Author: pmcrose

It took a comment by a friend new to yoga to get me thinking.

“It’s amazing,” said this avid tennis player after his first month of yoga,”It’s incredible what you do and what happens in an hour on that little rectangular mat.”  He continued, “That’s all you need, a mat and your effort.”

All on this little mat… physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

You step onto the mat.  Do yoga.  You step off the mat.

You are different.  Some things have shifted a bit.  Somehow more solid on this earth, yet clearer, more whole, less disparate.  Possibly more inspired, not just tired.  Maybe sweaty, but somehow cleaner….

More ready for life, and any and all it brings.

Until you return again to the mat, this little rectangle where, one asana at a time, you and what you bring to this world begin to transform.

Anger safeguards its run of the house by keeping you afraid of it.

This way anger is free, unfettered and unmanaged.  Sometimes, when most crazed, it likes to run around wildly wielding sharp knives and even shards of glass that may cut its own fingers, all without thought of possible consequence.

However, bringing mindfulness to anger and fear changes all this, and the gig is up!

Anger may puff its chest and try to scare you away again.  It likes having the run of the house.

But patiently bring the mind back to anger.

Be kind to anger, something foreign to it.  Appreciate its immense energy and strength.

Tame it with love.  Gently soothe its pain and fitfulness.  Listen to it patiently.

Yet, remain steadfast in not letting it push you away.

In the heart, anger finally can rest and give up its show.  Sometimes its righteous message is truth.  However, it needs to be counseled about not always getting and needing its way, and how this is beneficial to all.

Appreciated and respected, anger becomes disarmed.

When love holds it, this beast can be transformed.

Breathe in

and draw the energy from the earth up the body

to the heart.

The chest expands, the heart swells with warmth and lifts upward.

Pause and enjoy!

Exhale

and the energy from the heart radiates out through the body

and into the world.

Inhale,

Exhale…

Wild thing

Wild thing in the wild

                                Wild thing yoga pose

May we learn to be more like the oyster who can transform irritants into luminous, silky pearls of beauty.

In yoga and meditation, the fire in your belly and the powers of the heart can miraculolusly transform problems and “negative” or baser emotions into compassion, greater capacity to love, and inner strength.

However, no one ever said the oyster’s job is easy!

We need to do our part!

We have to make the effort to show up and take our seat to meditate.  We have to show up on our yoga mat. We need to do the practices….

With this in mind, may we be more like the oyster!

Hands open

Hands closed

Such is your state

Inhale

Exhale

Waves

Like light

Like sounds

Like the sea

Like your thoughts

Like your feelings

Like pain, like laughter

Like your beating heart

Witness them.

Become silent in their midst.

Hear them in your breath.

Even they may stop for a moment in silence.

And as waves of joy and bliss bubble up,

smile!

What did 3 months of sciatica, with 3 weeks not able or barely able to walk even with a cane, teach me?  What did I learn from all this constant pain?

At the beginning of this illness that came unexpectedly, there was lots of confusion and fear.  I was dismayed at what the heck was going on with me that I’d never felt before.

It was, at best, extremely bewildering!

When we have pain or serious illness, it might seem like it may never end, and very unfortunately, sometimes it may not.  But we are very adaptable beings.  We can make adjustments of unimaginable kinds in the face of adversity.  If it’s severe enough, we may even reach our wits’ ends.

In my case, this prodded me to open new doors to intimacy with others and to be more sensitive to and focused on the amazing force of life.

Around the ill, life vibrates.  It is palpable, similar to the way we feel it with newborn babies.

My months with sciatica only made clearer why I meditate and do yoga, and why I am an every day yogi–in order to try my best not to lose sight of and keep gratitude for this incredible life that creates, lives, and breathes us each and every day!

When I come to the yoga mat or the meditation cushion, I take a moment and say to myself:  Where will this practice go today?  Where will it take me?  What will come up?

For a moment, I stand or sit still, focus on my heart, bow my head ever so slightly, embracing this open possibility.

I start to become more aware of my breath.

I breathe,

and begin….

In yoga and meditation, there’s an amazing uplifting force that arises.

Aside from all the physical benefits (which could fill volumes of blog posts!), it is this yoga and meditation “high” that permeates both practices.

What is this “high” that helps us feel better (at least most of the time!) after yoga and meditation?

In both practice, we focus our attention on the breath.

In yoga and meditation, this breath is inexorably linked to our prana or life force.  It flows through our body sustaining it.

Remember that uplifting feeling as a child, this teeming with life’s energy that filled you every day when you woke up?

This is the prana, the shakti, the chi, the force….

We learn to love this, among other things, about yoga and meditation.

It fills us with positive energy to seize the day like there was no other.

It, like helium to a balloon, lifts us higher while still being firmly rooted to the earth.

Somehow, yoga and meditation, with consistent practice, open our awareness of and channels to this energy–to feel it more deeply and maybe even feed or increase its flow.

Over time, it opens us more and more to this power, the flow of life we are privileged to be, at least for a time, part of.

In the hips, there’s this gripping or clenching onto life, a bearing down.  This is vain and futile, an ultimately doomed attempt to control life.

Life resists control, wiggling itself free like a fervent tadpole with its energetic whipping tail.

In yoga, we do pigeon pose among others to open the hips and lessen this bearing down.  And we do core strengthening asanas or postures like chair and dolphin.  A stronger core puts less strain on the hips and lower back supporting and hastening progress, increasing your potential for letting go of control.

More open and solidly grounded hips and a stronger core provide the strength, stability, and centeredness to more deeply trust, let go to, and feel the awe-inspiring waves of life’s flow.

I am no more defined by this skin

than by the outer edges of the universe.

Nor is a drop of water defined by its rounded surface

when it merges once more with the ocean.

The above image is the Elephant’s Trunk Nebula.