O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?

Recently I have returned from my first visit to Spain, (I say first visit because I plan on returning). I was so fortunate to have visited the Palau de la Musica Catalana in Barcelona to see a classical guitar and flamenco show – fabulous. It so reminded me of an early architectural project I had in graduate school – to design a structure based on the last paragraph of a poem by William Butler Yeats – “Among School Children”:

The body is not bruised to pleasure soul,
Nor beauty born out of its own despair,
Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.
O chestnut tree, great rooted blossomer,
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?

I love to base a class theme on this poem because of its parallel to anything creative, especial to yoga. How can we separate an artist from the piece of art they have crafted? How can we delineate the music we are hearing from the composer who created the music? How can we separate our body from the asana or yoga pose??? We produce art within our bodies as we move from pose to pose, with every breath we take; our thoughts become linked to the sensations we are feeling inside. Each pose is a creation or our own beauty, in its movement or in its stillness.

WE manifest creative energy, and WE are a manifestation of this same energy.