Posts In: samadhi

by Laura McCorry

Time has started to unravel a bit for me. As I move further into this pregnancy, I’m falling out of routine, becoming less attached to the segmented hours of the day. This is probably a good thing. I wake when I’m finished sleeping (some days at 8:30, some days at 6am), I eat when I’m hungry (always, always snacks before bed), and I’ve found myself baking banana bread muffins at 10:30 at night.

In Walking on Water, Madeleine L’Engle writes about two different conceptions of time, “Kairos. Real time. God’s time. That time which breaks through chronos with a shock of joy, that time we do not recognize while we are experiencing it, but only afterwards, because kairos has nothing to do with chronological time. In kairos, we are completely unself-conscious and yet paradoxically far more real than we can ever be when we are constantly checking our watches for chronological time.”

The birth of a child is a moment like this, always outside of time. But you are also ushered into kairos at the death of a loved one. (I remember being shocked when I realized that practicing savasana, or final relaxation, in yoga is also a way of practicing death. It’s translation is corpse pose, after all.)

How can you practice both life and death with grace? I think the word that matters most is practice (meditation). Or perhaps grace. For me, moving into kairos is the same as practicing meditation. You allow yourself to move outside time, into space that is neither here nor there, you are not awake or asleep, you simply ARE.

The paradox of life is that we need both kairos and chronos. I need the immediate, tactile chronos, the skin, muscle, and bone of my hands dusted in flour, forming a dough, placing it in the oven, setting a timer (because humans being can move outside time, but yeast, water, and flour cannot if they are to become bread.) And I need those moments of timelessness, of seeing the moment arrive and stepping into it whole-heartedly, whole-bodily: when my toddler bumps her head and needs to be held RIGHT NOW, so I drop everything and cradle her in my arms.

I hope you are gifted the experience of time in all its splendored variation. The moments that are breath-giving and the moments that take your breath away. Moments of kairos when you allow yourself to be fully present; when you take in whatever sensation, thought, or emotion is most present, but practice not letting it define you. And when you need it most, I hope you find those life-affirming moments of chronos, of baking late at night, a solid grounding in time as we most often know it.

We hope to help you find that Kairos time on your mat at Yoga One, click here to view our schedule.

Laura McCorry
Contributing Writer

Yoga and Laura had an on-again-off-again relationship from 2004 until 2009 when they decided to move in together and there’s been no looking back since. Passionate about both yoga and writing, Laura loves to introduce others to the joys and benefits of yoga and healthy living.

Contact: laura(AT)yogaonesandiego(DOT)com

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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 Laura McCorry

Don’t do yoga. Step onto your mat with your bare feet. Breathe. Pick a yoga pose, any pose. But don’t do it; at least not the way in which you’re accustomed. Arrange your arms and legs and body to take up the outer form of the pose, then wait.

Breathe. Feel the yoga pose spread from your center and push out into the edges of your body, refining. Don’t move so much as expand by millimeters wherever it tells you to make space.

Start on the outside. Soften skin, then muscle. Then ligaments and tendons and bones. Let go everywhere except those isolated muscles needed to hold you steady.

Then go inside. Soften your thoughts, your feelings. Can you let go of your fears? Allow a thin mist to drape over your dreams and ambition.

Still don’t practice the yoga pose. Allow the yoga pose to practice you, to work on you and through you.

You’ll know when it’s finished. You’ll feel the weight of your body humming the same low tones as the rooted trees in the forest. You’ll become aware of your own absolute stillness. This is what comes after.

When Yoga becomes subject and you become the object acted upon, what comes after is the real fruit of your practice. After exertion, the deep peace of stillness. After the rough seas of life, the wide, clear expanse of your own soul.

 

Laura McCorry
Contributing Writer

Yoga and Laura had an on-again-off-again relationship from 2004 until 2009 when they decided to move in together and there’s been no looking back since. Passionate about both yoga and writing, Laura loves to introduce others to the joys and benefits of yoga and healthy living.

Contact: laura@yogaonesandiego.com

by Laura McCorry

As a new yoga teacher, I was in love with everything yoga. I wanted to soak it all in and learn as much as I possibly could so that when my training was over, I could go out into the world and help people move and feel better in their bodies.

I diligently memorized all the Sanskrit names and their English translations. I practiced saying both names whenever I taught a class (and I’m a bit embarrassed to think how many Sanskrit names I’ve now forgotten). But there was one pose, one name, for which I always used the Sanskrit: savasana.

After yoga and namaste, it’s probably the most-recognized Sanskrit word, so you can get away with not saying its translation. I’ve used “final relaxation” to explain savasana in many classes. But here are the words I’ve avoided saying for so many years:

Corpse Pose.

I was reminded of the proper translation this week. I had just finished leading a restorative yoga class and everyone in the room was lying down on their mats, not moving. This is the most relaxing part of yoga, the culmination of the previous hour and the time when the body receives the greatest benefit from the practice.

And I remembered that savasana meant corpse pose and I felt a chill go up my spine to see a room full of people, essentially “practicing” death. In that moment, I realized how much easier it was for me to be the teacher, to sit on my mat and stay “awake” so I could guide them out of savasana when the time was right.

My level of comfort with death ranges from “not very” to “nope, this is not even a little bit okay.” And I know I’m not alone. Our culture pushes death outside the realm of public discourse. We cover it up in medical jargon and leave death in the hands of hospice and the funeral home – anything to create some distance between us, the living, and the-thing-we-fear-above-all- fears.

So there’s something profoundly radical about the practice of yoga ending each session with the practice of death.

It flies in the face of popular culture which would rather pay attention to the youngest, newest, brightest thing under the sun. Which helps explain why savasana at some of the trendier, more corporate-feeling yoga studios can be so short – sometimes no more than two minutes.

How long savasana should last is a matter of debate in the yoga world, but the goal is long enough for you (your essence/spirit/soul) to surrender you (the body/mind). To truly practice corpse pose, you must recognize your Self as separate from your body. This acknowledgement can take years to manifest because we are very attached to our bodies in both a literal and psychological sense.

One of yoga’s primary tenets is the yama of non-attachment, aparigraha. It is natural for us to cling to things, to hold on tight to the people we love and the experiences of our body. But yoga teaches that You are not your body. In order to be free, to experience samadhi, or union with the divine, you must let go. Surrender. And yes, even practice death.

I believe that fear and discomfort can only ever hold us back from the fullness of life. We are meant to be alive. We are meant to fully enjoy this beautiful world and to live abundantly. I hope that over time, this practice of yoga continues to mold me, body, mind and spirit until I can one day acknowledge death without fear. Until the practices of living and dying can peacefully coexist that I might move with greater ease through this experience of life. And I wish the same for you.

**This post was partly inspired by Contributing Writer, Monique Minahan’s piece When I’m Gone Please Don’t Have a Funeral on Huffington Post. Thank you Monique for always writing from your heart!

Laura McCorry
Contributing Writer

Yoga and Laura had an on-again-off-again relationship from 2004 until 2009 when they decided to move in together and there’s been no looking back since. Passionate about both yoga and writing, Laura loves to introduce others to the joys and benefits of yoga and healthy living.

Contact: laura@yogaonesandiego.com