Letting go into what’s within and also beyond (September 3, 2018)

The state of Yoga is part of another dimension where what we normally identify with as being “me” or “I” is actually just waves.. This reality is not theoretical it is experiential. As we sense this we may cling to those fleeting identities all the harder. It takes long practice, faith/trust, courage and detachment to see ‘what happens when we let go?’


 “When the water of a lake is unruffled, the reflection of the moon on its surface is very clear. Similarly, when the lake of consciousness is serene, consciousness disseminates itself. This is known as a glimpse, or a reflection, of the soul.

The seer, being constant and unchangeable, can perceive the fluctuations as well as the serenity of his consciousness. If consciousness itself were self-luminous, it too could be the knower and the knowable. As it has not the power to be both, a wise yogi disciplines it, so that he may be alive to the light of the soul.

It is said in the Bhagavad Gita (II.69)‘One who is self-controlled is awake when it appears night to all other beings, and what appears to him as night keeps others awake’. A yogic sadhaka thus realizes that when consciousness is active, the seer is asleep and when the seer is awake, it is night to the consciousness.

Similarly, in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, the word ha is used to signify the seer as the ‘sun’, which never fades; while tha represents consciousness as the ‘moon’, which eternally waxes and wanes.” Excerpt From

Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

B. K. S. Iyengar

Sūtra IV.20


 

Eka Pāda Viparīta Dandāsana II

Experiencing Essence of Form (August 31, 2018)

​“In āsana and prānāyāma, owing to differences in one’s constitution and frame of mind, techniques and sequences change, but not their essence. As soon as the consciousness is purified by removal of the impurity, āsana and prānāyāma disclose their essence. When an even balance is achieved, the essence of subject and object are revealed in their purest and truest forms.” Excerpt From

Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

B. K. S. Iyengar


Working toward these (advanced) rounding forward bends of Kurmāsana, attention is trained on lifting the outer corners of the bottom ribs. This was an instruction my teacher, Manouso Manos, gave in Adho Mukha Virāsana at the March Intensive. In my experience, it helps with spreading the lower back. In Light on Yoga and Art of Yoga, Yogācārya B.K.S. Iyengar’s forward bends demonstrate beautiful and even dome shapes where the curve of the pose does not happen just on one point of the spine but the entire spine participates in the arc of the posture, and the entire back is spreading, like the turtle’s shell.


“When seeds are buried in the earth,

their inward secrets become the flourishing garden.” Rumi, Mathnawi I. 175-177.

The willingness to do (August 28, 2018)

​“The great doesn’t happen through impulse alone, and is a succession of little things that are brought together.

...How does one get there? It’s working one’s way through an invisible iron wall that seems to stand between what one feels and what one can do. How can one get through that wall? — since hammering on it doesn’t help at all. In my view, one must undermine the wall and grind through it slowly and patiently. And behold, how can one remain dedicated to such a task without allowing oneself to be lured from it or distracted, unless one reflects and organizes one’s life according to principles? And it’s the same with other things as it is with artistic matters. And the great isn’t something accidental; it must be willed. Whether originally deeds lead to principles in a person or principles lead to deeds is something that seems to me as unanswerable and as little worth answering as the question of which came first, the chicken or the egg.

But I believe it’s a positive thing and of great importance that one should try to develop one’s powers of thought and will.” —Vincent Van Gogh

​

“Willpower is the willingness to do.” —Yogācārya B.K.S. Iyengar


( Viparita Dandāsana supported variations with chair )

Willpower grows with stability through self-discipline. My teacher, Manouso Manos, explains that the root of the word discipline is disciple. When we are a disciple of something, the self-discipline grows on its own from interest. It isn’t something from outside being inflicted on us.  I am so grateful for how Iyengar Yoga lifts up the practitioner and student from semi-interested novice (with all the pains and imbalances accumulated on our journey), teaching how to carefully remove obstacles methodically, and develop progressively on the path of not just physical fitness but evolve through the performance of skillful action. There was a long practice in these chair backbends today which simultaneously revealed and healed imbalances in my back ribs, shoulder, and pelvis. By the time unsupported backbends were practiced both shoulder-blades were on my back effortlessly. If I had skipped them, it possibly would have strained my shoulder. I am so grateful and indebted to Yogācārya BKS Iyengar’s brilliant method.

