Tuesday, December 29, 2009

end of the year cleaning


"Imagine that God is a great musician and that you are a flute He wants to play the most glorious music on. If the stops of your flute are filled with mud, how can the music that is meant to be played through you sound at all?" ~Father Bede Griffths

Forget spring cleaning. It's the end of the year and the end of the decade. It's a perfect time to lighten your load so that the path can be clearly seen again. New resolve and renewed intentions all around!

Thursday, December 10, 2009

silence

In contemplating the way of Baba Hari Dass I began to picture all the extraneous thoughts in life as that friend who comes over to constantly raid your pantry and your refrigerator. As long as there is food to be had - as long as the mind runs wild, he keeps coming round. As the mind get quieter there's less for the thoughts to snack on. Maybe I just like the image of thoughts being a perpetually hungry friend...

Kaayedriya siddhir ashuddhi ksayaat tapasah (Yoga Sutra II.42)
By austerity, impurities of body and senses are destroyed and the yogi is made perfect.

Friday, May 29, 2009

sam cooke


is the starting point for my class today. "On New Year's Eve 1962, as he was preparing for a musical assault on Las Vegas, he more than held his own at a gospel concert in Newark, NJ, where he appeared alongside the Dixie Hummingbirds, the Caravan Singers, and the latest incarnation of the Soul Stirrers. Cooke explained his continuing connection with his roots: When the whites are through with Sammy Davis, Jr., he won't have anywhere to play. I'll always be able to go back to my people 'cause I'm never gonna stop singing to them. No matter how big I get, I'm still gonna do my dates down South. Still gonna do these kind of shows. I'm not gonna leave my base. (from A Change Is Gonna Come, Craig Werner)

Sam Cooke is talking roots in terms of a personal history, but roots to our truth and our cosmic history are just as important. There is so much life and noise and chaos constantly swirling around us, and the practices within yoga can be like those gospel shows or dates down South. The practices become our safety zone or the home base where we can be renewed or even reborn. No matter how our outer life changes we have to keep an eye on that unchanging source center within us so that we can always find our way back to our roots to be made a siddha (a perfected one) all over again. Through this constant returning to the safety and stillness of the rejuvenating seat upon the earth – using asana and devotion and mantra and meditation – we will begin to create a home, an ease, and a firm friendship with out truth-roots. So that even when we are away from our base we still never really leave it behind.

you can never have too many mantras


I'm falling in love with the Hanuman Gayatri. Thank you, Rhiannon.

OM ANJANEYAYE VIDMAHE
MAHABALAYE DHIMAHI
TANNO HANUMAN PRACHODAYAT OM


We pray to the son of Anjani and the son of the Wind.
May Lord Hanuman propel us.

Jai!!

Thursday, May 28, 2009

all good things


Tomorrow is my last opportunity to practice alongside Matt for a while. That's been a hard reality to deal with. He's been a friend and student during this whole move to the west coast. In fact, he's really my one guy-friend in the Bay Area, at least the only one I spend time with regularly. He's like my SFBFF. More than all that, I've been lucky enough to be part of Matt becoming a teacher. He's my first mentee who I've been able to thoroughly track, and I'm so proud of the progress he has made and the teacher he has become. But now it's time for him to return to nYc (via Paris and India) and to his lovely LP. There's no better reason to uproot than for LOVE. And so I'm happy for him, but that happiness is colored with a touch of sadness. Vairagya is, like Arjuna says to Krishna, really hard.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

i end up in the whackiest places...

but I do love a good shout-out. I've been accused of having "no bones", being a cirque du soleil refugee, channeling a Teenage Ninja Turtle (Michaelangelo, I think), and now having Spider-man super powers. Thanks Karey Ann.

Friday, May 01, 2009

pics from Tucson Yoga

Here are some pics from Kirtan at Tucson Yoga. Did I mention that I love Tucson? It's got a funky spirit like a Portland or a New Orleans but it's in the desert. Pay them a visit. SOON.

Friday, April 03, 2009

back for a moment

I'm back from my brief trip to New York. I'm glad I went. It was good to see Lori doing better than I expected. She said I was a calming presence. I think I was helped by my visit as much as she was. She's such an inspiration, doing whatever she can to extend her life(force), and trying to really enjoy all that she has left. I made some music for her, we made some together, and I left feeling like we'll be able to do it again.

Tomorrow night I fly to Costa Rica. Monkeys and mangoes, here I come!

Monday, March 30, 2009

being a friend and a minister

I flew to nYc today to see my friend Lori who is battling stage 4 cancer. I came to be with her and to make music with her and to see for myself how she's REALLY doing. It isn't easy. But if there's something that my yoga practice has taught me is that this being human isn't meant to be easy, and that we must embrace the sukkha and the dukkha equally. To run to one or away from the other brings only problems.

In seminary I learned about the dying process. Like so many other aspects of seminary and being a minister, I've yet to have the opportunity to be a part of anyone's transition from this life. I believe in my heart that Lori still has a lot of living to do but I also understand that the journey has begun. And so I'm here. I feel blessed to have the means and opportunity to travel across the country to be with a dear friend, to be able to laugh, sing, and cry with her, and hopefully to be of service to her and her husband. I know that I will be nourished and inspired by her will and her light.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

saying good-bye


My favorite yoga magazine, ascent, is closing its doors after 10 years of inspiring yogis in the traditions of Swami Sivananda Radha's creative vision. I have waited expectantly for each issue since I discovered ascent six years ago, and have turned to those black-and-white pages for knowledge and inspiration in my teaching ever since. I refuse to get rid of my stack of dog-eared back issues. Like the Sutras of Patanjali or the Gita, ascent is full of nuggets and stories that are meant to read and re-read. I offer my thanks and gratitude to the modern-day swamis and sages who have given so much of their light to the rest of us in creating these sacred texts.

ascent needs some help getting their final issue out the doors before they are closed. Visit them to learn more about the magazine and how you can help.