Posts In: Museum of Man

guest post by Hannah Faulkner

With the winter holidays approaching, do you ever take the time to notice the world with a unifying perspective?

Are you open to beliefs from people that practice different customs than you?

Are your traditions in line with your evolving values? 

Read the full version of this article on Hannah’s blog, Half Moon Yoga and Art.

Tradition refers to beliefs, objects or customs performed or believed in the past, originating in it, transmitted through time by being taught by one generation to the next, and are performed or believed in the present.

A tradition may be deliberately created and circulated for personal, commercial, political, or national self-interest. Fear of other people, customs, and religions may be politically and culturally manipulated to bring more separation amongst the human race.

For example, only a century ago, “anthropologists at the Museum of Man and the Smithsonian Institution worked together to collect plaster life casts of different racial types. These casts were displayed in San Diego at the 1915 Panama-California Exposition as part of an exhibition about the “progress of man” that presented European Americans as racially superior (Museum of Man San Diego).”

However, in the current exhibit, Race: Are We So Different? artists like Kate Clark strive to connect the dots between the museum’s archive of face molds to the reality of living and breathing people today. She created a series of face molds from museum visitors to break down the stereotypes from these older social constructs. Today, so many different races have blended and moved around that the results are remarkably more united.

This exhibit explains in clear, helpful language the origins of race and racism, and helps us understand how to deal with them in productive, enlightening ways. Most of what we think about race is based on myth, folklore, or assumptions unsupported by genetics or biology. No one is free of misunderstandings about race, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

According to a DNA study posted at the Museum of Man, we are much more alike than we think. In fact, your DNA is 99.9% similar to the person next to you as well as all people in this world now.

In his enlightening Television Series, “The Story of God,” Morgan Freeman announces “Our beliefs don’t have to divide us, they can unite us. We all share the wonder and gratitude that we are here at all.”

Thousands of years ago, Pantajali created a guide towards the path of enlightenment and peace. He suggested the practice of yoga. The asanas (postures) and pranayama (breathing techniques) are preparation for Samadhi, which means “to bring together, to merge.” Samadhi refers to union. When we experience these moments of awakening, we realize what it is to be an identity without differences.

There is no longer any individuality of our experiences: gender, personal history, family and cultural values, education, etc. The “I” and “mine” of our illusory perceptions of reality is replaced by awareness of the oneness of the Universe blended with connectedness, forgiveness, joy and love.

Yoga reminds us that we are more than the external body, that our souls are the light that matters the most. Feel encouraged to treat your body like the divine temple that it is, the mind-body-spirit connection. The ultimate goal of yoga is to awaken the spiritual consciousness, the divine energy that connects us all.

Join us for Yoga at the Museum of Man – Yoga in the Rotunda every 2nd and 4th Saturday from 8:30am -9:30am. This class is $10. 

Click here to save your space and arrive at least 10 minutes early to sign in.

(Please note that the Jingle Bell Run is scheduled for this Saturday in Balboa Park and several roads around the Park will be closed. The run route can be found here and we recommend giving yourself extra time to find parking.)

This Saturday December 9th, I will be teaching a class related to the unity of light throughout the winter holiday season as it relates to the Museum’s message, “Are we so different?”

This holiday season, will you choose to see the unity among the world’s traditions, customs, and religions?

Do you know what the world’s major winter holidays have in common?

From a magical Yuletide log, to the bright star leading the way to a savior, a crescent moon as a symbol for dedicated prayers, festivals of lights with rejoicing in gratitude and family, to wreaths and halos that illuminate the way to compassion, all of these celebrations include LIGHT, which translates to joy, devotion, and love!

When we live on light, we are constantly illuminating the path for ourselves and others. The word enlightenment means to provide insight or knowledge, to awaken or become free from ignorance. In other words, if you have knowledge, let others dip their candles in it.

Through a unified approach of physical postures and lifestyle, we can awaken the loving energy of light and unity that is resting within each of us.

See yourself as the creator of your own life, the sustainer of your reality. Breathe in the light of oneness and divine energy and see yourself connecting with life itself. As a daily reminder, we can repeat this affirmation, “I feel lightness and openness to the bigger picture. I move towards light and enlightenment.”

Hannah Faulkner
Guest Writer

Hannah Faulkner draws inspiration from her surroundings and seeks to find relationships between the ordinary and extraordinary daily life through her writing. With 4 years of experience as a flight attendant, and many more travels preceding, Hannah’s curiosity and adventurous spirit have soaked in elements from worldwide cultures while growing in her spirituality. As a yoga and visual arts teacher, she combines her passions to create beauty in a variety of ways through her inspiring stories, bridging connections with deeper yoga philosophy and wellness concepts at HalfMoonYogaandArt.com.

