perspective

Slowing Down

Elizabeth Knowledge, Mindset , , , ,

Desert scene

Have you ever found yourself receiving the same message again and again? For example, you read an entry in a daily meditation book that so clearly speaks to you that you are startled. Then you lunch with a friend who tells you how she just became aware she needed to change something in her life, and it is exactly the issue the meditation book entry was speaking to. A few days later, you hear the same message in a lecture you attend.

That’s exactly what has happened to me. Recently I heard a woman from Rotary International speak about lessons she learned from her stay in Haiti, helping to install water filters in the homes of Haitians. She described the life of the people in the valley where she worked, how they spent most of their time interacting with neighbors. Their lives, being quite simple, although much more physically demanding than those of most Americans, allowed space for relationships. What the speaker took away was the importance of slowing down and paying attention to people and relationships.

The following day I was Skyping with my Vedic Chant teacher, going over two chants and part of a third I was working on. As we concluded the session, she told me, “You need to slow down. You need to pay attention and listen to yourself.”

As I reflected on my teacher’s feedback, I realized that “slowing down,” “paying attention,” and “listening” were a part of a bigger message I needed to hear.

Later, when I heard Pastor Tom Sweet say: “If you want to go deep, you have to go slow,” and repeat that in a newsletter he sent out later in the week, I knew he was sharing the bigger message.

In his commentary on the Yoga Sutra I.2, where the state of yoga is defined, Bernard Bouanchaud tells us: “Yoga consists of keeping the mind quiet and wakeful so that one is totally present to what one is doing. Thoughts no longer rush forth of themselves in all directions…” To achieve the state of yoga requires going deep, and going deep requires going slowly.

During the holiday season, when messages abound about the many things to do and remember, my thoughts can flash by, dispersing my attention and focus. As I feel stressed by the perceived pressure to “get everything done,” my distraction and thoughts speed up.

We are fortunate to have many practices in yoga that help to quiet the mind and improve our ability to focus our attention in the here and now. The practices are tools to slow us down, but also the vehicles to go deeper. Often the first place we start is doing movement coordinated with the breath in yoga postures. But the eight limbs of yoga suggest many ways to practice paying attention and slowing down: we can observe how we practice the five recommended ethical principles (yama) in our relationships with others; we can observe how we practice the five recommended attitudes (niyama) toward ourselves; we can practice breathing techniques (pranayama) to bring a state of balance to the mind; we can practice withdrawing our senses (pratyahara) from focusing on the world around us in favor of our internal universe; we can regularly practice meditation with a particular focus on an object or concept that helps to support us in our lives (dharana, dhyana, samadhi).

Yoga asks us to go deep, to know ourselves, to make changes so we can live without suffering, with more peace. By going slowly enough to go deeply, we have the possibility of transformation. And, for that message, I am grateful.

 

Winter Solstice – Practice and Reflections

Elizabeth Seasons, Special Events ,

Winter Solstice image

Each year, I am able, I teach Yoga for the Winter Solstice. I do this believing we can come to a deeper, quieter place in our lives by heeding the messages of this season. I hope you will join me Wednesday, December 17 from 5:45–7:15 pm at The Movement Center in Harrisburg for this balancing, meditative time honoring the wisdom of the season. You can find out more information on this class here. Below you will find my reflections on the Winter Solstice, written for the Solstice last year, but still speaking to me, and I hope to you, of the blessings of the winter season.

I love noticing seasonal changes and what those changes suggest about the rhythms of our lives. After all, the teachings of yoga stress finding balance in our lives, harmony with the world around us. Awareness of the seasons, the energies they possess, their influence on our lives, and the lessons they teach can lead us to
live more healthfully and harmoniously with our environment.

The winter solstice is the day of both greatest darkness and the promise of returning and growing light. In this way, it also offers us a metaphor for our own energies. Within each one of us there is both energy that is quiet and reflective as well as energy that is light and uplifting. In our yoga practice, we always seek a balance of these two energies, remembering that the seasons and our environment will influence these energies uniquely within each one of us.

As we move toward the winter solstice, we can bring our awareness to the messages of this season. We look around and see the skeletons of deciduous trees as they husband their life-sustaining resources. Most plants have entered a time of dormancy so they may bloom in the spring. Ground hogs, rabbits, and chipmunks hibernate or reduce their activity so as to conserve their food, water, and heat. Even in the midst of a winter storm, there is a sense of quiet as we watch snowflakes fall and cover the ground.

