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Tag Archives: Ritual

Twelve reasons to start your day with Sun Salutations

25 Monday Apr 2016

Posted by Alvarado in Uncategorized

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Tags

inspiration, morning, Ritual, yoga

cat-stretching

  1. It wakes you up

Ever watch a cat wake up from a nap? They always do a deep back stretch before they pad off to do their cat stuff. Sun Salutations are very similar to the way a cat wakes up from a nap, it’s a way to flex and limber the spine. When you first get up your body has been laying inert in the same position for 8 hours. Sun Salutations shake out any stiffness and get you ready for the day. Here is what I recommend you try: do 12 Sun Salutations every morning, first thing after you wake up. Before you even eat breakfast. Try this for 12 days and you’ll be hooked. (Some people recommend 8 rounds, I say the number is up to you and how much time you have in the mornings. Even one is better than none obviously. But most of us can manage to spend 15 minutes a day, often this is about equal to the time you would otherwise be lounging in bed hitting the snooze button.)

 

  1. It’s simple.

sun-salutation

If you are not a yoga expert Sun Salutations are a great place to start. They are a pretty basic sequence of poses, but they form the backbone of a lot more complicated asana sequences. The Sun Salutation is very easy to learn, You are basically doing a cycle of down ward dogs and upward dogs. However the simplicity is deceptive. If you do 12 Sun Salutations that works out to 288 asanas.

 

  1. It’s easy to do because you don’t have to think.

 

However the nice thing about the Sun Salutations as a way to start your day is you don’t have to think—what pose do I do next. If you are like me you are pretty groggy in the morning. For a long time I would try to get into the habit of doing a yoga routine in the morning, but it was hard to stick with because I would do a couple downward dogs and then be like, “uh now what?” And spend my time trying to remember some obscure hip opening sequence or having to stop and look at a yoga book. The Sun Salutation frees you from having to think —what next?

 

  1. It’s a form of meditation

sun-salutation-surya-namaskar

In it’s repetition it becomes a form of mediation. You don’t have to think, you just get into the flow. It is also a perfect flow to work on your pranayama, your breath. Each asana (pose) in the Sun Salutation sequence fits perfectly with your alternating breath. After you become familiar with the sequence you are no longer having to think about your balance or what foot to put where, you are able to focus on being mindful of your breath. In this way it is a moving meditation.

 

  1. It packs a lot of yoga shapes into about 15 minutes.

 

I’d say each set of Sun Salutation takes about one minute to cycle through. If you do 12 Sun Salutations that works out to 288 asanas. Twelve is a good amount to start your day off. A set is doing the sun salutation on both legs, right and then left. So that is actually 24 downward dogs, 24 upward dogs ( and you are also getting in 24 push ups without even thinking of them as pushups.) Really the hardest part is just keeping track of where you are in the flow. I actually say out loud what number I am on “1, 2, 3 etc.” when I come up to standing position so I don’t lose track.

 

  1. It is a ritual

Stick-Salutation

A ritual is an opportunity to repeat the same action day after day, and thereby to increase it’s significance and meaning. The power of a ritual is that eventually the mood, the meaning, the mind set that you want to achieve with the ritual becomes automatic. The feeling that you want to impart to you sun Salutations is one of gratefulness for the day, as well as optimism and enthusiasm ( the vigor of the movements feel invigorating.) With the power of ritual this mood of gratitude can become yours easily and automatically every morning. And that is a great way to start the day.

 

  1. It is good for the body

While you could approach Sun Salutations as a spiritual exercise, the physical benefits cannot be over stated. my yoga teacher has said that a lot of people get to caught up in the physicality of yoga, but you can get 80% of the benefits of yoga just from doing Sun Salutations. It limbers the spin, expands the lungs, strengthens the muscles in the arms and legs and stretches them. It’s basically the best most efficient stretching and strengthening series squished into a very compact set of movements.

 

  1. It is good for the brain

The movement and breathing gets your blood pumping and oxygen flow to your brain. It’s better than a cup of coffee.

 

  1. It is good for the spirit

It is great to start the day knowing you are doing something good for yourself. You begin the day knowing that no matter what you have already done something healthy for yourself on multiple levels and that sets the tone for the day. Another reason that I think it is a good way to begin your mornings is if you do Sun Salutations first thing in the morning you automatically start the day feeling rejuvenated and energized, and you don’t give your self time to start the day off on the wrong foot.

