holy cow, its gonna be dark

5:10pm, Sunday.  It's nighttime already.  Dusk is done.  Done at 4:30, maybe, if that.  I've come to appreciate this time of year way more recently, upon beginning a meditation practice almost a year ago.  yes, i said it.  I am a certified yoga teacher and didn't have a regular practice till one year ago.  (Cue yoga police!)   I do now, and I sought one because I was ready to go deeper inside my sadhana, my heart, and my Self.  I was ready to go into the dark.

I remember years ago Amy taught a class around this time, and admitted to not liking the dark days of winter too much.  She then offered her own work of yoga in finding the light in the dark, ie, she got creative with her inward time.  She prompted the students to each come up with something they liked about the darker days and longer nights, and share it out loud.  People said things like baking, reading, watching movies, knitting, cuddling with the kids/pooch/kitty/sweetie, etc.  I'll never forget this because it offered me a chance to actually seek something different out of what i didn't really like, as I've also been a winter-hater.  In a sense, it taught me to do some yoga, and find an expansion where I felt a contraction.

Tuesday marks the Solstice for us, the beginning of winter, when the earth will be at its lowest point below the sun before it begins its upward turn again.  The Solstice is almost like time standing still for a brief moment, and we'll be heralded into the greatest amount of dark for the year.  We'll have the longest night, literally.  Part of the natural cycle, 2010's annual cropped-day will occur on a full moon.  Wait, it gets better- It's also a lunar eclipse!  Holy cow, it's gonna be dark.

This is a rare alignment, and one that hasn't happened in over 400 years.  Full Moon's bring additional energetic alignments that enhance whatever is going on at that time. Astrologers call eclipses 'portals', and often describe them paradoxically being about absorbing what you're ready to shed, and renewing your sense of purpose.  So everything this week is being pushed a little bit...more.  This alignment is a perfect Tantric paradox, and it's a chance to align to both creation and dissolution, to renewal and letting go. 

Our extra darkness can be a gateway, and I plan on using it as one.  Over the next week I encourage asana, to move any of the stuck energy in your body and jostle up what you are longing to shed.  And I encourage meditation, to open that inner portal for dissolution to happen, and expand in the dark.
After all, everything germinates and grows in the dark.  In the days that follow the Solstice/full moon/eclipse, it will be super dark.  Little bits of light will slowly and progressively increase and reappear, but there's no rush.  I like the dark now. 



fyi, many of you ask about my favorite astrologers, and my current fav is on maternity leave!  Happy New Motherhood Divine Harmony.  

(that picture is what our eclipse would look like, were we standing on the moon's surface.  our view, if lucky enough to catch it, will be of a the moon as a red glowing ball.  Not bad.)

kula as core

My search for the meaning of ‘core’ in yoga continues.  Amidst the holiday rush, i’m managing to stay pretty grounded.  Asana certainly helps, as does meditation, and I’ll dive more into that in my next blog.

This week I celebrated my birthday, and as usual for a full time yoga teacher living and working in the hustle of NYC, I took a yoga class to celebrate.  How perfect!  Maybe that’s not so typical for some teachers out there, but when I take a yoga class its more than just moving my body, so it feels like a party. Plus, it’s a chance to connect to a community I think of as home.  In sanskrit, the word is ‘kula’.

Kula though is more than just community.  Its a gathering of ideas and hearts, as well as people who center around a common belief, practice or idea.  In some sense, each kula has a bindu (sometimes defined as “the point or center of something that opens again into an expansion”, or “where the unity becomes the many”)  in the form of its values, a core central belief that is a common thread that each great soul has a link to.  Or the teacher or guru is the core.  When I think of the core of my practice, i often think of my kula.  The people that I choose to practice yoga with, share conversation with, my ‘kalyana mitra’, or those I’m engaged in ‘spiritual friendship’ with, matter deeply in the practice.  When I practice on my own without the kula, they are invoked.   The kula as core of yoga is significant if you are like me, and value living fully in the world as a householder rather than a renunciant.  

Sorta like my other great experience from my birthday, which happened because of Facebook.  Hundreds of people wrote on my wall sending wishes and love, and it dawned on me, that on that day, I was the core too.

when did yoga turn into an abs class?

