KEEP MOVING

“Around here, however, we don’t look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things… and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.”–Walt Disney

In yoga, and in Buddhism for that matter, we tend to spend a great deal of time focusing on staying put and learning to be still. This is a valuable tool, especially in our frenetic world. Even our yoga has gained in speed!

For me yoga is an opportunity to slow down and honor my own, individual, internal pace. What do I mean by this? I'm the girl next to you in Vinyasa class who is 1 pace behind everyone else.

It's not that I'm in my own world. I'm not feeling rebellious against the instructor. I enjoy being able to complete each of my inhales and exhales - completely. If we're honest, we spend much of our daily lives "keeping up." In yoga, this is unnecessary. The practice is for the individual and non-competitive. So I take my time...

Some would say that if I come to an organized group class, that it is respectful to stay with the pace and cueing of the instructor and the group. Otherwise, what's the point? It's a distraction to others that I'm not "keeping up." I would agree if we were describing a choreographed line dance. But we're not. This is yoga. It might look lovely to have everyone completely synchronized together. That's not the objective here.

How does it feel?

Personally, I ENJOY my yoga. I savour each pose. I taste each long, juicy breath. I truly feel the deep connection between body and breath in motion. The synchronization comes with the unification of my breath to my movement. Each movement begins with a breath and ends with the last of the breath. This creates a symbiotic, moving meditation, as individual and unique as each person in the room.

As an instructor it brings me great joy to watch someone flow on their own through class. Mind you, it's respectful to remain within the same series of poses and not off doing inversions while the rest of the class is in a standing balance series. I agree that can be disruptive and at times even unsafe.

We come together to practice to unite our energies and to honor our diversity and our uniqueness. Just as we know that each pose is uniquely our own. My warrior II (virabhadrasana II) is not a mirror image of anyone else's. So why would I expect my breath and timing to be? The opportunity is for each of us to find our own pace and our own pose.

Seasoned instructors act as guides, offering a thoughtful class sequence, a consistent cueing pace, a thoughtfully arranged play list and perhaps a few calculated, authentic assists that will all combine to immerse a yogi deep into their own practice. Only the yogi will be able to truly feel, listen to and guide their own body, breath and spirit where they need to go.

Are we getting to where we need to go?

I started this post with a quote that says, to summarize Walt Disney's words, "keep moving."

Our stillness, our personal pace, our preferences and our routine, can create a cocoon of comfort protecting us from the opportunity to evolve. The chance to experience delicious discomfort.

Fear is in the driver's seat.

For me this arrives in the form of inversions. I have my practiced few inverted poses that I feel I have mastered. I am confident in them. Comfortable. It's good to know what we're good at...but when I am faced with practicing the others I might choose to be the independent individual. Rather than experiment, maybe even fall, I will just do the poses I know. This is all about me for a change so that's my prerogative, right? Exactly. Tell myself a story so that it feels acceptable to stay put...but in this case, I need to keep moving.

Keep Moving!

I am encouraging myself to practice what feels uncomfortable. To perceive my world through a lens of non-attachment. I am becoming liberated from my habits and routines, explore the poses and paces and even instructors who are outside of my comfort zone. I am letting go of both my successes and my failures. I stay put and present long enough to know that I am capable. And then I will simply keep moving and keep growing. And, yes, I am enjoying myself along the way.

When in your life have you stay put when you could have kept moving? How do you know when it's time to get moving again?

LOVE!

It's absolutely true. LOVE! makes anything and everything possible...

What I've only just begun to realize is that LOVE! doesn't need to originate from someone or something else. LOVE! doesn't require an active recipient. LOVE! exists. Period.

And like the words and thoughts that reside within each of us, LOVE! lives on inside of us. Our most powerful form of LOVE! originates within ourselves and for ourselves.

Perhaps teetering upon the edge of this knowledge enabled me to take a leap of faith. To send my words out into the world in the form of a blog. For before I would have feared that perhaps no one else would LOVE! my words.

There is also a rumor that most blogs have an audience of ONE. But the simple fact that you or I LOVE! enough to write, paint, photograph or produce anything and put it out there into the world...THIS is enough.

Our LOVE! alone makes the act and the product valid. Our simple joy of creation. No recipient or reciprocation expected. Like sending radio waves far out into the heavens...uncertain they will ever cross paths with something or someone that may experience them (and would they have a form of the sense of hearing even if they did?!).

Merely a pleasant surprise if the act or product does in fact resonate with another. Create a connection. Open a door for a conversation. Or perhaps empower someone else with the knowledge that they too are capable of doing the same.

"Love sought is good, but given unsought is better." Twelfth Night, 3. 1

THANK YOU! I am so grateful for each of your comments. This Blog was just nominated for the LOVE! This Site Award on Divine Caroline!

Now YOU can VOTE for my blog. Click on the LOVE! This Site Award Badge. It's just to the right of this post and below my Profile picture. Then you can VOTE for this blog.

Or simply Click here to VOTE: http://www.divinecaroline.com/awards/Aug-09/2489

I am so grateful for your willingness to share in this journey with me, to read along, to comment when you feel it. And thank you for VOTING for what you LOVE!

THE FINEST BALM

"Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love."

Jane Austen

Have you yet to navigate the murky waters of love as it contemplates friendship? Is it simply shocking satire to court the idea? And if not, at what point does the act turn from tortuous displeasure (think rubbing alcohol directly applied on the wound) to soothing "balm"?

The emotional shifts to rational yet clings to the possibility of an enduring, loyal relationship. That tenuous space in between offers us a mirror with which to view ourselves more clearly.

Precarious as the jagged edge may feel, an elegance exists here. A silent sanctuary created in the absence of breath and hope but pregnant with the realization that nonetheless life and love endure.

We lack nothing.

