Check out this informative video from the National Institute of Health (NIH) on the science behind the practice and benefits of yoga.
Tag: science
Science Experiment
I recently received an e-mail newsletter from a “yoga coach” (the same one that introduced me to the Solid Potato Salad video on the Class Schedule page of the site) and he had a new one that is great fun that I thought you might enjoy.
You’re a Star…..Literally.
In my estimation, of the greatest joys of being a parent is that you get to reconnect with children’s literature. Sure, there are nights when I’m quite sure that if I ever even accidentally trip over a Dr. Seuss book again that I might immediately burst into flames–never mind READ it again. For the most part, I am delighted by the beautiful illustrations, the kind and meaningful tone and the idea that there is such great potential in this life.
Recently, we checked out The Greatest Intergalactic Guide to Space Ever by the Brainwaves from our local library. The illustrations by Lisa Swerling and Ralph Lazar are imaginative and, quite frankly, hilarious. The book is a brilliant collection of facts about space and it is everything that I had hoped my college course on astronomy would be, but without the physics.
Then, on page 25, I read something that awed me and put me in touch with a sense of wonder and wonderment that made me kiss my sleeping blondie on his little head before I continued my new favorite book:
“The Sun is mostly hydrogen and helium, but it also includes small amounts of other elements. Earth formed close to the Sun from the same cloud of matter. Humans are material made from Earth’s elements, so everything in our bodies was once a star.”
Just in case you didn’t catch it—–EVERYTHING YOU ARE MADE OF WAS ONCE A STAR! Now, I’d heard something similar in some yoga or energy text that suggested that our bodies are made up of the same elements that stars are made of, but this is something different entirely because it creates a chronology. The statement in this children’s book suggests a past for all of us, a past when our parts were shining clouds of matter in the night sky. This idea is at once humbling and liberating.
No matter what kind of yoga you practice, the foundation of the practice is a kind of mindfulness that becomes available when we focus the mind and acknowledge the constant stream of thoughts that so many of us make the mistake of identifying with. Maybe that stream slows down somewhat with time and practice, but for many of us, what we can obtain in this lifetime is just an awareness. In many classes, the smallest element that we break our awareness into is the cell. What I would like to suggest is that, based on this idea that our most elemental parts were at one time a star, we spend some time in meditation getting in touch with our inner star.
The first step, and perhaps the most challenging, is to release our physical body—the body of organs and bones and blood and guts. Especially if you are in pain, this may be a considerable challenge. But, to give it a try, just lie on your back and systematically relax from your toes to the crown of your head. Then, just wait for your breathing to naturally slow down and become shallow. Don’t rush it or try to control the breath. Just lie there until you feel everything slow down.
The second step would be to watch the transitions of the breath. Focus on the space where the in-breath becomes the out-breath and the out-breath becomes the in-breath. If you lose your focus, just return to it whenever you realize that you’ve drifted. If you constantly lose focus, then you can try to add counting—-count your inhale (1) and then just listen to the sound of your exhale, count your inhale(2) and then listen to the exhale and so on until you count to ten. Anyone who has tried this before knows that you will probably get lost before you reach ten, but just keep it up and return to one when you realize you are lost.
The third step is starting to feel the way that energy is moving through your body. There is no right or wrong answer. Bring your mind’s eye to your navel and just see how energy is moving from your center to the periphery. Maybe your center feels numb—that’s interesting! Maybe you can only feel your right side—that’s interesting! Please try not to make judgments. Instead, just be incredibly curious.
Finally, start to feel the pulse of energy through the body and give that pulse a golden light. When you feel the energy rise, feel yourself glow. When you feel the energy start to wane, then feel a complete release as your light dulls a bit. Just pulse energy and light like this for as long as you wish, until you fall asleep or until you wake up.
Confirmed by a children’s book—-you ARE a star!
REFERENCES
Stott, Carole
The Greatest Intergalactic Guide to Space Ever by the Brainwaves. London; New York:DK Publishers, 2009.
Posted by Sharon Fennimore Rudyk, Owner and Director of Yoga Matrika, a lovely little studio in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: 6520 Wilkins Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15217. Contact information for Sharon is available on the website: https://www.yogamatrika.com/. Please feel free to share and re-post, but be kind and give credit back to the Yoga Matrika blog and Sharon. Namaste!
