Sanskrit/English Poses

Sanskrit/English Poses

“The vibrational purity and resonating power of Sanskrit is above all an opera on a grand cosmic scale that you can sing with your whole heart and being.”  ~Vyass Houston

All of life resonates at a specific vibration.  Sanskrit is considered to be one of the oldest languages on earth, comprised of sacred sounds of rhythm, melody and harmony. The Sanskrit names for the physical asanas, or yoga poses, were crafted to reflect the essential nature of that which they describe. The seed sounds, or bijas, that make up each Sanskrit title for a particular yoga pose, carry a unique and intentional frequency. Perfect pronunciation of these bijas resonate with the essential vibration of the universe itself. To call an asana aloud in Sanskrit while aligning yourself in that particular posture is a tangible way to deeply explore the energy of that pose while unifying sound and physical sensation.

I invite us all to welcome more Sanskrit into our lives!  🙂

I offer below a work in progress – I am compiling a list of yoga poses with their corresponding English names.
♥ I will update this as time allows. ♥

 

Sanskrit ame

Pronunciation

English Translation

Also Called

Classification

Dwi Pada Pitham dvee Pa-da PEET-ham dwi = two; pada = foot; pitha = stool,  chair Two-legged Table Supine Pose, Vinyasa
Savasana shah-VAHS-anna sava = corpse Corpse Pose, Final Resting Pose Supine Pose
Supta Baddha Konasana BAH-dah-cone-AHS-anna supta= resting, reclining, sleeping; baddha = bound; kona = angle Reclining Bound Angle Pose Supine Pose
Supta Virasana    soup-tah veer-AHS-anna supta= resting, reclining, sleeping; vira = a hero, brave Reclining Hero Pose Supine Pose
Virabhadrasana II               vira = a hero, brave; Virabhadra = name of a fierce mythical warrior said to have 1,000 heads, eyes, arms & legs Warrior II Pose Standing, hip opener
Parivrtta Trikonasana      par-ee-vrit-tah trik-cone-AHS-anna parivrtta = twist, revolve, turned around; tri = three; kona = angle Revolved Triangle Pose Standing Pose, Twisting Pose
Prasarita Padottanasana                  prasarita = spread out, expanded; pada = foot, leg; uttana = stretched out/over, an intense stretch Wide-Legged Forward Bend Standing Pose, Inversion, Forward Bend
Virabhadrasana I   vira = a hero, brave; Virabhadra = name of a fierce mythical warrior said to have 1,000 heads, eyes, arms & legs Warrior I Pose Standing Pose, Hip Opening, Backbend
Utthita Trikonasana oo-TEE-tah trik cone-NAHS-anna utthita = extended; tri = three, kona = angle Triangle pose, Extended Triangle Pose Standing Pose, Hip Opening
Parsvottanasana parsva = side, flank, lateral; uttana = stretched out/over, an intense stretch Intense Side Stretch Pose, Pyramid Pose Standing Pose, Forward Bend
Uttanasana            uttana = stretched out/over, an intense stretch Standing Forward Fold Standing Pose, Forward Bend
Garudasana          garuda = eagle, fierce predatory bird – (said to be the Hindu god Vishnu’s vehicle) Eagle Pose Standing Pose, Balance Pose
Supta Padangusthasana supta= resting, reclining, sleeping; pada = foot, leg; angustha = big toe Reclining Big Toe Pose Standing pose, balance pose
Virabhadrasana III             vira = a hero, brave; Virabhadra = name of a fierce mythical warrior said to have 1,000 heads, eyes, arms & legs Warrior III Pose Standing Pose, Balance Pose
Vrksasana              vrksa = tree Tree Pose Standing Pose, Balance Pose
Natarajasana not-ah-raj-AHS-anna nata = dancer; raja = king Lord of the Dance Pose, King Dancer Pose Standing Pose, Back bend, Balance
Adho Mukha Savasana AH-doh MOO-kah shvah-NAHS-anna adho-mukha = face downward Downward-Facing Dog, Down Dog Standing Pose
Parivrtta Baddha Parsvakonasana par-ee-vrit-tah  BAH-dah parivrtta = twist, revolve, turned around; baddha = bound; parsva = side, flank, lateral; kona = angle Revolved Side Angle Pose (w/ bind); Standing Pose
Parivrtta Parsvakonasana par-ee-vrt-tah parsh-vah-cone-AHS-anna parivrtta = twist, revolve, turned around; parsva = side, flank, lateral; kona = angle Revolved Side Angle Pose; Standing Pose
Tadasana                tada = mountain Mountain Pose Standing Pose
Upavesasana upavistha = seated Standing Pose
Utkatasana  utkatha = fierce, furious Chair Pose Standing Pose
Utthita Hasta Padangustasana     utthita = extended; hasta = hand; pada = foot, leg, angustha = big toe Extended Hand-To-Big-Toe Pose, Standing Big Toe Pose Standing Pose
Utthita Parsvakonasana                    cone-NAHS-anna utthita = extended; parsva = side, flank, lateral; kona = angle Extended Side Angle Pose Standing Pose
Upavistha Konasana           oo-pah-VEESH-tah-cone-AHS-anna  upavistha = seated; kona = angle Wide-Angle Seated Forward Bend, Seated Wide Legged Straddle Seated Pose; Forward Bend
Ardha Matsyendrasana                    ARD-hah MOTS-yen-DRAHS-anna ardha = half; matsya = fish; indra = ruler, lord Half Lord of the Fishes Pose Seated Pose, Twist
Parivrtta Janu Sirsasana par-ee-vrit-tah JAH-new shear-SHAHS-anna parivrtta = twist, revolve, turned around; janu = knee; shiras = to touch with the hand Revolved Head-to-Knee Pose Seated Pose, Twist
Janu Sirsasana    JAH-new shear-SHAHS-anna janu = knee; shiras = to touch with the hand Head-to-Knee Forward Bend Seated Pose, Forward Bend
Kurmasana koor-MAHS-anna kurma = tortise; turtle Turtle Pose Seated Pose, Forward Bend
Paschimottanasana         POS-chee-moh-tan-AHS-anna pascha = behind, westward facing; uttana = stretched out/over, an intense stretch Seated Forward Bend Seated Pose, Forward Bend
Supta Kurmasana koor-MAHS-anna supta = resting; kurma = tortoise, turtle Reclining Turtle Pose Seated Pose, Forward Bend
Mulabandhasana moola-ban-DHAS-anna mula = root, foundation; bandha = binding, tying Pose of the Root Lock Seated Pose (for pranayama)
Baddha Konasana               BAH-dah-cone-AHS-anna baddha = bound; kona = angle Bound Angle Pose, Cobbler’s Pose Seated Pose
Dandasana            dan-DAHS-anna danda = staff Staff Pose Seated Pose
Gomukhasana    go-moo-KAHS-anna go= cow; mukha = face Cow Face Pose Seated Pose
Mahamudra ma-ha-MOO-dra maha = great, mighty, strong; mudra = sealing, shutting, closing The Great Seal Seated Pose
Padmasana           pod-MAHS-anna padma = lotus Lotus Pose Seated Pose
Siddhasana sid-DHAS-anna siddha = a sage, profet, proven Adept’s Pose Seated Pose
