Well that was a mind-blowing four weekends, packed with a lifetime's worth of information!

As you're digesting it all, follow this link to flickr for a few photos from last weekend that might help bring back some memories:

 https://www.flickr.com/photos/131938077@N05/?


I'll also be posting audio from all three days sometime soon.

Namaste everyone, see you down the road,
Linda

I never understood Bob Dylan. Both because my parents were into him (so I wasn’t) and also because I could never understand what he said. But after reading this article- I get it. The reason he is such a well-respected legend is because of his complete and utter devotion to music.

Dylan wrote songs and sang songs just for the love of it. Not because he was looking for anything or had a goal in mind.

When is the last time you did something for the pure love of it? Not looking for a result or something in return?

The Bhagavad Gita states:

“You have a right to your actions,

But never to your actions fruits.

Act for actions sake.

And do not be attached to inaction.”

In our society is seems like a lot of our daily actions are to get something in return.  Either money, approval, or a pat on the back. But in many ways our asana practice and our pranayama practice are empty of promises. (Even though the Hatha Yoga Pradipika promises that if you practice Nadi Shodana for 3 months all of your 72,000 energy channels will be cleansed ;) ) We still don’t know until we put in the work and find out for ourselves. The practice is not easy. It holds a mirror up and sometimes we don’t like what we see. 

Can you still stay on the path when the road gets rocky?

Can you commit to helping a friend when there is nothing in it for you?

Can you explore each asana without looking for sensation?

I don’t think Bob Dylan looked for approval or affirmation from anyone. He just acted on his dharma; which was singing and writing songs.  He has earned the respect and admiration of many for this reason.

-          Jamie Lugo

Bob Dylan

I was never much of a Bob Dylan fan, even though I was always told by everybody that he was just plain genius.  I have come to truly respect his views on things and appreciate what he has done in the world.  After reading the transcription I felt even more kinship with him and the mechanisms that allowed for that were; his hardworking ethic and his persistence.  He believed in what he was doing completely as did others.  So, with love and support of members of his music industry community he became successful and recognized as a prolific musician and composer.  That very point is something that i believe is fundamental to thriving today and integral to the survival of our society.  Passing good energy from mentor or teacher to student or aspirant, being easy with how others use or incorporate what we ourselves have produced.  Honoring ourselves, those that have come before us and those that follow is a true mark of greatness.  We should always be mindful of where we are going, where we are from, and those we meet on our path.

Dharma Talk Inspired by - Bob Dylan's MusiCares Person of Year speech By - Deborah O'Brien

"For three or four years all I listened to were folk standards. I went to sleep singing folk songs. I sang them everywhere, clubs, parties, bars, coffeehouses, fields, festivals. And I met other singers along the way who did the same thing and we just learned songs from each other. I could learn one  song and sing it next in an hour if I'd heard it just once.

If you sang "John Henry" as many times as me -- "John Henry was a steel-driving man / Died with a hammer in his hand / John Henry said a man ain't nothin' but a man / Before I let that steam drill drive me down / I'll die with that hammer in my hand."  If you had sung that song as many times as I did, you'd have written "How many roads must a man walk down?" too. 

In our yoga practice our teachers tell us "practice and all is coming".  This concept is further elaborated by the statement above from Bob Dylan.  We are the vehicle for the growth and progression of art.  By singing the same songs - practicing the same asana - this repetition and routine stimulates and inspires the creation of new art.  This new expression of ourselves never would have exsisted without the regular practice. 

I could see Patabi Jois and Bob Dylan enjoying a conversation on the topic.  

Here's the Asthanga Yoga Opening Chant - Dylan Style

"But you know, they didn't get here by themselves. It's been a long road and it's taken a lot of doing.But you know, they didn't get here by themselves. It's been a long road and it's taken a lot of doing." 
Bob Dylan is invoking the principle of Abhyasa (effort). Creating art is hard work. It takes effort, dedication and sacrifice. And then it doesn't belong just to you. There is vairagya (surrender). "...everything belongs to everyone," he says. You share your gifts. 

