I’m a big activist for the “physically sustaining things out side of your comfort zone” as a way of finding out where I stand with my Self, and what type of relationship that we are having. I’m also wondering why relationships with others can be as easy as that? Why we can’t all work on ourselves, and take our work wholeheartedly to to those that we care about most?

It seams, at least in my life, that those working on themselves are rarely in parallel with each other for long. A Kula is comprised of enough entities to sustain floating identities switching from ego mass to ego mass, but what about the personal relationship? What about the things that are more precious, or rather just as precious but apparently harder to find / impossible to sustain? In our Asana practice we learn focus and commitment, devotion and fortitude, patience and self expression, all things that we appropriate to living and loving. But them why is long term companionship so rare in our circles? And to this I say, it’s the “I can’t feel this in my core people,” asking questions before they step back to look at the lessons that they are learning at that very moment. I know because I was one. I loved having six little muscles for an emotional frontal shield, and they could get you places too;) But what I learned when I let them go has been nothing short of revolutionary, and the revolution is still on going. This sensitivity that I am speaking of opened me up to many things; pain of loss, comfort in the moment, swelling gratitude for my teachers and my lessons / no matter how hard the lesson, exhilaration in the / every moment that I want it, and the knowledge that I am the way I am because I earned it and not because I just am this way.

I am not abnormally anything, I am happy being in love with life, the one parallel that hasn’t left my side, and in all reality being okay with being in love with the past parallels that used to flank my sides comfortably.

To those “I can’t feel it in my core,” people I feel your pain, even if you have no idea what I’m talking about. And I promise you that the hardest lesson that I’m working on at this moment is working in life and on the mat at 10%-50% In this I am finding space for self expression, higher awareness, and god damn it, the first principal and “Inner Body Bright,” are a F’in spiritual experience!!!

And I am in love with that!

Jordan Moffatt

Muse?

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your hearts longing?

It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive?

It doesn’t interest what planets are square to your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, and if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have you become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain?

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own; without moving to hide, or fade it, or fix it?

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, and if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, or to remember the limitations of being human?

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself, and if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul?

I want to know if you can be faithful and trustworthy?

I want to know if you can see the beauty even when its not pretty every day, and if you can source you life from it’s presence?

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of a lake and shout to the silver of a full moon “YES”?

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live, or how much money you have. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back?

It doesn’t interest me with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away?

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself, and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments?

OHM Shanti

Shine on
By, Orah Mountaindreamer

Sjanie you kill me!
My husband says he’s never heard me laugh so loud while staring at a computer.
When are you going to get your butt out to Tofino and share your brilliance with us soggy Island dwellers?….
xo
Nat.

First of all, thanks for dedicating a ridiculously exhausting practice to us, Sjanie!

Without the intensity of those planks (omg those planks) we wouldn’t be able to start to break down those preconceived ideas of what our physical limitations are. We can’t stay in the safe zone, or we won’t be able to go above and beyond. As I found during this immersion, and have found in any other Anusara training really, is that without feeling that overwhelming intensity of physical challenge, not only do I stay within my “limits”, but I can’t get past the physical and into the emotional or spiritual. Once my muscles are shaking, my prana is buzzing, and sweat is dripping from every pore of my body, then that is when everything that I’ve shoved down into my pelvis starts to bubble up. All the pain, grief and generally unpleasant emotions from the past get released from my physical body and make themselves available to be dealt with, released, diffused, or turned into explosive tears. To be completely blunt, that shit has to get out somehow, or it will just manifest into something that I’d rather not think about now, and certainly don’t want to deal with it the future. So why not release it in a safe and loving environment, where non-judgement is practiced, and get open hip flexors and strong triceps while you’re at it? Sounds like a win-win to me.

I feel like I’m a different person due to the processing I went through with my first teacher training, and every class I teach, teaches me something in return.

This teacher training has already, and will continue to rock my world, and I’m going to hang on solidly but sweetly, and go for the ride! I’m so glad to be able to be part of this kula. I feel truly blessed.

Peace.

you slay me sister. so very very grateful you are part of my practice and studies. YAY for your specific brand of reflection and wisdom over the last 5 days- THANK YOU for even your presence alone, not to mention your kind and all seeing eyes (hawk-like, freakishly) that have pinpointed many-a-mini-alignment struggles for me.
this blog is a source of such incredible enjoyment for me. yer a peach.

BTW: luuuuuuuke, i am your faaaah-ther. i get it now.

“You don’t have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.” – C.S. Lewis

Saw above quote. Then read your post. Laughed my arse off!

(Am I reading too much to see a thematic reflection of how Star Wars (the body) intersects with Star Trek (the spiritual) in your post and in LIFE) in your post?)
Perhaps unintentional, but all together incredibly nerdily satisfying. You are too funny. Don’t stop!

Big Metta atcha Sista xo

I didn’t know that you had this amazing vehicle of self expression Sjanie…how could I have missed it?! Reading through this post, I was right there…as there as I could be sitting at my desk in a cast with Bess in my lap…and whatever it was that lead me to your passage I cannot be grateful enough. Have been feeling sorry for myself, and feeling sorry for myself for feeling sorry for myself – and wanting to kick my mojo in gear SOMEhow and not knowing What that would be. But it’s right here in the doing …it’s that simple. Oh the whining, the looking at what’s to be done out of the corner of my eye and Considering it…the whinging, the letting my self off the hook for lots of reasons-ing…all fell to the wayside as I read your words. Of COURSE I can do what I need to do – if I just DO it. So…Not just in class, but in life – in all things. Just do the galldarned Plank for chrissakes Deb. Jeez! There will NEVER be a time when I’ll be pissed off that I did!

Thank you

….thank you

You guys are rad Deb, yeah, here’s the brain-dumping ground glad there’s something in there that you like.