Oh Nature, Oh Mother Moon

Recently we celebrated Easter, and whether we feel attached to the stories about Jesus, his crucifixion (death) and resurrection (rebirth), for many people it is a respected Holiday.

I always look so much forward to a couple of days off around this sweet transition from Winter to Spring. As previous years I went with my boyfriend and his family to a summerhouse in North West Denmark. The fact that we are surrounded by Nature and has a very poor reception, one of my rituals upon arrival is turning off my phone.

This year I was a little curious what would happen when I did that. Normally I have a very strict rules about my smart phone. No phone and computer activity after 8pm, since it has such a bad influence on my sleep. The months before this holiday had been very packed with work in order to plan European Yogi Nomads in Aarhus and making arrangements with the many teachers and presenters at Copenhagen Yoga Festival this summer. I broke my own rule and had some very late evenings in front of the screen. And I felt how I was using more energy than I was gaining from my personal yoga practice. My phone was becoming as an addiction to me. Every spare minute I had made me reach for it to check what had happened on social media and my emails. I am amazed how fast things can slide when we let it.

I was actually sure I would desperately miss my phone the first couple of days after turning it off. And then the exact opposite happened.

It was quite beautiful. As it turned out I had so longed to turn that thing off and simply soak in Nature. I arrived at the summerhouse the day of the Full Moon. We went for a walk that first evening, just as the moon started to rise. It wasn’t quite dark yet, but the sky had this amazing deep blue color and the Moon… Oh my Goddess! She was huge, round, totally illuminated and the color as she rose was this amazing deep warm yellow. It was stunning! I have experiences quite a few Moons, but this one was definitely one to remember.

I actually did have a moment where I wanted to run home and get my phone to take a photo, but she was spellbinding beautiful and I couldn’t stop starring at her. I had the ocean on my left, her in front of me and the dunes to my right. It was as if everything stood still for several moments, as if I couldn’t move. And when I surrendered to the moment and stopped caring about the phone and photos for Instagram, something amazing happened.

In my head these sentences started to appear, as if someone or something beyond my power began to form a question. I am so very fond of questions and believe they are one of the most powerful practices we have. The minute we stop questioning there is a risk that teachings turn in to preachings. Anyway, these sentences started build themselves and then it became a repetition of these very words:

What is that one thing that I know
That nobody else knows
The thing I need to share
Before I leave here.

Over and over and over again. Nowhere but in Nature and especially in potent moments as under a Full Moon do I have these experiences of a deep connection to self. It is not with my phone in one hand and my mind on social media. This Winter I have been asking a lot of deep questions in the quiet of my meditation practice. And I absolute love the way answers sometimes manifest as new questions.

The rest of my holiday I hardly thought about my phone and when I finally picked it up the last day to take a few photos for Instagram (to prove I was there, haha) the battery was dead.

Aho.

Rebirth

As the sun is getting stronger, I experience a new sense of energy and with that also a very strong desire to get back into writing. For the past six/seven month I have been in a deep practice of studying the cycles of nature. Both by spending time in nature and by listening and re-listening to an online course by Sarah Durham Wilson and Shakti Sunfire called “waking the wild woman”.

Signing up for the course turned out to be perfect timing as I met quite a few challenges shortly after. Coincidence? I choose to call it synchronicity.

I have learned a lot about cycles. I have deepened my experience of “death” and “rebirth”, realizing that every ending is part of a new beginning. I have studied the cycles of the moon and I have surrendered deeply to the darkness and “death” of winter time. It has been a journey!

And now I am waking up to a new season. I feel wiser. I feel more honest. And I am learning to trust the practice I call yoga in a much deeper sense. I have hardly been doing any asana myself for six months and now my body is ready to move again. An inner current of energy is appearing as the accumulated kapha is melting, as if ice from the mountains is melting and turning into strong streams of flowing water again. My next steps is a spring juice cleansing, to help any stagnated winter kapha leave my system.

Welcome spring.

Going somewhere – Part 6

After the second trip to Sweden, my new found love of slow traveling, and the gentle touch of my vulnerability, I made an ever shorter trip. This time I didn’t even leave Denmark! I traveled from Aarhus to Copenhagen to spend four days with Jordan Bloom and Douglas Brooks.

Jordan Bloom is a yoga teacher, teaching strong asanas, mixed with lots of therapeutics and sprinkled with philosophy. There is no doubt that Douglas Brooks (who is a professor at University of Rochester, where he teaches religion) is a great inspiration to Jordan. And I certainly understand why!

