Namaste all.
Welcome to the beginning of spring, hopefully… the month of march.
Since we’ve all been freezing, awaiting the obvious change in the weather to initiate a change in our experience, let’s take a slightly different look.
To remember ourselves and our roles in the world, let’s pay attention to the details of our lives. The ancient yogic texts provide an idea of how to visit those details, for the texts themselves are presented in small bits for us to unwrap and examine slowly.
For example, the yoga sutras (translated as “threads”) are aphorisms on the practice of yoga. Each sutra is indeed like a thread; when unraveled it expands, revealing ever more wisdom. similarly, each detail of our experience has implications for every other aspect of our lives.
As Dr. Douglas Brooks, our beloved philosophy teacher explains, “you don’t learn to generalize by learning things in general.” So we pay closer attention. Each interaction, word, thought, glance and exchange of energy affects everything else in our lives.
It’s not just when we’re in yoga class that what we do transforms us and our experience of the world. Every single one of our actions expands into the world around us. What we offer in our daily lives correlates directly to what is offered back to us.
This is why we practice slowly, speak carefully, think attentively for ourselves. release our expectations. We watch ourselves and pause before reacting so we’ll always come from our own truth, our own creation. If every one of our actions and words expands and creates more of itself, just as the universe does, we must always be watching.
An exercise to work with: every night before we go to sleep, we can review our day. How we spoke, acted and handled situations, if we lied or behaved impulsively. If we look honestly, we discover how we really are and gather observations about ourselves. That is the first step towards awareness. Practice this observation gathering without judgment, though… it’s very tempting to judge, dismiss ourselves and write our actions off as “our nature.” In fact, our “nature” – how we are – is simply a set of associations and experiences that we’ve built up over time without paying attention.
Now, if we begin to pay attention, we choose what we do, what transforms us, how we communicate. Every moment.
We can truly draw the whole of our experience from every small part of our experience. Fill everything with your attention, your intention, your greatness, your love. That is sacredness: become reliable to yourself and afford yourself the space in which to safely grow.
Enjoy this month’s workshops: chakra loop breathing with Giten, ayurvedic massage and nutrition with Aarona and Jena, inversions with Elena and an encore beginner workshop with Kim.
Thank you all for your practice and love. May we have some warm weather very very soon…
Blessings,
Elena
