Rhythm of Time

A few weeks ago, PBS had a program, “the Violent Universe,” which beautifully and graphically illustrated to its viewers how our plant, Earth, moves.   This global space ship that we inhabit, while rotating around the Sun, is traveling with our whole galaxy through time and space at tremendous speed.  The distance between each star is so vast that astronomers talk in terms of light years (the distance that light traverses in one year, approximately six trillion miles).  When we are thinking in those terms, our three score and ten years of existence in these physical bodies seems very short, indeed.  For those of us who accept the concept of eternity (An endless or limitless time), the time we spend here on Earth is unique and wondrous.

During our waking, thinking moments, rarely do we ponder over this component of life called time.  We use it and very often waste it, living as though we will never run short: or we may look at time from the opposite pint of view.  Here we see time as an opponent, something with which we continually races, and end up with feelings of frustration and failure.

In the beginning, time was designed to be experienced and to be enjoyed, somehow along the way we found ourselves out of step with the gentle one called “Time”.  We lost the rhythm and attempted to take the lead away from him in this dance called “life”.  Usually we were left with this uncomfortable feeling of out-of-stepness.

Using your wonderful tool of imagination let’s take a trip.  See Time as a railroad track stretching across the United States form the East Coast to the Pacific Ocean.  We get on the train at birth (on the map, it’s New York) and we begin our adventure,  As the train moves on, we can view and experience the journey from any angle.  If we sit facing the back of the train, we can look out the window see where we have been.  If we face forward, we can only see where we are going.  Let’s do a magical trick and make the walls of the train disappear.  Each of us will find ourselves at different points along the way, some in Ohio, some in Illinois, some in Iowa.  

Let’s enjoy where we are right now!  And don’t forget that Colorado, with its beautiful snow-capped mountains are ahead (around the fifties and sixties).  Or if you are already in Colorado, don’t forget in our golden years we will be in California.  Is that the end?  Look to the West and you sill see a vast Ocean with other excursions to experience.  At any time we could have stopped the train and had just a part of the tour. Or we could have been so preoccupied with Indiana that we missed Utah altogether.  How about enjoying this whole wonderful sightseeing trip?  Isn’t that the reason we boarded the train in the first place?

The slow, rhythmic postures of Yoga helps us get back into the rhythm of time and there is then created a union with time.  Come in!  Let’s do some now living and go through Time together!

Starburst Galaxy Flickr photo from Smithsonian institution

Most people categorize their emotions into ”good ones” or bad ones.”  The good guys are: bliss, joy, interest, and conservatism.  The villains are: boredom, anger, fear, apathy, and the death wish.  This idea that some of our emotions are bad is another false consideration that most people accept as true.  There is no such thing as a “bad” emotion.   All emotions are there for us to experience. 

We are not our emotions; we have emotions.  They are the harp strings of the life experience and without them, we would have a truly bleak and colorless existence.

The secret is that we create and control the emotion we want instead of being a puppet on a string, allowing the emotion to control us.  In childhood, the pleasure of using our bodies to jump, to run, to swim etc., was joyous: then beginning early in life, we allow our emotions to be triggered by persons or conditions outside our being.

Since this is sharing universe with other beings, we are exposed to the energies of others, and it seems as though they are responsible for our happiness or gloom.  We have completely forgotten that we also are creators of emotional energies.

Look into your own life and see how often you depend on somebody, something…the weather, your mate, your boss, your friend…to bring sunshine into your life.  This is known as The Big Copout.   To leave the weighty, drudgery responsibility for your happiness on someone else’s shoulders is shirking your responsibility for what goes into your life.  This should be good news.  When it comes right down to it, who do you want in the drivers seat any way?  In this sharing universe of ours, we also have many opportunities to help or hinder others toward their goals.  Adding our energies to theirs allows richer and more varieties of songs to be played on our emotional harps.

The emotionally mature person decides what he wants in his life, be it health, wealth, friends, etc., and then directs his energies towards those goals. Be sure your time, your thoughts and your physical efforts are concentrated on what you want instead of being absorbed in what you don’t want.  It goes beyond positive thinking.  Some people think if they don’t see the so-called ugly side of life, then it doesn’t exist.  This isn’t living life: this is avoiding a large part of the world.

