SPIRITUAL INTEGRATION – Natalie Ullmann

January 1, 2023

Paschimottanasa – the Grand Poobah of forward bends.

(It’s a very, very powerful posture)

Paschimottanasana is a seated forward bend with legs extended straight in front of you. It’s best if your knees point towards the ceiling so the feet are neither rocked in nor rocked out. If you find that you can hardly fold at all – don’t be discouraged. It’s very common – it’s just no one gets their picture taken if they aren’t touching their toes yet!! Some find it helpful to bend the knees and rest the chest on the thighs. You can also sit on the front edge of a folded blanket.

Either your standing forward bends will be easier – or your seated forward bend will be easier. It reflects certain anatomical tensions in the neck and hips. If the seated forward bend is stubborn and unchanging, I suggest you work a variety of standing forward bends first to warm up for paschimottanasana. The folklore is that paschimottanasana is about “letting go” whatever that means. Let go of what? I could write a thesis on that…but generally it meant I needed to soften my edges, releasing the fixed ideas that I had about how the world should work. It involved letting others win disagreements, accepting discomfort, allowing change and opening to possibilities and opportunities in my life that I never would have considered. It was about choosing ease. For you it might mean letting go of fear and charging forward by being more active – engaging your thighs or activating your bicep muscles to pull you closer to your toes. It’s always good to try do so the thing that doesn’t come naturally in the moment. I feel lazy…activating my thighs (or some other part of my anatomy) may be just thing. If I’m struggling, then more ease is called for.

The bladder meridian runs down the entire back of the body, so being balanced with water will help as well. That might mean more water, but it also might mean less water – it’s about balance.

Experimentation is helpful here. That is a great thing about our yoga postures – they give us data about ourselves that we can use to refine our lives.

Most of all, like all things yoga, forward bend requires practice -so even if you don’t like it…keep practicing!!

December 20, 2022December 20, 2022

About the Body: The Body as a Communication Device

In the classic medieval text the “Hatha Yoga Pradipika” or The Guiding Light of the Yoking of the Sun and Moon – we learn that in classical yoga, the practice of Hatha Yoga culminates in the body’s resonance with the sound of “Om”. We are tuned by the practice to a vibration where opposites are united and revealed as facets of one source. That state of unity creates a particular feeling tone. In my experience when that happens, we are feeling the love of the universe within our own form. To do this, the biochemical aspect of the body requires cleansing (diet and various cleansing practices – the shat karma kriyas – the process of sweating during practice), the musculoskeletal system needs to be toned and balanced, and the energy body, emotions and the mind require discipline and clearing through meditation and sound practices (Om) and adjustments in personal care and ways of relating. I know it sounds like a lot, but for most of us we do a little at a time, transforming at a pace that is appropriate for us. The result of this is a clear “sound”. We can hear it in the sound of our voice. We can also hear it inside us as our intuition and wisdom become illuminated. A common test is to listen to your Om at the beginning and end of the class. Or any old time you feel out of tune. This clarity of resonance or lack there of is key to our capacity to communicate. If you’ve ever tried to sort things out with a friend when you felt foggy day you know it’s more difficult than when you are awake and clear. The body is a communication device – not just with our tongues and mouths, but with our posture, the brightness of our eyes, and our health. Imbalance in our system is reflected in the body. And through working with techniques of Hatha Yoga we can bring the system back into balance.

A good place to start is always the musculoskeletal system. The density of the bones and the memory capacity for the fascial tissue and muscles impacts the balance of the whole body mind spirit system. So how do we start?

All yoga starts with Tadasana – or Mountain -or Simple Standing Posture. It is so simple and straightforward that every tension is apparent. We just stand upright with the balance of the weight distributed evenly across the soles of the feet, arms alongside the body. Personally, I never try to force change in Tadasana. I use it as a measure. How is my Tadasana at the beginning of practice? What is it like at the end. Like the Om, it’s often very different, reflecting as greater state of balance and resonance. Sometimes I’ll just stand in it for a long time and feel the tension patterns surface.

Those tension patterns can tell us a lot about how we could create positive change in our lives. There is no formula. For me it’s always my hamstrings get short and tight and my head juts forward. Over the years – through spacious self-reflection and input from yoga colleagues – I’ve come to know that when that pattern emerges – some piece of me is not in the present moment. I’m hanging on to a belief, or perception or way of being that doesn’t serve me anymore. Often by the time my body communicates something – I’ve been ignoring it for a while. Sometimes insights about what needs to change will emerge during asana practice, sometimes meditation or the other forms of practice can help to illuminate the issues. The key is to seek to understand in a receptive way rather than just to fix or overcome and that understanding lays the groundwork for transformation of the body and everything else through my practice.

My newsletter lays a philosophical ground drawn from Patanjali Yoga Sutra 1.40 to work with in conjunction with this blog post. Take a look here: To Know – Results of the Experience of Yoga – https://mailchi.mp/4f8d72e44e70/to-know-yoga-and-the-experience-of-knowing

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August 21, 2022September 16, 2022

The Fruits of Yoga: Awakening into the Experience of Infinity

About the body

II.47 Patanjali Yoga Sutra Steadiness and ease of posture is to be achieved through persistent slight effort and through the concentration of the mind upon the infinit

II.48 Patanjali Yoga Sutra When this is attained the pairs of opposites no longer limit.

(translation of Sutras by Alice Bailey)

One of the techniques from the classical practices which is really powerful in uniting the two opposites is something called moola bandha. Moolah is “root” and Banda is lock, and the experience of moola bandha or root lock can be activated by several different approaches.

On the physical level a very simple way to begin to activate this root lock is to engage in lift the space between the anus and the genitals. Bring your attention to the area and attempt to draw it up and in toward your navel. Now hold that for your entire practice while breathing at the same time. For me, to be honest, I have the best luck with this if I work with it in seated forward bends and standing postures. Some yogi’s can perform this to an extent they levitate the body. In my opinion working with it on both levels is useful, and working with it simply is safer.

On and energetic level what moolah bandha does is move the energy in an energy center called the mooladhara chakra(the root chakra) which energizes the entire pelvic girdle. To directly experience our energy requires patience and the cultivation of a subtler level of attention. But for some, this is easier. Just know that if you keep practicing consistently and well you will have tangible experiences of this kind of energy and be able to learn to manage it. As a matter of fact we all feel our energy all the time. Some examples are the experiences of sexual desire or butterflies in the stomach. When we’re focused on identification with our sexual identity, our financial identity our tribal identity and our identity as a body (as opposed to as a spiritual being) the energy of this center moves out into the material world. We may notice this as an experience of deep fatigue. The energy also moves outward if we seek our answers outside of ourselves, rather than listening within.

When we work with Moola Bandha this way of looking at ourselves and looking for answers shifts. We begin to wake up to a different way of understanding our lives – what are we creating, how we participate in the larger community of the universe, what is our personal path of love and what is our authentic expression. When we start asking these kinds of questions, looking in these directions for the answers to the questions that arise in our lives Moola Bandha is activated on an energetic level. When it’s activated on an energetic level it often spontaneously arises on a physical level as well. The trick is to keep the state of mind as you re-engage the external world.

