Stop whatever you are doing.  Close your eyes.  Breathe.

Tune in to your Self, to your truth - your own truth, unbounded by whatever anyone else may think it should be.

What do you find there, inside, as you view life through your own inner compass?  What is true for you now?

When rooted here in your own center, here where the truth you find is most relevant to you, there is no need for boxes - those intellectually crafted boundaries around possibility and potential - to define the limits of your thinking, of your imagining, of your planning.  Here, where your heart knows your truth, you need only tune in to know your own possibility, your own potential.

Let your heart do the thinking, your body do the communicating.  Listen in to notice what you hear, to hear your heart inform you of what is right for you, right now, in this place, in this moment.  Notice these messages revealed through body sensation:  an unsure tightness here, a swelling love there, a twinge of angry pain somewhere else.  Each a message to pay attention to, to reveal direction from your inner compass.

Tune in… to yourSelf.

Maybe there's no box

to think outside.

Maybe there's no lock,

no door, or key.

Perhaps there's just

the scared, small me

holding tight to turf

that isn't mine,

trying to be somebody.

I struggle for release.

I seek and strive,

all the while failing to see

the obvious.

The only walls in front

of me are those

I've built myself,

the fortress of my personality

so well defended it seems

impenetrable.

What I create,

I can take down - or maybe

I am free right now.

~ Danna Faulds, "Outside the Box," Limitless, p.44

This week we are cultivating joy and balance in giving and receiving in honor of the holiday season.  As always, begin by finding a comfortable seat.  Then close your eyes and settle into your body, into your present moment...

After a few breaths, turn your attention to noticing what aspects of your daily life may have walked into practice with you today.  What is it like to breathe?...  What sensation is your body noticing?...  What is your mind dwelling on?...  What kind of emotion is life inspiring in you right now, in this moment?...

Return to your breath – notice its ceaseless ebbs and flows, inhales and exhales... gentle breeze in, gentle breeze out...  Let your body respond to your breath - expanding as you inhale, letting go as you exhale...  Let your mind rest on your breath, the ceaseless breath rhythm enticing your mind to follow along...  Let your emotions ride the swells of your breath, any ripples finding calm in the gentleness of its flow.  Inhale, exhale, gentle breeze in, gentle breeze out… expanding, releasing… effortless flow.

Find a way to cultivate joy in your breath, body, thoughts, feelings …

• Joy in breath – joyful gratitude for each next breath of your life

• Joy in body – joyful appreciation for your body’s ability to carry you through life
• Joy in thoughts – joyful relief that your mind is able to take a break from thoughts, and appreciate moments of stillness and space

• Joy in feelings – joyful acceptance of the dualities of life – fear makes love possible, pain makes joy possible, worry makes relief possible, and regret makes us appreciate each new opportunity to learn and try again

Take a moment to recall to mind a time – may be in your recent or distant past – when you experienced intense joy.  It may have been witnessing the birth of a newborn, or an incredible scene or feat of nature, or an intensely intimate moment with a loved one.  Whatever that is for you, bring the scene into the forefront of your mind now, recalling the place, the people, your feelings at the time.  Linger here in this intensely joyful recollection... 

Where do you feel this sensation in your body?  Notice, and make a mental note of the location in your body where you notice joy.

How does it feel to breathe in this moment of joy - to think, to feel, to BE here in this joyful experience, now?...

Take a moment to label this memory, just give it a name so you can come back to it easily later in this practice, as well as during those times in your daily life when a moment of joyful presence would come in handy.

Take a couple of deep breaths in through your nose, and out through your mouth with a sigh or other sound.  Bring your awareness back to your physical body.  And wherever you're sitting now, slowly begin to move your body:

• If you are seated in a chair, shift forward in the seat a bit and let your hands find the sides of the chair back or rails of the legs.  If you are seated on the floor, let your hands come to the floor behind either hip, palms down.
• Ground your hands into the floor or chair, roll your shoulders back and down, straighten your elbows - keeping joints soft - and press your shoulders toward your hands.  On an inhale let the front of your torso inflate forward and up into a gentle back bend, your chin remains slightly tucked to keep length through your neck.  Take a few long deep breaths here - inflating your front body on the inhales, perhaps arching into the backbend a bit deeper on the exhales.  Tune into sensation as you breathe here…

Notice if this opening of your body seems to open something deeper, some sort of connection between your inner and outer world.