Iris Cohen

Bob Dylan

In his MusiCares Person of the Year acceptance speech, Dylan revealed part of his composing process, saying, "I learned lyrics and how to write them from listening to folk songs. And I played them, and I met other people that played them back when nobody was doing it. Sang nothing but these folk songs, and they gave me the code for everything that's fair game, that everything belongs to everyone."

I liken this to what we have been learning these past few months. Practicing and experimenting with different poses to create sequences is part of a great tradition being passed down to us by Colleen and Rodney, who learned from their teachers, the importance of continuing to find different ways to evolve our skills and share more about the unending secret codes that can be uncovered through practicing yoga.

Dylan said, "Critics have said that I've made a career out of confounding expectations…I don't even know what that means or who has time for it." 

I have found that in creating sequences, something like Dylan has in writing songs, that we can positively confound the expectations of all those who practice with us in a way that often defies words but that can be realized and felt.

Dylan quotes Sam Cooke "voices ought not to be measured by how pretty they are. Instead they matter only if they convince you that they are telling the truth"

It's not always about the voice as it is about the lyrics of a song.

It's not always about the body but rather the poses of a sequence - that silently speak of an otherwise undefinable truth.

Doreen

“ You know, my yoga  didn't get here by itself. It's been a long road and it's taken a lot of doing. This yoga of mine, it is like mystery stories, the kind that Shakespeare saw when he was growing up. I think you could trace what I do in yoga back that far. My  yoga was on the fringes then, and I think is on the fringes now. And it looks like it has  been on the hard ground. "                                                          

                                                                                                            - Pierre Bismuth

Bob Dylan Teaching

"Well voices ought not to be measured by how pretty they are.  Instead, they matter ONLY if they convince you that they are telling the truth."

So, thats just it.  Slow down and make the poses truthful.  Be curious, watch and breathe.  Be razor sharp in your observation to unearth some stuff embedded deep inside and look NOT so pretty but instead look and BE truthful propped up with lots of blocks and blankets.

To slow down, notice and allow the poses to be more truthful is tough.  Practicing yoga becomes a journey and not just a simple, rote, calisthenic class.  This investigative style of practice has informed my teaching tremendously.  My words blossom to "nudge" students gently into new terrritory-------not control or force their limbs into picture-perfect forms.  As I witness my body, along with my students, unfold into asana architecture,  I am inspired by the beneficial yet mostly "imperfect" forms that have take shape.  

For this reason, I am stepping further and further away from the overcooked-vinyasa flow style of yoga practice.  To unmask my holdings, along with my students, I must hold and watch.  HOLD, BREATH, and FEEL…..Yoga is an art and there is certainly no "right" practice- only different paths/practices to allow conscious, TRUTHFUL, communication with the tight, strong, weak, loose secrets of our bodies.  I thank Rodney and Colleen for their teachings that opened this less frenetic yogic path up to me.  I feel more and more truthful each time I practice and the poses only matter if they are telling the truth.   - Sue O'Connell

The Spiritual Message in Bob Dylan’s Speech 

In some ways Bob Dylan still seems somewhat baffled at his success and the fact that he is referred to as the voice of a generation. He claims that there is no secret to writing beautiful and meaningful lyrics. He has lived his music. He has a respect and love for who came before him ~ his teachers. Their message, their lyrics became so much a part of him that it was only natural that he began to create his own without any thought to fame, celebrity or monetary success. He just tapped in to his own voice. When you find your passion, something you love, live it and allow it to become a part of you. Find your teacher, learn from them, respect their work, practice what they teach, but never forget who you are. Find your own ways, your own voice and be true to who you are. At times you might be criticized and it may get hard, but staying true will allow you to live with yourself with comfort and ease which is much more important than trying to please others. “Voices are not measured by how pretty they are,” Dylan said quoting Sam Cooke. “They’re to be measured by whether they’re telling the truth.” There is so much to talk about in referencing this speech. The obvious is the work on asana ~ practice, practice, practice until it becomes a part of you. But also allow yourself to feel that place inside where you might feel a tug of war between what you feel, what is your authenticity vs. what is expected of you or what you pretend to feel based on others expectations. You might realize that your real joy looks very different. Various situations will present themselves in ways that may compromise your authenticity. That is when the work begins ~ the practice of realizing your truth as opposed to your habit. We rarely verbalize what our values are, but when we do, our intentions become very clear. When we’re clear in our intentions, when we’re definitive inner convictions, we begin to feel a shift. Our relationships feel it as well and then changes can begin.                                     - Debbie Charych 

