Taste the Rainbow

Have you ever been presented with an idea that just keeps appearing, until all at once you've been mulling it over for days? The latest such idea for me first appeared in a Yoga Journal article called "The Essense of Life". Its author was talking about how the palette of human emotions can be likened to the palette of flavors we use in cooking -- all of them serve a unique purpose, and all of them can ruin a dish if they are used too much. The revolutionary part of the idea for me was the suggestion that not only is no emotion inherently bad and another always necessarily good, but that we have it as much within our control which emotions flavor our days as which seasonings flavor our soups!

Then, just on the heals of reading about that idea, I came to the section of "Eat, Pray, Love" (I'm reading it with friends, and recommend it heartily...) in which Elizabeth Gilbert describes the blue pearl of consciousness. The blue pearl is the still concentration of mental activity in the center of the mind that yogis have been describing for years, and that modern brain imaging has just been able to observe as an actual glow of blue in the center of an otherwise calm brain. It happens when meditation is finally able to still the chattering activity of the mind and just allow for still, non-judgmental, recipient observation, non-reactive, peaceful. She describes that perspective as the one that is always aware, but exists behind our personality... the awareness that can watch us dream and report back to us what we dreamed about. It is also the awareness that can elect which emotions to deploy at which moments, rather than letting whichever leaps from the water first dictate both the moment and our prevailing mental state. It is also our most essential, lasting, universally connected self.

So, fascinated with the prospect of being so calmly in control of emotions that have the potential to toss me around like a raft on an ocean, I have started letting emotions be the focus of my meditation: Emotions as ingredients... flavors... tools to be used when what a circumstance really needs is a touch of anger tempered by compassion, or full-body laughter and gratitude, or silent receptiveness. I still love meditation that only quiets the mind, and concentrates attentiveness to the silent center where we become spacious. But without the guidance of a formal guru, I'm not ashamed to admit that I approach that space with a little timidity. And meditations that teach me to be calm and non-reactive in order to train and remain in control of my reactions has been so very fruitful! So, for the moment, here I am.

And so, I'll end this post by sharing the formula that has been shaping my meditations, and my hope that it is as much a blessing to you as it has been to me:

1. Begin with a few Sun Salutations, just to warm and lubricate everything, flush and oxygenate your soft parts, and properly align the hard ones, in order that you may have a comfortable body to sit in.

2. Find a seated position you expect to be able to keep for at least 10 minutes, supporting knees or back or whatever you imagine will be the first parts to complain about sitting.

3. Establish your breath, inhaling deeply into your diaphragm, and exhaling for at least as long as your inhale took to complete itself, if not a few counts longer. Lengthening the exhale lowers blood pressure, and signals to your parasympathetic nervous system to release subconscious tension. Shoulders, neck, face all relax, and breath deepens.

4. Once you have arrived in this quiet part of your brain, start watching your thoughts. Non-reactively at first, until you find one that is repetitive, or sets the theme for the dialogue that runs repeatedly in your head. Without judging it as right or wrong, just ask yourself: Is this thought positive or nagative -- edifying or destructive? If it is positive, sit in gratitude, and apply that smiling, grateful awareness to every part of your body (like the Indonesian man tells Elizabeth Gilbert, "Smile in your liver").
If it is negative, just observe the way your body reacts to it: where are you holding? what aches? does your breathing change when you stay with that thought? Then, carefully and attentively, replace that negative mantra (because even our most firmly held beliefs about what makes us suffer are often either lies we just keep repeating to ourselves, or a careful ignoring of a truth that would serve our psyches much better... but for better or worse, the phrases that get the most mental air time are our mantras) with a healthy mantra that will encourage and rebuild what the old, negative mantra has eaten away at.

5. Then, sitting with your deep breath and your new mantra, watch your body. Let the chemistry of your smiling mind wash over every part of you, and picture it healing, cleansing, soothing, relaxing every little corner of your body and mind. Let this part of the meditation last a least a few minutes longer than you spent in searching. Soak in it.

