Hi Folks,
Happy Spring! What joy as the days get longer, we find the earth again beneath our feet and turn our faces to a warming sun!
I've been thinking about how ancient wisdom systems like yoga are like the seasons. Here in the West we only have 1 speed: FAST! All the time. Every day of every week of every year. The emphasis is on production - getting it done. And we've got the disease patterns and social ills to show for it! Carl Honore, a Canadian journalist who wrote, In Parise of Slowness: How a worldwide movement is challenging the cult of speed" reminds us of the following.
The average North American spends:
- more time on e-mail than with his/her children
- 72 minutes a day behind the wheel of a car
- 10% of his/her budget on phones & 12% on food
- 350 more hours at work a year than his/her European counterparts
- 1 ½ hours less each night sleeping than 100 years ago
- 30 min a week making love (!)
It's no surprise that chronic, stress-related illness accounts for 75% of healthcare spending, let alone the cumulative loss of joy and purpose we could measure across individuals, families, communities, countries...
Here's what I think the season of "Spring" can teach us. After a period of rest, interiorization, recuperation, a pause.... it is natural to want to go forth, embrace new projects, expand and try new things... GROW! Yoga of course is the huge knowledge system that through the appropriate choice of of postural, breath, meditation, and relaxation techniques keeps us in balance so we are bringing the right speed, the right attitude to the right moment. Take the balance of rest/intensity built into a typical asana practice. Intense physical demand is almost always followed by an intense rest... so we're good to go! Action and rest in balance.
That's just one of the many ways study of these ancient traditions can help us sort out a life strategy that (really) works - over a whole lifetime (not just to survive this week/month/year, whatever....) Yoga recognizes that this "one speed fits all" world is simply not how we're built. And that's not how nature works. Remember, "For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose..."? The Italians have a saying, "Tempo Guiusto" - the right time. There's a Jain saying, "When God made time, s/he made plenty of it!". And our own cultural guru Lily Tomlin added, For fast acting relief from stress, try slowing down!"
Here's one last stat: meditators are 56% less likely to develop chronic illness or be hospitalized. I wonder what's behind that stat. That is, beyond NOT being sick, maybe that's someone who has learned to enjoy the right pace from the inside - not unproductive or inefficient, but how to remain "slow inside". Someone who is living at a sustainable pace, given the season at hand. Someone able from a place of health and well-being, to support a spirit of hospitality and neighborliness, who has the time and energy to explore and find whatever brings meaning to their days and years... To me, that's the Big yoga.
Please, join (or re-join) us this spring as we continue to explore this journey together.
Namaste,
Kathryn Downton
Lifesong Yoga
Real strength is not in power, money or weapons, but in deep, inner peace. Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace is Every Step |
