Tag Archive for: Yoga

Synergy and Balance in Yoga: Sukham and Sthira

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The word synergy is a fabulous word, isn’t it? Synergy is the combination of two or more agents or forces so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects. It implies dynamism and flow. Balance is similar in meaning, but it has a different tone. It’s two or more things coming together to create a state of equilibrium or equipoise, and it implies physical, mental and emotional stability and sound judgment. In design, balance is the placement of elements that creates an integrated sense of whole. Balance infers steadiness and calm.

I played with these two terms during a talk I gave for the Grand Opening of Miraval Living in NYC, offering ideas for how to experience and accentuate them. Looking back over my notes today, I noticed how they bring to mind one of my yoga teacher’s favorite statements from Patanjali, the ancient codifier of yoga philosophy. I can hear her voice now in melodic Sanskrit: “Sthira Sukham Asanam.”

Sthira Sukham Asanam: Yoga Sutra 2.46

“Sthira” means steady, firm, immovable. “Sukham” means comfortable, pleasant, willing, sweet. “Asana” means posture or attitude (there’s more to this word for another time).

My teacher Rama translated this as “Find comfort in any pose,” which was not a typical translation. More often you’ll see something dry and literal, like “Posture should be firm and comfortable.”

How Synergy and Balance Show Up in Yoga Practice

So what does this have to do with synergy and balance? Synergy to me feels like sukham: sweetness and flow. Balance feels like sthira: that quality of steadiness and calm.

When Rama talked about it, I got a deep sense of what I was “doing” when I practiced yoga asana. These two qualities, equally engaged, created a sort of holy state for me that has informed the way I practice and guide ever since. If your poses feel all effort and no ease, or all ease and no steadiness, this is a place to start experimenting, and it’s OK if it takes a while to sort out which way you lean.  You can try it in any class on the Sol Center class schedule.

Finding Comfort in Any Pose, and in Life

Rama meant a lot with that statement- more than yoga/meditation postures. She was also suggesting that we are learning how to flow with life. To not effort, control, or inflict our will upon the situations we find ourselves in. There was a way to find comfort anywhere, with anyone, under any circumstances. That was the realization of the sutra, and its deepest meaning. It’s simple, but not easy, and some situations will take a long, long time.

Consider for a moment: where or with whom in your life are you being too rigid, static, or serious? How might you find comfort in this pose, circumstance, relationship, or situation?

Try This: A Simple Sthira Sukham Practice

I invite you to try this in your body right now. Any yoga pose you like will do; Warrior II, Chair Pose, or even simply standing in Mountain Pose all work well.

Think of carrying a full cup of tea across the kitchen. Grip it too hard and your hand shakes, hold it too loosely and it slips. A pose works the same way.

Come into the pose and stay for five slow breaths. Then ask yourself two questions:

Where am I gripping? Check your jaw, your shoulders, your hands, your breath. Anywhere you’re holding on tighter than the pose needs is excess sthira, or rigidity. Soften that spot on an exhale.

Where am I collapsing? Check your low back, your chest, your front knee, your attention. Anywhere you’ve checked out or sunk into the pose is excess sukham, or slack. Wake that spot up. Press into your feet, lift through your spine, bring your mind back.

Then go back and forth a few times. Firm up, soften, firm up, soften, until you find the place in the middle (or even a hint of it) where you feel steady and sweet at the same time. That’s the synergy and balance we’ve been talking about. It’s usually quieter and simpler than you’d expect, and it’s OK if it takes a few tries.

Once you’ve felt it on the mat, take it off the mat. The next time you notice yourself tensing in a conversation, a traffic jam, or a to-do list, ask the same two questions. Where am I gripping? Where am I collapsing? Then adjust, just as you would in a pose.

Sthira in Vedic Astrology

One last thought. In Vedic Astrology the term “sthira” shows up again. It describes the fixed signs of the zodiac: Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius. On the positive side, sthira gives stability, endurance, and consistency to the matters these signs govern in your chart. On the difficult side, it can cause inertia, resistance, and stagnation. When a lot of your birth planets land in fixed signs, you learn plenty about both sides of the sthira equation. I have 5 planets in fixed signs, so I know of what I speak!

What Does Sthira Sukham Asanam Mean?

To keep it simple: Sthira Sukham Asanam is Yoga Sutra 2.46, Patanjali’s guidance on posture. Sthira means steady and firm, sukham means comfortable and sweet, and asana means posture or attitude. Put together, it says your pose, and by extension your way of meeting life, can hold both steadiness and ease. Too much of one gives rigidity or collapse; both together give balance.

Bringing It Home

Steadiness and sweetness can live in the same pose, and we don’t have to choose between them. Synergy and balance, sukham and sthira, flow and calm; when you let them work together, your practice (and your days) start to feel a little more like home.

If this kind of yoga philosophy speaks to you, I’d love to have you join us for yoga teacher training, where we explore these ideas in depth.

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Growing Your Home Yoga Practice

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Having a home yoga practice has a whole new meaning in this time of virtual yoga classes and social distancing.

Students have commented that while virtual classes aren’t quite the same, they have helped them create structure, practice more regularly, manage the stress of this extraordinary event; as well as, make, sustain, and renew connections with others.

There are also the privacy, convenience, and cozy factors.  You don’t have to drive across town for your favorite class, practice in your underwear if you want, and you have your pets nearby.

Taking all this into account, as well as some of the challenges, here are some suggestions about how to make the most of the virtual yoga experience.

  • Am I doing it right? Remember that Yoga is so much more than the poses and techniques; the process has its own magic. The way we endeavor to teach is extra awareness based so there is less chance of doing it wrong and more chance of learning from your direct experience.  *If you do have a particular question about technique, ask after class or email. 
  • What are we doing now? You can get lost at times….it may be that the teacher wasn’t perfectly clear or that you spaced out a bit….no big deal, just tune back in and find your way anew. If you have feedback for any of us in regards to clarity, tell us or email so we learn.
  • Is there anybody else out there? Sometimes it helps to notice the participant list of who is in class before we begin and recognize that you are doing this with other people at the same time. You are actually having a communal experience. There is a period before class and after class to say hello, and you can also just zoom in and out without socializing.
  • I really need to vacuum…It can be useful to create a dedicated space in your home. And to keep it clean and clear of stuff. This is a very classical recommendation for yoga, create the space that signals your brain that you are doing something special. If you can’t find that space in your home, or your device doesn’t allow that, it can just be your mat zone while you are on it.
  • Am I doing enough or am I getting lazy? Being physically challenged can be over-rated, you end up forcing it and creating pain rather than relieving it. And, it is hard for us as instructors to know what is safe and productive when we can’t see you. A good rule of thumb is to do 80% of what you think is doable. If you want to see how it is to challenge yourself with a particular pose, do it every day at 80% and see where you are in 1 week.
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The Practice of Mindfulness Has a Shadow, and There’s More to the Story

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There is an interesting Tucson connection to the Atlantic article, The Dark Side of Mindfulness, and I have several responses to what it says about the dangers of mindfulness practice.

