Inspirations: POV

Simply crossing out ‘winter’ to write SPRING YOGA SCHEDULE is joyous. I will spill less blood on this page knowing we are at the crossroads. I can feel spring asking that we open to a more Zen state, the ‘Big Mind’ instead of the personal, small mind. The Zen of spring displays a more capacious heart, funding hope, giving courage to make needed change. How do I work my way into Universal, or ‘Big Mind’ so that I can be that exquisite Zen Master/Mistress, alive to spring requirements? We would all prefer to be connected to Universal mind; big hearted, generously open, fully present, without judgment or guilt, but the question is….how do we get there? As usual, I have no idea. The only thing I have is the willingness to sit here, waiting until I walk into answers. I am counting on that willingness for it is the only thing I own, all else is borrowed, appearing and disappearing as it wishes, not necessarily when I want it. When connected to Universal mind we are in a somewhat euphoric state of profound power, peace, and balance. When we make decisions from that place, inevitably they are the right ones. I’m grateful I am able to visit, ie become Zen, in the odd moment, but as usual I want more. Why can’t I remain within the Big Mind? Why is that connection so fragile? Would it be this difficult if I were a monk, or a nun? After learning that Mother Teresa fought with God most of her adult life, I don’t have a lot of expectation that any particular state of nun-hood, or monk-dom is going to serve better than what I gots. What I gots is what you gots–our Practice; a mat asking we stand on it; Asanas… Read more »

Between the 19th and 21st of March the Astrological new year begins with the Vernal or Spring Equinox, that is when the Sun arrives at zero degrees of Aires. It is an energy that primes us to leap into new life, take charge, and express with greater verve and demand. Like buds pulsing upward through half frozen earth, the effort is toward re-claiming our vibrant, idiosyncratic bloom. When our songs flow with the rhythms of nature, moving consciously through her cycles, it is easier to feel connected, and flow down-river, or up through the earth in this case. If you look at an Astrological chart set for any of the four yearly Solstice and Equinox ‘quadrants,’ they speak of the energies being birthed for the coming three months, until the next ‘birth, or cycle of change. We cannot change planetary positions, or the electro magnetic field of their relationships, but we can make choices about how we wish to use and respond to those energies, even the difficult ones…. especially the difficult ones. In these fast flying years of major unpredictable shifts, and re-alignments, or the Chinese interpretation, “…living in interesting times,” it is more important to consider soul-questions such as… If my soul chose this life experience how can I best utilize it? Why now? Why this incarnation with these people? What am I to learn? How do I overcome and prosper? Offer? Become? Mitigate? Love? Create? Taking the micro from the macro, we might ask similar questions at the change-time of the four quadrants. The Equinoxes and Solstices are shift-signifiers, offering calendar turning points: What nurtures me? Who am I these spring-green days? Am I truly tasting life? Who do I love? How do they love me? How can I help? How do I find center? What is… Read more »

The happenstance of having a card fall out of a drawer saved you from receiving a rant today, and more importantly …saved me from remaining stuck in it. I’m always amazed by how the Universe offers opportunity to move on. Time and again, it subtly, or not so subtly, signals, “Turn left here, two inches only.” We pass on by for the most part, but sometimes we get lucky, and I think that with Practice we become luckier. “What is the card that fell from the drawer, that saved us both,” you ask? “Barn’s burned down, now I can see the moon,” is beautifully scripted across the front. Suddenly the depressive choke of late February changed. My grumpiness with heating bills run amuck, dirty snow, un-kept New Year’s promises, and no accomplishment on the horizon took the necessary two inch shift to the left. In that instant, an ‘OhmyGod’ moment manifested. “These ‘terrible days’ are my last wonderful days to turn within, to become quiet before green out-rushing spring energy pushes me elsewhere. In seeing ‘the moon’ my chich melted. How do these shifts happen? I don’t know. If I did I would not spend so much time confused, out of sorts, or raging at teapot-tempests. I realize I should be able to conjure small miracles, if one can classify any miracle as small, I’m a Yogini after all. Does that not imply I can create my own contentment, be at peace, in tune with whatever Ma Nature is handing out? Indeed. Truth be written, re-booting the passionate/peaceful/inspired life is no easy thing. I put a lot of junk in the way of attaining it, my attitude being the largest hurdle. Clearly what/how we think is the life we have. If you attach emotion to those thoughts then the Universe… Read more »

Sometimes we see our life not by how close we are to it, in it…as it were, but by moving away from the center, as in taking a vacation, or being sick, perhaps even entering the oh so foreign territory of being on our dying journey. Sometimes just the change in language reveals us to ourselves differently via uncomfortable syntax, weird rhythms and verbal structures, or the vegetation, food, and them ‘ferreign ones’ reveal our facets through unconscious, mysterious light. If we are not ‘this’ –are we ‘that’? In the absence of titles, homes, and friendly connections, what persona emerges? What happens to our sentimental, deeply personal ‘me’ when leaving the large land mass of the US of A, or are thrust into the misbegotten jungle of a hospital? The rich, imperialist voice that is an echo of every American passport, like it or not, has some bearing on how we view the world, and it sees us. When en vacance, or leaving our known body in some way, we are offered a different light, and if only because we are further away from blind observations of idiosyncratic, quotidian patterns our eyes open wider. Light seems to illuminate the small more easily than the large. Or perhaps the inconsequential becomes more notable, our cocooned lives more vibrant, simply through any change in light….we shine and shadow differently. Some of the difficulty in seeing our big, sassy, American lives is to not become judgmental, for then all chance of really observing via a new moral moonlight disappears. Seeing only our loud faults of greed and assumptive imperialism do not let us change from being only that. If we are not ‘that’ then what do we offer? Are we ‘this?’ How do we take more than smothered ashes of our grandiosity to… Read more »