I have lost count of how many times I’ve taught bakasana (crow pose) in a yoga class, and a student who is having difficulty says to me “My core isn’t strong enough, right?” I often get befuddled before answering because there are so many things involved in learning challenging poses.

My answer is always governed by looking at the students’ general alignment, actions in the pose, and even their attitude.  Students often mean their abdominal area when they say ‘core,’ and this probably comes from many teachers and styles of yoga emphasizing ab strength as the meaning of core strength.  But what  about the spine?  Isn’t the spine the central channel and true middle of the body too?  If you look at yoga as a spiritual practice (which it is), why wouldn’t we think then of the heart as the core?  Or the mind, since its also a meditative practice?

And when did the yoga practice turn into an abdominal exercise class?

The dictionary defines of the word ‘core’ as “the central part of a fleshy fruit, containing the seeds.”  Secondly, “the innermost or most essential part  of anything”.  From these definitions I can see the assumption of the core to be the abdominal area. But I guess it’s about your perspective, and where you sit that will lead you to determine the most essential part of who you are and what you are.

As a spiritual practice, I’d define the core as ‘heart’ in my Anusara practice. Like a work-in-progress since the moment of birth, this life is an offering for us into an awakening of heart, if we choose.  Our bodies, hearts and minds are none other than embodied forms of Spirit, and when we breathe and move at the same time in asana, we are creating a relationship with Spirit and an awakening can happen.

“Core” is the word I am hearing all over these days and it has come to mean just one thing. I see it shifting, as often and as quickly as the asanas do in class, depending on where you sit in yourself that day.  Maybe you need the core of your practice to be more inward to settle your mind.  Or, maybe you’re working with an injury and you need to focus on particular actions to  clear it  These too could be interpreted as core power.  Over the next few weeks, I’ll be examining different aspects of core power, from many perspectives. Travel with me.

(from www.yogacitynyc.com - 12/11/10)

How To for "Littles": Learn to safely spot bigger students in Handstand...

rise up!

For the past 2 days,  I've taken some rare time off to attend a Level 2 Teacher Training with Ross Rayburn and Amy Ippoliti, held in New Jersey.   The theme of the training is 'going to the next level'.  How appropriate in a room of already skilled teachers, but what does that really mean?  An on-going contemplation I've been embracing for some time.  Catapulted by a swell of amazing teachers in our tri-state area, or Tri Kula,  this TT is long overdue.   Following the Tantric teachings, the world is constantly growing and changing, nature is always renewing itself, and we can too.  We're never stuck, and we're not supposed to stay the same.  How cool is that??  It totally affirms that we can want more. 

Conversely, it can also be quite friggin' intimidating.  All this impulse from the heart to grow can be met with fierce resistance from the mind.  How do you rise up despite, and with sometimes even a hostile refusal from your own mind?  Hell,  I love stability!  In fact, the loyalty and integrity that is so deeply part of my personality and my actions can also be quite a shadow and present challenge.  The usual in an 'ujjani' (upside down) world, where every asset is equally a liability at times.  So resisting change is a common condition among us,  myself included.  Even change that asks you to simply step into your greatness. 

Rising up is also as natural as waking up every morning.  A new day.  A new chance.  Start fresh.  Go again.  So grateful.  And grateful more for the kula surrounding every day's chance to rise up.  The kula is not just a group of friends, even though it most certainly is.  It's a group of individuals that when they gather, increase the vibration of whatever you're doing together and will hold you accountable to step up, or do things that are good for you.  The kula shares this bond of wanting to rise, both individually, for each other, and for the whole. 

In teacher training, trainees are asked to step into the fire of their greatest challenges... often.  I've been there many times, and let me tell you it can be one of the most frightening and blood-pressure-elevating experiences.  Standing in a room of your peers, students, teachers, and friends and put on the spot to teach can be terrifying, no matter what level you are since every level has a next level.  And then it happens... you wait, your mind expands and heart softens simultaneously and your sense of hearing returns.  What you couldn't hear or see, previously blocked from fear and self doubt begins to dissolve, then vanish.  We watched this numerous times in the past 2 days.  To see one person deepen their understanding of themselves, brave the fire of learning to alchemize their shadows into light,  refine how they speak,  learn to listen to feedback and then apply it immediately, and get stronger as an example for all of us is so incredibly uplifting.   It gives everyone a blessing to do the same. To witness the alchemy is astounding, and pushes each person a notch higher to their own transformation.  I loved seeing the room light up.