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by Hannah Faulkner

How yoga cultivated a karmic awareness of life in all its forms and started my journey of veganism.

Read the full version of this post on Hannah’s blog, Half Moon Yoga and Art.

The other day a friend, Ashlee, told me that I must have been a cat in my previous life. She was trying to make sense of the phenomenon of why animals, and oftentimes cats, are so attracted to me. But, I haven’t always been this way. I used to be afraid of animals and tried to steer clear of them for most of my life.

It wasn’t until I started doing yoga (at Yoga One in San Diego), that I’ve made a connection with these beings. The more I became centered and found inner peace and awakening, the more animals liked to be in my aura.

One of my favorite animal experiences was when I was walking along the Camino de Santiago in 2014. JoAnna and I were both missing our pet cats from back home when suddenly, out of the brush, five little kittens approached us. We stopped and started petting and holding them. They just wanted to be loved. Our hearts were filled with so much joy to share this connection with the natural world.

We stayed there for about thirty minutes then JoAnna said, “We should probably stop wasting time and continue walking.” I abruptly snapped back, “This is NOT WASTING time!” We still tease each other about that statement, but the truth is that taking time to stop and connect with nature and our inner source of love is really the best way to spend our time and our lives.

Our crown chakra, Sahaswara, is our source of enlightenment, consciousness and spiritual connection to all that is. This connection takes the form of a circle, like a crown. Feeling enlightened with a balanced crown chakra means experiencing unity that everything is connected at a fundamental level. The other day, when I was meditating and bringing my concentration to this place of inner peace and connectedness, my cat walked over to me and pressed the crown of her head into the crown of my head. Moments like this are enthralling!

At the Living with Animals exhibit in the Museum of Man San Diego, we are reminded that all animals can be our friends. Pets used to be wild creatures that have developed a relationship with humanity over time. We have made friends with dogs, cats, birds, turtles, fish, mice, and even beetles.

However, sometimes the way we live causes separateness and we lose connection with creatures when we label a certain creature as a pest or a taco. Why is it that in the West we can develop laws to protect the treatment of dogs, but we are blind to the way cows, pigs and chickens are treated and manufactured in a factory? The Living with Animals exhibit takes a look at how a pet can become a pest, a pest can become a pet, and a pet can become a pest that ends up on our plate.

Up until six months ago, I have been guilty of disconnecting the animal with the flavor. Then, I became confronted with some yoga philosophy of Ahimsa (non-violence) and how it relates to karma. I finally opened my eyes and heart to the documentaries available on Netflix and other platforms that are trying to awaken us to how we are responsible for torturing animals every time that we buy meat or animal products.

I used to think that we “needed” to eat animals for protein and have since learned that we can find much more healthy nutrients and proteins in a plant based diet. Leo Tolstoy announces, “A man CAN live and be HEALTHY without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he partakes in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite, and to act so is immoral.”

Like an ex-smoker who still desires a swig of cigarette every time they smell one, my mouth still waters at the smell of crispy bacon and tasty hamburger, but then I close my eyes and visualize the whole creature and how it is being treated today, under horrible conditions, with the purpose of companies making more money, and I can no longer partake in this bad karma. Peaceful Mohandas Gandhi, past leader of India proclaimed, “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”

Join us for Yoga in the Rotunda at the Museum of Man San Diego and visit the Living with Animals Exhibit to awaken connectedness and inner peace.

I will be leading the class on Saturday, September 9th, 2017 from 8:30-9:30am in accordance with Yoga One San Diego.

We will be flowing through animal poses like Cat/Cow, Dog, Beetle, Mouse, Pigeon, Fish, Turtle, and more as we cultivate Crown Chakra Connectedness and Ahimsa for all creatures!

Hannah Faulkner
Guest Writer

Hannah Faulkner draws inspiration from her surroundings and seeks to find relationships between the ordinary and extraordinary daily life through her writing. With 4 years of experience as a flight attendant, and many more travels preceding, Hannah’s curiosity and adventurous spirit have soaked in elements from worldwide cultures while growing in her spirituality. As a yoga and visual arts teacher, she combines her passions to create beauty in a variety of ways through her inspiring stories, bridging connections with deeper yoga philosophy and wellness concepts at HalfMoonYogaandArt.com.

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by Hannah Faulkner

India is commonly known as the motherland of yoga, but what if I told you that yoga originally began in Egypt and then traveled to India hundreds of years later?

Paintings, engravings, and murals from ancient Egyptian tombs and temples show images of figures in positions that represent some commonly known yoga poses.

According to the book, Egyptian Yoga: Postures of the Gods and Goddesses by Dr. Muata Ashby and Dr. Karen Ashby….

