A short yoga primer today to go along with the poem. Svadhyaya, the sankrit term for self-study, is a niyama, a positive observance or duty to cultivate in oneself as described in Patanjali's yoga sutras. It's just one helpful step outlined on the path to living your best life and it's something I've been thinking about a lot lately. My husband and I are re watching the entire Harry Potter series and finished the Order of the Phoenix recently in which Harry is punished by Professor Umbridge and has to write "I must not tell lies" with a special quill that marks the words into the flesh on the back of his hands. Now, Umbridge is horrible and I by no means advocate corporal punishment, however, she had the right idea about the lies - even if she was the one telling them. The thing is, I think we can fall into a habit of lying to ourselves everyday. We can lie to ourselves that we like to do something when we clearly don't or that something doesn't hurt when it really does. Or we can say we don't think we are worth something or we don't look like what we think we should look like. Svadhyaya, to me, encourages that deep gaze in the mirror. The time to ask what lies have I been etching into my own skin, leaving a scar? I think the yoga asana practice gives space and time to start that work - to start shutting out the noise so you can hear the sound of your own inner voice. I tried to capture that in today's poem. Hope you enjoy.
1 Comment
6/18/2019 11:27:10 pm
Self studying is not a bad idea. Well, there are people who strive in learning things their own way. If you ask me, the people who can study by themselves, are the real geniuses. It is easy to get something when it it taught to you, but it is different when you have to learn it by yourself. I really admire the people who can quickly understand the theory behind something. I aspire to be one of the people who can.
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AuthorCreative enthusiast, gregarious naturalist, opinionated humanist, MBA, RYT 200. Amy Kay Czechowicz completed a poetry challenge for 2018, 2020, and half of 2023 by posting an original poem daily to this blog. She teaches yin and vinyasa weekly at Green Lotus Yoga in Lakeville, Minnesota and chimes in here from time to time with musings and rhymes. Archives
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