gdp's Comments

elephant journal: Yoga, Sustainability, Politics, Spirituality. : 50 Shades of Yoga.

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 17:58:30 +0000

No, I am 52. I think I decided I was smarter than all my teachers around 5th grade, and developed a strong tendency to question authority. That is really what I meant by competitiveness, not any desire to overtly "win," but just to march to the beat of my own drum. In the realm of logic and reason, this has served me well. But, one of the most important things I have gained from yoga is to recognize the limitations of my rational mind. I could not foresee how a regular practice of yoga would change me. So, there is an element of faith there, to embark on any practice that proceeds in such tiny increments. I mean, you can make the rational arguments about fitness, etc., but I am the type to ask "but what then?" I have found the female teachers to be more motivational in that regard, but you are right, it might just be hormones.

elephant journal: Yoga, Sustainability, Politics, Spirituality. : 50 Shades of Yoga.

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 16:21:23 +0000

I agree with you on the importance of confidence. Not so much about the techniques, but to convey the underlying motivational message "this will make you happy," "do this more often," "it is worth the effort," "you are good," "we are blessed," "I believe." You hear it in the tone of voice, in a language that probably goes back to our earliest grunts and is hard to fake. But, in my own experience, I have not found that male teachers are better at this. On the contrary, the undercurrent I often hear in their voices is "this is what they told me to say, this is how I make my living." I don't imagine I am hearing anything that I could not read in a book. I think that is simply because I am a man, so can more easily and automatically put myself into their shoes and be less moved. There is probably an element of competitiveness that makes me want to diminish them. I can see how that same dynamic would work oppositely for female students.

elephant journal: Yoga, Sustainability, Politics, Spirituality. : 50 Shades of Yoga.

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 16:52:12 +0000

Yes, let's not forget that there is a powerful attraction of complimentary opposites that is not always a "daddy issue" or a "mommy issue." By my reading of cultural history, all fathers were emotionally absent 50 years ago. And young women believed they needed a man to complete them. If this did not always work out so well, we may say the same about today's urge toward self reliance. The history of love has always been written by the losers. Not to suggest we turn back the clock, but just to recognize these are all cultural constructions, notions about how we are "supposed to be" that will change, as we try to find our way. And, if we are going to put up any false idols, we could do a lot worse than a man or woman we love.

elephant journal: Yoga, Sustainability, Politics, Spirituality. : 50 Shades of Yoga.

Tue, 27 Nov 2012 16:39:34 +0000

As a man, I have asked myself the same thing about my preference for female teachers. There are many things at work, but one thing I realized is that if a man tells me something is true, my first reaction is "you do not know any better than I" and I will put my critical faculties to work evaluating his advice. If a woman tells me something, I seem willing to believe she has access to some special intuitive knowledge that is not immediately accessible to my logical thought processes, and I will just accept it viscerally. But probably more than that is I have long standing insecurities about what I am supposed to do to please a woman. So, it is really a delight when she just tells me what to do. If we were engaged in some more goal directed activity like trying to win a game, these kind of issues would more easily remain below the surface. But, in yoga, we are mostly just being. This offers a blank slate for all of our projections to play out. I guess it is a lot like a non-reactive therapist who just keeps nodding.

elephant journal: Yoga, Sustainability, Politics, Spirituality. : Have Recent Weather Events Moved More of Us to Listen to Science? ~ Jeremy Hance

Wed, 21 Nov 2012 05:31:42 +0000

Thanks Mark! I am optimistic. Not just about plants pulling more CO2 from the atmosphere, but also for a slow down in the decay processes that put it back.

elephant journal: Yoga, Sustainability, Politics, Spirituality. : Have Recent Weather Events Moved More of Us to Listen to Science? ~ Jeremy Hance

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 05:56:01 +0000

Thinking more about this taking "sides," it is striking. The real issue here could not more obviously be a continuum: Are we going to warm by 1 degree, 2 degrees, 3 degrees, or 10? Yet, we have somehow found a way to marshall our arguments around a mostly meaningless yes or no question that has only one virtue: it lets us join one team or the other. It is the same thing we see in our political process. David did not even address the substance of your last post, except to say the person you referenced is on the wrong team. This is also exactly why we should not place our bets on CO2 emissions control. Our most formidable adversary on this planet has always been other humans. Cooperation for "the good of the species" is the last thing in our minds or in our genes. And, if we indeed want to go that route, and think about some idea of a common good for all mankind, we would need to start by saying the US has long since exhausted its global carbon budget, and may as well turn off the lights right now. I do not think we are ready to do that, which is why we need to grow through this challenge, not shrink from it.

elephant journal: Yoga, Sustainability, Politics, Spirituality. : Have Recent Weather Events Moved More of Us to Listen to Science? ~ Jeremy Hance

