12/17/04
Dear Student,
I
hope you well and enjoying the holiday season. My best wishes for you and your
loved ones to enjoy a happy and healthy New Year.
I wish to thank you again for your support throughout the year. I look forward
to another year of exciting and important work together.As always, I encourage
you to keep up with your Yoga and other self care disciplines as best as you can
this time of year to keep fatigue, anxiety and other negative effects of stress
at bay.
To help in that regard, remember and refer the "Practical Suggestions for Coping With Holiday Stress" early and often to support you and offer ideas on how to better take control over your life and commitments at this busy time.
Also,
in the spirit of the holidays, a reminder of the special “Holliday
Yoga and Mediation for Relaxation and Renewal Class” at the
There
will be classes up until Wednesday 12/22. Classes will be on hiatus from
12/23-1/5/05. Studio classes resume
The Winter series will begin on Tuesday, January 16th The schedule will be up soon.
In addition I will again be teaching Basic Yoga for Stress and Wellness at Branford Adult Education beginning January 29th. Call the AE office at (203)488-5693 for more information and to register.
.Yoga is the gift that truly keeps giving. If you wish, you can purchase gift certificates for my classes, private sessions and services. Please call me for details at (203)488-1700.
Yoga Therapy
Grace and the Ground of being
I
realize that in this society, despite the recent explosion of Yoga in our
consciousness, our busy lives continue to conspire to keep us harried,
overstressed, and out of touch with the value of our inner lives. A major
purpose of this newsletter is to provide inspiration and support you as you
discover and commit to an ongoing Yoga, Meditation or other self care and
healing discipline. The many techniques, hints or other helpful revelations that
I present here will work to better your lives. However, they will impact you
best if they can be implemented within the framework of a life that has space
for the seeds of this work to grow. The ground most fertile is cultivated from
within.
The following is from a mediation email list I subscribed to a few years back(I
have since lost track of it’s source). The author is named Roger, (last name
unknown).I find it an elegant and powerful exposition of one perspective on the
value of Yoga and mediation to our lives.
“Meditation is easy - it is the easiest thing in the world for any creature to do, but, paradoxically, this ease is what makes it so hard for us westerners to do. We find it very hard to do simple things, because we have been taught a number of things from a very early age that make it hard for us to relax and accept simplicity. Some of these things we've been taught are:
1.
That we must always 'try hard'.
2. That life is not easy.
3. That 'sitting around not doing anything' is a waste of time.
4. That the only rest we need is sleep at the end of the day.
5. That to achieve any kind of skill, we must work hard.
While these beliefs may be very true in the materialistic world in which we live, in meditation they are not true at all. In the act of meditation we do not look for any achievement, we do not use effort to try hard, and we are happy to sit, apparently doing nothing, for relatively long periods of time. But we are not doing nothing at all – we are doing a very profound thing. What we are doing is giving our mind and body back to the universal processes of nature, and allowing them to settle, find equilibrium, and to heal in their own way”
He
adds: “So meditation is a process of
purification, but it's not us that are doing the purification. It's just
the natural process of nature, purifying itself, as
it does everywhere around us. Given stillness, forests regenerate, oceans
rejuvenate, and pollution clears.”
The above is good news for our harried selves. Of course, as we reflect on its
impact on our day to day life it is easy to realize the threat such broad based
letting go may be to all that we wish to control in our lives. To our minds,
long conditioned by fears real and imagined, insights attained through our work
on ourselves can appear impersonal, simplistic, frightening, useless or somehow
threatening to our existing values and beliefs. Of course in some way
transforming our lives is all of that. Something has to give to allow new
insight to take root. If we are
As we enter the new year we can recommit to “beginners mind”, dissolving old and obsolete concepts and attending directly as best we can to what is presenting itself us now. This is the ground for growing integration of healing experience. Letting go makes way to our alignment with those larger process and systems of which we are a part, rather than constantly “pushing the river” of these inexorable forces. As scary as this surrender can be I believe those moments we open to it we gain greater clarity, sense of purpose, and deep reservoirs of energy to impact all that which is truly within our domain. More and more we can open to be touched by grace and the inner joy that feeds our deepest moments of happiness.
