Inspirations: Change & Re-Invention

“I love to weed.”  There they sit, words I never thought to hear, much less write.  What’s happened?  Have I gone Zen?  What created this complete volte face? The inner vision emerges from:  I used to be a pig-pen, food down the front of  clothes, books everywhere, papers in piles.  Having grown up in a family that generated emotional chaos, and a mother driven to cleanliness, I suspect that the easy way out was to unconsciously refuse any effort for order or structure.  But what is dis-owned must come home. The outer vision grows from:  The confused uncertainty of a world where we thought we might have some control, to the knowledge that we have none. As the random mayhem increases, we reach for life-lines of normalcy and authority. Weeds and dirty dishes fill immediate requirements of not having to make another decision, and not having to learn a new technology in order to proceed.  As cyberspace encroaches into personal space, we may be more electronically connected but we are more emotionally dis-connected, mainly from self. The body is desperate to kneel upon green earth, and swish around in warm waters. The weird pleasure of weeding and doing dishes is still foreign enough to make me laugh at myself…always a bonus.  I pounce on a weed as though it were Easter and I need first prize for the most eggs. Observing the destructive pleasure I feel in having power over those bad weeds, I uproot in the most ridiculous satisfaction and toss them into my bag, which at the end of the hour speaks of my fabulous productivity.  Weeding is my antidote to actually accomplishing something ‘socially worthwhile,’ which requires much more effort and thought.  At the end of the day, with nothing to show for anything, I have a… Read more »

Ears, like handles on a jug, are odd but necessary protrusions. Their convoluted, sinewy shapes reach out to pull vibrations in to bounce on the tympanic membrane, then the auditory nerve, culminating in the membranous labyrinth of complicated sacs and tubes, filled with fluid, housed in the petrous bone.  The external ear helps concentrate sonorous vibrations on the tympanic membrane and set it vibrating.  The three bones in mid ear transmit these vibrations to the internal ear. What a journey for a single sigh, or syllable, to cover. Each word a small miracle in a complex transmission.  You’d think we’d choose them with more care, eh? There is far more where this complex connecting came from, but you get the general idea…It’s complicated.  So is listening to what is really being conveyed.  Hearing is a feminine act of receiving, considered a receptive talent.  But these days we are having to train ears, and eyes, to take on more levels of information, at a faster pace.  We have ears to the ground for incoming instructions, ears tuned to one another, and hopefully, ears vibrating to dictates of spirit. Presently, we have greater opportunity to hear the numinous, re-defined spiritual vibrations, to help us all move toward the wisdom of ‘One-ness.’  This is wonderful, but  not easy, for the new ear requires we pay attention all the time, and at very high levels of attention in order to understand hidden meaning relayed from this inclusive, sonorous spectrum. It is more important than ever to re-define and stengthen boundaries within self, as well as one another, as we absorb information with intuitive ears so the psychic heart can become a well-worn tool, not an abstract idea. Listening from old mind-sets, and out-grown grooves of assumption cannot take us to the next level.  If… Read more »

Is March-Madness an outer or an inner state? It is a tippy month of seasonal change, coming in like a lion, out like a lamb, with everything in between. Does the body simply yearn any excuse to disrobe the inner quiet of winter? And is the inward turning, peace, or pent-up energy? Is the Vernal Equinox, marking the beginning of the Astrological New Year, an unconscious goad for uprisings and shifts? Does March, in wringing out winter, and begging spring re-birth, set needed chaos into motion? I find myself suddenly and surprisingly expressing strong opinions/judgments about the mildest ideas…  “It should be this, not that”…  “I refuse to accept that “This is all wrong.” Have I grown into one of the many over-the-top, blah blah blah-opinionated March Hares I so abhor? Speaking of judgment. It’s certainly more self-aggrandizing, and fun, to blame my madness on others, or abstruse abstract reasoning.  Harder to sit with an inner judge who has pronounces life in authoritative, often autocratic, opinions.  There are more than ten meanings listed  for ‘judgment’ but you have to travel down to the sixth meaning, in Webster’s New International, to find judgment having anything to do with the mental act of judging, that is, dealing with comparison and discrimination, or placing a value judgment on something. What does this have to do with March, you ask? As outer and inner grounds thaw, it provokes un-settled nerves. What has occurred inside the winter chrysalis? I have no idea, but know I’m about to find out. I feel changes, but cannot yet act on them.  Perhaps we all mirror the earth, turning toward a new cycle, but cannot yet access who and how we are to be.  I feel old, well-habited skin re-shaping itself into a new form, but cannot yet assume… Read more »

