Pause

there's a sense of mystery to the page, and some fear as well. Each morning I arrive at my desk with hope that words will reach me here and I've seldom been disappointed. Yet there is always a bit of apprehension, especially on morning such as now, no clear theme taking shape, a sentence written and then followed by a long pause into silence.  Through the years though, after much practice, I've come to surrender to the pause, knowing that this is the very spaciousness from which words emerge and that my wait will always be fruitful. 

writing is a game of patience. 

all art is.

it's a gift to be inspired, to rush to the page and have words fill it with hardly a pause. I love those rare writing sessions, but equally so, I've come to appreciate the stretch of silence that holds no words. Those are a gift as well, moments that allow me a brief reflection and inward turn, an opportunity for a deeper expression to find me. My writing gathers more meaning through those long pauses, something greater, almost holy in its feel, always seems to emerge. 

and if not,

I simply sit in silence. 

sipping coffee, content with just a few words given.

sometimes...

that's how writing happens. 

~

Peace, Eric 

Now, The Teaching of Yoga

Now, the teaching of yoga: 

the Yoga Sutra begins with the straightforward message - now, the teaching of yoga, and I like to imagine that these were the very same words Patanjali spoke to me in most subtle tones at the most pivotal moments of my life. From an initial sense of tragic endings, broken, I was to begin a new life course towards a better, more clear understanding of my mind. 

from that shattered point on...

now, the teaching of yoga. 

and it truly seems that way, that my most profound moments of loss and sorrow turn me ever inwards, a new depth of care and compassion is found and my mind becomes a bit more steady in its resolve to guide me towards a deeper sense of healing. Yoga offers me the wisdom that nothing is escaped, I must face my sorrows head on with the certain faith that life itself will heal me. My role is only to continue onward, embracing each moment as it's offered, trusting my own innate ability to carry on. It's life that's my teacher, my true guru, urging me to surrender in a gentle fashion, not struggling against its currents but learning to navigate through the always changing motion.

now, the teaching of yoga...

these words whispering through me, a mantra, 

and with every moment

a new lesson. 

~

Peace, Eric 

Easy Crow

Easy crow: 

it's an arm balancing pose, beautiful when it comes together in completion, body parts aligned and poised in the air for an extended moment, perfectly balanced. This is sukha kakasana, easy crow pose, and as the name suggest it is an easier approach to a very difficult posture. The full version is more vertical, knees high up on the arms and close to the stomach, the entire body is tense and yet the asana requires a completely relaxed mind as well, any one point being off and the posture will crumble to the ground. It's the asana that most seems to capture Patanjali's beginning instructions -

yoga is to still the patterns of consciousness. 

and when sukha kakasana is balanced right, even for a moment, everything is indeed still, as if the world has paused in its spin just long enough for this posture to be held. I make less attempts now to master the full version of kakasana, it's still something that I spend sometime with, occasionally catching a brief moment balanced in the air, poised and confident. But easy crow holds more promise for me right now, requiring a high degree of balance yet I can surrender to the pose without a high degree of pain, giving myself fully to the entire process of resting in this deeper stillness. 

easy crow seems to offer an extended sense of concentration. 

a meditation for the entire length it's held. 

there might come a time when the full version calls to me more strongly, an intuitive pull to spend more time in the entirety of its expression. A few years ago I would always tackle these postures with my complete attention and energy, kakasana was a challenge to be mastered and it seemed my body was more able to meet these harder demands. I prefer an easy approach now, which is another type of challenge all together, a concession that my body has limits that I never realized before. Being older has indeed offered me some wisdom, my edge has softened a bit, and  I see that not every part of life is meant to be conquered. Poise is gained through increments, moments, and it's displayed by that perfect balance of tension and relaxation, taut body, the mind at ease. 

Patanjali's continues with this, his third sutra - 

that we practice yoga so that pure awareness can abide in it's very nature.

our only true challenge then...

is  simply realizing that this is what we are, 

already, always.

and easy crow is often my reminder. 

~

Peace, Eric 

Yamas

Yamas: 

in his Yoga Sutra's Patanjali offers the yogi five means of self restraint in order to cultivate the positive attributes of their opposite effect, meaning, for example, that we practice non-harming for the benefit of peacefulness, or non-lying for the sake of honesty and the clear seeing that's gained. These are two examples from the five Patanjali provides, although there are many more, but it's five that make up the beginning foundation of yoga. 

it's how we should begin our practice. 

oddly though, they're seldom mentioned in the modern yoga class, which is mainly now a means of fitness and better health, valuable, yet not the true aim of yoga. I love how Patanjali gets straight to the point in his sutras, beginning with his declaration that now begins the teaching of yoga and right away, the second sutra, tells us that yoga is the transformation of the mind from busyness to stillness, from noisiness to the return of it's more natural quiet nature. Of the 196 sutras, only three actually mention asanas and that's mainly for an effective seat for meditation. 

it's the transformation of the mind that he's after.

the basis for the entire path. 

beginning with the yamas. 

again, there are five of many that he puts forward for our practice, non-harming, truthfulness, non-stealing, right use of energy (often thought of as celibacy) and non-hoarding. Mostly they're stated in the negative, restraints on our behavior, yet more clearly this is seen as the cultivation of positive energy from putting the yamas in practice. As we practice non-harming (Ahimsa) peace pervades our lives. This doesn't necessarily mean the absence of chaos or violence, but that through our practice we become steadfast in a more peaceful response to the conditions of the world. Or as Gandhi stated, we become the change we wish to see. It's how our practice bares fruit.  

a worthy endeavor indeed. 

