Islands Flowing Through Time

Hugh and Elvie’s beautiful retreat center

My wife and I just returned for our first collaborative retreat on the Big Island of Hawaii, a living landscape where everything flows. The trade winds flow from east to west across the sea, driving the North Equatorial Current and the basin-wide circulation of the North Pacific. On land, molten rock seeps and occasionally gushes from the ground before surrendering to the pull of gravity and flowing downhill as rivers of fire and stone. Even the seabed flows; 20,000 feet below the surface, the oceanic crust creeps northwestward three to four inches a year, passing over the hotspot in the earth’s mantle that that has created the Hawaiian Islands. As they slowly drift away from the hotspot, the islands leave a visible trail that marks the path of the Pacific Ocean Plate. We couldn’t have picked a more appropriate place for a week of yoga,art and ecology.

While yoga philosophy and energy anatomy associate each of the five elements with a particular part of the body and a specific chakra, it’s good to remember the energies of nature spin their alchemy amongst each other in the act of creation. With enough heat solid earth become fluid. Add water, it becomes steam. You can clearly see the interplay of the elements on Hawaii, the home of the fire goddess Pele and the god of the rainforest Kamapua’a.

In Hawaiian mythology the two lovers are fire and water. More proof I suppose that opposites really do attract. Their beautiful and volatile relationship has created an amazing ecosystem that inspires everyone fortunate enough to experience Hawaii, to call the place paradise.

With her fiery temperament, “the woman of the pit” continues to give birth to the newest land on the planet.

Standing on the beach at dusk one night, we could see flashes of red in the distance as hot lava flowed into the sea.

Located thousands of miles from the nearest land, the isolated islands might have remained barren if not for the currents of air and water that flow across the Central Pacific and through the archipelago, delivering seeds, birds, insects and other life forms including the first people, the Polynesians. All found nourishment  in the rains of Kamapua’a.

Clearly the forces of nature are at work in Hawaii, but on a more subtle level they also drive the biological processes within each one of us. Cellular metabolism is an expression of fire, combustion; water appears as blood, urine, sweat and several other bodily fluids; air is respiration, not only the breath of the lungs but the gas exchange that takes place in every single cell in the body. These processes build flesh and bone. We are the elements. They flow through us. Isn’t it grand to be a part of them?

Our deepest gratitude to Hugh and Elvie for providing such a wonderful retreat experience.

Living with Creatures

Andie and I moved from Berkeley, California to the end of a dirt road in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the fall of 2004. The constant hum of the city was gone, replaced by the tapping of woodpeckers, the hooting of owls, the ribbet of tree frogs, the chatter of squirrels, and the lovely song of crickets.

A Question of Balance

Tomorrow is the autumnal equinox, the balance point when night and day are both twelve hours long. In Anchorage, Alaska, where I use to live, they are loosing six minutes of light everyday now. Here in California the change is less dramatic, but the softening light and cooler temperatures hint of fall’s arrival and the coming of winter.

Traditionally, the fall equinox in the northern hemisphere is the time to celebrate the harvest, honor the Mother Goddess for her generous abundance, and begin to turn inward as we approach the yin time of year. It is also the perfect moment to contemplate the idea of balance.

Reflection on Water

“If there is magic in this world, it is contained in water.”

                                    Loren Eisely

As we head into peak fire season here in California with wild fires raging around the state and thousands of acres going up in flames, I’m reminded how precious water is to all of us. In Ayurveda, Yoga’s science of life, water’s cooling aspect balances fire’s intensity.

The play of opposites is one of the fundamental concepts of hatha yoga, and lies at the heart of all Eastern Religions.  Sun and moon, prana and apana, yin and yang, expansion and contraction, positive and negative, everywhere we look we see polarity, a reflection of  the cosmic dance of Lord Shiva (consciousness) and his consort Shakti (manifestation). It’s no surprise we find it deep within the element from which all life springs forth.

Yoga, A Sustainable Practice

We Venerate Mother Earth

 the sustainer and preserver of forests, vegetation, 

and all things that are held together firmly. 

She is the source of a stable environment.

27th Verse of the Prthivi Sukta

Yoga and ecology both stem from the same seed: the awareness that all things are entwined in a single sacred web. Both sciences are inquiries into the flow of energy. Ecology studies the energy stream that moves between species and their environment. Yoga explores the current of Prana that animates all things in the universe and flows through the layers, or koshas, of the body-mind. If we think of the body-mind as a matrix of several complimentary systems functioning as an integrated whole, its own ecosystem, a sustainable approach makes sense. The practice of sustainability is the conscious management of an ecosystem to insure its productivity, resilience to disturbance, and diversity are all maintained.