Lying still is an important practice

Lying still is a very important yoga practice. Shavasana, corpe's pose, is the pose whith which I learned to start every yoga practice. Above is a film of how I get into, lie in and get out of the pose. 

I wrote something about swara yoga – I think I would need to get into nada yoga, the yoga of sounds and vibrations, in order to understand more about swara yoga. Knowledge comes with practice. And, I've heard while in India - enlightenment comes by the grace of guru. That is the cultural tradition yoga comes from.

About tantra art – here is a link to a text about yantra from Bindu Magazine: http://www.yogameditation.com/Articles/Issues-of-Bindu/Bindu-10/About-Sound-and-Form

When I lived in Barcelona I had a friend, Laura, who drew erotic comics. That's different.

I wonder if there is such a thing as deconstructivism in litterature? If so, the book ”El mono gramático” would surely be part of that movement. I know magic realism is a term, but the way Octavio Paz writes goes beyond that, deconstructing not only the ideas that hold together a way of perceiving the reality - inner and outer - he presents. He also deconstructs the language presenting those ideas. Peotry can do that – and this is his excuse – he is deconstructing because he is a poet.

Sharing knowledge and experience

The way I learnt how to read set the pace for learning in life: I learned the alphabet by singing it with two pink cartoon elephants on TV, just before christmas in 1977. It was just by my fourth birthday. The TV-show was the Swedish yearly julkalender, counting the days from December 1 to 24, with a half-an-hour programme appearing every day. And, every day, was a new letter. Apart from the TV show, there was a vinyl record with the songs sung by the elephants and the human participants of the show, which was my favourite music at the time. Singing were one big elephant and a small one, and as the big one sung the capital letter A, the small one repeated a,a,a,a,a, then the big one sung B and there was a lighter echo singing b,b,b,b,b – C – and so on! The series was called ”Fem myror är fler än fyra elefanter” an is a Swedish media classic by now. It was funy, nice, friendly and pedagogic - to such an extent that when I eventually started school in 1980, I thought they were joking. Had I been sent there to learn how to read? In THAT way? What where they on about?

I developed a very strong sense of doubt and wonder at the schooling system from a very young age. I saw it as being archaic and out of date, teaching us all to behave like the children in the picture books from the 40´s , who in Swedish say ”mor är rar”. The difference between what was directed at children my age in media, and the way the school wanted us to pay attention and learn was abysmal.

Now, I wonder if the people doing that TV show were aware of the elephant-headed god Ganesh, and his being the one you start paying reverence to at the start of every project in life, for good luck and for overcoming the obstacles in the way.

In Sweden, all children go to school. When I grew up, most chidren went to public school, for free, with lunch included. Sweden had come very far in social democratic planning of society by that time. So, school was of course a privilege to attend to. 9 obligatory years and 3 more, then the possibility to attend to a great public university. Sweden had buit up a very good education system.

Reading became an early habit – with others, in school, at home, and alone. In my family, I would receive books and drawing material at every christmas eve and every birthday. Being given books is special. Sharing the knowledge of books is valuable.

Sharing knowledge is valuable. Sharing experience is valuable.

When I moved to Stockholm in 2005 my friend Pernilla, who lives there, showed me a yogashcool, saying ”this is the school where they do real yoga”. She had been practicing some years from the age of 18, just when we got to know eachother. So I went there and started practicing asanas, pranayama, shatkarmas, concentration and meditation the way that they taught it, thanks to a Danish man who in the late sixties received the title and name Swami Janakananda Saraswati in Munger, India, and then came back to Scandinavia to teach.

Later, I went to live in the countryside where he lived and he´s good at teaching. Furthermore, he´s got a love for art and muscic that is seen in his house and at his courses. By him I found my way to approaching Samkhya philosophy, yoga and meditation. I found out about the existance of the Yoga Sutras by Patanjali and about the yogic management of common diseases – books were rare, but to the point. The books he has on tantra art are beautiful.

That´s about books. Life, although containing books, are a different matter altogehter.

Yesterday I went for a walk with a friend, Jimmy. I took this picture as we were watching a tree in central Malmö, which was mild and sunny. It was also the international women´s day. 

I don´t want to marry Octavio Paz, and I don´t think I could be convinced to marry anyone at all. But meetings are valuable and holding on to the part inside which has grown in a meeting, even if it´s a virtual one, is valuable.

More about rythms

The sun has been out today, too. I was speaking with a yoga teacher on the phone this afterrnoon, she said in her place, the day seemed to bring spring. She lives in the country side some hours travel by car or train from where I live, but the same thing could be said about the day in Malmö. I got out at five in the afternoon, just after talking to her, and the sky was still bright. I’ll get back to my evening in a bit.

First, I need to get a little bit into yoga – now that I’ve said that Hortensia was partly to blame for me getting into it in the first place, and since I got some very nice response from her on this writing of mine, I will start handling the subject.