A powerful way to support the physical practice of moola bandha is to shift our attention towards these universal considerations while we practice. Our attention will work harmoniously with the physical contraction of the space between the anus and the genitals. By working these two aspects together we activate a powerfully gentle form of transformation. How do we shift our attention while we are in our practice? Shouldn’t our attention during our practice be on our practice? I encourage you to ask those questions when you are on your mat in your personal practice. There are as many approaches to this integration as there are people practicing yoga. Some people meditate before practice. Some people chant before practice. Some pray. Some extend the benefit of their practice to others or take a moment to envision that somehow as the practice transforms them – that the world around them will transform into a peaceful world where beings are happy and free. The possibilities are endless hence Patanjali’s statement about the limits. The important thing is to consider incorporating these kinds of techniques into your practice on a physical level. In actual practice an effective moola bandha will show up in a lightness – a freedom of movement, a steadiness of the mind, and a stability in the grounding of the posture. It may also show up as a different understanding of yourself in the practice and this I will leave you to discover on your own!

December 13, 2021July 24, 2022

The Elements of Sadhana: Santosha- Contentment

In the newsletters we’ve been talking about creating a sadhana – a conscious spiritual practice of yoga, a discipline of yoga as conscious spiritual practice. This past week I introduced the mahavratam or great vows outlined in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra. These vows aren’t something that Patanjali devised – he compiled them from studying with the esteemed yoga masters of the day (which was some time a few thousand years ago no precise date is known). There are ten of them. They are often considered to be moral imperatives. In practice I’ve found it more useful and more authentic – I get better results – if I let that idea of morality go and open up to practicing them whenever and however I can, trusting that they are actually learning devices for me. Through practicing them I open to understanding who I am and who everyone else is. As I open to understanding I make better choices. The ten mahavratam are: nonviolence, non stealing, adherence to truth, continence, non- hoarding, cleanliness, contentment, austerity, self- reflection and devotion. In the newsletter I briefly talked about the practice of saucha or cleanliness. Today I’d like to speak a little bit about contentment, or santosha.

One thing to consider when practicing these – they’re also called yamas and niyamas, restraints and observances – is that we are always creating. We are creative beings – extensions of the divine, which is the creative energy of the universe, the supreme creative energy of the universe. This is an underlying paradigm of the yoga practice. The yoga practice will reveal that we a specks of divine creative consciousness – and we can live from that truth. This is co-creating, which is yoga – to be yoked to the divine. The restraints and observances clear the palette of our consciousness, enabling creativity which is unbridled by our past.

With yoga the idea is that creating in alignment with the infinite divine opens the doorway to limitless possibilities- and that wisdom, that intelligence – will create richer more satisfying possibilities than our personalities with their cravings and conditioned attunement to lack. If we choose it, these practices deepen our understanding of the elements of a good life. This is partly why I encourage you to set aside the idea that they are imposed morality. Practiced lovingly, they open the way to a delicious abundant live. Less is more.

With the practice of santosha or contentment this connection between our behaviors our beliefs our thoughts in the world that we experience is made very clear.

Perhaps in your life you have met those or perhaps you’ve been in this space yourself ( I know I have been) where you feel a need to complain about everything. I’ve seen a real uptick in this during the COVID situation.

I think we can all agree there is much to be addressed in the world., but right now we have to accept what’s happened and what is happening and learn to work with it. Shaking our fists at a perceived enemy is unlikely to change the world…changing ourselves is likely to change the world, not only because we engage those conversations differently.

But let’s think back to the before time – before COVID – and remember those days in offices or classrooms or social gatherings where we or our friends or neighbors or our family would lapse into days where we complained and complained and complained. Surely we’ve all known in ourselves or others that momentum that complaining develops – once you start complaining there just seems to be more to complain about. The yogis understood this very deeply through their meditations , analysis and self reflection. The practice of contentment is to practice contentment under all circumstances that’s a key of these mahavratam – under all circumstances. So in any moment (the grandeur of universality demands we operate one moment at a time) when faced with complaining, we choose contentment. It’s like putting down a heavy object. “I just don’t want to carry the weight of my complaints, so I’m a gonna put this down, right here.” It’ll be okay. Once we’ve entered a quieter state of mind, wise action can emerge more clearly.

What does that mean – in the yoga practice – to work a difficult situation? Perhaps it is to rest in the understanding that you’ve participated in the creation of it and take responsibility for the fact that you’re there. You skip the blame (of yourself and others) you skip the victim story and nurture and invite the ability to see the situation differently. Liberation arises when we realize there is no one to blame. The practice of contentment opens our minds so that we are able to see that. To be honest, in content I perceive that there is nothing to complain about. It’s all perfect. But to deeply know that feeling we have to practice.

One of the ways that we can train ourselves in the vast practice of contentment is to practice on our yoga mats. One of the most obvious powerful and potent ways to do this is to be content with a posture even as you are working to transform it. Where I am is fine but I’d like to deepen it. I’d like to expand it; I’d like to move to the next expression of it. So the first part of that is to enjoy every posture just where you are with it. This is one of the reasons why the postures that we can’t do are so important. As I say this I realize that this is one of the biggest difficulties of a home practice is that we never bump into those postures that we don’t like. At the same time if the classes available around us are not suitable – to force ourselves to go into a class that is just full of difficulties makes no sense either. So what can be a good idea in your practice is to add a small step towards a posture that you would like to attain someday. For me right now this is wheel urdva dhanurasana.

I had an accident last fall where my wrist was smashed. I’ve consciously decided to recover slowly. In my full practice days I would do three full or wheel postures every day. Wow right? To me that seems like wow. I was never a born gymnast. That posture has intense ramifications on the wrist and feels remote to me but at a certain point I had an intuition a revelation that in fact I would be able to do it again in this lifetime So what I’m going to practice this moon month is to sit at the wall and take a camel posture and place my hands on the wall. A highly modified introduction to the movement that would lead to wheel. And I am content.. This is the beauty of modifications in yoga. What they do is – if you practice them fully,happily embracing what the modification has to offer you – it’s actually like working the full posture you develop the shape energetically on a deep level and it opens from the inside out. One day your’re ready and the full posture emerges – like a chuck busting out of an egg.

So how do we learn about modifications if we’d like to incorporate them in our sadhana? I highly recommend them even if you don’t have an injury. Spend some time in modified postures. By working with the modifications you’ll learn some of the paradigms of postural yoga. We’re very fortunate to live in an opulent world where there’s all kinds of information about yoga on the Internet so I’m sure you can find some information about modifications there. As far as books books go and even Internet the best school of yoga from which to learn about modifications is the Iyengar school so I encourage you to look into that when choosing postures to work in your sadana.

Once you’ve practiced santosha on your mat for some time don’t be surprised if you catch yourself practicing it in your life. You don’t have to make a big trip out of doing all of these mahavratam. Just know that they can extend to all circumstances, and they’re not limited. Your contentment is not limited to certain circumstances. You can start practicing them in certain circumstances until you feel confident to apply them in more challenging circumstances.

OK that’s our blog post for today. As always it’s my sincere wish that this information be useful to you and that your practice will lead you to a blessed and wonderful life.

June 20, 2021October 18, 2021

Refuge: Commentaries from last months emails

April 1, 2021 – Refuge in Hatha Yoga

HYP 1.10 for those continually tempered by the heat of tapah (pain – difficulty – challenges) hatha is like the hermitage giving protection from the heat. For those always united in yoga, hatha is the basis acting like a tortoise.

Perhaps this has happened to you —you select a relaxing and remote vacation destination, longing for a break from the hassles of day to day life. A deposit of thousands of dollars is placed – the time between making the arrangements and the date of the trip is consumed with the desire for that rest and relaxation. The state which will come when life as you know it is escaped for a little while. The day arrives. The plane is delayed, the luggage is lost, negotiating the unfamiliar terrain of the destination, for whatever reason, falls out of the realm of an adventure and just feels a little arduous. Now, I love to travel, I’m not knocking it, but it’s not always the escape that we want it to be, there are no guarantees of relaxation or freedom on any journey. But, as this sentence from the Hatha Yoga Pradipika puts forth, a well done yoga practice allows us to establish an essential experience of ease and refuge within.

