A Different Perspective
Filed Under Art and Culture, Community and Family, Photos | Leave a Comment
This view is always there, we just do not always get to see it from our habitual place on the ground.
Sometimes people ask me how I can sometimes still feel unworthy or get depressed or be edgy with all the committed practice that I do. A friend said recently that an answer to that question might be to suggest what I might have been like if I was not doing the practices.
satcitananda
Filed Under Art and Culture, Community and Family, Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc), Photos | Leave a Comment
Wow. I came up out of the metro to this extraordinary fiery sky show. When I invite others to look, mostly, like today, they just think I am mad. But sometimes there is a shared spark of recognition of the very grandeur and wonder of being.
“Relaxing into Optimal Alignment” (Sully Style)
Filed Under Art and Culture, Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice, Community and Family, Photos | 2 Comments
“Relaxing Into Optimal Alignment” This Saturday, February 26th (Web version of E-Newsletter)
Filed Under Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice, Community and Family, Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Leave a Comment
Dear Friends ,
What could be better with the topsy turvy weather and the pace of our town these days than to spend a delicious afternoon relaxing into optimal alignment?
This month’s workshop theme will explore the second line of the Anusara invocation: satcitananda murtaye.–roughly meaning being, consciousness, and bliss embodied. We will spend two extraordinary hours inviting ourselves to go into each pose fully present and aware to the possibility of bringing ourselves into complete bliss by aligning through the Anusara principles.
Or you could just think it is relaxing and lovely, while listening to great music, to lie in a series of supported poses that realign the physical body to help release tension and invite a sense of ease. The thing about restoratives is that they offer much on many levels.
If you sometimes think that restoratives are not for you because your mind has a tendency to race, please come join us, ask a question about what to do when the mind races, either privately before, or with the whole group when I ask for questions. I have offerings from my teachers and my own experience that have proven for me to be incredibly helpful, and I love to pass them on.
Cannot come this Saturday, please mark your calendars for March 19th (Yoga for Gardeners to Benefit the Washington Youth Garden) and March 26th for the final workshop in the “Relaxing into Optimal Alignment” series.
Hope to see you soon.
Peace and light,
Elizabeth
Hellebore (Front Garden)
Filed Under Gardening, Photos | Leave a Comment
Cherry Blossoms
Filed Under Gardening, Photos | Leave a Comment
This is not quite right, but lovely nonetheless.
Snowdrops
Filed Under Gardening, Photos | Leave a Comment
It’s a Fine Line Between a Grimace and a Smile (and satcitananda murtaye)
Filed Under Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice, Community and Family, Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Leave a Comment
The New York Times just published a blog entry on the perils of faking happiness. The first problem with the article was that I could not get to the study to see if I agreed that the actual premise was that “faking a smile” was what led to a deterioration in mood or feeling unduly pressured by a need to do so regardless of what was going on inside was the problem. The second is the definitional problem of what it means to “fake” a smile. I think it not unlikely that contorting the face into a fake smile (i.e., grimacing) because one feels one has to do so does not improve mood when one is in physical or emotional pain. According to the little cover blog, though, those that made an attempt to smile from the inside by thinking a positive though–even though it was a conscious effort– did experience an improvement in their mood.
Any good method actor will tell you that to make an outer expression believable, one has to cultivate inner thoughts to go with it (though that is still “acting”). Having been taught by my mother by age six in preparation for my first school play performance, that to act I should try to “be an apple” a la Stanislovski, I disagree that intentionally putting a smile on your face cannot help improve your mood. It’s all in how you fake it ’til you make it. I have long advocated to my yoga students, based on my personal experience with the practice of smiling whether I think I mean it or not, to try smiling on the outside improve mood. Even leaving aside the inner experience, just walk down the street with an open posture and a smile on your face and see how people respond, though I caution to do this at your peril in New York. When you smile at people and be polite, they generally respond in kind. You are then much more likely to feel good than if you are scowling and rude and people respond back in kind.
What on earth (or in heaven’s name) does faking a smile until you feel one have to do with satcitananda, you may find yourself asking yourself at this point. The second line of the Anusara invocation is “satcitananda murtaye.” Murtaye, from the same verbal root as murti or statue, here is usually translated as saying that Siva (from the first line) embodies the characteristics of satcitananda, being (what I like to call is-ness), absolute consciousness, and bliss.
Another way of looking at this phrase, though, is that when we open to the possibility of discovering our siva nature, which is the reason we practice yoga, and when we use the principles of alignment to help do so, then we discover how to be, if even for a moment, simply present, fully conscious, and blissful with the consciousness of the ultimacy of being. In a word, when we soften and look within, using the knowledge and experience of our teachers and our practices, a smile of recognition lights us up. If we start out having a bad day, feeling stressed or anxious or in pain, or just plain grumpy from reading the news, we just have to practice with more depth and sincerity to find the smile and not beat ourselves up if we are struggling to find the smile despite our desire and the intensity of our practice.
Is that faking a smile or being the smile? Does trying to smile when we are feeling blue really make us more unhappy? I think it is all in how we do it.
Human Size in Relative Space and Time
Filed Under Art and Culture, Community and Family, Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc), Meditation | Leave a Comment
My friend Dan just posted an insightful piece about the sweetly humbling (without diminishing) perspective on the single life or the whole collective human being in the context of the whole universe. It resonated with the passage I had read for group practice last Wednesday from Ramesh Menon’s rendering of the Shiva Puranas, which talks about all the units of time from a nimesha, a human moment, to the life of the highest Siva principle–an immensity of infinite time that is incomprehensible at a human consciousness level.
The truly pro-life would support basic gynecological care for poor women (I Stand With Planned Parenthood)
Filed Under Art and Culture, Community and Family | Leave a Comment
Almost none of the services provided by Planned Parenthood are abortions. Rather, they provide much needed health care to women in underserved communities. Please stand with Planned Parenthood today:
 |
Dear Elizabeth, Minutes ago, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to bar Planned Parenthood from all federal funding for any purpose whatsoever. That means no funding to Planned Parenthood health centers for birth control, lifesaving cancer screenings, HIV testing, and other essential care. By far, this is the most dangerous legislative assault on women’s health in our history, and it cannot go unanswered. We need you to stand united with us now. We need you to stand with Planned Parenthood and with the three million women, men, and teens we serve, who are now at risk of losing access to basic care. We’ve drafted an open letter to every single representative in the House who voted for this cruel, unconscionable, unthinkable bill, and to every senator who still has a chance to stop it. Will you sign it — and share it right now? |
|||
|
|
|
|
