Back on the Mat

Aahh, Summer has arrived! I left work feeling a bit like a limp noodle, I managed to get to the couch and that was all she wrote! Having recovered a bit I am now planning my Summer schedule which includes a lot of yoga. I got a fantastic jump start at chantfeast which placed me back on the mat and wanting more. I rolled into chantfeast plopped down and and just stayed class after class. By the time I left I'd dropped a couple of toxic bricks and just floated on pure energy out the door.

One of the classes I took was a kundalini class. I have a DVD at home but have never actually taken a class. Somewhere between the gongs, chanting and breath work I got hooked. I got back and immediately took a class. Yep, I'm in! I found a studio and I'm hoping to explore a bit more. If all works out ( parking gods are you listening?) I'll bounce between my regular studio and this one. I've been getting back to a daily practice and I can't even begin to state the difference in my mood and general vitality. With my Dad's passing it's been a long and emotional journey and I seemed to have stored all my feelings in my hips. With each class I feel a release, sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes with a great whoosh, but always a feeling of having dropped something I didn't need to carry. I had a class in the late spring which opened up my hips with a great thunder, with it came the tears and a great relief as well. So here's to the summer, rediscovering my practice and beginning life again!
Hari Om and be well.

First Day Bliss

Summer afternoon

Summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.

Henry James

Dreaming of Summer

This is pretty much me by days end. I am sound asleep long before I hit the pillow. I'm nearing the end of all the things I need to do, but boy is this a tough one. Actually today is a big day and again next week is a big week for meeting deadlines. I have been able to make my obligations on time, perhaps not so much by organization but the sheer desire to have all this done and move on.... on to something less hectic and draining. Well perhaps... going through the summer itinerary it's pretty full already, but that's OK, it's a welcome release from this crazy hectic schedule. Tomorrow I'm taking a little break for part of the day and I'm going to Chantfest. A little yoga and chant inspiration to invigorate the soul and mind. I'm ready, bring on the Summer!

Summer makes a silence after spring.
Vita Sackville-West

The Morning Cup

I'm madly trying to complete all my work by the end of the month. Research papers. academic presentations, professional presentations, reports, meetings... it's leaves me feeling dizzy. Slowly this year, at the pace of a a very laid back snail, I have been stepping back and freeing up space in my life. It started by not adding more work, then stepping back from some of the things I do. Once I have completed by current obligations I will be moving in a new directions for the next 14 months. I think its going to take me a while just to decompress and breath and learn to be still again. At this point I find when I do have a little time to settle I'm restless and don't know what to do with myself, a little lost actually. I've been going at a condensed pace for far too long. It's time to stop, step into life,have a nice cup of chi and enjoy the view for a while.

Get my Soul Free

Yep...this is about where I'm at, or more to the point where I'd like to be. I'm way on overload, packed to the hilt and wondering how I'm going to it all done. I've been on overload all year and I'm so wound up It's hard to believe I'll ever come back down to earth. That's part of the puzzle for me. Coming back to a place where I can enjoy a little of what these folks are doing.... relaxation and renewal. I want to let mother earth absorb me in her embrace and just let go, but at the moment there's so much to do and too many deadlines. This week was too filled, too much of a black hole and I'm twirling and swarming around ungrounded. I am thinking of my father, missing him, feeling lost. As a water child it's easy for me to find simile to my emotional states and water. In the beginning it was like wearing weights and walking on the floor of an Olympic size swimming pool, now its a swirling ring in an ocean and I'm in the middle of it just whirling without end. I whirl and whirl and every now and then I realize I'm spinning in a great foam of confusion and reality hits me, but then I whirl some more with papers, meetings, presentations, classes, a car repair, dinner, needs of loved ones, dinner to be made, bills to be paid, spinning, spinning, spinning.

I need to get back to "the farm." Perhaps that's why I have elected to go to Sivananda's Ashram in upstate New York this Summer. Yoga, meditation and contemplation. I need to let my inner soul child, mother earth, cosmic mother unloose and run wild in a field for a little bit. That side of me needs to be allowed to come out, she's been indoors for a little far to long.
Woodstock
I came upon a child of god
He was walking along the road
And I asked him, where are you going
And this he told me
I'm going on down to yasgurs farm
I'm going to join in a rock n roll band
I'm going to camp out on the land
I'm going to try an get my soul free
We are stardust
We are golden
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

Then can I walk beside you
I have come here to lose the smog
And I feel to be a cog in something turning
Well maybe it is just the time of year
Or maybe its the time of man
I don't know who l am
But you know life is for learning
We are stardust
We are golden
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

By the time we got to woodstock
We were half a million strong
And everywhere there was song and celebration
And I dreamed I saw the bombers
Riding shotgun in the sky
And they were turning into butterflies
Above our nation
We are stardust
Billion year old carbon
We are golden
Caught in the devils bargain
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden
Joni Mitchell

Remembering to Breath

Ah Yes, It's that time of year again.

Birthday wishes for the complex at heart

Happy 117th Martha, you rock.

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening,

that is translated through you into action,

and because there is only one of you in all time,

this expression is unique.
Martha Graham