Living forces honesty. Answers are seasonal, losing their sense precisely as they become scripture. You will die: this is the first meaning. The world around you seems to bear helpless witness to your wandering. Other people suffer in the same way, and yet this seems to increase loneliness. But you can welcome despair like gravity,… Read More Exploded view of my now
This was week 2 of Yoga for Grief at the IU-Arnett Hospice in Lafayette, IN. Thank you to new and returning yoga friends. Yoga for grief can accompany each of Dr. William Worden’s four tasks of mourning: acceptance, processing, adjusting and finding a place for loss in new life. I am particularly interested in the… Read More Yoga for Grief 2 (Off the Mat)
To those who participated in our first session of yoga for grief (serving Lafayette IU Health Hospice Groups), THANK YOU. We explored basic breath, body and mind awareness as a way to notice and return to ourselves especially after loss. We started with a few easy standing stretches, seated breath awareness, guided meditation and guided… Read More Yoga for Grief (off the mat)
The first response to the disapperance of the partner consists in the anxious attempt to find him again. The goose moves about restlessly by day and night, flying great distances and visiting places where the partner might be found, uttering all the time the pentratrating trisyllable long-distance call…..the searching expeditions are extended farther and farther… Read More Goose grief and love instincts
“Emotional content needs a welcoming attitude; otherwise it will remain undigested, waiting to jump out at inopportune times.” As a hungry philosopher, you can see why the above quote would resonate with me. I’ve thought about digesting yummy tastes, good-for-you food and empowering nutrition. I hadn’t thought about a range “undigested emotions” from… Read More “Undigested Feelings” – Advice Not Given by Mark Epstein
Dear Readers, A confession. No. A lamentation. Recently my beloved Community Yoga, (West Lafayette, Indiana) was sued for copyright infringement based on a re-posted Hungryphil blog post. I am mortified and confused. In all my work, I aim to always attribute images and honor the work of writers, artists, and designers. I quickly learned that… Read More Lurking Dangers of Online Images
Eating meditatively takes us beyond focused sensations of the tongue. Eating becomes an expansive experience of smells, textures, coordinated movements mediated by the body and received by the mind. What would it be like to “taste” everything for the first time? Here is an excerpt from Full Catastrophe Living that explains the practice of mindful… Read More Wobblyogi Wednesday: Raisins and Meditation
Yoga Rising is a collection of yoga stories about authentic practice beyond superficial projections of perfect yoga poses and bodies in media. The stories are compiled by Sociologist and Women’s Studies Professor, Melanie Klein and return us to shared struggles toward authenticity and self-study (svadyaya). I was particularly drawn to Indian-American yoga teacher Lakshmi Nair’s… Read More Reading YOGA RISING
My very wise for her years niece, Farah recommended I read this book by Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air, an account of his last days as a neurosurgeon, cancer patient, husband, son, father, writer and more. The urgent search for meaning is palpable in his words and reminds us that an awareness of death… Read More Right now, What is important to you?
The practices of yoga and social work both encourage maintaining an attitude of non-judgemental judgment. This requirement feels like Kant’s demand for an “disinterested interest” in the judgments of beauty. Suffering, care, and beauty all depend on our ability to notice what is happening without forcing theoretical preconceptions. Practicing this attitude of noticing without prejudice… Read More Non-Judgemental Judgement?
The Hungry Philosopher 