.....riding the current of life

Yogis,

When I was little I loved the swimming pool.  I was like a little fish.  Diving to the bottom, hanging upside down from the side, and having tea parties with my friends deep below the surface.  I would glide through the water and could swim two full lengths while holding my breath – always winning in that competition.   It all felt free and effortless.  I was in the flow.

But put me in the ocean where the current was stronger and it was another whole matter.  One too many times I was grabbed by a wave and tumbled, being held under water for only seconds…..but it felt like hours.  That feeling of being pulled downward and me struggling to go upward and ending up with a nose full of water and a bathing suit full of sand.  Gasping for air as I broke the surface.  Intellectually I knew to let go to the current, but I definitely wasn’t able in those critical moments.  I resisted.  I was not in the flow.

Just like life…………………….

The water element is our flow.  The fluidity in our joints and our spirit that allow us to move through life with ease and grace. 

The Universe has a flow.  A rhythm.  I call it the ‘hum’.  When you get quiet and still enough you can feel it.  And when we swim with it, we find our own flow.  Life feels free and effortless, like riding the wind.  When we fight and swim against its current, life becomes awfully hard and we end up with water up our nose.  

The moon is the keeper of the flow.  Her cycle of seemingly appearing from nothing one night in the sky as the slightest sliver and expanding for two weeks until she is completely full and whole, the peak of the inhale.  A time of heightened energy and light for diving into your passion, stepping beyond boundaries, fertility and growth.

Followed every single month of every single year by the two weeks of a gentle gradual darkening…the long slow exhale.  A time of slowing down and moving inward to reconnect with what is right here.  A shedding of the outer world to delve into the inner work.  Letting go to the flow.

The lightness of spring is followed by the long hot days of summer where the Universe reaches new heights and bursts at the seams with aliveness.  Followed always by fall where the trees go through the process of dropping all they no longer need to prepare for the rest  and quiet of winter.  Each season with its own ‘hum’ eager for you to join in.  Neither hanging back nor rushing ahead.  Just in tune.

You can hear it in the raining down of the acorns and taste it in the smoky air of a campfire.  You can feel it when the house is covered with a thick blanket of snow and see it in the decaying log as it rests, at ease, next to the rushing creek. 

The breath flows in and the breath flows out.  We are born, live life to its fullest, slow down and eventually return to the earth.  The sun rises and it sets. 

Let go and listen for the flow.  Lie back and ride its current.  Free and effortless.

Mmmmmmmm………

SARAH

.....my secret lover

Yogis,

This week we dove off the solid banks of earth into the watery realm of Svadhisthana …..our sacral chakra.  The element of water.  Our creativity, moisture, fluidity, desire and sensuality.  The feminine.  Interestingly enough, the Post ran two articles this week on the impact of aging on women’s sexuality.

Yes, as the years go by, and life piles on, women tend to want sex less often than men.  Sometimes dwindling to the point where the urge can feel nonexistent.  Usually we are told that it a “known fact” that women’s libido decreases, which has led to the development of medical treatments and the pink pill. But do we really need more medicine?

One of this week’s article stated that older women’s wants were different and that intimacy became more important than a good orgasm.  PLEASE.  Are they serious?  Since when did I have to choose one over the other?  I want a deep soul connection and an earth rocking orgasm, and that isn’t too much to ask. But when it isn’t happening we begin to believe that is just how things are. 

Several years ago I was listening to Christine Northrup MD, an expert on women’s health issues and menopause, and she commented that the best cure for a stalled sex life is a new partner.  It stopped me in my tracks.  What, as my ears perked up?  She then went on to say that the new partner can be you.  It makes perfect sense.  If I don’t clearly know what it is that I want, how can I expect anyone else to fulfill my desire?

I offer yet another angle to this threesome.  That the new partner can be the Universe.  A secret, juicy, wild, messy love affair with all that is……..

Sensuality blooms from within.  We ourselves need to feel free, wild, open and untamed, in order to share that with another.  And the Universe is eager to help.

But somehow the old 9-5 job, carpool, emails, meetings and chores pull many of us away from our primal nature.  Our attention is spent on matters of the mind and doesn’t venture down nearly enough to our pelvic floor where the Shakti energy resides.  Our breath becomes shallow never reaching the depths below where the spark waits patiently to be lit. 

The Universe is a willing and available partner.  Make a standing date to keep the pilot light burning.  It can be entire evenings, lazy afternoons or stolen moments during the day. 

As you sit reading this  note, spread the knees away from each other, and notice where your attentions goes. Take a bath with lavender and salts by candlelight.  Turn on your most sensual music and move to its rhythm.  Get drunk from the smell of roses and warm from the blaze of the fire.  Stand under the full moon and draw down her power.  Look up to let the stars sparkle in your eyes.  Face the sun spread your arms wide and shine back with all of your heart. Let the beauty of the sky at sunset bring you to tears.

