Mandala Monday - Elemental Mandala

This beautiful mandala illustrates the connection between the astral and the physical body. Rather than conceptualizing the physical world of mountains, rivers, and skin as an illusion, today's mandala suggests mind and matter can exist in harmony.

Killing Us Softly

"Jean Kilbourne takes a fresh look at how advertising traffics in distorted and destructive ideals of femininity. The film marshals a range of new print and television advertisements to lay bare a stunning pattern of damaging gender stereotypes -- images and messages that too often reinforce unrealistic, and unhealthy, perceptions of beauty, perfection, and sexuality."

Goddesses Don't Stress???

Demeter Mourning Persephone by
 Evelyn De Morgan

Around 10:30 in an otherwise awesome yoga video Katherine Budig encourages a yogini in Utkata Konasana to "Channel your inner goddess while you're there….And then again goddess pose. Goddesses don't get stressed out. They just look good all the time. Ok. So open it up. Smile. Find that space."

I’m all for grinning and finding space in my yoga practice, but the idea that goddesses don’t get stressed out is ridiculous. Not just ridiculous. Offensive. Katherine Budig is an awesome yoga teacher. I thank both her and Yoga Journal for offering free videos and podcasts. Free yoga rocks! Trivializing goddesses does not.

Millions of men and women across the planet worship and revere goddesses. From Quan Yin to the Virgin Mary, from Shakti to Persephone, goddesses continue to inspire and empower people in very real, meaningful ways. Even outside the realm of worship, storytellers, psychologists, artists, businesswomen, and parents “channel their inner goddess” to tap into the strength and creativity that goddesses embody. And while art traditionally portrays goddesses as “looking good,” these ancient archetypes aren’t meaningful because they’re beautiful or perfect. On the contrary, goddesses inspire because their stories teach us to rise above adversity, both in smiling serenity and teeth-gnashing fury.

A statue of Sekhemet
at the Brooklyn Museum

Was Demeter stressed when her daughter disappeared into the Underworld? Most likely. Was Sekhemet worried about looking good as she rampaged across ancient Egypt punishing heretics? Hell no! Goddess stories are full of heartache and triumph. They reflect the daily struggles of women on a superhuman level. When women work with these legends, they “find that space” to feel and to act uninhibited beyond the limitations that argue femininity means being perpetually polite and polished.

Without the space to stress and sweat, goddess become archaic fashion models. They look pretty and keep their cool, but fail to inspire. They exchange their stories for lipstick smiles. Fuck that.

So next time you’re dropping beads of sweat onto the mat or sobbing in savasana, embrace your inner goddess in all her furious, luminous, tragically transcendental, bi-polar glory….and keep breathing.

I Sing The Body Eccentric

Last weekend at festival I overheard a woman discussing her struggle with body image. Her complaint is a common one: feeling fat in a world that values only thinness. However, her solution struck me as brilliant. She explained that every time she walks past a mirror, she jiggles her belly. She pulls up her shirt, grabs two luscious handfuls of fat, and gives them a shake. She went on to explain that it makes her laugh, which makes her feel good, and that acknowledging her non-industry-standard body in a positive way makes her more comfortable in her skin.

Now I consider myself a curvy gal. True, I’m thinner now than I was in my immediate post-baby years. But I still have floppy tits, stretch marks, and jiggling arms. I’m making peace with that. My tits and belly both sustained my children. My arms carry heavy grocery bags and bust out some bad-ass hoop moves. So while my body may not reflect the conventional beauty standard, it’s functional. I like it. More than I have in a long time.

Like the woman at festival, I’ve found small ways to make myself comfortable with the sensual, fleshy vessel that carries me through life. I practice yoga, which makes my body stronger and more flexible. I dance. I find transcended moments in motion where mind and body are united in gestures of strength and grace. I wear revealing clothes.

There are, of course, heated debates about the politics of women’s clothing. I won’t touch on those here. However, I do hope to make a case for occasional exposing the valleys and mountains of the body to a little sunlight. In my opinion there is nothing more lovely than stripping down to short shorts and a sports bra to sprawl in the sun while my kids play in the yard. There’s nothing more sensual than hooping topless in my living room or in a swimsuit at the creek. There’s nothing more comforting than child’s pose in the nude.

Showing some skin, especially in the hot, humid Missouri summer, isn’t about sex appeal. It’s about making contact with the body as-it-is when there’s no one to impress or criticize. It’s feeling the sun, grass, breezes, and cool sheets on skin that usually hides behind clothing. The mass media bombards me with polarized body images every day. If I’m not careful to reaffirm my body and notice the beauty of women around me, it’s too easy to believe those images are both real and ideal. When I strip back my clothes and inhibitions, I strip back the layers of media-inspired misconceptions. In their absence, I find a body worthy of love.

Jew-Ish

A Kansas City poetess clears up a few MissConceptions about spirituality.

View from a Hooping Plateau Part 2

While time on a hooping plateau is natural, no hooper wants to linger there. After all, we hoop-dance for joy and self expression. Thus when hooping starts to feel stale or frustrating, panic often ensues. Luckily there are many paths down from the mountains and obscure trails leading upward to new vistas of possibility. Here’s a few suggestions…and counter-suggestions.

Stick to it! In role playing games characters often have to accumulate experience points before they can level up. The same concept applies to hooping. The more time you spend in the hoop, the more experience you gain. A couple dull days practicing the same old moves might be enough to level up and break into new territory.