It is a place to start in the quest to live peacefully in a human body and mind, as we learn to establish the mental rooms in which we can exist calmly in tumultuous circumstances. Enjoy! ...And Happy, Happy Thanksgiving!!

p.s. Links to the Yoga Journal articles that I've been mulling over:
http://www.yogajournal.com/wisdom/2516?utm_source=DailyInsight&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=DailyInsight

http://www.yogajournal.com/wisdom/2544

Cloud Sculpting

Sweet, sweet summertime, and lying on the driveway watching the clouds go by has inspired me...

In Christian scripture, there is a principle that finds a beautiful parallel in yogic meditation. The address for the Biblical gem is Paul's second letter to the church in Corinth, II Corinthians 10:5, when he teaches that they can take every thought captive in order to make it obedient to Christ. I know obedience isn't a popular idea for many at the moment, but if we exchange the phrase "obedient to Christ" for something like "benevolent", "compassionate", even "positive" or "healthy", it starts to blend right in to a yogic worldview. As a matter of fact, even the kind of jihad that is the Muslim battle for self-perfection echos the same idea. But, I'm getting ahead of myself. Back to the mat:

When we practice, yoga teaches that we are meant to let ourselves surrender to each position, breathing into what we are trying to strengthen, while we relax everything else; never tensing against a stretch, never engaging more than is necessary to exist in a place with ease and smooth breath. As well as being everything else it is, physical practice is a practice of non-reaction. So, extending the same practice of non-reaction to one's mental state, yoga teaches practicioners to let her thoughts (called chitta vritti, or mind-chatter) pass in front of her consciousness like clouds in the distance. She practices being a calm, peaceful, smiling observer of her thoughts as things seperate from herself, in order that she can choose which clouds to focus on, and make shapes with.

It's liberating, really... the realization that I don't have to feed and carry around every thought that pops into my head, especially since a good number of those thoughts are just the left-over, drifting clouds of harder, sadder storms that have already passed by.

(I know I'm getting ready to mix my metaphors, but it's such a nice transition from my last post, I can't resist!) It's like decorating a house: selecting which thoughts to cultivate and make mantras... which impressions we will let turn into definitions of the world around us, and of ourselves, is like choosing what will make our mental houses beautiful, nurturing, healthy and happy. And when we have practiced living in our brains this way long enough, what castles and gardens we will have to roam around in, and retreat to, and entertain in!

Home-Making: Notes from Diane Lane

Those of you who have practiced with me for a long time have heard bits and pieces about the idea that, since our bodies are the vessels that move us through our daily tasks and play, the time we spend nurturing them can be acts of gratitude for the moments that include those motions. But I wanted to draw that idea out a little, both for my own ability to work with the wording, and for whatever metaphorical beauty there might be in it for your own meditations in practice.

There have been two moments for me lately that have reinforced the value of an orderly, well-loved home: one of them was in my house-home, and the other regarded my bodily home. The first moment came when, after my husband surprised me with the offer to renovate our walk-in closet for my birthday, the project was finally done and we started moving in to the new space. In a single day, the wardrobe that had started to resemble too closely my rumpled childhood Barbie-clothes collection, with scarves and wacky wrap-around items sharing hangers, and stockings and odds and ends of belts that don't go neatly anywhere shoved into anything roughly box-shaped and stackable... transformed into a neatly categorized, aired-out, smoothly kept collection.

Now, even when I am not in my newly roomy and accomodating closet, the thought of its space and neatly hung and folded articles relaxes something down deep in me. Some part that I didn't even know had been uneasy, but that was biting her lip, and WAITING for me to get a grip on that overwhelming, but wonderful collection of personal expressions, is now finally relaxed, even frisky with her paints spread out and ready in front of her.

The second moment came first, but is clarified by the closet moment: I was on the mat wiggling and reaching into the corners of the elements of Sun Salutation and whatever grew out of it, finding all of my deepest knots and imbalances, moving in gentle circles through the ranges of motion that each position opened for exploration. In each place I massaged, or breathed and reached into, I thought about the tasks and moments that use each of those areas, and about how much reaching into them and cleaning out their tension, nourishing them with breath, felt like cleaning and settling into a house. Like the scene in "Under the Tuscan Sun", when Diane Lane talks about gently, sweetly introducing herself to each room of her new home.

