siva/shakti

hey wick,

after taking that flying hanuman leap toward the crass in the last blog, i decided to redeem myself by writing about all things pretty and appropriate- like dance.

remember the time i was letting go of most of my possessions (i believe you had done the same a year prior), and i tried to give you my green belly dancing skirt? i was like, 'i haven't used this in a really long time, please enjoy it.' you were like, 'no way, you're keeping that. ' besides, by then you had your own kali-esque black one and even had it with you that day. there began a 'yoga trance dance' (should i give shiva rea credit for that name?) party that ended with a little house music version of 'yes we can.'

i love spontaneous siva nataraja. maybe a cousin of the spontaneous siva linga?

we've been talking about siva for as long as i can remember. but what does it all really mean?

in sanskrit the word siva means "auspiciousness, goodness, grace."
and the word shakti means "sacred force or empowerment."
and the root word shak means "to be able."

shak- no wonder 'yes we can' is such a powerful mantra. We are Able. i don't mean to mix yoga and politics, but the most famous karma yogin did- Gandhi!

siva nataraja is the form of the dancing siva, who dances the world
into existence, maintains it, and dissolves it, there in the ring of fire.

in the tantric vision, siva and shakti are not separate from us, rather they are the particular energies that we already are. perfect compliments- the goodness and the mover of the goodness. siva is siva and shakti, so i try to be in remembrance of her too all the time.

enlightenment in the tantric vision is any moment that you feel joy or love, and these moments just keep expanding. john friend said it the best- 'it's like an all night dance party type of deal.'

in other words, we are the dance party.

love,

amanda

ko-hee-zhin is no

i wrote this blog at the airport while wearing a shirt that says, 'just be.' given to me by mandi.  ['mandi' - what does it mean?  this moniker is new to me]

just be.

i'm tryin'.  my intentions are that i am calm, present, kind, selfless, energetic, altruistic, stimulated, stimulating, playful, joyous, fun and funny, able to connect with others but also able to define and respect boundaries.  this is a big one.

how many times have we delved into a good deed, just waiting for that 'feel-good-all-over' sensation to give a little helium puff to heart center before radiating out little bits of warmth to our fingers and toes.

this, too, says lord krishna in the bagavad gita, is attachment.  seriously.  so we go back to BG, where charioteer/god krishna pounds into arjun's head, about 308 ways, the concept of Karma Yoga.

what's cool about karma is its simplicity: do good, and good things will happen.  do bad, and bad things will happen.  it's a big seller on the Do Good Front, at least by my reckoning.

so here we are, good little yogis, doing good deeds and enjoying the sunshine and friendly faces of a good karmite (merr??) and one day we give a beggar some change and they spit on our feet.  ?.  !!.

so let's take four full seconds to imagine our reaction were the drops of spittle to rain on my newly peducured toes?

i'll be honest, ab:  i'd be pissed, at least a little bit.  even in my most sattvic of days i would have felt at least a flare, or a fleeting jolt of pin-prickly anger.

which takes me back to the aforementioned krisha's advice to arjun: 'hey, dude, doesn't matter how it turns out, it matters how much love you have in your heart when you do it.'

can you just imagine arjun's reaction: 'ummm....so....are you saying that i can kill my friends and it's cool with the Universe as long as i do it with love in my heart?'

well, yeah.  kind of.

doesn't matter if you burn the kali-shaped birthday cake you made your buddy for her birthday.  if you did it with heart chirping of love, your buddy got the most delicious part of your gift.

and while karma's really cool in that most of the time good begets good, semetimes it's crafty and yields a result that we're conditioned to label 'unpleasant'.

this is when krishna kicks in - not only are we happier when we do good, but we are most happy when we do good and smile just as widely when we encounter unpleasantries along the way.  it is then that we are so full of Light Juicy Nectar.  it is then that we are so interwoven with the Divine.  it is then that we're on It, and in It.

and while we're all different glints of light off the same sea, every person's got boundaries.  'but,' i counter, 'what if i want to be like the dalai lama and make everyone around me happy as a pig in shizah?'

'well,' krisna would patiently smile, 'that's cool...but you can pour just as much love into a hug with your dad as you can give to a passerby on his ipod in the airport.'  

equanimity, non-attachment.  loving just as much with or without boundaries.  karma's a circle after all - you get the love that you give.  just in case you needed incentive to love more ;)

indian spiced chai addiction

dear missy,

i must have told you the story of the fun night of margaritas and my nickname for awhile being Tequila. but ever since that downright mystical liquids cleanse i did in the spring, the hard stuff tastes like poison. and though i'd like to be Siva and swallow it, just watch my throat turn blue, i'm not yet. but it is a family tradition- my adorable little grandma with bright blue sparkling eyes, likes to say, 'i like my coffee black and my tequila straight!' many a yogi has enjoyed exploring states of consciousness. remember that book you left when you cruised through indiana, "Aghora?" the author spent a good amount of time experimenting with the truths of these things. he even knows mantras to undo the negative effects of certain substances, but he doesn't share them in the book. you've got to go to the cremation grounds to find that out. Note another siva reference.

Mom had knee surgery this week, and since she's already been prescribed so many medical narcotics to manage the pain of fibromyalgia, not even the morphine could cut through the intensity of her pain, which went from her knee and up into the back. I joked to my grandma who was caring for her, 'how about getting a bottle of whiskey?' Grandma says, 'Alright, one for her and one for me. I love two-fers.' I had to make a 911 reiki call to my friend who is donning some fresh dreds to go up to the hospital and channel some reiki love. It was the only thing that would calm her down. Note Siva again.

