Another American couple to promote the notion of hatha-yoga were Pierre A. Bernard (Wikipedia link) and Blanche de Vries. Pierre Bernard had an intensive and impressive knowledge about Tantric and Sanskrit writings. He was a charismatic person who in his early youth was trained in Tantric ideas by the Indian emigrant Sylvais Hamati. In 1905 Bernard initially had a studio in San Francisco showing and initiating the amazed public in the powerful and mystical techniques and teachings of Tantra.
Later he moved to New York where he successfully mingled with and targeted the affluent cultural upper-class milieu of celebrities, dancers, artists and extreme wealthy families. It was here he was joined by the dancer Blanche de Vries who took over the practical yoga exercises, while Bernard focused on lectures, organisation building and public relations (Love 2010). The couple managed to become a celebrity pair themselves. They left very little in writing but it appears that the hatha-yoga they taught consisted of bodily exercise heavily influenced by modern dance, contortionism, and calisthenics (Syman 2010, Love 2010). The exercises were wrapped in hybrid discourses of bodily and mental health, spiritual living and Tantric philosophy.
The element’s connection with the lord of ancestors reinforces the quality Yoga poses challenge of strength that is a physical property of earth. The wisdom left behind by the departed Yoga poses challenge empowers each future generation. The world is enriched by what is left behind. In Vastu, the placement of the element of earth in the southwest serves two important functions.
The sun, moving across the south into the southwest, is unhealthy for us; we want to block out its harmful rays. We also want to keep the beneficial cosmic energy inside our home or property. So we mirror the properties of earth in our practice of Vastu. In the southwest of the property, we try to create density, heaviness, and height with a barrier of trees, a rock garden, or any thick growth.