I'll talk more about it in my next post, but it's a metaphor worth playing with: our bodies are the homes from which we will interact with the world our whole lives, so to keep them well tended, tenderly visited, nourished and massaged is as necessary to happy occupancy in them as is organizing and maintaining the homes we garden and refurbish... and the time spent is as rewarding to our psyches as it is to our bodies. We feel ready, free of unacknowledged messes or under-tended places, whole and open and eager for whatever occasion might present itself.

A Little Punk Wisdom

So, Punk legend turned anti-war activist Patti Smith was on Democracy Now yesterday, and was talking about how she made the transition from oral perfomer of poems to rock musician, and her perspective on her career looking back, and I loved what she had to say. She said her most important rudder as she decides what to give her energy and attention to is whether or not she can do it joyfully. For example, she was opposed to the idea of a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when it was being conceived, but then when they wanted to induct her, she decided her parents would love it, and so she would accept. And, if she was going to receive the honor, she was going to do it with genuine gratitude, not cynically, or why do it? She writes her songs while she does things like peeling potatoes with her kids running around her feet, and she writes about the political realities that most touch her as a human, like war, and encourages the people to take the power back from the war-makers.

Never having identified with Punk music before, I was pleasantly surprised by how kindred I felt with this woman whose background was so starkly different from my own. But she was talking from such a well-considered perspective, having shaped it over a long and colorful life, that her wisdom was just this simple, straightforward refresher course in what any human being's motivation ought to be. And how beautiful to be reminded that it is, in fact, simple! If we are each created with the gifts we are here to express, then when we are doing what brings us joy, we are doing what it is our purpose to do. Like a shovel moving earth, or a piano playing music.

But her other point is also worth recounting: she said she never prioritized commercial success, because then she would be forced to compromise what was most essentially her message and style to please the people paying her. So instead, she has been content to live a simpler life than superstar status would have provided her, and retained the freedom to rail against war at the top of her voice, to inspire her children to live what they believe and, like Mother Teresa, to act according to the need.

It is wisdom that translates really smoothly onto the mat, and into a yogically-lived life:

Do only what you can do joyfully.
Give your energy to those things that allow you to be most fully yourself.
And at all costs, retain the freedom to go to where there is a need that matches your gifts.

Namaste!

Private Lessons and Personal Quiet

Hello, Dear Students!

I am a little heartbroken this morning to have to tell you that my time with Element has come to an end. But, on the bright side, spring is here, and so what better time could there be to shift my focus from the studio setting to the private setting? :) Sessions outside, in back yards, on decks, by water, have long been my favorite ways to practice, and to teach.

I was listening to community radio Thurdsay morning (89.5 if you aren't already a fan), and the Fresh Air interview was with a man whose work centered around how far our culture has taken us from familiarity with quiet. He talked about the fact that, in nature, very few sounds are really loud, and that our ears are best suited to listening closely to nuances of sound, while we move quietly through the outdoor world. Along with our ears constantly being overloaded with sound, then, there is the secondary effect that our brains so rarely have the space in quiet to wander freely through ideas and impressions.

I have had a similar thought when I've read the writing of people like Henry David Thoreau, who wrote from and about the wilderness, or even Jane Austen, who wrote about society, but did so in a time before all the auditory media that so fills our worlds today. The thing that distinguishes those writers from eras before media is very often the length of their trains of thought. Sentences and paragraphs are so long and complex that modern readers frequently don't have the patience or the attention span to stick with them. It takes some getting used to, slowing our minds down and staying focused on long trains of thought. Just imagine how differently a mind is able to work when, once conversation (which is a precious and endangered art in itself) stopped, and left long stretches of silence in which one could remain conscious and only minimally distracted! When the rhythmic tasks that make up a day are routine, and so the mind has space to roam, thoughts would naturally have the freedom to become more clear, and more complex.

