Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

Traffic was completely still on K Street because of the police trying to clear out Occupy DC from McPherson Square and a number of streets were closed off to traffic, so the driver went to H Street, which was almost equally congested.  Things started to move for a bit, but then there was then some issue with another big black SUV with suburban plates in Chinatown that had been pulled over by the police.  This resulted in absolute tirade by the taxi driver as to why DC should not be allowed to be a state.  I was having trouble explaining that Federal voting rights for citizens in the District had nothing to do with whether the cops could have pulled the car over better or faster so that it would less obstruct traffic.  I gave up completely when he started in on how DC schools should be better than Maryland’s and Virginia’s because they had so much more tax revenue.

I remembered I had my camera in my pocket.  I accepted the the meter was going to run unless I got out of the taxi in the rain (and then what was I going to do?) and enjoyed photographing the lights of the city at night.  Sometimes, my camera really helps me accept whatever is and see the beauty in it.

Among the thoughts and memories were having observed the operaphiles in their expensive clothes swoon and gasp and applaud at the Vienna Opera House on the opera level where I had paid a dollar for standing room; having been literally swept off of my feet in the press of the crowds heading to the tube at Wembley Stadium after seeing the Rolling Stones in concert; watching the people do the standing wave thing at ball games while hollering for their team as if their whole view of the world was dependent on who wins; having taken, standing room only, the third class train from Florence to Rome during Easter week (a different pilgrimage season), on asking who is that woman on the billboards, discovering that India, too, has a habit of electing movie stars to political office.

What it takes to do this is the ability to be completely soft, spacious, and open in our seeing (“open to grace”) and also well enough educated and experienced to appreciate and understand the details.  I think that when we can see both the big picture and the details simultaneously, we have the greatest opportunity to experience the most of life, are more likely to be able to look for the good, and to make the most positive changes.

The meaning and point of “yoga,” we are told is union. In the Anusara system, inner or expanding spiral is a critical element of the “universal principles of alignment,” which are designed to get us physically and energetically into our optimal blue-print.

How can going in, back, and apart be what would create an expansion that would enable us to better experience our whole selves and all beings as spirit and in unity? Doesn’t that sound entirely backwards?

Going “in” is one of the key aspects of yoga practice. If we only look out, we can get caught up is grasping and longing, which causes great suffering. Although we need also to appreciate the outside, going in, especially by means of meditation. Going in is what enables us to discover our only true freedom, which is the freedom to choose how we react internally to whatever is going on outside of ourselves.

Moving back in yoga is not the same as backing off or away or turning one’s back on things, which would move us away from connection. Rather, when we move our awareness to the back body or open to what is all around us and not just what is forward-looking, we can soften and open to the unknown and to the unseen, allowing the subtle energies to move and guide us to deeper insight as to what connects and unifies.

Moving apart in inner spiral literally is the expansive component of the action. Moving apart is not becoming more separate, but making space (spaciousness) where there was binding, allowing for more freedom to experience all that is possible. It is also about breaking apart from our preconceived notions of being limited and different.

Moving in, back, and apart does not just realign the legs so that we can heal our pelvis and low backs and radically expand our flexibility even as our bodies age (as if that weren’t good enough). Energetically, it can revolve our whole way of connecting to ourselves and the world.

Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

“The good experiences just slip away like dry sand through my fingers,” he made a motion of letting something slip away.

“When you practice and when you get older, it will be easier to bring the temporary, good experiences into your life without feeling they are lost when you have moved onto the next thing,” I said with hope that would  actually be true for him, he seemed so bereft.

The yoga teaches us neither to be out searching for the highs nor actively avoiding the lows; the dance of grasping and avoiding is what makes us suffer.  That does not mean that the highs, the times of wild abandoned joy, the experiences of utter fulfillment, of exquisite understanding are of no value.  What brings joy is a thing of wonder and an opportunity to deepen our ability to love and be generous.  They are only a problem if we ruin our time by vainly clinging to or trying to repeat the sensation.  As our practice (and our understanding of a life well-lived and loved) matures, we understand that there is no readjusting in the return to the day to day.  We welcome what we have had, try to remember what we have learned, including how much joy and delight we are able to drink in, and approach each day as another opportunity to seek and share connection.

Lunchtime walk after the storm blew through.

It seemed almost everywhere I turned in India, I bumped into another image of Ganesha.  He’s a powerful one.  I did not attempt to photograph them all, and these are not all the photographs.  One of them is not ganesha–sometimes an elephant is just an elephant, even in a sculpture devoted to the gods.