Sukhasana             suk-HAS-anna sukha = delight, joy, pleasure/ sukhata = comfort Easy Pose Seated Pose
Svastikasana sva-steek-AHS-ana svasa= inspiration Auspicious Pose Seated Pose
Hanumanasana                    ha-NEW-mahn-AHS-anna hunuman = name of the devine chief of monkeys that served Rama Monkey Pose Seated Pose
Balasana                 BAH-las-anna bala = infant Child’s Pose Kneeling Pose, Forward Bend
Eka Pada Rajakapotasana                 eh-KAH pad-DAH rah-JAH-cop-poh-TAHS-anna eka = one; pada = foot, leg ; raja = king;  kapota = dove, pigeon One-Legged King Pigeon Pose Kneeling Pose, Backbend
Parighasana         par-ee-GOSS-anna parigha = a beam or bar used for locking a gate Gate Pose, Gate-Latch Pose Kneeling Pose
Simhasana sim-HAHS-anna simha = lion Lion Pose Keeling Pose, Jaw Stretch
Adho Mukha Vrksasana Ah-doh moo-kah vriks-SHAHS-anna adho-mukha = face downward; vrksa = tree Handstand Inversion
Ustrasana              oosh-TRAHS-anna ustra = camel Camel Pose Backbend,  Kneeling Pose,
  Sphinx Pose Backbend
Ardha Bhekasana                ARD-hah ardha = half; Half Frog Pose Backbend
Ashtanga Namaskara Ashta = eight;  anga = limbed; namaskara = salutation, to bow, honor Knees, Chest, and Chin Backbend
Bhujangasana     boo-jang-GAHS-anna bhuja = arm, shoulder;  anga = limbed;  bhujanga = serpent, snake Cobra Pose Backbend
Bitilasana              Cow Pose Backbend
Camatkarasana Wild Thing Backbend
Dhanurasana       Bow Pose Backbend
Dwi Pada Viparita Dandasana      dwi = two; pada = foot, leg ; danda = staff Upward Facing Two-Foot Staff Pose Backbend
Kapotasana          kapota = dove, pigeon King Pigeon Pose Backbend
Matsyasana          mot-see-AHS-anna matsya = fish Fish Pose Backbend
Pincha Mayurasana           pin-cha my-your-AHS-anna piñca = feather; mayura = peacock Feathered Peacock Pose, Forearm Stand Backbend
Setu Bandha Sarvangasana sar-van-GAHS-anna bandha = binding, tying;  sarva = all; anga = limb Bridge Pose Backbend
Shalabasana sha-la-BAHS-anna salabha = grasshopper, locust Locust Pose Backbend
Urdhva Dhanurasana        OORD-vah don-your-AHS-anna Urdva = upward;  dhanu = bow Upward Bow, Wheel Pose Backbend
Urdhva Mukha Svanasana               OORD-vah MOO-kah shvon-AHS-anna Urdva = upward; mukha = face Upward-Facing Dog Backbend
Chaturanga Dandasana   chaht-tour-ANG-ah don-DAHS-anna chatur = four; anga = limbed; danda = staff Four-Limbed Staff Pose Arm Balance
  High Lunge, Variation
  High Lunge
  Dolphin Plank Pose
  Dolphin Pose
Adho Mukha Savasana Natarajasana AH-doh MOO-kah shvah-NAHS-anna adho-mukha = face downward; nata = dancer; raja = king Downward-Facing Dog Dancer Pose
Agnistambhasana Fire Log Pose
Ananda Balasana Happy Baby Pose
Anantasana Side-Reclining Leg Lift, Sleeping Vishnu Pose
Anjaneyasana     Low Lunge, Crescent Lunge Pose, Grounded Warrior I
Ardha Chandrasana          ARD-hah ardha = half; chandra = moon Half Moon Pose
Ardha Uttanasana              ARD-hah ardha = half; uttana = stretched out/over, an intense stretch Standing Half Forward Bend
Astavakrasana    ahsh-tah-vah-krahs-anna Ashta = eight;  vakra = bent, curved Eight-Angle Pose
Baddha Parighasana BAH-dah baddha = bound Bound Gate
Baddha Setu Bandha Sarvangasana BAH-dah  sar-van-GAHS-anna baddha = bound; Setu = ; bandha = binding, tying;  sarva = all; anga = limb Bound Bridge Pose, Bound Half Wheel
Bakasana                Crane Pose, Crow Pose
Bharadvajasana I                  Bharadvaja’s Twist
Bhujapidasana bhuja = arm, shoulder  Shoulder-Pressing Pose
Eka Pada Galavasana eh-KAH pad-DAH eka = one; pada = foot, leg Flying Crow Pose
Eka Pada Koundiyanasana I             eh-KAH pad-DAH eka = one; pada = foot, leg Pose Dedicated to the Sage Koundinya I
Eka Pada Koundiyanasana II            eh-KAH pad-DAH eka = one; pada = foot, leg Pose Dedicated to the Sage Koundinya II
Eka Pada Rajakapotasana II             eh-KAH pad-DAH eka = one; pada = foot, leg ; raja = king; kapota = dove, pigeon One-Legged King Pigeon Pose II
Halasana                Plow Pose
Krounchasana    Heron Pose
Kumbhakasana /Utthita Chaturanga Dandasana oot-T-HEE-tuh  chaht-tour-ANG-ah dan-DAHS-anna kumbhak = breath retention /
utthita = extended;  chatur = four; anga = limbed; danda = staff
Plank Pose
Lolasana Pendant Pose
Malasana               Garland Pose
Marichyasana I Pose Dedicated to the Sage Marichi, I
Marichyasana III                  Marichi’s Pose
Marjaryasana      Cat Pose
Mayurasana         Peacock Pose
Navasana nava = a boat Boat Pose
Padansthasana   pada = foot, leg; angustha = big toe Big Toe Pose
Paripurna Navasana         Full Boat Pose
Parivrtta Ardha Chandrasana par-ee-vrit-tah are-dah chan-DRAHS-anna parivrtta = twist, revolve, turned around; ardha = half; Chandra = moon Revolved Half Moon Pose
Parivrtta Surya Yantrasana par-ee-vrit-tah parivrtta = twist, revolve, turned around; Compass Pose
Parsva Bakasana                   parsva = side, flank, lateral; Side Crane Pose, Side Crow Pose
Pasasana Noose Pose
Purvottanasana                    uttana = stretched out/over, an intense stretch Upward Plank Pose
Salamba Sarvangasana      sah-LOM-bah sar-van-GAHS-anna sa = with;
 alamba = support;  sarva = all; anga = limb Supported Shoulder stand
Salamba Sirsasana sah-LOM-bah shear-SHAHS-anna sa = with;
 alamba = support; sirsa = head Supported Headstand
Salambhasana sah-LOM-bah Locust Pose
Samasthiti sama = equal, same; asthiti = position, standing-place Mountain Pose
Supta Matsyendrasana mot-see-AH supta= resting, reclining, sleeping; matsya = fish; indra = ruler, lord Supine Spinal Twist
Surya Namaskar surya = sun; namas = to bow, salute, honor; kri = to do, make, act Sun Salutation
Svarga Dvijasana Bird of Paradise Pose
Tittibhasana        Firefly Pose
Tolasana                 Scale Pose
Urdhva Hastasana               Urdva = upward; hasta = hand Upward Salute, Raised Hands Pose
Urdhva Prasarita Eka Padasana    OORD-vah eka = one Urdva = upward; prasarita = spread out, expanded; pada = foot, leg Standing Split
Utkata Konasana cone-NAHS-anna utkatha = fierce; kona = angle Goddess or Victory Squat
Uttana Shishosana               uttana = stretched out/over, an intense stretch Extended Puppy Pose
Vasisthasana Side Plank Pose
Viparita Karani Legs-Up-the-Wall Pose
Virasana                 vira = a hero, brave Hero Pose
Vrschikasana Scorpion Pose
Yoga Nidrasana Sleeping Yogi Pose

 

Go Ahead, Provoke Me!

Aside

Go Ahead, Provoke Me!

