Agony Gives Birth to Peace...

There is a low hum of agony and discomfort in many lives.. We all experience this at times.. 

Those of us living in the cold, we are part of the agony of anticipating the blooming of Spring, us and all of nature. We await the arrival of milder winds and greenery with our tired bodies and aching minds, like we all long for embodied freedom, which is a slow, intense but beautiful process.

I am not belittling your agony, your longing, your suffering.. And I do not say that you deserve to hurt.. But it is a fact that the discomfort forces us to seek what brings about peace and in that we reveal authenticity...

If you focus on gratitude and the even tiny things that bring you joy and inspiration, you will have an easier time with the challenges you face. Easier time, relatively, as they are not easy.. But why make things harder than they must be?!

There is a way that is not avoidance or complacency, a place of constant growth and movement, that is not totally cozy but not abrasive.. It is a place of aliveness.. Freshness.. The discomfort of learning should be revered and encouraged.. Never grow so lazy that you reject the newness of growth..

Stay vulnerable.. Accept the agonies and longings that fire up and burn at your soul.. They are the forge-fires and your conscious way of handling your experience is what allows your greatest potential to emerge, one bellow's breath at a time. Your consciousness is the blacksmith of your life, if you allow it to be..

Our pain is not nothing, our hurts are real and need proper healing... But we ARE NOT TO BE DEFINED BY OUR HURTS, OUR SCARS, OUR AGONY, OUR PAST.. We define ourselves in each moment by how we work with our experinces. There is no perfection in this.. This is sloppy, tear-stained work. This is work for ourselves alone and for reaching out to loving souls who uplift & empower our healing and naturally reflect our greatness back at us. It is in your honest, raw vulnerability; in owning your feelings, in honoring your truth; in being okay with falling but getting up again; in being tender enough to love yourself, and have enough compassion to see how deeply twisted & tortured others are inside if they can knowingly do harm to others.. In standing your ground firmly but compassionately, yet unapologetically, setting healthy & genuine boundaries; that brings about real healing, and reveals your highest truth.

STOP WAITING for perfection!! Don't WAIT for someday to have happiness or peace or to fully live.. Someday you'll be dead.. Live from your heart everyday! Perfection is in the lines on your hands and face, the dirt under your nails, in your tears and laughter, in the gratitude for food, love & beauty, in the ease of real comfort within your own skin, soul shining boldly and brightly through every pore. Peace isn't found when discomfort stops, it's found when you realize that discomfort, no matter how deep, is transient, but who you are is the light-consciousness that is steady, infinite, untarnished, and full of loving peace, witnessing this brief human journey. 

Revealed By The Light Of the Moon

Pretty lady, full moon
Keeping me awake
Intensity, immensity,
That I can hardly take!
Was it your design,
To leave behind,
New feelings in your wake?


Mysteries
Can be misery
Commiserate,
Or far better
To Correlate.
Seeing Patterns liberates,
Consciousness Consecrates,
Understanding provides relief.


Full moon, mother,
You bring powerful sleepless nights,
And fight your wisdom,
I will not.


I am not in the practice of fighting the tides...
And full moon lady I will not hide.


Wake me out of a sound night's sleep,
Reminding me of promises that I shall keep,
Shining light on the places dark and deep,
Moon mother stir my soul.


Pretty lady, full moon
Silent sage,
Inspire, conspire,
Sweet dewey light.
What you reveal,
Day can no longer conceal,
Tell me it was always your plan!?


Once we look inside..
We can no longer hide..
From what is revealed by the light of the moon.

The Need For Communication

Silent agony
Underneath the sky
Each day lasts for days and I can't lie
Taking me to the edge of my sky
Endless eons lived in every day
But lightness returns when you make your play
Until then..
Like a glacier scraping through my heart and head
With a deep scouring occurring, nothing said
Evolution occurs and I'm forced to let go
Over and over this is the show

I can stand in my feet and so I do
I was not planning to depend on you
Too many times it's come true
You're not the rug in standing on..
Or else I can bet it'd soon be gone

Wonder, wonder, upon a star
I'm happy within and come so far
But what's this pattern going on
Is my desire for response all too wrong?