Granted, a yoga class can have similar distractions to a pilgrimage in terms of time, obstacles, disruptions. But the function of a yoga class is to learn, to be together in learning and community The discovery of the inner refuge is the path of our personal practice.

The inner work of yoga, depending on the techniques you practice, can reveal many different things. There is the awakening of insight and contemplation, there is creativity and conscious co-creation, there is awakening and there is refuge. We have many alternatives to choose from.

What’s specific about the techniques of Hatha Yoga is that they support and develop this experience of refuge specifically. It’s put forth here at the beginning of the text, which is claimed to have historical roots in the origins of the practice of Hatha Yoga itself. The beginning of the text states it’s lineage back to the teaching of Shri Adinath, the first yogi, also known as Lord Shiva. As the text unfolds we are advised to create the conditions for the experience of Hatha Yoga. The conditions within and without, create a scaffolding for this experience of transition from a state of dualism to an experience of unity, and in that unity there is peace, there is refuge, there is healing and there is rest.

Last month we explored the kundalini energy. When directed in unconscious ways the creative energy can lead to the experience of fluctuation, conflict and unstable moods. Well directed and managed energy can be elevated to a steady state where such disruptions are minimized or ideally left behind. Think about it, we know sorrow only because we have known happiness, two opposing energies will always conflict until they are harmonized and when a pendulum swings one way it inevitably swings the other way. The idea as I understand it is that when we become anchored in this steady unified, harmonized state, which is yoga then the fluctuations and conflicts occur, but we are not imprisoned or buffeted by them. I measure the depth of the yoga practice these days, by my ability to stay steady in the face of those fluctuations.

This month we’ll explore techniques of focus on breath and gaze which support this experience of unity. The Hatha Yoga Pradipika refers to miraculous states where the physical body is transformed through the practice. This experience unfolds as we master our ability to be in union as we move in the physical world.

ENERGY ANATOMY – The Manipura Chakra

The Manipura Chakra (the city of jewels) is located in the area of the solar plexus under the rib cage. This chakra is “worked” when we twist, when we work with our diaphragms in breathing exercises and bandhas, and when we work with our gaze. Spiritually, psychologically, this center affects and is effected by or relationships with others in community — how we see them and how we are seen. My experience is that the gaze is a deep purifying technique for the manipura chakra. To use our drishti (a technique of gazing) breaks down the experience of self and other and harmonizes the relationships between.

Yoga at Home

One of the nicest things about working in a personal practice at home is that you can draw out the technique which your personal journey is calling for and work with it on your own schedule and with your own ability to focus and observe and digest the experiences that you have with a given technique. There is no one way of yoga. Traditionally, one would work one on one with a teacher, and a form of relationship which is no longer really available or desirable for many of us. Our opportunity in engaging our personal curriculum of yoga in a structured and mindful way provides the opportunity to experience a personal relationship with what refer to these days as the Wisdom Self. Engaging the Wisdom Self opens a deep level of knowing which reveals the journey step by step and provides an illuminated understanding of our personal function, our opportunities for rich and unique growth, and decisions which lead to deep healing.

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April 11, 2021

Many spiritual traditions contain within them an indicator of the power of taking refuge, as a means and an end. In Buddhism, one takes refuge in the awakened consciousness or the Buddha, the community, and the essential truth. In Christianity, it’s the experience of salvation, or being saved by surrendering into Christ consciousness. In yoga, that refuge is liberation or mukti, the experience of releasing into the limitless divine which is known by many many names. . This passage is located at the very beginning of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, a seminal text on the yogic processes. The Hatha Yoga Pradipika is a manual for balancing the forces of the physical body to enable deeper levels of absorption in the state of union or yoga. Hatha Yoga is notable for it’s simplicity, it’s power and it’s promise, that the dissolving the separation of opposites or the sun and the moon, will protect us from the experience of pain.

While the language of the HYP is mysterious and riddle-like, the practice is simple. The text itself enumerates some extreme measures….living alone in a hermitage built to specifications outlined therein, avoiding overeating and regular folks, and avoiding long pilgrimages and women – to name a few. But basically, whittled down to essence, the foundations of preparation prescribe that we create a life which is relatively free of conflict. The hermitage of yoga is built of our own powerful moment by moment choices to stay centered or give into the temptation to fluctuate or be fluctuated.

We live in a world of duality: right or wrong, this or that, black or white, red or blue, science or fiction, spirit or matter, male or female, etc. It is our attachment to the opposing elements of that duality which causes the fluctuation within, and the conflict without. Hatha refers to the union of the Sun and the Moon. Our intuitive psychic qualities and our active and engaged qualities cease to be in opposition to one another. Instead they work together.

If you’ve ever butt heads with someone with a stubbornly opposing viewpoint you know how much conflict within and without is caused by that duality. When we choose peace the duality ceases to have power over us and we are protected from the pain of the fluctuations. We move towards yoga.

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April 17, 2021

Refuge II: Peace in the Body

The Hatha Yoga Pradipika describes the process of Hatha yoga as a refuge for those best by the pain of suffering. A considerable amount of our suffering is of the body, and later on in the text when the results of practice are described we are encouraged that the pain will cease. The text specifically points to a moment when all physical disease is eradicated. Last week we spoke of the transformative power of moving beyond duality as reflected in the word Hatha. Dualities are infinite in number (although limited in expression) and one such duality is the divide between the mind and the body. Think about it. How much of your time is spent warring with your body? Even many forms of so-called self-care are merely thinly disguised ways to try to make the body different than it is: it’s appearance, behavior sensations. Either it’s in charge or we are (you know those struggles over the chocolate thing). In the meditative processes of yoga it’s sometimes spoken of that the mind is a battlefield. Well so is the body. Part of the power of well-done Hatha yoga is that this dichotomy between mind and body can be dissolved into peace, and the body, once a battleground becomes instead a vehicle, a tool, a field which can be used for healing and transformation on a psycho-spiritual level.

In yoga 2021, we are best by images of what we should look like. They are changing but the images of perfection still loom large. There is much suffering in the attempt to spend your life trying to look like someone else! Any spiritual path can be distorted into suffering. A well-done practice, engaged with wisdom and discernment, yields a state of peace with the form we are in.

My classes are small. Being out of the studio is a blessing for that reason. Part of that is – I encourage students to back off, to give up the striving for the physical ideal, but to still be engaged. It’s pretty specialized…and good for those who are wanting to engage their inner being. It also requires an understanding uniquely yogic that just because you give up striving doesn’t mean that you won’t’ get what you want. It also requires and understanding that the inner work has the power to transform the physical form. Imagine this – your limitation – say a restriction in the hamstrings – to sit in the limitation and breathe and find peace and not fight against the limitation is the field of true inner strength. To learn to move forward without pushing against or opposition, but instead through the creative willingness and love in your heart, well….It’s a moment to find beauty in what is instead of what should be. And-practicing that way balances the energy field and tones the body in an integrated way. Creating balance within the limitation rather than saying …”If conditions were different…I would be balanced” This is a measure of true power.

As I practiced this way I found that many times something would change without my doing anything. One day I would be light enough to invert spontaneously. A deeper or more specified level of engagement and articulation would reveal itselve providing a deeper experience of integrated balance. But mostly, my relationship with my body changed. I began to love it for what it was, this little skin suit I trip around in. That alone lightened the whole thing up.