In 2004, a young doctoral candidate in clinical psychology at the University of Arizona, just up the road from us, recruited twenty-six people for a sleep study. Her name is Willoughby Britton. She was a devoted meditator and she was certain, the way we are all certain about the things that have saved us, that she would show meditation improves sleep. She put her participants in a lab overnight and measured their brain waves.

The meditators slept worse. More awakenings. More micro-arousals. More time in the lightest stage of sleep. And the more they had practiced, the worse it was.

She did not publish it. She was confused by the findings and by what they meant for her, and she worried that publishing would mean harming the dharma, criticizing the very teachings that had reordered her life.

I have been teaching yoga, meditation, mindfulness, and MBSR for the entirety of my professional life, and I want to say plainly that I understand that hesitation to bring forward evidence against something so sacred and so hopeful. I also think she was wrong to keep it in a drawer, and she clearly came to terms with that, because she has spent the twenty years since then doing the harder thing.

What the research now shows

Britton eventually published, and then she and her colleague Jared Lindahl did something almost nobody in our field had done: they asked meditators what had gone wrong. Their 2017 study, “The Varieties of Contemplative Experience,” and the body of work that followed it, tell us roughly this:

Something like one in ten people who take up meditation experience an adverse effect. The most common are fear, anxiety, panic, or paranoia, along with shifts in motivation so pronounced that practice stops feeling like practice and starts feeling like drifting. In her data, the difficulties lasted a median of one to three years. Other research groups, working independently and often from a firmly pro-meditation position, land in the same neighborhood: nine percent, thirteen percent, a quarter reporting at least one particularly unpleasant experience.

These are not, mostly, people who arrived with a psychiatric history. Many of them are high achievers, which is the finding I find most instructive, and I’ll come back to it.

The strongest single signal in the data is dose. More time on the cushion, more difficulty. Britton puts the practical threshold at about thirty minutes a day. Beyond that, the risk curve begins to bend. The other strong signal is intensive retreat: somewhere between half and three-quarters of the people who come to her nonprofit for help began having symptoms after one.

There is more I will say about dose and intensives at the end.

Why none of this should shock us

Here is what I feel is important to emphasize. The mindfulness traditions of the East knew about this, and they had ways of understanding it and working with it. We are the ones who have been experimenting with it, removing it from its context.

The Satipatthana Sutta, one of the key texts on the practice of mindfulness, is not a stress-reduction protocol. It is a set of instructions for dismantling your relationship to your own experience, for the greater goal of lessening or ending suffering. Pierce Salguero, a historian of Buddhism and medicine quoted in the article, points out that an eighth-century Chinese text has the Buddha warning of fifty “demonic states” that a contemplative can become trapped in: hallucinations, sorrow, anxiety, suicidal thought. “Meditation sickness” is not a modern Western complaint. It is old enough to have a literature of its own.

What is new is the delivery system. What was once a specialized practice, undertaken by people who had renounced ordinary life, supervised closely by someone who had gone that way before, is now framed as a commodity or an experience one can simply have on one’s own terms. I have been part of mainstreaming mindfulness meditation and practice, and I have great regard for the teachers and the teaching I have received, from both the secular and the Buddhist perspectives. And context and container, wise and caring support, mean a good deal more than we sometimes afford them.

Also, concentration practice is stimulating. That is the whole point of it. It is not a sedative. When we sit for long periods on our own, or choose to attend a retreat, we can find ourselves vacillating between checking out and freaking out. There is a line from the writer Anne Lamott: “My mind is a bad neighborhood I try not to go into alone.” So yes, the challenge to nervous system regulation with intensive practice is very real.

The part that is our responsibility

The hardest passage in Khazan’s article is not about neuroscience. It is about teachers.

Over and over, the people in Britton’s studies brought their symptoms to a teacher and were told: It gets worse before it gets better. What you resist persists. Everything arising is an opportunity. One teacher, asked why his dharma books never mentioned any of this, is reported to have said: Well, it’s not good advertising. When Britton described her own dissociation, months of feeling like a bird perched on her own shoulder, of walking into a creperie and thinking oh my God, I forgot that I am a person, she was congratulated. She had seen the truth of no-self. She should keep going. She did, and it got worse.

Britton calls these responses thought-terminating clichés: statements so unanswerably wise-sounding that they end the conversation.

I have probably said versions of some of that in the classroom, hopefully in the attempt to normalize a fuller range of present-moment experience, rather than as encouragement toward the insight of no solid self. That is not my purview.

There is the reality that meditation disrupts the status quo. Discomfort is often the doorway, and equanimity toward what arises is the practice. That is what we aim to communicate and fortify. The trouble is that a true teaching used to close a student’s mouth becomes a false one. And when the only diagnostic tool a tradition has is “keep practicing,” it cannot tell the difference between a student who is working through something and a student who is being set back.

Which brings me back to the high achievers. I think the reason so many of Britton’s harmed meditators hold graduate degrees is that they had been rewarded, their whole lives, for overriding the signal that something is wrong. They came to meditation and they tried to ace it. Meditation is not supposed to be about achievement, and yet it sneaks in again and again and again, for teachers and students alike.

Also, what a lot of teachers were missing in the early romance with mindfulness were the equally important trainings in compassion and self-compassion, along with the evolving understanding of trauma-informed teaching. These are things that are better understood and better integrated now than they once were.

