Gratitude is a powerful thing. So often we fail to enjoy the abundance already present in this moment and instead focus on what's lacking. Maybe we obsess over getting a better job, a different relationship, or a better body. We fail to see the simple pleasures that really brings joy to our lives.
Simple Pleasures:
1.) Sitting in bed at the end of the day with tea and journal/books
2.) The Purr and presence of my cat, Seymour.
3.) Soaking in the hot tub at Inman Oasis
4.) My dinner tonight: Chicken with Sage and Red Wine Sauce with Melted Havarti and Broccoli!
5.) My Job: Bringing Yoga, Rest, Relaxation, and Happiness to multitudes of people.
6.) My very gentle Yoga practice (since my fall off my bike and not so happy left leg).
7.) The ability to create, invent, and change my mind.
8.) My beautiful apartment
9.) Autumn Smells and Sights
10.) My London Fog at 1369 (Early Grey with Vanilla and Steamed Milk)...a great alternative to Coffee!
11.) ODD Eleven: Feeling loved:-)
Monday, October 11, 2010
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Working with Accidents/Injury
Desire sometimes causes accidents, and it sure did yesterday when I was craving my usual pumpkin spiced latte at Starbucks. I decided to bike down Prospect St. in Cambridge, a street that is always torn apart and being worked on continuously. In an attempt to save my life, I made my way over to the sidewalk but mid-way realized cops were everywhere and didn't want to 'break the law' so I tried to go back in the street. BAD MOVE! I found my tire going sideways somewhere between the curb and the road and my body fell right over. I used my yoga throughout the whole ordeal. Noticing my tendency to tell the stranger who offered help that, "no I'm fine, as I held back tears and excruciating pain in my leg.) Then I actually got on my bike and tried to power through telling myself I'll be fine if I just make it to starbucks going really slow. Not so! Just like holding a yoga pose can become torture if you are not ready to take it or go to the next level, you rest in child's pose. So, I told myself to get off the bike and walk the bike which was a much gentler option (the child's pose option). I could hardly walk was the problem! It has been challenging for an active person like myself to have this injury, not be able to walk anywhere, do yoga or teach! It is challenging to know that I can't bend my left leg at all or else I get pain. I am taking care of myself in the best way I know how. Instead of worrying about not practicing my yoga, I took joy in doing a 20 minute yoga class on back and neck poses. Just as satisfying as a vigorous practice because guess what? It's what my body needs. This injury has taught me that simply doing what you "can" and honoring those painful spots and not pushing is the most intelligent way you can work with yourself.
Sorry, I wasn't able to teach at Shanti today. I will be back tomorrow and on but not DOING any poses, merely teaching from a seated position (and that too, will be perfect practice!).
Peace,
Natalie
Sorry, I wasn't able to teach at Shanti today. I will be back tomorrow and on but not DOING any poses, merely teaching from a seated position (and that too, will be perfect practice!).
Peace,
Natalie
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Suffering is an Option
Feeling inspired sitting here with my favorite Yogi tea: Mayan Cocoa Spice w/organic whole milk. Mainly, getting excited about leading my second yoga retreat up in a 150 year old homestead and barn in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. Thinking about how much fun we are going to have practicing yoga with the backdrop of the mountain skyline and the pink setting sun at night.
I am thinking of doing a "letting go" bonfire and literally burning up the things that keep us stuck in our lives like self-judgment, perfection,...stuff like that. I can already think of a few I could let go of!
I guess this came up because I have been thinking a lot about "how" we make ourselves suffer. So many times I watch myself or others struggling in poses, especially the ones that aren't always easy to hold because they involve balancing. We TRY so hard to balance that we forget that the point isn't to stay still like a statue, but to find a comfortable place inside the framework of a pose to open and breathe and eventually: Surrender. So we inspect inside and say to ourselves, "Where can I ease up a bit in this pose?" how can I make this "easy?" That's the inquiry. Notice how many times during your week you make life harder just by creating a framework or a judgment that says, "this is TOO difficult." Do you give up or try to power through? We've got to stop striving and EASE into the middle point by conversing with ourselves gently and listening to our body's wisdom that usually has our best interest in mind (unlike the Ego).