I joined Jordan & Douglas’ workshop in Greve (Denmark) last year, and I was longing to come back to Copenhagen to do another workshop with this team!

Douglas studied Hinduism, south Asian languages, religions, Sanskrit and I am sure he studied much more than this! He lived with his teacher in India for several years. And the way he share his amazing knowledge is so sweet. When he shares the history of yoga he is very good at broadening the perspective, telling that these people thought this and this, and these people had these opinions etc. So he is not just sharing what he believes, but serves everything on a big plate in front of you. At the same time there is no doubt about Douglas’ own opinions and believes. But he would never call this the final truth for everyone. And I really like that! It is far from ascetic, and I am sure he will never turn his back on another person, just because they have a different believe system. He will disagree, I am sure! But he would be fully able to love that person anyway. At least that is my impression of Douglas, after listening to him many many hours over the last year. (You can listen to his conversations on: http://www.yogaglo.com/teacher-45-Dr-Douglas-Brooks.html)

This year Douglas was sharing stories of the Hindu Goddesses! And oh my, they where an interesting bunch of ladies! I am not going to share 4 days of stories in one blog post, but one of the essences of these four days, to me, was about opposites. Just as I had experiences opposites in the strong asana practice from Athens and Sianna’s workshop in Sweden measured against Tara’s gentle organic practice. As you might remember, I had an experience that doing strong asana practice, made me mentally strong too. And doing a soft practice made me vulnerable. When I first became aware of that, I didn’t know where to put this experience? So I let it hang there… And during the days of listening to Douglas’ stories of the Goddesses, it found a place of rest.

I have listened to, and read stories on Sita, Saraswati, Lakhsmi, Parvatti, Kali and Durga before. But never put together into the history and philosophy of South India, in the same way Douglas managed. I have heard the phrase: “Even though this story happened many many years ago, it is still happening right now. And all the characters of the story is part of you.” But during the four days it dawned on me, that all the stories of the Goddesses are just many sides of one story. It is always about the opposite of male and female energy. Shiva as the masculine steady river banks, Shakti as the feminine moving force, the river that runs inside the banks. We all carry both, so it is not about being man or woman. It is about the opposites we all consist of. In the stories, the Gods always turn to the Goddess as the last opportunity, when the world is in danger. They try to handle it themselves, but when they realize that they are not going to succeed, they turn to the Goddess, and she as the moving force always manage to solve the problems. (In a way that none saw coming, cause she is unpredictable.)

But the male and female energy is not the only opposite in the stories. There is opposites even within the Goddesses. (And at the same time, she is always the same, she is Shakti.) In one end there is Sita, the beloved of Rama, who is very cultural, very dedicated, very controlled! And in the very opposite there is Durga, she is nature, she is wild! And then all the other Goddesses come in between. While Douglas was talking I got this picture in my head of all the politic parties in Denmark. We have the opposites on either end, and then everyone else is in between. But since they are (supposed to be) working, with the best interest of the danish people in mind, they are all the same.

And suddenly I start to see this many places. There is always culture verses nature in my experience. In Denmark there once was a lady called Emma Gad who wrote a book called “etiquette”. In that book you can read how you are supposed to act in the world. Or in the cultural world so to speak. It is totally Sita! And then on the other end we have people like Joan Ørting, who is a well known danish sexologist, encouraging people to be less uptight. She is more towards nature, but still not completely Durga.

We are all born into nature. The birth is very Durga, very primal. And then we grow up to become more cultural formed. But the nature is still within us. If we get too much towards the Sita side of things, we might become control freaks and end up with anxiety attacks if something goes wrong and we can’t control it. And on the other side, if we don’t have a bit of culture, we would not be able to act around other people in a modern western society. It is as all opposites. It is about balance. Without darkness we would not have light and vice versa. Without sadness we would never appreciate joy etc.

And this takes me back to the strong practice of asanas, that left me feeling strong, physically and mentally. Verses the gentle practice that left me with an experience of feeling vulnerable. And suddenly I realize, that I am very lucky to experience both. This is my yoga!

Namaste

The ball in the basket

I have told this little story on many of my classes the past week, since it really touched me. Actually it happened more than 2 years ago, when I was attending a life coach education. During one of our courses we had to do a little game, or an exercise called “the ball in the basket”.

