Susanna Harwood Rubin
HELLO
Susanna Harwood Rubin
Susanna is a Certified Anusara® Yoga Teacher whose creative and dynamic classes combine a precise attention to alignment with a practice that embrace More...
New York City
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Feats Completed
Finding Beauty
The Beauty of Alignment II
Once, in the town where Krishna lived, a venomous multi-headed serpent named Kaliya took up residence in the local river. Kaliya’s poison had polluted the water so thoroughly that any of the townspeople who went to take a drink, bathe, or even wash their clothing became sickened by its toxicity and died.
Finding Beauty
The Beauty of Desire
Desire is not a problem – it is our very nature. This is one of the first things that my teacher Dr. Douglas Brooks said when I met him nine years ago in the big kick-off weekend for my Anusara® Yoga Teacher Training.
Finding Beauty
The Beauty of the Dance
His body is half-naked and ash-smeared with a tiger skin draped across his hips. In his two upper hands he holds the drum of creation and the fire of dissolution. His tangle of matted hair is gathered and loosely held in a knot. Perched on the knot is the pale crescent moon behind which descends the waters of the Ganges, which separate and divert into many tributaries, reflecting his infinite forms. He is multiplicity itself. But here he is Nataraja, the dancing form of Shiva.
Finding Beauty
Spring Cleaning with Shiva
I’ve decided to do my spring-cleaning in the company of Shiva this year. Or rather, I plan to tap into those aspects of Shiva within me that shift, clarify, and empower. So as I transition through the gray drizzle of early New York City March into the softer season, when rubbery stems of flowers optimistically emerge around the two trees planted in the cement of my block, I’ll be negotiating the same mysterious process of transformation within myself.
Finding Beauty
The Beauty of Connection
Once upon a time there was an exquisitely beautiful woman named Sita, whose looks and graciousness inspired passion in every creature who encountered her. Sita, however, was madly in love with her partner, a powerful and righteous king named Rama, who was equally crazy about her. One day, as they played and picnicked with their attendants in the flower-dotted fields near where they lived, Sita wandered into the nearby forest to find a little shade. From the treetops, a demon by the name of Ravena, who was obsessively in love with Sita watched… waited…and then leapt down, scooping up Sita and whisking her away to the island of Lanka where he hid her deep inside his walled-in kingdom.
Finding Beauty
The Goddess who Pauses to Speak
Pause for a split second. Now say what you wanted to say – clearly, concisely, and artfully. Within that tiny suspended moment, your breath shifts, your thoughts coalesce, your mind hovers between this and that, now and then, and finally chooses its self-expression. That moment contains a particular power. Its name is Bagalamukhi.
Finding Beauty
Making the Pilgrimage
It was Christmas, and I was zip-zagging across the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu in a bus filled with about 25 other people. Led by my teacher, renowned Tantric scholar Dr. Douglas Brooks, we were on pilgrimage to the six primary temples of Shiva’s son Subrahmanya, a fierce warrior known for his multi-faceted and diverse self. Thus the many temples. Although I missed my family, I had made the choice for the second time in three years to have what we now referred to as “Susanna’s Hindu Christmas.”
A pilgrimage is a journey to a sacred place to connect and pay homage. The outer journey will ideally run parallel to an inner journey that may shuffle and shift our way of looking at the world. Each Subrahmanya temple we visited engaged us through its own distinctive personality, eliciting those same qualities within us. Tiruchendur seduced us into a dark crowded interior, churned us through its dense corridors, and then released us ecstatically onto the beach to wade in the ocean. Palani beckoned to us to climb its 650-some steps to the top of a mountain, where it offered an expansive clear healing sensation that one can only find on a mountaintop. Swamimalai sweetly invited us in and coaxed us gently into conversation. And so on…
Finding Beauty
On Habit and Ritual
This morning I made my tea, as I do most mornings, and sat down to think about what new habits and rituals to establish in the New Year. Our lives are filled with rituals and habits, and it's interesting to discern between the two. A habit is a recurring pattern of behavior, conscious or unconscious. A ritual is a symbolic action that marks an occasion or confers significance. The line delineating one from the other can be fairly blurry, but ritual should create meaning in your life. Preparing my tea and sitting to think is a habit that gives me pleasure, but it doesn’t necessarily have meaning beyond that satisfying moment. In contrast, here is an example of a ritual...
Finding Beauty
The Fierce Goddess
She is burningly fierce and infinitely gentle. Her beauty is unparalleled, even as her face is reddened from the heat of her own passion and rage. She has a closet full of outfits but favors dressing in vivid red from head to toe. She is so powerful that there are twelve forms of her, each form displaying a specific aspect of her personality and power. In her four hands she holds prayer beads, a book, and she makes the gestures of fearlessness and of graceful offering. You're either with her or against her. Draped around her neck and shoulders is a garland of severed heads, and her chest and face are smeared with their blood. From the midst of the gore, her three luminous eyes shaped like lotus blossoms shine like the rising sun….
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and I agree with both of you!
Posted in response to: The Beauty of Desire
@ melisa2 - i hope you get one! :-)
Posted in response to: The Beauty of Desire
tonyta - i agree...absolutely - it's all about how we align with our desirous impulse!
Posted in response to: The Beauty of Desire
Thanks, Vinced! Happy that you liked it.
Posted in response to: The Beauty of Connection
I wish I could be there to hear YOU tell the stories, brilliant one! Yearning for beauty. MMM - good.
