dear ashtanga,

dear ashtanga,
i'm really sorry i broke up with you. i have missed you, and this morning made me realize that i want to commit to you again... under your terms~ i promise i won't cheat and listen to music and close my eyes~ i promise to be there 6 days a week to watch the sun come up with you... and on the new moon and full moon to take time out and be gentle to myself. i realize that for me, a disciplined and consistent practice that does not change is necessary for a firm foundation of finding balance between aversion and attraction, judgement and knowing, and holding on, and letting go,.... for once practice establishes a firm foundation, then i can play with asana and music and dance... but without that disciplined consistency the mind is much more difficult to reel in and the body will not be as strong and steady if this commitment to practice is maintained. thank you ashtanga for taking me back and accepting me as i am... and most of all ashtanga, thank you for never changing~

letting go~part 1

~when you train to be a lifeguard they teach you that a drowning person will try to pull you down with them.... ~compassion for others does not include allowing yourself to be pulled into the whirlpool...
~we have all heard of people drowning while attempting to save someone else from drowning...
~some people think that you are strong if you can hold on- but it is the letting go that takes the most strength...
~we all learn how to hold on... but how do we learn to "let go"?
~how do we learn where compassion and kindness ends and co-dependence begins?~~~

the role of self acceptance in obtaining enlightenment~part 2

awareness... the first step to self acceptance, so how do we become aware? and of what?... our 'self', our subconscious existence and how our mind works? yes, i think that's it. when i first began to meditate i was trained to 'push my thoughts away'... if a thought arose, push it away until eventually your mind becomes clear. but this is not how the ancient yogic texts or tibetan buddhism teaches meditation. these traditions teach us to allow our thoughts to rise to the surface and face them and allow them to stay out in the open and not to push them away or push them down, even and most especially if they are what we may consider 'bad'.  yogic tradition teaches that this denial of what we consider to be 'bad' thoughts or emotions only creates illness and disease. but what if the thoughts that arise are of fear, jealously, anger or even hate? are these really emotions we want to allow to 'rise to the surface' and 'sit with'?  yes, these are simply manifestations of the human mind. they are forms of energy that developed over time due to our past experiences. they are not to be considered 'good' or 'bad',  but simply as a manifestation of our subconscious mind. 
acknowledgement and acceptance of these parts of us are our path toward self acceptance and towards enlightenment. often times it is the suppression or repression of these emotions that keep us from self acceptance and from progressing on our spiritual path.  hey- we are good, and kind and loving, right? so we hold on to that and suppress what we acknowledge as 'bad'. but these aspects of our self is essential to 'self knowledge' and to self acceptance. without allowing these thoughts and emotions to rise to the surface and accepting them without judgement we will ever be prisoner to them and never will we be purified of them. rather than pushing these thoughts and emotions away we are instructed to 'sit with them', accept them, and allow them to remain in our awareness. and the teachings say only in this way, although yes- emotionally painful, can we achieve self acceptance and further our journey on the spiritual path- perhaps even advancing us on the road to enlightenment~

the role of self acceptance in obtaining enlightenment~ part 1

so what’s your biggest obstacle in obtaining enlightenment? blocked nadis?, the granthis?, closed chakras?, slumbering kundalini? how about self acceptance? that’s right, ancient yogic tradition teaches the value of self acceptance for one who treds the spiritual path. the path of yoga, as the path of any spiritual practice begins where you are at. if all our character flaws and neurotic tendencies were already perfected, what would be the need of practice? if we were already ‘perfect’ we would already be in perfect union with ‘the divine’.  the physical practice of yoga asana is a preparation for meditation. physically we need to be able to sit for a period of time to meditate, and this requires a strength of the back and legs. yogic tradition teaches that lack of self acceptance results in illness, and so surely this cannot promote our path towards enlightenment. but how do we stop judging the flaws we see within ourselves? often we think we accept the flaws in others although we fail to accept the flaws within ourselves.  this however is self deception, for we cannot truly be accepting of others if we are not first accepting of ourselves. it is said that without self acceptance one can never fulfill their purpose in this life, so without self acceptance how can our life ‘have purpose’? and how, if we do not already, become accepting of our ‘self’? as with all journeys, it begins with the first step, and this step is awareness. 

