What Does Namaste Mean?

Namaste is the greeting we use at the end of yoga class.  What does it mean?  And how can the use of this word improve our lives, our relationships, and the state of our world? This month Yoga Journal Magazine (March 2010 ) featured an article on Pastor Eddie D. Smith Sr. who introduced the word ‘Namaste’ to his congregation in Georgia.  He saw how so many of the young black men in his community were killing each other.  He instructed them to begin to greet each other with the word ‘Namaste’... [Read more]

Has my Heart Gone to Sleep?

Has my heart gone to sleep?  . . . No, my heart is not asleep.  It is awake, wide awake.     – Antonio Machado (19th century Spanish Poet) Complete Poem Here I just returned from teaching in Mexico City.  I was surprised to see people there grappling with the same issues that confront us here in the USA:  financial instability, environmental degradation, the fast pace of life, and a deep longing for a better way of life that invites forth more of our humanity and dignity.  Yogis all... [Read more]

Slowing Down to Hear the Music of Life

The rate of change in life is accelerating.  Everyone and everything is moving faster and faster. The Wahsington Post recently put Joshua Bell, one of the greatest violin masters in the world, in a busy Washington, D.C subway station .  They video taped him playing violin while people rushed by.  They wanted to see if anyone would pause and notice that a master musician was playing some of the most exquisite music on the planet.  You can watch the video by clicking here:  \”Stop and Hear... [Read more]

Celebrating Yoga Del Mar – a poem by Nikyta

We shape clay into a pot.  But it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want.        -Tao Te Ching #11 like this space / how an empty room / without furniture / No pictures hanging on the wall / bare wood floor and draped windows How an empty room / can hold so much the modern temple / more than just a bare room / in a strip mall / but a room whose emptiness / holds such vast worlds / that we, 10 years later / have ripened and  bloomed / within this clean and unstructured space... [Read more]

The Underground Currents of Being

Ask Me Some time when the river is ice ask me mistakes I have made. Ask me whether what I have done is my life. Others have come in their slow way into my thought, and some have tried to help or to hurt: ask me what difference their strongest love or hate has made. I will listen to what you say. You and I can turn and look at the silent river and wait. We know the current is there, hidden; and there are comings and goings from miles away that hold the stillness exactly before us. What the river... [Read more]

Yoga as a creative artistic expression of Being

In your light I learn how to love.  In your beauty how to make poems. You dance inside my chest where no one sees you.  But sometimes I do and that sight becomes this art. –Rumi Rumi’s poem expresses the deep connection he has with the divine.  He is a channel through which the formless becomes form.  And the divine becomes heard, felt, and sensed through his artistic expression of poetry. We are all artists and creative beings.  Yoga is a practice that reconnects us to the light... [Read more]