Desire, no, it's fair enough,
But Expectations are brutal stuff,
And when, and when, they're not fulfilled,
That is when my heart is spilled.
I'm high above so I won't crash,
But this edgy silence stirs backlash.
Your Silence is forcing growth but creating instability,
And a paradigm of doubting that you fully want me.

Time isn't much but it's ancient and vast,
It's only been days but I feel the contrast,
To witnessing, witnessing your rhythms and flows,
And openly seeing how everything goes.

You're an angel and of that there is not doubt,
And I had to let the pressure out.
I cannot level an offense at you,
& I do not doubt that you are true.
But I feel maybe my place is not in your heart
Us not as One as it seems at every start

And then by now I come to bed
And see that this may be just my head
But I'm not wrong, I feel it all,
But I also don't need to fall.

So exhale, exhale once again,
Trust you, trust me, and transcend.

It's not easy with such empathy,
Connected to one who prefers to be a mystery.
A couple sentences each day are not too much,
A tiny price to own my touch,
A simple way to grant me peace,

It's not my head, it is my heart,
A choice must be made to make a start,
Still resisting sharing with me your heart,
I'll hold the space but you must light the dark.

Poison As The Antidote

It's time
I see
I didn't know
I needed to release
Until the poison
Seeped deeply
Wicked up
inside of me
I resisted
Unrelentless
In my Pursuit
Of the truth
I strived
To stay alive
And learn I did
Survive I did


I let the acrid
bitter
Bitchiness
Scour off the shell
I can't blame
it all
on the boys
In men's clothing
But their loathing
Was toxic
To an extraordinary degree
Slowly eating away
At my bliss
and
Stripping me
Of my freedom
By strapping
Cinder blocks
Of heavy cynicism
And the judgement
of their insecurity
On my delicate
Loving
Form

But
It wasn't theirs alone
it dragged
Old scars
up
from the well
From many moons
Many lifetimes ago

The heaviness
That I once endured
And fought so hard
To become pure of
A Renaissance
Of joy and ease

And their heavy hands
Shattered
My delicate figurine form
Ridiculed my grace
And pushed me down
So that they could feel strong
When we were
Face to face

Sometimes you don't know
Until you are ill
When someone doses you slowly
And out of love
You drink your fill
It can take many years
Before you see
That "the one I loved
Was poisoning me"

So the lead you
We're pouring
Down
My throat
When I was
Asleep
Was not enough
To kill me
And
Not enough to keep
Me from opening
my eyes
And
From learning to rise
Once again

And I used
It to learn
How to become
Even
More free
And how to
More sharply attune
To my reality

I watch myself
And though
I was graced
To keep it
Mainly
At
Bay

I feel the bitter
Chunky
Vomitus
Energy
Pouring out of me
I choke on the bit
Like sawdust and sputum
Violently bitter..

The sway of my hips
My sweetness of tone
My kind, loving gaze
My joy when alone
My peace
My smile
My acceptance

I am slowly floating back to the surface
To the light of me
Back to my beauty
Again I can breathe

You stole my peace
But I used it to purge past wounds
I harbor no regret or ill will
But Your venom now
is just your own

I am once again at home
In my heart
In my life
Clearer
Than before

I will have bled
The rotten black sap
Viscous and viscous
Out of my soul
Until there is no more
I have survived
And used
Your poison
To heal
And set me free.

And
Never again
Will I
Let another
Poison me.





Sent from my iPhone

With a Tint of Melancholy

With a Tint of Melancholy

By Laura Harrison


everything has a purpose,
pain is a cracking open,
to feel,
to even greater depths,
heart wider each time you heal.


so why are you fighting reality?
will banging your fists change a thing?
or ask yourself what you are resisting,
and stop,
to begin to live your life gracefully.

we all feel pain, we all have truths,
that are too painful to accept
as real
all at once
it is a pain so sharp
so jagged
so tearing to our flesh
like searing and scooping out the organs
sucking all the wind from the lungs
pulling all of the light from the sky...

I know these pains,
I have felt them too,
but I have learned
a new way

to not deny the agony
to feel the inconsolable pain
but not to take it into me
and crystalize it
and tell myself lies
like
"this pain is me"
or to form around it
as if it were my identity..
to do so is to build a monument in the middle of my mind,
to lay out a shrine of worship,
to that which I wish didn't exist..
it is the surest way to misery.