So gypsy queen, if you've got a semi-temporary address for me, i'll send you back 'Aghora' and 'Ka,' which is like reading a dream. You see I'm now on a 9 to 5 schedule- that is to sleep at 9p and up at 5am, to read the texts, to pour my heart into practice, to suck the marrow out of the day, and to plant green lotuses every which way. I am addicted to indian spiced chai, prepared in the traditional way. Good fuel for opening those bliss points as i practice thai and spicy to keep me warm from the inside out as the temperatures drop and the red leaves fall.

keep the spirits rising and teaching and enjoying ultimate freedom, though i'm pretty sure the patriot act is not true yogic liberation. i do love america too.

love,

mandi

p.s. love the nataraja pic of us on the playa!!! first time i've seen that.
p.p.s. om namah sivaya

hey tequila!

i'm convinced that the divine does live inside of tequila.  it's true that a buzz from alcohol is poison in the body.  it's true that meditation and yoga and kundalini breathwork do not come with side effects of nausea and headaches the following morning.  but sometimes, you know, a yogini's gotta find her balance.

as i re-settle into san diego, i'm finding balance.  balance among my body - mind - spirit triad.  balance between my g-calendar and my gypsy spirit who only wants to know the fullness of the moon and the setting and rising of the sun to keep time.  

and teaching!  is ecstasy.  i love, i joy in the classroom.  that's right: i joy.  and that's where the tequila and the g-calendar come in.  i mean it'd be great if we had lived in india say when the tantrikas were unveiling their spiritual revolution.  but we don't.  we live in america.  land of freedom, as long as it fits inside of society's box.  

and i feel like i do bring a little tequila buzz into my classroom - yoga is that ecstatic carefree, full-energy buzz, it's footloose and fancy free, like a game of buzzed-on bocce on nantucket!  things don't always have to be so soothing and beautiful and "spiritual" to be uplifting and close to Brahman . . . and oftentimes we have to operate outside of a "box".  we can't lose our center just because we're out of the box.

i'm learning to embrace God wherever he is...he's the lady at trader joe's who reamed me out for accidentally getting in the 12 items or less lane.  he's the yellow lab and black lab who peeked their heads out of a pick up truck for love in north park.  she's you, and she's me.  

heck yeah, when can we asana it up mamacita?  

new moon

dear yogini,

i arrived back on the island and settled in fast, as is easy to do here. it's 8pm and pitch black, with silence that would drive some people mad, but not me, i am at peace once again. all that I can hear is my own breath, which sounds like the ocean, flowing in, flowing out. as an islander, i just want to be a part of this strip of sand and the water surrounding all around it.

sometimes the universe speaks to me through little things, like the message on the Yogi Tea bag..."life is a flow of love, your participation is requested." everyone has a part in this life, and it's our decision to pour ourselves into it. think Bhagavadgita, when Arjuna, who is feeling sullen about the prospect of fighting in the war against his relatives and his friends, receives counsel from his friend and charioteer, who is lord Krsna, the god of love. Krsna states that no one can not act, not even for a moment. that not choosing what to do next is also an action. how then can we make right action? how can we participate in an authentic way?

there are many paths. the word anusara means "to step into the currents of the heart."
in the practice of anusara yoga, the practitioner makes an engagement with her own heart.
when the heart opens, the pathways clear, and by all means, the practitioner must be ready to move, to be grounded and stay clear, because the currents of the heart are strong indeed. as i took a speedboat over to coatue the other day, the choppy waters filled me with fear, nausea, and presence. the boat driver found a place for us passengers to rest in the warm sand, sheltered from the wind, and with calm, clear, clean waters in which to wade. life may be fast and harsh or gentle and slow, and it's in bringing heart to all of it that i participate fully. there is beauty in the subtle new moon just as in the light of the brightest full moon. and each of us has a sliver of the moon pie.

i've neglected to say anything about asana. wanna practice soon hf?

xoxoxox

miss taurus

well, buddy, i know it's best to agree with the bulls in my
life, so it's fortunate how often i agree with you.

i have contemplated your words in your most recent
beautiful, inspired, fresh out of a john friend workshop posting,
and all i have to say is...exactly.

let's practice soon.

love!

practice, and all is coming

oh beard...i cannot wait to get my hands on an i-yoga session with you. fresh from john friend and in the midst of a swirl of a relationship entering the shiva phase, i find many many opportunities to practice yoga.

john's light was bright, and on it. i am hungry to get in the class and pass the torch around. i think as a teacher we have the power to empower, not just to cajole and ease and guide, but, as they say here, 'give her!'. because the practice is not always to surrender - it is always to participate. it's a dance with shakti, constantly, every moment - and on us to inspire and to be inspired. the opportunities are there: in a leaf, in a spider catching its prey, in the way that water moves - this one in particular is speaking to me. so beautiful how it flows, and it hits a rock and just continues with its flow, under the law of gravity and momentum, but effortless and easy in its course of nature. and if we could just participate like that - with clarity and beauty. water isn't trying to be something else - it doesn't try to turn itself into a rock. it sparkles and flows and reflects and shimmers, and it's beautiful, perfect, and clear all by itself. and we are too: we are beautiful. we are perfect. we are clear, all in our own rite. we were fashioned in the likeness of The Is. what more could we possibly ever be?

reminds me of the parable from a commentary on vedanta that i dug up - this man frantically searching for his glasses, tearing his house apart, yelling at his family, struggling and searching to find them, just as we search for happiness, perfection, ease, bliss, sukhum - how do we get it? more yoga! more meditation! be kinder, more compassionate! but in the end, the glasses are right there, resting on the top of our heads - we are yoga, we are meditation, we are kind beyond kindness, and compassionate beyond compassion.

sat nam.

i am that.

truth is your identity.