There is a sacred stillness to which we may return,
There to rediscover our true nature.
In this present moment, merely breathing in and out,
Illusion falls away and we are free.

This is a minimalist poem I once wrote immediately after meditating. I was really “blissing out” after twenty minutes of mantra meditation that was preceded by about a half hour of asana practice. Those moments were, in fact, a time of “sacred stillness” — sacred in the sense of being set apart for spiritual practice. When we return again and again to that sacred space and rediscover our true nature, we can feel the illusions that cause us to suffer fall away with every breath.

Our joy can increase with every breath as well. We can feel it gradually spread to every part of our bodies and minds until it becomes truly limitless. There’s a reason love, joy and peace are everyone’s deepest heart’s desire: they are our true nature; the states we’re all trying to return to. Living in forgetfulness, we’ve lost sight of who we really are. Going through life unconsciously, we’ve allowed ourselves to be brainwashed into thinking that the perpetual accumulation of material goods will make us happy. When they fail to do so again and again, our unconsciousness blinds us to the fact that we’re on the wrong path. Instead of changing course, we blunder ahead, convinced that all we need is just a little more. We’re caught on a treadmill that never gives us true satisfaction.

What will bring us happiness is mindful living; simple awareness of what’s going on inside us and around us. This kind of awakening will produce a deep sense of connectedness to self, other beings, and the earth. Mindfulness begins with simple awareness of our breath. When we sit quietly, simply observing the miracle of ongoing in- and out-breaths that sustain our lives, we become deeply happy. We can start by silently saying to ourselves, “I’m aware of my in-breath.” As we exhale, we say, “I’m aware of my out-breath.” This brings present-moment awareness to the forefront of our consciousness. Instead of our bodies being in one place while our minds fly off in four or five different directions at once, body, mind and spirit come together and are joined as one.

If this seems simplistic, it’s because it is simple. A child can do it. You can do it while waiting in a doctor’s office; you can do it between appointments, you can do it while you work. Full awareness of breathing brings a quality of life that our ever-growing piles of material possessions cannot.

Boundless joy is available anytime, anywhere. To obtain it, we merely have to make mindfulness meditation a way of life.

All the best,

William

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It would be an understatement to say that I’m no stranger to illness. Both myself and the rest of my family has struggled with serious illnesses that have impacted our lives in inexplicable ways. I’ll also admit to being someone who occasionally allows disease to drag me down, depress me and all around get the better of me. But those days are few compared to the days where I challenge anything that comes my way, determined to learn every possible lesson from each life experience.

After my summer diagnosis with Grave’s Disease, I sort of felt I had already conquered the necessary health hurdle for the year. However, right now, I’m waiting on some test results as my doctor fears I might also have diabetes. Hmm. Not the way I wanted to start out 2012. With potential for another life-altering disease, I’ve turned to my typical method of coping: I read. So when I was handed a book that helped explain my current health problems, I couldn’t wait to tell readers all of the Yoga Flavored Life readers all about it.

“When the Body Says No” is written by Dr. Gabor Maté and details the documented connection between disease and our emotions and stress. On more than one occasion, I’ve described myself as an extremely stressed out individual, which is why yoga is such a vital part of my life. It doesn’t help that I’ve had a considerable number of health challenges, which contribute to my stress levels, and according to Dr. Maté, only increases my risk for further disease. This book seems to discuss the proverbial “chicken or egg first” question. Does stress cause disease or is disease the stress-inducer?

Initially, I’ll admit to being full of skepticism about this book. I would say that when it comes to illnesses, I like to be informed, but I don’t wish to be hit over the head with all the things that I’m “doing wrong” or “eating wrong,” mostly because to an extent, I feel like is just too short to operate in constant fear. I also feel that many of these kinds of books manipulate statistics into getting across their message, even if the results of certain studies weren’t at all meant to be bent to suit. This isn’t to say, of course, that I think that a diet consisting solely of fast food and potato chips is at all healthy, but I don’t think that a bi-monthly serving of ice cream will be the death of me either. So faced with a book that pointed to my well-acquainted issue of stress, I was nervous to read it. I was nervous because I knew it would appropriately outline all the ways in which stress is negatively impacting my body.

