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Rabbit Hole

11/25/2014

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You don't have to go down any rabbit hole to experience up is down, right is left, backwards is forwards. Just one day awake is enough, more than enough, to see how twisted certain aspects of society are, to see that it's always been thus. It's just that now we live in the The Age of Manipulation so many of us believe, or have believed, in the sanitized Hallmark Greeting card narratives that we grew up with about politics, religion, entertainment and Life itself. When you awaken, it is a shock to see that none of these things are really what they've been portrayed, and in fact many of the people involved - "leaders" - are actually doing the exact opposite of what they're preaching.

For instance, emblazoned on many cop cars are the words "to protect and serve." In mainstream America, you grow up believing those words, this concept that police are there to protect you. Until a cop in Cleveland kills a 12-year-old like Tamir Rice for carrying a toy gun or officials strip search children in a Philadelphia courthouse or until they arrest a 90-year-old man for serving food to the homeless on a Fort Lauderdale beach. In a few months, those same Florida beaches will be the scene for Spring Break. It's okay for teenagers, some not much older than children, to drink themselves into oblivion day after day, but not okay for a human being to show compassion to the most needy and helpless among us. Protecting and serving whom exactly?

Then we have The Grand Master of American Family Life Bill Cosby. Sixteen women are now accusing him of rape, with some as young as 15 when the alleged assault occurred. Cosby who always had a quip as the patriarch of the Huxtable family was mute in a recent NPR interview when questioned in oh-so-courteous tones about the alleged sexual assaults. The man made millions off "The Cosby Show," which manipulated and brain-washed a generation into thinking he was a decent, sweet, family man. Is it any surprise that he recently received a standing ovation? Despite decades of out-of-court settlements to women none of it troubled NBC who had been planning Cosby's relaunch. Network execs only cancelled after yet another allegation was met with stone-cold silence.

In the same week as the number of Cosby allegations grew, barely a day went by in the UK press without a story about the Westminster child abuse ring. Don't expect the US press to pick up this story. We wouldn't want anything to overshadow Prince William's NYC visit! Plus we had the premiere of Amy Berg's documentary "An Open Secret," which doesn't hold back on naming TV and film directors accused of child sexual abuse. What a surprise 'Variety' reports the film's unlikely to get distribution. Of course. It's a little harder for execs and politicians to manipulate us once we're aware of the hypocrisy between how they live and what they're peddling Huxtable-style. Instead of blindly peering through the looking-glass, it's more rewarding, even essential, to build up and trust in our own authority, our own individual powers of discernment.


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Downwards Triangle

11/20/2014

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This is Downwards Triangle, a basic pose but yet the cornerstone of so much of yoga. By working with it, it helps build a foundation as we progress. It's more commonly known as Downwards Dog, but I like 'Triangle' because it's a clearer picture. New Yoga Will uses the imagination; we often move into postures with pictorial images and clear observations.

Tri equals three, so there is a threefold nature to any of the Triangle positions, whether upwards or downwards. It's Stability-Activity-Lightness: Stability in legs and arms, activity in the middle (our sacrum and solar plexus), and lightness in our shoulders and, most importantly, our head. Our thinking becomes 'light', less bound to the body and will.

Raise your leg behind you and resist the temptation to open up the hips. Keep them square and facing the ground. Raise your leg until you've reached a natural resistance. At this point, don't 'push' your leg through it. Observe your breath until it softens and then guide your leg higher, or maybe not. With free-breath, your body will let you know the next step.

Then bend the raised leg and bring it under your body. If you feel less stable or lose activity in the midsection or get tight with your thinking or shoulders, then you've gone too far. Straighten the leg behind you again and repeat. It really doesn't matter how far under your knee comes or how high your leg rises as long as you maintain this threefold nature. It's a helpful preparation for sun salutations, for eventually swinging that foot all the way down on the mat with ease.


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Free Breath

11/14/2014

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The Age of the Guru is over. Blind followers of gurus whether they be of the financial or fashion variety are waning. You can see this in yoga. The days when students threw flowers at the enlightened master sitting on a throne and bowed at his feet are over. The day when the student repeated verbatim the words of the master is over. The time when the student sponged off the teacher is over. 'Methods' of purifying old karma, for example through rigorous, forceful, thrusting breaths, are still practiced. But they have ancient roots at a time when the freshly purified student would then be able to  soak up the energy and consciousness of his teacher. And what if there is no teacher for the 21st-century Bandha lock student? Then what? And who wants to be an energy vampire anyway?

It is the Age of the Individual. It is about the individual coming into conscious awareness with his or her own thoughts and subtle feelings, and with the other. When we consciously shape an asana and our Life, our breathing will be released of karma and old habits all on its own. We won't have to force it. The breath will find a freedom quite naturally and a new pattern will emerge. The starting point for 'consciously shaping' comes from objective observation, to simply observe through the senses without either intellectualizing or having our emotions triggered, with none of our personal likes and dislikes creeping in.

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Nothing To Prove

11/7/2014

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Note: Bing Lena Dunham book review for details on this 'controversy'.

PictureIf you're going to work hard, work for what you really love and are interested in, your passions
Love Lena Dunham or hate her, tired of looking at her perpetually exposed body on 'Girls' or not, thinking the latest brouhaha is right-wing v left-wing. Put all your opinions to the side and look at what it has really revealed, issues of class -- as in which hierarchical rung or segment an individual falls into based on inherited social standing and wealth.

In England, they are at least open about its class society. No one pretends it doesn't exist, with the upper-classes still showing a noblesse oblige that is both charming and disarming. In America, we'd rather ignore the 'pink elephant', because many influential people who are in a position to mention it don't want to expose the very system that may have catapulted them, and don't want their skills pinned on mere 'family connections'. Understandable. But by ignoring this, we continue to perpetuate the American dream -- the myth -- that anyone can achieve anything through hard work and talent. This is not true. You really do have to be asleep to believe that 'dream', paraphrasing George Carlin.

It does the Millennials and our children no favors at all to keep them asleep in these tight financial times; to keep them locked in the matrix and unaware how 'the system' works. Enter now, stage left, fellow Millennial Dunham whose TV series 'Girls' is about her alter-ego Hannah Horvath, the very personification of the American dream. Hannah is a creative soul from a culturally uninspiring middle-class suburban family. She's absolutely desperate to make it 'big' as a writer in NYC. She's on the outside looking in, always scrabbling for money, in survival mode so to hit 'Big Time' -- which 'voila!' she does. Yet as her non-fiction book reveals, Dunham's success in real life emerged from quite opposite circumstances.

The re-hashing of the American dream, especially by those who've reached the pinnacle through nepotism in high places, is dishonest and potentially dis-empowering to the ones viewing. It's like reading those celebrity interviews where the Hollywood star acts like it was just hard work and exceptional talent that got him or her into movies.
If only we work harder, better, stronger, faster! When -- dig deeper -- that star was usually connected by some sixth-degree of separation.
We either stay forever locked on a work-achievement loop that somehow fails to satiate, or find and nurture our own passions, interests, callings -- whatever they may be, with nothing to prove. For many of us, the truth is that we have absolutely nothing to prove, neither in our asanas nor in Life itself. 

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