Category: Yoga

Categories
Beautiful People Beautiful Places Yoga

Niroga

What I Have Learned So Far

Meditation is old and honorable, so why should I
not sit, every morning of my life, on the hillside,
looking into the shining world? Because, properly
attended to, delight, as well as havoc, is suggestion.
Can one be passionate about the just, the
ideal, the sublime, and the holy, and yet commit
to no labor in its cause? I don’t think so.

All summations have a beginning, all effect has a
story, all kindness begins with the sown seed.
Thought buds toward radiance. The gospel of
light is the crossroads of — indolence, or action.

Be ignited, or be gone.

– Mary Oliver

Categories
Beautiful Deeds Beautiful People Healthy Living Yoga

Assisting & Learning

I assisted the 40 hrs. plus 40 hrs. of teacher training Judith Lasater conducts every year in San Francisco for last 2-3 times. But this year, spending summer in Japan, I was sad to have missed assisting the July training … Then she says that I can assist any of the upcoming training … Yeay! No matter how many photos I review (as I was the photographer for the last few local TTs) or books you read, nothing compares to being in the presence of a teacher you respect and admire.

When I was struggling, I was so comforted by a company of ladies a bit older – if fact, they might have been my mother’s jolly friends – being with them made all the difference. There was laughter, there was kindness. It’s always healing, inspiring and rejuvenating to be with older women, someone who can be your auntie, an older sister, a mother, even grandmother … a guide, who have walked the walk, done the do’s, struggled and suffered and paid the dues and … stands before you to “humbly” teach you something about life, without bitterness or haughtiness or snobbery or … too much ego – in fact, no ego would be lovely. I am all about learning and if I can learn from you, I am there – it’s not just the asanas – admittedly that’s a gateway but no amount of anatomy talk or movement lessons can compare to something more energetic and cerebral. While I am not saying I cannot learn from the young – it’s just that I’ve been there and I am more the person to give that advice, give that example, give the energy, I am the one to pass on – I am the one expected to guide – I am the offering. But then, when I am seeking an older sage, I am receiving, I am carrying on, I am enlightened and inspired. I am grateful for the widom they impart from their vantage point. There’s just too much fear out there about aging and withering and declining …or getting fat:) some take up yoga out of that fear…because of chronic stress borne out of anxieties over all things fleeting. Why not live your life fully before worrying about such things.

So went this week in a flow, I “assisted” yoga for cancer class my cohort from my yoga therapy TT now holds through Stanford Medical Foundation. So sweet to see him develop into this unpretentious teacher and so inspiring to see someone like him, much older, doing something to make a difference. He could have just sat back in his white-privileged world of utter comfort joined other mostly white guys his age, relaxing at some version of Mar-a-Lago, but no, he’s teaching yoga for cancer.(okay, I know that’s just a stereotype and there are many who are engaged in social justice and service to make a change). He’s making this world a little kinder, a little more compassionate. Less violent.

I was happy to be with this Karma Yogi and so were the students who showed up seeking some relief from pain that day.
They were helped because of him. And because of yoga. Thank you for the beautiful practice Jido:)

Categories
Healthy Activities Healthy Living Yoga

Sweat Once a Day!

from Mayo Clinic Site

Words from one of the Yoga Therapy Module last year – in the Ayurveda section.
Sometimes living in a very mild climate (California has mild climate … lovely mild Mediterranean climate envied world over), our sweat glands are not stimulated enough. Spoiled in such ideal climate, when we travel to places like Singapore, Japan, other tropical hot places of the world with sweltering temperatures with high humidity, we wither away in exhaustion.(that was me, lol) There, we cannot live without an AC and …still, we simply … wilt because our sweat glands are out of shape. To prevent that and for general day-to-day health, based on Aryuvedic health prescription, we are well served when we engage in an activity that allows us to perspire at least once a day … (I can explain this in posts to follow – checking my notes:) There is a belief that heating the body flushes out the toxins and some even believe that the heat can prevent or reverse cancer and other serious illnesses from lodging in ourselves. Provided that one is prudent to avoid heat strokes with enough hydration and intake of electrolysis, heat that causes us to perspire can be beneficial and history is a testimony to this belief prevalent in many cultures such as in sweat lodges in Native Indian cultures; Russian Banya; Finnish Sauna, Japanese Sento(and the sweltering summers!), Turkish Hammam …

So off I go – a chilly day for the Bay Area to turn on my inner heat by doing some yoga. Get some heat or turn on the natural furnace we have within:) Feel the beads of perspiration on your skin … then just relax and chill:) As Judith Lasater’s book title would say “Living Your Yoga”!