My wife has left me.
More accurately, she has flown to Lima, Peru to take care of her mother for a month. Luisa is now over 80 years old and really needs someone to keep an eye on her. Teresa's sisters have been visiting for a while so now it's Teresa's turn. It's the only window of opportunity because Teresa does not have classes in the summer.
Her absence means that I have to take care of two dogs and two cats. The cats take care of themselves, except for emptying their litter box and filling their food bowls, but the dogs are more time consuming. I try to give them at least one 20-minute walk a day to compensate for being coop up in the house during my work hours. Their walk comes after they've had their dinner. What they want most when I come home is attention.
My daughter, Stephanie, has offered to come by to help out some so my housekeeping and pet caring duties may not be as extensive as I fear.
All this interrupts my daily routines so I may not have the same amount of time for yoga and meditation. I was able to fit in my two weekend classes, in between helping Teresa pack and taking her to the airport. That came after a week in which I had been unable to take in a single evening class because the Washington Metro was not cooperating. Trains were packed, stopped frequently, even went out of commission due to mechanical problems.
I just got an unexpected message from Rachel Permuth-Levine, the organizer of the National Institutes of Health Mind-Body Week, the latest installment of a series of events that NIH has served an institutional umbrella for. The conference this year was really shaping up as a compelling gathering of presenters (Jon Kabat-Zinn, Dan Siegel, Tara Brach, Alan Finger, Timothy McCall, etc.) and demos of yoga, meditation, tai chi. It's not the same as a high-profile Yoga Journal conference, but still dealt with fundamental issues. Look at its Facebook page for details. I was even planning on taking a few days off to attend. It was part of Yoga Month.
Here's her message:
I am writing to inform you that the NIH has decided to cancel the proposed NIH Mind-Body Week (MBW), scheduled for Sept 8-11, 2009. Subsequent to initial discussions among planners about a MBW event, the NIH was given the enormous opportunity and attendant responsibility of funding an unprecedented $8.2 billion to support scientific research priorities as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). The period proposed for holding the MBW is exactly when much of the NIH will be focused on ensuring that all of the successful ARRA applicants receive their awards prior to the end of the NIH fiscal year on September 30, 2009. We appreciate your efforts in developing MBW and regret any inconvenience caused by the change in plans.
This cancellation is really baffling! Two months before the event is to take place, it's called off because the NIH can't chew gum and walk at the same time, figuratively speaking. Or because it suffers from institutional attention deficit disorder -- if some guests are doing yoga while the NIH managers are crunching numbers for funding research grants, the bureaucrats might get distracted and hit the wrong key on their computers.
This move just does not make sense, with apologies to Rachel, who, I am sure, feels embarrassed and disappointed. There has to be a more rational explanation for the NIH backing out of the event (conspiracy theories welcome). And the NIH is dumping this news on a Friday afternoon to make sure that it gets buried over the weekend -- there's proof that something fishy is going on!
I was approached to review the book, Yoga, Karma, and Rebirth: A Brief History and Philosophy (Columbia University Press, New York: 2009) by Stephen Phillips. Phillips is a man with serious credentials: professor of philosopy and Asian studies at the University of Texas, author of six books, and a long-time practitioner of yoga.
The book arrived a week or so before I would be taking time off to visit my brother. My sister had told me that she spent loads of time reading while she visited him because his chemotherapy required him to have lots of rest. I thought I would be able to apply some concentrated time on the reading so I loaded up on books and magazines for the trip.
Well, I was being ambitiously optimistic that I would be able to plow through most of the book while at my brother's in Dallas. it turned out that I barely had time to crack open the book, just enough to get passed the Introduction. The first 15 pages let me know that this is not a book that would fall into the category of "summer reading." It's going to challenge me to set aside blocks of time, both to read and digest the content. Phillips aims to lay out the philosophic framework that undergirds the yoga practice and informs the serious Western practitioner who may not be familiar with the core principles. Phillips specifically writes for yoga teachers.
As a down payment on the moral debt that I have acquired with the publisher, let me get some initial information out of the way. Five chapters are: Theory and Practice, Yoga and Metaphysics, Karma, Rebirth, and Powers. That's roughly half the book.
The other half is "Appendices," but they are pretty meaty themselves. He included core selections from the yoga classics: the Upnishads, the Bhagavad Gita, the Tantric Kashmiri Shaivite texts, and the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, as well as the complete Yoga Sutra of Patanjali, all framed within Phillips's commentary.
