The Garden of The New Year

I spent the last hour of 2010 in silent meditation. The year had been a tough one. John and I had each suffered from serious illnesses that took time and patience to recover from. It had also been a very emotional year for me - a time of looking deeply inward to investigate and come face-to-face with some things that needed to shift and change. So, it was fitting for me last New Year's Eve to end the year in the sweetness of solitude and introspection. In the quiet, waning hours of 2010, I sat in silent meditation and found clarity. In the stillness, I set my intention(s) for 2011. They were simply to love more and to let go.

It's funny, looking back through the days and months of 2011 to see how, as a result of setting these intentions, the universe provided everything I needed and more to manifest them. This doesn't mean that the going was easy. There were times that were downright painful, but each experience brought me a little closer to realizing my vision for the new year.

The "loving more" part of my intention was nurtured easily through connecting more with others, cultivating community, and finding clarity in my practice through time spent with an amazing teacher.  Loving more also had its painful moments when presented with challenging situations that called for cultivating a great deal of compassion - both for myself and for others.

The "letting go" part of my intention arrived slowly, with a lot of introspection, and not at all as I had envisioned, but somehow more beautifully than I could have imagined.  Funny how that happens, isn't it?

The new year is a natural time to think of starting fresh.  I like to think of it as if we've been given a fertile patch of freshly sown earth that's free of weeds, stones, and all the blockages that keep us from living our deepest purpose.  It's there just waiting to provide us with abundance and fullness.  As we unfold into the new year, we cultivate that patch of earth by planting and watering the seeds of our intentions with our awareness, our actions, compassion and mindfulness.  The more we water and nurture our garden, the more we can reap the rewards of its bounty.

Wishing you a fertile and bountiful new year.  

Until next time...

To Students and Friends

Paramhansa Yogananda, Inner Culture, January 1937

The New Year has come to greet you with new hopes, new determination, new will-to-achieve, new activities. In the Temple of the New Year renew your reverence for the unlimited hidden power of God within you. The trails of trials and the yawning chasms of woe have been left behind in the dark night of the past–now you are entering the daylight of a new-born hope of the New Year. Cast off the coil of the decayed thoughts of the past years; be reincarnated into vital living of the New Year.

Every regret for shattered hopes of success must be transformed into the joy of new achievements during the New Year. Old sorrows and disappointments must be buried beneath the sepulcher of the past year. Those dark bandits of discouragement must not remain any longer to steal the wealth of your desire to succeed.

Every day in the New Year must become an altar for the God of new living, new achievements in wisdom, and new joy. Every day in the New Year must bring hope and cheer to yourself and all humanity.

Take all the salvaged treasures of good experiences from the sea of past experience and use them to buy new accomplishments in the New Year. In the garden of the New Year culture the seeds of well-planned new activities until they grow into fragrant flowering plants of diverse successes. Let every day in the New Year become a step upward on the ladder of your Self-Realization. Make every day of the New Year a better day than the previous one for greater effort to succeed in business, family happiness, and increasing the ever-new joy-contact of God in meditation. The old year has gone, but the New Year is full of treasures for you to use.

Bury the bad habit of failure in the tomb of the old year and reincarnate your life energy in the vitality of the New Year. May the New Year spread the example and message of your renewed life and renewed power unto all Creation.

Snap Shot: A Love Story

While there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see.  

~Dorothea Lange

I've fallen in madly love with photography again.  Photography and I have had a sweet and tender history together that started during my junior year of high school.  It was the summer before junior year that I discovered the thick, dusty albums filled with neatly arranged photographs that my parents had taken in the early 60's during their courtship and travels.  Little square snapshots, anchored onto the album page by small black corner pockets, each one looking like a tiny piece of art.  Warm, saturated colors, thick photography paper… I was hooked!  Once I graduated from high school, however, and entered into the world of college and work, photography and I sadly lost touch.

We rekindled our connection on the campus of USC 11 or so years ago, during a photography course, and were inseparable for a long time, but alas, photography is NOT a cheap date.  Due to the amount of expensive equipment photography required, and how much it cost to buy and process film, we quietly went our separate ways again and haven't seen each other for a long time.  Over the years I've thought about photography and wondered how it was doing.  I guess you could say I was wistful about the lack of photography in my life.

