Tough Questions
13 Sep 2011 Leave a Comment
So much of our yoga practice happens off the mat! We can be divas of Down Dog, and practically live in Lotus…but if we want that sense of peace we find in Savasana to come home with us, we have to do the homework!
Lately I’ve been working with non-attachment, which is exactly like it sounds: not being attached to things. We’re all attached to some things, like our bodies, and our families, but if you start digging deeper, you might be really surprised by just how many things you’re attached to.
When you talk about your job, do you suddenly stand up a little straighter? Does realizing you’re out of milk (breath mints, bobby pins, mascara) throw your day into a tailspin? Any time we get so fond of something that losing it would disrupt our inner peace, we’re setting ourselves up for unhappiness!
It may seem impossible to live completely unattached. Maybe it is, at least for now, but it can be so enlightening to just start to question your relationship to things in your life.
I find myself picking up a peach for lunch and then asking, “What if I couldn’t have a peach? Could I still be happy?”
Fussing with my hair in the mirror and asking, “What if I got a disease that made all my hair fall out? Could I still be happy?”
“What if I was gluten-intolerant?”
“What if I had to move into a studio apartment?”
“What if I became paralyzed?”
“What if I ran out of salt?”
Sometimes the answer is easy, and sometimes not, but it continues to make me think, and each time I’m able to say, “Yes, I could still be happy.” I am led to a deeper question:
“If I’m still me without my ability to move, without my hair, without my favorite foods, who am I?”
Hmmmmm…good question!
~em
www.emilyhursh.com
www.emilyhursh.blogspot.com
Learning from the Wolf Pack
15 Jun 2011 Leave a Comment
in Bookclub
I just finished reading Women Who Run with the Wolves, our book club book for May/June, a few days ago. My first reaction was to wonder if I could keep up with this powerful, woman-wolf pack! Wolves are, after all, known for their stamina, covering fifty miles a day easily. (I was covering fifty pages a day easily!)
This book is so powerful, so full of wisdom and spiritual nourishment, I feel like reading one page a day might be a better pace to really get all the meat off the bones, to continue the metaphor.
In case you haven’t been reading it, the format of the book is: a retelling of a story, followed by an explanation of the different aspects of the story as they relate to the female psyche-what that story is striving to teach us about ourselves and what we need to thrive.
It’s powerful medicine for sure. There were moments along the way that I felt a deep connection to the plight of the story characters…but there were plenty of other moments that I felt a little lost. I agreed whole-heartedly with the author’s suggestions for a healthy soul-life, or at least I trusted her advice without understanding it, but I couldn’t make heads or tails, or howls, of how to equate it to my daily life. I wondered if I was wild enough, or if my soul had been buried so deeply that I couldn’t even find it beneath the cultural rubble.
Then I started having a series of dreams, one every night, about being attacked by different individuals and groups and having to fight to defend myself. In the first, a woman who was, at first a movie character, and then a reformed criminally insane person, convinced me I could trust her, but the moment I turned by back I felt the bite of her axe at the base of my neck.
The next night I dreamed I was teaching a class at Namaste and a man and his friend wouldn’t stop talking to each other, loudly, during my class. I told him that if he didn’t stop he would have to leave. His face turned nasty and he mocked me. I stood firm in defense of my class for the sake of my other students, but then he grabbed my ankle, his nails digging into the tendon at the back, and though I screamed and screamed at him he wouldn’t let go.
In the next dream, I was walking home to my apartment when a group of kids surrounded me and tried to distract me with verbal harrassment while they tried to steal my bag and the things out of it. My attempts to defend my person and my valuables were pathetic, but I still managed to get home intact and lock the door, only for a man with a gun to walk into the room from another door.
At the risk of being innapropriate, WTF???
These dreams do strike a chord with a psyche-character in the book though: the predator. Estes (the author) explains that we each have within our psyches a force that is anti-growth, anti-progress of any kind, and seeks only to destroy. This force presents itself to many women in their dreams in the form of burglars, rapists, thiefs, thugs, etc. I was confused that in the first instance the predator was a women, and in the third it seemed to be split into two different entities, the first of which presenting as a group, since usually the predator presents as a man of evil intent. The common thread in my dreams was that I wasn’t able to stop the predator from hurting me. Even when I thought I succeeded in protecting myself, the predator got around my defenses. In the first dream in particular, after the first incident, I saw the woman on the street, and told her she’d never fool me, or anyone I loved ever again. She grabbed my ankle and started chopping off my foot with the axe. Damn. Foiled again. Maybe the lesson here is to accept that there is no ultimate defeat of the predator. It’s going to keep popping up. Vigilance is the only answer. The most frightening or violent situations in my dreams always happened after I thought I had successfully dealt with the situation and circumvented the danger. The predator didn’t actually hurt me until I let my guard down.
