The Hermetic Review

Cycles

Molly Quammen — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 04:19:41 +0000

I need to seriously reconsider my schedule. Working all week and then all weekend too is pretty hard. I am doing a little better about getting enough sleep, though. I like where I am, I like all this stimulation. But it’s hard to get anything done on my personal projects when I am always helping other people with theirs.

I rode down to Roy’s Sheepshead Cycle today and put a down payment on a WSD Trek Allant (see photo in previous post). They gave me a great discount. The bike is being shipped from the factory to their store. I can’t wait to pick it up!

I have been riding a Specialized mountain bike belonging to my friend Nicole. It’s not ideal, but anything is better than my old green minibike-disguised-as-something-classier of a ride. Jessie got on it and asked, wait, can you even straighten your legs on this thing?

I am super-mobile these days. Ideal biking weather. Yesterday I got my butt out of bed at 7 AM and rode to work in Brooklyn Heights, from there across the Brooklyn Bridge and up the Hudson River Trail to the ballet studio, where I got yelled at for trying the bike inside. After babysitting, I rode down through the city and across the Williamsburg Bridge to see my friends. From there, home to Ditmas Park. Then this morning, I rode down to Coney Island. What is my next destination??

Molly Quammen — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:22:16 +0000

I unexpectedly have the morning off work today because two little boys in Brooklyn Heights woke up with pinkeye. I’ve had that infection enough times to know not to go anywhere near! I remember the first time, in high school, waking up with my eyes crusted shut, going to the senior art exhibition with my hands shoved in my pockets. I was very much the same then as I am now. Only now I have real responsibilities, and then all I had to do was show up and be clever.

I have a new job as a personal assistant, which I love. It is lovely to work in a domestic setting when the domicile is filled not only with beautiful colors and objects, but also with positive, friendly energy. I have learned how to feel comfortable in that environment, that role, and I am happy to play that part for a while. Anyway, this new job greatly eases the financial strain I’ve been under since being laid off by Parabola.

I know that I am lucky to have a weekfull of work again. My savings account reflects that, too. I finally have enough for a new bike. I decided against the Electra, schmancy though it is, in favor of the Trek Allant, which I can lift with one hand. I took it on two test-drives and was so impressed with the power, speed, and agility of it. I will be on time for work for sure!

Soon to be my wings

I realized I need to put some attention into this blog. At the Parabola issue-release event last weekend, Phil Robinson (leader of the Mythlovers) told me he had followed a link and found only my anger and negativity at the server for its careless handling of my content. I stand by those feelings, but appreciate the need to move on.

I’m in the throes of an application to a PhD program at Columbia University. I want to study at the Institute for Comparative Literature & Society. Much work to be done on this. So much that I really should not be blogging right now!

Also, I’ve been working on some fancy embroidered stationery. My first sale went extremely well. Website to follow. In the mean time, contact me if you’d like to order something special.

Licorne

One of my dearest friends has been in town for a few weeks. She flies to Georgia tomorrow. I am sad to see her go, and holding on tightly to the idea of Thanksgiving in Philadelphia for comfort.

Electra Bicycle Co.

Molly Quammen — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 04:03:53 +0000

Electra Amsterdam Classic

Electra Amsterdam Yellow Tulip

I have fallen in love with this kind of cycle. Saw this one outside the bike shop on Bergen Street today, and had to go in to ask for the the price. Let’s say I’m still saving up. The time will come.

Bright Star

Molly Quammen — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 04:47:40 +0000

Went with Brooks to the BAM Rose Cinemas last week to see the new Jane Campion film, Bright Star, about John Keats and his love affair with Fanny Brawne.

Ben Whishaw as John Keats

Couldn’t get enough of that sumptuous attention to detail, the juxtaposition of English country gardens and close-ups of textile, thread being pulled through fabric, made grand by the violins and the voices. Bare winter branches and French ribbon. And of course the bohemian clad in blue velvet, his nails all stained with ink.

A Day of Quiet Progress

Molly Quammen — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 03:55:16 +0000

Things are looking a little better around the blog these days. Finally was able to do some HTML today– it’s still a work in progress, but I am experiencing such relief at being able to progress at all.

This has been a day of little steps of this sort: I painted two walls a deep eggplant, the color of wine. Installed a new showerhead. Hot grits with ayurvedic spices, stewed bananas. NPR my constant companion throughout this day.

I have been writing so much, so many words flowing out from me in the looping script of my journal. I have a new project of writing about the harbor and the river each morning when I cross the Manhattan Bridge on the subway. The conditions change so dramatically from day to day– it makes me feel connected to the natural world that exists as the larger context of this city, to the ghostly Manahatta of yesteryear. Walt Whitman is more with me, and more in my imaginings, than he might suppose. Who knows but he is with me now.