And when you meet your next level, even if only once, it means you can do it again.  In the classroom, with your partner, with your children, with a parent, with yourself.   In fact if you lean in and listen a little closer, you'd hear it saying as if in a quiet chant, "I'm not leaving.  Rise up.  Come meet me". 

Hard to summarize the past 2 days worth of events and experiences happening here at the Grand Gathering.  The Gathering is all at once yoga blitz (2 challenging classes a day! Christina Sell, you rocked my world!), kula reunion, mega love-fest, and Immersion into the heart of Anusara Yoga.  In this isolated, yet majestic setting of Estes Park, the magnet holding us together is John Friend, although it isn't just John -- it's the love of life, our common interest of asking questions of life, and discovering ways to become better servants of it.   

It's a perfect setting really for going deeper inside, in all ways.  Aside from the great teachers/presenters here offering their individual insights and inspiration on this yoga of the heart, we are lucky to have Douglas and Sally here offering what they offer.  A spontaneous addition to the Panel Discussion on Monday night was Eric Shaw.  He was articulate and full of knowledge on the subject of yoga history, and added plenty to the conversation.  The conversation was varied, from Hanuman stories to the necessity of the Guru,  sex and yoga, vegetarianism, and the ubiquitous question of reconciling evil in the world.  A true example of kula, in that we don't learn by ourselves, and that the kula is the guru.  Interestingly, John elucidated 2 levels of teachers - pundit and guru, and added a third, one he called Charya.

Charya is one who is masterful, studied, and full of knowledge.  It means to say that he or she has put hours of study and practice into the subject, and can speak more fully from the heart of the experience, rather than just from the definition of the experience.  I've learned this through teaching yoga with themes, realizing over and over that when I'm more saturated in and by what I'm offering, my students are led straight to their heart, their minds soften, and transformation begins/continues.

Yes, I know I'm plugging my Immersion at Yogaworks beginning mid October, but the Immersion is such a program that offers the seeker a chance to step more closely to their own level of charya.  Immersing in the teachings and practice in intense bursts of time, then letting some time to pass before taking the next one. gives time to install it into your life.  Sianna Sherman, a stunning master of poetic heart, word, and body joined as one, called vinyasa "an instillation of prana that permeates every movement, every experience".  This is a perfect way to describe what happens in the Immersions.  A great allowing of this instillation to occur, as if the sweetness of the teachings were like honey, smoothly permeating every inch of your being, heart, mind, word, thought, and action. 

I am not without a staggering amount of gratitude as well for how I got here.  Yesterday/today is the Autumn Equinox.  Its one of the midway points where we sit in samastitihi, or balance.  John called it a 'tipping point', which is an excellent description of being on the verge of change.  Sitting in the middle it is a time to look back at the last 6 months or so and choose how you want to move forward.  I have so much gratitude for even further back to a year and a half ago when my life shifted, and I found a new home at Yogaworks Soho.  When YW Soho opened, they held a referral contest for teachers to bring in new students, and I won this contest.  It is the first time I've won anything, and the grand prize was entry into a Yoga Journal Conference of my choice.  So in a curious way,  I got 'the lucky', and I am here by the Grace of my students,  to whom I send endless gratitude toward.   Maha love y'all.

more soon...

no expiration date

Arrived today at Estes Park for the 2nd Grand Gathering, and let me tell you, my heart's already been mushed open.  You see,  I'm certified.  As a love muffin.  I do all I can to feel love, inspire love, and promote love in myself and in others.  Since love is simply the thread that holds us all together and withstands all trials of life, it doesn't expire.  It doesn't get old, really.  It may change direction, but it never looses power.  It has longevity in life, and so long as we practice creating it and living it, it has no expiration date.  "Love is stronger than Fear", offered Des.

