Just the way I like it...

I was noticing today on Facebook all the reviews of each persons year on their statuses, or links to their blogs with the same theme, so it made me want to write something and I was thinking of what I want to focus on and what direction to take, but really, as the title above says, my life right now is just the way I like it.

This year didn't really begin for me until February, I kept myself on hold during January for some reason, but in February I started watching RuPaul's Drag Race's latest season and was inspired, then I went to the Ashtanga Confluence and broke through some old shit, when I came home I was moving forward in a way I hadn't in quite a while.

I did 5 yoga trips this year, that's more than I have ever done in one year. Hmmmm, maybe I did 4-5 in 2008 to study with Desiree Rumbaugh, but I think it was 4. Anyhow, focus, back on point...lol.

I took the San Diego Confluence trip, I went to Chicago for a weekend to study with Kino, I went back to Chicago to see Abraham live and study with Mark Robberds, I went to Indianapolis to study with Kino again, then to Springfield to study with Jodi Blumstein.

All were amazing and had benefits in their own right, but each one helped me move forward, especially the second trip to see Kino and the week with Mark, both had deeply profound effects on me.

I also had a trip to the Washington DC area to explore love with someone I'd met on Facebook. So I really did take more trips this year than I'd ever expected to. That trip was good and I learned a lot about myself, about how I don't want to be and that I really want to cultivate happiness within myself without the perceived need for external gratification on that front, just what I feel to guide me, which is what Abraham teaches. I do feel bad the way I left things with said person, but still have no clue how to reach out and make peace around it, so am letting be what it is.

So this year I started with a Sankalpa, which means an intention, to let go of things. Letting go was never my specialty and to do so seemed like it would kill me, but letting go is what I did. I let go of many friendships and some of them even blossomed due to my non-attachment to how they were "supposed" to be. I let go of many things that I don't really need to get into on here right now, but all things that I've had little stories around that were no longer serving me and my path.

This year my Sankalpa will be to embrace things. Embrace things that others are happy and feel wonderful about, embrace other people's belief systems as theirs and their right to have them, embrace everything! Why not?!? I've always been the one to think I know the way things are and are done best and I should reform you to feel the same way as I do and then your life will be wonderful, but what? That's stupid.

My life is created by me and therefore is geared towards my beliefs, my feelings and whatever my focus is at that time. Yours shouldn't be and never will be, so I have to embrace whatever it is you like, not for myself because I have my own things, but for you. "You love that, that's great! I'm so glad it makes you happy to have that in your life!" And really mean it, not just be paying it lip service, but to really mean it. I think I've laid the ground work to allow this to happen to!

So, don't let others influence what you want in your life. Feel how you feel when you think about things and either add it in, or subtract it out and create an existence that makes you happy to be living. I slowly have and will complete that year circuit that I began last February at the Confluence and with RuPaul by RuPaul's new season that starts again in the same month this year, and all of the new inspirations it will bring, but also I will be in Mysore mid-February this finally studying with Sharath at the source of the Ashtanga system!

Everything you want can happen if you believe it can, BUT do you believe it can? Still doubting? Don't doubt or it cannot come in. Believe it can and see if it doesn't just come creeping around the corner at you... You can have a life just the way you like it too!

I love you all so much, Happy New Year!!!

Holiday

Typically I'm not too big on holidays, after all holiday is a run-on for holy day and isn't every day holy? Or shouldn't it be? I try to think so anyway, although I don't always act holy...

This year was no different, I wasn't looking forward to it at all. No particular reason why this season, just following an old pattern I think. So when I asked my mom what was going on and we talked for a while, for some reason I agreed to spend the night at her house on Christmas eve, something I never do, but I did this year and I ended up enjoying myself.

This yoga stuff has just proven itself to me even more by helping me grow into someone who can be okay and even happy with anything that life can dredge up. I'm not sure when but I had become someone who didn't like the holidays and this year made me know that not to be my truth any longer.

I went to Illinois to my grandmas early in the day of Christmas eve, then went to moms and we left and went to see a movie, Saving Mr. Banks (very good film btw), then dinner, then home showered and slept. On Christmas morning, after sleeping 9.5 hours mind you, something I never do, off to my sisters which was a very good time as well.

I left there and decided to go see the Secret Life of Walter Mitty, another film, on the way home and dinner too before getting home. The movie dredged up my fears of going to India but also showed me that they are unfounded and without the excitement that fear also offers life wouldn't be worth living. I left the theatre feeling quite amazing and ready to take on the world.

I also left knowing the life of privilege that I lead. Meaning that I have lived quite a life. In the late 80's I left home, started a job in the big city (St. Louis believe it or not lol), started exploring the fact that I was a gay man and going out to gay bars at 18, I then also became a drag queen for about a year, what a crazy bit of time that was (partly because every time I did drag I was also on acid!). I didn't do much but sleep around a lot and drink a whole lot in the early 90's, all the way to the late 90's I think, then I fell in love. A love at first site that no one ever has and we all may only have the privilege to experience once, if that. Then I became a stripper, dancing nude on a bar in socks for tips, just to explore the issues I had with my physical body. Very quickly behind that I discovered yoga, and that's when it all started to change. Now since then I've left a corporate job, studied yoga on Maui, lived in Europe for a month, traveled around the country with my mother, switched yogas completely thrice, coming back to the one I originally fell in love with. Became a Sikh, changed my name legally, built a life for myself around yoga and teaching it, that I love mind you, and began teaching yoga teachers. Now I'm about to embark on a trip to India to study yoga in depth.

I've discovered what I love and what I want in life, and all of that shifts and flows and changes in many unexpected ways all the time, but that's okay. How many people have the privilege of knowing what they want to do with their life and actually set out to do it?!?

See what I mean about privilege?

Now I'm so excited to get up early tomorrow and practice yoga and then go and teach it, I love this! How did I not find appreciation for things before now? Maybe I did, just at a different level than now, but now is where I am and now I'm so happy and in love with all the people in my life and what I do with my life!

I can't wait to be in India and experience the culture and the way they approach everything in life as such a holy experience, I feel like I should be there already. Maybe I am...

Crossroads

So, does anyone else feel like they're at a crossroads in their life? I do. This impending trip to Mysore to study Ashtanga at its source is a big thing in my life that I'm finally doing, but in that it's so big, it's bringing up many, many other things in life that I've hedged on or avoided, or have delved deeply into and went wrong. All the things in life that could be considered a crossroads...

Choices, we all have them, many of us having been trained to take the safe choices. Only to find years later that the safe choice may not have been the right one for you, but as part of your path you took that one and followed it until it led you to another choice, sometimes leading you right back to the same situation, presented differently, and gives you the chance to make that choice all over again usually having different repercussions because you're at a very different place in life at this time.