The needs for stimulation and self-expression are tormenting me. I want to make everything, but I haven’t the supplies. I can’t yet afford to rent studio space anywhere I might have access to a letterpress. I haven’t any cloth for quilting, or dressmaking, or rug hooking (the craft of poverty, according to Wikipedia.)

I would like to garden. Roof garden. Permaculture.
I’m looking for poppy seeds to make the traditional poppy seed roll I loved as a kid.
Soon I will buy a new bicycle. I like the look of the Electra Amsterdam cycles!
Graduate School– I am considering going into Occupational Therapy. I need to take a year of science prerequisites and am in the process of figuring out how to do that.

I’ve been modeling for art classes at the School of Visual Arts, and I love that. Fulfills a bohemian ideal I imagined for myself when I was younger. I like the stillness, the focus that slows my mind to a quiet murmur. It’s an extremely meditative experience for me.

I have some Yoga Passbook reviews to catch up on. Coming soon:

Prana Power Yoga
Golden Bridge Yoga
Sankalpah Yoga
Yoga Sutra

Moving on

Molly Quammen — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 02:48:00 +0000

I haven’t been blogging all summer because I’ve been so discouraged by the blog.com migration and what it has done to The Hermetic Review. All my formatting is down the drain, and I lost several posts, including a review for two weeks at Prana Power Yoga. My beautiful pasileys are gone! And that long booklist! It is such a bummer that I can’t bear to think of it!

To be honest, this stresses me out so much that it makes me cry every time I come on here to try and work things out. Their customer support is cold and weak. It took profanity and about 10 support tickets over the course of a month and a half to get anyone to respond to me at all, and when they finally did they offered NO solutions and NO reassurance. Now I’m supposed to wait how long until this will be customizable again? I am ashamed to put this sloppy thing on a resume now.

I don’t want to wait forever for the html features to become available, so I hereby am blogging again, even while things are still in disarray around my words. If you are seeing this blog for the first time, please try to imagine something much grander and more creative.

* * *

Today I rode my bike through Central Park in the rain, and then played an excellent game of pirates while babysitting. This is the back-to-school mania; tomorrow will be day 7 of nonstop babysitting. I can’t even keep it all straight in my head.

I am riding across the bridge to stay in Williamsburg tonight, so that Brooks can take me to the new Italian coffeehouse in the morning for a ricotta and fig tart.

This Virgo time is all about nesting, putting love and attention into the home, creating an intentional space to surround us.

Why the Magic Ladder to Success, Molly?

Molly Quammen — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 00:45:59 +0000

At Parabola, we get a lot of review copies of all kinds of spiritual books. In a silly mood and with a serious desire to improve my financial situation, I decided to check out a few books by Napoleon Hill. The Magic Ladder to Success: The Wealth-Builder’s Concise Guide to Winning!

I didn’t expect to be impressed, but when I learned that the author was born in 1883, I realized there was another level to this text that suddenly made it more interesting. Napoleon Hill began his writing career at age 13, working as a “mountain reporter” for a rural southern newspaper. He eventually crossed paths with Andrew Carnegie, who challenged him to interview and study (pro bono) all the most successful people of the day to see what they had in common that made them stand out. “Would Hill be interested in compiling the beliefs and practices of the business giants of the time into a coherent philosophy?” He was given only 60 seconds to accept.

This challenge lead him to interview such eminent figures as Alexander Graham Bell, Henry Ford, P. T. Barnum, Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson… eventually he became an advisor to FDR, and took credit for writing “we have nothing to fear but fear itself” as well as several fireside chats!

I’m only beginning this book, but I am curious to see if I will find something in it that will benefit me. I am hatching a plan to get paid for what I love doing, and to help my friends do the same, in a creative and constructive way. The current Jupiter retrograde can only help us here– we have the whole summer to brainstorm and focus our intention, and by the time Jupiter stations direct in October, our ideas should start to manifest on their own if we’ve played our cards right.

But we have to play our cards right now and make sure we’re paying attention to the problem at hand. What would this mean to you, to start an independent enterprise that would intend to benefit all parties involved? I have several highly specialized skills that are not being put to use for the good my creative soul, for the good of my bank account, not for the good of the people who might profit from these services. And I can say the same for most of my friends! We have so many options here if we can get our inertia moving– what direction should we take this in?

