Sweat Your
Prayers: Movement as Spiritual Practice – The 5 Rhythms of the Soul
By Gabrielle Roth
I was
attracted to the book, Sweat Your
Prayers, because my primary yoga practice for years has been hot
yoga. I know intuitively through this
practice that there is something healing about sweating.
I first
started practicing Bikram yoga in 2004.
I was working in San Diego and the only yoga class near me that started
after 8pm was at the Bikram Yoga Studio in Old Town. I wasn’t interested in Bikram yoga. I didn’t like the idea of being in a hot room
with lots of sweaty people. To me it seemed
nasty and foul. But, I felt I needed a
yoga class, and I didn’t get off of work until late so I decided to try it.
I
remember my first class very well. It
was an absolute struggle and grasping for breath. When it was over I could hardly walk or think. On the way home, I pulled over to a
convenience store. I had only driven a block or two and there I drank 2 naked
juices for energy sitting in the parking lot in my car. But, the next day I felt great, so I decided
to do it again. Soon I was hooked. In the beginning, my body didn’t know how to
sweat. I never had been a person who
sweat very much. But after a few
sessions my body released and I was sweating away and I have never stopped, in
or out of the hot room.
My
interest in sweating brought me to the book, Sweat Your Prayers. The book was fantastic. I found myself
in awe of all the great quotes. For this
reading assignment, I decided to write down the quotes that touched me and
comment on them.
Quotes that spoke
to me in Sweat Your Prayers
p. vi
“I only had a
thimbleful of talent for ballet, but that didn’t stop me from dreaming”
In my yoga practice I
also have very little talent. I am not
flexible. I don’t know why. But I can’t stop thinking about yoga and I have had
a serious practice for 10 years now.
p.xxi
“Sometimes two hours of moving were as powerful as two years
on the couch. I discovered that the body
can’t lie; put it into motion and the truth kicks in.”
Sometimes when I sit
on the couch all weekend and think I am resting I feel terrible. Then, I got off my but and do some yoga and I
feel rested.
p. xxi
“I was astonished to observe that, for all their Ph.D.’s and
cool clothes; none of my students knew how to breathe.”
I also feel like I
don’t know how to breathe. I have been
doing an Ashtanga practice for the last month in the morning. I have about 15 poses that I have been taught
and are part of my practice. I do the
series 3 times and it takes me about 45 minutes. It isn’t until the third time through that I
find myself breathing easily and deeply. My body has finally relaxed enough to
breathe.
p.xii
“The more I taught, the more I realized that this was not
going to be simple. Most of us were
deeply afraid of the body; some people controlled every gesture they made,
others abandoned themselves to food or drink or just cut themselves off and
spaced out.”
I didn’t know anything
about my body until I started practicing yoga.
p.xiii
“My knee had healed itself.
No big operations, just rest. It
must have buckled under from the stress of the heavy expectations I had placed
on it.”
I have so many
expectations of my body. Sometimes I
think the pain in my shoulder and neck is really unresolved issues with my
mother. My knees have been a source of pain since my late 20s.
Quotes on the Soul
p.4
“Soul retrieval is hard work. Simply signing up for a workshop or following
a guru or buying a crystal won’t do it.
It doesn’t matter how many Buddha heads you have in your apartment if
you can’t find the one within you.
Looking for your soul in somebody else’s body or theory or fame is lazy
way to seek enlightenment. It takes
discipline to be a free spirit. It
saddens me that we are so quick to give our power away.
I am always signing up
for workshops. I am always searching
outside of myself. I would never have
though that it takes discipline to be a free spirit. I thought that was just inner nature. But, maybe the world doesn’t want you to be
free so you have to stick to your guns and that takes discipline.
“Our Soul is homeless
and we can’t just cross to the other side of the street and ignore it. It is the essence of who we are and to be
separated from it is our deepest wound.
Until we heal this primal wound and reclaim our soul, all our everyday
hurts will seem big and our bug hurts will feel insurmountable. The soul is the part of us that can relieve
our pain by transforming our suffering into wisdom.”
I don’t understand on
the mind level what Gabrielle Roth means by the soul is homeless. On the heart
level it rings true.
p.5
“Attachment is inertia.
As with all inertia, movement of the body is the antidote.”
I too easily attach to
everything.
“Your soul is a seeker, lover, and artist, shape shifting
through archetypal fields of energy, between your darkness and light, your body
and spirit, your heaven and hell, until you land in the sweet moment of
surrender when you as dancer, disappear in the dance.”
I have been taking a
tantric dance class. Sometimes, I lose
myself there dancing.
When you make the two one,
And when you make the inner as the outer
And the outer as the inner,
And the above as the below,
And when you make the male
And the female into a single one.
