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Pictured, “Everyday Gratitude Vol 1″
Finding one gratitude each day, in the every day living of life.
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“the intent of this blog is to incrementally build a body of thought that works toward integrating various topics, yoga, fitness, and the arts – it’s a process…”
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balance & yoga – a tidbit post, # 8
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Tidbitstidbits are, by definition, tiny bits*a google search indicates further elaboration -qualities such as “pleasing” and “choice” are mentioned -”small” and “bite-sized” also come up…*thus, this series of tidbits, of small bite-sized posts, are both my choice, and, hopefully, pleasing
if this tidbit comes from, or leads to, a much longer, more complex post, a link will be provided, thank you much***
“balance is the effort to entertain our personal tilt without falling”
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Article Outline
Happy Birthday to Me!
- Being a Libra
- Balance, Then
- Balance, Now
Examples
- Physical
- Balance is a Living Act
Yogic Balance, Out in the World
My Favorite Moment of Balance
Final Thoughts
- Prioritizing Balances
- Back to Innocence
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Happy Birthday to Me!
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Adan at Table with Light from Window
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sheila captured this image with the light coming through the window at skinny pancake here in burlington
the decorative bottle must’ve brought us good light
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it might seem silly to have an article with a title that includes both balance and yoga, and yet be a “tidbit” post
but this is my tidbit birthday gift to myself
today i crack into the 60′s!
i’m 61! today!! yay!!!
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Being a Libra
i’ve always told myself my astrological sign didn’t “really” mean anything, and i long ago quit buying libra calendars and reading my daily horoscope in the paper
but the idea of libra, of balance, weighing pros and cons, desires and aversions -
that has remained with me, and lately, i’ve come to embrace it -
though, to tell the truth, more like an icky thick sweat shirt hug with hands not pressing anything to tightly
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Balance, Then
ok, here’s the main course
since i can remember, before i’d heard about astrological signs, or even spoke english, and thought “libre” meant “free” rather than balance, i was always searching for the counter-weight to ideas -
this led to a running raucous dialog with my dad, who i realize now, entertained my endless questioning and back & forth arguments with a patience i just didn’t understand (but now quietly thank him for)
equality was a driving force in my feelings and thinking, i even searched out and read the constitution of the united states when i was about 12, but that immediately led to my literal application of my inherent right to happiness, and that didn’t sit too well, with either of my parents
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Balance, Now
oh, i still like to argue sides, many a patient blogger has given me patient leeway in my thoughts -
but rather than feeling that “balance” is the equal positioning of the wheel in all directions, forward & backward plus side to side, so that it may roll without wobble, i now (recently) view balance differently
balance is now the counter effort thought activity feeling intent movement that allows me to maintain the “leaning” i’m more favoring at any given time
notice i’ve given myself lots of wiggle room to change my “leaning” and thus what and how i’d need to balance
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Examples
Physical
if i’m gonna enjoy dancer’s pose, playfully, i still first have to find that day’s – “today’s” balance, which may mean i need to wear shoes, or use a chair, or hold a lower center of gravity, or stay stretched upward and leg-curled longer
so, if i’m using a chair with a one-hand balance at the back of the chair with one hand, and my free hand holding my free-hand-side foot, if i need to feel gravity, my weight, or a grounding, i’m not so much concerned with pulled my lifted left up or outward -
my “balance” that day is a sort of hunkering down, probably to regain or reset my physical balance (and maybe my mental or emotional balances too, depending what’s been going on)
then say i’m feeling playful, kinda light hearted anyways, and wanna play -
ok, now my balance is staying “hunkered” yet allowing myself to still be playful in this less stretched less reaching posture -
my emotional playful-need balancing has to counter-weight my gravity-grounding-need balancing
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Balance is a Living Act
balance then is not simply a set ratio of extended and curled limbs, unresponsive to heart and mind urges for creative expression of being alive, and yet centered -
balance is the counter-weighting of multiple concerns that can vary day-to-day, morning to evening, year to year even
core and back may need more tensile input into the length and duration of the pose’s dance
mind and heart may have other needs – as may a child or significant other
balance is a living act -
in essence i must find, or discover, or allow to appear, that which will balance my intent -
did i want to stretch in dual directions and feel the sky touch the soil?
or did i want to feel my core fine tune my limbs like time touching a sunset?
so much is possible in dancer’s pose just balancing interests!