One of the best things I can say about “When the Body Says No” is that it doesn’t preach and it doesn’t bend scientists’ words into something completely unintended. Instead, Dr. Maté points readers to facts, studies that he in particular has researched and studied, and fact-based conclusions on stress and the impact it has on our mental and physical health. He even goes into details about our childhood stress coping mechanisms can affect the way we manage stress in the future, lending to the nature vs. nurture concept in relation to disease. All this to say, I’m now even more sure that stress, and the ways in which I cope with stress, is negatively affecting my health.

So if you’ve been wondering how to keep major disease at bay, keep up your yoga practice. Breathe deeply, enjoy each day, meditate, speak to counselors or therapists about anxiety and stress, read books, and pursue your passions. And always look to family history, to find ways to prevent history from repeating itself.

Kelly

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It’s always interesting to discover that you’re a member of a new target demographic you didn’t realize you’d joined. I refer to the term “Lohasian.” I first came across it in an online search about sustainable living, and later in Spirituality and Health magazine. It comes from the acronym l-o-h-a-s, standing for “lifestyles of health and sustainability.” Most of the people I know in the holistic spirituality community fall into this category; it’s all about being conscious of one’s impact on the environment and making an effort to live in a healthy, fully sustainable manner.

When we poison Gaia, she has no choice but to poison us in turn. It is not her intention to do so (she’s a life-giver), but there are only so many toxins she can absorb before they begin to redound upon their sources (us). The poisons we pump into the air, the water and the soil find their way back to us: we breathe in pollutants, we drink tainted water; we eat food grown in toxic soil.

It can be frustrating–even depressing–to ponder how little power we have over the world’s patterns of consumption. This is particularly true in the United States, where our energy consumption and resulting pollution levels are higher than in any other country (although China and India are currently in a race to join us). Can our efforts to conserve energy and limit our carbon footprints compete with a worldwide policy of burning fossil fuels? With presidential candidates advocating “personhood” for corporations whose only concern is profit, how can our efforts to recycle and limit our energy consumption have any real impact?
I submit that the situation is considerably less bleak than it may seem. Yes, global warming has already reached dangerous levels and continues to increase. However, until a few decades ago, pollution was hardly talked about at all.  The Environmental Protection Agency is a scant four decades old; the terms “global warming” and “climate change” were virtually unknown outside scientific circles until the 1990s. Today, “going green” is one of the most pervasive topics in the global lexicon. New companies are making a point of being environmentally conscious from the start; even manufacturers of plastic trash bags try to find a way to make their products (or at least their advertising) more environmentally-friendly! The point is that it takes time to raise global awareness of an issue; but once it is raised, the purchasing power of ordinary people often causes corporations to do the right thing. And young people raised in a culture in which environmental concern is a given are much more likely to make environmentally sound decisions once they reach positions of influence in business and politics.

Meditation (something that most of us “Lohasians” do regularly) is all about awareness—awareness of what’s going on within you and in your environment. If you sit with awareness of your carbon footprint in meditation for twenty minutes, you’ll arise knowing exactly what changes you need to make. Here are some of the changes our environmental meditations have led us to make in our household:

• Limiting water use. Simply turning off the water when we’re brushing our teeth or shaving saves gallons of water. Since that water is usually heated when we’re shaving, it’s even more important to do it then.
• Avoiding driving when possible. We try to walk or ride a bike whenever it’s feasible. We share rides and recently joined a carpool. We’ve resolved to take public transportation more frequently.
• We’ve resolved to drive smaller, more energy-efficient vehicles. When we buy a new car, we plan to choose a hybrid model. In the meantime, we’re finding out where hybrid fuels (fuels which mix gasoline with ethanol) are sold and filling up there whenever possible.
• We’ve been recycling for years; we want to improve in the areas of reusing, repairing, and re-purposing.
• We now bring our own reusable bags to the grocery and drug store. We’re trying to avoid plastic bags when we can.
• We’ll soon be buying a water filter for the tap and reusable water containers to take the place of hundreds of plastic water bottles.
• In cold weather, we’re wearing extra layers of clothing at home, so we can comfortably turn down the thermostat. During spring and autumn, we’ll be opening the windows as often as possible, using heat and air conditioning as seldom as the weather allows. In summer, we try to set our air conditioning no lower than 77 degrees. It’s really cool enough for comfort; we’ve found that we don’t need to chill our home to unseasonably cool temperatures to be comfortable. We plan to set our thermostat on a timer so it isn’t pumping out heat or air conditioning when no one’s around.
• We’ve switched to low-wattage bulbs and we’re trying to get into the habit of turning off the lights when they’re not in use.
• Eventually, we’ll be installing solar panels in our home. We have an appointment with a contractor to check and maintain the insulation.

These are just a few changes we’ve made; it feels great to be kind to Gaia! Your own sustainability meditation will no doubt yield even more ideas for reducing your impact on the environment. Thich Nhat Hahn recently promoted a worldwide “No Car Day” – choosing one day each week to not use an automobile–as a way of reducing emissions. If even a small percent of the world’s population were to join him in this project, the reduction in greenhouse gases would be highly significant. Don’t worry; we’ll be switching to renewable energy sources soon—the fossils are running out! (Isn’t it madness that we power the whole planet on dead dinosaurs? If ever there were a more obviously finite resource, petroleum products have to be it!) Hybrid and fully electric cars are becoming more affordable and mainstream; solar power, wind turbines, and other sane energy sources are in their ascendancy.

“Lifestyles of health and sustainability” can be more than a target demographic; we can make them the new “normal.” Gaia will thank us by giving us clean air to breathe, pure water to drink, and fully non-toxic foods to eat.

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Google the word “yoga” and a million different sites will pop up for your perusal. In fact, it quickly becomes difficult to discern the credible from the crazy, and you could easily waste hours of your time trying to to research one small detail of your practice. As a former military logistics officer, whose job it was to be the penultimate of organized, the mass of information overwhelms and exhausts me.

So you can imagine my excitement to come across websites like Yoga Vancouver and Yoga Toronto. Want to see what classes are running and at which studios? Want to connect with other yogis? Want to find a specific teacher or read about upcoming yoga-related events? These websites let you do all of these things and answer of all these questions with a quick click of your mouse button. In a matter of 15 seconds, I was able to wade through the slew of offered classes and instead, pare them down by a variety of different categories; which class was running next, which studio is closest to me, and what type of yoga was being taught. Brilliant. Organized. Right up my alley.

These sites have some really great features to them, all of which didn’t take me long to navigate. There is a classifieds sections where users can easily access anything from yoga items to massage practitioners to wellness books. There is a whole section dedicated to yoga instructors, with information on everything from insurance to finding studio space. But perhaps my favourite part of the site was the Social Yogis link, which instantly takes you to a site that allows you to connect with other yoga lovers, watch instructional videos and participate in forums. I felt I was being given intimate insight into the daily practices of the site members, giving me new ideas for expanding and developing my own routine. Websites like these, along with Yogaflavouredlife.com, make deepening your practice that much easier, because they allow easy access to information, by collecting sources from a variety of places and delivering it to you all in one nice and tidy package.

So if, like me, you enjoy a little organization with your warrior pose, these websites are for you. With oodles of information at your fingertips, at the very least, these sites are worth checking out.

Kelly

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photo credit: K3ntFIN

When you self-identify as a Humanist, adherents of revealed religions often feel compelled to take you to task regarding your beliefs, or (in their view) lack thereof. I actually have many strong beliefs: in freedom of conscience, human rights, democracy, ecology, the expansion of consciousness through yoga and meditation, to name a few. (Incidentally, one of the most absurd phrases to enter the popular lexicon in recent years has got to be “values voter.” It’s used to identify conservative religious voters, as if everyone didn’t vote according to their values, whatever they may be!)

