Percy Wakes Me -Mary Oliver

Percy wakes me and I am not ready.
He has slept all night under the covers.
Now he’s eager for action: a walk, then breakfast.
So I hasten up. He is sitting on the kitchen counter
Where he is not supposed to be.
How wonderful you are, I say. How clever, if you
Needed me,
To wake me.
He thought he would a lecture and deeply
His eyes begin to shine.
He tumbles onto the couch for more compliments.
He squirms and squeals: he has done something
That he needed
And now he hears that it is okay.
I scratch his ears. I turn him over
And touch him everywhere. He is
Wild with the okayness of it. Then we walk, then
He has breakfast, and he is happy.
This is a poem about Percy.
This is a poem about more than Percy.
Think about it.”

― Mary Oliver, Swan: Poems and Prose Poems

Big mind

When you leave your mind as it is, it will become calm.  This is called Big Mind.  -- Suzuki Roshi

Leave your mind as it is and open your awareness to the world around you.  When was the last time you really tasted your food, or really heard the birds sing?  Do you really listen to the rain?  Do you really listen to your family, your friends?  Meditation is not just us alone on a cushion.  Meditation is us in a world of interconnection; us opening fully to the world as it is.  Our minds become calm enough to allow us to participate in the world around us.  We are happier when we feel connected to the world around us.  You are more than your to-do list.

Gratitude

When we're busy we become a small self: a small, doing self.  It takes doing to keep tight.

When we slow down and get quiet we expand and become a big Self.  When we are expansive gratitude just flows.

It takes doing to keep tight.  Gratitude is not doing, gratitude is a relative of Being, or Presence.

Live from a big, gracious space in your being.  Let your awareness expand to include the world around you.  Your awareness can reach to the snow on the Cascades and the water in Puget Sound.

What are you grateful for?

Positive emotions breed more positive emotions.  Positive emotions, like gratitude, lead to healthier bodies and healthier relationships.

Then intention with the sequencing on Thanksgiving Day was to ground us and root us in gratitude and what is actually most important to us.  To slow down the busy-ness and feel gratitude just flow.  To let the doing self just rest and the expansive Self breathe.

Tilicho Lake-- David Whyte

Tilicho Lake

In this high place
it is as simple as this,
leave everything you know behind.
Step toward the cold surface,
say the old prayer of rough love
and open both arms.

Those who come with empty hands
will stare into the lake astonished
there, in the cold light
reflecting pure snow
the true shape of your own face.

David Whyte

Two poems about pleasure and happiness

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
       love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

TRIPPING OVER JOY

What is the difference
Between your experience of Existence
And that of a saint?

The saint knows
That the spiritual path
Is a sublime chess game with God

And that the Beloved
Has just made such a Fantastic Move

That the saint is now continually
Tripping over Joy
And bursting out in Laughter
And saying, “I Surrender!”

Whereas, my dear,
I am afraid you still think
You have a thousand serious moves.”

― Hafiz, I Heard God Laughing: Poems of Hope and Joy

Busy-ness

"Busy-ness less" -- Thich nat han

It's natural to protect ourselves; if we open up we don't know if we'll be accepted by the other person.  One of our ways of protecting ourselves is by staying very, very busy.  We don't hold still because it's dangerous.  When we create space and stillness that's vulnerability.  When we step out of scheduled time, when we stop doing so much, then we get in touch with what we've been running from.

In the Tibetan tradition there's a teaching that "busy-ness is the ultimate form of laziness."  It's easier to stay busy than to stop doing and be with oneself.  We speed around, doing doing doing, on our way somewhere else.  It's really an avoidance tactic.  It keeps us from the places that most need attention.  It keeps us from the places that are tender.  It keeps us from the places that are creative.

When time is structured we leave ourselves; we become this small, doing self.  We need unstructured time to dream.  We need space to let the journey and adventure happen.  Children without unstructured time don't develop in a healthy way.

-- ideas from Tara Brach's podcast

"You are more than your plans for the day"

Invest your energy down and in.  Forward bends, child's pose, restorative poses.  Busy-ness feels like energy moving up and out.  Instead, invest your prana down and in.  -- idea from Karen Sprute-Frankovich

When I rise,

let me rise joyful

like a bird.

When I fall,

let me fall without regret

like a leaf.

-- Wendell Berry

Thoughts on transitions

Transition times are governed by air and space elements: vata, in ayurveda.

We tend to feel scattered in transition times: we get busy, we snack mindlessly, we check our phones.

Learn to be present during transition times.  Be present and go slow as you transition between asanas.

Transition times can be ungrounding or give high creativity.

In general, vata (and transitions) are soothed by: warmth, oil, closeness and pressure.

For example, if you are in transition in your life, if the seasons are in transition, if it is a transition time in your day-- such as from sleep to waking, from work to home, from dinnertime to sleep-- you could:

cover yourself in a blanket, wear a scarf around your neck, rub your feet/legs with lotion or oil, have a bowl of soup, drink some herbal tea, hold your child close, be close to your pet, light a candle, practice a restorative yoga pose....

Make sure nutrition is adequate at transition times so that you don't snack mindlessly on unhealthy things.

Be aware of transitional spaces and moments.  Have a transition space in your home where you can leave your things, take your shoes off, put on some slippers.  It is nice to just sit down during transitional moments instead of getting busy with menial tasks.  One yoga teacher I know sits on the couch with her husband each day as soon as they finish work.  They sit there together during the transition to their evening: closeness, warmth-- vata is soothed, the transition is smooth.