I will get into it from the perspective of rythms. What I would like to do is this: starting off with a general definition of yoga, I will quickly be moving on to mention the subject of swara yoga and what that has to do with rythms.

First: Definition of yoga. In the introduction of the book ”Asana Pranayma Mudra Bandha” by Swami Satyananda Saraswati¹, a very good contemporary authorithy on the subject, the following can be read:

“Yoga is the science of right living and, as such, is intended to be incorporated into daily life. It works on all aspects of the person: the physical, vital, mental, emotional, psychic and spiritual.
The word yoga means ‘unity’ or ‘oneness’ and is derived from the Sanskrit word yuj, which means ‘to join’. This unity or joining is described in spiritual terms as the union of the individual consciousness with the universal consciousness. On a more practical level, yoga is a means of balancing and harmonizing the body, mind and emotions. This is done through the practice of asana, pranayama, mudra, bandha, shatkarma and meditation, and must be achieved before union can take place with the higher reality.
The science of yoga begins to work on the outmost aspect of the personaity, the physical body, which for most people is a practical and familiar starting point.”

I end the quote here, because the last quoted sentence seems to be so acutely correct it’s almost absurd. The physical body is a practical and familiar starting point for most people.

Next, comes the difinition of Swara yoga. In the book “Swara yoga” by Swami Muktibodhananda,² there is an introductiory text with the title “Swami Satyananda Sarawati on Swara Yoga”. It is interesting as a whole. I quote a small part of it only:

“Swara yoga is the ancient science of pranic body rythms which explains how the movement of prana can be controlled by manipulation of the breath. Recently mederrn science has taken an interest in electromagnetic fields and the behaviour of bioenergy, which is the inherent energy principle of the body”.
...
“Swara etymologically means ’the sound of one’s own breath’. Yoga means ‘union’. Therefore, Swara yoga enables the state of union to be reached by means of one’s breath. Through the practice of swara yoga, one can realize the breath as being the medium of the cosmic life force. The breath has so much importance in human existence that the ancient rishis or seers evolved a complete science around it just from studiyng the simple process of respiration.
Swara yoga, however, should not be confused with pranayama, which involves a different aspect of the breath. Although both deal with prana, swara yoga emphazises the analysis of the breath and the significance of different pranic rythms, whereas pranayama involves tehniques to redirect, store and control prana. Swara yoga may therefore be said to involve the practices of pranayama, but in fact is a much more extensive and precise science.”

Many of the ideas of this book seem surprising, for someone new to the subject, like me. However, there is an important point: the body relies on an energy that moves according to certain rythms. Apart from knowing about the menstrual cycle of a woman, taking its rythm and name from the waxing and waning of the moon, and the cycles of the day and night, there is a science dealing with the rythms of breath. And, the sound of breath. 

The way I started out writing in this blog was in awe of people who know how to write, in a structured way. I was attending a course at the university in Lund and was about to write a short monography. For this purpose, I was trying to get my interpretation of a chapter of the book ”El mono gramático” to make sense with the words and references I could find at that moment. The chapter relates the meeting of the storyteller with a holy man of India, a sadhu. had read the book once and wanted to make a point out of this meeting and the description of the holy man. According to the writer, the holy man is searching for equanimity. He is described as being very regular in his daily habits. And I wanted to explain how I saw this figure and the concept as central to the book; The sadhu searching for equanimity. The title of the English translation of the book is ”The Monkey Grammarian”.   

I will stop writing, for now. I got back to the beginning, which is a good start, for going on. And the story of my evening remains untold, for now. No,wait - I'll tell you this much - I went to a place where someone gave me a piece of paper and told me how to fold it, so I did. And my cold seems to have got better. 

I do hope that having quoted the books that I have, is allowed, and in its place.

1.       Swami Satyananda Saraswati. Asana Pranayama Mudra Bandha. Yoga Publications Trust, Munger, Bihar, India, 2009. Print.

2.       Swami Satyananda Saraswati. Foreword. Swara Yoga – The Tantric science of Brain Breathing. By Swami Muktibodhananda. Yoga Publications Trust, Munger, Bihar, India, 2009. 3-6. Print.

The postman has just passed an I'm thinking of cycles, time and images...

I’ve mentioned Hortensia Carrer. Now, is she religious? I don’tknow. She works with images. She would also recommend books with pagan stories, to read about the phases and structure of transformation in different stages in life. That is what images and stories or myths do – they teach us. Working with mages an stories of what we call gods can also be done with the same purpose. In psychology, they are called archetypes or complexes, I believe. Religion has dealt a lot with organisation of land, natural resources and social health and conduct, all of which require awareness of different parts of our universe. Cycles of time seem to be an important part of this awareness and ritual passages were part of social life in most societies long ago. Most people know this, I’m not trying to teach or tell anyone any news, I’m writing to define and search for personal point of view. 