sunset on Lake Michigan 

sunset on Lake Michigan 

SECOND LIFE Poem by David Whyte

My uncourageous life doesn't want to go, doesn't want to speak, doesn't want to carry on, wants to make its way through stealth, wants to assume the strange and dubious honor of not being heard. My uncourageous life doesn't want to move, doesn't even want to stir, wants to inhabit a difficult form of stillness, to pull everything into the silence where the throat strains but gives no voice. My uncourageous life wants to stop the whole world and keep it stopped not only for itself but for everyone and everything it knows, refusing to stir a single inch until given an exact and final destination. This uncourageous second life wants to win some undeserved lottery so that it can finally bestow a just and final reward upon itself. No, this second life never wants to write or speak, or cook or set the table or welcome guests or sit up talking with a stranger who might accidently set us travelling again. This second life doesn't want to leave the door, doesn't want to take any path that works its own sweet way through mountains, doesn't want to follow the beckoning flow of a distant river nor meet the chance weather where a pass takes us from one discovered world to another. This second life just wants to lie down; close its eyes and tell God it has a headache. But my other life my first life, the life I admire and want to follow looks on and listens with some wonder, and even extends a reassuring hand for the one holding back, knowing there can be no real confrontation without the need to turn away and go back away from it all, to have things be different, and to close our eyes until they are different. No, this hidden life, this first courageous life, seems to speak from silence and in the language of a knowing, beautiful heartbreak, above all it seems to know well enough it will have to give back everything received in any form and even, sometimes, as it tells the story of the way ahead, laughs out loud in the knowledge. This first life seems sure and steadfast in knowing it will come across the help it needs at every crucial place and thus continually sharpens my sense of impending revelation. This first courageous life in fact, has already gone ahead has nowhere to go except out the door into the clear air of morning taking me with it, nothing to do except to breathe while it can, no way to travel but with that familiar pilgrim movement in the body, nothing to teach except to show me on the long road how we sometimes like to walk alone, open to the silent revelation, and then stop and gather and share everything as dark comes in, telling the story of a day's accidental beauty. And perhaps most intriguingly and most poignantly and most fearfully of all and at the very end of the long road it has travelled, it wants to take me to a high place from which to see, with a view looking back on the way we took to get there, so it can have me

understand myself as witness and thus bequeath me the way ahead, so it can teach me how to invent my own disappearance so it can lie down at the end and show me, even against my will, how to undo myself, how to surpass myself: how to find a way to die of generosity.

 “When the Roses Speak, I Pay Attention” by Mary Oliver “As long as we are able to

be extravagant we will be

hugely and damply

extravagant. Then we will drop

foil by foil to the ground. This

is our unalterable task, and we do it

joyfully.” And they went on. “Listen,

the heart-shackles are not, as you think,

death, illness, pain,

unrequited hope, not loneliness, but


lassitude, rue, vainglory, fear, anxiety,

selfishness.” Their fragrance all the while rising

from their blind bodies, making me

spin with joy.

_____ -

 

When we practice āsana with attention and alignment, as we do in the Iyengar method, we see our limitations, weaknesses, shortcomings.... we are set to a task that is seemingly at odds with itself. “Turn this that way, extend this forward and draw this backward at the same time.” The experience is  not just physically challenging, but mentally and emotionally. The actions at times may feel impossible. We may feel far from the goal. Our capacity to be present is stretched.  We are training ourselves to see things as they are—to witness the reality of our present condition. Gradually with each undertaking, each class, each practice, each repetition of āsana while working actions skillfully— we are taking steps to grow not just physically stronger, but wiser, mentally stronger, able to discern between the necessary pain and difficulty of transformation and the lassitude of succumbing to the  tendency of all nature to decay... Alignment evolves from steady practice. Keep going.


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Parśva Ūrdhva Padmāsana in Śīrsāsana—Upward Lotus to the Side in Head Balance Pose

Level 1 and Gentle/Restorative Class will meet as one class on Tuesday nights

Dear Students, beginning on September 4, Jennifer’s Level 1 class for beginners and Gentle/Restorative Class will meet together on Tuesdays 6pm - 7:30pm. Thursday 6pm class will not be meeting this fall until further notice. All students with injuries and/or conditions (including pregnancy) will be accommodated in that longer class, with the help of assistant teachers. We look forward to seeing you then! 

 

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