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Yoga and meditation can help steady our boat and keep it from listing to one side or the other too much, especially in rough and turbulent waters like the circumstances we face today.

Anything that can help keep us afloat and safe and even moving forward in this mess of world is certainly a blessing!

In kindness, there are sparkles of love, compassion, and peace.

Smile and offer the sparkles of kindness to yourself and others, especially during these difficult times.

Our yoga and meditation can help us grow our kindess.

For most of us world-wide, we’ve been facing all kinds of changes in lifestyle necessitated by the virus over the last few months.

Let us not try to lasso water.

Impermanence.

Childhood passes, rose buds open, petals wither, sunny skies cloud up…

Yoga and meditation can help us loosen our grip and quit trying to make the world fit our concepts and habits that once served us well, but now don’t work.

It’s time to embrace the unembraceable–impermanence—and create new ways of living, new habits that fit the new situations and circumstances of the world today.

We are all home more these days because of the virus.

Given the unique constraints on our usual or habitual behavior, we’ve all come to know new aspects of our being, and possibly become more intimate with our habitual or accustomed restlessness.

The breath is a friend whose hand we can take to come home, to become more settled.

Use your time home to come home.

Jiggity-jig!

This simple breathing activity can be like hearing the ocean waves natural to your breath. This version of Ujjayi pranayama is very calming and settling. So take a comfortable seated pose maybe on a folded blanket, a block, a bolsters, or on a chair, and try this out!

Yoga poses, breath work or pranayama, and meditation are like tonic for the nerves.

Regular smaller doses rather than larger less frequent ones bring greater equanimity.

In this unsettled world so fraught with conflict, distress, anger, fear, and dismay, peace–like a beautiful dreamer–can carry us away.

Cleave to her loins for dear life, for life is dear!

I also taught my kindergartners to “Try, don’t cry.”

Consistent effort over time brings progress in any and all endeavors–progress, not perfection… improvement.

Our effort defines our yogic path.

It is what opens us to continuous transformation.

The wonders of this can dry up our tears to spur sustained effort.

It is through self-effort that we reach our hand out to the grace of yoga.

And even if, on occasion, we do or must cry, continue to try!

I used to tell my kindergarten students “Practice, practice, practice,” and “Better is what you become.”

So too, with our yoga–Practice, practice, practice… better is what we become!

We brush our teeth twice daily to care for them, to keep them healthier over time, for our own good.

Erosion by wind and water over times sculpts the land.

Regular yoga and meditation over time sculpt our being for our own good.

We practice yoga and meditation for positive change, not for perfection.