The way it works is, that you are 2 people. One is the coach (C), the other one the focus person (F). You need 1 chair, a basket and a ball (can just be a paper ball) Then F sit on the chair, the basket placed a couple of meters behind. C tells F: “Now I am going to give you this ball, and then I want you to throw it into the basket behind you, without looking back. The basket is in a straight line, about 2 meters behind you. GO!” F throws… The ball hit the floor about a meter behind the basket and about a meter to the left. C pick up the ball, walks back to F and says: “That was great! Now this time, a little less power and then aim a little more toward your right. GO!”F throws… The ball hit the floor half a meter in front of the basket and about 30 centimeters to the left. C pick up the ball, walks back to F and says: “That was great! This time you need a little more power, but not as much as the first time. And you still want to aim a little more toward your right. GO!” F throws… And this can go on for 10 minutes, 30 minutes or maybe even hours! Eventually F will hit the basket, and you keep going until this happens!

Along the way, F might get very frustrated. And what happens when we get frustrated is, that we start to move away from us self, away from our center. And then it get even harder to hit the basket. Only when C guides us through the frustration and sweetly bring our focus back to that center, we can progress in the task of hitting the basket. At some point we might get the distance right, and then we need to hold on to that quality, or that knowledge, when we practice getting the left and right, right. And again, when we start to get frustrated, we start to move away from the knowledge we just stored in the body in regards to the distance, and we get further and further away from putting the ball in the basket. And then again, we need C to bring our focus back. To remind us that we actually do have some stored knowledge. That we just did it, and that we need to plug in to that knowledge to progress further.

This is where this little coaching exercise remind me a great deal about yoga practice. Whether C is an inner coach or a yoga teacher, sometimes we get frustrated about poses. We have a sensation of struggling, not being able to release and soften into the pose. As if something is working against us. And then the mind interfere, and we might experience even more struggle. And then we go on in class. We do something else, show must go on… A little while later the struggle is forgotten, the teacher is guiding our movements, talking, communication with our body, and then suddenly, without even realizing it (before it is to late!!), we are in that pose! We are in that impossible pose, where we had so much struggle, just moments ago. What happened?

Well maybe it was just because your mind was not interfering? Or maybe you did some preparation poses, that made your body more ready for that impossible pose? Maybe somehow you connected to stored wisdom inside of you? Could be some kind of remembrance, that when you where a baby you could stick your toes in your mouth, and then the bio-mechanics of the body got activated in a way that cleared the pathway for this to happen again, and suddenly you could stick your toes in the mouth (which we very often do, in yoga?!).

I am not saying that if you attend a yoga class, you will be able to do crazy acrobatic stuff. But I am very certain, that if you decide to dedicate yourself to a regular yoga practice you will start to notice some changes. It can be of a physical quality and it can be of a mental quality. And whatever your basket is a symbol of, eventually you will get closer to put the ball in there, as long as you keep connecting. As long as you, every time your frustration takes you further away from your own truth, bring focus back on your qualities, your stored knowledge and all your assets. Then that ball eventually will hit the basket. And trust me, when that happens, you are going to feel so great!

Namaste

Husk nu lige at slappe af!

Universet har sin egen helt særlige måde at kommunikere med mig på! Efter en fantastisk weekend med spa-ophold i Sverige tog jeg hul på en uge, med ekstra mange planlagte vikarklasser OG en workshop, bare lige for at sætte et kirsebær på toppen af flødeskumskagen, eller hvad man nu siger?

Et eller andet sted derude, må der dog have været nogen eller noget, der var af den opfattelse, at det ville være godt for mig, at holde lidt fast i den blødhed og det rolige tempo, en hel weekend i varmt vand, i Sverige havde medført.

Og det blev da også en kende for hektisk for mig i den Københavnske eftermiddagstrafik, både at skulle holde øje med et vejarbejde, biler fra begge sider, cyklister der kom bagfra og ved siden af mig, da jeg skulle gøre et holdt og krydse gaden på vej hjem fra arbejde. Resultatet: jeg overså en cyklist der kom med fuld fart, på den cykelsti jeg ligeledes skulle krydse. Og billedet herover taler for sig selv!

Jeg slap billigt, den er ikke brækket! Til gengæld har jeg fået ordineret 3 dage med foden oppe og 2-3 uger på krykker! Hvilken fantastisk træning i tålmodighed, at skulle bevæge mig rundt i København på en ny måde. Og samtidig god træning for mig, ikke altid at kunne vise yogaøvelserne, men rent faktisk være tvunget til at guide med min stemme. Og for mine elever, i at bruge lyttesansen fremfor synssansen.

Jeg siger tak for gaven og tager imod udfordringen.

