Another spiritual experience

[Baruch]

I am more of a buffet of life person, rather than a set meal person. I wasn't implying that you enjoyed your sojourn in France, though I hope you did. Some of the best experiences are not enjoyable, but hedonism will have its say.

Shalom

[Kurt]

Yeah, enjoy or not enjoy doesn't really quite cover a year in the life of a 12/13 year-old, wherever they happen to be.

Kurt

[Baruch]

If you had stayed, you could have learned how to appreciate 250 different kinds of cheese, how to appreciate wine inferior to that of Italy or Germany, how to spout Existentialist poetry, and how to hold your cigarette funny

Shalom

[evangelicalhumanist]

If you had stayed, you could have learned how to appreciate 250 different kinds of cheese, how to appreciate wine inferior to that of Italy or Germany, how to spout Existentialist poetry, and how to hold your cigarette funny

Shalom

I can tell you, being left alone with the cheese tray at Le Grand Vefour in Paris (the tray was roughly the size of the elevator in our hotel) is one of the great moments! And to be honest, I've had very few wines in my life that matched the 1971 Margaux or the 1985 Vosne-Romanee from Domaine Moillard.

[Baruch]

Ah yes, quite correct ... had Kurt stayed he would have learned to be a proper culture snob in the French fashion But if he had been exiled to England, he could have learned to hold his pinkey just so, during afternoon tea )

Shalom

[Kurt]

Chianti is Chianti, Beaujolais is Beaujolais, Gervurtztraminer is Gervurtztraminer (Sp?), and so on. Chile, Australia, California and British Columbia also make lovely stuff, as do Hungary, Spain, Portugal and South Africa. I'm not crazy about any of the Ontario wines that I've tried, but I haven't tried that many Ontario wines in comparison to wines from all the other places I've mentioned. So, I have no basis for judging which countries make the "superior" wines.

I've probably only had fifty or sixty different cheeses in my life, so I'm no afficianado on that either.

But, if you watch the movie "Good Fellas" closely, you'll notice that, when taking beverages, the Brits aren't the only ones who get the pinkey action going!

Kurt

[Baruch]

Portuguese wine (but not Port) ... is a very mild drink ... and because of that gets my accolades. I also like "young wines", the ones with natural sparkle, that aren't necessarily champagne. Alcoholic soda pop for me, refreshing, but without a strong character. It is interesting though, that one needs the fat from cheese, to moderate the astringency of the tannic acid in wine.

Shalom

[evangelicalhumanist]

The good folk from Conde Nast (the travel people) once made a list of "the 25 most hedonistic things to do in the world." One of those was to have (after dining, of course) the port and stilton at Rules in Maiden Lane in London. (Rules is the oldest restaurant in London. George IV and Duke of Wellington both boffed mistresses in the upper rooms.)

I am delighted to say that Joseph and I have done that item on the hedonism list.

And it was a special, never-to-be-forgotten moment. The waiter brought over not a plate of stilton, but the entire wheel. Joseph threatened he could demolish it, and the waiter, with great aplomb, said, "very good, sir, we have quite a few more in reserve."

[Kurt]

It's too bad that so many people see yoga primarily as a form of automatically health-inducing exercise. What they are missing is the fact that achieving even the most advanced forms or postures of yoga can be as unhealthy as sitting in the Lazy Boy snarfing beer and chips in front of the TV.

Good yoga teachers encourage students to back off postures that cause pain so they can reflect on the where, how and why of the pain before trying the posture again. But those teachers are surprisingly rare. The more common variety will tell you that the reason you feel pain in attempting the posture is because you love your pain and refuse to let go of it. This is often true, but it is only true of a specific person attempting a specific posture in a specific time and place, and it takes a particularly empathetic teacher to recognize that circumstance when it occurs.

The best yoga teachers set up a framework where students learn that every posture they adopt in life is potentially a yoga posture; what makes it yoga is the willingness to be aware of it and to choose it or change it.

Prolonged, careful study of yoga will certainly increase most people's physical strength and flexibility, but it's not about being able to touch your head with your big toe while standing on your head for an hour. It's about exploring how your muscles, nerves, organs, and skeleton connect to your emotions, thoughts and energy. It's also about how those interactions connect you to the world outside your body.

In this sense, walking, sitting, standing, and talking are as much forms of yoga as the formally recognized postures of Hatha, Iyengar, Ashtanga, etc. Some of the traditional postures are designed to, and effective at, stimulating or calming particular organs or nerve pathways, but not being able to achieve a specific pose does not mean those organs or nerves are doomed to failure. Being humans, all our organs and nerves are doomed to failure regardless of how well or poorly we achieve traditional yoga postures. But the process of attempting those postures may forestall that failure or give us a more intimate understanding of it if we are fully invested in the experience of attempting the postures.

I studied yoga for several years towards the end of my dancing career. That study prolonged my career, enriched it, and allowed me to leave professional dancing with the recognition that I am always dancing, whether I bother to notice it or not.

Kurt

[Baruch]

It's about exploring how your muscles, nerves, organs, and skeleton connect to your emotions, thoughts and energy. It's also about how those interactions connect you to the world outside your body.

... are you quoting the same book about yoga, by an American man in New England, that I read ... or is that your own experience also?

A beautiful thing to say ...

I am always dancing, whether I bother to notice it or not

... but are you are Shiva? There is even a Christian hymn I have sung myself, where this is ascribed to Jesus as well.

Shalom