Cooling Off for the Summer

"We will not discover our place in the world. We must design our place in the world." –Courtney Romano, author of "The First Ten Years"

Choices. Our lives are laden with them, and the spectrum across which they exist—from insubstantial to life changing—is extraordinarily broad. A number of choices I made last summer provoked massive change in my life, and ripples of those same choices have continued to bubble at the surface of my headspace and heart, stirring up a fierce desire for further change and, more specifically, a life of my own design. I recognize that seeking such a goal is a luxury, a product of my country and relative economic status, so for that I am grateful and even more determined to pursue what my freedom and privilege makes possible.

My overarching career goal at this point has triggered great transformations in my work life and offered up free time in a way I haven’t experienced since childhood. This shift in my work-life balance is immensely exciting but begs for an investigation of the self, or svadhyaya, as we identify self-study in the realm of yoga. Where do my priorities lie in regards to the larger sectors of my life and within each of these arenas? How must my daily, seemingly inane choices be altered to serve my greater goals and values? Perhaps most importantly, how will I muster the necessary courage, patience, perseverance, and compassion to support me through an ever-evolving process and nudge me closer and closer to what I hope to achieve?

I’ve realized lately that in pushing so hard in pursuit of the life I’ve dreamed for myself, I have largely disregarded the inevitable yin and yang balance that becomes requisite in sustaining a purpose-driven life. In yoga, we speak of the warmer and cooler sides of the body, linked to the Sun and the Moon, the masculine and feminine energies. To ignore this duality that so clearly exists in both our bodies and the natural world is to negate an inherent structure of our nature. To dismiss our potential for coolness through rest, relaxation, and reflection counters one’s opportunity to be balanced. Heat, fueled by and for our passions, jets us ever forward, always toward something more. Tapas, as we identify this barreling fire in yoga, ensures we do not lead complacent lives, filling our time with action and growth. But is it not incredibly valuable, too, to recognize that which we have already accomplished? To not get entirely carried away by ambition? Sitting where we are even for a moment or two throughout a day to dig our heels deeper into the ground we have set builds a more solid foundation from which to spring. Indeed, we rarely arrive at our destination as we imagined, if we even make it there at all; our paths have so many forks that we could never anticipate, no matter how we’ve strived to manicure them for success. And so our groundedness, our cooler edges, serve as our anchors through these unpredictable times. Interacting with ourselves in realms that calm and quiet us reconnects us to what it is that sent us off on harrowing dream journeys in the first place. This rest, too, can offer us the time to recalculate as more forks appear; our subsequent choices, then, can arise from the depths of our centers, rather than brushing hurriedly off our restless surfaces.

Now, of course I share all these ideas but certainly struggle to follow through with them myself. In amping up my risk-taking, I’ve gotten so fired up I can hardly exhale. I can barely let go of whatever hold on my future I imagine I have, nor can I let go of the physical stress that has stealthily crept into my body and taken up residency as I’ve stubbornly trudged forward. We know any sort of natural fire’s burn eventually comes to an end, so why do we push ourselves to such high peaks where we crash from lack of fuel? Our yin sides must not be diminished.

In her book, The First Ten Years, Courtney Romano sets intentions for herself and her readers:

To free fall into the life we were meant to live, not the fabricated one we’re always measuring ourselves against. To find abandon and order in the pathway to more creativity, more risk-taking, and more real world effectiveness.

To free fall and find abandon, as well as order…these statements validate and encourage a looser, more balanced grip on our reality. As I see it, we don’t look to be set beings, destined for a predetermined existence. So why do we become fixated on living smooth, linear lives? As humans, our lives are pockmarked with success, failure, confusion, clarity, indecision, passion, all of which knock us up and down and up and down again. In order to honor this continuous ebb and flow, we must first acknowledge and defend the dichotomy that lives within each of us. Whether you have been racing for days or even months and need to slow down or stop entirely, or you can’t seem to light a fire beneath you to shake up your status quo, comprehending and accepting our right to choose, especially our right to choose a move that veers from whatever cycle, or samsara as we speak of in yoga, we have gotten caught in can empower us to be bold and design a life that exposes our talents, skills, hopes, and dreams in ways they deserve to be shared. What arises so beautifully out of all this mindfulness and courage, too, is the change that billows out into the world as a result of our personal growth. Even our smallest choices can shift the landscape of our surrounding world. So in considering all of this, how is it that you will transform yourself, and our world, for the better today?

–Liz Beres

Off the Grid: Into the Dark

I’m writing this now from the comfort of my parents’ home in central Indiana, where I’ve been spending the bulk of my time the past week resting, reading, and spending time with loved ones. What I love about being here, especially this time of year, is the very real sense of light and dark.