Many of you know that I broke my wrist last October. As healing progressed deeper levels of balance and healing were revealed. It was a significant injury. I’m finding that those years I spent finding peace in the limitation I had, in order to move beyond them is serving me very well. The injured part of my body is something I love and want to care for, it isn’t an obstacle or a burden or really even a limitation. It’s an opportunity. This is the first major injury I’ve had since practicing yoga, so much had my agility improved through practice, this kind of thing was rare and unexpected. But compared to my experience of breaks I had experienced in my twenties which were painful and inconvenient. My body became a landscape of areas which I dissociated from. (One of which was this wrist, which I had broken before). This is now an opportunity to relate to this broken part of my body with more awareness, to reintegrate into the whole of who I am in a new way.

This allows something else to happen. I become able to celebrate the way the miraculous unfolds in the physical form When I began to do down dog again, the carpals began to regrow. This appeared on the x-rays.

I am able to celebrate and bear witness too the body’s miraculous power os regeneration. At an age when the world would tell me my body should be deteriorating it’s regenerating instead. I imagine as I open my mind up to really accept and understand this, it will change everything. These are just a few of the ways that making peace with and building a relationship with the body via the practice of hatha yoga can be practical and useful. So, you know….come to class!!!

Love

Natalie

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April 26, 2021

Refuge III: Refuge in Community

Although the Hatha Yoga Pradipika advises that the practitioner establish in solitude, in the larger scope of the practices of yoga, of which Hatha Yoga is only one (others include mediation, text study, chanting, service and others) the yogi is advised to take refuge in the satsang- or meeting with other truth seekers. Buddhism as well suggests that we take refuge in the community or “sangha”. Settling into an inner landscape of non-dualism (which merely means that we stop making a division between this and that) is in itself a form of refuge. But does this mean that we have to leave the material world behind and just melt into that inner state of peace and lack of conflict? No. We can take refuge in our ability to practice seeing others without conflict – in a state of right relationship: appreciating them as sacred, focusing on the spirit which expresses through them as individuals, and neither judging nor adulating them.

This understanding emerged in my practice after a long time. I kept searching for truth seekers or those who would provide right relationship for me, but to no avail. As I worked with resolving my judgements and adulations (in yoga terms aversions and attachments) I found that finding right relationship in the life I was living meant to recalibrate the way that I was relating. Period. Can I suspend my judgement about who I think someone is or what a specific relationship means enough to allow the particular gift of a given exchange to be revealed?

In the exalted spiritual philosophies we hear about oneness and emptiness and mirroring. In simple day to day practice I found that became distilled into physical form by not judging and not adulating. From there discernment began to arise, revealing deeper potentials or possibilities for the relationships I was in. What emerged was a much richer tapestry of relationship, one which I could not have imagined in that kind of good-bad, stay-go kind of relating I had been engaged with.

And then, a little bonus emerged. What was reflected back to me about myself in those relationships began to transform in a very rich, full, helpful way.

The practice of Hatha Yoga, cultivating my ability not to veer into one extreme or another, provided the support and discipline which empowered me to choose in every interaction whether I wanted to judge or not.

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Refuge 4: The Power of Spirit

HYP:IV.113. A Yogin in Samadhi is not vulnerable to any weapons, not assailable by any persons, not subject to control by the use of mantras and yantra-s (incantations and magical diagrams).

When the yogi succeeds in leaving behind their dualistic thinking, quote, this and that, unquote, good and bad, up and down one attains an experience of unified mind, which is the entryway to the experience of yoga. It can arise in an instant, though some stay in it for an extended period of time. It’s blissful. It’s peaceful. It’s healing. It is a refuge. We are evolving spiritually, we humans, and what I see and know around me is that many people experience unified mind. Through the practices of yoga we can intentionally cultivate it. While most of us living in 2021 are unlikely to have enemies assaulting us with mantras and yantras, we are daily subject to bombardment by influences. Our capacity to be still, centered and true to ourselves in the wake of this is true empowerment. This sentence above, the last line in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, is a beautiful affirmation of the living refuge which is manifest as we cultivate unified mind through our practice.

While I don’t recommend stopping a bullet with the power of your mind, there are stories of the invulnerability of the human body when one is anchored in higher consciousness. In one of the books scribed by the great jazz musician and yogi, Alice Coltrane, it is briefly mentioned that through the auspices of her guru Swami Satya Sai Baba, she was lifted out of her body into a transcendental peaceful state of consciousness during a significant earthquake. The body was unharmed.

I was skeptical of the relevance of this story until my mind became a bit a little clearer. I know for me that I can make a crisis worse through my noisy inner dialogue. The longer I practice the more I am able to hold peace within,. Allowing for , even wondrous, outcomes to emerge from seeming challenges. It isn’t a blind faith, it is a consciously cultivated capacity to project a positive future for myself, rather than a fearful one. When we nurture conflicting thoughts, which is really a mundane example of dualism, this gets projected outward. We do not see our best interests amidst the fluctuations of our minds. As we learn to choose to nurture peace rather than conflict in our thoughts, this is projected outward. We project a more harmonious future. Don’t worry, the centered peace projected out does not mean an absence of action, fun or pleasure, it just means that the conflict is gone.

As our access to media expands we can be bombarded by the opinions of those who profit greatly from capturing our trust and opinions. To step away from the tides of this influence and anchor in and remain established (pratishtayam) in the inner refuge, we create to yoga, we become unassailable. By that I mean we can continue on our personally charted journey of evolution. The practices of yoga are designed for this degree of self-mastery or sovereignty. Yogi’s can choose to explore deeper and deeper subtler dimensions of this journey, which reveal the magic and powerful love and healing which is revealed through practice.

Interested in empowered choice – making? Check out my Destination Sovereignty Programming!

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Refuge IV: The Power of Spirit

HYP:IV.113. A Yogin in Samadhi is not vulnerable to any weapons, not assailable by any persons, not subject to control by the use of mantras and yantra-s (incantations and magical diagrams).

I was skeptical of the relevance of this story until my mind became a bit a little clearer. I know for me that I can make a crisis worse through my noisy inner dialogue. The longer I practice the more I am able to hold peace within. Allowing for , even wondrous, outcomes to emerge from seeming challenges. It isn’t a blind faith, it is a consciously cultivated capacity to project a positive future for myself, rather than a fearful one. When we nurture conflicting thoughts, which is really a mundane example of dualism, this gets projected outward. We do not see our best interests amidst the fluctuations of our minds. As we learn to choose to nurture peace rather than conflict in our thoughts, this is projected outward. We project a more harmonious future. Don’t worry, the centered peace projected out does not mean an absence of action, fun or pleasure, it just means that the conflict is gone.

As our access to media expands, we can be bombarded by the opinions of those who profit greatly from capturing our trust and opinions. To step away from the tides of this influence and anchor in and remain established (pratistayam) in the inner refuge, we create to yoga, we become unassailable. By that I mean we can continue on our personally charted journey of evolution. The practices of yoga are designed for this degree of self-mastery or sovereignty. Yogi’s can choose to explore deeper and deeper subtler dimensions of this journey, which reveal the magic and powerful love and healing which is revealed through practice.

