An entire month has gone by without any posting. I think santosha (contentment) continues to be my byword thus no peculating of thoughts to inspire comments here.
This weekend of training was wonderful as always. Much asana practice but also opportunities to think about yoga philosophy which replicates moral teachings found in almost every religion and culture. Our dharma talk focused on respect for others and our self. This caused me to ponder how outwardly I easily embody this concept– no problem. But inwardly I do have to admit that it’s sometimes very hard to respect the viewpoints of folks when different from mine and ultimately to continue to respect the person with these divergent viewpoints. How to respect the person without any concept of social justice, instead it’s “I’ve got mine; tough luck and it’s your fault that you don’t have x,y or z.” Ah, to be able to just remember that all of this is impermanent, and we each have our unique lessons to learn. Keep the judgment away and focus on my own actions.
Our primary teaching exercise was to work with a partner and develop a yoga practice specifically for a “group” who had a special need or situation. These included a corporate setting, prison, women’s shelter, senior citizens and those with various physical disabilities. It was amazing how although each group was drawn randomly, one or both of the pair had actual life experience with the population. The prison duo included a criminal attorney and a victim’s advocate both with exposure to a prison environment. Weird. Tamara and I developed a practice for a small group of people who are blind and realized that just closing our eyes really couldn’t give us the experience of being without clear vision. We could only guess how their other senses have been amplified. By the by each pair’s practice was thoughtful and potentially effective for the identified group.
These next two weeks we will be studying svadhyaya… the current name of this blog. Let’s see if I can come up with some profound insights to share.