So that the male will not be male
And the female not female
Then shall you enter the kingdom.
Jesus – The Gospel of Thomas
The Gospel of Thomas
is very important to me. The graphic
novel I have been working on for years is based on a story from the Gospel of
Thomas. It’s feels like Christianity explained by Rumi.
p. 8 - 9
“I want to take you to a place of pure magic, where
everything goes and nothing stops, like a twenty-four hour roadside café with
the best jukebox you can imagine. Only
in this place, you don’t listen to jazz, you become it. All your parts
jam. It’s the place athletes call the
“zone”, Buddhists call “satori” and ravers call “trance.” I call it The Silver Desert. It’s a place of pure light that holds the
dark within it. It’s a place of pure
rhythm that holds the still point. It’s
a place within you.”
I want to teach a yoga
class like this one day. In Dakini Yuan
Miao’s workshop and my tantric dance class I have experienced trance for the
first time in my life.
Quotes on The
Practice
“A spiritual practice requires consciousness, both awareness
of the whole and attention to the details. As with everything else, the
teaching you receive from it will be the result of the consciousness you bring
to it. A spiritual practice requires discipline, the willingness and commitment
to show up not just physically, but mentally and emotionally, as well.
I love the discipline
of yoga. I like to be committed.
“An ounce of practice is worth a ton of theory, a wise
Taoist once said.”
I always find this in
my art classes. If I don’t practice the
class is not worth the trouble.
P.15
“We’re constantly changing and any practice meant to serve
our authenticity should reflect our fluid nature.”
In my forties, I
really see myself changing.
p. 25
“We’ve become so destination oriented that we’ve lost our
sense of direction, our ability to follow our own instincts, signals, and inner
messages. Somehow, it’s become more
important to get wherever we’re going than it is to enjoy the scenery along the
way.”
This is totally
me. I keep thinking about the
destination when I should be focusing on the journey.
In the tantric dance of feminine power class, we do this movement exercise where we follow our pleasure, we move in ways that
feel good and just follow the pleasure.
Nita, the teacher, tells us don’t worry about being symmetrical, just
follow the pleasure. I love that
exercise. I always feel great afterwards.
p. 26
“Sometimes in life it’s necessary to move straight ahead;
other times it’s better to back off or sidestep or move around in the same
circle until you sense a way out.”
p.33
“In a tribe of dolphins, whoever is in front leads; when
that dolphin is tired, he or she drops behind and whoever happens to be in
front next leads. No attachment. No
elections. No politics. We aren’t like
dolphins but we could be, at least in the context of our own psyches. In this discipline, we practice being leader
and follower, letting one part of our body lead while the rest follows. That
way we can ‘know the masculine and keep to the feminine’, as the Tao Te Ching
advises.”
Dolphins are one of my
totem animals. Nya means dolphin in
Hawaiian. I love the idea of the way the
tribe of dolphins move.
The Archetypes
Gabrielle Roth sets up a list of archetypes: the mother, the
father, the son, the Madonna, the mistress, the Holy Spirit. She also describes five states: flowing,
staccato, chaos, lyrical and stillness.
We move in and out of this archetypes and states continuously.
p. 39
“As Einstein queried, ‘Why is it that I get my best ideas in
the morning while I’m shaving?’ Shaving is like meditation with a sharp object. When the mind is empty and receptive, big
ideas flow through every cell of our body.
When we’re thinking too hard, we tense up and nothing can flow through
us; our energy gets stuck in our heads.
Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith and trust that if you turn
off your head, your feet will take you where you need to go.”
I always find this to
be the case. I do my best sets sometimes
when I don’t plan and I just go in the prop house, trust my intuition, and make
it work.
P.41
“We all have the potential to be full-bodied Bordeaux, but
sadly most of us are satisfied being Welch’s grape juice.”
I have allowed myself
over the last 10 years to be grape juice.
Quotes on the
Heart
p. 64
“Arms are the messengers of the heart. They reach out, they pull back, they
embrace. When the heart energy isn’t
free to flow in spontaneous gestures, these thwarted impulses build up in our
arms and our hands and inhibit our
dance.”
In Tantric dance class,
Nita said that our arms are connected to our heart. But, she also told some people to not use
their arms because when the use them too much.
The womb energy is overpowered by the heart energy and she wants us to
feel connected to our wombs.
p. 66
“Sometimes your heart gets broken, other times you’re a
heart-breaker. To know the full expanse of the heart, we need to experience
both sides. Being hurt is part of being human; there’s no way to avoid it
without shutting down completely.
Instead, use it as an excuse to dance.”