We unexpectedly bumped into each other again recently and discovered that we are now both in very different places than we were when we last saw each other. It seems that photography has matured and has changed a lot (it's now wonderfully digital!).  It has become SO accessible, straightforward and much less complicated.  I too have changed a lot.  I've also become more accessible, straightforward and much less complicated.  The time certainly seems right for us to reconnect and stay together.  It appears that photography has a lot to teach me and I am ready to learn.

The first lesson photography teaches us is how to focus.  Our practice, like taking pictures helps us to see 

ourselves and the world rather than just look at them.  Our focus defines our life.  Our perception is determined by what we choose to focus on.  We can use our ability to focus our attention in a way that causes an empowering shift in our perception… or not. It doesn’t matter whether we are looking at a person, situation, or an experience. We can control what our picture looks like by controlling what we choose to focus on.  On the mat and in life, if you focus intently on the positive aspects of any person, place, or thing, the negative aspects will fade into the background. They will still exist, but they will be outside of your field of concentration, and will have little or no influence on the picture you see.

Photography also teaches us that the light we shine on our subject determines how we see it.  In photographic terms this is called "value", in terms of our practice this is called "self-observation".  If we deem a subject to be very important, we shine a spotlight on it so we can see its every detail.  If something has less importance, we don't shine as much light on it so that it doesn't distract us from what we're gravitating towards.  On our yoga mats we do this breath by breath, taking snapshots of how we are in each posture, each breath, in each moment.

When we practice assigning more value and positive energy to the things in our lives that we have gratitude for, we bring those things into sharp focus.  They become higher on our list of priorities and attract more of our attention.  As a result, the negative details of life will slowly hold less weight.

In photography, as in life or our practice, we need to make choices about what we are willing to expose ourselves to and for how long. Our time is so precious.  Being aware of how we use the time we have available to us is an important practice.  Perhaps THE most important!

If we spend too much time focusing on unimportant activities (overexposing yourself), we end up underexposing ourselves to the really important ones. And sometimes, let's face it, we also need to acknowledge that some things are not worth exposing ourselves to at all.

When we learn to look through the lens of our soul we begin to see with greater focus, clarity and compassion.  We start to distill life and its moments down to the essence of what is important to nourish our spiritual growth and how we can see the world from this new expanded field of awareness.

As you move through the world today, what will your focus be? 

Until next time...

"A great photograph is one that fully expresses what one feels, in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed."  -Ansel Adams

Lessons From A Kiwi

“When we are mindful, deeply in touch with the present moment, our understanding of what is going on deepens, and we begin to be filled with acceptance, joy, peace and love.” -Thich Nhat Hanh 

Look at this beautiful kiwi fruit.  Suppose you've never eaten a kiwi and you asked me to describe it to you. I could explain how it's small, oval shaped, and fits in the palm of my hand, or how its skin is slightly fuzzy, yet slightly rough.  I could describe the bright green flesh that is speckled with tiny black seeds and how it has an almost creamy texture.  Or how it tastes slightly like strawberries, banana and melons combined.  I could slice one open and show you its beautiful green starburst insides, but until you actually hold one in your hand, or taste its juicy sweetness, or see its vivid color, you can never truly know what it's like to experience a kiwi.  You can never really know the truth of eating a kiwi, right?

In order to understand the ultimate truth of any situation, you have to stop being an observer and become a participant.  In order for true understanding to be possible, you have to remove the barrier between observer and the object being observed.  You can read about, or listen to or watch something be explained, but in order to fully understand the truth about the object of your attention, you must experience it.  Explanations are just notions and concepts, and notions and concepts can never be the reality. Experience is how we cultivate insight - deep intuitive understanding.

Until I had experienced true mindfulness at Thay's retreat, I only had notions and concepts about it.  I studied a lot about it, I understood it on an intellectual level, but it wasn't until I experienced it first hand for an extended period of time that the truth of it awakened in me.

Our teachers (yoga and meditation, or otherwise) can describe for us the experience of a posture, breathing techniques, or what meditation is or is not, but ultimately it is up to each practitioner to take the notions and concepts that they are provided with and find their own experience and insight. 