Six things I want to say to our community

  1. The research indicates that more than thirty minutes can be activating. In our Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction curriculum and on many modern retreats, forty-five minutes is often used as a typical period. In the right context this has value, but in the reality of your personal practice, always adjust to what is tolerable, doable, and leaves you with a generally positive feedback loop.
  2. Different practices do different things to different nervous systems. In Britton’s work, noting practices (labeling thoughts and sensations) skewed toward anxiety, while sustained breath-anchor concentration skewed toward low mood. If you are already exquisitely attuned to every sensation in your body, a body scan may not be your medicine right now. Come talk to us about a different practice. This is precisely what our individual mindfulness coaching sessions are for.
  3. A long retreat with an experienced leader is a great gift, and you have to be ready and have your own sincere intention. I go on retreat to unwind and unplug, and to get a clearer sense of how I can meet life with care. In MBSR we train people for six weeks to be able to endure a “Day-Long Retreat.” It can be a lot for people, but it can be the turning point too, where they feel both a deeper calm and a willingness to ride the waves of their moment to moment experience. It is also a good group experience, being together but not socially on. This may be enough. Multi-day meditation retreats are not needed in order to apply mindfulness well in life.
  4. If your practice is going badly, tell someone, and tell someone who will actually listen. Say it to me. Say it to your teacher. Say it out loud in the room. If the answer you get is only keep sitting, get a second opinion, and know that asking for one is not a failure of faith or of understanding.
  5. You are permitted to stop. Britton says many of the people who come to her seem relieved when she tells them it is okay to stop meditating. Her framing is characteristically blunt and I think it’s right: treat meditation like a relationship. If you consistently feel worse with that person, maybe it’s time to break up, or at least to spend some time apart. A balanced practice has an enormous toolkit. Movement, breath, mantra, chanting, singing, dancing, service. Walking in the Rillito in October. Prayer. Sleep. Contemplative practice is a very large house, and the silent, still room is only one room in it.
  6. Bring a professional in when a professional is needed. Dissociation, depersonalization, intrusive imagery, and psychosis are clinical events, not attainments. Yoga and mindfulness practice sit alongside good clinical care beautifully. They do not replace it, and we will always tell you so.

The middle way, again

Khazan ends her piece where I would end it. The Buddha’s first teaching after his awakening was not a technique. It was a warning about extremes: against indulgence on one side, and against austerity so severe it immiserates you on the other. Avoiding these two extremes, the Realized One understood the middle way of practice.

We are, culturally, in an era of contemplative maximalism. More minutes, more days, more silence, longer retreats, higher states, and a quiet competitive hum underneath all of it. Britton’s twenty years of unpopular research are, read generously, an empirical rediscovery of the middle way. She paid an enormous price to hand it back to us: she lost the community that had been her whole life, and she no longer meditates at all. She takes care of her plants and chops wood in Vermont.

There is something in that image I find true and beautiful. The article mentions the example Britton’s parents set for her, that a person should find a problem nobody is solving and embrace it as their niche. She did, and I for one am grateful. I still think of her as a Tucsonan, and this city’s practice community is part of what her work came out of.

I love the practice. I love the teaching. I believe in this work with my whole heart, and I believe the benefits are real because I have watched them arrive in real bodies in this building for years. Believing that is exactly why I want us to be the kind of practice community that speaks frankly about both the light and the dark sides of the process.

Awareness is like the light of the sun. It reveals what is there. Sometimes what is there is hard, and the practice is to look anyway, and to know the difference between looking at something hard and doing yourself harm.

If any of this is describing your experience, please come find me. We will sit down together, and we will figure out what your practice should actually be.

Ungated reading for the The Dark Side of Mindfulness

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Yoga Paradigm

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One way I address the Yoga paradigm in comparison to the Western paradigm is to simply say that Yoga never separated mind/body/spirit.  There are many, many, many schools of Yoga, so it is often inaccurate to talk about Yoga as any one thing- but I think it would be safe to say that all schools of Yoga would agree that mind/body/spirit are inseparable and while different focuses can be useful- they are completely interwoven dimensions of our being.

In the West, we separated and compartmentalized these elements more and more.    It began most obviously in the 1600’s, the periods described as the Age of Enlightenment or Reason.  In these times a pronounced separation occurred- particularly regarding the subjects of religion and theology from other fields of inquiry such as philosophy and material science.  There is so much interesting history here, history that very much has modern relevance- but to keep it simple, our Western paradigm does not create a platform that necessarily integrates mind/body/spirit or is comfortable with their associations.

I believe this is why average, stressed out people are often so delighted by yoga, meditation, and mindfulness practices.  When they “click”, when they seem to “work”, for people- what they are experiencing is an integrated state that is not fostered in our daily life and not easy to come by accidentally.  Without questioning it too much, thinking about it too much, something happens when we practice that gives us relief and a deeper sense of grounding. This integrated mind-body-spirit approach shapes the yoga classes offered at the Sol Center.

In my teaching I think of this as the spiritual dimension of practice- the transition from a thinking state to a feeling state to an aware state.  I’m not trying to facilitate a spiritual experience, I am simply encouraging you to fully experience this moment as it is unfolding.  Bare awareness.  This is both purely rational and scientific- pay attention to the present moment without reacting to whatever appears in the field of awareness- and a total surrender to the holy mystery.  If I let go of the controls that normally mediate my direct experience, what will happen to me?

While the life of the mind and intellect and the exploration of the natural world can be deeply fascinating and fulfilling, it can likewise be perplexing and exhausting and unreal too.  What Yoga reminds us of through practice and through its holistic perspective is that the mind needs to be connected to the body and the heart and the reality of the present moment. And this moment, when we bring bare awareness to it, is precious and holy and significant for reasons we will never be able to fully explain or rationalize.

The openness to Life Itself that we cultivate frees us from a great deal of conditioning and many inherent, and inherited assumptions…Life is not about answers.  It is about learning to live in the middle of complete uncertainty, and doing so gracefully. ~Swami Chetanananda

 

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Yoga, Astrology, & Mindfulness, Oh My!

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Yoga, Astrology, & Mindfulness, Oh My

I am often asked how yoga, astrology, and mindfulness fit together.  First of all, they don’t have to.  Within each field of knowledge and practice, there is plenty to immerse in and benefit from.   We could also say plenty to get lost in or liberated by!

For me, Yoga and astrology came together.  The first books I read, the formal teachers I had, even my mother became a yogi and astrologer. After she died I acquired her library and took up my study, including going to India to visit the ancient planetary temples.

Mindfulness came in the middle.  It came through yoga and what I appreciate most is the simplicity.  We can suffer less, simply by becoming more aware.  We can see and know the deepest truths, just by observing the breath.   Nothing cosmic need ever happen, and you can explore these practices through our current yoga classes and mindfulness programs.

What we know now more than ever, is that mindfulness meditation helps the brain to integrate, process, and influence our life experience more effectively.  With this integration there is more potential to choose our response, rather than react reflexively.  The more we can respond, rather than react, the more we can influence the outcome.  It does not have to be, what it has been.

In Yoga we call this,” transforming our karma.” We practice shifting patterns that have kept us limited.  Astrology gives us an even bigger perspective on past patterns, present circumstances, and future potentials.  More esoteric than mindfulness yes, but practiced for thousands of years; a literal science in that it has been tested and refined generation by generation.

Astrology was also our earliest form of astronomy, with the unaided eye it produced a vision of the universe that continues to resonate with the understandings of modern physics.

