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.