So, here I am, I'm going to India this time, not wimping out like I did back when I meant to go in 2000 or 2002. Going to dive in deep. And now I'm friends on Facebook with a lot of Ashtangis who are over there now and I'm seeing their pics posted, the notes from Sharath's conferences that are inspiring to me, the status updates telling of their practice and/or adventures for that day and it's just terrifying me. Not terrifying me in a way that makes me scared to go, but in a way that's inspiring me even more because I know I'm facing a fear around something and am still going anyway. So am diving into the fire and asking it to burn away all that no longer serves me.

Much like the practice, which will chisel you into a fine tuned organism, not just your body but your psyche and your energetic fields as well. So everything in life can be approached this way, and I'm going for it. No more backing away, but facing the things and moving through them. I'm teaching a bunch of workshops lately and before I go that are inspired by my practice and things that I've wanted to share for a while and I'm dealing with people that I need to organize my feelings around, all sorts of things.

This will be my work for the new year, maybe you'll join me???

Change of seasons

For the first time in a long time I'm not being super affected by the shift to Autumn, usually it's the most powerful seasonal change for me. My yoga practice must be working!

I've done a lot of work with the practice this year, especially in workshops with certified teachers, and it has changed my focus to a very internal one. What's funny is that I always thought if I allowed this shift to happen then I would finally be the yogi who wants nothing to do with society and want to go live in a cave, but the exact opposite has happened. The external stuff doesn't bother me as much anymore and in fact I've found that I love being around people and have been spending a lot of time with others, while still enjoying my alone time just as much.

Odd, I know. But then if you do actually know me, you probably think me odd anyway lol... I'm completely okay with that too, so just think whatever you want about me.

This year has been a great year for me as far as studying with teachers go and this weekend I'll be going to another one with Jodi Blumstein, so yet another period of study with me. All of these things has deepened my practice and made me realize it's importance in my life, not just the asanas but pranayama and meditation as well, and the yamas and niyamas in my daily dealings with others, so it's been great.

Also, all of these things this year have been to prepare me for India where I'm heading in February to study with Sharath all of March, yes finally I'm going to be able to do it! Excited isn't the proper word, although it conveys a bit of the emotion I'm feeling, fear of course comes up, but in a lesser quantity than ever before. I got my 10 year visa with such ease and got accepted into classes for March so in my mind that's the universes way of telling me it's time. I even started a campaign on gofundme.com and it's getting donations, so even more reason to know I'm fully supported by source in this instance, I just wasn't ready before. Now I am!

Another sign is that I've got a small Mysore group going, which is the most awesome way to practice as far as I'm concerned and they are enjoying it as well. So all is flowing and even more importantly I'm allowing the flow and going floating along with it this time, not trying to impede it and self-perpetuating my own resistance!

So, come to class, I've been feeling super inspired lately, especially in my Ashtanga classes. You may just have a great experience!

Ashtanga

As fall comes in to full bloom I've been digging into my practice more deeply. After seeing Mark Robberds last month I just spent the weekend with Kino MacGregor in Indianapolis, and I must say it was the best weekend I've spent with her. It made me want to be with her and her husband in India for their two week retreat in January, so I'm looking into that...

A few of my students went as well and we had a great time, or rather I can only speak for myself, I had a good time. Kino was more clear and happy and inspiring that ever before and the group who went were full of great conversations and laughter, so it was a much needed weekend full of hard work (especially shoulders) and fun.

I just felt more connected to her this time and that we're building a bond as teacher and student, it feels good to have someone that knows so much and feels the practice in a very similar way to the way that I do, but then I've had that with a lot teachers this year.

This year has been the year of study for me, starting with the Ashtanga Confluence back in February with my first teacher Nancy Gilgoff, whom it was great to see. Of course there were other teachers there as well, but it was so good to bond with her again. Then Eddie Stern at the same event, who helped me with Marichasana D and the beginning of the healing of my sacrum which was out so intensely then. Then Kino in June in Chicago, which was great because I'd been to Moksha before and was getting to know the people there. Then back to Chicago in September for 10 days to see Abraham and spend 6 days practicing with Mark, which was just awesome, only to see Kino again this past weekend with her best message ever. I may even go to Springfield, IL in November to see Jodi Blumstein for an Ashtanga weekend. Great year for being a student!

This practice is hitting so many of my students so strongly right now, and shifting me yet again, that I just get more and more excited to do it, and to dig into some more of the pranayama as well. I got David Garrigues dvd and book about the Ashtanga pranayama practice, which I've been doing since I learned third series back in 200 or 4, maybe 5? But its broken down with exercises to feel the apana and prana vayus and talks, love it, so as it gets colder I'll be inside digging into this more deeply this winter as I prepare to go to India and if India doesn't happen until next fall, then I'll be digging into some more and more workshops, they are awesome lately!

So if you're reading this, come to my Ashtanga class or something soon, while the inspiration lasts!

Hello, I'm introspective, how are you?

Not sure why I haven't written in a while, it's been a busy time so maybe that's it. I just haven't had the space to become more introspective and allow the integration of the work I've been doing on myself.

Well, not so this day. I've had almost the whole day to myself and it's getting colder finally and the leaves are starting to fall, so let the introspection begin! lol

I've been noticing this week that I've gotten more detail oriented in my classes, not so much as far as alignment goes but as far as the breath and the movements and how they coincide have been going, and working more individually with each person even though we've been in a room full of people.

I'm having deeper experiences and am wanting others to have them too, not just to feel bad when all the emotions come up or to get more sore, but to dig in and get to know themselves better. Really do the work. I've gotten some the best compliments of my teaching this week from some sources I wasn't expecting them from too, one of them even mentioning I'm the only teacher he's ever gone to who tells you to breath into your back while you slide your pubic bone back between your inner spiraled thighs and root down both sit bones at the same time and that detail is what he loves about my classes.

I love that, because I really am just trying to put into words the feelings and deepest expressions of the practice that I have come up for me, and that's just on the physical level, not the emotional or psychic level, but I do sometimes cue those things as well! lol

It's a time of year that all of us seem to be padding our caves and starting to settle in a bit more and prepare for a long winters nap, although we don't technically do that. But the energy of that happens anyway. We start to express ourselves differently, we start to feel everything deeper, become more touchy and almost less expressive because we're so tucked into ourselves.

It's a time for me that I feel I can almost touch my inner being, not just get clues here and there of how to run my day or which turn to take, but with each emotion that comes up we have a chance to notice what we're thinking as it arises and notice what direction we should take our thoughts in order to get back in alignment with our inner being or not. Sometimes we just like to wallow in our icky feelings and hey, that's just part of being human, but these days I try to catch that and turn a corner before manifestations start happening! If we wait until they actually happen they are a lot harder to deal with than if we catch them at the emotional level.

So my work this fall and winter is to keep on my toes in observing my emotions so that I can tell if I'm heading in the right direction in life or if I'm about to trip myself up bigtime. My yoga practice has been strong lately and in the sensitivity that I create within myself from my practice I should be able to maintain.

