hope

The sun is finally peeking through the clouds and it is really dazzling my eyes.
The colors are a little brighter after you haven't seen them for a while, no?
I wonder if we need to feel sadness in order to have happiness, or hopelessness to find hope?
I don't want that to be the case. I want to feel smooth all the time, but that is probably asking too much.
From her book Writings, p. 135, Agnes Martin writes:

When we are unhappy it is because something is covering our minds and we are not able to be aware of happiness. When the difficulty has passed we find happiness again.
It is not that happiness is all around us. That is not it at all. It is not this or that or in this or that.
It is an abstract thing.
Happiness is unattached. Always the same, it does not appear or disappear. It is not sometimes more and sometimes less. It is our awareness of happiness that goes up and down.
Happiness is our real condition.
It is reality.
It is life.

In yoga-speak, the things covering our minds are veils. The veils teach us, they frustrate us, they fill us with sensation and the need to run. In order to see reality, or happiness/bliss, we must work at moving through them, to our middles.

Agnes Martin was so yogic!
Real proof that you do not need to bend your body into a shape to be a yogi.

decidedly unyogic

I haven't written in a while because I've been feeling decidedly unyogic.
I'm trying to feel differently & maybe that is the problem?, the trying?
The artist Agnes Martin wrote about how when all pride is gone, then you are truly free.
Freedom = ?

a new intent!

Big news! I am now a blogger for intent.com
I actually just posted my first one about introductions.
Its a good one!
If you would like to read it, click here: Namaste
Please know that I will not ignore this bloga! It's like my baby (if I had a baby~)
Intent is just a way for me to reach a few more peeps.
So feel free, on your yogic computer wanderings, to visit me there. I would love to have you!

Infiniti's pace?

How would it be to act as if there were no beginning and no end to whatever you were doing.
As if there were only the action itself.
I did sun salutations once for 45 minutes straight. I'm not sure if I just worked myself into a tizzy, or I really did start to feel the pulse of the universe in my bones.
The experience did feel never-ending, and my purpose felt different than usual. Pretty much no purpose.
Acting without end could be like running in a marathon, without all the people cheering. Maybe it would be quiet and your feet would make nice noises pushing off the pavement.

(this is my friend morgan's painting. her website is www.morganmckeehan.com)

the leaves are falling...

The leaves in Prospect Park finally decided to let go. Of course not all of them, but A LOT.
They've been hovering at the brink for a while, looking like small pieces of fire.
And then last night there was lots of wind, and the beautiful leaves let go of their branches.
They didn't even have to think about it.
They let go, just like that.

President Obama!!!

I just want to keep saying it over and over again,
We have a PRESIDENT OBAMA!!!!
I'm just so happy I'm not quite sure what to do with myself.

Wow, sometimes its the best thing in the world not to be equanimous~

Obama!

How yoga is like playing music

You are in a yoga asana and your body fits just right.
You are breathing and the breath is resonating through your entire person.
And you love yoga so much, because the music your body is making, both inside your mind and on the edges of your skin is so incredibly beautiful, you can't help but get really quiet to listen.

That is also why, when you are first learning yoga asana, and your body feels awkward and difficult, or when your hips are tight and won't let you get into a place of comfort, you hear the screaching and shakiness of a beginning violin student. And of course you want to run.

Taking a flowing yoga class is like playing a melody that lifts and dips and travels in spirals and ovals.
A yoga asana in the Iyengar tradition is a single note held steady for a long period of time. Its beautiful, sustained and mesmerizing.

Yoga is called sometimes meditation in motion. Its also really so much about listening. About getting super quiet and listening. Even if it sounds terrible listening, and noticing if it starts sounding goergous listening too.