NOURISH Santa Cruz Journal
A place for discussion on yoga, massage, nutrition, Santa Cruz and all things NOURISH!

Today I worked at the reception desk during Jocelyn’s Fight Cancer with Your Fork: The Breast Cancer Edition today.  As I sat listening to Jocelyn, I got to thinking about how breast cancer affects all of our lives.

Breast cancer is a disease that has affected so many people I know, and so many people can say the same thing.  One of my mom’s best friends is still recovering from reconstructive surgery after her double mastectomy.  A dear friend of mine has a grandmother who was taken by breast cancer.  The most important personal example I have is my best friend, whose grandmother died from the disease.  She also watched her mother undergo treatment, and thankfully survive, when she was only 9 and 10 years old.

Her greatest fear in life is to get breast cancer.  I know this all to well because in what was possibly one of her least dignified moments (a rather horrifying senior year of high school night of debauchery as documented so well in so many trashy movies), she screamed and sobbed at me, the trusty designated driver.  As I held her in my arms (having secured a large pot nearby in case anything but words came pouring out of her mouth), I repeated, “No, you won’t get breast cancer.  Just think of the advances in medicine they’ll have!.”  Of course, I had no way of guaranteeing any of that. But I can hope that the support that this cause has accrued and the huge amount of attention it gets can result in something – research, treatments, and maybe someday a cure.

Does that make it more important than other cancers or diseases?  Of course not.  But there are so many faces, for all of us, that we can put to this disease.  Breast cancer can touch our mothers, our sisters, our friends, that neighbor who doesn’t work in her garden, and women we work with.  When I think of the fight against breast cancer, I think of the women who have already fought and survived.  I think of their struggles with a disease that is capable not only of taking our lives, but of taking a part of us that we see as a defining feature of being a woman.  I think of my best friend as a little girl, and all the little girls like her, who watched as her mother went through hell to survive for her.  I think of her now, as a 22 year old, waiting for the inevitable diagnosis that she (and I) hope never comes.

For these women, I ask that we all do something to help.  It doesn’t have to be much.  I certainly won’t be making any million dollar donations any time soon.  Walk in your local Race for the Cure, donate as much as you can to one of the fine research organizations out there (such as the Breast Cancer Research Foundation or Susan G. Komen for the Cure), or pass on any information, like nutrition facts from Jocelyn, you might hear about prevention to a friend.  Do it now so that hopefully someday no one else will have to.

Finally – good luck to our clients Kristin Larkin and Zoe Williams, who will be walking 39 miles in two days in the San Francisco Avon Walk for Breast Cancer!

- Kate

Greetings, Nourish friends in the blogosphere.  Treea here.  How delighted I am that we have this forum for delving into yoga matters here with each other.  Lately I’ve been pondering what it means to deepen one’s yoga practice, since this theme often shows up in many areas of my life in yoga, personally and professionally.  

Because there are eight limbs on the abundant tree of yoga, one could write a book or more on the topic of going deeper.  Here I’ll mainly explore going deeper in asana practice, and how our lives off the mat are more fulfilling because of doing so.

When we begin to practice yoga postures (asanas), we learn the basic foundations of placement of bones (alignment), muscular actions to support those bones (actions), and breathing with awareness.  We use simple postures with big movements, and we try to breathe gently through the sensations moving through the body in each pose.  We then start to notice the mind jumping from thought to thought, and how the  poses and breath help to calm and focus the mind.  In general, we build familiarity with some foundational postures, while practicing the art of settling into ourselves through the breath.

During this time (months or years) of sustaining a beginning level practice, some remarkable discoveries are made about the body, mind, breath, and emotional heart.  Our practice of the postures gets easier, some of our injuries quiet down, we find ourselves stronger and more flexible, and we feel the desire to practice regularly, based on how we are evolving through yoga.  Our awareness of ourselves on every level is growing, so our inner eyes are a little wider.  Because of this, everyday actions like walking, driving, bicycling, communicating, breathing, etc. are infused with our budding awareness, and so we do them with more mindfullness and open heartedness.

The next level of going deeper in asana may happen as you continue to practice in beginning and/or all levels classes, or may be triggered by your participation in intermediate level classes, where more challenging postures are offered, and poses are held longer.  Also, instructions get more detailed in these classes, perhaps drawing awareness to our skin, organs, energy body, and the deeper aspects of mind and emotions.    Alignments and actions also become more refined in these classes.  No matter what kind of class we’re participating in, the awareness of ourselves simply gets more sublime.  Instead of concentrating on one or two body parts at a time, we can hold more alignments and actions and breath in a sort of holistic awareness all at once, even if only for a few seconds.  We may find that in this holistic awareness, we notice a softening of our inner heart space, where spiritual and emotional upliftment are occuring.

As we go deeper in asana practice over time, we are able to fine-tune our alignments and actions, so that we don’t work so hard physically in the postures, even as the poses get more complicated.  This is also a function of sublime awareness.  When once upon a time we had to focus with all our might to create big muscular actions in the legs in warrior poses, for example, as we deepen our practice we are supported by the legs in a different, less muscular, more energetic way.  We notice a deep connection between the foundational legs and the uplifted crown of the head.  We can stabilize our postures muscularly, but we can also expand in all directions.  Our breath is like our inner best friend, welcoming us into our luminous true Self, where all is well.  We begin to notice, perhaps, that our outer life off the mat is more directed by this inner Presence in what we do, how we speak, how we give.

Yesterday, April 21st, I was literally called outside by winds howling through the trees in my neighborhood.  I stepped out onto the front porch.  I heard loud, chaotic movement of air all around me, and watched the trees dance wildly as it blew right through their leaves and branches.  With strong, rooted foundation, the trees swayed with utmost flexibility as a powerful breath of life moved them.   I found myself in tadasana, my own inner breath awareness aligned with the breath of life in the wind.  All became still and quiet until the next wave of echoing wind moved through the valley once again.  I stood, aligned with the natural world, with breath and foundation.  I felt the aliveness of life within and around me.

Today I give thanks to yoga for awakening my awareness to life’s breath and beauty.  And I give thanks to the wind, for adding to my understanding of “going deeper”.

For the last couple of months we’ve been working with the Niyamas. Last week I defined Niyama as the collective practice of Saucha, Santosha, Tapas, Svadhyaya, and Ishvara Pranidhana. This week we’ll bring Niyama back into the context of the other limbs of yoga practice that we have already discussed over the past year or so. Here is the review list:

Yama: The collective practice of Nonviolence, Honesty, Acceptance of What You Already Have (or not covetting what you don’t), Mindful Use of Energy (your own life energy, but feel free to conserve electricity as well), and Non-attachement.

Niyama: The collective practice of Clarity (or cleanliness), Contentment (reflexive of Asteya in the Yamas), Commitment and Dedication, Self Study (inquiry, exploration), Complete Surrender (giving yourself and your actions fully)

Asana: The Mindful Action of Your Body; Includes Yoga Postures

Pranayama: Mindful Breath; Intentional Breath; Focused Breath

Pratyahara: Turn Your External Senses Inward

Dharana: Concentrate; Focus Your Mind

Dhyana: Meditate; Be Present; Be As You Are

Some students of yoga will note the abscence of the 8th limb of Ashtanga. You may already be practicing it, but we’ll be addressing it directly in the weeks to come.