Bhagavad Gita – Yoga Practice – Dietary Yoga- Journaling- Yoga Challenge.
Be sure to follow my yoga journey on www.inkedyogi.com this is my personal yoga journal… lots of raw, authentic yoga living happening over there.
Month: March 2015
Soul Musing: Opening to the Light
Each day we are giving opportunities to shine, to be of service, to step into the light. We get so caught up in the hustle and bustle of life that we forget that life is supposed to be lived. We forget to have fun. We forget to soften around the edges. Life is tough, we suffer, and the world suffers. Suffering is an opportunity for us to open to the light. Pain is a doorway if we slow down enough to look at what is happening beneath the surface. Presence affords us a power that we seldom tap into because of the many distractions that are constantly in our faces. When is the last tie that you’ve looked up at the sky? When was the last time you witnessed the multicolored magic of a sunset? I know I spend more time online than I like. I’m working on creating balance. I often wonder what it would be like if we didn’t have these electronic tethers. How would we connect to one another?
“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
I can still remember a life before the internet. It was beautiful. I can remember having full present conversations with friends, family and those around me. You can see a blankness in some people’s eyes. Their brains are already leaping into whatever comes next. We’ve gotten away from showing up, and are more involved in running towards the next event, thought, the next place to be.
Life moves quickly, but it doesn’t mean that we have to. Slow down, breath into this moment. Rest. Arrive.
You are loved.
Yoga Under a Rainbow – Shiva- Fasting
Just launched a new blog. It’s exciting, and is going to be a place for me to explore my yoga practice and how it integrates into my life.
Head over, read, share, and follow along 🙂
I love that the weather is finally changing. I love taking my practice outside. There is something powerful about having the open sky above me. The limitless space is powerful. I started out by laying back and staring into the sky, and I was surprised to see a rainbow. The colors were pretty brilliant against the white clouds. I joked in my head that yoga was the pot of gold I’ve been searching for all this time. Since stepping a bit more deeply into my yoga journey, life is picking up. I feel that things are coming together, and that’s a good thing. I am still healing old wounds, but that is what yoga allows me to do. Yoga gives me the space to step into my heart, to listen with depth.
“Read a little. Meditate more. Think of God all the time.” -Yogananda
I’ve been reciting the Hanuman Chalisa…
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Yoga as Prayer
Today as I was taking my place on my yoga mat at the gym, I asked myself the question, “Why do you do yoga?” The question struck me, and I’ll admit at first I didn’t have an answer. I decided to take this question into my practice today. As I was moving around the mat, breathing, taking in the sounds of the gym, I had a realization was over my heart. Yoga is how I pray. For me, yoga is devotion. When I am on my mat, I am stepping onto sacred ground. I feel my soul come alive. My breath joins my body more deeply, and for a moment all that exists is the flow.
Stepping onto the mat is stepping into trust. We spend much of our day trying to get away from the body, we rush into our expectations, or are bound to the anchors of our past. We hold judgement against ourselves. We eat foods that lack nourishment. We engage in distractions (television, social media, etc). We numb ourselves. When we take a step onto the yoga mat, we are saying to the soul, to God, to the universe I am here, and I am ready. The very act of showing up sets the intention, and brings us into presence.
As I move through the asana, I pause and deepen my breath. Too often in classes we try to rush through the sequences. Each pose is a meditation, the breath the mantra, and when we move slowly we are honoring the sacredness of that union. Sequences do not need to be complex, you don’t need to be fancy with how you breath, just let the body move. Yoga is an act of surrender. I try not to plan too far ahead as to what I want to do on my mat. I ask my body what it feels like doing today. I let each asana guide me to the next. I invite in my emotions, the ambient sounds and colors of whatever space I am in. Yoga is not about escaping, its arriving into to presence.
Yoga is a prayer that is said by the body, on the altar of our soul. Each movement is an intention in action. Each breath is a sacred mantra that whispers through us, taking us deeper into each heartbeat.
Take a moment to honor your path by dropping into the breath. Hold your awareness at the rise and fall of the chest, take your hand and place it over your beating heart. Feel life moving through you. Let this be enough.
Namaste
Tending the mystery 