This person humbly welcomes you to the March edition of the Yoga-Art-Writing newsletter! Inside: local workshops, links, new writing, and a wee astrological column endearing us to Pisces and the Year of the Yin Fire Boar.
May it be of benefit to all Beings!

Announcements:

Yoga Dance Video Gallery

Tibet slideshow
by Tom May from our trip in 2004

A must-see music video by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche

Vedic Chanting Workshop, Saturday, Mar. 17th
Surya Namaskar & Mantra Workshop, April 1st 2-5PM Los Gatos
New Evening Class in Los Gatos!

Yogacharya Festival: Honoring BKS Iyengar
July 9-15th Santa Clara Convention Center

Retreats and Travel Study Opportunities:

Yoga Journey to Southern Greece: Crete & Santorini
June 9-16, and June 9-23rd

Yoga Journey to North India October 7-21

One-month accredited Yoga Intensive in Rishikesh, India
with Phoenix & Mataji Sept. 17 - Oct.15

More poetry

For more details and to pre-register click here

Surya Namaskar, or the Salute to the Sun, is one of the oldest recorded practices of Yoga. Along with the postures a chant is traditionally done addressing the seven kinds of light and the attributes of the Sun as the Friend, the Nourisher, and other benefic qualities. This practice will teach you the twelve mantras of the Sun Salutation series as we explore variations on these asanas from different schools.
Our practice begins with pranayama and an overview of this kind of chanting, including teachings on the meanings of the chants and the mudra which is used in saluting the Sun as it rises in the East. This is followed by a 2-hour asana practice of 84 Sun Salutations (7 cycles times 12 mantras). This is a steadily-paced practice and so some previous experience with asana is recommended.
We'll conclude with some restorative floor work and deep relaxation.
For more info and to register please visit bare-yoga.com

Minoan art, anthropology, and Yoga, all oceanfront accomodations.

~Come for one week to Crete only, June 9-16th
or two full weeks in Crete and Santorini, June 9-23rd... (details)

Join us on a journey that will nourish your Spirit through twice-daily practices of pranayama, asana, and meditation, in sight of the lapis blue Aegean and Libyan seas bordering Crete, and the stunning cliffs of Santorini. This Yoga retreat includes seminars on Minoan culture and guided tours during several excursions for those coming on the two-weeks session. In Crete we will visit the Minoan Palace of Knossos, which was a center of trade between ancient peoples of the Mediterranean, as well as the epicenter of Minoan religious activity, culture and government; and the incredible National Archaelogical Museum of Crete. In Santorini will visit Nea Kameni volcano by boat and the adjacent ocean hotsprings and see the Minoan settlement of Akrotiri and Akrotiri Museum.

Study classical Ashtanga Yoga
for one month in Rishikesh, India
September 17 - October 15

This year Phoenix and her teacher Mataji will be leading a course in the complete practice and lifestyle of Ashtanga (Eight Limbed) Yoga on the banks of the sacred Ganga river at the lovely Parmarth Niketan Ashram. The daily schedule includes morning sadhana- pranayama, chanting, and meditation, then asana. The morning continues to unfold with special classes given by Mataji in Vedic chanting and philosophy based on the Yoga Sutras and Bhagavad Gita. Phoenix teaches an afternoon asana class, and twice a week there will be a special focus on healing with in-depth explorations of subtle anatomy (the chakras, nadis, koshas) and Ayurvedic wisdom for specific constitutional types and their appropriate asanas and pranayamas.

Parmarth Niketan gives a certificate upon completion of this 200+ hour course from the International Yoga Heritage Foundation.

Note: For the sake of clarity in our jumbled bureaucratic times, teachers and students who are interested in pursuing this course with a certificate in mind should know that this is not a Yoga Alliance accredited school. It is however, perhaps more highly credentialled to give such certificates in their own right as centuries-long holders of the living Yoga tradition, in any regard. It is not possible to combine these hours for a 500-hour Yoga Alliance certification.

Those who wish to join Phoenix's guided tour of Rishikesh, Haridwar, Agra, and Delhi are encourage to enroll concurrently with Phoenix by contacting her at garudayogini@yahoo.com

For more information on the monthlong Yoga Intensive, please contact Parmarth Niketan Ashram at info@parmarth.com or visit Parmarth's website.

Year of the Yin Fire Boar 2007

Boar is the last in the cycle of 12 years in Chinese Astrology, so it is about endings and beginnings. There are seeds of the new within the old, new beginnings within the past, perhaps the return of some relationships which were “on hold” or had unclear terminations. This is for the purpose of reevaluating the lessons that we learned with these persons and finding peace and detachment from judgments that may have precluded our learning in the interruption or demise of these relationships. It may also be time to reinvigorate a boundary that allows for finality and peace in an emotionally chaotic relationship. Fire Boar asks us to do the inner work and commit to bring forth new strengths, so intangible chaotic relationships that may have drained a lot of our energy become clear and unviable to the work of the Boar. If we hang on to the past we will be forced to give way.

