Love is the answer

"If you give your life as wholehearted response to love, then love will wholeheartedly respond to you"-- Marianne Williamson

It is a pattern that many of us enter into because it is addictive--the high of negativity. All it takes is one negative thought and then BAM it spirals into the next creating a wave of fear and a drought that sucks all the happiness dry from around us. The Course in Miracles says we achieve so little because we have such undisciplined minds. What that is referring to is that the cascade of negativity that runs rampant through us isn't the problem--that we cannot control, what is the problem is our reaction to it (or for that matter our lack of reaction to it).

It is our tendency to lead with our wounds (leaving the mind unchecked) that has been referred to as woundology. In every moment our mind is racing to discover what is wrong with this situation, this person, this moment. It doesn't relent until it has found not just one but many and even then it needs it's high to stay up and can find even more. Left unchecked this spiral towards the dark leaves us in a pit of disenchantment with the world--far removed from love, and far removed from our powerful creative spirit and vision of our heart.

The good news is that we don't have to stay within the spiral towards the dark, for our nature is light. The dark is a part of us too, but it's the part of us we need to remember that we have freewill. It's the limitation we need to remember how much we can expand. We can remain in the dark, or we can remember that we are love. Love when given a chance to create--shapes our lives in such a way that opens us up to more beauty in the world. It's remembering that the heart much more than metaphor is our connection to the light.

"There is a light that shines beyond all things on earth, beyond us all, beyond the highest heavens--this is the light shines in our heart"---Upanshads

If we so choose we can shift our consciousness from the wounds of the mind to the light of the heart. From the heart we can then return back to the mind and from the light darkness cannot remain.

Rumi says "Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built up against it"

When we live in the dark--every thought of darkness literally takes the life out of us. The research being conducted by the Heart Math Institute has shown that every negative thought we think  throws the nervous system out of balance producing heart rhythms that appear jagged and disordered. Not only does it make the heart rhythm incoherent but elevates the level of cortisol in the body. High levels of cortisol have been shown to impair immune function, reduce glucose utilization, increase bone loss, reduce muscle mass, inhibit skin growth and repair, increase fat accumulation, and destroy brain cells.

This isn't good news for those who choose to live in the absence of love. What's more is that it's a powerful reminder that we are the ones who are responsible not only for what put out into the world, but also how we react to what the world puts into us!

With both the words of Rumi and Marianne we are reminded that we first need not to seek for love but look at the barriers we have built up against it--moment by moment how and why are we choosing not to love and receive love? Then from that place remembering that if we feel as though we are not being loved, not receiving love--are we really giving and putting love out to all those who cross our path--and even to ourselves?

A quote often recited by Marianne is "Love is what we are born with, fear is what we have learned here". Love is a radical shift that only the strong of mind and brave of heart choose to make. When the whole world is stuck in victim mode and the ideology that is common is woundology then it takes tremendous vision to choose love.

We have to be as committed to love as others are to hate and destruction! The Heart Math Institute's research into the heart has shown that the heart’s electromagnetic field is 5000 times greater than the brain. The field not only permeates every cell in the body but also radiates outside of us. It can be measured up to 8-10 feet away from us. When we are in a state of connection to the heart such as in a feeling of care, appreciation, or love--we can literally pull all the body's systems into state of coherence creating a cascade of well being though the body that revitalizes all major systems--boosting our immune system and heart health. Not only this but since it is a field that extends outside of the body we literally affect everyone else around us as well--affecting their brain and heart waves.

Every thought we think gives us a choose--do we respond with love or fear. Cumulative fear based living literally kills us (as shown by the heart math research)--and it affects everything around us destructively. Do we respond with love which is harder and takes more discipline? Are we willing to be committed to love? Are we willing to be as passionate about love so that in every moment we ground ourselves in the energy of the heart--bring to our focus a feeling of love, care, or appreciation?

"We have not come into this exquisite world to hold ourselves hostage from love. Run my dear, from anything that may not strengthen your precious budding wings, Run like hell, my dear, from anyone likely to put a sharp knife into the sacred, tender vision of your beautiful heart"--Hafiz

What is your vision--love or fear? If love are you willing to give your life as whole hearted response? If so your mantra is "I am love and my only response to this situation is love". Try it today. Start your day off in the heart. Close your eyes and take both hands on top of your heart. Take several deep breaths and connect to your heart beat feeling it all through the body. From here invoke a heart quality such as appreciation/gratitude, love, or care. Breath it deep into your body. Feel it all over and remember this feeling. Notice how the body responds, notice how the mind responds. Stay here, dwell in the heart, keep inviting more heart qualities in. Do this often and stay in the vision and leadership of your heart. I am love and my only response is love.

