I am watching my daughter learn to do in 8 months what took 200 million years of evolution to achieve: to move from her belly to crawling, to seated, to pulling her self up. She improves daily in an astonishing way, I can sense the neural pathways growing and pruning, growing and pruning.
Read MoreIt’s September 2020 and I am in California, the sky is orange from the wildfires burning, the political landscape of the country is tense and worrisome, and the pandemic continues to spread, to name a few things present in my mind. This is a yoga sequence I designed to help lessen the anxiety of these times, and to help connect one with one’s body, which can be a very grounding and nourishing practice when one is spinning in anxious loops in the brain. Be gentle with yourself as you practice. I hope it brings some balance.
Read MoreLoren, when are you going to teach a yoga class that involves Sea Shanties? If I had a nickel for every time I’ve been asked this question. . .
Well.
I’d have a nickel.
Which brings us up to speed.
I tried to talk myself out of this one, because it feels a little far fetched, even for me, but, as any sailor cannot ignore the call of the sea, I was powerless to ignore the persistent and siren-like call of the the sea shanty.
I’ve loved sea shanties since I went to and worked at a camp where we happened to sing a lot of them. There are different types of sea shanties I believe, sea shanties that are meant to provide rhythmic accompaniment for work are a prominent variety, but the ones I love are the sea shanty love songs. Instead of the heteronormative traditional man pines after woman (or vice versa) story, these stories are about people (usually men) pining after THE SEA. Yes. It’s that general.
My client walks in the room, puts her bags down, and starts to cry. She tells me it’s just too much- the fatigue, the loss of strength, the nausea and constipation, the anxiety. On top of that, the practical worries of bills, and the deeper, more troubling questions: will I survive? How long? What happens to my daughter?
All I can really think to do is listen. Eventually, the panic subsides, and she finally says “Ok how are we starting today?” We lay down on our mats and close our eyes.
The general benefits of yoga are evident in it’s longevity and adaptability. It is a practice that has been in continual use for 5,000 years, and used in a variety of ways with spiritual, physical, and mental effects. It is only in yoga’s recent history , the past 100 years or so, of being brought to the West, that culturally we have begun to awaken to it’s many gifts.
This week I am thinking about trees. Thanks to my brother, Conor, this summer I got to meet Hyperion, the tallest living thing on earth. She is buried in a secret grove of her very tall sisters in Northern, CA. I didn’t think it’d be such a big deal at first. After all, I am a California girl and I know and appreciate a good redwood when I see one, but come on, I see them all the time. I didn’t feel the difference until I got there. The air was different, the light was different, the way sound moved in the space was different. We whispered as intuition instructs one to do in a sacred place and among sacred things. All of our trees are sacred, but there was a sense of being among the elders there.
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