April 30, 2021October 18, 2021

Compilation of Newsletters for the April Moon Month

Compilation of Newsletters for the April Moon Month

Arundhati, the Awakening of Creation

This word arose in my awareness this month as I took a glance at The Hatha Yoga Pradipika scribed by Swami Swatmarama. The translation I read, issued by the Bihar School in India, contained commentary by Swami Muktibodandanda of the lineage of Swami Sivananda Saraswati. While the text is thought to have been scribed in the centuries after 6 AD, it claims it’s mystical roots in the primordial origins of the sacred knowledge of Hatha Yoga from the beginning of time. Swami Muktabonananda mentions Arundhati as another name for kundalini, the powerful feminine creative source, which resides dormant and resting in the terrain of the subtle energy body commonly associated with the cradle of the pelvic bowl. Muktabodananda breaks the word Arundhati down into “arun” translated as “dawn” and “dhati” which he translates to mean to “generate” or “create”. The dawning of a new creation. Arundhata, he adds, means unobstructed. It’s a powerful description of the potent and mysterious creative potential within each and every one of us, and a clue to tapping into the potential of our yoga practice. Hatha Yoga in it’s essential expression is a discipline in the management and effective direction of this creative force, leading us to a place of full alignment with and expression of our sacred potential in this world and beyond.

Folklore runneth over with tales of the power and pitfalls of awakening this goddess force. The most famous teller of these tales is Gopi Krishna who wrote a book about the unexpected eruption of his kundalini force and the trials and tribulations of having the energy charge through his body. Any time we encounter powerful expressions of feminine creative forces it’s good to consider that, historically, feminine power has been feared and this has resulted in a great deal of distortion of information related to these energies. My experience in energy work while working with students and clients over the years is that the awakening of this force does not have to be violent or disruptive. It does not require forceful action to ignite it (although you can try that if you want). It’s part of human evolution that it organically awakens when we have certain experiences, some of which are the practices of yoga. Yoga ignites it and supports in the management and direction of the energy. What is important is how well prepared you are and how well you are able to sustain a healthy environment for the unfolding of this energy.

When the energy is managed in a balanced and well directed manner, what unfolds is gentle awakenings and shifts in perspective and understanding. The way this is cultivated, is through balance. In the simplest sense, creating an environment in the body, mind and life which is neither aggressive nor passive (think easefully assertive), neither nurturing of depression nor anger (think peace), and vaster than self absorption (think relating) will create a habitat for a productive and rich unfolding. Nurturing a balanced state allows the process to be one of healing, rather than a struggle to control.

When the energy is directed in an uplifting but grounded fashion, the creative process reflects a spiritually evolutionary journey, and an important one. It’s the upliftment that leads us to a higher vision, the transcendence of a mundane understanding of the world we live in. What is the use of this? A well balanced cultivated transcendence nurtures an empowered and liberating perspective. It opens us up to our capacity to choose. In a gentle and non-reactive way, we learn, step by step, to function without feeling trapped in the confirmed of the opinions or perceptions of those around us. WE are opened to align with our inner truth across the varying facets of our person — from our relationship to our body to our relationship with our higher power and everything in between (in realms of love, power, creativity).

From Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra: 1.28-1.29:

Repeat the sound of Om and all is revealed. This anchors one in inner consciousness and dissolves obstacles.

This month we are investigating the direction and management of or essential creative force, known by many names, primarily kundalini, but this month I’m thinking of it as Arundhati. This week we’ll begin by exploring the most simple and fundamental technique for managing this energy, and that is Om.

Om is vibrationally whole. It contains within it every sound, and every possible vibration so it is the closest thing to totality that we can merge with materially. When we focus on parts – this or that – then our creative force becomes divided. This can diminish clarity and inhibit the yogic process.

Om is beyond language. Beyond language there is no limit – we can create something wholly new and not yet conceived of. Beyond language we are not bound to create within that which already can be named.

The resonance of Om permeates all levels of our being – the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual so it’s capacity to illuminate unity impacts all of the dimensions of who we are.

Practically, how does this mystical practice pan out? Well, when you have a moment of conflict, within or without. Stop and Om, inside or out and allow yourself to tune into the sound and feel, it will uplift the energy and pull into the center. Before practice, it points us in the right direction.

The Straight Arrow

To begin with: It’s said that no effort in yoga is ever lost. It stays with you forever – no matter how clumsy the attempt.

The bottom line? In it’s purest form, the Arundhati (another term for the primordial sacred energy kundalini) travels through the energy channels along the spine, easily piercing the tangles and moving upward directly toward illuminated consciousness. The only thing that can create this experience is pure devotion. One instant of pure devotion to a spiritual ideal, love, truth or God, can be sufficient. In an instant Arundhati’s journey is complete and we experience the Truth of everything. The purity of the devotion comes from an unadulterated desire to experience that spiritual ideal.

Unadulterated is one word which could reflect this, uninterrupted is another one. That would mean never wavering into lack of faith or anger or delusion about the state of affairs in the universe – meaning that we have right relationship to both our spiritual lives and our material lives in an undivided way. Holding the space for both of them as the waves of life press against us.

In the tales of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana (ancient Indian epics which illuminate the principles of yoga), the heart of the stories revolve around archery, the greatness of the archers and the dedication to their craft. The stories illuminate the rewards of accomplishment and the pitfalls which deter the practitioners as well. Author Ramesh Menon, one translator of these epics, details the nature and the precision of a well-aimed arrow – the all-consuming focus and calculation required. The target is determined, and at the beginning of the arrow’s journey it is positioned in such a way that one would expect it to travel smoothly through varying conditions towards it’s destination – the target. To have such expertise and insight is phenomenal.

In a pure classical yoga practice there is only one target – the state of yoga. If we aren’t aiming for that target, well that’s okay, the effect is never lost. This is a spiritual principle, but you may have already observed it’s a physical one too. You may have experienced that when an asana aligns it’s more of a discovery than an accomplishment and after a break in practice you move back to the level of accomplishment more swiftly than the initial journey. The point is that all practice is sustainable on some level.

These detours of the straight line of Arundhati aren’t always errors. Sometimes they are little side trips into discoveries and experiences which are helpful. The yoga practice teaches us that just about any action or experience when offered with a sense of devotion, can serve to establish the right direction in the inner flow of our consciousness.

It’s All Good

We started the month speaking about the creative force Arundhati, most often known as kundalini. We spoke of how this force can be violently awakened, or naturally awakened. We’ve used spaciousness in the hips to gently open the channels surrounding the energy in it’s dormant state, and focused on our third eye centers to encourage the energy in an upward direction. Is that it? Is that Yoga? Well, these are practices of yoga, but in the experience of “YOGA”, the state of union arises unites and ignites the central energy channel, the sushumna, from our roots to our crowns. Then, there is union, there is yoga, there is bliss, there is understanding and wisdom.

So how do we do this? Let’s take a simple decision. Should I eat chocolate chips or carrots? The mind flips from one to the other, “good” “bad” “black” “white” “sun” ‘moon” “right” “left”. This movement of the mind is reflected in the channels of energy by movement from right to left, left to right. We fluctuate. Patanjali says that Yoga occurs when the fluctuations are no longer dominant. Stop. Breath. Lift the pelvic floor. Focus on the 3rd eye center. Center!!

Maybe the first time or the millionth time you do this the creative energy moves fully into the central channel and you move out of duality. If you are all in, roots to crown, mind and heart, you move out of duality. “Carrots good, chocolate chips good. It’s all good”. This is the union of the sun and the moon. Opposites and fluctuations between apparent opposites no longer exist. Any choice made from that point of view is beyond duality. There is no wrong choice. We become the Om itself. Yogis absorbed in this Om state experience profound healing. We are yoked to the cosmos within and without on a sublime level. Don’t forge…Om is a technique which will get you there, as well, it’s the journey and the destination.

On a practical level we step into the flow. Everyone experiences this state of union organically from time to time. The practices of yoga allow us to cultivate them intentionally.