Be aware of and have rituals at transition times: for example, songs help children make transitions.  Changing of clothes, washing, sitting quietly, etc.  Because transition times tend to be ungrounding, a ritual changes the energy and grounds it.

During transition times in life it is very useful to practice restorative yoga.  Practice a restorative pose at least once during your day.

Upon waking in the morning it is very soothing to have an hour or so of quiet practice.  It is ungrounding to wake up and get busy with email, chores, etc.  Let the transition from sleep to your day be slow, quiet, and soothing.  You could meditate, take a walk outside, practice some gentle yoga, read a book, sit with your children at the breakfast table, etc.

new yoga class!

I am starting a new yoga class in my home.

Monday evenings candlelight easy flow/restoratives 7-8h30 pm

Class begins next Monday, November 18th

Please bring a mat, bolster, or yoga blanket if you have them.  I am ordering props but they may not arrive in time for next week's class.

Please contact me to be added to my mailing list or for more information about classes.

Namaste!

a little neuroscience

As we cultivate mindful presence we are activating the prefrontal cortex that's correlated with positive emotions and we're quieting down the sympathetic nervous system that keeps us red.

If you keep at it with this mindfulness practice you will have more access to positive emotions.

- ideas learned from Tara Brach's podcast

"Happiness cannot be found in great effort and will power, but is already there in relaxation and letting go." Llama Gendon Rinpoche

Tara Mohr poem

Tara Mohr-- The Quiet Power

We think that certain activities make us happy; maybe what is actually creating the happiness is the presence that we bring to those activities.  Maybe it's presence that makes us happy.

Radha/Hafiz poems

"A Cushion for your Head"

Just sit there right now
Don't do a thing
Just rest.

For your separation from God,
From love,

Is the hardest work
In this
World.

Let me bring you trays of food
And something
That you like to
Drink.

You can use my soft words
As a cushion
For your
Head.

"Hafiz"

It

Is all

Just a love contest

And I never

Lose.

Now you have another good reason

To spend more time

With

Me.

"A Great Need"

Out

Of a great need

We are all holding hands

And climbing.

Not loving is a letting go.

Listen,

The terrain around here

Is

Far too

Dangerous

For

That

Dhumavati

Dhumavati is the crone goddess of disappointment and letting go.

"Do not be afraid to suffer, give the heaviness back to the weight of the earth." - Rilke

Dhumavati stands for sadness, despair, and failure.  "With her grace, we can mine the exquisite wisdom hidden in the heart of life's most difficult moments."

She is one of  ten goddesses in the group of "Great Wisdoms".  "Dhumavati represents the void stage which we all must go through on the path to higher awareness."

She is tall, unsteady, and angry.  She wears dirty clothes.  She rides in a chariot decorated with a crow banner.  The chariot has nothing pulling it.  Her complexion is "like the black clouds that form at the time of cosmic dissolution."  Her face is very wrinkled, and her throat, eyes, and nose resemble a crow's.  Her face has a venomous expression.  She is very old.

"If we allow ourselves to look her clear in the eye, we see that she is pure beingness in its raw form.  She has the power to teach us that outer beauty fades, but our divine Self always remains intact.  If we can see ourselves in this way regardless of what falls away, we've tapped into Dhumavati's strength."
Kempton, p. 222

"Dhumavati is the feminine unsupported by male authority  In many paintings she sits in a chariot with nothing to pull it, a position that, as author and Hindu scholar David Kinsley points out, underlies the fact that in the conventional sense she is a woman going nowhere..... The stalled chariot has a deeper esoteric meaning as well.  It can also represent the stillness of the eternal present, the action that arises from non action, the void state where forms dissolve in deep meditation.... As an energy in the physical world, she represents the absence of fertility and life-giving moisture.  She lives in whatever is desolate, abandoned, unfortunate, and unpleasant." Kempton, p. 223

Dry lake bed, barren landscapes, drought, clear-cut forests, dead corral reefs, foreclosed homes, refugee camps, etc.  She is everything we want to turn away from.

"The trick with Dhumavati is to find her enlightened core, the transformative power within hopelessness and failure.  This requires inhabiting your worst fears and facing into your losses.....
Can your inner equilibrium survive that level of collapse?  Can you find your yogic groove when everything falls away?  These are two of the great questions that yogic practice is meant to answer." Kempton, p. 224

"Fairy tales are full of crones who, when treated kindly, will whisper the magic word that lets the courteous young man find a treasure or helps a goose girl wed a prince.  Dhumavati is one of those [goddesses] who looks fierce but is actually tenderhearted."  Kempton, p. 226

Dhumavati is your capacity for letting go of the things you thought you needed." Kempton, p. 232

All quotes and ideas taken from Awakening Shakti, by Sally Kempton

Sita

Sita is the Goddess of Devotion and Mystical Submission

Sita exists only for love.  She personifies loyalty.  She incarnates devotion.  She stands for the feminine principle of loving devotion.

Sita is Rama's wife and she is most often pictured sitting with him on a single throne.  If you practice chanting or listen to chants, you hear Sita's name chanted right along side of Rama's: Sitaram.

She is the heroine of the Ramayana, the core mythological text of Hinduism. She is the icon of traditional Indian womanhood.

