Stop

Dial in.

Check in.

Tune in. 

Connect. 

Check. Check again. 

Keep looking. 

Connect.

Watch. 

Listen.

Read.

Talk.

Write. 

Connect.

I miss you.

I forget you.

I search in vain for you.

Connect.

You know me. 

I knew you. 

I have felt you.

Stop.

Open all the blinds.

Turn everything off.

Put everything down.

Connect.

Breathe. 

Feel your heartbeat.

Study your hands.

Connect.

Go outside. 

Look at everything.

Listen to everything. 

Connect. 

Sit next to someone.

Think only of someone.

Study someone's eyes. 

Connect.

Close your eyes.

Think of me.

Know that I am here. 

Embrace. 

Embrace.

Embrace. 

Embrace.

Embrace.

Embrace.

Embrace.

Embrace.

Embrace.

Embrace. 

Tidal Dream

Turquoise tidal waters massaging the sand,
Rolling into my room in soothing syncopation,
Streaming under and around all my belongings,
Enveloping the bottom of my mattress,
As I lie in my bed, half awake, aware of the sounds,
Aware of the colors.
The water, a mesmerizing blue, flowing beneath me and extending to all sides,
I see my headboard against a backdrop of aquamarine.
And then,
I am somewhere else, watching people having breakfast,
Wandering outside, the beach in my periphery,
My husband calls to me for a moment.
The arriving storm, thick darkness in the air and sky,
We all take shelter in a more defined structure,
Settling into some kind of work, we follow one another,
From room to room.
Suddenly I am so tired.
Wait.
You and I, we meet on someone's couch,
Side by side,
Each aware of the other person,
Engaged in our own conventions.
I lie down again,
Breathing in time with the tidal waters,
Deep and slow,
Barely audible,
Drifting in and out of sleep,
With my head in your lap,
As you talk on the phone,
Soothed by the sound of your voice,
Whispering to myself,
"I should go."

Sacred Shelter

If all of life is sacred,

If our bodies are temples,

Then our homes are holy cities,

Our living rooms like chapels,

Each bedroom a sanctuary. 

The photos of my grandparents,

The small album by my bedside,

Relics from a time I now revere.

My grandmother's locket with my photo inside,

A protective charm next to my pillow.

The milagros crosses above my bed,

Altar pieces.

Books on the nightstand,

Sacred texts.

The childrens' art work covering our walls,

Cathedral paintings transmitting meaning.

Smells from the kitchen and smoke from extinguished candles,

Incense, smudge.

Our every action,

A ritual offering.

Our every exchange,

Praise and blessing.

On our chosen altars,

The likeness of an ancestor,

The depiction of a deity,

The gifts we take from nature, only to return them,

A rock, a pebble, a flower and a leaf,

Fruit from the trees and vegetables from the garden,

Tears we shed for all we have lost, 

Gratitude for what we have gained,

Joys that spill over and cannot be contained,

And burdens we can no longer carry.

Leaving all this on the altar cloth,

Receiving in turn a benediction, an absolution, renewal of our strength. 

Distracted Devotion

He asked,
Do you always think of me when I'm gone?
He said,
It's OK if you don't, because I don't think of you.
He hesitated,
I get too distracted.
I said,
I do think of you throughout the day, so often.
And then I forget and am distracted by a million things,
but some of them remind of me of you.

I do think of him,
of his smile,
of his laughter,
of time we spend together,
when someone says,
Imagine the face of a person you love.
Recall a moment of lightheartedness.
Think of something that makes you smile.
Lying there on the floor,
with ten other barefoot people,
I think of him.

Devotion is this,
bringing the mind back to where the heart rests,
bringing the heart up to the mind,
and the mind down to the heart.
Finding that person, that ideal, that experience,
which brings us to that place we'd rather be,
but instead we get too distracted.
To me, it feels like love.
And the thought of different people takes me there.
And thinking of God.
Thinking of the face of God,
Who is faceless with so many faces,
nameless with so many names.
But I know when my mind is resting in God's heart,
where my heart rests,
even when I am too distracted.