~

Peace, Eric 

My Yoga Practice

My yoga practice: 

there's a great deal of love for my yoga practice, it's not what everyone needs, but it's exactly what suits me best for these times and I'm completely devoted to its path. Most importantly, this doesn't involve any sense of searching for a final answer, it's not about arriving at any certain truth that will reveal the secrets of reality, perhaps providing me with enlightenment. I simply love yoga, how it affects my body and mind, calming me to the point of such easy acceptance of the world. 

there's no need for me to argue with reality.

things are exactly as they are.

and even now they're in the midst of changing. 

what yoga does provide is a deep change of physiology, a neurological restructure, polishing us from individual cells to vibrational brain waves, and we are then reassembled as something entirely new. It seems far fetched but modern science now largely bears this out. My personal thoughts are beyond the need to argue in the defense of yoga. I simply love my yoga practice, that it brings me immense joy through every aspect that it offers, from its psychological/philosophical foundations all the way to the asanas that I hold and the peacefulness of meditation. Yoga enlarges my world to the the point where absolutely nothing is excluded, everything belongs, at least for the moment of their appearance - and just as easily I surrender to a changing world, no longer grasping at things that weren't meant to stay for very long. 

or at least not so tightly. 

there's just less need to argue with reality. 

~

Peace, Eric 

Sukhasana

Sukhasana: 

my first asana of the day is almost immediately from bed, just moments after awakening, and it's also the longest held, up to half an hour or more quite often and never less than 20 minutes. This is Sukhasana, or the easy pose and it's my posture for meditation, really one of my first asanas ever learned as a child, legs folded comfortably under me for long duration's, no body parts complaining. We naturally sat this way as children, at ease with our bodies and the world, having not yet acquired any deep aches of body or soul, completely comfortable with who we are. 

sukhasana feels like a return to innocence for me.

home. 

a few years into my meditation practice, no longer skipping sessions or even days at a time, but committed now, vowing to myself that I would sit until my life had changed to one that felt more worthy of living. It wasn't enlightenment that I was after, back then it just felt like survival, that I was running out of time to be a functional adult, joy wasn't even in the equation. I was simply hoping to belong. My commitment soon led to longer meditations and with that I would discover limits to my body, being unable to sit in more advanced meditation postures for very long and even returning back to easy pose would cause my knees and back to ache well before my session ended. So with this I turned to a meditation bench, sitting Zen style in diamond pose, comfortable, back straight and knees free of pain. For the next two decades or so I meditated in this position and reached some amazing layers of self-discovery here. No longer concerned with mere survival or even fitting in, I came to find a true belonging within my body, being at home and at ease exactly where I am. 

and then not long ago, maybe a little past a year or so, sukhasana began to call to me, my meditation bench no longer felt like it was the proper place for sitting. I felt pulled to return closer to the earth, firmly planted in an easy pose, accepting the initial aches until the subsided to the pleasure of sitting in the innocence of this pose. It didn't take long at all, I was called to this posture for a reason, my body wishing a return to where everything started, not just meditation, but the origins of its deepest elements, earth focused, rooted close to ground and spine reaching long into the air. 

it feels like coming home. 

I have no idea how long the energy of this posture will last, if it will continue to hold me in this position for many more years or if I will return to meditation bench once more. It's not really a concern. Right now I am supported by earth and air, an easy pose of energy that courses through my body. It's enough that I've returned here, at home for however long this energy will last. 

for whatever reason...

sukhasana called for my return. 

~

Peace, Eric 

Spectacular Appearance

Spectacular appearance; 

my earliest walks are still in darkness, with first hint of dawn an hour or so away -and there was some mornings when I am fortunate to catch the moon in spectacular appearance, from sliver thin crescent all the way to the complete fullness of its beauty.  My first step outdoors yesterday brought me directly to the soft glow of moonlight, almost full, maybe just shy by a day, and researching it later I discover that it's in a Waning Gibbous phase, slightly past its peak fullness, yet still retaining so much of its luminous quality that there's little difference in its display. 

a spectacular appearance. 

I made several attempts to capture it with a photo, but my phone isn't made for such endeavors, it's camera simply not up for the task. As well, even as I entered the darkest parts of my suburban woods, a place where nocturnal animals seek to hide from an artificially lit world, there was just too much light from distant  porch lamps and lighted streets to do justice to this view. 

after my last attempt to it occurred to me that not everything is meant to be shared past the moment that it's offered. Somethings are meant to be basked in and not recorded, a spectacular appearance meant for ourselves alone and that even writing about it later will fail to capture intimacy of a waning moon and an early walker lost within its beauty. 

of course there will always be the wish to share, that's the role of every artist - and truly, in the midst of such deep beauty, we're all artist by virtue of our participation, that 'we're meant to be here, this particular instant, to be able to provide a certain poignancy to the view, knowing it won't be lasting, indeed changing even in the very moment that we hold it.  

a Waning Gibbous moon's spectacular appearance...

meant only for myself alone.

even as I wish to share it. 

~

Peace, Eric