"Such a woman is called a pativrata ("husband-vowed"), one who is committed in unselfish loyalty to her husband, who is essentially her deity.  Her vow has all the power of yoga; through her intense selflessness, a pativrata generates yogic fire, and this gives her immense siddhis, or yogic powers." Kempton, p. 204

She is an archetype of the "static feminine"-- completely yin, unconditionally faithful, utterly supportive.  Sita is not a favorite Goddess of feminists in India.

Sita has pale skin and dark hair.  She wears a white sari, a flower garland around her neck, and a necklace of small black beads.  She wears colored and gold bangles on her wrists.  At her third eye point there is a vermillion dot.  Her eyes are closed.

Rama accuses Sita of being unfaithful.  The first time he does this, she proves her fidelity by standing in flames, untouched.  The second time, she descends back into the earth, from which she came.  Rama never remarries and mourns her forever.  He keeps a golden figure of Sita by his side.

"The yin aspect of the feminine, like the fertile Earth, doesn't fight to protect itself.  Fierice goddesses-- like Durga and Kali-- fight to protect the world, to protect the gods, to protect life.  They "punish" pride and disrespect with weapons.  The gentle goddesses simply withdraw."  Kempton, p.211

"Committed to the path of submission, it is only through passive resistance, especially self-immolation, that they can force the masculine to look at his own cruelty or impel him to turn back to values of love and justice." Kempton, p. 211  For example, Ghandi, the Civil Rights Movement and MLK, Argentinian Mothers of the Disappeared.

Sita "represents the sacred Earth which continues to bring forth crops and support life even as her pastures are paved with concrete and her life-sustaining rainforests are cut down.  She is the symbol of every woman still deprived of voice by clueless patriarchy, yet who manages in her suffering to keep love and forbearance alive." Kempton, p.212

Sita "embodies the feminine insistence on the primacy of relationship." The need to take care of another person trumps the rule of law.

"In the West, we've transformed the Sita archetype into Cinderella, where the passive, beautiful woman is carried away by the handsome prince."

"Sita is the exact opposite of Kali and the other fierce goddesses.  She is that in the feminine that most needs protection, because kit is most open to violence and betrayal.  She is the submissive daughter-in-law of Hindu and Islamic tradition, the fifty-year-old wife divorced by her husband for the sake of a younger woman.  She is the generations of women who believed that by being good wives, good daughters, and good mothers they would be protected, that their connections to others defined them.  Contemplating Sita can bring up all the grief of the collective feminine and a deep rage at the masculine..." Kempton, p.213

Sita is the holding quality of love.  "Kali's dynamic force pushes the child out of the womb.  Sita is the womb itself.  Her Shakti flows as the mother's vital fluids as they nurture the embryo.  It appears as the maternal bliss that, for many women, makes the act of caring for a child so ecstatic." Kempton, p. 213

This loves asks for nothing in return.

Ideas from Awakeing Shakti, by Sally Kempton

Saraswati

Saraswati is the goddess who "flows as language, insight, and sound"

A Saraswati woman loves solving intellectual and artistic problems.

Saraswati women are not so much interested in relationships; they are passionate but in an impersonal way.

She is associated with the creative impulse and the flow of creativity through you.  She writes novels, plays music, finds connections, and solves intellectual problems.

She is associated with computers and the flow of information on the internet.  You can invoke her to help you finish a paper or fix your computer.

Shadow side: when you have trouble expressing yourself or you are misunderstanding communication, your saraswati energy is blocked.  Also, misuse of creative speech: lies, propaganda, rumors, internet chatter, negative self-talk.

Discursive though itself is Saraswati's shadow: "if you doubt the power of the goddess, an hour of trying to stop the mind will convince you that Sarawsati's creative flow is indeed a river, or perhaps a fountain- endlessly running.  You can't control her, you can only flow with her, using a mantra or your own awareness as a boat you can steer along those channels that lead to expansion and joy rather than suffering and confusion."  Kempton, p. 183

"Her skin is fair and her eyes are lustrous, with a deep peace radiating from them.  She is dressed in a white sari, and around her neck are pearls.  She carries a book in her hand." She rides a swan.  "Breathe with the sense that you are breathing with her."

Her swan is a symbol of discernment.  The swan lives in a lake in the Himalayas.  "It is said that if you pour milk into the lake, the Paramahamsa's beak will act as a filter, separating the milk from the water, so he only drinks the milk.  One of Sarawati's gifts is the discrimination to separate truthful, liberating knowledge- and words- from the kind of information that creates confusion and fear.  She is, for this reason, the prime deity of wisdom and knowledge- especially the knowledge transmitted heart to heart, by the speech of the teacher." Kempton, p. 186

"As an archetype of the feminine, Saraswati is the solitary woman, the scholar at her desk, the yogini or the nun who gives up conventional life for something subtler, more pure."  Jane Austen, Dian Fossey

She teaches us we need dedication and immersion in order to extract the subtle truths of life and art.

Many men with an abundance of Saraswati energy have a hard time with relationships.  When you're a channel for her energy you might not have the space for ordinary relationships.

She is also the goddess of intuition and insight.  "You can prime intuition by asking yourself a question and then holding still until the answer comes." Kempton, p. 191

"To recieve insight, you have to go past the thinking mind.  You have to get quiet enough, focused enough, and patient enough to discern the voice of the inspiration or the intuition." p. 192

"Her shakti expresses itself through the inner work we do to hone the mind, to study, to practice- the careful, rigorous effort that allows us to become a container for wisdom and inspiration." p.196

Ideas and quotes taken from "Awakening Shakti", by Sally Kempton

Parvati

Parvati is the goddess of sacred marriage.

