Today I feel in need of grace.

I'm sitting on a comfy couch feeling the warmth of the sun on my face as it streams through the window.  There is just something about the heat of the sun that makes life easier for me.  It is a tonic that seems to bring all of the good into my mind's eye and helps me to release whatever needs gone.

I like to close my eyes and face directly into it, everything in my inner vision turning an orange glow.  Inhale.  Exhale.  Scan the body.  Inhale, relax the face.  Exhale, let tension flow out on the breath.  After a few rounds of this it is remarkable how at ease the body becomes. 

Learning to recognize tension or resistance is the first step toward releasing it.  Resistance shows up in lots of ways ~ tight muscles, occupied mind, a rib cage that feels congested, a general feeling of holding on.  All of these are indicators that Prana is not flowing freely.  When prana doesn't flow we get stuck in patterns that do not serve our highest good.  This is part of the reason that yoga is so freeing to the mind ~ it moves the energy around, we scan the body, increasing our awareness while enjoying deep expansive inhales and exhales.

Cosmically, much is happening in our Universe.  As above, so below.  Whether we acknowledge it, there is drama playing out in the energies that surround us.  Daily, people are waking up with revelations and questions about how they have been living their lives. No doubt this is a process that takes time and practice to learn to navigate.  The more we can learn to purposefully release, the gentler this ride will be. 

Alchemy

If you're paying attention, anyone can recognize the difference between doing something because you feel you have to (for whatever reason ~ financial, personal obligation, etc) and doing something you deeply desire to do and doing it with an open heart.

I've had a series of small epiphanies lately.  Just tiny ones.  Little blips that I feel in my chest but can't quite find the words for, or if I do they seem wanting in their ability to convey this new heart knowledge.  Just a few minutes ago my friend, Karen (who, btw, is worthy of a follow) wrote this as her status update:

The sacred Truth within me honors the divine privilege of what Is, what was and what will Be.

Initially, I read this as the 'scared' truth rather than the sacred.  And then I smiled because aren't most sacred things a little scary, at least in the beginning?  Especially when they involved us living out our truth or searching for what we think is truth?  Perhaps this is the alchemy of the heart, to take the scary things, the monsters under the bed, the opportunities life brings our way, the people who are converging and diverging along our path, the change that is life's growing and dying and unfolding,  and allow all of these things to be sacred.

I want the challenge and the joy of my life, to be in a space of sacred respect for all it's glorious aspects.  My heart knows what it feels like to be open.  When I get too much into the vibration of scared, then the opening comes with a quiver, reminding me to come to a standstill while I let the door swing all the way open.  Even tiny blips echo across the valley, being heard and felt with transformative power.

<3  Angela

Alien.

It is good to remind myself that I am not really human.  I look human and I do a lot of pretending to be so but the truth that simmers just below this facade of blood and bone wrapped up in a coating of skin, is a soul.  And this soul is eternal.  This soul is well versed in lifetimes, not just here but here, there and everywhere.  I don't know where it began or if it will ever end.  But for the time being, here I am.  Planet earth.  A 40 something white woman with a lot of questions about the Universe who tries her best to remember that this is temporary.  This is a journey, a play on a very convincing stage.  But a play, non-the-less.

Which on this night, has led me here...

Aparigraha & Santosha. A Love Your Life Story.

Found this gem on Pinterest!  For a while now, I have been half-ing things.  It is very cathartic and one quickly learns there is so very little that we actually need.  I've gone one step further with this mantra and broken it into step.

1.  Stop buying anything that isn't necessary.  If you have it, use it!  Enjoy it!  Celebrate it!  When something is necessary (and you get to choose whatever justification you want for considering it so, no explanation needed) buy or make exactly what you want.  Don't cheap out.

2.  Toss half your stuff.  You don't have to be extreme here.  Start by getting rid of things that are garbage.  If something makes you feel good, keep it.  If things are bound by past experiences that no longer serve you, let them go.  Perhaps it can become another man's treasure.

3.  Learn contentedness.  Just make the choice to be content.  Gratitude helps with this immensely.  Make peace with the present moment.