And when thought of as a symbolic language, gives us a means to integrate left and right brain forms of knowing and open up our connection to the greater whole.  Here are some modern voices that point towards these grand themes:

  • “A millennium before Europeans were willing to divest themselves of the Biblical idea that the world was a few thousand years old, the Mayans were thinking of millions and the Hindus billions” –Dr. Carl Sagan, Cosmos
  • “The whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events do not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order, which may or may not be divinely inspired.” -Stephen Hawking
  • “As our Jyotish guru observed, ‘Why are Westerners so interested in changing your destiny when it is so hard to live up to it?’  One of Jyotish’s tasks is to teach you what your dharma is, instead of what your ego desires it to be.”  -Hart DeFouw and Robert Svoboda, Light on Life
  • “The man who understands symbol not only opens himself to the objective world, but at the same time succeeds in emerging from his personal situation, reaches a comprehension of the universal … and thanks to the symbol, the individual experience is awoken and transmuted into a spiritual act.” -Marcea Eliade, Mandala
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Why We Chant at the end of many of our yoga classes

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Why we Chant at the end of many of our yoga classes

At the end of many of our yoga classes we chant the mantra AUM.  It is the great utterance of the Vedic Tradition, where yoga comes from.   It is a way to honor the roots and culture of yoga, a way to seal the period of practice, and a way to offer the benefit of our practice beyond our personal self.  While yoga can be pure exercise, its deeper potency lies in its practice as a body/mind/spirit experience. Participation is always optional, and students may chant, or simply listen.

The language of yoga is Sanskrit, one of the oldest sacred languages still in existence and the base of our own Indo-European language tree.  It is considered a vibratory language, that its sounds and pronunciation translate essence and meaning. This is in contrast to our more modern, conceptual languages.

There is a lovely creation myth about Sanskrit.  Before there was auditory sound and manifestation as we know it, there was only silence.  AUM was the sound that broke through the silence and created the ripple of shape and form, and from AUM the 52 letters of the Sanskrit alphabet emerged.  Each sound essence carrying its unique energy.  And from this the evolution of speech as we know it.

AUM is simple and profound and also mirrors the sacred utterance of many traditions- Amen, Ameen of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.  In Yoga it also symbolizes all the four states of consciousness- waking, sleeping, dreaming and the fullness of consciousness- our ability to be awake and aware to all of life.

Chanting and toning in a group can be very awkward of course, and even bring up concern about religiosity out of context.  So, it is important that everyone know it is merely an option.  Students can simply listen or hum.

The sound comes from an audible exhale and is a way to extend the exhale which supports the calm state yoga practice ideally has instilled.  It begins in the throat with the basic sound of Ahhhh, which is literally the foundational sound of all human speech.  It moves to the lips and then returns to the sinuses; the vibrations literally feel good and help awaken the senses and clear the mind.  At the end there is often a stillness and quiet that is palpable.  Chanting, sound, and the stillness that follows can also be explored through our meditation classes. This is the inward state of Yoga, a connection back to pure potential.

It is wonderful to know we can share something pure and essential for a moment before we go back to the work and responsibilities of our day.

 

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Sleep of the Yogi: Finding the Rest & Recovery We All Need

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Join wisdom speaker Natasha Korshak as she brings her teaching to Sacred Space on Saturday, August 10th at 4:15pm, with Tucson musician Stephen Pedone, principal of Edgewater Guitars accompanying live on guitar to set the tone for the practice.

Natasha will guide us through the foundations of Yoga Nidra, also known as iRest (not an Apple product!), and lead us in real, hands-on practice of this profoundly restorative technique. Though it’s often described simply as “yogic sleep,” Yoga Nidra is really a state of conscious, deep relaxation, one where the body rests as fully as it does in sleep while the mind stays quietly aware. It’s one of the oldest tools in the Yoga tradition, and also one of the most accessible: no flexibility required, no strength required, just the willingness to lie down and listen.

What makes this practice so powerful is its reach. Research and clinical use alike point to Yoga Nidra as an effective support for anxiety, insomnia, chronic pain, and PTSD, among other conditions where the nervous system has gotten stuck in patterns of hypervigilance or exhaustion.

Natasha will help us understand:

  • How the practice works with the body’s natural relaxation response
  • How it creates enough safety and stillness for the nervous system to finally downshift out of fight-or-flight,
  • And how that shift alone can begin to loosen the grip of chronic stress on our health.

But Yoga Nidra isn’t only about relaxation. At its heart, it’s a practice of intention. Through the use of sankalpa (a resolve planted at the deepest, most receptive layer of the mind) it reminds us of what we’re here to do and who we’re capable of becoming. It offers a doable, repeatable way to meet the limiting beliefs and old perceptions that generate our stress and tension, and to gently, steadily, begin breaking through them.

Natasha will also help us bring this off the mat (or cushion) and into daily life: how a short Nidra practice can reset a hard afternoon, support better sleep, or become a steady anchor we return to whenever we need to come back to ourselves.

Sacred Space at the Ward 6 Chill Space 3202 E 1st St, Tucson, AZ 85716

 

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Purpose, Practice, Prayer

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Purpose is much deeper than intention and goals, yet supports them.  It is a topic dear to me as it inspired the center into being and fuels it every day.

Considering your purpose is profound and radical, and it can be simple. Caveat, it will ask you to be honest and vulnerable with yourself, and it is best to keep this private at first (if not always.)

Lets explore these questions:

What are you wanting, hoping, longing for? What does your heart desire?

What would truly bring you happiness, fulfillment, peace? 

Why?

The why is often revealing and may require more and more excavation.  In many spiritual traditions this is referred to as the purification of motivation.  The purer the motive, the more potent the possibility.  Purity aside…

Next explore:

Making a positive statement of purpose, it might start something like this:  To be…To live…To fulfill…To trust…

Now, this is probably starting to reflect your values.  It may be surprising, as It probably has little to do with anything outward, how you are seen or what you might achieve?

The yogic twist:

Explore phrasing it in the first-person, present, active- tense.  It might start like this:  I am…I l live…I trust…I have…

As a yoga tool this final statement is called your sankalpa.  This is often translated as inner resolve, or solemn vow.  While we may have something tangible we are longing to manifest- a new home, a healing, a relationship- a sankalpa evokes something even deeper. It’s a positive, active, statement that informs all of what you are doing, how you are relating, and inspires your fuller potentials.

Rather than the statement being aspirational (May I…) or futuristic (To be…), it is already here, already happening. Past, Present, and Future are suspended temporarily.  We are touching the eternal now and feeling what it is like to have what we desire- not as something abstract, but as something real and embodied.  It won’t last, but it does help.

