LESSONS FROM A GEISHA
1.1 I always thought it sad that I could be with someone, think that I love them and then afterwards not ever be able to talk to them again, as if that love had been a lie. After reading “Memoirs of a Geisha” by Arthur Goldman I was introduced to another way of looking at relationship and life. In this excerpt, Sayori, the Geisha of the title, is telling us about the man she loved:
1.1.1 “… an elderly man who was explaining to me that his wife, whom he’d cared for deeply, wasn’t really dead because the pleasure of their time together lived on inside him… I understood that he left me at the end of his long life just as naturally as the leaves fall from the trees. Even now that he is gone I have him still, in the richness of my memories. I’ve lived my life again just telling it to you.”
1.2 I understood this to mean that there is nothing to fear in letting go because we’re not really letting go. The people who leave us become a part of us as we become a part of them. The experience of people we love just moves from the world outside of us to the world that is inside. Helping us to experience love.
1.3 And perhaps in love it doesn’t matter that one day we may have to say goodbye, what matters is that we are with the person while we are with them, being grateful, enjoying the journey as well as “getting there.”
1.4 And getting there, somewhere, then we get a chance to look back at our trip, to enjoy it in retrospect, make it a part of us and then, perhaps after a rest, it’s time for a new journey, with the same partner or a different one but being with whoever we are with.
1.5 I realized that as much as we look out and recognize who and what is around us, as much as we experience life across space, part of life is taking what we experience within and looking back at it across the span of time.
1.6 Expanding across time we get another look at our lives the way Sayori did by looking back at her life with the man that she loved... And it’s the way I interpreted what my friend taught me about sorrow. In sorrow we look back across time and recognize the efforts of the people who have affected us directly or indirectly. Sorrow, looking back so that we can learn, and make those learnings a part of us. But we don’t need sorrow to go within, it’s just one of the ways of getting there. Perhaps it’s a signal that we haven’t looked within in a long time.
1.7 Going inwards we can recognize the parts of our body. But then we can go inwards deeper still. We can pull in from all that is around us. We pull inwards from space, and we expand outwards across time.
1.8 Going within and seeing back across time we can see where we’ve been and enjoy it from another point of view.
1.9 And this is another aspect of rhythm, taking turns to expand across space, being present, and then across time, being nothing.
1.10 Looking back we get to experience life again, but from another viewpoint, across time instead of space. We see ourselves and our experiences from another point of view and just as our view is transformed so do we ourselves become transformed. Looking back, it’s as if each experience is a chance for us to learn ourselves, a chance for us to better know the idea of ourselves, a chance for us to grow.
Showing posts with label rhythm. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rhythm. Show all posts
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Sorrow
SORROW
1.1 A long while ago I was deeply interested in figuring out how muscles worked. This was part of my research into becoming a better yoga teacher. One of the things I noticed was that a lot of texts described the mechanism through which muscles contracted but they mentioned very little about how muscles relax. Did muscle tissue or some of the surrounding fiber have some sort of elasticity that pulled the muscles back to length after they had contracted?
1.2 Waiting in line at a coffee shop I mentioned to a friend what I was studying, trying to figure out how muscles let go. She suggested that it was like a relationship, looking back at it and going into it so that we can let it go.
1.3 That was how I felt when I copied my friends gesture of sorrow, it took me into myself, so that I was no longer giving or receiving, I was pulling in from space and looking back across time to see what I’d done as well as those around me from a different point of view. Recognizing what I’d done so that I could expand out into space again and express myself again, but differently if I chose.
1.4 Sorrow, going within so that we can look back across time and recognize when we don’t recognize the gifts that those around us have given us. Going within so that we can learn from those experiences and grow and then expand outwards back into time to live life in a new way, expanding out further from our roots in the past.
1.5 Sorrow pulling us into ourselves exactly so that at our center we can let sadness go.
1.1 A long while ago I was deeply interested in figuring out how muscles worked. This was part of my research into becoming a better yoga teacher. One of the things I noticed was that a lot of texts described the mechanism through which muscles contracted but they mentioned very little about how muscles relax. Did muscle tissue or some of the surrounding fiber have some sort of elasticity that pulled the muscles back to length after they had contracted?
1.2 Waiting in line at a coffee shop I mentioned to a friend what I was studying, trying to figure out how muscles let go. She suggested that it was like a relationship, looking back at it and going into it so that we can let it go.
1.3 That was how I felt when I copied my friends gesture of sorrow, it took me into myself, so that I was no longer giving or receiving, I was pulling in from space and looking back across time to see what I’d done as well as those around me from a different point of view. Recognizing what I’d done so that I could expand out into space again and express myself again, but differently if I chose.
1.4 Sorrow, going within so that we can look back across time and recognize when we don’t recognize the gifts that those around us have given us. Going within so that we can learn from those experiences and grow and then expand outwards back into time to live life in a new way, expanding out further from our roots in the past.
1.5 Sorrow pulling us into ourselves exactly so that at our center we can let sadness go.
Gratitute, Recognizing what is around us and within ourselves
GRATITUDE
1.1 Meeting up with a friend for dinner one night (Talk about rhythm, we were friends and then we weren’t and then we were again!) when she arrived she started talking about gratitude and sorrow and then she showed me what they were. Cupping her hands upwards in-front of her heart like a flower with her elbows slightly bent and her heart open she showed me how to her gratitude was an outwards flow of energy, taking her out of herself. Then she showed me sorrow. She bowed her head forwards slightly with her hands clasped over her heart, the energy taking her inwards.
