Awakening Ganesha
March 1, 2005 Monthly Newsletter Volume 4
7 Centers Yoga Arts 2115 Mountain Road Sedona, AZ 86336 (928) 203-4400 (877) 603-4400 yoga@7centers.com www.7centers.com
FEATURING:
Lionheart, Temple Cat Yoga Classes & Event Schedule
Ambaya's Corner Ayurvedic Advice on Health and Lifestyle March Yoga Class Schedule
Monday 7:00 TriYoga Paula 8:30 Hatha Ana 10:30 Hatha Ildiko 5:30pm Chakra Gary Tuesday 8:30 Hatha Jeanie 10:30 Mom & Baby 5:30pm Hatha Ildiko Wednesday 8:30 Hatha Ana 10:30 Hatha Ildiko 4-5pm KidzTime Jahsah 5:30pm Kundalini Gary
Thursday 8:30 TriYoga Paula 10:30 Mom & Baby* 5:30pm Hatha Kathleen Friday 8:30 TriYoga Paula 10:30 Hatha Ildiko All classes are 1 ½ hours. FEES Single $10 5 Class Pass $45 (60 day) 10 Class Pass $80 (90 day) Unlimited Monthly $70 *Mom & Baby by donation ** KidzTime $5
Calendar of Special Events Every Sunday 7-8:30pm Kirtan Ecstatic Chanting in the tradition of Indian Masters w/ Musical accompaniment Donation welcome. March 4, Friday 7pm Kirtan w/ Girish Girish and his amazing band present an evening of ecstatic chant. This beaurtiful offering pusles with global rhythms, sweet melodies and heartfelt devotion. If you talk you can sing, if you walk you can dance, or you can sit and meditate. $15 advance. $20 door. Call for tickets 203-4400. March 12-13 A Nonviolent Communication Feldenkrais Weekend w/ Bonnie Grace and Mark Schultz. Learn to move and express yourself more authentically and develop tools to work with unresolved pain and tension in your body and in relationships. To register call Bonnie at 203-7737. COst $150. March 14 –17 500-hour Spring Module w/ Rama Jyoti Vernon & faculty Work towards your 500 hour certificate with the International Yoga College through these 4 day modules or do advanced yogic studies as part of ongoing personal development. Topics include: Asana III, Esoteric Anatomy (Chakras & Nadis) Ayurveda in relation to Yoga, Yoga Sutras, The Margas.Early Registration w/ Credit $575. Non-credit $400. To register call Ginny Beal 888-949-9642. March 18, Friday Barefoot Ball - Spring Equinox Celebration & Family Dance Party 8pm -1pm Come one, come all (including kids) and let's dance togther in celebration of Spring's return. Global grooves by Hava. Adults. $10 Kids. Free March 19-20 Barbara Marciniak and the Pleaidians, Path of Empowerment Main Room Saturday 9:30-6pm Sunday 10-6pm $95 - 1 day pass, $160 both days. To register call Chet Snow at 204-1962. March 19-20 9-5pm Conflict Resolution: Individual to Global with Rama Jyoti Vernon and Rev.Max Lafser. Yurt Cost: Reg. $140. early reg. $125. Call 7 Centers: 203-4400. March 26-April 27 200 Hour Yoga Teacher Certificate This month long immersion yoga course is for those looking to start a yoga teacher career or use the structure as a healing program.This program is unique in that there is a yoga track as well as an ayurveda track that addresses the individual constitution and path to wellness. The course includes Asana, Anatomy, Ayurveda, Yoga Sutras, Yoga Nidra, Pranayama, Mantra, Vedic Astrology, Hindu Gods and Goddesses, and self-study through the Enneagram. For more information go to the website www.7centers.com or call Sydney at 203-4400. 2005 Yoga Teacher Certificate Trainings March 26-April 26 May 28-June 28 August 27-Sept. 27 For more info call Sydney at 203-4400 or go to www.7centers.com |
7 Centers Yoga Arts Director/Teacher Ruth Hartung Ayurvedic Practitioner Ambaya Martin Center Manager Sydney Pinkerton Teachers: Gary Majchrzak, Ildiko Chikan, Kathleen Bryant, Rebekah Crisp, Ana Camacho, Paula McClintock, Jeannie Strauch
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Namaste,
Welcome! Join us Friday March 4th 7pm for Kirtan with Girish on tour with with his amazing band for an evening of ecstatic chant. Take a look at our other events highlighted below. This month we are reinstating our unlimited monthly pass for yoga classes... an incredible discount for $70. We also welcome Jeannie Strauch, a new teacher to our group of talented yoga teachers here at the center.
This has been a year to intensify committments for us at the center as we move more strongly into integration of spirituality into the choices we make as consumers, the quality of our relationships and the environment we live and work in. I have offered 7 Centers to be a home this year for The International Peace College, to set the blueprint for a harmony that needs to start at home with ourselves. Given the reflection of war and instability around us, it was Martin Luther King who suggested that we need to "train" for peace.
Beginning the weekend of March 19-20, the International Peace College (IPC) will offer training in peace strategies through a series of five weekend workshops at 7 Centers in Sedona, leading to a certificate in citizen diplomacy. Participants will explore how personal conflict relates to global conflict and how both can be transformed and used constructively as a dynamic force for positive change. Classes will explore the ancient roots of conflict, how to use conflict as a creative force for positive change, the interrelationship of all living systems, and healing through forgiveness. Participants will learn mediation strategies such as transforming destructive emotions into positive action, self-preparation and active listening.
