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Dec. 27th, 2006 03:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
theatokosI've been studying yoga pretty seriously for almost a year now. I've been attending an Iyengar style class and an Anusara style class. I get a great deal out of both, but in the last couple of months there's been something about the Anusara style that just seems to click with me. Iyengar feels much like the technique to Anusara's expression. Technique is important as a foundation, but I am really trying to move away from a tendency to rely on technique, which often leads me down the path to perfectionism. Anusara is based on a more Tantric, heart-opening philosophy. At first I found it to be a little hokey, but it's been growing on me. I now prefer it over my intense 2 hour Iyengar class.
Recently, my teacher gave me a copy of her Master Immersion booklet, so that I could learn more about the Anusara philosophy. While reading I kept thinking "This sounds like Feri! No wonder it's clicking!" And then I came to this excerpt, which just lays out the similarities between the Feri witchcraft stuff I've been studying with T Thorn Coyle and this style of yoga:
"You can be deeply soft and open, or deeply focused and strong. Performing fully means to play the edge or the threshold of our potential. The edge is where the alchemy or transformation takes place. It is the critical point where a quantum shift from one level to another occurs instantaneously. Performing fully in any moment expands the middle space of balanced action.... By playing the edge, the boundary line of our potential moves further out, so our capacity for our individual expression and knowing of Shiva/Shakti within us grows."
Feri is all about expanding to the edges and walking the line there. It's unsettling in a completely fascinating way. I'm not very articulate at talking about the stuff that I practice. It's much easier to discuss religious and spiritual things kept on a theoretical level. What's kind of neat about this Feri stuff is that there's very little "magic" in that casting-spells and conjuring kind of way. It's really about intention and experiencing the Divine. And yoga also seems to be all about that too.What I find really interesting in all of this is that as my yoga practice deepens and as I study Feri more, I am increasingly interested in finally getting my ass into the Orthodox Church.
Recently, my teacher gave me a copy of her Master Immersion booklet, so that I could learn more about the Anusara philosophy. While reading I kept thinking "This sounds like Feri! No wonder it's clicking!" And then I came to this excerpt, which just lays out the similarities between the Feri witchcraft stuff I've been studying with T Thorn Coyle and this style of yoga:
"You can be deeply soft and open, or deeply focused and strong. Performing fully means to play the edge or the threshold of our potential. The edge is where the alchemy or transformation takes place. It is the critical point where a quantum shift from one level to another occurs instantaneously. Performing fully in any moment expands the middle space of balanced action.... By playing the edge, the boundary line of our potential moves further out, so our capacity for our individual expression and knowing of Shiva/Shakti within us grows."
Feri is all about expanding to the edges and walking the line there. It's unsettling in a completely fascinating way. I'm not very articulate at talking about the stuff that I practice. It's much easier to discuss religious and spiritual things kept on a theoretical level. What's kind of neat about this Feri stuff is that there's very little "magic" in that casting-spells and conjuring kind of way. It's really about intention and experiencing the Divine. And yoga also seems to be all about that too.What I find really interesting in all of this is that as my yoga practice deepens and as I study Feri more, I am increasingly interested in finally getting my ass into the Orthodox Church.