Using the example of wanting something tangible- it can be there too. For example:

If you are struggling with chronic pain….

May I find help, relief, peace from this physical pain…might become;

I gracefully receive support for my healing

I care for my body and its need with diligence and courage

My body, mind, and heart are capable of working with all that arises….

Patience

One thing I like to note about the word sankalpa is another take on its meaning, one rarely mentioned.  The idea of inner resolve, or solemn vow has always chafed me.  It brings up the idea of willpower or abnegation (renouncing the world), which I have never been that attracted to as a spiritual orientation. The root san has to with connection and kalpa has to do with a long, long period of time.  In this way the word implies it will take a long time.  It will not be immediate.  We can feel into it NOW.  We can name it NOW.  Yet, like many important learnings it will take time.  It will be revealed over time. We will live into it.  As the poet Rainer Maria Rilke advises a young poet in, Letter’s to a Young Poet:

Be patient to all that is unresolved in your heart…

Try to love the questions themselves

Like locked rooms and books that are written in a very foreign tongue

Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be give you

Because you would not be able to live them.

And the point is, to live everything.

Live the questions now.

Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it,

Live along some distant day into the answer.

So, while your sankalpa is a present tense statement that you practice feeling, sensing, knowing right now, as you speak/think it.  There is also the understanding that there is more to come, more to be revealed.

Practice

This brings us to the subject of practice.  I have an affection for this word.  It means we stay open to learning, that we stay sensitive to experience, that we enjoy the journey, that we are never totally there.  Not in the sense that we are unsatisfied or driven, but that we continue to be curious and ready to be surprised.

A great example of someone both living and practicing into his purpose is Gil Hedley.  He is a charismatic anatomist who studied theology and feel in love with human dissection.  Many of us at the center attended a teaching he gave live in December.  He had dissected the entire nervous system and was describing the process and learnings for us somanauts who appreciate his insights.  Somanauts is a word he coined, a blend of the words soma/body and nauts/traveler.  He describes his work as being dedicated to the exploration of inner space, and his purpose to encourage fellow somanauts to appreciate, explore, and embody the wonders of the human form.  Talk about a person with a purpose! To quote a few Gilism’s on this subject of practice as learning:

“We learn to see what we see, and agree with what we see.”  Meaning that it isn’t necessarily how it has to be seen….

“I dissect so I can feel the relationships…”  Meaning it doesn’t necessarily match what is in the anatomy textbooks…

“That’s the fun of it, to have your knowledge turned upside down, again and again, by the truth of the human form…”  Meaning he keeps discovering things he did not expect…

“Hold your good practices dearly, and the stories you tell about them lightly…” meaning how we go about something to help someone with the body may work consistently well, but it may not work the way you think it does…

“It is not airy fairy to ask your heart and gut how they/you feel, it is built into your body to register and know…” meaning the body knows the score.

What I marveled at most was not what I learned about the body, but what I witnessed from a person totally immersed in his purpose and practice.  A strange one by all accounts, human dissection; yet made sacred and vivifying by his dedication and fellowship.

The topic of prayer is vast and deserves its own chapter.  Suffice it to say for now, that your sankalpa, when you find it or simply explore it, is your heart’s prayer, and will help light the way.

 

 

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Reflections: The Week Of My Birthday 2020

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At the time I was born, my mother was 29. She was now the mother of 3 living in Hyde Park, Illinois. She often said she missed the 1960’s because she was already with child by age 18; but she was still a woman of her time. She was an artist and writer, she had been a playboy bunny in the clubs, she married a Jew when her family had never met one, she befriended and often housed unusual, interesting, radical, struggling people, she was anti-war, she was gay friendly, had campaigned for Kennedy.

She is gone now so I can’t ask her to refresh me, but I imagine she was devastated by the assassinations of President Kennedy and years later, in my third term in her womb, Martin Luther King. I was born the day Robert Kennedy won the California primary for their Democratic Presidential Nominee, he was killed the next day. And we lived minutes away from the riot scene of the Democratic National Convention. I was probably in her arms when she watched the TV those days and heard the city around her in chaos.

Flash to now: I watch, listen, and sense into the events of these past weeks. The tragic death of Ahmaud Arbery. The knee on the neck of George Floyd. The ridiculous responses of our president, who has fanned racial tensions flagrantly all along. What am I to do? How am I to meet the moment? Me, a babe of the civil rights era, the daughter of a performance poet, and an ordained minister?

Looking around my life, I am aware, more than ever, that it is lily white. No black friends or neighbors, very few places where I come into contact with any diversity. I had not noticed. It happened gradually as I left work in organizations and focused on creating something of my own. Like my mother, who was sucked into domestic and suburban life; only worse because I don’t even have children to draw me out into the community they might have, or make me think about the youth perspective.

I attended the “Black Lives Matter” event on the U of A campus this past weekend and thought of her, my mother. She was more socially active than I am. More dramatic. She would have carried a sign. She would have known some of these performers on stage, or their equivalents in her day. She was someone who could get up on stage and speak and sing of the aches of the wounded heart and the ravages of oppression. She was someone who would affirm anyone who tried to as well. She wasn’t political, but she was a champion of truth and justice and the power of the spoken word.
Two of the speakers at the rally spoke of the need to stand up, the need for all marginalized people to raise their voices, the need to risk offending the powers that be. I heard them. And then heard them again, when they said that those who are standing here will turn away again. White people in particular. Will retreat. Will collude. Will comply. Again. They were scolding us and I felt it, and deserved it. They also were voicing their despair; you might feel good about being here letting us be us, but you will forget about us tomorrow….

A client I had been with earlier in the day- grieving deeply the wounds of her family combined with the grief of our country and world, likewise had doubted that any protest would matter. Not just this but in general- all that has been trampled these last 3 years….
It’s too big and pervasive. All the brokenness. And the Powers That Be, that serve themselves and their kind alone.

And yet: Something finally does seem to be happening. Moving the needle. Shaking the status quo. What can I do? How can I contribute to the moment? How will I remember, tomorrow and in the weeks, months, years to come what is happening and what is needed to help others up and out of not only personal despair (which I am trained to do), but systemic oppression (which I am not)?

Please know this reflection is primarily personal. I am sharing it to expose my own process rather than to wave a sign of any kind. As a contemplative, someone who is more introverted than extroverted- more emotional than intellectual- more spiritual than practical- I am searching for my authentic response to how will I remember and act.

I will take heart and inspiration from those I see standing up, speaking out, calling out, crying out. One of the presenters yesterday, sang a song about the places she can’t go because of the risk of being killed by police. It was stunning and at one point she screeched and screeched and it was just, right. Just as we would hope in our grief workshops when people connect to the rage or fear or desperation that really was a natural way to react, but most likely was repressed to stay alive. We have to allow ourselves and others to grieve, which includes rage and anger properly directed.

