From the front lines of this weekend’s meditation retreat; it was part of the Teacher’s Intensive here at the Yoga Workshop. Read More
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Cool Out - The Postures of Stillness
November 9, 2009 – 7:57 pm
Imagine living in a world where nothing ever got finished. Great meals would be chewed, but not swallowed. Snow would fall, but not melt. And soap operas would be never ending. Well, some things wouldn’t change. Read More
The Wheel of Time
November 1, 2009 – 11:41 pm
It was a warm, sunny day in Istanbul and the background hum of a massive steamer ship gliding through the Bosporus set a calming tone for those of us wandering along the wharf. Looking up at the nearby park we saw a woman, dressed in street clothes, holding herself up with a powerful grip of the arms on some steel bars while rhythmically spinning her legs from side to side. How she managed to keep the even momentum going for three or four minutes seemed miraculous. Getting a little closer, it became clear that her feet were actually supported too, and that the other equipment around her was part of the grown-up’s exercise playground situated next to the kid’s slide and swings in Bebek Park. Another reminder that things aren’t always what we think they are. That the background hum of the steamship we heard, would sound loud and complex from the bow of the ship, and that that reality would be as genuine to those on board as ours was from afar.
The Mysore Thread
October 21, 2009 – 4:05 pm
The mysterious, pulsating sound of a building breathing as I walked up to the doors in Lakshmipuram the first day I arrived in Mysore, was enough to stun the mind and draw me in. I felt a huge sense of relief that day at being told to “Take rest” part way through the standing postures. And later when Guruji asked me, “But why is it so stiff?” a seed of curiosity and the bait for exploration was laid. Now more than 20 years later, I find myself, mat under arm, walking alone down a deserted street in New York City at 5:30 in the morning, or stepping off a chaotic road in Istanbul in search of the calm surroundings of a Mysore class; drawn to the same rhythm of the breath like a moth is pulled to light.
Have I become some kind of yoga zombie wandering through life so attached to the sense of integration that lies in the residue of the practice that I will have to do yoga forever? Probably, but it feels OK, so why worry about it?
Calm Abiding
June 14, 2008 – 7:55 pm
To quote the insightful 20th Century philosopher, Rosanne Rosannadana, “It’s always something.” An axiom which is often misconstrued (even by Rosanne herself) to mean that since there’s always a problem, why do anything? “Never mind.”
However many argue that Rosannadana’s intended meaning was that life presents us with unlimited opportunity to observe, assess, take the bull by the horns, and dive into whatever it is that’s arising right in front of our very noses, rather than diving into (grasping or pushing away) the illusions of mind that are often so much more comfortable to focus our attention on. Read More
The Illusion of Time
June 1, 2008 – 10:34 am
If you believe what you hear in yoga class, you might start to recognize that one good thing about time is that, like everything else, it’s an illusion. It happens like this: You drop into a pose, feeling the toes plugging into the floor, the coccyx heavy like gold. And then you notice that half an hour has passed and you haven’t even thought about time. The next thing you know, two hour classes start to zip by, then a week doesn’t really seem that long. And in a blink you’ve been practicing yoga for a year or two just watching incremental changes in the length of your hamstrings. Read More
Deep Avoidance and Fear of Yoga
February 6, 2008 – 3:28 pm
Here we are at the beginning of another new year. As a kid you hear adults droning on at the New Year about how quickly time passes, and not only is it boring, but it makes no sense. Number one, who’s paying attention to whether or not time is passing (get a life!). And number two, what makes adults think they have any say in how quickly or slowly something like time moves? Time is a given and youth is the opportunity to just try to squeeze as much life into it as you can. Maybe that’s why trends like seeing how many people could be stuffed into a phone booth are appealing—metaphors for life. Read More
Things DO Eventually Get Done….
December 20, 2007 – 9:15 am
It’s as if we’re in an unpleasant time warp at this time of year. The pace speeds up, it always seems to take more time to do everything, as the days indeed get shorter. People who look almost familiar, but who’s faces are a bit more Read More
Boulder dogs and rotten hearts
December 11, 2007 – 8:43 pm
It’s a great day to be a dog in Boulder. Actually, Boulder is good in general if you’re a dog because there are at least three bakeries catering specifically to dogs (all right next to cafés so people tend to use picking up treats at the bakery as an excuse to be in the neighborhood of a café so they can have another late.) Boulder’s also good for dogs because Read More
Philosophical Extremes
December 4, 2007 – 8:22 pm
In a recent Sunday Talk Richard addressed the danger that philosophical extremes could become an obstacle to yoga. That was the cue for many of us to smugly re-settle on our cushions and kind of zone out, knowing we were out of danger from having that happen to us. First of all, how many of us there that night were actually philosophers to begin with? And secondly, Read More