Every Day Is Earth Day

 

 

This past week we marked the annual celebration of Earth Day. From a yogic perspective, every day is Earth Day with the practices of yoga evolving from a connection to as well as a reflection of the natural environment. We salute the sun and bow down to the earth, stand like a tree or mountain and recline in a restorative posture named "flowing mountain brook".

With the availability of electricity and artificial lighting, we began to fall out of sync with the ebb and flow of natural light that in the past indicated when to go to sleep and when to awaken. As the earth has become more populated with the development of concrete and skyscrapers, we have lost our connection through bare feet into the earth. And as we live in noisy and busy environments, we often miss the sounds of the natural world. Earth Day is a vivid reminder to honor Mother Earth (Gaia). That we, as humans, walk upon this larger planet with its own living energy. That Mother Earth is here to support us in every way.

Earth Day is another opportunity to reflect upon how we individually impact the planet. What type of footprint are we leaving? Are we able to elevate our own level of consciousness to lessen that impact?  It's appropriate to use the camping/hiking phrase of "take only pictures and leave only footprints".

Here are a few reminders as to how we can continue to show compassion to Gaia and in doing so, we show compassion towards others as well as ourselves.

Tips:
1. Carry your own water bottle to avoid using plastic, one-use bottles.
 

2. Have your own multi-use lunch set for heading off to work, to avoid using one-time, throw away containers. 

3. Remember to bring your own shopping bags to the store. 

4. Check the tire pressure in your vehicle to enhance miles per gallon. 

5. Use multi-use dryer balls in your dryer rather than a fabric softener in the wash or throw away dryer sheets. I use earth-friendly dryer sheets that go, with the lint into my compost. Or line dry your laundry. 

6. Create your own compost for your garden. (and add your earth friendly dryer sheets into it!)
 

7. Buy phosphate-free detergents.
 

8. Turn off your tap when brushing your teeth. 

9. Turn off your computer at the end of each day. 

10....Send in to me any tips that you do in order to be part of the buzz around reduce, reuse, recycle and sustain!

Since I originally posted this list three years ago, we have installed solar energy and bought a Toyota Prius. It all adds up as I want my footprint on the planet to be as little as possible.  

 

Thank you Gaia!

Imagine if...

 

 

This week we are once again reeling from a tragic attack against innocent people.  My thought for the week came from a deep and sad place, wondering if any of the feel good vibes and actions that I've committed to and permeate my life make any difference. 

 

Within that darkness I am yet again drawn to look toward the light.  The light that lies within me and you and potentially all beings that inhabit the earth.  But how?  How do we even begin to shift violent acts towards acts of kindness?  How do we embrace those that are suffering to such a degree that they feel compelled to bring havoc and chaos into not only their lives, but the lives of people they don't even know?

 

I came up with two perspectives.  The first is to turn towards all of those people we know that share the same vision.  To gather as a community and to sound off even more loudly that we stand for peace and love.  That's it.  My being has had enough of hearing how cruelly people act towards other beings.  I'm tired of the battle of violence and want to firmly walk in the footprints of Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King.

 

The second perspective is to begin within.  If we ourselves aren't peaceful, if we can't feel or express love, then how can we radiate it out and expect it of others?  Are we not just all mirrors reflecting back to each other.  I yearn to see love reflected back to me.  I beckon to hear kind words spoken to me.  I seek the voice of my inner soul saying 'thank you for looking after us'.  So, I must begin with me.

 

Imagine if today you had the mantra of:

 

Self-care

Self-love

Kindness

 

How have you looked after yourself today?  How have you shown compassion towards yourself today?  What words of kindness has your inner voice been speaking?  Now imagine if that same mantra was that of all of your friends, family and acquaintances, (including all of your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn friends).  Imagine if all of their friends also had that same mantra...

 

What would happen?  What do you think would be the effect?  All I know is that I need to stay firm in my stance to practice love towards all beings, including myself.  I need to hold all beings with a softness, including myself.  I need to speak words of kindness and support to all beings, including myself.

 

Are you willing to stand firm in your voice, thoughts and actions? 

 

Imagine if we all did...

Where Should I Feel This?

 

Over the years working 1-on-1 with people or teaching a class, I often get asked the question, "Where should I be feeling this?".  In the past, I would make a suggestion that if we were stretching our hamstrings that you should be feeling it in the back of the upper thigh, or that if we were doing a spinal twist on our backs, that you should be feeling it in the lower back.

 

What I've come to learn over these many years is what I project or anticipate what someone will feel often isn't the case.  Just the other day I was teaching a semi-private yoga class to four people.  We were doing a pose and I asked everyone, "where in your body are you feeling this?".  Each person expressed a different sensation and location on their body for exactly the same pose.  "I feel this in my shoulder"; "I feel this along the outer hip"; "I feel this in my hamstring" etc.