“Over time invite and create ever more provocative situations to deliberately trigger the psyche to be disturbed, to be challenged, to feel perhaps overwhelmed in order to strengthen your capacity to remain in the witness.  It’s easy to be peaceful when there’s not provocation. It’s not so easy where there is. Welcome to marriage. Welcome to children. Welcome to your life. Those provocations that are happening externally, are only reflections of our inner lack of clarity, lack of resolution. So, the yogi works internally.” ~Yogarupa Rod Stryker
(Moon & Sun Vinyasa: Mastering the Mind, Awakening the Vital Force, Nov. 15, 2013)

40 Day Journey: 40 Steps For Growth & Inner Freedom
Day 1: August 5, 2014

Trikonasana in marsh sunrise

Sometimes the biggest battle is getting out the door and onto the mat. The early morning dewy marsh air amply rewarded my effort. – Arcata Marsh & Wildlife Sanctuary 8:30am

Utthita Trikonasana : Extended Triangle Pose
(oo-TEE-tah trik cone-NAHS-anna)
utthita = extended; tri = three, kona = angle

“The three angles (tri konas in Sanskrit) of a triangle make it one of the stronger and most stable shapes in nature…The triangle pose represents many sacred trinities in our world, such as the trinity of earth, space and heavens or that of birth, life and death. Trikonasana also symbolizes the three gunas, or qualities, that compose our bodies and minds.” (p. 36) Alanna Kaivalya & Arjuna van der Kooij, Myths of the Asanas: The Stories at the Heart of the Yoga Tradition.)

As I was riding my bike to the studio to teach my morning Hatha Flow Class, I was listening to a workshop lecture I attended last year with Yogarupa Rod Stryker. The day before I had been momentarily deeply disturbed by some personal family drama with my son’s father. It was this disturbance that inspired me to proactively choose to take intentional steps in the direction of my own personal growth.

When life is comfortable and free from challenges, it is easy to get complacent in my personal practice and neglect my continued commitment to inner growth. This summer has been far from easy. Life has provided me so many delicious opportunities and reminders to not only return to the grounded space of calm that can view my life from a place of tranquility but also to notice, question and work with the mirror that my external circumstances are providing me. Tantric philosophy states that there is nothing outside my body that does not exist within my body. There is nothing within me that does not exist externally in the world. If I take the view that what is happening in my body is a mirror for what is happening in my life, than I can also see that what is happening in my life is a reflection of what is happening in my psyche. 

Back to my bike ride…

I had just finished a sweet early morning solo yoga practice at the Arcata Marsh and was arriving  at Om Shala Yoga 15 minutes early to meditate before teaching. As I crossed the front door I saw two of my students arriving on bikes and being verbally and physically threatened by a large gentleman who had left his truck in the middle of the street to get out and scream at them over some perceived right-of way indiscretion. This gentleman returned to his truck only to stop and get out 3 more times all the while threatening physical violence and property damage and warning them that he will “remember what their bikes look like.” At that moment I hear Rod Stryker in my ear saying “It’s easy to be peaceful when there’s no provocation.”

We all get provoked. How we handle it at any given moment is our yoga, is the practice of inner asana or posture. Life is challenging. Suffering is a noble truth. The yogi works from within. Regardless of whatever swirling mass of chaos or raucous celebration is present in our lives at any given moment – our ability to drop into the witness is directly proportional to our experience of grounded, calm, ever-present spaciousness and awareness.

I came into the world on fire. I seek not to drown my fire but instead to stabilize and create a pitim (or hearth) for that fire in the sacred temple of my body at the center of my belly. Practicing trikonasana is a way to physically plant our feet firmly in the earth and our awareness in the present moment while opening our hearts to the vastness within us alongside the support of the universe. The top hand reaching to the sky is a reminder to reach into the highest aspects within us as we connect our material self with the broader consciousness of the entire cosmos. The triangle is a messenger that no matter the pressures behind us or in front of us, we can plug into the inherent stability within and reconnect with the truth and beauty that we are.

Provocation is child’s play.
I say bring it on.
It’s just a training camp for the experience of inner divinity.

Just for today, how can you use whatever is provoking you to take one small step back home to yourself?


I’m on a 40 Day Journey for personal growth. I’m taking baby steps. One. At. A. Time. Read more about it and join me here.

 

Healing Breath

Aside

Healing Breath

Source: Yoga Journal • Kate Holcombe • August 2012

Try these three simple practices to reduce stress, quiet your mind, and connect to your inner Self.

By Kate Holcombe

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A few weeks ago, my seven-year-old son, Hayes, told me he was having trouble falling asleep. He said that he was having “many thoughts” at night and couldn’t stop his mind from thinking. I told him about a breathing practice that I had taught his older brother, Calder, a few years earlier, and I suggested that Hayes could try it while lying in bed at night to help him relax and fall asleep. The practice was simple: a few minutes of diaphragmatic breathing followed by a few minutes of consciously and gently extending each exhalation.

“Maybe you’d like to try it?” I said to Hayes. “I think it was helpful for your brother sometimes, and maybe it will help you, too.” Just then, Calder, who had been passing through the room, announced: “You’re wrong, Mom.” I held my breath, wondering if he’d tell Hayes that my advice wasn’t going to work. “It doesn’t help me sometimes,” he said matter-of-factly. “It helps me all the time.”

I was pleasantly stunned. I hadn’t realized that Calder was still using the practice I had taught him three years earlier. As I knelt on the living room floor to teach Hayes the same practice, I was reminded that pPranayama, the fourth of the eight limbs of yoga outlined in Patanjali‘s Yoga Sutra, does not have to be complicated.

Pranayama, which literally means “to extend the vital life force,” or prana, is an incredibly rich practice made up of many breathing techniques that vary in complexity from ones simple enough for a child to do to those appropriate only for advanced practitioners. While the best way to practice pranayama is under the guidance of an experienced teacher, there are simple techniques—such as gentle diaphragmatic breathing and comfortably lengthening the exhalation—that can be used at any time to transform not only your breath but also your state of mind.

In my work as a yoga therapist, I treat people struggling with a variety of issues, including depression, anxiety, sleep disturbances, chronic pain, and even life-threatening illness. Time and time again, I’ve seen simple pranayama practices reduce stress and anxiety; promote restful sleep; ease pain; increase attention and focus; and, on a more subtle level, help people connect to a calm, quiet place within so that they experience greater clarity and well-being on every level.

In the Yoga Sutra, Patanjali describes pranayama as a process by which you can break your unconscious breathing pattern and make the breath long, easeful, and smooth. Most people’s unconscious breathing patterns are anything but easeful and smooth; they tend to be tense, shallow, and erratic. When we are afraid or hear bad news, we often gasp—inhaling and then holding the breath. These breathing patterns can activate the sympathetic nervous system (often referred to as the “fight or flight response”).

One of the primary reasons that pranayama techniques that foster a long, smooth exhale (like the ones presented here) are so beneficial is because, when practiced correctly, they can support the parasympathetic nervous system and activate what is commonly known as the “relaxation response,” reducing stress and its effects on your body and mind. As a result, your resilience in the face of challenge or adversity increases, and your mind becomes more focused and still.

A Quiet Mind

The eight limbs of yoga outlined in the Yoga Sutra are a path to help you reach a state of Yoga, or focused concentration. But this focused concentration is not the end goal. As Patanjali tells us, the result of reaching this state of attention is that you experience clearer perception and a greater connection with your true Self.

When you’re connected with your true Self, it becomes easier to see what is not your true Self—your mind, body, thoughts, feelings, job, and essentially all of the changing circumstances around you. This discernment allows you to act from a place of the Self, and when you do that, you experience less suffering.

