More on Fruit

Surrendering the fruits of our actions –

What does that mean exactly? I bust my behind at a 50 hrs a week job I don’t even like and then I have to give up my entire paycheck? I don’t think so. Although, I think it might be even more difficult than that.

From where I sit, the Divine doesn’t want money. It doesn’t want anything. Except to watch Itself (and that would be us) grow and evolve. So where does this “giving up the fruits of our actions” fit in? There must have been a reason, since we find that concept crossing over into almost all religious dogmas (dogmi?).  I think it all boils down to “don’t take it personally.” Yes, that is one of the 12 Dennis-isms of Dennis Adams, Master Healer, who I studied with and practiced under for many many years, and when I say practiced, I mean really applied the teachings, such as “don’t take it personally.”  One aspect of that is obvious. Someone calls you a name or does something mean, don’t take it personally, cuz it’s never about you. It’s always about them. And yes, this works in reverse as well (when I do something mean, it’s never about them, it’s about me.)

So I dug deeper. What about taking success personally? What about thinking that I, the great and powerful Oz, is the secret of my success? That I, single handedly pulled myself out of the projects and into the house on the hill. That I taught the best yoga class ever, and that my students are the most conscious and enlightened of them all.  Those would be the very fruits of my actions that I am asked to give up. To not take credit for my success. To hand it over and give the credit back to that Higher Power, Steve Winwood’s Higher Love. My Higher Self. The Divine.

How do I do that? I don’t let my ego get all caught up in what I’m doing. I don’t base my identity on my accomplishments and failures. I allow myself to be a conduit for the Divine, accessing more of my “Dhi” aka inner Knowing, the part of the brain that makes decisions based more on our Sva Dharma (soul’s purpose) than on gratifying my senses and validating my ego. I’m not saying don’t enjoy the wonderful, delicious things that life on Earth has to offer. I’m saying that it’s about surrendering the ego for something larger. A better investment for my fruits. Investing said fruits in something greater than my ego fulfillment. Investing my fruits into my Self Awareness, evolving my Consciousness, and in order to do that, I stop taking credit for my success and give it to the One who made me in it’s image in the first place, so with that logic I’m basicially surrendering my fruits and investing them in Me instead of me.

And I’m all for a good investment. And I like fruit.  It’s a perfect storm. It’s a perfect day. It’s perfect. 

Juicy and Sustainable

Earth shattering class today. One participant said it would “change my practice forever.” Wow. I’m honored to have been there for that.

The juiciness and richness that comes from tasting your food. From tasting your practice. For becoming a connoisseur of yoga. Moving from yoga fast food to yoga fine dining. I can really get behind being that kind of chef. “Serving up yoga, one breath at a time.”

When I first started doing yoga (decades ago), it wasn’t about how many poses I could cram into an hour long session. It was about how many breaths I could remain still in a posture. I remember getting all excited when it was something like “I held Trikonasana for 10 breaths 6 counts in, 6 counts out.”

The numbers may not be exact, but you get the idea. It was about how long I could sustain inhale and exhale, and then how long I could sustain that pattern in an asana. I guess I was all about a sustainable practice! And if you think about it, isn’t part of the essence of yoga having a sustainable practice?

Back in the olden days, the really olden days, say 10,000 or so years ago, it was about how long you could stay alive in order to be able to keep doing your yoga practice to give you more time to get enlightened.  Now it seems like the life of a yogi is as long as they can sustain a rigorous practice until the body starts to break down. Reminds me of my dancer days. Dancers have a limited professional lifespan. At some point the body says, “I’m not into playing this way anymore.” There are exceptions – Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham were performing well into their 60s, 70s. And quite frankly, it showed. I had the honor of seeing Merce perform at that age, and it looked like he was in pain. Same with Martha.

Are we approaching our yoga practice as something that we can sustain over the long haul? I’m not saying not to do extreme postures. I’m saying that it’s how you do them. Dharma Mittra does the most wack poses, and he’s 70! But his attitude is humbling. He surrenders each pose he does “for the Lord.” I’m not talking Jesus Christ here, but for the Lord of Life. (Lord is a loaded word, but I wanted to quote him exactly). You can fill in your picture of “Lord” with whatever you want. Whatever you revere. Whatever it is that gave you your essence,  your life as your essential You.  He surrenders everything he does. Patanjali would call it “offering up the fruits of your practice.”

