Seva & Solstice

 

Something deep within me loves this time of year…and no, it’s not because of the gift-giving (which I do very little of), or the parties (which I rarely attend), or the looping songs of holiday cheer. It’s more visceral than that. The longer nights, the cold and often crisp mornings, the winding down of a calendar year are each throwing out an invitation to slow down, hibernate, and turn inward. I hear the calling and seem to be enjoying a deeper dive into my daily meditation practice and look forward to the next couple of weeks being quieter.

Several years ago, my husband and I started to mark and celebrate the Winter Solstice. Neither of us were embracing the traditions we were raised with and I was beginning to feel a bit “bah-humbug’ish” and wanted to find a way to connect to the beauty of the season-community and light. We decided to invite friends over for a potluck, light candles, and sing Kirtan-a call and response group gathering based in Indian folk music. At first, it was just recorded music and, over time, it evolved into my band-Jayne & The Om Boys playing live at the Desert Yoga Therapy studio, not only for the Winter Solstice, but eventually the Summer Solstice and both Equinoxes. In addition to the live Kirtans, we asked that people donate money to a chosen local charity. Over the past few years, we’ve raised tens of thousands of dollars and each time, the experience is unique based on who gathers together. It has become quite a tradition, that is, until this year where the 2020 global pandemic diverted our traditions and best-laid plans.

In the Northern hemisphere, we are approaching the darkest days and as we cross the Solstice in the next short while, the days will begin to lengthen and we will start to welcome the return of the light. Is there a more perfect metaphor for 2020 than moving from the darkness, challenges, and grief of 2020 to a more hopeful time with coming vaccinations and a return to opening up schools, businesses, and our ability to once again move around the globe? Moving from darkness to light?

Yet in some ways, it’s important to not oversimplify the darkness to light metaphor. In the Southern hemisphere, they’re approaching the Solstice and the opposite will be happening. Their long days of summer will begin moving toward the darkness, yet do they not feel a similar hopefulness that we do in the north? Take into consideration the yin/yang symbol, the two tadpole shapes, spooning into each other. One is white and the other black, yet within the white is a black circle and within the black a white circle. It tells us that even in the light, darkness is present and within the darkness, light is also present. The opposing energies co-exist at all moments no matter where we’re at in the cycle of the calendar.

As it relates to this past year, it hasn’t all been darkness and grief. I’ve had people express gratitude at being able to undertake their yoga practice in a way they never had previously. I’ve grown in my own ability to create content, share it, and teach in a way I never imagined. I have been dancing with my husband every night since March, bringing a new ritual of daily joy we never had previously. I have had deeper and often marathon conversations over Zoom with friends, even though I couldn’t be with them in person. And I’ve been able to undertake Seva, self-less service, throughout the pandemic, donating to our local food bank, and offering free weekly sessions to my yoga community.

During this time I am reminded of three things that help to bolster our yoga practice: Seva-service to others; Sadhana-walking our individual spiritual path; and Satsang-community of like-minds. I’ll be discussing Sadhana and Satsang in the next two weeks for a deeper understanding. No matter how challenging these dark times seem, we are still able to continue what’s important to us for connection, soul-evolution, and the betterment of humanity. It looks different to how it has in the past, but that’s the beauty of it…it didn’t go away, it simply changed form.

Seva asks the questions: How can I serve? How can I be of help? What do I need to serve myself in order to support others from a heart-centric place? I am reminded during these darker days of stepping into winter, to step into my practice and check-in. The quiet and stillness is a ripe time to ask the questions above and listen for what arises. I hear the call…do you?

Limited Resources

 

 

Water on the moon? Yes…they say they’ve found water on the moon…and a person from NASA was heard to ask the question, “Can we source the water on the moon?”