Pranayama is an important tool to get you to this state of more focused concentration, leading you to clearer perception, a greater connection with the Self, and ultimately a happier life. In Yoga Sutra 2.52, Patanjali writes, “As a result [of pranayama], the covering that blocks our own inner light is reduced.” In other words, through the practice of pranayama, you can reduce all of the mental noise—the agitation, distractions, and self-doubt—that prevents you from connecting with your own inner light, your true Self. In this way, pranayama can have a profound effect on your life.

The Practice

Though practice of pranayama is safest and most effective when guided by an experienced teacher who knows your needs and capabilities, there are several simple techniques you can try at home as long as you’re in good health and you don’t push beyond your capacity.

The three breathing practices that follow—relaxed, diaphragmatic breathing; Sitali (or Sitkari) Pranayama; and gentle “extended exhale” breathing—are a good introduction to pranayama. Each supports the parasympathetic nervous system, quiets the mind, and helps to bring about a state of more focused attention. As you continue to practice these techniques over time, you may start to notice when you are unintentionally holding your breath or breathing shallowly. You also may begin to associate patterns of the breath with your moods or states of mind. This self awareness is the first step toward using the practices of pranayama to help shift your patterns and, through regular practice, create positive change in your life.

Try each practice daily for a week and observe how it affects your body, breath, and mind in order to figure out which is best for you. You can do them at just about any time of day, though preferably not immediately following a large meal.

Basic Breath Awareness

This gentle introduction to diaphragmatic breathing teaches you how to breathe more fully and consciously.

Benefits: Quiets and calms the entire nervous system, reducing stress and anxiety and improving self-awareness.

Try it: At least once a day, at any time.

How to: Lie comfortably on your back with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor about hip-distance apart. Place a palm on your abdomen and breathe comfortably for a few moments, noticing the quality of your breath. Does the breath feel tense? strained? uneven? shallow? Simply observe the breath without any judgment. Then gradually begin to make your breathing as relaxed and smooth as possible, introducing a slight pause after each inbreath and outbreath.

Once the breath feels relaxed and comfortable, notice the movement of the body. As you inhale, the abdomen naturally expands; as you exhale, feel the slight contraction of the abdomen. In a gentle way, try to actively expand the abdomen on the inhale and contract the abdomen on the exhale to support the natural movement of the diaphragm and experience the pleasure of giving yourself a full, relaxed breath. Continue the practice for 6 to 12 breaths.

The Cooling Breath

Sitali Pranayama is often translated as “the cooling breath” because the act of drawing the air across the tongue and into the mouth is said to have a cooling and calming effect on the nervous system. To practice Sitali, you need to be able to curl the sides of your tongue inward so that it looks like a straw. The ability to curl the tongue is a genetic trait. If you can’t, try an alternative technique called Sitkari Pranayama, which offers the same effects.

Benefits: Can improve focus; reduce agitation, anger, and anxiety; and pacify excess heat in the system.

Try it: Twice a day, or as needed during stressful times. Sitali and Sitkari Pranayama are particularly supportive when you’re feeling drowsy in the morning or during an afternoon slump when you need to improve your focus.

How to: Sitali Pranayama: Sit comfortably, either in a chair or on the floor, with your shoulders relaxed and your spine naturally erect. Slightly lower the chin, curl the tongue lengthwise, and project it out of the mouth to a comfortable distance. Inhale gently through the “straw” formed by your curled tongue as you slowly lift your chin toward the ceiling, lifting only as far as the neck is comfortable. At the end of the inhalation, with your chin comfortably raised, retract the tongue and close the mouth. Exhale slowly through the nostrils as you gently lower your chin back to a neutral position. Repeat for 8 to 12 breaths.

Sitkari Pranayama: Open the mouth slightly with your tongue just behind the teeth. Inhale slowly through the space between the upper and lower teeth, letting the air wash over your tongue as you raise your chin toward the ceiling. At the end of the inhalation, close the mouth and exhale through the nostrils as you slowly lower your chin back to neutral. Repeat for 8 to 12 breaths.

The Long Exhale

This 1:2 breathing practice, which involves gradually increasing your exhalation until it is twice the length of your inhalation, relaxes the nervous system.

Benefits: Can reduce insomnia, sleep disturbances, and anxiety.

Try it: Before bedtime to help support sleep, in the middle of the night when you’re struggling with insomnia, or at any time of the day to calm stress or anxiety. (In general, it’s best to avoid practicing 1:2 breathing first thing in the morning unless you’re experiencing anxiety. The relaxing effects of the practice tend to make it more difficult to get up and go on with your day.)

How to: Begin by lying on your back with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor, hip-width apart. Place a palm on the abdomen and take a few relaxed breaths, feeling the abdomen expand on the inhalation and gently contract on the exhalation. With your palm on your abdomen, mentally count the length of each inhalation and exhalation for several more breaths. If the inhalation is longer than the exhalation, you can begin to make them the same length over the next few breaths.

Once your inhalation and exhalation are equal, gradually increase the length of your exhalation by 1 to 2 seconds by gently contracting the abdomen. As long as the breath feels smooth and relaxed, continue to gradually increase the exhalation by 1 to 2 seconds once every few breaths. Make sure you experience no strain as the exhalation increases and keep going until your exhalation is up to twice the length of the inhalation, but not beyond. For example, if your inhalation is comfortably 4 seconds, do not increase the length of your exhalation to more than 8 seconds.

Keep in mind that even an exhalation that is only slightly longer than the inhalation can induce a calming effect, so take care that you don’t push yourself beyond your capacity. (If you do, you’ll likely activate the sympathetic nervous system, or stress response, and feel agitated rather than calm.)

If your breath feels uncomfortable or short, or if you’re gasping on the next inhalation, back off to a ratio that is more comfortable for 8 to 12 breaths. Then finish your practice with 6 to 8 natural, relaxed breaths.

Kate Holcombe is the founder and president of the nonprofit Healing Yoga Foundation in San Francisco

Ram Dass: Fierce Grace

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Ram Dass: Fierce Grace

I love this man. This beautiful movie is about Ram Dass’s experiences aging and the radically life changing event of getting “stroked.”

“Healing does not mean going back to the way things were before, but rather of allowing what is now to move us closer to god.” –Ram Dass

School Adds Yoga to Physical Education Curriculum

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School Adds Yoga to Physical Education Curriculum
Source: The Bismark Tribune • Associated Press • December 12, 2012

School adds yoga to physical education curriculum

ENCINITAS, Calif. — Public school yoga instructor Katie Campbell proudly looks out at 23 first-graders as they contain their squirming in a kid-friendly version of the lotus position.

In a voice barely above a whisper, she says into her microphone: “Why look at everyone showing me they’re ready for yoga. A-plus, plus, plus.”

Then the lesson begins with deep breathing and stretches common to many yoga classes.

But there is no chanting of “om,” no words spoken in the Indian language of Sanskrit nor talk of “mindfulness” or clasping hands in the prayer position.

Campbell avoids those potential pitfalls for the Encinitas Union School District, which is facing the threat of a lawsuit as it launches what is believed to be the country’s most comprehensive yoga program for a public school system.

Parents opposed to the program say the classes will indoctrinate their children in Eastern religion and are not just for exercise.

It’s a debate public schools across the country are increasingly facing with the rising popularity of the practice and the recent dispute over school prayer.

‘21st century P.E.’

Yoga is now taught at public schools from the rural mountains of West Virginia to the bustling streets of Brooklyn as a way to ease stress in today’s pressure-packed world where even kindergartners say they feel tense about keeping up with their busy schedules. But most classes are part of an after-school program, or are offered only at a few schools or by some teachers in a district.