To realize that an unpleasant situation exists is a start to changing it.  The “bad guy” emotions will be the first to tell us (that is, if our harp is tuned correctly) just when these situations occur.  These emotions are to be experienced and are meant to be uncomfortable.  If they weren’t, we wouldn’t know a good situation from a bad one.

The danger comes when we indulge ourselves in these emotions, replaying our mental recorder to a past unpleasant or tragic event, keeping most of our energies locked in a past time and missing the ”now” life.  These are the emotional clouds that shut out the sun and dims our vision.  Many times, with this emotional indulging, we completely forget that our emotions are our tools and we think we are the emotion and turn the reigns over to these emotions.  Anger, fear, grief, in the drivers seat, usually results in disaster.

So claim these tools, get to know them, sharpen them and put them back in their rightful place: to be there to be used when the proper time and circumstance arises.

Space did not allow completion of the last column discussing skin care for dry skin, so I will finish the instructions before continuing with the sixth and most prevalent cause of premature aging.  After you face is well cleansed, leave the face wet and apply Vaseline generously to both the face and neck area.  Leave the lubricant on for about 15 minutes or longer and blot off gently.  Baseline can be applied to other dry areas of the body such as elbow and feet.  You can wear footies around the house as slippers and give your feet a beauty treatment.

The sixth cause of premature aging:

This cause I consider the major villain, and it is one that usually starts at about age 19 or older.

Hatha yoga deals with energies… energies we create with our minds as well as our bodies.  These thought waves can be measured electronically so we admit that there is actual use of energy with each thought.  In our society, as in most social structures, we are carefully programmed to accept certain thoughts as correct, simply because they are repeated over an over in action as well as words.  Ideas are as contagious as the common cold, and when they are accompanied by fear and worry, many mistaken ideas are accepted as truths.  These thoughts become deeply rooted in our minds, our bodies and our future.  When I stated in a previous column that today we are creating our tomorrows, I was referring to just that.

What is the sixth cause?  It is the accepted “fact” that the aging process must be a kind of dreaded ordeal that we must indure.  These goofed-up energies are what we are putting in today and the rest of our tomorrows.

Maybe this will make it clearer.  Let’s image that you are going to a party.  You agreed to go. But you are frightened and have definite feelings that you will have a miserable time.   If only you could stay here, where it is safe and secure.   May I ask you a question? When you get to this party, just what kind of a time do you think you are going to have?

Now liken each future decade to that party.  If you are 19. what do the 20’s hold for you? If 29, the 30”s if 39. the 40s?  and on and on.  Are you planting dread and fear there?  If you are, you may now realize what your harvest will be.  That garden party will leave a lot to be desired.  Some refuse to think and take responsibility for the future.  Chances are, that party will have little of what you would like in it.

Liken your mind to a television set. Now turn off the old obsolete ideas of dreading and fearing the future and change the channel to ones called hope, anticipation and wanted plans for the future.  What you will be doing is directing your energies to the things you want instead of what you don’t want. Fear, dread and worry burn up precious body energies that could be converted and used to kindle the fires of creativity, love and joy.  How about adding your kindly thoughts to our wonderful bonfire called LIVING.

 *** The part about the television set, I don’t remember writing that.  By looking at premature aging you can change the quality of your present life.

bonfire photo via Tölkin Palautus

In a previous writing, we touched briefly on two of the causes for premature aging…incorrect diet and lack of normal exercise.  Here are more causes:

Tension:  When we hold our bodies tense wholly or in one area, we cause the circulation of blood to be slowed down or restricted.  When this occurs, there is less nourishment of life-giving oxygen to the cells of the organ, muscle nerve or joint, and a breakdown in health may result.  With Hatha Yoga, the postures allow you to continually work on discovering just where you are crating these pockets of automatically produced tension, and you carefully and gently release that tension and put relaxation in its place.

Gravity: Most of our waking hours are spent in an upright or semi-upright position, with gravity pulling everything down, down, down.  Sagging muscles cause vital organs to be misplaced.  The continual pull of gravity has an effect on our circulatory system, in particular the veins of the legs, and many times varicose veins appear.

In the inverted yoga postures, such as the half-shoulder stand, the shoulder stand and the headstand, gravity works with you, helping to keep organs where they belong.  The circulation to the legs, the head and the upper chest is increased, thus allowing more nourishment to these areas.  These postures are called the rejuvenation exercises.  They are done gradually, holding the positions for a few seconds in the beginning, then increasing the seconds, a few at a time, until the position can be held for four minutes.  Persons with high blood pressure or weak eye capillaries should consult with their physicians before attempting there inverted postures.