Just some things to think about on this chilly Autumn evening and before you start your work week.
Namaste!
Natalie
I am thinking of doing a "letting go" bonfire and literally burning up the things that keep us stuck in our lives like self-judgment, perfection,...stuff like that. I can already think of a few I could let go of!
I guess this came up because I have been thinking a lot about "how" we make ourselves suffer. So many times I watch myself or others struggling in poses, especially the ones that aren't always easy to hold because they involve balancing. We TRY so hard to balance that we forget that the point isn't to stay still like a statue, but to find a comfortable place inside the framework of a pose to open and breathe and eventually: Surrender. So we inspect inside and say to ourselves, "Where can I ease up a bit in this pose?" how can I make this "easy?" That's the inquiry. Notice how many times during your week you make life harder just by creating a framework or a judgment that says, "this is TOO difficult." Do you give up or try to power through? We've got to stop striving and EASE into the middle point by conversing with ourselves gently and listening to our body's wisdom that usually has our best interest in mind (unlike the Ego).
Just some things to think about on this chilly Autumn evening and before you start your work week.
Namaste!
Natalie
Saturday, September 18, 2010
The Yoga of Poetry -Rilke
Here is another poem I happened upon as I was preparing for next week's Yoga classes. I love the last two sentences: "perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless
that wants help from us."
Fear of the Inexplicable
But fear of the inexplicable has not alone impoverished
the existence of the individual; the relationship between
one human being and another has also been cramped by it,
as though it had been lifted out of the riverbed of
endless possibilities and set down in a fallow spot on the
bank, to which nothing happens. For it is not inertia alone
that is responsible for human relationships repeating
themselves from case to case, indescribably monotonous and
unrenewed: it is shyness before any sort of new,unforeseeable
experience with which one does not think oneself able to cope.
But only someone who is ready for everything, who excludes
nothing, not even the most enigmatical, will live the relation
to another as something alive and will himself draw exhaustively
from his own existence. For if we think of this existence of
the individual as a larger or smaller room, it appears evident
that most people learn to know only a corner of their room, a
place by the window, a strip of floor on which they walk up and
down. Thus they have a certain security. And yet that dangerous
insecurity is so much more human which drives the prisoners in
Poe's stories to feel out the shapes of their horrible dungeons
and not be strangers to the unspeakable terror of their abode.
We, however, are not prisoners. No traps or snares are set about
us, and there is nothing which should intimidate or worry us.
We are set down in life as in the element to which we best
correspond, and over and above this we have through thousands of
years of accommodation become so like this life, that when we
hold still we are, through a happy mimicry,scarcely to be
distinguished from all that surrounds us. We have no reason to
mistrust our world, for it is not against us. Has it terrors,
they are our terrors; has it abysses, those abuses belong to us;
are dangers at hand, we must try to love them. And if only we
arrange our life according to that principle which counsels us
that we must always hold to the difficult, then that which now
still seems to us the most alien will become what we most trust
and find most faithful. How should we be able to forget those
ancient myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into
princesses; perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses
who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps
everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless
that wants help from us.
Rainer Maria Rilke
that wants help from us."
Fear of the Inexplicable
But fear of the inexplicable has not alone impoverished
the existence of the individual; the relationship between
one human being and another has also been cramped by it,
as though it had been lifted out of the riverbed of
endless possibilities and set down in a fallow spot on the
bank, to which nothing happens. For it is not inertia alone
that is responsible for human relationships repeating
themselves from case to case, indescribably monotonous and
unrenewed: it is shyness before any sort of new,unforeseeable
experience with which one does not think oneself able to cope.