Meditation
The theme of this letter and the suggestion for this season is to cultivate
simplicity in your life. In that spirit try the mediation from the Kundalini
tradition below.
DEEP MEDITATION INTO THOUGHTLESSNESS
Sit
cross legged(easy pose) with a straight spine and turn your eyes to the brow.
Your hands are in your lap, one in the other with both palms up.
Mentally intone the sound Wha Hay Gu Ru
in four separate syllables. Hear the sound above the top of the head.
Allow yourself to transcend all thoughts, concepts, and expectations. Simply be.
Continue for 31 minutes, taking the last minute to stretch. Don't rush into
anything afterwards. You're higher than you think!
from “Kundalini
Yoga for Body, Mind, & Beyond” by
Workshops:
Saturday,
February 6th,
At Raven’s Wing Yoga
The
Radiant Body—Kundalini Yoga to be Bright and Beautiful
With
Fee: $50 pre-registered, $55.00 at the door.
In India, Kundalini Yoga is considered to be the jewel in the crown of yoga systems. Through Kundalini Yoga's special blend of breathing, movement, stretching, meditation, and chanting, you'll to shine like the sun! In addition to a whole body workout, this fascinating class will feature exercises to enhance charisma and radiance. Your magnetic field is the electrical emanation of the nervous system. When it's strong you have a positive effect on your environments, you're insulated against negativity and mishap, more consistently in the right place at the right time, and your popularity quotient increases. This workshop will also feature deep relaxation to the transcendent sounds of live gong music. This class is 85% physical and 15% meditative, is for all levels.
Fee are $50 pre-registered, $55.00 at the door. Contact me at (203)488-1700 or Christina Sillari at (203)435-6110 for more information or to register.
Services
Private, semi private and small group Yoga Sessions, Meditation Instruction,
Corporate Yoga Classes
and
the Egoscue Method Therapy for Chronic Pain Relief and Enhanced life
performance.
Over the past several years I have worked with several students in private
sessions in both brief and longer term scenarios. The sessions have served
different purposes for each individual depending on specific needs and
intentions. Students have utilized this time to:
·
Asses
posture alignment and discover it’s relationship to ongoing pain, health, or
movement problems.
·
Receive
and train to utilize prescriptive threrapeutic exercise to resolve the postural
issues and imbalances at the root chronic pain and ongoing health conditions
·
Groupa
nd Private Yoga Instruction to enhance skill, comfort and commitment to
Yoga practice in class, oofice and home settings
·
Learn
and explore higher breath work and meditation practices to further grow in
yoga
·
Support
in life transitions to create healthier, more self supportive lifestyles.
·
Discover
and utilize healing principles and practices designed to support your ongoing
wellness and personal growth.
·
Serve
as a powerful compliment to other recovery and healing practices…and
more!
I am available for private Yoga instruction, Yoga Therapy, postural alignment therapy, and meditative healing session format consisting of an experience of Yogic balancing and healing techniques. Sessions can be held in your home or at my teaching studio locations. For details and to answer questions about how you may benefit from one of these modalities please contact me at (203)488-1700.
Once
again, thank you for your ongoing support. See you all soon!.
Happy
Sat Nam and Namaste,
Alan
For past issues of the newsletter, more yoga resources about classes and services please visit my website at www.creativeedgeyoga.com.
To unsubscribe please reply with that request in the subject line.
12/17/04
Dear Student,
I hope this letter finds you well and enjoying the holiday
season. My best wishes for you and your loved ones to enjoy a happy and healthy
New Year.
I wish to thank you again for your support throughout the
year. I look forward to another year of exciting and important work together.