Namaste

The deep plate

I want to tell you something personal. I have a secret desire to invent the deep plate over and over again! I guess the reason is a combination of two things. On one hand fear of being accused of ”stealing” someones ideas, thoughts or philosophies. On the other hand fear of being boring from repeating my self over and over again.

It goes for me generally, as well as me being a yoga teacher. Every week I ask myself: ”what can I teach this week? How do I keep it interesting enough? How do I avoid repeating my self? How do I say what is very true to me, in new words? Even though it comes down to the same things again and again.

• Grounding
• Connection
• Exploration

And these 3 things are the reason, that I return to my yoga mat, over and over again! Doing these ”actions” within my physical practice, help me to know my self better, to recognize myself and give me a deeper experience of me!

When I ground myself, when I connect to a deeper truth within myself, and when I explore yoga, work, communication, social life and life in general from this place, the fear goes away. Yes I am inspired by other people, yoga teachers as well as friends, philosophers, scientists, physiologists, osteopaths, even my parents! And yes sometimes I use words they have used as well, but only because they made a huge difference to me. Only because I found those words very true.

This weekend I read in Sensing, Feeling and Action by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen: ”Our first breath, at birth, influences the pattern of our adult breathing”. Naturally I don’t remember my first breath. But I know my mother was rushed to intensive care, and I was born my C-section, because my heartbeat started to change. I also know that I in my adult life, I have to watch my breath to keep it deep and connected. Especially in busy periods. And not because someone told me (even though they did, maybe a cillion times) but because I explore calmness and depth and ahhhh, every time I actually sit down and connect to my breath.

When I started doing yoga 16 years ago, I was drawned to the psycical practise, and especially to crazy challenging poses like headstand, bakasana and halasana. Notice, that I DID yoga! Throughout the years, there has been a shift. And today I am EXPLORING my physical practice, more than DOING my physical practice. I am still drawn to the crazy challenging poses, but not fighting as hard to get into them. Not holding my breath when coming into them (at least not every time). The sensation of softening and breathing into a challenging pose is wonderful compared to struggling my way into it. Its still a practice! Don’t get me wrong. And I bring knowledge from yoga-history and -philosophy, as well as the physical aspect of alignment and anatomy, with me.

All that knowledge, offered to me by teachers, friends, written material, storytellers, physiotherapists, osteopaths and last but not least, experience, helps me to ground, connect and explore my practice of yoga. And that is exactly want I want to teach every week. Thats true to me, and I only want to share that which is true to me. I will keep practicing it on my own mat, and there might be new words of explaining it along the way. And there will be some sort of repetition.

Douglas Brooks talks about things having to occur at least twice in order to exist! If it only occur once, then how do we know it? How can we compare it to something and label it? How do we then know what it is? Again, they are not my words, but they are very true to me, and I am happy to repeat them, to make them exist. Just as I am happy to use this great deep plate that was once invented, again and again: “spread your fingers wide, connect the mount of the index finger and all your finger pads into the ground, and then experience what that does to your downward facing dog?” Because it makes a difference to me!

Namaste

Du èr din praksis!

Får man overhovedet tid til selv at dyrke yoga, når man er med til at planlægge en yogafestival? Faktisk havde jeg besluttet mig for, at jeg ikke ville deltage på nogle af de ellers så fantastiske klasser i år! Min erfaring fra Copenhagen Yoga Festival 2012 sagde mig, at det som én af medarrangørerne på festivalen, kan være lidt stressende både at holde skansen i info-teltet, samtidig med gerne at ville nå 3-4 klasser i løbet af weekenden. Så i år var mit fokus på, at hygge mig med alle de fantastiske mennesker der besøgte festivalen. Og sammen med både hovedarrangørerne og de mange frivillige hjælpere, svare på spørgsmål om stort og småt.

Alligevel blev jeg for nysgerrig, da en amerikansk yogalærer pludselig meldte sin ankomst. Stephen Ewashkiw skrev til os en uges tid inden festivalen, for at høre om han kunne få lov at undervise, da han tilfældigvis ville være i København netop den weekend. Sammen med sin kone Jane, cykler han verden rundt og underviser forskellige steder undervejs.

I første omgang måtte vi meddele Stephen, at der desværre ikke var et hul i programmet. Men skæbnen ville, at vi 3 dage inden festivalen, fik et afbud fra en anden underviser! Stephen blev straks kontaktet og sagde ja tak. Faktisk var ham og Jane 170 km nord for Malmø dagen før festivalen, og måtte for første gang siden de tog hjemmefra, tage et tog, for at kunne nå frem.