Her body is golden, the color of a dawn sky. She has large, bare breasts and long, well-muscled limbs. A red silk cloth is twisted low around her limbs. Her belly is well-defined yet sensuously round. Her body radiates warmth. The gold of her skin is illuminated by her inner power, her yogic fire. She is smiling. Her smile radiates playfulness and love. Inhale her warmth and light as red and golden sparkles. Feel yourself immersed in red and golden sparkles. Let this golden radiance show you what it wants from you. What do you truly desire from your life?

Parvati is the patron deity of yoginis.
She represents our commitment to practice intensely in yoga, meditation, pr athletics.

She represents a dance between movement and stillness, strength and softness, masculine and feminine.

Parvati is married to Shiva and they are the power couple. They complete each other. Parvati is utterly devoted to shiva but maintains her individuality.

She is the model of strength and love. She is the ultimate yogini and the ultimate wife.

The Parvati myth is about the inner journey to wholeness. Uniting the masculine and feminine sides of ourselves. Parvati is a mother and a yogini. She's strong as she's tender. She's willful and she's playful.

She's beautiful and athletic.

Parvati is the incarnation of focused will. She WILL be united with shiva. Shiva makes her whole. What is your deepest desire? Which desires will take me closer to my true self?

The Shiva-Parvati story is about the integration of spirit with form, freedom with fullness, knowledge with love.

Parvati's yoga isn't about self-cultivation, it's about love.

Recognize Parvati in the energy of a group that allows boundaries to come down and transformation to take place.

Find Parvati in yoga studios, unusual domestic situations, forest groves and mountains, peacemakers, sensuality, fertility, sunlight, and dance.

Invoke Parvati for willpower, strength and commitment, finding a mate, bearing a child, will and power in athletics, commitment to practice, balancing the worldly and spiritual sides of life.

Kali

Kali is the Goddess of Revolution

She has blue-black skin, wild hair, red eyes, fangs, and four arms. She wears almost no clothes. In one of her hands she holds a sword, a symbol of her ability to cut through ignorance, delusion, and ego. Another of her hands gives blessings.

Kali challenges us to find the love in the pain of life.

Kali represents the "audacious fierceness" that has historically been denied to both the divine feminine and individual women. Kali helps us stand up for ourselves, discover our inner fierceness, or to express the "outrageous side of [our] sexuality".

"Kali is the force many young women call on in those moments when they courageously face and move beyond their own trauma, or when they want to break through sexual shyness, politesse, insecurity, and discomfort."

"Kali's power, suppressed, will often turn in on us, fester in the form of rage, attack our bodies in the form of illness and accidents, and surface in ways that can destroy our love and the love others have for us. It was not until the 1980's that clinicians realized that many women suffering from depression and eating disorders had been the victims of rape or sexual abuse of different kinds. Their raw and pain had been "stuffed inside," and needed to be expressed as well as cleared in order for the women's bodies and psyches to heal."

Inhale freedom, exhale anything that is getting in your way.

Blackness: night, space, depth of ocean, void

Kali's power is that which dissolves the feeling of separateness and helps us see we are one.

Kali's power is in volcanoes, tsunamis, tornadoes, childbirth, lightning storms, wild outbursts of ecstasy, and sudden enlightenment experiences.

Quotes taken from "Awakening Shakti" by Sally Kempton

Lakshmi

Lakshmi is the goddess of wealth, prosperity, and success.

She is tall and beautiful. She wears a pink sari, has beautiful, almond-shaped eyes, and her skin has a golden glow. She has four arms. Lakshmi holds a lotus flower, symbolizing beauty and fertility. One of her hands spills good coins, symbolizing wealth, prosperity, and abundance. She is often pictured with two elephants behind her, spraying water. She is also often pictured massaging Vishnu's feet. She symbolizes the dutiful, loving wife.

Lakshmi's shadow side is greed and over-consumption. She is not pleased in these situations and will not bestow her gifts if asked.

In the story of the Churning of the Milly Ocean, Lakshmi was displeased and exiled herself in the milky ocean. The land became barren, as Lakshmi is responsible for fertility and abundance. The gods began churning the ocean to bring her back, and it took 1000 years. She rose out of the ocean on a lotus flower and abundance and beauty returned to the land.

Lakshmi is related to inner sweetness and to soma, the elixir of the gods. She is related to beauty and radiance. She is related to lush landscapes and beautiful gardens. Lakshmi is related to roses.

In India, many businesses and households make offerings to Lakshmi so that she will bestow success and abundance on them. Especially during Diwali, the Festival of Lights, Lakshmi is honored and invited into people's homes.

http://www.koausa.org/Gods/God6.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/hinduism/deities/lakshmi.shtml

Durga

Durga is the "warrior goddess of protection and inner strength"

Durga is one of the most popular goddesses in India and has become an icon of liberation and power.

When you welcome Durga into your world, "she can empower your most radical aspirations and guide you through your most conflict-ridden life dramas"

Durga is often pictured riding a lion (or a tiger).  She has flowing dark hair and dark, intense eyes.  She wears a red sari, a crown, and lots of gold jewelry.  She has eight arms and carries many weapons.