So I do not deny my agony,
instead I let it tear through me,
I let the tears flow,
I face it,
I feel it,
but I
let
it
go.

I don't let my brain obsess,
I confess, it becomes easier with time,
I feel the misery,
I feel everything else,
and I don't close against the pain,
I open like a flower,
I blossom into reality,
and instantly,
even in agony,
I am free.

Try,
try it,
try it over and over again,
and breath by breath,
it will
eventually,
set you free.

Give it time,
and when you suffer,
ask yourself what you are fighting,
and your awareness
will begin highlighting
all the ways you resisted your salvation.

I am not saying there is a promise of no pain,
but suffering is an option that is caused in your brain

stop rejecting what already is,
and you are already free,
and your joy may not always be complete,
but it will be deep,
sublime,
steady,
with tint of melancholy.

Learning Where to Put the Love

I learned a hard lesson, finally, or at least, I can see the answer, and can now apply my mindfulness to manifesting the solution.

Unconditional love and genuine enthusiasm and caring for other beings is a beautiful thing, and an awesome responsibility. Just like a Teacher needs to learn to give each student only what they are ready for, too much will overwhelm them, so too much a Lover understand that the full-force of Love is overwhelming. Being blunt, I have not only overwhelmed people, I have frightened them, shut them down and sent them running. All because I appreciated them too much.

People aren't used to receiving Love without attachment, most people don't know what this means, and their minds cannot fathom a love that is unselfish and okay with whatever reality may bring, even parting. They look for an agenda, or they think I must be insane. Or they don't love themselves, and can't see why I do and reject it and me. Its sad. But it is reality, and it is a crucial lesson for me that I am glad I am embracing. I pledged years ago to rise to each opportunity to express my love and appreciation in the moment I feel it, because life is unpredictable,and nothing is static- it is NOT a given that we will have people in our lives for more then a flash. I even tell strangers on the street how beautiful they are, or how much I appreciate their unique style. And I try to let my loved ones know my gratitude each time we meet and part. Part of my learning lately has been that I must be my Self completely, no matter what happens, the ego has to go and I am here to shine, love, serve, and play. Its not that I will hide my Love and Light, but that I will try to only express the bit each person can handle to them, and let the rest nourish me and pour out through my every glance, breath, and action. When will I remember that they are not the source of love! I know this... Its the urge to pay it back that is the problem, I must pay it FORWARD!!! Just like if we want to help someone, we must help them in the way they need to be helped, not the way that we prefer, we can only give someone as much love as they can handle, and maybe a little more, when someone's heart is ready to break wide open to receive more love... But we cannot give someone who can only drink a glass of water an endless waterfall when they are not prepared for its force, its raw intensity, its power.  Unconditional Love IS that strong. That's what my energy feels like.. When I don't hold it back or waste it, but practice Self-care and simple grounding techniques, and just BE ME naturally, its like the Niagara Falls of sensation, appreciation, inspiration, and love is flowing through me. I am BLESSED, I'm not complaining! But I am grateful I am finally learning consciously how to balance and channel that into this world in a way that is not like spraying people with fire hoses. Once people's vibrations rise or they acclimate to the intensity, they can thrive with that Love both flowing out of them, and back into them... Love is the most important nutriment that too many people are starving for.
May all beings find the Love in their own hearts, and fall in love with Life Itself, the Divine within ALL that is.

Bodhisattva Vow

Bodhisattva Vow

by Laura Harrison




I open my heart wide

as if my body were just sky

in fact I know it has become light...           
                                                             once again..

I offer myself to feel everything

if I can have just two things-

Always to be in touch with the spacious freedom of my own heart...

and the blessing to always know where others end and I start...

This living light, this adorable bliss,

I will cultivate ecstacy, to shine on all who exist,

I will talk to and recognize the consciousness in the entire world of form,

and may the light of my remembering, free them from their prison of ignoring.

Sometimes It's Lonely To Be Extraordinary

I am probably one of the most cheerful people you'll ever meet. I am quick to laugh and even quicker to smile. And it's all genuine, baby. I have joy in my life, even when I don't have immediate happiness, but most moments or most days I have happiness and joy. The difference being that happiness is all pervasive and in response to the total experience in the moment, joy is a deeper satisfaction that can be there like the sun in your heart even when you are less then thrilled about external or internal circumstances- like a stomachache or migraine or a break-up or car accident or your music being inadvertently and irrevocably lost.

