Inspirations: POV

Garden Practices

Dancing between order and chaos, fragility and substance, small truths to larger truths emerge.

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As Are You to Me

A short while ago, I oddly chose a song to not only close Yoga classes, but make everyone sing along.  I wasn’t sure why, or why that song.  Beautiful as it is, it’s not an easy sing.  But honoring the feeling of rightness, I rallied on.  Weeks later, I now know why.  It is a serenade of seeing all life as a reflection of self, and in that vision~spirit enters, reminding us of the reflected-offerings in each moment.  They are of what and who we love, and what we see through that appreciation.  If you see it, you are its reflection.  It is then some aspect of the dreaming self, that one who owns divinity, and knows it is sacred, that incandescent being who struggles with the daily onslaught that is often tedious and maddening. The alchemical integration that this year asks of all of us is evolving to dissolve old matrices.  As they go the way of the DoDo Bird, we need updated Unicorns of creative Grace to emerge, rooted from the beauty of the old but re-structured and re-envisioned. Song and movement help us deepen into the body, as in doing ‘Celestial Communication. ’ Every layer is touched.  It doesn’t matter what we create; shoes, gardens, children, paintings, friendships, for as Osho wrote, ‘what matters is we put our soul into whatever it is.’  This mindfulness is what creates sacred reflections. Since I have an Eclipse with which to celebrate my birthday this year, I’m choosing the visions I wish to transform, the songs I wish to sing, and the dances that move me closer to the sacred-self.  Since transformation is the only game in town for all of us, I am choosing to see that you, whoever you may be, however near or far, known and un-known… Read more »

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The Rose of Moira

Synchronicity.  Fate.  Moira.  A rose by any name, color, scent, or form calls us to attention, its beauty informing the moment.  I accept that when I have been given someone’s name three times by three different people, I’m to meet this person, absorb their scent, shape and color.  I feel fate intervene when I read the same idea, expressed by totally diverse authors, in the space of an afternoon. I pay attention. The synchronous-rose that is scenting the air at this moment is the idea that life is expensive, and we must spend hard-earned energy to pay for the goods.  Perception, compassion, wisdom, and fertilizer don’t come cheap.  The following quotes are the moira-nexus of this rose.  First is from the rolfer, Marius Strydom, not famous, but   thoughtful who wrote, “The world shows up for us but it doesn’t show up for free.”  Second, is the famous Mr. Jung who described free will as, “The ability to do gladly that which I must do.”  Last is the well known Jungian Astrologer, Liz Green, who writes, “This kind of free will does not come cheap: It is not a given.  It has to be fought for and the process of that fate is also the process of individuation.” No wonder we’re tired.  If we’re lucky not to be struggling for survival, but we’re working hard to figure out the fate of ‘that which we must do.’  We are paying the big energy-bucks to become aware, alive, individuated and transposed, if not translucent, possibly transparent.  The question is-would I have seen these messages if I had not been feeling life as demanding and difficult? Do I share in the responsibility of creating my sight, or is it a field outside of me? Is there such a thing as coincidence, or accidents? As… Read more »

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All Hallowed Heavens

As this is a very magical day, make opportunity to take to the mat to revamp and renew.  Ask, “What is the Practice that serves me in bringing 2013 to strong closure?” What Pranayama will help break stagnant habits? Where within favorite poses can I challenge my body? How does this Shakti Yoga Dance move me deeper into emotional connection? Which mudra supports my prayer in this moment? Which chant will help bridge reality and desire, moving me across chasms? How do I accept surrendering in Savasana, letting love hold me more sweetly? Today, the heavens are All-Hallowed-worthy.  There is a rare, even bizarre line up of planets in the same 9th degree.  Pluto, Uranus (the famous square) along with Mars, Chiron, Mercury, and the Moon. And include the Sun who is just a minute off. “What does it mean?”  You ask. “I have no idea.”  Says I. Certainly if you have any planets in the 9th degree, or close by, your world is going to shake rattle and roll….. Perhaps in magical, wonderful ways.  If it were me, I’d make a wish, spend time visualizing it coming true, and believe in bizarre dreams being real.  When given a choice, go for the magical, not the fearful.  This All Souls Celebration might have a chance of uplifting the world and moving us all, willy-nilly, toward redemption and Grace. Have you noticed any symbolic parallels between events in the wide world and those closer to home? Any similarity of pattern? Don’t look at the form, but the energy.  Is it break through, or break down?  It’s often easier to see cultural and   social shock waves rocking the high seas, usually more difficult to see our small life boat’s in jeopardy.  The Uranus-Pluto square hits dead-on this week, accompanied by a Solar… Read more »

