Inspiration

Crazy families notwithstanding, all of us sit to feast with a few odd-balls at Thanksgiving. Perhaps those around the table reflect back some aspect of self, warts, beauty, and mania. They may simply be metaphors or symbols for lives inside that cannot find expression within, except through another. When the obsessive auntie, or pedantic brother in law make us flinch and want to leave, consider what dis-owned part is being aroused to action this year. They only have power to drive us bonkers when they represent a part we haven’t loved, encouraged, or allowed into our parameter. If so, we could easily laugh and enjoy their fringe benefits. Consider the options to not sitting down at all. What is the alternative to Joe’s dirty fingernails. OlePa’s snore over dessert. Maggie’s see through blouse with no bra. We always have choice to not show up. Yes, these choices bring ramifications, but consider if you had no family to turn toward, no friends with whom to lock arms, or lock horns, no home, no table, no turkey… no pie! Them apples are available. We can also sit deaf and dumb year after year, thinking there is something wrong with everyone, never changing, never looking up from the green beans almandine. And once again we leave the family table anguished and angry, swearing never to return. Another fabulous choice. When things got really crazy in our family, and they did, we served up small mirrors, and when someone behaved outrageously, we held up the mirrors so they might see themselves differently. Sometimes it worked, often it didn’t, but we laughed ourselves out of some bad places. May you do the same, as we lock arms, facing the future, counting manifold blessings, garbled and grace-filled. Asana: Find the pose offering deep repose. Use it….…

Before we can embody any quality, we must experience and understand its opposite. Before selflessness is selfishness. Before mastery is apprenticeship. Before divine union, we dance with the devil, and until we do that dance we have nothing with which to honor ‘divine union.’ We can’t become ‘it’ until we ain’t it. Part of ‘it’ is the Chironic journey of the wounded healer we all share. It is the road we travel on hands and knees until we can walk, and sometimes, with fortune, we are set lose to fly. But no one flies who has not set roots deeply into the earth. Just as with any flying pose, we can’t move into it until we sink down, holding the power of our roots within. As another dark passage closes around earth, it is time for us to open different doors for self, and others. For a while, there may only be small cracks of light shining through, so it is important we understand and learn about darkness. Perhaps we shall be blind in our new decisions. Perhaps we will not be able to get off our knees to take the next step. Perhaps fear will lock best intentions into freeze-frames of doubt. This is the devil’s dance. This is the territory we are to master. This is our apprenticeship into true power. Two extremely difficult axioms come to mind: 1. If we don’t wish things to be different than they are, we won’t suffer quite so much. 2. Only through pain do we change. And clearly, change we must. Therefore let us embrace the darkness, knowing we cannot leave it until it becomes our divine teacher. Let us practice blowing strong, hot breath on tiny flickering flames until they light our way. Asana: Bakasana/Crane Pose. This is a powerful……

(You can sing this old timey rhyme to a rousing marching-rhythm, which feeds the heart, moves us out of fear, & leads onward in courage.) How do we then cross over Leave behind known shore Decide to walk on water Abandon shallow shoals? When our lover lies in danger And we’re running out of time Can we navigate deep waters Leave the construct of our mind? Does faith fund itself Truth sieve old wrongs through right Are ‘always’ with ‘never’ Past habits dour blight? Guided only by our longing Not knowing why or when The soul’s pole star direction Leads toward home again. Asana: Purvottanasana/Intense Front Body Stretch Pose. Sit with legs extended, placing hands, with fingers toward feet, by the hips. Taking a deep inhale, lift hips up, pressing soul’s of feet into floor, lengthen and strengthen legs up. Pay attention to keeping big toes down and parallel. Open chest, and heart, let head extend line of the back. If it is not yet possible to keep the feet down, try ‘table Pose.’ Bring feet close to buttocks, and lift the hips up, forming a table-top from knees to head. Health Notes: This Pose strengthens wrists, arms, and legs, while it invites us physically to breathe more deeply into what calls the heart to open. We are not only expanding the chest, and elevating the heart to the highest point, but opening the lungs, metaphysically, invites in more life. Ayurvedic Notes: Like Yoga, the mind-body care of India’s ancient healing system includes spiritual philosophy, not necessarily religious, that brings practical applications to every day habits. Kapha Doshas is often unbalanced when bodies head into cold, wet weather. They need to avoid stagnation. Therefore practice a more energetic Yoga routine, stimulate desire with new poses. Let go old precepts and……

