Inspiration

Sometimes when least expected, a magical event appears from haphazard seed. It seems all the more special as magic is in short supply these days. The following tiny story comes to you full of magical possibility, born of an odd thought in an insouciant moment Our Yoga community celebrates.  We create ritual for the earth at its four quadrants of change; Vernal Equinox, Summer Solstice, Fall Equinox, and Winter Equinox.  We do Suns and Lunars for Full and New Moons, plus follow festivities of many religions.  We celebrate everyone’s birthday with cupcakes, candles, songs and silly hats, and tiaras. Few go unscathed and un-sung. Yoga-life is about celebrating life- as much as it is about standing the mat. This story is about the translation of light from one celebration to another, one world to another, one heart to another.  It unfolds from a Yogini’s birthday just as she prepares to leave for the Amazon, an interior trek deep into unknown territory.  We sing her song, she blows out candles, but the wonderfully corny crown suits her curls and incandescent spirit too well.  Looking at her brightness, it suddenly becomes clear that she is to drive off in the tiara, and more, she is to include it in her back pack and offer it to a woman, a young queen, in the Amazon. It is only an instant’s recognition, silly, wayward, nonsensical, yet right.  A bargain is struck, and the tiara heads off into the unknown. It is a seed of light, a silly offering of shared grace, holding abstract opportunity to be part of other’s celebrations, and community.  This is magical enough, but you know that there is more translating beneath the surface.  Energy fields we know nothing about have been activated. Because these un-seen fields were birthed from joy,……

Her imponderable weight rises Caught by skeletal spring branches Of the neighbor’s pear tree,  Momentarily enmeshed In tiny nets of unfurled bud. She hangs- dropping gold. Lighter, she lifts silvery Full-orbed, pendulous Breasts and belly wrapped In sheets of silent silk. Her honeyed sheen dazzling The night sky  Blazing a trail for other galaxies. Resplendent, radiant, rutilant, Equal consort to the Sun. She surrenders herself to earth Gathering the lost. Her turning reaches dark corners, Shadowed lives of the un-forgiven Now carry her light.     *NB  Note that this Saturday’s single class at 8:30 AM will shake and bake under the Full Moon -with ritual, dance, howling and chocolate. A time to welcome spring in all her manifestations and celebrations.   Planetary Energies You are howling-aren’t you?  Full Moon rising as I write.  Remember, they often complete un-finished business by bringing to light a new understanding of un-answered questions. I remind you that this is a Super Full Moon, packing a larger punch for the earth, for all things watery, such as tides, and bodies.   The dynamic bickering and mishaps of the past two weeks, many having to do with relationship, will grow clearer.  The Moon-Sun face off in Libra-Aires is about the other in relation to self.  Have you noticed lately the high emotional content of many contacts? Now we can perceive subconscious energies we’ve been dealing with, usually, old family patterns.  Time for setting new boundaries, along with greater forgiveness-usually for self, if not others. Reminders that this spring is especially spicy, with fundamental changes demanded of all of us.  We are re-looking at-  ‘what must I do to build a better mouse trap?’  Help arrived with Mercury going direct on the 4th, but Pluto retrogrades Tues. 10th.  Mars remains ‘backward’ until the 14,th soooo, continue paying……

The exquisite delight and detriment of saying “yes,” as opposed to no, or maybe, creates extreme polarities of greatness, and failure.  We must have said yes to take this incarnation, no?  We must have said yes to grow beyond childhood.  But as adults, with accrued disappointments and failures, what remains of our ability to express the breath of yes? Are we  willing take risks, expand the inner landscape to cajole resentment and pride toward harmony and Grace? Is it even possible to have a life without saying yes?  Is it achievable to become fine, aged wine without being foolish along the way?  Can we be safe and sort of fine, hedging bets and danger to merely murmur, “perhaps?”  This tentative approach keeps all manner of beasts at bay.  There may be greater safety, but little possibility for splurges of excitement, or falling into love, and certainly no abandoned-winner-take-all moments.  That’s a very high price to not expose, to not step into foolishness. In the Tarot, the first card of the Major Arcana is the Fool.  He is shown blithely stepping off the cliff into air. This is the symbol of the Omega moment, calling us to enter life-futue unknown.  As we become older and wiser, most of us are loath to step off cliffs, having been through dire consequences of doing just that.  But it feels more important than ever to consciously leap with faith, yelling, “YES,” as we spiral into unknown space. Thank hevvins for the Yogic-life which offers every manner of tool to make us braver, more honorable: Yes, I will love when my heart breaks.  Yes, I will prevail with kindness when disappointment obliterates ego.  Yes, I will try again despite liability. The life we build from the mat, even when it’s not yet possible to express……