So maybe I'm about to start cuing in my classes to notice how you feel while you're doing a certain move, or a certain breath? Sound good? Then you can start to gain that level of sensitivity and use it for you growth and expansion too!

All of this depth in my practice started after that week studying Ashtanga with Mark in Chicago and in just over a week I'll be seeing Kino again in Indianapolis, so we'll see how I'm affected by her teachings that weekend. Each time I've gone to study this year, which has been a lot for me I've gotten deeper and deeper and deeper into the knowing that this practice is for me, for the entirety of my life and the way it's affected my teaching has gotten my students deeper and deeper as well, so they tell me, and that's another reason this is for me. To help me expand and grow and the same for them.

Full moon this Friday AND a lunar eclipse this Friday, both adding to all this process of going in I've been writing about, come see me, we'll help each other stay on top of things, not get squashed under them!

3 Very interesting weeks...

So many of you know I took in a guy who was stranded here in St. Louis, some may not.

Back on August 19th I went to the park and started talking to this guy and he had been kicked out of his friends place, but had been traveling and was from Portland. So I let him use my shower and took him to lunch and kept his largest bag for him, so he didn't have to haul it around. When I went to look for him at the park after I was done teaching for the day I couldn't find him, so the next day we found each other and again, shower and lunch, then we missed each other that night.

The third night we finally hooked up and he stayed with me from then through the next Monday morning when two gracious students of mine had donated money and I added in the rest, to get him home on a bus, to Portland.

This experience really taught me a lot about myself and my comfort zone, or rather the current comfort zone I've created for myself and how unbending it is, so I've been paying attention to how I feel when situations arise and how I act, and if I catch myself, adjust accordingly. But I also found out that I do have compassion. I've always thought of compassion as something that would not be found in my being because I do believe we create our own reality based on the vibrations we put out, or if you will, by the choices we make every moment of every day based on how we're feeling and how it corresponds to those vibrations.

But that doesn't mean everyone is in the know about this, and therefore we can have compassion for the way they're feeling while in a situation and very unsure of how to get out of it. There's a bunch more I could write about this but that will be for a future post, since then I've seen Abraham and been through a week yoga intensive with a certified Ashtanga teacher and have a different vein of thought going through my mind.

But then I found myself missing him after I sent him on his way. He's a nice guy and not bad company at all, so even though I love living alone and my alone time, there is space in my existence for companionship, and I contemplated this as I moved through my week before I drove to Chicago. Probably more on that later as well.

So first, Abraham. I have to say their message has never been more succinct, they even remarked how high the vibration was in the room and they just gave it to us. We kept elucidating further and further, gaining more and more clarity. And they used the word clarity and how when we can maintain that high flying feeling, which corresponds to our high flying vibration we basically gain more and more clarity and no, there is never and end to the amount of clarity one can attain or demand. It goes ever deeper and deeper and feels better and better.

So I came off of that very high, couldn't even see straight for two days lol, but I made my way about.

This was in Chicago by the way and one of my students/friends had given me the use of her condo, very lovely of her, and so I didn't have to spend the money on a place to stay for the rest of the week, where I was going to Moksha Yoga every morning for a Mysore class with Mark Robberds, then over the weekend (last weekend to be exact)there were three workshops, a kirtan and then Sunday another Mysore class which was perfect because then we could put into play what we'd been working on in the workshops.

Now, I love Ashtanga and I do it daily but I was sore as fuck for those first four Mysore mornings. Not sure if its because of the energy of the room, having so many practitioners in there with me, the way Mark held the space for the classes, which was a very deep, quiet place to dig in deep, or because of having a teacher observing me there, so I dug my deepest! But also, having the workshops and then final Mysore class just made me that much more sore, but I tell you, my practice has changed and progressed in that short time and tonight when I teach, some of that stuff will be coming out. Probably more and more as I practice at home using the techniques and teach over the coming weeks.

So today I took the day off, did my castor oil bath last night to pull the soreness and heat out of my muscles and joints and just relaxed today all day long. Now though I'm finding myself eager to practice tomorrow morning and wishing I had today lol, I know, we humans are a mess right?!? My body did need the day of rest since I skipped two of them last week due to the scheduling of the workshops and classes.

I'll have more and more to write on this as I move through my week, teaching and practicing, but that's all I've got for right now. I'm adjusting to being back in the Lou after 10 tens gone and many great growth experiences, it's always weird to come back to a place where there just is almost no Ashtanga community and especially from Chicago, because they have such a great, dedicated one, but I'll manage. Always do.

Until next time, keep practicing, see you soon!

Holding the space...

What does this phrase mean to you? To most yoga teachers it means we, as we enter the room to teach are fully in control of the energy in the room, which also means as people come in from their day, they may be in a shitty place from work, or from an argument with their spouse, or they may be hyped up from too much coffee, or too much stimulation of their nervous system from what they've done all day long, or many, many other options. Pick one. The point being that they are coming to you to help teach them techniques that will make them feel better and more balanced, and in that reliance they are giving themselves to you.

In their giving themselves to you, you are responsible for them in a way not many other people will ever be. So, its your duty to serve that need in them.

So in a way, holding the space is being the most selfless being you can be, taking in the energy of the group, and it will most likely be as scattered as can be, channeling it and moving it on out and moving them through to the better feeling place.

I'm writing this mostly in response to a student in my teacher training program at Yogasource, who also happens to be a great friend of mine, who had no clue what this phrase meant.

I had used it in response to how tired I was after having taught the teacher training by myself on Saturday from 8:30-5:30, and that while I was also holding the space for the park class that they attended which had over 230 people in it! But then I also taught my class on Sunday which the trainees also attended and then had them again fro 2 more hours after.

He, being used to working a corporate job for over 8 hours a day didn't understand why I was so drained after only such a short time, so this is why.

Now, don't get me wrong. I love teaching the training that whole time, this is a great group but they are also all strong in their own right, so have lots of big energy to contain, and I was responsible for that, so today my body was having none of the idea of me practicing and teaching. I rescheduled a private and took it easy most of the day, teaching my evening class and doing well, but now I'm more tired.

On top of that I also had my 7th rolfing session this morning which is when they open up your sinuses, your gums, your whole head and neck and shoulders, so was a bit loopy, which made me more tired! lol, but its all good.

My life is getting busier and busier, but all doing things I love, private lessons teaching Ashtanga, training people to be teachers, teaching my classes which I love, and especially teaching more and more Ashtanga (which is my passion)and even teaching an Ashtanga class to only teachers that is awesome as well as getting deeper and deeper into my own practice of asana and meditation. I really must say, I can't complain. When you're doing what you love, you make time and space to do all these things and as you get more and more appreciative of doing what you love, more and more comes your way, money, classes, private lessons, whatever it is that you love.

So figure out what you love, and do it!

