Gregory Ormson

Writer, musician, yoga-loving motorcyclist.

 WHY I RIDE IN THE DGR = the backstory

I’ve paid attention to stylish clothing since my first job at K-Bliss Men’s Store in Menomonie when I was 16 and took a job arranged by my high school’s distributive education class. I learned from three experienced associates how to match a tie to a dress shirt, how to measure pant legs for tailoring, how to choose the correct size for suits and sport coats, and how to casually suggest accessories like cufflinks, cologne, a second tie, a new belt, or a pocket square.

I enjoyed the job and discovered the sales tactics they taught worked, and I became a good men’s clothing salesman. From the time of that job in high school, I paid some attention to my clothing style and occasionally read men’s fashion magazines at the library.

Many years later, my stylistic sensibilities were piqued when a friend commented about my motorcycle. “Greg, I’ve noticed that bikes are a lot like their owners,” I asked what she meant. “Your bike is sharp, clean, smart like you.” Her compliment charged my ego, and I began studying motorcycle and rider combinations. I realized her observation was accurate.

With an enthusiasm for motorcycling and voguish dress, it’s no surprise that I felt drawn to The Distinguished Gentlemen’s Ride (DGR), a motorcycle charity and awareness event with an eye on riding dapper. The DGR was founded in 2012 by Mark Hawwa in Sydney, Australia and has taken place around the world every year since then. Hawwa prefers not to take credit for the ride’s success but turns the focus back to its mission.… read more...

Riding Worldwide in ‘The Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride’

2024 video wrap-up from DGR here:
This is my reminder to everyone to ask the men you know to get a simple blood test to check their PSA. That blood draw can be a lifesaving event.
The Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride DGR is a worldwide fund raising and fun event with participation by people in over 100 countries riding motorcycles on the same day for the same cause. I’ve participated four times because its focus on men’s health issues is important.

Statistically, 75% of suicides are by men, and one in every 8 men will get prostate cancer, making it the number one cancer-causing death among men worldwide.

This charitable motorcycle event for owners of classic and vintage styled bikes will take place around the world on May 18. It will happen here in Phoenix/Scottsdale, Arizona.
The DGR Ride, now in its 13th year, brings together over 500,000 classic and vintage motorcycles and well-dressed riders and has raised more than 54 million since its inception in 2012.

REASONS to ride are increased awareness – meaning to ask the men in your life to get their damn PSA checked now – and/or offer a donation to research and support for men’s health.

*MENTAL HEALTH* *SUICIDE PREVENTION*

*PROSTATE CANCER* *TESTICULAR CANCER*
The ride is sponsored in part by the following: MOVEMBER FOUNDATION, TRIUMPH MOTORCYCLES, ELF, HEDON, QUAD LOCK, CMSNL, BRETT.

p.s., I don’t make a big deal out of the fundraising as is evident. Three hundred dollars in four rides isn’t much in the big scale of things, but it means that people are reading, are thinking about it, are donating in small amounts.
… read more...

CREATIVE Collaboration: A Fox Sparks a 20-Year Collaboration in Drums, Poems, and the Music of Thorburn/Ormson

Here, writing has turned acoustic and the instruments include a Vox keyboard, sitar, clarinet electric guitar, acoustic guitar, and voice. I’m open to hearing from you on this no matter what you have to say.

In a poetry recital at The Peter White Public Library in Marquettee, Michigan Russ Thorburn read his poem, “The Fox.” My part was to keep a beat with drum(s) to his words, so I put several small squares of wax paper under the wire bridge on the bottom of the snare drum to separate the snare-​wires from the batter-​head. This allowed for a snare sound, but not an overpowering blast, more like raindrops on a tin roof. I played the snare with chopsticks to the rhythm of Thorburn’s reading.

The sound from those chopsticks – stepping lightly – clicked to the rhythm of Thorburn’s stealthy fox. It never left me, and our collaboration continued over the years with lots of crazy things. Some of them failed, some of them failed worse. But through it all we developed lives marked by craft and grace, meeting all the moments with acceptance. Sometimes, we’d share a dram of whiskey in Marquette too, and even if we drank it from a cup, it was always: crafty, graceful, randomly graceful, and even glorious.

Both Russ Thorburn and Jesus show up in this first song, along with a shadowy wolf-​psychology, and a blues-​singing bus driver. We see all of them in our reflection, I think. Sometimes, we all have the blues, and Edward Hopper’s lyrics are stamped on our souls. All those yellow lines we cross over in our sleep.… read more...

WE CANNOT FIND LOVE, IT IS NOT LOST

I hear the deep discordant murmurs, and they drive me back to source to recall oracles of love. I hear that love is the only attribute that yearns to, or can be, the fixative to our desert wandering. The proof, you ask? I have it.

A friend and scholar bringing me food when I was starving; admiration with a single word from poet and philosopher, shared space and love of another, smile from a friend, word from a daughter, touch from a son, steady hand cradling the child, guidance of mentor, embrace by heroes, invites from others, and true confessions held and honored by me from all of you. It’s never a me or we, but only love listening to the deep murmurs drowning the joy of our human catholic.

But I’m not done with the list of love, even when it was formed long before me: as in wins, losses, and sacrifices; simple advancements of care through votes for National Parks and roadways, science, medicine, education, well-engineered machines, and well-managed humanities.

I am accepting of this world, and its attendant vale of tears, as it’s all I have. But if love draws me to work, I will aim for truthfulness and audacity. Compelled by this double force for courage, I’ll treat this difficult and harrowing world as THOU, not as IT. That will define my acts not as searching for, but as being in the world and doing the right thing.

This is its own reward, and in my brief and grave traverse in this world, I will willfully participate (I would like to joyfully participate but that’s not always possible) and contribute my voice, along with my hands and feet, to confirm the rumor that love is still alive.

… read more...

Melody of Mass Inspiration in Audiobook form, Yoga Song

AUDIO BOOK FOR YOUR YOGI: read what others are saying about Yoga Song

Yoga Song is a melody of mass inspiration proclaiming to every yogi that their breath is their sacred song and the soundtrack to their journey of transformation. The 21 vignettes in Yoga Song speak to both the skeptic and the true believer. To those who believe yoga’s therapeutic power, they confirm what they already know, that yoga is an augury of transformation and change. To the skeptic, these vignettes hold out a vision of what could happen to you when yoga turns ordinary moments into extraordinary and aligns each yogi with their breathcentric home.

