Mantra, Movement, Mudra and Munchies!

I see you, Spring and I love your abundance of tulips, bursts of lilac and wilds of green!  Your beautiful distraction is calling for a new and refreshed practice for balance, mental clarity and focus. As many of you know, dear readers, each season I offer a specially themed yoga delight, with the opportunity to dive deeper into the richness of the practice and enjoy a seasonal vegetarian meal in community. This April’s Spring Renewal Deep Dive was ripe with intention to move forward, release any accumulated gunk from winter’s heaviness and make room to open and receive.

You know when you feel like you’re holding onto something that isn’t serving you? An emotion, a thought, a resentment, a secret? It can have a tight and gripping feeling, or a fluttery, anxious tummy quality, while other times it’s a head-about-to-explode kind of sensation.

Whatever it is, why hold onto it? It doesn’t serve our emotional, mental, physical or spiritual wellbeing, so why do we grip?

This is a rich, creamy dal from northern India’s Punjab state. It’s my husband’s fave and having tried it for the first time while visiting India last month, it’s now my fave too! I’m working on perfecting a recipe that matches the complexity and richness of what I so enjoyed on our trip. This one comes close and I’ll continue refining, but here, I present my first attempt.

Ah, December is really here, ripe with the joy of giving but also emotionally draining with added responsibilities, expectations and attachments to how things ‘should’ or ‘need’ to be at holiday time.

If all the moving parts and pieces of your doing and fast paced going are feeling burdensome, take the pressure off and try these 5 helpful actions to reduce stress. Let them be reminders to stay light and vital.

Anchor yourself

Let go of perfection

Invite a helping hand

Greet everyone with a smile

Non attachment

Ring-Ring  Autumn is calling with an invitation to stop, look around and see the changes above, below and everywhere in between. As October fully engages us in its brilliance, I’m grateful for invigorating, crisp, sunny rain-free walks around town with my pup or a friend. Have you noticed the shift in pace and energy; the colors, quality of light and air, movement and mood? When we listen to Autumn’s cues, we may be called to bake, seek out more warming foods & connection to community, bundle up in scarves or go inward and seek knowledge in books, classes or workshops. Allow those longings to emerge and see where they lead. Being over-scheduled, resisting change or succumbing to the busy, windy, sometimes frenetic nature of the season, doesn’t allow us time to contemplate what our needs may be and so days just continue to roll on into the next without any meaningful moments to anchor us. 

TAPAS, the 3rd Niyama or personal practice in yoga, teaches of cultivating self-discipline and inviting challenge to ignite our inner fire…..the seed of transformation.

Igniting our internal fire (our Agni) to help us rise to challenges and move through the hard stuff, requires willingness and gentle stoking to stay motivated along our journey and burn through whatever dulls our inner spark. By turning up the heat in the form of directing energy into the discipline, we begin to transform-moving through what holds us back . This can take the form of big, sweaty active movement and it can also take the form of a slow burning challenge to stay the course in the commitment you’ve made toward self-transformation.

Santosha, the second of the 5 Niyamas, or personal practices in the Yoga Sutras, means complete acceptance or contentment.

Contentment and acceptance when the world is torn apart by divisiveness, fear and suffering? Really?! Believe me, I’m disappointed, disheartened and angry about the current social climate, policies and narrative in this country on the daily. So, how do we cultivate santosha so that we can remain steady in these times of suffering, turmoil and tragedy? 

Did you have an opportunity to ‘spring clean’ yet? Have the warmer sunny days left you feeling scattered or mind-cluttered? Do you feel stuck in a loop or unable to shift emotional or physical stagnation or blockages? Whether or not this seems true for you, June is an ideal month to explore what it would feel like to cultivate Saucha. In this month’s yoga journey we’re working with this first of the 5 Niyamas (personal practices that relate to our inner world and help keep us honest with ourselves). Saucha translates as Purity, Cleanliness and Simplicity and what better time to focus on the practice of Saucha as we transition from Spring to Summer!