When we begin class with the bell of mindfulness, it's an invitation for us to turn our full attention to the practice of finding the truth of each moment.  The bell is a powerful reminder to let go of notions and concepts and absorb the experience of the truth of being, without adding anything extra.  We practice "tasting" each posture and noticing the texture of our thoughts, the richness of our breath and the weight of our awareness.

Until next time…

Touching The Earth (Monastery Visit Part Four)

Earth brings us to life and nourishes us.  

Earth takes us back again.

We are born and we die with every breath.

-Thich Nhat Hanh

(photo of the monastery grounds just outside the nuns residence)

It's hard to believe that over a week ago, John and I and 898 other souls were spending the last of our five days at Magnolia Grove Monastery with dear Thay. 

I am amazed at how much transformation can occur in the space of just five days.  A lot of it had to do with how stripped down life is at the monastery. Life is deliciously basic and uncluttered. A lot of it has to do with Thay's teaching which is also deliciously basic and uncluttered - truly Zen.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, John and I camped in a tent during our visit to Magnolia Grove.  We had originally planned to commute (to stay in a hotel and drive back and forth to the monastery), but after re-examing the logistics as well as our finances, we decided that camping might be the way to go.  I am SO glad we did.  Staying in a hotel and leaving the monastery grounds each day would have detracted from the total immersion in mindfulness and simple living. 

For the record, I've only been tent camping once.  I was a footloose and fancy free woman of 21 (over 20 years ago, y'all!).  I remember not sleeping a wink as cold rain dripped ceaselessly through the old, canvas tent we were using, and almost getting crushed by an early morning stampede of moose in the mountains of New Hampshire.  Good times.  John has only been tent camping once or twice as well. His family used to take trips with a pop-up camper, but that hardly qualifies as "roughing it".

So, it was through the lovingkindness and generosity of friends that we were able to have the amazing experience of tent camping during our week at Magnolia Grove.  With kind donations of a HUGE tent, two cots (with mattresses!), folding canvas chairs, and lanterns, we sallied forth into the unchartered territory of living life in the great outdoors. 

Living in the open, so close to the earth and the natural cycles of nature really puts things in perspective.  You are brought back to living with the very basic necessities: food, shelter, warmth, light.

One of the greatest pleasures during our stay at Magnolia, was the feeling of the sunlight on our face as the sun came up on a cold morning. We would all be silently sitting at picnic tables or on benches with our steaming bowls of oatmeal and cups of hot tea, feeling warm inside but chilled outside. After washing the dishes behind the dining hall, we would slowly make our way back to our tents to prepare for the morning activities. Usually by then the sun would have climbed up high enough to peek over the trees and shine strongly on the open fields and spaces around the monastery buildings.  The most delicious part of the day was taking a few moments to pause and feel the exquisite warmth of the sun after a long, cold night.  To see fifty or so faces turned to the sun with their eyes closed with a look of pure joy was uplifting.

Getting close to the earth, touching the Earth, helps us to recognize that we're not alone but connected to the whole stream of people who came before us, our spiritual and blood ancestors.  Thay says: "We touch the Earth to let go of the idea that we are separate and to remind us that we are the earth and part of life...when we touch the earth we become small, with the humility and simplicity of a child.  When we touch the earth we become great like an ancient tree sending her roots deep into the earth, drinking from the source of all waters.  When we touch the earth, we breathe in all the strength and stability of the earth, and breathe out our suffering - our feelings of anger, hatred, fear, inadequacy and grief."

At the studio on Sunday, we used grounding postures and deep breathing to come back to our roots.  We used a variation of Thay's "Touching The Earth" meditation to deeply touch the elements within us that are connected to not only a long, unbroken lineage of ancestors but also to the land.  It's a wonderful way to remind ourselves that we are a part of everything and everything is a part of us.  It's a wonderful way to practice perspective.

Until next time...

The Five Earth-Touchings

Taking a moment to think of, with gratitude, all generations of ancestors in your blood family.