Ormson narrates his story from insights born in the depths of self-discovery, sharing knowledge, understanding, and experience to inspire listeners. Every yoga song unfolds in the yogi as they become instruments of mind, spirit, emotion, energy, and consciousness. In chapters like, “Transforming the Emotional Body,” “Ritual Process and the Yogi’s New Song,” “Armor On, Armor Off: The Psychology of Yin Yoga,” and “Yogatecture: Blueprint of Transformation,” Ormson’s Yoga Song meets you in grace and opens the way for more grace.
Available in 30 platforms worldwide. Listen to your Audible copy by going here: https://www.audible.com/pd/Yoga-Song-Audiobook/B0C3JB7JK1…
What others say about Yoga Song
“I just read much of your book and I appreciate the connections you make and the questions you ask and there is much wisdom there. I appreciate all that you are bringing to your reader’s awareness, and I wish you all the very best with the book and with your continued yoga practice.” Renee Schettler, Editor in Chief, Yoga Journal.
… read more...

A Lightening Strike into Evermore Renewal

IT’S THE CHINESE YEAR OF THE WOOD SNAKE AND I HAVE A SNAKE TALE TO TELL  #690 on the way to 700

While studying at the Gandhi Peace Foundation in New Delhi, I took a day trip to see The Red Fort, a 265-acre complex built in 1546 for the fifth Mughal Emperor of India. Afterward, I stopped at a roadside market to buy fresh mangoes or pineapples. Suddenly, a man with a wicker basket was in front of me. He lifted it to my face, removed the cover, and said, “You want?” as a cobra slowly rose and flexed its hood eight inches from my face.

I bent backward so fast that I thought I’d broken my back as the cobra rose slowly and subtly from the basket as if seeking opportunity, but it was also ready to strike at lightning speed had I posed a threat. A snake is vigilant and alert to opportunity or danger. Since then, I’ve thought about how that cobra moved to position itself right in front of my face.

A snake is a profound example of graceful subtlety as it converts the friction from sideways-to-sideways movement into energy that pushes their body forward, or upward. When the time is right, and after the snake grows, a wrinkled skin peels away making room for new growth.

There are frictions in all our lives, but the snake teaches how to convert friction into movement. Yoga tells us much the same, reminding us to move not in disease or stress or fast herky-jerky movements – like I did bending away from the snake – but with ease while remaining alert.

… read more...

The Slow Burn of a Yogi’s Becoming: milestones to 700 Bikram yoga classes

Moved to a new center, fired by a disciplined pattern moment by heated moment, yoga fastens you into a deep curriculum of transformation where your spine moves as it was meant to move and your breath deepens your experience of life. When you step across a liminal threshold into a ritual container – like a yoga studio – and follow the guru (your breath) you drop into a deep well of wisdom.

 

Yoga invites you to dig deep; when you do, you’ll catch a glimpse of the periphery turned central. You’ll learn to inhabit contentment and put on garments of integrity and your life will feel like slow-motion shapeshifting in space. Bodily shape shifts happen in yoga, but meditation and movement also shift perspectives.

 

These psychosomatic shifts are yoga’s therapeutic, opening a gate between conscious and unconscious, laying bare a pathway for a return to the depth of self. In the self that is you – the same through all time – a bodily physiology meets a mental/spiritual soul where all space and time is negotiable. This meeting alters the nervous system by pausing the strategic and analytic mind while feeding the meditative mind. Yoga calls this a state of yogacittavrittiniroda.

 

Yoga’s activation of mind, body, and spirit doesn’t happen on the same timeline for everyone, but yoga’s journey will take each yogi to the ground of their being in a breathcentric and healing therapeutic, setting them on the way to their good things comin’ . . .

 

 

 

 

… read more...

Yoga Song, the audiobook for your yogi

AUDIO BOOK FOR YOUR YOGI:

Yoga Song is a melody of mass inspiration proclaiming to every yogi that their breath is their sacred song and the soundtrack to their journey of transformation. The 21 vignettes in Yoga Song speak to both the skeptic and the true believer. To those who believe yoga’s therapeutic power, they confirm what they already know, that yoga is an augury of transformation and change. To the skeptic, these vignettes hold out a vision of what could happen to you when yoga turns ordinary moments into extraordinary and aligns each yogi with their breathcentric home.
Ormson narrates his story from insights born in the depths of self-discovery, sharing knowledge, understanding, and experience to inspire listeners. Every yoga song unfolds in the yogi as they become instruments of mind, spirit, emotion, energy, and consciousness. In chapters like, “Transforming the Emotional Body,” “Ritual Process and the Yogi’s New Song,” “Armor On, Armor Off: The Psychology of Yin Yoga,” and “Yogatecture: Blueprint of Transformation,” Ormson's Yoga Song meets you in grace and opens the way for more grace.



Available in 30 platforms worldwide. Listen to your Audible copy by going here: https://www.audible.com/pd/Yoga-Song-Audiobook/B0C3JB7JK1...



What others say about Yoga Song:



“I just read much of your book and I appreciate the connections you make and the questions you ask and there is much wisdom there. I appreciate all that you are bringing to your reader’s awareness, and I wish you all the very best with the book and with your continued yoga practice.” Renee Schettler, Editor in Chief, Yoga Journal.
“Your writing is very good and would be ideal if you ever fancy contributing on any regular basis, especially in our OM spirit section.”
… read more...

Run to the Rez 2024 – story in December American Rider Magazine

 

Runnin’ Against The Wind

The 21st annual official Run to the Rez was held October 17-21 at the Apache Gold Casino and Resorts in San Carlos, Arizona. 2024 was the biggest yet, attracting 720 registered riders and many spectators and onlookers.

From the beginning, this motorcycle event has honored military veterans. Saturday’s program at Burdette Hall in San Carlos, following a group ride from the Apache Gold Casino to San Carlos, displays respect for all warriors and all Nations. As townspeople in San Carlos show up in large numbers to cheer bikers on, the throaty voice of rumbling bikes amplifies the celebration. Joining a large group of bikers on the way to Saturday morning’s program has always been fun, and townspeople enjoy bikers throwing candy to children as onlookers wave, take photos, and salute the riders.