As Guruji often said "Practice, Practice, Practice, Practice ... all is coming."

Yes Guruji, I now am just starting to get what you mean by all...

Let go . . . Trust...

So periodically I just pick up a seemingly random book and open it and read the page that pops up and see how it's relevant to my life at that moment. I really do this a lot, not the same book all the time, but once a day at least.

Tonight, just before I meditated I picked up the Yamas and the Niyamas by Deborah Adele, really one of the most accessible accounts of these ancient yogic principles I've ever read. Opened it to a passage on Aparigraha, which many would translate as non-attachment, but R. Sharath Jois, the current guru of the Ashtanga Yoga Method puts it this way: Pari means around, Graha means to grasp, a A means not. Aparigraha means non-grasping of things around you. When expectations are high, one becomes greedy, and ocne you allow the greed to grow, it is difficult to get rid of it.

So, the passage was about how as a trapeze artist one must trust completely in the process by letting go of the first trapeze trusting the the other will be there, hanging in mid-air for a moment, then taking the next one as it comes to you. If you grasp for it it will offset the timing and the flow of the performance will be thrown off. If you hold onto the first bar until you can get a hold of the second bar, it will throw both bars, and you, off balance and the performance will be thrown off. These are my words summarizing the point she is making, not hers.

Here is a quote from the text though..."I'm not a trapeze artist, but my experience of letting go feels very much like being suspended in mid-air with nothing to hold on to. It is raw, naked, vulnerable, and uncomfortable. I would much prefer to let go when I know for sure what is coming. And when I have let go, I want to somehow stay connected, just in case I want it back. To let go completely feels like a suspension in the void."

"The practice of nonclinging is as free as swinging from bar to bar effortlessly, in perfect trust and perfect timing. Any kind of holding too long or grasping too far forward in an effor to maintain a sense of security is deadly to our spiritual growth and the natural unfolding of our lives."

This is where I am in life, learning to let go, and not in anticipation of the next thing, but in complete trust that the next thing will be there and it will be the next stage of my journey. It will most likely be bigger and better as well as long as I'm not attached to it being so.

Abraham (who I'll be visiting with on August 31, yay!) would say that I've filled my vibrational escrow (even thought they're calling it our vortex now) account with things put in there out of my experience of contrast within my life, this one and many others as well, and so as long I am able to allow it in, read let go and trust, then the next thing will come and it will be closer to what I want, if not exactly what I want. But we are built to keep refining and keep refining, until what we want changes again and again, so even in the receiving of it we are meant to let go so that the more refined version can step into our lives.

Lots to think about, for me, hopefully for you too.

Let go...

Allow...

Trust...

Change...

So, the ideal goal of yoga, in my mind, has always been to be able to weather the changes that life throws your way with ease. At least that's always been one of them that makes me want to keep going on this path. I never realized what it meant until recently though.

I might have had some idea, in an abstract way, but I've never actually allowed any of the major changes that have wanted to come up to happen. Now, what does that mean?

That means that when I was younger I had the idea to move to Chicago, I came home from a trip there, checked on branches of the company I was then working for to see if they had openings so I could transfer, they didn't, so I gave up on it. Rather than going a different route which could have taken me there, which was what I wanted. So instead, I stayed here, drank even more than I did before and told myself this was what I got, so deal with it.

Then Hawaii, I was on sabbatical there studying Ashtanga with Nancy Gilgoff, it WAS the right place for me to be at that time, so I call my mom to see if she'd help me sell my stuff and make it easier for me to just stay there and keep studying, find work and whatever. She, knowing me very well, refused to do so because she knew I'd never come back, which was probably true but rather than use the resources I had at my disposal, I let that make me feel defeated and went home, gave up again and and just stayed there, drank even more and kept practicing.

Then during my time digging deep into the Kundalini yoga practice, when I decided to become Sikh, change my name, take the vows, stop drinking, stop eating meat, stop a lot of things. All the while practicing Kundalini Yoga, which clears out your energy channels, got myself all opened up. I noticed a change, I was more resolute in my decisions, more committed. But yet again, I got an offer to move to LA and teach Kundalini Yoga in the West Hollywood area, live with a friend very cheaply and go for it in California (which if you know it has always been a big dream of mine). What happened? I did the same thing, I squelched it down and got stuck here.

This time the difference was that I didn't start drinking more and resolve myself to that dark fate of being stuck here, as I'd always done before. I felt that that opportunity was not necessarily the right one for me at the time, and it wasn't. Very soon after that I began practicing Ashtanga again and started shifting and becoming what I like to think of as more me than I'd ever been before.

So now, you may say, okay, so you're ready to move again. Yes, of course I am, but more so I'm ready for whatever comes up. So, I've met someone, someone who I believe I'm falling for, fully, not just on the surface, but with all of my being.

He doesn't live here, so I'm traveling to visit him this Thursday and am going with whatever come from it from there. Now, does this mean I'll move, maybe, but the point is that I would normally be blocking myself from experiencing whatever it is that comes from this, and not allowing the fullest express of the experience to be realized. I'm opening myself up to receiving this experience and going wherever life takes me, be it to becoming amazing friends or to be lovers who teach yoga together around the globe (I'm rooting for that one lol), but to be fully there whatever comes up, becoming a fully realized version of me.

So dive into your experiences, have them fully. Or, as I read the other day and have decided I love, lean into your life. Lean into it, become it and express yourself fully!

RuPaul's Drag Race

This blog should've come before the last one but its just popping up now, and when the inspiration is there, I follow it, so here it goes.

As many of you who are regular components of my life know, over the winter I became obsessed with RuPaul's Drag Race. Fell in love with it really, not obsessed. I had never seen a whole season of it before, only catching an episode here and there occasionally.

But on New Year's Day I became sick and stayed at home all day long and what happened to be on Logo but a whole recap of the previous season to create anticipation for the new season beginning in a few short weeks. So I watched it and became endeared.

Then the new season started and I totally watched every episode, even bonded with and became great friends with some other homos in the area who also watched it with the same voracity.

The funny thing is that I began to be inspired by what I was seeing. I was seeing the underdog, Jinkx Monsoon, whom no one believed would make it far, come out with talent and amazing qualities that no one suspected and lo and behold, she won the contest! Amazing!!! (she'll be in town June 30th at Attitudes, I and a few friends are seeing her, so excited)

The inspiration came from that, but also from each contestant and the creativity they enlisted to strive to win the title. And even more from the fact that I used to be an artist, as a child you almost couldn't pull me away from my book and pen and coloring pencils. I created character after character and named them, created super powers or planets for them, whole histories for each one, all sorts of things like that. But also in 1988-9 I did drag.

There I said it for public consumption (many of you I'm close with already knew this), but yes I did drag.