See your mother and father, whose blood, flesh, and vitality are circulating in your own veins and nourishing every cell in you. Through them,  see your four grandparents.  see your roots in your father, mother, grandfathers, grandmothers, and all your ancestors.  Know you are only the continuation of this ancestral lineage. Their expectations, experiences, and wisdom have been passed down from so many generations of ancestors.

You carry in you the life, blood, experience, wisdom, happiness, and sorrow of all generations. Open your heart, flesh, and bones to receive the energy of insight, love, and experience passed down to you by your ancestors. 

See your parents when they were children, young and innocent, fresh to this world and free from hurt. See their innocence and feel love, compassion and sorrow for their hurts.

Know that parents always love and support their children and grandchildren, although they are not always able to express it skillfully because of difficulties they themselves encountered. 

See that your ancestors tried to build a way of life based on gratitude, joy, confidence, respect, and loving-kindness. As a continuation of your ancestors, feel a sense of gratitude and allow their energy to flow through you.  Feel their support, protection, and strength.

Taking a moment to think of, with gratitude, all generations of ancestors in your spiritual family.

See in yourself all of your teachers, the ones who show you the way of love and understanding, the way to breathe, smile, forgive, and live deeply in the present moment. 

See the many wise and courageous women and men (known and unknown to us) who have shown us the way.  Know that their energy has deeply transformed the world. Their energy has entered you and is creating peace, joy, understanding, and loving-kindness.

Open your heart and your body to receive the energy of understanding, loving-kindness, and protection from all who have shared wisdom with you.  Know that you are the continuation of their teachings.  Ask these spiritual ancestors to pass on their infinite source of energy, peace, stability, understanding, and love and vow to use this energy to practice so that I can transform suffering in myself and in the world, and to pass on their energy to future generations of practitioners.

Taking a moment to think of, with gratitude,  this land and all of the ancestors who made it available.

Feel how you are whole, protected, and nourished by this land and by the living beings who have made life easy and possible for me through all their efforts. See all those who have worked hard to build schools, hospitals, bridges, and roads, to protect human rights, to develop science and technology, and to fight for freedom and social justice.

Feel the energy of this land penetrating your body and soul, supporting and accepting you.

Taking a moment to pass on, with gratitude and compassion, your energy to those you love.

All the energy you have received, pass it back on to your father, your mother, everyone you love, and all who have suffered and worried because of you, and for you.

Know you have not been mindful enough in your daily life.  Also know that those who love you have had their own difficulties.  See that they have suffered because they may not have been lucky enough to have an environment that encouraged their full development, and feel compassion for their suffering. 

Pass your energy on to your beloved ones: mother, father, brothers,  sisters,  husband,  partner,  wife,  daughter,  son; to the family of friends you have created around you; and to the husband, wife, partner, and children you may have in the future.

Pass on your energy so that their pain will be relieved, so they can smile and feel the joy of being alive.  Send a wish for all of them to be healthy and joyful. Know that when they are happy, you will also be happy.  No longer feel resentment towards any of them. Know that you are not separate from them but rather one with those you love.

In understanding and compassion,  reconcile yourself with all those who have made you suffer and open your heart, sending your energy of love and understanding to them.

Know  that these people have themselves undergone a lot of suffering and that their hearts are tight with pain, anger, and hatred.  Touch that pain and feel its sorrow and see that anyone who suffers that much will make those around him or her suffer.  Know they may have been unlucky, never having the chance to be cared for and loved. Life and society have dealt them so many hardships. They have been wronged and abused. They have not been guided in the path of mindful living. They have been stripped of the innocence and joy of life. They have accumulated wrong perceptions about life, about me, and about us. They have wronged us and the people we love.

See their suffering and do not  hold any feelings of hatred or anger in yourself toward them. Channel your energy of love and understanding to them. 

 

Inner Guru

"The invisible intelligence that flows through everything in a purposeful fashion is also flowing through you." (Wayne Dyer)

When I was a kid, I heard my hero, Kermit the Frog sing the following words from one of my all-time favorite songs, "The Rainbow Connection": "Have you been half asleep and have you heard voices? I've heard them calling my name. Is this the sweet sound that calls the young sailors? The voice might be one and the same. I've heard it too many times to ignore it. It's something that I'm supposed to be."

