Fin.

I can’t believe the semester is over already. I feel like I have come such a long way since I stepped into B126 back in September. I underestimated the power and difficulty of yoga. I thought that it was a very feminine and soft practice. When Laurie first started going through the history of it all, I remember thinking, “Oh geez, there’s no way I’m going to understand any of this.” The names of famous yogi’s were so foreign and strange to me, along with a lot of other terms. After learning more, I realized that even though there was a lot of material, it wasn’t impossible to understand. I can honestly say that leaving this class I know a lot more historical yoga figures than I did when I first came in.

At the beginning of the actual practices, I didn’t find them too challenging. It was basic stretching and balancing. It wasn’t until the second and third week I discovered the more challenging postures. This is about the time that I started feeling the physical benefits of the practice, but not the mental or spiritual. The more frequently I practiced, the better I felt. It wasn’t until one class during savasana when I realized how relaxing and calming it all was. The slowly started getting more of the other benefits as time progressed. Now it has come to the point that when I’m really stressed out or under a lot of pressure, I long for some time to do yoga.

Today we watched the film on Ram Dass. I found it particularly interesting because I’m a psychology major and I’ve heard of a lot of the experiments that were discussed in the film. The practice of yoga and the experimentation with psychedelics have a couple things in common: a heightened sense of spirituality and self-realization. The use of acid and other hallucinogens gives the user a disassociative feeling. They look at themselves in ways they never have before, from a different perspective. Yoga can do the same thing to people who are dedicated to it.

Marcello's Meditation

Class: Meditation
Date: November 23^rd, 2010
Time & Location: In class

On Thursday, Marcello gave us a surprise visit in class. We brought blankets from Laurie’s office. There were only a handful of kids in the class because it was the day before Thanksgiving break. We set the blankets against the wall, so we could rest our backs against something. Marcello gave us a couple hand outs and spent a few minutes explaining the different types of focus points in meditation. Once he was done, we all sat down on our individual blankets. This class was extra special because my boyfriend, Zach, had come down to visit for Thanksgiving break. He has never done any form of meditation before, so I was excited to see how everything would play out. Marcello began by telling us to sit in any position that we are comfortable in. We can have our feet out in front of us anyway we want and we can even lie down if sitting up gets too uncomfortable. I kept my back straight against the wall and let my feet stretch out in front of me. He started off by having us focus on the darkness that is the result of our closed eyelids. He told us to clear our heads and focus on this dark area. Every time we got distracted by a thought, we had to refocus back on this black abyss. I had a very hard time doing this. It was difficult for me to acknowledge this nothingness. I knew it was there, but I couldn’t accept it. It was actually quite frustrating for me because I kept drifting into thought.

Then he told us to focus on our breath and the top of our upper lip. I could do this a little better. Time just kind of flew after the first ten minutes. Marcello tried a few other techniques for concentration. There was a moment where I felt as If I was falling, my whole body and head went forward and I jolted up in a panic. I realized that maybe I just lost control of my body and it took me a couple minutes to gather myself. He then instructed us to grant peace and love to different things. It started off small. We made wishes for ourselves, then our loved ones, then the community, and then the world. He kept talking about a sense of warmth in our chest. At first, it was very visual for me. I pictured slowly moving red embers in my chest. Then I actually started to feel a very subtle sensation of warmth in that area. When he told us to extend our warmth out to different things, my red embers would float out of my chest and spread out to different parts of the room and eventually the world. It wasn’t until about fifteen minutes were left in the meditation that I heard Zach snoring next to me. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want him to wake up startled and disturb everyone so I let him be. Once the practice was over, Marcello said, “if anyone is snoring next to you, wake them up.” I found this amusing, but my boyfriend didn’t later when I told him what he did. All in all, it was a very relaxing exercise that made me extremely aware of my body and mind.