Hope, Marx and the Body
I have had the great fortune of studying with and, in some cases, just been able to listen to, some people that I would consider to be genuine geniuses. My fortune has been so great, that it would not be possible to list everyone here. One of these people is David Harvey, who I met and studied with when I was a student at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York. David Harvey is a critical geographer and anthropologist with significant passion for improving the conditions of life for humans everywhere. Anyone who has studied Anthropology, or perhaps, any social science, knows that, it doesn’t look good for humans. Almost every ethnography documents some kind of suffering—-the kind that we inflict on each other, the kind that we inflict on ourselves and the tragedies inherent with war, famine, natural disaster, racism, disease and the list goes on. After six years of graduate work in Anthropology, I can tell you that the research consistently reveals that we aren’t that nice to one another and we don’t like to share. Therefore, it is of considerable joy to read the hardly lighthearted, yet somewhat hopeful, work of David Harvey. Specifically, I refer to his Spaces of Hope (2000). Basically, the news still isn’t good, but Harvey presents small flickering lights in the tunnel of human doom that provoke the reader to become a part of something bigger than themselves in the name of the greater good. The other risk of reading Harvey is that you have a song in your heart for Balzac, Marx and Benjamin even though you’ve never had the least bit of desire to read their work.
What role does Karl Marx and the body play in all this? Harvey (2000) suggests that Marx, “…from the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts onwards, Marx grounded his ontological and epistemological arguments on real sensual bodily interaction with the world (Harvey 2000: 101).” Here, Harvey quotes Marx (1964 edition, 143):
Sense-perception must be the basis of all science. Only when it proceeds from sense-perception in the two-fold form
of sensuous consciousness and of sensuous need–that is, only when science proceeds from nature–is it true science.
What is not discussed here is how, for many of us, we have lost our sense perception. Many of us dis-abled our tools of sense perception somewhere along the way and now we move in a most un-sensual way through the world separated from our bodies. We do not know hunger or fullness and spend a remarkable amount of time in some variation of the over-pose: over-whelmed, over-ate, hunched over, over it, over you, over and under—-trapped. One of the only sensations we recognize is discomfort. While this can be seen as negative, this discomfort is an invitation to return to a sensual state and to notice how we feel. For many adults, this discomfort encourages a first experience with yoga and many new opportunities for health and wellness.
If all you feel is discomfort, there are two things that you can understand that may be helpful:
1-As you are human, and your discomfort is part of your experience, you can now be open to a deeper sense of compassion for all other humans. I invite you to sit and feel your discomfort and know that you are not alone. We can use our own suffering as a connective link to all living beings.
2-No matter where you are and no matter what your circumstances, if you can feel discomfort, there is still hope! If you have remained sensual enough to feel this pain, then you can use these sense organs to feel non-pain. You can use the skills of yoga and movement to wake up these capabilities that you have for something different. Something better!
Here is a short exercise that you can do for as long as you like or as short as you like and wherever you are right now. This is the exercise of pure sound:
Take a moment to open your hearing senses and listen to sound without judgment. No, it isn’t easy when you’d like to throttle your neighbor for power washing his driveway each time you try to take a nap with your newborn. But, just for the sake of this exercise, hear the power washer minus the judgement. The same goes for hearing something lovely, like the song of the Cardinal outside your morning window. You might hear this lovely bird-song and suddenly wish that it would never end, or think of some other time you heard such a song or you might think that it is time to purchase more bird food. The idea is to just listen—-without the stories, ideas, thoughts and negative or positive judgements. As soon as your mind starts to wander from the pure sound, let go and return to a sensing of sound. Don’t get frustrated if this takes work. It is work. This work helps us understand the quality of our thoughts and how so very much of our experience is determined not by reality, but by what we are doing with it. The mind is constantly moving, but the more we can create some space between experience and thought about the experience, the more rested, relaxed and clear we are. Less angry, less in pain, but more sensual, more open and liberated from the confines of our memories and experiences.
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REFERENCES:
Harvey, David.
Spaces of Hope. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.
Marx, Karl
1964 edition, The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. New York