YOGA PASSBOOK REVIEW #6: Exhale Spa

Molly Quammen — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 22:02:30 +0000

Where&When: Central Park South, 1/2 block from (my) Q train! Wednesday 17 June. 7:30 PM. www.exhalespa.com
Overall impression: This is the fanciest yoga spot in the city. No joke calling it a spa– I lounged in the sauna, tried all the complementary lotions and soaps, etc. And I could actually feel it in my core the next day and a half, which I loved!

Type: Vinyasa
Level: II
Duration: 1:15, but it ended up more like 1:30
# of Yogis: 15
Teacher: Elitza Datcheva. She said, “It’s always better to over-sacrilize your practice than to over-mundane-ify it.” I could tell that a lot of what she offered us came from her own experimentation in her practice and I appreciated that. I also noticed that she seemed to know almost all of her students.
Temple or gym? Spa– so it was a little of both. Has a bit of the bath-as-temple-to-Aphrodite going on, a bit of the body-modification obsession of the overpriviledged.

Front Desk: There were six girls working, and none of them wanted to actually stop chatting and sign me in. I was really early so there was nobody else around.
Boutique: Too fancy to believe. Pretty Free People maxidresses tempting me. Nail salon, lots of beauty products. Yikes.
Coat/ Shoes/ Valuables: Lockers with keys were free! And came with a private coat hanger. And they provided free flipflops!
Bathrooms: 3 stalls in the ladies changing room.
Changing Rooms: Massive, luxe. Lots of lockers, large mirrors, pretty lighting, free hair products, tampons, shampoos, lotions, q-tips, etc etc etc. Sauna!
Showers: There were like 10 showers in there! And the doors were made of pretty frosted class with dried grasses, wooden mats on the floor. And sauna!
Towels: Free & unlimited! So generous! Also, bath robes, free!
Practice Rooms: There were two, underground, with heavy wooden sliding doors. The yoga studio was pure, dizzying white with a dark wood floor, a recessed circular altar in the wall held a dark wooden figure of the Buddha’s head that appeared to float in the dim light. I could not keep my balance in this room. But it was so serene and floaty for savasana.
Props: Soft large white blankets, cork blocks.

Comments on the Practice: Pleasing warmups, kapalabati during plank– that was very strenuous but I’m glad for it. Surya into crow– very armbalancy class. Crow into tripod, flying crow. The standing poses didn’t start until halfway through. It was just really hard to balance in there for me.

I noticed that bound extended side angle without also doing bound trikonasana just didn’t feel fair! But overall the practice was challenging in a way I crave, and I loved that I could feel the difference in my body for the next few days. It was also incredibly relaxing– take the usual calm after the agni fire, combine it with a sauna and lots of free scented lotions! I missed the New Surreal show entirely because I was still bathing.

So glad I have another free pass to this place… It’s $21 for a single class! But it is totally the classiest, schmanciest yoga in the city.

YOGA PASSBOOK REVIEW #5: East West Yoga

Molly Quammen — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 21:26:04 +0000

Where&When: This was Thursday 11 June, a rainy day at 6:45 PM. 5th Ave, just south of 14th St. I was lingering in the giant bookshop, buying an Aquarian pack for Angelica’s birthday. Digging through jars of crystals, I made friends with a man who asked me if my name was Mercury. www.eastwestnyc.com

Overall Impresssion: When the elevator doors opened to the second floor Yoga studio, I was amazed to see Alex Grey’s paintings lining the hallway. (These are paintings I feel close to, having spent time with them at full moon glatherings before the gallery closed for relocation upstate. I was so happy to discover that they are being displayed at East West rather than going unseen in storage while the new facility is finished.) It was very intense to practice under the paintings. I was grateful for the tapas of the practice, I had been feeling out of balance all day but was able to turn my energy around.

Type: “Lokah Vinyasa”
Level: ”Vigor” (I’d say level II.)
Duration: Not sure! I didn’t check the time when I left, the website is unclear, and my phone record provides no clues.
# of Yogis: 5
Teacher: Dina was subbing. She said she usually takes the class. She has a beautiful Egyptian accent that makes her voice very soothing. Her attitude was reverant and encouraging. She gave gentle adjustments that I found to be steadying and grounding.
Temple or gym? Temple– the Greys really fill the space with a powerful energy I know and love well.

Front Desk: They didn’t honor the passbook cupon, saying they’ve been asking for years to be removed from it! Instead they gave me a “buddy pass” which let me purchase a class for $5. The women were friendly and conversational.
Boutique: I almost bought cards to send to my parents, then was like “what am I thinking?”
Coat/ Shoes/ Valuables: Left my shoes in cubbies in the hallway & took everything else with me into the practice room.
Bathrooms: One, but very fancy! With small glass tiles!
Changing Rooms: There were a couple curtain-stalls, but most of them were filled with racks or boxes. After class they were all filled & I ended up changing in the bathroom.
Showers: None to be found.
Towels: N/A
Practice Rooms: I believe there were two, if not more. I think a crystal healing workshop was going on somewhere in the building at the time as well. Alex Greys in the practice rooms!
Props: Blankets, blocks, etc– nothing stands out in my memory.

