Yoga

Sunday, June 22, 2014

yoga / grace / elegance

In a body that refuses to bend, I flourish through moveable joints.
I dance to my breath.
Sun touches my skin, it has not killed me.
Washed in light, it lands on me and flows like honey down my arms.
Dreams are nourished by this nectar.
Toes pointed, heart lifted, head thrown back in abandon.
Ecstasy.
The kind of passion that makes my unyielding back arch.
Elegance.
I feel the anchor inside me lift, I am weightless for this moment.
Sweep through me, swirl around me, carry me away.
Music, forgiveness, the salt of sweat and tears.
Graceful at last.

Here I am.
KQ

During practice (yoga) or a run, I do not mentally check-out, my mind still whirls. Somehow as I sweat it begins to soften and untangle, I become  removed, shedding layers which I no longer need to hold tight to. Even my legs and arms begin to feel lightweight. I imagine myself gliding through the air, lost in a dream. Perhaps I subconsciously resist the healing. It is when I push the threshold and elevate my activity level that the energetic shift occurs and I feel saturated in love and happiness.

Together we can dance through the difficlut.

I was never the girl you might have found slathered in mud and eating watermelon in the rain. I was the girl who littered her apartment with candles and romanticized about the how, the when, and the why. It feels like the great unknown all over again, just when I thought I knew something, I realize I have no blessed idea. AND SO........I meditate....upside down in an inversion!

Drops on my face are not tears, but sweat. One hand reached upward into the air, one hand touches downward to anchor me. Yoga has taught me, to gaze inward. 

My hands in marbled reflection.The whole of my face adopting the pose of an angelic angel. Internal voice growing silent before it can begin dialogue again, my constant by which everything is measured. No obligation here to understand life, meditation flows naturally over my skin, nestling in the seashell of my breast.
My yoga mats are a menagerie of sorts, all the sum parts of me, rolled into one.

Friday, April 4, 2014

Yoga is Life Changing

this bracelet...just because...it soothes me...

ginger, one of my greatest tonics for what ails me.....

Dancing on the intersection of arrogance and wisdom this morning.
So if you have ever considered practicing yoga, I am a yoga teacher and therefore biased, but still, I will tell you that it's a wonderful idea and you should give it a try. From my personal experience I can tell you that if you let the practice inside you, open areas where you may be afraid, yoga will change your life. Moving, away or closer to... just constant motion. It's helped me realize that sometimes I just want to be still, be very still and feel held....it is then, that I practice yoga.

It hasn't come without tears and a bloody mess, admittedly. Now I am feeling the shedding of layers compiled of stories that I wrote inside myself and declarations that I made that were self destructive, all can be brought to light and I can place them back in my "life album" as experiences, part of this human life I am living. Maybe not gone, perhaps not even fully healed, but realized in the light as separate from I.

 My past does have to create my future. How simple, but for me so profound.

Consider the sweat that must pour out for weight loss, the photos burned for lovers to force memories to fade, friends left miles apart when jobs require moving, or watching a child fall over and over as they learn to walk without help, all of these are moments of release. Not even slightly surprising, I find most answers to current struggles, most moments of total release, on my yoga mat, or in the dampness of my early morning appointment with my running sneakers!

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

One Yoga Pose ( at a time)

Tiny splashes drop down.They may be tears at this point, but I tell myself they are sweat. An audible breath enters my lungs. I exhale with more sound, it is more than air that I let go. My life is bigger at this moment, than it was two seconds ago, a year unbelievable ago. How much this yoga practice has changed me, audaciously saved my life. I found my way, I stepped to the door, finally feeling secure enough to finally open it.

Chills prickle down my arms.
My throat becomes stifled with nameless emotion. My fears are far worse than reality. I'm not so far removed that I have forgotten, that I have lived in a scary place, one that I have now learned from. It's funny what stays with you and what resurfaces when you allow yourself to be lulled by the current of nostalgia and memory.  

Of course some of it is messed up and I have had to work through it to find my place of gratitude, as I inch my way there.....ever so slowly....one pose at a time....breathe....continue

 I share it, flaws, growth, triumph, work, pain, judgement, fear, abstracts, love, images of my grace! Space, or isolation, do I hide myself?

Crave the Peace that Yoga Brings... (1/29/14)

Some days it's good to simply breathe, lay still and listen to my mind. Below all the chatter of my thoughts is my field of  emotion, underneath that layer I find the truths. I believe I can do most things. My eyes sometimes sting from tears unshed, these are almost certainly, images of my own grace..........