Posture metaphors and Handstand

One of my favorite metaphors that many yoga teachers offer during Warrior 2 relates to not only obtaining balance through good alignment in the posture, but likening that balance to how we position ourselves in our lives. So, if you can picture warrior 2: front leg with your knee offering a right angle between the thigh and calf, thigh bone parallel to the earth, back leg with the pinky toe side of your foot offering your anchor into the mat; head, neck, and torso perpendicular to the horizon, creating a plum line from the crown of your head down through your groins dropping into a spot just about equidistant between your feet. Arms are at shoulder height spread out with the front arm in line with the front leg, back arm in line with your back leg. Warrior’s gaze is forward, looking out over the front arm, while your torso is in the side plane of your body. Hmmmm…. I should figure out how to import a drawing of it. It sounds much more complicated than it is. Warrior two is a very solid stable posture. The language that I love that teachers use refers to the back leg representing our past, and all that is behind us, our memories, all of what we carry with us, good and bad; it brings us to where we are today. The front leg represents where we are heading, our goals, the future. And the torso, where the balance of the posture is kept is the immediate present moment. The dynamic of this posture is held by the solidity of the core, being totally present while at the same time there is no escaping the attention that must be given to past and future, because the stance holds it’s foundational footing in both of these, while the core reminds us that to be balanced, we must keep our core, our center, focused and centered, very present. It is a beautiful metaphor. Especially as a teacher, as you bring your gaze around to a room full of yogis and yoginis taking the posture, and observe how people find their “balance” in various gestures of imbalance. Understanding the metaphor, and watching people leaning into their past or future, I get a tender feeling, that I am in a room full of sacred beings mindfully accessing themselves. Watching a class as each of the participants focuses and draws themselves into the posture, witnessing the introspection as it finds it’s perfectly imperfect solid stance, holding sacred lives in the balance is extraordinary and humbling.

What does all of this have to do with handstand? Handstand is one of my challenge postures. It frequently feels like I have a love hate relationship with it. Though, I will generally speak of handstand very fondly. And yet, as I think of the Warrior 2 metaphor, I begin to have an even deeper appreciation of why handstand offers the challenge that it does. There’s no back leg or arm, no front leg or arm, just straight up pure and solid. And, Upside down. And then we balance on what? The smallest flat surface available…. our hands! All yoga postures bring us to challenge by finding balance through some combination of strength and flexibility. If there is not enough flexibility, the necessary alignment in order to create balance will not be found. If there is not enough strength, we will not be able to hold or sustain our balance in the posture. So yes, even handstand which is a very powerful posture requiring a lot of strength, must keep it’s delicate balance through a stance of being totally present in the here and now. The power of understanding that and the contrast that handstand offers in comparison to any of the warrior postures has been very striking to me recently. So when I take the three elements that are required to achieve a posture: balance, strength, and flexibility, and then I humbly observe myself as I fumble intermittently with something that I know I basically have what it takes to kick myself up into (at a wall mind you, you will not see me doing handstand in the middle of a room without another human being spotting me in this life time!) again, I witness myself and draw the metaphor into my present life, and realize: Yes, I should be practicing a little more deeply, and a little more diligently. The ah-ha comes however, from realizing, that despite the growth I have achieved over the years in my practice, I can still easily slip out of being able to access a posture that I know is a lot stronger than what it was the first time I kicked up into it. And, it doesn’t have anything to do with how strong or how flexible I am. It has everything to do with my getting purely balanced and keeping my focus present. Maybe, just maybe if I brought some more due diligence to meditation, I would have the presence needed to balance the strength and flexibility that I know are available to me.

Donna

Preferences, No?