Encinitas is believed to be the only public school system that will have yoga instructors teach full-time at its nine schools as part of an overall wellness curriculum that includes nutrition and a school garden program, among other things.

“This is 21st century P.E. for our schools,” said Encinitas Superintendent Timothy B. Baird. “It’s physical. It’s strength-building. It increases flexibility, but it also deals with stress reduction and focusing, which kickball doesn’t do.”

The program is expected to teach a 30-minute yoga lesson to roughly 5,000 students twice a week at the district’s schools, which run kindergarten through sixth grade. It is funded with a $533,000 grant from the Jois Foundation, a nonprofit group whose board of directors includes the son of the late Indian instructor Krishna Pattabhi Jois, whose teachings are said to have popularized Ashtanga yoga in the Western world and were followed by Madonna and Sting.

Jois Foundation’s program director Russell Case said Encinitas is building a national yoga model for public schools.

“Kids are under a lot of stress. There are a lot of mandates on them to perform. We think it would be extremely helpful to have 10 to 15 minutes possible to sit and be reflective instead of go, go, go,” he said.

Researchers at the University of Virginia and University of San Diego will study the program, including analyzing data on students’ resting heart rates.

They want to know if public schools can impact not only children’s learning, but instill in them good eating habits and skills to help their well-being.

Protests

The program started in several schools in September but will go district-wide in January after months of protests by a group of parents.

Mary Eady pulled her first-grade son out of the classes.

Eady said she observed a kindergarten class in which the children did the motions referred to in yoga practices as a sun salutation. The folded over children, stood upright, sweeping up their arms toward the sky.

She said while the teacher called it an “opening sequence” the connotation was the same in her mind: Students were learning to worship the sun, which went against her Christian beliefs that only God should be worshipped.

“It will change the way you think,” she said. “What they are teaching is inherently spiritual, it’s just inappropriate therefore in our public schools.”

Their attorney, Dean Broyles, said they are considering suing to halt the program.

Despite the long debate over prayer in school, constitutional law experts say the courts still have not clearly defined what constitutes religion.

“You might get litigation on a program like this because it’s not totally settled what the boundaries of religion are,” said New York University law professor Adam Samaha.

He points to the 1979 ruling by a federal court that blocked transcendental meditation classes from being taught in New Jersey public schools, deeming those particular lessons to be religious.

But the court did not go so far as to rule that meditation in general is, and Samaha thinks courts would not deem yoga a religious practice. If they did, it would open the door to scrutinizing a host of activities.

“It’s practiced by enough people, who probably don’t believe they are engaging in a religious practice,” he said.

Avoiding risk

Still, Encinitas Assistant Superintendent David Miyashiro said administrators are not taking any risks.

“In light of all the attention, it’s not enough to remove things with cultural references but also anything that can be perceived by onlookers as a concern,” he said. “We think it’s important to keep this program in our schools and we’re going to do what we can to protect it.”

At Flora Vista Elementary School, those precautions were apparent.

“Spread out, we’re getting ready for some airplane,” Campbell said as the children laid on their mats face down and spread their arms, arching their back and then flopping back down. Later she said: “now push back to downward dog.”

At the end, the children sprawled on their backs to relax like a “pancake” as the lights went off. There were soft giggles. Some wiggled in the dark or fiddled with their socks.

“We’re like melting cheese,” Campbell reminded the students.

Principal Stephanie Casperson said fewer children now come to her office for acting out.

“I have teachers who say before a test now students do yoga to calm themselves so they’re transferring it into the classroom, into their lives,” she said.

During a recent fire drill, 6-year-old Sylvia Lawrence said she folded over into a yoga position under her desk.

“It made the fire drill more fun,” she said.

Maria Walsh, 11, said she was never into other sports.

“It’s just a fun way for me to exercise,” said the freckled, blond-haired girl with a big smile.

Military Battle PTSD With Yoga

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Military Battle PTSD With Yoga

Source: Huffington Post David Wood • December 12, 2012

Yoga For Wounded Marines At a retreat for retiring Marines with combat wounds and PTSD, yoga teacher Annie Okerlin helps them work through pain, stiffness and anxiety and begin to relax. Pentagon-funded studies have shown yoga to be an effective therapy for combat trauma. (David Wood, The Huffington Post)

For a decade, troops returning from war with mental and physical trauma have been dosed with cocktails of numbing drugs and corralled into talk-therapy sessions, often with civilian clinicians who have no experience in combat and its aftereffects.

But alarmingly high suicide rates among veterans, as well as domestic violence, substance abuse and unemployment, suggested to some military doctors, combat commanders and researchers that conventional treatments aren’t always enough.

Now, one proven, effective treatment is gaining wide acceptance within hard-core military circles: yoga.

Once dismissed as mere acrobatics with incense, yoga has been found to help ease the pain, stiffness, anger, night terrors, memory lapses, anxiety and depression that often afflict wounded warriors.

“It’s cleansing — I really feel refreshed,” Marine Sgt. Senio Martz said after finishing a recent yoga session.

A stocky 27-year-old, Martz was leading his nine-man squad on a foot patrol through the lush poppy fields and rock outcroppings of the Kajaki district of southern Afghanistan 20 months ago when a roadside bomb knocked him unconscious and killed or wounded the Marines under his command. The blast put an end to his plans for a career in the Marine Corps. It also left him hyper-vigilant, a symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder, and carrying the joint burdens of guilt and shame: As a squad leader, it had been his responsibility to bring his nine Marines home safe.

“It’s a feeling of regret — failure — that really affects me now,” he said. “I didn’t see the signs that could have alerted me to warn them to get away.” He stared at the floor and then looked up with a tight smile. “I go on living where their lives have ended. I can’t help them now.”

Yoga gives him relief from the acute anxiety that forces him to listen to and sight-sweep everything around him, constantly checking the doors and windows, always on alert, poised for danger, with no break. It is hard for him to let go.

“I gotta push myself to try some of these techniques,” he admitted. “But last night after yoga, I had a good sleep. That’s a place I haven’t been in a long, long time.”

Martz’s experience is backed up by reams of scientific studies, including research funded by the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs. Researchers have demonstrated that trauma-sensitive yoga, which focuses on stretching, breathing techniques and meditation, can help patients regain their inner balance, calming that part of the brain that has become hyper-aroused under severe stress.

Trauma or prolonged stress can cause a malfunction of the parasympathetic nervous system, researchers say. That’s the part of the brain which enables the body to relax, easing pain and even helping unblock digestive systems — often a problem for wounded troops who get high doses of medication and not enough exercise.

In war zones, researchers have found, this parasympathetic nervous system often becomes “frozen” as the body gears up for danger by injecting adrenaline into the bloodstream, causing rapid breathing and pulse and hyper-vigilance — the “fight or flight” response.

That’s good and necessary self-preservation in times of peril that helps keep troops alert and alive. Back home, however, that hyper-vigilance is out of place and can cause insomnia, anxiety and outbursts of anger. Returning warriors with PTSD become dependent on drugs or alcohol “because they have no other way to calm themselves down,” said Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, a clinician and researcher who has studied PTSD since the 1970s.

Not all yoga helps. Some forms of yoga are used by special forces, for instance, to build muscle power and flexibility. But yoga teachers working with wounded troops have developed trauma-sensitive forms of yoga, including a technique called iRest. This adaptation uses meditation techniques in a soft and secure setting to reactivate the parasympathetic nervous system by drawing the patient’s attention and consciousness inward, rather than focusing on stress and the terrors that dwell outside, said yoga teacher Robin Carnes.

For instance, Carnes has learned that when she is giving a class to troops with hyper-vigilance, like Martz, she should first open all the closet doors and drawers, so that her patients don’t spend all their time fretting about what might be inside.

