Inspirations: Self Care

Describing the moon as cold and silent, resonates. Evaluating lack of spirit in those same terms, requires explanation. Kundalini Yoga has given the name, ‘Cold Depression’ to being cut off from spirit. It is a modern malaise where patience, energy, pleasure, and understanding are submerged.  It also expresses in masculine terms through over doing, pushing, anger, and frustration. This is a seeming epidemic where feelings, even identity, have sunk below the surface, barely operating at full capacity.  This “Silence of the Self” is the cold side of the moon where the light of the ego and identity cannot create the energy to shine or throw off heat. It is when we are forlorn, lost to ourselves, lost to our creative imagination. We often try to heat, and compensate for its emptiness with too many coffees, sugar-bombs, alcohol, over-eating, over-doing, over-spending, over-tweeting.  Loss of energy is nervous-making.  When we feel we don’t have enough juice for flight if frightened, we are even more scared and defensive.  We may unconsciously create chaos and crises to force adrenaline rushes, anything to distract from the no-man’s land of cold depression.  Finding a way back to that warm, vital, peaceful, balanced Self requires tracking.  Core energy moves from soul to mind, to body.  It is the spirit that decides how much ampage to use and when to use it.  The spirit pulses energy to the brain, then thoughts persuade feelings, and modify action.  When we re-generate a single blocked conduit, re-ignite one positive habit, our engine throttles up. The amazing force of Yoga is that it works on many-many levels, often at once.  It is manna for the inner landscape, freeing bodies from the inside out.  When/if you don’t have enough fire to stand the mat and do poses, then sit, breathe, chant, create hasta… Read more »

Because many of us feel poorer than before, less able to cope or keep up, it is important to ritualize the following gifts, imbuing them with attention and power. Because we feel we do not deserve grandeur and gallant greatness, we must promise to sit and accept, perhaps weep at all we wrap and un-wrap. Because we feel we have no time, we will stop and carefully attend the following: 1. Buy, or find a long shimmery box and in it place silence. Perhaps you open it upside down to pour it over your head. In that silence you listen to your own voice. 2. Find a small jewel of a box, or make one. Let it hold your acceptance of exactly who you are. There is no room for anything other than the true heart of you. 3. A ‘tower of power’ are five, size-graded boxes, stacked one upon the other, tied at the top with multi-hued silk ribbons. Each of these boxes holds one of your gifts. Take them out one by one, marveling at their incandescence, their generosity, their unique contribution. Surprise yourself with honor. 4. The last box is in a size of your own choosing. Wrapped within, lies a mirror, nestled under layers of colored tissue. As you pull back the layers, you feel a growing sense of pleasure to see yourself so beautiful, so serene, and joyeux. Face the one you love. Embrace the gifts you give yourself. They may not be the ones you thought you deserved, they may not be the ones you wished for, but they carry you toward your Self. They are coin of the soul and as such deserve embracing, as well as the ritual of wrapping. Each shock of pleasure at their unveiling is reward enough. Asana: Do… Read more »

It’s funny the odd confluences that oscillate and dislocate usual thought and discourse. Despite being unconscious of planetary knowledge, our speech and thoughts often reflect powerful planetary configurations. We are energy fields reacting to energy emissions after all. Thanks to a Saturn/Pluto contact we are ‘brain spanking,’ while running from ‘Yoga police.’ These neurological tracks reveal a propensity for transgression, and punishment, very Saturn/Pluto. These two zodiac masters can bring up the victim/bully polarity. We bully ourselves when we take time out to be ‘lazy.’ Our judgment is worse. Note judgment inherent in ‘lazy,’ opposed to saying ‘rest.’ There is lots of ‘brain spanking’ going on when we are not checking off ‘the list.’ How did that happen? The Yoga-police come out in force if we become too irreverent. When did towing the Saturn line become the only line in town? When we only show up for duty, bowing to the demanding father within, someone bigger comes along to shake that boney, and it is boney, structure. There is little sweet meat to the strictures of do-do-do. Pluto, being far more powerful in its transformative nature than Saturn says, if your beingness is lopsided, and your inner fires tamped and tamed into nothing but respectability, then I can take you down and put it all into perspective. How about getting so ill you might die; will you change then? Will your work day be 40 hours, not 70? What will it take to create balance out of this relentless intensity? In the loss of sweet hours of doing nothing, the engine of creative juices withers. Without that ‘wasted time’ we cannot be, we cannot create, we can only do. And mostly we do doo-doo. It’s crap. (That is written with a loud English accent.) If we are not to become… Read more »

I took a master class from Natasha Rizopoulos this past week and have been nudged toward small changes and deeper refinements. One thing she said continues to reverberate. “Bring intelligence to the dull parts of your body.” It reminds me of something the French poet Paul Valery once said, “The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.” Do you find these statements dissimilar? Are you sleepy? Many of us are asleep half the time. We move through Asanas, even life, in a daze only semi- aware of the endless refinement profound change requires. Pushing our inert spirits from the gross to the infinitesimal transforms dreams to reality, conquers difficult Asana, and difficult decisions. Learning from Natasha is a reality course in Virgo technique, for “Virgo seeks self through what they learn.”* As a teacher, she embodies what is best of this Mercury ruled energy. Her requests for re-discovery and reassessment between sensation and discomfort, between what the body imitates, and what it is actually doing, charge students to fully awaken, to bring not only intelligence, but care, to the dull, unreceptive areas in the body. One must be fully awake to make choices between disparagement and discrimination, between potency and assimilation. This is Mercury’s domain, for it rules the ideas behind words, the choice of words, and their execution. The higher initiative of Virgo’s diligence is ingenuity in service so that the harvest prosper. Each choice must be correct, if not perfect, to create vision through practical reality. We learn as much from how someone instructs as from the teachings themselves. We know the body responds to loving attention, not criticism. We learn that careful observation is a powerful tool. Becoming a student again, with a wonderful teacher, is the best reminder of how we… Read more »

For those of you who read last week’s ‘Breath’ you know this is a continuation of that discussion of seasonal elements… another layer in our ability to discern energy. Summer Rhythm As in nature, summer energies are ones of fulfillment, rising heat/fire and maturing. Like the Astrologic Leo, Summer People, when coming from their strengths, are exciting, moving from the heart, from their radiance of creativity and joy. Like the Ayruvedic Pitta Dosha, when in balance, they embody a fiery radiance to make things happen, eliciting co-operating from right use of their charisma and unique charm. Who doesn’t love someone leading with the heart? They are magical magicians, whose believe in self helps the rest of us believe in ourselves against all odds. When out of balance, Summer bodies, like Pitta constitutions, can become frenzied with too much activity, exhausting themselves in over-commitment. They can be so connected to the bright/happy side of life that they are unable to see the dark, or deal with depression. They can also become chaos, or hysteria-junkies, living for the highs until burned out. Learning to discern the fine line between joyous wide-eyed optimism and reality, between commitment and over-drive, or creativity and chaos, is the primary work of Summer People and of this season. Solstice/Equinox Rhythm These bodies are similar to the Ayurvedic Vata Dosha in that they deal with the instability of transitions. In order to handle the sway and movement of constant change, they are earth energy. The polarity in each solstice and equinox provides these people with their primary task which is to hold a steady balance in order to assimilate multiple changes. In this they are similar to the air sign, Libra, in its desire to connect and support others, offering peaceful means of change. Like Libra, when stressed,… Read more »