But only someone who is ready for everything, who excludes
nothing, not even the most enigmatical, will live the relation
to another as something alive and will himself draw exhaustively
from his own existence. For if we think of this existence of
the individual as a larger or smaller room, it appears evident
that most people learn to know only a corner of their room, a
place by the window, a strip of floor on which they walk up and
down. Thus they have a certain security. And yet that dangerous
insecurity is so much more human which drives the prisoners in
Poe's stories to feel out the shapes of their horrible dungeons
and not be strangers to the unspeakable terror of their abode.
We, however, are not prisoners. No traps or snares are set about
us, and there is nothing which should intimidate or worry us.
We are set down in life as in the element to which we best
correspond, and over and above this we have through thousands of
years of accommodation become so like this life, that when we
hold still we are, through a happy mimicry,scarcely to be
distinguished from all that surrounds us. We have no reason to
mistrust our world, for it is not against us. Has it terrors,
they are our terrors; has it abysses, those abuses belong to us;
are dangers at hand, we must try to love them. And if only we
arrange our life according to that principle which counsels us
that we must always hold to the difficult, then that which now
still seems to us the most alien will become what we most trust
and find most faithful. How should we be able to forget those
ancient myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into
princesses; perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses
who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps
everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless
that wants help from us.
Rainer Maria Rilke
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Love After Love
This was one of the first poems I heard in Savasana when I was taking David Vendetti's class back at Back Bay Yoga before I became a yoga teacher. It really spoke to me then (2003) and again when I picked up the book "The Time Traveller's Wife" a couple of years later. It graced the first page of the book and I remember again it's simple but potent message of coming back to ourselves. That's when I started to read it to my classes. I heard it again in a speech give by Jon Kabat-Zinn to Google employees a year or two ago. Tonight it resurfaced in my brain and I thought...better share it with all of you. You just might need to hear it.
LOVE AFTER LOVE by Derek Walcott
The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Class Musings
Happy Happy First Days of Fall!
This week in class I've been very excited to share new poses, sequences, and mudras (hand gestures) as we transition into the fall season. Happy New Year to all my Jewish friends and of course to all the rest of you. September really is a time of new beginnings. It just dawned on me that I've been teaching a new mudra this week called, "Ganesh Mudra" and Ganesh is the Hindu God who symbolizes new beginnings. He is also the remover of all obstacles. I have been guiding students into this Mudra after our centering and meditation at the start of class.
GANESH MUDRA
This mudra helps us meet others with COURAGE, OPENNESS, and CONFIDENCE. For instructions on how to come into this mudra please reference: Mudras, Yoga in Your Hands by Gertrd Hirschi. It's a little gem of a book I know you'll enjoy. How do we achieve YOGA?
I also introduced the first 4 Verses of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. I wanted to remind all of you what is really happening when you step onto your yoga mat. The first verse states that "Yoga is Deliberately Stilling the Thought Waves of the Mind" and that in order to do so we must (Verse 2) "Practice"...and that Practice is "the steadfast effort to still these fluctuations. Well, we ask, how must we practice our poses then? What about effort? Verse 3 states that "the Posture should be steady and comfortable." Oh really? You mean I don't have to painfully twist myself into a pretzel for the pose to be performed with "right effort?" No, not at all! According to verse 4: "Perfection in an asana (pose) is achieved when the effort to perform it becomes effortless and the infinite being within is reached.
So it sounds like when we still the mind, time and space become irrelevant and we can then achieve this infinite "being" by relinquishing over efforting and surrendering into effortlessness. BUT, remember, it all comes down to what? PRACTICE. Practice doesn't mean you seek perfection but rather that you show up on your mat day after day no matter how you feel.
The poem I've been reading in class this week is from Swami Vivekenanda about finding ourselves, not in "temples or churches" not in "earths or heavens" but finding ourselves as the "nearest of the near." (Poem from "Yoga and the Quest for the True Self")
For the rest of your week, perhaps you can think about this posting. Ganesh: remover of obstacles...what obstacles are you currently facing? See if you can bring the power of Ganesh into your life this week and ask that something greater than yourself take care of these hardships.
