Lately, I’ve read about the future trends of spirituality in business and conscious capitalism. (Megatrends 2010.) I was inspired by the hopeful evolutionary thinking that recognizes the opportunity in this time of disillusionment. This is the time for a new dream, a sense of response-ability in each of us that says ‘yes’ to breathing and growing past fear. Integrating the spirit of the sacred into the business of our work in the world is an evolution of our shared values. And this work, of course, begins with us personally. It begins with an end to ‘us’ and ‘them’ consciousness. It begins with the democracy and ecology of our own integrity. In other words - if it is ‘out there’ it is ‘in here’ and this is where I can begin to meet greed, hatred, and all the big and little wars in the world. With compassion, with humility, with acceptance. This is the leadership we need on every front. The willingness to see it all with the eyes of love, to remember the allness of God, and start from there.

And what does this have to do with yoga practice?  Again, yoga means ‘to join’, it is a practice that we can bring to each and every moment of our day. It isn’t so much about setting aside time for the sacred, it is about making all of our lives sacred, bringing all of our lives into alignment with our deepest values. The practices of yoga are an elegant and effective way to clear the fog of our lives, to disperse the accumulated tensions and stories in our body/mind so we can see clearly. Now, in the present, where we can begin to sort through the outmoded belief systems and conditioning that keep us in a holding pattern of suffering.

It is wonderful to have tools that help to bring us into the stillness of presence wherein we can actually hear the voice of our heart. It is that voice that speaks of our deepest truths, our purpose and values, our soul guidance, and it so easily drowned out by the overstimulated virtual reality of our cultural milieu, by the siren song of fear. The voice of our heart sings the song of the embodied ground of our being, and from there we can hear our own heart beat in harmony with the music of our Earth and all of Life. It is from that embodied ground that we can remember the Divine and dream of peace - for everyone. 

I would love to hear any comments or sharing you might have on these subjects or yoga in general!

Thanks, and have a peaceful and prayerful holiday season.

I celebrate the election of Barack Obama as President; since last Tuesday night the new level of hope has been palpable. He has a big job to do, and I pray for his protection and wise guidance. We have made a vote for the future and for change. And I know that it is for us to remember that the sea change required is in all of our hands. It is not just a government repair job that is necessary, we are all being elected to take responsibility for our connection to each other and our earth. Our necessity is our evolutionary opportunity. 

Change begins with us, it begins when we decide to live responsibly, and really question deeply and with humility our place in nature. What is the dream you are holding for yourself, your family, your community? We have outgrown the runaway dream of individual wealth and personal aggrandizement, the go-it-alone individualism that sets us up in little outposts and castles. We have outgrown the American dream of life as a competitive sport, a contest of quantity over quality. It is time for a new vision that includes respect for nature, a remembrance of the sacred, universal human rights and peace. When basic human needs are met, human development can be about being more, not having more. It is time to take care of each other, the ‘commons’ of our humanity and our planet.

We of my ‘boomer’ generation have talked about oneness and unity consciousness for decades. It is not just a concept. More that ever it is time to manifest it in our lives in a meaningful way - in our values, in our language, in our choices. Separation ideologies have run our lives and hurt us and the planet in a way that deserves deep inquiry. Can we dare to ask what the new archetypes of Unity look like, how they change our lives, the body politic and life on this precious earth? What is the bridge from me to we? How do we get there from here? Our bodies know, our earth knows - let’s open our hearts and dream, see with new eyes and envision a new world. Imagine, if we were all to do this together….

In this embodiment as a feeling-sensing breath-body, the full spectrum of aliveness arises. On the journey from the unconscious to the conscious we encounter the unlived, the unshed, and the unspoken; all that is sub-conscious. As we cultivate a practice of attending to our bodies with patience, reverence and perseverance our bodies begin to ‘trust’ us and the release of tears, terrors and trauma can happen. (The release of laughter and bliss happens, too, but we don’t resist that quite as much!) The body in its wisdom does not let that happen until the whole system has the resilience to hold it and process it. Even as we encounter something that challenges us, there is still an undeniable fulfillment that comes with deepening intimacy with ourselves. With love, we can hold the lost within the found, and open to Grace.

One definition of healing is the relinquishment of resistance to our truth. On the other side of the resistance to our vulnerability is our birthright of wholeness, the soul of who we are. We owe our precious bodies so much gratitude and reverence for many reasons, not the least of which is their loyalty to our growth and evolution. They are committed to the dream within us and steer us with longings and symptoms in the direction of necessary change and healing. Yes, this is often a painful truth, but Grace will use anything to get our attention, to unfold our purpose. (Our freedom is in heeding that call or not, of course.) Indeed, the shadow of the hidden and unseen is not only our disowned negativity, or what we deem unacceptable. Herein also lies the ‘golden shadow’, the power, beauty and brilliance we have not lived or expressed. Our dear body tells all these stories, it is the bridge to that far shore of our deepest dream, the vehicle of our highest potential. The somatic inquiry of yoga assists us in the discovery and integration of what is blooming under the surface of our lives. YES WE CAN develop the confidence and resilience that our expanded nature asks of us. The practices of yoga help us open our minds and heart and arms wide to all of who we are - and surprise even ourselves.

