shadowy valleys

I have been thinking a lot this morning about humbleness, and the power it has to transform our lives as we turn our affairs over to a force greater than ourselves. Partly this arises out of my own realizations of how much easier life is when I keep myself humble, and glad, and move from that space. Partly this comes from a conversation I just had with a friend, who is moving from a place of despair, confusion, and anger, to the realization that they can, in fact, reap the benefits of change and a deeper connection. I flipped open one of my favorite books this morning, Marianne Williamson's Illuminata: A Return to Prayer:

Dear God,

The pain of this life is more than I can bear.

I feel as though death would be better.

My thoughts are dark, my sorrows huge.

I feel as though I shall not endure, and there is

    no one and nothing to turn to now.

My hurt is so big,

I cannot handle this.

If You can, dear God, please do.

If You can, please do.

Amen.

Personally, I like to substitute the word goddess for god, because I find that the words have a deeper resonance in my body when I do so. The feminine face of the absolute resonates more resoundingly than does the male, in my current, feminine, form. Although my Sunday morning is full of light and joy this week, personal experience will never let me forget that we all go through dark times, and need to know not only how to handle them, but how to find our way out again, and how to maintain an inner equilibrium while going through our personal valleys of shadows.

Pictures from the Mendocino yoga day...

Well, I taught at the 6th annual Mendocino Yoga Day, as promised, along with Rosy Nolan, Helen Jacobs, Lisa Orselli, Maggie Norton and Diane Watjen. That was back in April, the last Saturday...I believe around $1200 was raised, in raffle ticket purchases and class attendance-related donations, for the Mendocino Coast Community Care Program. So thank you to everyone who attended!

Diane Watjen teaching...

Hannah taking class...

Beautiful room

More of Diane teaching...

Ladies in purple taking...

Maggie & Diane

Hannah teaching

Looks like fun, doesn't it? I know we all felt amazing at the end of the day. If you missed it this year, just hang on until next year, for the yoga smorgasbord!!!

Creating time

This article I found over on zenhabits.net 

(which is one of the websites I want to add to that as-yet-unwritten article on "favorite yoga blogs") (even though it's not specifically about yoga).... this article seems an appropriate follow-up to my last post. Enjoy!

And tell me, I'm curious: what do you want to make more time for in your life?

Besides yoga. ;)

Cutting back on classes

Hola, North Coast Yogis!

Wanted to let you all know that I am phasing out two of my three classes a week...you can still find me at the C.V. Starr Community Center at 7:00 am on Thursday mornings, where I will be pouring all of my sweetness, light and grit into a single class, for the time being.

I am getting ready to transition myself onto other things, potentially off the coast and inland to sunnier climes, but before then, I have a couple special yoga-related projects I'll be sharing with you. More on them later.

This week is your last chance for Monday night Hot Vinyasa class with me at the community favorite: Hot Yoga of Mendocino. The following week there will be a new teacher for us all to try! I'm going to miss you, my regular Monday night folks.

This week is also your last chance to restore with me on Tuesday night, 5:30 at the Redwood Health Club. It's now only $8 to drop in for yoga there. Nice deal.

a poem for you, until I can write more...

The bud
stands for all things,
even those things that don't flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;
as St. Francis
put his hand on the creased forehead
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch
blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow
began remembering all down her thick length,
from the earthen snout all the way
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of
the tail,
from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine
down through the great broken heart
to the blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking
and blowing beneath them:
the long, perfect loveliness of sow. 
~Galway Kinnell

April rains are welcomed
by the thawing winter soil,
almost overnight
the grasses grow green.

They have waited for this moment.

Now everything in them pushes up and outward
toward the light,
seeking the freedom of growth
like a caged one caught,
finally sprung loose from captivity.

The caged ones within me
are also breaking free.
They are singing songs
and dancing in the rain.

How to finally start that thing you've been meaning to start...

There is an article by Sharon Salzberg in the spring 2011 issue of "tricycle"(a magazine aimed at buddhist practitioners), on sustaining a meditation practice. The whole article is worth reading, in my opinion, but below is the part that I found most useful.

"Just put your body there...that's what you have to do. Just put your body there. Your mind will do different things all of the time, but you just put your body there. Because that's the expression of commitment, and the rest will follow from that." 

I just love that, because it resonates on so many levels. It applies to exercise, or developing new habits, or studying, or anything that requires us to show up, really show up, in some way. We come up with all these stories of why we cannot, should not, don't want to do something. Then we come up with more stories about why we can, should, do want to do it. 

Let's say you are thinking about going for a walk. Those story lines can be rolling along: "It looks like rain. I'm tired. The dogs already got exercised today. I'm hungry. I need to work/wash the dishes/fold the laundry/whatever" "I should go. Walking is healthy. I can bring a rain jacket. I want to be the kind of person who walks. The fresh air is good for me." Each of these is a story we tell ourselves. In the meantime, the body finds the rain jacket, ties the shoes, steps out the door. 

The body goes into the other room, folds legs, sits down, breathes deeply. Nothing else is needed.