Yogafly2

Embrace your True Companion Within

From Gurumayi's Enthusiasm:

"After taking part in a Siddha Yoga Meditation Intensive in London, a man was speaking to a friend.  He said, "I was a newcomer at the Intensive.  I really didn't know what to expect.  However, while I was there,  I met an old friend of mine."

"Who was it?" asked his companion.

"It was me!" said the man.  "I found myself, and I knew it was the old friend I had been looking for all my life. During the whole Intensive, I was with this old friend.  I was basking in the radiance of the great Self."

If you are looking for something or someone, find this great friend within yourself --- your true companion, your wisdom, your knowledge.  Allow your inner being to blossom and reveal its glory.  Have you ever seen rain falling on parched ground?  Isn't it amazing how quickly the tender green shoots push their way to the surface?  It can happen in the twinkling of an eye.  Think of the grace of the teachings in the same way -- as the sweetest rain falling from heaven.  This shower of grace falls upon each moment of your life.  Each moment is saturated with the wisdom of the teachings.

Allow yourself  to b soaked in this wisdom.  Let the refreshing knowledge of the Self rise from the core of your being and bring forth its fruit.  Truly the core of your being is so strong, so courageous.  It is stronger  than steel, more radiant than gold.  So reach the core of your being.  Don't get stuck at the different layers of skin, muscles and tissues; don't become enmeshed in the different strata of emotions and feelings.  Keep traveling  deeper and deeper within.  Reach the strong core of your being, where you abide all the time.  Embrace your true companion within."

Your Essence is Your Wealth

Sheba's Hesitation

from our beloved Rumi:

Lovers of God, sometimes a door opens and a human being

becomes a way for grace to come through

I see various herbs in the kitchen garden,

each with its own bed,

garlic, capers, saffron and basil,

each watered differently to help it mature.

We keep the delicate ones separate from the turnips,

but there's room for all in this unseen world, so vast that the

Arabian desert gets lost in it like a single hair in the ocean.

Imagine that you are Sheba

trying to decide whether to go to Solomon!

You're haggling about how much to pay for shoeing a donkey,

when you could be seated with one who is always in union with God,

who carries a beautiful garden inside himself.

You could be moving in a circuit without wing, nourished without eating,

sovereign without a throne.  No longer subject to fortune, you could be luck itself,

if you would rise from sleep, leave the market arguing and learn

that your own essence is your wealth.

Vision is Luminous

Vision is luminous.

Sight is igneous, and sun-fire light very dark.

- Rumi

Money Can't Buy Happiness

From Rob Brezsny,

my Televisionary oracle:

Psychologists Ed Diener and Martin E.P. Seligman cite 150 studies that suggest economic factors have little to do with happiness levels. For example, the Masai of Kenya, whose per capita income is under $300 a year, are as satisfied with their lives as the 400 wealthiest plutocrats in America. People living in the slums of Calcutta are slightly less filled with well-being, but not much. Your assignment, Leo, is to explore the personal implications of this. Can you get to the point where you truly feel that your ability to enjoy life has little to with how much money you have?

http://www.freewillastrology.com/horoscopes/leo.html

7:00 PM, Sun. August 20 B-day Soiree

Indigo Handloom Birthday Bash

My Birthday Party this year is being celebrated with Indigo Handloom at the Retreat in DUMBO! 

SAVE THE DATE - AUGUST 20, 2006 - SUNDAY - evening -

Time: 7:00 pm

Where:  Retreat in Dumbo, Brooklyn -- 147 FRONT Street at Jay

Celebrate 33 years of LIFE, LOVE and LIGHT.  Indigo Handloom will present a fashion show and trunk sale!  Part of the sale proceeds go to one of my favorite charities - the Nature Conservancy.

http://www.indigohandloom.com

ABOUT Indigo Handloom:

Indigo Handloom supports traditional village life
through our work with handweavers. All of our products
are made - thread by thread - on ancient looms in
villages across south Asia. We support whole families
through our work - allowing them to stay in their
villages and their traditional lifestyle.

Every employed weaver directly supports approximately
six members of their family. An additional 16 members
of their community are indirectly impacted.

Handlooms are environment-friendly. A handloom is an
ancient, independent and autonomous technology. Energy
impacts on the surrounding environment and ecology are
almost zero.

My Birthday Party this year is being celebrated with Indigo Handloom at the Retreat in DUMBO! 

SAVE THE DATE - AUGUST 20, 2006 - SUNDAY - evening -

Time: 7:00 pm

Where:  Retreat in Dumbo, Brooklyn -- 147 FRONT Street at Jay

Celebrate 33 years of LIFE, LOVE and LIGHT.  Indigo Handloom will present a fashion show and trunk sale!  Part of the sale proceeds go to one of my favorite charities - the Nature Conservancy.

http://www.indigohandloom.com

ABOUT Indigo Handloom:

Indigo Handloom supports traditional village life
through our work with handweavers. All of our products
are made - thread by thread - on ancient looms in
villages across south Asia. We support whole families
through our work - allowing them to stay in their
villages and their traditional lifestyle.

