What locks itself in sameness has congealed.  Is it safer to be gray and numb?  What turns hard becomes rigid and is easily shattered.

Pour yourself out like a fountain.  Flow into the knowledge that what you are seeking finishes often at the start, and, with ending, begins.

Every happiness is the child of a separation it did not think it could survive.  And Daphne, becoming a laurel, dares you to become the wind.

– Rainer Maria Rilke, The Sonnets to Orpheus, Part Two, XII

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered.  Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.  Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies.  Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you.  Be honest and sincere anyway.

What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight.  Create anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous.  Be happy anyway.

Give the best you have, and it will never be enough.  Give your best anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and the Divine.  It was never between you and them anyway.

The words of songwriter Leonard Cohen suggest a deeper perfection that is inherent within the apparent imperfection. In his song “Anthem” Cohen sings, “Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in.”

In Sankrit (the ancient language of India) the word for perfection is Purnatva. It is also the word for wholeness. When we practice yoga, the intention is not to try to look like a picture in a book — an ideal image of what a yoga pose should be — but rather to do the pose from the inside out. When we bring the totality of our Being into the expression of a yoga pose — we ring the bells that still can ring — and in that way, in that moment, we express our full unique self, we come to know ourselves more fully, we experience our own innate perfection.

There is an innate perfection in the beauty of the trees, a newborn baby, the glory of sunrise, and there is an innate perfection in each of us. May our yoga practice help to unveil the perfection inherent within each of us, and from that wellspring of wholeness may we recognize the perfection of the body we are inhabiting, the life we are living, and the celebrations we are experiencing.

Geri Portnoy: Theme for yoga class on Saturday, November 27, 2010

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’ which means: “The Divinity within me salutes the Divinity within you.” He suggested that by seeing the spark of Divine in one’s self and in the other, a natural respect arises.

Our yoga practice invites us into a direct experience of connecting to a deeper part of ourselves where we feel our own Divinity, worthiness, and fundamental essence.  From this connection to The Source of Life within us it becomes easier to connect to that same place within the other.  To paraphrase Pastor Smith:  If Namaste were really understood, the world would be a better, more peaceful and safer place.

Click on the video below to watch the (2 min.) video clip of Pastor Eddie D. Smith teaching his congregation the word Namaste.

If this video doesn’t show up for you, click on this link to view it on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izzNFCtFyyY

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 over the world are choosing a practice that invites change, that calls us into the arena to be more open, to feel more deeply and live with greater passion and aliveness — so we are not just a “stranger on this dark earth.” (Rilke)

We are called to open our hearts to feel more fully, this is an ever deepening journey of intimacy with ourselves and the world.  As yogis we want the flexibility to be able to open our hearts when appropriate and close our hearts when necessary.  This pulsation of opening and closing is called spanda in Sanskrit

May our yoga practice today, awaken us to the spanda of our own hearts that we may be aware of the times when we are closing and the times when we are opening, that we may live more skillfully, more consciously, with a greater ability to give and receive Love.

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 the Music”

Life is much like this scene in the subway station, the universe is playing a magnificent movie all around us and we are rushing right by without even noticing.   Moving so quickly through life we can miss the beauty in our children’s eyes, the exquisiteness of the waves crashing on the beach, the sound of the birds, the brilliance of the night sky.  We are being invited to slow down, pause and notice the master musicians playing all around us.

Yoga is a practice that invites us into a deeper intimacy with all of life by slowing down, and deepening our awareness of each moment.   When we slow down to feel the breath pulsing in our body — whether we are on or off our yoga mat —  we begin to attune to the natural slow rhythms of nature.

Today in our practice may we take time to pause, to feel the pulsing of our breath and the beating of our heart.  May we slow down and experience the sacredness of life within us and all around us.

“Only when we tarry do we touch the holy”      – Rainer Maria Rilke (Sonnets to Orpheus, Part One, XXII)

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 / and from it / formed a temple.

not a temple in a religious sense / for we are a varied tapestry of difference / our kula hails from all over the world / different cultures, countries, religions, perspectives. / what we share is the reverence for health and discovery / you could even say radical self discovery. / our bodies become the moving temples within the light of this reverence / daily painting vibrant worlds and stories invisibly upon the walls / each practice, a new mural of moving meditation.

the one image that moves its light across the walls / that is visible only in certain light and times of day / the embodied heart logo on the frosted door. / the heart is central, linking open brush-stroke legs /and DNA helix twisting arms joined in a pryer overhead / but notice, at the bottom, the heart is OPEN / allowing an entry to the empty and inviting space within / the head is also open:  its entry directly above the heart / the body the temple, the heart the open center of the temple / the heart the central point we all share in this empty yet vibrant temple space / of yoga del mar.

here we are given space / to be with ourselves and others / to be held and nurtured within the clean open space / to enter, and to leave no physical trace / of our comings or goings / except written in the fibers of our bodies / the halls of the mind and the movement of touch across our hearts. / the empty space that holds so much / for friendships, epiphanies, griefs, losses, gains, and celebrations. / the emptiness birthing forth a space for exquisite contemplations / realizations, peacefulness, and resolutions.

and to the woman who has maintained this space / through her efforts and wide open heart / always guiding her head / blessings / for creating a space of longevity that lasts.

The bell is hollow / so the sound may ring it.

This room is empty / so our hearts might fill it.

          - nikyta palmisani

           (written for, and read at, the Yoga Del Mar 10 year anniversary celebration / Sept. 20, 2009)

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 says, that is what I say.

— William Stafford

William Stafford’s poem speaks of the “silent river” that deep underground hidden current of our soul flowing beneath the surface of our busy lives. In our yoga practice we have an opportunity to slow down, become quiet and still and listen to the silent river of our own being.

So often in yoga we talk about ‘spirit’ and rarely do we speak of ‘soul.’  One of my favorite definitions of soul is: “spirit that lives in a particular place.”  The soul of Torrey Pines State Park feels very different than the soul of the Arizona desert, the soul of Yoga Del Mar feels very different than the soul of other buildings.  Spirit embodies in each of us, too, as our unique soul.  Each of us has a unique feel, a unique call, a unique path to live into in life.

Spirit is the one universal energy that lives everywhere in everything.  In our yoga practice when we connect to spirit we awaken to experience a ‘felt sense’ of peace, love, and bliss.  When we connect to our own soul we feel, a deeper, more grounded presence within: underground currents of the living waters of our own being — carrying messages of who we are, what we love, and how we belong to this world.  The soul is spirit grounded in this material world and in each of us.

“What the river says, that is what I say.”  There’s such an inner felt sense of integrity and wholeness when we follow the quiet voice of soul.  In contrast without the luxury of quiet time, it’s easy to be alienated from the deeper current of being and instead to be guided by the above ground raging currents of ego pushing us onward toward achievement, success, looking good, and feeling ‘up.’   It’s a very different journey get quiet and listen to the deep, ‘down,’ underground river of your own soul guiding you home – to be yourself, to live the life that calls to you — the one that only you can live.

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 of the divine, so that we, too, can learn how to love. . . how to make poems . . . how to give creative expression to the life force pulsing through each of  us.  

In our yoga practice each pose (asana) can become a way in which we give artistic expression to the divine.  No one does a yoga pose just like you.  You have a unique gift to give; a unique way to express yourself.  And this expression is emergent — it comes from that energy that dances inside your being.

May your yoga practice today be a gateway to reconnecting with the light and love dancing inside your heart,   that your poses and your life may be become a creative expression of the formless flowing through you, as you.