4. Reduce half again.  Over the last couple of years I have spent time living at the Satchidananda Ashram in Virginia.  While there, I slept in a single bed, had one dresser and a third of the closet space.  It felt so freeing to live like that!  Then and there I began to recognize how stuff weighs us down and keeps us from moving on in our lives.  So whether or not you want to invite new experiences or just create more breathing space, keep what you love, keep what you deem to matter and let someone else enjoy the rest.

5.  List 4 essential things in your life, DO THESE FIRST.  STOP DOING THE NON-ESSENTIAL! This really struck a chord with me.  How often has the day gone by and I never got to the things that truly matter to my well-being and happiness!   I made a list and deemed these to be the most essential:  Asanas, Pranayama, Meditation and Water.   Interesting that apart from a mat and a cup, these take up no space!  How would I feel in 30 days from now if I infused my body with these 4 things?

6.  Clear distractions.  Hmm, this I will continue to ponder.  Can there be a fine line between what society is convincing me is essential but is really a distraction?  Have I become addicted to doing when I should be being?  What about the clutter within my mind?

So to whoever, out there in Cyberspace, that originally pinned this mantra AND to everyone that pinned it until it found its way to me, THANK YOU.   Less can be so much more!  Thank you for provoking these thoughts.  Contentedness and non-attachment are sweet partners.

Think Now

 poetry by Anca Gray, 2012

Is there anyone out there who still reads blogs?  Or is the blog dead, having been given its last rights and testament by facebook?  Just curious.  

None-the-less, it feels like the time to write is once again here, in this moment at least.  When I was a child/teenager, I was quite certain that I would make my living as a writer.  A novelist to be exact.  Everything I thought about, I turned into a story.  Life was a romantic series of events with underlying cause and effect.  When I looked about the world, it was always infused with poetry and prose, love lost and regained, tragedy turning into triumph.  I read a lot of Danielle Steele back then! :)

Sitting here today, I am 41 years old.  Sometimes it is sobering (and by sobering, I mean I pause to laugh out loud and smile that age is actually happening to me!) to realize that I am no longer a young person just starting out.  I suspect I have now lived almost half of this lifetime.  This does not depress me, not in the least.  I love this age.  I love being a woman in my 40s.  And, I am now a woman with a past and a woman with a future.  Which matters more?  Whom I have been or who I am becoming? 

I would hate to think that I ever stopped thinking about things that are dangerous and noble.  Today, this poem, by Anca Gray, brought me back.  Light, frolicsome and improbable.  Is this a mantra to be taken in by the heart?  Think Danger. Think Noble. Think Light. Think Frolic. Think Improbable. Think Beauty. Think Fearless. 

And I have my own to add.  (Remember to) Think Now.  Because whatever I have been, wherever I am going, it is only this moment that gets me there.  And worrying about whether or not the past measured up or the right course is set for the future doesn't matter either.  It is just my ego that thinks I should worry about having been or becoming anything at all.   And when I let got of this 3D reality/illusion, I remind myself that it is a game, we are players, pawns, creators, gods, beings of light and dark.

Perhaps these are the qualities that drew me into writing 20+ years ago.   It is time to re-imagine.

Wisdom in the Trees of Life

The aftermath of transition has hit me a bit harder than I expected.  Here I sit, 6 weeks after our move to this sweet natured city, only somewhat sure which end is up.  Yesterday, I stood in our bedroom, overwhelmed and full of uncertainty.  Somewhere I found the fortitude to do just one thing, throw all the dirty towels into the washer.  And then I did one more thing, unpacked a box.  Then another and another and another.  Before I knew it, the bed was made and several boxes had been reduced to curbside recycling.  I also concluded that the bedsheets covering the windows have been adding to my misery and sense of 'unsettled', so today I am on a mission to buy rods and hang proper curtains!  There are still new dressers to be assembled (thank you, Ikea) and pictures to be placed on the walls.  Soon.  

The list of my uncertainties about all of this is long, which may be to blame for my procrastination with pulling this space together and creating a proper house to live in.  It is my nature to question things and mull them over (sometimes) to my own demise.