Categories of Poses for  Mar- Ap HW:

1. Asymmetrical Backbends
2. Symmetrical Backbends
3. Asymmetrical Forward Bends
4. Symmetrical Forward Bends
5. OpenTwists
6. Closed Twists
7. Inversions
8. Hip Openers

What Bob Dylan said of his friend and fellow songwriter Billy Lee, "He was a true original....He did it all.  He was a deep, truthful man.  He wasn't bitter or nostalgic.  He just accepted. He knew where he came from and he was content with who he was.", not only seems true of Billy, but Dylan himself, and speaks to my own experience in my yoga practice.  The word self containment comes to mind.

Maybe there are other ways to become deep, truthful, accepting, self contained while acknowledging where we have come from, as Dylan did, but I know of no better way than through a sustained yoga practice..Honoring where I have come from, as Dylan did by acknowledging the source of his material, keeps me mindful of the "Great Chain of Being", where we each have a unique and definite place in the universal order of things but are at the same time deeply interdependent.  We each have a part to play but are actually interconnected and develop with and through each other and all of creation.  This is what I am beginning to feel through my yoga practice.

Bob Dylan Musicares Person of the Year Speech:

I have been inspired by every perspective and interpretation of Bob Dylan’sspeech.  Thank you all for sharing.

 

There is so much to think about after reading this speech-

A couple of phrases grabbed me from my first reading of it and have

stuck with me.

Dylan has been accused of making a career of Confounding Expectations.

How great is that?

It made me think about expectations- mine, others, how expectations enhance us, excite us, how we benefit from expectations, how they can limit us.  

The definition of expectation is: A strong belief that something will happen.  A belief that someone will or should achieve something.

That’s not a bad thing. Unless expectations prevent us from doing what is true for ourselves. That’s the limiting part. The Shoulds. The expectationswe put on ourselves as well as the ones put on us from outside of ourselves.“I should be a doing my asana practice and look just like this ..”, in spite of the pain in my knee. I should be, look, sound, or whatever like something other than myself  as I am in this moment in time and space and in this body.” “His voice should sound more like that”. Expectations can crush us.  They can prevent us from Singing the Truth.

Or, like Bob Dylan, we can Confound Expectations.

I looked up the word confound. I have been using it recently. I like it.

It means: To cause surprise or confusion in someone, especially by acting against their expectations.

Synonyms for confound are: amaze, astonish, dumbfound, stagger, surprise, startle, stun, throw, discompose, shake, bewilder, bedazzle, baffle, mystify, bemuse, perplex, puzzle, confuse, take aback, shake up, catch off balance, flabbergast, blow someones mind, blow away …flummox, faze, stump, beat, fox, (and my favorite)- discombobulate.

It seems like it would be a full career to do all of those things.

Dylan did them all by Singing His Truth. What else could he do? Did he have a choice? Do any of us?

Confound Expectation. Sing the Truth.

                                                                                                             - Diane Sjoholm

GIVING BIRTH TO THE UNIVERSE

The outbreath is an experience of the life force. In the Lamaze method of natural childbirth, they talk about breathing out and letting go as you are giving birth. The outbreath is like giving birth to the universe. You just let go.

                                        - Chogyam Trungpa

Bob Dylan Talk

A lot of people I know in this town are in major life transitions right now. Really big changes are going on all around us.

(pause)

Perhaps you're in a state of flux, too.

And one of the things that has been of comfort is that while you think you're way off the path -- that's usually when we get scared -- perhaps you've been on the path all along. Perhaps this is the path right now.

(pause)

Can we trust that it might all be ok?

(pause)

Bob Dylan recently gave a speech in which he mentioned the trajectory of his life. I'm not sure he could have given that speech at any other point in his life, for you need to be able to have hindsight to get that metaphorical 20/20 vision.

Times always change. They really do.  

And his advice was to just keep doing it all. Perhaps, you just show up and trust that it might all be ok. 