Compilation of Newsletters for the April Moon Month

Arundhati, the Awakening of Creation

From Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra: 1.28-1.29:

Repeat the sound of Om and all is revealed. This anchors one in inner consciousness and dissolves obstacles.

The resonance of Om permeates all levels of our being – the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual so it’s capacity to illuminate unity impacts all of the dimensions of who we are.

The Straight Arrow

To begin with: It’s said that no effort in yoga is ever lost. It stays with you forever – no matter how clumsy the attempt.

It’s All Good

On a practical level we step into the flow. Everyone experiences this state of union organically from time to time. The practices of yoga allow us to cultivate them intentionally.

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December 28, 2020

Established in yoga…while moving through it all…

I fractured my wrist at the end of October. The cast came off, December 11. During the time in the cast I floated through time and space, a little removed from life, a little removed from pain, a little removed from sitting with this unexpected event in my life. I did some responsibility taking around that somehow, but generally, I was floated by my spiritual practices in this place beyond time. I didn’t struggle against the weight of the cast to do asana (physical postures) practice, because I understand true healing to take place on the level of consciousness, first. Lots of healing happened on that level, and then the cast came off, and I plummeted back to Earth. I was back in my body, remembering the accident and the pain, and meeting and seeing the limitation now embedded in my physical body. I was in shock. When I left the hospital and climbed into my car, I burst into tears. It wasn’t victimy. It wasn’t woe is me tears. It was sadness for the whole world, all of us, going through this experience of restriction. It was a visceral experience of the sense of vulnerability of our bodies and the sense of vulnerability to all kinds of forces external to us. This month in my classes we are talking about pratistayam, or to be established in. In Patanjali’s yoga sutra Patanjali refers to yoga as a state where we dwell in our true nature and the text builds a pretty good case that where we seem to dwell in the external world is intimately related to where we dwell inside. To make a choice to dwell in our true nature is to become established, and that is to position ourselves in such a way that the impact of external forces on our ability to move through the world is diminished. We become conscious co-creators of our life experience.

When I was in the hospital, initially, after the break, I was there four days. A significant amount of the time was spent discussing pain. This was what the hospital staff worked with me on. The managing of pain. The avoiding of pain. I liked the underlying message which was, you don’t have to suffer pain. I’d spent many years with the belief that I did have to suffer pain. Of course, there is that meme “Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional”. I will say that what when you extract the suffering, it’s no longer pain. It’s just powerful sensation. But therein lies the rub. We have to choose not to sit in the state of mind of our own suffering. Randy, the very kind, bright-natured nurse who was my primary “pain coach” advised, “You don’t want to chase pain.” What does that mean? She explained that it’s very difficult to reduce the pain once you’ve allowed it to take hold. So, the process is to ward it off in advance, in this case by regular systematic taking of meds as the doctors prescribed. Every X number of hours. Isn’t that interesting? Patanjali advises the same thing. He says future suffering is to be avoided. And I think it’s good to note that Patanjali is not just one guy with one idea, but he organized all the information from what people who were practicing in that day were doing so, you know, it’s not the kind of information that gets outdated.

So if future suffering is to be avoided, how is this done? Yogically, there are a number of different interpretations of what that means but for today let’s just consider that part of it, avoiding future suffering, is that we train ourselves through asana pranayama meditation and good old fashioned discipline to stay anchored, to stay established in our true nature. Part of that training is learning to catch ourselves when we are not in our true nature. Randy advised that pain was a tricky thing. In my post cast life I feel what she meant. It’s random and it’s stubborn – arising with no apparent logic. Although, the mind will try to give it logical source, ‘I ate french fries yesterday and must be inflamed’. But then one might notice the pain lingers long after the french fries are gone.

The time came last week to remove myself from painkiller killers. You can’t really take Tylenol or aspirin, in large doses, forever. I’d left the high-octane painkillers behind while still in the hospital. There are herbs and there is homeopathy. Last week I began physical therapy and what I didn’t realize was how painful the process of rehabilitation would be. I’ve spoken before here about the releasing of fascial tissue and trauma stored within it. Now I’m living that daily and an important side note – when fascia is releasing you relive the pain of the trauma itself. Medicating at that point is thought to interfere with the release process. On some level, you have to feel it to heal it on the level of consciousness.

Just transcending just moving out of the place of awareness of the pain

might support psychological health in the moment, but holistically transforming the pain creates a more integrated healing. About three days into my PT exercises a return to a generally full asana practice, as I lay down to sleep, my whole arm caught fire with pain. It was clearly a fasica release, as I could feel the impact traveling through my body, as it had at the moment of the accident, dull but shocking. I already taken my herbs for the day. That was it. I was left with chamomile tea and deep breathing, as my only recourse. “I’ve entered the world of pain.” I thought, knowing that millions of people abide there full time. Now, I have some inkling of their experience, and I am awed by it. What that must be like to live there, in pain, through your whole body, all of the time. I think to myself that I don’t want to live in the world of pain. So as I breathe deeply and consciously, I effort to reorient myself to be situated, established, not in the pain, but in the calm center I have touched many times over my years of practice. Pain is tricky. It is seductive and magnetic and absorbing. This requires some effort.

But I really don’t want to live there. I chose to dwell in my true nature. The pain is not receding, but it ceases to be me. And instead, the sensation becomes an experience I am having. It sounds like splitting hairs. But when I pull myself out of the pain experience, it’s just another experience. I know that there is some experience within me at all times, that is not pain, and that somehow I will find my way to dwell in that space. I woke up the next morning amazed that I slept. Funny that, right? We think a billion bucks is the goal but how valuable is a good night’s sleep? The big deep pain of that evening is gone, but it still comes and goes both emotionally and physically as I reclaim the use of my arm as part of the whole of my body – and work to expand my reach. And now I feel really connected to a whole new level of this pratistayam thing – to master being able to sit in that calm sweet place as I deal with the challenges of the world. The practice becomes a a deeply essential life skill to have. It’s been very exciting. I was able to use my left hand to take some vitamins yesterday. And that was a big leap. And I’ve enjoyed creating sequences without the Down Dog for the time being. No plank, no Chaturanga. And a world of creative movement has opened up too. My treatment goal is down dog. Okay, so two months ago, right before the accident I was jogging and doing a forearm stand and enjoying the process of reclaiming each little step. And now and then, I feel a glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, my yoga practice will evolve into such a grand adventure, yet again.

December 23, 2020January 31, 2021

Destination Sovereignty: Ready, Set Action!

Action Plan, Timeline, Quality Assurance

If you’ve been following the yoga posts on my blog, you know that I often refer to an understanding of yoga through which we become aligned with our true nature, which is composed of divine qualities. I think it’s important to understand that while yoga, like many spiritual systems, can subtly slide into putting forth dogma, in my opinion, it’s not intended to be that way, even if, maybe especially if we follow the formulas outlined in the sacred texts. In that vein, the “divine qualities” or true nature referred to in the texts would be the highest expression of a particular quality as opposed to a reflection of moral purity. When we begin to speak of taking actions on our dreams and visions, my experience is that it works best when coupled with an understanding of myself becoming the person who would take those action, and in order to do that, I often need to nurture my expression of particular flavors of qualities. This week as we begin to translate our dreams into action plans I suggest that we incorporate into our action plans and timelines the inner qualities which support our ability to draw forth that which we are creating.