She is the deity to call upon when you're in deep trouble.

Because she is hidden, the goddess needs us to call on her when we need her help; we need to ask.  We can use meditation, mantra, chanting, prayer, etc. to call on the goddess.

Durga also represents the power of the environment.  She is in crashing waves, high winds, mountains, earthquakes, etc.

When you feel stuck, when you need a change in your life, considering calling on Durga for help.  Visualize her and ask " What is the major inner obstacle I have to face now?  What is holding me back?  What do I need to let go of?

Durga lends you strength to do what you need to do.  She is especially available when you're struggling to right a wrong.

A Durga woman might believe her job is to hold up the world.

Durga's shadow side is harshness and the need for control.  She needs to shine, even outshine.  She can be a relentless inner critic.

Durga energy is often behind a woman's instinct to organize for large-scale change; to fight social and political change.

To get a felt sense of Durga energy, remember a moment when you recognized, from deep inside you, that something had to change.  Durga's transformative power carries a conviction that comes from deep within the body.  When that knowing is strong enough, it is followed by action.  Before the Durga energy is activated, we often feel powerless, confused, and unable to act.

Durga energy is in truth-telling, ending a relationship, political power, standing up for yourself in an argument, willpower to create positive habits, starting a project, completing a project, rescuing someone in trouble, protecting other people, fighting injustice, personal empowerment, etc.

Consider calling on Durga when you need her power and help in a situation.

-- from Awakening Shakti, by Sally Kempton

Goddesses of Yoga- overview

In this path it is said the world is full of divine energy. We can harness that energy to live more fully.

Divine feminine/goddess is seen as the source of power in the world. Masculine is the awareness. For true creative power the masculine and feminine have to come together: power and awareness.
Feminine quality is life force.
Masculine power is consciousness.

The goddesses are imaginary representations of various aspects of consciousness. Their qualities/powers are available to us and present within us.

If a particular goddess resonates with you, it is either because you carry her archetype as part of your personality or because you need an infusion of her qualities.

In India, men tend to worship the goddess so that she will lend them her power. Women do the same but also tend to identify with her. We can start to see her qualities less as gender specific and more as aspects of consciousness itself.

Text used: Awakening Shakti, by Sally Kempton

more meditation ideas- anchor

It's a time that you can reconnect. Catch your breath. Sense a larger perspective. It's a still spot in you day.

It's an anchor. It activates your parasympathetic nervous system, and deactivates fight flight.
Your feet are anchors, your sit bones are anchors. Sense your feet, sense your heavy tail.
Your breath is an anchor. Feel your breath getting slow and full.

You can use a phrase as an anchor:
May I feel free from inner and outer harm.
May I feel peaceful

Keep on moving from your thoughts to your anchor.
Your thoughts will keep triggering fear.

- ideas from Tara Brach

Meditation ideas

Stay w the underlying feeling, but don't feed the discursive mind

Mediation is the art of staying w one thing w ease

Mind like vast open sky
Mind like deep ocean

There are many moments we do t need to be thinking- we're just spinning

Many of our thoughts cause physical tension, emotional stress, interpersonal conflict

Breathe in, breathe out, touch peace
Thich nat Han

When do you feel happiest? Not when you're lost in thought

My will or my heart's will

David Whyte's "Working Together"

We shape our self
to fit this world
and by the world
are shaped again.
The visible
and the invisible
working together
a common cause
to produce
the miraculous.
I am thinking of the way
the intangible air
passed at speed
around a shaped wing
easily
holds our weight.
So may we, in this life
trust
to those elements
we have yet to see
or imagine,
and look for the true
shape of our own self,
by forming it well
to the great
intangibles about us.

-- David Whyte
This poem was commissioned by Boeing to mark the introduction of the 777 jetliner.

Train quote

Anyone who has ridden the subway twice a day to earn their bread knows how it goes: When you board, you exhibit the same persona you use with your colleagues and acquaintances.  You've carried it through the turnstile and past the sliding doors, so that your fellow passengers can tell who you are-- cocky or cautious, amorous or indifferent, loaded or on the dole.  But you find yourself a seat and the train gets under way; it comes to one station and then another; people get off and others get on.  And under the influence of the cradlelike rocking of the train, your carefully crafted persona begins to slip away.  The super-ego dissolves as your mind begins to wander aimlessly over your cares and your dreams; or better yet, it drifts into an ambient hypnosis, where even cares and dreams recede and the peaceful silence of the cosmos pervades.

It happens to all of us.  It's just a question of how many stops it takes.  Two for some.  Three for others. Sixty-eighth Street.  Fifty-ninth.  Fifty-first.  Grand Central.  What a relief it was, those few minutes with our guard let down and our gaze inexact, finding the one true solace that human isolation allows.

- from Rules of Civility, a novel by Amor Towles p.3-4

Sahasrara Chakra

Seventh chakra- crown chakra
Color: purple
Sound: silence

Present moment
Open relationship to life
Authentic prayer means to turn to god to be w someone, not to get something
Prayer is our life w god

Meditation practice
Practice gratitude
What are you devoted to? Devotion is a human need
What truths are you aware of that you do not live by?

