Green Yoga
The health of our bodies depends on clean air, clean water, and clean food. Yoga is grounded in an understanding of this interconnection. Historically, Yoga developed in the context of a close relationship with the earth and cosmos and a profound reverence for animals, plants, soil, water, and air. This reverence towards life is the basis of the Yogic teaching of ahimsa, or non-violence, non-injury, and non-harming.
Today, the viability of earth’s life systems is in danger. If humanity is to survive and thrive, we must learn to live in balance with nature. Now is the time to cleanse and heal the earth and to establish a sustainable relationship with the environment for generations to come.
Eco-Yamas in action: The 5 traditional yamas guide us.
• Ahimsa…non-harming…be kind to earth, be aware of your impact, avoid harming the water, air and land.
• Satya…truthfulness…speak up for Life, stand up, make a difference.
• Asteya…non-stealing…give back to the earth, use local resources close to home, plant a garden, compost, recycle.
• Aparigraha…non-greed…use only what you need.
• Brahmacharya…containment, walk as Brahma…respect and celebrate life!
Green Yoga Tenets
• Educate ourselves about the needs of the biosphere as a whole and our local ecosystems in particular.
• Cultivate an appreciation for and conscious connection with the natural environments in which we live, including animals, plants, soil, water, and air.
• Include care for the environment in our discussion of Yogic ethical practices.
• Commit ourselves to policies, products, and actions that minimize environmental harm and maximize environmental benefit.
…And if we are Yoga teachers or centers, we will & incorporate these commitments into our work with students.
Green Yoga Studio
What makes a yoga studio “green”? Not green walls, but a green, ecologically healthy orientation that we call our “eco-commitment”. This studio is part of a Green Yoga Studio Pilot Program with the Green Yoga Association, a nationally recognized group of yoga teachers and students committed to environmentally excellent standards and guidelines. The Association has been supporting yoga studios around the country and beyond in establishing themselves as green and greener. Metta Earth Institute is a founding and business member in this exciting organization.
Green Yoga Activism
• The use of ecoyoga mats.
• An extensive project sourcing and commissioning completely organic materials for our meditation cushions with organic cotton batting, organic buckwheat hulls, organic canvas and muslin, and organic dyes, as well as curtains that are made from organically grown cotton and sewn on a non-electric, restored treadle sewing machine. Our wall tents, which serve as one of the types of guest sleeping spaces are also made from organically grown cotton canvas and natural waterproofing.
• Eco and organic products in all our retreat needs…cleaning products, linens, towels, and bedding, and just about everything.
• We use a bamboo floor in our studio and adjoining library/office space, which is noted as a highly renewable building material resource.
• Locally, sustainably harvested and hand-sawn wood for our woodstoves (Why go to the gym when you can breathe fresh air and move in rhythm with your fellow yogis hand cutting firewood? This is one of our finest karma yoga practices with singing, chanting, or silence, in solitude or in community.)
• An abundance of organic, locally grown foods in our vegetarian meals including foods from our Metta Earth Community Garden and fresh eggs and dairy products from our resident farmers.
• Green yoga practices…which we call “Metta Earth Yoga” to support the enhancement of an ecologically attuned consciousness
Seva Grove
“One day the world will grow green with our Love.” – Rumi
We are expanding our practice of Yoga and the practice of environmental stewardship by planting fruit trees around the planet.
The Green Yoga Seva Groves will offer a place where communities can gather to practice asana, meditation, cultivate and care for the trees, and share the harvest. They will do their part to lower carbon in the atmosphere and will educate the communities about sustainable agriculture.
Educational Demonstration for Eco-stewardship and Yoga Practice
As you know, the Green Yoga Association is a global community of yogis deeply connected to the practice of Yoga and the practice of environmental stewardship. Fruit trees will be planted around the globe, so that communities can gather to practice asana, meditation, cultivate and care for the trees, and share the harvest.
This tree-planting project expands knowledge of permaculture practices that, in turn, feed our Yoga. And as we practice in the beauty of the fruit tree groves, we embody the Yoga practices that nourish our ecological action in the world. The Green Yoga Seva Groves are real life manifestations of our practice.
A Story of Purple in the Grove
Amy Kaplan, Metta Earth Intern Summer 2009.
Before commencing work here, in the gardens of Metta Earth one always begins first with an “attunement.” During this time, one sits in the garden’s center and absorbs with all senses the energies of the garden and partakes in a moment of appreciation, setting an intention for the day’s duties that lay ahead. On the day I first noticed them, I sat with my eyes closed, my face taking in the sunlight that had blessed me with its presence for the first time in weeks. I heard the breeze pass through leaves of surrounding trees and the bees fulfilling their own duties, pollinating the garden’s various offerings of sweet nectar.
I could also hear the chickens, performing their rituals. I could catch a whiff here and there of their smell in the wind, mingled with herbs and flowers and fruits. I could almost taste the strawberries that were ripening just a few feet away, but the one thing in the garden that struck me most on this particular day were the itty-bitty seeds of the Johnny Jump-ups, right there in front of me in the very center of the garden. I had never noticed them before. There they were, hidden among the many purples of the small flowers, presenting themselves in tiny jester-hat-shaped explosions, several small three-pointed stars, stuffed with tiny little spheres. It is not everyday one is introduced to such precious bank of seeds and I wanted to collect them and save them to plant. As I continued in my silent mediation, I became inspired. With all of the different shades of purples, with hints of yellow and red and peach and white, jumping up in the center of the garden I thought “The purples of these Johnny Jump-Ups would accentuate the delicious purple plums of the grove beautifully. How perfect these seeds would be planted in the center of the plum grove!”