2/9/06 - Bliss

Our minds are always trying to figure out the answers, explain things to us, come up with some neat and organized explanations. The mind is very good at this. That's the game. The allusion. The mind actually doesn't perceive our real natures.

Anusara tells us that we, and all of creation, are in essence pure pulsating vibrant energy, full of bliss and joy. This is actually very similar to the theories of quantum physics, from what I understand (which isn't much).

So our real natures are concealed from the mind. Our real natures get revealed to us in flashes insight, joy, inspiration. We see our true nature in others in the acts and effects of love and compassion. We see it in the natural world as limitless beauty and energy. The more we look for our true nature with our hearts, the more we see it, everywhere, all around us.

Last week I was driving on Spear Street and happened to look over at the bike path to my right. Many of you know that I love dogs. I saw a person jogging. Far in front of him ran his border collie, stretched out in a gallop, effortlessly careening through space, paws hardly touching the ground. Body stretched out in exquisite bliss.

I barely saw the dog. All I saw was pure vibrating energy and joy. My heart lifted and my spirit was one with the boundless spirit of the dog. I get goose bumps remembering it. Concealment fell away and true nature revealed itself to me. What a blessing.

May you appreciate all that your mind reveals to you in this week.

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3/29/06 - The Five Acts of Shiva

The five acts of Shiva serve as a way for me to simplify my thinking around the seemingly harried complexity of the world. First the story.

Shiva-Nataraja is a Hindu deity with four arms and two legs and a head of wild hair framing his calm face with focused gaze of the eyes. In one hand he holds a two- headed drum, signifying creation, the beat of life, the pulse of the universe. It’s two headed because the universe expresses itself through polarities – light and dark, effort and ease, stability and freedom, dense earth and spacious sky. Another hand holds fire, which signifies dissolution, dissolving that which is unnecessary, death. Another hand is held in the “all is well” mudra, letting us know to “fear not”. Another hand hovers in front of the heart signifying concealment. We don’t always feel or see the true nature of our own hearts and others’ as holding bliss and openness to Grace.

On one leg he stands, holding the universe above him in his body. This foot rests firmly on a smiling imp, the ego. The ego is present, active but never has the last word. Grace or revelation is always available to us and these qualities are signified by the dancing leg of Shiva–Nataraja.

Shiva’s wild hair signifies life, living, that which sustains us. It’s pretty crazy, that hair, as is the dance of life at times. Yet, his calm face and focused eyes in the center of the wild hair signify our intention.

So the five acts of Shiva are creation, dissolution, living sustenance, concealment and revelation. From the way I look at it, these five acts make up all that I do and experience.

As the center of our actions, thoughts and experience, we all have the opportunity to live from an intention. It took me a long time to find my intention. And now that I have it, I try to stay with it. When I stray from my intention of healing and consciousness evolution, I don’t feel right! I’m not perfect so I do stray, but revelation always brings me back to it. Even if it takes awhile.

Having an intention and dancing the dance of revelation amidst the wild hair ride of life makes every moment rich and brings much bliss and meaning to me. Even amidst the pain. Even when I stray from intention and seek the revelation of my true heart.

May your intention bring you strength and joy this week. And may yoga be with you on your journey.

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4/23/06 - Do Good Anyway

"In the Final Analysis" by Mother Teresa

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow...
do good anyway
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough...
give the world the best you have anyway

The path of Anusara yoga is all about accepting the challenges of life with peace and lightness, just because it feels good.

Practicing “do good anyway” is a great way to accept challenges. It brings lightness and satisfaction, not to mention more fun, to everything. Last Saturday I went to the mat and found myself unable to exert. My body just wouldn’t move. Do yoga anyway, I said to myself, and did an hour and 15 minutes of gentle stretches and restorative poses and loved it. Yesterday, I crawled out from under a down quilt at 5:30 am to do some work on the computer. Though the quilt called to me of warmth and comfort, I “gave it my best anyway”. I got such a sense of lightness and joy.

Have fun anyway, though a downpour dumps buckets on our heads. Laugh anyway, though the golden retriever who was just shampooed lays in the black mud of the Winooski River bank. Love and care anyway, though a family member is unreasonably angry or in pain. What a powerful way to spend time, moment to moment.

This week- live in bliss- anyway!

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5/21/06 - Heart

The fourth chakra, at the heart center, teaches us that the most powerful energy we have to wield throughout our life journey is love. Our true nature is to express beauty, compassion, forgiveness and joy. That doesn’t change the fact that each of us experiences some degree of hurt or woundedness in life. Still, true tranquility comes from greeting pain with the soft wisdom of the heart. This is an ongoing challenge.

It’s interesting to note the parallel between charkas and topics of conversation. Exchanging names, hometowns, religious affiliations is first chakra talk. Occupations, relationships with spouses or children is the domain of the second chakra. Third chakra sharing includes eating habits, exercise schedules, and leisure activities. Fourth chakra sharing touches in some way on love or wounds or compassion.