Conflict Resolution: Individual to Global with Rama Jyoti Vernon and Max Lafser, March 19-20 Early reg. $125
Rama J
yoti Vernon and Rev. Max Lafser formerly of the Unity Church in Sedona, have co-designed an ex
tensive curriculum for Conflict Resolution and Peace Studies using East-West psychology. Rama Jyoti Vernon is the founder and President of the Center for
International Dialogue. As a citizen diplomat, Ms. Vernon traveled to the Soviet Union 47 times in seven years beginning in 1986 in the process of organizing over 200 Soviet-American conferences and counterpart exchanges. In 1992, Ms. Vernon began Regional Women’s Gatherings throughout major U.S. cities to give women a platform to express their vision for Peace in the Middle East and other areas of conflict.
Participation in the five weekends this year leads to a certificate in Citizen Diplomacy through Center for International Dialogue. The dates for the following weekends are: April 9-10, June 25-26, September 24-25, and October 22-23. Each weekend is $140 with early registration $125 or payment for all 5 at $575. For more information call Ginny Beal (888) 949-9642 or contact 7 Centers by phone or e-mail.
The Adventures of Lionheart, Temple Cat
The Virtue of Learning Contentment
It was on a beautiful day - the kind of day in February that looks like spring is here - when Lionheart rose from his post by the heater, stretched and ventured outside. A few winter months had gone by since he had climbed his favorite tree, a juvenile willow. He discovered that he was much slower to climb up the tree, and when he sat on a branch he didn't fit the way he used to. He seemed to splay over the branch as it bent closer and closer to the ground with his newly acquired winter pounds. He was a growing cat, not even a year old, and of course he needed to eat for his strength, for his humor, for his stamina, to fortify his patience with the fascinated toddlers of the Mom and Baby yoga class. He deserved treats after such exertion and good will on his part. What is life after all without a little bite of coconut cream pie, a stolen sandwich here and there, muffins from Wonderful Cafe snuck out of Sydney's purse? The only drawback that he could see was that his insatiable appetite had given rise to the affectionate, but rather unflattering nickname of Plumpy. 
The insatiablitiy of desire caught him off guard - this need, this yearning for food that had turned into bondage, requiring visits to his food bowl umpteen times a day. And so he began to meditate, contemplating this conundrum of what it was to never be satisfied, and he remembered Santosha from the Yoga Sutras - cultivating the practice of being contented with exactly what is. Upon reflection, he started to think perhaps he wasn't really that hungry - perhaps he was just bored. The lizards were not out sunning themselves, the birds had flown south, the spiders, flies, even the ants were in hibernation. Who was left to chase? Could he be content for a time (not forever, but for a winter) just chasing a string, tossing around a toy mouse, capturing a feather from an altar or from a yoga teacher's presentation? Perhaps life is in the simple things, after all, immersing a cat's self fully in the moment instead of seeking distractions. With that realization, he stretched and rolled into his favorite pose, shavasana, basking in contentment.
Ambaya's Corner....What is Ojas?
The qualities of ojas have been described by the ancient redactors of Ayurvedic wisdom - Susruta - lists them as heavy, cool, soft, smooth, viscous, sweet, stable, clear, unctuous, sticky or cohesive. Caraka - describes ojas as having the color of ghee, the taste of honey, and the smell of laja (dry fried rice). Foods such as ghee, milk, dates, almonds, basmati rice and avocados help replenish ojas. Behaviors which are satvic such as yoga, meditation, reading the vedic literature, keeping the company of the wise, right thinking also promote the formation and flow of ojas.
Ayurveda gives understanding of the causal relationship implied by these facts in the Law of Similarity and Dissimilarity. It states that any quality applied to a substance will increase that quality in that substance. If a substance is exposed to qualities such as those embodied in ojas, then that substance will become more ojas-like. Therefore, the foods listed above must be high in those ojas qualities, and they are. Similarly, the herbs and the behaviors have those ojas qualities and when one is exposed to them one automatically increases ojas. Looking at this in another way, we can say that these substances are anabolic (promote growth).
When ojas is diminished, the symptoms of fear, worry, weakness, loss of complexion, emaciation, roughness, cheerlessness, pain in the sense organs, decreased immunity, etc., may manifast. These symptoms may be caused by persistent emotional distress such as anger, worry, fear, and grief; by prolonged wasting diseases by extended fasting, extreme exertion, excessive sex, escessive elimination of bodily fluids - blood, mucus, semen, etc., excessive exposure to sun and wind, excessively staying awake, diet of cold, dry and rough quality and by old age and seasonally dry periods. Also, drugs/substances such as alcohol, tobacco, cocaine, etc., are detrimental to psysiology. The understanding of this relates to the law of cause and effect described above - Law of Similarity and Dissimilarity. The qualities of alcohol, for example, are exactly opposite to those qualities of ojas. Ingesting these substances brings these qualilties into the body abnd depletes or decreases those ojas qualitities. By avoiding these causative factors one projects ojas.
Ojas is the essence of life and the supreme expression of that flow of unifying intelligence we call Consciousness. Life is as process - a flow of intelligence, of energy and consciousness, which is experienced as bliss so long as the flow is continuous.
If you would like assistance in beginning an Ayurvedic Lifestyle program call Ambaya for a consultation 282-1756.