Back then, the world seemed a wide open place full of places to explore, things to do and people to meet. It still does, although now it doesn't seem quite as big as it once did. I can vividly recall hearing Kermit's words and wondering what exactly it was that I was supposed to be. And although I can't fully explain it, I think there was something in the 10 year old me, that somehow knew that all these years later, the 42 year old me would be exactly where I am today. That's not to say that the 10 year old me knew the specifics, but there was a part of me that could see where I wanted to be even though I didn't have the words to articulate it or the life experience to really know what it meant.

Some say that we all possess something like an "inner guru" (guru, intuition or a "gut" feeling, whatever you want to call it),  a wisdom, a truth deeper than our understanding that helps guide us along our path to awakening.  We hear the word "guru" often but what does it really mean?  In sanskrit, "gu" = dark and "ru" = light, so a guru is someone or something that leads us from the darkness of ignorance into the light of knowledge all while Illuminating our innate brilliance to show us what our gifts are to offer the world.

The problem is that we're often so busy "doing" that we can't hear our own inner guide.  The voice of the inner guru gets lost in the commotion of our lives - it's still there, just unable to be heard, felt or noticed.  So we practice yoga and meditation to shift from "doing" to "being", to heighten our intuition and to establish a daily connection with the source of our wisdom - something greater than ourselves.  

The greatest teachers are those who emphasize finding your own path and not that peace can only be found by following theirs. Kermit the Frog was such a teacher for me all those years ago, encouraging me with his song to listen to my inner guru. As the saying goes: "When the student is ready, the teacher appears".  

What are you ready for?  What do you need?  Which direction will you move in? 

When we connect with our inner teacher, we realize that we don't have to follow in the footsteps of anyone else and we don't have to walk someone else's path.  We can take the wisdom set forth by the teachers we encounter in life and find all of the ways that this wisdom works and doesn't work for us, and turn it into a path of our very own. 

Have the courage to trust and follow your inner guru.  Follow with passion, joy and curiosity!

Until next time...try this:

Inner Guide Meditation:

Get settled and begin breathing deeply. 

Quiet your mind and allow silence to seep into your being. 

Cast your awareness into your heart and picture a small doorway there. See the doorway open and feel a warm and welcoming presence calling you to enter. 

Step through the doorway and find yourself in a sacred place that you know to be your inner temple. In the middle of the room is a figure sitting silently in prayer. Wait patiently. 

When finished, the person turns and you look fully at this person. Opening arms to you, you recognize this being as your inner guru.  

Walk forward and stand in front of this wise person. 

Speaking to you, the wise one shares knowledge of your own inner wisdom and knowing. Open your heart and listen, feel, and know. 

When you are finished, you and the wise one bow together. 

Finally, the wise one bids you goodbye with a word and a bow. 

With one breath, you remember the word. 

With a second breath, you return to your space, and with a third breath, you open your eyes. 

Breathe in the word and remember it as a key to your own inner wisdom.

 "The Master is within; meditation is meant to remove the ignorant idea that he is only outside." ~ Ramana Maharshi

‎"Be your own guru: begin to watch how you think and speak...notice how often negativity rules your world and begin to bring your attention to those thoughts and speech patterns. When in doubt, sit quietly and quiet down on the inside. The answers are always revealed when we stop the whirlwind of the outside drama." -Stephanie Keach 

Are You Awake?

One of my favorite teachers often employs a powerful approach while leading students through practice. While in the middle of a pose or even just sitting in silent meditation, he poses the question - sometimes in a whisper - "are you awake?"  This is a moving reminder for his students to remain mindful and not to slip into sleepy habits and to recognize that life is happening NOW. It prompts us to be awake and alive in the moment.  

Admittedly, I've been sleepy for the past week or so. Sleepy as in tired, yes, but more than that, sleepy on a deep, sub-conscious level.  Being a devoted student of yoga, I've experienced this before and realize that it's part of the process of unfolding and awakening. It's part of the ebb and flow of the journey.  It's the quiet "yin" to the more active "yang".  It's my body's way of saying "rest", my mind's way of saying "wake up", and my heart's way of saying "listen to me". The interesting thing about this deep sleepiness is that it makes it challenging to muster up the energy to get on my yoga mat, but it's precisely at these times when practice is most important.  When the sleepiness arrives I honor it physically by practicing primarily Yin Yoga.  Yin offers a wonderful opportunity to stop, listen and feel. I honor the mental sleepiness by getting on the meditation cushion and observing the root of the lethargy. I spend some time alone to listen to the voice of my heart.