If we were to honor the quiet energy of winter, we would rest more and view this season as an opportunity to restore ourselves so we have the energy to blossom with our activities in the spring. Winter can be a fallow time, but not necessarily a time when nothing happens. It can be a time of reflection; we can begin to ask ourselves what projects we want to undertake when the energy of spring rises to nurture us. Remembering that in winter we plan our gardens, we don’t plant them, can help remind us of winter’s rhythm.

The winter solstice teaches us about living with faith. It is the day of greatest darkness. It announces the coldest months of the year. Yet, at some moment, probably in January, we will notice that dawn arrives a bit earlier, and the sun sets a bit later. In the face of the cold, cloudy days, and winter weather, the lengthening hours of daylight will raise our faith that spring will come. In December 21, Clear and five degrees, Ted Kooser reminds us of the hopefulness of this season;

“Perfectly still this solstice morning, /in bone-cracking cold…/…as I walk the road,/the wind held in the heart of every tree/flows to the end of each twig and forms a bud.”

 

The Whole Story

Elizabeth Informational ,

Through the trees

Sometimes we think we understand something, but we do not yet have enough information for a full picture.”

….Nicolai Bachman, The Path of the Yoga Sutra

 
From 33,ooo feet, the land below lay bleached, the color of sandstone, and dotted with craters lined by low jagged ridges. Here and there a cloud threw a shadow across the earth. But the view still left a sense of barreness under a startling blue sky and relentless sun.

At a point close to our destination the desert yielded to Lake Mead, gathering water from the Colorado River. The chalklines of the lake’s previous shorelines lay naked. Soon tidy neighborhoods of houses appeared, ringed in greenery, many with rectangles of blue in the yards.

Finally the plane approached McCarren Airport, and the jewels of the Las Vegas Strip appear paying homage to New York, Paris, Luxor, Mandolay Bay, among others.

Ten years ago I never would have guessed we would be making Las Vegas our destination twice a year. But somehow, our grown children, with their children, have a way of leading us to places we never thought we would go.

My image of Las Vegas and its environs has been just what I have described – starkly barren desert, suburban sprawl, and the crazy, fantasy world of “The Strip.” As well as leading us to new places, our children, and in this case, grandchildren, have a way of opening our minds to what we hadn’t seen before. In this case it was the Clark County Parks and Recreation Wetlands Park.

One Sunday morning, two grandchildren, our son, his wife, Jim and I visited the Las Vegas Valley wetlands. I wasn’t sure what I expected but it wasn’t what I found – except for the unrelenting heat of the sun. Vegetation of all kinds bordered the path we followed, which led us to a pond. As we stood at its edge, soft-shelled turtles, both large and small, swam to near we stood. A pair of American coots swam on the far side of the pond. Fish of various sizes nibbled in the waters close to the shore.

Before the development of Las Vegas city, this wetland had been an oasis in the valley. But development had led to the run-off of storm water, building of sewage treatment plants and water flows that deepened a channel allowing water that had fed the wetlands to migrate into a wash. Recognizing the important role the wetlands played in purifying water and providing habitat for plants, birds, and animals led to projects that restored the wetlands we walked though.

Sitting in a grove of old cottonwood trees, whose presence signals the existence of water in the Southwest, I found my thoughts coming to the Yoga Sutra. How often, I thought, had I made a judgment from what I had observed, only to learn later that it was not the “whole story.” Sutra I.8 calls assumptions and judgments such as I made “misapprehension” or viparayaya – “comprehension which is taken to be correct until more favorable conditions reveal the exact nature of the objects,” according to Mr. Desikachar in his Reflections on the Yoga Sutra-s of Patanjali.

While my assumptions about Las Vegas hadn’t serious consequences, it was still a lesson for me to be wary thinking I understand a place, or a person, or a thing, for I seldom have the full story. Mr. Desikachar reminds us, “The aim of yoga practice is to recognize and control the causes of misapprehension.”

 

We Are All in this Together

Elizabeth Advice, Current Events , , ,

People's climate march

The hand holding out the button was gnarled and shaking. Its owner, his head crowned with an abundance of curly white hair, mumbled something about the button. My friend, standing near this man, exclaimed, “This is cool.” On the button an image of the earth was held in two hands, one of which was large, the other small, as if a father or grandfather was passing the planet to a child.

At the People’s Climate March in New York City on September 21, many young people marched. They carried many different signs, but one we saw frequently announced, “I’m marching for my future.” One of my friends carried a sign declaring, “I’m marching for my grandchildren.” And, we saw many of those, as well.

