An Image of Yoga

In fall of 1969, the year of Woodstock, I was a university senior and I had a gym class called Body Mechanics. We did pull-ups, push-ups, bar dips, we ran, and we performed on an instrument of torture called “the peg board”. At the end of the class students were asked to make a non-verbal presentation expressing their experience of the class. This painting, created by my girl friend and me, was my presentation. It was inspired by my introduction, the previous summer, to some deeper spiritual aspects of yoga practice.

Below the cloud are nine running figures: individual, separate from each other, running on the earth and separate from it—one leading, one second, and one last. The sky is grey. The mountain top is hidden by a cloud. (The painting is 42 years old, is spotted, and has lost some of its original color and brightness.)

Above the cloud the sky is blue. There is a glorious being whose torso rises from the mountain top. It is one with the earth and with the elements (represented by the rainbow), and with all creation. Yoga practice was developed many centuries ago. It is a discipline that enables the expansion of the yogi’s consciousness from that of the little, individual runner to the vast consciousness of the glorious being that is one with all creation.