the Yoga of Naad... PART 1 “GOOD VIBRATIONS”
nad, nada, naad naadh~ the yoga of union through sound. union. union of self with divinity. have you ever experience union with divinity through sound? if you are a musician you have. when one is in “the zone”, that is the musician’s church, their union with divinity. if you have ever felt moved to get up and dance, you have. it is the way the body is designed... to be affected on a central nervous system, glandular and hormonal system level by sound. but like all things i have found on this planet, sound too- is a ‘double edged sword’. it can transform us, carry us across the colorings of the mind,... but where to? like they say in the wedding vows, it could be for ‘better or worse’, and sound, as all things on planet earth, is a 2 way street. we hear and speak. we take in and put out. they each have an effect on the brain, the mind, the etheric and energetic forces that surround the physical body, and the physical body will eventually show the results of either the strength or damage to the auric field... But how?
Acupuncture tells us there are 84 meridian points on the roof of the mouth. NASA says that the Sanskrit language is the “perfect language”. Indian mantras by the unique way they stimulate these points trigger activity within the brain in the hypothalamus, pineal, and pituitary glands. Once these glands are stimulated, the entire endocrine system begins to balance and once this is complete both the emotional and physical systems of the body fall into balance. so what is your mantra? what do you say out loud and silently throughout the day and night? for this is your music, sound, tone,...your vibratory frequency, it is the way you use the ancient science and art of Naad. what we say throughout the day can bring us peace or anxiety. only 7 minutes of chanting changes the brain patterns. kundalini tradition says that only 11 minutes of chanting begins to balance the nervous and endocrine systems. but what if we are not chanting indian mantra or even something positive (like, ‘i am grace of god’)? what if our chant is negative and self defeating? you will vibrate to that frequency. replace any negative mind talk with a mantra and effortlessly raise your vibrations, balance your body and emotions and enjoy the feeling of good vibrations~

10 things my yoga teachers taught me

1. "everything is just as it should be"
    ~jamie shane
2. "you can do anything for one more breath"
    ~jamie shane
3. the gaytri mantra
    ~renee
4.  mulabandha
    ~dama de y laurie lyons
5. "first you live your karma, and then 
      you live your destiny"
    ~gurmukh kaur khalsa
6.  to stand on my head...the power of belief
    ~david san martin
7. "we are all in this together"
    ~carla olla
8  "life is short. have some fun."
    ~carla olla
9. "a true guru comes into child's pose much
      more often than the teacher ever offers"
    ~marni task
10."your guru/(teacher) should be no more 
      than, and no less than, a friend."
    ~alanna kaivalya

Prescription for Yoga? A DOSE OF HUMILITY~

“there can be no advancement without humility” ~sri k. pattabhi jois~
how do we truly disconnect from ego? or is it acceptable to have an ‘ego’ but balance it with humility? i was reading an ashtanga teaching the other day by pattabhi jois, and it focused on this balance between ego and humility. a concept i had not considered before. a concept to increase humility. mr. jois is known for bringing the vigorous physical practice of ashtanga, often referred to as the ‘original power yoga’, to the west, but as i read mr. jois’s words, i realized the true ‘power yoga’... is humility. for just one moment it sounded like an ‘oxymoron’ and that humility couldn’t possibly be powerful, but then i had the thought of my communion bible with all the pictures in it, and in my mind’s eye i saw the drawing of jesus, giving his ‘sermon on the mount’, and he is saying, ‘and the meek shall inherit the earth’, and i see this is the same teaching as the concept of the power of humility. that mr. jois is teaching the same spiritual lesson that jesus taught. and that  with the growth of humility, the ego would become diminished, and so in this way the results would reflect a destruction of the ego, at least to some extent, (a prime consideration in many meditation practices~).  mr. jois says there is danger if the ego grows without the growth of humility to match it. danger.  jesus taught that humility leads to meekness, and that meekness is such an extraordinary quality, that, ‘the meek shall inherit the earth’.  buddha taught that humility and meekness are 'spiritual powers'. meekness~power under control... a quality that brings out the true Self, no longer reflecting the color of moods and emotions- these things that have the power to control one’s thoughts, words and actions... and karma... these things begin to fall away in the presence of humility and meekness... the ability to stop the creation of more karma? yes, please. i’ll take a dose of that~ more humility please~