Occasionally a chant – call and response – floated above the heads of marchers. “What is democracy?” they called, and the response, “This is democracy.” As I looked around, the multitude of various faces seemed to acknowledge this truth. Young, old, and in-between marched. We saw people with babies, and at least one person in a wheelchair. People or every color, leftover hippies and their 21st century versions, groups from every environmental orientation, anti-war protesters, members of labor unions, campaign workers, college students, Buddhists, vegans, communists and so many others I lost count, moved around us as we walked.

“Noah’s Ark” was perhaps the most powerful image for me from the March. The ark, which was large enough to hold many people, emerged from a street to slide in amongst the marchers. Aboard the ark were a rabbi, a priest, an atheist, a Wiccan, and on and on. “We are all in this together,” it announced.

Since returning home I have been reflecting on this experience and how the teachings of yoga guide us in living consciously and in harmony with life on this planet. It seems to me two of the yama recommended in the Yoga Sutra, in particular, can help us. The first and most important attitude recommended is ahimsa or non-harming. It is interpreted to be more than a prohibition against violence; it requires, as well, positive action so that we treat all beings – and I believe that includes the living earth – with respect and benevolence.

The other yama especially relevant as we reflect on how to live in balance is aparigrahah. This yama is translated as non-covetedness or an absence of greed. It requires living simply, taking only what is necessary.

These teachings offer antidotes to many of the attitudes that have brought us to such a critical point in the life of the planet and her inhabitants. They are part of a larger group of recommendations that if adhered to offer a chance to live with greater peace and joy.

As a way of living more consciously in harmony with life on this planet and with ourselves, we can ask ourselves questions raised by these teachings.

  • Is there more that I can do to practice ahimsa, bringing an attitude of respect and kindness to others, to all beings, to how I live day to day?
  • Do I live consciously with an attitude of moderation, resisting excesses of consumption or acquisition?
  • Can I live more simply, generously, keeping in mind that how I live each day affects, not just those around me, but those throughout the world?

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Transitions

Elizabeth Health, Seasons , , ,

Leaves are Starting to Fall

When I woke the other morning, the air felt chilly as I slipped into the space I call “my room” to do my yoga practice. And it was still cool enough when I went downstairs afterwards that Jim had cooked oatmeal for our breakfast, his “first oatmeal of the season,” as he said.

At my desk later, I found my head spinning as I looked at the well-organized sheet of notes listing all the things I should be taking care of. Fortunately, I stopped and decided the only way to gain perspective was to take a walk.

The lane where I walked divides smallish homes and the Conodoguinet creek on the left and a woodsy area below a town house development on the right. Scattered across the lane were brown leaves, and a few even floated down in front of me as I walked. Some trees sported drying leaves lacey with holes. It was quiet. No voices, no bird calls. Just the peace of the trees and a few horsetail clouds in a blue sky. I couldn’t help but think the day announced the slightest shift, an almost perceptible movement, toward the energy of fall.

I know this change toward shorter days and cooler weather is not welcome by everyone. And I’m not writing this as a foreboding of unwelcome things to come, but rather as an observation. So often our awareness of seasonal change is about what is around, outside of us. Yet the energetic qualities of each season influence all beings – including us.

In fall we observe the leaves drying and falling, often blown by the winds. The air cools. Autumn is characterized by the qualities of vata dosha, one of three constitutions described by the Indian science of health known as ayurveda. If we are in a vata stage of life – mid-50s and up – we might be even more vulnerable to these effects. We might find our hair, nails, and skin is dry. We may suffer from constipation and have trouble sleeping. We may feel ungrounded or anxious.

Knowing in advance the energetics of fall can keep us from wondering “what is the matter” if we find ourselves experiencing some of the symptoms of out-of-balance vata. Accepting that the season may exacerbate these effects, we can start making changes in our diet and lifestyles that can support a sense of balance. So, for example, if we tend to experience dryness, we can begin to add soups to our diets and take time to massage some sesame oil into our feet and joints. Our yoga practice can change to bring a sense of grounded-ness and stability to our system.

We do have to remember that how we respond to seasonal and life changes varies from person to person based upon what ayurveda identifies as our personal dosha or constitution at birth. Understanding our constitution helps us to understand our strengths and weaknesses and our responses to seasons and life events and choices. Much literature exists on the subject, and an ayurvedic practitioner can accurately identify and explain our constitution and its implications in our life.

Whether you choose to delve more deeply into learning about your constitution or not, we all can observe, without judging, the qualities of each season. We can notice how we are affected and prepare strategies to counter-balance any negative effects we may experience. In that way, we can help ourselves to “avoid future suffering“.