Two different conversations prompted my thought of the week about resources, both in the world and within ourselves. The first was on the Tapestry podcast where Robin Wall Kimmerer the author of Braiding Sweetgrass, was interviewed. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, her name will sound familiar as her writing has created a massive internal shift in my thinking and inspired many of the themes over the past couple of months. The second was in a conversation with three other friends and the idea of using our own inner resources arose. I initially had a glimmer of a connection between these two conversations and, as so often happens, it has evolved over the past few days into a much deeper thought process.

Kimmerer, from the Potawatomi tribe and a Ph.D. researcher in Botany has had to make sense of two seemingly divergent paths of thought. The Potawatomi see the totality and connection to the earth and its offerings, where trees, plants, and non-human animals are all seen as beings rather than objects or defined as “it”. Her science background delineates things into the non-mystical and empirical, with theories posited and either supported or not. Melding the two has created a dialogue of a greater appreciation of the living world. Kimmerer also describes her dislike of the words “natural resources” and instead prefers the term “the earth’s gifts”. She talks about the notion of “the honorable harvest” where you don’t take the first plant and you only take what you need. We all know that the earth, as a being, sustains our individual lives. Yet, so many of us have become unconscious as to the sources of our sustenance and take without thinking, often more than we need, and in a way that shows non-reverence from where it came.

If we apply the honorable harvest idea to our own inner resources, perhaps we begin to see the connection that we too, have limits. From a physical perspective, our body can only store a certain amount of energy within our cells in the form of glycogen, blood glucose, and fat stores. If we didn’t refuel the physical tank, we would “poop” out and be unable to continue our existence. We have limited emotional capacities and experiences with being able to experience only one emotion at a time (but perhaps different ones in rapid succession) and realize the fluid nature of emotions. Mentally, we have a limited tolerance, particularly as it relates to managing levels of stress that make their way into our daily lives. We all have a breaking point…not some endless reserve squirreled away within the deep recesses of our being.

Coming to the realization that many things we think to be infinite are actually finite begins to shift our relationship to them. All of us are finite in this human form. Everyone we know, including ourselves, will die. Yet, how often do we make choices as though the opposite is true? When we choose to mine the earth, continue the search for and drilling of fossil fuels or over-consume are we simply unconscious that these gifts from the earth are limited?

The moment I made the connection to why I get triggered in hearing about the potential of old-growth forests being cut down, or drilling into the Arctic wilderness, or tapping the water on the moon is that I realize that I am a microcosm of Mother Earth. What exists in her, exists in me, because of her! As I more deeply realize and embody the connection something within it becomes sacred. I begin to hold a deeper reverence for how the gifts of the earth not only sustain me but all beings upon it. If I can understand the honorable harvest within myself, knowing of my own sacred reserves, perhaps my outward actions will also shift.

The idea that what is here is for the taking is an outdated colonialist and capitalist way of thinking. I have been inspired to turn toward the ancient wisdoms and indigenous teachings in order to remember the sacredness of not only my own life but that of others. I’m hoping these insights inform my actions, and that my actions, in turn, honor rather than destroy the mother. And for that, I am humbled.

What Inspires You?

Just like the ebb and flow of the tide, my levels of inspiration are always in flux. Just prior to my summer eight-week hiatus I knew my energy was spent. And once on the break, I found I couldn’t bring myself to think about my yoga business for about six weeks…I was lacking inspiration. I thought that following a familiar pattern, I would step away from working for a bit and a rush of ideas would come flooding but they didn’t. A part of me wondered if I was entering a drought, the barren landscape of no fresh ideas. Yet, I also placed my trust in a process that has revealed itself to me time and time again…patience and faith. I have been fortunate to experience countless moments of inspiration and what I realized over the summer was that I had emptied my tank so completely that the first order of reigniting inspiration needed to begin by refilling my energetic well.

