Learn-feb2014
Yoga for Love
“Love is how it feels to recognize our essential unity. Awakening to oneness is the experience of Big Love. Knowing you are one with all, you find yourself in love with all.” ~ Timothy Freke
February is poised as the month of sheer love, red hearts, dark chocolates, expensive flowers, fancy dinners and gifts for each other to show our big love. Not just this month, but every moment of every day of every year, the distances we have to go through to be vulnerable, to be present, to be happy, to be sad, to be scared, to be honest, to be real, it’s all part of the complicated equation of love. This year, let’s get radical. Let’s just do some yoga and practice of compassion for ourselves and others to show our true love, to find our unconditional love.
We’ve by now have heard that yoga brings many great benefits to the body, mind and spirit…. but for love too? For real? Yes, for real!!!
Ok, so where do we start?
Here are some Kundalini Yoga poses as taught by Yogi Bhajan to free your heart and open new channels of understanding, energy and love.
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Cobra Pose: Lie on the ground, hands under the shoulders, palms flat on ground. Push up, lifting the heart and letting the head follow, keeping the pelvis on the ground. If this is too much of a stretch, try Sphinx pose, keeping your elbows on the ground as you arch your head back. |
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Bridge Pose: Lie on your back with your knees bent and the feet parallel on the floor no more than hip-width apart. Keep the ankles directly under the knees, and press the arms into the floor alongside the body. As you inhale, press into the feet and peel the spine off the floor, starting with the pelvis and rolling slowly up to the tops of the shoulders. Roll the inner thighs strongly down as you press the sacrum up into the body; do not allow the knees to splay out to the sides. |
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Camel Pose: In a kneeling position thighs and body perpendicular to the ground, the knees and lower legs approximately two fists apart. Pressing the knees into the floor, strongly rooting from the navel lift away from the lower back, slightly tucking the tailbone, feel the expansion of the chest upwards as high as it can go before you lean back, grasping the heels and pressing the heart center up towards the sky. Before you go back, arch the chest as much as you can, pull your chin in to connect your neck to the upper spine. Allow the head to go back as far as it can without disconnecting it from your arch or compressing the neck. |
These heart openers help to cultivate self-love and offer great benefits on many levels. Recent studies have shown positive connections between yoga and improved heart health. Make this our daily practice to experience unconditional love for ourselves and our loved ones. Imagine the joy we’d get when we no longer need wait for any special day to say or hear “I love you” to each other and do little things every day to let the other person know that we’re grateful for every moment we get to spend with each other.
And let’s face it, folks who practice yoga can get very bendy. Those who get their stretch on every day are incredibly flexible. This quality comes in handy for things like, oh I don’t know, picking something up off the floor with their toes? Reaching an itch in the middle of the back? And maybe a few other things that are really great for love too!
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Vanessa Tran is a KRI certified Kundalini Yoga Teacher, registered with the Yoga Alliance and the International Kundalini Yoga Teachers Association. She works as an Educational Application Trainer at Algonquin College and co-founder of Metta Sisters.
She blogs about cultivating happiness and health through mindfulness and nutrition on PranaQuests. |
A somewhat less romantic view of Valentines (aka the history)
by Leo Greeley
Valentine’s Day evokes thoughts of chocolate, flowers, romance, cards, and cherubic angels shooting us with arrows. There are special diamonds, jewelry, lingerie and secret indulgences you can buy your ‘valentine’
We tend to view Valentine’s Day as more of an obligation forced upon the masses as a whole, telling us we better recognize our ‘sweetheart’ with flowers and fluff or they will resent us for the rest of the year. With ads like ‘10 Days Left to make sure you are not in the Dog House’ it is hard not to feel the pressure. Let’s simply blame it on Hallmark if we must have a scapegoat.
Valentine’s Day originated from pagan customs of Ancient Rome in 300-400 B.C, where on February 14th and 15th the Romans celebrated Lupercalia. During this festival they practiced the ritual of the sacred sexual union, the Heiros Gamos, on February 14th, to honor Juno Fructifier, Queen of the Roman gods and goddesses as well as goddess of marriage.
Maiden’s names in were placed in boxes. These “love notes” were called “billets.” A young man would draw a name and the maiden was his partner for either the length of the celebration or, if it worked out, the coming year commencing in March until the next February celebration. The couples who were matched together would be considered partners with the hope they would wed. Between February 13th, the Ides of February, and February 15th the Romans celebrated Luperaclia, honoring Lupercal, the wolf god. Lupercus is a god sometimes identified with the Roman god Faunus, who is the Roman equivalent of the Greek god Pan. The Festival of Lupercalia involved priests and Vestal Virgins
The Luperci priests would go to a grotto dedicated to Lupercal, the wolf god, located at the foot of Palatine Hill. The men would sacrifice a goat, don its skin, and run, walk and dance around the Palatine Hill to purify it while whipping young maidens with a goat skinned thong called a “februa” an act which was supposed to ensure fertility. Often women of class would over their open hands to the lashing to discreetly gain fertility. The act of such lashings or whippings was known as februatio…both this word and the word februa come from the Latin meaning “to purify.” The Romans believed that the middle or the ‘ides’ of the month was when that month’s life force was at its peak which gave them an excuse to party and perform the sacred rite of sexual union with the added effect of purifying the women from curses, bad luck and infertility by flagellating them with the februa. Is it starting to make sense yet.