 

It no longer surprises me to have that response from students.  My theoretical knowledge was different from my experiential knowledge.  Nowadays, my answer to the "where should I feel this" question is, "I don't know.  I'm not in your body so I don't know where you should feel it, only where you might be feeling it".  And I'm not trying to be a sassy pants as I say that.  My "Jayne theory" is that we feel the pose, stretch or exercise in the part of our body that is the tightest or weakest and offers us the most resistance.  Following my shoulder surgery, many twisting poses aimed at stretching the back were strongly experienced in the tissues around my repaired shoulder.

 

On another level of experience, the tribe of Off The Mat fundraisers who were on the trip to India had a post-trip follow-up call describing how we were doing with our re-entry.  Some people were having the experience of isolation and lacking motivation.  Others were already gliding back into their to-do list and ramping up for what's next.  Although we all had shared the trip, our reactions to it have been so different.  How are any of us supposed to feel upon returning from such a journey?  To that, there truly is no "right" answer of how we should feel. 

 

It's an opportunity to simply be with whatever the experience is.  It's a chance to sit in a place of not judging and become a witness to where we feel things, whether it be a yoga pose or a yoga trip.  This is what makes all of us human beings who have basically the same design yet such incredibly diverse and interesting reactions. 

 

So my thought for the week is to release the should in our day and sit in a conscious space of observation...with no guilt and perhaps an insight to wisdom.

Being Present

 

 

It's been a month since I returned from India.  Initially, I gave myself permission to just be with what happened during my experience.  I wasn't ready to have many deep conversations and found myself simply reflecting on what I witnessed, noticing my reactions and trying not to overcommit socially or otherwise.  That lasted about two weeks.

 

Then I started to realize the depth of the experience as things began to pop into my consciousness.  It's as though I had to be in neutral, not ready to leap into the future.  As soon as I got back people would ask me, "So, what's next for you?".  Initially, I lacked clarity, yet over the past two weeks, things have gotten more clear and I'm starting to take on a whole new perspective of how I want to be in the world.

 

I'm not at the stage of yet fully revealing what that's looking like but a sneak preview involves creating a 200-hr yoga teacher training program and continuing along my path of Seva.

 

What I have discovered is that my trip to India gave me the opportunity to be fully present.  My regular life in the States began to fade away into the background as I needed to be fully there to hold space for the traumatized young girls, the organizations that are doing incredible work and for myself.  I wasn't able to hold onto the drama of my life at home.  I had to be completely where I was...in India, in New Delhi, in Kolkata and face to face with people who we were supporting.

 

When you step into such spaciousness and your everyday falls away, you can't help but be completely absorbed into the here and now.  And within such space, my deeper soulful voice got louder and louder.  When I returned home, I found myself asking the question, "Is what I'm doing making a difference?  Am I reaching the people that need support?  What needs to change, if anything, to make a greater impact?".

 

My thought of the week is recognizing the potent effect of presence.  When the distractions fall away, we can tap into the powerful force that motivates us to walk our life's path.  How can I be more present in my life?  How can we all?  Part of it is in doing less, slowing down and making silence part of each day.

 

I'm so curious as to what else will percolate up...aren't you?

Heavy Hearts

 

 

This past week seems to have held more heaviness than in typical week.  A dear friend's Grandma passed away.  She was getting close to 100 yet the passing was no less painful.  A 17-year old local high school senior passed away following a freak skateboarding accident.  Although I didn't know him personally, what his family and friends went through hit me hard.  I know many people who were connected to him and it seemed to reach far into the community-the senseless tragedy of a young person's life ending before what seemed to be his time.

I hear stories of illness and violence through my own clients.  It leaves me wondering how can I continue to be a container for such trauma?  One of the most profound lessons of my recent time in India was that of bearing witness to other people's suffering.  I know that had I not been firmly grounded in my own practices, then perhaps it would've been more than I could possibly bear.

We practice yoga in moments of relative ease so that they can kick into full gear when something incomprehensible rocks our world.  It teaches us to have the real, tactile human experience of strong emotion and then...to let it go-swaha.

This past week I classes I spoke about the Sanskrit word, swaha.  It means to "let go" or "release into the world".  It's connected to the idea of non-attachment, one of Patanjali's Yamas (Aparigraha).  The idea is that we cling onto things in our lives, such as possessions, relationships and beliefs, thinking they'll give us a sense of security.  When we realize that everything is in transition, we also realize that the sense of attachment is an illusion.  Everything changes.  We will all make our passing transition one day and holding onto the idea that this will never happen to us, creates suffering.

What is also created is the realization of how precious the "now" is.  Each moment we live in conscious presence, we open fully to the moment we are experiencing.  This moment...this breath...now.

The heavy-hearted experiences of these past couple of weeks reminds me to step completely into my experience.  My intention is to find gratitude for all that I have, for who I know and for the intimacy of that knowledge and those relationships.  Instead of holding onto the past or launching into the future, I am in all of my humanness, with its deep and often rocky emotions.