Say, for example that we want to draw in a new romantic relationship. There are many flavors that such a relationship could manifest in. At some times in our lives we might want passion and adventure. At other times in our lives, sweetness and harmony. The thing is, if I want a passionate adventurous relationship, I better be brining some passion and adventure into the relationship as well. If I want stability, I better bring some of that in as well. If I want sweetness and harmony I better bring some of that to the table as well. So what I do is, I add those qualities to my action plans. At the top of my daily action plan, I consider the actions that I plan to take, and I list the necessary qualities at the top. If it’s a relational day, I put kindness and graciousness. If it’s an administrative day, I put effectiveness at the top of the list and if it’s a day of teamwork, I might start my action plan with an intention to embody collaboration.

Because co-creation is part of a yogic lifestyle, I try to express the qualities in terms of that which would be in alignment with the beautiful qualities which we all share. So, if my vision is to become World Tennis Champion, while my first instinct is to conquer or defeat my competitors, as I reflect on the yogic foundation, I know that will move me away from a state of yoga. It creates division. Instead I might say “Personal Best in very single match I play this year. “ Think about this in terms of sustainability. I could become the World Champion through an accidental tennis blooper of some kind. But my personal best will transform me into a champion as a person, and then I’ll have something lasting. What’s my action then? Practice every day, study the moves of the masters, 5 minutes a day envisioning my perfect serve and my competitor shaking my hand with glee because it was so much fun to for them to play against the highly skilled player I’d become. I mean really, what could be a better victory than one where your opponent concedes that you played the best game!!!

The timelines to envision, are pretty classic, 10 years,5 years, 3 years, 1 year, 3 mos. 1 mos. I week, 1 day might be a general guideline. Of course you aren’t going to do all of them every day or month or even quarter – that kind of rigidity might create restriction rather than expansion. But checking in at systematic intervals keeps the vision grounded. One of the things I’ve learned is that magnificent visions can emerge , powerfully from tiny steps taken in alignment. I was on a whole other career path when I discovered yoga, and I never intended to leave that path for yoga. But I found myself spending a lot of time on my yoga mat, loving what I was doing and just wanting to do more of it. It all emerged from there. The other career which I charged through and sweated around, never amounted to much of anything, either internally or externally, a paycheck and some transient glimmers of accomplishment. But the yoga became a rich and transformative life path for me. When we are aligned with our deepest selves our thoughts visions and dreams become powerful, and it allows for a more organic unfolding, with minimal struggle.

Action steps?

Similar to the manifestation, actions steps and time lines involve sitting and writing. How do I envision this ten years, five years etc. And know that my success in the ten year plan is going to be connected to my success in the one day plan and will be supported by my steadiness in my yoga practice. Some days moving off the action plan is the action plan! Yoga develops our discernment to detect if our inspirations are divinely guided detours or laziness and fear. If you haven’t yet started practicing yoga, you can begin just by sitting and breathing easily for 5 minutes with your eyes closed. Or you can come to take one of my classes!

Perhaps I will see you on Saturday when we will gather to review the process of co-creating and share the visions we’ve been nurturing the last few weeks. Sharing the vision can be a powerful means of energizing our visions, and allows us to cheer each other on! Pay what you are able and feel comfortable with.

Please register at the link below

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcrd-qtrjIpH9z4EHsJhn1lvDoFmiAib_6h

December 9, 2020January 31, 2021

Destination Sovereignty: Co-creating your next steps

From here to there. Assessing and re-assessing where we are and where we are going.

As we work on our co-creative skills, the ideas we hold for any creations may seem like distant horizons, and indeed at that moment they are. It can be frustrating. At I time like that I know for me it can feel like the person I am is trapped in a life that won’t let me be me, and I long for the day when I am situated in a way that support this freedom of personal actualization. The trick is that we have to actualize internally to get to the place where that freedom becomes apparent externally. In the end we discover it’s been there all along, within us. Perhaps we slipped slipped past opportunities in our limited perceptions, not seeing them for what they were or, in some cases, we were to lost in our limiting beliefs or perceptions to consider that we could succeed in the opportunity. In Sanskrit and the yoga practice this is called “chitta vrittis”. This can be loosely translated as our mental contents including beliefs about ourselves and the world. Fear not! Yoga is one of the many universal spiritual curriculums which align us with our inner guidance, and open a gateway to the divine qualities which exist in the realm of possibility within and around us. These curriculums are pathways to get us from where we are now, to the place of co-creation and sovereignty. Spoiler alert: When you get to a place on the path where the expanse of possibility opens, you see and know and experience that these possibilities were in you all along, and that you cannot lose them. You will were already there. When we aren’t in that limitless spaciousness we traverse the path from here to there. From who we are now to who we want to be. Each moment practicing the steps which move us forward with the faith that we are who we envision we might be. On any journey, you need to know where you are, to get where you are going. This week, while doing our daily and weekly visioning. we incorporate the periodic re-assessment of our visioning.

I’d like to emphasize today the importance of an awareness practice in the process of co-creation. It’s important, and is illumined in the assessment process process which we’re adding on this week. Some visions which appear to be unrealistic to the small self when in critical mode are perfectly reasonable from the perspective of your highest self. A vision drawn from our smaller self may be attainable. But we may discover that it costs us our connection to our higher wisdom, and we can’t see this when we’re completely absorbed in that limitedness. Nurturing higher awareness allows us to access these different perspectives. Anything which opens the mind to more expansive realities will be helpful: yoga, tai chi, meditation, chanting, and esoteric music studies. The list is endless. I’ve known people who could do anything as an awareness practice that somebody else might not do as an awareness practice their meditation was golfing, painting etc.. It’s how you do it. It’s being willing to spend that time, just fully absorbed in an activity and opening yourself to higher realms. I teach yoga asana because that is my primary tool for opening the gateways to a higher vision in a balanced and grounded way, and it works for me. I need that grounding.

The assessment process is about refinement not judgment. Our first creative impulses may be what the personality wants versus what our deeper self wants. There’s nothing wrong with that. But our personalities in part are created by either conforming to or resisting the world around us. The higher states of consciousness unfold a deeper level of personal desire, which is unique, authentic and true to ourselves. They also open a path to navigate through the world to a destination, harmonious with that unique inner unfolding. So I encourage nurturing a consistent personal awareness practice that you enjoy.

So what do we do to assess our inner vision? This step has two stages.

1. How do you feel?

First, I periodically check in to see how I feel about the larger vision. Last January, I envisioned 30 people in every yoga class I taught. Now, that goal is not that important. I’d rather have 30 people a day reading my blog posts and listening to podcasts, and allow the classes to arise organically from that. Last year, I couldn’t have imagined that. I was enmeshed in a studio system which obscured my higher vision. During the years worked in the studios, I worked my inner program and now, I can make choices which feel more organic and natural to me. I expect these more organic foundations will yield stronger structures in my creative work. So the first step of assessment is to see how I feel. Oh, and to allow myself to adjust those larger visions accordingly.

What do you see if you zoom out beyond your biggeet vision?

As I zoom out from what I know: a yoga class with thirty people, I see that vision is a little small. I refine it to be a little more effective and a little more spacious: a financially successful business writing, speaking and teachin. It’s broader, it’s more inclusive and it contains more possibilities within it. I had had been nursing a desire to break free of the studio system but a year ago, I couldn’t have seen how. That has transformed in part because I keep aligning with my higher self, and it’s evolved into a more expanded vision. Rather than counting the heads in class, and imposing my will for more people to come, I’m focusing on what I really have to share. Spaciousness is key to reassessing, so…zoom out.

Who do you want to be?

