THE/sun

The Sun

Mary Oliver

Have you ever seen 

anything 

in your life 

more wonderful

than the way the sun, 

every evening, 

relaxed and easy, 

floats toward the horizon

and into the clouds or the hills, 

or the rumpled sea, 

and is gone-- 

and how it slides again

out of the blackness, 

every morning, 

on the other side of the world, 

like a red flower

streaming upward on its heavenly oils, 

say, on a morning in early summer, 

at its perfect imperial distance-- 

and have you ever felt for anything 

such wild love-- 

do you think there is anywhere, in any language, 

a word billowing enough 

for the pleasure

that fills you, 

as the sun 

reaches out, 

as it warms you

as you stand there, 

empty-handed-- 

or have you too 

turned from this world--

or have you too 

gone crazy 

for power, 

for things?

LOTUS/ytt

Opening night

 Sunday Morning Sadhana

PLAYSHOP/playlists

Playshop Music

Playlist #1 | Misc.

 Playlist #2 | Trance Dance

Playlist #3 | Sunday Morning Practice

TAD/asana

Tadasana | Mountain Pose

Anthony Quaglieri

I actually got my yoga practice in today. It was satisfactory and challenging enough.  I move from tadasana to standing poses to forward folds, to backbends to shoulder stand, to head stand preparation, to twists, to savasana.  I don't over do it. I just do my best in each pose. I'm building a separate tadasana practice. I set my phone alarm and I’m up to 4 minutes in tadasana.   I stand in an engaged tadasana for the whole time and by the 3rd minute I am in another land, breathing and holding the pose.  

I still think it's the hardest pose - being a conduit between the center of the earth and the center of heaven, opening myself as an aligned channel of energy between two points.  Engaging each foot completely on the ground in a willing marriage of non-gripping contact. Exerting equal effort in planting down while rising up.  

Isn't this what we want from life? To be completely engaged with that which nurtures and supports us while fully rising up at the same time, reaching for the sky with our crown chakra?  Why shouldn't this be the most rewarding effort of all? To be simultaneously engaged with the fully known ground and the unknown vastness of the sky and all it has to offer, and letting the mind just go an the breath be as an engine.  

I think taking tadasana is the best discipline of all. I effort toward a best practice in a particular moment in time with an earnest intention to concentrate with a quiet mind and see where the pose takes me. To keep as much engagement and alignment as I can. When one thing goes, I correct it and then another thing goes and I correct it, and then, maybe for a  second, I have most things engaged and aligned, and I know it in an unattached-to-ego way, I just feel intense pleasure. To let my body float in an effort toward greater alignment in the pose, knowing that there is no pose, just the reaching toward it.  

This is the intimacy of yoga, the conscious acceptance that there is nothing to get.  

To let go of waiting for the phone alarm to go off.  Instead, being in the challenge to stay engaged:  “How much more time do I have to see if I can keep my knees lifted, my shoulder blades tucked in, my chest going up, my feet engaged - how much more time do I have to be in this action to lift my upper body to the sky while rooting my lower into the ground.  To reach toward that second when effort and effortlessness are one.  A slice of time when I just am, without wanting to be somewhere else,  without waiting for the 4 minute alarm to go off, without having to remind myself to breathe, without caring if I'm doing a good job. 

What a life lesson is one pose.

BEGIN/end

Where Does the Temple Begin,
Where Does It End?
Mary Oliver

There are things you can’t reach.  But

you can reach out to them, and all day long.

The wind, the bird flying away.  The idea of God.

And it can keep you as busy as anything else, and happier.

The snake slides away; the fish jumps, like a little lily,

out of the water and back in; the goldfinches sing

from the unreachable top of the tree.

I look; morning to night I am never done with looking.

Looking I mean not just standing around, but standing around

as though with your arms open.

And thinking: maybe something will come, some

shining coil of wind,

or a few leaves from any old tree – 

they are all in this too.

And now I will tell you the truth.

Everything in the world

comes.

At least, closer.

And, cordially.

Like the nibbling, tinsel-eyed fish; the unlooping snake.

Like goldfinches, little dolls of gold

fluttering around the corner of the sky

of God, the blue air.

PRAY/er

Praying

Mary Oliver

It doesn't have to be

the blue iris, it could be

weeds in a vacant lot, or a few

small stones; just

pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don't try

to make them elaborate, this isn't

a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which

another voice may speak.

IT/is

This Is It

James Broughton

This is It

and I am It

and You are It

and so is That

and He is It

and She is It

and It is It

and That is That.

O It is This

and It is Thus

and It is Them

and It is Us

and It is Now

and here It is

and here We are

and This is It. 

NO/end

No end to the journey 

--Rumi

No end, no end to the journey
no end, no end never
how can the heart in love ever stop opening
if you love me, you won’t just die once
in every moment you will die into me
to be reborn
Into this new love die

your way begins on the other side
become the sky
take an axe to the prison wall,
escape
walk out like someone
suddenly born into color
do it now

YEAR/2012

This video was recently sent to me by my friend Brad Oliphant who did the photography for this short film.  All I can say is WOW!  It will open your heart and help guide you into a richer, deeper experience in the year ahead.  Please watch this film and pass it along.

Check out Brad's inspiring website: www.bradoliphantphotography.com

WHITMAN/grass

A child said What is the grass? fetching
it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child? I do not
know what it is any more than he.

--Walt Whitman

SUN/fire

COLLAGE/book

Every year around the turn of the New Year I spend a full day in creative contemplation reflecting upon the past year and creating an intention for the year ahead.  This year, I spent two full days in that quiet space.  No electronics-- no phone, no computer, no facebook, no email, no texting.  Nothing.  I cleaned off my desk and spread out all of my art supplies.  I lit candles, burned incense, practiced yoga, meditated, journaled and created lots and lots of art.  The theme for 2012 came pretty quickly.  "Follow Your Bliss," which is part of a longer quote by Joseph Campbell: "Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls." Using that as my theme I decided to create a small collage book as a visual reference for all the things that bring me bliss.  I've been adding something to it everyday.  More pictures of collage book below.
 
Here's to wishing you a CREATIVE year of FOLLOWING YOUR BLISS in 2012!

May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you be free.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

NEW YEAR'S EVE/2012

New Year's Eve | 2012

Last evening 90 beautiful men gathered at Easton Mountain for a New Year's Celebration dinner and ritual as part of a five day bring-in-the-new-year retreat.  The ritual leading up to midnight lasted about an hour and included chanting, song, readings, and periods of silent for meditation and reflection.  At midnight we walked around hugging each other and wishing each other blessings for the new year.  That was followed by fireworks and a night of sweaty disco dancing!