I’m agnostic regarding the existence of gods or deities (I find the question largely irrelevant); along with many of my friends, this gets me the “nonbeliever” label among certain theists.

I realize there are many Humanists whose sense of identity is primarily centered around their nontheistic worldview. Indeed, if you peruse the American Humanist Association website or read Free Inquiry magazine, you’ll find more written on this topic than any other single issue. Nonetheless, under the secularist umbrella, you’ll find individuals who self-identify using a wide range of labels: Humanist, non-theist, agnostic, atheist, freethinker. To each individual, the differences among these appellations is significant. Then of course there are all the adherents of nontheistic religions, such as Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism. There are also many Jewish, Christian and Muslim humanists: people who subscribe to one of these theistic religions but put humanity ahead of dogma. For these people (I realize I’m using very broad strokes here!), when a religious doctrine is found to be an affront to conscience because it causes unnecessary suffering, it is reinterpreted or jettisoned.

I recently had an encounter with a believer in a personal god who said, “My source is God. What’s your source?” (Strongly implicit in the question was the assumption that anything less than a supernatural entity was suspect.) I asked him what he meant by the word “source.” He replied that God was the one who empowered him to remain centered in an uncertain world; the one from whom he received the strength to deal with the difficulties of life. I answered that my Humanist life stance and holistic spiritual practice led me to consider my “source” a combination of my own mind and the collective consciousness of humanity. Thinking about it a bit more deeply, I went on to mention my physical and spiritual ancestors, my friends and family, my community and my companion animals: everything and everyone that empowers me to be fully human.

The answer I received was unfortunate. My monotheistic friend declared all these to be limited and flawed, whereas God (he said), was limitless and perfect.

It’s my personal policy to avoid damaging anyone’s working spirituality. If belief in or devotion to a god, a saint, a Bodhisattva or a sacred text makes an individual spiritually whole and a better human being, I fully support it. I myself sometimes “pray” to the goddess Gaia or the Bodhisattva Kuan Yin (although I conceive of them as mental constructs of human ideals rather than actual persons or entities). I have no interest in undermining anyone’s religion, although I will readily critique it if I perceive that’s it’s causing harm. Hence, I didn’t take the bait and explain why I considered his god every bit as limited and flawed as any other source. Instead, I simply explained why the sources of personal power I’d mentioned were sufficient for me.

My view of divinity is a creative spirit arising within the Universe. It can be apprehended in the majesties of the natural realm; it guides the best of humanity to work together toward the highest ideals of reason, compassion and creativity. If miracles are to happen, they’re up to us; we can’t rely on an outside agency to make them happen.

Of course, I could be wrong about this; perhaps there is a transcendent deity standing somehow outside the Universe and intervening directly in human affairs. All I can say for sure is that at this point in my spiritual journey, the evidence against this seems to outweigh the evidence in favor of it. But it’s tremendously liberating to be comfortable with ambiguity about such things.

But what about this idea of self, family and friends, physical/spiritual ancestors, community, spiritual teacher and companion animals as one’s collective “source?” This makes perfect sense in my view. These are all genuine entities, encountered through our senses and apprehended by our minds. We don’t have to twist ourselves in knots trying to prove or disprove their existence. Not one of them is perfect, omnipotent, or entirely benevolent. The best of them are people much like ourselves, with good qualities and bad, trying to do the best they can. More than good enough for me! My father had flaws; he was also a great, generous man who bequeathed precious gifts to my sister and to me. Although their spirits left their bodies long ago, my grandparents still advise and direct me. My mother is very much my North Star, I’d still like to be her when I grow up! Kuan Yin (AKA Avalokiteshvara), Gaia, the Buddha, and Jesus are all my spiritual ancestors. Thich Nhat Hahn is my cherished Sensei. My wife, my daughter and my friends are more precious to me than I can say.

