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May. 18th, 2003 01:31 pmI did my volunteering at the yoga center today and will be back there on Wednesday -- after which I'll have 3 free classes. Right now, I'm looking at taking at Hatha class, a Kundalini class (they have one specifically about using the voice that's particularly intriguing) and a pilates class.
Being around the yoga center is moderately weird. I found it absurdly soothing to be mopping the floor at 9am, listening to chants, and it occurs to me that over the years perhaps I put myself in service to so many bizarre things solely because of a dearth of hard work in my life.
There are some things about the yoga center that I necessairly feel the need to tune out -- there's a level of cheer that can seem false to me, and some of the newageyness. Of course, spirituality of any sort in a group setting can discomfort me.
I don't know if it's genetic or merely the influence of growing up in my family's house -- but we're all religious itinerants after a fashion. My father, who writes religious poetry by the ream, was constantly exploring religions of all sorts in my childhood and I have distinct memories of wanting to do things with him and my mother telling me that he had to go visit the guru instead. I was very young, and it was the 70s.
A cousin on his side of the family was in a cult for a while (remember Bagwan Shree Rajneesh with the Cadillacs?), and later opened a yoga center, and the family has any number of people who converted from Judaism to Catholicism and I think in a few cases that went the other way as well. As such, discussing religion in my family, is a bit like discussing sex -- it's all too personal and I tend not to want to go there.
I am, of course, all over it myself and am taken with religion and spirituality both in a personal way and at a distance, as if examining an odd curio. I don't have an American's typical religious convictions, because I was never provided with a single belief system, a childhood religious education or any regular attendence at services. I confess to finding such things fascinating, but also boredering on offensive in its narrowness -- but much of how we educate our children discomforts me. But I do find the acceptance of faith that most people have fascinating, while gleefully reading and incorporating just about everything into my own world.
What is particularly nice about the yoga center though is the belief that we pray and will things into being. Regardless of whether I am ascribing that particular outlook to anything religious or not -- that is absolutely how I move through the world and absolutely how I committ to and follow through on my own endeavors. To the point that mentioning it here seems silly, since it's probably rather clear.
Being around the yoga center is moderately weird. I found it absurdly soothing to be mopping the floor at 9am, listening to chants, and it occurs to me that over the years perhaps I put myself in service to so many bizarre things solely because of a dearth of hard work in my life.
There are some things about the yoga center that I necessairly feel the need to tune out -- there's a level of cheer that can seem false to me, and some of the newageyness. Of course, spirituality of any sort in a group setting can discomfort me.
I don't know if it's genetic or merely the influence of growing up in my family's house -- but we're all religious itinerants after a fashion. My father, who writes religious poetry by the ream, was constantly exploring religions of all sorts in my childhood and I have distinct memories of wanting to do things with him and my mother telling me that he had to go visit the guru instead. I was very young, and it was the 70s.
A cousin on his side of the family was in a cult for a while (remember Bagwan Shree Rajneesh with the Cadillacs?), and later opened a yoga center, and the family has any number of people who converted from Judaism to Catholicism and I think in a few cases that went the other way as well. As such, discussing religion in my family, is a bit like discussing sex -- it's all too personal and I tend not to want to go there.
I am, of course, all over it myself and am taken with religion and spirituality both in a personal way and at a distance, as if examining an odd curio. I don't have an American's typical religious convictions, because I was never provided with a single belief system, a childhood religious education or any regular attendence at services. I confess to finding such things fascinating, but also boredering on offensive in its narrowness -- but much of how we educate our children discomforts me. But I do find the acceptance of faith that most people have fascinating, while gleefully reading and incorporating just about everything into my own world.
What is particularly nice about the yoga center though is the belief that we pray and will things into being. Regardless of whether I am ascribing that particular outlook to anything religious or not -- that is absolutely how I move through the world and absolutely how I committ to and follow through on my own endeavors. To the point that mentioning it here seems silly, since it's probably rather clear.