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Resilient Hearts

A Yoga Practice asks over and over that we grow the muscle of  ‘compassionate observer.’ There are other practices, completely off the mat that offer, and encourage this resilient growth. The one I encountered last weekend was ‘on the boards.’  It surprised me that sitting in a dark theater became a great Practice. Observing actors inhabit characters who badly needed resiliency, but hadn’t yet learned much of it, and were therefore struggling to stay emotionally afloat in difficult relationships, with a story line that twisted them every which way, was a wonderful way to observe not only their lack of practice, but mine own.  The play offering this emotional maze is at New Rep in Watertown, showcasing the playwright, Steven Dietz’s work, Rancho Mirage. The power of theatre, that conspiracy between actor and audience, between light and dark, real and unreal offer wonderful gifts for practicing.  As actors move in and out of their story, surveying their battlefields of bad behavior, I consider mine own and observe the playground where commiseration, judgment, and empathy square off.  But it’s an objective playground.  Unlike the actors, I can engage, or withdraw. I may not have control over my feelings but being the observer, I can measure how much I’m willing to expand and forgive, or the degree of grudge needing to drop away. If lucky, the story brings up personal minefields where I see old patterns, and can review my failure, safe in the 12th row. We never know how much hearts can hold, or how resilient we need to be.  Practicing is good. Many feel life is a ‘Theatre of the Absurd,’ where making sense has gone the way of the Dodo.  Emotions are absurd, unless they’re OURS.  Theatre reminds us not only of our absurd humanity, but that the world’s a… Read more »

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Clowning Around

I recently went to hear an ex-Cirque de Soleil clown speak on failure.  Odd aspects of articulating our humanness never fail to intrigue, and Colin Gee, the clown, actor, and observer of life, was no exception. He also surprised, although with a billing of ‘clown, Cirque de Soleil, and failure,’ how can you not be surprised? His personal portrait revealed the clown’s willingness to fail, in order to reveal vulnerabilities…an elixir that makes laughter grow and love bloom.  Is that why clowns are loved?  We admire acrobats, who never fail, but we cherish the clown, who must fail in order to win trust.  Both work limits in the human condition, and the measure of success, or failure, is very high.  Both reveal themselves in bright lights, either in flight with angels, or bottoming out in seas of emotional weight.  Neither can pretend.  Neither can be half-assed. Both must succeed in un-expected ways.  Each works with well-defined constructs, dealing with a force greater than themselves, gravity—lest we forget: the primary mechanical principal of life on earth. Bringing clown-awareness into our daily lives is an important balancing tool to onslaught of push and shove to ‘excellence,’ and to our terrible fears of failure.  A base condition for the clown is humiliation, a state of non-grace we moderns shun.  Another base condition is listening, listening to audience response, listening to the ego’s ability to relinquish its hold, listening to the character we are inhabiting at any given moment.  The ear is another tool we are in jeopardy of loosing as we shout at each other through tweets, and likes, and links.  Who has time to listen when we need everyone to hear us?  I, for one, am making my list of  ‘Clown Rules’ –reminders for each day, before the linking, liking, and licking of… Read more »

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Truth & Lies

Finding the truth is much like finding Nemo.  The cartoon film revels in facts of life, seen as a fish tale, revealing truth through laughter.  We are shown that the Self we hope to be, and truths we must comprehend are as much the work of imagination and intuition as they are of reality and hard work.  Deep truths lie in the balancing and adventure of becoming.  Truth, with a capitol T, is no longer the ‘the whole truth,’ if it ever was.  Recognizing some of this depends on evolving from the burden of who we are supposed to be to embrace who we hope to be. * This world has always been a magical place of truth and lies, tall tales, and dedicated honesty woven through a human matrix of confusion, bad memory, and desire.  We work at defending who we think we should be, bolstering it with stories and warm, if not hot air.  We rarely think the lie sits on our side of the table. Rather it is ‘the other’ who exaggerates out of all proportion.  We are offended.  We grow defended, and desiccated. As our days become drive-by practices in everything from eating to meditating, learning anything new requires true dedication.  I propose we spend ten minutes a day practicing the art of lying.  This will engage under-used muscle that supports and builds understanding, and use of truth.  It is the same with everything.  How can we feel compassion if we haven’t been hurt, and hurtful?  How do we know who we can be unless we’ve struggled with who we think we should be?  When we only tell the truth, when we only work at ‘shoulds,’ when we are only nice, where is the balancing polarity to see and be otherwise? There are fine and righteous things… Read more »

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Why & Because

Why Do we only search for God when love is missing? If we were ecstatic, love-filled beings, why would we ever seek to change? Is there a conspiracy running all religions to keep us fearful and unhappy? If filled with light, why feel a need to turn to priest, rabbi, Imam, or Maharishi? If love destroys fear and fills us with courage, how is it we are so frightened we must hate? We need love, like breathing.  How and why do we refuse it in a thousand small ways?  Why is there not more of it, or the visible signs of it? What do you think – ‘Why?’   Because It is the time to question assumptions. It is the hour to re-evaluate old fears and bring them to light. The stuff of dreams is love, for it lends its intelligence, its imagination, its light, its passionate breath to everything within heart-sight. Love lifts us beyond our ordinary self toward spontaneous combustion.   We know all this.  We’ve struggled with it for years, if not centuries.  I’m not trying to solve the earth’s biggest problem in this paragraph…would that I could.  No, what brings this front and center is I recently choreographed to an old Beatles song, “Because,” off the Abbey Road album.  In working with it day after day, its simple refrain of,  ‘”Love is old, love is new, love is old, love is you,” sunk below the surface, down into bone and muscle to emerge days later in large questions. Because body/mind connections are far more complicated and transformative than we know, I’ve found through the years that one of the lovely gifts of creating anything is the surprising syntax, and synchronicity that flow from opening oneself to the process.  I think it’s partially because we grow profoundly… Read more »

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