 

What this looked like was a complete release from having to be creative or make decisions, to truly step out of a business that can be all-consuming. Next, I needed to do things that connected me to the earth’s energy. The ocean, sand, the moon cycles, and many sunsets, as well as walking through redwood groves and along ocean cliffs, was the medicine my heart and soul had been craving. I found I was called to undertake subjects I’d been curious about studying so I enrolled in online courses on meditation, anatomical dissection, and back stabilization. I looked after my weary body and aching back by consulting with specialists and created a movement routine and adapted it to my daily practice. And, I allowed myself to enjoy a glass of wine at the end of the day…something I typically avoid when I’m working.

 

The result of this six-week reset was I began to see the percolation of ideas…they began to rise up and I had more clarity than I did six weeks prior. The spark returned and continued to grow as I created a new online workshop that has exceeded my expectations and sparked what was beginning to feel like an unfamiliar joy. At the beginning of one of the workshop classes, I posed the question “What inspires you? Where do you find inspiration?” and this week’s theme has been inspired by posing that simple question. As people shared their answers, common threads began to appear: nature, friends, music, art, and certain people.

 

My thought this week is more than what inspires us, but it’s the knowing of how to set up your environment to foster and cultivate the spark of creativity on a regular basis. Just as we do in Restorative Yoga, we set up the conditions to foster deep relaxation and can follow a similar model for fueling inspiration and generating new ideas.

 

When you know how to set up conditions, you begin to optimize more and more moments of inspiration. As you can see from above- rest, nature, and silence are what work for me. I’ve now written over 550 blogs and have been doing so since 2009. If I think about it, it’s quite astonishing that I can come up with something new or reinvented every week that I’m teaching. I never would have thought in 2009 that I would be more inspired now than I was back then, or that I would have been able to continue the process. But that’s exactly what it’s become…a method of creativity due to establishing a pattern of discipline about how to tap into the open and infinite space of possibility.

 

Eckhart Tolle says that creativity and inspiration arise during silence and I trust that to be true, so having a dedicated daily practice is one way in which conditions are set up to encourage revelations. I so believe that inspiration needs a channel of expression.  Otherwise, what’s the use of having great ideas but locking them away within ourselves? Creativity is a personal expression of who you are and a vehicle by which we share our purpose. It’s the voice we use to manifest the soul’s calling and share who we are in the world. And I know that each of us has something unique to express and offer to the rest of the world.

 

I have been inspired countless times by the conversations I have with people, particularly students to whom I have the honor to teach and interact with. For that I am thankful and I am excited to see what pops up next!

Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address

 

I finally finished reading the book Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer . And I don’t mean finally, as in what a slog, but rather as the conclusion to something quite inspirational. I took my time reading and contemplating the book, savoring its unique perspective. Something about it felt like a reconnection to a part of me and the rest of humanity that is within us but lays dormant. I would often feel the words resonating in my belly, like I know this, yet felt as though I was hearing it for the first time. Perhaps this was precisely the book I needed to be reading during this time as I have just completed a year-long study of Shamanism and the Medicine Wheel. The culmination of this time has been the message to return to ancient wisdom and to listen not only to the elders, but to the voice of the natural world.

This past week was the national holiday of Thanksgiving and the frequent go-to theme is obvious – what are you grateful for? Yet being inspired by the above, it felt fitting to introduce and quote from The Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address, Greetings to the Natural World. This translation of the Mohawk version of the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address was developed, published in 1993, and provided, courtesy of: Six Nations Indian Museum and the Tracking Project.  It addresses 17 different aspects of the natural world: The People, The Earth Mother, The Waters, The Fish, The Plants, The Food Plants, The Medicine Herbs, The Animals, The Trees, The Birds, The Four Winds, The Thunderers, The Sun, Grandmother Moon, The Stars, The Enlightened Teachers, and The Creator. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy is a tribal nation originating in the northern part of New York State and borders with Canada. They are made up of six tribes the Mohawk, Onondaga, Seneca, Oneida, Cayuga, and Tuscarora.

The address honors and thanks the various aspects of the natural world, knowing that they all support us in being able to survive on this planet. In its recitation, “Now our minds are one” is the closing statement. It’s not only an acknowledgment of the natural world, but an understanding that we are the stewards of the earth. As the Earth Mother looks after and provides for us, even in an injured state, we in return must look after her.