Finally, Phillips throws in a glossary of Sanskrit terms used in yoga philosophy, 65 pages of notes (Phillips is an academic, after all; even the Appendices have notes), a 15-page bibliography and an index.
Assorted Links- Yoga as philosophy and practice course at the University of Texas.
- e-publications
- An interview on the publisher's blog.
- Mahamondo
- Author Interviews
- YogaDawg
Labels: philosophy, reading, yoga
New York Times Ricky Williams Is Hoping to Heal Others, and His Image:
To Williams, 32, this represents another step toward a career in holistic healing and away from his self-described reputation as "the poster child for marijuana." The process has been messy and public and shaped into an all-too-familiar narrative: superstar spits on the American dream, travels the world in search of enlightenment and returns reformed.
Just like yesterday's entry about baseball players practicing yoga, Ricky Williams has often fit the stereotype of edgy athlete (on the brink of falling into marijuana abuse), and this article shows he continues to amend the traditional plot line of pampered pro gone wrong and then redeemed.
Please note that I mentioned to get through this whole blog entry without saying "New Age." Until now.
Star-Telegram.com Fort Worth Cats perfect their best yoga poses:
The pitching thing did not stick for Gulledge, even though he struck out two batters in a perfect inning, but the yoga has. Gulledge noticed in the off-season that he was faster. "Unbelievably faster," actually. He said his endurance and flexibility improved, too.
I can't resist it &mdash another sports story about pro athletes taking up yoga to give them an edge in their competitive game. This time it's a minor league team in Fort Worth, Texas. This time, the middle-aged sports writer puts down his pen and joins the mini-session before a ball game. Like the previous story, this has photos, too.
CharlotteObserver.com Mary Lou Buck's yoga journey:
Buck, now a petite 72-year-old with silver hair, would become one of Charlotte's pioneer yoga instructors. After teaching and studying for years, she opened the city's second private studio, Yoga for Life in Dilworth, in 1998. Phyllis Rollins opened the 8th Street Studio believed to be the first, in 1993.
Who says you can't start something new late in life? Buck founded her studio in 1998 when she was 62 years old, but had already been teaching since 1980. She still teaches even though she just sold the studio. Even more intriguing, Buck lives in North Carolina, not one of the hotbeds of yoga in the country so she was a pioneer in a region where it was not trendy to take up yoga.
Be sure to take in the accompanying photographs of Buck's class.
At Thrive Yoga, Dana Cohen was substituting for Susan, the studio owner, so I got a double dose of Dana's hybrid style, vinyasa flow 2/3 on Saturday and vinyasa flow all levels today. I don't think I could really tag Dana with a specific yoga brand (Iyengar, Ashtanga or Anusara). Or maybe she draws on multiple sources, both from yoga and beyond (Thai massage, for instance). Both classes were about the same intensity, but today's pace was a bit slower since we were working on opening up hamstrings and hips. The constant in both classes was that Dana reserved a good 15 minutes to savasana/meditation at the end. Of all my teachers, she is the most reliable for fitting in that cool down phase.
Labels: class, meditation, teachers
I am a bit hesitant to write extensively about Richard's experience. Having been told that my brother's cancer has become terminal, with an estimated 3-6 months left, his struggle becomes an intensely intimate journey in preparation for his final destination. I don't want to put words into his mouth. It's also the privacy of Susan, his wife, who is the biggest reason that Richard has lasted this long.
Richard has the strong support of a his church, the Church of the Incarnation, which has a cancer support group and an outreach program that helps him a lot. I went to a Sunday church service with him and saw why he appreciates the congregation's efforts.
From my time with my brother and my own dealings with disease, I understand why yoga and meditation can play a healing role in any extended, life-threatening illness. So many factors can sap the physical, mental and emotional reserves of a patient that there is a vital need for restoring those assets. Treatment can do some of that work, but yoga and meditation deal with factors that are not touched by traditional medicine.
Richard gets a kick out of his T-shirt with the Monty Python line.Clarification: the blog entry title is actually a stretch of the time frame of my visit with my brother, which was six days. What I meant was that the trip occupied my mind and energies for about that time, preparing for and then recovering from the trip, both ay work and home.
I went down to Dallas, Texas, to spend a week (June 24-30) with my brother, Richard. As some may know from reading this blog, Richard has been fighting lung cancer since December 2006, as well as the consequences of treatment. I could have blogged about my time with Rich and his wife, Susan, but it was far to raw to register in daily entries. I twitted a few times just to update where I was.
