I invited the Shree Goddesses, Genevieve and Suki, to tell me a bit about what the changing Seasons mean to them. Here is Suki’s response. I’ll post Genevieve’s later in the month.
This winter season is ripe at Shree. We are inviting everyone to come to the mat and move with the waxing moon from new moon morning on December 18th to the full moon on January 1st. To the Moon & Beyond is the title, with the hope that linking up with the power of a fresh moon cycle through the holiday rumble will fortify the precious and powerful space of devotion to practice. A culmination workshop 321… Launch! on New Year’s Eve will be a fun way to gather the energy we’ve cultivated over the two weeks of moving back into the light, and fly! $88 = thirteen classes of To the Moon & Beyond, $108 if one of the classes will be the NYE launching into 2018 workshop.
Then, starting next year we’ve a new teacher on the bill, Kari Malen, who has been a long-time student at Shree and offers her particular blend of magic through the Health in Harmony organization – https://healthinharmony.org/. Such cool work that really speaks to the holistic vision of health and wellness. We’re stoked to bring new energy to the schedule, and full of respect for her work in the world.
Shree is ever-evolving, and at the turn toward nine years of open doors in our community, we are excited to see more good things on the mat. Y12SR is a combination of the 12 Step Recovery program and yoga and is happening at Shree Thursday evenings at 7:30 by donation. The premise of this work is that there is no separation between body, mind, and soul, and a pattern like addiction cannot be addressed without a holistic perspective of healing. This is the big idea of the yoga – to bring together otherwise separate forces, and create wholeness and a union of function between the inner workings of the body, the sharp focusing tool of the mind, and the vast open space of the heart. Super excited to offer this program to our community. We are also happy to be working with more businesses in town who are generously offering yoga to their employees with “corporate memberships”. I think this kind of healthcare support is so exciting and empowering!
It is time for us as humans to integrate: socially; culturally; globally; physically, with the environment, with our own bodies, and with each other. Yoga, like any mindfulness and ancient wisdom practice, is an opportunity to step back from the pace of the modern and uncertain world, and see a bigger picture. Hopefully, we can learn to return to what we do best and cooperate, collaborate, and quit the polarizing behaviors that have gotten us into these strange and uncomfortable times of separation. I believe that even at the most basic level physiological maintenance, yoga is a system that will help us to stay connected and compassionate as we move forward, together.
Beyond healthcare, which is something many of us are having to rework and redefine as a program of wellness care that is a personal responsibility, the bigger ideas of the yoga are going to help us move forward, too. In the eight-limbed ashtanga system, the whole business of yoga begins with ahimsa, non-violence. Because we are all individual humans with our own histories and ideas for the future, I understand that non-violence, like any other concept, means different things to different beings. But to imagine a society that truly supports its constituents to think of non-violence first as a theme underlying every move, makes my heart feel full.
These concepts are there in the fibers of every yoga practice, even when they are left unsaid by our teachers, even when they are left undone. We are all learning. As we are encouraged to critically think and respond in this bizarre landscape, we are being pushed to look again, and reprogram our minds and bodies to move differently in the world. This is exactly how I would describe the slow and steady process of yoga: study and critically looking; wholly releasing judgement; then making better choices for ourselves, that eventually benefit our communities, small and large, one day at a time. I think it is no coincidence that yoga has become a humongous and wildly popular modern practice, preparing us to move more organically in our skin, and with better integrity and integration in our communities.
Love love love,
Suki
For more on Shree Yoga Taos, please visit their site linked below.
Photographs of Suki Dalury by Zoe Zimmerman
Other image taken at Shree by Robban Reynolds