Nighttime feels different to me in the winter than in summer. There is something more permeant about it, as if the darkness can actually penetrate your body. Instead of the warm, luscious movement that I feel in the air of summer evenings, nighttime in winter seems to beg for stillness. When I visit the rural countryside of my childhood home near the winter solstice, the time of year when night is longest, I am always struck by how different I feel here than in the constantly lit atmosphere of New York City. With nighttime gently wrapping itself around the house from all directions, I don’t seem to have the stamina or the desire to disrupt the natural order of night and day by staying awake long after dark. It might just be that the chance to relax and recover from the fatigue of my normal life is all too needed, but I deeply relish the opportunity to turn in early, to lay awake in bed for a few minutes in a completely dark, still room, allowing the night to swallow me up until I fall asleep. It feels both luxurious and simple at the same time.

When I think back on my childhood, especially on memories of holiday celebrations and rituals, this sense of light and dark is very present. While I wasn’t a child who was particularly afraid of the dark, a sense of reverence for the mysteries of the night were common themes in my world, and indeed, I think many stories that people are told in childhood reinforce this idea that late night hours are magical, mysterious, or sometimes even cause for fear.

For instance, take one of the most basic tales of contemporary childhood: Santa Claus. Children are told that they must go to sleep in order for Santa Claus to bring them gifts and that if they don’t, if they try to stay awake to see him, he won’t come. Now, for obvious reasons, parents need their children to be asleep in order for “Santa” to do his work, but this is just one example of reinforcing a sense of magic or possibility that only occurs in the deepest of night, when ordinary humans are fast asleep and unable to disrupt the mystical transformation that takes place between night and day. When we wake up the next morning, somehow the world is different than it was before. Transformation happens.

One of my favorite childhood memories is of Christmas Eves spent riding in the car late at night, when my father drove us home from my grandmother’s house or sometimes, from a candlelight church service. This was one of the few nights of the year that I was allowed to stay up until midnight, and I truly loved it. It was thrilling and mystifying. In the backseat of the car, I would press my nose to the cold, slightly foggy window and stare up at the sky. I could see twinkling stars and moonlight shining on snow. The world seemed both old and new. We would go home and often sit in the living room in the dark, with nothing but the lights of the Christmas tree on. Eventually, I would happily go to bed, not wanting to risk my chances with Santa Claus by trying to stay awake. That was our ritual, and while some details have changed, Christmas Eve to me is still very much about honoring the night.

I held on to my reverence for the night for a long time, and I remember very clearly the first time I stayed awake through the night until the sky began to brighten with sun. Looking back, a teenage slumber party seems hardly worthy of the occasion.

As we grow older and eventually stay awake at all hours of the day and night, we begin to lose this sense of mystery about the dark. As adults, we push through our bodies’ natural biorhythms, pull all-nighters in college, travel across time zones, experience that 3am back spasm or sudden illness, and then the uniqueness of each daily cycle of light and dark begins to fade.

Not typically one for New Year’s resolutions, my hope for 2015 is to attempt to regain a glimmer my childhood appreciation for the dark, and in so doing, bring a better sense of balance to my life. From the practicality of needing regular, good quality sleep in order to be healthy, to the spiritual dimension of honoring nighttime rituals, inviting darkness into our lives and yoga practices is especially necessary when we live in the City that Never Sleeps.

As adults we run the risk of becoming jaded and cynical, immune to the mysteries of the life that we once thought magical. We experience disappointment and heartache and stress and worry that keep us up at night, and on top of it all, we bombard our senses with nonstop input in the form of the internet, smartphones, incessant email and texting, and the never-ending glow of artificial light upon our eyes. In short, we don’t often give ourselves over to darkness. This darkness, while sometimes frightening, is also a necessary part of healing, learning, and the creative process. The contemporary FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) has overridden our instinctive sense of when to turn off and rest. Our desire to learn and do and constantly input information has led us to forget how to lean on ourselves for comfort, for inspiration, for the simple satisfaction of being on this planet and being alive. We fear silence and solitude because we don’t trust our minds to go somewhere that might be uncomfortable to us.

I am an only child, so my best friend growing up was my imagination. I had an insatiable belief in possibility and hope for the adventures of my future life, and while of course I have matured into my adult self, I am beginning to wonder if honoring the cycles of night and day, of darkness and light with greater rigor can return a bit of this magic to my daily life. Winter is the perfect time for reflection, rest, and ritual. In the heart of winter we can prepare for the blossoming energy of spring where we can produce, create and teach with renewed energy that we found in the dark of the previous months. We just have to invite the natural darkness of the season to run its course.

I’d like to end with a poem I discovered through one of this community’s favorite podcasts, On Being. Enjoy, and Happy New Year.

The Winter of Listening by David Whyte

No one but me by the fire, my hands burning red in the palms while the night wind carries everything away outside.

All this petty worry while the great cloak of the sky grows dark and intense round every living thing.

What is precious inside us does not care to be known by the mind in ways that diminish its presence.

What we strive for in perfection is not what turns us into the lit angel we desire,

what disturbs and then nourishes has everything we need.

What we hate in ourselves is what we cannot know in ourselves but what is true to the pattern does not need to be explained.

Inside everyone is a great shout of joy waiting to be born.

Even with the summer so far off I feel it grown in me now and ready to arrive in the world.