And my cats are perfect. Just ask them.

All the best,

William K Ferro

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photo credit: luckylynda74

Okay, so between yoga classes, I’ll admit to a serious obsession with the TV show Dexter, in which Michael C. Hall plays a serial killer with a quasi-conscience, who aims his aggression at other serial killers. The reason I find this intriguing is that his affectionate term for his need to kill is his “dark passenger,” a part of himself that he has to learn to deal with and manage in everyday life.

Now, before anyone takes this post the wrong way, this title isn’t asking anyone if they have homicidal tendencies. But what I find interesting about the TV show is the juxtaposition of the brighter side of one’s personality and the darker side; the part of us that we as a society often tend to either ignore or just flat out pretend doesn’t exist. The reality is, we all have a somewhat darker side to ourselves and sure, if we were to sit and dwell on those parts, life would become pretty grim rather quickly. But I can’t help but feel like Dexter makes a good point…we have to accept all the parts that make up our whole selves. Otherwise, life will be an endless feat of acting. A fake. Exhausting.

Undoubtedly, we all have characteristics and traits that aren’t always favourable. I can be judgmental and hot-tempered and have the lowest capacity for patience known to mankind. All this, and I also hold a mean grudge, even when it comes to things that seem irrelevant to others. But I am also loving, hardworking, a great friend, and a creative soul, and all of these qualities are what spur me onwards in my family and work life. Some of these behaviours are learned, others are inherited and some are just part of my DNA. However, I am fully cognizant that without the bad parts of me, the good parts aren’t quite as special. It is the sum of myself that makes me ME!

The great thing about yoga and meditation practice is the focus on attuning into oneself, acknowledging that no one is perfect and that we could all use to better ourselves. But there is also acceptance for who we are, as a whole, and and ability to make peace with the fact that improving ourselves is a lifelong practice. It is only once we embrace our own “dark passengers” that we can ever get on the path to self-discovery.

So tell me readers! What is the part of you that could be improved upon? Better yet…what is the best part of you??!

Kelly

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Tonight is my last night home in Ontario, after almost a month here with my family, before heading back to British Columbia. And for some reason, right before leaving home, I always get a little wistful and emotional, as I am very close with my family and hate having to leave them behind. And quickly, I end up feeling like I’ll never see them again and I end up forcing myself into doing things I don’t really want to do, but I do it anyways because, “What if it’s the last time???” Quickly, these thoughts consume me to the point that I exhaust myself trying to please everyone but myself.

For example, last night was my last opportunity to go to the Yoga Warrior class with my Dad, which I really treasured as a bonding moment between the two of us. There is a connection between my Dad and I that goes beyond that of just father and daughter, it’s soldier to soldier. We have something special. So when I could blend my love for my Dad with my love for yoga, I was excited to have the opportunity. This is a photo of the two of us about to hope on the motorcycle, my Dad’s favourite relaxation tool.

But after a day of running errands and the hour for Yoga Warriors was drawing near, my heart just wasn’t in it. I had no drive to don my Sorels and step into the wet cold for the name of yoga and I could see the disappointment on my father’s face when I told him I didn’t plan on going. He is new to yoga and so for him, I think my presence in the studio served as a comfort. But even though I turned down the offer to go to class, my Dad surprised me by grabbing his yoga mat and heading out the door to class.

Instead of class, I went downstairs, took a few cleansing breaths and spent some time alone, getting in touch with myself, which I would have done in class anyways. By the time I came upstairs, my Dad was coming back in, a smile of relaxation on his face. For someone as skeptical as him, I was surprised to find that he had really enjoyed himself.

So yesterday, my heart wasn’t in it, and I didn’t push myself to do something that both my mind and my body weren’t ready for. Instead, I recruited a new yogi in my Dad. I think that’s enough work for today!

So embrace the days when you just don’t have it in you but also, take a few moments to reflect on whether or not a yoga class might help you find what you’re looking for. Sometimes, relaxation can be found on the mat, in class or in the living room. It’s all about finding peace within yourself…the location in which you do it is irrelevant.