Everything is falling apart and then back together even better than we ever could have imagined.

A FLEXIBLE FAITH

“When you come to the edge of all that you know, you must believe in one of two things: There will be earth upon which to stand, or you will be given wings."

When all else fails, what remains?

Faith is a powerful tool. In times of challenge, weakness, darkness our faith acts like a compass, guiding us in our choices and lending us a much-needed sense of direction and purpose.

However if we begin to cherish our faith to the exclusion of all else, we risk isolating ourselves from the glorious diversity that surrounds us. As soon as our beliefs begin to limit our ability to openly hear others, a shift occurs. The system that once acted to our advantage instead becomes a burden, an obstacle preventing us from connecting, evolving and actively participating. We stunt ourselves when we presume to know. And in turn, we stop listening. Our assumptions fortify barriers. Shielding us against new information which threatens to alter our entrenched beliefs.

Truly listening means there is a part of us willing to offer itself to the possibility. The potential that something we hear might change us. That there is still more for us to learn.

What would our daily conversations feel like if we were to approach each interaction with this precious possibility? A promise to listen openly and intently. To allow that which we hear to somehow create momentum. To drop our shields. To experience the act of communication in that very moment...with a shocking uncertainty of what might result.

Willing to let the words and emotions break upon us like a wave. The word's power equal to that of water. Constantly shifts the grains of sand upon the shore. But the shore nevertheless remains.

Next time you listen, create space for the words. Truly allow for the possibility. And notice...

WELCOMING TRUTH

Honest. Authentic. Genuine. True. Satya.

How many times throughout our day do we adjust the truth to serve our purpose, to protect our self or others, or to please?

"When you try to protect people by not telling them the truth, you multiply their suffering."

When we openly, willingly share the truth we create space for our relationships to grow and thrive. When we alter the truth or leave out essential details we build obstacles for ourselves and others to overcome.

Truth expedites results and actions. As if we've dropped a stone into a pristine pool of water. The ripples immediately follow. It's definitely smoother to swallow our truths.

We may tell ourselves convincing stories...that our lack of truth is simply in an effort to protect those we love or to avoid conflict and unnecessary discomfort.

Each time we fail to communicate our truths, we succeed in breeding distrust. We may even begin to forget how to trust ourselves.

It's ever-so-easily done...a quick and harmless agreement to an engagement or commitment. "I'd rather be easy about it!" "I don't want to be a hassle."

We may notice an immediate sense of remorse for what we have agreed to. We feel a sudden urge to rescind our words. A squirming within us to undo what we have spoken or to develop a ploy to excuse ourselves from the commitment.

In these moments we create suffering for ourselves and others. Our short-term solution suddenly binds us to a long-term problem.

As Eckhart Tolle acknowledges, if we do not come to each moment with acceptance, enjoyment or enthusiasm then we bring only pain with us.

What a gift! The freedom that is offered when truth is encouraged and reciprocated.

Are you willing extend an open invitation for truth? To share in giving and willingly receive the same?

What might rise to the surface buoyed by such an authentic offering?

A Graceful Pace

I dream of rocking chairs side-by-side on a wide wrap around porch. A sun that lingers lazily in the sky allowing us time to truly savour the remains of the day.

A place where our senses have grown accustomed to the incessant sounds of nature - running water, chirping insects, gentle breeze, rustling trees - rather than the disruptive tweets and reminders of technology. A delightful chorus interrupted only by long periods of absolute, deepest silence...

Are you daring enough to sit quietly without the shield of your words? What might blossom from the fertile soil of our silence?

The scale is simultaneously grand and humbling. A broad sky packed with stars. Endless fields. Massive rock formations that appear like bones exposed from beneath the earth's skin.

The details are marvelous. Textures of rough bark and revealed wood. Petal-softness, tender underfoot. Nape of peduncle...

I crave this change of scenery. The opportunity to be reintroduced to a graceful pace. When simplicity marvels extravagance. Slowness, stillness, like the tortoise, conquers.

Is it necessary to evacuate in order to create this sense of space, of time, of plenitude and scale?

Can I feel humble and filled with grace when surrounded by our hectic pace? I answer with a resounding yes! We make our own peace. We choose our own pace. Wherever we are...

Will you join me? Where, when how do you find your pace of grace?

JUICY

Ripe with possibility...

I spent this summer in search of pluots. I exhausted every farmer's market and roadside stand. In search of that perfectly irresistible combination. A delightful mingling of textures, flavors, sensations - plump yet firm, sweet yet tart, crisp yet subtly soft.

Biting into one of summer's jewels embodies the tastes, smells and sounds of all things summer.

Bursting. Overflowing. Mouth watering.

Time is fleeting...

Yet today is the first day of autumn. The pluots have come and gone. I am in search of something seasonal and ripe. Something to sink my teeth into. But how to tell when life's fruits are truly ready for me to enjoy them? Timing is everything.

My grandfather once demonstrated to me the art of determining if the persimmons on his tree were ripe to perfection. Simply put, it's all about the touch. He gently raised his index finger and touched the sweet, softness of skin along his cheek, just before the jaw bone.

This is a place of tenderest skin without the skeletal structure of bone or muscle beneath. A delicate and unrecognized indentation on the topography of facial features that render us distinct. Have you ever touched that softest of places upon your own face? Or have you dared to feel that ripeness in another?

Seasonal...

I choose to harvest the fruits from my every experience. I relish the juiciness of life's pleasures. Extracting the essence from every moment. Savouring each distinct flavor, taste, sound, aroma. Noticing the delicious discomfort that surges through me as one season fades and another blossoms.

Where do you find the juicy, flavorful bits of life? What awakens this unbounded liveliness within you? What stirs for you this eagerness that NOW is the time...or the knowing that stillness and patience will bring that which time has perfected?