These tools remain accessible.

Where there is meaning, there is silence.


Sounds causing waves of reaction, interaction, conditions.

Words sink in so deep, all I hear is the space over them.

That rolling movie of my mind remains projecting on the wall of the skull, a light show.

The feeling of warm hand on thigh completes my form.

Exhales join the inhales in the air around me, no questions asked or answered.

Even the music of my heart runs into itself like water into water, indivisible.

This open to being, being opens,  understanding without tricks and illusions.

The candle flame consumed in continuous transformation.

It's Magical

Gently lifting arms with an inhale, wrists flacid, and on the exhale allowing the hands to drift back down to the thighs like seaweed softly undulating in the waves. A genuine effort for most of the 80+ year olds in the room, but their faces glow with peace and relaxation. Letting go of the tension in their fingers, of the clenching in the shoulders, they begin to sit taller, and settle their feet under their knees.

Eyes glowing after class, smiles readily spreading on faces, even with the very serious business of standing up and taking hold of their walkers, these students do not care if they are "practicing yoga" or "doing Tai Chi." We are sharing a morning of breath and presence, letting go of judging ourselves and each other. Sometimes I cannot help but exclaim, "Who would have thought we could be working so hard and feel so relaxed!?"

We do hard things. Sometimes the hard thing is communicating with toes, or attempting to lift one leg. Sometimes the hard thing is trying to inhale just a little more in a three-sip breath, or perhaps hold on the chair seat and lean to one side. Each body has its struggles, each mind has its resistance and predisposition.

Yet what happens is magical. Gratitude that we can inhale an arm upwards and release it on the exhale, that we can sigh an out-breath together to relish our effort and relieve more tension, that we feel lightness in our legs as we align the bones and let the earth carry us. It is this sharing, sweet and complex for every person in the room, that heals and encourages, that carries us through the dark times and hard losses. Again and again I bow to my students with reverence and gratitude.

Not So Special, Just Being Authentic

There is such a temptation to build ego! Even as the yoga practice works to dissolve the dualities, drawing attention to the energy rather than the definitions within which the energy moves... Meditation is walking in the wind, watching the world move in response, feeling it, and even while feeling it, letting the feeling slip out of the sensory realm.

Okay, so meditation can take a person beyond that ego, but the ego still wants in on it. You can feel it, hovering, wanting to get its sticky fingers back into the deliciousness. There's nothing wrong with ego. We need it, definitely, to function properly in the world. But it is not the same as being, it is the separate "self" rather than the universally connected "Self."

Taking a yoga class is a wonderful exercise for me. It is like the way your core feels when you first try to invert into headstand... all wobbly and strangely new. There's a sense of identity, yet an observing identity, and yet still another body of energy that is simple and clear. I have to laugh at the teacher person on the mat who is laughing at the student person on the mat who is laughing at the blissful energy person on the mat who is hovering over the aching knees and softened heart person. All of them are me and yet this does not make me into any thing, or any one in any hierarchy. Each body in the room has this fullness of knowing, not knowing, feeling, perceiving, and witnessing. How wonderful is that?

The fact is that nothing I do on the mat, or off the mat turns me into a pot of gold. I remain a breathing entity wobbling through the moments I get, sometimes lifted off the earth in a blissful state by a gust of wind in the leaves, sometimes slogging in the mud with a shovel made of the heaviest steel. And so it is for everyone, I suspect. We have our separate faces so we can tell better stories, otherwise we might be like bees and all there would be would be a sound of communal buzzing. Actually, some of the most marvelous moments are those when we listen for that very sound among us.

The big part of practice in this regard is to let go of my attachments to putting values on "me." It is not that I am worthless, but that there is no measurable entity when it comes to "being me." It doesn't matter if I can do a particular asana or not, or if it looks just so or not. This way of being without judgment means that I don't feel "special" in any way that elevates me beyond the other human beings (or frogs for that matter) around me in the mud of yoga practice. This helps me really be compassionate towards myself and others. We are all just riding this particular wave, even if we cannot distinguish this wave from any other. The riders who fall into it sooner are no less riders than those who are riding it still.

Weeding the Asparagus Bed

Three-pronged claw tool in hand, the task seemed both daunting and necessary as I faced the asparagus bed choked with field grass, milkweed, vetch and everything else. This has been going on all of 14 years, a continuous process of returning the asparagus bed back into wild field. My part of this is to turn the tide every spring, reminding the asparagus bed that for the next few months its asparagus production will take priority over its field-meadow production.

I am not in conflict with the weeds. I turn the earth to the depth I must, careful not to disturb the dormant asparagus, in order to pull out the roots and extract the majority of the visible volunteer weeds out of the bed. This process aerates the soil and integrates the compost and manure, reveals the health of the earth full of worms, and loosens up the top layer so that the soon-to-be growing asparagus will find its way to the light. The pile of weeds goes into the compost to return in a few months to enrich the soil from which it came.

