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“Art is at all times an exacting muse, never satisfied. No sooner is a goal attained than the next one appears in view. It is a never-ending process: as one crosses beyond the known, the unknown, too, recedes in the distance. The known has a frontier, whereas the unknown is limitless, boundless. So art is limitless.” Yogacharya BKS Iyengar, Art of Yoga p. 26.
Eka Pada Rajakapotasana IV. One legged king pigeon pose variation 4 (easy stage)
“Not I nor anyone else can travel that road for you, you must travel it for yourself.
It is not far ...it is within reach.
Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know. Perhaps it is everywhere on water and on land.
You are also asking me questions; and I hear you; I answer that I cannot answer, you must find out for yourself.
Now I wash the gum from your eyes and you must bear the dazzle of the light and of every moment of your life. “
Excerpts from Whitman’s Song of my Self
BKS Iyengar on Stability —the Physical Body:
“We begin at the level of the physical body, the aspect of ourselves that is most concrete and accessible to all of us. It is here that yogasana practice and pranayama practice allow us to understand our body with ever greater insight and through the body to understand our mind and reach our soul. To a yogi, the body is a laboratory for life, a field of experimentation and perpetual research.“ ~~BKS Iyengar, “Light on Life”, p. 22,
In the Iyengar Yoga method, we begin with learning grounding standing poses as they help us learn to safely align our musculoskeletal body and correct how we walk, stand and move on our two feet.
Tadāsana ~~Mountain Pose
“There is time left—
fields everywhere invite you into them.
And who will care, who will chide you if you wander away from wherever you are, to look for your soul?
To put one’s foot into the door of the grass, which is the mystery, which is death as well as life, and not be afraid!
To set one’s foot in the door of death, and be overcome with amazement!
To sit down, like a weed among weeds, and rustle in the wind. ~~
I have chanced, among the quick things, upon the immutable.
What more could one ask?
And I would touch the faces of the daisies, and I would bow down “
Excerpts from “have you ever tried to enter the long black branches” by Mary Oliver
“You cannot change and remain the same.” —Manouso Manos.
Ardha Matsyendrāsana II. Half-lord of the fishes (sage Matsyendra who was a fish who overheard Shiva teaching yoga to Parvati (Shakti), and who understood Yoga, then was granted human embodiment) pose
.
Many forms of worship
May lead to freedom
All these are born of action
When you know this, you will be free.
Better than any ritual
is the worship achieved through wisdom
Wisdom is the final goal of every action. ~~Bhagavad Gita 4.32-33. ..
Chakra Bandhāsana ~~chakra=nerve center/fly-wheels of the machine (part of the subtle body) bandha=fetter/bond
“In Asana [postural yoga practice], we are trying to broach the mass of our gross body, to break up the molecules and divide them into atoms that will allow our vision to penetrate within. Our body resists us... With regard to Asana practice, this means that initially we need to exert ourselves more as resistance is greater. Of the two aspects of Asana, exertion of our body and penetration of our mind, the latter is eventually more important. Penetration of mind is our goal, but in the beginning to set things in motion, there is no substitute for sweat. But once there is movement and then momentum, penetration can start. When effort becomes effortless, Asana is at its highest level. Inevitably this is a slow process, and if we break off our practice, inertia reasserts itself. What we are really doing is infusing dense matter with vibrant energy. That is why a good practice brings a feeling of lightness and vitality. Though the mass of our body is heavy, we are meant to tread lightly on this earth.”
Dwī Pāda Viparīta Dandasana ~”two legged inverted staff pose” from Śīrsāsana
“Of course I have always known you are present in the clouds, and the black oak I especially adore, and the wings of birds. But you are present too in the body, listening to the body, teaching it to live, instead of all that touching, with disembodied joy. We do not do this easily. We have lived so long in the heaven of touch and we maintain our mutability, our physicality, even as we begin to apprehend the other world. Slowly we make our appreciative response. Slowly appreciation swells to astonishment. And we enter the dialogue of our lives that is beyond all understanding or conclusion. It is mystery. It is love of God. It is obedience.”
New Year’s Morning! Move forward not back! See the possibility of the present! Act in freedom —-
We will be focusing our exploration in Āsana on Preparation of the body, mind, intelligence for Ūrdhva Dhanurāsana (Upward Bow pose), how to do, what to do, how to see what to do... Learning, Studying, Perfecting within the Asana
10am-12pm At Iyengar Yoga Center of Grand Rapids
Jennifer Beaumont in Ūrdhva Dhanurāsana
Whatever it was
I was supposed to be
this morning—
whatever it was I said
I would be doing—
I was standing
at the edge of the field—
I was hurrying
through my own soul,
opening its dark doors;
I was leaning out;
I was listening.”
—Mary Oliver , from “Mockingbirds”
..
“Just as firewood is turned
To ashes in the flames of a fire,
all actions are turned to ashes
in wisdom’s refining flames.
Nothing in the world can purify
as powerfully as wisdom;
practiced in yoga, you will find
this wisdom within yourself.” —Bhagavad Gita 4.37-38.
Ūrdhva Dhanurāsana II. Upward Bow pose
FOREST HILLS, MICHIGAN | Jennifer@iycgr.com