“This run is all about honoring the veterans. It gets bigger and better every year,” said John Bush, one of the first few Geronimo Riders of that small group to hold a ride honoring Veterans nearly 30 years ago. Bush is still leading Run to the Rez but he said it’s not just him. “We couldn’t do it without the volunteers, and we had about 25.”

Burdette Hall’s program honored Gold Star Family members, and two veteran Grand Marshalls of the November 11 Veterans Day parade (Matt Hinton and Emerson Bayless). Each year the program honors a Viet Nam veteran, and this year it was combat veteran (Jonathan Victor). Honorees received lankets and donations along with a cash gift from the Rez Riders MC.… read more...

Riding to the Mysterious Pyramid-Tombs of Arizona’s Outback Story in November issue American Rider Magazine

Full text of story below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The specter of pyramids rising from the desert seems more Egyptian than Arizonan, and yet for more than 100 years, three pyramids holding the bones of Arizona leaders, explorers, and visionaries have dotted Arizona’s landscape.

I jumped on my Harley Davidson Road King to explore the backstories of people buried within, including Arizona’s first Governor, George P. Hunt, Hi Jolly, a camel herder, and Arizona’s first Congressional Representative Charles D. Poston.

Riders yearning to see tilted Americana or cruise the roads less traveled will find pyramids of masonry, quartz, fieldstone, basalt, petrified wood, mortar, and even fragments from an early Indigenous American structure. Visiting the pyramids will take about 8 hours of riding time, but plan more as you’ll want to explore historical sites and check out the flavor of local shops and restaurants.

 Arizona’s desert is a place fitter for camels than people. It’s hard on riders and bikes, requiring frequent breaks for water and gas. Realistically, plan two days and pack your walking shoes. Starting in Phoenix, my pyramid trifecta began on Interstate 10 by going west for 140 miles through Arizona’s Outback to Quartzsite, about 250 miles east of Los Angeles and 82 miles north of Yuma.

Quartzsite is dotted with RV parks catering to explorers and bikers strolling the streets and sidewalks of Quartzsite with dreams, wanderlust, and a thirst for adventure. The same characteristics brought Hi Jolly from Greece to Arizona in 1857.

Hadji Ali, as he was known in his native Syria, was recruited to train U.S.… read more...

The Black Box of America

First published in Oddball Magazine, November 20, 2024

No one missed that country
Men were soft, angry, and violent
Life was brutal and unforgiving
Pretentious and vacuous

Decisions and mutations were cut
in candle-lit back rooms, women were victims
They grabbed what they wanted
Fooled by the same illusion driving men, CONTROL

In apocalyptic bunkers
Dark physicians sang Odes to depression
Men were sheep and folded quickly
Not crying, but telling

Terrifying stories of bad things
Children were frightened and dogs were wild
No one cared about their neighbor
Everyone pretended at everything

The winner’s faces were tan, they lifted weights
Arenas were filled with men and women
Fighting women and men
Everything broke except the glass ceiling

Yuppies kept on building, kept sailing
Went on painting their ceilings
White, of course,
Ignorantly marched toward the future

They cheered the New Year
Hell, everyone cheered the New Year
And drove ATV’s and big boats
Rednecks toasted Monster Trucks as they mashed tiny Japanese cars

Christians decorated Christmas trees in suburban homes
To shots of Irish Crème or Asti
They drank while listening to strains of Bing Crosby’s
White Christmas on their stereo

They made yellow popcorn strings and dutifully attached them to the Green branches.
A ritual ‘round a tree,’ but nobody knew why
There were no ritual elders, there was no ritual wisdom
There was no embodiment of grace

After New Year’s celebrations and narcissistic resolutions
And the dark, wasted days of another empty year,
They awoke bored, helpless, angry at mothers and fathers
Sons and daughters, aunts and uncles, children and in-laws

The population chugged bourbon in the afternoon
And on vacation, they counted numbers in their bankbooks
Children were confused, scared, frozen
Occasionally they trusted a teacher

Once they trusted a priest, just once
But in time, their trust was betrayed
Their faces, tight and alarmed
They suffered daily with headaches and stomachaches

Kids starved for attention
But they got dollar bills
Parents screamed at them
Hurt and eating hot dogs

A 21st Century Recipe For Disaster:
Take a young man and put him in a high-powered car.… read more...

The Black Box of America, a poem by Gregory Ormson

This poem and image was originally published November 20, 2024 by Oddball Magazine. Editors calling it “a monster piece.”

The Black Box of America

Few people called a spade a spade
before the country went up in flames.
-Anon

No one missed that country
Men were soft, angry, and violent
Life was brutal and unforgiving
Pretentious and vacuous

Decisions and mutations were cut
in candle-lit back rooms, women were victims
They grabbed what they wanted
Fooled by the same illusion driving men, CONTROL

In apocalyptic bunkers
Dark physicians sang Odes to depression
Men were sheep and folded quickly
Not crying, but telling

Terrifying stories of bad things
Children were frightened and dogs were wild
No one cared about their neighbor
Everyone pretended at everything

The winner’s faces were tan, they lifted weights
Arenas were filled with men and women
Fighting women and men
Everything broke except the glass ceiling

Yuppies kept on building, kept sailing
Went on painting their ceilings
White, of course,
Ignorantly marched toward the future

They cheered the New Year
Hell, everyone cheered the New Year
And drove ATV’s and big boats
Rednecks toasted Monster Trucks as they mashed tiny Japanese cars

Christians decorated Christmas trees in suburban homes
To shots of Irish Crème or Asti
They drank while listening to strains of Bing Crosby’s
White Christmas on their stereo

They made yellow popcorn strings and dutifully attached them to the Green branches.
A ritual ‘round a tree,’ but nobody knew why
There were no ritual elders, there was no ritual wisdom
There was no embodiment of grace

After New Year’s celebrations and narcissistic resolutions
And the dark, wasted days of another empty year,
They awoke bored, helpless, angry at mothers and fathers
Sons and daughters, aunts and uncles, children and in-laws

The population chugged bourbon in the afternoon
And on vacation, they counted numbers in their bankbooks
Children were confused, scared, frozen
Occasionally they trusted a teacher

Once they trusted a priest, just once
But in time, their trust was betrayed
Their faces, tight and alarmed
They suffered daily with headaches and stomachaches

Kids starved for attention
But they got dollar bills
Parents screamed at them
Hurt and eating hot dogs

A 21st Century Recipe For Disaster:
Take a young man and put him in a high-powered car.… read more...

