Accidentally New Age*

The new culture seemed to whirl backward and forward—a loop of history, history as loop—calling and responding, leaping, spinning, renewing.

In the loop, there is the alpha, the omega and the turning points in between. The seam disappears, slips into endless motion and reveals a new logic—the circumference of a worldview.

—Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation by Jeff Chang

Accidentally New Age is always on the lookout for ways that her everyday reading relates, metaphorically or otherwise, to her Yoga. Those of you who know ANA know she really can’t make it a day without talking about spanda—the divine vibration. Fascinated with this idea of perpetual creation and dissolution, ANA looks for it everywhere. Which makes for a pretty satisfying activity since, by definition, it really is everywhere.

It’s in her yoga practice: in the setting of intentions and the transitions within and between poses.

It’s in her work day: in a particularly creative application of editorial style to a sentence that needs a certain bit of polish.

It’s in the news: in the seemingly perpetual expansion of dark matter (shakti?) in the universe.

And it’s in hip hop…or at least in Jeff Chang’s telling of its history. The alpha, the omega, and the turning points in between. What’s not to love about that?

At a recent Anusara intensive, ANA heard John Friend talk about the goddesses Saraswati, Lakshmi, and Kali, and how they relate to creation and dissolution. Saraswati creates order; Lakshmi represents fullness, purna; and Kali is destruction. In an asana practice these three phases would be: setting up the foundation for a pose (Saraswati), finding the full expression of the beauty of that pose (Lakshmi), and then the necessary end of that pose (Kali) before transitioning into the next one.

The alpha, the omega, and the turning points.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 8th, 2008 at 8:24 am and is filed under Learn. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.