What I took away from “Braiding Sweetgrass” and the Haudenosaunee Address reflects so many aspects of yogic philosophy, including that of interconnectedness and reciprocity. We are all one yet each of us has our unique role to bring forth in the world. When we honor each other by allowing each of us to offer our gifts, not only do they benefit the fulfillment of purpose but become interwoven with the giving and receiving cycle of all beings on the planet…including the 17 forms honored by the Haudenosaunee.

One of the reasons these words are resonating in my belly is knowing that I have been complicit in the harm that humans have caused to the earth. I use plastic. I drive a hybrid car that still uses fossil fuel. I haven’t always asked permission from the earth to pick up a stone or a feather. I like to fly on jet airplanes. I’m no longer composting and unfortunately, on it goes. I have become more aware of my impact over the years yet more can be done. So these ancient words of wisdom and respect have been the inspiration that not only do I need to do more, but I need to support others in taking action as well.

The next phase of my action is beginning to take shape although I don’t really know what it looks like. I trust from past experience that in order to get things moving, having a starting point of some form of awakening is vital and I believe this is the moment. When we become aware of something we can make a choice to keep repeating the same behaviors or start to make different choices. I trust the Universe to guide me in the right direction now that I’m beginning to ask the right questions. How can I be of service to the Earth Mother? How can I honor the ancient wisdoms? How can I leave this planet in the hands of my grandchildren and their grandchildren in a better state than it’s currently in? And how can I encourage others to do the same and build a collective consciousness that benefits all beings?

I hope you are curious about this awakening, unfolding, and call to action. I hope that you can connect into the abundance of the earth and bow in gratitude. And I trust that as I continue to navigate this path, I will continue to be inspired and be shown where to place my footprints. I know the elders have traveled this path before me and for that I honor and hope to perpetuate their wisdom.

Our minds are one.

Click here to link to the full Haudenosaunee ThanksgivingAddress

Channeling Goldilocks

Once upon a time, many of us were told the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. For those who need a reminder, this girl, Goldilocks, walked into an empty house that happened to be owned by three bears. She decided to do a bit of exploring and sat down to eat some porridge. As she tasted Papa Bear’s porridge, it was too hot. Mama Bear’s porridge was too cold. Well, Baby Bears porridge was just right so she chowed down. She had a few other adventures in the house that involved chairs and other things until she finally made it into the bedroom where she tried out Papa Bears bed...too hard. Mama Bears...too soft. Baby Bears bed was just right, so she hopped in and fell asleep. And on the story goes, which if you don't know the ending, you'll have to Google it or ask someone else.

Now you might be wondering how the story of Goldilocks makes its way onto a blog about yoga. What I like about this trespassing youngster is that she was in search of what was "just right" for her. And as we step into our yoga practice or move through our day, do we know how to find that sweet spot of what's just right for us? If we shift the emphasis of the story to Papa Bear, we learn that what is just right for him is hot porridge and a hard bed, illustrating that what is just right for each of us may be quite different. As a yoga instructor, I don't know what's right for my students. Only they can determine that through their own awareness. By allowing people to search for what's just right for them, it provides each of us an opportunity to pursue a different path. If we can do so without placing judgment on what's right for me or for you, a particular acceptance and freedom arises...not only on the yoga mat but far beyond.

As we channel our friend, Goldilocks, we want to embody the non-criminal element of her behavior. I mean, she did enter the Bear’s house without permission and messed with their stuff…not very yogic behavior. Another element of the story is the search for Goldi’s own truth and preference, which is quite particular to her. If we explore this topic further we can turn to the Buddhist path of “The Middle Way” which acknowledges that opposites will always exist in exactly the same moment. In situations where we find ourselves being challenged can further our own suffering as we we cling to extremes or our own preferences without considering the “others” perspective, which can taint the reality of the present moment.

