YOGA as EXPLORATION * * * *

What a great weekend it was.  

We had a great turnout and got a lot done.  We weaved in and out of our poses during a crazy storm on Friday night that pushed rain water through the ceiling and left many of us w/o power for days.  The weekend had originally been scheduled for 3 weeks earlier and had to be moved unexpectedly due to a hip injury Christina was dealing with.  So, there was a little bit of chaos from beginning to end which just makes me feel lucky.  I love it when things get a little chaotic.  We have to get creative.  It opens things up a bit and creates a space charged with the unexpected and leaves me feeling lucky with whatever it is I come up with as a result.  And it's always more fun to do that in a group.

The chaos leading up to the weekend dovetailed nicely with a great conversation we had going about yoga as exploration vs. following a particular order of any one system.  Christina has studied many different schools of yoga extensively and has always had a great point of view on what makes each one of them valuable.  She is masterful at teaching from her own experience with each.  I think it's really important to find a good teacher as well as a group to practice with, we can only get so far on our own. We need each others point of view to create useful boundaries to push off and into to grow as well as time on our own.  It can feel a little chaotic at times choosing between the two but we need them both to grow. 

So a little chaos is good.  It creates space for exploration.  The floor is dry, the power is back on, we all got to be a part of a great weekend with a wonderful teacher.  We all have new nuggets of info to practice on our own and share with each other.  

Christina has a great blog, you can read her entry about her time at Yoga Garden here.

Thanks again to all for a great weekend, L

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S O L S T I C E

whenever you think or you believe or you know,

you're a lot of other people: 

but the moment you feel, you're nobody-but-yourself

e e cummings

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My whole thing is about autonomy.  I want all of us to have the freedom to be who we authentically are.  I've read one of the origins of the word solstice is 'to stand still'.  So, today on the longest day of the year my wish for you is to stand still under the warm summer sun and enjoy being the only you you can be - fully, brightly.

HAPPY SOLSTICE EVERYONE!

) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) Return to Find a Voice

The Wild Iris

At the end of my suffering

there was a door.

Hear me out: that which you call death

I remember.

Overhead, noises, branches of the pine shifting.

Then nothing. The weak sun

flickered over the dry surface.

It is terrible to survive

as consciousness

buried in the dark earth.

Then it was over: that which you fear, being

a soul and unable

to speak, ending abruptly, the stiff earth

bending a little. And what I took to be

birds darting in low shrubs.

You who do not remember

passage from the other world

I tell you I could speak again: whatever

returns from oblivion returns

to find a voice:

from the center of my life came

a great fountain, deep blue

shadows on azure seawater. 

Louise Gluck

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^ Laying Bricks to Back Bend ^

I felt that everything is beautiful, 

but that which man tries intentionally to make beautiful; 

that the work of an ordinary bricklayer is more valid than the artwork of all but a very few artists.

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Back bends can be hard...I used to really avoid them.  I couldn't understand how people could love them and do them with out having insane lower back pain afterward.  Now I love them.  Because I do them from the legs, from the bottom up.  One brick at a time, build the pose from the bottom up and you will make something  > > > 

Simple, Strong and Beautiful...just like Ellsworth Kelly

www.yogagardenmpls.com

+ KEEP it SIMPLE +

Back bends made simple and pretty, like this painting...all week.  Really, they don't have to be hard, or painful or intimidating.  Just keep it simple and do what you can.

Come show us your moves.

+ Show Up Everyday +

www.yogagardenmpls.com

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>>> Learn, Unlearn, & Relearn

The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write,

but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.

Alvin Toffler

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We have an idea of what we know.  And we can choose to repeat what we know and stay comfortable or we can take it apart and put it back together again in as many ways we can think of.  A perfect quote for working on triangle pose this week.  It's such a simple shape.  Let's see how many ways we can make that shape and what we've learned by the end of the week.  

That challenge is more interesting than comfort, don't you agree?

^ INTERESTING and PRETTY ^

I love it when my students pic the pose.  This week it's triangle which just so happens to be in my personal top 3, I spend a lot of time here when I practice.  But it's a tricky one too.  I'm seeing a lot of irritated hamstring attachments from what I think is over stretching with out engaging muscle in this pose.  So we will be working on this one all week.  I love the drawing, it reflects our need to know the 

'facts' what is the'right' and 'wrong' thing to do in a pose but also our own interpretation of how we make it our own.  Never get tired of that play...that's what keeps it interesting and pretty.

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