How many of us are offering up the fruits of our practice to something other than a flat abdomen, really cut arms, or the ability to do poses that no one else can do, all of which sets us apart from the pack, making us essentially “greater than,” “more desirable,” or from a teacher’s point of view, “more popular” which translates as “I’m a really good yoga teacher. “

I also fell into that trap. For a while. And I enjoyed it. It only became a trap when I kept on insisting that I practice that way, when every fiber of my being was begging me to stop and re-connect with what yoga really meant to me. To reconnect with why I did it in the first place. And that reason was all about laghavam – lightness. I wanted to feel light, be light, turn to light. I was no longer feeling light. I was feeling hurt, tight, competitive, and easily excitable. I was not able to sustain that kind of practice.

Then I took a class from Rod Stryker at a Yoga Journal conference a few years ago. The theme was sthirah and sukha. (YS 2:46 Sthirah sukham asanam). I remembered my roots. I remembered my stillness. I remembered the beauty of the long, steady hold. I remembered what the heck I was doing there in the first place!

That practice changed my practice. Forever. I remembered. 

So, in order to sustain our practice, we must find something there that is lasting, rewarding, that doesn’t fade with age. It’s not about the poses. It’s not about restorative vs power yoga. It’s about finding what is the real juice, the real flavor of the practice that sustains us. It’s about finding that which can provide us with nutrients in a way that inspires us to be able to bite into life and let the juiciness of it all run down our face. To delight in each bite, whether bitter or sweet.

Thank you all who have taught me, and those who continue to teach me, and remind me to sit down when I’m eating, and to chew my food slowly enough to taste and digest it. 

Silence

Today we are not talking. And not eating. Enjoying the juice we drink as well as the juice that is within.

A Blue Bird and a Cactus

So here is my moment of inspiration:

How can a blue bird sit on top of a cactus? Lightness.

Non-judgment. Sensation vs Pain. Will that bird ever truly suffer? If it could, it would mean that the bird would have to have an opinion, a judgment regarding the source of the pain. It goes back to the Buddha example: 1 arrow, 10,000 arrows. The Buddha gets hit with an arrow. He feels sensation. The sensation goes away. That’s it. We get hit with an arrow, we get sensation, then we start getting angry or scared about what happened, Pain sets in. Then we get more angry – at them for shooting it and hitting me, and at myself for getting in the arrow’s way. “(“if only I would have gone to the store instead of I wouldn’t be here, hit by this arrow, which will probably  leave a scar, or worse, damage my precious hamstring muscle,  which means my forward bends will really suck and every time I bend forward to touch my toes I’ll be reminded of the ignoramus who shot me with an arrow”).

Sigh.

If the Buddha has no pain, just sensation, then wouldn’t the bird? Unless birds can judge. Unless birds have the capacity to blame. Unless birds are as smart as we are. Then all bets are off. Which leads me to the original question:  How can a blue bird sit on top of a cactus?

Lightness.

INSPIRATION/EXPIRATION

The difference between inspiration and expiration. When we have a moment of inspiration, it’s well, inspiring to say the least. And it’s in the moment. Right here right now. And that is the moment to act.

I know there are many songs, ideas, poems, profound thoughts, patent-able ideas that I have had, and many have suffered the backside of inspiration not acted upon. Expiration. Yes, the moment passed and even though I swore “I know I’ll definitely remember it this time because this idea/song/poem/thought is soooooooo good, how can I forget it?" And just like the other moments of inspiration, they have gone to the grave, expired. Dust to dust. They have gone from my mind, and gone back to the dustbin of ideas, the collective unconscious. And then of course, at one point, someone else writes the book you wanted to write, the song you wanted to sing, the invention that you wanted to invent.

It’s all there for the taking, and when these moments of inspiration come, we might want to weigh the decision. Is it worth stopping for? I say yes. These moments, in my opinion, are far greater than I would have ever thought of. So, from where I sit (and I am actually sitting), these moments are portholes to the Divine. Literally, it’s that “higher Self” or in yoga terms, your “Dhi” trying to get your attention. If we stop and acknowledge these moments, we pave the way for the real meeting of the Divine. I mean, if you were Divine, aka God, Divine Mother, Allah or whatnot, wouldn’t you want to make sure that before you showed up in your fullness, the person you’d be showing up for was even paying attention?  


Again, many are called, few choose.  


Tomorrow, a moment of inspiration…

I stepped into an agave

Yes, I did. Yes I did. 