Silence in our waking lives today is rare and precious. But it is still, both according to ancient disciplines like yoga, and to the observation of modern science, deeply beneficial for the relief of tension, alkalyzing of a body, processing of experiences, and healthy aging of a brain. We can only benefit from setting time aside for it and protecting it zealously.

And so, in this season when the outdoors are so very inviting, I will make two invitations: the first is simply an encouragement to practice sitting in silence alone. Let your thoughts drift by like clouds, and only let the thoughts that feed you and lift you up be the ones you grab hold of... make shapes with... roll around on your tongue for a while. Just enjoy whatever happens as a gift from the silence. The second invitation I'll extend to you all is for a private class, on your own, in your favorite outdoor spot. A practice that focuses on stillness and breath, on breathing into poses that deeply nourish and cleanse, and can be soaked in in silence are a beautiful entry to spring. You can contact me at mymelissamarie@gmail.com to set one up. But even if not as a formal class, I assure you, there is no sweeter way to practice than in fresh, spring-scented air!

Namaste!

The Sun & The Moon

In classical Hindu mythology the sun, with its heat and power represents masculinity, and the feminine is represented by the cool, calm and gentle moon. That beautiful contrast is acknowledged across time and culture, over and over again, and while different cultures have different symbols for the genders, in an encouraging number of cases, the feminine is celebrated as both a powerful and honor-worthy thing.

Hindus worship Shakti as the great mother goddess, and dignity, grace and intelligence are her defining characteristics. I particularly like about her that she is called the great mother goddess specifically, and not the great woman goddess or the great princess goddess or any other typical western expression of femininity. She is a nurturer, a teacher, a shaper of worlds and a creator of beauty.

This has been on my mind as a theme lately for two reasons: one is another book I picked up again after several years, and the other is my own watching myself be myself in the lives of the people around me. There are some encounters after which I feel drained, fragile, defeated, and other encounters that leave me feeling whole, calm, happy, even beautiful, and the contrast between them has become easier and easier to see. In the same way yoga teaches us body awareness, so that we engage our bellies when we fold over instead of caving our chests and rounding our shoulders; we stop eating when we are satisfied, we relax what's tense when we are still, we know what we have to relax and what to engage to move smoothly through our ranges of motion... yoga also teaches awareness of our states of mind, so that we can stop doing what changes our mental state for the worse, and do more of what releases our stress and lifts us up.

So, what I've noticed and, having noticed once now notice more and more, is that the interactions in which I've been at all harsh or demanding are the interactions I leave feeling more fragile for having experienced. Even when logic would say I should have felt tough, I still walk away feeling fractured. On the other hand, when I've been nurturing, encouraging, reassuring, and have felt (I'll just go on ahead and say it) pretty and put together, I walk away feeling calm and whole. Even when I have been pouring out of my cup and logic would say I should be feeling drained, I feel even more full.

I see the same phenomenon in my husband: when he is able to be in the mountains, kayak through intense white water, teach his son the skills and adventures of masculinity, he comes alive to a degree I rarely see when we are living our domesticated and calm lives at home. And, as a woman, I feel and enjoy my femininity all the more for his enjoying and displaying the best and strongest of his masculinity.

The book I talked about having picked up again after having read it several years ago is called "Captivating" by John & Stacie Eldridge. The book to which it is a compliment is called "Wild at Heart" by John Eldgridge only, and is about the way a man's instinct for the wildness of adventure, competition and heroism are the languages in which he was created to worship, and doing them is when he is being his most complete self. "Captivating" follows the same logic in exploring the idea that when a woman is doing the ancient, celebrated parts of being female, like creating life, health and beauty, she is speaking the language her creator gave her as her act of worship. They write from a Biblical take on the world, but explore in a really timeless and universal way the same idea of balance of opposites, and seeing the best of one by contrast with the other that humanity has been celebrating since her earliest myths.

Yoga's literal translation is "balance", and at this Vernal Equinox, when the sun and the moon are balancing each other with perfect symmetry, and our bodies balance the opposites of inhale and exhale, tension and release, right and left, up and down, front and back, I plan to continue forging the path deeper into the feminine, peaceful expressions that prove themselves over and over to be the ones my body and mind wear best. Enjoy the opening days of Spring!!