Ek Ong Kar Sat Nam~

Ek Ong Kar Sat Nam~
"the name of god is truth"
Ek Ong Kar Sat Nam. The first line of the Mool Mantra, a mantra from the Kundalini tradition as taught by Yogi Bhajan, and made famous by Snatam Kaur’s musical rendition. There are various translations for this first line of the the mantra. For me it has always been ‘The Name of God is Truth”. Why I wonder has my heart and gut grasped so many times to these words? What is truth? Why would one be so “attached” the concept of truth? Does that come from a past life or from this life? Is there an underlying issue involving my attachment to ‘truth’? Does it come from ‘not telling’ for so long? What is lying??? Is it truth(ful) not ‘to tell’? Are we to ignore things we feel are ‘unjust’ or harmful to others, or the planet? What is an Activist? An Advocate? 
Could it be a duty or responsibility some are born with? Do we really carry a dharma? Is it better to walk away and ignore the truth if it is 'evil'? Yoga Sutra 1.33 teaches that we are to cultivate feelings of joy towards those who are happy, compassion for those who are suffering, goodwill towards those who are virtuous, and indifference towards those we perceive as being or doing evil.~ Indifference~ Doesn’t that then tell us ‘not to tell’? So what happens when we advocate, or involve ourselves with social activism? It seems to be in opposition to ‘the sutras’.  And suddenly knowlede of the truth becomes complicated and what to do with it, confusing. So what of advocacy and activisim? Is it correct to take actions toward justness only with an undisturbed or indiffernt mind regarding what we perceive as evil? Can we dwindle our human emotional feelings in relation to what we see as evilness? And, if we do, does it dwindle too, our passion... for truth, and justness?
True, intention carries a great weight in regard to each action we take. But what about how gracefully we perform each action? What about our mantra? How do we bring about healing and change in a situation if our Our Mantra~ our words and inflection, carry the judgement of ego rather than the acceptance and love of Spirit? How do we handle the truth when it evokes an emotion of disturbance caused by perceived injustice encased by a sense of dharma of advocacy, of protecting others? I know the answer has to do with Grace. It has to do with developing the qualities of Spirit... through spiritual practices, such as my favorite, Mantra. ‘Mantra~ one of the quickest and easiest roads to enlightenment.’ Quick. Easy. How long is quick and how difficult is easiest when it comes to Spirit, God, Truth?Perhaps the ‘quick, easy road to enlightenment’ takes many years, maybe many lifetimes. How many years, I wonder... 80? 800? 8,000? Could Advocacy be my dharma? Why does my heart long so for the connection to truth? God teach me how to find you and what to do with you when i do....
     ~ek ong kar, sat nam~ the name of god is truth~
“ikongkar sat nam karta purakh nirbhao nirvai akal murat ajuni saibhan gur parsad"~ one universal creator, god. the name is truth. creative being personified. having no fear. having ho hatred. undying, beyond birth and death. self-sustaining. by guru's grace~

ahh yoga~

ahh yoga, so many times i have come to you for refuge, from my nervous energy and runaway thoughts, from unpleasant emotions....sometimes i find you in my living room, breaking the ashtanga rules by blasting a kick-a** playlist to a kino macgregor dvd, but how i love to come to you in a studio, led by a teacher, full of love and wanting to give it to the class~ surrounded by others, full of love too~ or working toward it~ it is an energy, i can feel it, yes, like when i used to go to church and i felt the spirit of god moving as we sang and danced and praised and worshiped., (until of course i stopped going to church,...because all the ones i loved there began to judge me for doing yoga, they told me i had to stop, that it was evil and i was forsaking their god by ‘practicing eastern religion’,,,,as if the these people who called themselves christians owned god...but that is another story!)...yes i feel the energy of love, perhaps because i am sensitive...or super-sensitive or too sensitive...so sensitive that if there is not love there, i feel that too. i have found over the years that many people, like myself come to yoga for healing. to heal the pain we hold somewhere inside us, in our body, our mind, maybe even in the cloud of energy that surrounds us. so what do we do when we encounter this within our beloved community? anger, gossip, cold, hard energy that hits me like a punch in the stomach? it is easy to say ‘just love them’, ‘send them love’. easy to say, easy to aspire to, not always easy to do.....ahh yoga, when i look for you, whether it be in my living room, my heart, or in a studio,,,,i see all these places are both of the world, and of the spirit, not immune to difficult, hurtful situations, not always easily offering me that yoking with divinity. ahh yoga, sometimes you break my heart, yet still yoga, i love you. 

