Written on June 28, 2013
June 2013 Newsletter
Namaskar from SMYC
“Take in the essence of life as you would smell the fragrance of a flower, delicately and deeply, with sensitivity and appreciation.”
Greetings SMYC Yogins!
Summer is here! The solstice moon was incredible!
This newsletter will be a wrap up of my India trip notes to you. If you didn’t receive my three previous trip posts please visit my blog to read them.
Enjoy Patti’s June poem…I rec’d this as I waited in Frankfurt for my connection to Pune; it sounds tho’ she might well have been alight on my shoulder in Pune when she wrote it!
Enjoy!
Kathleen’s Note…
“The human being is divided into 5:
the physical, the physiological, the psychological (the mind),the intellectual, the spiritual.
There is no spiritual joy (ananda) unless all is united and happy.”
BKS Iyengar
June 27 2013:
So I want to bring my story full circle. I shared a couple of poignant moments that I had with Guruji and Prashantji. Now I want to share a bit of Geetaji. There had been speculation whether or not she would teach at all and as I have already said what a blessing that she was!
If you haven’t studied with her, the first thing you will notice is her hawk-like vision. This runs in her family and may be the hardest thing for those of us who strive to be better teachers to learn–global pinpointing. Sounds oxymoronic and yet…
The next thing you notice, which certainly hones her vision, is that she is fully present. She sees who/what is in front of and around her, what needs to be done and sets about doing it. She expects no less of you and doesn’t suffer it well when you aren’t fully present. We were all on (pretty much) our best behavior;)
She started us by opening our skin, making space for our practice. And then the class builds. When someone is truly struggling everything is held suspended, while we all experience her individual instruction. It doesn’t take long. The adjustments may be quite subtle or strongly physical, but it is not just being done to one individual; her intent is such that we are all enwrapped in the transformation. Indeed we are all transformed in that moment from “what can be” to “it is”. Then that suspended state is reanimated and on we go! The class fills us!
Interestingly, in the evening pranayama classes, wholly different in tone and context of course, we experience the same making of space, the same outward in-ing, the same filling up. That our asana practice prepares our pranayama is taught to us but here is when asked “got it?” you know you do.
At the end of this particular pranayama class she was talking about the systemic penetrating nature of our yoga practice-that each atom stores this energy, this life force-nuclear energy she called it. (“Whoa, whaa? Listen up Kathleen; you’re going to want to remember this!”) This energy can come forth in different ways; anger was the example that she used. The point to my understanding tho’ is that each of our atoms, not one whit different than the atom science split, has that much potential! My mind saw “new-clear” energy…O my!
My last day of class was with Geetaji. It was an inversion class. Through the layers of the practice we went. We made space; we stoked our energetic fire/agni.
Was it a difficult class? Yes, difficult enough we had to stop thinking about how difficult it was.
Was it an extreme class? Geetaji put the x in extreme for me that day! “DID YOU COME TO CLASS JUST TO LEARN THE ASANA OR DID YOU COME ALSO TO LEARN TO MAKE THE EFFORT?” “Argh YES, aargh, YES, aaargh, YES,” my whole being declared!
And then it happened-every atom in my body burst with nuclear/new-clear energy straight to, what I can now say, anandamaya kosha-bliss! At that precious spur tho’, I turned to Geetaji, full to brimming, and blurted out “I love my life!” and laughed aloud, her whole face shone joy and she laughed with me!
My sweet friends, life is good…
As always, let me hear from you:[email protected]
Namaskar
I bow to the divine within you…
