Inspiration

1. If asking, “What can I do better?” Think first about, “Who can I become?” We hear & see the same old information differently when our ears and eyes receive with a different vibration. Changing perception just enough to create shifts in old patterns allows for new territory. 2. When I was first contemplating marriage, a wise man asked, “Do you love him 51%?” I was appalled at the low percentage he required to put my life into change mode. He said, “If you can do even this tiny bit more than half, psychologically you will achieve what you desire.” 3. The power of now is powerful. Live in it, but do not expect change in it. Change is a Saturn based process, dealing with tempo, timing, pacing, repetition. Think of how often you do the scales on a piano before you play at Carnegie…or the Boogie Woogie bar down the street. Boogie daily to beckon changes. 4. When you Boogie, you’re happy, this is probably the most important change-agent of all. You can struggle through bad times, but you can’t live there. For change to be permanent, it has to make you happy, and you need that joy in creating. It’s like changing your diet. Too much denial makes for spiraling sugar splurges. Adding small sweet tastes of honey, raisins, tangerines, etc. keeps you light-bodied and cheerful. 5. When our new diet fails, or we falter yet once again to keep a promise to ourselves, it’s the best time for God to ask, “Are you ready now?” When we fail, we are our most teachable. If we never try, we never fail, therefore we are taught little, learn less. If we must go down in defeat, let us go down like thunder, and then be willing once again to……

Today’s perfect beauty offers itself as a poem. It touches me in ways I cannot describe, just as the qualities of good poetry defy description or understanding. Great poems touch and remain within as a confluence of feelings; a ‘Splendor In The Grass’ moment of pure intoxication that alters consciousness. Whether the poem holds extraordinary words, or simple ones, the symbolism illuminates something personally sublime that ignites the inner life. Meaning is secondary. This is true of any art. It can actually be true of most things, most Practices. Is it not why we practice? A Yoga Practice can be a bridge to a mystic place I cannot know, or own, though I work it piece by piece, hour by hour. It’s like my garden in this exquisite moment. My hands, practicing beauty, have torn out, torn up, re-worked, and weeded every centimeter, until the mundane of dirt and plant suddenly stand in their own glorious poetic wisdom. What transpires to create this moment as sacred? To travel from the mundane to a time and place where mind and heart transfuse and pinion me against the earth, is no minor event. Moments such as this are a goad for the tedious work. The practice, the mindless repetitions need to remember there is a God. If it’s only a momentary, inexpressible, breath…So be it. We may long to understand and share these feelings, intellectually pull things apart, but they have morphed into something beyond themselves, and are therefore mostly wordless. They are too full of life. Poses, flowers, words, are tools of the craftsman. What creates the transformation? How do we move through the literalness of our craft, the deliberate training, and dissection, the intellectual recycling and repetition of the dry, salty, and dare I say, the pedantic? How do we……

Solstice has always seemed a night for the soul. Perhaps it is only the onomatopoeia, or imitative, echoic principle at play? With the greater and greater need to simply ‘stand still’ as the earth spins along at it’s magnificent speed, Solstice is a soul-moment when we nurture and connect to earth and one another in a breath of stillness. We also harvest soul-food in ritual, chanting, fire, dance, shared bread, laughter. We are creating Sangha. Solstice Hour The last bright hour quivers Holding lady night at bay. ‘Tis Sol’s glorious moment The Samadhi Tribe has gathered Tributes to lay. Bowing out his rule We stand still to the tattoo While Ancient-Ones circle, In spans of fluttering desire Memories intact, They see us touch the earth as they did Embracing in the dance. In this hour we make our magic Where desire-laden Spirits mesh Through drum and call and fire Un-holy words form sacred text. Asana: Join the dance with your Yoga tribe this Friday night. Become part of the brotherhood sharing itself, embracing the earth, and our connections.

Summer has barely arrived and already I’m grasping. My eyes cannot take in the rise and fall of life. Blooms fill, fade, and drop away before I’ve had my fix. How to hold the beauty burgeoning from the earth before it surrenders to mulch? Just yesterday colors and scents blazed glory, the owl called twice, now they are lost before full savoring and appreciation. This flagrant abundance deserves greater honor for it is a full circle of life. It is their life, wrapped in their time of existence. Because it is not mine, my existence, my consciousness, is it any less? When I stare into the luxuriant face of a peony, I feel happy…a gift given without requirement. They do not need me to see their importance, or the significance of their life. Perhaps they are more enlightened than I? Do they fill every ecstatic moment with the bliss of being? Is their short span so full that at their end they droop and surrender willingly? Will I be so willing? Can I be that full of juicy living that I gracefully bow my head, loosen my petals to the wind, and return to mulch? Or will I grasp? If I am aware of my grasping now, will I learn to let go by then? Do I have only until tomorrow? Is it my job to allow summer to rise and fall, and rise again in its delicious rhythms? Will the cycles of bloom cascading/surrendering teach me nothing? Will my grasping give way to joyous acceptance? If I am present to this hot pink bud presence, that unfurling chartreuse leaf, and every sweet and bitter scent announcing arrival and departure, will I become willing to have my flower-life end when the owl calls my name? Asana: Uttana Padasana Lie on……

The Artisan’s Rose “Hephaestus, fashion me as a summer’s rose That fears not winter. Guild my thorns fine as Aladdin’s scimitar, Matching the inner lip of the Crescent Moon. Curve my petals not as an artist creates dreams, Rather as You, my artisan, Soft-hammers gold into rabbit bites of love. Mold me from the white heat of this day So my butter-petals will slide off, And I will surrender all this glory Gratefully, at vesper light.” Asana: Choose a pose, or craft a series of Asanas that make you feel as fine, and beautiful as a favored rose. Feel your colors, your scent, your leaves & stem opening/surrendering to summer’s heat. Health Notes: Ayruvedically, we are in Pitta territory; time to cool our jets, not over-schedule, over-stimulate, stay up late, or push the river. Rather, be in the river, of the water. Practice slow Asanas, and Pranayama. Take time for massage, or at least self-massage with cooling coconut oil. Eat meals at regular times, preferably cool, heavy, dry foods, with sweet, astringent, or bitter tastes. Reduce salt and oily foods.

This the story of a man named Jeff and his bird, Freedom. Ten years ago, a badly maimed baby eagle came to Jeff. She could not stand or fly. Both wings were broken, and even after surgery her left wing didn’t operate or open fully. Despite her emaciation and injuries, Jeff made the choice to offer her a chance at life. She took it. After weeks of tube-feeding she still could not stand and talk circled about euthanizing her if she couldn’t stand by the week’s end. Jeff put her in a large dog carrier and took her everywhere, talking to her, urging her to fight for life. All she could do was stare up at him with ‘those big brown eyes,’ sending silent messages. On the Thursday before the last Friday, he went to her cage, and there she was, standing, at long last….a large and beautiful eagle. Named for what she was not ever going to experience under ordinary circumstances, he trained her to the glove, and then to jesses. Freedom became the star of education programs for schools in western Washington, ultimately finding herself in print, on radio and TV. In 2000 it was Jeff’s turn for a bad year. He was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma, stage 3. He did eight months of chemotherapy, loosing hair, strength, and most of that year. When he did feel strong enough He took Freedom for walks. She began to appear in his dreams and he knew she was helping him fight the cancer. The day after Thanksgiving, Jeff went in for his last check up, on a wing and a prayer. His results were ‘freedom from the cancer.’ To celebrate, he took Freedom out for their walk. When they stopped, he looked at her and knew she knew. She wrapped……