America’s Most Famous Bike: shown in 5 magazines, 4 newspapers, 2 alumni publications and several blogs. You can rent it through Riders Share . . . read on

American Classic

Here is America’s Most Famous Bike – Priscilla –  in the November 2024 issue of American Rider Magazine. She is also in stories written for Thunder Press, OM Yoga Magazine, The Taj Mahal Review, and AZ Rider News; find Priscilla in newspaper stories for: The Green Bay Press Gazette, The Wausau Daily Herald, The Mesa Tribune, and The Mining Journal; stories for University Alumni Publications (University of Wisconsin La Crosse, and Northern Michigan University), and three online publications: Yahoo.com, The Phoenix Indian Center, and the Riders’ Share Blog.

 

Photo in Thunder Press (now American Rider)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Video link from my friend Ram Hernandez.

QR DISCOUNT Code to rent Priscilla through Riders Share.

HARLEY-DAVIDSON TOURING ROAD KING (TWO TONE) for rent near Mesa, AZ – Riders Share (riders-share.com

You can rent Priscilla too but be good to her.

… read more...

Pyramid Scheme: a date with Arizona’s mysterious pyramid tombs.

 

Hello Motorcycle friends. American Rider Magazine, the journal of the International Big Twin community, has published my story and many photos of an incredible mototour to Arizona’s three pyramid-tombs.  These pyramid-tombs, like the people inside, are mysterious, memorable, majestic, and located in Quartzsite, Florence, and Papago Park in Phoenix. The digital version of American Rider is available at American Rider (dot) com; you’ll see great stops along the way: Dateland Travel Oasis off I-8, The Readers’ Oasis Bookstore in Quartzsite, and The River Bottom Grill on why 79 between Phoenix and Tucson.

 

The specter of pyramids rising from the desert seems more Egyptian than Arizonan, yet for more than 100 years, three pyramids holding the bones of Arizona leaders, explorers, and visionaries have dotted the desert spaces of Arizona.  And even though the desert is a place fitter for camels than people, I jumped on my Harley Davidson to visit these pyramid tombs which for Arizona’s first Governor, George P. Hunt in Phoenix, Hi Jolly the camel herder in Quartzite, and Charles D. Poston (Arizona’s first Congressional Representative) in Florence.

 

Riders yearning to see tilted Americana or cruise the roads less traveled will find unique memorials in these structures of masonry, quartz, fieldstone, basalt, petrified wood, and mortar, and in Poston, fragments from an early Indigenous American structure. Visiting all three will take about 8 hours of riding time, but if you giddy-up on the fast track, the trip can be done with one overnight stay. Since I live in the Phoenix area, my pyramid trifecta began on Interstate 10 by going west into Arizona’s Outback.… read more...

The Ghosts Are Full Here As The Hungry Half Moon Rises

 

And so am I, full with the imprints of time and memory. I am rich in soul, yet I’m hungry for more. It’s not a feast I want, I keep my appetite for all things in moderation, but I want what singer Sam Garrett wants, “More life, more blessings; more peace, more unity.” It’s easy to find in the solitude I am offered here at a cabin in the north, but peace and unity exist on flimsy ground, like whisps of smoke dispersing at the slightest wind.

 

Through the years, I’ve discovered ghosts here in the souls of people whose ashes have been spread on the lake shore. By here, I mean “The Old-Style Place,” a cabin that has been in the family for 50 years. Rustic, well-built, no running water, no bathroom, just an outhouse. Honoring the remnants of life’s past is part of my yearly visit here, just as it was for those who left their relatives on the shore.

 

In the Spring, one chore involves cleaning the outhouse; this means removing snake skins, sweeping away mounds of spider webs, and mopping up dust. Many people would not like this place. Tonight, I note the silence and half full Buck Moon, a cipher in the sky hiding behind branches of the large pines.

 

Imprints remain from those who sat on the dock while watching the western sun set over the lake. Many of them have passed on: my parents, a childhood friend, an uncle, a few aunts, grandparents, and other friends and family.
They’re all here.… read more...

What’s In A Name? Run to the Rez 21

 

Run to the Rez is coming up this weekend. I’ll be there listening and hoping to find words to describe this rally and Veterans honor ride.

More than just a gathering, the four-day motorcycle rally, ‘Run to the Rez’ is also a mystery. Albert Einstein wrote of mystery, “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He [sic] to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to consider and stand rapt in awe is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”

 

Absent an openness to awe, our lives inhabit a worn-out structure, we become dry bones baked in desert dust. And bereft of awe, especially now when we need it more than ever, our vision is compromised, and we cannot see or sense the remnants of an ancient past shivering down the branches and over the highways.

 

Energy drives that mystery and powers a seed to burst through the desert crust or volcanic rock in search of light. This energy steers the way at Run to the Rez.

 

Motorcycling among the Apache’s seven sacred mountains, it’s easy to recognize our finitude and smallness in the face of rugged geography. At the same time, when purple mountains majesty moves us, we sense our connectedness to something beyond singularity and smallness. It is material, it is mystical; it is breathtaking and breath-giving to the fire, to the ghost dancers, and to the riders  Aho

 

 

 

 

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Culture Wars, Walt Whitman, Yoga and You

Walt Whitman remains America’s greatest poet of healing. His close-up witness to the tragedy of the Civil War, coupled with his robust faith in the American creed led to his majestic and compassionate poetry. I believe it was his — and is my preference — to always err on the side of compassion vs anything less.

 

In his poem, America, Whitman wasn’t describing what America was during the Civil War, but was envisioning what it could be and what the American experiment aimed to be. America, he wrote, you are the “Center of equal daughters, equal sons, / All, all alike endear’d, grown, ungrown, young or old.”

