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Current Teaching Schedule
Current teaching schedule is below! If you are looking for past actual blog entries/essays please scroll down!!
To Comprehend and Respect Another
COMPREHEND:
Latin root “com” = together in mind, “prehendere” = to grasp it, or pick it up
To comprehend something means to pick it up and be one with it. There is no other way to understand something.
RESPECT:
Latin Root “respectus”, from the verb “respicere” to look back at, regard. Consisting of “re” = back “specere” = look at or look back
Respect means to look again, to keep looking with increasingly sensitive eyes.
Respect only arises when we can take another look and realize the preciousness of what someone or something has to offer.
From Thich Nhat Hanh’s “The Heart of Understanding”:
“When we want to understand something, we cannot just stand outside and observe it. We have to enter deeply into it and be one with it in order to really understand. If we want to understand a person, we have to feel their feelings, suffer their sufferings, and enjoy their joy.
If we are concerned with peace and want to understand another country [or our own], we can’t just stand outside and observe. We have to be one with a citizen of that country in order to understand her feelings, perceptions, and mental formations. Any meaningful work for peace must follow the principal of non-duality, the principal of comprehension [and respect]. This is our peace practice” to comprehend, to be one with, in order to really understand.”
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: comprehension, jivamukti focus of the month, Jivamukti Yoga, jivamutki, latin lesson, prerequisites, respect, Yoga, yoga at home, yoga online, zoom yoga
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Keep Fighting the Good Fight
The fight against systemic racism will not end overnight. Some positive outcomes have emerged from the Black Lives Matter movement, but if anything that means we must keep going! There’s lifetimes of work to do.
I sat in on a panel discussion this weekend led by various global teachers from Jivamukti Yoga on the topic of Crisis and Community. From what I know this is going to be an on-going discussion, as it should be, and if you are interested the first discussion can be found on their FB page.
During the panel a resource on Talking About Race from the National Museum of African American History & Culture was brought up, which you can find here. The website is easy to navigate and breaks up topics based on if you are an educator, a parent/caregiver, or a person committed to equity.https://nmaahc.si.edu/learn/talking-about-race?fbclid=IwAR21wMX945Vl7Hfk_ThEXXiQf9njfuETuIE815PXQnZ-LBegsHlDARJ53V8
Zoom Yoga 5/13 – 5/18 & More on the Greenbelt
Zoom schedule below!
If you missed last week’s dharma talk in the 90 min classes, I shared a story that was sent to me by a student (with her permission) about the Greenbelt in Staten Island. Here’s what she had to say in her own words:
“My dad, an environmental journalist, grew up on Staten Island and got his start working at their local paper, the Staten Island Advance. During that time, there were Moses-era plans to put an interstate through the Greenbelt, which sparked local action to preserve the open space. My dad covered it all, and it was probably the first land preservation work he ever did as a writer (now that’s all he does).
“Save the Greenbelt” was the slogan, postered all over Staten Island. I even have one of his old t-shirts that says Save the Greenbelt. In the newsroom, it became an adage, “Save the fucking Greenbelt” you might say with an eye roll, as if to say, “just get the job done,” if somebody was complaining or exaggerating (intoned like, “ah, get over it”).”
This story fits in perfectly with the Jivamukti Focus of the Month – Spiritual Activism. If you’d like to read this month’s focus, written by Jivamukti Yoga co-founder Sharon Gannon, you can find it here.
While the first part of the essay focuses on veganism, the concept applies to any cause you are fighting for – whether it’s saving a natural habitat, or fighting for social/civil rights, or protections during an epidemic. (read last 3 paragraphs if you don’t feel like reading the whole thing!) “To think well of another and to want that person’s happiness, even though you do not agree with the person’s current thoughts and actions, is the key to spiritual activism.”
Zoom Yoga 4/22-4/27 & Short Sweet Poems
My dear friend Lauren Krauze is a poet and author and for a while was writing haiku that she called Short Sweet Poems. These poems brought such imagery to my mind with such a small amount of words that I found myself drawing them.
In addition to this week’s Zoom schedule, below you will find some drawings I did a few years ago based on Lauren’s poetry.
Letters to you/ my words will always/and never/fail 
he holds hands/in his hands – clock repairman 
tossed high from the pile/the leaves fall again 
under the umbrella/a tiny hand/reaches for the rain 
Haunted house: $5/ strya cats/ wait on the porch – original 
Supper! Bike in the driveway/back tire spinning 
Leaves ride the wind/from a passing train/November 
Green light-/Runaway balloon/crosses the street 
Surrounded by space/ tree’s last leaf/dances wildly/with the wind
Zoom Yoga 4/15-4/20
Song lyrics are also poetry! In keeping with National Poetry Month, these are the lyrics to Bill Withers’ Lovely Day 🙂 And teaching schedule below.