Part of the process of co-creating is allowing ourselves to be changed into the people we envision ourselves to be in our grand vision. Who do I need to become to participate in the vision? It’s common to perceive that achieving the external goal will transform us into the person we want to be, but it’s actually the opposite. While I’m creating my vision. I’m invited to become the person who will live comfortably in that vision. This can happen instantly, or if it’s more comfortable for us, it can take a little longer. The step by step daily visions are useful here. To be successful. That’s one of my goals. To be succesful I must be confident and focused in a healthy way. So I enter that on my daily vision. Not necessarily in those words, confidence and focus may feel far away and daunting. But it might be something like. “Today I’d like to effectively complete the following tasks”. And through those tiny steps I build focus and confidence that I can accomplish something that I want to accomplish. My daily vision includes a couple thing I am certain I can do. I set my self up for an experience of success that way. These things they sound so mundane, right? But it’s just my experience that larger, more exalted visions do best when grounded, and a lot of the grounding process is through detail. That’s true in yoga asana, as well. A lot of what grounds a posture is subtle transformations of movement as opposed to larger gross movement. To embody a relationship, I want to be gracious and loving, and to hold loosely. And so every day, I make it a part of my practice. Today, just create the intention to be a little more gracious and a little more loving. Part of that is honoring the tiny ways to do that. putting my hair up a little more carefully, ironing my blouse a little more crisply. That’s something to me that is kind of gracious that embodies a certain graciousness that kind of care taking of presentation. At work, bringing a little more attention to a task was gracious , thinking about things to do that will make others comfortable, or happy in small ways. This brings us back to the foundation of creation in yoga, that every step we take as a creative one, and that by bringing consciousness to each step, we become intentional co-creators.

Our steps so far are as follows:

Stage one

Write out a big vision for the year including all areas of the life

This works best with 10 or less items. Then write out bite size visions for the week or day. Incorporating steps towards the larger vision. Follow through on the daily vision, as best you can.

Stage two

Refine and Reassess

Periodically reassess so we go back to the beginning we review what our visions are, how they feel. Do they still bring us joy.

Every Wednesday I’ll be posting about some creative process steps for envisioning the new beginning for 2021. On the 26th, we’ll gather on zoom and share our visions. That day we’ll actually talk about the importance of sharing the vision and rooting for each other.

December 2, 2020December 23, 2020

Destination sovereignty: Co-creating your next step

Over the next 4 weeks we’ll follow a program of co-creating as follows (note, of course you will be inspired to veer into your own way of doing these things…I’m just sharing what I am doing); You’ll want a notebook, and a nice pen, and for the third week, collage materials, magazines, or junk mail, I grab anything that might have words or visions which I can create into a vision board. You can also draw your own items.

0. Awareness practice

1. Big picture, Little picture

2. Revise, re-frame, rearrange the picture as you go.

3. The vision board

4. Action plan/timeline.

This week I invite you to consider, your big picture and all the little pictures that you are creating within that big picture. We can split this up by time, and also by subject. Larger segments of time (the year) and smaller (the day). Larger categories of life (all our relationships, the world) and smaller (my family). I’d like to propose that as you consider the course you want to chart this year, that you craft and design your plan with a mind to the big picture and the little picture. In Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra he tells that, when we arrive at the end of a series of steps, we see how we got where we are. We can flip that teaching around and understand that conscious decision making is a step by step process and that the steps we take to get from one place to another are happening continuously in a stream which is, for the most part, not conscious. Until we decide to make it conscious, which is part of what we are doing here. We make thousands, maybe millions, of decisions a day. Intending, crafting and charting your course, moment by moment is a way to co create a life. Co create meaning We are Creating with the highest wisest aspect of ourselves with which we reconnect through our yoga practice. â€For years I did this visioning once a year, vision board, goal setting. Everywhere, sometime during the year it would get lost. Years ago, I went to my first seminar about this, and the facilitator encouraged us to keep working and revising our plans throughout the year. I was so rigid at the time, I couldn’t do that- I couldn’t even imagine doing that. But as I worked with this idea from the Yoga Sutra of step by step conscious decision making, I learned to be more fluid about my outer destinations and more anchored in my inner destination. In my opinion, this was the basis of my successful pivoting throughout the past year during Covid-19. Successful being defined as never feeling thrown off course, always celebrating each new trail and never dissolving into defeat. This is a part of it, it’s a good idea to celebrate the journey to completion rather than the completion of some projected big dream. Each step on the journey will contain little victories and little victories add up to big accomplishments. The understanding of the little relationship between the little pieces an the big pieces is part of working the first creative step: Big Picture, Little picture.

One of the things I learned as a conscious co-creator was that I could create castles in the air and actual opportunities galore. But there was a big disconnect with my ability to manifest the opportunity and my ability to ground those opportunities into tangible successes. I might get 30 people in a class if I desired it, but they were a hodgepodge of people so diverse that my teaching became fragmented, and no good roots were grown which sustained the work into the future. As you craft the big picture those roots ar important…where is the desire coming from and what is it really about? Perhaps the beautiful new home you dream about emerges from a place of love for beauty and craftsmanship, or perhaps it has significance in the realm of extended family. Perhaps the new romantic relationship you desire is a desire for sharing or collaborating or good old fashioned enjoyment. Perhaps the new career path is about discovoring and embracing your own gifts and value. It’s good to turn the larger visions over like precious gems, investigating their many facets.

When crafting the large vision, be prepared to revisit and rework it periodically, and reflect on it often.

I then begin a process of working the vision everyday in some way. I make a quicker more mundane list of the ten things I want to experience each day, maybe effectiveness or communication, joy or flirtation. At the end of the week, I review those lists and my larger vision, and create a 10 item vision plan for the week. Once again I repeat the daily vision plans. Make note as you do it, that each time you work your program, you are planting seeds of creation.

The little plans were powerful. They became actual action plans towards my goal, so at the beginning of the day, I committed to what I wanted by scheduling actions related to the large goal. This moved things forward but it also did something more important. It acted as a filter. Perhaps I envision a work role or romantic partnership. When the time came to take action toward the goal arrived, I would find myself resisting, never sending the resume, never meeting the fellow for coffee. I learned that somehow I wasn’t aligned with those goals right now. As much as I thought wanted them, I wasn’t ready to have them. So, I would just “turn them over to spirit” and re-frame the bigger picture vision.

So that is a way to develop and work with these visions in time. Remember though, that a miracle can happen in an instant, so taking the time to do this, isn’t because the goals take time to develop. It’s to get ourselves ready to receive.

Spend Day 1 of week 1, writing out your big vision. In the big vision, I suggest that you include all the different areas of your life, relational, financial, social.

Each day of this week, between our posts, go through and craft your little big, little picture list. What are you going to take from those large visions into your day? Note any feelings or resistances that come up. By December 26 your vision will be clearer and more embraceable. Because actually, we’re going to we’re using these steps to develop the big picture that we want to launch our new year.

Each morning think about how you want your day to go. Refer to the vision and integrate relevant action steps into your daily obligations. It’s likely during the day that you will forget, get distracted and redirected. These are excellent times to stop do a little breathing or a yoga posture. Check in to see how you actually want to move forward with your list. .Which brings us to an important piece. The best visioning includes a foundation of an awareness practice. Yoga, meditation, dancing. Whatever it is that allows you to step outside of who you believe you are for a few minutes and connect with your highest and wisest self.

That’s it for today, I hope this helps you to get started with charting your course for your next new beginning.

To register for the gathering on December 26^th where we will share our visions, please sign up here:

All my classes are offered at this time as pay what you are able and are comfortable with via Venmo, PayPal or Zelle, radhanatalie63@gmail.com

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcrd-qtrjIpH9z4EHsJhn1lvDoFmiAib_6h

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