Mostly I focus on the few inches of earth around where my tool has scraped. When I look up I see the expanse of the bed and all the weeds yet to come. In the same moment that the thought pops up, "this is going to take forever and I am already tired," I smile and acknowledge that as I go, the distance is covered, the bed is weeded, one handful at a time. I do not need to defeat myself by imagining the size of the task as too big, nor spur myself as an endurance test to work beyond my strength. I see how much there is to do, and know that it is this moment and this handful of earth, this grass root in my fingers that are my life, not the beating around the head feeling of how much more there is to do, nor an eventual patting on the back feeling of accomplishing the task.

Does this make life dreary, taking out challenge, motivation and accomplishment from the job? Not for me. I accept that my goal is to be happy in this moment. I can acknowledge my tired fingers and appreciate the depth of the root I am struggling to pull. When I stand by the compost bin to catch my breath and see the fullness of material I have just dumped in there, I can see the asparagus bed too, clear of weeds for the moment, rich earth ripe and ready for asparagus and weed alike. What I know is that the sun is still shining, the wind is pulling at my hair, and I'm ready for a drink of water. I'll be thrilled to see those asparagus tips come up, even though there are sure to be a young crop of new weeds right along with them.

Boiling the Water

Sometimes in yoga a teacher will speak about finding your edge, or pushing to your edge. This has, at times, raised my hackles, since I do not think of a yoga practice like a competitive sport where one has to continuously try to get beyond where one has been before. But then, as I think (say or write) this, I realize that it happens all the time in yoga! What keeps us up in headstand?

The big difference is that in yoga finding our edge is a process of discovering that which is sustaining the effort and releasing into that support rather than pushing past something. Sometimes, as with headstand, there can be fear that might be "pushed past" yet the joy of yoga is finding the core strength that makes the inverted lift feel light and allows the breath to continue to flow comfortably. This is not the result of pushing past the fear, but rather of seeing it and letting it go. What's the worst that can happen? One attempt, two attempts, many many attempts only lead to that frantic quality of reaching for a goal. Preparing for strength, for balance, focusing on the breath and alignment, the inversion begins to rise on its own.

I was boiling water for tea and realized that there is something to this idea of an edge in practice. Like reaching the exact temperature at which water boils, each of us in any given moment has that specific temperature at which the impurities or impediments can be released and the kettle of the self begins to sing. Avoidance and resistance are part of our human nature, and so in any practice there will be moments when you will need to find a little encouragement in order to stick with it, to breathe more consciously using Ujjayi pranayama (ocean sounding breath) or even Kapalabhati to maintain your focus while your legs shake, or your heart wavers. We know it takes a consistent application of continuous heat to get that water to boil. It can be the same in our yoga practice, then let your kettle sing!

Ask Me About Bliss -It is Just This

This is the season of renewal and also of paying attention to the deepest darkest moments from which we emerge into the light. A friend spoke of Jesus wandering in the desert, of his offering of his own mortality and how, when suffering the ignorance of others he asks for their forgiveness. Perhaps his return, his rising from the grave, expresses the immortality of the compassionate soul. In seders around tables loaded with ceremonial foods, families gather to remember such a journey through hardship and ignorance. Perhaps their survival relied upon losing themselves and surrendering to divine will.

For me, every muddy rut, each leaf bud, the scuttling clouds in the sky as well as the crowds on the paused Q train represent the compassionate truth of being. Without judgment of value or worth, I feel deeply moved by the inhale of the person next to me. In each breath cycle I find that my students continue to reach beyond themselves as they seek their inner truths. Can there be more than this? The broken heart, the struggling body, the pain of loss, the fear of pain, the terror of injustice are all part of our human condition, yet we breathe in. And as we breathe out we find our feet, or perhaps our hands, maybe our knees or our sitting bones, or even our entire spine, supporting us upon an earth that revolves and spins. Our cells drink in the oxygen and hydrogen along with all the particles and poisons, our hearts beat within the arching cathedral of ribs, safe and protected.

We cannot separate out the dark from the light; we can open ourselves to an awareness that within the dark are the lustrous seeds that grow in the dark until they reach the light. Within that darkness are other nutrients that soften and expand the seed, encourage roots, promote the seeking energy that becomes visible above the surface of the earth as the tiniest green shoot pokes through.

The breath swaying the body from side to side in Ardha Chandrasana (standing half moon pose), hands held above the head in a loose Anjali Mudra, the body expresses the hope, the eternal possibilities, the blossoming of being. Inhaling - just, Exhaling - this. Just - This. Ask me about bliss and I say, "Just - This."