The Boar’s focus is on the heart, will and intention. By tapping the heart power of enthusiasm we will be inspired and quickened through the intense emotional gut reactions to so much change. This is a year for learning how to laugh richly and cry freely, attached to neither.The signs work in pairs as they cycle through each element every two years. Last years’ Fire Dog gave us an instinct for our safety, who to trust in our inner circle, and how to howl when an alert was needed if things just didn’t feel right. Fire is volatile, passionate, disruptive, and hot. Dog is more mental, and Boar is willful. The times are potent now with a quality of change. The territory is deep and emotional.

The Boar year has lots of inevitability. We have to get used to things just happening. There is a profound shaking loose. The Boar doesn’t stand for explanations and excuses, wants us to get to it. The Fire Boar year intends to break new ground, digging into territory that awaits us. It is a raw, primal energy that breaks up our sense of self, pride and ego. It asks to root into a new way of thinking and acting, focussing on what you can do in the “now” when so many other things have lost their relevance.

Yin is the feminine, dark, wet, inchoate, the shadow. It is physically and energetically the source and home which creates the nourishing potential for action and new forms. Yin Fire nourishes, cultivates, refines, sustains, encourages the individual within the group, rather than above or over the group. While Yang fire is initiating and individualizing and has the direct and reactive capacity to divide and separate in order to make distinct, Yin fire is that which joins, that which welds and fuses in order to make fast the new structures and concepts of our identity .

The Sun traveling through Pisces is an invitation to honor our emotional intelligence, our imagination, intuition, and dreaming. During this time, as the earth swells and buds with new life, there is a heightening of our subtle faculties, and our ability to communicate through art and symbolism. Verbal communication may not be what we assume it should look like! The recent Mercury Retro gave us the opportunity to understand that each person hears things in the way they are able to in accordance with their skill in detaching from assumptions and projections. Pisces empowers visualization and the imaginal realm, revealing how our impressions and assumptions about what reality is guide us on a feeling level to fulfill what we are perceiving. In the dreamtime connections between the mundane and mystical seem to apprehend us at every turn. With the current Saturn/ Mars opposition and Pisces Sun combining with the activity of the eclipses this month, dreams can be more powerfully abstract than ever, and instructive as to how to release limiting patterns if not downright cathartic in and of themselves.

Pisces is a water sign and rules the feet. Water governs our feelings and emotions, and this oldest of the water signs (ruling the 12th or last house in the zodiac) is concerned directly with spiritual integration and fulfillment of one's karma, which includes self-understanding that is borne of contemplation or a chosen spiritual path or orientation. It can also encourage our communication with the Soul hidden in all things through orienting us towards the subtle forces of life in nature, which Pisces have gifts in relating to and are thus considered to be one of the most psychic of the signs.

Sun in Pisces is a time to pay attention to the intelligent sensing sensitivity of the feet as the weather improves, spending some time barefoot on the Earth. In Yoga the feet are of particular interest in terms of the worship of the Guru or inner teacher. Although there are taboos concerning feet in Indian culture such as, never turning the soles of ones feet towards a respected elder or teacher (or anyone else for that matter), the feet represent our source connection and respect for our earth mother, and our "under-standing", that is, the way we relate with dignity to our place among things, how we stand our ground and walk our talk. In Indian culture the feet are touched to show respect and obeisance to someone worthy of such a gesture. A form of worship of the physical Guru involves the bathing and anointing of the feet with water and sandalwood paste. In Tibetan, Indian, and European pagan culture, water is offered to images of the Divine or in sacred places or natural powers spots to nourish, harmonize and connect with, and please the spirits and Gods.

Above all, Pisces brings natural empathy and awakens compassion in the heart to help humanity recognize our interdependence with each other and the natural world. Slowing down to appreciate the natural elegance of the small things life bestows us with gives connection with the natural richness in our relationships, family, community and with the earth.

Thanks to Rochelle and Alyssa for the art and inspiration for the Fire Boar summary! Some of their writing is directly reproduced here along with my own additional writing.

Haiku on a waning moon at dawn

Blue as robin’s egg
Sky hatches a new dawn child
Creativity

Seldom do we sit
and watch the slender moon sail
just visible yet

On top of grey hills
many butter lamps are lit
a singular hope

In the dark silence
we can hardly bear the noise
of our undoing

a bell is ringing
everywhere there are choices
made without regret

tapestry of sky
woven from light of birdsong
old men raise their hands

when seeking to fly
one appeals to skill alone;
who knows what may come.