Kelly

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Creatively Engaging and Integrating Your Shadow Side

“Hello darkness, my old friend,

I’ve come to talk to you again…”

Many readers will no doubt recognize these as the haunting opening lines of Paul Simon’s song Sounds of Silence. To me, that song always reflected a desire to understand and integrate the shadow side of one’s personality. Everyone has a light and shadow side; to deny this is to deny reality.

Our shadow sides can frighten and repel us, and this can be a good thing to a certain degree. We are mammals with highly developed cerebral cortexes; as such, we have nurturing and loving instincts that we ought to engage and develop. But in evolutionary terms, we’re only half a minute or so removed from our hunter/gatherer ancestors, and from them we’ve inherited predatory and tribalistic instincts as well. Many of us have encountered our authentic, ideal selves in meditation; we know that divinity resides within us. Yet to deny the reality of our animal selves is to invite disaster. Pushing them down deep into the subconscious tends to make them manifest in disastrous ways. The most successful human beings, I think, are those who consciously engage their shadow sides, learn from them, and integrate those energies into their lives in a positive way.

When we encounter the darker sides of our nature: our anger, rage, jealousy, bigotry, and the rest, what are we as yoga and meditation practitioners to do? I would suggest that all energy is malleable; one form of energy can always be transformed into another. Meditation is about being fully aware of what’s going on, both within and without. If in the course of meditating we come across some singularly unpleasant aspect of our nature, I think we should simply sit with it at first, allowing it to be what it is. As Thich Nhat Hahn teaches, “There is a time to visit with a pleasant friend, and a time to visit with those who are not so pleasant.”

If jealousy arises, try saying, “Hello, jealousy, I know you’re there. It’s okay; you can be what you are.” If anger comes to the surface while you meditate, you can welcome it in the same way: “Hello, anger, old friend. I know you; I know you need to be acknowledged.” As soon as you stop resisting these aspects of your shadow self and allow them to be what they are, they lose some of their power over you. You are then free to start transforming their energy into something positive. It’s really not that difficult to transform the energies of hatred, jealousy and delusion into their glorious opposites: love, expansiveness and enlightenment. But they will not yield to the transformative process until they are acknowledged and validated.

Of course, this does not imply that we should indiscriminately embrace all the impulses from the shadow side of our personalities; that’s how tyrants and murderers are created. One must find an ideal balance between the extremes of complete denial and total embrace. By practicing faithfully and working skillfully, a practitioner can find the middle way and be a source of joy to herself and others.

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This week, I had the infinite pleasure of meeting Nicole Taylor, who is trained as a Yoga Warrior instructor, a yoga practice that is designed specifically to assist soldiers in coping with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as well as the daily and specific stresses that military members are exposed to. The classes are also open to those who are first responders, such as paramedics and firefighters, who also witness emotionally difficult experiences. Each class is designed to relieve many of the common symptoms of PTSD, including jumpiness, feelings of agitation and anxiety. The concept of Yoga Warriors is especially close to my heart since I was a forth-generation soldier, having served almost a decade after my dad served for thirty-five years before me. This is a photo of me, just a year ago, proudly donning my air force uniform.

Nicole Taylor is the only Canadian to be a trained Yoga Warrior instructor, as Yoga Warriors started in the United States. If you would like to read more about Nicole, please click here, to read a local news article from the Barrie Examiner Newspaper. If I could paint a picture for readers as to the perfect person to lead this kind of practice, Nicole would be the model upon which I would base my drawing. When I walked into the studio (located in Barrie, ON, at Ann Green Bliss Yoga Studio), she was warm and inviting, non-judgemental and informative, kind and compassionate. She was quick to answer all of my questions and was more than willing to share about this innovative method, even when answering the questions from my dad, the ultimate skeptic. As a yoga virgin, he was a little more than nervous to be “getting all touchy-feely,” which is how he (and many other soldiers) describes anything that relates to any sort of emotional experience. But donned in our yoga gear and entering the studio with open minds, we settled into our mats and prepared ourselves for the Yoga Warrior experience.