Get dirty….really dirty.  Wear what makes you feel sexy, or nothing at all.  Close your eyes and feel the full body embrace of the wind.  Let the hoot of the owl touch you at your very center, and the bitter cold make you shiver.  Let the night noises lull you to sleep.   Lie down spread eagle on the floor in the middle of the room.  Place your hands on your belly and send the breath down ….down….down.   Notice your pelvic floor often.

Life is to be lived.  Felt.  Explored.  Swallowed.  Tasted. 

Make love to the Universe.  Only you will know……

Mmmmmmmm………………..
SARAH

......the planned pause

Yogis,

Do you find it irritating when you drive up behind a car that is stopped because the driver is asking directions?  Begin to tap your foot when the person in front of you in line has to run back to grab one more item or can’t find their coupons? 

Does your heart quicken when  the person you are with says they have to stop for one small errand, or mumble under your breath when the receptionist answers with ‘can I put you on hold for a moment?’.  And how about when the internet goes down?

We hate to pause. 

We move so quickly through our days that any yield sign in our path can set us off.   It’s that old natural law of ‘a body in motion wants to stay in motion’.  And we are all in motion.  Stop signs, red lights and traffic….oh my.

But it is in the pause that life unveils its depth and brilliance.

So over this past month of classes we have been practicing the pause.  Yes it does take practice!  And it isn’t easy.  For some, more difficult than others.

In yoga we do a pose leading with the right foot or arm, and then repeat it on the left.  Bringing balance to the body.  But just like the highway of life we become programmed to move from right immediately to left.  Auto pilot.  We “know” where we are going and head there. 

But I have been inserting a pause.  Not a slow down like cruising in at low speed toward a red light hoping it changes before we have to stop…… but an actual landing in stillness and being there, for a while, before moving on.  Closing the eyes and landing.  The pose of stillness.  I think I will name it ‘stop-asana’ and it is definitely a level 3 pose.

Fidgeting.  Taking that moment to readjust clothing.  A quick sip of water.  Wondering why the heck we aren’t moving on to the other side.  Irritation.  A waste of time.  Why are we stopping?  I have things to do!   Aaargh!!

…..life happens in the pause.  When we become perfectly still all of our senses heighten.  We feel, hear, see and smell more deeply.  We suddenly awaken to what is right here and what is right here is pretty amazing.  Floating in the sea of stillness - the container that holds everything we do. 

This week watch how you react to unplanned pauses and plan some conscious pauses (stopasana) in your day.  Perhaps whenever you get in your car and close the door, you sit still for 10 seconds before turning the ignition.  Or after you finish brushing your teeth  you simply stand at your sink and breathe.  Stay seated at the table in silence for 15 seconds after you finish your meal or when you check yourself out in the mirror after dressing, stand still and hold the gaze longer than usual.    

At first it can make you feel anxious, just like the car driving 50 ahead of you in the fast lane.  But as you land and breathe a letting go will begin to happen.  Eventually your energy slows and sinks downward.  You become rooted and centered.  You have arrived.

This is the earth energy………………..

My conscious pause for today was an hour massage,
SARAH

the weekend that wasn't

Yogis,

If you live on the east coast you probably felt and lived through what I am writing about today.  If you don’t, you have at some other point in time.

Everything was planned. I was to leave town Friday at 1. All of the schedules set, bags packed, reservations made and my vision of the weekend clear. Then Hurricane Joaquin came into our lives.  She set change in motion.

The weekend that didn’t happen……..

But honestly it wasn’t even Joaquin. It was the nor’easter ahead of her and the flurry of news reports surrounding the approaching weather.Talk of heavy rains, wind and flooding. Warnings and dire predictions.

So the hemming and hawing began in earnest on Thursday. Should we go? Should we cancel? What if we go and have to come back? The back and forth of calls and emails. The uncertainty. Everything now up in the air and me blowing in the wind. And it certainly wasn’t just me feeling it. Cancellations of most activities, events, and even the moving of college football game times. The winds of change had arrived.

So in the blink of an eye, once the decision to cancel was made, I went from a full weekend to a completely blank two days ahead of me.  Absolutely nothing on the agenda. Nothing! Joaquin had cleared the slate.  Saturday and Sunday staring at me and asking what choices I would make to fill them. The Weather Channel's 'Cone of Uncertainty'- I emotionally was in it.

I wanted to choose with purpose. So what did I do first? I headed out to do all of the things I don’t enjoy and had been putting off. Got the hair colored and cut, spent an hour and half utterly overwhelmed in a shoe warehouse, and went bra shopping (the absolute worst!!!!). But because I chose to do these and there was no clock to live by I could move slowly, with purpose and watch. 

Sunday I chose to face a couple of small fears and raised my hand to guest teach in a new yoga studio in the city this week so headed down to get the lay of the land, and then took Phoebe for a long walk in the woods were I could test her off leash.

I gave an impromptu healing session to one friend and had another over for some tea and soul searching. I took all of the veggies in the frig and made soup.

How often do we have that chance?  Extended time with absolutely nothing we have to do and nowhere we have to be.  Receiving the gift of mindful choosing. I feel as if I chose well. 

Om,
SARAH