Direct sunrays:  There are more and more warnings given by medical doctors to people who persist in exposing their skin to the sun during the summer months.  Because their repeated warnings have received much publicity, it is becoming less important to cultivate that dark, deadly “beautiful” tan.  Two of my friends who have done professional modeling, were told not to get tans.  Their skin photographed more beautifully without it.  The sunrays, between the hours of 10:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m., are very harmful and should be avoided.  If you must be outside during that time, your skin should be protected with a sun screening lotion.  Of course, some sunlight is extremely healthy for you and is an excellent source for vitamin D. If you have ever gone through a summer of repeated sunburns. You will notice how often the skin is replace prematurely.  People in warm climates unless they take the proper precautions and avoid excessive sun exposure, usually find themselves with dry, lined, leathery skin, fairly early in life.  A lack of moisture is another factor in sin aging.  The women of the British Isles supposedly have the most beautiful skin and the high moisture content in the air is considered the reason.

Here’s a beauty hint that may be of help to you if you have dry, flaky skin.  This is for men as well as women.  Vaseline is an inexpensive and very effective agent for the skin.

First wash your face with your fingertips only (washcloths will spread any infection to other parts of the face) with an acid balanced soap and worm water.  The skin has a natural acid mantle, which protects the skin from germs and when alkaline soap is used, this natural protection is removed and takes around 15 minutes for the protection to be replaced.

**** My ideas came like a “light bulb” and I have taught the class with these ideas***

 Flickr photo via Alli Jiang 

If you've read some article or books on yoga, you may have the idea that Hatha Yoga will make you younger, I would like to clarify that statement.  Yoga will allow you to be as young as you really are.  Most people allow their minds and bodies to age prematurely.  If you will look around you, will see old people at 26 and young energetic ones at 55; so aging doesn't necessarily coincide with the number of years you've been on this planet.

Let's consider some of the main factors that cause premature aging with differ from the natural and normal aging process of all living beings.  For, you see, we do have different phases of life set up to be experienced from infancy to the golden years.  How tragic it would be if were locked into only one of these experiences?

Each phase of life has it's own uniqueness and it's up to each of us to drop the trapped feeling and dreaded idea of growing old and replace it with enthusiasm and hope of actually getting the opportunity to experience these later phases of life.

Dread of old age resulted with we confused being disabled and pained with aging.  This doesn't necessarily have to be the case.  This very day you are creating your mind and body of tomorrow, next week, next year and 20 years from now.  To honestly face this fact and the responsibility takes a nature mind.

Bad health doesn't just happen: we either let it happen through apathy or neglect or cause it to happen through faulty care and abuse to both the mind and body. 

Premature aging usually occurs when chronic or acute illness is present in the body.  When this happens, body cells are destroyed before their time.  Each cell in our body has a life cycle of it's own.  If these bodies of ours are not given proper care, these younger vibrant soldier cells of ours will be killed off as a sacrifice for the whole body.

There is a theory that makes sense to me.  This theory claims each new cell has a built-in memory of the cell it replaces, but there is an ever-so-slight distortion in the memory of that cell.

Maybe this comparison will help.   Let's say you have an excellent camera and take a picture of a beautiful flower, then you take a picture of the printed picture.  You then repeat this 1,000 times, each time taking a picture of the last print.

When you compare the first print with the last one, you will see the distortion.  This may be the explanation for why the body changes in appearance even though there is a continual turnover of new cells each year.

If each body cell has a life cycle of its own and it is destroyed before the cell has completed its life cycle and if this destruction is continually taking place with many body cells, you have the result referred to as premature aging.

Here are two causes:

1.     Incomplete nutrition: the physical body needs the proper diet to build a multitude of different cells each of which requires different nutrients depending on the body tissue of which it is a part.  If there are any of these factors missing in the diet, this healthy tissue may break down and the body may be required to literally live off itself.  Here, again, you have the cells dying much too early.

2.     Lack of normal exercise:  Your life machine was meant to move, to exercise to be used to experience life.  Our entire body reacts negatively to the sedentary life.  With this continual slowing down of the circulatory system, you have a weakening of the heart muscle and the flow of blood to each cell is diminished.  It is so important to keep your cardio-vascular system in topnotch condition.  The stoic movements in yoga can be adjusted to each body and its particular condition, thus allowing it to gain strength and vitality. The words "to late" or "too old" are never used in yoga classes.