 

Whitman knew that the American Union could remain intact through the Civil War only by the inclusion of all, especially one’s enemies. It’s how we became one United States of America versus a Northern or Southern United States. Enemies were included!

 

Today, the healing prescription for cultural bitterness must adopt this vision. Today, we hear a lot of nice words and slogans that remain distant but never get bloody. But change requires hard work, like the work of a man tending to the wounded and dying in a Civil War battlefield hospital – legs and arms piled in the tent corner – shoes caked in blood-stained ground.

 

In Leaves of Grass, Whitman wrote, “For every atom belongs to me as good belongs to you.” Quantum thought posits this as true. My atoms are yours and yours are mine. Your breath is mine and mine is yours. We are not separate from, or different from one another; your wounds are mine and mine are yours.… read more...

Two-part Video and Written Review of KEMIMOTO’S Windshield Extender on a Honda Rebel and a Harley-Davidson Road King

(Discount code included) at the end of this post as KEMIMOTO is celebrating their 13th anniversary. Use AFF17 for 17% off no threshold discount on this $79 product.

KEMIMOTO’S Windshield Extender is a fantastic buy to reduce the wind blast to their forehead, stop the rain before it gets to your neck and chest, and keep the desert heat off your forehead. In these two videos, I show this product mounted on a narrow and small windshield for a Honda Rebel. Part II, completed in Arizona, shows the same extender on my Harley Davidson Road King.

Good things about this product – and a recommendation for improvement:

  1. It absolutely cuts down on wind blast. This was important for my daughter who sits above the current windshield and the blast landed in her face. Even better, in Arizona where we ride in over 100 degrees nearly every day, it diminishes hot air to the face.
  2. The hardware on this extender is very solid, I do not see it wearing out for a long time. This includes the connection to the windshield itself which is key. I will show you in the second video, and photos here, how the rubber pieces protect the windshield and hold the extender in place. I was traveling at 70mph, and they held solidly; the extender attached to the bike windshield without scratching it, and without shifting around when riding.
  3. I love the ease and speed of installation and removal.  Right out of the box I set it up in about 10 minutes with the two small hex wrenches included in the shipping package.
… read more...

Sunburst Amber Fractions and A Hat Full of Rain

A magnetic north of the heart draws me back again. It’s all rain and wind in my beloved Midwest where dusk is augmented by a beautiful amber-orange sunset. It means fires are raging in the west and people are getting hurt.




I’m reading, Let It Be Told In A Single Breath, by Michigan poet Russell Thorburn. He prods me to take a slow, big breath before speaking. My yoga training opened the wisdom of this act, and now, I'll tell it in a single breath and in my northern tongue where the Ojibwe have influenced my wild outlook.


But my telling will be, as Emily Dickinson counseled, slant or in burnished red angle.


This slant tells of coffee and root beer, motorcycles, music, and slow-motion videos of grandchildren appearing ever so resilient in ligament and laughter. We’re all on a journey, delicate and mysterious, held in place perhaps by rubbery ligaments only.

This trip north has placed me back on sidewalks I traversed in my youth when a long-haired, three-piece rock band from Flint, Michigan sang of the Grand Funky Railroad Closer to Home. Aging in slow motion, I grow closer to home and deeply grateful as the years go by.








For a long time now, I’ve used music and prose to navigate my life: guitars, drums, banjos, fiddles, mandolins, and lyrics, like this favorite by Tom Waits, an important anthem to someone like me who sucks at Capitalism.

“Money’s just something you throw off the back of a train. Got a head full of lightning. A hat full of rain.
… read more... 
Do We Love Women? Let Us Speak of the Ways, O Man  (Published originally on July 25 by The Good Men Project)






A consciousness raising exercise for men. Grounding your reasons for loving women


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In her 43rd Sonnett, Elizabeth Barret Browning counted the ways she loved her lover. Her love, she wrote, was beyond the reach of the soul and yet inclusive of breath, smiles, and all of life. Her sonnets penned a far-reaching love that promised to do more than we can imagine and that was to love her lover even better after death. In many ways, all women are Elizabeth Barret Browning, and it is one reason I love women. And can we speak of the ways we love women?

I’m just a man trying to do the best he can, and I want to know if it’s ok to count the ways too. I will speak of and count the ways because women never quit on love. Women remember every act of love and they are determined to bring, bear, and carry it to the grave and beyond. How can I (we men) not love women? How can we not count the ways – death will not stop them or their love – if we are still able to count our breaths? Let me count the ways and speak of something in the way women move me to love them.


How do I love women that I adore, admire, hold dear, and treat tender like the night? Can I speak of the human women I know, the women I dream of and think of? And can I count the ways I love in these beings I see and hear and touch?
… read more... 
My Portable Home


“My Portable Home: Finding Refuge on My Yoga Mat” Published by Yoga International


“Now it doesn’t matter if my yoga mat is on the bamboo floor of a polished studio in Hawaii, a beach in Mexico, or on a cedar dock over a Wisconsin inland lake. My place, where I find all that I need, is 23¾ inches wide by 96¾ inches long. Focusing on being fully in that place, I work to inhabit yoga’s dynamic point. It takes place on my mat at the confluence of yogi, guru, and the ancient healing practice. There, the soles of my bare feet make contact with the ground, in the same way my feet in heavy boots hit the ground while walking my home turf many years ago.”


Follow link below to the full article.


https://yogainternational.com/article/view/my-portable-home-finding-refuge-on-my-yoga-mat#:~:text=Share%3A-,in,-my%20twenties%2C%20I… read more... 
RESPLENDENT PASSAGES: Motorcycling to a Yoga Festival, Diaries in Soul Craft




The grand American narrative of the open road is more compelling on a motorcycle. It captures the imagination of wanders and seekers because it looks like a story of independence and freedom. It’s not always true, but there is a universal search playing out in every riders quest for the open road, and that is the reality of change.


That grand narrative animates dreamers everywhere, is change, and the will to leave a better world for our children and children’s children. I’ll embody that mantle anytime and do my part to create that story. I choose to bear this weight even if my shoulders are heavy and draped with an old story of Stoll and yoke.