Two Must-Have Yoga Accessories

Forget your mat, your water bottle, your Lululemon pants and your Prana headbands. Eye pillow? Not really necessary. Toe sox? Please. Yoga accessories can add up to a small fortune if you don't get the teacher discounts! 

There are two things you really can't do without in a yoga practice, and no one manufactures them. Without these two things, yoga's many benefits will elude you. What are they? Support and Space. To practice yoga, your body needs a support to rest on and a space to move through; not just externally, but especially internally. Your body can't move if your mind won't support it and if there isn't enough mental space to add the practice of yoga to your life. 

Two of the most quoted Yoga Sutras are abhyāsa-vairāgya-ābhyāṁ tan-nirodhaḥ ||Samadhi Pada, 12||, and sthira-sukham-āsanam ||Sadhana Pada 46||. These sutras teach us to balance effort with detachment and strength with ease. This is why we aim for the perfect balance of movement and rest in our classes, and why yoga both strengthens and de-stresses us. I have heard this concept described by teachers as "hang on, let go," know when to relax and when to try harder, when to grip and when to release, when to contract and when to expand. All work and no play makes Jack a dull yogi. 

Thinking back to the last yoga retreat I attended in February, I pulled out my notes from Judith Lasater's lectures and on the very first evening with us, she said, "When the body feels supported, the whole being feels supported. When we are supported we can let go. We can abide with ease." She likes to translate sthira-sukham-āsanam as "abiding with ease." Support within and without allows us to let go and be healed, soothed and restored by our practice. We consciously connect to our support, feeling the floor holding us up, releasing our shoulders over a block, resting our backs on a bolster or even releasing the weight of our heads into the teacher's hands as she comes to assist us. As we do this, our whole being feels supported, internally and externally. We learn to let go in the mind and the body. 

In our classes we move through a space specifically designed for yoga. If we have a home practice, we carve out a space where we can execute our postures and sit in meditation. But yoga can be practiced anywhere when we can open up some internal space. One woman who comes to my classes likes to practice on planes; she travels frequently for work and for pleasure. She has discovered the value of internal space, so her practice goes everywhere with her. If our minds are overcrowded and constrained, our breath and bodies will follow. When we can slow down our thoughts and our breath, we can consciously relax the body enough to do simple yoga postures and breathing, even on an airplane. 

When we begin our practice, at home, at the gym or in a yoga studio, we can always start by connecting to our space and support, internally and externally. We can find our comfortable seat, feel rooted into the floor, a block, blanket or bolster. Finding that support, we begin to release. As we close our eyes and focus on the breath, we open up space in the chest, in the abdomen, and in the mind. As the breath slows down, the thoughts slow down. We tap into the naturally occurring space and support in our minds and bodies, two things we can't ever lose if we want to practice yoga. 

In our culture of materialism, it helps to come back to the basics. What's essential? What do we really need? In yoga, and in all of life, we require support and space. In our home, in our relationships, in our work, when we travel...whatever it is we are doing, without these two essentials we fall down, we are neglected, trapped and uncomfortable. 

Set an intention to cultivate support and space in yoga and in all areas of your life; balancing these essentials, you cannot fail. 

Hallelujah

I see in you,

Allah, the Buddha, the living Christ,

The snow on the mountains,

The sand in the depths of the oceans,

The feather of the eagle and the eyes of a fawn,

The moon in the darkness and the first light of dawn,

The tears of an infant and the sighs of a lover,

The hands of a father and the soul of a brother,

The never ending love in the heart of a mother,

The peace in the still and quiet abyss , the embrace of the Infinite, the texture of bliss,

There and beyond, in all spaces We are, no beginning, no end, no near and no far. Hallelujah.

How to Stop Carjackers

On some days, during certain moments, you know exactly where you are going. You are just where you want to be, or well on your way to that place. The ride is smooth, the horizon is clear and --sailing takes you away to where you've always heard it could be! (Sorry if you are too young to remember Christopher Cross). 

