Sutra Friday!

Welcome to the first edition of Sutra Friday! From now until...well until I get tired of this project, I'll be posting an entry about one of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali are one of the most important texts in yoga's history; just about every teacher training program requires students to read it. And once you have read it you find that some of the sutras stick a little more in your day to day life than others but that they all have a special place in yoga.

So the problem of starting this whole project is that there are 196 sutras! Where does one start? Well when starting a journey I like to (at least) start on the path (divergences may occur) so what better path to walk than the 8 limbed path of yoga; first step the yamas and niyamas. What are the yamas and niyamas? Well, they are a sort of “life’s guidelines” for yogis, strictly speaking they are restraints (yamas) and observances (niyamas), there are a total of ten. In the sutra II-30 (book 2, sutra 30) the yamas are described as things that seem “so elementary, but at the same time ‘elephantary.’” They are little things that may seem like mild decisions in one’s life but are very hard to abide by and live by; things like: non-violence, truthfulness, non-stealing, continence (celibacy), and non-greed. Sure, right we all do those things…or do we? Or at least, do we do them fully.

In this entry I won’t go into the full break down of each yama and niyama, that’s what this whole ‘Friday Sutra’ project is all about, but I hope this entry has illuminated just a tiny bit of the subtlety and profundity of one of the greatest sacred texts of yoga; The Yoga Sutra’s of Patanjali.

Next week’s sutra II-36, truthfulness. A yama we think we all know…

5 Things I Don't Like

As a teacher and advocate of yoga every once and a while I get this unsolicited remark when I mention being a yoga teacher or just that I do yoga, “Yeah, I don’t really like yoga.” More blunt than the flat end of a meat tenderizer. My usual response is something non-committal, feverishly dancing around and suppressing the numerous sharp tongued responses that leap to mind quicker than Jack be nimble in his fanciful display of Hanumanasana over a candlestick. So instead of getting all yogi-rific on the ignorant, I mean the INNOCENT, non yogis here is my official response:

5 things I do that I don’t really like.

1. Jog. Ok so I don’t jog daily or even weekly but I do know how good it is for me so I am adamantly working on building a running practice. Of course I do yoga as my main exercise and of course I believe that it is the best thing you can do for your body and that a vigorous vinyasa class is not only great for muscle health and tone but a super cardio workout. However, I also know that I’m not the kind of person to push myself through such a practice on my own and given my tiny town location there’s not much else to offer in the way of yoga except for, well me. So I jog. I’m working up to 3-4times a week for about 15-30mins a day which is quite a challenge but for cardio and over all keeping calories in check running is the best thing out there. So do I like running/jogging? Not really but it’s good for me and I do because I like me.

2. Eat bananas. I don’t like bananas, I never have, they are weird and they have a strange texture and the moment you put them in any dish the whole dish taste only of bananas! BUT, they are very good for you and as far as easily transported fruit, they’re hard to beat. So a few years ago I put on my big girl fruit loving pants and starting eating bananas and I’ve come to appreciate them as a healthy and more importantly a filling snack. Bananas, not just for teething babies any more.

3. NOT eat peanuts. Ok this is really something that I love but don’t do (or don’t do as much b/c it’s not as good for me). Lately I’ve been studying Ayurveda, the sister science of yoga, so of course I start using my most available if not most willing guinea pig, myself. Without getting into the whole break down of Ayruveda let me just say this that according to this ancient science I am not supposed to eat peanuts. So I have turned to other nuts for my protein packed snacks and tried other nut butters for my occasional sandwich. Le sigh.

4. My taxes. You know, I’m just going to leave this one as is because who doesn’t hate doing their taxes but on some level understand the logistics of is all. Bummer, but we do it. 

5. Take antidepressants. Yep I take antidepressants. And you know what, I’m not ashamed at all. I thought I would be I thought I’d be seen as a sham as a yoga teacher who can’t yoga herself well. But in fact that was my disease talking, that was my unhealthy brain telling me not to fix myself because I wasn’t worth fixing! Do I like being on pharmaceuticals? No, not really, I like feeling like me again, I like not having thoughts that are wildly beyond my control but of course I’d rather be able to have my body produce the hormones that cause that all on its own. Plus, it’s like my amazing doctor told me, he basically said ‘look you’re a healthy, holistic young woman, you do yoga, you know how to fix yourself but what I’m seeing is that you can’t get yourself to use the tools you have laid before you, because you are sick.’ And I was sick and I am sick but just like he said, I know that I already have all the tools I need to make myself better. And one more day doing the things I may not like but are good for me, one more day on the mat and I’m one step closer to being med free. One step closer to finding that peaceful contentedness that yoga is all about.