Bob Dylan speech-how it inspired me, Sarah Halweil

Be grateful for all of my teachers and interactions even if its not obvious that the person or event of the moment is teaching me. Pause and listen, even when it is challenging. What I am practicing, expressing, and creating does not come from a vacuum, it is inspired by influences of the past and present-all of my teachers. 

Do what inspires me no matter what others think. Practice, practice, practice. 

Its like what Roshi Joan Halifax says, “when you attach to the outcome, usually, the path is not realized and the path can be harmful.” Bob Dylan played and practice because he was inspired not because he was focused on a goal. 

Dont judge the the type of voice but rather the truth that it is speaking-Bob Dylan

Life is short, even on its longest days-John Cougar Mellencamp. 

The hardest thing for any creative person is to recognize the contribution of past creators, to recognize a lineage. We all desire to be unique.
Yet, everything has roots, and roots, to be strong, have to run deep or wide or both.
Bod Dylan has the modesty to acknowledge the “ precedent “  to his songs: traditional folk songs he says, that he would sing, repeat again and again; rock and roll, big band swing orchestra music.
The word here is repetition. Constant practice. Living, breathing those old songs. Diving deep into the emotions they were born from.
“ It’s been a long road “ he says, “it’s taken a lot of doing. “
We do have this feeling of a “ long road “ of “ a lot of doing “, in a yoga practice and study. We feel frustrated often, especially if we respect the lineage, if we repeat practice after practice sequences from Iyengar, Patabi Joi; sequences from Rodney and Colleen. We are bored sometimes when reading yoga texts. We don’t know anymore sometimes where we go and why. We mumble when asked a simple question. We get discouraged, annoyed, but sometimes, suddenly elated.
Because sometimes, suddenly, we feel we are getting closer to an answer, we have a fleeting insight, or a question arises, like how can I access the crown of my head, this elusive point of my body, when lying in Shavasana?
Because sometimes, we feel that we are nearing the mystery of what we are seeking by practicing yoga, we feel that it reaches even further than Shakespeare, cited by Bob Dylan, beyond the turmoil created by emotions that he so masterly touched and described.
We feel that it reaches somehow to the origin of the universe.
And then, it is gone.
Time to get back to work. To practice.

Dylan Assignment

Times always change. They really do. And you have to always be ready for something that's coming along and you never expected it. - Bob Dylan, MusiCares Speech

 

One of the things that brings us to back to our mats over and over is the difficulty we have with change. Everything might be going along just fine and suddenly:  The pipes burst. A loved one falls ill. You lose your job. Your once sweet and pliable child becomes a surly teenager.

 

Things change. And it's hard not to want to hold on to a time when things seemed - at least in our memories - to have been simpler, easier; better.

 

One of the first Dylan songs to influence me was "The Times They Are a'Changing." I was about 14 at the time. It was the 1970's and practically everyone I knew played guitar, and everyone was singing Dylan. A friend of mine taught me the song, and I was blown away by how wise the lyrics were. That last verse:

 

The line it is drawn

The curse it is cast

The slow one now

Will later be fast

As the present now

Will later be past

The order is

Rapidly fadin'

And the first one now

Will later be last

For the times they are a-changin'.

 

seemed almost Biblical, or Shakespearean. I find it interesting that Dylan referenced Shakespeare right in the beginning of his MusiCares speech, but it seems natural. Long before I read Hamlet I knew the lyrics to dozens of Dylan songs. And in so many ways they're both dealing with the same, big, insistent questions: what is a human life? Its essence, its nature, its details? What is love? What is time?

 

That afternoon, learning to play that song, was the first time I ever thought about the fact that life is in constant flux, that change is actually a way of identifying and defining life. The moment an organism stops changing, it dies.

 

Yoga keeps us connected to that flow. With each breath, we feel the body change: inhale, and the chest and belly rise, oxygen rushes to our cells, we feel our muscles energize; exhale, the leftovers leave our cells, we turn inwards for a moment, we repose. In the next inhale, we're already different than we were during the previous one. It's so incredible and constant, and it mostly happens without our awareness. But when we turn our attention towards that miraculous wave of life coming in, going out, the body changing, the mind changing, then we get to experience the beauty of that process. And the process of change becomes a powerful teacher. Our asana gets stronger because we don't get so rigid in the fluctuations, but allow the rise and swell to take us towards new edges of our physical experience. Our sense of life likewise gets stronger, as we feel more free to abandon our stakehold in the past and more forward into places we could never have imagined. And so life unfolds and we can observe and celebrate the changes rather than cling like frightened children to the shore, the remnants of our past.