Today is Halloween, or Samhain on the Celtic Calender, the beginning of the descent to the dark days of winter. Historically, this holiday marked a thinning of the veils between worlds, the time when we can feel the spirits of all of our ancestors, those that have gone before, and those that have yet to be born.  Traditionally, it is also a time of divination, where rituals of syncronicity are used to see what is hidden from us, where the boundaries of time and space are suspended. It is interesting that some celebrate the day by digging into the shadows of the collective unconscious and dressing up as something ‘other’ as a way to visit the darkened rooms of their unlived life. (And it is true, sometimes looking into the mirror of our wholeness can be spooky!) It seems in these times every day is halloween - and I see it as an invitation to be the magical beings that we really are, to reclaim the instinctual wholeness that knows how to praise and ‘divine’ our moments and see the mystery of all of who on the other side of fear.

In the past the word magic has had the connotation of manipulative self-interest or has been relegated to the unusual or the esoteric. I think it is time for a new definition - magic as a life awake, remembering the Divine with every breath. To divine is to see the sacred in everything, to recognize the the threads of meaning and interconnectedness on the loom of our lives here together. Magic is the meeting of the ‘inner’ and the ‘outer’, the seen and the unseen, the primal unity of all of life -  the whole quantum, multidimensional miracle of it. Perhaps there are more spiritually correct terms for it, but I like using the term magic because it seems that is what our world is so longing for; a re-enchantment of life, a return to awe and wonder. To recognize the magic and harmony of this life is to open to joy.

The wisdom of the deep feminine in each of us is the receptivity and reverence the sees the world with the eyes of love, that trusts in the alchemy of reality, the cycles of birth, death and evolution beyond our puny understanding. When we cultivate this quality of attention and bring it to our world, it blooms a richness and meaning that nourishes and guides us. This is what magic is to me. The magic and miraculous WE is an archetype that can be awakened in us, especially in times of uncertainty and change such as we are in now. This is the part of us can wake up from the illusions of what we think we know, undo our grasp to let control fall away and live in the amazement of life unfolding. It is time to dream our lives anew and see with new eyes the magic all around us.

What a refuge is my practice of yoga - slowing down to the speed of body and breath. For me, yoga as a practice is not about managing my body or reigning it into shape, it is about waking up on the earth of my life - my beloved body. So often, many of us are ‘lost in thought’ and suffer the consequences of disembodiment as stress, illness and disconnectedness (and worse). Yoga can be the bridge we cross to living the life of the body, a re-entry to the reality of our embodiment, a key that we can turn on the door to the real. The body is, literally, the ground of our being, and tells the sensate truth of our connectedness to all of life. If we let it, if we would but listen. We so need and deserve this practice of learning to listen, I feel the quality of our life depends on it - now more than ever. 

We have too often colluded with our conditioning to domesticate our precious bodies and treat them as beasts of burden. And burdens they can all to soon become when they cry out to be heard. 
The body lives at the edge of what we know and do not know, it contains our unlived life, the map of our unfolding, the mystery of our organic divinity. When we live in the mirage of our minds, we deny the richness and guidance of our feelings, emotions, instincts and intuitions. With our attention and practice, we can bring our intimate embodiment to life, and embrace all of who we are. This is our chance for true health, presence and peace. The marriage of heaven and earth is here as US! What a wonder! The practices of yoga help me to to develop the capacity to look directly into the deep well that is my body and learn to adjust my eyes to the vibrant dark of my inner terrain.  This is the fruit of - and motivation for-  the practices that I love to share: moving and breathing as the art of the earth, her very own blossom, an instrument of the mystery.

 As Rilke put it - “Ultimately, it is on our vulnerability that we depend.”

 PS - Reginald Ray has written a beautiful testimony to the practices of embodiment called ‘Touching Enlightenment’. To those interested in the teachings of the Buddha, I highly recommend it.

I said to my inquiring friends the other day “When you don’t know what is going to happen next, you pay very close attention”. The truth is we never know..and many of us are getting to see old fearful and addictive patterns triggered by a loss of the illusion of control or security. What is the alternative to that subtle and not so subtle panic?  Faith. 

 What is real cannot be lost - this is one of the cornerstones of Sraddha, the sanskrit word for Faith. It means faith in Life, and it also means self-confidence. It is not a ‘belief’ or hope for something as much as a connection to the source of our own being. It is the energy that leads us forward, and according to the elders, the ultimate medicine for the emotional mind. Faith in ourselves is spiritual stamina, a knowing that what we do matters, that our choices have value.  The source of faith is Love..and in times of upheaval, especially, this is the well we must draw from.