I will continue to listen and care and beam a deep faith in the potential of individuals to connect with deeper powers than the powers that be. As a black minister said of Trump’s photo op at St. John’s Church, “The God I serve is higher than that.”
I will continue to commit to my own contemplative path of Yoga. Prayer. Meditation. Not as an escape or evasion, or personal pursuit of health or wisdom, but as a form of purification and the innate desire to provide places of refuge and processes of insight for others. Refuge, that Thomas Merton referred to as necessary to make active work “fruitful.”

And I l will commit to learning more about systemic oppression, about my own bias, about what is now referred to as white fragility. I truly don’t understand these things- have not felt it was relative to me yet. Now it is.

All this does not alieve the pain of those actively oppressed, the real suffering of so many, but it is something I can and will sincerely do. From a black president to a racist president to the unknown future. We each have plenty we can do that matters.

While the moment is ripe for change, while the situation is dire for so many, while hope is sincere, it will not be easy. In the words of Thomas Merton again, and in the spirit of the long view, and the contemplative I am, “concentrate not on the results, but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself. ” Thomas Merton

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Yoga Ministry

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I said goodbye yesterday to a group of Catholic clergy I have been working with for 7 weeks.  I teach a “Mind, Body, Spirit” Seminar for a clergy sabbatical program here in Tucson. 

Essentially, I give them an ecumenical model for how yoga, meditation, and mindfulness “work” and then we spend the majority of our time engaged in gentle, relaxing, and prayerful practice.

As a closure, I asked them to tell me what stuck with them from the practice experience, what they would be taking away into their lives and ministries.

Here is a summary of their list for all of us to remember:

  1. Breath.  How important it is to breathe consciously and to notice our breath holding patterns.
  2. Gentle Movements.  How much can happen with simple, mindful movement.
  3. Simplicity.  Stand against the wall for a few moments.  Fold forward ½ way with your hands on a table top.  Lie down and let your body open.
  4. Alignment.  Notice how the body contracts and rounds and the difference you feel when you adjust and align more with gravity.
  5. Respect.  Work with your body in this moment.  There is no need to force, strain, or effort for something particular.
  6. Relax.  Notice the way we rush, lurch, tense, grip as we are acting.  Consciously relax within the effort and notice how that also affects your mind.
  7. Grace.  In movement and in the whole experience.
  8. Space.  It helps to have the right environment and we become the right environment- our body/mind state.
  9. Focus.  The mind on the body, the body as a worthy focus for attention, prayer, communion, insight.

In truth- this isn’t their list exactly.  That arose on the white, dry erase board and then was dissolved as we talked about yoga styles out there in the wider world.  This list is what I remember and what I have embellished a bit.  Yet, it’s the same and different every time I teach.  What makes it different is the alchemy, the respect we have for ourselves and each other as we commune on this day.  Goodbye Fall Sabbatical Group, it was lovely to share my yoga ministry with you these 7 weeks.   God Bless us all.

If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time.  But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.   Aboriginal Activists Group, Queensland

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Years ago, I read an article by a teacher of the Vedic sciences, regarding the cultivation of Prana.

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When considering what to share from my practice this month, the idea of pace came to mind as a relevant theme.

As I tried to write about it, it became overly complex.  So I am going back to basics and simply sharing some personal thoughts that I hope are useful for you.

Years ago, I read an article by the excellent teacher of the Vedic sciences, Robert Svoboda, regarding the cultivation of Prana.  Prana is the Sanskrit term for subtle energy, similar to the Chinese term Chi.

The article had a wonderful effect on me during an especially difficult period of life.  I felt stuck and thwarted in many ways then, and was undoubtedly being hard on myself.  Why was I so slow?  Why did I have no energy?  These were constant, semi-conscious questions I circulated in my mind.

I share with you the first paragraph of this article and a few reflections about how it helped me and informs me to this day.

Whoever you may be, and wherever you may live, you live your life well when you live it at the right rate. Plow your way through life and life will wear you out; poke your way along and your life will grind to a halt. Find a pace that suits you, though, and amble along it accordingly, and your world will spontaneously level a path for you.

The article goes into some depth about yogic matters that I jive with, but what struck me right away was the possibility that slow was my pace.  That being upset about my pace was perhaps the drain of energy.  That maybe it was time to surrender to a deeper understanding of my rhythm, and to life’s rhythm for me.

This insight paradoxically allowed me to slow down more, to drop down deeper, to rest and rejuvenate, to ask different questions, to hear from my heart, and to follow my heart.

In this period since, about 5 years now, I understand my pace more and I do my daily best to honor it and amble along accordingly.    I don’t expect the world to spontaneously level my path but I do seem to understand more what is meant by such a statement.

Our pace connects us to our heart.  Our heart emanates our unique emotional and spiritual longing.  This is what influences the course of our path.

May you know and honor your pace.  May your heart illuminate your path.

May our practice and our healing be of benefit to the whole world.

Here is a link to the entire article for those that are inspired: Prana

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Reflections from my practice

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Here are some reflections from my practice and hopefully some inspiration for yours:

This winter and spring I have been concentrating on getting stronger through hiking.  It has felt important as I enter into middle age to not just move more, but to be in nature and to be reminded that my body is a vehicle for connecting with the wilderness.

My asana practice is simple and sweet these days.  I don’t try and get much out of my body- rather I attend to it so it feels good and balanced.  This attitude has been distilled from years of practicing in ways that were not necessarily simple and sweet.

Even though I have always gravitated to gentle styles and found teachers who understood the meditative and spiritual dimension of yoga, I still pressured myself to do more and more.  I imagine I thought that was my duty as a professional yoga teacher.   It took some time to realize I was inflicting pain upon myself rather than resolving it, and that was serving no one!

This is really a lesson regarding the Mind.  I didn’t know I was being aggressive.  I didn’t know I was off track.  My teacher Rama always emphasized a will-less way of progressing and I loved the message.  It just took years to bear fruit and flowers. Perhaps there is much more to come.   Meanwhile, I am pain free, at ease, and in awe with the way my practice has evolved.

This brings me to the concept of Mind/Body that I am playing with lately.  In the new brain science we see more than ever that the mind and body are integral, not distinct.  The mind is the body, the body is the mind.  Awareness and sensitivity are keys to integration, thinking and dissecting are disturbances.  Yogis and Buddhas and Mystics of all stripes have essentially agreed upon this- now there is a modern wave of contemplative science and study that affirms and explains the phenomena of integration.