If you are enjoying one of these images in particular, click on it so that you get to it at the largest size  and then right-click to make it your wallpaper or background.  Enjoy!

Midnight of the new year found me sitting in a hotel room near the Chidambaram temple at festival time engaged in intense conversation while listening to wild music and chanting and the cracks and explosions of fire crackers.  Quite a change from my long-standing practice of making a healthy meal, doing a long yoga practice, taking a hot bubble bath by candlelight and going to sleep well before midnight so that I can start the year rested and refreshed (an excellent way to spend New Year’s Eve if you haven’t tried it).  Though I did not start this new year well rested, I wouldn’t have traded the experience I had for the world.  Sometimes we need to radically break out of our old patterns to discover how much we can expand.

One of the practices at the temples we visited on the India Pilgrimage with Douglas Brooks is to take a coconut and break it open.  The coconut symbolizes your head and all the preconceived notions and rules we set for ourselves that bind us into our old habits.  The symbolic act of breaking open the coconut is to remind us that we sometimes need to break ourselves open in order to get at the true meat of our existence and to drink the sweet nectar of life.

Many times during the trip I thought about my first experiences attending “Advanced Intensives” with John Friend.  I, like many others I know, showed up at my first Advanced Intensive wondering how I got there, asking myself whether I was worthy, and worrying that I was in way over my head and would get injured.  Though I have now been to a number, each time I still have had to practice with both an absolute willingness to be open to the possibility of expansion while being impeccably mindful of my own limits.  It is a subtle dance of consciousness, and part of the learning is finding the exact balance point where we can both break out of our preconceived limitations and still honor that we in fact have some.

I approached going to India with much trepidation.  A friend whom I met in Peru and who I later visited in South Africa, having seen my emotional reactions to the deep poverty of developing nations had warned me off of India.  As one who likes things to be quiet and clean and thrives on healthy meals and regular sleep, I knew India would be physically and emotionally challenging.  But I wanted the visions.  I wanted to see and experience its very “otherness,” its beauty, and the source of the yoga teachings.  I packed my bags with emergency supplies, some of which I turned out to need, some of which served others on the trip, most of which I ended up donating to a village that the trip helps to support.  I had to ask people to help me (one of my hardest practices) by being close when we were in dense crowds.  I confess that I wore earplugs when it got really loud in the temples, which it does.  And having prepared and taken care, I was exhilerated.  I experienced radically more with my heart getting fuller and fuller in a short time than I thought ever possible for me.  Like discovering one can do a wild yoga pose that one thought totally out of reach and then sensibly stopping before blowing past physical limits, I broke myself open and was able to drink deeply of the nectar.  And yes, I did actually hurl a coconut to the ground to break it.  And yes, it took two tries.

I was lucky.  This time, I got to choose when and where to break open the coconut.  Sometimes life does it for us and then we have the choice either to despair or to rise to the occasion.  This year, I invite you to the yoga to find where you can break open and find ever more sweetness, nourishment, and delight than you ever dreamed possible.  For me this includes not just the exhileration of advancing the intensity of poses, but the deepness of meditation, the precise use of alignment for therapeutics to better experience life, and the emotional depth of a long restorative practice.

Come join me as regular classes continue at William Penn House on Tuesdays, invitation group house practice for charity on Wednesdays, and gentle/therapeutics at Willow Street on Saturdays at noon in Takoma Park.  All info on the classes page of the web site.  Mark your calendars, too, for:

Finding the Warmth Inside: Relax Into Optimal Alignment with Anusara Restoratives, Saturday, February 25 2012, 2:30 PM – 5:00 PM, Willow Street Yoga, Takoma Park Studio, $35.00, click to Register Online or download a paper form to bring to Willow Street in person.  After a little gentle stretching and self-massage to bring awareness to the breath and body, we will enjoy the exquisite application of Anusara’s Universal Principles of Alignment to restful and supported restorative postures to release old patterns and invite in the new to find greater ease of body and mind. A great workshop and practice for all levels.

I have been sharing photos and experiences of India on the blog (if you have missed them, do check them out and enjoy).  Some of you have asked how you can subscribe to the blog in addition to the newsletter.  Please just click here and follow the instructions to get the blog posts by email.

I look forward to seeing you through the new year and sign off expressing my ever growing love, appreciation, and gratitude for all of you and the deepening and expanding connection through the yoga, neighborhood, and all that life here in DC and in the greater yoga community brings us.

Peace and light,

Elizabeth