In 2006 Carnes, a veteran yoga practitioner and teacher, began working with wounded troops at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, now located outside Washington, D.C. There, she led a Pentagon-funded program to develop trauma-sensitive yoga, and pioneered the techniques now called iRest. She later established an organization called Warriors at Ease to train and certify teachers to use the techniques with the military.

Drawing from traditional yoga, iRest teaches patients to firmly plant their feet and activate their leg muscles in poses that drain energy and tension from the neck and shoulders, where they naturally gather, causing headaches and neck pain.

“The goal here is to move tension away from where it builds up when you are stressed, and focus it on the ground so you feel more balanced and connected,” Carnes said.

When she started at Walter Reed, she said, she was working with eight wounded troops with physical and mental health injuries. Some hadn’t slept for more than two hours at a time, for years, she said. “They were immediately like, ‘I can’t do this, it won’t work, you have no idea what’s going on in my brain.’ I’d say, ‘Just try it, it’s helped others.’ And probably because they were desperate — nothing else had worked, including drugs — they did try it. And I saw, sometimes within the first day, they started to relax. Snoring! They’d tell me, ‘I don’t know what happened, but I feel better.'”

One of her patients was struggling with outbursts of violent anger, a common effect of PTSD, and had gotten into raging arguments with his wife. Several weeks into regular yoga classes, he went home one day “and his wife lit into him and he could feel a confrontation coming on,” Carnes said. “He told me that he’d taken a deep breath and told his wife he was going upstairs to meditate. And that was the first time he’d been able to do that.”

Practices like iRest and other forms of yoga are so clearly effective that now they are taught and used at dozens of military bases and medical centers — even at Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base in Norfolk, Va., home of the Navy SEALs, the branch of commandos who killed Osama bin Laden.

“I knew anecdotally that yoga helped — and now we have clinical proof of its impact on the brain, and on the heart,” said retired Rear Adm. Tom Steffens, a decorated Navy SEAL commander and yoga convert. Within the military services and the Department of Veterans Affairs, he said, “I see it growing all the time.”

Steffens, an energetic man with a booming voice, first tried yoga to deal with his torn bicep, an injury that surgery and medication hadn’t helped. He quickly became a convert, practicing yoga daily. Visiting with wounded SEALs a decade ago, he noticed that “the type of rehab they were doing was wonderful, but there was no inward focus on themselves — it was all about power as opposed to stretching and breathing.”

Before long, Steffens had helped start a foundation, Exalted Warrior, that holds yoga classes for wounded troops and their families at the Portsmouth Naval Hospital in Virginia, the James A. Haley VA Medical Center in Tampa, Fla., and elsewhere.

The military’s embrace of yoga shouldn’t be a surprise. After all, yoga — a Sanskrit word meaning to “join” or “unite” — dates back to 3,000 B.C., and its basic techniques were used in the 12th century when Samurai warriors prepared for battle with Zen meditation. Still, some old-timers are shocked to find combat Marines at Camp Lejeune, N.C. and amputees at James A. Haley VA Medical Center practicing theirDownward Dog and deep breathing techniques.

One early skeptic: Thomas S. Jones, a wiry retired Marine major general who likes to mask his love for Marines with a staccato parade-ground bark and a jut-jawed, prove-it approach to life.

Some years ago Jones started inviting wounded Marines to an intense, six-day retreat at a camp in the mountains of Pennsylvania to help them figure out what to do with the rest of their lives, to set goals and start working toward them. He quickly found that the Marines, struggling with physical wounds and PTSD, had trouble focusing. Someone mentioned that yoga might help. “Well, we’ve tried some ideas that didn’t work out and we threw them away,” Jones said dismissively, “but we’ll try it.”

And? “It has helped,” Jones told The Huffington Post in a slightly disbelieving voice. Yoga has since become a centerpiece of the retreat, called Semper Fi Odyssey. “This whole idea of relaxation, there’s a lotta guys who can’t do hardly anything physical, can still do yoga. And there’s a lot of value in meditation.”

The results, Jones and others have discovered, are indisputable.

study published earlier this year of 70 active-duty U.S. troops, then-based at Forward Operating Base Warrior, in Kirkuk, Iraq, found that daily yoga helped relieve anxiety, reduced irritability and improved sleep — even amid daily “gunfire and helicopter sounds.”

Progressive relaxation, calming breathing and relaxation techniques “reduce physical, emotional, mental and even subconscious tension that characterizes PTSD,” according to retired Air Force Maj. Nisha N. Money, a physician who recently served as chief of fitness policy for the Air Force.

“Guys with trauma — their center is out there,” said Annie Okerlin, flinging her arm outward. She’s a yoga expert who works with wounded warriors, families and staff therapists at the VA hospital in Tampa, Walter Reed and elsewhere. “What we do is gently and sweetly bring them back to their center, here,” she said, touching her chest.

Much of her work is with amputees. “I always tell the guys, ‘Your brain still thinks your leg is there, so we are going to speak to your brain as if your limb IS still there,”’ she said. “I tell them to flex the foot — spread your toes! — and the brain goes, ahhh, that feels good, I’m stretching — even though that limb is no longer there. It settles the brain down, because it’s doing its job, the blood flow increases, guys can feel their body again, the trauma fades. It’s beautiful!”

Working at Walter Reed, she once came across a double, above-the-knee amputee, who had been wounded by an IED. He was huddled in his hospital bed, his mother perched beside him on the edge of a chair, and for weeks he had refused to move, even for his physical therapy sessions. He admitted he was ashamed to be seen with his stumps twitching. Okerlin sat with him, leading him through some gentle breathing exercises. She could see him relax, and after a few minutes he fell asleep.

The next day he showed up for his physical therapy appointment to begin the healing.

With partially-paralyzed patients, Okerlin often has them lie on their back, put their hands on their rib cage and feel their breathing. One patient told her he was amazed to find he could feel a rush of energy toward his legs even though he still had no sensation in his legs.

Okerlin recently spent several days at a Semper Fi Odyssey retreat, teaching yoga and iRest to Marines with physical wounds, PTSD or traumatic brain injury. She has a warm and engaging style and works to establish a non-threatening environment in her sessions. “People who’ve been traumatized have lost their ability to feel secure,” she said.

As the wounded Marines settled onto floor mats, she told them, “You can close your eyes if that feels comfortable, but I will have my eyes open all the time watching,” emphasizing that they are safe and can relax. “There’s no wrong way to do this,” she said. “Are there any head injuries here?” she asked, and a wiseguy in the class called out, “We’re ALL head injuries!” to general chuckles.

At one point she had them on their backs, knees drawn up and held by their arms, a posture she tells them “massages the descending colon.” “This will help ensure you have that morning constitutional,” she told them cheerfully as they gently rocked back and forth.

Soon she had them focusing all their attention on their breathing, urging them to feel how each inward and outward breath lightly traces their spine. “Now I’m going to turn the lights out,” she said softly, “in three, two … one. If you fall asleep, that’s fine. If you’re snoring too loudly, I will come by and touch you on your right shoulder.”

On the mat next to Sgt. Martz were two Marines. One was Billy Wright, 49, who did two combat tours in Lebanon in 1983 and was later paralyzed from the chest down in a car wreck. He uses yoga breathing exercises to loosen up his muscles and joints that stiffen from long periods in his wheelchair. “Even lying on my back I can feel my hips flex,” he said. “Sitting in the chair, they get real tight and this loosens them up.”

