Class brings yoga into nature zone | mydesert.com | The Desert Sun.

Yoga and nature immersion are parallel practices. There is a mysterious term in the first chapter of the Yoga Sutra – the term is prakrti-laya, or ‘absorbed in nature.’ I have been fascinated by this term for many years, since it seemed to describe a set of experiences that I had with the assistance of nature-immersion during the 1980′s under the influence of mind-body practice and Colorado’s high wilderness.

Before anything else, I want to acknowledge what is obvious. To practice yoga outdoors in the healthful air of Palm Springs – as does this remarkable group of southern California yogis – is certainly a good thing.

The teacher’s heart is just as obviously in the right place. Nonetheless, it is very important to emphasize that, in yoga thought, there is much more to Tree Pose, for example, than the ‘be the tree’ imperative. This symbolic content is important and powerful, and is not merely an adjunct to yoga asana. Yoga knowledge is the complement of yoga action, the Shiva to its Shakti, to use traditional terms.

When properly integrated, symbolic and active components reinforce one another to generate yogic experience (yogi-pratyaksha). Here, the fascinating, multi-layered symbolism surrounding the Tree in yoga thought allows the mind to attend to detail in the same way that the body attends to detail.In this mind-body practice, physical action and symbolic knowledge feed-back into one another. This mutual mirroring creates conditions proper to the experience where mind and body, Ha (sun) and Tha (moon), in-breath and out-breath, become one – and there, time (kala) disappears and the the mind (citta) identical with the breath (prana) enters the void (shunya).

The issue is not of truth, but of method – how best to unite mind and body? For those with a symbolic intelligence, bridging the two becomes an almost mind-less matter.

Learn Meditation with The Silva Centering Exercise.

Why do all e-z zen pages look the same? Check out anything by any “the Secret” followers – or perhaps the notorious “Quantum Jumping” sales program – you’ll see they use exactly the same kind of hard-sell “squeeze page” technique to sell their water by the river. That’s why the mind-body field could be called the body-mine-field. Here’s what happens when consumerism and instant gratification meet *personal development.*

Yoga Shows Potential to Ward Off Certain Diseases

Physiologists have detected lower levels of stress hormones in *expert* (check the definition in the article – it’s pretty darn loose!) yoga practitioners. It will be interesting to see how these findings dovetail news-wise with Fox’s well-known bias in terms of what we might call ‘culture’ and ‘faith.’ I’m psyched!

NYTimes.com.

California leads the way in creating renewable energy. However, as a native Texan, I do still wonder about the Lone Star State’s huge wind-farms and their immense potential. Here is one place where competition might actually provide benefits to our human community.

NYTimes.com.

One must be shocked that proposals of this type are controversial in any way. The foolishness of *cruise ships* is renewing my commitment to opposing unregulated, anti-environmental petit capitalist activity here in Northern California.

Bikram Yoga Conversion for Lindsay Lohan

Want to know what the real ‘religion’ is in Hollywood? I smell watered-down yoga mixed surreptitiously with the sodium of Protestant conversionism. Eeegh. Future historians will say that Yoga has become the de facto religion of West Coast celebrity culture – the question: will the celebrities actually practice that to which they convert? I seem to remember many ostensibly sincere conversions to *The Nation of Islam* taking place in prison settings; is yoga the new Nation of Islam? (ye gods, I hope no Christian blogger finds this). That being said, Bikram Choudhry has got to love it. With his California rep for saving useless heads from themselves, this is just PERFECT. Am I awake, or is this a crazy dream? Perhaps it matters not.

Kim Kardashian Bares Her Yoga for the Camera.

YogaDork does it again with this superb send-up of pop icon Kim Kardashian doing something that looks sorta like yoga. Is it because, as YogaDork says, “yoga is sexy”?  eegghh…

Tai Chi Eases Symptoms of Fibromyalgia, Study Finds – NYTimes.com.

The complex mind-body condition ‘chronic fatigue’ requires an equally mind-body oriented solution. Tai Chi gently moves the physical body and breath in even patterns that distribute attention throughout the organism, thus releasing deeply-held tensions and toxins. It is likely that yoga carries with it many of the same benefits.

Yoga Wars! India Blocks Patents On Poses

Metaphorical *patents* on spiritual material are well-known historically – every lineage in India has its own private, proprietary set of yoga methods. This becomes a strange brew in the modern world where these techniques can potentially become money-makers if they are understood as publicly proprietary.

Yoga Increases GABA, decreases depression

Yes, perhaps yoga affects brain chemicals – but how does the causality work? Does yoga directly increase brain chemicals? Or does GABA increase with psychological well-being induced by yoga? This is the old brain-mind problem, something that scientists studying yoga will have to grapple with very soon.