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 04:19:55 +0000

Thanks Mark. My point about the "sides" was simply that it's not black and white. There is a continuum of scientific opinion about how much warming will occur. The questions you raised about feedback loops are very much to the point. On the face of it, one could expect that higher concentrations of CO2 would accelerate its uptake by plant life, while at the same time slowing the decay processes that return it back into the atmosphere. In fact, a recent study indicates the earth has doubled its uptake of CO2 over the past 50 years ( see http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/02/earths-co2-... ). This has nothing to do with whether man is causing warming. It may have a great deal to do with how we can best respond to it.

elephant journal: Yoga, Sustainability, Politics, Spirituality. : Have Recent Weather Events Moved More of Us to Listen to Science? ~ Jeremy Hance

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 16:41:44 +0000

I remain baffled by what you mean by "swayed all the way," or "the other side," as if there is some essential yes or no question at issue here. Suppose global warming is caused by increased solar output. Does that mean we should sit back and be fried? No. What matters is the magnitude of warming we can expect, how we might mitigate it, and how we can adapt to it. These are not yes or no questions and there are a wide range of scientific views. Clearly, additional C02 in the atmosphere retains more of the sun's energy. Reducing the 33 Gigatons that humans generate annually by burning fossil fuel will likely reduce the warming effect. Whether that will succeed remains to be determined. Organic decay and forest fires add far more than fossil fuel, about 439 Gigatons annually. A small change in those much larger contributors might be more effective. My main concern is that humans have a built in emotional attraction to turning back the clock, that may draw us toward the wrong solutions here. Polarizing debate around a mostly meaningless question will not help matters.

elephant journal: Yoga, Sustainability, Politics, Spirituality. : Have Recent Weather Events Moved More of Us to Listen to Science? ~ Jeremy Hance

Sun, 18 Nov 2012 16:59:32 +0000

I think you are a little disingenuous in your citations of science. You correctly assert that the climate is warming and human activity is a major cause. But then you jump to warning of total planetary biological collapse and human extinction by 2100, as if the majority of scientists are with you on that. Where do you find that consensus? And if the threat is really that severe, shouldn't we be doing a lot more than reducing human CO2 emissions? Organic decay and forest fires pump 439 Gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year, dwarfing the 33 Gigatons added by burning of fossil fuels. Shouldn't we be trying to control those much larger sources as well? Or, would you be in favor of launching sulfur into the atmosphere to reflect more sunlight, as one Nobel Prize winning Scientist has proposed? (see http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/08/0... ).

elephant journal: Yoga, Sustainability, Politics, Spirituality. : Have Recent Weather Events Moved More of Us to Listen to Science? ~ Jeremy Hance

Sun, 18 Nov 2012 02:38:06 +0000

In general, warmer temperatures lead to more ocean evaporation and more precipitation. You are right that it could fall in all the wrong places. So, the safest bet is to not let anything change. Except that may not be possible. So, we need to make sure we are not clinging to the past for emotional reasons when there may be new pathways forward if we can adapt to change. Also, bear in mind that a large portion of the human population is not exactly thrilled with their lives today. They will not be easily persuaded to forgo improvements in their own children's lives today to avoid potential problems for our species in the future.

elephant journal: Yoga, Sustainability, Politics, Spirituality. : Have Recent Weather Events Moved More of Us to Listen to Science? ~ Jeremy Hance

Sun, 18 Nov 2012 01:25:54 +0000

According to http://rainforests.mongabay.com/0301.htm 50% of all life is found in tropical rain forests. I don't know exactly how they are measuring this, but it fits with what we can all see: there is a lot more life in warm tropical regions than in cold arctic regions. Of course, not all of this life is congenial to human life, but if that is really our concern, let us focus on that directly, rather than trying to make sure tropical regions do not expand.

elephant journal: Yoga, Sustainability, Politics, Spirituality. : Have Recent Weather Events Moved More of Us to Listen to Science? ~ Jeremy Hance

Sat, 17 Nov 2012 19:59:29 +0000

Thanks David, but I could not get that video to play. Can you point me to another source? And, who is predicting a 6 degree rise by 2100? It seems to me that we are simply putting carbon back into the atmosphere that has been removed by plant life, and were it not for some clever creatures to dig up all that sequestered carbon and recombine it with oxygen, plant life would eventually extinguish itself.

elephant journal: Yoga, Sustainability, Politics, Spirituality. : Have Recent Weather Events Moved More of Us to Listen to Science? ~ Jeremy Hance

Sat, 17 Nov 2012 06:14:17 +0000

Is there really a scientific consensus that global warming will lead to human extinction? I had thought we were mainly looking at new weather patterns, rising sea levels, and expanding tropics. Change is always frightening, but what here threatens human extinction? It seems to me that life thrives on warmth. Humans first emerged near the equator and in the US, at least, have been migrating back in that direction.