Last night as I was wrapping up the blog stuff, and T-shirt designing and went out into the dark night, I was uber-careful. It’s bright in the room, and outside there are no lights per se. Just some of those solar powered things along the path. Which means I need to make it across the pool deck without falling into the pool, and then get centered down the path. So I shuffle my way past the pool, feel my way down the stairs, and just when I think I’m home free, thinking that I was truly on the path - crunch, trip, yikes, blood. I walked into an innocent agave. Lucky for me, it wasn’t a cactus. I apologized to the agave and went home to tend the wound. Since it was really dark, as I’ve already established, hence the incident at all, I had no idea if there was blood gushing down my leg, cactus quills (at that point i wasn’t exactly sure what I had stepped into), a gash, welts, or nothing. A few scratches and some Dr. Bronner’s soap later, all  under control.

The moral of the story is - just because you think you are on the path, doesn’t mean you are. You have to actually BE on the path to make it count. 


:-)   this is a sheepish grin...

Epilogue - Alignment and Worldview

As most of us know, in Trikonasana, triangle pose with right foot front, we usually are feeling the inner thigh of the front leg, the left side body, or a combination of thereof as the main course, what I call “the parts that are talking (or sometimes screaming) the loudest. It’s the “what you’re supposed to be feeling” in the pose.  This is when the “one size fits all” generally works. Not on this particular day.

A few months ago, I was teaching “Ageless Yoga, “ a slower paced class for people who need more time to get into and out of the poses, mostly older baby boomers and people who injured themselves in another class. As usual, I was inviting them to explore different aspects of the pose – what was going to work for them given their own particular issues.

We lined ourselves up, did a few times dynamically to warm up for the hold, then we held it. I asked them to think about releasing the “second side of the back” to allow more depth in the pose and more freedom around the spine and side body. That normally increases action on the stretching side. When I asked them if they were feeling more in the side body, not one of them was feeling that as the point of focus! I went to inner thigh. What about there? Feeling more? No. Really???!!! Each person was feeling triangle in a completely different place ie – the quadriceps, the calf, the shin, the eyebrow, whatever. Their alignment was good, no danger there, and yet every experience was distinctly different from the next. I was astounded and let me tell you, I’m rarely astounded.

 I had made the assumption that they would be feeling pretty much the same thing, give or take a quad or hamstring, but when I checked in with them, every person was feeling something completely different (nothing dangerous btw), and all of them were feeling things I never even considered one could feel in that particular pose. What an eye opener! What I learned then and there is to never assume I know what someone else is feeling. (you’d think that after all the therapy I’ve had, I would have that one down by now!)  I had never walked their walk, and I didn’t have the perspective to know what being in a 60 or 70 year old body feels like.

So again, I see that  I am blessed. I have students who are willing to come to class and teach me. For that I am truly grateful.

What does that example have to do with alignment? Maybe nothing, maybe everything, but it helped me open my eyes and heart in a new way, thus changing my worldview. Now, with this new Self, I start the process of re-aligning myself with the Self that I just grew to be.

Namaste.

Part 4: Re-aligning Our Teaching

If “one size fits all,” show it to me.  

In this almost final part of this rant on the pitfalls of the current definition of “perfect alignment,” I turn to us, the teachers. Are the same perfect alignment cues given to Tom appropriate for Mary? If we say yes, then you haven’t looked at a cadaver.  If you said no, then I’m preaching to the choir. Then why are we so hell bent on rattling off the current set of alignment cues? Maybe there is something deeper going on…  In the name of proper alignment, are we exercising some sort of power and control over our students? And if so why? Unless we’re teaching children, everyone in the room is a capable adult who did just fine before they stepped into our classroom.

I’m going to pose one more set of questions for teachers to consider, some of which may seem obvious to some, blasphemous to others, offensive to many, idiotic to any.

1. Am I trying to control my student’s behavior in and maybe even outside of class? If so, why?
2. What makes me frustrated or uncomfortable as a teacher regarding my student’s behavior?
3. Am I still worried about “getting it right” as far as my practice and teaching goes?
4. How did I empower my students today?
5. Am I afraid they might know more than me? If so, how do I react, both internally and externally?

If we are going to ask our students to look at themselves and make changes whether it be to their lifestyle or to their alignment, hopefully we are willing and able to do the same, not only in our lives on the mat, off the mat, and in the classroom. 

In summary, I invite us all to acknowledge the here and now of our students, taking into consideration age, experience, part of the country, etc…  and to do our best to give them what they need, while still considering what they want.

And if, dear reader, you will indulge me, there is one more entry to come on what I’m now calling “The Alignment Chronic-cles.”  Until tomorrow...