We can find the god Geb (god of the Earth) in plough pose engraved on the ceiling of the Temple of Aset (Isis).

Framing him is the goddess, Nut (goddess of the sky), in a forward fold yoga pose.

Further, we can see Geb in a spinal twist and Ra in the squatting position like Virasana, Hero’s pose.

Dr. Ashby proclaims that yoga was practiced in Egypt earlier than anywhere else in our history, long before the evidence is detected in India (including the Indus Valley Civilization) or any other early civilization (Sumer, Greece, China, etc.). This point of view is supported by illustrative and documented scriptural evidence of physical exercises, meditations, and implementation of wisdom teachings in daily life.

It is commonly believed that the practice of the yoga in India began with the use of the Lotus Pose, which is traced to stone engravings in the Indus Valley culture (1500 BCE). However, the use of the lotus pose here could possibly only symbolize the iconography of meditation. This seated flower position represents a spiritual person who develops detachment and dispassion from the world since it sits in the muddy water but is not touched or affected by the mud. Yoga poses, as we know them in the western world, developed much later in India’s history.

Click here to read more about the fascinating connection between yoga and ancient Egypt on Hannah’s blog, Half Moon Yoga and Art.

The San Diego Museum of Man in accordance with Yoga One San Diego come together twice a month (2nd and 4th Saturdays) at 8:30am-9:30am to hold a special yoga class in the Rotunda.

Hannah Faulkner will be teaching class on February 11th, 2017.

Will you join us for this journey in Ancient Egypt?

Buy Your Ticket Here

and be sure to tell the Museum of Man that Yoga One sent you!

guest post by Hannah Faulkner

this article originally published on Half Moon Yoga and Art Blog

Fangs, scales, or tentacles?

Have you fashioned a monster?

From snake-like, dragon-like, bird-like, or octopus-like, humankind has been creating monsters across cultures and time. Ironically, a fear of certain creatures and the unknown is shared on all continents. On the other hand, one of the important characteristics of historical heroes across cultures is being fearless in the face of big and often lethal enemies. This story and message has been told time after time throughout the human experience.

So, why do we still all use our imaginations to provoke fear?

When we imagine or see strange creatures, we often associate them with something that is large, ugly, and frightening. This triggers an unpleasant emotion, anxiety, caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous and likely to cause pain to ourselves or someone dear to us.

Accelerate breathing rate, sweating, and alertness are physiological changes in the body that show fear is activated. This reaction is an inborn response for coping with danger. This primitive mechanism can help people to survive by either running away or fighting the threat.

In the exhibit, Footsteps Through Time: Four Million Years of Human Evolution, we can identify tools, artifacts, body parts, habitats, ideas, and other touchable replicas of early humans, primates, and futuristic cyborgs (part human, part machine). Stepping through this display, we piece together some of their story. From the tool shed, we see an assortment of tools they used to fight their threats. These battles can result in either dinner, a peaceful night’s sleep, or both. Because early humans that were quick to fear dangerous situations were more likely to survive and reproduce, caution is theorized to be a genetic effect.

From an evolutionary perspective, according to Human Brain Evolution and the Neuroevolutionary Time-Depth Principle by Bracha in 2006, different fears may be different adaptations that have been useful in our evolutionary past, developing during different time periods. For example, a fear of heights, may be common to all mammals and developed during the dinosaur or reptile era. Other fears, such as fear of snakes, may be common to all monkeys and apes developed during the mammals and birds era. Additional fears, such as fear of mice and insects, may be unique to humans and developed during the early human paleolithic and neolithic time periods (when mice and insects become important carriers of infectious diseases and harmful for crops and stored foods).

As a result, humankind shares a fear of the unknown. 

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Fear may be politically and culturally manipulated to persuade the citizenry of ideas which would otherwise be widely rejected. For example, sometimes customs and beliefs bring more separation amongst the human race. Only a century ago, “anthropologists at the Museum of Man and the Smithsonian Institution worked together to collect plaster life casts of different racial types. These casts were displayed in San Diego at the 1915 Panama-California Exposition as part of an exhibition about the “progress of man” that presented European Americans as racially superior. (Museum of Man website)”

Previous scholars tried to conclude judgements of species and intelligence levels between people with different colors of skin. However, science has now discovered that over of thousands of years, our DNA has adjusted our skin color to relate to the amount of sun/vitamin D that our bodies should receive at a time. People whose ancestors come from the North need less sun each day, so they could stay warm in shelters, while people from more equatorial regions would stay outside all day and therefore not be oversaturated with vitamin D. The skin pigments adjusted accordingly.