1.2 I was surprised. While I had spent a lot of time thinking about gratitude, I’d never before seen it expressed as a gesture and I’d never thought of sorrow in such a way, as if the two complemented each other.
1.3 I copied her gesture of gratitude and as I did I felt as if energy was entering me from the world around me, but it was moving inwards as opposed to outwards. As I sat there enjoying the feeling of energy flowing into me I realized that gratitude is recognizing what is around us, seeing its expression and allowing it inwards. It’s a way of being present, being with the people we are with or seeing what is around us. Recognizing the people we are with, we allow the energy of their expression inwards into our center. And then we return the energy by expressing ourselves.
1.4 But gratitude is more than just seeing what is around us, it’s recognizing what is within us too. It is learning to feel, to recognize our bodies and the parts of our bodies.
1.5 One of the most beautiful visualizations I’ve read and learned about is called the Inner Smile. I first learned about it in a book by Eric Steven Yudelove called “Taoist Yoga and Sexual Energy.” In this practice we smile to each of our organs, recognizing what it does for us. And it’s funny because even though they give us their function, in a way by recognizing, by being grateful, we are giving in return, by allowing them to give as if one is not better than the other, instead two parts of the same whole, like a teacher cannot teach without students nor can a student learn without a teacher. And so recognizing our organs, being grateful, we give energy to them and they give it back to us.
1.6 And it is the same when we recognize the expression of those around us, recognizing the gifts that those around us are giving. It’s as if by opening ourselves up to their expression we give them a direction for their expression, a place for their energy to flow so that when they give out energy they are able to receive it again just as we in receiving energy are then able to give out.
1.7 Gratitude, witnessing the expression of those around us. Gratitude, resting from the idea that we are expressing so that other ideas around us can express themselves. Resting so that we can enjoy the expression of other ideas and perhaps see how next we might like to express ourselves. Resting, doing nothing, we can see what is around us and allow their expression into our hearts.
1.8 And giving the people around us room to express themselves, we do the same for ourselves we give ourselves room and we also give ourselves energy which we can then give back out again so that those around us can learn themselves too.
1.9 And just as every inhale is followed or led by and exhale, so is gratitude as much giving out as it is taking in. It’s is recognizing what people give us, what is around us and in turn it is expressing ourselves so that they can see us.
1.1 Meeting up with a friend for dinner one night (Talk about rhythm, we were friends and then we weren’t and then we were again!) when she arrived she started talking about gratitude and sorrow and then she showed me what they were. Cupping her hands upwards in-front of her heart like a flower with her elbows slightly bent and her heart open she showed me how to her gratitude was an outwards flow of energy, taking her out of herself. Then she showed me sorrow. She bowed her head forwards slightly with her hands clasped over her heart, the energy taking her inwards.
1.2 I was surprised. While I had spent a lot of time thinking about gratitude, I’d never before seen it expressed as a gesture and I’d never thought of sorrow in such a way, as if the two complemented each other.
1.3 I copied her gesture of gratitude and as I did I felt as if energy was entering me from the world around me, but it was moving inwards as opposed to outwards. As I sat there enjoying the feeling of energy flowing into me I realized that gratitude is recognizing what is around us, seeing its expression and allowing it inwards. It’s a way of being present, being with the people we are with or seeing what is around us. Recognizing the people we are with, we allow the energy of their expression inwards into our center. And then we return the energy by expressing ourselves.
1.4 But gratitude is more than just seeing what is around us, it’s recognizing what is within us too. It is learning to feel, to recognize our bodies and the parts of our bodies.
1.5 One of the most beautiful visualizations I’ve read and learned about is called the Inner Smile. I first learned about it in a book by Eric Steven Yudelove called “Taoist Yoga and Sexual Energy.” In this practice we smile to each of our organs, recognizing what it does for us. And it’s funny because even though they give us their function, in a way by recognizing, by being grateful, we are giving in return, by allowing them to give as if one is not better than the other, instead two parts of the same whole, like a teacher cannot teach without students nor can a student learn without a teacher. And so recognizing our organs, being grateful, we give energy to them and they give it back to us.
1.6 And it is the same when we recognize the expression of those around us, recognizing the gifts that those around us are giving. It’s as if by opening ourselves up to their expression we give them a direction for their expression, a place for their energy to flow so that when they give out energy they are able to receive it again just as we in receiving energy are then able to give out.
1.7 Gratitude, witnessing the expression of those around us. Gratitude, resting from the idea that we are expressing so that other ideas around us can express themselves. Resting so that we can enjoy the expression of other ideas and perhaps see how next we might like to express ourselves. Resting, doing nothing, we can see what is around us and allow their expression into our hearts.
1.8 And giving the people around us room to express themselves, we do the same for ourselves we give ourselves room and we also give ourselves energy which we can then give back out again so that those around us can learn themselves too.
1.9 And just as every inhale is followed or led by and exhale, so is gratitude as much giving out as it is taking in. It’s is recognizing what people give us, what is around us and in turn it is expressing ourselves so that they can see us.
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