Tonight, as John Friend gave the keynote speech welcoming students and teachers to this 3 day gathering of like minds, he immediately did what is called Kuladipa - he lit the lamp of the kula with simply his words.  He spoke in future tense, not just present tense, and offered his vision of the gathering as a way of saying "may it be so", and his ability to do this is one of his many gifts.  He always does that, and it's unique among the great teachers out there today.  He's a visionary.

My heart melted into the great fabric of our global collective as each of the 12 or so presenters/teachers spoke to the question, What has shifted for you in the last 2 years (since the first GG in 2008), in your life and practice?  Such stunning and beautiful and candid responses from my peers, teachers, and friends on stage.  Their answers were examples of why we all study and practice Anusara yoga - on every level, it's a practice of enhancing the quality of your life.  Isn't that what your yoga should do?

It of course led me to contemplate my own transitions of the last 2 years.  Some of the biggest shifts have come more recently, as an increase in my capacity to listen.   I owe much of it to my meditation practice, and the outstanding and deeply penetrating words of my teacher Paul.  More than anything, my practice has proved itself to be an anchor for me in hard times when I'm most challenged to take a close look at myself and improve how I impact the landscape of the world.  My practice continues to do what it originally set out to do, so long as I practice it.  It can't have an expiration date that way!

More tomorrow.

burn where you are

The change from Summer to Fall can be quite a challenging one.  Shifting gears from extended weekends back to longer work hours, school starting again, and ever so slowly, feeling the touch of cooler air and shorter days can be a downright bummer.   I usually make a list of things I love about Fall, to help me get psyched.  My schedule is full (more classes in Brooklyn!  check my website), and my private clients are back in town, friends are returning from summers away, so there's lots to look forward to.  But since my first experience with Burning Man in 2000,  I've added a fire ceremony into my intention setting.

Burning Man is a one week experience of experimental community living set in a stark desert in Nevada.  Really out in the middle of nowhere.  There are so many levels of amazing-ness that one can have at the Burn.  Fitting to what I study with Douglas Brooks and Rajanaka Yoga, the Burn is also an experiment in Radical Self Reliance and Radical Self Expression.  Its an art festival, hippie gathering,  city of fantasy, music and dance party, and Kula-Gone-Wild within the boundaries that being in the desert instill upon you.  It is one of the most radical experiences of Freedom you could ever have, even though its not really free, it costs money, and there are plenty of terms to agree upon.  But hey, that's embodied life anyway.  I've gone twice, and I have only seen or heard a pin-head of what it conjured up for some folks.  Its one of those trips that leaves such an imprint, and deeply shifts every person from inside out, and its radically different every year.  Sorta like your yoga is, and can do.

Fire is a powerful metaphor of, and tool for transformation.  The Tantric traditions view fire as the space of our own Consciousness, where all things liquefy together.  Our yoga practices can be used to ignite the fire of Consciousness with the intention to heat, and inevitably melt away what's no longer needed so what remains is purified, streamlined, and crystalized.    "Fire has a nectar at its core" as taught by my teacher Paul.  Sometimes we do need to cast off the old ways, tired relationships, and attitudes that have held us back from simply being our best.

These practices of igniting "tapas" or heat into what you are doing are not only about burning away or purifying -- like there's something 'dirty' or 'impure' about you -- rather, consider tapasya as a burning into newness.  The burning is never about simply nothingness to the Tantric practitioners, for nothingness isn't possible in our embodied life, nor is it respectful to the Divine that has chosen our loveliness and all it entails as its form.   It is paradoxically both a burning away, and a burning toward.

Burning Man taught me many things, aside from how life affirming it feels to live with thousands of   like-minded beings focused on radical self expression and self reliance, keeping safe, yet exploring the boundary of fun.  One thing I have come away with is a knowing that I can transform anything burdening me through practices of burning and melting.  Once the heavy is heated, melted, and dissolved to ash, what remains re-coaleses and becomes the source of power for transformation.  This is the practice of asana, as well as meditation.   So at the end of this week, on Saturday,  50,000 will gather around a 40' effigy of a man and watch it burn from very explosive and celebratory beginning, all the way down to the last ember 12-24 hours later.  Watching it go out is like cleaning and purifying the diamond of your heart. 