It is an exciting and exhilarating new way of conceiving of self and human potential.   What does your body tell you?  How does the thinking and judging mind distort the information?  How do we enter into the energy and information of the mind/body, learn from it directly?  How do we translate this integration of being into our lives and world? What might it mean for the future?

In regards to your practice, I hope you have the opportunity to move more and the wisdom to will-less from your body.  I wish you the enjoyment of nature and the opportunity to touch into wilderness.  I pray that your own mind/body journey flowers into good health and spiritual integration.  And that each of our practices aids to the healing of the world.

Blessings and Light, Natasha

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Mindfulness Motivation from the Past and Present

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Our normal daily life creates a pattern of mental focus that often takes us out of our physical, present moment reality.  Our attention goes away and in many directions, often for long periods of time.  This way of being, while it may seem necessary, productive, and even creative has many limitations.

The primary limitation is that it accentuates the mind/body disconnection- our body is doing one thing, our mind is doing many other things.  This disconnection makes us highly susceptible to physiological stress or sympathetic nervous system arousal.  That means our bodies are revving up to prepare for danger and emergency, its information is based on our conscious and unconscious thoughts and feelings, and in most cases there is no danger- the threat and thus the stress is in fact, unnecessary.  This unconscious and unnecessary ‘’revving” of our nervous system agitates, confuses, and exhausts us creating less productivity and more vulnerability to illness and accident.

The secondary limitation of our attention moving around constantly away from the present moment, is that we do not get to live our moments fully.  We in fact feel less because our senses are not activated and our emotions are not integrated into what we are doing.  While this can be a relief sometimes to just “do” life, if this doing prevails we are more prone to over-indulge the senses- which in turn exacerbates physiological stress, and we are easily overwhelmed by our feelings.

With the Mindfulness practices offered below, you can begin to gradually shift your attention back to the present moment reality.  This simple act of harnessing your attention, will help you develop your mind body connection, reduce and manage stress, and bring more beauty and balance to your life.  With practice, you will see that learning to attend to yourself is an act of intelligence and self-worth and that you are better able to attend gracefully to all that is needed in your life.

  1. Be aware of your breath.  Simply notice.  No thinking necessary.
  2. Be aware of your body sensations.  Simply notice.  No thinking necessary.
  3. Move your body mindfully, focusing on the experience of sensation. No thinking necessary.
  4. Shake.  Rattle.  Roll.  Rub.  Hop.  Yawn.  Sigh.  Stomp- whatever connects you to your body now.
  5. Be aware of raw feeling states.  The feeling of yes.  The feeling of no. The feeling of maybe-so.
  6. It doesn’t matter what you feel.  It does matter that you notice how you are feeling.
  7. Notice your thinking, imaging, inner dialogue.  Is it true?  Is it helpful?  Is it skillful?
  8. Notice that awareness- this faculty that can notice- is bigger than thinking.
  9. Sensations, emotions, thoughts drive impulses, actions, behaviors, consequences.
  10. The future is shaped moment by moment- be intentional and notice when you’re not.
  11. No judgment necessary.
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Yoga and Breathing for the Billionth Time

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I used to teach a lot of yoga, hours every day.  I joked that I was a marathon yoga teacher.  I taught different types of yoga practices in those many hours, it wasn’t all super physical.  It was also in one facility, so I didn’t have to drive hither and yon.  I loved what I did and I made a good living in the days when yoga teaching wasn’t really a profession.

It is said you teach what you most need to learn, maybe that is true.  I guess I needed to learn how to be in my body, how to be myself and connected to something more.  I also learned a lot about teaching, communicating, relating.  For me learning is primarily about self-awareness, and secondarily about information.  This is why I teach Yoga and not history, which was incidentally what I studied as an undergraduate.

For some reason, my desire to talk about the breath today brought me back to reflecting on these early days of marathon teaching.  I taught this morning, a short 75 minute class and everyone was very focused.  It felt like what it took me many years to learn were transmitted and absorbed by everyone in the room.  It was a bit of a time warp really, it felt like we must have practiced for hours to get that deep.  At the heart of this story is the breath.

If you have practiced yoga with me, you will know there is a special way that we breathe.  This comes from my teacher Rama and is the essence of her method, which she will not name.  She calls it Yoga.  There are lots of layers to this method, but in a nutshell it is a way of using the breath to create shifts and changes in our being without activating the ego or the will.  It is a way of working within the yoga poses that takes you into deep states of meditation where subtle conflict is resolved.  It is a way of converting the oxygen we breathe into the prana or energy we need to be both transformed and to maintain our integrity.

How does all this happen through breath?  I wish I could describe it here, I actually have been trying (and editing it out) but it is really something you have to experience.  For now I will simply say what I have said billions of time by now, breathe.

If you would like to experience this relationship between breath, movement, and awareness, explore our mindful yoga classes in Tucson.

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Vedic Astrology Highlights and Super Blood Moon Lunar Eclipse

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Vedic Astrology Highlights Fall 2015 & Super Blood Moon Lunar Eclipse September 27th

 

We have a Solar and Lunar Eclipse this month.  Here are the Highlights of what is UP.

The Solar Eclipse will occur later this night that I write.  It is partial and will not be visible to us in the USA.  Yet the energy of an eclipse effects the whole planet, perhaps more so where they are visible.

This occurs in the sign of Leo, in the later section of the constellation called Purva Phalguni- it is associated with wealth so there is some buzz in the astrology community about this having impact on the global economy.  Some say the wild ride the stock market just took is indicative of this energy fluctuation.  Particular effects may be felt for 6 months.

Eclipses are considered inauspicious periods to initiate new endeavors.  They are auspicious for spiritual attunement and refinement.  As we know, life often insists we do things in spite of the signs and omens.  Truly, the key is to have a daily practice that purifies your heart and mind in some way.  This is the key to weathering whatever will come.

It is also considered helpful when the solar eclipse happens before the lunar.  We always have eclipses in pairs and this time the lunar eclipse will follow and be fully visible for us in Tucson.  It is quite powerful as it is a total eclipse and the moon is close to the Earth in its orbit- this is called a super moon.  It is also interesting as it happens early in the evening- it will be fully eclipsed around 8pm Tucson time.  Easy to witness and meditate upon.

Again, there is lots of lore regarding everything and it is said that it is not good to be outside during an eclipse- that you are personally negatively affected by it.  But in this day and age, when we are disconnected from so many natural rhythms, I sense it is a remedy; a way to honor the subtle and the shadow element of life, to witness the celestial phenomenon and strengthen our commitment to light.

