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nilambu notes Vol 2 Issue 1 Happy New Year and welcome to the second volume of nilambu notes. Cass Metzger, RYT, writes this monthly e-newsletter to deepen your understanding of your physical yoga practice. If you know anyone in DC (Georgetown) who might be interested, please pass along and forward my email. Nilambu Classes Resume On January 31, 2005, the nilambu class schedule will resume. This session will run for six weeks, ending the week of March 7th. Class sizes are very small to ensure personalized attention with no more than five participants. Schedule: Monday 5:30 – 6:45 pm Low Intermediate Both the Advanced Beginner Class and the Low Intermediate class are nearly full. Both the Beginner classes are wide open for enrollment. Cost: The entire 6 weeks is available for $115.00 (cash or check please). Make up classes are available as are single classes, but please confirm and call 202-333-8854 to reserve a space. First come, first serve but those signed up for the entire 6 week session are given space priority. Single class rate is $20.00. Free: All new clients are entitled to a free 45 minute private orientation session to review goals and concerns. Please contact me directly to schedule at cass@nilambu.com. Private Sessions: Private and semi-private sessions are available. Please inquire. Neptune Seminars Announced nilambu initiates the Neptune Seminars this term with three offerings. Neptune seminars are two hour workshops that allow time to go to the depths. Nothing beats the experience of simply doing yoga, and these workshops will provide you with the awareness and experiential knowledge of yoga’s benefits to address particular ails. When afflicted with pain, the relief that can result from moving your own body confers an often elusive sense of control. You just need to know how to move and what to move, and I’ll even tell you why. A work sheet with instructions is included for home use. Space is limited to 5 participants and the cost for each is $30. Insomnia Friday, February 4th 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm National Yoga Day The Yoga Alliance designated January 29th 2005 as National Yoga day. Check here http://www.yogadayusa.org/workshopinfo.html for free activities that celebrate yoga in your area. Book Reviews If you are looking for inspiring texts to motivate you at the start of this new year, consider these below. For more check out nilambu’s book gallery here. Bringing Yoga to Life: The Everyday Practice of Enlightened Living by Donna Farhi I can’t recommend this book enough. Donna Farhi is well versed in yogic literature and deftly draws on her knowledge in chapters such as Sloth, The Seasons of Practice, The Freedom of Discipline, and A Larger Life. She’s very readable and peppers her writing with both classic and contemporary parables. She also animates her text with cultural references. For example, she posits that the proper attitude towards the challenges of life is somewhere between the deadly earnestness epitomized by Mission Impossible and the silly, madcap approach of Get Smart. Only very rarely does she veer into strange suggestions – such as when she recommends spontaneous impulsive movement while others look on and extrapolate the emotion emoted and interpret the meaning in a neutral manner. (My aversion to such instructions is animated by bad modern dance classes I endured in the 70s). But luckily, these moments are few and far between in her otherwise intimate, courageous and intelligent text. My favorite chapter is the Riptide of Strong Emotions which I reread when I feel a swell. Women’s Book of Yoga by Linda Sparrowe and Patricia Walden This resource is newly available and invaluable. Sparrowe is a former editor of Yoga Journal and Walden is a long time Iyengar teacher; their experience and knowledge, generously conveyed, is this book’s best feature. There are others. The picture quality clearly shows the poses, with attendant props. Even new yoginis can recreate the set ups and glean benefits. I also like how the chapters are organized. Various body challenges are loosely categorized into different periods in a woman’s life. Chapters address subjects such as eating disorders, back pain, immune support and headaches. Each opens with a general discussion of basic biological and anatomically background to inform your personal practice and then a series of poses are proposed. A good index can direct you to a specific pose. Tips offered very adequately address common problems. And one of the best restorative yoga gurus in the US Judith Hanson Lasater penned the foreword. (Judith Lasater trained me to teach restorative yoga) Is Yoga Religion? The short answer is no. But yoga is more than an athletic endeavor. While yoga practice is often distilled to a single limb of yoga – the asanas (or poses), the spiritual aspect of yoga is integral to the practice of yoga. Much richness and reward is lost with an exclusive focus on the physical disciplines. However, even more so than the physical practice, the spiritual practice is very personal. As such, no teacher, yogi, or guru will instruct your beliefs. But hopefully, yoga will encourage you to examine and reflect on your spiritual life. Donna Farhi describes this process well. She notes that yoga is not "a religion, although the practice of its central precepts inevitably draws each individual to the direct experience of those truths on which religion rests." (1) What do the spiritual disciplines of yoga entail? Do they require conversion to Hinduism or Buddhism? No. Certainly, you will learn more about both of these religious practices as yoga originated and grew along side each of them. Many find that a full yoga practice enhances their spiritual life whatever their upbringing or religious beliefs. In Living Yoga: Creating a Life Practice Christy Turlington reveals how yoga renewed her commitment to her Catholic faith and drove her to learn more. For myself, I found that my yoga practice very much added much to my own faith. With exposure to these other religious rituals I re-examined in my own faith for comparable practices and tenants. I learned the difference between meditation and prayer. I reacquainted myself with Christian mystics such as St. Francis of Assisi and Julian of Norwich. I compared the Ten Commandments and the Yamas and Niyamas and found they both respect the divinity in our selves and in each other. This investigation goes on with study and participation in my local high church Episcopalian parish in DC, St. Paul's, and in my enrollment in the Education for Ministry coursework at St. Albans. (The Washington National Cathedral is offering “Sacred Circles – A Celebration of Women’s Spirituality” on February 18th -19th and one of the morning session features a workshop of yoga and Christian prayer (specifically the prayer to St. Francis of Assisi) to “invoke the transformative presence of Christ for strength and humility, steadfastness and fluidity, openness and focus.” Check out the entire program here.) http://www.cathedral.org/cathedral/sacredcircles/index.shtml The contrasting encounters that accompanied my growing yoga practice very much echoed the loving, tolerant and generous religious education I enjoyed as a child. I learned much more about my faith because I was a Protestant learning in a Catholic school run by the Sisters of the Holy Child. At the age of nine, I was very scared and nervous about my new school. On my very first day, as we recited The Lord's Prayer, I embarrassed myself as I continued beyond the end of the Catholic version of the prayer with the Protestant ending (the added doxology). Thereafter, I consistently queried why things were and why beliefs differed. And in this way, my religious values were fortified by the constant distinctions against another faith structure. At the same time, I grew to deeply respect and value many aspects of the Catholic faith. I've learned much about Buddhism with my yoga practice. The spiritual writings of Sharon Salzburg, Pema Chodron provoke and inspire me (Salzburg will be a featured speaker at the Cathedral’s Sacred Circles). Karen Armstrong, a former Holy Child nun, instructs me with her scholarship. And, as before, I am often struck by the common precepts and practices. But just as when I was a child and young adult, this investigation inspires me to learn more about the spiritual life in my own tradition. With my replenished spiritual practice, my life is more fulfilled, and I consider this benefit amid the most rewarding of my yoga practice. "Yoga is not a religion by itself. It is the science of religions, the study of which will enable a sadhaka [a seeker, an aspirant] the better to appreciate his own faith." - B.K.S. Iyengar (3) (1) Donna Farhi, Yoga Mind, Body & Spirit (New York: Henry Holt, 2000), p. 5. (2) Alistair Shearer, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali (New York: Sacred Teachings, 1982), p. 24. (3) B.K. S. Iyengar, Light on Yoga (New York: Schocken Books, 1966), p. 39. |
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