What i really learned from the Burn is this little saying "burn where you are"-- you don't have to be in a desert to experience the same kind of power of your own transformation.  It can happen here, right where you are, whenever you're ready to stoke your inner fire to do so, with any ritual you design.  So every year at this time, planning for the remainder of the year,  I burn.  I burn sitting in a place of respect and love for myself and the work I've done, and I burn away what will simply not serve me in serving and collaborating with the world as fully as possible.  And I burn continually toward, and into, my own refinement, polishing and reshaping who I am.  

Love to my playa family.

Little fact:  Black Rock Desert is transformed into Black Rock City.  Once built and at full capacity, it becomes one of the 10 largest cities in the state of Nevada.  Then it is dissolves, like the fire itself, and there is no trace of it.  Until next year.  Happy Burn!

rained out

I have a phobia.

I've had this phobia since college, and for the obvious reason, i've been asked by the universe, and the deepest part of myself to overcome this phobia.  This morning I was scheduled to teach a large outdoor class at Bryant Park, a-la Yoga On The Great Lawn.  With the threat of rain, it was Y@GL redux, as the Bryant Park class was canceled, and last year i was rained out too.

whew.

This fear is of microphones, and sorta of public speaking.  Hilarious, right?  I'm a yoga teacher.  I get up in front of sometimes (what I would consider) large groups of people, and talk to them. 
Prepping for last year's angst filled class, i asked Elena Brower, who is so experienced and skilled with large group teaching (even better now, I'll bet) for some pointers and advice.  She said "mind your p's and t's cause they pop.  You must remember to cover the mic if you have to cough or clear your throat.  Chanting is ok, but don't be alarmed that you can't hear them, they can hear you.  Speak from your heart and they will FEEL you".  It was great advice, and I was so ready.

But got rained out.  whew.

In a simple google search on 'fear of microphones', something called PPF - Paralyzing Presentation Fear, also associated with just the fear of public speaking, came up.  Who knew Fear of Microphones had a diagnosis? 

Some great tips I found on www.ezinearticles.com were fairly obvious, like do some breathing techniques before a presentation.  While I no longer really  have the huge fear of public speaking when I can't catch my breath, i do generally take time before all classes I teach to get centered.  If there's time and space, I'll meditate for a few minutes.  If not, I just get quiet, review my class plan, and breathe into the space I know and trust in myself.  

The first time I taught yoga, it was during our final presentation from Teacher Training with Amy Ippoliti, circa 2002.  We each had to teach one pose to the group.  That's it, one pose.  The poses got chosen randomly by Amy, and I got Tadasana.  Easy, right?  Mountain pose; basic, easy, simple.  Even when the poses were assigned, like, weeks before the actual date of our Final Presentation,  my anxiety was huge.  I mean sweating, heart-beating-fast, near paralyzing fear just thinking about having to teach this pose in front of my 25 peers.   We had to give a brief intro of our theme, then teach the pose to the group, and I'll never forget or appreciate enough the way my peers gathered around with such glee and pride for me in their eyes while I spoke of Tadasana, the mountain, and the majestic beauty and steadiness of our core that is always present.  And then i let it rip.  I truly don't remember what came out of my mouth as I was teaching, but something shifted, and I think it is because my heart knew the way. 

This article I read also spoke of a few more tips.  One was to know your material.  I think that's what happens when my heart knows the way.  Anytime you study something over a long period of time, knowledge builds, so confidence in that knowledge builds.  Abhyasa is the sanskrit word for 'practice over a long period of time',  and it references how things we embark upon usually don't come to fruition immediately.  Everything needs time to germinate, grow, and fully blossom.  Everything, so even things you're trying to get over, or rid of.  (See Bernie Birney's blog).  Along the way there may be some mistakes - I'm sure today I would've forgotten I was wearing a mic at some point when I had to clear my throat and blown everyone's eardrums, or just startled the heck out of myself.
Mistakes are intrinsic to abhyasa, and considered in the Tantric tradition to be part of the fullest full spectrum of possibility to see, witness and embody in this life.  Patanjali speaks to this in the Yoga Sutras (1.13-1.15), and says that through abhyasa, one reaches vairagya (no, not viagra, although my teacher thinks they may be linguistically related). Vairagya is considered 'non-attachment', but its also a learning to let go of the aversions and fears, and even the false beliefs that cloud the true Self.  And uh, yea, it takes time.

