(Not) Leaving on a Jet Plane

One of the fun things about teaching yoga dance has been to have an excuse to play around with music more--going back through old CDs and acquiring new tracks, dancing around the kitchen a lot.  Sometimes a song will pop up on the car radio and demand to be part of my next class.  And once I've got one song, more tend to collect around it, and then I've got a theme.  Right now it's this song and I'm thinking about traveling:

Traveling around the city, out of the country or just across the floor.  We are always traveling to find something: whether sacred or mundane, it is all pilgrimage.

But why go far?  Turning within, there are 45 miles of nerves in our body and over 60,000 miles of veins.  Let's get even crazier--the DNA in a single cell would stretch to six feet, if lined up.  So folded up in our small selves is over a billion miles of DNA.  We, in ourselves, approach the infinite.

The practice of yoga is a pilgrimage within our own bodies.  We go far without leaving the mat.

Yoga Dance class on April 14th, come and explore.

Yoga Dance 101

What exactly is yoga dance?  I've been looking for a good answer to that question, but it's hard to explain in words.  I could say it's a crazy-fun dance party (which it is), or I could say that it cleanses your chakras (which it does), but both answers lack something.  What is it about this practice that makes it so compelling?  I think it comes down to rhythm.

I've heard many people say:  "I don't have rhythm."     Do you have a pulse?     Everyone has rhythm, it's intrinsic to our bodies.  Our breath is rhythm, our heartbeart is rhythm, our cells pulse with it.  But we can lose our connection to that rhythm.  Dancing, any kind of dancing, helps us reconnect.  When we dance we realign--all the parts of our selves moving to the same beat.

The practice of yoga brings consciousness to breath and movement.  We breathe and move all day long, the power of yoga comes from focusing our attention.  Yoga dance brings consciousness to dance, in this practice I surrender to rhythm and let all the scattered pieces fall into place.  That is why I keep coming back to this--when I dance with awareness I give all of myself to the beat.

If you've been to yoga dance, what was it you loved most?

And if you haven't been yet, come to class!

Whatchacallitasana

Cobra or Bhujangasana

Down Dog or Adho Mukha Svanasana

Chair or Utkatasana

Or the real question being:  is it important to use Sanskrit, or does sticking with English make yoga more accessible?  Does knowing the Sanskrit make you a "serious yogi" or does it create an intimidating environment for beginniners?

My own teacher training emphasized using both--knowing the Sanskrit to honor the tradition, but giving the English translation to allow students to easily learn poses.  Calling the pose Chair makes a quick connection--we all know what that is and can find the pose in our bodies.  But then, I like using the Sanskrit because it's fun to say (try it with me:  OOT-ka-TAHS-anna).

ut-my-asana

When it comes to poses I think that whatever helps you connect and be comfortable is what you should use.  Where it seems to me useful to use Sanskrit is in the larger concepts that make up yoga philosophy--words that might not have an easy translation into English.  The concept of dharma for example.  A simple translation would be duty, or work.  These have fairly negative connotations, and don't give the full breadth of the idea.  My favorite way of thinking of dharma is as the need to have a meaningful interactions with the world--reminding us that we must work, but we also need that work to express our unique potential.  That's a bit much to cram into any single word, though 'right livelihood' comes close. When I use the word dharma I make space for all my ideas about the concept, and avoid this culture's more puritanical ideas of work.

What is your experience with Sanskrit?  Do you find it a help or a hindrance?

Thank You Game

Jasper created a new game, and it goes like this:

Jasper says:  Thank you!

I say:  You're welcome!

Jasper falls over laughing.

Repeat for at least 15 minutes.

What makes it really fun for me is to take it completely seriously, to really hear it and respond genuinely.  Have you ever been thanked for your simple existence 30 plus times in row?  It's a rush.  To receive thanks, and acknowledge it as a gift is a beautiful thing.  Perhaps we all should try it, even without a two-year-old to prompt us.

To all my readers:

Thank you.


Thank you.


Thank you.

What We See, What We Get

I was walking through a store recently and passed a women--fairly heavy-set, wearing a lot of jewelry.  Multiple necklaces, earrings, facial piercings.  And a voice said in my head "Are you wearing all that jewelry to make people think you're pretty?"  I stopped short, shocked at myself for even thinking that, but even more shocked because it wasn't my voice--not the choice of words or the tone. Yes, I often think judgmental thoughts about other people's appearances, but this wasn't me.

I sat down and thought awhile, and eventually turned up the memory.  It was sixth grade, and a boy had said that to me one day when I had been wearing layered necklaces in different lengths (in imitation of a friend of mine).  That poisonous thought had been stored somewhere in me for all these years, and likely formed a part of the many times I've dismissed myself or other people as not measuring up, not attractive.

That moment made one of the central tenets of yoga so clear--that although we identify with our thoughts, we are not our thoughts.  Those familiar loops that run through our brains every day may not even be generated by our selves, but may come from things said long ago, pictures noticed in an advertisement, chatter in the air.  We are radio antennae, receptors for signals from the people and culture around us.  When the instruction comes to let go, to release our hold on our thoughts, on our desires, we say that we can't--we can't let go of our selves.  But is this our Selves?  Or do we mistake the waves for the ocean?

City Sounds

Quiet is often considered a pre-requisite for meditation, and quiet is hard to come by in the city.  Below is the view from my meditation spot--our lovely alley and busy street.  Sounds through the open window:

birds beyond counting

neighborhood dogs

backyard gatherings

cars, buses, trucks and the occasional fire or police siren

airplanes overhead 

the innumerable non-functional vehicles our next-door neighbor is compelled to acquire and attempt to fix

So I try to make them part of the meditation.  Breathe the sounds in, breathe the sounds out.  I think of the noise as energy--the energy of the city--and try not to give it a name (bus, bird) or a value (*#@! motorcycle).  I feel the energy of the city on my skin, breathe it in, breathe it out, let myself be another part of it.  Just another bit of energy, another bit of noise.

I will admit that when the motorcycle starts revving I usually just give up and try again later.

Storytelling

Working retail I am blessed with frequent opportunities for observing human nature.  The other day I was paged to help a woman get some bulk eucalyptus leaves.  The first person she had talked to couldn't find them and mentioned that we might be out.  She was very upset because "I called ahead, and was told that you had them.  I've driven from faraway-suburb, etc etc."  We did in fact have them, they had just been over-looked.  But even though I found them for her, she couldn't change the story:  "I would have been so mad if you hadn't had them, since I called ahead and I drove so far etc etc."

At first I was irritated, but I did have to remember similar moments in my own life.  For instance:  standing in line to return something.  By the time I've gotten to the front of the line I've run through every possible reason the return might be refused, and prepared detailed counter-arguements, so that when the clerk simply refunds my money I feel a bit cheated.

These are small but potent examples of what yoga terms asmita, or the story of self, defined as one of the sources of suffering.  Even such a small story becomes part of our greater story of self, and thus becomes hard or impossible to let go of, since that means letting go of ourselves.  But if I keep such a tight grip on the story, I cannot respond to what is actually happening.  I'm still in the world where there is no bulk eucalyptus, and the store employees won't help me.

All this is very small, but if I cannot let go of a small story, how much more do I resist when the story is important?  Think of dialogue (or lack thereof) between political or religious groups.  Even when presented with facts that challenge or refute a story, the members of the group cannot let go or change it.  This is as true of myself as any other.

So what do we do?  Learning to live without the story of self is the work of a lifetime (or several), but we can try to hold the stories with an open hand.