Let our spirituality guide us in our daily lives
Warehouse for the energy of kind thoughts and actions
Enables us to gain an intensity of awareness through meditation and prayer

Entry point for human life force-- distributes itself through the other chakras and the whole body

Inspiration devotion transcendent ideas

Fear of loss of identity
Fear of loss of connection w life and people around us

Motivates us to seek connection to a higher purpose in everything we do

Spirituality is an individual experience directly related toward releasing fears of the physical world and pursuing a relationship w the divine

Live in the present moment
Complete and release unfinished business

Ajna Chakra

The sixth chakra (Ajna) is located at the third eye point.

Color: indigo blue

Sound: aum, om

Food: none. hallucinogens

This chakra is associated with clear seeing (clairvoyance), imagination, intuition, memory, and dreaming.

It is associated with seeing the patterns in your life.  Why do you do what you do?  What are your motivations?  What do you do out of fear?

Meditation is the main tool for balancing this chakra.  We sit with ourselves and the patterns of mind are revealed.  Once we see what is happening, we can more easily make a change.  Once we see clearly what is happening, we realize we have a choice as to how to act.

If the energy in the sixth chakra malfunctions, one might experience hallucinations, headaches, or nightmares.

If the energy there is excessive, one might hallucinate, or see/imagine things that aren't actually happening.

If the energy is deficient, one can't see clearly, or seems oblivious to patterns or tendencies.

Vishuddha Chakra

The fifth chakra is located at the throat.

Color: turquoise blue, like the sky

Sound: ham

Asanas: plow, shoulderstand, bridge, fish

The element associated with fifth chakra is ether.

Foods associated with this chakra are fruits.  To help balance the throat chakra, you could drink juice or smoothies for a few days as a way to "purify".

The fifth chakra is associated with Divine will, or wide view.  As we move up the chakras, we go from the will of the group/tribe/family (root chakra), to personal will (solar plexus), to Divine will.  I think of Divine will as the wisdom to know we are part of a bigger picture; we do not control our lives, nor do our families control us.  The universe is vast; we are a drop in the ocean of great consciousness.

The fifth chakra is associated with speech, hearing, and truthfulness.  Do we say how we really feel?  Do we use our voices to speak in public, recite poetry, sing, or chant?  Are we able to listen to others, and do we feel listened to?

Dysfunctions in this chakra include: thyroid dysfunctions, sore throat, teeth grinding, and hearing problems.

To balance this chakra: chant, sing, tell the truth, journal, play a musical instrument, be a good listener, gaze at the sky, eat fruits, wear blue, wear turquoise, practice yoga poses that create space in the throat and neck stretches

Anahata Chakra

The fourth chakra is the heart chakra, located at the heart.

Color: green

Sound: yam

Types of food: vegetables and greens

Aromas: rose, amber, lavender, jasmine, marjoram

Best therapies: give, love, donate, share

The heart chakra is associated with the element of air, and therefore with fluid breathing and pranayama (breathing practices.)

The heart chakra is associated with love, compassion, and forgiveness.

If the energy here is deficient, the chest might appear collapsed, with the shoulders rounded forward.  If might feel difficult to breath, as though there is a heaviness in the heart/chest.

If the energy here is excessive, one might give of oneself too freely, without adequate self-care.  It might present as codependency.

Another source: thegroundingtouch.com

Manipura Chakra

The third chakra is the solar plexus, located just above the navel.

Color: yellow

Element: fire

Sound: ram

Spices: ginger and cinnamon

Affirmations: I choose the best for myself.  I stand up for myself.  I am authentic.  I direct my own life.

The third chakra is associated with issues related to self-esteem, personality, ego, self-responsibility, fear of rejection, and oversensitivity to criticism.  It is related to our ability to be ourselves and to follow our own instincts/intuition.

When the third chakra is out of balance we fear rejection and criticism.  We are afraid of looking foolish.  We are afraid of all issues relating to the body, such as obesity, baldness, and aging.

When the third chakra is deficient, it can result in eating disorders, digestive problems, low self-esteem, timidity, chronic fatigue, or feeling like a victim.

When third chakra energy is excessive, there can be perfectionism, controlling others, anger, hatred, and too much emphasis on power and status.

When the third chakra is balanced, we enjoy self-esteem, self-respect, self-discipline, the ability to handle a crisis, generosity, ethics, vitality, and a sense of purpose.

www.chakra-anatomy.com/solarplexus-chakra.html
Yoga Journal online
The Sevenfold Journey
Anatomy of the Spirity

Svadisthana chakra

The second chakra is located just below the navel center.  It is associated with the lower back, hips, pelvis, and sexual organs.

Its color is orange, and the sound is vam.

It is associated with the element water.

The second chakra is associated with emotions and relationships.  We can balance our second chakra by letting emotions run through us and out of us, instead of repressing them.  When we repress our emotions they become "stuck" inside of us and block our ability to feel fluidity and joy in our days.  We might feel anxiety or depression as a result of held/repressed emotions.

We practice having relationships with healthy boundaries as a way to balance second chakra energy.

Meditation helps to balance all the chakras.

A second chakra that is out of balance might result in overly controlling our environment, or the fear of loss of control.  We might be afraid of being controlled by another, through events such as addiction or abandonment.

Physically, a imbalance in the second chakra might result in chonic low back or hip pain, sciatica, or fertility issues.

