Lonliness

It is building, this local Kula. slowly but surely the anusara community here is getting started. hard to get started without an actual certified teacher, but that isn't really stopping us. i like knowing i'm not the only one around here who loves Anusara. who is eating it up and can't get enough... it feels a bit like and addiction to the alignment the theming the Tantric philosophy... and the heart-opening wildly loving family.

and that's where i feel a bit lonely. our family is small and only loosely banded together and the part that i am a part of... i am in the lead. i am the teacher. i am the mother. i am the guide. it is an honor. and it is lonely. i've often thought of john friend and wondered if he experiences this feeling. that no one can quite be in his place and share with him. that there is no one to take him under their wing and offer to him all that he offers to others. who opens his heart and blows his mind? i know the students do, but it is in a different way, a different capacity.

i miss being a part of a regular class, with a regular teacher that i look up to and adore and wonder about. that shares love to me as a child is loved by a parent. i miss having other students that are my friends that i laugh with and watch movies with and share long nights out to dinner and then dancing or other wildness. things are not as they once were. i know my YTT teachers do love us, but there is so much intellectual learning and not nearly enough practice happening at YTT.

and so i realize, though i've been in my (slowly growing) kula here and i've been in my YTT kula and so in the heart of Anusara. in the back pocket of one of my favorite teachers even. i'm over due for a hit of the love. i'm over due for a big rockin weekend of practice practice practice, expand expand expand and LOVE it UP! thankfully i am scheduled to practice with john next month. and i've made my plans for the future to keep myself connected and plugged in to the merry band, to even take my place as a part of the merry band.

i'm ready ready ready. enough learning and thinking and planing, time to DO!

AH - HA!

the other title to this post could be: OH, so that's what Grace is

i had an epiphany moment the other night while i was being yoga nerd and making flashcards for my YTT test. i was studying the immersion manual and came to the (very brief) part about Grace. According to John Friend "Grace is the power of revelation" i have read those words many many times. i have been taught that very idea many many many times in many many many ways, yet the other night it was totally different. like being hit with a baseball bat of reality and suddenly something changed. i GET it.
Grace is a POWER. it doesn't have power or use power it IS the power. so Grace is not some noun that uses her influence on the word. Grace is actually that moment when you realize something or you learn something new when... it is the power that makes that new learning possible, or makes the ah-ha happen. it is a power that reveals a truth that was previously hidden. it IS THE POWER. like friggin' magic.
i got really excited about it. i am really excited about. even taught a pretty good Open to Grace themed class that sunday.
and since then i've been thinking more about it. right now i'm imagining Grace to be like 'the Force' from Star Wars. it exists all around it is an invisible but undeniable power and some are more skilled in attuning to it than others (but probably all can be taught). the big difference would be that the Force is a power of the mind, and Grace is a power of the heart. either way it is about moving into the flow of the pulsation of life and staying there by attuning moment to moment. the better you get at attuning the better able you can tap into the power and use it to your advantage... to the advantage of the whole world.

and that's what it feels like to me today. i'm opening to a whole new world... powered by Grace.

Vinyasa Krama

The mantra that has been repeating in my mind over and over in the last few days is this: "Finish the vinyasa" in essence... finish what you started. i have tendancy to get very close to the end of something and then go off on a tangent leaving the first project almost, but not quite complete. but lately, without asking my mind has been suppling the thought... finish it. if you aren't done, Finish what you have started.

Vinyasa is translated many ways.. breath and movement, a type of class. etc. broken into sanskrit they say it means Nyasa - to place, Vi - in a special way. Vinyasa - to place in a special way. i does not mean move quickly through a bunch of postures while breathing, though it is often taught that way. but there is another deeper vinyasa definition that comes to mind when i think of my mini-mantra, that of vinyasa krama. krama is the steps one takes to place in a special way. that is, HOW do you place in a special way. it is having an intention then how do you get to the goal you have set. it can be applied to the yoga practice, and more importantly, as with everything yoga it can be applied to life. according to an article from yoga chicago.com it is the 'intelligent sequencing of a personal yoga practice designed with a specific intention or goal.' and 'it is as simple as deciding what to make for dinner or as daunting as deciding a new career - then taking the necessary steps toward achieving that goal.'

i notice that as my yoga practice becomes more organized, more efficient, more productive, more life-affirming... my life is improved. my life becomes more organized, more efficient, more productive, and in general happier. i start to remember to 'finish the vinyasa' and to even limit the projects i set out to complete in a day so that i can be more effective and actually finish what i start. this organization brings a sense of ease and space in my life that is not present when i am trying to do too much and not actually completing anything.

the mantra came to me a few years ago when i did my first teacher training and then slipped away. now, again i'm in teacher training, again i'm organizing my life to fit in my yoga practice and the mantra has returned. an unexpected and subtle benefit of the practice. finishing what i start... completing the vinyasa becomes another way yoga transforms my life day in and day out.

