Yoga

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If I were to witness my own chaotic thoughts rolling around in my brain, it might look something like a ping-pong match, furiously dashing from one place to another. This barrage of activity going on within seems to magnify every time I get nearer to completing a project. I lose things.  I’m forgetful. I’m somewhat [...]

RT @CBCArts Book seller Sarah McNally: Hipster writes her own business rule book via @torontoreview @MargaretAtwood

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Busy? Yoga! Yoga for "busyness" -Namaste Yoga 172 Cultural Conditioning Series Addicted to Busy Join Melissa: http://www.melissawest.com/?ap_id=YogaYak Subscribe for more: http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=yogayak Yoga Asanas/Postures:... From: yogayak Views: 9 3 ratings Time: 52:13 More in Howto & Style

Yesterday I finished a project that had started the 1st April 2012 and ended yesterday with the above picture. For one year I wanted to take a portrait, every day. I started with self-portraits, yet I didn't like to take 365 selfies. So I discovered street photography. Soon I felt like a paparazzi of the ordinary people. From time to time I found volunteers, and I had a shooting, which pleased me a lot.During this last year I had a lot of time to test a lot: color, black and white, perspective, body parts, movement, different light situations and so forth. I've been in different countries during the last year, i.e in Turkey and Sweden just to mention two of the countries that I could visit. Always my camera swung around my neck. I've been always ready to capture an interesting frame, an interesting person.Here is the result of the work of one year: 365 days, every day a portrait.Enjoy.

Now this is interesting, a couple of videos from Matthew Sweeney appeared on YouTube this morning. First one looks particularly interesting....and yet....Also this one on his Moon Sequence

RT @AnnieSprinkle: Last hours of R Kickstarter film fundraiser now. Got standing ovation in 1st film fest last night.

Date a Boy who Serves. A dear friend of mine just shared an article “Date a Boy who Travels” on her Facebook Wall: “Love this.” I didn’t love it. But I do get it. We all like the idea of dating Indiana Jones, or one of those sixpacked boys from the cover of Outside, or [...]

I just read this recent article by Richard Karpel in USA Today. In this article, Karpel briefly reports on the ongoing legal case between the Encinitas Union School District and the NCLP over the teaching of yoga in the school district. Karpel also cites the views of a few yoga scholars, who explain the non-sectarian nature of yoga. Here are a couple of excerpts from the article that are worth taking a look at:"Like many scholars of yoga and religion, Christopher Chapple, professor of Indic and Comparative Theology at Loyola Marymount University, says that yoga is a non-sectarian practice. The Yoga Sutras, the most commonly cited classical text that forms the basis for both traditional and contemporary yoga philosophy, make no specific theological claims, according to Chapple. It is the non-sectarian nature of this text that has allowed it to resonate for more than 1,500 years, he says...Mark Singleton, a yoga scholar who teaches at St. John's College in Santa Fe, notes that many of the influential pioneers of modern hatha yoga insisted on its non-sectarian, democratic and secular nature, and sometimes had an aversion to the association of yoga with religion. This, says Singleton, is in keeping with the anti-sectarian spirit of early Indian hatha yoga." If you read this blog regularly, you will know that I have written a few posts expressing my personal views about this ongoing legal case and the issues of spirituality vs. religion that it brings up, so I won't repeat myself here. But I just want to point out that it is significant that a mainstream national newspaper like USA Today has published an article which reinforces the view that yoga is not a religion. Hopefully, this will have a positive impact in shaping public perception and the direction of conversations around the country on this matter. ********************* Well, I said I wasn't going to repeat myself by saying too much more in this post. But after thinking about this matter a little more, it turns out that I do have more to say anyway. So here goes.In the USA Today article above, Mark Singleton notes that in keeping with the anti-sectarian spirit of early hatha yoga, many influential pioneers of modern hatha yoga insisted on its non-sectarian and secular nature. I am no yoga scholar, but I can't help speculating that a big part of this insistence on the non-sectarian secularism of yoga is also driven by what I would call "spiritual pragmatism". The idea is that it doesn't matter where a particular spiritual practice comes from or what its specific doctrinal origin is: If it benefits you and helps you to function more effectively as a person in the world, why not adopt it?I have noticed that this spirit of pragmatism informs much of eastern thinking, and not just in spiritual matters. For instance, it famously finds expression in Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping's maxim, "It doesn't matter whether a cat is white or black, as long as it catches mice." It was this spirit of pragmatism that allowed Deng to incorporate extensive economic reforms in a China that was reeling from the effects of the cultural revolution, and reform the Chinese economy without ostensibly deviating from Marxist/Maoist doctrine.Applied to spiritual matters, this means that so long as a particular physical or spiritual practice helps you to function more effectively as a person in the world, the fact that it originated in a spiritual system that is alien to your own is secondary. If it benefits you, you would do well to adopt it (and maybe find a way to fit it within your spiritual system further down the road).I also can't help observing that this spirit of pragmatism is rather lacking in much of Judeo-Christian thought. I have noticed that there is a tendency for much of Judeo-Christian thinking to be rather binary in nature. I'm actually not sure if this is because Judeo-Christian thought is itself inherently binary in nature, or if it is because westerners who grew up in this