In other moments, you are in your vehicle (your body), cruising along to a destination of your choosing and WHAM! Something or someone collides with you and the vehicle halts, or sputters, or veers off course. In those moments you need to keep a good head about you for quick repairs, readjusting course and resuming your route! If you want to reach your destination--other than an exploding vehicle--your worst case scenario is a carjacking. You get knocked out of the driver's seat and somebody else steers you in an entirely different direction. 

Can you relate to being carjacked? I can. Just last night after an enjoyable weekend spent with family and friends in beautiful weather, I felt immensely content. I said to my husband, "I am so relaxed right now. I don't feel the need to do anything in particular." I just felt at peace; that was all; simply peaceful. I imagined staying that course until the next morning. Then I checked my Iphone apps, like e-mail and Facebook. All it took was a couple of messages from the outside world to collide with my contentment and steer me in another direction. Before I knew it, I had been carjacked. I was off, thinking about other things, creating new stories in my mind and experiencing emotions related to disruptions in the world, gossip and unruly chatter. 

It took me an hour or so, but eventually I threw out the carjackers. I lit a candle, completed a few rounds of mindful breathing and opened up the Yoga Sutras. Honest, I did! Sometimes I really do walk the talk. 

The Yoga Sutras are a good road map to a peaceful, steady mind. There are other road maps! Lots of others. Only you know how to choose the maps you're going to keep in your vehicle. Only you can set your own GPS. Personally, I like the concise sutras; they lay out direct routes to guide me to a steady mind and bring me home to my true Self. 

Based on translations from Sri Swami Satchidananda and Liz Schulman of sutras 29-39 in Book One, I am going to run through some quick directions for you (kind of like those times when you're driving aimlessly around a neighborhood looking for an address). The address is: a steady mind. You were carjacked by a gang of miscreants. They drove you around in circles and stole your GPS. You stopped and kicked them out, but now you're lost. You saw me jogging alongside the road and pulled over to ask for help.  

You: "I'm trying to get to a steady mind. I was carjacked and got rid of the carjackers but now I'm lost. You look like you live around here. Do you know where a steady mind is?" 

Me: "Yeah, I drive past there all the time! I've even been inside a few times. Good job kicking out the bad guys. That took some awareness and resolve. We have a neighborhood watch around here but we still get a lot of car jacks. Anyway, the way I know to get to a steady mind is to practice yoga, meditate and focus on your breathing."

You: "OK, I saw those road signs earlier but don't know how to get back there. Can you be more specific?"

Me: "Sure. If you want to find a steady mind, you'll get there. Even if you have been before, it's easy to forget because there are so many distractions on the way and the roads get blocked by obstacles. There are lots of characters wandering around here who will try to stop your car and divert your attention, but here's a quick way to deal with them: 1. Be friendly if they seem happy! 2. Have compassion if they appear unhappy, 3. If they're doing something good, show support, and finally, 4. Just ignore anybody acting badly. They'll suck you in if you jump in the middle of it."

You: "Right, so you covered what to do when other people are running around the roads, but I still don't know which roads to choose."

Me: "OK, you may want to write this down. There are several you can take and they all lead there: Focus on your breath, OR, tune into subtle sensations in your body, OR, go within yourself and connect to the Divine, OR, think about a person who truly inspires you, OR, recall a really good dream you had, OR, if you don't want to go any of those ways, just stop and think of whatever it is that uplifts you and drive towards that. Keep going. If you veer off course, just get back on course and be more focused each time, and you will get there." 

You: "You said you'd been there before. How did you go?"

Me: "The last time I was hijacked I focused on the breath. I made pretty good time getting to a steady mind after that." 

The idea here is this: We have so many distractions and disruptions in our lives. Some are unavoidable. We all want to get to a steady mind. We can help each other out in our communities. Let's band together to stop the carjackers. We are all driving each other home, to peace, to bliss, to our true nature. For yoga practitioners, mindful breath and movement is a direct route to a steady mind. If you don't believe me, try it for yourself. Tune into your breath and let it even out before you move. Then, hone your attention in on your breath as you practice each posture and transition today. Let your teacher give directions and follow according to your internal navigation. Then help others find their way whenever you can. I hope to meet you there when we all arrive.