It’s not the most uplifting dream-interpretation, and if you have your own thoughts on the images and messages of my dreams, I’d love to hear them. Frightening as three nightmares in a row were, it does reaffirm for me the relevance of this book. Even though I wasn’t sure I was relating to it properly, or getting out of it what I was supposed to, my subconscious recognized the archetypes featured and brought to light something about one that I needed to realize.
So how are you doing with this book? If you haven’t picked it up yet, are you going to now? If you are making your way through, what has stood out, or touched you in particular so far? What confuses you, or makes you feel isolated or not ‘wild’ enough? Let’s keep the conversation going! Maybe in a few months we can come back to this treasure.
In the mean time, for our next meeting we’ll be reading, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. This one is definitely a bit of a lighter read, so it may be just the change-up we need while Women Who Run with the Wolves permeates our psyches. Hope to see you at the next meeting!
Live Omily,
~em
www.emilyhursh.com
www.emilyhursh.blogspot.com
Just when I couldn’t even look at another apple…
23 May 2011 Leave a Comment
Standing in line next to the sorrel and the pea shoots…I tasted the first strawberry of the year…and the spirits of Spring sung a hallelujah chorus!
Avoid those fist-sized imports from across the nation or even farther! Fists are about what they taste like in comparison to the ruby-red sweet gems that are coming into the Farmer’s markets in the next few weeks! You do not want to miss them!!
Fresh strawberries expire within a couple days of coming off the vine, so don’t refrigerate! Enjoy within a day or two at most, or freeze. You can thaw out the frozen ones to eat later, or turn into jam…yum!!
a poem from a collection in progress…
18 May 2011 Leave a Comment
Evolution Poem 1
The most stunning story of our creation is how we lost our fur.
Growing taller because our minds were growing heavier, raising the brow, straightening the hips.
Our hands are what made us human, and the heat of thought, and the fruit we eat, it was all too hot
and our fur fell off so we could sweat.
Greens Workshop Review <3
22 Apr 2011 Leave a Comment
Hello Yogis and Yoginis:
I attended the Love your Greens workshop and I’m glad I did! After the liver cleanse, I really needed some guidance to help me continue with shifting my relationship with food. Laura did an incredible job putting together a nice informational hand out full of interesting facts about greens and delicious recipes. In fact, she shared a decadent green smoothie that much to my surprise was quite tasty. If that wasn’t enough she also prepared a succulent kale salad with corn, raisins, tomatoes and blue-green algae convinced me that eating raw vegetables doesn’t have to taste awful but on the contrary it could be quite delectable, mouth-watering and full of flavor like Laura’s scrumptious kale salad.
Laura’s passionate love for greens is contagious and combined with the interesting facts about all the benefits that your body could reap from greens; it’s making me a firm believer that “We are what eat”. Hence, if one is trying to achieve balance in life, doing yoga, meditation and eating healthy; why not start with incorporating more raw greens in our daily food intake. After tonight’s workshop, tomorrow I will have a green smoothie for breakfast to infuse my system with much-needed nutrients and jump-start my day! I hope Laura schedules more Love your Greens workshops in the near future. Thank you Laura for sharing your knowledge about greens and for inspiring to integrate as many green vegetables in my menu. Next time Laura schedules a workshop, sign up and get ready to enjoy some of her luscious treats while learning effortless ways to love greens and feel better about yourself:)
Thus far one of the best workshop that I have attended at Namaste!!!! Millie 
Sukha & Sthira
21 Apr 2011 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized, Yoga
In the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali we read, “Sthira sukham asanam: the posture is steady and comfortable.” T.K.V. Desikachar describes the state of satva (equilibrium or balance) that is hence formed as “attention without tension, loosening-up without slackness.”