Every employed weaver directly supports approximately
six members of their family. An additional 16 members
of their community are indirectly impacted.

Handlooms are environment-friendly. A handloom is an
ancient, independent and autonomous technology. Energy
impacts on the surrounding environment and ecology are
almost zero.

Cooling Asanas

SUMMERtime  and the living is HOT HOT HOT!

Cool off with forward bending asanas such as:

1) Uttanasana - Standing forward bend

Soften everything and enjoy your presence.  Place a block in front of you and while standing, fold forward to rest your hands on the block.  Evenly distribute the weight on all four corners of your feet.  Push the block with your hands and fill up the back body with breath.  Lift the kneecaps using the quadricep muscles.  Extend the gathered energy back into your toes.  Breathe in and out of the nose to massage the internal organs and cool the entire front of the body. 

2) Paschimottanasana - Seated forward bend

Expand your awareness, relax the chest and soften any rigidity.  Sit on the floor.  Extend the legs in front of you so that the inner thighs are almost touching.  Lift the kneecaps using the quadricep muscles.  Fold forward and place the hands next to your legs on either side.  Gaze at your toes - sweet drishti - soft gaze.  From Amy Ippoliti - "floint the toes"

"Floint" def.: - between flexing and pointing

And breathe so that your abdomen gets the coolest massage of prana.

Om shantih!

Join me and Lauran Janes in Kaua'i for YOGA, SURF and HIKE in June 2007 - Register NOW to guarantee your spot:  http://www.yogafly.com/yogafly_workshops.html

Indigo Handloom Birthday Bash

My Birthday Party this year is being celebrated with Indigo Handloom at the Retreat in DUMBO! 

SAVE THE DATE - AUGUST 20, 2006 - SUNDAY - evening - exact time TBA

Where:  Retreat in Dumbo, Brooklyn -- 147 FRONT Street at Jay

Celebrate 33 years of LIFE, LOVE and LIGHT.  Indigo Handloom will present a fashion show and trunk sale!  Part of the sale proceeds go to one of my favorite charities.  As I have many favorite charities,  I may ask some of you for help choosing!!!!

http://www.indigohandloom.com

ABOUT Indigo Handloom:

Indigo Handloom supports traditional village life
through our work with handweavers. All of our products
are made - thread by thread - on ancient looms in
villages across south Asia. We support whole families
through our work - allowing them to stay in their
villages and their traditional lifestyle.

Every employed weaver directly supports approximately
six members of their family. An additional 16 members
of their community are indirectly impacted.

Handlooms are environment-friendly. A handloom is an
ancient, independent and autonomous technology. Energy
impacts on the surrounding environment and ecology are
almost zero

Release Toxins from the Mind

What I've found for myself is that the greatest creator of toxins - is the mind. 

For instance, the Apocalypse struck in my mind - when I got stuck on the subway
for 2 hours when the electricity left Queens (dashed off to Peru on vacation) during rush hour.  Rush hour - when the whole world and their next of kin are on the subway dripping perspiration on each other.   Two hours into sweating with multiple bodies pushed up against me, I finally  got out and I had to cover my face immediately -as the air on the street leading to my apartment was thick with brown soot.   Two very harangued policewomen stood next to two smoking manholes barricaded from the confused public standing around.  When I got into my boiler room of an apartment, shaken, stirred and frazzled, I was greeted by a couple of explosions - yes explosions - and half the power went out in the apartment.   I was on the phone with lovely Dee who corroborated that the world was messy that day.  OFF kilter.  Bizarre.  Unhappy.  I wondered if the bombs being dropped on Lebanon were hitting Woodside, Queens - as I know that when one part of the world is suffering we all feel it deep in our bones and hearts. 

And it was interesting to watch the mind as all this went on.   It went into litany of terrific complaints against God, man, Bush and Cod Ed.  And then I passed out with exhaustion from it all.  Dead sleep as the power went out all over Queens.

A few days later - the power came back on - and ConEd sent letters to reimburse for damages. And I spoke to my lovely yogini friend Anita Stoll Gottfried in Austin about all of it.  I told her  it was nearly impossible to see any of that day as PURNAM - perfect.  She laughed with compassion and listened with grace.  And asked me how I was in the aftermath. I stood in my apartment - looked around and said, "Fine, everything is fine.  Today the sky is blue and the breeze is kissing me.  I'm alive. "

And I think about the lama from Tibet - who was imprisoned by the Chinese and brutally tortured.  When the Dalai Lama asked him how he was when he was finally released, he said "I was in danger."  And what he meant was that he was in danger of losing everything he had worked for in his spiritual practice to the demons of anger, hatred and fear.

Wow.
And all it takes for me is a couple of hours on a sweaty subway.

This is why I keep practicing yoga, meditation and mantra. 

HARE OM!

http://www.yogafly.com

Join Lauran Janes and Kristina Lanuza in Kaua'i in June 2007 - for YOGA, SURF and Hike.  Register NOW!: http://www.yogafly.com/yogafly_workshops.html