I wear my heart on my sleeve, it has always been a quality of mine, and I think at times like this its clear function is to be useful to others, should they be able to see anything of their own experience within mine. I hope this is useful in some way to bring ease to others... This is about the down-side of living fully, which actually is like a pebble in the ocean of bliss. However, when you step on the pebble or stub your toe pretty badly on it, its easy to feel pretty sorry for yourself. I'm here to say, first of all, there there, it sucks and I know because I have been there. Secondly, don't linger there more then a moment, because everything else is so amazing and it beakons you forward to ever expanding states of wonderment, so really, self-pity is a waste of your precious time and energy.

Being an individual, while I hold to this day that it is THE path to the greatest happiness, highs, adventures, satisfaction and fulfillment in life, isn't always easy. I can easily see why people choose to hide into the shadows and conform at all costs, if no other reason then to feel like that aren't alone. Ahhhhh... the oxymorons that fill reality. If we duck underneath the blankets of conformity and hide our true extraordinary identity to fit in, we'll never still quite feel like we do fit. When we finally say screw it and throw off the pretentious masks, we will feel free, and find greater fulfillment. But there are some tough things that happen when we do this.. once we pass through them, we become even happier and feel connected to others in new, more real and deeper ways then we ever imagined...

THE EARLY CRANKY STAGES OF CONSCIOUSNESS:

I remember getting very pissed off, getting on a soap box. Hell, I can get up on that soap box at any moment if I don't watch it, if I am in the right company. Seriously, anyone who is conscious knows that, no shit, politics, bureaucracy, our food system, TV, our whole culcture has a lot loop holes and none of it is designed or functions to do anything that it is supposed to do for whomever it is supposed to be doing it. This was what happened, when I started to wake up, become more conscious, get informed and make empowered choices for my liffestyle and health. You may have gone through an angry phase too, you may be pretty pissed at "the man" right now. I recall time that feels so far away from who I am now because it is common. I was a bitter and militant little vegan warrior, man was I pissed. I am still not okay with the attrocities of the factory farming industry. But instead of being bitchy and turning everyone away like a barking dog, I choose to opt out, I believe in the boycott, man. I live sweetly and happily, healthfully, and without supporting that cruelty. I have inspired more vegans since I stopped being pissed off and started just living in line with my truth. In fact, I never inspired one before, now, several, who in turn inspire others. That's a huge impact! Instead of pissing and moaning about how you hate Walmart and then turning around and shopping there, put your money where your mouth is. The only color "the man" sees in America's heartless capitalistic system is green, baby. So vote with your buck. Don't whine about having too few bucks, because if you only have a few votes, then you had better use them even more thoughtfully!!

So hopefully you will learn to turn the fire of your anger into joyous passion for the wise, compassionate and conscious choices you decide to make. In your passionate joy, you WILL catch more flies with honey then your piss and vinegar, I assure you!

WHEN YOU DISCOVER WHO YOU ARE, THOSE WHO WANTED YOU TO BE WHO YOU AREN'T WILL GET BITTER AND RUN:

Family and friends alike with which you had bonds over habits that fall by the wayside as you move forward and become more self-aware, will either attack your new ways of seeing the world, accuse you of being a punk or hippie, or simply stop being part of your life. This is a difficult experience, but neccessary. The truth is that we have to learn that nothing is solid and permanent. We aren't a solid object, we are a constantly changing river. So as we change, our energy changes.. think of it as frequency, or as a color or a chord. As our texture changes, the textures we will be attracte to will change. It makes good sense, of course, but it is hard to let go. Letting go of people we thought we'd always have a deep bond with is very painful, but here is the lovely part- we let go of the connections that are keeping us stuck in the mud and not mutually beneficial, and we will find that new, deeper, more inspiring connections will have room to arise. This is really satisfying and amazing. This isn't just something that happens when you first commit to being completely uncompromised in who you are, oh no! It keeps happening over and over, but generally gets easier to handle and relatively painless in most circumstances. As much as you lose, you will gain so much more love and connection then you ever really had.