I was a terribly shy young man, and I mean painfully so. It hurt me to think too long of talking in front of people or to people I knew, never people I didn't know, but alsways people I knew. I even created scenarios in my mind about it until I would get sick thinking of the conversation that could happen, but never actually did. So as I was 18, just out of the house and working in "the big city of St. Louis" I met folks who quickly surmised my sexual orientation and took me out to bars and dance clubs that had drag shows at them, and I was fascinated. Not because I wanted to be a woman, but because I could see the creative talent they were employing to become a character, much like the ones I had created for over a decade in my notebooks and sketch pads.

So, when Kathy Klein, a prominent drag queen in town. Really the fiercest one I'd ever seen, and still looks amazing now (even though she lives a small life with her partnerh in Iowa now)when she dresses up. When she came to me and said how pretty I was and had I ever thought of doing drag, then talked me into it and helping me do my makeup and buy the proper gear to stuff, pad and tuck everything into, I was ecstatically thinking of how this was my out. I could become someone else and therefore wouldn't have to deal with myself anymore, someone I was sick and tired of, but really in all truth, someone I didn't know. And so said yes and did it.

It lasted all of 9 months but I learned a lot about myself during that time and decided I was using it to hide and not being me, which I still had no clue who that was anyway, but I knew it wasn't healthy. So I quit and explored other avenues, including drinking heavily to be brave enough to speak to others, but that is another blog waiting to happen lol.

Anyhow, all of this to tell you why I've been changing lately.

Any of you who actually know me in person have noticed I've been more daring lately, with my new hairdo, with clothing, with my toenails (lol) and just trying to embrace more of who I am, maybe some of which that had gotten lost along the way. And enjoying being more expressive, finally! Just because we live a yogic life doesn't mean it can't be filled with color, right?!?

So, expect more, and more, as I embrace each new creative thought that comes up. I'm not sure how much more there will be, but there could be a lot and there could be just a bit more.

Either way folks, I'm embracing me, the inner me, the one only I know fully, but I let you see quite a bit of too. And as this me bubbles to the surface, physical changes may be prevalent, or not, but changes will be coming, be they physical only or mostly internal. So be ready!!!

Kino MacGregor

This past weekend I spent with some great friends and with aforementioned young lady. She's become someone I admire and who inspires me in ways I never thought would be able to happen.

I used to think no one younger than me could possibly teach me anything, I guess I'm old enough now to know better lol, and have embraced what this lovely, on the inside and out, woman has to share.

I also had a bit of hard time for the silliest reasons. Comparison, something which I'm not prone to do and therefore almost never do. But when I was there this weekend, and before when I read her mini bio book Sacred Fire, I became . . . jealous, maybe? No, not jealous, envious. Here's why...

We began the practice of Ashtanga Yoga at almost the same exact time, I was 30, she 21 I think. But she took the horse by the reigns and found a good Mysore class, learned a lot there and went even further and went to India to study with Guruji (K. Pattabhi Jois) and began a process of learning that I only dreamed of doing.

I embraced it to the degree I could at the time and drove to Boulder, CO, to study with Guruji on one of his tours and decided that I was going to go the following year to India and leave work and be there for as long as I could. I allowed things in my life to stop me though, and didn't forge ahead as I'd planned to. I'd planned to because never before in my life had something make me feel like this yoga, it was amazing to me and I was in love with it. Problem being I was also in love with someone who was a practical thinker and who had no intention of helping me figure out how to get there, and I allowed him this role in my journey, so NOT his fault.

So, again in 2002 when I retired from the corporate world and had a severance package (and was single again) decided, okay, now I'm going to do it! So I look online only to find out that Guruji and Sharath were on tour and would be the entire summer, so I said fuck it and bought a ticket to Maui to study with him there and decided to stay for a whole 5 weeks so I could enjoy Maui and study with Nancy Gilgoff as well. Neither of which I have any regrets about and I still have a great friendship with Nancy to enjoy too.

Anyhow, advance a few years and I was working part time at the St. Louis Bread Co and teaching little Mysore style classes in Collinsville, IL, which were doing pretty well and I loved teaching this style of yoga in this format. It is what I was born to do. I'm just plugging away at my own home practice and teaching and living, not thinking about it at all. Then the itch starts to hit me again in about 2006-7, so I went to the Ashtanga pre-conference at the Yoga Journal Conference in Estes Park, CO. Loved it, it was awesome, but I couldn't see a clear way to make India happen, then I met Desiree Rumbaugh, started learning Anusara and healing parts of my body that needed healing, then I started practicing Kundalini Yoga as well more often ( I had been practicing it as long as the Ashtanga but only once a week on my day off, this time I got into it heavily and kept going. The energy working aspect of it was healing me in many other ways). So got further sidetracked away from my original Ashtanga path and almost left it completely, only to come back to it at the behest of friends once a week in late 2011, then fully 3-5 times a week in February of 2012 and fully again 6 days a week in April/May of that same year.

Then I met Kino in May of 2012 as well but it wasn't until going back to Chicago to see her again this year that that little demon on my shoulder was whispering about looking at where I could've been and such and such. That's all nonsense, I am where I am and my path brought me here, and she is where she is and we are two different people.

So now, I want to go to India again, this winter, December through February, to study in Mysore with Sharath and learn and learn and learn. If I eventually earn my authorization and further to my certification in the process, so be it, but otherwise I'm just in it for the learning and the growth and the yoga of it.

I love the asanas in this practice, they are like nothing else, I want to dig deep into them and allow them to move energy through me, moving past and through any blocks, emotional, energetic or otherwise, that I may have. I want to learn Sanskrit from Jayashree and Narsimhan in the afternoons and I want to interact with the Indian people and adapt to their way of life for the time that I'm there.

I'm drawn to this as if I've lived there in other lives and therefore tend to believe I did. I mean sometimes I can feel and smell things that I know are totally Indian and I've never experienced here in America.

So, I'm putting it out Universe. I want this. The thought of it makes me ecstatic, lets do this!!!

Practice, practice, practice...

I've been practicing and teaching and not much else, including blogging lol. Didn't realize how long its been until this morning I happened to be thinking a bit.

I'm really trying not to get stuck in my head about things and the problem with that is that it doesn't lend itself to formulating something to write about, so haven't been on here since April.

But I'm seeing Kino MacGregor this weekend in Chicago and am super excited, so have put a lot of focus on my morning practices lately, even when they seem less than optimal. I still search and find the benefit I got from what I did or did not do.

I seem to be regularly practicing the primary series this past month or so and having so much sensation in my arms, from the upper chest down through the elbows, that I don't know what to do with it. Its not pain, its just like my nervous system is on fire, and then when my asanas are done, it seems to be fine, its just during my practice! So this morning I practiced second series to test it out and it did the same thing. The arms represent the heart chakra and as the energy channels that correspond with the arms open up it is the flowing of the energy through the heart chakra that can cause such sensation, but also such peace after the opening happens.

