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Magic

Tim Brattan on

January was named for the Roman god Janus because his spirit took up residence in doorways and arches, transitions, time and duality. Janus had the magical gift of being able to look forward and backward, e.g. between years, into the future and the past, and presiding over the beginning and ending of conflict.

Statue representing Janus Bifrons in the Vatican Museums

The last week of January prepares us for the lunar new year of the Metal Ox. The ox is known for diligence, dependability, determination and strength. The Janus metaphor applies: ending the conflicts and confusion of 2020 whilst simultaneously setting and achieving goals for a stronger, clearer Ox year ahead. And oxen thrive on conscious and determined effort.

Yoga, as you may have heard, has abundant and magical tools and skills to aid us through the metaphoric gateway into a stronger, clearer, calmer, more determined place.

Hitched

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The revered naturalist, John Muir famously said, “when we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.” Muir’s observation is at the heart of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras written more than two thousand years ago. The word yoga is from the sanskrit “yuj” in two ways: one in the sense of samādhi, or concentration, and one in the sense of to yoke or to join. It’s often translated as “union,” but it also means “method or technique.”

As Muir understood, everything is connected and we are connected to everything. The goal of the practice lies in the realization of eternal oneness. Richard Rosen, who wrote the seminal 2006 book on pranayama, sums it up this way: “Yoga doesn’t create a union, it reveals that it’s been there all along.” And that everything is hitched to everything else. Exactly.

Feel the sky

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“Smell the sea and feel the sky, let your soul and spirit fly”  —Van Morrison

I love the term “gravity surfing,” coined by the amazing yogini, Ana Forest, to define balancing. Figuratively and literally gravity surfing is the space between lightness and groundedness, the effervescent center (samana vayu) that unites our inner winds of inward/upward energy (prana) and downward/outward energy (apana).

The work of apana is lessened by receiving and improving the quality of prana. Prana and apana are always working to balance each other in an isometric push-pull dance. As a metaphor of life, minimizing the input of negativity and maximizing the input of positivity will help improve the balance of prana and apana. And let our soul and spirit and body fly.

Metta = Lovingkindness

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May all beings be free and safe from harm
May all beings be happy and fulfilled
May all beings be healthy and strong
May all beings have ease and joy in their lives
And be free from suffering.
— Lovingkindness chant

New Year’s, or anytime really, is a good time for metta meditation. The concept of metta is that we direct lovingkindness first toward ourselves and then, expanding outward, toward someone we love, one we are neutral towards, someone we may have conflict with, and ultimately to all beings everywhere.

It can be as simple as a momentary focused intention in our yoga practice to offer lovingkindness through our efforts, toward someone or something in our life. Every drop of sweat, each hip-opener, that third backbend.

Ultimately, the most powerful insight that comes from a metta-infused yoga practice is the sense of compassion and nonseparateness – of being inclusive rather than exclusive. For a lot of us, past conditioning led us to not trust our capacity to love. Practicing metta yoga opens our hearts wider, reminding us that we can indeed love, both ourselves and others, and that everything comes back to love.

Happy new year and happy new you!

Grateful

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The way things are right now since like forever doesn’t exactly make fertile ground for this season of thankfulness. Yet gratitude is a skill we can apply to make those everyday sweet little things visible again even amid so much COVID (as my former teenagers would say) suckiness. And the thing is, something awesome is usually just around the corner when we’re in an open grateful space. So I humbly recommend we plant some gratitude seeds on our sticky mats and water them with a little sweaty movement. Hari Om!

Reflection

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‘Tis the season for reflection. The colder months that move us inward toward the winter solstice are a good time for nurturing “good” habits and eliminating or changing “bad” ones. In Sanskrit, the word samskara means inner patterns and memories, etched like grooves to create our mental, emotional and physical default settings. The prefix sam means well planned, and kara means “the action undertaken.” So, samskara literally means “the impression or impact of the action we perform with full awareness of its goals.” Each time we act or react, a subtle impression is deposited in our mindfield. Each time the action is repeated, the impression becomes stronger. Voilà – habits are formed.

Samskaras are powerful, which is why even though we know better we don’t always change the behavior. One of the myriad benefits of yoga is an effective way to change these grooves (“the way you do any one thing is the way you do all things”). We can eliminate old unwanted habits by leading our malleable brains and bodies toward new positive pathways and experiences through the yoga practices of:

  • intention (sankalpa)
  • practice (abhyasa)
  • intensity (tapas)
  • stillness (shani)
  • awareness (vidya)
  • fearlessness (abhaya)
  • vision (darshana)

In yoga we are often reminded to let go of the past and begin again. Yet, as we enter the season of giving and receiving, by first reflecting and then acting on the root causes of unproductive patterns leads to growth and change. Sewing new vital seeds into the fields of intention, practice and persistence will facilitate samskara’s internal rhythms to create freedom and a new vision for ourselves.

The perfect Rx

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As healthy practices go, yoga and meditation are at the top of the Rx pyramid. The symbol “Rx” stands for the Latin word “recipe” meaning “to take.” Rx is, of course, more widely known as a prescription. I think a more appropriate metaphor might be to “give and take” since by definition an Rx is prescribed and then taken by the patient/practitioner.

I really like the recipe concept, as in, yoga and meditation are essential ingredients in the perfect recipe for healthy aging. So, in the spirit of the Rx for health, peace and longevity, I humbly prescribe a dose of healing meditative yoga today.

Happy flowing and healing!

Sunrise

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It’s funny, the only time we seem to make it out for the sunrise is in some other enchanted place like, say Lake Tahoe. In the mountain pre-dawn air watching the awakening of the natural world, iridescent sky, sounds of waves on the lakeshore, geese and the growing hum of insects are meditatively sublime. In a way it’s like awakening from a deep savasana, a little sleepy yet feeling reenergized.

Pea soup outside, strong and calm inside

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I’ve spent what feels like most of my life advocating for environmental and sustainability causes. I remember printing the first People Power newsletters on my old laser printer in the early 90’s with my friend, Ron Goodman. We were so hopeful that our vision for a safe bike/active transportation network in our county would help more people ditch their cars in favor of bikes. That movement didn’t get us to a tipping point of meaningful change, so the work continues.

As the fires and floods and hurricanes rage, things can feel hopeless. In yoga we know that a steady lifelong practice requires “patience and persistence.” Yesterday I heard the effervescent Jane Fonda, who at 82 has written a book with the tag, “from climate despair to action.” Activism, she once believed was a sprint, and change and growth would come quickly. As she grew older she thought it was a marathon and she learned to pace herself. Today she calls it a relay race, where older adults join with younger activists ready to lead the movement. To do that we must stay strong, courageous, determined, focused and calm. The same requirements yoga asks of us, which centers us in times of turmoil and tragedy.

So in that spirit may the practice begin!

Bowl of cherries

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There’s an old adage: “Life is just a bowl of cherries.” You know, when we feel life is going just fine, no worries, no problems, completely satisfied with where we are and what we have.

But this old saw is actually more often used ironically to mean the complete opposite: “I just got furloughed (again), the car needs repairing, my COVID test was inconclusive. Life is just a bowl of cherries.”

The thing is, life really is a bowl of cherries and we all know how quickly it goes by. You blink and it’s August and you’re about to have another birthday and you remember you’re alive and part of the manifest whole and something really amazing is probably right around the corner.

Yoga invites us to step away from the external (fear, anxiety, problems – real or imagined), to hop on our mats and take a spin through an invigorating, breath-centric moving meditation. And then magically, once we’re in the flow, where we are and what we have is perfect.