Alignment as a Journey - Part 3 (of 4)

Many students look at alignment and how to get into the poses as a series of steps and rules. The beginner looks overwhelmed. More things to memorize? But when the list is memorized, have they really experienced the pose, or are they still in their heads? It can be disempowering to tell them every little nuance, every step of the way. When learning to write, we started with big crayons and block letters. We worked with them for until we were ready to move on to smaller crayons and pencils. Over time, our dexterity increased and in a few years, we were ready for cursive, and then maybe even calligraphy. It would have been ridiculous to have been asked to write in cursive in the beginning stages. Why demand calligraphy of our beginners? And do we all want them to write the same? Look the same? Do the pose the same?

As teachers, have we taken the time to explore other points of view regarding alignment, or are we also victims of the script of what we “should” be teaching? To be a responsible, non-biased teacher, we need to have at least experimented with or even considered that someone might not fit into the mold of what we call “proper alignment.” Alignment is not posture. Alignment is being aligned with who you are in the moment physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. Finding ease in that moment.  If someone is crying, do we tell them to sit up straight? No. We let them be where they are and then ask what we can do to help make them feel better. Referencing the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali – freedom is living in our Svarupa, our self knowledge. And Self awareness is ultimately taught from within the self.

Part 2: Discovering the New Alignment (part 2 of now 4 parts)

PART 2: DISCOVERING THE NEW ALIGNMENT 

(yesterday it was Part 1 of 3. Now it's Part 2 of 4. I'm re-aligning myself.)

I have seen the freedom and health through alignment trend evolve into over-stabilized, fearful, and resistant students (and teachers). What set us free, is now our jailer. We have aligned ourselves into a corner.

Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen said:

“alignment itself is not a goal. It is a continual dialogue between awareness and action.” 

What I see has having transpired, is that the dialogue part has been lost. It seems like the exploration and discovery aspect of the process of alignment has been replaced with a list of  “cues” and talking points. Sometimes it ever sounds like we are reciting scripts that had to be memorized in our 200 hr trainings. I’m not saying we shouldn’t keep an eye on the knee joint to make sure it’s not compromised, or that we shouldn’t address the issues of the lower back and neck. What I’m saying is that most people who come to class already have a basic sense of how to stand and place their bodies in a safe way. We are over-teaching. We are controlling. And one set of rules does not apply to each and every person out there.

Since it is rare that anyone has a home practice today, we need to include more of what a home practice can give us – which is getting to know our bodies, getting to know who we really are in there. 20 years ago, we didn’t have the option to take a yoga class everyday, so that our weekly class, our shot of inspiration from the teacher was an excellent way to shed some light and help guide us in our home practice. Now our student takes 5-7 yoga classes a week, with different teachers all telling them different things. Many are confused and not sure what is the “right” way to do the pose. The “right” way is the way that helps them achieve their goals, whether they be healing an injury, gaining strength or flexibility, or finding some peace in their day or life.

Why not empower our students through self-discovery? Why not stop assuming that our students know nothing about their bodies, and give them some freedom to explore different aspects of the poses so they can discover the appropriate version for themselves and their needs?  Maybe instead of telling them what they should be feeling, we could let them know what they shouldn’t be feeling (ie – strain in the low back, etc…). Most students are afraid of “getting it wrong,” so why not be the teacher that assumes they will get it right?

To be continued…

The Pitfalls of Perfect Alignment - Part 1 (of 3)

the rant goes on---

PART 1: STAYING IN LINE WITH THE TIMES

And thus we begin. We want to become a yoga teacher. We took the 200 Hr training, and now we have our first class. Fast-forward 5 years. We have many classes, have seen many different students. How have our classes evolved? Are your students happier, healthier (yes, more injury-free would apply here)? Do they love themselves more? Do they have more of what they want in life? Do they shine?

What about your class content? Has it evolved? Is it more inspiring? Does it still excite you?

What about you? Do you still love yoga? Are you happier, healthier? Do you love yourself more? Have you embraced your Sva Dharma (life’s purpose)? How’s your Sva Rupa (self knowledge)?

We change. We evolve. We start out as a bunch of cells and grow into these amazing things like human beings. Each of us different, unique. Yet we all share the same concept – nothing stays the same.  And if we resist change it results in stagnation. Stuckness. We all reach a point where the “same ol’ same ol’” just doesn’t cut it.