About the office job I wrote about the other day – sadly (or luckily) enough, I was hired on a temporary basis. I suppose that’s why my cubicle-existence was limitied to concentrating for many hours on database information that to some extent seemed irrelevant to my life, while listening to music. I wish all jobs I had had, were done with an earnest respect, both for the way I spent my time an for the organisation and tasks I was doing. Many of my colleagues seemed to be growing as they got into understanding the work and taking more responsibility. I took it as a time to earn a decent salary, regain some self-confidence and get back on track as a designer. Hortensia was that part of my life who would help me in that direction. She had quite a different impact on my life, and directed me towards yoga.

Life, in all, is strange. About cycles – again. Cycles of the sun and the moon were important to many for travelling, planning planting, growth and harvesting crops. That is what was called astrology – the science of how the astral bodies move, so as to predict and act according to what was foretold. But this telling or foreseeing of the future might have started with something that we today take for granted – the counting of days, weeks, months and years. And even an eclipse of the sun.
Today is a new moon – celebrated in several asian countries as an especially significant, and so India has had its Maha Shivaratri and China, it’s new year. In Malmö, in Sweden, it was raining a bit. This morning is grey and dry, and not so cold, it seems. I’ll go out to feel the air. 

The postman just passed by the hous opposite my kithcen. That’s a good indication that mid-day is approaching and morning is over. I took a pictore of the post-man’s bike the other day – if anyone wathces it, you might see that the sun seems to be out in the picture. 

Hobbies as a way of life?

Question: how many hobbies can a person have, and not suceed in developing one of them enough even to enjoy it? Not one proper bone in my educational body – no law, medicine, social or natural science, no engineering, no economics – and no real craft. My small hairs of the neck stand on end by realising this about myself. 

Observing brought me to drawing, listening, and reading. But as I grew up noone ever had any positive expectations on me – no one saw me as doing this or that in the future. In spite of this, education was a major theme in my family. But in my case, pressure was for me to study – not caring what I studied, and even discouraging me from pursuing some studies that I had an interest in. 

I did, however, pursue quite a large amount of my interests - and have kept on doing so. I spent some very important years opening up to litterature written in Spanish langage at the university in Lund, Sweden, and Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. And some more, taking artistic endeavours seriously with art& design college EINA, in Barcelona as my formal basis for learning and doing.

And more - informal learning, as life goes on.

Devi Durga came into my life more or less at the same time as Magic Malik Mezzandri and French contemporary jazz, in 2003. Durga I related to my then psychoanalyst Hortensia, MagicMalik, to my then boyfriend, Julien. Both very important in my urge and need for change, gaining new force and finding a new direction – or so I thought. Or rather, I believed change to be something I could produce, push and control, not understanding that there are no limits to that, which I was opening up to. I started reading about godesses, was recommende books by Jean Shinoda Bolen and found my way to an e-book version of Heinrich Zimmer’s Philosophies of India. All the time, working 8 hors a day at the computer at a multinational office of a multinational company in Barcelona, Spain.

And the old CD Ill Communication by the Beastie Boys got a new meaning to me as I started listening to the text of one of the songs The Update. It’s about respect for Mother Earth. And I had been listening to it since about ten years without reading the text! That’s what long hours in small spaces in front of the computer with earphones can do – transport you to important and real places inside, while keeping a tidy life in the outside surroundings. I believe that this is what the smile on neatly dressed office clerks’ faces are about – partly – the wonderful possibility of keeping a clean and neat outer world as you get to develop your inner one at the personal computer. 

All of this, I shared to some extent with some people. But what do we acctually share? Weather, food, time – and things like stress or activity, concentration, relaxation, inspiration, worry or fun.

One thing about having gained bonus sisters and brothers is that somehow, the bonus takes the part of the real, somehow. Father gets a new family with completely different inner values and outer habits. Suddenly, proper conduct and measured communication was valued over what would seem to be honest engagement for the ten-year old me, when visiting my dad’s place. Dad, the way he had been, disappeared. My mother, to some extent, too. Of course they were still there – that’s the strange and difficult part, easy enough to understand as a grown up, but not so for a child. Even ten years later, the change in attitude was so huge, it seemed my father went through another complete make-overr in terms of values and habits. No other person was enough to hold on to him, only his work, and his hobbies: cooking and growing plants in a greenhouse.

I’ll make some real efforts today to find a job and to go through and re-structure my presentation letters. I feel that there is no straight part of me inside, none of my original hope or confidence. Anyway, I have to go on as long as life wants me to. Going with the flow as I can. 

India, a country far away from where my body has its home, Sweden, is celebrating MahaShivaratri these days. That seemed relevant at the time I was there, as a way of respecting and learning about cycles in time and of change. Here, I celebrate that the days are longer and the afternoons, lighter. Some people seem to prepare for a celebration in Malmö tonight, I probably don't know any of them - and I wouldnt't have met any of them, while celebrating in India. Or so I believe. Does it matter? I don't know? Does celebration have to be outer? That depends on what you want to get out of them, i guess.