On my bike, handlebars into the wind, riding above the suck, bang, and blow of explosions under me, I’ve searched out places of vision and intent.


Riding to Wyoming’s Red Desert — from Upper Michigan — for a three-day vision quest, my guide explained how and why I had to cleanse myself for unseen encounters. He did not say it, but I learned that if I were not truly prepared and if my ego was not set aside and my aggression diminished, the crows would pick me apart and drive me far away from their land. Wyoming’s Red Desert is like Hawaii that way. “If you are a prick,” a guy in Hawaii told me, “The island will kick you off.”


Without preparation and a willingness to listen and learn from a guide; without training and preparation to lay down an honest oath and true intention, I would not have heard an ancient ocean singing its song beneath the hardened desert sand in Wyoming; I would not have learned how I was to hold the bowl; I would not have learned that in Hawaii, gardens and graves grow up through lava and bend toward the ocean; I would not have learned from a geologist in Upper Michigan — based on gouges in the dark rock — which way the glacier went; I would not have learned where, in the far north, dragon and damselflies emerge, crawl, hatch and take flight for their brief, acrobatic life.
… read more... 
OM    Let it find a way to you


 




 


“Wowing”


It’s what a listener in Vermont wrote.  Yoga Song, the audiobook, is not just speech, not just chant, not just song, but an integrated presentation of yoga as a healing force-factor multiplier for body, mind, and spirit. Click below to hear Yoga Song, an instrument of mass inspiration.


Skip ahead to 4:37 for the words quoted below and my original music piece: “Ruah, Pneuma, Prana.”


From Chapter 3 OM “We do yoga with attention. We live yoga by the counsel of its ethics, and we embody yoga in the depths of our nature.


We follow its counsel to move in firmness and ease while remaining present in each moment’s experience. There, in the great quieting and stilling of mind and body, we come face to face with a golden child.


In the chant of OM, we step away from distractions to find a livable balance between the business of the world in which we engage and the song of yoga and its compelling melody taking us home to contentment.”  The directions are clear . . .


Finally, at the end of each practice, our body chants the sonorous Om of creation’s note, the unstruck sound of the heart, the meditative point of deep consciousness, a luminous internal state.


This is yoga’s song arising and trembling from the body electric. It’s a song lodged in primordial consciousness signifying that we are part of the universal Om of creation. OM, the well-trod path providing yogis with something the broken world cannot. The deep abiding peace of coming home.”… read more... 
Conclusion (part V). Yoga, an Act of Surrender, Faith, Spirit, Sacrament, Ecclesia, Missiology, and Anointment




IN THIS series, I’ve treated yoga as a spiritual life practice and drawn comparisons between Christian and yoga spirituality. But of course, it’s also an individual practice with wide interpretation. Some practice yoga with no spiritual intention or awareness and I also affirm that perspective.


In this series, I’ve maintained yoga is a spiritual practice and I see it as a series of steps: an act of surrender, an act of faith, an act of spirit, an act of sacrament, an act of ecclesia, a missiology, and an act of anointment.


SURRENDER can define yoga spirituality; most know it as a release. The yogi starts class with gentle release, surrendering into trust. This activates the heart’s core where a ritual process opens the yogi to enter a state of true presence.


It’s unnecessary to seek out yoga’s popularity, location, or direction because the answer to the question of yoga is the same today as it was for Patanjali. Yoga is in you and it moves within you as far as you let it. Yoga asana, most of what the majority of yogis know as yoga, is built on the principle of embodiment. Embodiment means putting it into your body, and when the yogi does this it often leads to transformation.


FAITH can define yoga spirituality; most know it as trust. The yogi comes home to their breath-centric core where they kiss the soul to receive their full inheritance.


In relinquishment, the yogi learns to open their heart and settle into the most important moment – – the one they live. This grounding in the present is conscious contact which opens one to engage the reality of their life.… read more... 
Part IV. Shavasana (death) A Gateway to Yoga as Spiritual Practice




       


After high school at 17, rather than immediately going to the university, I decided to work for a year to prepare myself. I found a job at a furniture store in my hometown where I thought I would deliver furniture, sell furniture, and take care of stock in the warehouse. It did include all of that, but when I was asked to help lift corpses from a table and into a casket, the job turned out to be much more.


In the early days of this country, the furniture maker was the logical person to turn to when a loved one died and the family needed a well-constructed wooden box. In the 19th Century, caskets were wood and since furniture makers worked with wood they were called upon. It’s easy to see how furniture makers became trusted with handling specific requirements of the casket, and from there, not hard to imagine conversations about the deceased spilling over into a pastoral care-type situation. It’s also not difficult to imagine these furniture builders doubling up on their businesses and offering funeral services. This is why so many furniture stores doubled as funeral homes.


Seldom thinking about death as a teenager and with no preparation for handling dead bodies, I was thrust into a situation where I touched the hands and lifted the bodies of deceased people. It freaked me out a little bit. In time, I became comfortable around dead bodies, and one time before a funeral, even drove the Goodrich Funeral Home’s Hearst to the car wash with a casket and body in the back.… read more... 
Can Yoga Spirituality and Christian Spirituality Co exist?  Part II




  — a five-part series by Gregory Ormson


Part I ONTOLOGY explored the place of divinity and humanity in yogic and Christian philosophy. 


Part II BREATH Yoga and Christian Spirituality Within Their Creation Narratives


In both Christian and yogic traditions, a divinity emerges from primordial dark and emptiness – or a watery void – and gets to work creating light and dark, establishing time, and creating living beings. Most creation stories start with God creating the human, but others do not. Following the establishment of beings, good and evil are introduced, animals are created, and the world is set in order. The sociological questions that arise in any group of people: questions of where I am, who is in charge, and who else is here, are answered in creation stories.  


Similarities abound between the Christian narrative in Genesis from the Old Testament (what some call the prime covenant) and the stories of Judaism and Islam. But when Indigenous North American creation myths are included, like the Salina Creation Story, an (Eagle) makes a man and from that a woman. In a modern poetic and literary contribution, Joy Harjo from the Muskoke Nation tells the story of a lonely rabbit who created a man, and then blew air into its mouth, upon which the created man stood up. Breath as the genesis of creation across many creation narratives is one reason why I call yoga a “breathcentric” practice. 


