This week I used the link I included in my last blog to locate another Tara Stiles video that I felt deserved a bit of commentary. This one is Stiles giving a mini-lesson on meditation, a subject, like yoga, I’m deeply interested in.
Stiles introduces meditation as a method of simultaneously gaining deeper awareness (of the self and things going on in one’s immediate surroundings) and tuning out annoyances, which sounds a bit like a contradiction. How, the viewer wonders, can one take note of noises and sensations and whatnot while meditating without having those things become a distraction?
I think Stiles would answer my question this way: Observing things, taking note of what is happening and then pushing those sensations into the background of one’s consciousness, is a way of becoming disciplined. She points out that we shouldn’t try to ignore the world when we meditate, nor should we fixate on it. Inner peace can only be achieved when we recognize that distractions exist without being upset by them.
One of the things I really like about this video is hearing Stiles de-emphasize the importance of thinking. Because I think for a living and have been given the mission of helping others become better, more critical thinkers, I tend to be a brain-centric person. Shutting my mind down is something I’m often not very good at, and as a result, I frequently suffer from niggling maladies, like insomnia, which occur when my rogue brain begins running amuck at the precise moment I turn off all the lights and then crawl between the sheets.
If meditating could help me learn to get a little quieter on the inside, I wouldn’t care at all about how loud the outside world got.
You know, I’ve always been intrigued by yoga, maybe because it’s a method of getting fit that also has philosophical underpinnings, thus connecting body and mind in the pursuit of personal betterment. Plus, it’s just such a calm way of exercising. Having grown up male in a very a conventional small town in Texas, a very macho part of the United States, I was raised to believe that physical fitness had to be aggressive and exaggerated to be effective. In other words, the exerciser had to move hard and fast and work up a tremendous sweat to be doing anything of any value. Yoga, it seems, challenges those assumptions about what exercise is and can be.
I think the mistake that many people make today, especially those living in many parts of North America, is to see physical activity as something that’s done only at the gym and after work. For years now, I’ve been looking for ways to become more physical all throughout the day, in every aspect of my life, even when I’m at work, which involves a lot of sitting around. The goal was to make exercise part of who I am as a person and not some special activity I do once I finish all the really “important” stuff required of me while I’m earning money. One way I’ve achieved this is by living carless for most of the last decade and a half. Anyway, that was a bit of a long journey to come to the following point: This video shows yoga moves that can be done in the office during the hours of 9 to 5.
OK, I’m sold. I’m going to have a look at some of the Tara Stiles videos on YouTube. Then, next fall, once I return to Cairo after my upcoming summer holiday, I’ll find a nice yoga class–there are lots of them available in this part of the city–and get with it.
I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to blog this CNN video. I realize it has no direct connection to any sort of topic specifically related to women or the concerns of women, but I think many Savvy readers will nonetheless find it of interest, mostly because it sheds a bit of light on what life in my current home city is like. By the way, the locals often refer to Cairo as “Um al-Dunya,” which is Arabic for “Mother of the World.”
Ah, home sweet home! Actually, the whole of Cairo is not as bad as what’s shown on this clip. There are quieter places (relatively speaking) where one can do a bit of safe (relatively speaking) strolling and escape the city’s “theme song,” as Ben Wedeman puts it. For example, Maadi, the district where I live, is a pretty nice place. It certainly does have its ugly spots, but there are beautiful ones as well. Plus, it’s an incredibly international area which I find very exciting. Just the other day, for example, I was walking along and discovered a small park that appears to be the meeting place for many Chinese stay-at-home moms. I liked the spot so much that I sat down on one of the benches and listened to the women speaking Chinese and watched their young children playing together. It was the sort of scene that made me understand that this city really is Um al-Dunya.
I want to say a word about Selwa, the woman who compares crossing the street to playing a sport. Wedeman is right. She does show “typical” Egyptian humor, and that’s one of the reasons I really like the locals. They have an incredible ability to see beyond the sound and fury and to laugh at things that would make others cry.
