Inspirations: POV

A short while ago, I oddly chose a song to not only close Yoga classes, but make everyone sing along.  I wasn’t sure why, or why that song.  Beautiful as it is, it’s not an easy sing.  But honoring the feeling of rightness, I rallied on.  Weeks later, I now know why.  It is a serenade of seeing all life as a reflection of self, and in that vision~spirit enters, reminding us of the reflected-offerings in each moment.  They are of what and who we love, and what we see through that appreciation.  If you see it, you are its reflection.  It is then some aspect of the dreaming self, that one who owns divinity, and knows it is sacred, that incandescent being who struggles with the daily onslaught that is often tedious and maddening. The alchemical integration that this year asks of all of us is evolving to dissolve old matrices.  As they go the way of the DoDo Bird, we need updated Unicorns of creative Grace to emerge, rooted from the beauty of the old but re-structured and re-envisioned. Song and movement help us deepen into the body, as in doing ‘Celestial Communication. ’ Every layer is touched.  It doesn’t matter what we create; shoes, gardens, children, paintings, friendships, for as Osho wrote, ‘what matters is we put our soul into whatever it is.’  This mindfulness is what creates sacred reflections. Since I have an Eclipse with which to celebrate my birthday this year, I’m choosing the visions I wish to transform, the songs I wish to sing, and the dances that move me closer to the sacred-self.  Since transformation is the only game in town for all of us, I am choosing to see that you, whoever you may be, however near or far, known and un-known… Read more »

A Yoga Practice asks over and over that we grow the muscle of  ‘compassionate observer.’ There are other practices, completely off the mat that offer, and encourage this resilient growth. The one I encountered last weekend was ‘on the boards.’  It surprised me that sitting in a dark theater became a great Practice. Observing actors inhabit characters who badly needed resiliency, but hadn’t yet learned much of it, and were therefore struggling to stay emotionally afloat in difficult relationships, with a story line that twisted them every which way, was a wonderful way to observe not only their lack of practice, but mine own.  The play offering this emotional maze is at New Rep in Watertown, showcasing the playwright, Steven Dietz’s work, Rancho Mirage. The power of theatre, that conspiracy between actor and audience, between light and dark, real and unreal offer wonderful gifts for practicing.  As actors move in and out of their story, surveying their battlefields of bad behavior, I consider mine own and observe the playground where commiseration, judgment, and empathy square off.  But it’s an objective playground.  Unlike the actors, I can engage, or withdraw. I may not have control over my feelings but being the observer, I can measure how much I’m willing to expand and forgive, or the degree of grudge needing to drop away. If lucky, the story brings up personal minefields where I see old patterns, and can review my failure, safe in the 12th row. We never know how much hearts can hold, or how resilient we need to be.  Practicing is good. Many feel life is a ‘Theatre of the Absurd,’ where making sense has gone the way of the Dodo.  Emotions are absurd, unless they’re OURS.  Theatre reminds us not only of our absurd humanity, but that the world’s a… Read more »