At the revolutionary beginning of America, Benjamin Franklin said, “We must all hang together now, or we shall most certainly hang separately.”  In this Last Breath of 2011 I’ll echo Ben’s advice,  ‘be your own best revolutionary.’   We must be the source of our inspiration, and our happiness.  We can’t roll over hoping for our resurrection to simply happen. Time to not be the bystander, but to show up with a whole heart.        How? Yoga is the art of being totally present.  It gives touchstones of alignment, intention, and space to release old beliefs and emotions. It offers a multi-layered technique that brings enough safety for us to stand strong in the moment.  When we inhale and exhale to the rhythm of our heart -we are freed to grow naked, porous, and intimate.  In returning time and again to the Practice of being present, we relinquish old structures that offered false security. We love our security.  It’s hard to pry sticky fingers off what and who kept us safe in the past.  We cling to the sugar in life, to home, to the sweetness of known habits, and ritual.  Nothing wrong in that until those well worn grooves become prisons, holding back the resurrection, the regeneration and revolution.  If we cannot bring down our own inner dictators, suffocating our will to change, we cannot wend a way through this turbulent decade. A Yoga Practice gives us resolve to step out of old, comfy, well-worn by-standing slippers.  We begin to see that our individual contributions are mandates of, and for the highest good.  We don’t need to ‘roll away the stone’ to resurrect, it’s within this inhale and exhale.  This breath grows the revolution for our resurrection. Seasonal Energies Astrology Notes: There is a great opportunity now, between the New Moon… Read more »

Dear Wayfarers and fellow travelers, I am in need of help, your fine perspicacity, your thought-filled-feedback. ‘Tis Scorpio’s season, and in her required depth charge I have returned to questioning the why of it all yet once again. It is not a serene Yogic-place.  It is swampy and stanky, filled with odors of discontent and fear. The only thing filling me with hope is that you have answers.  Please weigh in, lighten my load, lead me onward, lest I eat another jar of jam. I do believe the world is in my heart, that we are the microcosm of the macrocosm.  If that is so, why is the world so bloody -bloody?  Why is it so very different than the core of my heart/your heart? Each time I form and re-form the question; “Who am I?” Do I do it from a different understanding and perspective? Is this why the answers refuse codifying, satisfaction or completion? If the power behind any Practice is its sankalpa, its intention, then why can’t my intention show up on the mat every day? Who is the masked bandit that whimps me out? Is the following idea-evil?  ‘I am not what I desire to be, I want to be more.’  Desire is the creative pulse of life, therefore cannot be evil. Is it the idea that I am not complete, or enough, that I cannot be at one with self as I am? Is this a pathetic sin, or a big one? Are these the perceptions that blind? How do we inform our vision to perceive from heart, not from ego-mind? If questioning the truth provides no answers, but the questions themselves open toward Grace, why doesn’t Grace feel more satisfying? If ego is a sense of self in relation to the world, what is the sense of self in relation… Read more »

Last week the Breath was about karmic relationships, today- it’s physical relationships… of the body-type, and how we perceive those relationships among this/that/these & those. Body parts reverberate to one another in much the same way we vibrate personally to one another. Not only is the body in constant re-balancing left to right, but it correlates and adjusts diagonally across, as well as up and down. How we stand affects how we think. How we twist correlates to how we digest. How we backbend affects not only spine, therefore nervous system, but point of view, lung capacity, and the courageous configuration of the heart. Movement affects the shape of who we are, and particularly Asana re-works not only physical form, but emotional and mental shapes as well. “When we are stuck in our shapes, we are stuck in our energetic matrix.”* The breath is another body, subtle but powerful, and when the breathing/Pranayama body can’t change, it affects the many subtle layers of mind, emotion, and physical. The more consciously we are able to connect and strengthen these multiplicity of relationships, within and without, the more profound life becomes. What holds a body together? What makes these millions of relationships possible? Prana/energy. In the body, fascia is the pranic force, for it holds the form of individual muscles and bones; 72,000 silken threads connect tissue to subtle body matter such as nadis, nerves, and energy lines. When life becomes too overwhelming, when we are drowning fears from loss of control, changing just one thing offers solutions. It is the crack that lets in the light. Starting with the body is do-able. It’s like putting on a great outfit, it gives gumption to move into the overwhelm, not run from it. How are you sitting right now? Is the head forward… Read more »