 

 

Walking the Road A Million Times -- Reflections on Bob Dylan's MusiCares Person of the Year Speech

Reflections on Bob Dylan’s MusiCares Person of the Year Speech

Victoria Gordon

In Bob Dylan’s 2015 MusiCares Person of the Year acceptance speech, the legendary singer songwriter accredits his musical authenticity to having emerged through the DNA of traditional music.  

Dylan humbly asserts that through learning, listening to and singing the traditional folk songs, his unique voice (which define him as an artist), emerged.  While his songs are unarguably authentic, they were passed to him through a lineage of composers.  The fabric of his music was woven with the thread of his predecessors. 

 “These songs didn’t come out of thin air.  I didn’t just make them up out of whole cloth….these folk songs…gave me the code for everything that’s fair game, that everything belongs to everyone.”  

Dylan underscores the importance of practice.  Incessant practice.  One has to “walk down the roads a million times” before paving a new one.  He infers through that in order to transcend the boundaries and crack the code of finding your authenticity as an artist, one must first know the boundaries (or in this case, the rubric of traditional music).   Dylan’s “new” songs emerged from old, and took their own authentic shape with a process of which he claims he had little control:

After singing “all these ‘come al’ ye’ songs all the time, you’d be writing, ‘come gather ‘round people wherever you roam, admit that the waters around you have grown…The times they are a-changing.’…There’s nothing secret about it…They were the only kinds of songs that made sense.” 

In a similar light, yoga and its eight limbs, is a practice.  Not only has yoga been bequeathed from a lineage of an (arguably) 5,000 year old tradition in the board sense, yoga is a practice we can had down to ourselves each time we arrive at our mat, in an individual sense.  Through learning the alignment and intelligence behind the asanas, pranayama, yamas and niyamas, the “secret” is revealed.  As Dylan offers about his musical process, “there is really no secret about it.  You just do it unconsciously because that it enough."  

We can hear Dylan’s words resonate with ashtanga guru Sri. K. Pattabhi Jois’ discovery “practice and all is coming” — walk the road a million times, keep showing up, keep editing, and we might just get closer to discovering our own authenticity.   It will be enough.

I love this powerful excerpt from the transcript in the Los Angeles Times of Bob Dylan's MusiCares speech.
Sam Cooke said this when told he had a beautiful voice. He said, "Well that's very kind of you,but voices ought not to be measured by how pretty they are. Instead, they matter only if they can convince you they are telling the truth".
When I practice yoga. Well... some days I just don't like what I see and feel. It is painfully far from pretty,lovely or blissful. Then the break through comes when I give up control and allow the practice to unfold and reveal itself, The resistance crumbles and I feel liberated. Even if it means allowing uncomfortable feelings to rise like anger or sadness. They rise and somehow lose their hold just becoming part of the messy and wonderful whole. We love a sweet lie but I believe our souls long for the truth. Sam Cooke describes as a measure of a man's voice a man who speaks from the truth. I think he means a man abiding in the whole of who he is... capable of revealing the soul with unflinching clarity and able to convey that to others. Now I can't sing very well but this is my aim in practice. Each day I get on the mat to pay attention and I endeavor to abide in the truth no matter what and express it so others can hear it too.  The beauty is in the authenticity.
I'm sure thats why I loved Bob Dylan's songs growing up they were always so raw and real and sometimes felt like a heart ache or a belly ache but I knew they were true.

     Two quotes from the Dylan article, both on the same plane, were very impactful for me.
When explaining how he learned to write lyrics (from listening to other lyrics which he even references) he said: "Everything belongs to everyone." and later, "I opened up a door in a different kind of way.  It's just different, saying the same thing."
    Dylan strikes me as  a man who has done his svadhyaya "homework." Here is this legend, who, when doing his own reading, his own self-study, recognizes the awareness of himself as a tiny part of a universal consciousness.  By extension,  we all share successes and failures, talents and self doubts, strengths and weaknesses, confidence and anxiety.  It is our way of expressing them that is uniquely ours.  Same doors, different way of opening. 