As so often happens, what we need to practice is right in front of us. We are in the midst of experiencing extremes with the political divide and the ongoing pandemic which has exposed and accelerated differences in areas of our society that have been neglected. Our holding onto either side of the split is causing a level of suffering that many of us haven’t experienced in our lifetimes. To say the least, these are tough times and many of us feel powerless to do anything about it except to respond by tightening our grip on what we believe to be “just right” for us. To quote Rumi,

 “Your hand opens and closes, opens and closes. If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be paralyzed. Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as birds’ wings.”

Perhaps in order to soften the impact of the moment, we not only offer ourselves compassion and self-care but take some time to sit in the opposite view and understand the complexity of any given situation. We don’t have to adopt it but rather to listen to it and know its presence. This is called empathy, an ability to see and sense the present moment as experienced by others. When our heart sits in empathy, it is unable to sit in anger, even for the briefest of moments.

 A metaphor to describe this practice is to sit in the messiness of our own lives as though we are sitting by the edge of a pond in stillness. As we sit, we watch all the different creatures, beasts, demons, animals, opinions, and beings that come to drink at the pond. We simply watch and stay in the middle of the experience. This is a practice of finding equanimity where we give ourselves time to observe rather than to simply react. With this gap between what we observe and how we act, we may very well choose the same thing but at the very least, we’ve done so consciously. In living with an open-heart, we recognize differences and honor the “just right” not only for ourselves, but for all beings, everywhere.

Relax and Trust

 

Yet again, another week of uncertainty and chaos. It’s beginning to sound and feel repetitive. From riding the waves of the US election to an explosion of Coronavirus cases with no end in sight, the ground beneath my feet is feeling unsteady. As I checked in with students prior to classes over the past several days, one thing was prevalent…tension. People were voicing “I need a good stretch. I need to just show up today. I need to unwind and relax. I feel tight. I’m holding tension in my neck…” and on it went. If the body is noticeably tense, it’s a sign of being threatened and being in the vigilant aspect of our nervous system. And then, a friend reminded me of the quote, “Our ability to relax is in direct proportion to our ability to trust life.” Wham. There it is.

As I contemplated the above quote, I asked myself, how have I come to not be trusting life?

I began to take stock of what got my knickers in a knot and noticed that I had moments of being sucked into the black hole of media. I turned it off on Election Day, giving myself a buffer from the anxiety, yet when I turned it back on in the subsequent days, I got quickly sucked back in. I noticed myself not trusting the greater power of humanity and being lured into the drama narrative. The lack of trust in what was happening outside of me was pointing me in the direction of fear-based reactions and thoughts.

In order to recalibrate and align with what I value in my life, that of compassion and equanimity, I needed to remember what I do trust in life and how to switch back toward what was supportive rather than destructive of my own inner health and peacefulness. The list below is what emerged:

 

•         It’s time to listen. I need to stop talking, stop trying to fix it, and simply listen to what is being said.
•         It’s time to be on my mat. Every day with full presence and openness.
•         It’s time to remember my deeper purpose. Why am I in this embodiment, anyway?
•        It’s time to come back to my heart and get out of my head.
•        It’s time to trust what I have trusted before-my intuition, my practice, stillness, and the discipline of my daily practice.
•         It’s time to unplug to encourage relaxation.

When I come back to what I have control over and return to the inner spaciousness and wisdom of my own being, my need to avoid what I don’t like begins to dissipate and I can work on finding ease with whatever situation I’m facing.

When we turn our energy away from our inner being, it’s easy to get overloaded with anxiety about things which we truly have little control over. It shoves us into the part of our nervous system which is on high-alert and has real physical consequences, particularly if we never break out of it. Relaxing is imperative for our health on all levels and isn’t accomplished through avoidance, online shopping, self-medicating, prolonged anger, or anxiousness. BY coming to our mat, we give our weary heart an opportunity to unplug from the outer and plug into the inner, where we truly have a locus of control and agency. If we can offer ourselves 15-20 minutes of a supported relaxing pose (such as corpse/Savasana), spend time sitting in meditation or doing conscious breathing, we can interrupt the disruptive pattern that knocks us off our feet.