Learning to Play

Something that comes to mind frequently, both as I practice and as I teach, is how valuable it is to be able to come to practice in the same frame of mind in which I used to go to the playground: tons of possibilities are there waiting for me, and while some of them will be harder than others, and some might even leave me wimpering and quivery-chinned in a pile on the ground, all of them exist for my pleasure and to make me strong.

When we are children, absolutely everything is a game, and everything is worth exploring, fiddling around with, giggling about. We are still learning to use our bodies, so trying on new tricks is an adventure and something worth sticking with. As adults, I think because we think we ought to have learned all of our tricks by now, we allow ourselves to scold our bodies and brains on the mat in a way that squashes all of the joy right out of practice and would, no doubt, utterly bewilder the children we once were.

The most concentrated educated I ever got in physical discipline as play came when I was in college, and I had the unexpected pleasure of teaching dance to 5 and 6 year old kids in their daycare centers. Since they were in the settings that had only ever been used for play before, the beginning was a struggle to say the least. I drove away bawling more than once in the first 3 or 4 weeks, so frustrated that my hard-earned dance education was insufficient to fascinate, and completely stumped as to how I was going to face these little creatures week after week. I was a college kid, but so far from being a kid in my idea of myself, that it had been years since I had really played... gotten down on the floor and let reality and my image of myself as an educated adult float away. Inexplicable mercy took me to class one day feeling just a little flippant and ornery, and therefore holding my agenda a little more loosely. For the first time in at least a decade, I sat on the floor and dove head-first into the world of the imaginary. I named toes, listened with fascination to stories and let myself just become one of the tiny people. Then, when I asked them to dance, it was as play... an extension of the play we were already doing.

Without wanting to endulge too much in the superlative, I have to tell you, it busted something loose in me, unburied something that shook the dirt off with relish, and I have remained irresistably attracted to the world of childhood play ever since. It's become a problem at garden parties! When there are children in attendence, I will very likely be wandering through fairyland and chasing butterflies. Reality is far too serious a place never to leave, and the lesson is applicable on the mat as much as anywhere in life.

It's another reason I like teaching in a slightly darkened room, so that each mat can become its own tiny universe, and each practicioner get lost in his or her own exploration. Walking through woods, snorkeling over a well-populated reef, lying in the grass and letting your eyes imagine the distance to the stars, are all perfect parallels to the mental exploration of the miraculous phenomenon of nature that happens on the mat. I hope to teach more and more from a place that invites that kind of freedom of exploration: to let both the bravery and the light-heartedness that made us strong and free as children continue to shape us as adults.

I'll leave you with a book recommendation: It is by Diane Ackerman, and it is called "Deep Play". It is about bringing the wonderment and awe of childhood forward into every stage of life. It is one I read in spread out pieces years ago, and have just picked up again to my overwhelming delight. You won't be disappointed.

"Swirling round with this familiar parable
Spinning, weaving round each new experience
Recognize this as a holy gift and
Celebrate this chance to be
Alive and breathing"
-Tool

One Moment at a Time

Albert Einstein is famously quoted as having said that "the only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once"... Confucius gifted humanity with the reminder that "a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step"... Even President Obama calls us to action by reminding us of "the fierce urgency of now". We all know the feeling of the future pressing on our consciousness, pulling our attention from the moment we are in into the whirlwind of possibilities that float unformed ahead of us.

Worry is practically a virtue in Western society, and we live at such a pace that it seems impractical not to fret a little, since the future is coming hard on the heels of a present that presents very little time to prepare. The constant evolutions of relationships, the sameness of our daily routines, the frustrating world of politics, the moods that fall over us in the gray of midwestern winters, all steal our attention from the sacred and fleeting gift of this entirely unique moment.

One of yoga's most invaluable contributions to the way my brain works has been to bring me regularly back to my breath, and into this moment. Since our bodies are different every time we come to the mat, we get an unmatched kind of practice at meeting each breath, each motion as a completely unique experience... a discovery, an exploration, and a lesson in how to attend to all of our moments with that kind of calm attention.

