Deepening...

I haven't written much lately and the truth is it's because I've been having great conversations lately that have left me fulfilled and I haven't felt the need for release as I often do when writing a blog. Not that I want to vent here, it's not at all what I'm trying to do, but I usually have something to say and the only thing is that it's like giving birth, or releasing something into the world for better or worse.

Lately everything has been shifting. I've been feeling it, in my body, in my mind, in my practice, in my interactions with others and in observation of others and their behaviour towards one another and me. So I open Facebook as I was sitting at my favorite vegan place drinking a coconut water and eating a truffle and someone I met in Mysore last season had written a blog about how everything is shifting and she's feeling it in her practice, mostly in kapotasana using that posture in particular as the crux of the point she was wanting to express, but as I was reading it I also realized that I was having this happen and it was manifesting in my practice.

About a month ago I was in Chicago with four of my students to see David Robson, known in the Ashtanga world as the Learn to Float guy or also the guy with the largest Mysore program, outside of Mysore, on the planet. During the led primary class he kept saying suck your belly back but then would also cue to lengthen the chest or sternum forward also extending the chin to as to gaze at the toes. All of this I've heard before, from my original teacher Nancy Gilgoff, from Kino and a few others. But this time it stuck and made sense and has deepened my experience of forward bending since then. Then it dawned on my that I was in Mysore this last trip and during back bending Youngblood Roche, who was assisting Sharath, kept having me do this same motion which feels to me like its extending from my mid/lower thoracic region of my spine up through my sternum, thereby opening up my chest and my upper spine, then also allowing my shoulders to plug in just right to my back muscles and making standing up and dropping back much more "easy" if there is such a thing. But the aha moment was that it was the same action, just manifested in a different posture, but the connection really opened me up, opened up my mind to a lot of possibility and from that all is shifting.

Noticing these things within the microcosm of my body via my practice has also made me notice how these things are manifesting in the macrocosm of my life. I often think of the time on the mat as my precursor to how my day is going to go and I can make choices as to how to act or react to things, to breathe deeper into them to expand them and let them grow, or even to let them go and feel that surrender and release within my practice, also within my life. So, these deepenings are also showing up in my conversations, as I said earlier, the connections lately have been profound and very deep, whether laughing, crying, or talking philosophy and getting so excited the hairs on my body stand up, those times are times connecting with other people, and thereby deepening our connection to ourselves. I subscribe to the idea that everyone in our life is mirroring an aspect of ourselves back to us allowing us see where we are, and the studies I've done in the Law of Attraction have only proven this to be true.

Mine however as my friends article focused much on a particular posture, has not focused on any one posture in my practice. It's just been overall more deep, another deepening, yes. Having this opening in my spine and in my chest often makes way for big openings on the energetic level, and these areas are the third and fourth chakras, so areas that are often full of blockages for most people so that means the energy may finally be moving in this area for me, which is commonly in yogic terms, or in fluffy modern day yogic terms anyway, known as a "heart opening." I've been very easy to cry, very easy to feel happy and laugh hysterically, very easy to get excited and feel the energy stand my hairs up, but not necessarily so easy to get sad, but very easy to get anxious at times (as in the case of applying to study with Sharath in Mysore again and not finding out whilst all my friends were getting confirmation, then finding housing and then buying the plane ticket, now they are finished and I'm much more calm lol). But mostly its about the feeling and being with it, and then the ease of letting it go, still observing that it's there but not being of it, letting it rule my mind for the rest of the day.

It's also manifesting as an opening in my practice, I'm finding it easier to get up and begin it and maintain the focus throughout it, but also the twists are deeper, the breath is fuller, the backbends are deeper, the shoulders more open, the floating lighter and more controlled and yet free at the same time, the forward bends much more sustainable than they ever used to feel. Just all around, it seems "easier" which I've put in quotes because I don't want to jinx myself and wake up tomorrow to the hardest practice I've ever encountered!

All in all this deepening of life is a good thing, so I embrace it and while things will continue to change and may not be so "easy" as they seem to be right now, I know I'll be able to make it through any and all of it, probably due to my practice. My time on my mat is like a science experiment, a sort of litmus test, to see how I'm going to choose to make it through my day and so I hope to always choose what would seem to be the "right" way of approaching any situation, but I know I won't always choose that way. I like challenges a little bit too much hahaha! But within these challenges I'll still be steadfast and solid in knowing that it's just another part of my path unfolding...

Rebellion...

So I just read a friend of mine's blog he wrote about how spiritual seeker are the ultimate rebels. I'd never thought of it like that but then I started thinking, I ate dinner, I showered, I meditated and then I sat down to write this.

I've never felt like I fit in anywhere, when I was young the only thing I knew was school, church and playing in the neighborhood. That may be simplifying it a bit, but that's okay for the purposes here.