We are eight-months into the pandemic and I’m still in my studio, by myself, teaching to the small screen of my iPad. I’m grateful that I can do my work in the world and see the incredible reactions of our yoga community and how thankful they are that we can gather and practice, albeit, virtually. And at the same time, I see no quick or easy solution. In order for me to stay connected to what’s important, I need to stay with what supports equanimity and offer myself compassion during challenging times.

Magic lives within this practice we call yoga. Get on your mat and let’s remember the magic together.

Jane the Great

 

If you're wondering if this statement refers to me, well, yes it does. I officially changed the spelling of my name many years ago to Jayne and the above is how I was identified in my early years. As my siblings and I were preparing our Mother's house for sale, we had the imposed rite of passage of clearing out 54 years of “stuff” from an organized packrat. Mom literally never threw anything out and as my brother, Ken, emptied out the jam-packed attic and opened a dust covered box, he started to laugh and showed me the above folder. Apparently, way back then I had a high level of optimism as to how my life was meant to unfold. Perhaps my elementary school self knew on some level, that greatness could be an aspiration and that, perhaps, inking the moniker onto my folder would affirm it.

The theme this week isn’t completely about individualism as that would appear quite divergent from the yogic philosophy of interconnectedness. But it is about knowing what our individual and unique gifts are to the world. It also beckons the question of how your life has impacted others, the “why are you here?” inquiry which lays at the heart of many spiritual practices. We so easily get stuck at the point of identifying who we are by our descriptors --- woman, friend, spouse, yoga teacher etc. but what if we are none of those things but simply an energy that people couldn’t quite put their finger on? I have met only a few such people whose presence is what I felt above all else and in that presence, the message that was conveyed and was too strong to ignore was based on love.

Imagine going through life in a way that when people asked, “Who are you? What’s your name?” and you replied, “I am love…” I bet the reaction would be one of surprise with words like “You are crazy” getting whispered under the breath. We express our identity through labels so we can more easily make sense of our relationship and commonalities with others. We don’t know what to do with “I am love”…how do you interact with that? “Ok, love…see you at the game?” Instead, we work through the visage of what identifies us and ultimately, trust that if we step into our greatness it will resonate away from us.

My grade school self knew that greatness could exist within me, but what she didn’t know at the time was how that would be expressed over a lifetime. I have had many moments of greatness and awe and inspiration, yet articulating many of those becomes more elusive. In conversation with my husband, I asked what made him great and he hesitated. Then I re-framed the question to how has his life made a difference to other people’s lives? He also thought that any of the qualities we were talking about weren’t unique to him-loyalty, honesty, direct communication, a drive for social justice and equality are some of many. Yet, I said to him, not one person walking this earth expresses it in the way he does as there is only one of him and his way is beautifully unique.

My quote of the week from Robin Wall Kimmerer, the author of “Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants” reflects the way of the Three Sisters which are corn, beans, and squash. Each individual seed is unique unto itself, yet when the three are planted together in a mound of dirt, they “provide a visible manifestation of what a community can become when its members understand and share their gifts.” The corn emerges first from the soil and grows tall, followed by the beans which find anchorage along the cornstalks, and the squash create an underground network so that broad leaves can shade the soil to optimize moisture. The three work together although they have different and individual qualities.

Given where we are at this point in time, with division and finger pointing abounding, I am inspired by the Three Sisters and reminded that although it might feel we stand alone, when we merge and express our greatness, everyone benefits. It is up to us individually to create the “Namaste Effect” as coined by Nischala Joy Devi. When we are truly connected to our inner radiance and we recognize another person connected to theirs, no division exists…we are connected and we are one. The light in me, sees and honors the light in you, and when we are both present in that moment, we are one. Namaste.