A photo essay of MIRROR in the Third Street Canvas. The poem is displayed in the window of the LABYRINTH PRESS CAFE. I enjoyed a wonderful vegetarian meal with family members Fred, Rabi, Helen (who also played photographer), Dave, Cynthia, and Rebecca.
Savasana, corpse pose (barefoot photos)
I am an experimental yogini. Lately, I have been approaching savasana, the pose of deep relaxation that I “do” at the end of my asana practice to see what I can learn from ten or twenty or thirty or sixty minutes reclining in a prone position.
The physical aspects of savasana are quite simple: stretch out on the floor on your back, roll the palms up to face the ceiling, allow the legs to flop away from each other, gently lower the eyelids, part the teeth slightly, cover yourself with a light blanket, place an eye pillow on your eyelids, use a folded blanket beneath your head and neck and a bolster beneath your knees, if you’d like. There are other variations and possible supports that can be used to induce a greater level of comfort, but I’ll cover those in another post.
Here are my journal notes after a savasana “lab:”
10 minutes: a sudden drop into physical relaxation. The body felt as if it were melting into the floor
13 minutes: another drop deeper ~ a deeper release down
17 minutes: Oh, now this drop felt nearly blissful ~ a tumble into bliss ~ so lovely
I was shaken out of it when hearing voices upstairs talking loudly and I picked up the phrase: “She’s really in bad shape.” Felt my mind turn on with adrenaline ~ thought maybe I should get up ~ racing thoughts, but felt my body still relaxed, so decided to drop back down into the deep relaxation, knowing the alarm was set and I could get up in three more minutes. Later note: this was an amazing realization: that I could CHOOSE whether or not to relax deeply!
20 minutes: the alarm rang and because I had already “come back” a good way, I decided to remind myself to come back s-l-o-w-l-y and resist the urge to run upstairs and find out what had happened (what had happened was in fact, a continuing deterioration of an 86 year old relative’s condition, and certainly not an emergency in the immediate sense of the word)
I’d love to hear of your experiences in savasana!
Snow Shadows (barefoot photos)
A rambling excerpt of a practice journal entry that I thought might be of some use . . . .
December 15, 2010, Wednesday morning, 9:10 AM
Just meditated with soft ujjayi breath for an hour. Shocked when I opened my eyes and realized how much time had passed. That happens so often. The timeless place opens and I enter.
Mind wandered. Thinking about the blog and books. But kept coming back to Breath.
Disengaging from the heaviness of the body, even the entanglement of the mind.
Breath is so light and free. It is always here, always available, as much as I want it. A gift I need to be present to.
A tool for growth rest healing love.
Breath teaches me to love my essential self, my core, my self dis-embodied and de-minded, essential, free, perfect, and imperfect.
Breath is eternal and brings me into eternity.
Breath is who I want to Be.
Breath is who I am.
Black Pine Boughs with Snow (barefoot photos)
Life is beautiful. There’s treasure in every moment —treasure you may overlook unless you are aware of the impermanence of everything. Steve Ross
a red tail floats above
then slides into white-crusted firs
beyond field’s glare
something must have moved
just past creaky sumac husks
ribs of two deer lie together in snow
their heads buried beneath a drift
trampled all around by fox mice
crows dogs
and me
wind lashes my face raw
it’s so cold everything glitters
Wrapped Gift (barefoot photos)
Woohoo….let the drums roll and the bugles blare.
There are two winners of the Free Yoga Book Giveaway announced on the Your Presence, The Most Generous Gift post.
Kathleen commented that “It is not about the “stuff” but about being with each other and spending time with those that we love. It is also about taking time for self.” Both thoughts I want to hold close to my heart during this new year. Spending time with those we love, and I include MYSELF among the beloved, is a core practice. Any nigglings of alienation dissipate when I am present to love. Self-doubt, one of my “corrupting nigglers” also wears thin in love’s presence. In the presence of love, I know who I am ….and feel good, spiritually and mentally healthy, and whole.
For K., A copy of Esther Myers’ book beautiful and honest book, YOGA & YOU Energizing Yoga for New and Experienced Students, is awarded. Esther passed away in 1994. Though I was never fortunate enough to have a class with EM, her struggle with breast cancer as well as her honesty describing the daily ups and downs of yoga practice continue to inspire me. Fortunately for us, her teachings live on in this text. Kathleen, I hope you enjoy, learn, and your practice is inspired in 2011!
Perce wrote that it was during a yoga practice (don’t you love those little epiphanies that arise out of nowhere during practice ~ I sure do and they remind me that my BRAIN needs yoga as much as anything else) that she realized she had many items already on her shelves that her family would enjoy. Don’t we all, Perce!
Thanks for the reminder to look around and mentally, or in your journal, inventory, your assets. There are so many gifts already in our possession, from the “stuff” we own, such as the jewelry you mentioned in your comment, to the personal characteristics we’ve developed over the years, such as an ability to listen and be present to another person.
For you, a book that was on my shelf: Mira Mehta’s How To Use Yoga, A Step-by-Step Guide to the Iyengar Method of Yoga, Relaxation, Health, and Well-being. Perce, I hope the precision shown in the writing and the clear photos in this book will assist the alignment and sukham (happiness) in your practice.
late afternoon echo
tea leaves
afloat in hot water
china cups
a slate-topped table
on worn-down ground
white feather
like a word murmured
slowly lonely
floats
onto the gray slate
no more daylight
rolling over the green mountain
Frosted Oregano Flower (barefoot photos)
Red and Green leaves (barefoot photos)
Occasionally, it’s helpful to look at the trends in your practice over time.