Lovely Day – Bill Withers
When I wake up in the morning, love
And the sunlight hurts my eyes
And something without warning, love
Bears heavy on my mind
Then I look at you
And the world’s alright with me
Just one look at you
And I know it’s gonna be
A lovely day
A lovely day
When the day that lies ahead of me
Seems impossible to face
When someone else instead of me
Always seems to know the way
Then I look at you
And the world’s alright with me
Just one look at you
And I know it’s gonna be
A lovely day
A lovely day
5 Minute Meditation
I recently made a short video for Aavrani, an Indian beauty ritual company. It’s an easy 3-step method for you to find a few moments of calm and quiet.
The video can be found below! If you’d like to explore any of Aavrani’s products, check out their website here:
About Aavrani:
Drawing upon Indian identity, heritage, and a deeper meaning of beauty, we reimagine clean skincare. This is beauty infused with bold sophistication, confidence, and wisdom. This is aavrani. At our core, we celebrate female empowerment. In Hindi, “rani” means “queen.” Our mission is to champion and uplift by encouraging all women to embrace their natural beauty.
Categories: jivamukti, Uncategorized, Yoga
Tags: 5 minute meditation, aavrani, dhyana, indian skin care, meditation, ranifam, self care, skincare, Yoga
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Upcoming Live-Stream Classes 3/19-3/23
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: coronavirus, covid-19, jivamukti online, Jivamukti Yoga, jivamukti yoga nyc, live stream yoga, online yoga, Yoga
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Live-Stream Yoga
NYC and most parts of the world are currently in social distancing mode to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Unfortunately this means no in-person yoga classes (and honestly, also no income for self-employed yoga teachers.)
I will be offering live-stream yoga classes and guided meditations (schedule below) via Zoom.US until we are no longer in lock-down. Sign-in details will be posted on social media outlets, so if you don’t follow me already, you can on Instagram @aprildechagas and my FaceBook yoga page April Dechagas Yoga.
Recommended donation for yoga asana classes is $10 via Venmo @April-Dechagas or PayPal aprildechagas@gmail.com. Meditation sliding scale $5-10. Class is free for those of you who do not currently have income due to COVID-19 closures – but please be honest about this, as I mentioned above, I also do not have any incoming $.
Schedule (log-in details change for each class – so be sure to check Insta or FB):
Monday 6:00 p.m. EST; 90 Min
Wednesday 12:00 p.m. EST; 90 Min
Thursday 9:00 a.m. EST ; 30 Min Guided Visualization Meditation
Saturday 5:00 p.m. EST; 90 Min
Coming soon – 60 Min asana classes
This poem by Fr. Richard Hendrick was shared with me by a student today:
Lockdown
Yes there is fear.
Yes there is isolation.
Yes there is panic buying.
Yes there is sickness.
Yes there is even death.
But,
They say that in Wuhan after so many years of noise
You can hear the birds again.
They say that after just a few weeks of quiet
The sky is no longer thick with fumes
But blue and grey and clear.
They say that in the streets of Assisi
People are singing to each other
across the empty squares,
keeping their windows open
so that those who are alone
may hear the sounds of family around them.
They say that a hotel in the West of Ireland
Is offering free meals and delivery to the housebound.
Today a young woman I know
is busy spreading fliers with her number
through the neighbourhood
So that the elders may have someone to call on.
Today Churches, Synagogues, Mosques and Temples
are preparing to welcome
and shelter the homeless, the sick, the weary
All over the world people are slowing down and reflecting
All over the world people are looking at their neighbours in a new way
All over the world people are waking up to a new reality
To how big we really are.
To how little control we really have.
To what really matters.
To Love.
So we pray and we remember that
Yes there is fear.
But there does not have to be hate.
Yes there is isolation.
But there does not have to be loneliness.
Yes there is panic buying.
But there does not have to be meanness.
Yes there is sickness.
But there does not have to be disease of the soul
Yes there is even death.
But there can always be a rebirth of love.
Wake to the choices you make as to how to live now.
Today, breathe.
Listen, behind the factory noises of your panic
The birds are singing again
The sky is clearing,
Spring is coming,
And we are always encompassed by Love.
Open the windows of your soul
And though you may not be able
to touch across the empty square,
Sing.
March 13th 2020
Stay safe out there kids!
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: coronavirus, covid-19, jivamukti nyc, jivamukti online, Jivamukti Yoga, live stream yoga, social distancing, social distancing yoga, Yoga, zoom yoga
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april dechagas 