The practice of yoga provides us with a ladder which we can use to climb up and beyond our everyday boundaries and the ruts we find ourselves in, towards greater understanding and awakening. Setting an intention to live mindfully is the first rung on that ladder.

Take a moment to set this intention: "My intention today is to be awake and aware of how I move, speak, act, and listen."

Until next time...

The Laughing Heart 
by Charles Bukowski

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

Thorns

"One branch from an old plum tree extends splendidly;

thorns become attached to it in time." -Keizan Jokin

Sometimes when I think of my yoga and meditation practices I see them as beautiful, fragrant roses.  Delicate, sweet smelling, sometimes full and blossoming with layer after layer of petals opening, opening, opening.  Sometimes once those petals have blossomed, they drop away one-by-one as parts that were once useful but are now no longer needed. Or, sometimes those petals are wrapped up tightly like tiny buds full of possibilities, but they're not quite ready to emerge into the world of being.  But these roses are never without thorns.  When the rose of our practice blossoms so sweet and beautiful, our practice is easy, buoyant and peaceful, but there are inevitably times when we encounter the dark and prickly stickiness of thorns. Lately, my practice has been rife with prickly thorns.  When this occurs, my instinct - like so many of us - is to avoid the thorns or to wait until the rose becomes beautiful and fragrant again... to ride it out until things are prettier. But the practice isn't just about the beautiful, peaceful parts of life, sometimes it's purpose is to make things prickly in order to wake us up more fully.

Keizan Jokin, a revered zen teacher who lived in the 14th century who's two-line poem sits at the top of this page, illustrated with his simple words that we all encounter times where our practice resembles a branch from a wizened old plum tree; extending splendidly from the trunk of the tree, but not without spiny thorn-like twigs pushing out of its bark. Sometimes we feel that our practice is splendid. It flows and extends out of every part of us.  But like the old plum tree, in time we discover thorns growing on our practice (resistance, lethargy, doubt, judgement-you name it!).  One of my favorite teachers, Michael Stone, says that "sometimes we get a little too comfortable. So in the process of practicing asana and stilling the mind, we start to find that the thorns become the practice and how we meet the thorns is basically right when they start popping up."

Part of our spiritual maturation involves deeply feeling and working with the thorns that grow.  A really big part of our practice is leaving nothing out.  Flowing along with the easeful parts of ourselves and our experience, but also witnessing the thorns that grow upon the graceful limbs of our existence. Our task as human beings is simply to stay the course, to be the branch, the blossom and the thorn.  To not deny the stickiness or the presence of those thorns, but to watch and work with our reaction to them with equanimity. When we do this we begin to see that the beautiful blossoms of our practice are a result of navigating through and allowing the thorns to be part of us. 

"One branch from an old plum tree extends splendidly;

 thorns become attached to it in time."

And so I continue to get on my yoga mat and practice even though the thorns I encounter make it uncomfortable to do so.  I sit in silence and witness what's there with compassion. I arrive to what is, knowing that eventually I will be able to feel the soft petals of peace and drink in the beautiful fragrance of clarity.

When we come together as a group in class, the basic practice that we're doing first is to arrive, to calm down, to connect with the part of ourselves that is still and peaceful: our blossom.  We sit and we follow our breathing to the source of peace. We remind ourselves that the larger purpose of yoga and meditation is to connect with this calm, real, unsoiled part of ourselves.  Take a moment right now to close your eyes, connect with the slow, organic flowing of your breath.  Follow the breath into silence. Arrive.

Today, practice becoming settled and take care of the thorny parts that present themselves by offering them the space to be seen and felt.  When we follow the breath and begin to find mental and spiritual stillness, we begin to clearly see our own mind and allow it to rest in its natural state which is free from the thorniness and chatter that grows on us as a result of living in the world.  We allow our experience to blossom freely and we take care of the thorns with the same attentiveness that we regard the blossom.