But the Divine-human connection in yogic and Christian spiritualities is an elusive subject because the “hidden God” (Deus absconditus) is not physically manifested. This is not the same as false, but divine essence remains elusive.… read more... 
Lessons from 30 Years of Teaching . . . It’s Not About You – Ever


10 Principles for Teachers Ready to Receive




Undergirding all communication is attitude to learners


Most of my teachng was in yoga, but much of it took place in three college settings with diverse subjects: speech, writing, employment skills, English, film study, best sellers, sociology, philosophy, and theology. In my career, I had students from pre-school age up into their 7th and 8th decade. Outside the classroom, I taught motorcycle rider certification for the State in Hawaii as a Motorcycle Safety Foundation rider/coach, and I’ve taught yoga, coached youth soccer, and taught guitar to several people, but my listing of this experience is only a way to say that it’s unimportant compared to the experience of the learner no matter the setting.


The key to being an effective teacher


I’ve been called both a good and bad teacher, but no matter what the review was, one fundamental concept carried me through all my years teaching, presenting, giving instructions, listening to speeches, teaching in classrooms or meetings, and leading my faculty union. It is the core from which I operated. It’s very simple: it was not about me . . . ever. I’d like to unpack what this means and why it’s important for teachers.


Teachers are usually responsible adults, and they often take upon themselves more responsibility than required. Yes, teachers are responsible for presenting content, for managing the classroom, and having a well-defined curriculum and effective pedagogy, but they are not responsible for learning, and neither are they central to student learning.


This is hard for teachers to hear because it requires putting ego aside.… read more... 
Yoga Song, the audiobook – an instrument of mass inspiration and soundtrack to your yoga journey






Coming up on gift giving season, here’s an audiobook for your yogi so they can listen while driving to class. Yoga Song is an instrument of mass inspiration in 21 vignettes and five original songs. 




Hear my integrative description of the humble warrior pose in “Yogi, Heal Thyself,” or the excavation of emotion rising up during the heart-lifting arc of a camel pose in “Making Heroes,” and the affirming mystery of yoga’s therapy falling upon your ears in “Yoga, A Breathcentric Community.” There is more, just follow this link for LANTERN audio presentation of Yoga Song. Sample included below:













Yoga Song available on LANTERN Audiobooks, Audible, Kindle, Apple Books, Bookbeat, audioboo


ks.com, audiobooksnow.com, downpour.com, Findaway, Google Play, Biblioteha LLC, Baker & Taylor, Follett Library Services, and 10 others, Hoopla, Kindle, Macklin Educational Resources, Overdrive, Kobo, Libro.FM, Nook Audio, Scribd, and Odilo and more.




While you listen, yoga’s song will fall upon your heart, register in your body, and spark new life in your mind and spirit. I narrate this book with my conviction that breath is yoga’s song, and when you breathe doing yoga, you are singing your sacred song, a yoga song of renewal for your body, mind, and spirit.


Hear Yoga Song on your way to yoga class, traveling this summer, or when resting in your comfortable place. Thank you, and please tell your friends about Yoga Song as a LANTERN Audiobook available NOW at $8.99 through Lantern as your 2 hour and 32 minute inspirational yoga companion in music and narration.


… read more... 
An Arizona Motorcycle Ride on the Road Less Traveled in Flavor-Flaves of Dirty and Sweet




Motorcycle riders focus on the tangible elements or the things we can plan, see, and do. As creatures of habit, we take the main road, but any road will get us out the door where we may discover that all roads – even the pock-marked and dusty trails that we curse in between the splatter of bugs on our windshield and our face – lead to a rally, an event, a new road, or new discovery.


“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood . . .


I took the one less traveled by


And that has made all the difference.”


The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost


The road less traveled is the one you don’t see at first; the path we discover through a missed turn or a mental stumble. It beckons, so we follow it and rub up against the intangible or unseen. I look for these roads, and when I find them, open the throat of my bike and the heart in my body to engage my Harley-Davidson’s six-geared drama. Its ups and downs are programable, but the stage is never predictable as I ride a highway drama unfolding like a multi-act show that includes millions – other riders – seen and unseen, leather-clad bodies of light and life.


They are wearing hats this November 11,  both veterans and non-veterans, musicians and non-musicians, bikers and non-bikers, an inclusive and often disruptive congress of partiers riding a rumble seat that was built with muscle and sweat. Engineers did their work first, finding a way to harness the friction of rubber and metal and the best way to direct the explosive energy of gas and fire.… read more... 
Can Yoga Spirituality and Christian Spirituality Co exist?   Part III


 


  


             –a five-part series by Gregory Ormson 


Part I ONTOLOGY explored the place of divinity and humanity in yogic and Christian philosophy.  


Part II BREATH explored yoga and Christian spirituality within their creation narratives, including a brief look at breath or prana.  


Part III LOVE turns attention to “what if” this is true. Traditionally, this has been the spark in creating an organization’s mission.  


There is a close similarity between Christian and yoga spirituality in their most important spiritual aspect; it transforms everything, and this is love (see the July print issue of OM Yoga Magazine, “Yoga’s symphony of movement: The soulful urge to let love fall”). This is not part of a typical yoga class, but love is the dynamic ingredient to spiritual life in both yogic and Christian manifestations. 


At a yoga festival this summer, following a session by world-renowned musician Krishna Das, I bought Flow of Grace. I asked him to autograph my copy, and he signed in all capital letters, “ALL LOVE” KD. Love is what yoga, chant, meditation, community, self-care, and spiritual encounters repeatedly put in our laps. The power of yoga is that it simultaneously teaches and offers a path to discover self-love and divine love. 


Das’ two-word inscription left me thinking of an experience 44 years ago in India when a philosopher asked me, “Does love love the lover of love, or does love bow to the lover of love?”   


