First Day of Classes

Actually the first day of classes was Monday, Nov 1.  Mine was Nov 2--layed out for the first day by gastritis.  Had to be taken by scooter to a local hospital Monday morning after it reached a crescendo, good enough by Tuesday morning to attend class. No matter what anyone else tells you, don't try gastritis, not at all recommended.

First class with Prashant—excellent metaphors to teach us not to get too much into performing poses and actions just for their own sake, or automatically and dogmatically.  See the poses as ways of culturing the breath and the mind. Be aware of the action you are performing, where it is initiated, what it’s purpose is (what part of the body/breath/mind are you trying to affect), and what its benefits are: notice which are the benefactors, beneficiaries and benefits for each action.  This makes practice less about the body, more about the mind and cultivating wisdom. 

There is an element of traveling I am just beginning to discern: we are wrapped in a sheath or protective cocoon wherever we live and are settled that is made up of  our mind’s sense of the familiar and an energetic protective barrier for our bodies.  Once we leave our living milieu we also move out of these protective sheaths.  If the move is not too far,  the change is into a similar environment that has a similar sheath and we feel minimal physical and mental challenges.  If the move is farther away, then a greater disruption is likely, unless we have adapted to it in the recent past.  It is not just the obvious change of time zone, climate, and change of pace and rhythm, different colors and sounds.  It is that our internal environment is dependent in unconscious ways on the nature of the external environment—the prevailing attitudes and energies of those who live there.  And all of our internal processes must change and adapt, from our metabolism to our state of mind and attitudes, all to be able to be in phase with the prevailing winds of the new location.  All this has to happen before I can feel like ‘myself’ in the new location.   Maybe getting over jet lag, plus something else J?