OR

Take a break. Sometimes we need to step back and gather new resources to reinvigorate our dance. Let your hooping self rest and seek out inspiration from yoga, meditation, other forms of dance, long walks, and good friends. Remember, it’s ok to put down the hoop for a while. Your plateau may be a sign that it’s time to redirect your energy.

Refine old moves. Since hooping feels dull on a plateau, use the time for the more tedious work of polishing up old moves. Smooth out isolations. Find new poses while core hooping. Work in your reverse current. Straighten out your planes.

OR

Learn new moves. The encyclopedia of hoop-tutorials on Youtube is constantly evolving. Search out new videos and expand your hooping vocabulary. Look for advanced tricks, variations, or adapt moves from other flow-arts like poi.

Enjoy body-rocking. You might be surprised by the things you discover when you bring your hoop back to your core.

OR

Move off-body. There’s whole hooping worlds centered around isolations, tracing techniques, and mini-hooping.

Practice something that makes you giggle like foot hooping or tosses.

Reconnect to the hooping community by attending a hoop jam or workshop.

OR

Reconnect to your solitary hoop practice. Rock out in your living room. Carry your hoop to the beach. Bliss our Hoop Path style with a blindfold. Solitary practice is especially important for hoopers who spend a lot of time performing or teaching. A while back on Elephant Journal I read advice from a yoga teacher that yogis should spend 1 hour in personal practice for every 2 hours they spend teaching or following a teacher. I think the same principal applies to hoop dance.

Hoop to a favorite song.

OR

Hoop to music you don’t normally listen to. When you expand your musical horizons, you also expand your range of expression.

Mandala Monday - Word Mandalas

A word-mandala brings together two techniques that C. G. Jung used to study the unconscious mind: word association and mandala drawings. Jung conceptualizes mandalas “patterns of order which, like a psychological ’view finder’ … superimposed on the psychic chaos so that each content falls into place and the weltering confusion is held together by the protective circle.”  The “sacred circle” of the mandala helps the artist bring order and find patterns in the chaotic flow of the unconscious mind.

An archetypal illustration from Jung's Red Book.

Mandalas are traditionally geometric drawings, but they can also be created with words.

In Memories, Dreams, and Reflections Jung notes that during word-association sessions patients often drew blanks at certain words. The patient might instantly respond “Frisbee” to “dog,” while “cat” receives a long silence. Jung links these silences to Frued’s concept of repression, but they have positive implications too. Certain words serve as keystones for larger ideas. So if you begin with Word A, the words will connect to Word A for a while, but when another keystone word appears, the words begin to connect with it instead. If you hunt through a page of word-associations, you’ll probably pick out the ‘big ideas’, the keystones that mark the flow of thoughts. Jung called them Complexes. So while the stream of words might appear chaotic, they map out patterns similar to the circles, squares, and crosses of hand-drawn mandalas. What the mandala maps thoughts kinesthetically, word associations map linguistically.


Or you can play with both sides of the brain and create a word-mandala that combines word association and mandala drawing.

• Begin with either the word-association or the mandala. But first take a moment to meditate on your central thought. I chose Shakti, the Hindu goddess who awakens love and creativity.

• Create a mandala using the technique of your choice. I repeat my central thought as a mantra when I draw the dot in the center of my mandala. Keep it in mind as you create both the drawn and written portions of your mandala

• After you've sketched the outline of your mandala drawing, begin a page of word association beginning with your central thought. Write slowly and mindfully. Let your mind wander freely from one word to the next. 

• Next, study your word-association page and begin picking out the keystone ideas. Study your drawn-mandala to get a rough idea of how many words you need and how they’ll interconnect in the drawing.

My word-association began as: 

Shakti: Namaste ~ Pray ~ Play ~ Dance ~ Flow ~ Grow ~ Seeds ~ Beads ~ Tangled twine ~ Divine ~ Stars ~ Galaxy ~ Mind ~ Vibrant  ~ Rainbow ~ Crescent ~ Crescendo ~ Sound ~ Profound ~ Inspiration ~ Liberation ~ Revolution ~ Rise like lions ~ Slumber ~ Surrender ~ Submerge ~ Purified ~ Sanctuary ~ January ~ Stillness ~ Center ~ Spiral ~ Dancing ~ Flame ~ Never break the chain ~ Entwine ~ Sublime ~ Mystery ~ History ~ Storyteller ~ Grandmother ~ Spider web ~ Thread ~ Blood ~ Journey ~ Descent ~ Transcend ~ Living Light ~ Illuminate ~Poetry ~ Word Hoard ~ Dragon ~ Ancient ~ Prophecy ~ Raven ~ Trickster ~ Coyote ~ Horizon ~ Shadow ~ Glimmer ~ Glitter ~ Joy ~ Whirling ~ Rumi ~ Library ~ Treasure ~ 

And became:
Shakti:  Grow ~ Vibrant ~ Inspiration ~ Liberation ~ Sanctuary ~ Stillness ~ Center ~ Sublime ~ Transcend ~ Storyteller ~ Journey ~ 

• Finally, begin placing keystone words inside the mandala outline. Add colors, symbols, patterns, and other decorations. I chose to add some lines of poetry, because I realized my association of lions with rebellion originated from a Percy Bysshe Shelley's "The Mask of Anarchy". 

Word-mandalas are amazing tools, because they challenge the creator to link the intuitive lines and shapes of a drawing with the linguistic shapes of words. Word-mandalas are thus an example of what the Kesh in Ursual K. LeGuin's Always Coming Home call hand-mind: a task whose mindful motions makes space for mental exploration.