 

  1. It’s a great base to have for adding other poses

 

If you have ever taking any Hatha yoga the Sun Salutation is already familiar to you because it is generally used by many yoga teachers as the backbone for many other sequences. Because of this if you want to add on more poses to the sun salutation it is a great place to begin and then you can start adding scorpion to your downward dog or a crow to your plank pose etc. The possibilities are endless once you have the basics going.

 

  1. It’s Energizing

While some yoga asanas are very calming or are referred to as revitalizing and restful. The Sun Salutation s definitely energizing, because you are flowing from standing to downward dog and back again. Because of this it is the best yoga for giving your morning a burst of vitality and energy.

 

  1. How you start your morning sets the tone for the rest of your day.

When you start your day feeling energized and awake you are setting yourself up for a good day. A recent study of 124 college students who just did Sun Salutations for 20 minutes for two weeks (and did not do any other yoga) found they reported feelings of a quieted mind, feelings of rest, joy and less worry than the control group. If you want the benefits of yoga in a simple, easy to establish home practice morning Sun Salutations are the way to go!

 

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21 days of meditation

31 Saturday Jan 2015

Posted by Alvarado in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

habit, meditation, Ritual, sitting, zazen, zen

Day 0

I have had a meditation practice in the past. But it has been a long time since I stuck with it. One of my goals this year is to get back into meditation. But so far this year I have failed to get that habit started. There is always some excuse: I’m running late, I slept in, I’m just too busy to just sit and do nothing for ten minutes. So I am going to blog my attempt to meditate, each day for the next 21 days right here. My intention is to get to a ten minute meditation practice being a part of my daily life. They say it takes 21 days to form a habit. I will record the challenges, the obstacles, and the rewards as they come up. (I also know that the embarrassment of having to blog that I have skipped a day should be very motivating!) So let’s see how I do. Indeed, I challenge you to give this a try along with me, and see what the results of meditating for the next 21 days can turn into. Let’s begin. (Well, tomorrow.)

Day 1

6 minutes. Woke up with a sore back, which I knew would make sitting uncomfortable. So I started with some yoga to loosen up. That helped. The sitting meditation itself did not go that great! I had thought that the main challenge to getting a meditation practice going would be over coming an initial boredom. Like, “gee it’s boring just sitting here doing nothing.” But the opposite was true! I couldn’t get my mind to shut off, it seemed I had more ideas, more thoughts about stuff I wanted to try than usual. Or is my brain always that noisy? It was the longest 6 minutes ever.

Day 2

I’ve heard that when you start to get serious about meditation that’s when your mind will start inventing obstacles. Because your mind doesn’t like change! Boy, did those obstacles kick in today, and it’s only day 2. First of all I can’t remember the last time my alarm went off and the feeling of remaining in bed and not bothering to get up felt so delicious! I wanted to lay in bed all day, not even sleeping, just laying there. So after a few minutes ( Okay more like 20) I rolled out and did some stretches then sat down to Om. laughing_buddha_statue-1016x1024

This is where things got annoying. It was like I had been dipped in itching powder. I had a tickle on my nose, an itch on my scalp, a twinge on my toe. My fingers are getting twitchy just thinking about it! It’s weird, because I don’t think I am any more , uh, “itchy” than the average joe. But all of a sudden my mind was inventing a brand new emergency itch-a-minute. Only when I forced myself to ignore a particularly tempting scratch on the knee for a full minute did this feeling subside and was able to focus on breath for a few seconds. I probably was only doing what could properly be considered mediation for about 2 seconds. Not bad for my second day! At this rate i’ll be up to a minute of real meditation in just a few months!

Day 3 birthday-cupcake-with-candles

Today happens to be my birthday. I’m 38, good gravy! Birthdays always make you think about how many, many, many, years you have been around. But after this morning’s meditation I realized maybe I haven’t been really alive as many years as I thought. Confused? Let me explain. The whole point of meditating for six minutes is to try to live only in the present for six minutes. It sounds easy, but when you try it you find that you spend a great deal of that six minutes not living in the present. Instead you are thinking of stuff you have to do, or want to do: the future. Or thinking about the past. We actually spend very little time living in the present. (One exception is when you are doing something you are fully engaged in.) I bet during six minutes of meditation I am only present in the moment for a minute or two. And that’s when I am actively trying to live in the moment! How much more of day to day life passes us by while we dwell in the past or the future? That means I have only being awake/aware/alert for about a third of my life. Which means I am about twelve and a half in Zen years. Yeah, that sounds about right.