The last time I went to Dallas was for his wedding in 2005. Now, my brother is fighting for his life. With his cancer now in stage 4, he is undergoing maintenance chemotherapy to slow down the growth of his tumor and prolong his life. So far, the results have been good: the tumor have not grown. Of course, he's down to 103 pounds, skin and bones. He's fought off multiple infections, which have weakened his defenses further, on top of what the chemotherapy does to his metabolism. But despite his plight, my brother demonstrates amazing courage, fortitude and perseverance. He's my little brother, but he's big in so many other respects.
Equipped for hard knocks and saw dust, Richard works in his shop.While I was there, I focused on doing tasks that were too demanding physically and energetically for Richard to undertake. I helped clean up his garage and woodworking area, which did not benefit from air conditioning in Dallas 100-plus temperatures, though it did have shade and a couple of fans. I also helped reorganize his home office so he could tackle his paperwork. Since I am the geek of the family, I next took on the two computers in the household, requiring two days of steady work to get them into shape because they had not been downloading MS updates and were running really slowly and crashing. One was infected by a virus.
Over the course of Richard's illness, we've often spoken over the phone about how yoga, meditation and other methods could aid him in his struggle. I wanted to follow through on that. I got in contact with a great group of people at the Yoga Bear Foundation, which provides cancer survivors with more opportunities for wellness and healing through the practice of yoga by connecting them with local yoga centers. The idea is that Richard would benefit from free or minimum-cost classes. I got in contact with Kelly Hollis, who's been coordinating activities in Texas. She suggested I contact the Ananda Yoga Center in Dallas to arrange for yoga classes. As it turns out, my brother had actually gone to Ananda Yoga Center for several years and felt comfortable in going there.
On Thursday evening (June 25), we went to a class. Sue, the woman who runs the center, remembered Richard and proved to be a conscientious lead in the yoga class. Four other people attended the class. Sue made sure that Richard did not try to do too much, and gave modifications in practically all the poses. My brother has a torn rotator cuff and could not raise his arm above his shoulder. At one point, Sue helped him by positioning blankets to support his shoulders and legs in a prone twist that that might have stressed him too much. In one of the pose, his joints all popped in unison and he thought he had disrupted the class with the noise. Sue's class was very serene and contemplatively paced so it was within his reach.
Now, it's in Richard's hands as to whether he wants to continue. The center is a good 20-minute drive from his home in Garland so it will require some effort to make it to classes. He certainly does not feel like doing yoga after taking chemotherapy. A few days later, I accompanied Richard to his physical therapy session for his shoulder, and the staff said that his shoulder had improved substantially. This was not due to the yoga, but rather the slow accumulation of therapy, treatment and rest over time.
In addition to the Ananda Yoga outing, I introduced Richard to yoga nidra, giving him Richard Miller's CD on the approach. This is definitely something that he could use on a regular basis. But I didn't want to insist too much because Richard has to decide how he spends his time and energy.
I flew back to Washington on Tuesday, and have been trying to catch up with what's piled up at work and at home in my absence. Now is the first opportunity to put together some thoughts about the experience.
I was flipping through the channels on Verizon FIOS this evening and landed on the Pentagon Channel. There before me were three stocky, muscular drill instructors (one female and two males) in their PE kits, getting ready for the Fit for Duty show. What I mistook for "attention" was something completely different. Instead of a cadence for jumping jacks, the lead (Major Lisa Lourey) brought her hands into namaste in front of her heart, and her partners followed. I then noticed that they were standing barefoot on yoga mats. Airy music came over the sound track. She was leading a yoga class!
Admittedly, this was "Yoga for Golf," but further investigation showed that there was a wide selection of routines, plus Pilates, strength training and kick-boxing. But no matter what their intention, the mere fact these American bodhisattva warriors were "doing yoga" on the Pentagon Channel in "prime time" means that yoga has gone well beyond "mainstream" or even Main Street America. For that matter, the Veteran Administration is now using yoga nidra and pranayama to rehabilitate victims of post traumatic stress disorder so it should come as no surprise that yoga could be used as a "prep" for combat.
The Fit for Duty programming, now in its second season, is available as a podcast.
I was following John Friend's twittering and came across a link to this shot. Twitpic has several other shots of massed yogis in formation. Awe-inspiring gatherings that project channeled prana. Friend is on tour, currently in Canada, putting on workshops for Anusara yoga teachers.
As a hack photographer, I am fascinated by shots of yoga practice, both the group sync and the individual pose. John -- or his people -- have many opportunities. It's a lot harder than it looks because the photographer has to capture the instance of grace in poor, indoor lighting, and frequently in movement.