Along with that I'm opening up finally in my sacrum and my shoulders have been having major opening lately. The sacrum though is where I've been locked up on the left side since January and it started to subside when I went to the Ashtanga confluence, but came back strongly, but yesterday during my practice I felt movement in the area that was bound up and it feels so free after that and today, so I'm grateful I kept on practicing through whatever was going on with it and have mostly come out the other side.

It was through pain though that it found the opening, not acute, sharp pain, but tension and just feeling locked in a knot that created a shorter hamstring and pain down the leg, but when the movement happened it hurt for a second and now feels amazing, so we'll see how it goes with this weekend.

It seems that pain has been a theme lately, especially around articles I've been reading, and talking about how Ashtanga brings pain, but its really about it being in the areas that the energy is blocked or not flowing well and if you stick with it, work within your bounds, not pushing through it, but breathing and maintaining your practice through it, that on the other side is a great and amazing place to be.

I will say I agree and I will not quit practicing but will be mindful of how it needs to be adjusted to accomodate or to help heal different things as they come up. And I feel amazing lately, inside and out, so I'm not really worried about any of it, just being with it as it comes up, observing and learning from it and taking that into my teaching.

Namaste, and may you be present and observing in your own life from today onward and see what it brings you!!!

Your path to excellence...

So, I just watched an interview with Kino MacGregor, one of many that I've watched with her and heard with her in person. This one is called Living Your Genius and is a series of separate interviews with people who are living their dharma and then a phone call with them later in the week to ask questions.

So, the way she began teaching yoga and the way I did are the same. I was asked by someone and then another and another, and they wouldn't take no for an answer and my first student in Collinsville still practices Ashtanga every day and is 67 years old!

So, have I become victim to the same thing many, many others have? Thinking they have to follow a certain path that is laid out for them by another? Or following that inner voice that leads you in a certain direction, and it may be a direction you think is leading you away from the path you're "supposed" to follow, rather than the one that you lay out for yourself by following that inner voice?

Ummmm, yes, I did fall victim to that idea that I'm supposed to be doing things a certain way and forced it to happen (anyone read the book "Power vs. Force"?). But all the while my inner voice was leading me in certain ways, and when I listened to it it was lining me up with those things that I really wanted anyway, much as Abraham teaches in the Law of Attraction teachings.

So, I was an Ashtangi and an alcoholic, then dropped the alcohol and meat when I started practicing the Kundalini Yoga path. Was so drawn to it that I even became a Sikh, taking the vows of the Amrit ceremony and legally changing my name and almost exclusively teaching Kundalini Yoga for a while, a short while in the scheme of things, but none the less a while.

Then my body started craving more activity again and the Ashtanga practice came back into my life and the two started merging, I started seeing the energetics of the physicality of the primary series, or rather feeling them. I'm not a seer of energy...

So, I came full circle and may still have further to go, oh, I know I still have further to go. But interesting to note that this time around, I'm slowly building an audience who loves the Ashtanga, which is something that I want (its not a huge thing in St. Louis), but who are also just drawn to the teachings the way I present them either way. More are asking for Kundalini Yoga too, which is a very strong path as well. So I'm doing workshops of it here and there, and then those who are drawn to one are trying the other and strengthening their experience of yoga within themselves, rather than following just what someone else tells them is the right path.

Isn't that the strength of the yogic path, that it leads you to your inner voice? Yes, one of them anyway, no matter what sort of yoga you practice.

So, am I living my genius? Maybe, I'm starting too, I'm starting to feel the pull of the path and where it wants me to go to, and that it wants abundance for me whilst I'm on this path. I may not be completely there yet, but I'm getting closer, and closer, so watch out summer, I'm unleashing myself on you and once the park class starts a week from Saturday (its the biggest class in St. Louis at almmost 250 weekly and being part of a farmers market) I'll have a greater range of influence and expect full liftoff!

So come join me, are you up for the ride?!? lol

Namaste . . .

Body Issues = Healing

So, I'm having stuff going on with my body. Last time I practiced I went through a few things but they resolved themselves. They weren't things anyone could find, but they were there none the less. And for the life of me I never though I'd be having to deal with it again, I know I stopped the practice of Ashtanga daily for almost 4 years, but I kept practicing it every so often and I was practicing Anusara and Kundalini the whole time, non-stop.

This alone tells me there is something to living the Ashtanga yoga practice as a lifestyle, all the things that go along with it, like the castor oil baths, the ayurvedic remedies, the diet, and of course the practice 5-6 days a week (5 days on weeks of the moon). I kind of poopooed that while I had moved away from it, but since beginning it a year ago, or restarted the 6 day a week practice and the whole lifestyle of it again, I've encountered the sacrum trouble I had back in 2002 and the elbow stuff I had after that in about 2005 or 6, and this time I'm having a new thing in the outer hamstring/it band area of my left leg.

Now granted, last time it took years, about 8 years to work through these issues and this time it has all happened in just over one year, so its like I'm on the fast track to healing lol. So I shouldn't be complaining, but right now I'm dealing with the it band thing and the opposite elbow thing at the same time, so it seems dramatic.

The first time around, Guruji told me my anger was in my knees and elbows (or yelbows as his English allowed it to be) so had me doing the castor oil bath to deal with pulling the heat out, I'm already doing that this time, so its been easier and I'm definitely less angry but am still having a bit of it, obviously.

People check me out, professionals, and they find nothing wrong with my body on the physical side. So that means its energetic and that I can deal with, move the energy through and it shifts you. The Kundalini training definitely qualifies me to move the energy, and that I shall do more often on my days off, maybe on my days on, so that I can get myself healed and can then be the teacher and inspiration I intend to be.

So, now that I mention that I'll speak to it. I've studied with many, many teachers, Ashtanga and otherwise. None of them are perfect, but most of them are in control of their emotions and their states of being in ways most Westerners would never understand, unless they've studied the arts of the East. So I equate that to the St. Louis yoga community and I see how many teachers here are so respected, but they are so fucked up, meaning they haven't used the teachings to heal themselves. Now, there are a few, maybe, and I intend to be one of them. I want people to take my classes and say "I really want some of whatever he's got." Not because I want the recognition, but because I want the people in this city to be healed. There is a lot of pain here and if people start to use the teachings fully, not just haphazardly and when they feel like it, but especially when they don't feel like it. It will heal them and once healed they would get it and then maybe help others to heal themselves as well.

I don't know, maybe its idealistic but who gives a fuck, I'll be an idealist. People need to know that we create our own reality, take responsibility for that and start controlling their states of mind so that they don't keep creating the shit that makes them miserable like they have been forever now, its time. This is a new time, the energy is moving fast and it is possible to help ourselves, so come on, lets do it!!!

I love you and I love myself, so this is how its going to be now, I'm holding myself responsible for my happiness and peace and you for yours, I expect you to hold yourselves in the same respect.

What is Yoga to you?