Day 4

I’ll be honest, I’ve got a whomping hangover this morning. Because sake + karaoke = me doing Lou Reed covers. Ouch.  But, I am proud to say I still did my morning meditation practice. Spending time just being present and aware is not my usual hangover remedy. Frankly I did not feel very zen but that doesn’t matter. What matters is showing up to practice, especially when you don’t want to. So, in a weird way I feel like todays session was a success.

Day 5

Normally I wake up and then do meditation first thing, still in my pajamas. Today I tried something different and drank some coffee and took care of some tasks and emails that I needed to get done in a hurry. Then I sat down for meditation at noon. It didn’t work very well at all, because my mind was already busy juggling all the cares and objectives of the day. So, morning meditation is best.

Day 6

Well, I guess it was inevitable. I had a downright bad meditation session today! I know, I am supposed to be more zen about it, and say something like “there is no good or bad meditation, there is just meditation”. Well, sure, but I exclusively meditated on . . . tacos. It’s embarrassing.

Tacos-de-Barbacoa-1024x768

This new (muy sabrosa) taco place opened up nearby my house recently. And right before I sat down to meditate I thought “maybe I’ll just go get some tacos for lunch.” Then I sat down, I chanted OM. I cleared the thoughts from my mind, and quieted my heart . . . and the image of a delicious carnitas taco appeared! Argh! Go away taco, not now! Seriously.

I tried again, and again. The fourth or fifth time the thought of a delicious taco with a squeeze of lime and cilantro floated up into my mind’s eye I actually cracked up and started laughing. Good thing I wasn’t meditating in a dojo around others. Sigh. Well, I tell you, it was a long six minutes. I’m going to go feed the hungry ghost now. I guess this is why Buddhists are vegetarian.

A Very Brief History of Magic (pt 1)

12 Thursday Dec 2013

Posted by Alvarado in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

cave art, cave men, history of magic, Magic, prehistoric, Ritual, Shamanism

As long time readers of his blog know I recently landed a book deal with Peregrine books to publish my book DIY Magic. The other day this got me thinking about where DIY Magic fits into the history of magic. There are a lot of different opinions about what magic is,  ( the most predominant opinion, in our culture, is that it doesn’t exist) can we even talk about a “history” of something that no two people can agree on the meaning of? I think so, there are college 101 classes on the history of every other theoretical branch of human thought and endeavor; religion, politics, psychology, sociology, literature . . . and these are things that nobody can agree on either! I think any historian with an open mind will readily agree that magic—illusive as the definition might be—has been every bit as influential and important in the shaping of humanity’s story on earth as any of these other fields. So think of this blog post as the cliff notes to a class on the History of Magic that never happened . . . yet. The main difference between myself and the average academic historian with an interest in magic is that I think there are things we can still learn from magic, there are tricks of the trade, methods, and wisdom that humanity still could benefit from the study and application of magic. And I am talking about very practical, hand-on, here and now benefits that just about anybody with the will and inclination can access. Ultimately to the question, what is magic? I reply, it is perspective, it is a way of thinking, a way of seeing, one that is natural to us a species, and one that we and the planet could benefit greatly from remembering how to do.

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In the beginning Magic and art were one. Or to put it another way, art grew out of the practice of magic. Our ancient ancestors found themselves in a confusing and violent world. A world were you and your family were just as likely to be the prey to some larger predator as you were to be the hunter. A world that was ruled by magic. The first paintings ever done were magical. They were not done merely to amuse the eye. They were done to help the tribe catch dinner. Period. That was the beginnings of magic.

It is easy for us in the modern man to look at these and say, oh that’s cute. Those silly cavemen thought that by drawing a picture of the spear or arrow hitting the target it would actually help make that happen. I think that on closer inspection we can see that they may have been right. In my last post about creating rituals, I talked about how basketball players will often go through a long and idiosyncratic wind-up routine before they take a free throw shot. Often the NBA players who have the longest, and weirdest wind up routines have some of the best free throw averages. Could it be that the caveman of yore was practicing something similar before going out to hunt?