In the exhibit, Race: Are We So Different?, artists like Kate Clark strive to connect the dots between the museum’s archive of face molds to the reality of living and breathing people today. She created a series of face molds from museum visitors to break down the stereotypes from these older social constructs. Today, so many different races have blended and moved around that the results are remarkably more united.

Did you know that we share a connection with all living beings?

According to DNA, we are 50% related to bananas,
98.4 % with chimpanzees, and
99.9% similar to the person next to you
as well as all people in this world now.

It has been theorized that the formation of communities happened because people lived in fear. The result of this fear forced people to unite to fight dangers together rather than fight alone.

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Archaeological discoveries of masks, bowls, and figurines highlight the creativity and beliefs of the ancient Maya. Two plates show figures seated in sukhasana pose. For millennia, people all over the world have been sitting on the ground in cross-legged positions.

Despite its name, sukhasana meaning “easy sitting pose” it doesn’t always feel easy for a lot of people, especially in today’s culture with the convenience of chairs. Using our core strength, we make many small adjustments to distribute our weight evenly over our sitting bones, balance our shoulders directly over our hips, and align our head directly with our spine.

A well-aligned Sukhasana produces the conditions for a relaxed, yet alert, state in both the body and mind. Therefore, sukhasana has the power to draw us deep inside, leading us toward a meditative state and revealing the immense joy present within our hearts.

The word sukha can also mean “happy” or “joyful.”
This name is a reminder of the innate joy that is within all of us.  

Is it surprising then that the opposite of fear is calm, assurance, love, courage, heroism, confidence, faith, happiness, and joy?

We have the power to overcome frightful social constructs through connection with our mind and body, we can breathe through fear! In yoga practice we call these breathing techniques pranayama.

Yogic philosophy is a guide and reference point along the journey made by those who have walked it before us. Thousands of years ago, Patanjali created the 8 Limbed Path as a guide towards true yoga and peace. He suggested the practice of asanas (postures) and pranayama as preparation for Samadhi, the very last limb, which means “to bring together, to merge.” Samadhi refers to union. There is an ending to the separation that is created by the “I” and “mine” of our illusory perceptions of reality. During samadhi, we realize what it is to be an identity without differences, and how a liberated soul can enjoy pure awareness of this pure identity.

In the state of samadhi the body and senses are at rest yet the mind and reason are alert, as if awake. There is only the experience of consciousness and unutterable joy. Samadhi, is the ultimate goal of our spiritual journey on earth. Perhaps enlightenment is not your conscious goal right now, but samadhi is the highest state of consciousness that a human can reach in life.

There is no longer any individuality of our experiences: gender, personal history, family and cultural values, education, etc. In samadhi, that filter is removed to make room for being intensely present without a point of view. In samadhi you perceive all points of view of reality at once, without focusing on any particular one. This concept of samadhi brings with it the possibility of a deep hope about our growth as human beings.

Samadhi can be experienced through our purple Crown Chakra, the energy source, resting on the top of our head. This crown represents the invisible dwelling of God consciousness, our divine nature, this connection to our God Self, from which we came and also are destined to return.

We may have glimpses of this state, but it’s very rare to live entirely in this state. Some people have this experience during prayer or meditation, others during physically bonding, and still others while alone in the woods. Samadhi is awareness of the oneness of the Universe blended with connectedness, forgiveness, joy and love. We need the journey of yoga to help us discover what was present inside us all along.

Be still.
Can you find this connection and oneness within yourself and all living beings?

Join us for Yoga under the Rotunda at the Museum of Man as we explore the story of humanity and reach towards samadhi.

Saturday, November 12th, 8:30-9:30am

Sign Up Here

Hannah Faulkner
Guest Writer

Hannah Faulkner draws inspiration from her surroundings and seeks to find relationships between the ordinary and extraordinary daily life through her writing. With 4 years of experience as a flight attendant, and many more travels preceding, Hannah’s curiosity and adventurous spirit have soaked in elements from worldwide cultures while growing in her spirituality. As a yoga and visual arts teacher, she combines her passions to create beauty in a variety of ways through her inspiring stories, bridging connections with deeper yoga philosophy and wellness concepts at HalfMoonYogaandArt.com.

Yoga One’s Mission is to share the joys and benefits of yoga with as many people as possible, helping individuals enjoy healthier and happier lives. Some of the ways we’re enhancing well-being in the community is by offering yoga classes at San Diego’s Museum of Man and through our ongoing Yoga One Teacher Training courses.

Recent YOTT graduate Michele Hines writes: After Yoga One Teacher Training, my experiences of “oneness” or “becoming one” have become less something I seek, and more something I allow. It is a moment to moment opportunity to be mindful and kind, for life to feel pleasant. #enlightenmentNow

“All know that the drop merges into the ocean, but few know that the ocean merges into the drop.”  –  Kabir

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