Effort: Where in your life can you release this? Find the balance between effort and ease. Chances are if you are over efforting, you are making your own life difficult. Remember: Suffering is an option. You do not have control over what happens to you but you do have a choice on how you respond.
As always, I'll see you on the mat! But, remember! the work you do off the mat is where your real practice shines through.
Love and Light,
Natalie
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Another New Home for Me: Majestic Yoga Studio
Wow!!! I am on quite a roll. Always seeking to find work that reflects my intentions for the practice of yoga. Where business and yoga are balanced and everyone supports each other. Recently I left Soni Yoga and in the midst of those ashes rose up an opportunity to teach at a lovely place right across the street: Majestic Yoga Studio.
I will be teaching pure Kripalu yoga on Tuesdays @12:00pm and Wednesdays @ 4:30pm starting September 14th in this beautiful light-filled and spacious studio right in Huron Village. Classes are $17 to drop-in and there will be new student specials as well! Come check it out!
With 11 new classes plus possibly teaching one more at an elementary school in Cambridge....PLUS being the Assistant Manager at a new yoga studio....I will need to practice BALANCE!!! Something tells me all will be fine:-)
Monday, August 30, 2010
Flux is the New Normal
Flux is the new normal. That is my new mantra for the past month of August! Phew! What a month. In the past month I have done so much and seen so many changes in my life. Here are just a few:
1.) Moved to my new beautiful Apartment in Spring Hill
2.) Took a new teaching position at Majestic Yoga Studio
3.) Became "Assistant Studio Manager" at "Shanti" at the Armory in my new neighborhood!
4.) Led my first Yoga Retreat at the end of July and into August
5.) Class time at Lily Pad change on Thursdays
6.) Turned down a job offer that I know would land me right back into Housing (a field I am not happy with). NEVER settle!
7.) Taught private sessions
8.) Have an interview to teach yoga at a Community School in Cambridge.
9.) Started a new Book Club "Literature and Libations"....(half way through the first book...gotta get moving!)
10.) Spent lots of time with my girlfriends!!! Remembering once again how important female empowerment is.
12.) Started a daily meditation and pranayama practice
13) Became a regular at Highland Kitchen for Karaoke Wednesdays
14.)Started learning where to shop, how to use buses in my new neighborhood.
15.) Last but not least, I've learned this month that I am more important than the changes that happen to me. If I stay connected to my "True Nature" nothing will get in the way of true success!!!
See you on the mat!
Natalie XO
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Thoughts on Strength
I am still amazed at myself when I look at the photos. I have grown so much as a yoga teacher and person in the last 2 1/2 years since I was handed my 200 Hour Certification at Kripalu Center. I would have never pictured myself doing this work 4 years ago when I was slaving for a non-profit agency with no personal rewards in retrun. Just having our weekend, I felt so many people coming alive to who they are and being challenged to come out of their comfort zones. Imagine what we can do in a lifetime!!!
Last weekend's challenges fed into this weekend's as I moved from Cambridge to Somerville and it took every last ounce of energy I had. I really appreciated family stepping up to the plate for assistance and working together as a group to make this happen. I am truly blessed for all I have and I never take anyone in my life for granted:-) including Seymour who had a very stressful day moving from one place to another and taking a 4 ft. free fall in the process. All are okay!!!
In July/August of this year I have been truly challenged by the universe to exhibit the strength and courage (not to mention "self-love) that has been with me since I was a little girl. I realized through some of my personal relationships that this strength is a gift and not so easy for others. I believe that my relationships in the future will be with others that truly value this gift and are strong enough to support me in my ups and downs, highs and lows, and all my talents and joys! After all, that is life. Never what we expect, always changing, and begging us to let go.
I look to the future with much excitement but remain in the present as this mystery of life unfolds. I am thankful for an empty slate.
