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Dear Yoga Community,
As the Holy
Days are upon us we are invited into what I think of as the "spell of the
season." The days grow shorter, the nights longer and darker, yielding us
fertile time for contemplation, for stillness, and for the power of waiting
without knowing. The spell is the auspicious sense that something of brilliance
will be emerging out of this lush darkness. If we are able to suspend our
grasping and planning minds and to simplify our schedules for honoring what
darkness pulls us to do/not do, we will find ourselves welcoming our transition
from the darker nights like children on Christmas morning delighting in the
gifts, the surprises, and the satisfied anticipations. To fully appreciate the
diminishing light and its potent return, deepen your commitment to your
meditation practice and stay alert to nature's rhythms as your own.
In community,
Sarahjoy P.S. Join me Wednesday, December 16th, at my 5:30pm class for a candlelight yoga session with live shakuhachi flute played by Larry Tyrrell! Also, click here to read about the Yoga & Strength Conditioning workshops I'll be teaching with Kate Conwell the weekend of January 2nd & 3rd.
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Dharma Highlight
dharma: wisdom teachings, duty, wisdom in action
Discovering the Gifts of Darkness and Light
I've often mused about how our early kin experienced the waning
light. I've read that the first years of darkening days were met with great
fear and concern. Who knew if the waning days would simply continue until the
sun was extinguished altogether? Who knew if humans would slowly be exposed to
greater darkness and more certain cold, until life on the planet would be
inhospitable? Who knew there was beauty and rhythm inside this darkening?
Today, we are confident that these longer nights will soon be
met with increasing periods of light. We are not hurrying about in racing fear
that the sun is dying out. We are, however, hurrying about! And this is one of
the worst times of year for hurrying.
If you've read anything that I have written about the holiday
season, you're already well aware that I have a bias about this season and its
gifts to us. I'll spell those biases out right up front:
-
Shorter days invite us to schedule less. Darker nights are for
re-kindling one's inner life.
- Our presence is the greatest gift we can offer another person,
now and all year long. Coming to presence is often obscured by hurrying, haste,
over-scheduling, and over-consuming (whether that is socializing, spending,
eating, drinking, or unmindful/immoderate indulging in anything that dulls your
vitality and availability to yourself, to others, or to life).
- Our greatest gift to ourselves is also our deepest presence.
When we are present to our lives, we live in harmony, in gratitude, in easeful
relationship to others, in greater well-being, in concert with life around us,
and with awareness of and capacity for our life's calling.
So, while we don't need to create rituals to keep the sun from
dying out before the end of the month (I also heard that our ancestors
performed such rituals to assure the return of the light; fortunately, it
worked!), we do have the blessing of many rituals that may inspire a luminous
return in our own lives. I'm choosing three that have recently been inspiring
to me:
-
Advent invites us to wait; to come into a place, a view, or
sense of being; to faithfully await an arrival. Many of us would greatly benefit from cultivating greater
capacity to wait without needing to know (the future, the outcome, anything we
grasp toward). As I read the definitions of Advent, I'm encouraged that the
instructions for learning to wait are spelled out in the first few words. We're
encouraged to set ourselves into a place, a sense of being. This is one way to
define meditation.
- Solstice is defined as "a standing still." Another way to define meditation. Were we to learn to stand
still amidst the winds that blow around us (especially this time of year, but
I'm referring to the winds of life), we would come to discover that there is a
deep still point in the center of life, a place where we experience presence without
history, time, space, future, or story. The Winter Solstice also marks the
season of the returning light and encourages us to both have faith and vision.
When, in deep moments of stillness, we experience the vast and benevolent
presence that surrounds us, faith is renewed. In order to have vision, I
personally need to have stillness and silence. For it is out of those deep
reservoirs that a vision arises in which I can put my faith and dedication
(this is how the both the visions of Living Yoga and of amrita came to be).