The Christian contribution to the development of the Valentine’s Day tradition was rather less racy although equally dramatic. There are two saint Valentines mentioned under 14 February in the early martyrologies – one was a priest from Rome, the other a bishop of modern Terni. Both were martyred in the late third century, the first possibly for conducting marriage ceremonies when they had been temporarily banned by Claudius II to curb draft-dodging. The Acts of both martyrs are unreliable and they may have been the same person – the Carmelite Church inDublin claims possession of the relics of this amalgamated saint. A third Saint Valentine is an even more shadowy figure – all that is known of him is that he was martyred in Africa alongside several other Christians.
In the case of all three Valentines, it was the martyr’s love of God, enduring even in the face of torture and death, that was at stake, rather than romantic love, but the belief in medieval France and England that on 14 February birds began to pair (referred to in Chaucer’s poem Parliament of Fowles) associated the name of the these saints with romance. Throughout the 14th, and into the 15th centuries, the day became associated with the giving of tokens of love and the choosing of a “Valentine”.
Cupid is even more confusing and possessive. In classical mythology, Cupid (Latin Cupido, meaning “desire”) is the god of desire, erotic love, attraction and affection. He is often portrayed as the son of the love goddess Venus, and is known in Latin also as Amor (“Love”). His Greek counterpart is Eros. In Christianity he is either portrayed as the Demon of fornication or as an angel or cherub although a cherub is supposed to have 4 wings.
The Cupid’s bow or tubercle is where the double curve of a human upper lip is said to resemble the bow of Cupid, the Roman god of erotic love.
Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis
For pity now she can no more detain him;
The poor fool prays her that he may depart:
She is resolv’d no longer to restrain him,
Bids him farewell, and look well to her heart,
The which, by Cupid’s bow she doth protest.
Regardless of its origins, today’s Valentine’s Day is a highly over-commercialized western celebration. The Greeting Card Association estimates that some billion valentines are sent per year. On the plus side it does give you an opportunity to think of love, of relationships and perhaps just a little bit of your ancient ancestry comes to the surface.
LITERACY IN THE HOME
By Tricia Kassotis
ECE Coordinator, CCOL
Literacy is the key to freedom: freedom to learn, pursue a career, and enjoy travel anywhere in the world without ever leaving a chair. 
All children should learn to read. All children should love to read.
A child who enjoys reading enjoys a life full of creative imagination. A child who does not read is really no better off than one who cannot.
Research has shown certain characteristics exist in homes where the children are strong
readers and writers. Parents who want to encourage a love of reading in their children can create a family reading lifestyle by thinking upon the following things:
- Early readers have family members who read to them, and help with reading and writing. Read to your children every day. Bedtime story time is an especially treasured time of day to spend with your little one reading.
- Family members read a variety of materials including novels, magazines, newspapers and work related information. It’s important for children to see adults reading for enjoyment.
- Reading materials are found throughout the home. Easy and regular access to books helps children develop and maintain an interest in reading. Out of sight can mean out of mind for books if none are visual. Keep children’s reading material and books at their eye level.
- Family often take the children to the library or bookstore. Children love to go places. Trips to the library for story time, or as a parent and child together time to choose new books, is a great activity to build into the family’s weekly routine.
- Literacy homes have an ample supply of books and writing materials readily available. Show children how important reading and writing is by having the tools necessary to do so on hand and accessible.
- Reading and writing are valued as important activities. When adults build a regular reading time into their day, it shows children that reading is an important and valued pastime.
- Books are associated with pleasure. Create a story time where you read out loud. Right before bed is always nice. Ask questions while you read. “Why do you think that happened.” “What do you think will happen next?” “Remember when this same thing happened to us?” When children can reflect on the story, the story becomes more personable and understandable.
- Family members enforce rules for limited television viewing. Children who do not watch TV find creative alternatives for play. Build a “Switch off” time into your schedule where all electronics get turned off; parent’s devices as well!
This year’s Earth Day is the perfect time to read by lantern light. Create and enjoy a new tradition of reading for Earth hour. http://www.earthhour.org/
Family Day is another great time to build a new reading tradition. Check out what’s happening at the local libraries this February.