Notice if this opening, this connection inspires a sense of broader exchange between the two - the inner and the outer. 

Consider the process of giving and receiving between the two, starting with the giving and receiving of breath.  Breath flows in, breath flows out.  What else may be flowing between your inner and outer worlds?

There is no right or wrong, just notice what it's like to be here giving and receiving now.

• Take one more inhale in this backbend, and on an exhale return to sitting in a neutral way.  Take a couple of deep falling-out breaths in through your nose, out through your mouth.

• If you are seated in a chair, shift in your seat so your back is against the chair back, open your feet and legs to about the width of your shoulders.  Place your hands on your thighs.  If on the floor, place your hands on the floor in front of your legs.

• Ground down through your sitting bones and lengthen your spine as you slowly lower your upper body forward toward your lap.  Find your edge - neither too much nor too little sensation - and support yourself there with your hands or with props. 

If seated on a chair and you have the flexibility you may want to fold forward until the fronts of your shoulders are resting on your legs and your arms hang down the outsides of your lower legs, or you can simply lay a bolster, pillow or folded blanket in your lap and rest your upper body on that, arms dangling toward the floor.

• Take a few breaths here and let your upper body settle into your support.  Notice sensation... 

Notice any qualities in the flow of your breathing here.  It may feel less deep with less space to expand into...

Notice any movement in your body as your breath flows - expanding on your inhales, letting go on your exhales…

Notice any thoughts or feelings.  It may feel less open here in the forward bend than it did in the backbend.  Maybe it feels more inward, closed off a bit from your outer world as you are folded over, facing your Self. 

Consider sensations of giving and receiving here in the forward bend.  Perhaps here there is a sense of more receiving than giving, or perhaps more giving - to yourself - than receiving from others?  What does it feel like to you?

Notice any feelings of comfort… or discomfort - no right or wrong about any of this, just whatever is present here for you, with you.  Become aware of it all… What would it be like to accept it all, as whatever is true for you in this moment?

• Take one more inhale in this foreword bend, and on an inhale return to sitting in a neutral way, using your hands to help you raise your torso back to seated.  Take a couple of deep falling-out breaths in through your nose, out through your mouth, and let all that go for now.

Take a moment to recall the moment of joy you conjured up at the beginning of practice.  Bring that memory into full view again – make it large and vivid and as real as you can.

Feel the joy that moment brought you at the time in your body again now, perhaps even taking a hand and placing it at that place on your body where you notice the sensation.

Breathe into that sensation of joy in your body

Inhale to enlarge this joyful presence, then exhale to spread joy through your body

Let your breath move joy through your body in gentle waves, so it almost tickles, making you smile, even giggle, in the pleasure of this moment.

Make this sensation of joy your total sensation right now...

Release control of your breath and savor the joy emanating through your body.  Let the vibrance of your joy calm to a gentle glow shimmering from your body like heat waves on a desert horizon as you take in these words from Lorin Roche *:

Wander and wander to the point of exhaustion,

Whirl until you lose all control,

Dance until you are ready to drop.

Then drop!

Fall to the earth.

Surrender to the swirl of sensations

Surging through your form.

Dissolve in awe as arising energies

Continue the dance in your inner world.

Beyond motion and commotion,

Become the body of ecstasy.

Let your breath deepen as your awareness returns to your body, to your physical seat, present in this moment.  Take a couple of deep falling-out breaths to re-anchor your awareness back here now.

In the spirit of cultivating great joy this holiday season, find a way to share it with yourself as well as others.  In the spirit of honoring the duality of life, cultivating balance in the spirit of the season, find a way to receive as joyfully as you give.

In joy, gratitude and reverence, I wish you all the happiest and most joyful of holidays.  Be safe, be present, give of yourself and give love above all things as the greatest gift.

namaste

*Lorin Roche, The Radiance Sutras (Syzygy Creations, Inc., 2008), p. 88

Lately I've been noticing how I handle stressful situations.  I grit my teeth, tense my muscles, aim my body at the task or event I want to conquer, and then I launch toward it full speed like a freight train hurling toward a pinpoint of light at the end of a long tunnel.  I eliminate all distractions that can possibly wait until this all-consuming task is completed and I come out the other side of the mountain.  But wait, does it need to be that way?

