Encouraging Connection

Freedom to Listen

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News of Elon Musk purchasing the Twitter has the world abuzz. One of my favorite podcasts, Your Undivided Attention, did a spotlight feature on what this means, specifically as it pertains to how to create a world where our attention isn’t purchased by the highest bidder.

I’m not a regular tweeter and only rarely tune in, so my feelings on the ordeal are minimal. It’s clear to me that Musk doesn’t have a large family that demands fresh berries in their lunches amid a spike of inflation, or he’d be spending his billions on horticulture and sustainable earth practices. But, no, he wants twitter, in the name of “free speech.”

Armchair Expert had a timely release with a 1st Amendment attorney, where Floyd Abrams highlighted how this amendment doesn’t just protect the individual’s freedom to say what they believe. It also protects the collective to be able to hear information and ideas that people in the position of power may not want you to know, such as the Watergate scandal.

As one who writes, creates, and teaches, this freedom for individuals is something I value. To stifle that 5th chakra is to lead to other energetic challenges. (I’m also a strong proponent that just because you share the opinion, even loudly, it does not make it right, true, or good. Also, exercising your freedom of expression or press does not mean you’re free to avoid the consequences of sharing said information.)

I’m now understanding this freedom as hearing, as in speech.

In The Hidden Order of Intimacy: Reflections on the Book of Leviticus, Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg poses the idea that the sacred teachings put a particular order to the divine act of obedience and listening. Tradition has it that the Hebrew people followed the Golden Calf incident with the utterance of a commitment to their God: We shall do and we shall hear! Zornberg poses that the obedience comes first with a purpose: hearing is the spiritual horizon of doing. Obedience isn’t the final goal.

“When the people desire to return to Egypt, to the condition of slavery, they resist this divine demand [to hear]. To return to Egypt is the easy option, falling back on habit, on the constricted life of the slave for whom obedience is all. Freedom means turning toward the future and its possibilities, its difficult demands.”

Zornberg, p. XVI, emphasis and brackets mine.

This is why, Zornberg explains, a Hebrew slave who returned to his master would have his earlobe pierced against a door lintel. “He has sinned against that passion for hearing more that is to inform spiritual life… to opt for slavery is to betray, to immobilize, one’s ear for the sacred, for freedom and responsibility.”

Here’s where Musk, Abrams, and Zornberg converge: our first amendment right is also the sacred act of choosing to listen to – or for – particular voices. IMHO, Musk didn’t purchase his right to speak, he purchased our freedom to choose the voices we want to hear (presumably so he could elevate his own voice.)

It’s not a distant translation to see our own propensity in our yoga practice. How easy it is to step your right foot forward to the front edge of the mat, anchor your back heel and open to warrior 2, as you are told? Perhaps the first few times we partake in the practice it feels odd and requires more attention, but soon enough mere obedience requires nothing from us. But to listen to the body and her response to a posture: that is the real work.

How often do we short ourselves the true freedom of the practice? Zornberg brings it home for me: A certain quality of attention (tension, desire) is invoked in this listening. Perhaps the na’aseh ve-nishma [we shall do and we shall hear!] response conceals a reservation about the larger aspiration of listening. By putting obedience before listening, one may be reserving the option of making do with mere performance.

We can perform the acts of our yoga. And it might even be beneficial to us, and the world, when we do, much the same way we can perform the yamas and niyamas or the 10 commandments, obeying the precepts of right inner and outer living.

And – and I love this – this is only the initiation. Beyond the doing there is also the listening. Bending our ear to the divine to hear where our obedience can continue to free us. Doing the right thing is only the first invitation. We’re offered to a more relationally-driven way of living on our mat, in our homes, and in our community. This way requires that we pay attention and that we are free to listen.

Woven Conversations: Episode 5

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For Episode 5 of Woven Conversations, I chatted with Reverend (soon to be Rev. Dr.!) Anna Barrett Guillozet. I’ve known Anna for a long time and we’ve got a spiritual sisterhood happening that I adore. She pastors in Columbus and she brought her sense of spirituality to the table as we discussed yoga and the soul.