Last week we were on vacation (we went on a crazy road trip) and spent some time in the Redwood Forests of Northern California.  The energy in that place was staggering.  I felt high yet grounded.  Of course I did yoga, I couldn't not do yoga!  Popped up into headstand with such ease, did a wheel pose on top of a mighty redwood that had fallen across the forest floor and stretched in every which direction amongst these giant wise old trees.  And in that time, my world had such clarity, revelation even.  Every fear had fallen away and every joyful potential filled the spaces around me.  I was drugged up on it!

Ever since being at the Ashram and working in the kitchen, I've had this longing to feed people.  In the shadow of the Redwoods, it all felt very tangible.  But this desire to feed does not play out here and that is where these conflicted thoughts come into play.  So for the next while, I am giving this all over to the Universe.  May it conspire to give me the true desires of my heart.  May all of our lives be filled with a satvic, peaceful energy that leads us gently along the way.

Dharma & Tapas

Today seems full of energy for change, to be more daring, to leap and not look back. I find myself craving (Tanha) everything that looks like it might be wrapped in uncertainty and having the possibility of adventure. Perhaps these are stirrings toward a deeper Dharma or Tapas to be worked out? So I ask that for today, this practice become a divine place to explore the connecting power of breath, opening the door to our often hidden inner worlds, which when swung, brings clarity and light. Today, let our practice create heat to burn the Tapas and space to let life find its expression. May we progress by moving with flow and ease, leaving Dharma's door recognizable along the corridors of these monkey minds. Namaste.

Yoga Sutra 2.46 sthira sukham asanam

Santosha (Contentment)

Tonight I put on a favourite, soulful album and yoga'd for the pure joy of moving and breathing.  I didn't think about teaching or alignment.  I didn't care what the pose looked like.  I just closed my eyes and felt my way through each lift, push and twist.

The lesson:  Live without regard for what it looks like and go with how it feels.

There is so much magic when you let go of all that other junk.  This is where freedom lives.  Now.

A Pose

There are so many beautiful ways to express yourself.  How are you finding expression in this life?

Time

Dear Universe, I am open to direction.  A

Older

The last few days I just can't get enough George Michael.  Tonight I'm listening to his album "Older".  It was released in 1996 and apart from having heard a couple of the tracks before, most of the music on this cd is new territory for me.  I LOVE IT.

If you are so inclined you can have a listen here:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp7JDdiUwuQ

Think About It

In your life right now, what are you at the beginning of, in the middle of and nearing the end of?  We are at all times, simultaneously, in each of these 3 stages of being.

The Yoga Sutras

The Yoga Sutras were written down somewhere between  500BC and 250BC by Patanjali (Pa-tawn-ja-lee). Patanjali is considered to be the organizer and recorder of the Sutras not the originator.  While the practice of Yoga predates Patanjali by 2500 years, he is still considered in the modern world to be the Father of Yoga.  He knew and understood Yoga to be first and foremost the scientific practice of understanding and mastering the mind.

Patanjali wrote down 196 Sutras (ideas or threads) on the practice of Yoga.  These threads comprise a road map, leading one to the ultimate goal of Samadhi or absorption with the Divine.  Some have called this place super-consciousness or enlightenment.  You cannot travel outwardly to Samadhi, it is a journey through the inner workings of one's own self.  Do not be fooled, the terrain can be rough and at times down right obnoxious!  Over and over again, you meet yourself round corners and stumble through the obstacles of who you think you are... only to realize that it was equivalent to a dream.  What you always thought "was" really wasn't after all.  To ad insult to our injured ego, Yoga asks us to accept all that is, as it is.  To become the Observer not the Judger.  Further still, be the observer of the Observer.  At first it all sounds kinda crazy... until you begin to see... begin to become the observed and the Observer.

The first Sutra is the introduction and tells us that what we are about to read is an exposition on Yoga.  The second Sutra says that Yoga is the restraint of the modification of the mind-stuff.  In Sanskrit it is written as chitta vritti nirodhah.  When I think about chitta, which translated means mind-stuff, it sounds a lot like the word chatter.  Vritti means to swirl, go in circles at a dizzying pace.  So to practice Yoga one is committing to restraining the chattering vortex of the un-restful mind.  The next 194 Sutras are a how to guide on bringing calm to the storm and liberating one's true self from one's mind.