The lunar eclipse occurs Sunday night, September 27. It occurs in Pisces, in the section called Uttara Bhadra Pada.  It is associated with the flow of water, purification, renewal, and release from long held patterns.  It is the water that smooths the stones.  I hope you get to experience and enjoy this event in some way.

Lunar Eclipse Tucson

Mars in Leo: September 16-November 3

Mars is leaving its 2 month sojourn through the sign of Cancer, which is its sign of debility/ difficulty.

This is a big shift for Mars energy.  In anyone’s chart Mars signifies raw energy, courage, power, brothers, and land.  In the fire sign of Leo the King it regains its sense of being a spiritual warrior.  This is very significant if you are Aries or Scorpio Rising or Moon by birth. You will feel empowered again.

Sun in Virgo: September 17-October 17

The Sun will soon change signs- from Leo to Virgo.  There is quite a bit of intensity in this yearly visit as Rahu is here and Mercury turns retrograde this same day. September 22-24 are very intense Solar days.  Be extra mindful and curious.

Mercury Retrograde: September 17-October 8

Mercury is retrograde in its own sign of Virgo, that is good in ways as it spends more time in one of its places of power and amplifies all kinds of Mercury and Virgo related things:  intellectual and organizational activities, service and healing matters especially.  It backtracks right into the Sun, full combustion, September 29-30. These are days that Virgo or Mercury people could feel inspired yet depleted.  It retrogrades into Rahu October 7-8 and then goes direct.  These could be interesting days for Mercury’s mental energy- creativity and innovation abound.  But be careful with important decisions.  Rahu is a trickster energy!

 

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Vedic Highlights July August 2015

In the Vedic understanding of macrocosm and microcosm, our connection to the universe comes from within.  The energies of the universe flow through our consciousness and being from the causal to the astral to the physical level.  Therefore, in some ways thinking about astrology as up – as an outer phenomenon – is inaccurate. Chew on that as I move on to the news.

One piece of important news is that Jupiter has changed signs.  Jupiter takes one year to transit one sign of the zodiac.  So we get a different flavor of Jupiter every year.   Jupiter is a general signifier of children, teachers, knowledge and wealth.  Its natural energy is positive, expansive, joyful.  For the last year it was in the sign of Cancer, which is the sign of the moon, mother, emotional nurturance.  This is a powerful transit of Jupiter that only happens every 11 years.

Jupiter has now moved into the sign of Leo, the sign of the sun, father, self-expression.  Cancer is a water sign, Leo is a fire sign.  They are both royal signs, both sattvic signs, meaning when planets are there at birth or by transit- they are inclined towards the good, towards their best nature.  So Jupiter in Leo could be very positive for us all.  It brings some fire to our minds and our visions, it could improve relations with our father or shine light on our issues with masculine power structures.

It always depends on how your personal chart operates, but reflect on the last year- from last July to now- what was the flavor of Jupiter in Cancer?  And envision what it might be this year- something similar but more masculine.  Also, if you want to explore how the planets affect your subtle energy- what was the recent period of July 8 to July 18th like?  This 10 day period Jupiter was passing over a sensitive knot in the zodiac- it can confuse us energetically and bring up deeper issues.  I activated a back injury during the time.  I knew the dates and was attempting to pay attention, but it wasn’t until my back ached and stopped me from doing that I got the real message. Don’t stir the pot, slow down and feel deeper, otherwise you will be forced to listen.  Nothing serious for me, just another reminder of how this subtle energy practice works.

The other news right now is that Saturn is preparing to change course.  It is currently transiting the sign of Scorpio.  It had moved to 10 degrees and then stopped and turned retrograde in mid-March.  Saturn is the slowest visible planet, it takes 30 years for it to transit the entire zodiac, requiring 2 ½ years to transit one sign.  When Saturn moves retrograde, things seem to go even slower.  It can make us feel like we are standing still in some way or losing ground.

Saturn in Scorpio is not an easy transit in general as Scorpio is the sign related to our deepest karmas- in yoga what is called our vasanas- and it is ruled by Mars.  Saturn and Mars are both difficult energies, so in a way the entire transit brings them up against each other in our own being.  Saturn is more an old, withholding, cold, critical energy, Mars is more youthful, brash, hot, and reactive energy.  This is a great time to be looking at this in your life.  What has felt stuck or blocked since March?  How may it be related to a core psycho-emotional issue for you?  As Saturn slows, stops and turns direct July 30-August 4 you have the potential to get new traction.  Things will start to move a bit again, take this time to clarify what is the right direction.

One other briefer planetary happening is Venus is stopping and turning retrograde in Leo, July 25. This intensifies Venus energy for a while. It will also be in exact conjunction with Jupiter in Leo on August 2-7.  When you look up in the night sky, you will see the 2 bright planets merging, almost looking like one bright star.  When planets optically connect like this, we call it a war in Vedic astrology, the 2 energies battling each other.  It can bring extra brilliance but it more often brings dissipation on some level- one energy vanquishing another.  So these are days to simply be extra mindful.  Like I was noting with my Jupiter experience in mid-July.

One final thought about Venus, if you know your chart and you are Taurus or Libra rising or moon, you are more affected by Venus’s transits.  August 11 to 15 are also tricky Venus days.

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Winter Solstice 2014 Dakshinayana

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Winter Solstice 2014 – Dakshinayana

Solstice in our hemisphere marks the shortest day, the longest night, and the beginning of Winter. In the Vedic Calendar the period from Summer to Winter Solstice is called Dakshinayana , the dark half of the year.  The energy of waning light is similar to the dark half of the month, but more pronounced.

In mythology this part of the year is when the demons prevail and the gods are subdued.  The correlation to human affairs has been to traditionally use the dark half of the year for planning and purification as the tide of consciousness is more negative.

The exact point of Solstice in Tucson will occur at 4:03 pm on December 21st 2014, followed by the New Moon at 6:35 pm. An interesting coincidence this year is that the moon is also very dark, meaning close to the Sun.  They are in the constellation called Mula which means root and aligns with the center of or our galaxy.  In Vedic Astrology this constellation has deep significance.  It is place of healing and reconciliation if one knows how to be fierce and work with darkness.

It is a powerful day to pause and reflect on events and experiences of the last six months, or deeper back into your past.  Our lives move fast.  We have much that is undigested and unassimilated that yearns for the light of our consciousness to return to it.  We are easily distracted from what really matters.  Now is the ideal time.

Ask yourself: What has occurred? What has impacted me?  What needs light?  What is the essential message for my healing?  What will help me more forward anew?  Be brave. Be kind.  Be Fierce.  As Krishna says to Arjuna on the eve of his battle, “On this path no effort is wasted, no gain is ever reversed; even a little of this practice will shelter you from great sorrows.”

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