Imagine trying to practice yoga on a dirty mat and going into savasana (corpse pose/final relaxation) on a tangled blanket.  Would you think it possible to become deeply relaxed?  Probably not.  If we want our space smooth to lie down for a yoga pose, how could we not need the same for a good night’s sleep, for a planned visit to another state of consciousness?

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    Gardening, Cleaning, Cooking (and Vinyasa Krama and Kali)

    ByElizabeth

    Vinyasa krama is the art of sequencing.  How a yoga practice or flow is sequenced can determine whether it is uplifting or inward going, exhilarating or calming.  When we are trained and attentive, we start to know the most optimal order to open our bodies and our focus to align with the time of day, the season, the weather, our mood, and our health.  This incredible art helps us be positioned and aligned in a way that we feel free in time and space, rather than being constrained by time and space.

    This morning while I was out in the garden, I was thinking a lot about vinyasa krama and the goddess Kali — goddess of, among other things, time and change, and thus, of sequencing.  I woke very early, brought to consciousness by the long light of the solstice even through closed curtains.  As I went about my morning, rinsing the sprouts while heating the water for my morning coffee; cutting back the greens and herbs before starting breakfast; doing the major pruning and clean-up before doing more decorative garden work; finishing cooking before taking out the recycling; applying a facial mask before starting to vacuum; never walking up or down the stairs empty-handed; waiting to gather the bills until after I was clean and waiting for friends to arrive, etc., I realized how important sequencing is to the richness of my days.  By knowing the best way to order tasks for my needs, my day is simultaneously productive, unhurried, and enjoyable.

    By the time my friends arrived around noon, I had meditated, taken care of the garden, gathered food for my own breakfast and to share with friends, talked to neighbors, cleaned the house and myself, done a little asana, written in my journal, and sorted the mail.  Had I not known from long experience and conscious attention how to sequence all the different elements, knowing which ones went together, which took longest, which ones if done earlier or later would create double clean up, etc, I would have been tired and the tasks unfinished.  Instead, after brunch, I came home to a tended garden, a freshly made bed, and time to enjoy a quiet evening.

    These sequencing principles also apply for me on major projects at work.  If ordered one way, the work is exponentially harder, the deadline a fearsome thing; if ordered another way, everything comes together mostly as it should when it should.  When I order my work with attention (this assumes others cooperate with this endeavor), I have time to do a good, careful job and still take breaks, eat well, and leave the office in time to take or teach yoga class.

    Whether you are doing your home yoga practice or cooking or working, choose to sequence the elements of your practice, your activities, or your day, with attentiveness, reverence, love, and respect, and Kali will support you and not show you her most fearsome face.

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    Eagerness (and cherry tomatoes)

    ByElizabeth

    I am looking forward to going out to the garden to forage for things to bring to work with my lunch.  I know there will be at least four or five tomatoes, and I am expecting a small cucumber.  The greens and fresh herbs are a given.  Having exquisite fresh food and making sure I take at least 15 minutes to savor it always makes a hectic day a much better one.

    Don’t have time to garden?  Try joining a CSA.

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    Pulling Purslane for Breakfast

    ByElizabeth

    Look before you weed:  some plants you are throwing out or composting might make a great addition to your diet.

    Purslane and dandelion greens make a delicious addition to the other greens in my garden — chard, spinach, arugula, mache, lettuces, amaranth, etc.  Instead of pulling the purslane and dandelions as invasive weeds when they are growing in between the bricks of my patio, I let them get big enough to eat, and then pull them to include in salads and stir fries.  I also pull small purslane plants and relocate them into hanging pots along with my geraniums and into other little empty spaces.  After having been encouraged to volunteer more freely for a number of years, the purslane is now appearing on its own in more places, mostly in places where other plants would not thrive without a lot of watering.

    As both purslane and dandelions are volunteers (a/k/a weeds), they are free, hardy, prolific, and drought-tolerant.  I find purslane especially attractive if kept picked as any other forking herb or green.  Both purslane and dandelions are highly nutritious, especially purslane which is a great plant source for omega-3 fatty acids (see link above).

