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“All things consist of carrying to term and then giving birth.” Rainer Maria Rilke
Prenatal Yoga Classes on Thursdays 7:15-8:30pm at the Iyengar Yoga Center of Grand Rapids with Jennifer Beaumont, Intermediate Jr. 3 Certified Iyengar Yoga Teacher, starting April 12. Register in advance www.iycgr.com
Photo by Matthew Provoast Photography
“Teach the children. We don’t matter so much, but the children do. Show them daisies and the pale hepatica.Teach them the taste of sassafras and wintergreen.The lives of the blue sailors, mallow, sunbursts, the moccasin flowers. And the frisky ones—inkberry, lamb’s quarters, blueberries. And the aromatic ones—rosemary, oregano. Give them peppermint to put in their pockets as they go to school. Give them the fields and the woods and the possibility of the world salvaged from the lords of profit. Stand them in stream, head them upstream, rejoice as they learn to love this green space they live in, its sticks and leaves and then the silent, beautiful blossoms.” —Mary Oliver
I will be teaching kids yoga (for older children) outdoors at the Isaac Walton League, 5625 Myers Lake Rd, on Thursdays 12:45 - 1:30pm beginning April 28. (6 weeks/$48) This is open to homeschooled students. Learning Yoga āsana helps us understand the nature of our embodiment. Contact Jennifer@iycgr.com if your child is interested in participating in the kids yoga classes.
“Without health one cannot have a strong root in the mind. The movements of the mind—laziness, carelessness, believing illusion to be the truth—have to be still in order to know what the soul is.” Yogācārya B.K.S. Iyengar
Yoga Sūtra of Patañjali 1.13 Tatra sthitau yatnah abhyāsah. “Practice is the steadfast effort to still these fluctuations” (transl. B.K.S. Iyengar)
“In this there is no measuring with time. A year doesn’t matter; ten years are nothing. To be an artist means not to compute or count; it means to ripen as the tree which does not force its sap, but stands unshaken in the storms of spring with no fear that summer might not follow. It will come regardless. But it comes only to those who live as though eternity stretches before them, carefree, silent, and endless. I learn it daily, learn it with many pains, for which I am grateful: Patience is all!” -Rainer Maria Rilke
Yoga Sūtra of Patañjali I.17 vitarka vicāra ānanda asmitārūpa anugamat samprajñātah. “Practice and detachment develop four types of samādhi: self-analysis, synthesis, bliss and the experience of pure being” (transl. B.K.S. Iyengar)
I remember my teacher, Manouso Manos, telling a story (this telling was many years ago, 10-15?) that he heard about his teacher, B.K.S. Iyengar, as a boy, holding a scorpion and watching it sting him repeatedly. Manouso remarked about the type of tenacity and detached interest he showed and related it to learning this pose, Vrśchikāsana (scorpion). If my teacher happens to see this picture—this was only my best effort yesterday, its clear where it needs to go next. 🙏🏼
“Go within and scale the depths of your being from which your very life springs forth.” —Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
“In his Yoga Sūtras, Patañjāli lists five classes of citta vrtti which create pleasure and pain. [Two of] these are:
Viparyaya (a mistaken view which is observed to be such after study)... and
Vikalpa (fancy or imagination, resting merely in verbal expression without any factual basis).” B.K.S. Iyengar, Light on Yoga, 1966.
Freedom from confusion, from identification with clouded, mistaken judgements and misperception can be achieved through practice and detachment. In practice the yogi trains herself to directly perceive reality through exploring the physical body. For example, we can perceive if we are actually pressing our back outer heel in standing poses, however in order to witness this we must choose to pay attention and let go of distractions (detachment). “These beginner actions don’t go away. We have to keep doing them. Yoga is doing and not something someone has said.” (Manouso Manos)
From this skill of directly witnessing reality, if a person insists to us that a rope coiled on the ground is a snake, and that we should fear it because they are terrified, we need not fear it if we can perceive it with our own eyes and trust our perception. That observer may be very shaken, very fearful and try to convince of us of the threat—and yet if it is only a rope there is no real danger. Don’t be misguided by the misperceptions and delusions of others. Look into the nature of reality for your self. The truth makes itself apparent. Keep looking and “Keep your focus” (Manouso Manos)
“Each form sets a tone, enables a destiny, strikes a note in the universe unlike any other. How can we ever stop looking? How can we ever turn away?” —Mary Oliver
It’s difficult to stop practicing when the time for practice is over. There’s so much to see.
The exploration and possibility of practice in Iyengar Yoga is endless. Infinite variations of poses, sequences, actions, breathwork all applied according to what is happening on various levels (muscular-skeletal, energetic-physiological, mental-emotional, intellectual, spiritual) with the practitioner now. We train ourselves to be a witness and connected to these realms of being. Over time we develop more and more skill, sensitivity and awareness of these levels, from gross and outer to the innermost and subtle. Iyengar Yoga is a methodology and practice of awakening.
“There are walks in which we tread in the footsteps of others,
Walks on which we strike out entirely for ourselves.”
Thomas A. Clark
My teacher, Manouso Manos, told the class at the recent intensive that his teacher, B.K.S. Iyengar, taught his yoga classes with artful, subtle sequencing linking the points he was making through the actions of many diverse poses. However, this sequencing seemed lost on some or many students, unfortunately. Manouso said “my sequencing is not subtle, I’m hitting you over the head with it...”. On some level, that is true for me, for more than any teacher I’ve ever studied with (and I’ve only studied in the Iyengar lineage) from the first time in his classes in 2002, I noticed that I could follow the actions within the poses, linked and developed methodically, from simple to complex. In Iyengar Yoga, sometimes a pose or sequence of poses is taught like an artist layers colors of paint gradually to create and develop a three dimensional rendering from white canvas. Do This over and over (until it sticks) then add this and then this. Now All at once—All the points. The effect of this method of practice on consciousness is that it transforms the mind from distracted to focused, to potentially meditative, illuminative, present everywhere. While I can follow what he’s taught at one level, the teaching deserves more than just attention during class. Giving the lessons repeated practice and study, with the respect and consideration as a deep work of art—more and more understanding develops. Looking at What was said, and not said, how was it taught, what was emphasized, alluded to, what came before, and later, what did I miss here and there, and always, why? (Long, regular study with one teacher makes seeing nuance possible). Learning transcends the explicit lesson, sees the implications. Today practice was the sequence from the March 1 class (including Parivrtta Jānu Śīrsāsana), but since this was practiced recently, there are more elements that I wove in. Gradually practice opens up the lessons, exploring and playing with the relationships with other poses, arriving in other dimensions of truth and understanding
imagine lifting the lid from a jar and finding it filled not with darkness but with light
—Mary Oliver
Parśva Bakāsana from Śīrsāsana II
“Do you guess I have some intricate purpose? Well I have… for the April rain has, and the mica on the side of a rock has.” Mary Oliver
Tittibāsana - firefly pose
“In a bee colony, when a bee dies another bee will have to transform to fill the hole of that bee’s job. “Am I who I am because the universe has a gap or void in this position?... is there a such thing as free will? Why do I make my decisions? If you act like you have free will, it makes you feel separate... it can be against society.... What are you willing to think about or not? [this is the teacher’s job (here, Manouso) to provoke you into questioning yourself and your conditioning—beliefs and behaviors] ... What am I supposed to be doing?” —Mr. Manouso Manos, excerpts from the philosophy talk March 4, 2018, Abode of Iyengar Yoga, Intensive
FOREST HILLS, MICHIGAN | Jennifer@iycgr.com