YOU HAVE TO SEE YOURSELF EXACTLY AS YOU ARE, IN ALL YOUR BEAUTY AND FULLNESS, IN ALL YOUR VULNERABILITY AND SHAME:

As you become more awakened to who you are and who you aren't, you will see more nakedly the underlying emotions that motivate and motivated your choices. You see fatigue, disappointment, loneliness, lack of self-esteem where they raggedly poke and jab you. You see your desire for acknowledgement, attention, connectedness, love, respect. You see yourself in the  past and may feel pretty foolish about your actions and motivations. You may see yourself right now and feel  pretty foolish about the motivations of your actions. And sometimes you will still choose those actions. And sometimes you just won't. You'll begin to see that we are all in similar boats and that every action has a motivation, maybe its pretty simple and pure, maybe its pretty selfish and screwed. We are all motivated somehow, or else no one would do a damn thing! We want happiness, fulfillment, to love and be loved. That comes with being alive, if you don't want that stuff, are you going to care about living..? Perhaps, if you are REALLY conscious, but for the rest of us, we shoudln't feel stupid for wanting to love and be loved, or wanting genuine connections with other beings, or wanting to be known and appreciated for who we truly are instead of who we think we should be or who others want us to be.

EXTRAORDINARY BEINGS NEED EXTRAORDINARY EQUALS, WHICH MEANS YOU NEED TO FIND RARE GEMS AND NEEDLES IN HAYSTACKS:

I'm not the only person dealing with the realization that finding people to really deeply connect with is like winning a miraculous lottery. But the universe specializes in this sort of thing. It is hard not to feel discouraged at times, but the truth is all things are possible. Trust, I am sooooooo incredibly thrilled and ready to be blown away by meeting my amazing equal, I am ready for an extraordinary man to sweep me off of my feet. Under no circumstances should we ever compromise or feign interest or true connection where it doesn't exist just to numb the loneliness. Swami Nirmalananda always said that deep happiness with just a touch of melancholy is the perfect recipe for fast spiritual evolution. There is something powerful about longing. So worry not. Without self-pity, but with strong longing, we do attract the kind of beings we want to know and be near, that want to know and be near us. Patience is a bitch of a lesson, at least for me, when it comes to passion and finding real love...

IT IS ALWAYS WORTH BEING YOUR EXTRAORDINARY SELF:

" If you’re not aware that what you put out
 Is what you get back
 That you make the world through the way you act
 You can’t harness the awesome power of that fact"  ~Ani Difranco  (If Yr Not)

We have to be ourselves. If we fight it, we fight the truth, and the truth has a funny way of resurfacing over and over, no matter how hard we try to swallow it down, bury it, burn it, disconnect from it, kill it... it can't be destroyed. The little bit of difficulty or pain we have to face is nothing compared to the indescribable freedom of finally being fully alive without all the heavy-ass baggage of inhibitions and other junk hanging around our necks.

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." ~Anais Nin

"And honesty is the hardest part
Yeah honesty is the highest art
And honestly i myself just started
And eureka I'm less broken hearted" ~ Ani Difranco, (Promiscuity)

Even when you are lonely you are never alone. And by being yourself you will find more people you truly connect to. And you will inspire people around you to live more passionately everyday. You will brighten lives with your very existence. Smile to the moon, breathe the fresh air in like love itself, see the trees at dusk silently witnessing you with total compassion. All of nature bends around you in tender loving embrace. You have loved ones, you have friends, and you will have all you deserve. Everything will come in its perfect timing, like the changing of the seasons, and the broader your perspective, the more you see how all the pieces fit and why you couldn't have what you wanted at the time. You will get better then what you wished for. Better then you could have created is what the universe will meld into place for you. Just believe in the beauty of life and it will come to be.

"What comes is better then what came before" ~Cat Power (I Found a Reason)

Oh, pity us, the lumbering sleepwalkers!

eIn the introduction to Will Johnson's "Yoga of the Mahamudra", he discusses the idea of correlation between degree of human consciousness and how straight and upright the spine is. The straighter we become the more conscious we become.