So it's taken some practice for sure.  Teaching steadily since that fateful March day in 2002, in front of my beloved teacher and my peers who, to this day, still stand in front of me with glee and pride in their eyes, I have grown.  Now I actually love teaching large groups because the bigger reason is bigger than my fear.  I love connecting to people.   Sharing with them my love of this practice, its teachings, and the wisdom from my teachers is priceless.  Seeing student's leave a class beaming with a renewed sense of their own beauty is pricelss. 

But that damn microphone is gonna have to wait.  Rain date: September?

how will i walk today?

In the midst of the turmoil happening in the Gulf, my teachers and peers are offering great and valuable insight toward a yogic way of dealing with this tragedy.  Unfortunately, this problem is long standing, and not going away soon.  You don't need to see another picture of a pelican drenched in oil to realize the scope.  It hurts, and it sucks to watch. 

My own response has been to be way more mindful in how I use all forms of energy.  External uses of energy like electricity, gasoline, and even money, along with my physical, emotional and spiritual energy.  I'm consciously holding myself away from those people and events that stress me out.  It's one of the greatest ways to physically stay cool in the alarming heat happening here in NY too. 

A recent teleconference with my teacher Paul made a simple, yet profound statement.  He was talking about what he called the 'seasons of sadhana', and how, as we increase our practices of yoga, pranayama, mantra recitation and especially meditation, we may face conflict and challenge in keeping on the path.  It's hard daily to create change when you've been doing something in a certain way for so, so long.  But he offered this bit of knowing, this small statement of wisdom and reverence to the shakti that is unstoppable, no matter the conflict inward:


How will I walk today?


So simple.  So profound.  As if to say, which way will I turn?  Which words will I choose?  Who will I choose to accompany me today?  All come back to the simplicity of thinking about how you choose each day to walk your path, to create your path and walk it, even when we want to give it up.  And boy, I've been challenged to give up many, many times.  


Now to make these changes in saving our energy, both the energy that gives us all the things that make us privileged on this planet, and the energy that makes us valuable to our families, students, peers, and kula. How do we do it?  Alone and together?  


Alone, I'm conserving everything whenever possible.  Like I said above, even my inner heart's resources and shakti from those people who try to rob me of it, or I tend to be very loose around and give it away to, often too freely, must be protected like a priceless resource. 

I've been thinking about the fossil fuels that are in our planet and we get all of our stuff from.  We certainly have benefited from foraging that fuel, in too many ways to count.  Obviously it's the abuse of our foraging that's gotten us into huge trouble.  While we do need it, everybody needs it and sees its value.  What is the fossil fuel innate to each of us that is invaluable, crucial to our survival, and worthy of using or giving away?  I say it's Love.  It's the ultimate source of what is unstoppable on our planet, and we need it for our survival.  Despite the challenge, daily sometimes, my practice has been to try walking every day, inviting that which is most high and beautiful and nourishing inside to be summoned forth into the world.


Speaking to my friend who is from New Orleans today, we thought together about the events as being simply an experience of rasa.  Rasa means 'essence' or 'taste', and it is often used to describe the myriad of emotional states (there are 9 rasas) that we experience.  I called them a 'soup', she called them a 'gumbo'.  Perfect way to describe how so many varied emotional responses can arise from a tragedy like this:


Shanta Rasa is the emotional state of peace, tranquility.  
Shringara Rasa is passionate love.
Hasya is laughter or lightheartedness.
Raudra is fury, anger.
Karuna is compassion.
Bhibatsam is disgust, or aversion.
Bhayanaka is horror, terror.
Vira rasa is heroic.
Adbhuta is wonder, or amazement.