This concept also applies to our yoga practice. As we grow, evolve physically and consciously, our practice needs to grow with us. If it doesn’t, it may hold us back from becoming that which we desire, that very “which” that got us into yoga in the first place.

As yoga teachers, shouldn’t we apply the same thing to our teaching? Not only how we teach, but what we teach. If we look back, a very different student was coming to our classes 15-25 years ago. Nobody knew what a psoas muscle was, and terms like “down dog” had to do with obedience training of the beloved family mutt. Aerobics was hitting the scene, and people were just getting into their bodies as a collective nation. (Can you feel the burn?)

It was totally appropriate to focus and impress the importance of proper alignment, especially since many were coming to yoga as a way to heal their bodies. As yoga teachers, we started focusing on alignment as a way of life, instead of the energetic aspects and energetic alignment aspects of yoga. We were addressing the needs of our students. We wanted to help them heal, not add insult to injury.

It’s 20 years later, and most of the people coming to class have a high amount of body knowledge and anatomical awareness. We have students coming in and when they talk about their injuries they rattle off words like “brachialis” or  ”adductor” or any other muscle name or anatomical word that would best describe their ache. Granted, it’s nice to have a pop quiz every now and then, but it’s crazy!

Our students have grown. They are body-educated. They’ve taken Pilates, had physical therapy, and learned the names of their muscles. And yet our teaching remains the same. Have we grown as teachers? Have we kept up with our students and their new set of needs?

To be continued…

My mind is empty...

... my body is the vast expanse of the sky. This is a practice based on Yoga Sutra 2:47 - "the way to master asana is to relax effort and contemplate the Divine (or meditate on the Infinite, whatever melts your spiritual butter...)

All day I was having cool thoughts about what to blog. After a spectacular sunset beach walk, my mind is empty.

Oh yes, the Sri Tee Shirt Sutras:

Today's sutra:
Pull your head out of your asana

buy it now--  http://www.zazzle.com/pull_your_head_out_of_your_asana_tshirt-235702623383001787

go forth and prosper...

Lizard Posing - Lizard Posting

If you've been to a yoga class, you may have heard of lizard pose. We practiced it today as a matter of fact. If you've been to a rocky beach or river, you may have practiced lizard pose. Basking on warm rocks, invisible to the outside world, content in your own skin. Ahhhhhhhh!

We have a lizard in the yoga studio here at Prana del Mar. His name is Dusty. Because he looks dusty, as in blending in with the floor. At first we thought he was dead. But he is very much alive and moves a little bit everyday. Why did he find haven in the yoga studio? There are plenty of warm rocks, sunshine and bugs outside. But he is in our class now. And we love him.

But some are irked that he didn't have to pay for the training...

I think tomorrow I'll have Dusty lead the discussion on the chakras. It'll be interesting to get a reptile's point of view.

Extreme Yoga?

These days it seems like if you take enough yoga classes, you're going to get injured. What shocks the heck-fire out of me, is that most of us come to yoga to heal some aspect of ourselves. In Ayurveda, that which heals, can also poison if used in the wrong way, wrong amount. This is not to say that cardamom pods or cumin seeds are poisonous, but how they are used will either heal or hurt. 

Same with yoga.


Yoga and injury. I don’t believe that the two go together. When yoga is treated like an extreme sport, yes, it’s part of the package. But in the true yoga, the union of self with Self, there is no injury except to parts of ourselves that hide us from our light. This is not to say that there aren’t yoga practices that consciously break every part of their body so they can repair it, and in the repairing, eliminate the positve/negative charges of the cellular structure. That’s’ a different story. Why are there 70 year old yoga masters that can do the most twisted and crazy poses without blinking an eye? I think it’s because they took the slow road, the road of being true to the moment, being true to where the body/mind was in each moment, honoring the Divinity in that moment, thus, the practice was all about honoring the Divinity of the physical and non-physical. 


I was never injured from yoga until I started doing power flow. At first,  it felt great. I was doing really cool and extreme poses. After a few months I started to get injured – back problems, pulled hamstring, blah blah blah.  Why the injury? Part of it I attribute to group classes. When doing extreme poses in a group dynamic with a teacher ranting at the top of their lungs to go harder faster, there’s a tendency towards the competitive. We start competeing with the teacher, the others, ourselves. If I had been working one on one with a guru, I seriously doubt I would have started this pattern of injury because there would be no one but me to compare myself to, other than my guru, who would have been in an egoless state, giving me nothing to push against. The only thing that I would have injured was my ego. 