You might be saying, "hey, well now, aren't we all standing up pretty straight?" No, well, some of us more then others but no. We are much straighter then our ancient ancestors but evolutionarliy speaking, we have more work to do. "What?!" Yes! Check your posture. Even after six years of sleeping, eating, breathing, teaching, living, constantly seeking yoga I am still day by day discovering a new degree of alignment and a new degree of awakening consciousness, and I think that I may have quite a ways to go.

Thankfully, yoga and the awakening of consciousness (and the awakening of alignment, for that matter), is a process-oriented experience-- their isn't a need to struggle or race to the goal, because the goal is the process.

I am not an engineer, but if we talk in basic terms about the body as a structure, we can feel and understand this concept. Think of the four-leggeds, the quadripedal animals. Imagine them standing up onto two legs and prancing around. Oh, isn't the idea of prancing doggies and kitty-cats so cute? :) But seriously, whenever meow-meow and woof-woof come up, they can't stay long, because their entire structure is designed for their four-legged lifestyle. For humans to make the jump from knuckle-dragging apes (said with love) to bipedal beings was nothing short of radical, revolutionary and maybe even random.

Coming from that vision of humankind's two-leggedness, we can now shift to contemplating gravity- a force that we have to work to overcome, or that can effortlessly stabilize us, depending on our alignment. Posture has gone by the wayside, sacrificied to the frantic multi-tasking monster devouring our society. In ages long past, parents consistently worked on their children's last good nerve with postural reminders. Even if it was done just out of ettiquette or tradition or habit, it was quite beneficial. In the last century and especially last few decades, people don't seem to pay attention to their own banana-like posture, let alone their children's, we have just forgotten to care. We plod along like dinosaurs, with the posture of a jumbo shrimp.

There are many factors compounding the Western constellation of issues- illness, unhappiness and unconsciousness- one of which is poor posture. While we stopped paying attention, or where we never thought to pay attention, we have left our bodies to fall slowly into gravity. Most people don't actually think much about posture and bodily structure, how they sit or relax or stand or sleep. To stand in poor alignment increases structural pressure to 150% and to sit slouching increases that preasure to 200% or more. This constant, daily pressure is the equivalent of carrying that much extra weight, it prematurely grinds down joints like the spine and knees. It chokes circulation to a minimum, it starves the major organs very, very slowly. It pinches nerves and diminuishes their ability to function profoundly. It also makes our torso distend, get bloated, feel heavy and look much bigger then it is, making us feel very uncomfortable and unhappy with ourselves. It can cause major digestive issues, including contributing to IBS. We are paying a heavy price for our ignorance and laziness.
If we don't give any thought or attention to how we sit, stand and move, then we are relying on unconscious support, gravity is having its way with us, and we actually spend a lot more energy whenever we sit, stand or move just to stay up. Proper alignment takes months of transition to make it past getting some sore muscles (because they have to strengthen in new ways), and years of transtion to newer and newer levels of straightness and lightness. But its only work for a short while. Once we reach a critical mass point, we suddenly feel horribly uncomfortable if we slouch and have to stand up straight because it just feels so much better.

Consequently, since it takes reminding ourselves every time we notice postural deviation, we also strengthen our ability to be conscious. We have to develop a level of mindfulness, a low-level watching that monitors at least the body position, if not the body's other senses and signals as well. This is where the mind-body consciousness connection becomes clear. As we develop posturally, we develop a clearer and clearer level of consciousness.

So how should we be using our body, to stay well and evolve our brains in all our true bipedal glory?

step by step...
Whatever part of us touches the ground is our foundation- feet or feet and hips when sitting. Feet should be flat (watch how you may be habitually shifting weight to the side of one or both feet!), and especially when standing, should apply a gentle to moderate amount of pressure downward into the earth. Pushing down just a little activates the legs, and those big muscles do the majority of the work of overcoming gravity for us. Next, point the tailbone down toward the earth a little, drawing the lower-belly diagonally up and in, navel toward spine. Continue the gentle lifting upward through the chest, and allow your heart to be held high and openly, shoulders opened out to each side. The muscles in the upper-center area of the back will become much stronger and the chest muscles will need to get a bit looser. Slide the ribs back a bit to place them over the hips, and I know, it feels like leaning back at first, it's okay, it just takes practice.
So, to recap, feet (and hips when sitting) push downward, which encourages a lifting motion. Engage navel to spine and lift and open the chest high, allowing the ribs to slide back over the hips.
The stranger this feels the more important it is that you patiently and dilligently practice EVERYDAY, even weekends and holidays. The more you practice the more quickly it becomes natural. Practicing yoga poses helps speed this process tremendously and make it more comfortable. Working out usually makes it harder, because unconsciously, or maybe unavoidably, when we do resistance training we tend to strengthen our muscles in the same imbalanced patterns we hold all day- in other words the imbalanced tightness-looseness of the muscles is what causes improper posture, so working them out gets them stronger, but at the same level of imbalance- unless you work with a very exceptional personal trainer. ( I can help you with that, actually.)