Stephens oplæg til den klasse han ville undervise var ”YOGA ER HÅRDT! LIVET ER HÅRDT!” Og netop de ord åbnede han også med, da han indtog telt 2, lørdag eftermiddag kl. 17.00. Temaet var sat! Ingen tvivl om, at det IKKE var en blid yoga klasse der ventede os, efter den åbning!

Mens vi sad i sukasana og forsøgte at balancere længden af vores indåndinger, med længden af vores udåndinger, fortalte Stephen sin historie om, hvordan han var endt i København. I marts 2013 havde han og Jane sagt deres jobs op, solgt deres hus og begge biler, pakket cyklerne og taget afsted. Med det mål at cykle verden rundt! Han lagde ikke skjul på, at det ikke er et nemt projekt. Ligesåvel som det ikke er nemt, at gøre sine indåndinger og sine udåndinger nøjagtig lige lange! Men med praksis, kan det lade sig gøre.

Og så gik vi i gang! Efter et hurtigt og opløftende flow af bevægelser, krydret med små anekdoter og jokes gik vi i gang med de mere udfordrende stillinger. Det overordnede tema var ”ribs in”, altså at finde styrken på forsiden af kroppen. For på den måde at få adgang til ryggen og alt det der ligger bag os, alle vores erfaringer, alt det liv vi har praktiseret indtil nu! Teknikken blev brugt i stående stillinger, såvel som i udfordrende twist, og byggede os sikkert op til vores peak-poses i form af parsva bakasana og dwi pada koundinyasana! På intet tidspunkt forventede Stephen, at alle ville kunne lave disse stillinger. Men han gentog igen og igen, at med praksis kan vi komme til at mestre dem! Nøjagtig ligesom vi kan sige vores jobs op, sælge alt hvad vi ejer og cykle verden rundt. Vi skal bare ikke forvente, at det er ikke noget man gør fra den ene dag til den anden!

Der er ingen tvivl om, at Stephens tema ramte mig lige i hjertet! For hvor er det rigtigt at vi hverken kan lave avancerede stillinger, eller udleve vores vildeste drømme, uden at det kræver en indsats. Så for at vende tilbage til spørgsmålet, om man overhovedet har tid til at dyrke yoga, når man er med til at planlægge en yogafestival? Så er svaret: ”Ja! Med praksis kan det lade sig gøre”. Mine erfaringer sagde mig, at 3-4 klasser var for meget. Og nu ved jeg, at jeg godt kan deltage i en enkelt klasse i løbet af weeekenden, hygge mig med alle de fantastiske mennesker der besøger festivalen og sammen med både hovedarrangørerne og de mange frivillige hjælpere, svare på spørgsmål om stort og småt.

Tak for en fantastisk festival.

Gå på yogamåtten, når du har det godt!

Årets sidste dag! 2012 som af kloge astrologer og flere andre, er blevet udråbt til at være et “overgangsår”. Altså et år hvor ting blev afsluttet, hvor mange er blevet rådet til ikke at starte op på for meget nyt, men i stedet holde stand, være til stede i nuet, og tage den lidt med ro. Nu venter et nyt år, nu skal vi i gang med en masse nye ting. Vi laver nytårsfortsæt og har alverdens gode intentioner. Det er der en masse god energi i, og jeg opfordrer til at vi tager den energi med på yogamåtten.

Indimellem oplever jeg, at yoga bliver en form for redskab, der kan hjælpe os med at få det bedre med os selv og verden omkring os. Den følelse vi kan have i kroppen, efter en yogatime er også ret fantastisk! Jeg brugte selv yogaen, da jeg var fortvivlet over indbrudsforsøget tidligere på året, da min farmor døde, da det hele gik lidt for stærkt i julehandlen, og jeg bare trængte til at sætte mig ned og trække vejret.

I dag, på årets sidste dag, vågnede jeg efter 10 timers fantastisk søvn! Jeg havde det godt! Jeg følte mig udhvilet! Og jeg fik lyst til at gå på yogamåtten og holde en fest, som en slags hyldest til 2012. Jeg sluttede med en åndedrætsmeditation og sad efterfølgende nogle minutter. Og pludselig følte jeg mig meget let. Der var ikke noget der tyngede mig inden jeg gik på måtten, og måske derfor følte jeg mig ekstra let.