Sources:

Anatomy of the Spirit, by Caroline Myss
The Sevenfold Journey, by Anodea Judith
http://www.multidimensions.com/Unconscious/uncon_emotions_2chakra.html

Muladhara Chakra

Chakras are spinning vortexes of energy that correspond to nerve plexuses in the physical body.  There are seven major chakras, starting at the base of the spine and travelling up the center of the body to the crown of the head.

Learning about the chakras offers us more tools with which to balance the body/mind.

The first chakra is called Muladhara and is located at the base of the spine.  Its corresponding color is red, and it is related to the element Earth.

Muladhara is related to the legs and feet.

Muladhara is related to our feeling of security, safety, rootedness, and being at home.  It is related to our family/tribe, and, especially, to our mother.

When the first chakra is balanced, we feel secure, safe, and at home in ourselves.

When the first chakra is out of balance, we feel insecure and fearful.

One of the ways to balance the first chakra is to feel your connection to the earth.  In asana practice, come back again and again to what is touching the ground.  Feel the security and rootedness that comes with being steady and connected to the earth.  Hold poses longer than usual, and focus on standing poses.  Poses which are low to the ground and spread out on the ground are also useful to connect with the energy of Earth.

In anxiety, our awareness moves up and out in the form of spiraling thoughts.  Find security and calm by bringing your awareness down to the earth.


"Our bodies know that they belong to life, to spirit. It is our minds that make our lives so homeless." John O'Donahue

Sources:
Anatomy of the Spirit, by Caroline Myss
http://www.multidimensions.com/Unconscious/uncon_body_1chakra.html

Integration/Authenticity quote- Remski

In deep meditation you can witness
how experience is woven together.
Such witnessing leaves traces.
Your hidden aspects become integrated.
A feeling of authenticity arises.
It is deeper than what you can hear or study.
It begins to unravel future patterning.
Bearing no future patterns, you become unbound.

Mindfulness (and other deeper states) triggers a self-reflexive loop-- feedback-- in which becoming aware of autonomic and perceptual processes calms and soothes these processes,  which then become continued objects of awareness.... As integration deepens, the stresses of consciousness-- maintaining a self-sufficient story along with an identity to tell it-- resolve into equanimity, so that the changes of life, things rising and dissipating, are not only tolerated, but expected, and perhaps even quietly enjoyed.  Like watching waves on the sea.

- from threads of yoga, by Matthew Remski, p. 164-5

Digestion quote- Remski

Breath relaxation can be instantly deepened through peristaltic release.  This is easiest to accomplish through conscious release of the tongue and jaw.  Softening the tongue relaxes peristalsis all the way down the GI tract, so that breathing is no longer cramped by digestive gripping.  (The small intestine is "grahani" in Sanskrit: "the seizer", not only of nutrition but of desires and goals.)  The tongue is also continuously quivering with unconscious subvocalization: to release its muscular tension can slow down or even stop thought.

- from threads of yoga by Matthew Remski, p. 122

threads of yoga book excerpt

Who am I?  What is true?  No pre-modern human being asks these questions, because there is literally no separate internal agency to ask them, [Jayne suggests].  But the social mask will give birth to an inner person, and when, like a three-year-old, that inner person begins to ask the unanswerable, yoga must be born: a quest to commune, to rejoin, to feel grounded in a simpler mood.

- from threads of yoga, by Matthew Remski, p. 62

Vyana Vayu

Vyana vayu is situated in the heart and lungs.  It moves throughout the body as an energy of expansion. It moves down all of our limbs and out, as our vibration or aura.

Vyana supports all four of the other vayus.  It aids in circulation of all substances throughout the body.

To experience vyana vayu, bring your awareness to your heart and something that you love.  Feel this love move through your body and out, touching those around you.

Practice big, expansive shapes in your asana practice.  Feel the energy flow through you: from your heart outwards.  Feel the expansiveness of balance as you rest deeply in savasana.

Udana Vayu

Udana vayu is situated in the neck and head.  It governs speech and self-expression.  It is also related to  the spine and your ability to "hold yourself up" and, more generally, your ability to be yourself.

Udana is a spiraling current that flows in the neck and head and spins outward.  I understand it not as our spinning thoughts, but as a deeper current that is our authentic self-expression.  We access this current often, in moments of calm and love.

Samana Vayu

Samana Vayu is located in the abdomen, with the center at the navel.  It is a wind that circulates in a spiral, and draws inward.

It is associated with Fire element.

Samana has to do with digestion and circulation, even of thoughts and emotions.  Do we hold memories and pain until they harden, or do we let them move through us and become assimilated and free?  Movement is what we want; freedom, waves, fluidity, breath.

Samana Vayu is an inward movement.  Draw your attention inward, rest it on your navel center, and imagine a spiral that flows and moves freely.

Poses that build heat and draw in cultivate this vayu.  Spinal twists, abdominal work.

Soften and expand the abdomen in restorative poses, like supported bridge and legs up the wall (with a bolster under your pelvis).  Let the energy circulate freely.

The Vayus are linked to the chakras; you can learn more about this vayu by studying the manipura chakra.

Apana Vayu

Apana Vayu is the downward flow of energy.  It is associated with the exhalation, elimination, and release of bodily fluids.

It is associated with Earth element and Water element.

Apana Vayu is seen in the root system of plants.

It's center is in the pelvic region.

Freedom of movement in the pelvic region is associated with health in the reproductive organs.

Cultivate Apana Vayu through hip openers, grounding through the legs and feet, restorative poses.  There elements are steadying, cooling, and relaxing.