For me, this month started out with a focus on the inversions of downward facing dog, headstand, shoulderstand, and plough, but then, when I experienced more and more tightening in my right shoulder that I wasn’t able to release no matter what I tried,
so I moved into a set of more involved (than my usual morning) guided seated meditations on wisdom dakinis from a cd of Tsultrim Allione
and then morphed into a strong forward bending exploration and practice (which had begun while listening to the explanatory parts of the cd).
It wasn’t quite as straightforward as it sounds. There was overlap and occasional days of doing something completely different, such as the day I was tired and practiced a couple restorative asanas, or the day I focused on backbends for a change.
Each practice group offered its own surprise teaching that provided intrinsic motivation to continue. Headstand continues to amaze me as I slowly hold my feet off the wall for longer amounts of time. Each day with the inversions is its own, and change, for me, is seen gradually, over time. I vary the way I do shoulderstand and plough, both the amount of support (number of blankets, chair, blocks, strap) used and the type of support (whether on feet wall, or sacrum on a chair, whether blankets or rolled mat or bolster beneath neck). That keeps practice an interesting exploration of mindful awareness of the body.
Other days I practice strengthening for inversions, without actually inverting. I’m heading more in that direction, especially as I observe Mike building his chaturanga practice.
The Tibetan guided meditations have helped me learn to transform my negative emotions into positive. Whewee….I need lots of more work in that arena!
Blazing Maple Leaves (barefoot photos)
The forward bends have really been a pleasure as I’ve discovered with increased hamstring flexibility, some poses such as heron and ubbaya are now open to me. However, not only could I not do ubbaya a week later, my ego was kept at bay a little bit by Judith Hanson Lasater’s advice that if you think you love a pose, try holding it for five minutes. I tried holding uttanasana for five and uh, it was certainly a challenge.
For one thing, I noticed how I moved my head and my gaze to different places in an effort to remain in the pose. That was coupled with my mind outscreaming my hamstrings. A person could become deaf in all of that noise. I wonder, if I can learn to breathe into that screaming, what will happen?
Following that practice with teaching three classes on Thursday loaded with forward folds and geesh, my back is feeling the effects.
Backbends, I’m heading your way tonight.
Every practice begins with listening. Every practice ends with opening into being.
What’re the trends in your practice lately? I’d love to hear about them.
Full moon or Gibbous, Swansboro NC (Michael Grady photo)
slant of gibbous moon
poem composed in darkness
feverish heartbeat
carolyn and priscilla lasecki kieber
Death reminds me that there is really only one way to live. From the heart of love.
Returned last night from burying Mom in North Carolina. A devoted Catholic, Priscilla Lasecki Kieber embodied the heart of bhakti yoga.
Whether she was sitting on the beach, enjoying the beauty of the rolling oceanic waves, preparing cake for a crowd of company, or volunteering in a community group, I’ve always admired the way she lived beyond the fray of “talk.” From a steady and patient center, she infused her relationships with the steady gift of herself.
Her home was was filled with Madonna icons and crucifixes ~ symbols of the objects of her love. She seemed happiest when she was in church, whether at daily Mass or evening novenas. A blessed string of rosary beads were never far away from her praying hands. If she missed a Sunday service, she was heart-broken. How soon would she return to the abode of her Beloved?
Her devotion to the Divine gave her a steady stream of wisdom and strength throughout her 87 years.
Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church window, Amherst NY
Friends sent me poems of comfort this morning. Here is a short stanza from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran:
Only when you drink from the river of
Silence shall you indeed sing.
And when you have reached the mountain
Top, then you shall begin to climb.
And when the earth shall claim your
Limbs, then you shall truly dance.
In death, as in her long life, Mom is surely dancing with her Beloved. It is through taking small steps and opening our hearts, one kind word at a time, and refraining from one little meanness after another, that we can join her in this Blissful Tango.
Mom would have loved this video of Henri Nouwen’s sermon on THE BELOVED.
READ MORE: a lovely blog post on a bhakti workshop by one of my fav German yoginis, Lilylotuswillow: http://lilylotus.wordpress.com/2009/09/17/david-newman-workshop/#comment-312
If you’ve found this page, then you have discovered that LaughingYogini has reincarnated as Barefoot & UpsideDown.
In an effort to create a name that more accurately reflected the site content, the shift was probably inevitable.
*Really, I have never done laughter yoga, though who knows, you may find me sometime rocking my belly in the loudest, most ungainly gulps of mirth with an official laughter group.
*Another thing, I’M NOT EVEN FUNNY ~ not in writing on this blog anyway. As much as I WANT to be humorous, not many jokes appear here.
I DO wholeheartedly embrace the notion of laughing at myself AND of bringing a light touch into the studio and practice. That I will continue to write about.
I apologize to those of you who may get thrown off as the address shifts. It’ll take me a bit to find all the places I’ve registered as LY and change them over. Also, please check your RSS Feed. In the process of combing through the site, we found that was not working correctly.
So even though I’ve been searching for over a year to find a replacement for LY (ever try to discover an untaken domain name?), there is some sadness in watching her go.
Please join me in welcoming this new/old one into the blogosphere and wishing a HAPPY BIRTH DAY to Barefoot & Upside Down!
