Archive for November, 2009
One of the drawbacks about being a yogi blogger is that I get regular exposure to some of the most tasteless and depressing aspects of yoga in Western culture (and y’all know what I’m talking about, because I can’t stop myself from commenting on it). Crass commercialism, hypersexualization, narcissism, branding… it’s enough to sometimes make me wonder why I bother with this practice.
Which is why I’m so grateful for Yoga for a World Out of Balance: Teachings on Ethics and Social Action (Shambala Publications, 2009). The latest book by Michael Stone, a Toronto-based yoga teacher, psychotherapist and author, puts to rest my unease about current developments of yoga and assures me that it’s a practice that is not only worthwhile, but essential for modern life.
“The aim of yoga is not perfect mastery over technique or the ability to memorize scriptures,” writes Michael. “But rather the activity of bringing one’s insights into the world through action… yoga occurs when our inner work manifests in the world around us.” The book subtly provides a system for how we can do this in our everyday lives.
Michael explores how yoga can be relevant to culture, ecology and politics, and he does this through the lense of the five yamas, or “external restraints.” The yamas are the first limb on the ashtanga (eight-limbed) path of yoga, as outlined in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. These five restraints are generally known as guidelines for how we relate to the external world, and Michael clearly defines the yamas as “the clarification of one’s relationship to the human and non-human world.” Continue Reading
I am the centre of my universe!
“I no longer see community as a safe place, or as a specific structure. I think of it as an attitude and a process. It is understanding and practicing interdependence, recognizing that we need one another for everything that makes life worthwhile and even for survival itself.” – Arthur Gladstone
I an attempt to understand what community looks like and means to me, I drew this little diagram*. In the middle: me! And radiating out are my various intersecting and overlapping communities, and the people who make them.
My yoga community is bunched up in the bottom part ~ it’s made up of rad’a (the space where I teach, in the former ascent headquarters), the Montréal Anusara crew, Yasodhara Ashram (where I lived and studied for 2 years) and “Mtl yogis” (which refers to other yogi friends in town who don’t fit in the previous categories). In reality, these spheres intersect and overlap, rather than function independently. “Former ascent staff,” my beloved friends and co-workers at the magazine, are tangental to my yoga scene ~ and still, happily, part of my life. “MEM yoga” is another teaching space, at the Mile End Mission in my neighbourhood.
I’ve drawn a line from “MEM yoga” to a big cluster in the top corner, which represents my physical neighbourhood, Mile End. Most of my social and community action happens in my lively ‘hood, and it plays a big role in my life. Definitely, my sense of belonging and connection comes from my location. It’s the little things, like bumping into people at the cafe or the fruiterie, which create feelings of community on a daily basis.
Up in the top left is my blog, and the joyous little online community that has sprung up around it’s all yoga, baby. The participators and active commentors such as Linda-sama, Bob W, EcoYogini and Montréal yogi/blogger Adriana (who I’ve never even met in RL, even though she lives just a few blocks from me) are the heart of this community. And spiraling out from there are the “global internet yogis,” who stop by on their interweb meanderings (I know you’re out there, thanks to Google Analytics!).
Other aspects of my community world are my family and hometown friends in BC, my boyfriend, my knitter friends, my pan-Canadian writing friends ~ and my cats! Now that I am a Person-Who-Works-From-Home, my cats Qyogi and Kaiser are my co-workers (and I’m glad they’re not my employees, because they’re rather lazy and I’d have to fire them). They’ve taught me so much about interdependence (and love, and service, and fun), and they make my life, my single apartment-dwelling urban life, more worthwhile and enjoyable.
* Adapted from Carolyn Shaffer’s book, Creating Community Anywhere: Finding Support and Connection in a Fragmented World.
Well, after a week of sitting in my apartment with my computer writing, reading and thinking about community, I was more than happy to step outside and actually interact with my realworld community. And there’s no better place to do this than Montréal’s annual small press, comic and zine fair, Expozine. Every November, artists, writers, zinesters and eccentrics from Montréal and beyond gather to celebrate the creative and independent spirit. This time, for the 8th year in a row, over 300 exhibitors set up tables in the basement of the Église Saint-Enfant Jésus (that’s right – the Church of the Baby Jesus), and thousands more came to soak it all up.
The view from the front entrance ~ somewhere in there are tables of art & literature!
Many of my favourite Montréal creators, zinemakers and publishers were there, including Conundrum Press, Matrix Magazine, Snare Books, Sherwin Tjia, Billy Mavreas/Monastiraki, Aimée van Drimmelen, Lickety Split, Todd Stewart and Drawn & Quarterly. While it was lovely to see all these familiar peeps, I also made some great new discoveries. And so I present my oddest and most yogic finds from Expozine 2009! Continue Reading
This one’s for all the ladies in the house…
LA-based aspiring comedian Nikki Muller goes by her yogi-rapper alias 2K and puts her comedic talents to good use in this satirical vid, as she raps about her ideal yoga dude (and really, it sounds like she’s looking for Ogden ~ the guy in the video even looks like him). What do y’all think, peeps: Funny? Lame? Is this satire dead-on or just plain old dead?
Best line: “if it feels so right it can’t be chata-wrong-a!”
Best rhyme: “I’ll let you bring it to the bank when I’m holding a plank / I got some karma sutra shit gon’ make your mind go blank”
Best new pose: perve-otanasana
[Thanks to Tim for the hot tip, via Facebook!]
This Child's Pose ain't for children...
I used to be fascinated by a magazine called Found, which collects and documents the random things (notes, love letters, cards, to-do lists) that people find in their every days lives. Montréal blogger, Stefan, has employed a similar concept on his blog, Strike a Pose: Yoga Meets Fashion. With a sharp eye for both fashion and yoga, he’s managed to regularly find “images from recent fashion spreads that happen to capture yoga poses.” What I find so charming about his blog is that he documents happenstance occurrences of yoga asanas, accidental yoga, unintentional yoga. Found yoga.
In what unlikely places have you found yoga? Or where has yoga found you…?
A model plays dead in a Supine Twist