*** It is good advice but also difficult.  As I get older I don't want to do the things I used to.  The body was meant to slow down.  When I found that I was concentrating on what I could do and not on what I couldn't I was more joyful and could laugh. I like to be around young people because they d

enjoyed my sense of humor.  Taking care of your body can prolong and increase your joy.  You can increase the cycle by giving love to nurture your body.  You can prolong your body's age cycle by care and realizing the joy of living even with so called limitations.  It is just a different challenge.*****

flickr photo via Isayed75 "4 stages of human life" 

For a teacher to have a favorite class is strictly taboo, but I must say I do break that rule and admit that my hours with my students at Pine Acres Retirement Center is one of the most enjoyable ones of the week.

Many of my students have heard that yoga is for everyone no matter what age and these students prove that statement to be correct.

Yoga is personal experience and is to be adjusted to your body limitations with the continual goal of strengthening the muscle, breathing deeply.

Letting go of tension and learning to relax your mind as well as your body.  Most of the postures, or asanas, done at Pine Acres are done in sitting position.  All of the body is given attention and exercise from the top of the head to the tips of the toes.  One of the truths these students have discovered is that if you give your body attention when its well it won't be nearly as apt to be sick to get that attention.  For, your see, we treat our body as you would a small child, encourage it, love it and never dislike it. 

This bright, positive attitude replace the old, sociably accepted idea that to think well of ourselves was the height of conceit.

With all the postures done at Pine Acres, the student becomes a creator and creates the joy of doing, of taking charge and being at least partially responsible for their own well-being, physically, emotionally and mentally.

Kay Dinwiddie, special events director of Pine Acres, has put it in her own words: "On Oct. 9 1974 the residents at Pine Acres were introduced to a new activity…yoga, no less.  The first session was attended by 14 persons, ranging in age form 75 to 97 years.  They met their instructor, Beth Povlsen, and from that moment on, the residents listened to the philosophy of yoga and participated in the experience with great enthusiasm.

"To the residents at first, the experience of yoga was exercises.  As the weekly sessions progressed many other residents joined the group and the "joy" of Yoga meant more than exercises. Listening to their instructor, the residents of Pine Acres began looking at their bodies as something wonderful given them to care for, not just something to tolerate, if it pained them or didn't do as it had in years past.

"One resident said, "After yoga yesterday, my cold is better."  Another said, "I wish I had known of yoga years ago."  Presently 30 residents are participating in yoga and enjoying the refreshing ideas it brings and the new happy moments it has put into their life.  Creating happiness in doing.  For the first time residents heard….yes, they could create happiness…not waiting for a television show to do the job, or someone else.  Creating their own joy and sharing it with others."

The Pine Acres students are now into their second series of 10 classes with more participating.

*** I am using my own teaching in my living.  Things don't bother me as much.  My mother lived to 78 and my Dad lived to 86 and he drank and smoked.  This isn't a correlation with how you live and what happens. Because you don't know what patterns you had started with in this life. You may have prolonged your life.   Look around and see if you have finished all your goals. And if you don't want to leave yet then you need to make up new goals.  An example  (I really admire Paul because he can write his article in half an hour and I have to write and rewrite an article.  I think he was jealous that I was getting the attention to do this with you.)

The class ended by having the students sitting in chairs and pretending they were a rose starting from a bud. Then they would slowly unfold by bringing their spine up and there arms out into a blossom to get the feeling of a flower and they then closed up and brought themselves into a ball with the goal of having them carry this joy out into the rest of the week.  At the end of the class I went around and gave each a hug.  Once when I went around Rose (102 and a former trapeze artist) said, "Beth you know where it is at".   Later the paper came around to write an article about the class and ended up writing about her.  Later when the reporter showed her the picture he asked what she though of it she said with a twinkle in her eye. " Oh her, that old lady, that's not me." *****

Flickr photo via Ride My Pony 

Tension is our personal enemy No. 1. It is responsible for much of the poor health, both mental and physical, in our society.

The definition for tension is "trapped energy."  Through some yoga exercised, you can learn to release this "held still" energy and change it into freed energy with we call vitality.