As always, I encourage you to keep up with your Yoga and
other self care disciplines as best as you can this time of year to keep
fatigue, anxiety and other negative effects of stress at bay.
To help in that regard, remember and refer the "Practical
Suggestions for Coping With Holiday Stress"
early and often to support you and offer ideas on how to
better take control over your life and commitments at this busy time.
Also, in the spirit of the holidays, a reminder of the
special “Holliday Yoga and Mediation for Relaxation and
Renewal Class” at the
There will be classes up until Wednesday 12/22. Classes will
be on hiatus from 12/23-1/5/05. Studio classes resume
The Winter series will begin on Tuesday, January 16th
The schedule will be up
soon.
In addition I will again be teaching Basic
Yoga for Stress and Wellness at Branford Adult
Education beginning January 29th. Call the AE office at (203)488-5693 for
more information and to register.
.Yoga is the gift that truly keeps giving. If you wish, you
can purchase gift certificates for my classes, private sessions and services.
Please call me for details at (203)488-1700.
Yoga Therapy
Grace and the Ground of being
I realize that in this society, despite the recent explosion
of Yoga in our consciousness, our busy lives continue to conspire to keep us
harried, overstressed, and out of touch with the value of our inner lives. A
major purpose of this newsletter is to provide inspiration and support you as
you discover and commit to an ongoing Yoga, Meditation or other self care and
healing discipline. The many techniques, hints or other helpful revelations that
I present here will work to better your lives. However, they will impact you
best if they can be implemented within the framework of a life that has space
for the seeds of this work to grow. The ground most fertile is cultivated from
within.
The following is from a mediation email list I subscribed to
a few years back(I have since lost track of it’s source). The author is named
Roger, (last name unknown).
I find it an elegant and powerful exposition of one
perspective on the value of Yoga and mediation to our lives.
“Meditation is easy - it is the easiest thing in
the world for any creature to do, but, paradoxically, this ease is what makes it
so hard for us westerners to do. We
find it very hard to do simple things, because we have been taught
a number of things from a very early age that make it hard for us to
relax and accept simplicity. Some of
these things we've been taught are:
1. That
we must always 'try hard'.
2. That
life is not easy.
3. That
'sitting around not doing anything' is a waste of time.
4. That
the only rest we need is sleep at the end of the day.
5. That
to achieve any kind of skill, we must work hard.
While these beliefs may be very true in the
materialistic world in which we live, in meditation they are not true at all. In
the act of meditation we do not look for any achievement, we do not use effort
to try hard, and we are happy to sit, apparently doing nothing, for relatively
long periods of time. But we are not doing nothing at all – we are doing a
very profound thing. What we are doing is giving our mind and body back to the
universal processes of nature, and allowing them to settle, find equilibrium,
and to heal in their own way”
He adds: “So
meditation is a process of purification, but it's not us that are doing the
purification. It's just the natural
process of nature, purifying itself, as
it does everywhere around us.
Given stillness, forests regenerate, oceans rejuvenate, and pollution
clears.”
The above is good news for our harried selves. Of course, as
we reflect on its impact on our day to day life it is easy to realize the threat
such broad based letting go may be to all that we wish to control in our lives.
To our minds, long conditioned by real and imagine fears, insights attained
through our work on ourselves can appear impersonal, simplistic, frightening,
useless or somehow threatening to our existing values and beliefs. Of course in
some way transforming our lives is all of that. Something has to give to allow
new insight to take root. If we are ill,
in transition, anxious, depressed or
seeking some deeper peace or meaning in our lives then I believe that’s
usually a good thing. Skillful practice addresses and resolves these core
concerns as we adjust our personal hopes and desires within context of the
greater whole of existence. Proper integration of our growth process is
essential keep us from self-sabotage and to further open us to expanded life
views.