I had a conversation with a friend whose life has been a whirlwind of change for the whole past year, and who still sees in the world in front of her a dizzying number of equally possible futures. Having come to the end of the usefulness of just shaking our heads at the overwhelm of our early 30s, we concluded that all we can do is to live attentively and with integrity one moment, one conversation, one breath at a time. Not only is living well in this present moment all we are able to do, it is our most sincere act of gratitude for the moments we are given. What other way is there to create a future we will enjoy than by living in a way today that keeps a garden of healthy relationships, happy memories, and work we can be proud of? By learning to learn what each moment has to teach us, exploring where each moment as the potential to take us as if we are on, not waiting for, our life's great adventure.

Yoga teaches that our only responsibility is for the spirit in which we act: our intention is all we have the ability to choose. Then, we lay control of the outcome of our actions at the feet of God. Ishvarapranidana. So I invite you to think about your intention, the attentiveness you bring to this present moment, the next time you are on the mat. If you don't already, start to think about the pace at which you are breathing, and the sensation of each individual motion as you practice. Then see how far beyond the mat you can keep your attentivenes in the here and now. Live in your five senses, enter into the stories of the people who surround you and let them be invitations to learn and to teach. Let each moment be just as valid and wide open an invitation to peace and clarity as the moments of full breath and fluid motion you practice on the mat.

I'd love to hear your stories as I train my attention to one moment at a time, as well... and I'll leave you with the words of Toni Morrison: "if you surrender to the wind, you can ride it!"

Namaste!

Samskara

I've always loved yoga's approach to the conditioning of one's state of mind, but my fascination was recently refreshed when my husband and I went to see three nights of music in Miami over the holidays. We spent our days quiet and blissful, walking on the beach, watching the people and the waves, and we filled our nights with the kind of music that swept us up, body and mind, and just let us hang-glide in the bliss of music that made us dance and laugh, throw up our hands and scream with the pleasure of deeply felt, celebratory music. And, as we hung there, that state of mind started to become more familiar, broken-in, and so much easier to find in the days that followed, like a favorite spot in the woods whose path just needs to be re-beaten every now and again.

It was my most tangible experience in a while of the yogic practice of familiarizing oneself with bliss. If yoga means balance, then vacation, time in nature, time with music and beauty that feeds our souls, all serve to balance our daily business-doing state of mind with its complete opposite: reminding us how to play, and beating open the path to the parts of our brains where we are still children, innocent, open, curious and ready to play.

In yogic philosophy, samskara is the term used to refer to states of mind that become habitual. It is a fact with which every practicioner of yoga (and every conscious liv-er of life) will eventually contend. Samskara can be thought of as the ruts in a road when wagon wheels keep finding the same path to drive on, until they are deep and nearly impossible for future wheels not to settle into. Samskara, from the words "sam", meaning same and "skara", meaning action, refers to the habits of thought that just become the familiar way our brain works, until that sameness starts to feel to us like wisdom... instinct... when all it is, for better or worse, is simple, blind habit.

Throughout our lives, our brains are remaking themselves, just like our bodies are, in order to make themselves optimal for the tasks that are required of them. So, when what we experience day after day is stressful, drama-driven and chaotic, then that is the state to which our minds most readily default, even to the point that they are so much more comfortable with drama that they will find it even where it does not exist. Conversely, when we make a practice of finding and lingering in bliss.... or at least in peace as a mid-point to bliss... that state is easier to find the next time we are in need of it.

In yogic meditation, mental ruts are what mantras are created to address, every time we exhale. Poetry, scripture, song lyrics, quotes from favorite books or people... anything that ushers your mind into a state of calm, hopefulness, benevolence, gratitude. It's also soothing just to meditate on breath itself: inhaling strength, exhaling tension; inhaling joy, exhaling frustration; inhaling light, exhaling dark. When we are finally able to rest in a mantra, our bodies respond the same way they do to things like laughter and celebration: we become more alkaline, and so less prone to inflammation, our parasympathetic nervous system engages to lower our blood pressure, and we release even our deep, habitual tension.