Practically all the yoga postures work on just that.  The neck exercises are very effective for this.  Just reach back and gently knead the shoulder muscles.   If they feel tight and hard, you are tightening those muscles automatically during physical work or mental concentration,.

This is one of the big confusions.  To concentrate on something, you do not have to tense your muscles.  You women, the next time you iron, see if you  hold your iron relaxed, letting it glide over the garment or are you pushing the iron with not only determination, but tense arm, hand and neck muscles,

All of you see if you drive your car with relaxed arm and neck muscles, in particular.  Many people tighten up the jaw too.  The jutting tight jaw is even an accepted idea of courage.  You can be just as courageous and even a better driver if you relax and put some enjoyment into it.

The first way to relieve tension is to know just where you are trapping this energy, for it does rob you of energy your body is creating when you hold your muscles tense.  I you want to find out, try this experiment: extend your right arm in front of you, now clench the fist and tighten the entire arm.  Hold for 15 seconds.  See how tired, even painful tension is?  No wonder so many persons these days complain of tension headaches.  The neck and shoulder muscles are held tight for hours, not just seconds or minutes.

Some persons hold tension in their midsection.  This, of course, interferes with digestion and can cause duodenal ulcers.  With the digestive juices over-stimulated, the body actually feeds upon itself.  There are many yoga exercises that relieve tension in this area, but one of the best remedies for this condition is the abdominal breath.

To experience this, sit stand or lie down, Place our hands on your abdomen and exhale, pulling your stomach muscles in and up.  Then inhale, letting the abdominal muscles relax letting the diaphragm lower and the stomach balloon out.  Repeat five times.  Think and create relaxation in the area.  Don't be agreed you stomach muscles will sag or stretch.  They will actually tighten up with use and your abdomen will be more firm.

It will take awhile to perfect this breath.  Men find it easier than women, as women have been carefully taught to breath from the chest, and hold the tummy still.  Check other muscles for tension.  How great it will be when you are able to change all that trapped energy into free energy to do the things you want to do.

*****No I have no changes. It was better than I thought it would be.  I didn't' realize that I gave such details about checking your body.  I know that I still check my body automatically for tension.**** (comment in **** 30 years later)

The different ideas and opinions we all have of politics, religion, morals, diets, etc., there are three statements with which most of would agree.

1.     As time moves on, we are all bombarded with more and more things in our daily life that increases tension within and without us.

2.     The ability to cope with rising prices, change in moral value, the drug problem and increased crime rate, to name a few, has become more and more difficult for us.

3.     If there is any way to relieve this build up of tension, thus allowing us to have better health and happiness, we want to know about it.  The use and abuse of tranquilizers have only covered up the problems and give a false feeling of security.  There are many who believe that the drug problem today is a direct result of acceptance of pills by many as way of life.

No wonder Hatha yoga has had such an influence and been so appealing to the western world during this past trying decade.  The idea that yoga is weird, not of this world and something one couldn't understand, no longer popular.  Yoga does help you to dope, it does help you to cope, it does help you relax and it does help you have what you want in your life.

Hatha Yoga is an ancient philosophy more than 4.000 years old that is more than ideas and words.  It is something you experience, rather than learn.  For you see, yoga deals with the entire being: the mind, the emotions, and the body.  Each person gradually gets to know himself better and having done this, he gets to like himself more.

Will Rogers stated: "I never knew a man I didn't like."  Well that goes for yourself, too.  If you break through those masks and facades and actually know the real you, you will begin to accept and like yourself.  This is, I believe, the true beginning of having what you want in life.

This article is a trial balloon (where have I heard that phrase before?)  Because time doesn't permit in weekly classes and also reach some of you who haven't tried yoga yet.  Weekly, these columns will appear with at least one idea you can use.  Some will be physical, some emotional and some mental.

By Beth Povlsen

*** Why did I write this?—to help me understand the meaning of life and death. It all started when I decided to study yoga to improve my health. The bonus was when the door started to open and I wasn't even realizing there was a connection.  Instead of answers I got more questions. All of it (the writing) I was doing was for me.  I think that writing was a beginning and it opened a door.  One of the beginnings of understanding was the tool of yoga. You can use the tool of yoga for better understanding of Christianity. Christianity is another tool in understanding of life and I used this in my early life but death is another part of life.  Later I was an atheist before yoga opened another adventure to understanding.

This is a personal book of what I understand and it is not necessarily the only way.******