Peace and Love to you all!

For more info on the amazing research of the Heart Math Institute click here www.heartmath.org

Also stay tuned for my new book "Heart Fire Yoga: Practices to Awaken, Inspire, and Transform Your Heart" I am diligently working on it and hope for it to be completed by the fall.

Here we go

It's been a while since I have connected on this pathway with all of you. I have missed coming to this place to share with you and look forward to reengaging this avenue over the summer.  I have had quite an adventurous few months and have just come to accept that maybe my life is just meant to be adventurous for now. I don't think that is in my path for the time being to settle down in one place, but rather to open to the guidance of the universe as it takes me into connections with people, places, and groups all over the country.

I have had some amazing times traveling out west, down south, and now back through the Midwest. I have enjoyed meeting new people and new yoga communities. What inspires me is that while the places are different the intention of the practice to help transform our lives from merely existing--to thriving into creative, innovative, and inspiring beings is the same. 

My home base for the time being is going to be Houston TX. From here I plan to launch a series of new projects including a book, some "you tube" videos to help guide you into some radical expansions in your practice, as well as some innovative meditation trainings and new yoga workshops.

I look forward to this period of intense creativity and hope that I can share the work with you in the upcoming months. Stay tuned to my website for all the details and in the meantime I hope to see you at my up coming workshops in the Midwest (Chicago and Ann Arbor coming up next). If you are in Texas--look for me at Yoga Rasa www.yogarasa.net in Houston.

If you would like for me to visit your yoga community let me know :)

108

What Does 108 mean?

For those who are curious about this reference in classes--here is tons of info mostly at the bottom...Pretty interesting stuff.

The beauty of balance

“God turns you from one feeling to another and teaches by means of opposites so that you will have two wings to fly, not one” ~ Mawlana Jalaluddin Rumi 

Our practice can serve as a fertile learning ground to explore the depth of opposites within us. Rather than seeking the right way of being we can expand into the fullness of our BEING by touching the possibility of every movement, breath, feeling, experience and find the balance within the full range of expression.

So often we can get stuck in patterns and habits and beliefs of right and wrong as well as judgements about pleasure and pain that we don't open fully to what is, yet alone what could be. It's like we are being held prisoner from potentialities and worlds within us that have yet to be discovered all because we afraid to touch the hidden places within us.

If we let ourselves touch both end of the poles of sensation, feeling, thoughts, everything--then we KNOW what it is we are. We open to expansion--we open up to flight. Notice this week when you get turned from one "feeling" to the next if you resist and can you open to the path and let both your wings be born from experience so that your flight and your journey this week is one rich with depth, integrity, and fullness.

Sweat Your Prayers-Ishvara pranidhana

There is nothing quite like letting it all out on the mat. You step onto the mat and you let go and in the letting go you become a conduit for grace--you enter the flow. As you open you are opened.

Pranidhana means to surrender and Ishvara is spirit, or God. In practice it is the remembrance that we can allow ourselves to be supported by stepping out of the way and opening up to something bigger. The "Bigness" surprise surprise is actually not outside of us anyway--we just have to step out of our OWN way. There is this power far greater then most of us ever touch that is in us so deeply-- woven powerfully into every fiber of our being. It is the programming in us for greatness and when we are aligned with it we are the embodied GREATNESS.

We are all much more capable of magnificence and far more able to perform magic in life and on the mat.

The author Starhawk says it best I think:

Energy is ecstasy. When we drop the barrier and let power pour through us, it floods the body, pulsing through every nerve, arousing every artery, coursing like a river that cleanses as it moves. In the eye of the storm, we rise on the winds that roar through mind and body, throbbing a liquid note as the voice pours out shimmering honey in waves of golden light, that as they pass, leave peace. No drug can take us so high, no thrill pierce us so deep, because we have felt the essence of all delight, the heart of joy, the end of desire. Energy is love and love is magic!