To work on building proper posture similtaneously stimulates the opening of awareness. When we pay attention to our posture and regularly check in on it, we begin to develop body awareness. We hear the body's signals more clearly, we may even start to listen. In time we have found greater all-over health, we eat better because we feel the effects of junk food, we are more joyful because we are better taken care of, we have less stress because we feel better. Just by practicing better posture, we have practiced better mindfulness. We transition from unconcious living slowly to more and eventually fully conscious living, enlightenment.

So physically and mentally, practicing proper posture is one of the most powerful and important endevors possible. It is crucial. It is the work needed in our times. Through the doorway of the body we become more truly human, more alive, fully conscious. In this very lifetime we make a huge leap in evolution. By finding bodily peace we find mental/emotional peace, and with that, our desire to harm or hate others melts away. We become peace.

108 Days of Meditation: path of spirals

It is so funny how life unfolds! Just inside a self-imposed commitment, I find myself climbing a new fork on my path and my relationship to formal practice shifts.


I am studying Kashmiri Shaivism (Tantra, but not what most people think of it), and find lots of Truth in it for my path. It is a very different approach to the same yoga, but it places less stress on conventional practice and more emphasis on just trusting on the unconditional Love to be the guide.

So I feel like I'm cheating, but my way of just being in a creative groove is to follow my heart-center/conscience, which is much the purpose of the whole meditation thing- to get you into the timeless participation and non-judgmental awareness of the moment. Formal practice is important to cleanse/heal/purify and re-balance mind + body to return to that heart-space within. But for me that includes my walking in nature, communing with nature, seeing the Consciousness 'smiling' back at me in all things, and deep yoga asanas followed by some seated meditation. But for now, I'll still be sitting for my night session. But its almost too easy, being informed by this new perspective has revealed much of the innate and natural 'yoga' that has always been my nature.

Some days I am just a beginner, so humbled and just starting, looking out into the big unknown almost scared, but inspired. Then some days, I almost think I am really onto something, ready to just about be a guru (a "remover of ignorance"), an unconditionally loving consciousness that can be a mirror for others to show them their true essence with my loving words. Its all just cycles. Spirals, the path is filled with spirals. Its not linear, like I once conceived, its swirling, spiralling deeper. With each cycle the veils are removed one by one, the veils of ignorance dissolving, I feel clearer and clearer.

We build up the unknown to be so Poof! magical. Yet somehow thid enlightenment thing is more real and everyday, and completely attainable. It takes constant striving. But there is shift after shift in awareness, there is constant swirling change and rapid evolution. Its getting swifter and swifter and my expectations and attachments are disappearing of themselves.

So anyways, I'm going to sit my 20 mins enjoying the sensation of spanda and the oneness of internal and external sensations. Om namah shivayah, namaste!

Everything is Consciousness

Let us guide our lives in a way that honors the Consciousness that is in everything and all forms. If we remember that everything in the world wears the gentle smile of consciousness, we cannot be so callous with human and animal lives, so quick to slice down a tree that has lived two hundred years, to toss our faithful possessions around and abuse them like ingrates and to treat the intricately living Earth like merely inputs to be manipulated.

We all felt the "aliveness" in the world as children. We are not wiser or smarter for forgetting. We are colder and duller, a little bit dead when we give up acknowledging the beingness of all that is.

Life is vibrant and miraculous when we live with wonder, gratitude, patience, and respect for life itself, and everything that manifests within our experience.
To know this and live this is surely a path of yoga.
May all beings be free from suffering and have total happiness! May existence clearly sparkle once again in the eyes and hearts of all conscious beings!