The class was very much a Hatha style, with great meditation both before and after the session with a small group of just six people. There was specific focus on mindfulness, allowing ourselves to remain in the present and be aware of our surroundings. The largest difference between other Hatha classes I’ve taken was in the approach and words that were used. It has been my experience that sometimes, the terminology used in classes can be off-putting to those trained to be “tough” and business-minded. To say the very least, we aren’t really a crowd accustomed to “getting in touch with ourselves” or picturing grassy meadows and saying words like Namaste. Nicole used words that were accessible and realistic, which is key to reaching those who aren’t familiar with this type of practice.

Working a yoga class around groups of soldiers can be no easy task. Serving in the Forces is a job that demands a certain kind of detachment from oneself, when working conditions and traumatic experiences get the better of us. Especially for those soldiers who have deployed and been put in harms way, the response, upon returning home, can often be to detach from both yourself and the people who love you as a means of coping. We soldiers are trained to respond logically and use our training in each and every situation we encounter, which usually doesn’t leave much room for emotional response. We are taught to “soldier on,” which means we are to continue on no matter the pain, be it physical or mental. Sometimes, this mentality is necessary to survive and sometimes, it only teaches us to retreat into ourselves, never to come out again. This is where Yoga Warriors comes in, and in my opinion, this innovative practice is about the spread like wildfire across Canada and hopefully, across the world. Nicole also teaches classes on several military bases, with many commanders getting on board, acknowledging that their troops need methods to cope with the stress of their work and experiences.

My dad still isn’t sure how he feels about yoga, but we’re headed back to Yoga Warriors this coming Wednesday. For the lovely Nicole Taylor, full of positivity and energy and dedication to her work with our soldiers and veterans, I am in awe of the work you do and the passion you bring to the studio. Thank you for sharing your gift and expanding the minds of our soldiers and their leaders.

In the meantime, you’ve created a new Yoga Warrior who both salutes and stretches, all in one day.

Kelly

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I’ve created some new gathas that I’d like to share. The first one goes like this:

            Body, mind and spirit one,
            A time of peace has now begun.

As usual, I “say” the first line silently on each in-breath and the second on each out-breath, repeating the gatha for about 20 minutes. I’ve discovered that it helps me to be fully aware of the unity of my body, mind and spirit; it also reinforces the feeling of inner peace that quiet meditation generates. Here’s one that can help you realize your connection to the cosmos and the earth:

            The sun, my beating heart,
            The trees, my breathing lungs.
            The earth, my body’s flesh,
            The sea, my flowing blood.
            The stars, my gazing eyes,
            Vast space, my soaring soul.

Without the sun, life on earth would not exist. Its vast nuclear explosions, too huge to conceive, provide the light and warmth that give life to the planet. Our very heartbeats are a result of the sun.

The trees provide oxygen for us to breathe; in a way, they are like our lungs outside our bodies. Saying “The trees, my breathing lungs” on an out-breath helps us to remember how dependent we are on vegetation for the very air we breathe.

Our connectedness to the earth is very important to remember as well. This planet and all it contains—including us—is the result of the same raw materials hurled into existence by the explosions of stars. The earth and our flesh are not that different. Damaging the earth harms our bodies. To nurture our bodies is to protect the earth.

Like the seas, our blood flows in a rhythm; it swells and diminishes according to all kinds of forces within and without. To realize the connectedness of our bloodstreams with the seas and all the life it gave birth to is a very deep and fulfilling practice.

When we gaze at the stars, our eyes blink in wonder; the stars themselves blink back, equally enthralled that we are gazing upon them. “The stars, my gazing eyes” connects our sense of sight with the very stars that gave birth to life on this planet. The space that surrounds the stars gives us a sense of endlessness, of vastness. When we say “Vast space, my soaring soul,” we foster a sense of connection with the furthest reaches of this amazing Universe.

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