As we enter the new year we can recommit to “beginners
mind”, dissolving old and obsolete concepts and attending directly as best we
can to what is presenting itself us now. This is the ground for growing
integration of healing experience. Letting go makes way for our alignment with
those larger process and systems of which we are a part, rather than our constantly
“pushing the river” of these inexorable forces. As scary as this surrender
can be I believe those moments we open to them we gain greater clarity, sense of
purpose, and deep reservoirs of energy to impact all that which is truly within
our domain. More and more we can open to be touched by grace and the inner joy
that feeds our deepest moments of happiness.
Meditation:
The theme of this letter and the suggestion for this season is to cultivate
simplicity in your life. In that spirit try the mediation from the Kundalini
tradition below
DEEP MEDITATION INTO THOUGHTLESSNESS
Sit
cross legged(easy pose) with a straight spine and turn your eyes to the brow.
Your hands are in your lap, one in the other with both palms up.
Mentally intone the sound Wha Hay Gu Ru
in four separate syllables. Hear the sound above the top of the head.
Allow yourself to transcend all thoughts, concepts, and expectations. Simply be.
Continue for 31 minutes, taking the last minute to stretch. Don't rush into
anything afterwards. You're higher than you think!
from “Kundalini Yoga for Body, Mind,
& Beyond” by
Workshops:
Saturday, February 6th,
At Raven’s
Wing Yoga
"The
Radiant Body—Kundalini Yoga to be Bright and Beautiful"
With
Fee: $50 pre-registered, $55.00 at the door.
In India,
Kundalini Yoga is considered to be the jewel in the crown of yoga systems.
Through Kundalini Yoga's special blend of breathing, movement, stretching,
meditation, and chanting, you'll to shine like the sun! In addition to a whole
body workout, this fascinating class will feature exercises to enhance charisma
and radiance. Your magnetic field is the electrical emanation of the
nervous system. When it's strong you have a positive effect on your
environments, you're insulated against negativity and mishap, more consistently
in the right place at the right time, and your popularity quotient increases.
This workshop will also feature deep relaxation to the transcendent sounds of
live gong music. This class is 85% physical and 15% meditative, is
for all levels.
Fee are
$50 pre-registered, $55.00 at the door. Contact me at (203)488-1700 or Christina
Sillari at (203)435-6110 for more information or to register
Services
Private, semi private and small group Yoga
Sessions, Meditation Instruction, Corporate Yoga Classes
and the Egoscue Method Therapy for Chronic
Pain Relief and Enhanced life performance.
Over the past
several years I have worked with several students in private sessions in both
brief and longer term scenarios. The sessions have served different purposes for
each individual depending on specific needs and intentions. Students have
utilized this time to:
| Asses posture alignment and discover
it’s relationship to ongoing pain, health, or movement problems.
|
| Receive and train to utilize
prescriptive therapeutic exercise to resolve the postural issues and
imbalances at the root chronic pain and ongoing health conditions
|
| Groupa nd Private Yoga Instruction
to enhance skill, comfort and commitment to Yoga practice in class,
oofice and home settings |
| Learn and explore higher
breath work and meditation practices to further grow in yoga
|
| Support in life transitions to
create healthier, more self supportive lifestyles.
|
| Discover and utilize healing
principles and practices designed to support your ongoing wellness and
personal growth |
| Serve as a powerful compliment to
other recovery and healing practices…and more!
|
I am available for private Yoga instruction,
Yoga Therapy, postural alignment therapy, and meditative healing session format
consisting of an experience of Yogic balancing and healing techniques. Sessions
can be held in your home or at my teaching studio locations. For details and to
answer questions about how you may benefit from one of these modalities please
contact me at (203)488-1700.
Once again, thank you for your
ongoing support. See you all soon!.
Happy
Sat Nam and Namaste,
Alan
For past issues of the newsletter,
more yoga resources about classes and services please visit my website at
www.creativeedgeyoga.com.
To unsubscribe please reply with
that request in the subject line.