Mindfulness

Before each yoga class, I spend some time writing down what I hope to convey to my students in relation to the theme of the class.  It doesn't always come across as eloquently as I may have written it or prepared it, but sometimes I go back through my notebook to re-read the the pieces and find them to be good reminders for myself. Here's hoping you might find some use in your own life for the wisdom of yoga that has been passed down to us from generation to generation, from teacher to student.

Mindfulness theme and the beauty of meditation:

When we are mindful, living in the present moment, quiet and still, a whole world opens up inside of us.  This world is our access to an abundance of peace and bliss (ananda).  These feelings of peace and bliss are always there, deep within each and every one of us.  We just have to slow down, listen and delve on in.

As Rumi so eloquently reminds us "Why are you so enchanted by this world when a mine of gold lies within you?".

~Shanti

The yin to my usual yang

This afternoon I took my first Yin Yoga class in a long while. It was at a Paddington yoga studio called Barefoot Yoga. Barefoot is Sydney’s first donation based studio, similar to Yoga To The People in New York where I first started practicing yoga.

My yoga is usually fast moving, flowing and physically challenging and stimulating. My yoga quiets my mind and until now, I had thought it was introspective. Today’s class with Crawf showed me otherwise. Yin is the opposite of what I gravitate towards and what I usually practice, it’s slow, the poses are held for 5 minutes at a time, it’s quiet and it gets inside your head.

The first 20 minutes of class were an exercise and a test of my mind/body control and mastery. I thought I’d gotten to a level of practice where I could breathe through nearly anything. Not this. 3 minutes into holding pigeon I forgot how much I hated opening my hip, how much I hated the lack of control over when I could come out of the pose, how much I simply hated the teacher, myself, the class, the girl in front of me who seemed so content, I hated everything and just wanted to flip back into an opened hip down dog. I literally felt my entire body getting hot, red, steaming with the pitta fire and irritation. After I thought it couldn't get worse, we held a few more hip opener poses on the same side. I could feel my hamstrings and glutes constricting with every passing second (which were ticking by slower than I’d ever experienced). 5 minutes became an eternity.

Then as we came into pigeon pose on the other side, I laid me ear down on the mat, looked up and saw a massive gold painted OM symbol on the wall and something changed. I started to let go. Little by little. My hip relaxed, my shoulders and chest melted into the floor and I could feel my breath sink into my belly.

As we moved onto gomukasana (cow face) Crawf suggested we try a mantra with the breath and it all came together. Inhale, “I”, exhale,”am”. “I am”. That’s it, that is everything. I am. I am here, in this body, in this room, in this city, half way across the globe from everything I know. I am Kelsey, I am doing yoga, I am present and I am here right now and that is all that matters. I am peace and I am stillness. The rest of class flowed by, not quickly but it didn’t drag on either, it just moved as it should. I am just where I should be and so is everyone else, just where they should be.

We closed class with one more posture and finished out with the usual savasana and I knew I had found home. No matter what happens in the world, in your life, you are just as you should be. You are and I am and that is all that matters, the rest is superfluous and potentially just a distraction from what really is. Talk about introspection.

Namaste and Shanti.

Bhagavad Gita

"From the world of the senses, Arjuna, comes heat and comes cold, and pleasure and pain. They come and they go: they are transient. Arise above them, strong soul." - Krishna

OM

OM. The eternal Word is all: what was, what is, and what shall be, and what beyond is in eternity. All is OM.-Mandukya Upanishad

Australian Accents & Apartment Hunting

My boyfriend Chris and I have spent the better part of our first week in Sydney looking for a place suitable for us to rest out heads at the end of each glorious day (i.e. an apartment or flat depending on your persuasion). It’s essentially become our only topic of conversation, our main point of interest, it’s taken over our Google searches and is my main daily activity.  But, I digress from the point I’m aiming to make with this post.  One place that we’re particularly fond of is an almost terrace style house on a street called “McGarvie”.  I say almost because there is only a terrace on the 2ndfloor, the first floor door opens straight onto the street whereas the standard terrace houses have small front decks with planters and such to buffer your door from the street.  In American English, one would see the street name McGarvie and pronounce it, as anyone who’s most likely reading this blog would do, with the R. However, Australians aren’t too pleased with the letter R and typically drop Rs out of every word they speak.  Thus, there is a chance we’re going to live on a street more commonly understood to the natives as McGavie (absence of an R).  I wonder now, why even bother with naming the street McGarvie in the first place if it will be constantly pronounced as McGavie?

Sydney - Musings on Beauty

Sitting in my short term AirBnb apartment in Darlinghust, a village of Sydney Australia, I listen to the rain patter and stream down the windows, drenching the poor souls below including my boyfriend Chris on his walk back home from work.  As I revel in the sounds of nature in the midst of this bustling international city, I am struck by the beauty of this place. Our apartment view is of nothing in particular (no harbor bridges or opera houses in sight) but don’t let that make you think it is not absolutely, stunningly lovely and eye catching.  The sky stretches for miles outside the window.  It displays all manners of clouds; from the dark and bluish grey variety with rain falling from their bellies to the light and wispy white ones leaving their mark against the sky’s baby blue color.  Our window has delivered a stream of delights since our arrival; some of note are of the Australian variety.  This morning for instance, I turned toward a light banging on the window to find a yellow crested Cockatoo sitting on the sill, taking a peek inside our apartment.  What a surprise and a welcomed change to the standard site of the New York pigeon I had become accustomed.

Later that afternoon, upon returning from the grocery store and enjoying another look out the window, I found two half arches of rainbows!  Australia never fails to amaze.