Speaker: Leza Lowitz "Within my body, there's a city." This line came to me one winter evening in 1995 as my head dangled in downward-facing dog and I tried to breathe, remain relaxed, and ignore the pull in my hamstrings and the pain in my arms. I repeated the line to myself and felt calmer. Two breaths-three, four. I pressed my heels to the ground, felt the earth "a little lighter between my toes." Having just returned from an eight-month trip to Tokyo that lasted five years, the thought of my body containing a city appealed to me. Another foreign city to explore, I thought. An untraveled city. I was ready to go there. My bags were packed. Although I didn't know it then, I had come back to America greatly changed by my five years in Japan. I was suddenly single, between jobs and worlds. In mellow Northern California, I was still reeling from the pace of Tokyo, where I'd been too busy to deal with my body, my breath, my feelings. I'd rush from one job to another, then another, rush to the gym, then rush out to dinner or a party, rush to catch the last train home, fall into bed, and do it all again the next day. Back inCalifornia, stripped of my busy-ness, I was an expatriate in my own skin. Yoga made me take up residence there again. The journey inward was a personal one, and not always easy. I discovered places in my body that were so rootbound or rock-hard I had to pick at them gingerly because I was very afraid of breaking. In the beginning, I was terrified of breaking my back, braeking my neck. I had no idea how strong I really was, or how weak. When first doing the Plough, I couldn't breathe. In the Fish, I felt as if I was choking. I was very lucky in that my teacher, Veera Wibaux, a mime and a mystic, taught our Hatha yoga class with a sense of play and joy. I learned how to do a headstand, but first, I learned the art of falling. I watched my fears melt, or sometimes not. In the process, I released acres of emotional residue that years of therapy and various forms of healing had chipped away but not yet unearthed. I'd done aerobics for years, studied martial arts, Tai-Chi, Zen meditation, yet yoga was the one practice that allowed me a deep, meditative experience of my body. Breath by breath, I allowed myself to unfold. As I deepened my yoga prctice, I got out of my own way and let my body move my spirit. As my body and heart opened, so did the channels of creativity. "Downward Dog" was the first poem I wrote, and continues to be one of my favorites. Over the next few years, the poems kept coming. They came in class or at home while I was in the pose, or just after. Other times only a line was born, or a poem would come about a pose I couldn't do. This too, was a lesson. Was it okay to write a poem about a pose I hadn't yet mastered? Wasn't exploration of the pose as important - if not more so - than the execution of a picture-perfect posture? Wasn't it wonderful to embrace failure, to pick oneself up and try again? Most of the time I thought so. Surprisingly, the magic of going inwars also took me away from myself. Breath was the bridge to greater self-understanding, which led to a deeper concern for others and to greater involvement in the community. When I gave public readings, I would demonstrate the posture before I read the poem. Doing so brought the poems more fully into my heart than ever before. The poems came alive for me when I entered the poses. Conversely, the pose was brought to life by the words, and the sometimes too-serious atmosphere of the poetry reading was lightened. In 1998, I participated in a benefit reading for a local literary newsletter in a small town in West Marin, and an editor-at-large for Yoga Journal was in the audience. She liked the poem, and her encouragement led me to continue writing these "yoga poems." So Yoga Poems was born. The book's structure is an homage to the eight limbs the ancient sage Pantanjali described in the Yoga Sutra-a revolutionary system of mind and body awareness that the Tibetan master Djwhal Kuhl said "... will be used to train disciples in mind control for the next 7,000 years." The eight-limbed yoga practice parallels the eightfold path of early Buddhism, and both practices are considered essential to spiritual development. The eight limbs of Pantanjali's Yoga Sutra are basically eight cumulative stages toward the "acquisition of yogic power" and include moral principles, observances, posture, breath control, withdrawal of the senses, concentration, meditation, and pure contemplation. During my practice, I was inspired by the wisdom and depth of the Yoga Sutra, and I liked the idea of "sutra" as it relates both to blessing/prayer and to suture or stitching. The poems in Yoga Poems stitch together mind/body/spirit experiences. After all, the word yoga is derived from the Sanskrit yuj, to yoke, or join. It is yoking, a coming together of mind and body. Each poem in Yoga Poems is named after an asana, or posture (in Sanskrit and English), or a breathing practice. The poems are arranged under a particular "limb" according to the nature of the experience that they describe. Some are directly related to particular asanas, either in abstract or concrete ways, while others are more narrative and personal. Many are abstract "meditations" that surfaced through a highly physical and spiritual yoga practice. Some poses, like Happy Baby, are modern variations derived from ancient postures and have no uniformly accepted Sanskrit names that I know of. There are many more postures and breath exercises than poems in Yoga Poems. And, since breath is the heart of yoga and central to every posture, some poems in the Pranayama ("Breath Control") section are named for postures rather than breathing exercises. Many yoga poses are named after animals, and as such, are inherently provocative: Eagle, Peacock, Tailfeather, Frog, Cobra. The shape and energy of the poses themselves are rife with metaphorical associations. In the Bridge pose, we build a bridge with our backs to carry ourselves through transitions, rising to life's challenges with strength and support. We find our center of balance in the Tree pose, embracing our inner poise despite the winds of change that threaten to bend or break us. We welcome the turn of the day in our Sun Salutations, honoring the sun's healing rays and making them one with our own, embracing the outer light and bringing it in, radiating. Inverted poses, such as Headstand, flip us upside down, lietrally turning things on their heads, Yet we must find equilibrium and embrace our fear of the unknown. What would life be like if we never took risks-never tried headstand or handstand in the first place? What might we miss by backing away from the exploration of something we did so freely as children. As I moved in and out of the eight "limbs" or stages of yoga practice, which are not successive or absolute, the poems became less about struggle and personal history or reflection, and more about acceptance, opening, unity, and connection. The eight limbs themselves reflect a movement from separateness to unity, and so did my practice. I found that yoga gave me patience, took me away from the focus on the "goal" and into a deeper appreciation of the "process," away from "doing" and into "being." Yoga moved me away from thinking and into pre experience, into trust and sometimes complete joy. The record keepers of the universe know the value of listening. I listened to my body, then I let it be. Some of the more narrative poems are a record of what came up in the stillness - what I embraced, and what I let go of. These poems are grouped in their own section entitled "The Unfolding," because they constitute a personal journey toward acceptance and forgiveness. Embracing the "process" rather than the "goal" was extermely beneficial to me in the creative process as well as in life. Over the past few years, I have been writing a novel. Learning to accept where I was, to enjoy where I was at that moment (even if I was "stuck") and not think about where I wanted to be next year, was a very valuable lesson to me. Yoga Poems can go anywhere yoga goes. Teachers can read the poems aloud in class during meditation periods, while students are in the actual pose, or during restorative classes. Or they can be read privately, alone. Yoga Poems is as individual as your yoga practice - or mine. Although there ara many disciplines of yoga, I enjoy Hatha yoga. My practice alternates between Iyengar and Kripalu styles, which for me invite a slower, deeper exploration of the psyche and spirit, augmented by a weekly practice of the challenge and vigor of Ashtanga yoga. Your ticket for admission to Leza Lowitz's presentation "Lines to Unfold By" will be a copy of Yoga Poems bought from Good Day Books. Paperback copies of Yoga Poems may be purchased at Good Day Books for one thousand six hundred eighty yen (¥1680) each, tax included. |
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