Periodic writings and updates
Thursday February 7, 2019
Sustaining the flame of practice The years and then the decades roll by; and to sustain a vigor and passion for the humbling practices of yoga… well, it’s not easy. None of the teachings of yoga say it will be. Indeed, they caution us again and again that dedication will take every last drop of…
Read PostThursday January 10, 2019
What are nutrients and what is waste? This has been on my mind since spending a couple of weeks at an ayurvedic center in India where most of the conversation is about digestion. Every experience or item we take into our bodies can be broken down into nutrients or waste. In an optimal state, we…
Read PostWednesday December 5, 2018
Discomfort. We all experience it. It is a recognition that what is happening is not in accordance with our beliefs about the way things should be.Now, what to do in this moment when that lurking sense of discomfort arises? In my worst moments, I bear witness to my own avoidance patterns and the many forms that avoidance…
Read PostThursday November 8, 2018
Lift the veil that obscures the heart and there you will find what you are looking for ~ Kabir Giving ourselves the gift of turning down the noise and moving toward silence can open an inner expanse. We put down doing to arrive into our own undoing, to the lift the veil. When we take…
Read PostThursday October 11, 2018
While learning “to speak up” is a lifelong journey, the time to speak up at the polls is now. What is it to have a voice? To use it to speak in alignment with love and clarity and power. And, what is the relationship between the yoga practice and voting? The underlying teaching, that we…
Read PostThursday September 13, 2018
Attending to the Subtle Body. I walk through my days relating to the world through my physical body (sthula sarira); experiencing life through my senses and all of the ways they connect me to the outer world. Often I get stuck there—in this purely gross, physical, tangible sense of “self,” formed by my relationship with…
Read PostTuesday August 7, 2018
The lists are never ending. The “to do’s” and “ought to do’s” pile up. The pressure to produce, complete, prepare, create, and [insert your own verb here] is relentless. Do more yoga. Do more parenting. Do more service. Do more self-care. Do more housework. Do more… We’re living in a cultural moment in which it’s…
Read PostTuesday July 17, 2018
Half a dollar. Rapper. Half a hundred. Shades of gray. Number of states in the United States. Natural number following 49 and preceding 51. Nearly my age. I’m moving toward the great celebration of being in this body for fifty—count ‘em, fifty—years. We humans like to assign meaning to things; and while I find myself…
Read PostTuesday June 12, 2018
As simple and profound as OM NAMAH SHIVAYA The spaces in between. The creation balanced with destruction. To have is to let go. Many years ago, after another long sojourn to India I returned with three marks still across my forehead, throat, heart and wrists. They had been dusted onto me by the fingers of…
Read PostMonday May 7, 2018
Our beating, pulsing, live-giving, life-sustaining hearts. The remarkable vitality they push through our entire beings—moment after moment, steadily, tenaciously. And yet, how infrequently we actually pause and feel our heartbeat. To me, bhakti—the yoga of the heart—is a reminder to feel deeply into this powerful rhythm that moves everything we do, that sets the tempo…
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