Namaste,
Natalie
Monday, August 2, 2010
Failing and Flying
Day one back from the Yoga Retreat in Vermont and this poem continues to linger. During one of our sharing circles, it was presented. It's a great poem that speaks to endings. One of it's most important messages is that endings do not always mean failure. One of my favorite lines is, "Anything worth doing is worth doing badly." Just Beautiful!
"Failing and Flying"
by Jack Gilbert
Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew. It's the same when love comes to an end, or the marriage fails and people say they knew it was a mistake, that everybody said it would never work. That she was old enough to know better. But anything worth doing is worth doing badly. Like being there by that summer ocean on the other side of the island while love was fading out of her, the stars burning so extravagantly those nights that anyone could tell you they would never last. Every morning she was asleep in my bed like a visitation, the gentleness in her like antelope standing in the dawn mist. Each afternoon I watched her coming back through the hot stony field after swimming, the sea light behind her and the huge sky on the other side of that. Listened to her while we ate lunch. How can they say the marriage failed? Like the people who came back from Provence (when it was Provence) and said it was pretty but the food was greasy. I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell, but just coming to the end of his triumph.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Sky Meadow Musings
Just returned from leading my first Yoga Retreat. I rented an amazing 100 year old renovated barn in Greensboro, VT. Leading a Yoga Retreat is so much more than just teaching yoga twice a day, it involves all the organization, group facilitating, marketing, and holding space. It was amazing and I did great! That's me gliding from bed to teach yoga at 8am Saturday morning! So many feelings and thoughts going through my mind right now. I wish I could narrow it down to a few words so perhaps a list might do of things I'll savor and remember! I will post photos soon!
1.) Bonfires (one each night!)= sharing circle
2.) Sunny and nature infused yoga classes (Gazing upon trees and the blue blue sky while doing "Tree Pose"
3.) Amazing Food and Presentation (Creative and Cooked with Focus and Love!) can you say "edible flowers?!?!
4.) Laughs (lots of them!)
5.) Honesty (holding space for differing views)
6.) Silence (We had a silent breakfast and took a silent walk up the mountain and back down)
7.) Opening (Watching students open up and expose themselves through yoga and sharing)
8.) Acceptance
9.) Outhouses? Yes. Squatting and Skinny Dipping was also preferred.
10.) Impromptu Meditation with Sunset in the Mountain Peak Gazebo (ooh la la!)
11.) Meditation and Pranayama Workshop (first I had ever done!)
12.) Reflections, Sharing, Impressions (group facilitation!)
13.) Beautiful Poems Read and Shared (Students brought these to the bonfire!)
14.) Sheep (very cute pet sheep behind my room I slept in)
15.) The "weird sounding" Rooster VERY early in the morning. errr er errrrrrrr!
16.) Tea, Tea, and more Tea!!!
17.) Family and Friends
18.) Impromptu Tai Chi and Yoga Practice with Jessie
19.) Energizing and Grounding Massages done by THE Jessie Kern
20.) The top lesson I brought home with me was to honor my own personal journey and to live in the now. I also came to terms with several issues surrounding loss and gain and seeing them as pure illusion. Abundance is here. Abundance is NOW!
Namaste!!!
Natalie XOX
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
I Don't Know
Have you noticed we were blessed with a week or so of hot hot summer weather, then it rained, got a bit cold and now it's moderate again? The weather reminds us of the teachings on uncertainty, letting go, and surrendering to the universe's plan. Rather than struggle to "find the magic solution" or "the answer," i let the process happen today.
Currently I am teaching at a few different studios, two of which are just opening their doors to customers. This means 0 to few students. It can be frustrating to take a 45 minute bus ride and not see the class numbers you were hoping for. As a yoga teacher, making a living comes from a very small percentage of what the student actually pays. It's quite the balancing act physically, mentally, and spiritually for the yoga teacher trying to make ends meet. When it comes down to it, a yoga teacher needs students to teach just as much as the students need their teacher.
