A Nice Haiku.

Friendly engagement.
Warm people from different
generations. Nice.

I Forgive Thanksgiving.

Here a couple of things that I forgive about Thanksgiving:

1. It can seem to be a time of fake behavior, a time of pretending and make-believe… "Yes" we really like :) and enjoy one another—not always true…

I forgive my perceptions of fake behavior. I am a sensitive lass, which means I really feel things, which also means that I may feel your subconscious sleights. "You," (I am digging deep here, so please don't assume that I actually mean you.) I'm pretty sure are somewhat unaware of how your behaviors affect me. I've allowed myself—once again somewhat unknowingly—to be entertaining, or perhaps I was somewhat occupied by, victim-style interfacing with situations.

Victim-style interfacing means to me that I am looking to others to define my self-worth. I look to you to see if I'm likable or worthy, or I look to you to tell me how to feel about myself when I am coming from what I have come to know as my victim filter.

When I am using my victim OS (operating system) I am wide open and vulnerable to attack, and am also available to be harmed by "friendly fire" which is known to come from someone you love who happens to be in a bad mood or a challenging situation.

So I also forgive my victim OS, and I'll try to be better at recognizing if I've forgotten to use my software upgrade—I need to make sure that I'm using the right version of my OS, else I can experience a system crash, as evidenced by a negative-thought avalanche, when I am interfacing with the buggy software of my friends and family. (Of course I also acknowledge my own "bugs" or glitches… I did in some detail just above.)

2. I'm ashamed of a culture that appears to celebrate dominance, greed, violence, and victories achieved through slaughter. Thanksgivings were celebrations of the massacres of native North Americans in the 1600s.

I've always felt embarrassed about the displays of abundance associated with Thanksgiving. It always seemed to say, "We are the fortunate/blessed/rich people." This is dependent on others being less fortunate. Instead of over-filling our bellies, wouldn't it be better to share?

Well I've decided to forgive the situation, in favor of appreciating the good of people getting together around the topic of gratitude. It's great to be thankful for what we have.

I just hope that we can remember the people who are beyond our own dinner tables, too… (I find myself wanting to remember the living, the dead and those yet to be born in my prayers today.)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Haiku Gratitude Travel…

Have traveled many
lives worth thanks to stories shared
by students and friends.

Pelvic Empowerment Yoga Workshop with Brooks.

Welcome to an all-levels yoga workshop for women with Brooks Hall.

Sunday, December 11, 2011
Yoga Circle
401 W Ontario Street, Suite 210, Chicago, IL
1 to 4 pm
Cost: $40

Yoga includes living vibrantly in every part of the body. At the same time there are many factors that can cause a woman to reject femininity as well as the root of vitality, creativity and stability, located in the pelvis. For many women, the pelvis is stagnant, neglected or strained by tension, self-judgment, and abuse. This affects our yoga, as well as our health and life expression beyond our yoga mats.

Brooks will give a talk exploring aspects that impact how we think about our female bodies, for the pelvis contains so much more than anatomy. The pelvis holds some of our most precious, sacred and embarrassing stories. It is a treasure of emotion, power and creative inspiration, and when we cut ourselves off from this beautiful resource, our lives become sapped of the vitality that is our birthright.

The anatomy of the pelvic bowl will be discussed, as well as how to most effectively activate and relax the pelvic floor. Safe, detailed and clear instruction will be provided. We will practice postures and techniques for activating the pelvic floor, as well as those where we can stretch and relax ourselves.

Whatever your history with your body, you can begin now to discover the powerful resources within.
~Tami Lynn Kent, Wild Feminine

Call the Yoga Circle to sign up: 312-915-0750

Every Action Thanks.

Every action thanks,
and every inaction scorns.
Choose what you will do.

Thank you! I am alive haikus.

It seems strange: I am
wondering if I have time
enough in my life

to be grateful for
all of the blessings that I
have known so far in

this life. And even
more amazing is the fact:
I am living now.

So even more thanks
are called for: thank you for YOU!
Thank you for my life.

Thanks for work to do,
and for problems for me to
solve or ask advice…

Nothing finished, and
everything in motion: I
can apply effort.

Affect the way things
go by participating:
speaking, doing and

seeing; much thanking.
Forever loving. Thank you!
Every action thanks.

Relishing the warmth of a haiku dream…

I reached back to find
you. Your warm hands found my arms.
I relished the warmth.

Time to fly haiku!