Until next time...

Thorn and Rose
by Henry Van Dyke

Far richer than a thornless rose
Whose branch with beauty never glows,
Is that which every June adorns
With perfect bloom among its thorns.

Merely to live without a pain
Is little gladness, little gain,
Ah, welcome joy tho' mixt with grief,--
The thorn-set flower that crowns the leaf.

Fear

Nothing in life is to be feared.  It is only to be understood.  

~Marie Curie

A few days ago I was up before the sun came up and I went outside to meditate in the cooler morning air. It's a treat to do this when the weather permits and I was particularly grateful on this morning to be surrounded by fresh air and nature while connecting to what one of my teachers calls “big mind” (a state of consciousness that leads to serenity, clarity and bliss).  It’s a heavenly feeling to sit tall, close your eyes and sink into stillness, feeling the presence of God around and within you. 

As I sat and allowed my wavering thoughts to settle, I started to notice with great clarity the sounds going on around me, starting with the sounds furthest away: the soft drone of cars on the interstate, a distant train whistle, a siren in the a few miles away, a car starting a few streets over, cicadas, frogs and crickets singing their early morning choruses, the neighbor opening her front door to let her dog out. The longer I sat, the more aware I became of sounds closer to me: something (perhaps a squirrel) moving around in the grass to my right, the neighbors dog lifting a leg to pee on the herb garden next to me, the growling of my hungry belly, but something else also caught my ear.  It was much closer to me, perhaps just a foot or so away that I couldn't quite identify... a light scratching sound.  What was it?  

Scratch, scratch, scratch...

Of course being out in nature means, well, being out in nature... replete with all things natural, like... bugs.

I'm not a big fan of bugs.  I don't know who among us really is a fan of bugs unless, of course, you are an entomologist or an exterminator. So as I listened to this “scratch, scratch, scratch”  my mind automatically conjured up the image of a huge, hideous palmetto bug (i.e. a GINORMOUS roach) making its way toward me.  My thoughts took a turn, “What if there's more than one?!”,  “What if it climbs up the leg of the chair!?”,  “What if it crawls on me!?”, “What if, what if, what if”!!!!!?????”. For a moment I became paralyzed with fear. Fear holds us still, stifles our progress, and distorts our view of reality. 

Yoga/meditation offers us a doorway to self-realization by honing our awareness. This newfound awareness grants us the opportunity to help focus our mind.  With a focused mind we can separate fact from fiction - much easier than a confused mind. As practices, yoga and meditation offer us many tools for stilling the mind. The first of these is Pranayama (Yogic breath techniques). Breath is the primary link between mind and body. One of the first things we learn as students is how to use the breath to focus the mind. 

So, back to the RABID palmetto bug, once I came back to my breath and the rootedness of my body on this particular morning, I was able to let go of all the “what ifs” and find greater stillness.  I am happy to report that when I opened my eyes there were no swarming masses of snarling Palmetto bugs waiting to devour me as my mind had come to believe.  Just an empy patio, quiet in the early morning light.  The “scratch, scratch, scratch” I heard that invoked such fear in the first place?  Just a hungry caterpillar munching on a leaf next to where I was sitting...

On the mat, one emotion we often run into is fear.  We might hold back for fear of falling out of a pose.  We might have fear of appearing weak or foolish - or worse -hurting ourselves!  Next time you find yourself falling out of a pose, notice how you react to falling. Yoga teaches us that we can’t control what happens to us, but we can control how we choose to react.

Until next time...

"Fear is illusory; it cannot live...Courage is eternal, it will not die. Perils, calamities, dangers are the certain lot of every man who is a denizen of this world. Therefore, O Man! Fortify your mind with courage and patience. Fortitude, courage, presence of mind will sustain you through all dangers. Just as a rock on the sea-shore stands firm and the dashing of the waves does not affect it even a bit, even so a man who is endowed with courage is not affected by the dark perilous waves of this Samsara. He stands adamant in all trying conditions and circumstances and comes out victorious."

By Sri Swami Sivananda