The other was 24-year-old Joshua Boyd from Dry Fork, Va., a Marine lance corporal who did two combat tours in Iraq and came home wounded, with PTSD and mild TBI. He lost a good friend, a fellow Marine, who was killed by an IED. “They had stuck it inside a culvert,” Boyd said. “I had just gotten to Iraq and didn’t have IED training and I didn’t know what to look for. I didn’t look where I should have. It was my fault.”

After the blast, he said, he and his platoon collected the body parts.

At night, Boyd often jackknifes awake, yelling and sweating, dreaming of an intense firefight he experienced in Iraq in 2007. During this recurring dream, his wife is there in the middle of the battle and his buddies have abandoned them both while insurgents are closing in on them. He can feel them sense his weakness.

“I do have trouble sleeping,” he said sheepishly. During the long nights, he is often either deep in his nightmare, or terrified he is about to have it again.

But yoga has helped change the way he sleeps and dreams. “Yesterday I did the iRest session. I fell asleep,” he said. “When I got done, I felt so much more energized. I haven’t felt like that for years.”

Sufi poetry of love

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Sufi poetry of love…

 

Jalaluddin Rumi ♥

“The minute I heard my first love story,
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.
Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere.
They’re in each other all along.”

 

“I want to see you.
Know your voice.
Recognize you when you first come ’round the corner.

Sense your scent when I come into a room you’ve just left.

Know the lift of your heel, the glide of your foot.

Become familiar with the way you purse your lips then let them part, 
just the slightest bit,
when I lean in to your space and kiss you.

I want to know the joy 
of how you whisper 
“more” 

You’ve no idea how hard I’ve looked for a gift to bring You.
Nothing seemed right.

What’s the point of bringing gold to the gold mine, or water to the Ocean.
Everything I came up with was like taking spices to the Orient.

It’s no good giving my heart and my soul because you already have these.
So- I’ve brought you a mirror.


Hafiz ♥

Look at yourself and remember me.
Young lovers wisely say,
“Let’s try it from this angle,
Maybe something marvelous will happen,
Maybe three suns and two moons
Will roll out
From a hiding place in the body
Our passion has yet to ignite.”

Old lovers say,
“We can do it one more time,
How about from this longitude

Swinging from a rope tied to the ceiling,
Maybe a part of God
Is still hiding in a corner of your heart
Our devotion has yet to reveal.”

Bottom line: Do not stop playing
These beautiful Love Games.

i love you stephen

The subject tonight is love

And for tomorrow night as well.

As a matter of fact, I know of no better topic
For us all to discuss — until we all die.


Kahlil Gibran ♥

When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.

And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you.
Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height
and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;

And then he assigns you to his sacred fire,
that you may become sacred bread
for God’s sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you
that you may know the secrets of your heart
and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life’s heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only love’s peace and love’s pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness
and pass out of love’s threshing floor,
Into the seasonless world where youhall laugh, but not all of your laughter,
and weep, but not all of your tears.

Love gives naught but itself and takesnaught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.
When you love you should not say,
“God is in my heart,” but rather,
“I am in the heart of God.”
And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy,
directs your course.

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart
and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise
upon your lips.


endlessly,
i love you.

The Yoga of Ray Bradbury

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Ray Bradbury, one of the most revered and loved science-fiction authors of all time, died Tuesday, June 5th at the age of 91.

Obit_Ray_Bradbury_03d66

Ray Bradbury – Thank you for being alive and sharing your richness with us all. I am honored that I had the extreme privilege of hugging you, sharing my homemade vegan cookies and drinking in your brilliance in person on so many occasions in my youth. I learned so much from you.

I remember meeting Ray Bradbury when I was 20 (working at his favorite bookstore in Santa Monica) and he told stories of growing up always wanting to be a writer… He was rejected HUNDREDS of times and everyone he knew told him to give up, he was a terrible writer, told him he would NEVER be successful. His passion was writing. He wrote every day. He reminded us all to never allow others to define our purpose or our passions or shrink us into a smaller version of self. His passion was to flowing thought from mind and soul to tip of pen. He lived his passion.
Thank you Ray Bradbury. Thank you for being. Thank you for leaving so many beautiful words behind. ♥

Come celebrate building your own wings! Ray Bradbury tribute yoga class today at Om ShalA Yoga at 4:00pm with moí, Artemisia Shine:

 

“Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.”

 

If we listened to our intellect we’d never have a love affair. We’d never have a friendship. We’d never go in business because we’d be cynical: “It’s gonna go wrong.” Or “She’s going to hurt me.” Or, “I’ve had a couple of bad love affairs, so therefore …” Well, that’s nonsense. You’re going to miss life. You’ve got to jump off the cliff all the time and build your wings on the way down.

 

 I have two rules in life — to hell with it, whatever it is, and get your work done.

 

 We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.

 

I wish you a wrestling match with your Creative Muse that will last a lifetime. I wish craziness and foolishness and madness upon you. May you live with hysteria, and out of it make fine stories — science fiction or otherwise. Which finally means, may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world.

 

Insanity is relative. It depends on who has who locked in what cage.
Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can’t try to do things. You simply must do things.

 

Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me. After the explosion, I spent the rest of the day putting the pieces together.

 

The best scientist is open to experience and begins with romance – the idea that anything is possible.

 

We are the miracle of force and matter making itself over into imagination and will. Incredible. The Life Force experimenting with forms. You for one. Me for another. The Universe has shouted itself alive. We are one of the shouts.

 

I believe the universe created us — we are an audience for miracles. In that sense, I guess, I’m religious.

 

We must become astronauts and go out into the universe and discover the God in ourselves.

 

 

Harvard, Brigham Study: Yoga Eases Veterans PTSD Symptoms

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Harvard, Brigham Study: Yoga Eases Veterans PTSD Symptoms

Source: Common Health | Reform and Realty • Rachel Zimmerman • December 8, 2010

The words “Department of Defense” and “yoga” aren’t often uttered in the same breath, let alone in a long, conscious, exhale.

But preliminary results from a small study funded by the U.S. Defense Department, and led by a Harvard Medical School assistant professor, found that veterans diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder showed improvement in their symptoms after ten weeks of yoga classes, including meditation and breathing, done twice a week, and fifteen minutes of daily practice at home.

William Haviland never considered himself a yoga kind of guy. He served in Vietnam in 1968 during the TET offensive. Ask him about his combat experience and out comes a torrent of trauma: “I remember the things that happened, I’ve seen people killed right before my eyes,” he says. Among his vivid recollections, more than 40 years after the fact: a sergeant lured into a booby-trapped village, then castrated by shrapnel; the screams of a woman being raped and tortured all night. “I have a stream of memories,” he says, many which come out during sleep. Haviland, 63, says he frequently attacked his wife in the middle of the night, after nightmares that he was being chased by a fast-approaching enemy. Yoga, he says “took me out of myself” and had a more profound calming effect than drugs or drinking.


“PTSD is a disorder involving dysregulation of the stress response system, and one of the most powerful effects of yoga is to work on cognitive and physiological stress,” says Sat Bir S. Khalsa, Ph.D., an assistant professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and the principal investigator of the yoga study. “What we believe is happening, is that through the control of attention on a target — the breath, the postures, the body — that kind of awareness generates changes in the brain, in the limbic system, and these changes in thinking focus more in the moment, less in the past, and it quiets down the anxiety-provoking chatter going on in the head. People become less reactive and the hormone-related stress cycle starts to calm down.”

One common symptom of PTSD is the dissociation of mind and body, feeling disconnected from oneself and one’s surroundings, as well as an experience of time displacement. The brain portrays the traumatic event as though it is live and active in the present even though it may have happened decades ago. The practice of yoga combines physical exercises, postures and breath regulation together with meditation and awareness in the present moment and Khalsa says this integrative characteristic of yoga is likely important in resolving this dissociative aspect of PTSD.