Prana vayu

Prana vayu is situated in the head, at the third eye point.

It flows inwards and upwards.

It nourishes the brain and eyes, and governs reception of all things: food, air, senses, and thoughts.

Prana vayu is the fundamental energy in the body.

This vayu is seen in plants as photosynthesis.  Leaves reach to the sun.

Prana vayu helps brighten the pose and create upward lift, length, and extension.

Prana vayu: air, chest region, inhalation, energy, absorption, vitality

Air is an outward force

Vinyasa cultivates Prana.  Inhalation increases Prana.

- for citations see previous post

5 Vayus

Vayu translates as air, wind, or unseen forces.  The vayus relate to the "airy" vital forces of the body.

Each of the 5 elements should be balanced in each part of yoga practice.

The vayus are winds that are responsible for the movement of prana, or life energy, through the body.

In the Vedas, Vayu is the Wind God; Master of Life, Inspirer of breath and the dynamic energy of Prana.

Prana is continuously moving through us in all directions.  Yoga practice allows us to tune into and harness this flow so that we can increase our vitality and power.

- sites cited:

http://singingheartyoga.blogspot.com/2011/08/5-prana-vayus.html?m=1

http://www.thesecretsofyoga.com/yoga-articles/vayu-dosa.html

http://www.yogabasics.com/learn/the-five-vayus.html

I lounge on the grass

I lounge on the grass, that's all. So
simple. Then I lie back until I am
inside the cloud that is just above me
but very high, and shaped like a fish.
Or, perhaps not. Then I enter the place
of not-thinking, not-remembering, not-
wanting. When the blue jay cries out his
riddle, in his carping voice, I return.
But I go back, the threshold is always
near. Over and back, over and back. Then
I rise. Maybe I rub my face as though I
have been asleep. But I have not been
asleep. I have been, as I say, inside
the cloud, or, perhaps, the lily floating
on the water. Then I go back to town
to my own house, my own life, which has
now become brighter and simpler, some-where I have never been before…

- Mary Oliver
from "Six Recognitions of the Lord"
from the collection "Thirst"

Best season of your life

Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn,
a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter.
If your mind isn't clouded by unnecessary things,
this is the best season of your life.

Wu-Men
13th c Buddhist

Rilke- Questions

…I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

Clearing

Do not try to save the whole world or do anything grandiose,
Instead, create a clearing in the dense forest of your life.
And wait there patiently, until the song that is your life
Falls into your own cupped hands and you recognize it and greet it.
Only then will you know how to give yourself to this world, so worthy of rescue.

- Martha Postlewaite

Tao Te Ching 48

In pursuit of knowledge,
every day something is added.
In the practice of the Tao,
every day something is dropped.
Less and less do you need to force things,
until finally you arrive at non-action.
When nothing is done,
nothing is left undone.

True mastery can be gained
by letting things go their own way.
It can't be gained by interfering.

- Stephen Mitchell translation

When I Am Among the Trees

When I Am Among the Trees

 

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness,
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

 

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.

 

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, "Stay awhile."
The light flows from their branches.

 

And they call again, "It's simple," they say,
"and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine."

 

~ Mary Oliver ~

 

(Thirst)

 

John O'Donahue

We need to come home to the temple of our senses. Our bodies know that they belong to life, to spirit. It is our minds that make our lives so homeless. John O'Donahue


May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.
― John O'Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

A Standing Ground

A Standing Ground by Wendell Berry

However just and anxious I have been
I will stop and step back
from the crowd of those who may agree
with what I say, and be apart.
There is no earthly promise of life or peace
but where the roots branch and weave 
their patient silent passages in the dark;
uprooted, I have been furious without an aim.
I am not bound for any public place,
but for ground of my own
where I have planted vines and orchard trees,
and in the heat of the day climbed up 
into the healing shadow of the woods.
Better than any argument is to rise at dawn
and pick dew-wet berries in a cup.

poem brought to my attention by Patty Schucart

Wendell Berry

Sabbaths 1999, II

I dream of a quiet man
who explains nothing and defends
nothing, but only knows
where the rarest wildflowers
are blooming, and who goes,
and finds that he is smiling
not by his own will.

- Wendell Berry
from Given


"The study of asana is not about mastering posture.  It's about using posture to understand and transform yourself." - Yoga Journal, February 2013 p. 92

When you feel yourself becoming anxious, move toward the feeling.  Make friends with it.  The same teaching goes for physical discomfort: for example, move toward your headache, be with it.  Also, go toward sound.  If there is a sound bothering you during your meditation practice or your yoga practice, go toward it.  Make friends with it.  Soften around it.

Handstand preparation- half handstand at the wall.  Muscular energy: hug your arms and legs toward the midline.  Press down at the base of your index fingers and thumbs.  Move your weight forward toward the base of your fingers, as though you could slip a flower petal or credit card under your wrists.

William Blake poem

When despair for the world grows in me

I go and lie down where the wood drake rests
in his beauty on the water

And the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things who do
not tax their lives with the forethought of grief.

I come into the presence of still water and 
feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with
their light.

And for a time I rest in the peace of the world
and am free.

- William Blake

The Man Who Has Many Answers

The man who has many answers
is often found
in the theaters of information
where he offers, graciously,
his deep findings.

While the man who has only questions,
to comfort himself, makes music.

- Mary Oliver
from A Thousand Mornings