Jeg har lige læst bogen om “Pi’s liv”, som netop er blevet filmatiseret. Og ligesom en skibsbrudden med fordel kan rationere sit forråd, til de dage hvor der ikke bider en fisk på krogen, kan vi som yogier også samle forråd. Hvis vi kun går på måtten, når vi er fortvivlede, har brug for lindring, trænger til at slappe af eller andre lignende ting, så lever vi et liv på kanten. Derfor opfordrer jeg mig selv og andre til, også at gå på yogamåtten de dage hvor vi har det godt, og hvor vi har masser af energi.

Måske kan vi ovenikøbet dele noget af det energi-forråd vi samler, med vores medmennesker. Så vi kan hjælpe hinanden med at holde humøret højt, eller ligge et øre og en skulder til, når nogen i vores omgangskreds trænger til det. Nøjagtig som Pi samler forråd til både Richard Parker (Bengalsk tiger på 225 kg) og sig selv, i de 227 dage de befinder sig ombord på redningsflåden.

Namaste og rigtig godt nytår

Why do we do yoga?

Have you ever had that feeling, that you are just on the edge of understanding something? That you have studied for a while, practiced what you studied, and then all of a sudden, it actually starts to make sense, somewhere deep inside of you? To me, it feels like a gateway to a deeper layer of self-consciousness, has opened.

What caused this? I don’t think, that one particular thing, person or experience, can take the honor of this development! But several events have happened the past week. Last weekend I got sick! I thought it was something passing, fatigue, nausea and pain in the body. I was so sure, that I would be up and running again within a day! Eight days of resting, and I am still not loaded with energy?! What is happening??

Also, it has been eight days with lots of time to let my mind wander. What else to do, when I am just laying there? I have thought a lot about yoga, especially about me as a yoga teacher building my own business. I have had time to consider all the questions in my mind about this topic:

• Why do I want to teach yoga?
• What is yoga to me?
• What is my message as a yoga teacher`
• What do I want to share?

A few more question was asked, from one of my teachers Chris Chavez, who visited Copenhagen this weekend:

• Why do we do yoga?
• What path are we on?
• Why do we keep coming back to the mat?

What I have been considering all week, and trying to articulate is, that yoga to me is a way to get away from the drama in my mind into the calmness of my body. To be present in the body, like coming home to a safe and quiet place, after wondering around. To be present! And when I move my body on the mat, and do my asana I feel present, I feel safe and calm, I feel at home! And thats what I want to share. Thats the experience I want to give others the opportunity to feel.

A few things particularly stood out for me, during this weekend’s workshops:

• Yoga as clarity of mind / wisdom of heart / movement or sweetness of body.
• When we do namaste we bow the head (mind) to (the wisdom of) the heart, to acknowledge that the heart already know all the right answers.
• That we are all on a path towards ourself, whether we do yoga, gardening, running or other crazy stuff. And that journey might sometimes be hard, but you know you are on the right path, because you are on the path towards yourself! See your heart as a light in the dark, and clear the way towards that light.
• The theme of todays class: I AM COMPLETE.

And here I am, on the edge, with an open gateway to a deeper layer of self-consciousness, and I have just started to look into this new place. Of cause I know that yoga is more than just asana. But until this moment, I haven’t felt it as strong, as I do right now.

Without going too much into Ayurveda, I have a vata unbalance, that tends to keep me wondering around in the land of my mind. I can have conversations and negotiations with myself forever, without being able to make a decision. And we have to make decisions, so I do that, but then I keep wondering whether that was the right decision or if I should have done something else, and it just goes on and on and on. When I do my asana practice it stops! I am in my body, I feel safe and calm, I feel at home. Today, when that gateway to a deeper layer of self-consciousness opened, I realized, that when I do yoga, I am on the path to my heart. And my heart is my body, the place where I am present, where I feel safe and calm, where I feel at home! And in my heart I am already complete!

Being sick for eight days is, no doubt, a physical reaction that I’ve been too busy. That I wasn’t listening to what I needed, and that I didn’t gave myself the break I was craving. In my mind I still have a hard time accepting that I’m still not loaded with energy. After all that resting?! But at the same time I know from a deeper layer of self-conscioness, that it takes time. I just have to accept, that sometimes it might be hard, but at the same time I am on the right path. I see the light of my heart in the dark, and that feels stronger than ever!

Namaste

…and she just keeps dancing

“Think of the magic of that foot, comparatively small, upon which your whole weight rests. It’s a miracle, and the dance… is a celebration of that miracle.”

– Martha Washington –