I always thought there was something more, I was never satisfied with what was. Now as someone who practices yoga and hears be present more often than not that sounds like a sacrilege but it's not really, I've written much about my studies with my teacher and with Abraham who say to make peace with what is but to ever be moving forward, so won't go into that more here. I was searching, seeking and innately knew that there was more than what I was being taught, in school, in church, in the neighborhood. I always wanted to travel different places and often did in my mind. I even now know that that was why I read comics so much, because there were grander realities than what I was experiencing and through these stories I grew up with I could experience such things.

I'd read the Avengers of which Thor was a member, so when I found out he had his own comic I started reading it. It was interesting to me that he was a god and a god of what? Of Thunder? What does that mean?!? I'd only ever heard of this God we had been taught about in the church, from the bible and so started my slow realization that mine was not the only religion on the planet and most of them were thousands of years older than mine. So through his comic and his exploits in Asgard and the Nine Realms I found a comic called Valkyrie, whom was also of this Norse universe and kept that magical idea that there was more going within my young heart and mind. Then in 1980 was it, or 81 maybe, the original Clash of the Titans came out and what?!? There are even more religions that believe in multiple "gods" but these are different gods, not the Norse ones I'd been reading about, they are Greek ones? So I began an in depth study of Greek mythology and found it rich and crazy and wonderful and fulfilling.

So then I happened to see Terms of Endearment starring Shirley Maclaine, who also won the Oscar for her performance and endeared me to her because it was the first movie that pulled emotion from me. I cried and I'd never done that before. That was in 1983 I believe, but forward to 1986 and she was in a 4 night mini series on tv called Out On A Limb, based on one of her books. I was still endeared to her so watched it. And what was there, was even more belief in things other than what I'd been taught. Channeling, aliens, spirituality as its own path, many things. My brain was bursting from this, so I went and bought the book and read it. I was 16 but in 4th grade had been tested and was already reading collegiate level so had no problem with books heavy with this type of info in them.

So yes, I was rebelling against that. Not to prove it wrong but to enforce within myself that there were other options and I was going to keep going until I found the things that made more sense to me to follow than the things that I was following.

When I got out of school I moved to St. Louis, another form of rebellion since not many from that area ever leave it and for gods sake I'm still only 45 minutes from there, it's not like I went across the country. But damn it, I wanted to, but I was still chicken to do so. So this move was the next best thing. I met all kinds of folks that didn't fit the mold I'd grown up thinking was the only option to fit into, even became a wiccan for a while which kind of spun off of the Norse teachings that I'd read about way back when, so in some ways I was coming full circle, but then as I move forward in life find that there are even more circles to be drawn, not just one!

When I found Ashtanga Yoga 12 years after moving out I knew I'd found the ultimate tool to keep searching, expanding and growing and yes, even rebelling. Not many people here even practice it and at that time there were even less, so loving it in and of itself its a rebellion! It's taught me many things and though I've detoured away from it I came back to it again and embraced it even more so and it's now taken me to the other side of the planet to study it traditionally, and from that tradition I find more and more freedom to question and search for the truth that lives within me at that moment.

Now to tackle the big one, moving away from here. I'm not sure if that will happen, I am happy here, I have great students, great friends, my family is close. I've been teaching here for 13 years so am somewhat established with that, not really, but again, that's another tale. The point being I love it here, but I crave the ocean and I crave the mountains, and I think it's in my cards to live other places in this life. Not sure how long, or where, or when, but at some point this could become a reality for me and I embrace that.

Now the rebel in me opens up his arms and embraces the changes that come, there may be still short times of closing up and not letting in the new things, but they start to destroy you if you don't open up and allow them in, and I'm not ready to be destroyed just yet.

I'm still enjoying being the one who doesn't follow all the rules and who inspires others to not follow them as well. Not to chuck the rules, but to question them and to embrace the idea that there may be a different way to do a thing, not just the one way you knew about. Stir things up within yourself and see what that brings up, new ideas may come to you or a different way to embrace an old one.

In conference with Sharath last season in Mysore he was asked what were his favorite texts to read, meaning Hindu or Yogic scriptures, and he said "the text of you! I am interested to know what you have locked up inside of you, and you should be be too. So do your practice and dig into yourself, see what new ideas and new insight comes from within and stop looking without. All who wrote those texts wrote them from an insight they received from within themselves, from their atman (the god that lives inside you), so go and write your own story!"

I paraphrased that with my own language, but I still love the idea. I am my own book of knowledge, or as one of Shirley Maclaine's teachers had her yelling on the beach in Out On A Limb, much to her dismay at first, "I AM GOD!"

What a powerful belief to have, we are our own little corner of god and no one can take that away from us. Talk about being a rebel, believe in that and see what changes in your life!