Music
13
Jun
2013
Poem
13
Jun
2013
Still I Rise by Maya Angelou
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own back yard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
Poses
13
Jun
2013
We’ll start with a modified version of the pose. The full pose will be described in the Variation section below.
(not-ah-raj-AHS-anna)
nata = actor, dancer, mime
raja = king
Step by Step
Stand in Tadasana (Mountain Pose). Inhale, shift your weight onto your right foot, and lift your left heel toward your left buttock as you bend the knee. Press the head of your right thigh bone back, deep into the hip joint, and pull the knee cap up to keep the standing leg straight and strong.
There are two variations you might try here with your arms and hands. In either case, try to keep your torso relatively upright. The first is to reach back with your left hand and grasp the outside of your left foot or ankle. To avoid compression in your lower back, actively lift your pubis toward your navel, and at the same time, press your tailbone toward the floor.
Begin to lift your left foot up, away from the floor, and back, away from your torso. Extend the left thigh behind you and parallel to the floor. Stretch your right arm forward, in front of your torso, parallel to the floor.
The second option with the hands is to sweep your right hand around behind your back and catch hold of the inner left foot. Then sweep the left hand back and grab the outside of the left foot. This variation will challenge your balance even more. Then raise the thigh as described in step 3. This second variation will increase the lift of your chest and the stretch of your shoulders.
Stay in the pose for 20 to 30 seconds. Then release the grasp on the foot, place the left foot back onto the floor, and repeat for the same length of time on the other side.
Full Pose
For the full pose, perform step 1 as described above. Then turn your left arm actively outward (so the palm faces away from the side of the torso), bend the elbow, and grip the outside of the left foot. (You can also grab the big toe with the first two fingers and the thumb.) The fingers will cross the top of the foot, the thumb will press against the sole. Inhale, lift the left leg up, and bring the thigh parallel to the floor. As you do this, rotate the left shoulder in such a way that the bent elbow swings around and up, so that it points toward the ceiling. It requires extreme flexibility to externally rotate and flex the shoulder joint in this way. Reach the right arm straight forward, in front of the torso and parallel to the floor. Hold for 20 to 30 seconds, release, and repeat on the second side for the same length of time.
Books
12
Jun
2013
Dr. Suess
“The Places You’ll Go.”
Thoughts
12
Jun
2013
“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.â€
― Helen Keller
Poses
29
May
2013
Pose Dedicated to the Sage Koundinya II
Eka Pada Koundiyanasana II
Step by Step
Start in Adho Mukha Svanasana, hands shoulder width apart. Step your left foot far forward, past the outside of your left arm, and place it on the floor well in front of your left hand.
Bend your left elbow and twist your torso to the right, dropping the left shoulder and the whole left side of the torso as low as possible on your inner left thigh. Pressing your thigh toward your torso, slide your left upper arm and shoulder as far as you can underneath the back of the left thigh just above the knee. Place the back of your thigh as high up as possible on the upper arm.
Keeping your weight centered approximately between your hands, start to creep your left foot forward along the floor so more and more of the weight of the leg comes onto the arm; let the left foot naturally move a little to the left as you do this. When you can’t walk the foot any farther forward without lifting it off the floor, straighten the knee as much as you can, powerfully reaching the foot forward and out to the left side.
Bending both elbows, shift your weight far forward between your hands until you can lift your back leg. Lift strongly until that leg is parallel to the floor; then, keeping the knee extended, press straight back through the ball of your foot.
Lift your chest until your torso is parallel to the floor, pressing strongly down through your inner hands to help maintain this position.
Lift your head and look forward, keeping your eyes and forehead soft. Breathe evenly. Hold the pose for 20 seconds or longer, then step back into Adho Mukha Svanasana. Repeat it on the other side for the same length of time.
Books
29
May
2013
Poem
29
May
2013
An Early Day in May
May soothed
– sensual breeze caressing.
Snug, she cooed in floral chroma;
Gave artistic license – dressing up
Pubescent fields, teenage woods,
Jaded lanes; embellishing
Craggy watersides.
Warmth was kind – sun tempered,
Lifting life; erecting bluebell swathes
For good measure: late-spring treasure.
At hill’s base
A mirrored lake, brooding,
Bathed in halcyon haze –
Yet hectic life scurried,
Spurred on by procreational drive,
To see it all survived another year.
Back home, garden tulips flared,
Thrust aloft on rigid stems, and
Under day-time brilliance,
Open goblets, clustered,
Sought out heavenly guidance –
Lauding hallowed Tulipa gods.
May is Nature’s intermission –
Bridging April’s go-ahead
With hothead June.
Thoughts
29
May
2013
“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.â€
― Thomas A. Edison
22
Apr
2013
Excerpts from Walking
By Henry David Thoreau
I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least…sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements….When sometimes I am reminded that the mechanics and shopkeepers stay in their shops not only all the forenoon, but all the afternoon too, sitting with crossed legs, so many of them—as if the legs were made to sit upon, and not to stand or walk upon—I think that they deserve some credit for not having all committed suicide long ago.
I, who cannot stay in my chamber for a single day without acquiring some rust, and when sometimes I have stolen forth for a walk at the eleventh hour, or four o’clock in the afternoon, too late to redeem the day, when the shades of night were already beginning to be mingled with the daylight, have felt as if I had committed some sin to be atoned for,—I confess that I am astonished at the power of endurance, to say nothing of the moral insensibility, of my neighbors who confine themselves to shops and offices the whole day for weeks and months, aye, and years almost together….
…[T]he walking of which I speak has nothing in it akin to taking exercise, as it is called, as the sick take medicine at stated hours—as the Swinging of dumb-bells or chairs; but is itself the enterprise and adventure of the day. If you would get exercise, go in search of the springs of life. Think of a man’s swinging dumbbells for his health, when those springs are bubbling up in far-off pastures unsought by him!
Moreover, you must walk like a camel, which is said to be the only beast which ruminates when walking. When a traveler asked Wordsworth’s servant to show him her master’s study, she answered, “Here is his library, but his study is out of doors.”…
When we walk, we naturally go to the fields and woods: what would become of us, if we walked only in a garden or a mall? …Of course it is of no use to direct our steps to the woods, if they do not carry us thither. I am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit. In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to Society. But it sometimes happens that I cannot easily shake off the village. The thought of some work will run in my head and I am not where my body is—I am out of my senses. In my walks I would fain return to my senses. What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods?…
Some do not walk at all; others walk in the highways; a few walk across lots. Roads are made for horses and men of business. I do not travel in them much, comparatively, because I am not in a hurry to get to any tavern or grocery or livery-stable or depot to which they lead….
However, there are a few old roads that may be trodden with profit, as if they led somewhere now that they are nearly discontinued. There is the Old Marlborough Road, which does not go to Marlborough now, me-thinks, unless that is Marlborough where it carries me. I am the bolder to speak of it here, because I presume that there are one or two such roads in every town….
At present, in this vicinity, the best part of the land is not private property; the landscape is not owned, and the walker enjoys comparative freedom. But possibly the day will come when it will be partitioned off into so-called pleasure-grounds, in which a few will take a narrow and exclusive pleasure only—when fences shall be multiplied, and man-traps and other engines invented to confine men to the PUBLIC road, and walking over the surface of God’s earth shall be construed to mean trespassing on some gentleman’s grounds. To enjoy a thing exclusively is commonly to exclude yourself from the true enjoyment of it. Let us improve our opportunities, then, before the evil days come….
…[I]n Wildness is the preservation of the World….