Sukha and Sthira: softness and strength. In asana practice each pose must be experienced with both aspects, being able to relax into the pose while staying focused, alert, a balance of being both comfortable and firm. We might view sukha as allowing the flow to past through one’s consciousness, to tune in to the vibration of existence. Yet we do not merely float away in an undisciplined escape; rather, the gifts of tuning in are reinvested in the here and now. That sukha and sthira are dual components of each asana, each offering in our yoga practice, is significant, for this balance of softness and strength emanates throughout yoga, and is ultimately a metaphor for the balance and union that is sung by the universe herself.
Earth-Sky, Sun-Moon, Male-Female—one can see the form of necessary counterparts every kind of manifestation in Nature. We look to Nature for wisdom in proceeding through this world. A massive tree might require several mean with saws to cut it down, and the impact of its fall carries the potential for immense damage. At the same time, however, this hard strong tree displays branches which flutter with the slightest winds. Flexible yet rooted, delicate while firm. The tree by its nature exists in the balance for which we strive in yoga. The balance of sukha and sthira, this gentleness and steadiness, a simultaneous letting go and control, underscores the yogic practices for optimum living. Yoga, in this way, is a means for the reconnection of the human with the natural world, as a guideline for the human in navigating through this life. Modern man has mistakenly placed himself above the natural order, and fails to see the roots of his suffering in a maladjusted understanding of the cosmos. As in the macrocosm, so in the microcosm, and the interplay between sukha and sthira is a clear approach to remembering this union, and to bringing it off the mat and into every moment of one’s existence.
Attention to the Present Moment = True Love
15 Apr 2011 Leave a Comment
in Bookclub, Fear, Love, Meditation Tags: Fear, meditation, Pema Chodron
In this month’s book club we are reading “The Places That Scare You” by Pema Chodron. She is conquering alot of heavy material head on, with no fear, and she encourages us to do the same. How? Meditation of course! Sound a little overwhelming? To consider sitting down on a cushion all alone, with nothing but the beating of your heart, the rhythm of your breath, and your mind ~ like setting the heartbeat, breath, and mind loose in a playground to frolic undisturbed and just see what happens? Don’t worry, Pema even relates meditation & facing our fears to us in a way that is simple & easy! No need to get overwhelmed, only reasons to be brave and smile. Pema says (parentheses added for explanation):
“In bodhichitta (open attitude/warrior of the heart) training, we also welcome the living energy of emotions. When our emotions intensify, what we usually feel is fear. This fear is always lurking in our lives. In sitting meditation we practice dropping whatever story we are telling ourselves and leaning into the emotions and the fear. Thus we train in opening the fearful heart to the restlessness of our own energy. We learn to abide with the experience of our emotional distress…
Another factor we cultivate in the transformative process of meditation is the attention to this very moment. We make the choice, moment by moment, to be fully here. Attending to our present-moment mind and body is a way of being tender toward self, toward other, and toward the world. This quality of attention is inherent in our ability to love…
We practice meditation to connect with maitri (complete acceptance of ourselves as we are) and unconditional openness. By not deliberately blocking anything, by directly touching our thoughts and then letting them go with an attitude of no big deal, we can discover that our fundamental energy is tender, wholesome, and fresh. We can start to train as a warrior, discovering for ourselves that it is bodhichitta, not confusion, that is basic.”
Here Pema is encouraging us to 1: see our emotions for the wisdom that they can offer us. So often when we are overcome by a wave of emotion, we cling to the reason that caused it, that brought it about. Pema encourages us to drop our own internal storylines and instead experience the emotion itself, pure and raw. Emotions are not purposeless whims of frantic longings, but rather, they are a gift that we can experience wholeheartedly to more directly connect to our own deepest wisdom.
2: By staying in the present moment, we can get out of our heads enough to really truly be here, and really truly LOVE everyone and everything here just as we are, or just as it is. It’s better to love someone for who they really are in that moment, than to love the idea of them that we have in our heads. That’s not really loving them, that is loving the idea in our head. So give your friends and all beings are you the space and the freedom to be whoever they are at that present moment, and give yourself the freedom to Love no matter what.
3: Only we can truly control our mental state. The more we lean into our fears, the more we discover there is nothing there in the end, except openness. To begin bodhichitta heart-warrior training we acknowledge and discover the tender open heart in ourselves and in all beings. Set yourself free. LOVE!
