Author: pmcrose

Stop for just a moment, please!

The season’s first flowers are welcoming you.

Let them transport you to a frequently-too-faraway and yet closest-of-places–the joy and tranquility of your own heart.

 

When I meditate

I watch and listen to my breath come in…

And go out…

Over and over, I watch and listen.

In time, it can soothe my being like a miracle salve.

It is sometimes a whisper of wind; at others a rush of air like listening to gusts in the trees.

Here is a melody I can return to again and again

In any moment when a thought or sensation, feeling or emotion

Tugs us off center…

In any moment…

We can return.

A word of caution:  This post is going to be longer than usual.  Please indulge me this one time, and for this I ask your pardon!  I promise you it will be big, really BIG.  I know a thing or two about BIG!  Just look at my hands…

Who am I?

Who is The Every Day Yogi?

Let me begin with who I am not!

I am not a qualified yoga or meditation instructor.  I have never been trained.

I am an ordinary guy (or gal, or whatever!) just like you (well, at least kind of, sort of like you!).

The only difference maybe is I LOVE yoga and meditation.  And I have practiced a lot!

I’ve been hooked for 40 years!

The practices have been good to me.

In this cynical, struggling, often unhappy world, I still have optimism and hope and yes, love, and at least a satisfying happiness that is certainly much more than any Happy Meal (but maybe not The Happiest Place on Earth!).

This blog is my attempt to share a bit of yoga and meditation along with some daily insights.

But, really you and I both are The Every Day Yogi!

Every moment is a yoga or meditation moment.

We are all trying in our imperfect ways to do our best, to live from our heart, to bring love and compassion to ourselves and others, and to try to somehow possibly make this big and complicated world a little better place….

To strike a pose, if you will, to do and bring our best!

And though, just like in a yoga pose, we may struggle some, come up against resistance as we try to stretch and breathe into it, and we may at times even topple… unlike Humpty Dumpty, we won’t break to pieces.  Thankfully, we are not so fragile.

We will get up, possibly a bit shaken and probably humbled, hopefully having learned something, ready to strike our next pose.

 

 

 

 

What if I am more than this ego that fears its inadequacies… and fears they’ll be discovered?

What if I were bigger?…

What if, in each breath, we felt the support of the air like gliding golden eagles?

What if when standing, we felt ourselves both grounded and rising up like the mountain, despite gravity.

What if we were like the sun invariably ready to shed our light on whoever and whatever crosses our path?

 

Mountain pose

 

Sun salutation

 

 

May my spirit soar like a golden eagle.

Those feathery expansive wings unfurl and spread to take flight

swooping up as though carried by a force

invisible yet visible to the eye

majestic and awe inspiring

as my own spirit takes flight.

Why limit our worthiness with preconceived notions?

Who or what or how were these “limits” or parameters set anyway?

These limits literally depress the soul; they keep it down!

A depressed soul cannot scale Martin Luther King’s mountaintop to have a vision of what’s possible, to love more unconditionally.

No wonder King and Gandhi could love their enemies.

They felt for them.

Compassion of this kind can see, and accept, and even love the struggles of our limited minds and hearts.

It is this kind of compassion that envelops our pain with love and tenderness.  And the fierceness of love’s fire blazing bright, thankfully, never accepts its limits.

Never doubt the power of love to change the world.

Your world, my world… our world!

The “Love not hate” of Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Jesus, of Mother Teresa, and Buddha, and…

We certainly don’t need anymore hate in the world!

Love nurtures; it nudges things along.  It suckles life.  In its cast, life grows in positive ways.

Do what you love, and love what you do!  Do what increases your love flow.  Bring your love to this world!

We need it, every last drop.

Please, don’t ever diminish your contribution.

We need to be tenacious in love!

It’s the only way to effect real change.

Let’s unite our efforts to love.

One nation!…

Solidarity in love!

 

Imagine standing in the eye of a tornado.  They say it’s perfectly still there.

You, in this quiet space, witness the swirl around you.

Meditation and yoga can take you to the eye of the tornado.

From here you will witness the swirl of “your” thoughts and feelings, events in your life, events of the world….

You’ll see your anger at the hair stylist for the bad cut, your ill friend with a new heart stint, the traffic as you rush late to work, your argument with your teenager, the smell of bacon and pancakes wafting from the kitchen, the flowers in your garden, a smile and a laugh….

What would it be like if you could remain or even return at will to this quiet center in the midst of the chaos of life and act from this quiet center?

What would it be like to bring this quiet center to a crying child, a pained loved one, to an old grandma distressed by friends and family dying one by one…

What would it be like to bring this quiet center to a troubled world?

What would it be like?…

To bring this quiet center…

 

 

 

 

 

The only antidote for fear and hatred is love.

Like your favorite tv super doctor, love swoops in and patiently “cures” these otherwise near-deadly maladies of the spirit.

Forget taking your “chill-pill.”  There’s no need to mask the symptoms.

Love, like a skillful surgeon, removes the cause of these maladies.

So next time you feel these illnesses coming on, immediately check yourself in to the love hospital.

You’re in the best of hands with Dr. Love!

The meditation energy is an alluring, trustworthy seductress.

With her warmth, simple beauty, and pure love, she tenderly draws you inward into her quiet chamber–your heart.