 

One of my dearest friends once said to me, "that experience of helplessness opens the heart".  My thought for the week is that this is true and many hearts have been broken wide open.  The solace is that we have community in which we hold each other and eventually, understand that all of us need to let go.

 

Swaha.

Busyness Till Death

 

Two days rest and I was back at it. It took almost two days of travel from Rishikesh, India back to Palm Springs, CA.  Long flights, long lay overs and airplane food were my way of life for two days straight. Oh, the glory of travel!

Thankfully, I had a few days of down time before making the trek back home. I didn't have much of an agenda...morning yoga, perhaps a talk on Vedanta philosophy, a trip into town to shop and explore the bustle of a small Indian city.  It felt good to have no firm plans, my appointment book or class schedule.

Then, just as though it never happened...I'm back at it.  Has anything changed?

Granted, I have returned to what is typically the busiest time of year known as "the season".  It's the time of the annual snow bird migration, with flocks of Canadians and people from the Pacific Northwest spending weeks and months in our warmer climes. And who can blame them with a steady stream of sunshine and an abundance of golf, tennis, events and galas to be had. I see an influx of yoga students in classes and I take many more enquiries than at other times of the year.

So after three weeks in India where the cultural experience is quite extreme to the desert, I step off the plane in Palm Springs and take my first deep breath of non-polluted, cool, crispy clean air. Ah! To be home in the peacefulness of the desert. I feel the same things as the snow birds; warmth, calm and relatively light traffic.

I've tried with great consciousness to avoid over-doing and over-committing now that I'm back in town. But it's truly a challenge. People who have small, local businesses such as myself also, share the mantra to "make hay whilst the sun is shining". As a result, I tend to get busier than my inner peaceful self would like but my outer entrepreneur feels satisfied.

My thought for the week is to stay mindful of being comfortably busy rather than crazily busy. I recently heard yoga teacher, Ragunath, talking about being SO busy, that we're "busy until death".  We fill up our time with many things that simply keep us occupied, that looking busy is a treasured norm in our culture. Our to-do lists are so long, that we're too busy to write at the top of the list "slow down and have some quiet time".  As a result, we're too busy to savor the sweetness of life and then...we're dead.

Before I left for India I was in that crazy busy category.  It seemed as though there was so much to do before I left that I got on the plane already exhausted. So it's no great surprise that my down time in Rishikesh seemed just a little too short.  My deeper self was saying an inner "FINALLY " as I had no agenda.  The trick is, can I stay connected to that voice asking for a bit of self-care and breathing room?

Busyness till death...ok...I hear you.  My intention is to simply be in the quiet moments.  (And I think I just heard my inner voice whisper, "thank you"!).

Re-Entry

 

 

The above photo was taken in Kolkata where our group on the Bare Witness Tour spent most of our time. It's odd to be riding along in a bus with cars, motorcycles, bicycle/human rickshaws and tuk-tuks weaving in and out of lanes, horns honking in a cacophony of noise. It seems useless to have actual lines on the roads as everyone ignores them...hence the billboard to encourage people to be more like the Beatles.
 

As we walked through streets and lanes, we needed to be mindful of where we stepped as to dodge cow dung and sinister looking puddles of the unknown. Smells bombard your senses with a weird mix of smoke from cooking fires, cow and other species dung, exhaust fumes, incense, frying oil and Indian spices.
 

The air is thick in both New Delhi and Kolkata, laden with pollution, smoke and some moisture. Many of us felt as though we were second hand smokers and some had respiratory infections and challenges.
 

Yet despite the dirt and pollution, I felt so comfortable, safe and welcomed by often curious locals. My heart would open every time I was greeted with a "Namaste' or Namaskar", accompanied by a slightly bowed head and either one or both hands over the heart. And although we had Indian food at virtually every meal, with many of my companions groaning at the sight and smell of more curry, I loved the rich flavors and comforting aromas. Not to mention the morning ritual of asking for masala chai, the milky spiced sweet black tea that welcomed us, not only each morning, but upon our group's arrival in many places.
 

Since returning a week ago, I get questions like "How was it? Did you have a great time? Was it wonderful?", to which I have been giving the standard answer of, "it was intense and amazing". It's so difficult to sum up the breadth of the experience in a short answer. My feelings and emotional ride is best expressed through my blog, and now that I'm back in the States I am officially in the "re-entry phase" of this whole adventure.
 

There is something about India that gets into my skin, my heart and my mind. I love the way they openly worship and move along with their day. And despite the many confronting situations of our tour, coming face to face with victims of sex trafficking, I saw hope, play and love.
 

My return to the States throws things into a slightly different perspective. I have to catch myself from rolling my eyes at our first world suffering, having seen such unthinkable situations. As Buddha stated, "we all suffer" and I remember this as I catch up with people in my own community and hear their stories. Re-entry can be a bit bumpy. I can't ignore what I've been through as I step back into my own routine. Everything seems a bit altered and I find myself flashing back to the many faces and moments that made up my experience in India.
 

And I realize, that everything isn't different...I am.