Drawing In

I tried this as an experiment recently: Sivasana at the beginning and end of class.  I’ve decided that it’s an advanced practice.
Doesn’t sound tough does it? It’s like nap time at the beginning. But have you watched three year olds who just came in from recess try to lay down? It’s like that pop-up gopher [...]

Roam the Hub of All Sacred Places….

“The light which shines above this heaven, above all the worlds, above everything, in the highest worlds not excelled by any other worlds, that’s the same light  which is in you.” ~Chhandogya Upanishad
What if all the thinking, all the words, ideas aren’t our minds? What if they’re the covering over our minds? Don’t get me [...]

Self-possessed, Resolute, Act…

“Self-possessed, Resolute, Act
without any thought of results
Open to success or failure,
This equanimity is yoga.”  ~Bhagavad Gita 2.43
Practicing the yamas and niyamas while diving into new endeavors is a unique kind of challenge, I’m finding. New endeavors are exciting, energizing, but can be anxiety provoking. We’re breaching new territory, breaking old patterns, creating new [...]

The week of the Camel… will you join me?

Why isn’t there a groundhog pose in yoga?
I’m feeling like groundhog emerging and realizing Spring. Of course Spring is putting on Summer clothes just now, but the flowery, rainy wardrobe of emergence is not yet shed, and is suiting me just fine.
Coincidences intrigue me, especially as I don’t believe in them ;> so I was [...]

Sometimes yoga just means getting out of the way…

If you’ve been reading here for very long, you know one of my careers is Paramedicine. Street medicine draws on my ability to discern, do, organize, energize – emphasis on the “do!” – turn around and do it again. Again! (think claymation baby dinosaur…
There’s great flow and joy available in this groove. Remembering [...]

Fall back into your Self

Yesterday my practice was crunched between writing and dog walks and getting off to work, quick sun salutations to warm and move me. The familiarity helps me connect to contentment and stay open for the surprises of my body and my day.
I’d just finished writing on Gather about the pain body Eckhart Tolle talks about, so [...]

Dharma Now.

Self-possessed, resolute, act
without any thought of results
open to success or failure.
This equanimity is yoga.
Bhagavad Gita
Eckhart Tolle refers to the ego using others as reflectors, turning them into objects and trapping the mind in the false succession of past and future. In yoga and other Eastern systems they refer to the dharma.
The ego structure disappears as [...]

Awareness & Thinking: A User’s Guide to Recursive Consciousness

Something Tolle said from the very beginning rubbed the trained Philosopher in me the wrong way: Stop Thinking. That’s like blasphemy for someone who deals in definition, analysis and understanding. Or so I initially reacted.
Tolle makes a deeply subtle distinction between thinking and awareness that helps to illuminate the nature of reflective, or recursive, consciousness. [...]

Gossip, Gurus & Growth

“If your path is through the guru,

then you see each daily life experience as part of a dialogue in which the guru keeps facing you with experience after experience,

each one designed for your awakening.”

So begins today’s daily wisdom quote from the venerable Ram Dass. Now, I’m not on the guru path per se. But when [...]

Asana & Self

Enough to love. Enough self to love and feel love. What kind of self is that?
Perhaps that is what the asana teach us. As we engage in any given practice we model our bodies after a series of animals, plants, planets, archetypes. Ideally we fully inhabit each one and move on to fully inhabit the [...]