Contemplations on readings and yoga philosophy.
For the past week, I have been meditating on, practicing with, and teaching the water element in classes. Our health and the health of the planet depend on the water element being balanced. When our water element is in balance, we are fluid, open, well-nourished, malleable, and life-supporting. Too much or too little water is…
Last week Orie suggested that as I have a “Yoga for Gardeners” workshop, I should also do a “Yoga of Housekeeping” workshop. A blog post isn’t a workshop, but here are a few preliminary thoughts on yoga and housekeeping. From an alignment perspective, I have found that the Anusara principles of alignment make safe everything…
I was talking to my Dad earlier today. My parents live on Long Island, where they are in the middle of getting three to six inches of snow. He said that the weather forecasters indicated that they were just missing having a blizzard, and he was grateful they were not. For the same reason Long…
I have been thinking about perception and how as soon as we have more than one person looking at the same thing, each person has a different story, a different truth, a different explanation. Add to that the mysterious systems humans have created: information technology, cyberspace, monetary system. All of these are energy fields. We…
The first of the mahabhutas is prithvi or earth. When I think of the earth element, I think of stability, grounding, earthiness, nurture. My experience is that I can more deeply connect to this element in ourselves by emphasizing what John Friend has termed “muscular energy” in my yoga practice. As with all practices from…
As I write, big fat flakes of snow are falling against a pale gray sky that is struggling to turn to daylight. It is too early to know how much of the storm will be snow or freezing rain or just plain rain, though all are both possible and probable. If there is mostly snow…
I spent a few hours this weekend reading Joseph Campbell’s Baksheesh and Brahman, which is Campbell’s journals from a year in India from 1954-55 (I’m now about a third of the way through). Campbell writes that he went to India to find Brahman and instead found politics. He approached his visit from the perspective of…
The mahabhutas are the grossest, most physical of the 36 tattvas described in Kashmir Shaivism. They are: prithivi — earth or solidity; ap (or jala) — water or liquidity, agni (or tejas) — fire or formativity; vayu — air; akasha — space. When we practice asana, we can focus our practice on discovering one of…
My earliest exposure to eastern mysticism was through Salinger and the Beats, which I read avidly in high school and even junior high. The Beats were hipper and smarter than I could ever hope to be (and they weren’t so good to the women, but that’s another avenue to discuss and explore), but I could…
My dear friend from college, Dan Harper, just posted the following on his website. I feel fortunate to have a friend who inspires me to me more learned and more concerned. Martin Luther King would have been 80 today. On February 25, 1967, not long before he was killed, he spoke about the Vietnam War…