Butterflies and Unicorns
Anyone who's practice yoga for a while knows that it's not all "butterflies and unicorns" as Seane Corn put it. But just in case you forget, one class with Seane Corn wil quicklyl put things into perspective for you.
"Things come up that you haven't thought about in 20 years--that you haven't wanted to think about," says Seane Corn.
In "The Body and Beyond," we touched on some pretty heavy subjects. Students were challenged phsycially as well as emotionally and spiritually.
Seane said believes that if all people are at peace within themselves, all the bad things that are going would eventually stop--all the wars, terrrorism, and violence would just cease to exist.
Even if you're a skeptic of this optimism, you have to respect Seane for her passion in speaking about yoga. It quickly became clear to me why she is admired so much by the yoga community. She speaks with heart and authority.
That's such a huge, abstract idea it was hard for me to even imagine. So I was grateful when Seane said there are ways I can help facilitate that by working on myself.
All the those bad things happening on a global scale originate in people's individual thoughts and actions, so first we have to let go of all our hurt and negativity and find the joy and love in everything.
Vinyasa yoga, Seane's specialty, is a great way to release some of the tension in our lives so we can transform our bodies, and learn to be present so we can transform our minds. In this class we were invited to move quickly, let out our agressions, and leave behind bad feelings we might've been fostering.
"Those people who may've hurt us are our angels, our guides, our teachers," Seane says. "Use them to learn something and then move on."
I was really touched by how candidly Seane spoke about devoting our practice to God or other people in our lives who we'd like to lift up. She asked us to stop our vinyasa practice a couple of times, and think of someone who we love and devote the next vinyasa to them. It's amazing how much that intention changed my practice in that moment.
If something so small can have such a big effect on our individual thoughts and actions, maybe Seane Corn is right, and our intentions really will change the world someday.
Photo by Susan Slattery