It is very easy to travel down a dark road to fear when uncertainty and the unknown submerge! Coming back to the yoga mat is a great antidote to this, simply watching the breath, taking each moment as it comes, releasing the past and the future. Worrying is not going to fill up classes but rather cause me to suffer mentally and emotionally.
As change is the only thing that is permanent, I remind myself that nothing can be forced, everything presents itself when the seeker is ready. At the same time I am only human living in a culture where instant gratification and satisfaction are the hallmarks of success. Not today. Today I rest in certainty that all is uncertain and that I can hold this with faith, compassion, and trust.
NAMASTE YOGIS!
Natalie
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Have You Tried a Vigorous Kripalu Class?
What's going on in that big white castle (the armory) on Highland Ave.? Well, lots of breathing, moving, and melting into tranquility with moi!
I am offering all types of Kripalu at the new studio Shanti at the Armory.
As you know I recently started offering classes at this beautiful studio and right now they are offering first time visitors 2 weeks of Unlimited Yoga Classes for only $35.
Shanti Schedule
Tuesdays 4:30-5:45pm Vigorous Kripalu
6:00-7:15pm Moderate Kripalu
Thursday 12-1:15pm Gentle Kripalu
Friday 12:00-1:00pm Kripalu Flow
-- Have a wonderful rest of your week!
Natalie
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Shedding The Unnecessary in Our Lives -Letting Go
Therefore letting go in yoga for instance means forget about trying to touch your toes in a forward bend, try letting go of your idea of how things should be and relax into the pose as it is. Letting go really means meeting reality face to face and accepting it regardless of your aversion to it. Letting go means releasing the urge to identify with circumstances and remain calm and focused despite any chaos around you. Let's take an example here: Sadness. Does sadness make you suffer? No, of course not. The suffering comes when we push away sadness, or feel ashamed of sadness, or perhaps when we deny the feelings of sadness. The buddha said, "Suffering is Optional" and he had a point. It's a choice.
Letting go is a choice. It can't be forced and will come when we are ready.
What can you let go of today. The process of yoga is not to take on new poses, make progress, and beef ourselves up but to rather chip away all of the "stuff" that we don't need. Think of it as a shedding process as a cat sheds it's fur in the summer, we too shed away all that is unnecessary in our lives.
Namaste!
Natalie
Friday, April 30, 2010
Sunday, April 25, 2010
2 to the Yama "Aparigraha"( Non-possessiveness)
What is it that you think you own? Do you get wrapped up in owning your success in yoga poses, in career, success in relationships (or failures even)?
The 2nd Yama we'll be exploring in our classes this week, relates to our tendency to cling, attach, and associate ourselves with what we think is "ours." Do we hold on to an image of ourselves that is false? Does our self worth come from our car, our home, or our wardrobe? In exploring our relationship to "people, places, and things," where does the tendency to grasp come from? Is it fear of losing, fear of failure? What would happen if we let go of our need to control relationships; whether it's wanting everything to go our way, expecting perfection, or thinking that we "need" this relationship. If it's on our yoga mat and we just HAVE to perfect a certain pose, what is wrong with letting the pose open naturally into what it is at THAT moment?
Do we cling to an idea of ourselves or a loved one? One of my favorite quotes comes from a little book called, "Zen and the Art of Falling in Love"
"When he comes, let him come. When he goes, let him go." We do not own anyone or anything and we can not control any feelings, thoughts, or behavior that happens. All we can do, is "let it come and let it go" without grasping.
At the base level, Aprarigraha means do be non-greedy. Have you noticed that when you REALLY identify with something materialistic and it is taken away that great suffering results? How about you let go of something voluntarily BECAUSE you know how attached you are to it? Give it up. Let it go....and you are free.
If you took away all of things you think you are.........what is left?
I invite you to explore the act of being non-greedy in thought, word, and deed and see what happens over the course of one week. May everyone be happy, May everyone be peaceful, May everyone be enjoyed.