    This morning, I threw some purslane into a warmed tortilla, along with avocado, sprouts (I am always sprouting something on the kitchen counter these days), a little local  goat cheese, and a few slivers of vidalia onion.  Densely nutritious, delicious, fairly good for the environment, and satisfying.  What a great way to start the day.

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    Ganesha (Deity of the Marines?)

    ByElizabeth

    A senior colleague and I spent several hours today working together on a very challenging aspect of a long-term project.  When we were wrapping up for the day, I showed him a murti of Ganesha that another co-worker had brought me from the Norton Simon Museum when she had gone on a business trip to Pasadena, where our Los Angeles office is located.

    I said that I do not believe in the Hindu deities as gods, but find them helpful for contemplation as archetypes (in the Jungian sense).  I said that being on this project has taught me much about yoga and about Ganesha.

    “Ganesha,” I explained, “is not so much the remover of obstacles, but the one who places obstacles in your way to teach you the wisdom to grow and find a more enlightened path from having confronted the obstacles.”  “Oh,” said my colleague, “like the Marines:  adapt, improvise, and overcome.” “Well, sort of,” I replied, enjoying that we found a way to share laughter after our difficult afternoon.

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    “I’ve Got My Life Back”

    ByElizabeth

    I was at a business meeting yesterday that started with people introducing themselves around the table.  The participants were all either members or staff of a prominent lobbying group or government officials.  One of the men said that he was now a consultant.  “I used to be general counsel of [lobbying group], and now that I am consulting,” he said, “I have my life back.”  The introductions continued around the table.  The new general counsel, when he introduced himself, claimed, “it’s my life he has taken to get his back.”

    I found this all interesting in light of my blog yesterday.  These men are very successful.  They both are married with families.  They seem to be pleasant and smart.  Their definition of “not having a life” was not having failed to be fully engaged in doing what society expects them to do — they have clearly done very well indeed — but not having time to play golf or hang out in addition to being “successful.”

    Is the difference between being male and female?  Or were the two different contexts of the same social, linguistic tic just exemplifying a the view point of a superabundant and privileged class that we are not living fully unless we do and have everything the collective society admires and we simultaneously feel like we have lots of leisure time to enjoy as we see fit?  It’s a hopelessly unrealistic standard.

    Every moment we breathe and our heart beats, we are living.  One of the keys to tantric yoga is to come to a place where we are living fully and abundantly whatever we are doing, whether it is working or playing, being challenged or relaxing.  When we can do that, we realize we “have a life” and one worth living, no matter where we are in our journey.

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    I Don’t Have a Life (Really? What a Strange Thing)

    ByElizabeth

    Last night I was thinking about what that phrase means.  I was talking with a friend who has a similar enthusiasm for studying, practicing, and teaching yoga, who also has a full-time job/career.  At some point in describing the number of hours I have spent studying with John Friend and other Anusara teachers, it came out of my mouth that I have been able to pursue this passionate engagement with yoga because, as others have said to me, “I don’t have a life.”  My friend, being in the same society after all, initially went right along with that statement as if it was a perfectly reasonable thing to say.

    Then we started questioning it.  It is not as though we do not both have rich, full, engaged, active lives.  How did the vernacular come up with a phrase  that says we do not “have a life,” if we are not so occupied with the things that society would have us do (for the “modern” woman I think this means high-powered career, husband, children, nice house) that we have enough time and flexibility to deeply pursue and explore beyond what we are supposed to do?

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    One Perfect Snow Pea,

    ByElizabeth

    a pole bean, and two radiantly golden cherry tomatoes.  I have been waiting months for those four exquisite bites.

    Turnip greens and amaranth, included in my morning meal.  Two baby japanese eggplants, one hot pepper, a handful of scallions will go into something with tempeh.

    The last of the radishes and two beets will be delightful with vidalia onions — all lightly pickled.