- Chanukah, the
word, comes from Chanu, meaning rest. Chanukah is also associated with
dedication and education. How lovely to hear that one root of the word means to rest! In
savasana, we rest deeply, completely. Then when we come back up to sitting, we
re-commit ourselves to how we live our life off the mat, how we will bring the
gifts of our practice into the world. As I read about the festival of lights,
one of the inspiring things I learned last week was in relation to the words dedication
and education. The author noted that the Chanukah ritual was one of
re-dedication and of education, by way of role modeling. The concept of
re-dedication runs throughout the yoga tradition and would be one more way in
which I would define meditation. It is a consistent returning to what is
present, vital, and holy. And, as the mind's nature is to move, we have to keep
re-dedicating ourselves!
For my personal reflections and for the Dharma Study Group, I'll
be focusing on the practices of meditation, the concept of welcoming the
darkness and leaning into the luminous with faith and dedication. We'll discuss
how the kleshas and samskaras get in the way and what to do! I'm reading Wherever
You Go, There You Are, by Jon Kabat Zinn, and Strength in the Storm, by Eknath
Easwaran.
I look forward to our time together! Please join us on Tuesday, December 15 at
7 pm. Click here to read more about the ongoing Dharma Study Group at amrita...
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Karma Yoga
A chance to make a contribution to the changes
we wish to see in the world...
The Oregon Food Bank is hard at work during this cold and dark season to make sure that hunger is not an additional problem for many people in Oregon.
Click here to find a list of current food drives that support the Oregon Food Bank...
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Ayurveda & You & Me...
Wow, the winds have really picked up and the cold has gone down,
below freezing! Vata season is surely here. Vata's qualities are cold, dry, mobile/windy,
and brittle. As we watch dried leaves being blown in blustery patterns across
the road, we might recognize a pattern of the mind! Quick, erratic,
leading-nowhere thoughts populate the place where deep quiet and spaciousness
would otherwise be available to us!
If you have been feeling brittle, ungrounded, blustery, dry, or
cracked - and I mean this mentally not just physically, then you've had a
personal introduction to and learning horizon with Vata.
To pacify vata, there are several simple things you can do.
First, simplify and make more consistent your daily rhythm. This
is not the time of year to try doing too much, to be over-scheduled, to set up
erratic and ever-changing scheduling gymnastics. Even establishing a consistent
wake up and bed time will make a tremendous difference in the stability of your
energy and your mind. A consistent lunch-time will also help. (Vata season is
definitely not the time to be missing meals or staving off hunger until you
finish one more e-mail.)
Second, address the dryness in your skin and in your digestion.
For your skin, which is your largest immune organ and the
membrane/boundary between you and the world around you, rub sesame oil into
your skin during your hot shower. Showering/bathing with water and soap can be
very drying to your skin. After you have used soap and your shower is mostly
complete, rub the oil into your skin, which will be more porous and warmed from
your shower. Let the warm water help the oil sink in more deeply. Then turn off
the shower and pat dry with a second-rate towel (after a few uses it will have
a sesame oil odor).
The sesame oil will act as a moisturizer, but will also provide
a barrier to the vata elements. Many people report a greater feeling of
grounding and contentedness during the day.
For your digestion, I suggest making a regular diet of
kitcherie. Many of you who take the morning classes with me at amrita know that
I use my crockpot to make batches of kitcherie for the day's lunch. Kitcherie
is very easily digested, which is a significant consideration as vata rules,
and sometimes plays havoc with, digestion. Composed of rice and red lentils,
it's a good source of protein. I add quinoa to mine to increase the protein
further. Since I am cooking at the yoga studio without a full kitchen, I use a
spice mix of vata-pacifying curry created by my friend Richard Haynes. I also
flavor it with curry paste and chutney (see my recipe below).
You can purchase both the sesame oil, curry spices, and chutney
at amrita now, or at Ayurveda Plus just down the street.