Feeling stuck, like a
warm leaf whose stem is holding
tight to the cold branch.

Dear everybody haiku.

Dear everybody,
I love you. Sometimes you hurt.
Hi again. Welcome.

Spent banana haiku.

Spent banana brings
monkey glee, if I only
know where ooh ooh be…

Grateful for headache haiku.

Grateful for headache
that reminds me to take care.
Do not ignore this.

Haiku of the Brown Roses.

Flower-like bundles,
seeds revealing a lasting
and lovely promise.

Spiritual path always happy with Anusara?

I have been really interested in all the blogging about the “Anusara Exodus”. I’ve enjoyed my share of Anusara yoga, and will enjoy more, I’m sure… But I’ve always felt a bit isolated from certain aspects of it. Christina Sell pretty much nails it for me when she says (about her teacher outside of Anusara):

...Lee didn't care at all about whether things were essentially good or not. He sided, I think, more with the Buddhists on that. Life, he taught more than once, is essentially nuetral. We are the meaning makers. He was influenced heavily by the Fourth Way work and so as much as he taught us that we were supported in the process of waking up, he had a very healthy respect for what they call the "denying force" and the ways that such a force manifested though the unexamined facets of our psychology and unconscious involvement in the world and would, when given a chance, work to kick us off the path without us even knowing it. The denying force might even dress up as a church or as a cause and steer us off the path with promises of salvation that appeared to be our dream come true. He wasn't a teacher who was concerned much about happiness. Not his own and not ours, when you get right down to it. He taught a lot that the deepest aim of sadhana was to become transparent to the flow of Grace, to be in service to the shakti to such a degree that he described his essential teaching as "Spiritual Slavery." He said that Spiritual Slavery was the deepest freedom a human could experience and there were no guarantees that your psychology would dig it. None at all. He was not casual and he was not in it as a hobby. He was also fiercely loyal, loving, compassionate and I think he may have been the kindest person I have ever known.

I know through my life experience that right aspects of life don't always feel good. I think that "flowing with grace" in Anusara yoga means moving in one's life path connected to one's spirit in a way that feels good. But true spiritual living is in line with what is best for one's self, community, and world and I think that it can require some honest heartache and serious work. I have gotten the sense from people in Anusara yoga that this is supposed to be always ecstatic and outwardly happy. And in my sense of it, the path of truth or spirit is neutral, as in the above excerpt. If I'm not blissed in a particular moment, it doesn't mean I'm wrong. My emotional content is information, neither good or correct depending on happy or sad feelings, just there to experience, acknowledge and decide how I might like to proceed from there.

If I'm not happy in a given moment, it's okay! It's not wrong. I'm not bad if I don't feel good. It just means that something is happening.

Something is happening!

For more coverage, check out the following:

A Letter to the Yoga Community about The “Anusara Situation.” ~ Amy Ippoliti 

Walk the Talk Show with Waylon Lewis: John Friend, founder of Anusara yoga, re: Darren Rhodes, Christina Sell, Elena Brower—& lineage in America.

Root Wisdom Yoga Workshop with Brooks.

Announcing:

Workshop on the topic of Yoga and the Female Pelvic Floor*! Read on...

Root Wisdom Yoga workshop with Brooks Hall.
Saturday, November 19th
1:30 - 3:45 pm
cost: $35
Here is the Yogaview Workshops page where you can sign up (you will want to scroll down to find "Root Wisdom"...).

Yoga includes living excellently in the whole body. In this workshop we will clarify what is happening in the region of the pelvis for women with safe, clear instruction. We will map the actions of the pelvic floor, as well as techniques for relaxation so we might more skillfully use the whole body in yoga.

Root Wisdom Yoga is for women who are curious about how the pelvis might better contribute to their experience of yoga, creativity and life. Brooks has found a more vibrant, powerful, joyful and comforting connection with herself in yoga and elsewhere by including the anatomy “down there” in her practice.

All levels welcome.

Location:
Yogaview
1745 West Division
Chicago, Illinois 60622
773.384.5569

*Brooks is grateful to Leslie Howard for introducing her to this work. Teachers at Yogaview have been essential to her own development as a teacher and she has completed Yogaview’s level 1 and 2 teacher trainings. Gratefulness also goes to Gabriel Halpern and the Yoga Circle for helping her to nurture her teaching skills since 2002. She would also like to thank Woman Within International and her Empowerment Circle for giving her insight into what it means to support women in a healing environment.