In my last blog I mentioned doing something different this year and staying present to the holiday season as it unfolds, remaining connected with my experiences and moving consciously and appreciatively through them.  So I notice with curiosity my freight train response to stress, knowing that change starts with awareness.  And I accept that this is my normal response, so that I can move on to the next step of change:  choosing to respond differently…

In yoga classes this week we are exploring focus on flow, noticing the full experience:  how it begins with an intention to move (or stretch, or relax), then observing ourselves follow through on that intention by beginning to move (or stretch, or relax), noticing the point where that movement is initiated, noticing sensation as we move, then noticing when we finish moving.  What is it like for that movement or posture to be complete?  First we notice ourselves, then we notice what it's like to notice.  Then we move on, very deliberately completing whatever we are doing in one moment before creating a new intention to do something different in the next.

How different is that from the way we usually move through our lives - to turn off autopilot and be present to whatever is happening now?  Do we use autopilot to numb us from our truth?  Is it easier to ignore our current circumstances than to face that they are not what we want them to be?  But if all we do is live for a future that we imagine will be better than today, won't we miss life?

I breathe deeply to help me anchor my awareness in my present moment - the only moment I have.  I let my breath release and keep my awareness close, I keep it here with me, and together we observe life as we live it.  We notice, respond to what we notice, and we remain fluid, resilient, responsive to the truth that we find ourSelf in from moment to moment.  We don't try to change what we find - can't change truth - we accept truth and if it's not what we want it to be we decide to choose differently.

Doesn't the choice come down to this -

to use each moment, no matter how

beautiful or challenging, as a means

to open?  There is every reason in the

world to close down or careen like

a pinball from reaction to reaction,

hijacked by emotion, fear, or lack

of contact with reality.  Life is so

generous in offering ways to let

it in.  Each encounter, every act

and dream is a needle threaded

through with truth.  Feeling the

pain of penetration as the needle

breaks the skin is all that's needed

for awakening.

"When the Needle Breaks the Skin," Danna Faulds,

Prayers to the Infinite (Peaceable Kingdom Books, 2004), p.60

This morning as I rolled out of bed and looked out the window (I get a lot of my inspiration from there), I noticed that it looked like a still photo of Fall taken through an amber lens.  Dead grasses and vegetable garden rows formed merging shades of tan and brown on the ground, and the tall, thin, bare pine and oak trunks rose from there in amberized verticle stripes of mottled charcoal bark.  Everything looked dampened down, amber-gray sky peeking through the bare tops of tree branches.  I was struck by the stillness displayed there in that amber draped scene of nature beginning its long winter nap.

As I pondered the role of this vision in my life's now, I noticed that stillness is setting in this week after the Thanksgiving holiday like a calm between two holiday storms, and I decided that this week in yoga class we will cultivate this sense of stillness - a re-grouping and re-grounding - as we prepare to dive into the holiday frenzy to come.  It's a time to take several deep breaths, go within, cultivate stillness and that connection with our inner selves, and strengthen that connection for the likely turbulence to come. 

So we will practice at the wall, beginning on our backs with our legs up the wall, grounding through our back bodies and moving through slow, restorative hip openers there.  (I have made an audio recording of this available on my "tools for home practice" page.)  Then we will do the warrior series at the wall with a block between our front knee and the wall to help cultivate a sense of supported, stable grounded foundation, our upper bodies rising weightlessly up and back as our foundation lunges down and forward into the support of the wall.  Resilience grounded in presence.