While Yoga is highly beneficial for the body, all physical practice is meant to aid in the focusing, cleaning and clearing of our thought processes and assuaging the endless chatter and changing thoughts that can swirl incessantly.  Yoga is quite simply about transcending the mind.  To transcend we must practice.

Peace

Whatever the 'thing' is, you have to make peace with it.

Peace is not a truce.  Peace has no room for anger or resentment.  This is why peace isn't easy, why sometimes we have to come to the end of ourselves, wear ourselves out with resistance to the 'thing' until there is nothing left, not even resistance.  When every effort fails us, every turn thwarts our progression, anger has cresendo'd and can no longer be sustained...  Fatigue takes its place.  Change seems absolutely beyond the realm of possibility.  We break down.  We give up.  We stop caring and say to God, FINE, DO IT HOWEVER YOU WANT.

In that exact moment, you make peace.  The door swings open.

After a year long hiatus from work, which included more yoga hours than I can count and a bit of world travel, I'm back in the grind.

And oh how gritty I am finding it.  I'm tired.  Physically, emotionally and soul-suckingly tired.

Grace, where art thou?  For I need you every hour.

What are You Letting In?

I have discovered that life is full of whatever I "let in".  Sometimes I'm conscious of it and sometimes I'm not.  The goal is to keep expanding your awareness of your state of being.  See yourself through the eyes of the watcher.

New Perspective

Everything has a progression.  Life doesn't manifest as a finished product.  The starting place is the seed, the thought, the potential, the idea that then needs to be nurtured in order to grow.  So be grateful for the seeds and be patient with yourself.  Give both room to grow and bloom.

Embrace Change

Have you noticed that the thinking about a thing which we perceive as challenging or difficult usually seems a whole lot scarier than the actual doing or performing of the thing?  Remarkably, our anxiety seems to come before or after we have done the thing we thought we were so afraid of, not during the action itself.   Every time we have the courage to do whatever the thing may be, we expand ourselves toward a new comfort zone, we are on our way to a new normal.  But to fully get there we must let go of the fear.  Open to the possibilities that change is offering us.  It can be good, if we but allow it.

Simple Pleasures

What are your favorite simple pleasures in life? Things that don't cost much money, if any at all. Things that give you BIG emotional bang for you buck.  Brings you comfort on rainy days.  Makes you sing out loud when no one is watching.  That even if (God forbid) you lost it all tomorrow, you could still hold these indulgences in your heart.

There is much in life that I LOVE.  Good food and wine, travel and the Lexus RX 350.  ;)  

But... when I really think about it, for today anyway, here are my top 5 Simple Pleasures:

• Cooking.  I have discovered that I love to prepare and transform healthy food into something delicious.  While working in the kitchen at the Satchidananda Ashram last fall, it struck me full force how food brings  intimacy into our lives.   The kitchen can be a place of camaraderie and shared purpose, then once the tasks at hand are completed we can break bread together, strengthening both our bodies and our bonds.  
• Brushing my teeth.  I'm a little OCD when it comes to dental habits.  For about 12 years now I have been using a Sonicare brush and floss regularly.  I cannot think of a more pleasant habit to begin and end each day with.
• Yoga.  While I do enjoy teaching yoga, my own practice is what keeps me sane.  There is something about the quiet of my own mat, rolled out in the middle of the living room floor, that breaks my heart chakra wide open.  Here, I can bring myself into a sacred space, leaving behind any and all thoughts of what others might think and move into a flow that fits organically with what my body wants on a particular day.  I especially love swan diving from Mountain pose into a forward bend, arms stretched wide, freedom and bliss to experience the movement of life.
• A calm day with the sun on my face.  Need I say more?  
• Clean sheets on a comfortable bed, window open.  Even better is if those sheets have been hung to dry on a country clothes line!  

So what about you?  What are your simple pleasures that make you feel rich in spirit?