MUSIC | Nahko Bear : Aloha Ke Akua

PLAYLIST | Yo! Flow : 2/25

ROGER WRITES | Emergence vs. Homeostasis

Let me preface this article by telling you that in four days I turn 40.  It's no big deal, except that it is.

A month ago I signed up for 8 weeks of life coaching with Tommy Faricy.  I finished my first month last Monday.  He challenges me to think new thoughts, helps me to see things from a different perspective, and encourages me to go to the places that scare me.  He reminds me of what Joseph Campbell said: "The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek."  I resist, of course.  It's my job to resist.  But his patience, diligence, and passion have made a huge impact on how I am moving forward with my life.

Two weeks agao he shared with me the concepts of emergence and homeostasis.  Emergence is the process of coming into being, and homeostasis is the process of keeping everything the same.  We focused primarily on emergence because, well, my life lately has been too much about homeostatis, which is why I started the life coaching sessions in the first place.

I've thought about these two concepts every day since then.  I've explored both sides, and I've realized the necessity of both of them.  We all want to emerge, to be our best, to be successful, alive, awake, and radiant.  However, too much of that can cause us to feel manic and oftentimes leads to a crash-and-burn experience, which is why we also need the otherside: the ground, the bones, the nuts and bolts.  It's also important and necessary to have elements in our lives that are constant and steady, but when we have too much groundedness we can easily fall into inertia and depression.

Recently, I've re-awakened my passion to move toward more complex asanas and movements.  I've been exploring and using these two dynamic forces in my practice.   I find that when I strive, push and reach out for these postures too much, I fall, I tumble, I loose my ground, and that's when I'm most at risk for injury.  When I recognize that is happening, I come back to my breath.  I come back to my bones.  I connect to my feet.  I let go of outcome and return to the practice.

Then there are those days when I get to my mat and my bones are heavier than my will; days when I think, "meh."  In those moments, I can decide to do something different.  I try a new pose.  I take some energizing breaths.  I pray for a miracle.  I let go of outcome and return to the practice.

On and off the mat it's important to strike a balance between the emergent energy required for transformation and the consistency needed for that transformation to last.

P.S.  Anyone have a Corvette for sale?

POETRY | Mark Nepo : Breaking Surface

Breaking Surface
-Mark Nepo

Let no one keep you from your journey,
no rabbi or priest, no mother
who wants you to dig for treasures
she misplaced, no father
who won't let one life be enough,
no lover who measures their worth
by what you might give up,
no voice that tells you in the night
it can't be done.

Let nothing dissuade you
from seeing what you see
or feeling the winds that make you
want to dance alone
or go where no one
has yet to go.

You are the only explorer.
Your heart, the unreadable compass.
Your soul, the shore of a promise
too great to be ignored.

MUSIC | Regina Spektor : Laughing With

MUSIC | Subaqueous : Threshold of the Night (2013)

INSPIRATION | Shane Koyczan : To This Day Project

PLAYLIST | Yo! Flow 2/18

MUSIC | Milow & Brett Dennen : Annie's Song (John Denver cover)

May this be the day you let go and fall wildly and madly and truly and deeply in love with yourself.
Happy Valentine's Day.

MUSIC | Nalepa : Monday (The Glitch Mob remix)

PLAYLIST | Yo! Flow 2/11

EVENT | Yoga Boogie; Resurrect Frolic

Yoga Boogie; Resurrect Frolic

Spring Equinox
Friday, March 22 | 8 - 10pm

Shake it, swing it, move it, fling it, and get right down to it. Wake up your soul with the spontaneous flow of energy of the Spring Equinox. This two hour blast of meditation-in-motion, pranayama, asana, and trance dance will guide you into the wise and powerful arms of these ancient truths. You are invited to allow world beats, psychedelic rhythms, and electronic grooves to unleash your hunger to move and to make your tribal spirit flourish!

Shakti House
1401 SE Morrison | 503.972.2929

Register Online | $15 advanced : $20 door

Roger McKeever, eryt-500, is an inspirational teacher, spiritual activist, and artist. He is known for demonstrating the transformational power of yoga. He weaves together current and ancient forms of movement with expressive art, inspirational poetry and diverse music to help students develop playfulness that is rooted in love, light-heartedness and meaningful exploration.
Learn more about Roger: www.sacredtremor.com

TED | Sherry Turkle : Connected, but alone?

Why you should listen to her:

Since her pathbreaking The Second Self: Computers and The Human Spirit in 1984 psychologist and sociologist Sherry Turkle has been studying how technology changes not only what we do but who we are. In 1995's Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet, Turkle explored how the Internet provided new possibilities for exploring identity.

Described as "the Margaret Mead of digital cuture," Turkle has now turned her attention to the world of social media and sociable robots. As she puts it, these are technologies that propose themselves "as the architect of our intimacies." In her most recent book, Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other, Turkle argues that the social media we encounter on a daily basis are confronting us with a moment of temptation. Drawn by the illusion of companionship without the demands of intimacy, we confuse postings and online sharing with authentic communication. We are drawn to sacrifice conversation for mere connection. Turkle suggests that just because we grew up with the Internet, we tend to see it as all grown up, but it is not: Digital technology is still in its infancy and there is ample time for us to reshape how we build it and use it.

Turkle is a professor in the Program in Science, Technology and Society at MIT and the founder and director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self.

"What technology makes easy is not always what nurtures the human spirit."
Sherry Turkle

PLAYLIST | Yo! Flow : 2/4

MUSIC | Grouper : Vital

POETRY | David Whyte : The Courageous Step

The Courageous Step
-David Whyte

Why is it so difficult to take the first, necessary, close-in, courageous step to claiming our happiness in life? Perhaps, because taking that step immediately leads to a kind of radical internal simplification, where, suddenly, large parts of us, parts of us that had been kept gainfully employed for years; parts of us we thought absolutely necessary to the story, are suddenly out of a job. There occurs in effect a massive form of internal corporate downsizing, where the naysayers in us that do not wish to participate are let go, with all of the accompanying death-like trauma, and where the last fight occurs, a rear guard disbelief that this new, less complicated self, is equal to the new possibilities ahead. –It is always hard to believe that the courageous step is so close to us, that it is closer in than we could imagine, that in fact, we already know what it is, and that that step is simpler, more radical than we had thought: which is why we so often prefer the story to be more complicated, our identities equally clouded by fear and the answer safely in the realm of impossibility.

MUSIC | Little Dragon : Little Man

MUSIC | August sings Carmen 'Habanera'