IF YOGA IS SUCH A GENTLE PRACTICE WHY ARE SO MANY PEOPLE GETTING HURT?
A Yoga Journal feature
Aparigraha (NON-Hoarding)
It’s the week after Christmas, and I sit fireside in upstate New York with the 14-year-old Lab I helped raise from puppyhood. These days he’s generally halfway across the country with the ex-boyfriend, so stroking his white fur I mourn our impending separation. “Even in Kyoto … I long for Kyoto,” the 17th-century poet Basho wrote, nailing it then as now—and writing a pretty good primer for yoga study into the bargain...
SAVASANA (CORPSE POSE)
Reading an article on forensic pathology in my loft bed at 4am and having a hard time falling back to sleep: nothing novel here. Yoga was initially practiced by outliers, not Lululemon ambassadors, and corpse pose was studied, as in, "Go lie on a corpse." Now as we relax on our back after asana practice we have satin eye pillows and props for our hollows and woo-woo music. Whatevs. Through studying the return of matter to matter we see what matter’s not...
Dhyana (MeditatIon)
Whether you have an active meditation practice, are just beginning one, or have little desire to try, you already know how to meditate. Animals and babies are past masters of the discipline, while most adult human beings engage in meditation only when they resolutely do not intend to—those random, surprising moments when your absorption in something is so complete you forget who you are. So do it intentionally and teach yourself what you've always known.
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Listen to Pause
Now we post videos and lightning impressions every other minute. Yoga teachers are encouraged to slather social media with yogic bon mots, pictures, clips of themselves achieving postures. "Got any videos?" asked the dear friend who kindly, finally insisted on updating this website. "Want to start blogging?" Uh, no to both, actually—yet here I go: from my device, what needs streaming now (and don't get pulled into the next unbidden thing)...