So, I practice this morning, then I teach and its always amazing to me when I teach my Align and Flow classes, what comes out. It can very often be very Ashtanga like, but some days its just so not like that and today was one of those days.

I like to think I've tapped into the energy of the folks who show up and give them what they need, and most of the time it feels like that and they all leave happy. This morning of course was the same, but it was snowing and didn't know if anyone would show up at all, but 14 of them did and it was a great class.

So, what is yoga to them? I wonder sometimes, I used to take classes and sometimes at the end would feel very connected, full of energy and sometimes feel totally different. But nowadays I feel so fulfilled by my own practice at home that taking a class feels like something I will never want to do again, so even the thought of it makes me feel icky lol, silly I know, but true.

Since I began yoga I started with Ashtanga and there was only the one little class I took once a week and I wanted that and was usually broke, so didn't want to take any other classes at a studio or with the teacher I was taking with. I wanted to practice Ashtanga, so I ordered a book and few videos and practiced it at home. I think this is not the norm for most folks though, is it? Most of you take classes and then if ever faced with doing stuff at home don't know what to do, is that so?

Thats maybe why I was drawn to Ashtanga at first because it not only is a philosophy that one can work on their whole life, its also a set sequence of asanas that is laid out nicely for you. Opening up the hips and back, releasing the energy there so that you can then move deeper and deeper into twists and binds and release more energy, or rather move energy through those stuck places and free them up, then as you enter second series, move into more spinal extension with back bending and then flexion with deeper twists and legs behind the head, then arm balances and ever deepening it as you move into the more advanced series.

It also had a man at the head of it that I met 6 months after starting it who was just magical. I mean you watch videos of Guruji (K. Pattabhi Jois) on youtube teaching and you would never know that but I was drawn to him from the first time I saw his photo and read his name in the back of a Yoga Journal magazine, then after being in his presence I only just wanted to do everything he said, so I did. And here I am finding myself doing it again almost 6 years after his death. Only now I add in reading his grandson's (Sharath, who has taken over in Mysore, India) conference notes and taking away a lot more because he speaks such good English.

Funny it is how one starts, moves through a path, then shifts to another path, only to move back to the old one again but experiencing it completely fresh and anew and full of energy. I mean I used to hate primary series, once I'd been able to complete it back in 2002, and was happy to move on to the intermediate and the part of the third series that I was doing. Now I love primary series and see the magic of it in a way I never did before and am getting so much more from it, that I can practice intermediate and then lament that I didn't do primary lol.

But of course its not only about the asana practice, its about the philosophy and how it unfolds in your life, in your very being. But I must say Guruji was right, he always said this yoga is Patanjali's yoga, and now after 13 years, I believe he was right.

Patanjali laid out the 8 limbed path called Ashtanga Yoga about 2800 years ago, but doing all of that mental discipline would be impossible in today's society without having our bodies under control, and Pattabhi's Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga is something that gets our bodies so clear and so open that its almost not even an effort to discipline our minds, its just about easy. Maybe this isn't your experience? But it is mine, at least this time around with my practice it is, before I was still drinking a lot, spending time in smokey bars, hanging with people who weren't involved in that lifestyle, so it was hard. This time around I keep my own council a lot, enjoy my practice, eat a lot differently than before, teach full time so I'm not torn between a corporate lifestyle and a yogic one, and experience life from a fully different perspective due to all those things.

I think the Kundalini Yoga phase got my lifestyle under control to a great degree and cleared a lot of energy blockages I had and so now as I get the physical blockages taken care of the energy is all ready to just flow on through and fulfill my being!

I also think teacher trainings, not me taking them (although I'm okay with that) but me leading them helps a lot too. At Yogasource we started our yearly one this weekend and its always wonderful to share what you've learned over the course of your journey, but this group is quite awesome, they get what you say pretty quickly and are ready for the next thing, so I think they are going to challenge me, and I look forward to being challenged. In fact I love it!!!

So, off to enjoy my night at home, snowed in, with the cable on, yoga dvds to watch too if I want, and snuggle in with myself for some hours before I get up and start it all over again with practice tomorrow.

Have a lovely night...

Well hello Marichasana D, long time no see...

Since restarting the practice of Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga back in late 2011, but not starting the full 6 day a week practice until February, so just about a year I've been doing it again. I haven't been able to get Marichi D, and had trouble until about December getting C. Twisting is hard for me and my lower spine, but as I've practiced its opened back up and released slowly again.

So last week at the Confluence I got brought into D on Sunday and at Tim Miller's studio on Monday and since then practicing at home I've been able to get it on my own.

It is so deep and opens up so much flow in the energy channels of the subtle body, I swear I'm not sure if I can stand it it flows through so strongly.

But I can stand it, its been wonderful. So, again I try it in the morning...

Ashtanga Yoga Confluence

So, first of all I have to remark about being back in St. Louis, snowing and cold, after being in San Diego, 70's/80's and sunny, for 6 days. Nuff said, if I go there it'll take me to a negative place and I feel really awesome and don't want to go there.

So the Confluence. It was amazing, I wasn't sure how I would feel about it because of my sciatica acting up on the opposite side of what it used to act up on. But I got rid of it with Ashtanga the first time around and it was on the right side, so maybe this is it working its way out of my being on the left side, creating balance? Sounds good to me, I'm sticking with that story.

The first night was a lovely ceremony starting off the event and I got to talk to Nancy (Gilgoff, my first ashtanga teacher) and see a lot of folks from around the globe that I knew or know via previous contact or Facebook and that was awesome. I was to meet many more folks over the weekend that I had met before in those same ways, or just through practicing next to them.

I took the Mysore classes each morning and was adjusted and spoke with David Swenson, Nancy, Noah Williams(a certified teacher), got some profound adjustments by Eddie Stern, very profound prompting emotional release, also some great contact with his wife and with John Smith, who I had not previously heard of but is an authorized teacher in upstate California and who taught me some adjustments I will use for the rest of my career of teaching!

So the first day I wasn't sure how I would be able to take another asana class in the evening, and it was with Nancy teaching the old style of primary series she was taught and it was awesome and actually made me feel better and the subsequent Mysore classes were better and better, even so much that we went to Tim Miller's studio yesterday morning to keep it going. By we I mean my friend Lance, who went and it was his first ever yoga event and his first time doing primary series that many days in a row and taking Mysore classes, especially ones that big!

The real treat, and I had no idea they would be, but the real treat were the panel discussions. Discussions covering the 8 limbs, practicing as we age and many other things like this, they were amazing. Especially coming from such a diverse group and all who had been practicing at the least 27 years, and at the most 40 years, I can't even really articulate the depth or profundity of what I received from those talks and will be forever in appreciation of them.

Dena Kingsberg was one of the teachers, studied with Guruji for 27 years and is from Australia. Kind of a recluse mostly, but is coming out more and more lately. She turned out to be the most heart filled and loving person one may ever meet. Amazing woman and Ashtangi, her and her husband, both just inspirations beyond I could've hoped to meet.

