Old School

In the Great Change of the Sun

Meteoroid flashes across the midnight sky

trailing bright arc of atoms and electrons colliding.

Meanwhile in multiple pools of dark water held in limestone curves

stars and planets reside.

This is our 'hood....

Visceral Reflections

A Dancing Cosmology Dedicated to Peace and Transformation

Viscerally through the body way my innards 

reveal me to me.

Reflection is all there is. Divine Shiva looking in his mirror.

Dancing is my soul released seaside bonfire side earth side of 

full moon and eclipses.

Cosmology is all there ever was and all there ever will be. This bitty planet amidst the entire universe. This even bittier me part of all there ever will be.

Dedicated my life to god walking as a vessel, 

beloved child, 

servant of Greatest Spirit.

Peace infiltrating everything through our very cells, and if only a human could wish for peace in themselves they would be doing the work.

Transformation is simply waking up to the wonder of what is.

Who is The Witness?

Who is my Witness? God(dess) is my Witness. The Higher Self, True Self, Isvara seated in my heart. Witnessing this experience in the human body, as a lab experiment, I am so curious. With an artist’s eye for texture, line, rhythm, feeling the body, unraveling her mysteries: the mysteries of this particular form, the mysteries of the universe. My whole story told in this body: Dancing Bhaktini Mermaid!

My witness is the Curious One. Like a scientist poking around the question “What happens when I try this?” Being interested in what might be revealed, what might occur in the physical or emotional experience or spiritual realms. How is prana moving, life force waking up? Not just the breath in and out, prana and apana, but vyana prana circulating in the nadis of the sheaths, the rivers and cells of this form that make muscles, tissue, bones and fascia remember. Concentrating on sensation the mysteries begin to unfold, The Heroes Journey. Discriminative wisdom is helping me to see, to differentiate my thoughts from the rest of the bliss.

These storehouses of information, our bodies hold all imprints of this life, the bumps and bruises, misinformation, patterns of our parents, blood patterns of ancestors: latent impressions, samskaras. Our bodies in its layers and sheaths hold the emotions, the heart, the mind, our soul. Refining our vision to the vast inner horizon of our being, of our pranic force, it is possible to consciously move into the cellular level to re-program our dna. That is science.

Awakening is the process of uncovering and shining the light of compassion and non-judgment into these imprints and layers, to heal, becoming Whole, Holy, One; of making the unconscious Conscious.

Like an artist, showing up with materials in hand, my Witness observes the unfolding of a creation in this moment, and this moment and this moment……………

On the path to liberation, to kaivalaya, to moksha it’s critical to learn to See, to become a Seer/Witness of our own experience. And as we begin to know our own experience and begin to experience the divine as the SEER, it starts getting juicy. This is where the mysteries unveil, where the mystic crosses the threshold. And as we begin to see our own essential self and reality as it is, perhaps our vision clears and we one another with more kindness, compassion and acceptance, reality as it is.

Under the Influence

Over the last few years, there have been many occasions when people will ask how I ended up teaching yoga in Akumal, Mexico. When a dear friend, Kim Zanti, turned it into a list of questions for her blog, it became a nice opportunity to focus and write about Living with Intention.

Please visit her blog Zuzu's Petals

Dharma

Dharma. Every day it seems I am asked similar questions. How long have you lived here (Akumal, Mexican Caribbean)? Where do you come from? How did you get here?

And mostly, my answers are pretty straightforward for the first two: 3 ½ years (now), and San Francisco. There are many answers that say one thing for “How did you get here?” God is how. Divine guidance, inspiration; asking for what I wanted and being willing to ride the ride towards it. I am a dancer who has practiced many magical leaps of faith.

The turtles also got me here. Akumal means place of the turtle, or home of the turtle because these shores are nesting grounds for Loggerhead and Green turtles. And Akumal Bay hosts a number of teenage Green turtles who feed on a type of sea grass and hang out with swimmers and snorkelers! The first night I spent here and for the rest of the week of vacation in paradise, we witnessed giant mama turtles crawling out of the sea to dig a deep hole, shoveling sand away with her humungous flipper, to make a smaller hole. My very first experience was seeing Her in the glaze of releasing her eggs, watching them drop one by one into the deep space in the sand she had created. That was truly one of the most privileged moments of my life, to be in that presence, to witness this precious event. 

Learning that a marine sea turtle returns annually to the place where she hatched, from migrations that scientists still don’t know, and that these girls were in a lineage that was perhaps 10,000 years old, altered my reality. Add to that the impact of the 21^st century on these endangered creatures and the voice of my Mama, the Earth said, you have work to do here. She called, she opened a door. I listened and walk on through.

After some pretty radical leaps of faith, this particular one landing me in paradise, it is interesting to observe the anticipation for what is next. Leaping in stillness to be exactly here where I am is all I can do at the moment. I spend my days loving Divine Creation, finding gratitude, diving and digging deeper and deeper into the Yoga. The daily practices, teaching, and chores keep me present and engaged.

These are some elements in my story. The story is The Search for Happiness, or more like Pretty Dang Happy, Now What Am I Supposed to Do? Is the quest really over? What do we do when we are not questing?  Finding joy, contentment, a simple life gives me great happiness. Now the question is how to BE in that.

Living Yoga: Practicing Pathways to Bliss

A life's dream. A dreaming life. Living by the Caribbean Sea practicing, teaching, living yoga. I invite you to join me and we breathe, we move, we chant, we play. We love, we serve, we dive deeper into ourselves, observing the practices, the Royal way of yoga.

Taking time from the hectic pace of everyday life we both de-mystify and embrace the many ways that yoga can be a practice.

Hatha yoga, postures and breathing, will serve daily as a foundation for practicing pathways to the True Self.