This is one of the
most beautiful quotes I have ever seen about heart break.
p.98
“To be truly wild and free you have to follow your heart,
not your head. There’s no image of
freedom out there. You have to dig deep down inside of yourself to find what
hearts for you.”
Quotes on Flirting
p.69
“Flirting is the key that will unlock the mistress space in
our hearts.”
“I finally realize that flirting is not telling somebody
something about yourself, but reflecting something about them.”
I always and told I am
a big flirt. I never think I am really
flirting, I always thinking I am having fun talking.
Quotes on Staccato
p.83
“Staccato is dancing with your bones, creating all kinds of
angles and edges like geometry in motion.
Lines erupt out of curves articulating our separateness, creating walls
or breaking them down. ..”
In Ashtanga, Surya
Namaskar A and B feel extremely staccato to me.
p.84
“While flowing is about taking in, staccato is about letting
go of all kinds of things, from fatigue to fury, misery to memories, hatreds to
heartbreaks. . . Staccato is about doing, not just being; taking action, not
just thinking about it.”
p. 95
“It’s not the same to talk of bulls as to be in the
bullring” – Spanish proverb
I believe to we have
to experience things in like we can’t just read or talk about them.
Quotes on Father
p. 88
“Father is the masculine consciousness of your body and
soul, the active, practical, protective part; the part of you that sets goals,
plans for the future, pays bills and remembers phone numbers; the part of you
that functions on the material plane of reality, in the real world as we know
it.”
I have a strong father
archetype in me, especially in my career as a Set Decorator. I am constantly planning and doing the right
thing.
Quotes on the Son
p. 101
“This wild, masculine, prince-of-tides part of us seeks
ecstasy. It desires nothing less than
complete possession by a surreal self that can’t be boxed or packaged or
sold. Son is the part of us that goes on
a hero’s journey to grab a grail or slay a dragon; it is the man in the mirror
committed to shattering all fixed images.”
My wild son has been
released this last year or son. Although
he is fun he is also inconsiderate and reckless.
Quotes on the Holy
Spirit
p. 103
“The Holy Spirit sees through everything; it is the witness
part of us that has no investment in outcome, even our own.”
p.102
“In each of us there is a holy spirit, the part of us that
actively seeks an answer, a meaning, a purpose to life. It’s a part of us that would trek in the
Himalayas, become a Buddhist take a philosophy or religion course, or study tai
chi.”
I have a strong Holy
Spirit. I am searching for my path.
Quotes on Chaos
p.119
“Intuition is chaotic.
If you’re afraid of chaos, it’s hard to access your intuition.”
When I get in a truly
creative state, especially with my art, I get chaotic. Everything ends up everywhere.
p. 126
“It began to bother me that so many people I knew were
embarking on these intense spiritual quests, taking off for India, or
regressing into past lives. It’s crystal
clear to me that everything that they’re looking die and wishing for is taking
place right now, right where we’re standing.”
This is me, looking
for it in exotic places.
p. 149
“Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the masters. Seek
what they sought.” – Matsuo Basko
Quotes on Lyrical
p. 156
“Two or three things I know for sure, and one is that I
would rather go naked than wear the coat the world has made for me.” – Dorothy
Allison
I love this quote. I
want to be this.
p. 162
“In lyrical, we realize that we have the freedom to keep
shifting energies so as never to get stuck in any one possibility and to know
that all possibilities are available to us all the times.”
Quotes on Trance
p. 166
“Trance is a tricky place, a place not many understand. It’s a mindful state that only happens when
you get out of your way and fall into your true self so deeply that something
inside you clicks and you are simultaneously being and witnessing yourself.
It’s a myth that trance is a spell that somebody puts you under. Trance is
hypnotic but not hypnosis.”
I have gone into three
trances in the last two months. I have
never been in trance before in my life.
I am shifting into unknown territory.
Quotes on Spirit
Animal
p. 168
“Knowing you spirit animals is very important to our
self-discovery. They link us to the
animal kingdom and allow us to receive its wisdom.”
My spirit animals are
the camel, the butterfly, and the dolphin. They speak to my constantly.
Quotes on Ego
p. 185
“Ego is all the voices in our heads chattering like a bunch
of soap opera characters; all those divas, demons, and doyennes dripping with
diamonds telling you that you aren’t rich enough, smart enough, beautiful
enough, talented enough, sexy enough-or that you’re more of the above the
anyone else, only the world hasn’t discovered it yet. These voices drown out the song of the soul,
the part of us that has no identity to protect or viewpoint to project.”
I can’t stop these
chatty Kathy’s in my head.
p. 212
“If it’s the last dance – dance backwards.” – Bo
This means to me:
change the rules, break the rules, and enjoy the dance.