Posted in response to: The Beauty of Your Story
Being a yogi is political, but it is a fine line, as a teacher, to balance one's personal beliefs & passions with what best serves the class. If you know your students & can offer an idea in a non-didactic manner so that it provokes thought, that's a good thing. If you are ranting because you have a captive audience, that is problematic. If you can talk about the idea of jivan-mukti, freedom through the body or freedom TO embody, that might be an appropriate moment to add, as an example, the struggles that women & the gay community are continually facing. But that's different from a rant.
I do want to address spindig's comment that yoga teachers are "trained in the physical." This is definitely true for some, but many of us have years of study and training with top academics in yogic texts - the Gita, the Vedas, Tantra, the Upanisads, etc. Some of us are more scholarly than others, but many of us study continuously, and have a vast body of philosophical & academic knowledge. What we offer in class is a tiny glimpse into our years of study.
Posted in response to: Politics and Yoga?
I understand...I understand... but yet...you have NO idea what we yoga teachers see. I spent this last week in the company of a couple of hundred fellow yogis & yoga teachers in Boston with John Friend & we were swapping surreal stories - my favorites were from a friend who was in the midst of teaching a class when a student pulled out a Burger King bag & started noisily eating a burger in the front row while simultaneously doing asana. My other favorite story was when a friend of mine led his class into savasana & a male student reached to the row behind him to massage his girlfriend's feet. She responded by plunging her hands down her pants in an ...active manner...which lasted until he finally asked them to roll to the right & press your way up to sitting. For real. I'm just saying...
Posted in response to: Bad Yoga Behavior — Instructors Dish The Dirt
"Constructive rest" is definitely helpful in a myriad of ways, but it WILL NOT release your psoas if it is really bound. Any good bodyworker can do it or a yoga teacher who is highly trained in therapeutics. It takes about 5 minutes, but absolutely requires manipulation. I've released plenty of people's psoas muscles & my Anusara & bodyworker friends have done the same for me. Pretty much impossible to do it for yourself. You need a knowledgeable friend! Google Jonathan FitzGordan's psoas release party & book - funny but for real!
Posted in response to: More on the Pelvic Floor, the Psoas, and the Big O
I think the difference needs to be noted between being a better lover & having better orgasms. Not the same thing at all...You can tone your pelvic floor & have better orgasms through either yoga (mulabanda) or through pilates, but you can still be lousy in bed. oh well...at least someone's having a good time...
Posted in response to: The Truth About Sex and Pilates
I agree - and I'm so glad we were able to be there together!
Posted in response to: The Beauty of Practice
...and the heirloom tomatos are finally out in full force this week! My kitchen surfaces are covered with them. mmmmm...
Posted in response to: Breakfast at the Farmers Market
So beautifully expressed & written, joesgirl.
One of the most essential concepts that John emphasizes is each individual's "optimal blueprint." He clearly defines this as having the self-knowledge and self-sufficiency to judge what is best for one's own body, heart, & mind. In my 8 & 1/2 years as an Anusara Teacher, he has never wavered from this emphasis and always been there for me if I needed to talk to him about something, yet has NEVER once told me what to do or how to live my life. Do his students love him? Yes, we do. Why? Because he is a true teacher. He facilitates our own individual processes of learning about ourselves.
Posted in response to: The John Friend/New York Times Kerfuffle
Isaac is as warm-hearted as he is mind-blowingly backbendy - definitely worth seeking out!
Posted in response to: New York Yogis Write the Book on the Father of Ashtanga Yoga
awwww...thanks, lovelies!!!
Posted in response to: A Hug from Amma
The Sanskrit word Tantra means loom or weave. It is derived from the roots tan-to weave or expand & tra-to cross, traverse. Tantric Yoga is the interweaving of body, heart, and mind, a complex, expansive, & unending process! Anusara Yoga, which I teach, is in the Tantric tradition. One major way in which Tantra differs from other yogic traditions is its embrace rather than rejection of our embodied experience. The body is not seen as lesser than the mind and the heart. It is seen as being inseparable from them. Instead of trying transcend the body, we recognize that our body is the way in which we experience the world. So we try to live more fully in it - we expand as we weave in every new experience.
Tantra of the left offers the notorious sexual practices, but this is just a tiny corner of Tantra - over-sensationalized, and not a part of any sort of everyday Tantric Yoga. Like any extremist or deviant faction of a spiritual tradition, it gets all of the attention! For clear info, read Dr. Georg Feurstein's books on Tantra. My teacher, Dr. Douglas Brooks, is one of the world's foremost authorities on Tantra www.rajanaka.com
Thanks for letting me geek out!
Posted in response to: The Sting and Trudie Show
Interestingly, the piece that she performed in MoMA's atrium - 700 hours of sitting, staring eye to eye with individual members of the general public - was the most moving piece I've seen by her. It is hard to explain why it was as powerful as it was, but the atmosphere in the atrium was intense and dreamlike. She held the space, offering people a meditative experience that triggered a sense of personal awareness & recognition of self. By holding each participant's gaze, whatever was churning through their minds & hearts was offered back - absorbed & reflected. The second to last sitter was a Buddhist monk who was a friend of hers. Quite beautiful & different from some of her more disturbing pieces.
Posted in response to: The Beauty of Body Art
You are absolutely right. I was writing from my perspective as an artist-yogi, but it is a shared experience for most of us! I realize how fortunate I am to even have such choices.
Posted in response to: The Beauty of Dynamic Movement
on 10 years 17 weeks ago by Susanna Harwood...