Exquisite webs are woven of intangibles, extruded from an inner force that is binding, tough, and relentless. Like love, they catch the light. Early mornings, with dew glazing their skeins, take our breath away, often when we least expect it. Webs…they come in every size, and shape, hidden away in the oddest places. Opening our eyes to their elegance, lest we sweep them carelessly away, we may treasure what was un-noticed. We may see indelible charms from changed perspectives. Like the pig, Wilbur, of Charlotte’s Web, my life nests in a web of friendships. Being an essentially solitary being, unlike Wilbur, sometimes I forget. The honoring of friends, present, and absent, who gathered forces around a small performance, made it a sweet success. This powerful web shapes a frame for trust that I will be held in finely woven nets not only for large steps forward, but more importantly, when I struggle and fail. The wonderful story of “Charlotte’s Web” continues to be read and watched because we need what Charlotte gave Wilbur! We need it now more than ever as our world shifts and wobbles before our eyes. Most of us are flying without a safety net, or the one we think we have is ripped and sagging, and any day…. we could become bacon. Time to re-weave new fabric, re-invent new nets. Hearts will expand to include more than we know, more than we are used to. Reaching out will not be an option, rather a saving Grace I shall return and listen to Charlotte talking with Wilbur, as she spins her webs, her life force, in her friend’s behalf, feeling the tensile strength of friends spinning nests around the steps in my life. May I, like Charlotte, be there to spin magic on their behalf. Asana: Create……

My favorite person asked me this morning, “If we could turn red before we die, do you think we’d mind dying?” “Not so much. Red-imbued, I’d prepare with greater anticipation, more chutzpah, less cringing. It’s a glorious color for death.” We stood in the first rain-light of early morning, surrounded by denuded trees, skeletal in the ponderous sky. Last leaf survivors hung hard to small branches, shocking reds and oranges predominant. Indeed, the very colors to choose in going out with a bang, not a whimper. We need passionate tones for any crossing, for they fill us with courage, and drama, often the necessities missing when we shudder toward surrender. White, grey and black are CW answers to celebrating death. Remembering Dylan Thomas’ words, “Rage, rage against the dying of the light,” it seems he might have preferred a red-ending for his father, and himself, instead of the black sack cloth and Celtic call to drink. A red-palette exuberance carries us through unknown territory to the other side of what? It matters not as long as we feel stalwart, and true to our inner light, becoming the color that dazzles us. Time to fill ourselves in the last sizzle of fall’s glory as we release the year’s aspirations. We are spiraling toward a different time, one where we must internally cultivate our joy, and faith, for the world will not as willingly offer up its cheap thrills. Like the trees, we are stripping down, banking inner fires to survive. Rumi might ask, “What color are you in this moment? In red, we leap up with last huzzas. “One that neither change nor death make afraid.” Asana: Pasasana/Noose or cord Pose. Squat down, keeping heels down, or place a small pillow under them. Turning the trunk as far to the R……

Whatever you feel is missing in your life can become your motivation now. Stand still and feel the cells of your body as a multitude of tiny vessels listening, waiting to be filled. How do you wish to fill them? Is it a choice, or does happenstance win out? Our consciousness is a vast filtering system, which is turned off, or down, most of the time. When on, our system chooses healing, joy, sharing, productivity. When off, anything that rubs up against us flows through. If you noticed toxic wastes seeping into your blood stream would you not do something? How many hours of TV violence slip through filling those precious vessels? We are never at a loss for garbage. It seeps in under the radar in an ongoing multitude of manner. Suddenly we find ourselves sick, depressed, tired, angry; on overload with un-chosen poop. Empty out. Start again. Be in that moment between breaths. Go back to standing still, visualize a conscious filtering screen around you. Becoming aware of every thought, event, action, that does not promote joy and well-being. Slowly feel your vessel fill with luminous life force. Asana: Baddha Natarajasana/Dancer Pose is a lovely expression of joy in action, a place where we feel light, and dance with the cosmos as we stand still and strong. Begin standing, Tadasana, reach the R arm back as you bend R knee, lifting R leg back. Turning R thumb up, reach that hand back, clasping inside of R foot, and strongly using the hamstrings, extend R leg back, thigh as parallel to floor as possible. Extend L leg deeply into earth through your tap root, pulling energy up. Extend L arm forward or up, lifting the chest. Stand and breathe, feeling your luminous self appear. Do both sides. Health Notes:……