Last week, I was practicing with
a particularly sagacious yogi.
We were anticipating the arrival
of Christmas when she remarked,
"And then comes the time of year
when everyone tries to fix themselves."
She's absolutely right. Here's an idea.
We could instead take a long look back
to see what we survived this past year.
Not only where we muddled through
but maybe the places we shone a bit,
or had the courage to try something hard,
or nurtured a particular relationship well,
or fostered a new one, or showed
up for ourselves by saying no to
something, or built some rewarding
habits, or purposefully stepped off
the merry-go-round when needed.
Wisdom and compassion in action.
Well done, yogi.
Give yourself a moment to see
who you've become as a result.
Because none of us are the same
as we were a year ago. I like this.
It seems like a good idea
to know where you've been
before taking off for somewhere else.
I'll look for you in 2025.
Love,
Taunia
Early forms of measurement
were connected to the body:
A cubit is the distance from
elbow to fingertip. A fathom
is the span of one's
outstretched arms.
I love this.
I like to work with my body
in building yoga shapes
as a type of sacred geometry.
Your cubit is not equal to mine.
But my heart opening breath
with arms akimbo? And yours?
We're both taking in as much
light as we can fathom.
Let's do so on the mat
together this week!
Dr. Miyawaki is the renowned Japanese
botanist who spread the practice of
creating pocket forests. He taught
communities around the world to plant
native species tightly in small urban areas
and allow them to grow wild in order to
build and support native ecosystems
both above and below ground.
He offers us this:
"The forest is the root of all life;
it is the womb that revives
our biological instincts, that
deepens our intelligence
and increases our sensitivity
as human beings."
I believe this to be true.
Plant your feet among a stand of trees
and feel your sense of aliveness
spark. You can't help but feel
enriched, fueled, as if you belong.
It doesn't have to be a deep forest.
Your neighborhood park or backyard
can become a sanctuary.
One that deepens your sensitivity.
I know it's cold, but go see.
Then come to the yoga mat
to hone your sensitivity
to such wonders.
my vintage dandelion tea scooped by my husband
on Woodland Street before High Garden Tea House
was swept away in the 2020 East Nashville tornado
Oh, dandelions, how I love you.
To cheer me in the springtime.
To inspire me with your indomitable nature.
To soothe and warm my insides
in the autumn and winter.
Dandelion tea is a staple
at my house. It's so yum.
It aids digestion, supports the
kidneys, and detoxifies the liver.
I also learned that is contains the
compound taraxasterol, a powerful
force to combat inflammation.
You can harvest your own roots
from a pesticide free lawn.
Your own yard qualifies as such
I sincerely hope, yes?
I must bashfully admit I never
do this, though I should.
It's too late now anyway.
I buy mine from High Garden,
now online, who does all
the harvesting & sifting for me.
Or drink it from a tea bag
at my best friend's house.
Try some this winter.
Maybe you will love it too.
Your body definitely will.
Then keep up
the self care
by coming to yoga!
Thanksgiving is actually a lovely word.
I recently read psychiatrist Phil Stutz
teach how to create a "gratitude flow."
He helps people to get unstuck
in their minds by actively building
a bridge into a grateful reality. Take
30 seconds to get still and audibly
name things you are grateful for
in that very moment - no matter how
small or profound. Then, stop.
Feel the energy rising within you.
It's a grateful flow that will arise.
Yogis might call this shakti or prana.
Notice how you feel it in your body.
Allow its potential to linger. . . . . .
Stutz says you are anchoring yourself
in present reality where really, there
is all sorts of goodness raining down
if you can escape the tangle of your
mind to simply see it.
When I'm cross or fed up or
overwhelmed, a dose of grateful
reality whisks me from negative
mind patterns to a new place.
I like simple acts
that feel like magic.
Try it this week.
And know I'm grateful for you, yogi.
I want to drop some knowledge
on the movements of the pelvis.
We all tend to tilt in one direction
or the other. See above.
We work with both these tilts
in yoga. Doing so helps us to
find neutral - the place where
muscular and skeletal systems
are more likely to enjoy happy
longevity, without pain or problems.
Tight hamstrings may pull a pelvis
towards the posterior tilt
Tight hip flexors, a weak core
(or high heels!) can tilt the pelvis
in a more anterior position.
Honestly, excessive sitting, muscle
imbalances, and sheer anatomical
reality affect both pelvic tilt tendencies.
Knowing your tendency can
inform how best to support
yourself in a yoga practice.
Posterior tilt?