In asana yoga, have you ever changed your whole state of mind just by adopting an open-hearted, exuberant posture, and breathing deeply into the extension, just taking up space? Since we throw our faces to heaven and our hearts open in moments of exuberance, our bodies can effect the same change inversely, reminding our minds of the path back to the state of mind that has inspired that posture before.

I'll write more in the future about learning mental quiet, but I can't leave this subject without also inviting comment on the off-the-mat mental peace that grows out of the same mindfulness we practice on the mat when we are finally able to rest in a difficult posture. When we can be both calm and challenged at the same time, when we can keep our breath relaxed and joyful while our bodies are working, we are learning to let our calm exist next to our discomfort: to observe the work without reacting to it and losing our peace. Then is when whole-body transformation takes place. The muscles we are trying to strengthen can finally take responsibility for the work that is theirs, and the muscles that have been straining under habitual tension can melt into the breath.

Our bodies have the potential to be powerful teachers for our minds, and our minds for our bodies. Just like practicing a difficult pose strengthens our bodies' ability to be there, practicing a positive state of mind strengthens our minds' ability to be there. I'd love to hear how you as practicioners learn to be familiar with the state of mind that allows both effort and surrender, strength and ease, focus and adventurous play. May that be the mental posture from which we move into the moments in life when we know we need to establish a new pattern: cultivate a new strength, let go of a habitual tension, compose a new mantra, and just breathe the bliss!

Namaste!

Baby's First Blog

Never having had a blog before, but having kept many diaries -- under various more sophisticated-sounding psuedonyms, and to varying degrees of usefulness for venting, dreaming, envisioning and romanticizing -- I would like to approach keeping a blog in very much the same way, with the exception that this blog is meant to allow venting, dreaming, envisioning and yes, perhaps the tiniest amount of romanticizing on the topic of yoga very specifically.

The beautiful thing about yoga, however, is that it is a practice by which our body and our breath -- the things with us more constantly than any frame of mind or resolution to a certain philosophy -- become teachers that permeate every moment. So, every moment is an opportunity to learn, and every activity is a teacher, so every detail of life is fair game for a blog about yoga!

I'll use this first post to explain the reason for the blog's name: Practical Grace. Grace has been a favorite idea of mine ever since I learned as a little girl that in addition to referring to the kind of strong, fluid ease of movement we strove to create in dance classes, it is also the undeserved, unearned kindness we receive from our Creator. There are graces all around us: the beauty of nature, the kindness of the people who love us (and who don't), and the circumstances that nurture us even when we know we are undeserving of such nurture. It was a part of that childhood lesson as well, that as creatures showered with graces, we are meant to extend that same grace to the people we encounter -- never seeking vengeance, being kind to the unlovable, and forgiving even when it is hard.

As practicioners of yoga, we are taught to meet our bodies with grace, as well, and here is where grace becomes practical, and practice-able. We are taught to meet our bodies in just the state they are in this day, and to breathe with gratitude right there. Then and only then is the progress we make genuine and sustainable. Vinyasa krama is the sanskrit term for taking the right step at the right time, when our bodies are ready to take the next step, moving deeper into the potential of our bodies as they open and grow strong. As a dancer in background, I am quite familiar with the approach to a body that simply insists, pushes, demands to the point of damaging a body rather than honoring it as a vessel that has the potential to carry us into old age with all the strength, ease and fluidity of our youth.

The definition of forgiveness I have always liked best is relinquishing the right to hurt the person who has injured us. We don't have to say that what they did was not wrong, we simply leave their fate in the hands of God, or Karma, instead of punishing them with our own actions. So, as we approach our bodies with grace, we must leave out of our approach any grudges we may have against them... our frustrations with shape, range of motion, injury, must all dissolve with our slow, relaxed exhales. We must practice, as intently as we practice our breath and our posture, meeting our bodies with undeserved, unearned kindness, forgiveness, patience and even, when we are quite grown up, gratitude.

May that be the place from which I always teach, and may it be the lesson my students most internalize into their own yogic journeys. Namaste.