Anusara Yoga helps us see the truth that our hearts, as well as bodies and minds, are destined to express beauty and love. Coming to truly believe that “life is good” releases us from wounds.

Upon wakening, following those blissful seconds when my consciousness is still floating in the Universal, I pray to somehow be of service in that day. Immediately after that, I say to myself “life is good”. Most days I believe it and when I don’t, I try to fake it!

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7/24/06 - Like a river flows... and rolls

First let’s think of a physical river as a metaphor for life. There’s one perspective of stepping into the flow and taking a ride.

But what if we are not just taking a ride, we are the river. Then we create currents and roiling waves as we meet banks or the onslaught of rainstorms. We spread ourselves in lazy meandering curves as we encounter open plains. We tumble over rocks as a waterfall. We’re taking a ride but we determine our ride at the same time. And we eventually meet the sea and join with all other waters.

I was preparing to visit to a very ill family member. In my mind, I was taking a ride in a muddy river, full of floating branches and obstacles, feeling myself battered. This was wrong, that was sad. Suddenly, my mind changed positions and I became the river. The air around me quickly became clear and sharp, if not the river itself. I had a sense of mission. I began to direct my experience.

Can we direct our consciousness, in the same way that a bank directs a river? Yes! We can choose to be a waterfall, a lazy bend or a bubbling rapid. We step into the flow of consciousness and direct it at the same time.

In yoga, we create a pose - stretch and twist and reach with effort. Then we flow with it – extend, rise and release in effortlessness. May you be the river this week and enjoy the ride.

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8/31/06 - The Great Secret

The Great Secret is that separation doesn’t exist. Shiite and Sunni and Kurd; Muslim and Christian; Ashtanga Yoga and Kripalu Yoga and Anusara Yoga. Through the ages and across disciplines, we make up labels to advance opinion and attempt to create separateness because we think it will make us safer; sure in our position. But we are unsuccessful. On the level of the Great Universal, all is to be radically affirmed.

Radical affirmation means that there is a reason for everything. Even the painful stuff. Even the seemingly radical differences in belief. We are all connected. We - animal, mineral, vegetable - are all the same pulsing energy.

When I meet life with radical affirmation, I experience joy and peace. When I slam on my brakes and try to avoid meeting life, I experience pain. This week I met a dog being sick in the car; a meal being wastefully burned and ruined; a beautiful young woman touched by a particularly malicious cancer. When I take all this into my experience and allow yoga, the process of union, to transform them, I am enriched. Or, alternately, I could be disenchanted, even depressed.

I choose. We choose. May you choose radical affirmation this week. To allow life to touch you, change you, and enlighten you.

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9/24/06 - Winds of Grace

I stepped into the September grass early one morning and a monarch butterfly drifted up in front of my face and rose on a gentle breeze, wings hardly at work. He is rising on the Winds of Grace, I said to myself. And he’ll make it to Central America from Vermont on those same winds, physically and metaphorically. If he can do that, I thought with awe, imagine what I can do with this day.

The Winds of Grace are moving around us, through others, and in us - always. They blow in the form of opportunity and challenge; the inhale and exhale; love and fear. When fear blows toward us, we can stand rigid in its path, like a sailboat heading directly into a wind. Sailors know that a boat won’t move that way as the sails flap and flail uselessly. Only by turning to one side or the other and allowing the wind to fill the sail and spill off the sheet does the boat get underway.

Life, through the Winds of Grace, constantly nudges us at times gently and at times fiercely to let go. We are asked to release the familiar, and take a chance of being lifted onto a moving tack of growth and joy. What a sacred journey to be on.

P.S. Margaret Dunn-Carver gave me the inspiration to see the Winds of Grace. She teaches at Evolution Yoga on Saturdays from 11-12:30, starting Oct. 14.

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10/2/06 - Carnelian

Carnelian is a precious stone of translucent quartz that when exposed to high pressure and heat becomes gold and red with the strength of diamonds. Rumi, the Sufi poet from the 13th Century, writes a poem called "The Pickaxe" and describes life as a process of revealing the carnelian or inner radiance of our being. The carnelian becomes buried in the cellar as we build a house of beliefs and possessions around us.

The pickaxe is a metaphor for the tools that help us illuminate our true nature, like yoga, honesty, an influential teacher, or life circumstance that requires great strength. With our pickaxes, we tear down the house that seeks to identify us to reveal the real treasure, glinting irrepressibly at the core of our being.

As I hiked up a mountain this last week, I looked up to the gold and green leaves illuminated by the morning sun and saw a reflection of the carnelian in my heart. I looked down at the rushing mountain streams and saw the brilliance of my mind at its best. This week, I also experienced the restrictive house of my existence, as through a mirror, when I encountered harshness and limitation in several encounters.

Get out the pickaxe! Dig for the carnelian! Why not? It only brings joy!

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