YOGA NIDRA~where healing takes place...
yoga nidra. the sleep of the yogis. it brings rest and healing. ‘this is where healing takes place’....or so i am told. yet when my mind is quiet and my brain waves (supposedly) enter the healing realm of theta....i remember the painful things. the memories i have so long stuffed away...where? many of my teachers say they are in my hips? really? somehow that seems hard to believe. i think they are in my heart, broken and bleeding and perhaps half gone. i think i need soul retrieval. i have heard that pain, shame and humiliation lead to loss of fragments of the soul. i feel this is perhaps what is ‘wrong’ with me. i have lost several pieces of my soul....’you have to feel it to heal it’....this too, i have been told in yoga. could it be true? is this why these memories arise in yoga nidra? where healing takes place. do i have to remember and feel the pain again to heal it?
I wake up and see the little hand on the 4 and the big hand on the 10. it is the middle of the night. the sky is black and the only light in my room is the flat green colored night-light. I get out of bed and walk to the door of my room. I open it. I step in the hallway and reach up and flip on the switch and the hallway light flickers a bit and then illuminates the way. I hear crying and moaning and water running and see the light escaping under the bathroom door. as i plod sleepily down the hall toward the door I think, "Jesus Christ, what now?" I am 4 years old.
I reach up and grab the doorknob and turn it. I try to do it quietly so she won't look up and see me when I open it. I know she is awake because she is moaning and crying. I twist the knob and push in and peek inside. She is in the bathtub. The water is running and the water spilling over the sides and onto the bathroom carpet is pink.
I know what to do. I have done it before. I run to the end of the hall and pick up the telephone receiver and lay it on the nightstand beside my parent's bed. My dad is not in bed and must be working late again. I stick my pointer finger in the very last hole and pull it all the way to the end before I let it go and it rolls back to it's original position. "Operator" says the lady on the other end. "I need an ambulance at 12 Prospect Street". I have said it before. I am only 4 but I know my address and can call for the ambulance. Now she will go to the hospital and i will have to take the little ones and go stay at Marg's house. 'You were put on this earth to suffer'. 'You don't deserve to be alive'. This is what she is screaming at me when they put her on the stretcher and carry her to the ambulance. I already know this. I know I don't belong here. I am not good enough to be alive.
Yoga Nidra...the sleep of the yogis....’where healing takes place’....

HOW I FELL IN LOVE WITH YOGA

I began doing yoga 8 years ago as a way to relieve stress. To my surprise I fell immediately in love, blindly, head over heels or more accurately, crown of head on floor, matsyasana style. Yes it happened in my very first yoga class in fish pose. I knew that very moment I would do yoga for the rest of my life.

I had walked past the studio many times and told myself I would go. Months later I purchased a $10 yoga mat at the local discount store. Still I walked past. About 6 months later, I walked into my first class. "Hi can I take your class?", "15 dollars please". "Please no shoes in the studio." No one really spoke to me but they spoke to each other. Being overly anxious all my life, I already felt out of place, but i had taken off my shoes and paid my $15 so I followed the others and laid out my mat. The class began.

"Close the mouth and breathe in and out through the nose only." Her voice was kind and it seemed like it was just part of the class, but I immediately realized she was saying this for my benefit. I was inhaling through my nose and exhaling through my mouth, all the other students there already knew the breathing rules.

I remember being somewhat proud of how I could keep up for my first class, which I thought was a beginners class, but being my anxious, kooky self had mixed up the times and showed up for a mid-level class. And then the fish pose instruction came. "Elbows on the floor pushing in, opening the chest, arching the back and allowing the crown of the head to come to the floor". Well I knew that wasn't going to happen. My neck had been severely injured in a drunk driving accident 15 years earlier and I had ever since held my head and neck far forward and still had a limited range of motion, bone spurs and arthritis. I was astounded when I came into the pose, easily and without any discomfort.

And then it happened. My life literally passed before my eyes and all the pain and despair I had felt for the last 36 years related to my brother's death washed out of me in one small tear that fell down the side of my face.

Then it was savasana (dead man's pose), of which I barely could stay still for "what just happened to me?" kept running through my head. Then the class was over and everyone quickly ushered themselves out of the studio. I was dying to ask someone what just happened to me, but there was no one to ask, even the teacher had to hurry away after class. But I was hooked... yoga was my new love.