Now, the idea that you’re going to get injured in yoga is out there. It’s become a given. I have a problem with that. If yoga is supposed to make your life better, is it better with a pulled hamstring or strained wrists or tight shoulders? I guess if it’s really working, you could be physically beat up and still be smiling, but wouldn’t it be more fun to have both physical well-being as well as mental and emotional well-being?

What I really want to do

What I really want to do right now is go enjoy the sunset on the beach. The others are taking the exam, so it's time to enjoy some of the beauty and prana that nature has to offer.

This is me, still committed to blogging, and this is me, also committed to balance.

This is me, signing off. I'm opting for the bigger picture, the more expansive beauty.

:-)

Hope you choose to enjoy yourself tonight. It's the full moon in May, so pay attention to your dreams for extra fun.

Planet Earth - the Ultimate Reality Show

“My” body. Just the fact that we use the possessive case when talking about it indicates that we are not in fact, our bodies. The ownership of the body suggests impermanence.  It’s something we “have.”  The idea of Self – we don’t feel our Self as something we own when we think about our Self. And yes, we say things like my Self, or even my Soul.  But as soon as we give it a name or identity, it is no longer that which can't be named. By naming it (nama rupa) we have made it physical.  Our Self is something we can feel it, know it, in fact we are it. Our Self exists before words and thought constructs.

So why is making the leap that we are not our bodies so hard? I think it's because we really like them and are attached to them. How do we treat our possessions? Notice the thingswe really love. Do we use them? Protect them? Save them for later? Clean them? Trash them? These are exactly the things we do to our bodies, and until we can truly lose our fear of death – abinivesha – we are attached to the physical plane.

Maybe we don’t fear death, but we fear pain. If we fear pain, that is also an indicator that we are attached to the physical plane and the pull it has on us - on our samskaras. It indicates that we are still pulled by the contents of our mind, the tattwas (elements) and things that are physical. The attachment shows up not as something we “love” but as something we “fear” or “hate.”  As soon as we give our power over to it, we see we have attachment to something, as we have made it “real.” When we can see the whole thing from a neutral place, suffering will end. Knowing that we are eternal and much more than the play we cast ourselves in. Planet Earth is a reality show and we are all on it. Who is watching? We are. Who is watching us watch? That is the question.

Getting real

We are the ones who make things REAL. Things that are really really REALly important to us - that's what we consider "real":  My love for you is real. Get real. This realationship is really important to me. This thing/objective is really important to me. 


When things are less important - both positive and negative, (our negative story can be a really important part of our identity. it's chock full of pain, blame, and excuses that keep us from focussing on who we really are), they become less impactful and "real" to us. Out of sight, out of mind. Things that are important, we remember, things not so important, we forget. 


So we change what's real - what's important, and we change our reality.

Let it go, let it flow

Releasing attachment to what others think is so liberating. also empowering. And also, it helps us figure out who we really are. When we let go of our habit of putting the opinions and values of others ahead of what we really believe, sometimes we're left with this kind of dead silence inside. It's as if Elvis had left the building. that voice inside, our internal voice of truth, is still there, but could be napping. Or waiting to see if you really want to hear what it has to say. So be patient, and develop that relationship with yourself. It's worth the time and energy. Think about it - all that energy we put into trying to cultivate a relationship with another person - if we put half of that into knowing who we really are, we'd have completely different lives! And when I look back on most of my "big" relationships - you know the ones I spent hours crying about and hours in therapy about, well, most of my energy was spent trying to change them. So instead of wasting all that precious energy - invest it in the One who will always tell you the truth and be there for you. your Self.

Motherly Love

<3 Does that character make a heart? That was my intention.

Thanks Mom's everywhere for giving birth. And even if you never birthed a human being, thanks to all those other mom's out there who have created or "raised" "children" of the non-human sort (animals, art, great ideas, other people's kids, siblings, and even their own parents). The creative spark is in each one of us - the Kundalini Shakti, the Divine Flame of Creation Herself, resides in every cell of every entity. So let's all celebrate our creative genius for being alive!

And tip our hats to the females who made it possible for us.

Thanks Mom!

The Beauty of Difficulty Part 1

Embracing each perceived difficulty as a beautiful thing can be
a) beautiful
b) unrealistic
c) a pain in the ass
d) rewarding
e) all of the above
f) none of the above
g) screw yourself with all this beautiful/difficult crap and get real!

I went AWOL

I just remembered I was blogging daily! Apparently, I went awol on myself. I went "away without leaving."

Let's see if I"m back.