Those of us who live and wander in the yoga world, I think sometimes get so full of ourselves that we begin to think that we should or could actually become enlightened! We go to yoga class regularly, have our own home practice, meditate, never judge other people or ourselves, and we have no preferences. Ok, Ok, maybe I sound a little full of myself right now. But seriously, what would it be to have no preferences, or to be an enlightened being? No preferences, quite possibly is offered as a direction rather than something to actually achieve. However, even as a direction, it is so unattainable, it seems that it may serve us better as a reminder that we live here on this physical plane in material form so that we can learn something about how to live an earthly life with ego and personality actually intact, from the place of our individual differences. Balance, everything always comes back to Balance. Those beautiful yoga poses that challenge, always seem to throw us off balance, reminding us that that is the reason we found our way to a yoga studio in the first place. A life skillfully lived finds the balance between resisting the temptations the ego dangles in front of us while, allowing all of our very unique imperfections. It is when we can offer ourselves the truth of temptations, imperfections, and yes, even our desire to judge; see these, embrace them, and not feel threatened by them that the balancing act, on and off the mat becomes so much more attainable. When we awaken to the truth of what makes and creates us the mortal imperfect beings that we are, it is then that the desperate need to control falls back, and we can enjoy a life floating from one balancing act to another from a stance of easeful contentment, even if we sometimes trip and fall. Donna

Update to my last post

The memorial concert of Mozart's Requiem, after having to get picked up off the floor heroically by our director, Chuck Schneider, is still happening, but with a change or two due to the financial distresses of the times: Instead of taking place at the historic Stanley Theater in Utica, NY, it will now be taking place at the historic Grace Church, also in Downtown Utica, NY. Grace Church is equally as beautiful, but not nearly as large, so arrive early to guarantee yourself seating! Also, the time has been moved up to 3:00 PM, on Sunday September 11, not 4:30, as posted below. And, instead of being accompanied by Chuck's select orchestra from the various local orchestra's in upstate NY, we will now be accompanied by renowned pianist, Andrew Russo, also an incredibly talented musician from the Central New York area. We have down scaled and down sized, but it will still be a beautiful event worth your while. Please Come!!
Donna

A couple of Announcements

KIRTAN! In my home yoga studio on Saturday July 30th 7:30 PM with Michelle Angel. I understand that part of what she will bring to this event will be a trio of large gongs to create a "gong bath"!! If you find yourself in the greater Syracuse area, and are interested in attending, contact me and I'll help you get there. You can go to my web page at www.changeinmotionhealingarts.com to contact me.

Laughter Yoga: I am now leading the 8:00 laughter yoga line at 8:00 AM Eastern Time on Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday mornings, while Rebecca Foster takes a smiling breather from doing this every single day for something well over 2 years. If you would like to laugh with me dial into the line at: 712-432-3900; when prompted touch in: 6071292# If you want to laugh at other than 8:00 in the morning, you can dial into this line every single day at the top of 14 out of 24 hours every day and laugh with lots of different laughter leaders for anywhere from 12-20 minutes: Go to www.laughteryogaamerica.com for more information.

9-11 10th year Anniversary Memorial concert at the Stanley Theater in Utica, NY on Sunday September 11, at 4:30 PM, under the direction of Charles Schneider. We will be singing Mozart's Requiem. Several choral groups from the greater Utica area are joining voices for this event. You will see me in the alto section standing (singing!) with my mother and my aunt!!

Donna

Lessons in Buying a Used Car!

A lot of energy has been spent in the last month or more in finding and acquiring a used car for my daughter, who has been living in Africa for the last six months. She will be coming back State side soon, about to enter graduate school at Cornell. Ithaca is a very cool small city, that caters well to it’s large college population, but is still enough of a small city, that having a car will be quite useful for little things, like finding ones way down the hill to the other side of town to shop at the “Green Star”, local food co-op, and making the hour long trip home every now and again.

Many lessons learned in the process of purchasing this car. First and foremost, just because the car sales man who happens to be representing a private seller, isn’t selling the car through his dealership, doesn’t mean he isn’t still basically a car sales man. Second: If you are going to buy a car long distance, make sure that the third party mechanic you hire sees the car a minimum of two weeks before you fly so that you won’t be stuck with a non-refundable plane ticket the day before you travel to pick up the car! Third: Remember the first lesson, and don’t be fooled into thinking that guy that is still basically a car sales man is a nice guy just because he has a friendly sounding, almost southern drawl. Fourth: Recognize that even if you get a good deal, which is difficult to truly do when you are buying a used car, NY State will make sure to worsen the deal when you go to register the car and end up paying an additional 8% to NY State in sales tax! Can’t touch all the corporate and wealthy America tax breaks and loop-holes, but let’s tax everyone who finds themselves buying a used car; at 8%. Fifth: If you happen to find yourself in the Dept. of Motor Vehicles on the Tuesday after a long holiday weekend to register your used car, bring a small novel to read, and expect to finish it!