The Magic show begins though when we allow ourselves that deep surrender. If you're clenching, holding, blocking, resisting in your practice--you're blocking the pulse of energy that can take you to that sweet shimmering place that Starhawk so beautifully describes.

The first step in practice is to feel before you act. To notice what is and to feel the body, heart, mind opening up to vast spaciousness. The way to surrender is to deeply feel the breath and notice it. To ride the crescendo of each breath until you feel synced up with the larger current. In that larger current your body responds to the pulse and then you are in the Spanda Shakti

The practice invites us to become more of ourselves--to tap into the depth of our fullness--to reveal more light, to relish in the radiance, and to expand consciously into greatness. We just have to be ready to open and to surrender. You ready to sweat your prayers?

What's your story?

It all begins with the breath. Nothing is more important or fundamental than the breath in practice. It's one of the easy ways to be empowered in practice--because while you may not have all the say in the sequence, intensity, etc--you have a say in how attentive and responsive to the breath you are.  The breath is the foundation from which everything else is built around. It's what allows a practice that could form around aggression be infused with a sweetness and nurturing that only a deep and spacious breath can provide. It is what grounds and connect us to the creative pulse that animates all things. 

Think of it like this. The breath is like the formation of words. From this the poses become animated expression of the words--sentences begin to form. From this the poses flow together to create a story--the story of you in any given moment. Unlike other art forms the well spring from which you draw your creativity is endless. --the breath is always there waiting patiently for you to notice it--to create with it--until you take your last breath.

 What kind of story are you writing now? A larger question is--what are you willing to write now that you know it's within your capacity to craft your story.

Here is a practice for you this week. Notice how the breath starts off as you begin your practice, and then moment to moment remember you can harness a different breath--constructing new pathways of connection. Your willingness to open to and create with the breath is all in your hands. Your practice can become poetry in motion.

Breath freely!

I also want to direct you to the first few meditations in the Radiance sutras on breath...here is one:

The Radiance Sutras have this to say:

"The life essence carries on its play 
through the pulsing rhythm 
of outward and inward movement.
This is the ceaseless throb, the rhythm of life - 
terrifying in its eternity, exquisite in its constancy.

The inhalation, the return movement of breath,
sustains life. 
The outgoing breath 
purifies life. 
We breathe out the old air, the old thoughts, the old feelings.

These are the two poles 
between which respiration goes on unceasingly.
Between them is every quality you could ever desire.

As the breath turns from in to out, 
and again as the breath
curves from out to in -
through both these turns, absorb intensity."

(the first few sutras have beautiful breath meditations--go to www.lorinroche.com for more info on the sutras)

The Invitation to Burn

Yoga is hard. It doesn't really matter whether you are "burning" your thighs in a warrior pose or burning through old habits and "memories" that need to die away. It's all hard. Change is hard, but most importantly I think allowing ourselves to feel is hard.

There is a passage from the Radiance sutras from the recently translated Lorin Roche version, sutra 30 that goes " Imagine the entire world consumed by flame. Stay steady, do not waver, As the fire transmutes form into light. The Soul reveals itself to itself as Radiance. "

When we practice we can invoke the alchemy of fire to do as the sutra describes. In fact I read this and think simultaneously of my inner "worlds" as well as my outer experience of the world. What would happen if it all just burned away. It's a nice practice to engage in. What would REALLY happen if it all was just consumed by flames.

In our practice of yoga we have that chance to burn if we so choose. We can see our whole practice light up and rise into a flaming inferno of change. The question is how thirsty are we for fire? Can we allow ourselves to be like dry wood and literally allow ourselves to be saturated and danced into by the sacred flame itself?

When you feel a burning sensation that come from the deeper work of physical yoga--invite yourself into the intentional flame--go there and do the work maybe even using an intention--I am opening up to flame and let yourself burn areas in your Psyche that need to burn. You can also do intentional healing, like when you feel that fire--send it to somewhere in the body that needs it. Like maybe you have a sore throat and you have fire in your core--send that fire up to your throat. The possibilities are endless. The symbolic becomes the real.

Burning is learning is a quote I like, and it follows, cremation is education. Yoga is an invitation to burn. You can of course just skim the surface, you may even dance a toe or two in the fire, but if you choose you can sit down in the fire and let yourself be drenched and consumed by the fire.

May you burn brightly.