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Let’s imagine the scene. I doubt it was as simple as one guy painting a picture of a deer with a spear in it on the wall of his abode and then saying “Ooka ooka, look guys that’s the plan!” I imagine that while the shaman or the magician, or whatever you want to call them, the person doing the painting (it was probably the wisest and oldest of the hunters, the one who understood the tricks of the trade the best) others were probably dancing, chanting around the fire, enacting the hunting sequence that they were about to go on. Recently a lot of research in psychology has shown the effectiveness of visualization— of basically imagining yourself doing something the right way before you do it (ask any body who plays any sport).

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I don’t think that it is as simple as just saying that is all that is going on in the magical pre-hunting rituals of the cave men. It’s complicated—we are talking about a matrix of a lot of different processes that steer and guide human behavior, while the painting is being made, the shaman was probably communing with the spirit of the quarry, many hunting rituals involve placating the animal spirit, giving thanks to the fish or the deer for allowing itself to be caught in order to feed the tribe. In short, the magic ritual helps to give mankind perspective of his place in the world, as part of a balanced and harmonious whole, as one being among many who respects his environment and place. (Oh man, we could really use some more of that mentality right now! Maybe all corporations should be required to undergo a similar ceremony, where they make offerings to the environment before they go “on the hunt” for $.)

 

So, while the painting is being made, the hunters are dancing, chanting, going into a trance, they visualize themselves catching the prey.They are entranced, they are enchanted, they see themselves making the kill before it happens, and like a basketball huddle or a football locker room pep talk, they work out the tactics of who is going to do what, who is going to charge first, which hunter will be flanking on the left, and who will throw the spear. I imagine a story teller was probably telling stories of the last time the tribe brought down a big too,(here we have the beginnings of myth and literature) it was probably a very celebratory atmosphere, a bit like a tail gating party. I imagine it was also a bit like a fire drill sometimes — “look, Grok my son, if cave bear attacks us, me throw rock like this, you grab fire stick, ok?”

Image

During the pre-hunting ritual rest of the tribe is involved too, they are wishing the hunters luck, everybody is getting pumped up. The ritual of magic was a communal affair, something that brought everybody together. In this we can see the flowering of Art, of Song, of Dance, Of Religion, of Warfare, and of a way of life, a way of looking at man’s place in the world that was comforting, that kept a balance, and that worked.

 

Of course this example is just talking about a narrow slice of what magic was—the prehunt ritual. However magic was commonplace in every other aspect of life— in birth, in death, in mourning, in the rituals of initiation, of caring for the wounded and the sick, peace and war, youth and old age, it was the very fabric of society.

In the next two blog entries we will take a look at how this notion of “sympathetic magic” (the idea that a thing can affect another thing acausally, or at a distance) stayed alive for most of human history up until the “age of reason” and then we will examine the potential role and purpose of a theory of magic in the modern age.

 

 

Establish a Daily Ritual

11 Wednesday Dec 2013

Posted by Alvarado in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

creativity, creators, Faulkner, Hemingway, Karl Malone, Ritual, Routine, Sports, writers

“Routine, in an intelligent man, is a sign of ambition.”

                                                       – W.H. Auden

A lot of what I think about and write about, when I’m not working on fiction, is the art of creativity. How can a creative person make sure that the muse shows up on time day in and day out.  It’s an old problem that has been pondered to the point of cliche throughout the ages, because there is no easy answer, there really is no guarantee that you can sit down to your work and be endlessly inspired. Sometimes we hit the wall. The dreaded writer’s block, or whatever the term is for your field. (Do dancer’s get dancer’s block?)

There is no 100% surefire way to always make your muse show up on time. There is however a trick that will make the muse show up, if not punctually, then at least consistently 95% of the time. It’s called having a ritual. Enacting a simple ritual every time you are about to create lets your subconcious know “hey I’m working here, give me a hand.”

NBA Players know the trick of doing a warm up ritual (they call it a routine) before taking a free throw shot. Every pro basketballer has their own signature move that they do before shooting from the free throw line, one guys wraps the ball around his waist three times, another guy dribbles and then rubs his cheek. Jason Kidd blows a kiss before each free throw.