Sacred Scraps

Today I am spending the day feathering the nest, getting my little home sacred space set up for new hobbies. Now that I am working fewer jobs I have a little time to cultivate my own sacred hobby. Recently I’ve been reading a few crafts blogs and getting very excited about finding new creative outlets and getting into mediums I once thought far out of my reach. Normally as crafty as I get is my yearly birthday collage. But now I’m gather fabric scraps, old photographs, old bits of twine and ribbon and lots of interesting paper in a way I have become a scavenger of scraps, a keeper of kitsch, a finder of finds. In short I have become my mother (thanks mom, and I do mean that with love and only a touch of sarcasm).

Here are a few pictures of my sacred scraps that will hopefully soon become some yoga props for the studio; mat bags, meditation pillows, Savasana eye pillows, and maybe even some fun art for a Gallery Show, but that may be getting ahead of myself.

The shelf of sacred scraps.













The blues and the greens.













The boxes; warms, cools, pattered and neutral.

Some eye pillows waiting to be stuffed and finished.

As I take a break in my meditation on organization and preparation I find myself quite happy to be sitting still among all of these object. They are not just scraps of paper and fabric or scalloped scissors, they are tools. Tools of my meditation, they are the cultivators of my inner landscape, little windows that shine some of the fire I have inside out into the world in tangible form.

Praise and blame, loss and gain, pleasure and sorrow come and go like the wind. To be happy, rest like a giant tree, in the midst of them all.
- Buddha

All This Beauty

I recently returned from a 2 day yoga conference, I don’t get to go many (ok any) of these because of summer schedule but I pulled a few strings this year and got to attend the Iowa City Yoga Conference. I know what you’re thinking “Iowa?!” but for the 2^nd year of this new festival they rocked some serious asana again.

For the past week I’ve been floating on a yoga cloud a little reluctant to go back and look through my notes and ideas form the weekend because I didn’t want to analyze it, I just want to ride this beautiful wave. I haven’t even set down outlines for my classes since I’ve been back, my students and I have just been winging it and seeing what comes up during the practice. It’s actually lead to some great experiences, a lot of giggling, a lot of trying new asanas and even some impromptu dharma talks. So tonight on my drive out to friends it the country I was pondering how best to share my experiences with my students and even how I should write this very blog entry about it and then in brilliant Wisconsin style I drove over a sparkling river reflecting the just waning moon into the darkness of the woods around me and then The Weepies came on my music box (my Mp3 player). The very song that opens with, “All this beauty, you might have to close your eyes, and slowly open wide…” That song brings and instant smile to face and tonight it also brought and instant answer, there’s no best one way to share my yoga experience there’s too much of it. When you are immersed on something like that there’s just too much to line up, you are literally bursting with enthusiasm and renewed passion. It’s that bursting that is essentially the best way to share this particular feeling I have, not to go on Amazon.com and order a dozen new yoga books (which I have my list ready to go though), or write a profound essay on my revelations from the weekend (which I may actually try to do later on however) and not pound my students over the head with all the new information I learned or re-learned after having forgotten since school (though we did talk more about pranayama and bandhas this week…), nope, for me it’s none of those things. For me it’s simpler it just living my yoga, with all its newness from the weekend, letting myself be free enough to express my yoga in all aspects of my life not just the asana.

In my opinion yoga teacher walk a very thin line, we border on “new age” and not in a good way, in the sort of disconnected from reality kind of spacey/flakey sort of way. So often yoga in the west gets watered down into purely asana, maybe with a little breath work thrown in. But yoga is so much more than that, really on a philosophical level yoga effects everything we do, from how we brush our teeth to what charities we give money to, who we vote for and what kind of bread we buy. In the 8 limbed path of yoga laid out by Patanjali asana, the physical practice, is only step 3. So for me, now at least and the inspiration I came away with from Iowa, yoga isn’t just the asana, though I will continue to rock out some great classes for my students, for me yoga is how I live. And what that will bring, that's something else beautiful to see and, of course, to share. So much beauty…