Author: pmcrose

The best gift we can give one another is our positive energy and view of each other–our love which includes seeing our own and one another’s “foible” or struggles.

What do we do with our “negatives?”  We cannot get rid of them entirely, but we can diminish our being so run by them.

First we can acknowledge and appreciate our own and others hurts and lamentations.  Offer compassion to the dynamic force, the creative tension, they play in our personality.

By doing this, we can encourage and feed the heart’s love.

It’s a quiet day here…easy to just be with the waves of joy in meditation.

There is no race to nirvana.  Every step on the way is both equally important and full of potential to experience and love life.

I used to feel a compulsion or a greed for the ultimate self-realization right now.  This put way too much pressure on the present moment.  This somehow negated it, was too demanding of it.

Enjoy the steps on the path…one…at a time….

This is your moment.

In meditation today:

Respect flows from awe at the sheer power of the kundalini shakti, the life force, and at its multitude of diverse creations.  The kundalini is so amazingly strong; yet it is as fine as the last vibration of a gong melting into silence.

Love arises naturally.  As I feel waves of bliss in meditation, my heart opens and swells uplifting with love.

An unutterable lump forms in my throat.

Yoga and meditation teach me how to live life.  They are my teachers; I am their student.  They have taught me certain axioms or “truths” that help me live every day.

Be present to what’s happening in and around you.

Bring compassion to everyone and everything.

Stretch yourself in all kinds of ways.

Breathe!

See problems as opportunities for transformation.  Disguised often quite cleverly as aggravating or seemingly insurmountable problems, opportunities present themselves to us to change and learn to be in the world differently, to expand our boundaries of unconditional love and compassion.

Find the positive in the negative; this often requires bringing love and compassion to the “negative.”  Recently, intense sciatica that temporarily almost crippled me with pain has become an opportunity to strengthen and activate my lower core and work with my tailbone, hip flexors, and hamstrings both in yoga and in my everyday life.  I have found my heart opening more to see and feel other’s dilemmas, needs, and pain–opportunities for growth in compassion.

“Solutions” to problems very often do not meet what your mind originally expected.  Solutions come day by day, step by step, each leading to the next.  New beginnings again, and again*…

Yoga and/or meditation, practiced regularly with love and welcoming attention, sustain this evolution and the alchemy for transformation.

Love life and be grateful for its blessings!

*Thus, even  these axiom or “truths” will evolve and change!

No matter whether you sit for meditation on the ground on a blanket or cushion or in a chair, it’s very important to feel grounded in your sit bones and your legs/feet.

The meditation energy rises out of this being grounded.

As you gently lift up or elongate your spine out of this solid base, it provides a firm foundation from which to be open and receptive to the meditation energy.

This is how you invite meditation in.

Welcome it!

 

What sets our judgmental “holier than thou” mind into action?

I am puzzled by this.

Every day in yoga when I come to the mat, before I do any postures, I stand in mountain pose, tadasana, with my hands at my heart.  I settle in and breathe and open my mind to check in with and accept myself as I am–not as I was yesterday, nor as I think I should be or could be if only…

For a moment, I feel that I am worthy as I am.

Then I begin to take various asanas breathing deeply and stretching into those nooks and crannies that are tight, resistant, or weary.

Today, during my meditation, yoga, and afterwards,  I thought about and contemplated the following:

Have a deep respect for what others have gone through–battered and loved, abused and aided–weathered by life.  Have compassion for all!

What if we accepted everyone as worthy?

We are no more intelligent or “in the right” than any before us.  We are all creatures of our times–the cultural norms, the attitudes we are taught or almost seem to absorb by a type of osmosis.  We are now and always have been  mere and incredible human beings, with our foibles and intelligences , doing our best at our time .

Yet this may not seem enough.

This could be our problem. We can and should judge that there are ways to improve as a species without being judgmental.  We can and always should want to dream about and work for improvement–towards true equality–without feeling superior.

Our children too will try to improve on what they learned from us, on how we lived, and so will their children…and so on…

Maybe rather than being judgmental, it is better to be compassionate and “realistic” and honest and accept and love us as an evolving species trying to make the best of our circumstances.

The seat of yogic energy, the “fire” of yoga, the kundalini shakti, resides in your core.

Yoga accesses and strengthens your core.

With asanas, yoga postures, you stoke your core’s fire.

Breathing, you bring oxygen to it.

How this works is one of the many mysteries of yoga.  That this works inspires awe!

Especially during hard–fearful, anxious, or sad–times, we need ways to protect and restore ourselves.

Seek refuge in the heart during meditation.  It will restore you.

We emerge stronger and calmer, more able to handle these difficulties.

Doing some yoga yesterday and again today, I fell into a new avenue to explore:

Find your point of resistance which is always unique, not the same as before.  You have to look for it and feel it.

Shift a bit in and around this resistance.  Back off of it some careful not to press into it too hard. Play with it and breathe.  Breathe….

Stay grounded and stretch outward and upward.  Keep playing with it and breathing.

See what comes up; see what happens.

 

Our celebrating the turn of the year is over.

I now feel myself reorienting to the year ahead.

What lies ahead is unknown.

Sitting in meditation, breathing in and breathing out, I smile and chuckle….

I am preparing.