30-day Joy Practice: Join Me!

 

Earlier this month, I was blessed by an impromptu yoga class with a favorite teacher: Shiva Rea. I hadn't studied with her for about 2 years, but in her Venice Beach class I reconnected with what draws me to her teaching - she's the real deal, a true prophetess and mystic, and a great synthesizer of how to bring more joy into our daily lives.

I also was blessed to be asked to teach a class for Up2Yoga. While preparing for my April 1 class on Stress Resilience, I happened to listen to Shiva's session that is downloadable from Up2Yoga's site on Living Yoga Sadhanas. This may not mean much to you, but perhaps it should. Shiva is onto something incredibly juicy and transformative: start with the next new moon cycle (uh, today) and commit to a 30-day practice based on your energy now.

 

I am planning to start my 30-day Bhakti Sadhana starting with the next new moon on March 15, 2010. Care to join me? If so, download her details right here. Or listen to her audio file right here. Prepare for more joy, my friends!

Here's a little help from Wikipedia on the etymology of bhakti:

The Sanskrit noun bhakti is derived from the verb root bhaj, whose meanings include "to share in", "to belong to", and "to worship". It also occurs in compounds where it means "being a part of" and "that which belongs to or is contained in anything else." Bhajan, or devotional singing to God, is also derived from the same root. "Devotion" as an English translation for bhakti doesn't fully convey two important aspects of bhakti—the sense of participation that is central to the relationship between the devotee and God, and the intense feeling that is more typically associated with the word "love". An advaitic interpretation of bhakti goes beyond "devotion" to the realization of union with the essential nature of reality as ananda, or divine bliss. Bhakti is sometimes used in the broader sense of reverence toward a deity or teacher.

Here's a little more detail from Wikipedia on "sadhana."

The term sadhana means spiritual exertion towards an intended goal. A person undertaking such a practice is known as a sadhu or a sadhaka. The goal of sadhana is to attain some level of spiritual realization, which can be either enlightenment, pure love of God (prema), liberation (moksha) from the cycle of birth and death (Samsara), or a particular goal such as the blessings of a deity as in the Bhakti Sadhana can involve meditation, chanting of mantra (sometimes with the help of a japa mala), puja to a deity. Traditionally in some Hindu and Buddhist traditions in order to embark on a specific path of sadhana, firstly a guru may be required to give the necessary instructions. This approach is typified by some Tantric traditions, in which initiation by a guru is sometimes identified as a specific stage of sadhana. On the other hand, individual renunciates may develop their own spiritual practice without participating in organized groups. traditions.

I'm looking at the next part of the moon cycle, from the full moon today until the next new moon on 3/15/10, as my preparation phase. More on that as it unfolds.

Thrilled 2B Teaching Yoga for Mood Today

I've been preparing for months for our "Yoga for Mood" workshop today at Yoga Kula in Berkeley. Looks like we'll have a full house of women, from beginner yoga practitioners to serious yoginis, and I'm deeply honored by the robust registration. We'll be covering PMS, post-partum depression, seasonal affect disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression, anxiety and garden-variety mood swings. The focus is on natural solutions and the use of yoga to buffer mood.

There's still room! Register right here online or join us today at 1:30pm. We also have two more workshops coming up at Yoga Kula and another next month at the Claremont Resort in Berkeley. Click here for more details.

As I refining the sequence this morning at 6am by the fire in my home, I was reflecting on the integration of Eastern traditions with the wisdom of our Western experience, and how this integration may positively impact mood. In Yoga, as in most ancient Eastern traditions, we learn about unconditioned awareness. We learn about how to use meditative practice and direct the flow of prana to awaken. We change long-standing and stuck neural pathways, and create new neural networks that support our awakening to True Self.

Our Western tradition regarding psychology and mood is completely different: here we use therapy and other techniques to individuate, to understand more fully our drives, conflicts, interpersonal dynamics and learned habits, from childhood to later life.