Needless to say, I had a great experience and am glad to be home to integrate and use what I learned but am also convinced its time for me to move to a place where I'll have a regular teacher too, I need it right now to help me develop and grow further, not only in the practice but in applying the practice to life as well.

So we'll see. Encinitas is damn nice, not just this time of year, but just about anytime of year! lol

Sunday again

I've got this pinched nerve on the left side of the sacrum that runs down my leg, doesn't cause pain but it is causing numbness down my left leg that makes me limp a bit because certain muscles arent' firing when I need them to! But, in spite of that, I've felt great all week. Been in my head a bit too much, until today anyway, today I've felt amazing. I taught my favorite class and had a great response to it, and then had an Abraham meeting that we laughed and had more fun at than in a long time and then watched some Abraham. Always a great time with that group, I love them very much. Yesterday I taught a Kundalini Yoga workshop in Illinois and it went over well and was fun too, saw some old students and friends, had a great dinner. Over all I'm thinking this was a great weekend and can only get better as we move into the week because Wednesday I leave for San Diego with my friend and student Lance to go to the Ashtanga COnfluence out there, where my first Ashtanga teacher Nancy Gilgoff will be teaching, and I'm so excited to get to be in the company of that many people who live this life that I live here mostly alone in St Louis, to practice with some amazing master teachers and to see Nancy again, so I'm thinking that the whole week will be just as awesome as my weekend was. I've been very content lately, in Sanskrit its called santosha. I've found a lovely balance in my life where my practices are helping to focus my mind into a place of being okay, no matter what is going on around me and my body, as a result, is also feeling amazing and more open, but I'm also more aware of energy in and around me and of how to get it to move where I need it to be. Very nice! I've also been eating mostly vegan and raw, which is adding to the amount of prana flowing and being stored in my body. I love this stuff! I hope to write something terribly profound before I go to San Diego, I feel it building up in my mind, but not ready to come out yet. So check back again soon. Much love to you all!

Lately...

What have I been up to lately? Hmmmm, having car troubles. So my dad is fixing it and I'm driving one of his cars. I think he's got it fixed and that will be awesome, then I can keep it longer. Of course I don't want a car payment, but damn, I love that little car. Its bright red, and I don't love that and I've put way too many bumper stickers on it, and I'm kind of sick of that and I have the BE YOGA license plates on it, so I stand out for sure lol. But I love it, its a good car, and from driving his car, which is a Cavalier, still small, I've learned how good my gas mileage is, especially now that its almost $4 a gallon. So, last night I co taught a Thai massage workshop with Danielle and it was fun but damn when she was working on me it release all kinds of emotions that I wasn't aware were still in there, and just Tuesday I had a massage with energy work that did the same thing. So I feel like I've been full of emotions all frakking week! lol, and I guess technically I have. So today I taught a Kundalini Yoga workshop and it went really well. I enjoyed teaching it and I think everyone who attended liked it as well. In a week and a half I will be in San Diego at the Ashtanga Confluence and I'm super excited about it. I'm sleepy, not sure if I thought I had something profound to say, but I didn't apparently, so I'll say good night. Good night...

Been too long

Well, it hasn't been that long but this month has gone by slowly, or so it seemed anyway.

I've been very present and full of appreciation, after that entry into the new year with letting go so much that my body expunged itself of everything, literally and come to find out figuratively, I feel amazing.

I've been inspired, enjoyed teaching more than ever and my practices have been so deep and so connected that I can't even explain it. I think part of that has to do with the letting go and part of has to do with my embracing the abundance that has been awaiting me. I'm also going to San Diego one month from today for the Ashtanga Confluence and am super excited and my friend Lance is going as well and it will be his first ever such outing, for a yoga trip I mean. Then this weekend I paid for Kino MacGregor in Chicago this coming June, so solidified that!

Its exciting to be having so much to look forward to and be so engaged and inspired in the present at the same time. I've decided I'm going to see Abraham in Chicago again, probably the very weekend after Kino is there and then again in August! lol

So, lots coming up. I cancelled most all of the classes that were no longer working and only had 4 left, in a couple of weeks I have two new classes starting at D's Yoga Home, a former place I've worked and the owner of whom I am great friends with and also am most likely moving in with, and lined up a couple workshops and got asked to sub about a million classes, so no worries on the money front. I know the universe will take care of me and line up even more amazing things for this year.

This year that I'm embracing prosperity and abundance, in all their meanings, not just money-wise, but also in friendships, in happenings, in events, in love, in peace, in every wonderful way that they can express themselves. And in this embracing I've found joy, and for the first time I get all that stuff Abraham has been speaking about for so long, I've finally heard it.

I love and bless you and wish the same level of understanding to all of you!

Lokaa Somastaa Sukhino Bhavantu...

Its like spring out and only 1/11...

Its 68 degrees outside on this January day and I spent most of it outside, I did teach a class and take a class both indoors but most of the rest of it I was at the park, took a nap there and read most of the day in the loveliness of the day.

I'm waiting to do a private in about half an hour and decided to write. I've been full of inspiration lately but haven't coagulated most of it into cohesiveness yet, so not sure if any of it will come out in this entry tonight.

New years was crappy, I got sick in the middle of class, didn't show it, but basically slept and shit for the next 36 hours and had a friend bring me vegetable juices and fruit which was about all I could fathom eating. I kept it up too, eating only fruit in the mornings, until this past couple days. But I need to maintain it I think so that I can enjoy the energy levels it inspires. I tend to eat too many carbs, in the form of bread products, and then I feel sluggish and wonder why. Today I had a doughnut and took a class later in the day and had all this anger come out, not from the doughnut, but I'm sure it didn't help matters at all.

I'm also as of this week calling it quits on my Mysore classes. I gave it another go round and it still didn't work, nice showing at first, then it slowly drops off. People here in St. Louis just don't love Ashtanga the way I do, there are a few of us, but we're all teachers and we want to share what we love, but the people just don't want it. Especially the Mysore style, which is my favorite, but oh well. Lamenting won't make them want it.

I shall just practice it myself and teach what I can teach of it when I teach and go from there. I also really want to go to India this fall and have that experience, that will also hopefully inspire me to move somewhere after I get back, somewhere that maybe loves Ashtanga and I can share it there. But I have some privates that I'm teaching it to and can go from there. Its my thing, and practicing it makes me happy, so I'm sticking with it!

I've also been practicing kundalini a bit more again, since I was ill it just seemed like it would help me manage my energy better and it has. So I've been doing both, and I love them!

These practices are helping make me more aware all the time, and then just when I think I can't become anymore present, I find a new level. I love it, even when I'm bitching and saying how I hate it, I'd rather be the one who is practicing and working toward something than not...so I embrace it!!!