Namaste,
Natalie
The 2nd Yama we'll be exploring in our classes this week, relates to our tendency to cling, attach, and associate ourselves with what we think is "ours." Do we hold on to an image of ourselves that is false? Does our self worth come from our car, our home, or our wardrobe? In exploring our relationship to "people, places, and things," where does the tendency to grasp come from? Is it fear of losing, fear of failure? What would happen if we let go of our need to control relationships; whether it's wanting everything to go our way, expecting perfection, or thinking that we "need" this relationship. If it's on our yoga mat and we just HAVE to perfect a certain pose, what is wrong with letting the pose open naturally into what it is at THAT moment?
"When he comes, let him come. When he goes, let him go." We do not own anyone or anything and we can not control any feelings, thoughts, or behavior that happens. All we can do, is "let it come and let it go" without grasping.
At the base level, Aprarigraha means do be non-greedy. Have you noticed that when you REALLY identify with something materialistic and it is taken away that great suffering results? How about you let go of something voluntarily BECAUSE you know how attached you are to it? Give it up. Let it go....and you are free.
If you took away all of things you think you are.........what is left?
I invite you to explore the act of being non-greedy in thought, word, and deed and see what happens over the course of one week. May everyone be happy, May everyone be peaceful, May everyone be enjoyed.
Namaste,
Natalie
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Changes
I look around me and all is changing
the dogwood trees are flowering
the cool air is being replaced by warmth
and the heaviness of winter is shedding off of me slowly...
Friday April 2nd was my last day working for AIDS Action Committee. It was time to move on and stop living a double life of yoga (what I really want to do) and office work (something I never felt comfortable doing). I am now embracing teaching yoga as my daily dharma. It is not easy however to go from busy to relaxed with lots of unstructured time.
It's times like these when my yoga practice is so important. I remember the yamas and niyamas or ethical ways of living according to Patanjali an ancient sage. I think of the teachings about surrendering that which you cannot control and taking the plunge into uncertainty and vastness. I remember to practice "contentment" with the way things are right now.
I know that when I stand in Warrior I pose I am strong and have all the tools within me to live a happy life. I also know that when I fold forward in uttanasana or standing forward bend that i am leaving all that can't be changed to the universe and that also takes strength.
Today I remind myself that I truly can only do my best in this life and hope that I was inspiration to others. I remember a quote from Anais Nin as I sit here in my sunny apartment in Early Spring:
"And the risk it took to remain small in a bud was too painful than the risk it took to bloom"
Peace to all of you. Happiness to All.
Namaste!
Natalie
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Seeking Bliss?
Seeking bliss or samadhi in sanskrit terms is something we all know how to do well. Do we know how to "live" blissfully? That's another question. I have heard in the past that a yogi is naturally curious and is always questioning. This may be why we are, just like everyone else, caught in the trap of "seeking."
For one who is truly content and practicing santosha (more sanskrit meaning conentment) there is a natural inquiry into why we do the things we do etc, but we except reality as it is neither attaching to or averting to anything placed before us.
Of course we all seek bliss from time to time whether it's from one more glass of wine, one more coca cola, one more bad relationship that I know isn't healthy but feels so good in the moment.
Take some time today and browse your mental archives for what it is that you seek that might not be grounded in reality.
In this blog we will do some seeking...some inward seeking! Let's see what we'll find!
Ways to Connect!
Check out my website at www.yogawithnatalie@vpweb.com
For one who is truly content and practicing santosha (more sanskrit meaning conentment) there is a natural inquiry into why we do the things we do etc, but we except reality as it is neither attaching to or averting to anything placed before us.
Of course we all seek bliss from time to time whether it's from one more glass of wine, one more coca cola, one more bad relationship that I know isn't healthy but feels so good in the moment.
Take some time today and browse your mental archives for what it is that you seek that might not be grounded in reality.
In this blog we will do some seeking...some inward seeking! Let's see what we'll find!
Ways to Connect!
Check out my website at www.yogawithnatalie@vpweb.com
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