Check our Richard's web page at www.ayurvedaplus.com
Ayurveda
Recipes:
Sarahjoy's Yoga Studio Crock Pot Kitcherie
Lunch for 1-2
1/2 cup basmati rice
1/2 cup quinoa
1/2 cup red lentils
3-4 TBS vata curry
3 cups water
You may add:
1 cup chopped seasonal vegetables (broccoli, squash, carrots,
kale)
additional water
Put all ingredients in the crockpot. Turn it on high. Teach 2
yoga classes, each for 75 - 90 minutes.
Head to crock pot with enthusiasm.
Add spoonful of red curry paste, spoonful of ghee or couple
spoonfuls of olive oil, and salt to taste.
Enjoy with a splash of lemon juice and big spoonful of chutney.
If you drink ginger tea just before eating your lunch, it
stimulates your digestion!
Spinach Sambar from A Life of Balance by Maya Tiwari
1ž2 c dhal
3 c water
1ž2 bunch spinach, chopped
1ž2 tsp tamarind paste diluted in 4 tbs warm water
4 fresh curry leaves
1ž4 tsp tumeric
2 tsp sambar powder (see below)
1 tsp black mustard seeds popped in 1 tsp hot sunflower oil
Soak dhal in 2 c cold water for 30 minutes. Bring to boil in 3
cups of water. Cover and cook over medium for 25-30 minutes.
Puree dhal.
Add spinach, tamarind water, curry leaves, tumeric, and sambar
powder. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Pop mustard seeds and add to sambar to
serve.
Sambar Powder
3ž4 c coriander seeds
3ž4 c cumin seeds
1/8 cup chana dhal
2 tbs fenugreek seeds
1ž2 c black mustard seeds
1ž2 cup dried chili peppers
1ž2 tsp salt
1ž2 tsp asafetida (also called hing)
in large cast iron skillet, dry roast coriander, cumin and dhal.
Add fenugreek, mustard seeds, and chili peppers after dhal begins to turn light
brown. Continue roasting over a very low heat for 5 minutes. Add salt and hing.
Grind in small hand grinder (I use a coffee grinder for this,
which, at my house, is called a spice grinder!).
When cool, store in airtight jar.
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Yoga Retreats
Yelapa, Mexico Yoga and Culture Immersion
March 20 - 28, 2010
Just south of Puerta Vallarta, this little fishing village is traffic free,
hosts a bird sanctuary, and invites us into its culture with warm hearts.
Judith Roth is our host for this adventure. A long time yoga teacher, she moved
to Mexico 5 years ago and is inviting teachers to bring their travel-hungry
students for a vacation, cultural immersion, opportunity to work with village
children, and more. Trip limited to 20; registration now open. Click here for pricing and registration info...
Winter Solstice at Breitenbush Hot Springs
December 17-20
There are just a few spaces left, so contact us soon to join us for a magical weekend in the Cascade Mountains at Breitenbush. In celebrating the Solstice, we'll look
deeply at the Shadow side of the psyche with the intent to understand its power
and its promises. As the light
returns on Solstice, we'll also explore the integration of yoga principles for
remembering and living from our innate radiance. The weekend is open to both beginning and intermediate
students. Click here for pricing and registration info...
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Quotations of the Month
Intended to simply inspire, mildly challenge, or thoughtfully provoke
contemplation!
"Routine can also be the enemy of life, of unique response to
emergent possibility."
-James Hollis
"When you give to life, beneficial forces will support you and give you greater
health, longer life and deeper creativity."
-Eknath Easwaran
"One cannot collect all the beautiful shells on the beach. One
can collect only a few, and they are more beautiful if they are few."
-Anne Morrow Lindbergh
"...we
press on, though we seem reluctant to define exactly what it is we seek.
That definition, you see, likely is too frightening to contemplate, for
the answer along our present course might be nothing other than
"more." More
of what? Nothing in particular. Just more. We must have more, always more, for
if we stopped, we would have less of that nothing in particular."
- Robert
James Waller**
**Thank
you to Andrew Adeboi for sharing this quote with me.
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