The reason the world is round is it keeps us from looking too far down the road.  Another reason is that- roundness is symbolic of a mandala, a magical circle.  Roundness delineates birth.  It is the womb. The inmost shrine of an Indian temple is called a garbha, the womb. The center of a mandala, the Bindi, Sanskrit for ‘a drop,’ can be a symbol for the Third Eye, the ajna, seat of profound wisdom. If and when we sit in the center of our being, still and listening, we are in the center of our Universe, connected to circles within circles, an evolving mandala in our own right. Our roundness retains energy and concentration. We grow inward-toward a deeper reality, aligning spokes from the center to greater harmony with nature, with the Universe. We react less, respond more.  Being roly-poly, we have fewer jagged edges.  Like the Uroboros, a great dragon formed out of the formless void, who bites its own tail to create the first circle; the first separation between dark chaos and light, we bring life into greater order when we have patterns, especially round patterns. We have polarities.  We have cycles. We have us and them, this and that, here and there. When we are able to perceive cycles, and designs- to what appears meaningless and out of control, we breathe more deeply.  We settle into Self. Simply sitting and taking time to draw a circle with a bindi draws the eye in, the body toward calmness and reason.  The innate harmony that arises in adding color and beautiful pattern to the circle frees the mind from monkey yammering. We tend to organize feeling and thought around the mysterious.  Life and death, spirit and significance take up more time.  To our roundness we add weight, gravitas….…

Is March-Madness an outer or an inner state? It is a tippy month of seasonal change, coming in like a lion, out like a lamb, with everything in between. Does the body simply yearn any excuse to disrobe the inner quiet of winter? And is the inward turning, peace, or pent-up energy? Is the Vernal Equinox, marking the beginning of the Astrological New Year, an unconscious goad for uprisings and shifts? Does March, in wringing out winter, and begging spring re-birth, set needed chaos into motion? I find myself suddenly and surprisingly expressing strong opinions/judgments about the mildest ideas…  “It should be this, not that”…  “I refuse to accept that “This is all wrong.” Have I grown into one of the many over-the-top, blah blah blah-opinionated March Hares I so abhor? Speaking of judgment. It’s certainly more self-aggrandizing, and fun, to blame my madness on others, or abstruse abstract reasoning.  Harder to sit with an inner judge who has pronounces life in authoritative, often autocratic, opinions.  There are more than ten meanings listed  for ‘judgment’ but you have to travel down to the sixth meaning, in Webster’s New International, to find judgment having anything to do with the mental act of judging, that is, dealing with comparison and discrimination, or placing a value judgment on something. What does this have to do with March, you ask? As outer and inner grounds thaw, it provokes un-settled nerves. What has occurred inside the winter chrysalis? I have no idea, but know I’m about to find out. I feel changes, but cannot yet act on them.  Perhaps we all mirror the earth, turning toward a new cycle, but cannot yet access who and how we are to be.  I feel old, well-habited skin re-shaping itself into a new form, but cannot yet assume……

“Wisdom tells me I am nothing.  Love tells me I am everything.  Between the two my life flows.” Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj The constant swing from human to divine is the ebb and flow of ocean tides washing flotsam and jetsam.  Only essential Self remains when we have been pushed and pulled back and forth between endless demands of relationship polarities. Learning to respond rather than react to polar swings hones edges, awakens sensitivities, and grinds grain from the chaff.  In the dark of a New Moon birth, we prepare for Full Moon revelation. In summer’s richness waits winter’s barren bones. In the storm’s center, lies its stillness.  As we dance between contrasts, growing consciousness from un-consciousness, we deepen the response between fate and free-will. This emerging free-will creates new mind/body/spirit pathways.  It is a magical endeavor where we are able to heal psychic splits and divided selves. In the willingness to struggle with and against polarities, to risk wild swings, and manipulate multiple relationships lies the opportunity to enter new realities.  This can be a space where what was invisible- becomes visible, and what was previously impossible – manifests. It doesn’t always work that wonderfully, but at bare-bones bottom, that flotsam-jetsam bald and bold place, we might become the best and brightest of who we are.  Having swung back and forth not only between wisdom and love, but more likely, fear and anger, selfishness and generosity, even Revelation and Armageddon long enough, wisdom teams with love to open the listening heart. Ain’t nothing better than that, eh? POSE WITH SEASONAL ENERGIES Asana: Eka Pada Galavasana-Crossbow Balance: A great pose of strong polarity where we are tethered to earth, yet lift off and ‘fly high’ through the power of holding the center. You can come at this from Utkatasana, (or tripod……