Posts In: beauty

by Monique Minahan

We all wear our stories in some way or another, don’t we? They make us who we are (and sometimes keep us from becoming who we can be if we let them define us too narrowly.)

I started making what I call “Life Malas” because each marker is placed for a life event. I used yellow jade for manipura chakra (solar plexus), green jade for anahata chakra (heart), green ruby zoisite for sahasrara chakra (crown), and a spiral shell I found on the beach because it feels like home.

I made this one for me, so I placed the green jade marker beads at the times when my life and heart were busted open. Marker 1 is at 25, the age I was when Nathan died. Marker 2 is at 37, when my baby was born. Marker 3 is at 98, the age of my great-grandmother, born in 1917, who is breathing her last breaths this year.

Stringing the beads under the darkness of a new moon, it occurred to me that at one of these beads I will pass away myself (and that this life is not a dress rehearsal, so I’ve got to live it right the first time.)

There are 108 beads in a mala, and if I get to see bead 98 like my grandma, I’ll count myself very lucky. I’ll still count myself lucky to see 39 this month.

I made this mala necklace to remind me that both loss and life are part of the same cycle. They coexist beautifully if I let them, and if I practice embracing both rather than inviting one and rejecting the other, I get to experience the full depth of being human instead of just skimming the surface.

My life mala is an outward representation of the integrity, cohesiveness and beauty that emerges when I allow every experience to support the next one. Broken or fragmented as they appear at times, when I view them all together they form this fragile but beautiful thing called life.

Monique Minahan
Contributing Writer

Mo is a writer and yoga teacher who believes in peace over happiness and love over fear. She likes to set her sights high and then take small steps to get there. You’ll find her walking the dirt path behind her house with her little fluffy dog, practicing walking her talk by keeping her head high and her heart open. 

Read more from Monique on her blog, mindfulmo.com

 

This month we’re checking in with Wren Polansky who leads Classic Yoga on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 4:30pm. Wren gently guides students to explore their inner sensations, creating a deep connection to self which enhances their physical practice. Beginners and advanced practitioners alike will find increased mindfulness in this slower-paced class.

Wren will be hosting the Wild Mind, Wild Heart Meditation Workshop on Sunday, March 24th from 2-4pm, be sure to sign up in advance! You can find our weekly class schedule here.

1. What is your favorite style of yoga?

I enjoy a variety of styles and my practice is determined by my current interest or need. For example, if I feel lethargic and need to sweat, I may do Vinyasa; if I need teaching/practice enrichment, I may attend an Iyengar class. I mainly practice good ol’ Hatha yoga at home alone.

2. What first attracted you to yoga when you began your practice?

I grew up dancing and doing a lot of creative movement (Mom’s a professional modern dancer/choreographer) and I was introduced to yoga when I was 15 years old. Yoga felt like home. Yoga didn’t have the performance aspect of dance – I loved the privacy of the practice, the internal exploration. Yoga challenged my body in ways that left me feeling healed rather than hurt. Yoga also appealed to my love of learning – as a vast and dynamic physical and spiritual tradition, learning about yoga seemed inexhaustible. After all these years, I still feel like a beginner!

3. What is your favorite yoga pose right now?

In this moment I most want to do utthita parsvakonasana, extended side angle. So that is my favorite right now. If you asked again in ten minutes, the answer would likely be different. 🙂

4. What pose is still the most challenging?

Many, if not all, poses remain challenging! Virabhadrasana III is the first asana that comes to mind. 

5. If you were an animal, you would be: a human being, all of my animal nature resides in this body.

6. Describe what yoga means in your life using just 6 words: Work. Relief. Homecoming. Concentration. Learning. Beauty.

7. What might your students be surprised to learn about you?

In my mind, I identify as an artist perhaps more than I do as a yogi. These two practices, while complementary, are often in conflict with one another in my daily life. There is only so much time to indulge in what I love to do (especially being the Mama of a very active 15 month old!)

8. Do you have any words of wisdom or advice for new students?

Be awkward! There is nothing ultimately worthwhile to be gained by straining or self-consciously performing.

Wabi-Sabi

One of the highlights of our anatomy training is when we learned about the spine. We looked at each others’ spines standing erect and folded forward. One of the physical therapists teaching us anatomy spotted a student who had scoliosis. We all gathered around to take a look. As the student bent forward, the uneveness in her spine became amazingly prominent. Many of us were so focused on the apparent “wrongness” of her spine that we were gasping in awe.

The therapist looked around and started to point out what we had missed. “Look how beautiful and even her hips are. Look how even her shoulders are.”

It was true. She was perfectly aligned. We had failed to notice all that was right with her pose because we were looking at what appeared to be wrong.

Our anatomy teacher commented on the beauty of scoliosis, marveling that, “The body will do what it needs to do so you are upright in the world.”

This reminded me of the Japanese philosophy of Wabi-Sabi. The idea that the imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete are beautiful. And not just in terms of physical imperfections. Wabi-Sabi goes much deeper and is more of an “aesthetic consciousness that transcends appearance.”

A growing interest in anatomy is one of the reasons I’m in this training in the first place. The more I practiced yoga, the more I became curious about my own muscles, bones, and how they function. The more I saw how body movements affected my state of mind and being, the more I wanted to learn the how and the why.

Every week I have fascinating experiences that confirm my choice to make this investment. We are just scratching the surface of anatomy and how it relates to yoga, but I feel like a clear path of learning is being laid out for me to travel in the years to come.

Read the rest of Monique’s article here.

We asked our Yoga One Teacher Trainees for their reflections from week four of the course.

Janssen: What I love the most about teacher training is how immersed I feel in all of it – it’s like my whole life starts on Fridays!

Lynne: What I like most about TT is getting to spend hours and hours and hours with inspirational people in an inspirational space for eight weeks without losing my inspiration for it.

Amy: Being a student!  I love all the information I am learning.

Kim: I love the group support by all the trainees. Everyone gets along well. After a weekend together and what seems like a short four days in between, everyone is happy to be back together the next weekend, focused on the asana, meditation, anatomy and philosophy teachings.

Anna: As a beginner yogini, Teacher Training has commenced my yoga life in right posture, with all the information I need to maintain health and balance!

Romy: The awareness it has brought to my own practice, my life, myself, that everything is BALANCE. Love and Balance!

Dina: The best thing I have loved about training is what kind of person it is shaping me to be. Of course, learning so much about yoga, alignment, philosophy, and anatomy has been an incredible and vital part of the program but truthfully, I am better for having taken part in this journey. I think about everyday items differently and am becoming a more understanding person.

I leave each weekend feeling more inspired than the last to teach with even half as much love as my teachers and it always amazes me how beautiful and thoughtful our world can really be.

Amy, Michael and Diana have put together a program unlike any other and I feel blessed just to be able to learn from such gifted, gracious yogis. Oh, and the beautiful yogis, fellow trainees, are incredible people too!