So simple, so difficult

We come to a place on the path where we are pretty pure- our body, lifestyle, motivations... And then the bigger challenge isn't to hold on to increasing information, but to let go. To let go of everything, and become purely motivated from the stirring of our heart-center in a completely personal-impersonal way.
Letting go of past, future, expectations, sense of self, sense of others and just re-becoming pure awareness.
This is a simple yet completely, incredibly difficult challenge...

108 Days of Meditation. Day 2

Already I noticed my sleep is deeper, fewer dreams, and when I do dream it seems more lucid and spiritually oriented. It is too soon to say but my waking consciousness seems a little clearer as well.

I have heard many times that meditating at night (versus during dawn, daylight or dusk) challenges the fears one has stored in the ego. I am bold, comfortable and at ease any other time, but have always felt uneasy at night. The fears are usually directed at nothing in particular and are usually active only when I am completely alone. Fear comes from the ego, it is a form of ignorance.

I originally didn't think of this possibility, but I am excited and solidly going to witness and become free of this aspect of egoic fears. I am embracing this practice with determination. I am feeling safer and safer just in making this determination.

I try to continue the practice of mindfulness throughout my days, but I feel a deep strength and joy arising in this experiment and I positively anticipate my meditation session when it comes into my awareness.

108 Days of Meditation~ Are You In?

I'm challenging myself to 108 days in a row of meditating before bed for at least 20 minutes. Would you like to join me for this transformative challenge?

I have kept my sadhana active since 2005 when I undertook my yoga teacher training at a Sivananada Ashram in the Bahamas. My sadhana has taken many forms- asanas regularly, mindfulness meditations, lots of reading and study in classic texts and books by others on the path, but I haven't had much of a sitting practice for quite a while. I have the "best" or most naturally focused meditation experiences after thorough asana practice or in nature, but my life situation doesn't allow me to practice like that outside of practicing with my student-friends. So I decided to commit to a sitting meditation practice for 108 days. Please commit with me!

You can use mantra, breath-awareness or any techniques you enjoy. I'm beginning with open awareness, just witnessing all as it is without judgement. I may switch techniques, but will do 20 minutes or more of meditation each evening for this next 108 days. I am starting tonight, June 28th, but you can start anytime. My 108 days will end after October 14th, just after the 5th anniversary of our yoga studio (Oct. 2nd). I am meditating in bed, but you can maybe meditate on your porch or in a special space in your bedroom or other quiet space.

I will share how it is coming along. Feel free to post here or on our Enlighten Facebook fanpage, letting us know how your practice is coming along.

I cannot take a retreat at this time in my life because of family commitments, but I feel that deepening my practice will give the needed catalyst to come to the next level of awareness. This is the way. I started practicing two days ago, but yesterday I barely meditated, because I just witnessed my ego throwing all the tricks at me. I just witnessed it, let it have a little run and said, last time! So don't let boredom, fatigue, feeling antsy or other tricks of the ego fool you. Ram Dass often says that the ego pulls those tricks out because it doesn't like to let itself be ordered by meditation, it creates resistance because it wants to be in control. I'm not letting my accumulated subconscious conditioning and habits rule my mind anymore! This is a peaceful coup! Join me! 108 days, we can do it! It will be glorious, every night unique, vacation, camping, home, work night, party night, lets witness it all!

Enough! Time to start! Namaste!

Fierce Like Kali, Gentle Like a Loving Mother with Her Newborn

To reach the goal, to climb the Mt. Everest of consciouness to enlightenment, we need to be simaltaneously fierce and relentless, tempered with gentle-loving patience.
We have to accept fully what is in each moment, but always strive.

We have to be a ferrocious warrior-destroyer like Kali Ma. We have to be tender and calmly present with unconditional loving-acceptance like a mother with her only baby. We have to be consistant but know how to take care of the body and mind so that they may be pushed to the edge, but do not break.

Be like Mother Nature- raw, unconditional acceptance, always strong with such power. If you want enlightenment, you're going to have to work for it. If you want to make it, you can fight reality and you can fight yourself. Your body-mind are the vehicles through which you make the journey to pure consciousness, so treat them well, discipline them, make them strong. They'll get you there if you find the balance.