Do you love? Bhakti is the yoga of love and devotion.

Do you help others? Karma is the yoga of service.

Do you seek to learn more about yourself and transformational practices? Jnana is the yoga of study/self-study.

Do you have ethics and practices to live kindly, compassionately physically and spiritually? Raj, is the eight-limbed path of Classical yoga.

Myths & Stories of Asanas, Mudras and Mantras February 20, 2011 at Yoga en Akumal

Far in the depths of time, ancient peoples around the planet began to tell stories to help make sense of their world. From mouth to mouth, tribe to tribe, and then across continents the stories are embellished, they coalesce. Gods and goddesses, mythical creatures, wise ones, prophets, elements, planets, named and attributed with human qualities. And guess what? They are wild and crazy, full of shadow, full of light.

Yoga is steeped in these myths and stories that apply to universal human conditions. Even the most exalted of the gods and goddesses make love, make war, make mischief! They are contradictory and inconsistent, magnificent and magical, powerful and petty. Just like us. They teach us how to be wise, to slay the demons of our negativities, to soar over seeming obstacles, to be humble, to be devoted.

From the cosmic soup, creation stories emerge. Turtles and serpents, demi-gods and demons, love stories and war become creative expressions of art, music, dance, poetry. In practice, yoga postures are a way to embody these traits, trying them on to feel the power. Named for characters ancient yet still relevant to contemporary times, we can slip into our own mythic selves. The hand gestures of the mudras also help us invoke the divine. And there is nothing like a mantra to clear the mind of gobbly gook. These rituals of yoga are aids in a process of transformation, of awakening into higher consciousness.

Take your hatha practice a little deeper. Infuse some bhakti to add grace into daily life. Play with stories and look at yourself through some different lenses: wise, ferocious, compassionate, prosperous, creator, destroyer, dancer. Join me Sunday 4:00-6:00pm at Yoga en Akumal (above Las Casitas reception at the white ark) for Myths & Stories. Maybe you create your own story!

A January Morning

These moments, I watch the early morning sun creating a shadow play of palms trees on my wall. Fronds shifting with wind creates a lacy, moving, gobo effect. Negative space of the shadows weighting to the left, balanced by the positive space of light on the right. The shape of the window frames the picture. Creator creating another stellar piece of art. A moment of beauty that will never look just like this again. Like dance. Watching the light is one of my favorite things to do and it plays so beautifully in this space as it makes its journey down the wall and across the floor.

The score is sea surging and bird calls. Wind shifts air to sound through the various trees in the park-like grounds that surround the casita. Contrapuntal rhythms like the life of this body, beating heart, breathing lungs.

I love early morning in my Caribbean loft.

                                                       My Window

The LAB

THE LAB, An Investigation of Embodiment in a Bhakti Hatha Yoga Practice

Context

Within the systems and science, philosophy and faith of Yoga, the mystical, the alchemical, the practical, all of creation is embodied in the human experience. I dance in this container now, from the culture of the East, blessed by Ma Ganga. Seeking for the West reclamation of sacred body, sacred Mother, blessing her/us in every way. In the place called Home of the Turtles, on top of limestone, caverns and underground rivers meeting at the Caribbean shore, we share a daily practice of an ancient Way.

Carl G. Jung has recently crossed my path again reminding me that my work is still influenced mightily by his. Shiva and Shakti, in their riotous variety of manifested characters are the archetypal energies of the divine, coloring my bhakti hatha yoga practice, and what I teach. Hindu faith meets modern psychology.

And then a summary view of quantum world quips by, reminding me how I go to the inner frontiers where the mass of my matter dissolves. The space in between smallest particles separated by the distance of continents, or planets. The place of pure potential, where a story can get re-woven to create Heaven on Earth.

The Project

Manifesting our own reality is a creative act. A new project, The Lab, is another long-held dream taking fruition. Launched on August 28, 2010 some yoginis at Yoga en Akumal are asking from the body, through embodiment, THE BIG QUESTIONS about the nature of Reality. These are spurred by my desire to “prove god” and are mined from cross-disciplinary studies in art, comparative religions, new science (including quantum physics and molecular biology), Jungian psychology, and of course, YOGA!

For the next six weeks we sadhakas have committed to creating the ripple effect of change in the world through the raising of our own consciousness and vibration. Within our bhakti hatha practice we are the investigators of our own experience, each and every practice, documenting our discoveries.

These three questions related to manifesting intention anchor the project:

Creating space: Where are the reaches of my inner frontier?

How do I allow intention to create manifestation?

How do I know my personal practice is an act of catalyzing

collective transformation?

After each practice, whether in class together, in personal practices, or on the road, we are simply taking some time to write. To document in prose or poetry, picture or colors how the body is responding to these questions. At the end of the 6 weeks we’ll edit the material to see what sort of answers occurred.

Join us if you’d like. Here are some more Big Questions:

What if there is no matter?

What is ‘my body’?

Who/What/Where is your inner witness today?

What’s happening?

What happens in the stillness?

What happens in the moving?

What happens in the observation of the Breath cycle?

What does energy moving feel like?

Divine: That great big unifying principle

What is union?

What happens when we invoke the divine/ the specific deities/stories/energies/archetypes?

If yoga is about resemblances, then what are the mirrors: Shiva/Shakti

What happens when we practice presence?

Intention: Creating our Reality

Creating space: Where are the reaches of my inner frontier?

How do I allow intention to create manifestation?

What is my capacity to effect change through INTENTION?

How do I know my personal practice an act of catalyzing collective transformation?

Is it magic? Alchemical?

Transformation

What does transforming consciousness feel like?

What is asking to be transformed?

What is healing?

 For a current schedule of classes at Yoga en Akumal go to www.akumalyoga.com