All those years listening to those who had nothing to say.

All those years forgetting how everything has its own voice to make itself heard.

All those years forgetting how easily you can belong to everything simply by listening.

And the slow difficulty of remembering how everything is born from an opposite and miraculous otherness.

Silence and winter has led me to that otherness.

So let this winter of listening be enough for the new life I must call my own.

-Katherine Moore

Monday Mantra: Transformation

 

“Change leads to disappointment if it is not sustained. Transformation is sustained change, and it is achieved through practice.” - B.K.S. Iyengar

The season of Fall is a perfect season to observe changes in nature, in light, and in our energetic bodies. We all share these experiences. But what do you think of the definition of transformation as sustained change? Does this idea make you observe recent changes or obstacles or disappointments with a different perspective? How? And how does your practice on the mat inform this process?

- TMP

Need

As we move into the tail end of summer, I can't help but sense a little bit of unrest. Aside from the unseasonably mild, cool temperatures, this summer season has been a tumultuous one. Injustice and discord in Ferguson ,MO, fighting in Ukraine and Israel, an Ebola outbreak, and some shocking celebrity deaths come to mind.  On a more personal scale, many of my close friends, family members, and colleagues are experiencing upheavals in health, relationships, careers, and projects. Simply put, I've found the typical ease of summer to be lacking.

Especially significant to the yoga world, we experienced the death of B.K.S Iyengar a week ago. Attributed with bringing yoga to the Western world, Iyengar believed that yoga could be practiced by anyone, regardless of any physical or mental challenges. Particularly influential was his introduction to using props (blocks, straps, etc.) to achieve better alignment in yoga postures.

I'd like to share this section of this New York Times article about his death:

“We were just coming out of the ’60s change-your-consciousness thing, and many of us were in our heads, and wanting to meditate, and reach Samadhi,” or enlightenment, Patricia Walden, a longtime student of Mr. Iyengar’s, said in an interview in 2000. “Iyengar was, like, ‘Stand on your feet. Feel your feet.’ He was so practical. His famous quote was, ‘How can you know God if you don’t know your big toe?’ ”

Were it not for his celebrity in the West, Mr. Iyengar would hardly have gained a reputation in India, said Latha Satish, who heads a major yoga institute in the southern city of Chennai.

“He was at the right time at the right place; he would not have survived here,” Mr. Satish said. In India, he said, “everybody was interested in Western education; yoga was not so popular.” Mr. Iyengar’s trademark improvisations — like the use of blocks, blankets and straps to assist in holding difficult postures — were adopted “because of the need of students abroad,” he said.

I’ve had a lot of conversations recently about the elite, privileged status of yoga in modern culture. With so much injustice, violence, and suffering happening in the world, how can educated and wealthy Americans ignore the needs of others and spend their money instead on yoga classes? Is there some sort of inherent moral dilemma in choosing to spend one’s time stretching and “letting go” instead of spending spare dollars and hours in the fight for human rights? Are we hiding from bigger problems within the comfort of our own need to self-analyze and self-serve?

As out of context and over-simplified as these questions are, I’ll be the first to say that I really have no idea how to answer them. The issue of a human obligation to aid economic and racial injustice is simply too complex for one person to answer in a Sunday morning blog post.

What I do know, and what I think Iyengar knew, is that the yoga practice is a transformative one. By examining the self in physical, mental, and energetic capacities, I believe yoga teaches useful skills in life off the mat: empathy, forgiveness, tenacity, the ability to pay attention to details, skills of discernment and decision-making, how to listen, how to see subtleties and interpret cause and effect. Iyengar gave Western practitioners blocks because he saw a need for them. As teachers, where do we see a need for our skills in a world full of immense suffering and inequality on an immediate and global scale, as well as in a world full of seriously over-stressed, technologically saturated, and unhealthy (albeit comparatively rich) Americans?

Interestingly, in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, the 8 Limbs of the Yoga Practice begin with codes and guidelines for ethical living, or, in essence, how we relate to other human beings. I believe our relationship to self and other is intricate and multi-directional. We cannot love and serve others if we do not know how to love and serve ourselves, and vice versa. The yoga practice gives us tools to navigate this scale from out to in.

As I begin to make preparations for fall amidst a late summer that has been less than joyous, I am challenging myself to look at yoga and the needs of others on both an intimate and large spectrum. Even as I say that, I’m not sure what it means. While certainly opinionated, I’ve rarely ever been an activist. Perhaps I’ve never thought that I was the one for the job, or perhaps I’ve been living with my eyes half-closed.

However, I do know that to whomever I’m teaching, this practice does not belong in a bubble. Forgiveness, empathy, and the ability to deal with fear are not elusive ideas belonging only to those who have the time and privilege to practice them. These are concrete and necessary aspects of a peaceful and equal world.

I’m not sure of the yoga community’s role in meeting the enormous needs of the world, but I think this community is definitely capable of discussing it. So here’s to preparing for fall as gentle warriors.

- Katherine Moore