Over 120,000,000 people voted in last year’s Presidential election. 96% of the individuals who voted did so in person. Our guess is that if you consider the commute to the polling location, standing in line and the act of voting itself, it likely took an average of an hour and a half to get the job done. We wanted to share a few thoughts regarding this reality. 1.) Voting is the lowest common denominator of true engagement. While voting is important, true responsibility of citizenship requires engagement beyond an hour and a half commitment. The very nature of voting implies asking someone else to do something for you, rather than figuring out what you can do for yourself and/or others. 2.) If those 120,000,000 voters mentioned above offered an…
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Does Constant Interaction Add to Stress?
A meditation on interaction that needs to be watched over and over again to capture its rich, resonant beauty. Produced by Aj Jackson & Narrated by Molly Beauregard
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On Becoming a Mother
I’m back on my mat for the first time. As I gaze down my body a momentary lapse of grief for the absence in my womb is followed by the relief of finally knowing who he is. My hamstrings ask me to go slow so I follow their lead with my heels off the ground. Flowing through each pose, I’m reminded of the miracle of growing a human. I feel the twinge in my hips and forgive them for their weakness. I promise them that we’ll work together to get strong again. The babe is asleep upstairs and I can’t help but laugh as my milk leaks all over and the dog bites my hair, pulling me forward to play. My neck is stiff and my back is sore…
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American Veda by Philip Goldberg
December 2015 Book of the Month A couple years ago, I had the distinct pleasure of hearing Philip Goldberg, author of American Veda, speak to an audience at the University of Michigan. Sponsored by the Michigan Creativity and Consciousness Studies Faculty Committee, Goldberg told the mesmerizing story of India’s impact on Western religion and spirituality. Goldberg was invited to U of M by his friend Ed Sarath. Professor Sarath, a well known musician, is the founder of the first program at a mainstream institution to significantly integrate meditation practice and related studies into an academic curriculum. There is no doubt that Sarath’s work has been profoundly impacted by the very themes explored in Goldberg’s book. American Veda chronicles the story of the slow “Vedicization” of American spirituality. Ever since the first translations of Hindu text found their way into…
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Community is Shared
I am a sociologist by training. I love to think about culture, people, interactions, identity issues and patterns. Emile Durkheim, the famous French father of all things sociological, argued that one must treat ‘social facts as things’. These “facts” become the subject of study for sociologists. Further, Durkheim believed that collective phenomenon is not merely reducible to the individual actor. Society, he believed, is more than the sum of its many parts. It is a system formed by the association of individuals that come together to constitute a reality with its own distinctive characteristics. Let me think of an example: how about language? Language pre-exists our birth and it continues after our death. Perhaps some of us will have the honor of inventing some new recognizable slang (LOL, duh),…
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TTSM in “Mantra Yoga + Health” Magazine
Tuning the Student Mind is featured in the February issue of Mantra Yoga + Health magazine!! Check out the article on their website – http://mantramag.com/tuning-student-mind-chelsea-richer/ Here is where you can find your copy of Mantra magazine – http://mantramag.com/find-mantra/ Here is the page spread (oooolala!)
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The Spiritual Regeneration Movement
It was in Madras, Tamil Nadu in 1958 that Maharishi Mahesh Yogi founded the Spiritual Regeneration Movement. It was his goal to bring transcendental meditation (TM) to the masses in an effort to redirect the course of humanity. Maharishi was a man of peace dedicated to teaching individuals a direct way to reach the silence that lies within all men and women. There is no doubt that individuals come to meditation through a multitude of doors. In fact, I have a friend who insists she came in the “cocktail party door”. Seriously, she felt inspired by the social conversation surrounding the “cool” factor of meditation. I learned TM because my mother told me to. It’s true. I had no great reason, no great calling and certainly no expectations. I innocently found myself learning TM at a time when no…
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The Illustrated Light on Yoga by B. K. S. Iyengar
December 2013 Book of the Month Happy 95th birthday to B.K.S. Iyengar! Let’s wrap up 2013 together with this one of a kind, comprehensive introduction to ancient aesthetics and philosophy of yoga. In The Illustrated Light on Yoga, Iyengar covers techniques, effects, hints and cautions of both āsana and prāṇāyāma (techniques for stilling the mind through breathing exercises). He also includes detailed description of over 50 key postures, a full glossary of yoga terms and a 35-week course progressing from beginner to intermediate level. Yoga every day!
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The Middle Gear
As an avid yogi and meditator, I am endlessly reminded- by my practice, my mantra, and my soul- to favor mindfulness. As someone with an unmistakable “A-type” personality, I am persistently intense. And as most of us know, intensity doesn’t always yield good balance. I have known the power of appropriately balancing “personal” versus “public” energy for quite some time now. Public energy, I am told, is for my day-to-day life: my job, my social calendar, and my relationships. Personal energy is for me. The difference between personal and public energy was first described to me as a lake. On the surface, the lake looks still. It feels as if it does not move. Yet, at one end, there is a waterfall. The movement of the waterfall requires the stillness of the lake. Without one, you cannot have…
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Movement
A certain professor once told me that I needed to start finding intellectual pursuits that furthered my growth as a human being and kept my mind off of others. She also said that people were a matter of the heart, and all I needed to worry about was how to love them better. Three months later and I am just now starting to really understand what she meant by that. This past year has presented some personal life challenges that forced me to look at people in a different light, and it wasn’t positive. I became discouraged and sour, introverted and detached, and very not my usual self. And as a naturally self-aware person, I could only let the charades continue for so long. So, I decided to make some…