The Body Speaks

just finished practice

it amazes me how the body holds onto things and only lets you know what is going on when it feels safe to do so. for a while now i've been out of sorts in my left hip. that translates into a tightness on my whole left side and it doesn't do much to help my right shoulder. my entire body is trying to compensate. in my practice i've been trying to open that hip, to open that left side, but nothing much seems to help. today i used muscular energy and my body kept leading me in and in and in. and i think i've found it. my tailbone is in the wrong place. it is ever so slightly off to the left. as i worked hard in my legs i couldn't quite get it to move back, not the way i can often pop the SI joint into adjustment. so i kept at it, kept trying and finally just decided to rest. knowing there is more work to be done but nothing more for today, i put myself into savasana. there in corpse pose i was drawn back to the birth of my daughter. all of the emotions (ones that i didn't even feel that day) came back too, with a softness and an opening. and i knew then, that my misalignment happened during the birth and i never got back into place. hopefully, letting the emotions, joyful and sorrowful and fearful, flow helped soften the pull of the muscles and ligaments and will help move my tailbone into alignment again. life is better when i'm aligned. but either way, i am amazed that on this rainy cloudy cold morning when i didn't really want to practice at all, just going to the mat took me to a place of such profound insight and deeper awareness, not just of my body but of my whole life. after some practices, you are never the same.

Coming Home

The yoga is like coming home for me. It's like turning a corner after a long road trip and seeing the place most dear. then walking through open doors into the embrace of long loves.. and some days they're baking chocolate chip cookies and serving cocoa too. but sometimes it's like going home when no one is there. when the place is quiet and empty and not only that, it's dirty and tired. sometimes i can't even find the street the house is on.. i'd like to say i keep searching on those days but i'm likely to either roll up my mat and 'forget it' or stumble through nothing poses as i ponder my toenails and pick at my clothing.
and i'm supposed to teach people?
but maybe that is the lesson. when you first come home after that first semester away at college you are suddenly hit with the knowledge 'i don't live here anymore.' but you don't really live at college either. you are hit with the uprootedness of life. we are always uprooted. and in our society so disconnected from our truly divine nature.
yoga is that chance to plant roots. to try to go home for real. home to the back pocket of the universe where we can cozy up and bathe in the love and warmth that comes with the knowledge that we truly are whole.
these days as i struggle in the first moments of motherhood i remind myself this life is a journey, this home i'm creating for my child is a warm safe holding ground for exploration until we all return to the heart of the divine. and i remind myself i too, am divine. even in my most difficult and challenging moments
I am a Goddess

Darkness and Light

I teach a sunday morning yoga class at YS. tomorrow i start back up after the break of maternity leave. it is like restarting into something i know i am meant to do but from a place of total disarray, from a whole new ground level. like there has been an earthquake, a cosmic shift and the new ground is HERE. but where ever it is.. Here is where i start from.
my sunday morning class is usually pretty small but i prepare fully for it because it is the most dear to my heart. it is the class where i have the most freedom to teach from a theme and to teach anusara alignment. so in some ways, not only do i prepare the asana for the class i also feel like i am preparing a sermon.

tomorrow's theme is dealing with darkness and light. tomorrow is the winter solstice. the darkest day of the year. and yet in the midst of this darkness... probably because of the darkness all of the holidays will hit and we will celebrate the LIGHT. we will come together, drink eat sing dance and laugh in a huge celebration of life and abundance and of spirit. in this yoga, too, we say YES to life. we acknowledge the darkness without trying to run away from it. because without darkness there could be no light, we wouldn't know what light is. so we acknowledge learn from and embrace the darkness. but out of that we CELEBRATE and align with and invite the light in every moment. the light of universal spirit that dances in all of us no matter what we call it. maybe we just call it life. and so we say LIFE IS GOOD and celebrate that.

so tomorrow we'll dance with darkness and with light. i'll bring images of candles and stars and of shadow and shining out your own true light. and hopefully tomorrow students will come and practice with me. i am SO ready to be there again.

Returning

About a month. that's how much time i took before practicing again. the last day before the baby was Oct 10th. and i practiced on my own again yesterday, nov 9th.

i felt my downward facing dog and think it feels pretty much like a beginner's dog. nothing like where it was before pregnancy or in honesty, even during pregnancy. hopefully my hamstrings will open again.

being in this place of having to re-build my practice again gives me SO much sympathy or empathy for beginner students. even for mild students who don't practice very often. this stuff is hard and usually i just bounce around in and out of poses no problem.. but if you're not used to doing it the body can be a challenge.

but happiness, joy, fear, unknowing all crowding in as i get started. and as always the reminders : go slow, it will come, live for this moment and know change is happening.

it just feels so good to breathe again.