Once a day until December 6, Epiphany, I’m blogging a six point synopsis of my yoga writing from the last seven years. These blog posts are all arranged by: 1. The primary sentence. 2. The theologic and yogic summative word. 2. An explanatory paragraph.
Your respectful comments are welcome.
DAY SIX, December 6, 2018
6. In savasana, space and time welcome the yogi for an anointing to the goodness of true self and true nature
THEOLOGICAL WORD: ANNOINTING
YOGA WORD, HEALING
Yoga’s internal work (the heat of tapas) teaches the yogi compassion for self; in savasana’s moments of rest, the yogi is anointed (bathed) in yoga’s healing tradition. This is not a cosmetic make over, but a weaving together of a timeless process which synthesizes everything up to that moment in a deep affirmation of life itself. Savasana is the yogi’s reception of yoga’s physical, non-physical, and metaphysical medicine.
DAY FIVE, December 5, 2018
5. The subject and object of yoga’s missiology is self
THEOLOGICAL WORD: MISSIOLOGY
YOGA WORD: PRACTICE
In the container, at the confluence of yogi, guru, and healing practice, a drop of sweat takes one to self and self to God. The yogi – a vessel devoid of armor and ego – incarnates a healing curriculum in a generative engagement translated to a focused biology of belief and concomitant mind/body/spirit reshaping.
DAY FOUR, December 4, 2018
4. A path to community opens with the relinquishment of armor.
THEOLOGICAL WORD: ECCLESIA
YOGA WORD: COMMUNITY
Inside the yoga room, an awakened center is tutored in self-love and love for others. When this vital energy and passion is shared, the body (individual and corporate) is fed by pranayama. Status, hierarchies, questions of worthiness are irrelevant; there’s no rank, ruling system, or bureaucracy. The yogi joins as a witness to one common identify which points them back to an intimate connection with all.
DAY THREE, December 3, 2018
3. Asana and pranayama bring the yogi to a sacramental remembering of self. This transforms both the seen and the seer.
THEOLOGICAL WORD: SACRAMENT
YOGA WORD: EMBODIMENT
Yoga’s alchemy, formed by movement and breath, is anamnesis connecting action and memory. The yogi lives into a sacramental dimension of existence by remembering – in each moment – their beingness as both immanent and transcendent.
DAY TWO, December 2, 2018
2. The yogi comes home to their breath-centric core where they kiss the soul to receive their full inheritance.
THEOLOGICAL WORD: SPIRIT
YOGA WORD: BREATH
At the center point, breath is the building of consciousness. In heightened consciousness, jettisoning old scripts, the yogi constructs their story of renewal formed by inspiration. They learn their healing treasure is at the end of a long journey.
DAY ONE, December 1, 2018
- The yogi starts with release, surrendering into trust. This opens the heart’s core where ritual process prepares them to enter a state of true presence.
THEOLOGICAL WORD: FAITH
YOGA WORD: TRUST
In relinquishment, the yogi learns to open their heart and settle into the most important moment – – the one they live – this grounding in the present is conscious contact which opens one to engage the reality of their life. Surrendering into the moment, the yogi experiences it without filters. This is associative living, not escapist. The move to trust is a lived symbolism, for the yogi simultaneously participates in their life while pointing beyond it.
Bob says
Yoga word for faith is trust. Indeed.
Bob says
But how do we trust the Tao? Life doesn’t always work out. Suffering can prevail.
Greg Ormson says
Ah yes. Easy to say trust when one is not suffering. In Cincinnati, I met someone who told me she had suffered severe pain for years. She said its gift was that it revealed to her who she was. Nevertheless, to not trust is to push against or away from. Wouldn’t that make the pain harder? That is, to be resisting on two fronts rather than one?
And . . . if the tao, or the way, or the will and wheel have it that we shall suffer; yes it will prevail. Back to the above and to your statement suffering can prevail. Yes, suffering will prevail, always. This does not depend on our perception, as buddah would have it, or our faith, as Christianity would have it. It is the way it is. What can one do?
Nothing.
Trust is all and is the only.