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Yogic Balance, Out in the World
much has come up recently about what essentially is a question of how does one balance one’s life between personal and social good
yoga modern, via an intriguing article from carol horton, just this week, asked just, “has yoga created a culture of escape?” with a subtitle on the site’s opening page, of, “refuge and renewal vs. escape and denial.”
it’s especially intriguing to me, because i remember standing at the front doorway of the esoteric philosophy center in houston at the beginning of the 70s with the director, bill dimitri, the two of us watching a large group of hari krishnas chant on the large long front lawn (that i’d mow occasionally in exchange for being to attend meditation classes there) -
and i remember distinctly saying how those kids (folk my own age then of course ) were just escaping from having to think!
and bill smiled, waited a bit, and said, “they’re still just innocent…”
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another look, but at those at the occupied zones helping bring up conversation about the balance of individual and social action, is nicely written by caryn mirriam-goldberg, poet laureate of kansas, in her article, “What Democracy Looks Like Today at Occupy Wall Street: Everyday Magic, Day 426“.
images and vignettes are given and the sense of the innocence and well-meaning of the people there seems authentic and real
my comment posted there is as i’ve voiced regularly recently, that some media attention to the historical perspective to the 60s and earlier movements, would help people see this is a continuing effort stretching back way before my time
and hopefully provide some buffer to probable inevitable backlash, which is natural, since nothing moves in a straight line, even light evidently
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this is the same concern, i’d been voicing “back in the day”
and anyone with some historical and media grit, could probably point out the countless recurring times just since the last 1800s, that it was questioned as to whether yoga was inducing escapism
the split among the new world colonies in the 1600s, between those who were stringent believers in hard work and no play, vs those who thought a little time in the new world sun might do a body good, probably ended up in a similar “face off”
and didn’t the greeks sport a similar divide among themselves? apollo and dionysus?
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my point, regarding yogic balance, isn’t that the whole question of which type of potential escapism, social involvement or self involvement is “the” escapism, but rather that neither is -
yogic balance, for me, as i mentioned in the beginning, is the tilting of the scales of one’s activities, so as to maintain balanced enough to continue the main activity one wants to do
so, maybe, wanting quiet time to write or paint or sing or simply sit and watch the sun and clouds, alone or with a significant other, might require some approving of the tweaking of the tax code or how our elected representative “represent” us -
and yet, wanting to be intimately and intricately involved in the day to day operations of how people can get along, the law, might just as well in turn require reflection and a responsiveness to one’s internal needs
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yogic balance, it seems, is as much a spiritual-mental-emotional act, as it is standing on one foot with the other curled behind and held by the hand not stretched out reaching for the not-so-low-hanging-fruit of inspiration
it’s hard to express, and maybe caryn’s ending words in her article noted above says it best,
“The rest of the world, just as I had left it, wasn’t configured the way of the occupation, so no wonder that the main criticism everyone has about this movement has to do with how little of it translates into clear soundbites. But then, that’s why there is an occupation in the first place: to be the change so many of us seek.”
and of course, being the change, can, and must be doable, well, anywhere…
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My Favorite Moment of Balance
my mom had gone to the museum of fine arts in houston with sheila, my middle sister, and myself, to see an art show and give her a chance walk somewhere’s different
mom’s quite a walker
anyway, we’d seen the impressionist exhibit traveling through town, and were meandering among the renaissance work where i knew there’d be religious art she’s always enjoying standing in front of
we were in a particularly long room, the west side of an upper floor of the newer wing of the museum, and i noticed mom had stopped wandering from painting to painting, and settled herself, arms crossed, feet planted, in front of what looked like a last supper rendition
the painting was sebastiano ricci’s 1720 “last supper”
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[ image not currently accessible to show, but may be seen on the mfa houston site ]
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one by one, the three of us “younger folk” made our way to my mom’s side and peered to see what she saw so differently she was magnetized there
“you like that one, mom?”
“si”
sheila chimed in, “it’s beautiful isn’t it?”
then my sister, “a lot like the famous one”
“mira,” says my mom, “la mujer tiene ropa para limpiar”
i looked and looked and saw it, the woman to the left from our view, holding a laundry basket of wash, watching the goings on of the last supper
then my mom pointed to the plates of food, and added, in english, grinning and chuckling, “somebody has to do the cleaning”
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we all have a part to play in making / creating / being creative change in our world
my quote from the end of my article i posted about this, “my mom at the museum,” shortly after her 84th birthday, still holds for me today,
“if yoga is, partially at least, the development of a balanced sense of the importance of all facets of our life, then my mom, devoutly catholic, has made that attribute her own
yoga, it seems, like oneness, as part of oneness, is like the air -
no one owns it, we all need it….”
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Final Thoughts
Prioritizing Balances
i was intending to make a short video about dancers pose, to add to my just budding youtube channel of, for now, “playing around” videos
but have come up across several self-imposed deadlines :
finishing this article for my birthday -
finishing my 1st epublishing project, also for my birthday
creating a video would jeopardize one or both of the “finishings”
the video can wait, and be a looked-forward-to project for me, hopefully in the near future
choices have to be made -
and we do what we can that best balances what is needed, for us and for others
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Back to Innocence
and maybe the psychological point of balance, mine anyways, is when, somehow, through the balancing of the tilts and sways and seesaws, the “the effort to entertain our personal tilt without falling” as i put it at the beginning of this post, is finding and keeping a point of innocence
much as i concluded in my post on baseball and yoga
much as i saw in my child in “angel baby“
much as i hope we retain each day
balanced-ly of course
namaste – con dios – god be with you
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