All’s well that ends well. It is a nice little Gulf TDI, a perfect grad student car. And will blend well with all the throw back hippies still living in Ithaca!

Donna

Justine's Version

More descriptive, and with a couple of pictures thrown in.... definitely worth the read.

afrikavocado.wordpress.com

Dakar, and then Home!

We got home at about 3:00AM on Tuesday, just yesterday that is! To conclude the rest of what we did: As predicted we ate good Palestinian family cooking, and were entertained by the family for the duration of the last 2-3 days in Amman. Then, on the evening of the 17^th we flew to Dakar, Senegal, arriving on Wednesday afternoon, the 18^th, meeting up with Justine (older daughter), who flew into Dakar from Bamako, Mali, arriving about 30 minutes after we did.

Justine served as our tour guide in Dakar, and thank goodness, because her French is basically fluent, and if you do not speak French or the native Wolof, you will mostly not be understood. Dakar was my first Africa experience, and it was quite an eye opener. I have traveled in the Middle East a handful of times in my life, both as a child and as an adult, so I am not unfamiliar with what it means to stand out and look like an American tourist, or what it is like to speak to someone who speaks broken English, and then feel stupid for expecting the native of another country to understand my imperialist language, or what it means to go to an open air market, and have the vendors pester you until you pay attention to them, and hassle over the price until you feel both ripped off, and again like an ugly American for not just letting them get the excessive price they were asking for….. After all as a basically middle class American, I have far more privilege and access than the average flea market (“Souk” in the Middle East) vendors; their goods, even at a somewhat inflated price, are still lots cheaper than I could get them for in the States, and so what if I overpay. I am visiting briefly, and if I can boost their economy even just a tiny bit, maybe that is a good thing; my small tourists gifts at inflated prices are not going to break my bank. Excess baggage fees are much more likely to do that, and you won’t see me, or anyone else, haggling over those! All of these experiences that I have had many times before were true again in Africa, the difference being that it was all many times more intense.

Instead of being only mostly obvious as an American tourist, and sometimes being able to blend in because I basically look like an Arab, until I don’t dress or speak like an Arab; in Senegal we stuck out like sore thumbs. Instead of being able to count on someone speaking the Western language that I speak, I had to either fumble with 30+ years old bad high school French, or hope that they might speak better English than my bad French, or (what was usually the case) count on Justine to translate or just speak for us. Instead of the vendors being a little pushy, they were persistent in a way that you cannot even imagine. As we were walking along the street at any given time, someone who has something to sell, which seemed to be almost everyone, would begin to walk next to us, and then speak to us, telling us that they had something for a good price, and would hold whatever it is that they are selling in front of our path, making it very difficult to ignore them. If you were to try to ignore them, they keep speaking, and walking along side or in front of you. If you continue to ignore them, they might try speaking to you in English (generally they would try French first); they might go back and forth between their good French, and broken English. If you begin to speak to them to tell them you are not interested, they then know that they have your attention, and have won round one. Now they begin to tell you that what ever it is they are selling is beautiful, is a good price, etc. Please come to my shop. Over and over, I was truly impressed. Despite themselves, the street vendors, as unrelenting and pushy as they were, were generally very friendly and likeable, making it that much harder to ignore them.

There is more to Dakar, however, than just pushy street vendors. Again, as we did everywhere on this trip, we ate very well, including a meal offered at the home of Justine’s Senegalese family from her college study abroad experience. We took in some historical sites, found our way to 3 different beeches, and to the open market (as opposed the random street vendors, sprinkled throughout the streets), and enjoyed breathing in the colors of Senegal. Indeed the colors of Senegal are truly spectacular. I bought a post card or two that showed off the colors, but it was not difficult to take a picture at any given moment and create a spontaneous post card. Wherever we went where there might have been a crowd of people, the show of color was always bright, vibrant, and truly beautiful. The cloth that is used for clothing for anyone, anytime, dressing up or not, is always vibrant, bold, and colorful. Senegal was truly breathtaking. We took in the tiniest taste of a tiny slice of this very grand continent. I hope to be blessed with more African adventures before I get too old to want to deal anymore with airports and airlines!

Donna