“One should have a daily practice” encourages His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama. I’ve maintained a daily practice throughout my adult life—aside from a lifelong practice of ballet and/or modern dance classes Monday through Saturdays, and from my 30’s on, Classical and Fletcher Pilates Mat and Reformer work. By age 40 my movement practice expanded to include a discipline of cardio work on Elliptical machines and lastly, silent sitting meditation. Every year since, my practice has benefitted from listening deeply to this, my body’s specific physio-psychic needs in order to bring and be my best self-in/with-the-world.
Now in my 60’s, each morning begins with vigorous hand rubbing, and Qigong body shaking, 2-4 minutes that morphs into gentle vertical jumping jacks without the jacks: 12 sets of 16 mini jumps. Then and with mindful standing skeletal alignment, 12 sets of full-body vertical spine extension and spine-coiling (folding) flexion work with Yoga Sun Salutation arm/breath work-–the opening movements of The Swan Practice®–and integrating frontal contraction (abdominal) & stabilization and spinal spaciousness at each vertebra–short contraction on one end equals long contraction on the opposite end of the body (attentive to the way our human-animal bodies are made to move — with efficiency). All of my somatic work integrates alignment: skeletal, muscular, fascia, and a self-in-the-world alignment with the Infinite Source of life. Prayers. Covenant. Fundaments of Sacrality. All other worldly matters take place after my early morning time and, the 3-minute rule shower ending with an integrative cold water rinse. Then, transitional time: reading (mostly philosophy), writing,–whether for an essay, a public talk, a grant, or grading papers (when I taught at university as a Humanities Lecturer 20017-2021); accompanied by a cuppa (tea, espresso, or golden milk), and correspondences. By 9-10 am I’m ready to be engaged by and with the world.
An introvert-–likely reinforced by being an only child for the first four years of my life–I conversed silently with nature and the goings-on in my inner life; I was comfortable in silence. It was a childhood practice, and there’s one experience that resonates in particular for me,–being in relationship to a sense of what was beyond me, beyond my child sense of being,–a sense of ‘other’ than my human-beingness. When the full volume of The Book of Knowledge and The Encyclopedia Britannica came to our door, it came with a large beautiful white faux-leather Bible which I began to read nightly; the prayer insets written on something like rice paper in a calligraphic hand immediately caught my attention. I’d try to memorize the prayers by flashlight before going to sleep.
Another childhood experience piqued my intuition. I came home from Girl Scouts joyous with a plate of chocolate-chip cookies made by one of the den mothers. We’d had a raffle that afternoon. I prayed to win the raffle. My imagination was ablaze with an image of the smiles my win would bring to my family, especially my brother. I silently prayed with my closed, vigorously. I won the raffle. When I walked into the dining room with the plate of cookies I told my parents how I prayed to win the raffle and “I won!” They were tickled. Though we were a secular family, my parents didn’t nor would they think to diminish my ecstatic contagion and belief. Indeed, when I asked to go to ‘church’ like the other kids in my neighborhood, my dad took me to several nearby Christian churches.
I also attended Schule—Hebrew School—in my early teenage years, again on my request. However, I had to forfeit my Saturday morning ballet classes in order to go to Schule. After a while, I chose to return to Saturday ballet classes, never mind that I was already attending ballet classes four days a week. But the memory of being attending Schule remains steadfast: my religious imagination tended to.
A religious imagination—fundaments of sacrality—coupled with an innate aesthetic-poetic perceptual acumen remains an ever-entwined sensorial reality. This natural and relational perception establishes my life practice of maintaining covenant, and has informed my writings on ‘Grace’ ‘Somatics’ and ‘Living Aesthetics.’ I have always been interested in how peoples of the world express relationship of the soul/spirit realm through their physical being as portals to beauty. Thus, perhaps, my pursuit of Myth studies and the rituals that express them.
“[Perform] the asanas critically and in a studious manner, cultivating a taste for refinement which is concomitant with art” (B.K.S. Iyengar).
“[Beyond] a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself” (from, ‘Desiderata’ by Max Ehrmann, poet).
“To be alive is to give praise” (Hildegard von Bingen).