Joseph Muxie served in the military from 1977-1984. While stationed in England, he said, he experienced an unbearable assault that is at the core of his PTSD. After years of alcoholism and a stint in rehab, he saw an ad about the Brigham yoga study and decided to try it. “I think what the yoga has really allowed me to do is give me the ability to ground myself,” said Muxie, 51. “As a result, I’m more peaceful with myself in whatever moment I happen to be in.”

According to the VA, as many as 20% of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have PTSD; 10% of Gulf War vets and 30% of Vietnam vets are diagnosed with the disorder. In addition, approximately 23% of women reported they were sexually assaulted in the military and 55% of women and 38% of men experienced sexual harassment while serving. Military Sexual Assault (MSA) is a known factor in PTSD.

Because the incidence of trauma is so high, Khalsa says, the DOD’s, Telemedicine & Advanced Technology Research Center, which paid a total of $600,000 for this study, is exploring new approaches to treatment.

In the Brigham study, which has so far evaluated only the first 9 subjects to complete the protocol, each veteran’s PTSD severity was assessed using a tool called CAPS, the clinician-administered PTSD scale. The patient is scored by a trained psychologist using the CAPS scale both before and after the yoga intervention to determine any change in the scope and intensity of symptoms, which can include flashbacks, nightmares and a pervasive hyper-vigilance. According to Khalsa, the average baseline CAPS score before yoga in the subjects was 73.0, and the average score post-intervention was 43.6. (The average reduction in CAPS score pre-to-post was 29.4.) Here are the subject’s individual scores, before and after yoga:

– 113; 81
– 81; 40
– 111; 21
– 37;33
– 62;36
– 53;15
– 84;78
– 66;72
– 50;16

So, for 6 subjects, their scores improved quite a lot with yoga; for 3, there was little change. Khalsa said that typically even well-known, highly effective treatments don’t work for every patient and he is still evaluating other measures to determine if the yoga had any other non-CAPS benefits. “These subjects may possibly have benefited in things like depression or anxiety, even though their overall PTSD CAPS score did not change much (as was observed in a preliminary yoga-PTSD study in Australia)… Human subject research is pretty messy.”

Ultimately, he said he hopes to evaluate a total of 60 subjects, including a control group, but so far, recruitment has been slow, due to yoga’s “new age” reputation and its association with women. “There’s some sense that sissies do yoga,” he said.

Jennifer Johnston, a yoga teacher, licensed mental health counselor and the project leader, said that beyond recruitment, yoga’s “hot” reputation has in some sense eclipsed its greatest assets. “Because yoga is so sexy now, certain aspects get forgotten,” she said. “Yoga is a path to reconnect all of the parts of yourself. It’s a self-care strategy. The poses are important, but the philosophy is how we do our lives. The magic is in the meditation, integrating it and taking the yoga off the mat and into your life.”

Yoga Gets into Med School

Aside

Yoga Gets into Med School

Students learn to relax patients, and themselves

Source: BU Today • Leslie Friday 12.08.2011
BU medical students hold a position called downward dog. Photos by Vernon Doucette

 

Emily Holick thought yoga was for sissies. But as a graduate student hoping to reduce stress, she gave it a try. And hated it. What irked the former college tennis player most was her inability to do a move that everyone else had perfected—the wheel, a complex pose that contorts the body into an upside down bridge. Holick says it was only her competitive spirit that kept her going.

Four years later, Holick (MED’14) believes that yoga has transformed her life. Although her first year of medical school was brutal, leaving her depressed and questioning whether she wanted to be a doctor, her yoga practice helped her cope. Then a curious string of events pulled her out of the abyss.

Holick took a healing arts class with Robert Saper, a School of Medicine associate professor of family medicine and director of integrative medicine, known for his research involving yoga and lower back pain relief. He recommended that she meet Heather Mason, a yoga therapist and trainer interested in creating a class for medical students, an idea Holick had toyed with herself.

“We met in a coffee shop in Cambridge and started dreaming,” Holick says. “It was amazing to meet someone who independently said this is something that medical students need.”

That java-infused dream has become a reality since, as Mason, Holick, and a team of medical students lobbied for its creation. Starting spring semester, MED will offer an elective called Embodied Health: Mind-Body Approaches to Well-Being. Mason will lead a weekly hour-long yoga session, followed by a half hour discussion of the practice’s medical benefits. The class will also be part of a research study led by Saper, Mason, and Allison Bond (MED’14) that will attempt to document changes in the students’ mental health. A pilot of the elective, called MED Yoga, or Mind-Body Education and Development Yoga, ran this semester, quickly attracting a following of 30-plus students.

While yoga sessions for med students are not unique (the University of Connecticut Medical Center and Georgetown Medical School both offer them), teaching students about yoga’s physiological and neurological effects is. Saper, who will be one of several guest speakers addressing issues from positive thinking to the neurobiology of stress over the 11 weeks of class, says the class “targets the unique challenges and stressors medical students face as well as offers a fairly advanced level of intellectual content appropriate for the medical students.”

And there are stressors: according to a 2009 study in Academic Medicine, nearly 25 percent of medical school students will be depressed at some point during their education. The Journal of the American Medical Association published a study in 2010 showing that the empathy medical students feel decreases as they progress through their four years.

Yoga therapist Heather Mason leads a breathing exercise before a yoga session designed for medical students at the School of Medicine.

 

Mason believes that yoga can be a powerful antidote. On a recent Wednesday late afternoon, she tinkered with speakers that send a low chime through the airy space of the MED student lounge where the class was meeting. While she adjusted the sound, nearly three dozen students unfurled yoga mats toward a bank of windows facing the setting sun. Some had come directly from cramming at the library for a pulmonology exam the next day.

Mason, a petite 35-year-old brunette, spent three years in Southeast Asian monasteries as an out-of-the box method of battling chronic depression. That experience led her to earn master’s degrees in Buddhist studies and psychotherapy, and another now in progress in neuroscience.

The New York native paces methodically as she leads the class into a rhythmic ujjayi breath, a diaphragmatic breathing technique. “The chime is like an anchor bringing you back to the breath,” she says. “Inhale, lift, and open your heart center.”

Some students stumble from move to move; others slide into position as if into a second skin, eyes forward, bodies steady. After an hour, Mason directs them to close their eyes, lie down, and relax. Their limp bodies rest on a rainbow of yoga mats.

Mason asks them to count their breaths per minute. She knows that the ideal count of five or six has been shown to increase heart rate variability, which can ameliorate problems like depression, epilepsy, post-traumatic stress disorder, and cardiac disease.

Breaths counted, Mason segues from the practice of yoga to a short dissertation on the neuroscience of yoga, something that has been studied by Chris Streeter, a MED associate professor of psychiatry and neurology. In one study published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, Streeter used magnetic resonance spectroscopy to explain why yoga practitioners report a greater improvement in mood and a decrease in anxiety than people who simply walked for relaxation. Streeter found that the yoga group had higher levels of the neurotransmitter gamma-amino butyric acid, or GABA, the likely cause of positive mood changes.

Mason explains to the class how the ujjayi breath and the chiming work together, medically, to bring about a healthful biological balance of breath, heartbeat, and other functions. When the lecture ends, Mason bows, and thanks her class with a namaste, a customary gesture on parting.

Mason says the first goal of MED Yoga was to let doctors know how yoga could help their patients, but then she realized how it could help the doctors themselves.

That message resonates with Holick, who says she is no longer depressed and has renewed faith in her career choice. The past year has “made me realize that I can make medicine my own thing,” she says. “It’s an amazing profession that I really can help people in. Sometimes I really lose sight of these bigger things.”