elephant journal: Yoga, Sustainability, Politics, Spirituality. : Have Recent Weather Events Moved More of Us to Listen to Science? ~ Jeremy Hance

Sat, 17 Nov 2012 03:25:31 +0000

I cannot see how it makes a big difference whether humans are causing global warming or whether it contributed to recent weather events. The real question is what do we do about it. Just because recent warming is caused by human activity does not mean it is easy to stop. Nor does it guarantee that there will never be any climate change not due to human activity. It may be more effective to use our energy and ingenuity to adapt to these changes, rather than attempt to freeze the earth's climate exactly as it is today. We are going to have hurricanes, droughts, and heat waves in any case. Probably we should address these problems directly, rather than looking for a silver bullet in CO2 emissions control. Likewise with other predicted outcomes of global warming. In many cases, these are exacerbations of existing problems, like tropic disease. If that is really the problem we are concerned about, let's attack those diseases and save millions of lives at all temperatures.

elephant journal: Yoga, Sustainability, Politics, Spirituality. : Imperfectly Perfect. ~ Alicia Banister

Thu, 1 Nov 2012 16:09:26 +0000

What is the "perfect" car? A Toyota Camry? A Ferrari is lousy in the snow and won't fit many groceries. You cannot be what makes you beautiful without your flaws. It does not exist. We are each one of us one of a kind, like stars exploding from the big bang, to fill up space in all directions.

elephant journal: Yoga, Sustainability, Politics, Spirituality. : How Climate Change made Hurricane Sandy.

Thu, 1 Nov 2012 15:45:27 +0000

However, it seems like the obvious way to avoid terrible events like this is to stop building cities so close to the ocean. We are going to have hurricanes regardless of what happens with global temperatures. Perhaps we can make them half as often or half as powerful by cutting our CO2 emissions, or maybe we can't. For sure we can prevent so much destruction by not building so much so close to the water. Similar arguments can be made for most of the expected effects of global warming. If many more people are expected to die of tropical disease, why don't we work harder to control those tropical diseases, which are killing so many right now? The notion that we should try to freeze the earth's climate exactly as it is today is an emotion driven fear of change more than anything else. There is nothing more natural than change, nothing more human than clinging to constancy.

elephant journal: Yoga, Sustainability, Politics, Spirituality. : “Most Yoga Teachers Start Teaching Prematurely and with Unsafe Principles.” ~ Éva Kincsei

Thu, 25 Oct 2012 16:00:25 +0000

I was totally impressed by his description of taking those shortened hip flexors from sitting all day right into up dog, and just cramming the lower back down even more. My problem exactly. And I see how the "moon salutation" is a perfect remedy. I don't think there is such a problem teaching yoga to beginners. Almost anything will be good for them, as long as they are not pushed into it. I believe a bigger challenge may be teaching a practice that is healthy to do over and over, year after year. With time and repetition even minor imbalances grow into problems, and this is impossible to recognize without a great deal of experience. We really must depend upon the wisdom accumulated over the ages, both scientific and traditional.

elephant journal: Yoga, Sustainability, Politics, Spirituality. : Music in Yoga Class? WTF?

Sat, 20 Oct 2012 19:12:10 +0000

Without a doubt, the music adds to my joy as a student. And, there are times when that is blessing enough. But, in stepping back to look at the longer trajectory of my life, I see there is also a deep satisfaction and contentment that comes from certain achievements. And, yoga without music seems to better sharpen my focus and make me more effective toward those ends. I leave class eager to do something. The classes with music tend to leave me satiated. I am done. I am happy. Nothing more remains to be done.

elephant journal: Yoga, Sustainability, Politics, Spirituality. : Music in Yoga Class? WTF?

Sat, 20 Oct 2012 16:41:03 +0000

Great article. In my experience music makes a yoga class more fun, while detracting from its instrumental benefits as a discipline. With music, it is more of an experiential escape that elevates my mood, but does not leave me feeling better equipped to face other challenges. I am just happier and don't care so much about them :-). Without music, I come home without that sense of elation, but feeling sharper and more capable to gain contentment by pursuing conventional ambitions. The yoga is more of a means to an end, but I must find that end elsewhere. I see room for both of these in my life. The challenge for me is that I will be too often drawn to the music, the more immediate gratification.

elephant journal: Yoga, Sustainability, Politics, Spirituality. : 7 + 1 Ways to F*ck a Woman's Mind. {NSFW} ~ David Esotica

Sat, 20 Oct 2012 04:28:24 +0000

It was the 7 point instructional format that made me think recipe. That was my objection. That men and women who do not engage this way naturally might imagine they should. I hear a bit of that in your comment as well, as if this is our true nature, but for those who deny or hide from it. I have no problem if that is his authentic nature and if it engages well with yours. But, it should have been titled "How I take my women," or something like that.