From Pierre Bismuth:

Bob Dylan was not part of my culture. I have really started listening to him and reading his lyrics when I received the home work. I am reading his autobiography and  listen to all the singers who have inspired him and reading the lyrics. This is how I rediscovered  Johnny Cash and found this  Joni Mitchell ‘s lyrics

I've looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It's cloud illusions I recall
I really don't know clouds at all…

…I've looked at love from both sides now
From give and take, and still somehow
It's love's illusions I recall
I really don't know love at all
… I've looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose and still somehow
It's life's illusions I recall
I really don't know life at all

  I am not progressing very fast but it is a wonderful journey in an unknown past for me.

Two Spiritual teachings from Bob Dylan’s talk to MusicCares

Whose opinions matter to you? 

As Dylan said in Up to Me on his Biograph album:

If I’d lived my life by what others were thinkin’, the heart inside me would’ve diedI was just too stubborn to ever be governed by enforced insanitySomeone had to reach for the risin’ star, I guess it was up to me

In his MusicCares Person of the Year acceptance speech, Dylan says that his songs had detractors & supporters.  But when writing a song, he wasn’t thinking about what others thought of his songs. Many of his detractors didn’t understand or like his music.  But “If you have to have somebody’s blessing – you figure it out.”  He didn’t care so much about the opinions of those who wrote “novelty songs [that] weren’t saying anything serious.”  He preferred the blessings of those who wrote songs that “broke my heart;” that “shook the essence of humanity,” that “would never decay and still resound to this day.”

So look inside yourself and determine whether what you’re doing/saying resounds with your own truth.  Take in what others might say, but take more stock in the opinions of those whom you respect.  Life’s not about pleasing everyone.  It’s about being true to yourself.  If you’re seeking someone’s blessing, make sure it’s the blessing of those whose opinion resonates with your truth.

-----------------------------------

"Times always change.  They really do.  And you have to always be ready for something that’s coming along and you never expected it.”  Bob Dylan from his 2015 MusicCares Person of the Year Acceptance Speech 

"The Times They Are A-Changin'"

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

…

Come mothers and fathers

Throughout the land

And don't criticize

What you can't understand

Your sons and your daughters

Are beyond your command

Your old road is

Rapidly agin'

Please get out of the new one

If you can't lend your hand

For the times they are a-changin'

So find your center, and ground yourself for stability.  But don’t fight change.  Stay true to yourself and “swim” so you don’t “sink like a stone.”  Lend your hand as change presents itself to you.  Be open and receptive for the new and unexpected.

Bob Dylan MusicCares speech and spiritual teaching: Dharma Talk

(The parallel of how new songs arise from older songs…the roots of one arise from another)

I was listening to Bob Dylan speak about how and why he created songs like he did. How his roots in folk music and living in the sound of some of the great old folk music influenced him and created, for him, the space to create the music he’s so famous for. “All these songs are connected. Don't be fooled. I just opened up a different door in a different kind of way. It's just different, saying the same thing.” (BD) How his songs were extensions, not new creations. 

Our history and prior experience create new experience. It is, as we know, all connected. And in our yoga practice, we are working to support that connection…mind, body, breath, movement, past, present. Letting it all be NOW.  

In yoga asana practice we are always evolving. We can create beautiful ways of being and doing and also habits and behaviors that may not always serve us. 

In practice today let’s let go of the song we have in our head already…the one we wake up to, go to sleep to and sing again and again. Let go of the knowing, the expectations we bring to our mat. Let’s soften around all of that expectation. Letting go, aparigraha-non-grasping of what we think we know, what we believe should happen in practice…the shapes we expect, the limitations we anticipate the opening we expect…and let’s be open to a new song arising. 

Let our awareness in practice today rest in a different vantage point. Let the page of sheet music be blank/fresh and clear. And while everything we are still shows up on our mats, in our practice…just for today, be open to the idea of finding something new to experience. Greet each shape as though it was the first time and see how the music can change, evolve and grow. See what happens.