The point of studying the Rasas, from a Tantric perspective, is to come to appreciate and acknowledge the 'soup' we live in.  The daily soup moves and changes, perhaps through all of them (as any young or new mother), and our work in the yoga is to navigate them.  Figure out which rasa is worthy of lingering in, and for how long.  My New Orleans friend was saying that right now, people could use a bit more Bhibatsam (disgust) in them, so radical change could be made.  When angry and disgusted enough, you'll make change.  The rasas are here for us to grow more empowered in our state of affairs, not simply sit in the hot soup of it all. 

So how will you walk today?

A portal

While last Tuesday was the Solstice, this past Saturday we experienced a partial lunar eclipse.  Eclipses are pretty powerful no matter when they occur, and astrologers call them 'portals'.  I see them functioning as black holes since they draw energies into intense action for change, deconstruction, and transformation of all kinds.

Astrology to some is a lark, and those who study astrology get labeled bad fortune tellers sometimes.  I myself see it as the perfect balanced alignment between science and art.  The science of reading the sky is interpreted many different ways, and each astrologer offers something unique.  My fav as of late is Divine Harmony, and I always love the humor and insight of Rob Brezney.  (I miss his columns in NYC!) 

As a portal for change, eclipses can bring quickening energy, so like a black hole which sucks things toward it and gets faster the closer you get to it, the days and months prior to the eclipse can do the same.  Perhaps you have felt some kind of transit as far back as January or February of this year?  I know I did.  For me, I'm into anything that offers insight and empowerment in making more conscious choices that will assist the changes.  The yoga of astrology!

While eclipses can be so potent, disorienting even because they move things quickly, what's great to remember is the teaching of purna.  Purna is sanskrit for 'fullness' or 'completeness', and refers to the 100 percent-ness of our nature.   Whatever our soul or life needs, we are sufficiently suited to serve that change, even if things move at rapid pace.  The changes on the outside may seem 'good' or
'bad', but dealing with a your own rebirth or metaphoric death is where yoga steps in.  Purna teaches that we have what it takes to assist the flow, and deal with the results.  At this time, we're all being asked to step up into the next level.  Ushered there by nature, its hard to ignore. 

ps - total eclipse of the sun happens on July 11th.  A potent day of rebirth for me.  More soon.

check out Divine Harmony's blog:  inharmonyastrology.blogspot.com

New York's One Heart

 Tuesday nights amazing event on the Great Lawn did everything it set out to do, even though it may have been the shortest largest yoga class in the US!  The performers were inspiring, funny and completely represented New York culture while thousands of yogis shuffled into the park.  And I mean thousands.  My favorite part was being able to see and feel the entire tribe of yoga come together, completely free of all boundaries. 

Then Elena rocked it for 10 minutes!   The parks department shut the event down, and the skies opened up.  Like a perfect cleansing. 

Honoring the event this week in class, we'll finish the class.
Until the rain date is set...

Check out this clip from Ch. 11 news

momentum

Today will be a day in New York history when 10,000 +  align and entrain on the Great Lawn in Central Park for a yoga class and other performances marking the Summer Solstice.   Created by Flavorpill, they tell us that the registered number is up to 12,5k already, but knowing new yorkers with busy lives and the forecast predicting thunderstorms, it may shrivel to the original number of 10k.  Still... woa!  The convergence of that much shakti will surely bring ripples of something through our sultry streets.  I'm so excited to be assisting this event, and the buzz has been building for weeks (now, days).  Collective consciousness, New York style.  Gotta love it.

The Solstice is the middle of the year, the height of light beaming down upon us, and like a birthday of sorts.  I treat it as a time to see where I've been placing momentum, and see if its serving me.  I do that on birthdays too, since it allows perspective for where I'm going.  Since Solstice is primarily when nature is also at its fullest and we experience the longest day of the year, there's a natural pull to move, to be outside, to love!  The question is, what's moving?  Is it the right thing moving for you at this time?

There is a Buddhist saying "The cart will follow the ox", and it's about momentum.  You'll go where your mind is going, and patterns are there because you've put time and energy there.   Force fields entrain, and the higher frequency field of thought, word, or action will always lead the weaker one.  So on this Solstice, I'm looking at what I've been focusing on, and asking myself, does it still serve?