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    Gifts of Onions (and Eternal Truth)

    ByElizabeth

    A couple of weeks ago, a good friend gave me a box of perfect vidalia onions.  She had been given two boxes.  She said, “These onions were so good; I wanted to give them to someone who would truly appreciate them.  I first thought of you.”  I was delighted, “yes, I’d love some vidalias.”  They are exquisite.  I’ve been making delicate sautes, grilling them, dicing them into salads, and marveling at their sweetness.  I passed a few on to others that both would fully appreciate the onions as a culinary matter and also know my friend, who is a former co-worker.

    Last night I went to take class at Willow Street and was talking a little with the work study students at the desk after class before heading home.  “Would you like some onions?” asked one of the work study students, who does great work with the Fresh Farm Markets around town.  “Oh, how lovely, no, no thank you,” I replied, “A friend just gave me a box of vidalia onions and I have shallots, baby leeks, spring onions, and garlic chives in my garden.”  “I think you have enough in the allium family already,” she agreed, “would you like a cucumber?”  “A cucumber?  Yes, that would be great.  I’ve only gotten one ripe one so far; they aren’t liking the cool wet.”  She gave me a cucumber and a zucchini from a farm visit she had done that morning, which made my evening (I am so easily pleased).

    This morning I wondered about these offers of onions.  It is not as though it is a regular thing for me twice in a space of a couple of weeks to be given bounteous offers of exquisite onions.  Did it mean something?

    Onion comes from the same latin root as “union.”  Unlike garlic, in whose family onions belong, onions grow a single, undivided bulb, which is the likely reason for the development of the word onion.  From sketchy researching on the internet, I find onions are also the symbol of “good” and fullness — hence the onion domes in architecture.  The ancient Egyptions thought the onion a symbol of eternity (layer upon layer of being) and truth.  Yes, I like thinking these onions (those I took home and those that were gifted instead, no doubt, to some other appreciative soul) were meant to bring me to think of good, of union, of the eternal truth in gifts and shared pleasure in sharing delicious, healing, fresh food with friends.

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    World Wide Knit in Public Day (and Vikalpa Samskara)

    ByElizabeth

    World Wide Knit in Public Day is this weekend — June 13th (and 14, 20, and 21).  What will you be knitting?  I have started a pair of leg-warmers.  The pattern was really for ankle warmers, but I have chosen to make them longer than the pattern suggested.  The nice farmers who raise the sheep, spin and dye the yarn, and sell it at the Dupont Fresh Farm Market, called them “yoga socks.”  The yarn is beautiful.  The sample pair looked like something I would want on my feet in colder weather.  The project was small enough to tuck into my carry bag.  Definitely a go for summer knitting (unlike the three-quarter finished mohair shruggy that has become a lapful of furry stuff).

    “Why are they so short?” I asked.  “We had originally designed them to be longer, but our teacher said we might need to grab our ankles?” they explained.  “When would you do that, when it would not matter whether you were touching fabric instead of your skin,” I puzzled out loud, not out of criticism, but really wanting to know, thinking maybe in Pilates.  The farmers could not really think of a reason.  I bought an extra skein along with the kit to make the — oh, let’s call them footless socks — calf height.  The yarn has a bit of a stickiness to it, so they are not slippery.  They will be good to wear for yoga.

    I’ve never knitted on double-pointed, size 2 needles, in the round before, though I happened to have four in the house (picked up at a yard sale for a $1 a decade or two ago and put in the sewing box).  I tend not to knit from patterns for whole projects.  So I had a little learning to do.  The pattern did not explain how to use the double-pointed needles; that knowledge was assumed.  I am not used to the contraints of following a pattern.  Doing so, on occasion, though, forces me to learn a new technique.  It took my a couple of hours to get into the rhythm, but now I’ve eased into the project.

    I sometimes seek the same type expansion with cooking.  Though easily able to cook something delicious without a recipe with most ingredients, sometimes I pick out a complicated recipe just to expand my skills in the kitchen.

    Yoga, most of all, benefits from a combination of free exploration and attentive development to the knowledge imparted by a teacher.  We are most full and expanded when we combine experience and teachings.  We receive the teachings and then we practice again and again to make it not just our own experience, but part of our being.  This process is called vikalpa samskara.