Sit up high on blankets so at least
you're giving yourself a level
playing field when it comes to
forward folding. Seriously!
Anterior tilt?
Wake up your core! Remembering
to lift up the low belly in standing
postures will help you align and
feel more able and strong.
Because you really will be!
We'll learn how to figure out
what our pelvises are up to
on the yoga mat this week.
The Book of Light - Odilon Redon 1893
Evening
by Jeremy Radin
Another word I love is evening
for the balance it implies, balance
being something I struggle with.
I suppose I would like to be more
a planet, turning in & out of light.
It comes down again to polarities,
equilibrium. Evening. The moths
take the place of the butterflies,
owls the place of hawks, coyotes
for dogs, stillness for business,
& the great sorrow of brightness
makes way for its own sorrow.
Everything dances with its strict
negation, & I like that. I have no
choice but to like that. Systems
are evening out all around us-
even now, as we kneel before
a new & ruthless circumstance.
Where would I like to be in five
years, someone asks- & what
can I tell them? Surrendering
with grace to the evening, with
as much grace as I can muster
to the circumstance of darkness,
which is only something else
that does not stay.
Everything dances with its
own negation, and I have
no choice but to like that?
Balance. Equilibrium.
Grace to circumstances
that do not stay.
This, for me, is a way to
understand and meet life.
We can hone this approach
on our yoga mats.
Somehow,
I can manifest hard truths
in my body even when
my mind refuses.
Let's try together.
"If we cannot calmly hold
a certain degree of anxiety,
we will always look for
somewhere to expel it.
Expelling what we can’t embrace
gives us an identity,
but it’s a negative identity.
It’s not life energy,
it’s death energy.
Formulating what we are against
gives us a very quick and clear
sense of ourselves.
Thus, most people fall for it.
People more easily
define themselves
by what they are against,
by whom they hate,
by who else is wrong,
instead of by what
they believe in
and whom they love."
-Richard Rohr
I find it easy to get swept up
in the passion of what I'm against.
Oh, gosh, there's an energetic list.
But sometimes this energy can
become dark; it can feel
overwhelming.
Knowing what I'm for is powerful.
And just now it's worth reminding
myself that what I'm for is more
than one candidate
or one political party.
No matter what happens
around me, I can and will be
a force of change in the direction
I want to move towards,
personally and collectively.
I have agency and responsibility,
both. This cannot be taken from me.
The same goes for you, yogi.
You are a vital light in this world
that will not be diminished.
whatever way the winds blow.
Move with intention on the
yoga mat and out
in the world this week.
Infusing your body
with what you choose
and rooting into steadiness.
I've had oh, so many political conversations
of late. People are freaked out.
Some are absolutely addicted
to news coverage, hoping information
will give them some feeling of control.
Some trying to bury their heads in the
ground, so they might cease spinning
anxieties. Some feeling hopeless to
elicit change where they live, stuck in a
state not of their political persuasion.
I empathize with them all. My son wonders
why I'm not standing on street corners
as I did his whole childhood waving
signs and chanting. Well, at this point,
I feel the the most effective thing I can do is:
1- vote (done!)
2- go inside and generate
as much grounded steadiness as I can
to calm not only my own nervous
system but the systems of those I come
in contact with, which radiates further still.
We will all survive this,
no matter how long it takes.
Be a steady anchor.
For yourself and those you love.
Staying true to your
yoga practice helps.
I promise.
Nashville yogis, you have until
October 31st to vote early!
Did you know we're not trying
to reach any endpoint in
our yoga postures?
Yes, there are shapes we're forming.
And there are layers upon layers of
benefits and consequences, true.
But in the end,
the only place to go is inside.
Asana is merely the vehicle to
take you towards internal awareness.
We want to get inside of the experience.
How does it make you feel?
How do you handle resistance?
Do you always recoil from discomfort?
Do you press hard until you hit a wall?
Do you know how to intuit effort
in order to gently widen your
window of tolerance to your
day by day situation?
Nothing magical happens the day
you finally, if ever, reach your toes.
But in the devotion to doing
you've learned how to practice
something difficult with focus.
How to set a goal, take a step by step
approach towards it, know when to rest,
know when to advance, hear what
your body reveals to be your endpoint.
Fostering such discipline?
These, my friends, are skills
that are directly transferable to life.
Yoga helps us understand ourselves better.
And how to get where we want to be
with awareness and wisdom.
Brave a challenging posture.
Hold on to it. Get steady.
Find our breath.
Give our full effort to find
the balance inside.
That's what we'll do this week.