Yet these two systems are complementary and even interdependent. One of my teachers, Dr. John Welwood, PhD, describes the interplay of the Eastern and Western systems as similar to the in and out breath. Western is the "in" breath: focus on form, individuation; Eastern is the "out" breath: letting go of form, history, individual characteristics in the service of the greater Self. We start the integration with the slow, directed breath of lengthening the inhale and exhale.

Namaste.

Injured? Stressed Out? Try Yin Yoga

While planting my organic dye garden today, I banged my little toe. Ouch. Probably not broken, but my first thought was, “What about my rockin’ yoga habit?”

What to do when injured? From healing injured shoulders to little toes, yin is the answer.

Practice Yin Yoga. Check it out.

Yin yoga developed in the Taoist lineage in Ancient China. It’s based on passively-held yoga asanas, usually seated, that work the trunk, hips and legs. You hold these poses for 5-10 minutes. And you will be amazed at how these asanas unblock your chi flow through the meridians of your body, which happen to run through the connective tissue of your body. Connective tissue is where the action is -- it's what is worked, nourished and hydrated by Yin Yoga, and it's where injuries are healed by the action of fibroblasts and your immune system.

Local Abundance: Sarah Powers. We’re blessed in the Bay Area with Sarah Powers, a leading yoga teacher who lives in Marin. She teaches a combination of yin and yang practices and finds that yin prepares the body optimally for more invigorating yang practices. Check here for an interview with Sarah on Yin Yoga, and here to see her schedule. Sarah is a busy mama yogini, and teaches all over the world. Go work with her at Esalen or Jakarta, or go local at her newly opened Insight Yoga Institute in Marin - click here for more info on the local offerings.

At Gottfried Center for Integrative Medicine, we offer Sarah's DVDs and audio CDs for sale as well as workshops on Yin Yoga for healing particular conditions and aging optimally. The CDs, DVDs and workshops will help you establish a home practice of Yin Yoga.

But I have no time! Sarah recently taught at her series in Deer Run that if you are short on time, sit in baddha konasana (see my photo by Angela Lang, above) with the bottom of the feet together, and bend forward over your feet. You should rest your forehead on a block (unlike the photo), a pillow, or make fists, stack your hands and lean your head on your fist tower. This works most of the meridians and helps your flow of chi.

Further north, in Ashland, Oregon lives another great contributor to the field, Paul Grilley. Here are his thoughts on Yin or Taoist Yoga:

Yin Yoga is not “yet another” brand name of Yoga postures, it is part of a larger conception of Yoga that can be called Taoist Yoga. The fundamental tenet of Taoism is that all things can be described by their mutually complementary Yin and Yang aspects. Yin and Yang can be used to describe all things we are capable of experiencing whether they are clouds, stars, forests, our thoughts or our bodies.

And here's a little more. Basic examples of Taoist analysis would be: There is always a front and a back to a coffee cup but we can never experience both at the same time. The exposed part of the cup is Yang, the concealed part is Yin but both are necessary to form the cup. Or consider the fact that inhaling and exhaling are opposite movements. Inhaling is Yang, exhaling is Yin but together they are the “Tao of Breathing.”

A Taoist analysis of Yoga practice emphasizes the critical difference between Yin and Yang tissues of the body. Muscles and blood are Yang, connective tissues and joints are Yin. Yin and Yang tissues do not respond to training in the same way and a student’s practice becomes more effective when the difference is understood.

Go on... Most forms of Yoga practiced today are Yang, they emphasize muscular movement and contraction. By contrast Yin Yoga targets the connective tissue of the hips, pelvis and lower spine. Yin postures are held three to five to ten minutes at a time. This type of practice complements the more muscular styles of Yoga and is a great aid for learning to sit in meditation.

Paul has several helpful DVDs, which are available on his website as well as sold at The Gottfried Center.

Try Yin, especially when injured. I especially recommend Yin for adrenal dysregulation. Your bones, joints, tendons, ligaments, fascia, and other "yin" elements of your body with thank you with abundant healing.