the you!

The you who is really you, was the you that you were when you were 2, and is still the you now that you are the lovely age of __.
You are still that cute, lovable, with big open eyes, or howling with tightly closed eyes.

I was listening to an interview on the radio yesterday, and the interviewee, Ruth Reichl, told something that her mom used to say.
I thought the quote so lovely that I stopped in the middle of washing my bowl, and messily wrote with wet hands and happy self,

"When you find yourself, when you know who you are, you will be beautiful."

vacation!

A few thoughts on vacation through the eyes of yoga:
1. Change what surrounds you, and then, "Who are you!?" in this new place.
2. Because everything is constantly changing; changing our locale floats on that swelling wave.
3. The universe is vast, and we are small.
4. Our eyes are much bigger than our bellies.
5. Health is wealth (as Swami Vishnu Devananda was so fond of saying).
6. Vacation stirs up prana.

And now, a short exercise on #3.

Read this through, and then close your eyes. Sit comfortably. Take 5 slow breaths, in and out. Now imagine that you are 100 feet above where you are sitting, and look at yourself sitting there, in space. Really look. Look at where your edges meet the space around you. Notice how far away you are from the closest furniture, from a wall, from the structure of your building. Now see yourself in relation to your neighborhood, to your city, to your state, your country, the world we live on, then finally the universe.
If you keep this up, you may be enlightened by the time you get to the universe part!
Now begin.

note: the reason I write of vacation is that I am about to take one, so if I don't write for a few days, this is why!

small avocado

I saw a small avocado when I was walking home from the train yesterday. It was perfect, simply resting on the corner of the sidewalk, where the slope met the street.
The avocado looked so ripe and lonely there; it looked like an orphan, round and soft and little, especially compared to all the cement that surrounded it. My heart really felt it's situation.
And then I had a little round epiphany; we are all like that avacado, just talking and moving and making stuff.

listen

Everything is so loud. And its not just the cars and jackhammers. Its the lists of things to do and places to go and millions of people and physical pain.
I'm thinking that when there is this storm swirl of noise, and you are feeling wrong and you don't know why, you must listen very carefully to you.
Put earplugs in if you have to, wrap your head with a scarf, relax your belly and listen like you have never listened before.
You might hear something really good.

living advice

I keep thinking about what my Alexander Technique teacher Chloe told me.

She said, "Try to walk with an unheld heart."

That was on Saturday. And now, whenever I try that, I feel so mysteriously happy.
So I offer the advice to you and your respective, lovely, warm, beating, hearts.

pace

Remember that you are in no rush.
Really, no rush at all.