To give you a sense of just how odd and specific some of these routines are here is Reggie Millers: he puts salt on his left hand (!) presses the ball on his left hip, taking a shooting motion with his right hand, dribbles three times and THEN shoots.This helped him to shoot an astounding 89% from the free throw line. Karl Malone would spin the ball on his fingers while whispering a secret mantra to himself.

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NBA player Dirk Nowitzki hums a pop tune by David Hasselhoff of Baywatch before shooting, called “Looking for Freedom. His free throw record is terrific, which goes to show it doesn’t matter how odd or idiosyncratic your own personal ritual might be. I myself have a wind up that I use for putting in Disc Golf, and when it clicks I can tell my shot is going in even before it leaves my hand. Yes, I play Disc Golf, hey I used to be a hippie in college, ok?

Put simply the ritual calms the minds jitters and lets the body know that you are beginning a series of moves that you have done many times before, so it can happen almost automatically. Surprisingly the same effect seen in sports is also observable in the arts.

Stravinsky, arguably the last great classical composer, would always play a couple Bach fugues to warm up every day, before he got down to the business of composing. The Author Thomas Wolfe would get undressed to write in the buff, resting one hand on his genitals while he wrote—it must have worked, his highly praised epic “Time and the River” is 896 pages long. Beethoven would start each day with a cup of coffee, it had to be made out of exactly 60 coffee beans, so he would count them out before brewing the cup! (He would also sometimes pour pitchers of water on his hands while bellowing ideas for new songs, until his servant would crack up, and then Beethoven would get angry at him.) The philosopher Kierkegaard would pour sugar into a cup until it piled up above the rim, and then he would douse this with the strongest coffee he could get his hands on, and drink it down with great delight.

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Thomas Mann, the writer, would smoke “12 cigarettes and two cigars” while writing from 9-noon. One of my favorite writers, Haruki Murakami goes for a 3-4 mile run every morning before writing. Woody Allen find showers inspiring so sometimes he takes a bunch of extra showers. David Lynch would go to the same diner every day at 2:30 and drink a giant chocolate milkshake, for the rush of ideas he would get from the sugar. Hemingway would begin writing “at first light” and always stop while he still had an idea of what came next, so it would be easy to pick up the next day. He also wrote standing up and said that if you are working on a book you should take one day a week and reread through the whole thing from cover to cover. (I think if every writer took this advice the quality of literature in the world would rise drastically.) Faulkner would work at home in the library, since he didn’t want to be disturbed and the door had no lock, he would remove the doorknob and take it with him!

 

I love that one. The modern day equivalent would be to go somewhere to work and not take your laptop or smart phone of anything that can be distracting. This is my ritual. I like to go and write at a coffee shop, bringing with me just a notebook and pencils. This way I can’t be distracted by the internet or different chores that always need doing at home. Furthermore I don’t bring a book or anything. So I have to write—I would feel stupid sitting in a coffee shop and doing nothing at all, and I have my notebook with me so it is the only choice I leave myself. ( Later, when the project has already been written down in pencil I type it up at home.When I am typing at home I drink endless cups of Yorkshire Gold tea, and it has to be from my lucky black typing mug, which used to have a logo but that wore off long ago.) it’s a pretty straight forward ritual. I think the key is the pencils. I use the very finest pencils I can find. And a good sturdy German made brass pencil sharpener. As soon as I sip my first mouthful of coffee (lotsa cream, lotsa sugar) and spend a few minutes making sure that the 2-3 pencils I have brought with me are all nice and sharp then ideas soon begin to flood into my head because I have trained subconscious to recognize that hey—it’s idea making time!

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What’s your personal ritual?

You can create one on the spot. Or maybe you already have the beginnings of one and you just hadn’t realized it, but now you can deepen that ritual. You can also steal a little bit from the greats, hey, if there is ritual common to a lot of thinkers it is strong coffee! Tea works too. Long walks to gather ideas are also common morning rituals. It could be something as simple as sharpening 3 pencils. Or as odd as stripping down to write in the buff. Whatever works, you could also choose to make a ritual of doing a bit of yoga, or meditation, or dancing to a bit of music, it could be anything at all, the important thing is the repetition.

Whatever it is, make it your own, and do it without fail every time you sit down to work on something. Soon you will have made an agreement with your muse. When I do this little ritual it is time to get to work!

 

 

 

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