The chaos in our world has come very close to home - and it’s message is truth and change. Chaos can shake us out of our complacency - and that is it’s gift.  How can we live in the eye of this storm? It is more important than ever not to allow ourselves to be infected by the collective fear of change. We need to fiercely guard and cultivate our peace by going deeper into our own values and renewing our commitment to living them. Can we take this challenge to come in from the periphery of our lives and all the external goodies and stories and really examine our values and live authentically? Are we willing to ask bigger, deeper questions? Are we willing to go beyond the conceptual and actually start choosing and creating peace and freedom in our lives, and sharing that with our world? 

The practice of yoga in the truest sense of the word, is the practice of union with our source, with what returns us to our faith. What is that practice for you - is it union with nature, with your beloveds, with your own beingness? When we are animated by faith, we have the energy to move forward without  the comfort of re-imagining and re-creating the past. Faith paves the way for freedom, and going beyond our old identities and definitions to our growth and evolution.

The calls to awaken are loud, but are they clear? This is where our own practices of presence come in. Nothing is clear unless we are. And whatever gives us the faith to persevere in our work of showing up is what we must cultivate, and commit to. Again and again.

The moon is covered by clouds,

so i look for her inside,

feel the push on my belly,

the pull on my heart,

the turning of the water wheel

of longing and laughter

and tears that soak the ground

made gray by ashes

of burning

and becoming.

   What is the revolution that is calling to you? What are you turning toward in your life?

    In my life, the turning is towards the wonderful urgency within to realize my purpose, to live in passionate, conscious service. I am turning toward my vulnerable body/heart with all it’s fragile strength and tender beauty - what is real within me. I am turning towards connection. In my life/work I have learned to respect and celebrate individual process, but it is our ‘commons’ that bring us together. The commonality of our vulnerable impermanence, our mother earth, as well as the soul-founded determination to know, honor and share our truth - this is where I connect with others. 

    It can take a revolution in our lives for us to declare our freedom, but it takes a commitment to make the daily choices it takes to ‘be’ free.  The goal of yoga as set forth in the yoga sutras is Kailvalya, a sanskrit word that means freedom and liberation. The means to the goal is embedded in the definition of yoga - union, joining, going beyond duality. The art and science of yoga is a way to cultivate freedom through breath, movement and meditation. It is the discipline of choosing to be present and free again and again, in each moment, engaging the dream and potential that dwells in each of our hearts.

  Living from the core of our being grounds us and makes our life into art. To do so requires we come in close, make holy our vulnerable body/heart and get ‘current’ with ourselves. This is the work and joy of  yoga - the possibility of being freed from what stands in the way of our sovereignty, confidence and intuition. To be more of who we are, we must learn to get out of the way - and live at the edge of our own growth. This is an expression of true freedom. Yoga practice sanctifies our devotion to our own evolution and helps us live from our core. The beautiful paradox is this - it is that very dedication to our own truth’s evolution that leads us to live our values and be of real service in our world

  Yoga is an invitation.  I invite you to turn toward yourself, to reclaim your body/mind and rewrite the definitions and myths of health, success, beauty, and freedom that we have been heir to. I invite you to the wild magic of your own divinity. Can you imagine a revolution in your life that would clarify and embolden your own core values and purpose - not the secondhand values of ‘correct’ culture, but your own heart’s truth? Is it time to imagine it?

The silent remarks of the trees

    change the color of my mind.

The nutrition of every hour feeds me.

   My heart is reborn after each tear and break-

it knows how to burn 

   with what comes

and what does not -

    with the secret discipline 

 of being in love 

    with Truth.

   The practice of yoga has been an integral part of the journey of learning to love myself. Yoga helps me befriend my body without the idea that something needs to be fixed or changed. In the house of my belonging - my beloved body - I am learning the discipline and sweetness of self-honoring and devotion.  Approaching yoga practice as a forum for being close to the ‘beloved’ has been a step towards earning the freedom of friendship with myself and my wild divinity. 

  How do you treat a teacher whose wisdom you admire and respect? With gratitude, openness, and humble listening? How do you receive a dear friend? With affectionate attention, interest, and curiosity? Can you imagine how your body might respond if these were gifts you offered yourself regularly - how might that transform the quality of your experience? It is worth it to find out - you are worth it. Our bodies want us to be who we are, not who we were taught we should be. 

   The wisdom of impermanence is spoken by our bodies. It tells us that our stay here is short, and that the time to listen to our hearts is now. Our minds may go on with their inventory of reason, constantly renewing personal history and believing we hold up the world with our internal dialogue - these are all too familiar smokescreens. Our bodies know a deeper truth. I think the yearning and longing we sometimes feel is for that knowing. We are literally missing ourselves.

    When we come to our practice with the intention to love and the desire to ‘connect’, we invite our own unfolding and blossoming. Through our movement, attention and breath we develop the spontaneity, intuition and presence that give our life magic and richness. Seeing ourselves with the eyes of love is the foundation and fuel for the self-inquiry and honest self-reflection that serve our maturity and authenticity.  When we choose to tend the garden of our body/mind with practice and inquiry, we reap the fruits of clarity, compassion, and the very essence of health -  the commitment to our growth and the changing evolutionary flow of our experience.