by Hilary Lindsay | Feb 17, 2023 | Asana, nashville yoga, Poetry, Social Commentary, therapeutic yoga, Yoga, yoga class, Yoga Philosophy, yoga teaching |
Nashville is home and host to songwriters so it was nothing unusual to be sitting next to a visiting songwriter at dinner last night. He said he’s basically a writer. The melody is secondary added intuitively as he can’t read music and doesn’t play an instrument. A song’s melody should prop up the gist of the lyrics. Without a melody the poetry or prose can be impactful but notes give words sensations that pierce hearts and sear brains. Even wordless music stirs us. With my habit of taking the macrocosm into the particular through the windshield of yoga, I considered how assuming yoga poses without passion is like words with no melody. Posture becomes authentic when executed with sentiment. Sentiment implies drawing emotion from a well of experience. That sentiment shifts as fresh water fills the well and then you might say your yoga practice reflects all of you in the moment, every moment. It keeps changing. It stays interesting and lively as new impressions form again and again remixing the song of your soul....
by Hilary Lindsay | Nov 27, 2021 | nashville yoga, Poetry, Prose, Social Commentary, society, yoga community, Yoga History, yoga teaching |
Star Trek Captain of the Enterprise, William Shatner exited Jeff Besos’ Blue Origin rocket at the age of 90 overwhelmed by the revelation that the minuscule five foot wide thin blue veil surrounding earth is all that separates us from destruction. Distance and space shed light on this slight protection as well as the perspective of a combined humanity who will live or die together. The illumination defies the fact that we see ourselves as unrelated tribes speaking unrelated languages, living individual lives. It defies our aversion to amend bad habits despite worry for the planet. All that separates us summons the greeting Namaste. The light in you recognizes the light in me. The suggestion is I see you and I see you are like me though we mostly don’t see or believe that. The words thin blue veil stay with me. In this post quarantine Pandemic infused 2.0 life I see that veil hanging like a pall between what was and what will be. The atmosphere feels toxic and beyond repair. The dream of the greatest nation a spec in the bygone distance. The prevailing text of modern yoga states at the outset that the goal of yoga is to lift the veil of ignorance about our true nature. At this moment of cynical denial of undeniable truths, the veil prevails as evidenced by the current social civil war. I once thought yoga could save the world but it seems only to have become another distraction. This veil is a fog of confusion. Should this veil dissipate might we come to recognize the true nature of ourselves...
by Hilary Lindsay | Jan 25, 2016 | Ethics, Meditation, nashville yoga, Poetry, Prose, Social Commentary, society, Tradition, Yoga, Yoga and Religion, yoga class, yoga community, Yoga History, Yoga Philosophy, Yoga psychology, yoga teacher, yoga teaching |
My chapter published in the book of the same name titled Yoga in America in 2006 reprinted here for students of yoga A support group The joy of community and the awareness of one’s singular peculiarities The first solitary foray into the wilderness The awakening of a budding teen The first trip to a foreign land The promise of peace A step toward the truth The struggle to be creative and the fight to be competitive The running of the bulls What your friend did to lose weight The sweetness of Satchidananda and the sternness of Iyengar Competitive, corporate, and consumer driven Clothes, gear, and music A traveling circus of superstars The video on the television set of the Kansas farm wife. The workout of the suburban housewife and the Hollywood star An option on the fitness menu at The Golden Door Spa A small class at the community center Offered in rehab and at the local church The silence of meditation and the hip hop on the Dee jay’s playlist Recognized as” Hot” Forever considered cool A rapt audience The innocence of the unsophisticated offering obeisance to the cloth The condemned tenement on New York’s lower East side transformed into a multi-million dollar Mecca An ingredient tossed into aerobics and strength training classes An escape from stress A chance to improve Where East meets West Used to be patchouli and now it’s nag champa Disguised by different titles Confused with enlightenment A step toward enlightenment The memory of the first kiss and the practice of the last breath An open marriage with secret resentments Where groovy...
by Hilary Lindsay | Jan 24, 2016 | Meditation, nashville yoga, Nature, Poetry, Prose, Yoga, Yoga Philosophy, yoga teacher, yoga teaching |
He says it so well that on this rare and lovely white frozen weekend I give you a guest to the yoga lab; the great writer, Goethe. Remember my friends that we are nature too. Nature! We are encompassed and enveloped by her, powerless to emerge and powerless to penetrate deeper. Unbidden and unwarned she takes us up in the round of her dance and sweeps us along, until exhausted we fall from her arms. She has placed me her: she will lead me hence- I confide myself to her. She may do with me what she will: she will not despise her work. I speak not of her. No, what is true and what is false, she herself has spoken all. All the fault is hers; hers is all the glory……Goethe Hope you yogis are enjoying the full moon snow that ushers in a new year. Happy 2016 again and again. ...
by Hilary Lindsay | Dec 22, 2015 | nashville yoga, Nature, Poetry, Prose, Social Commentary, society, therapeutic yoga, Yoga, yoga community, Yoga Philosophy, Yoga psychology, yoga teaching |
She approaches me after class. Tells me she’s in law school. She and her peers are suffering from P.T.S.D. she says. From life. She’s responding to a comment I made in class. I consider it pure luck that I have a positive position on the life we share at the moment. Things need to break. The shit storm of happenstance and wrong actions that are instigating an onslaught of information on disaster is also precipitating a wellspring of solutions. That is a wellspring of love. That is the breath we choose. The human condition shifts with awareness and it changes with our reactions. I see many hopeful reactions despite the barrage of sorrowful scenarios. We are looking for ways out. We are wielding sledgehammers. We are scraping peeling paint. As radical politicians move the conversation from the usual banter, awareness grows. As spokesmen, leaders and newscasters inform people on pollution, poverty and violence against each other and the planet, quiet numbers choose to make things better in small and large ways. It’s a life of small steps. We just step faster now. Diverse paths are rapidly emerging. Some of us will be sacrificed no doubt. It was never easy to be aware. But it would be less glorious to not be. To blame nature’s weather or planets for our discomfort is shortsighted as well. Instability is nature itself. The perfect day will not last no matter how we pray for that. Welcome to your place in the world. To smash and break it until it is right for you without harming any creature is artful. Perhaps that’s why the...
by Hilary Lindsay | Jan 15, 2015 | Asana, Meditation, nashville yoga, Nature, Poetry, Prose, society, Tradition, Yoga, yoga class, Yoga History, Yoga Philosophy, yoga teacher, yoga teaching |
It exploded from comets To begin as the oceans, And borders of seas, Becoming the vapor, the clouds and the rain, And one with the earth, Becoming the rivers, the lakes, and the streams, To become most of me, I breathed it out to become part of you. Altered, transformed, shifted, ripened In time and beings, Its sparkle drew my searching eye and quenched a thirsty palette. Is there a broken line in the lineage? Does this drop contain the residue of the first drop? Some has been burnt away for sure but most remains. Like water, this yoga: To know it with intellect is a lively chase for a living art from an ancient time. Not my favorite game, but one I’ll play when the players arouse, Uninterrupted on more peaceful days I’ll stand in sensation. This yoga like water whose chemistry would not matter if the proof was my health, Would bear further examination should it rouse suspicion. I was curious and explored something apart from me, Until it was no longer apart but a part. ...