I'm stoked that Anusara Yoga is headlining this event through Elena Brower's voice, presence and sweet bhavana.    I can think of no one better skilled to hold the space for the New York yoga community to align with our highest intentions at this critical time in our global economy, politics, and environmental concerns.   Lets do it people - set the tone from here on out and guide your cart in the direction for greater harmony and love.  One Om.  10,000 people. 

oh, and my parents will be here.  Another monumental event! 

om namahshivaya

Julie and Susanna lost somewhere in the forest of the Tillai trees.

The subtext

Alright, i'm on board. 

After many requests for me to start a blog, here it is.  Like my initial foray into Facebook, i see this as an experiment in how to fuel remembrance of connection - to the kula, to our family, to friends we thought long gone, and to the wisdom in our hearts.  And it feels like it will be a good outlet to expand upon my oft times wildly deep themes in class.  I've got to keep those intros brief you know, we've got asana to do.


I'm fascinated by mythology.  It's actually what initially drew me to Anusara® Yoga, primarily through the story of Nataraja.  Amy Ippoliti was my first Anusara teacher at Crunch gym on Broadway, and I'll never forget the day she animated the tale of the great lord Shiva as the dancer in the forest of the Tillai trees.  The myth spoke to the wanderings of my own heart, and what it was for me a decade ago or more to be seeking an ecstatic experience of joy.  I'm still seeking the ecstatic experience, daily!   Now I've been taught by great teachers and masters of many traditions how to find it.  Look inside the heart, and underneath the mist.  Look for the subtext of the story.


Mythology is everywhere, especially on TV.  I will happily admit to being a "Lostie".  I friggin' loved the show, and anyone in my classes last week heard me speak of why.  Mostly its a fantastic premise of the possibilities in life.  What would happen if... you had to form a society with people you don't know and didn't choose to be with.  So un-like our modern lives where we live more in the paradigm of choice.  So the show presented challenges of simply how to get along.


In Hindu myths, often the scenes of gods, demons, heroines and sages are battling, and battling the same things.  Their stories take place on battlefields, in dense forests, in the vastness of the sky, or the wild churnings of the oceans.   The Island in Lost had all of these elements.  Wandering through the jungle is roaming the inner landscape of your emotions, and things always got heated on those long walks, day or night, for the characters.   The oceans in Hindu myth are mirrors of the great flow of consciousness itself, and when it stirs or even churns wildly, it's the call of the great Light to awaken inside your own very heart.  How could you not wander into your own reflection when staring out at the beauty of the wild sea? 


My conclusion of the show Lost was as obvious as everyone else's (even before Jacob actually said this);  these were people we knew, (or even some of us) who were so disconnected from their heart, they felt 'lost'; purposeless, skeptical of life's goodness, ignorant to the laws of life, and simply had lack of faith.


The great sage Paramahansa Yogananda teaches 3 paths to healing the Being through yoga, and gaining freedom from a variety of suffering.  He first teaches to heal the physical body.  Many traditions and cultures teach this.  When the body is well fed and taken care of, physiological functioning returns on all levels (Hello, Jack Shepard was an MD).  The second thing Yogananda teaches to heal is the mental constructs that make disease, like fear and anger.  But deeper, the psychological bad habits that we all fall into like failure consciousness, feeling a lack of initiative, and lack of confidence (In my opinion? John Locke).  The third thing he offers is the healing of Spiritual diseases like indifference, and spiritual blindness.  'Lost' was a great myth of the 3 Paths of Life, and each character went through some kind of awakening as a yogi (and I won't say more in case any of you are going to catch it on Netflix).

Remember we define 'yoga' in Anusara not as 'union', referring to a prior separateness, but as engagement.  From the Shiva Shakti Tantric perspective, the body, heart and mind are already in union with the Divine. Shiva, the great Absolute, the Supreme is simply manifest as You, as Shakti, and the two remain in communion in you as you for as long as she'll breathe you.  The terms of our Island, our life, are a given.  Deal with when you don't have choice, and must accept.  Our yoga is simply to awaken to this experience of communing with the Divine and engage it fully, in the shadows of the forest, and the clarity of the sea.  Each character rediscovered or renewed their sense of purpose, their dharma, from the interaction with the Dharma Initiative.  And man, it's a long, very challenging journey, but so worth while.


This is going to be fun.