Comments on the Practice: Meditation, chating of lokah samasta, pranayama, surya namaskar, warriors, trikonasa, twists, Vira III. Shalabhasana, Dhanurasana, Urdhva Dhanurasana. Navasana, foreward bends & seated twists, sirshasana, shoulder stand. Held postures for about 5 breaths during vinyasa flow. Savasana. The class finished with Pranayama.

It’s hard to recall everything about this class because I didn’t write about it immediately (went on vacation to Sag Harbor with my mates the day after), but the feeling of purification stands out to me. The agni fire. And it was just so astounding to practice amidst the psychadelic depictions of bodily energy fields!

YOGA PASSBOOK REVIEW #4: Integral Yoga Institute

Molly Quammen — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 22:40:25 +0000

Where&When: 13th Street just west of 7th on a pretty street with trees and townhouses and a party spilling out of the LGBT center into the street. 6:15 pm. The whole building, including a storefront on the street. www.iyiny.org
Overall impression: This place is not mistaken in calling itself an institute. I liked that it so completely posessed its building, that it integrated with the consumerist world of New York by having a bookstore on the street, and that people were coming and going without me being able to figure out to what purpose. The class felt a little impersonal, no assists or real interaction with the teacher. The staff was friendly and helpful to me, however, and the facility was comfortable and pleasing enough without being stylish. There were nice paintings on the walls even in the stairwell. I got the overall feeling of a community center rather than a salon or gym.

Type: Hatha
Level: II/III. It was gentle and relaxing. I only sweated for five minutes.
Duration: 1:30
# of Yogis: 8-10
Teacher: I think his name was Roy, but I am unable to verify that on the website. He felt anonymous, dressed in white, a very kind bearing. He had a more masculine energy than most yogis I encounter, which was interesting.
Temple or gym? Absolutely temple.

Front Desk: Located in the storefront bookstore. Very friendly, smiling people. I called in the morning to ask whether the level II/III was appropriate for me, and the woman I spoke to was also friendly. When I presented my passbook cupon, I was given a laminated paper pass that I placed beside my mat like everyone else for the teacher to collect.
Boutique: A nice bookstore. I bought a big box of nag champa and bummed a big paper bag to carry my books in.
Coat/ Shoes/ Valuables: There were lockers available and locks for sale, but I just took all my belongings into the practice room with me. There were racks for shoes on each floor.
Bathrooms: Three stalls in the changing room.
Changing Rooms: Women on the 2nd floor, men on the 3rd. Nice and sunny with a wall of curtained windows and benches. Lots of lockers, a water filter on the sink.
Showers: Didn’t see any.
Towels: Only paper towels.
Practice Rooms: There were at least three floors (I didn’t have occasion to go higher) and one or two rooms on each floor. The place might have been huge or I may have seen it all– unsure. It was definitely an institute, though, expansive. My practice room was small and filled with light from a nice window. Carpet! Walls white tinged with blue. A small altar by the door, where I saw the teacher kneel and light a candle.
Props: Blankets, flat small bolsters, blocks, straps, and mats available in the practice room, if not more that I didn’t notice.

Comments on the Practice: This was my first Hatha class in years, and I was expecting to hold poses longer than we actually did. The sequencing was very slow, however, and though I could feel that most of the people around me weren’t really synchronized with their breath, I experienced it as a slow-motion Vinyasa.

I felt comfortable with the sequencing overall– we began with AUMs, warmed up, surya namaskar, standing poses (lots of lunges, warriors, triangle), then cobra, sphinx, shalabhasana, dhanurasana. I really enjoyed holding the dhanurasana for many breaths. We practiced foreward bends (baddha konasana, janu, upavistha prasarita, paschimo) and then a seated spinal twist and a long sirshasana. I started my cycle today and though there has been much discussion on the benfits or detriments of inversions while menstruating (comment this!), I decided to go for it, and felt really wonderful after. Savasana after headstand, and pranayama (breathing practice) after that. Only a moment of meditation, and then the closing AUM, followed by chanting Asato Ma Sat Gamaya & Lokah Samastah (no call & response!) as well as something in English, the teacher praising the name of a guru, and each yogi/ni ending in “Jai” instead of “Namaste.”

I enjoyed the class and felt rejuvinated by it, but next time I go I will definitely take a higher level.