Yoga Tomorrow (and Smell and Sound and Tarot)
"You don't have self & other. All there is is consciousness, and all there is is the swirling unfolding of whatever arises in your mind."
—Jennifer Dumpert (@OneiroFer) on Consciousness Explorers Podcast
Good tidings, dear yogis—
Happy new year!
Classes start again tomorrow. Please register here, I look forward to seeing you.
I’ve been uncommonly busy with online classes like Yoga & Esotercism, Jyotish, and Sanskrit. And I’m happy to have finally returned to Los Angeles, after some time with Taos Mountain and a retreat on the outskirts of Santa Fe.
Doesn’t this year already feel intense and strange? My life so far feels a strange split, one part careening midway down an intense stream that I can never fully grok or cognate, alongside another self wading through a deep, muffled, and musty molasses.
I still find that physical practices in general, and the empty gestures of the yoga tradition specifically, to be excellent methods towards openness, providing a little bit of wiggle room between my normal habits and mental constructs, and the possibility of something else. Anything else. Maybe it’s just space. Or the ability to actually listen and hear something or someone outside. To focus and listen, to perceive beyond my own blindspots and blockages. It’s a hope at least. And a practice.
More soon.
Peace.
-[s]
WINTER YOGA, LA SESSIONS 2022
A mutually shared practice space | in-person & online
Register now for class TOMORROW, Sunday (1/23/22). I’ll count out in Sanskrit a good old stroll through the Primary Series. Join us in-person if you’re in LA, or online from wherever.
The Mysore-style self-paced self-practice room returns this week.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays hence, and through to the end of February. All are welcome.
For those practicing the traditional Ashtanga Yoga sequences (I still teach this): you are encouraged to come to this self-paced practice space and use it like a Mysore class. And for folks who desire or need to do something else, this class will be a space to learn suitable practices. If you’re curious, please contact me directly.
Please let me know when you are planning to arrive for each class. Otherwise classes may close before you arrive.
If you had an account on the old scheduling system, your same account should work on this new system. Please let me know if you have any issues.
ALL CLASSES ARE NOW BY DONATION ONLY.
ALSO
What’s the name, Twisted Trunks? I’m glad you asked.
I have a few one-on-one slots open next month; please check in if you’d like to work with me in support and exploration of your personal practices—meditation, transformation, yoga, breath, psychedelics, and more.
SOME RESONANT FREQUENCIES
Modi’s India has now entered into the phase of genocidalism, the most advanced stage of nationalism. | The Wire ▶︎ Hindu extremists are carrying out violent attacks to stop interfaith relationships with Muslims | The Guardian
An Interview with L. Frank— Julie Weitz introducing L. Frank in Carla: “…art is a mirror that reflects a living culture through which a community can recognize itself. Her unwavering commitment to this ethos has led her to a practice that renews the traditional art practices of the Tongva—stone carving, canoe construction, and song.”
Julie Weitz: How have the tattoos changed you?
L. Frank: I tell people when we take them to get their tattoos, “Your life will change.” Before I got the tattoos, I was worried about their correctness. So, I focused on my intention. My intention was strictly to hold hands across time. And I could not believe the connection that I felt. The minute I got the tattoos, my whole life changed. There’s not one person who gets their tattoos who doesn’t say that. For each of us, it’s different as to how, but if you weren’t responsible before—and mostly it’s the responsible ones doing the cultural things who get them—you are nothing but responsible now.
From a review in Carla of Julie Weitz’s ongoing exhibit at the Contemporary Jewish Museum: “Weitz reframes the California landscape from an exploitable resource to a sacred entity, asserting Indigenous wisdom through the cipher of Jewish folklore and spirituality.” | GOLEM: A Call to Action at The CJM
SMELL and SOUND (and let’s consider this immersive experience through the lens of Sāṃkhya!): Artist Florian Hecker turns a historic Schindler home into a sensory experience | LA Times, Equitable Vitrines
Tarot slices between the worlds. This article share a little bit of history about the cards and the uncertainty of our era, opening with this depiction of a film recently released alongside a new fashion collection: “partly inspired by Italo Calvino’s 1973 novel, The Castle of Crossed Destinies, in which the characters lose the power of speech and can communicate only through tarot cards…it nodded to Christian Dior’s well-documented interest in the divinatory arts…” | T Magazine
We always know this in some way—that many powerful folks consult psychics and, well, “whatever works.” But it’s also interesting to read about. Clients are selected for, as one intuitive notes, “‘empathy, compassion, kindness, truth, and [the desire] to want to lift everybody up,’ and, most importantly, openness.” | Mic
Hear: Murmur of the Bath Spirits w/ Dali Muru & The Polyphonic Swarm
COSMIC STABILITY
Cosmic Stability is a set of tools, practices, and techniques used to prepare and produce, and most importantly to integrate a profound experience. A “radical change and rebirth” as mentioned in the tarot article linked to above.
How can we knead the dough of our lives into a deep and sustainable shift, an actual change for ourselves within the already-ongoing-onslaught of everyday life? How can we cultivate healthy, perceptual, and actual digestion of a transformative experience?
I have been working in this field for over 30 years. I have a few strategies and rules of thumb, but there’s a lot of research that still needs to be done. How can we approach Mount Analog? And then, perhaps more importantly, how can we return to the world, and to our lives, having changed?
"What makes a body? Flesh and blood? History? The spirit world, which collapses time and place? Eventually, the soldier is attacked by the man who may be a tiger. Later, the creature wanders the lush landscape, sobbing—for lost love or lost companionship, or for his lost Eden, which is now soiled with blood."
—Hilton Als’s The Metaphysical World of Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Movies in The New Yorker