Each year around this time I feel like I gasp for a deep breath to prepare for diving under the water of holiday activities, a breath so deep it can sustain me until I resurface on New Years' Day and wipe and refocus my eyes to view the upcoming year.  This year I'm going to try something different.  I've decided to notice every time I pass an inflated Christmas decoration on someone's front lawn and let that remind me to exhale and inhale, to empty and inflate my own body with fresh breath.  I'll let it remind me to pause for a 20-second inner awareness break and let that help me re-group and re-ground, to find stillness and focus within and to stay connected there.  Perhaps this year, then, I can avoid gasping for breath and fighting to stay above the waves of busy-ness and obligation.  Maybe this year I can float on the surface of the flow, rather than being dragged into the current.  Maybe this way I can stay present to my experience of the holidays and move more consciously and appreciatively through them.  Maybe.  It all starts with intention.  And so be it.

Awareness Knowing Itself

Settle in the here and now.

Reach down into the center

where the world is not spinning

and drink this holy peace.

Feel relief flood into every

cell.  Nothing to do.  Nothing 

to be but what you are already.

Nothing to receive but what

flows effortlessly from the

mystery into form.

Nothing to run from or run

toward. Just this breath,

awareness knowing itself as

embodiment.  Just this breath,

awareness waking up to truth.

~ Danna Faulds, From Root to Bloom (Peaceable Kingdom Books, 2006), p. 17

I was inspired one morning last week by the view out my bedroom window as I rolled out of bed: a tree full of bright orange-yellow leaves glistening in the early morning sunshine. Wow. It stopped me for a few moments as I took in its beauty. A small portal of insight opened up and the theme for my yoga classes for the week began to form:

We all experience the seasons; nature leaves none of us behind. So what is the analogy for us here in our journeys on our mats? Maybe it is this: Just as the leaves fall from the trees leaving them bare, naked in all their glory and truth, our leaves fall from our branches (our Selves) revealing our souls for introspection.

Begin comfortably seated with your eyes closed, turn your awareness and your senses in on yourself and begin to notice what it’s like to breathe. Let your breath be natural, not changing it in any way, following its natural depth, speed and rhythm. Let your awareness ride the waves of your breath in and out of your body for several breaths…

Slowly begin to deepen your breath. Without using effort, simply invite each successive inhale to flow a little deeper into your belly, each successive exhale to empty a little more completely. Always letting your body have as much breath as it wants in any particular moment, simply invite it to be deeper and slower if that feels right to you now.

And just as leaves falling from trees leave them stark, bare, naked, allow your next exhale to blow your leaves from your branches, baring your soul for introspection here as you sit… As your view of yourSelf becomes more clear with each breath, as more leaves fall leaving your view of yourSelf unobstructed, notice what’s happening there inside. Engage your observer mind to simply witness you without judgment, without need to fix or change anything, simply notice what’s true for you now in this moment and for the next few moments…

When you notice your mind begin to stray from your present moment – back to something that happened yesterday or last week, or forward to something you have planned to do tomorrow – sometimes it helps to bring yourself back to your present moment by asking yourself the question: what’s happening now, in my breath, my body, my thoughts, my feelings?… then just notice. Breathe and watch, breathe and watch and notice…

How does your soul speak to you? What language does it use? Soul rarely uses words, of course, it’s not that brazen. It’s far more subtle. Its language is sensation – physical, emotional – and symbols – representations of your truth that become meaningful only as they are revealed to you. Only as you become aware of them do the puzzle pieces of wisdom merge their borders into recognizable truths.

Awareness is cultivated through still alertness, receptivity, through engaging the observer and focusing it on yourSelf. Allow your leaves to fall, baring your soul, gently engage your observer mind, then breathe and watch… breathe and watch.

…just as stillness in water allows murkiness and sediment to settle and the water to become clear, let your mind become still, the murkiness and chatter to settle, allowing light to shine through and illuminate your depths…

A lone leaf cartwheels

skyward, riding an updraft

over the house, flying like

a drunken dove to the edge

of the far woods. What a

glorious end, to be borne

aloft, the whole Autumn

landscape spread out below

in riotous gold and orange;

nature caught in a flagrant

act of transformation.*

…Find your way back to your breath and take a few long, deep ones in and out. Allow your breath to bring your awareness back to your body, your present moment, sitting here, reading this. After a few more breaths sensing the base of your spine grounding into your chair, cushion or mat and expanding up through your spine, your senses refocusing on experiences in your present surroundings, allow yourself to move gently on to the next moment of your life. And notice what that next moment is like having arrived there from here.

namaste