Listen now >>

Ayurveda & Fall Reset

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Yoga is far more than a series of poses you perform on your mat. Yoga – yoking, linking, connecting – is a way of living.

The winds and changes of fall affect us all…

Ayurveda, the “sister science of yoga” is an ancient way of seeing the world using elements, textures, tastes, and sensory experiences. By understanding the qualities of what you eat, watch, breathe, and think, you can understand how to restore balance and make effective changes in routine that don’t require rearranging your entire existence.

This fall at Woven Yoga we will host a 90-minute workshop on the basic premises of Ayurveda. We’ll explore the Doshas and provide a framework for understanding your unique constitution so that you can approach the changing season with grace and ease.

This workshop will be held at 6 PM on Sunday, September 13. Cost: $35.

Sign up for the Fall Ayurveda Workshop

Use your newly discovered understanding of Ayurveda to transition into fall unlike any other detox experiences.

The last half hour of the workshop will include an outline of self-care practices to engage during the fall Vata season and introduce the Fall Reset experience. This week includes changing habits related to diet, movement, and mental well-being to re-center and ground yourself in nourishment and care.

Woven Yoga will also host a guided Reset experience the week of September 14-17, following the workshop.

The guided Reset experience includes:

  • Outline of daily self-care practices
  • Most necessary ingredients for the kitchari mono-diet
  • Oils for abhayanga (self-massage)
  • Daily guided meditations
  • Daily pranayama (breath) practices
  • Priority scheduling for daily yoga practices
  • Community and support while processing the experience
  • End-of-week group reflection and personal intention-setting practice (Thursday, September 17 at 5:30 PM)

Cost: $70 | $40 for Unlimited Members

*Those on the Surviving September pass, email me for discounted pricing codes

Sign up for the Fall Ayurvedic Reset

When You Walk in the Room

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A truth from both physicists and mystics: you change the energy of the room. When you walk in, things grow brighter or dimmer. You lift or you squash. You carry an energetic presence. The most dangerous belief is to think you have no influence at all.

I first noticed this when I would get the random, precious few days to myself in my home. Even when the dog was absent, I noticed a difference in the way my home felt. Or my early mornings, reading and sipping coffee. If even one other human awoke during my private time, my sense of the space was different.

In the Jewish tradition, a mezuzah hangs outside the door as a reminder of the divine presence. Some will touch it upon entering.

In the Catholic tradition, you’re invited to let your fingers grace the baptismal as a reminder of your own baptism, your place within the community and your own connection to the divine.

Entering a room can be a spiritual practice.

You don’t have to be Jewish or Catholic or have any religious affection to create a practice that reminds you of the Divine presence or your connection to others. You can also use your religious practice to expand your understanding and experience.

Brene Brown wrote about her practice as she learned from Toni Morrison:

Toni Morrison explained that it’s interesting to watch what happens when a child walks into a room. She asked, “Does your face light up?”

She explained, “When my children used to walk in the room when they were little, I looked at them to see if they had buckled their trousers or if their hair was combed or if their socks were up. You think your affection and your deep love is on display because you’re caring for them. It’s not. When they see you, they see the critical face. What’s wrong now?”

Her advice was simple, but paradigm-shifting for me. She said:

“Let your face speak what’s in your heart. When they walk in the room my face says I’m glad to see them. It’s just as small as that, you see?”

The break into a new school year is a fantastic time to begin new practices (#septemberisthenewjanuary) so perhaps you might find it fitting to create your own reminder of how you walk into a room.

Tall folks might use their automatic “ducking” through a doorway to remind them to reflect how they wish to take up space. Those more sentimental might let their fingers press into the breastbone as a “heart check.” Or maybe it’s just a big, deep breath as you turn the knob with a mantra that reminds you “I’m going to change the energy of this room.”

Maybe… just maybe… your spiritual practice becomes turning off your phone to say to yourself, “I’m going to be completely present here.”

However you decide to enter, however you greet those who arrive, just remember: you will change the experience. You change the energy of the room.

This is the first of a series of anticipated posts on remembering truths that will make the year a beautiful one.