Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Yoga Into Summer Challenge - Musing #1 - Our past, present and future

H(om)e, sweet H(om)e...

Greetings from Szeged, Hungary! I arrived almost two days ago to my hometown and have been spending time with my family. It is my father's 70th birthday celebration to which my larger family will be coming together. I have been planning it for a while, including working with my cousin on putting a DVD together of my dad's photos and family videos as a surprise. It enlists various events through a 50+ years long timeline...

This trip has been on my mind (and heart) for a while. As one of our lovely regular students, Jeanette put it this trip "is a celebration of life". It made me think that through family members' birthdays, we not only celebrate a precious loved one (young or old) but at the same time we consciously or subconsciously also reflect on our own lives. How the lives of these loved ones have affected our own story and how the stories within a family are intertwined generation by generation.

I saw a movie here called The Door, an international collaboration directed by our Oscar winning director, Istvan Szabo and starring one of my favorite actresses, Helen Mirren. The movie is an insight to the Communist era Hungary, with a marvellous and artistic depiction of the changing rules, lives and political system from a perspective of one family. In a Werkfilm Helen Mirren was quoted saying that she loved doing this movie, because it was a study of a nation's past, through the members of a family's emotional ties to each other.

She continued saying, it is so crucial to understand on a deep level what made our parents and grandparents moved, happy, afraid, what made them excited, hopeful and how they planned their future... Our present. We carry all of this wisdom within us, and our children will carry it further...And if we are aware of this inner truth, we have a good chance of creating the best self we can, because we have an insight, we understand.

My yoga teaching philosophy is to empower all my students with this deeper understanding of themselves. Yoga teaches us to do so, through the asanas (posture practice), pranayama (our breath control) and the relaxation and meditation practices. I believe each and every one of us are so unique and we should celebrate and utilize all the gifts we received. Through Svadhyaya, self-study, one of the Niyamas, moral guidelines (read more about it in our last year's blog entry) we cultivate this deeper understanding; what works for us in body, mind and in our hearts. This deeper understanding is influenced greatly by where we come from. In DC, one of the most international cities in the world, we feel that the city is so vibrant through the multi-cultural energetic field we all create. Now that I am home with my parents, looking through the photos, editing the video of my father's (and inherently my own) life, I am facing much of my own unique truths. Yoga, Svadhyaya, and finding our unique story is a long journey, but is beautiful.

Maybe this week ask yourself the questions Dame Helen Mirren was asking. What are the things that you carried on with you through the lives of your ancestors that makes you beautifully unique? Through this lens where does your strength lies within you? And maybe ask some of your close friends the same questions. Who knows you might even find some similarities in life stories ... both old and new...

Viszontlatasra!