The question is parabolic and instructive, but the answer, like a riddle, is elusive. Love is an ever-changing river; one we all navigate.… read more... 
 Utah’s Old Skool Motorcycle Rally in Panguitch, UT. See my preview in June’s American Rider Magazine


Not long ago, a guy from Alaska called and said he wanted to rent my Harley Davidson Road King, asking about my “famous” bike “Priscilla.” I said it was available and he was in. She is pictured in this month’s issue of American Rider accompanying the rally preview


BIKERS, all I can say is that you ought to go up to Panguitch, Utah to do the rally. You won’t regret it, cause it’s hot and it’s cool. . . .   back to Priscilla.


Priscilla has been pictured in magazine stories I’ve written for Thunder Press, American Rider, OM Yoga Magazine, The Taj Mahal Review, and AZ Rider News; Priscilla has also been in newspaper stories for: The Green Bay Press Gazette, The Wausau Daily Herald, The Mesa Tribune, and The Mining Journal; two University Alumni Publications (University of Wisconsin La Crosse, and Northern Michigan University), three online publications: Yahoo.com, The Phoenix Indian Center, and the Riders’ Share Blog.


Check out her latest pose here in June’s American Rider from a photo I took by the red rocks of the Grand Canyon’s North entrance.


See link below to rent this bike on the RIDERS SHARE platform (the Airbnb of motorcycling).


AND keep


scrolling for photos from the 2023 rally




 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


Yoga Magazine, UK




Thunder Press (at the time) now American Rider




The Mining Journal, Marquette, Michigan


 


OM Yoga Magazine, UK


 




The Taj Mahal Review, Allahabad, India




Northern Michigan University Alumni Magazine




Yoga Magazine, UK






 


 


 


 


 


 




UW La Crosse, Alumni Magazine The Lantern




 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


American Rider Magazine




The MESA Tribune, Mesa, AZ






 


 


 


 


 


 








And a cool video link from my friend Ram Hernandez riding this bike









Here is my link to rent this bike through Riders Share


HARLEY-DAVIDSON TOURING ROAD KING (TWO TONE) for rent near Mesa, AZ – Riders Share (riders-share.com)… read more... 
Six Gears and a Mountain Ride –   Mechanical Breakdown and Communication Rescue


A Riders Share Owner’s Story


Nobody wants a mechanical breakdown – ever! But think of your bike out with a renter and he is a thousand miles out on the ride. Worse, the nearest repair facility is over 100 miles away; and your bike and renter are stranded on a remote mountain road. You don’t want a breakdown then, but that’s what happened to Jose, my Riders Share client.




Jose rented my bike for a nine-day trip and was joined for a Southwest U.S. tour by his group of longtime friends. They had created their own bikers club and had taken group trips before. As they took off from the Phoenix east valley, I watched their social media posts and adventured out through Arizona, New Mexico, and into Colorado, logging miles and smiles. Jose was posting maps on Instagram, and on one I saw bikers in leather lay down on their backs to carve snow angels high in the Rockies – something people in Guadalajara, Mexico don’t do.


On the sixth day, my phone lit up with a call from Mexico. It was Jose, stranded in mid-Colorado, deep in a canyon. Through a crackling and intermittent connection, I understood Jose to say there was a problem with the shifter. He was going to call Rider’s Share as the bike was inoperable. An engineer by trade, he accepted that mechanical problems do happen, metal parts give out, and he was gracious about the situation. The most important thing is that he and his wife were okay. From then on, we kept in contact by text.… read more... 
BLOOMSDAY musical triptych to John Lennon


Russell Thorburn (Marquette, Michigan) and I have collaborated for years to create songs and audio stories. One ongoing subject has been John Lennon. Russell writes the poems and I massage the words and arrange them into songs.


Our music triptych to Lennon was completed recently. Listen in on these Lennon stories:


John Lennon Rows to Dorinish


Silver Beatle Come Back


Photographs Are All We Have


These songs, along with Thorburn’s one act play, “An Extra Bowl of Chili,” are ready for production. There’s no better day than “BLOOMSDAY” June 16, to note Thorburn’s brilliant work in An Extra Bowl of Chili. It’s deliciously Joycian.


“Sound breathed out from his lungs, his boyhood as Winston, that boy Mimi looked after with her scalpel voice. His fingers grasped mine now. Dorinish waited for Lennon in the mizzle, cold, unforgettable waves washing over the dock where he had moored his rowboat.”


Photographs Are All We Have


 


Silver Beatle Come Back


 


John Lennon Rows to Doirnish… read more... 
Yoga Song – listen in for free


With your Barnes and Noble trial subscription you can now get Yoga Song as an audiobook for free. Driving this summer, listen in to this high quality Lantern audiobook in five songs and 21 chapters for an integrative description of the Humble Warrior Pose in “Yogi, Heal Thyself,” an excavation of emotions rising up during the heart-lifting arc of a camel pose in “Making Heroes,” and the affirming mystery of yoga’s therapy falling upon you in “Yoga, A Breathcentric Community,” and much more.


… read more... 
NOW on Chirp, Kindle, Google Play, Story Tell, Audible, Apple Books, Lantern, and more


Chirp got it right with the summary:




“Yoga doesn’t just make a song within us, it opens us and makes us ready to receive a new song . . . there is no one track method or surefire formula by which the yogi receives yoga’s song because the lived experience of yoga is composed from threads of gray that become the seedbeds for change.  . . .


The economics of yoga are simple; we give, and yoga performs the necessary soul-dialysis: it purifies toxicity, reroutes negativity, renews the body, trims ego, patches flaws, melts worry, takes on pain, renews our hearts, and recasts our breath. When I go to yoga (paraphrasing Rumi), I am like a man in a tavern with many wines but without a glass. I keep going back to yoga where I become a reed dipping into a well of fine wine. I absorb from the well and drink its fermented wisdom.”




 




FUN FACTS: the word “yoga” appears 631 times in Yoga Song. It is a 2-hour 32-minute audiobook. Kevin Stillwell, a professional actor employed by Lantern Audio, narrates the Foreword written by Dr. Yoaananth Andiappan. Yoga Song (print version) contains my six-point philosophical precis and a glossary where I define yoga.


The six points:


    

  1. Trust
    2. 

  2. Breath
    3. 

  3. Embodiment
    4. 

  4. Community
    5. 

  5. Practice
    6. 

  6. Healing
    7. 



What do you think yoga is?


Yoga Song (sample available)


… read more... 
Coming soon, Yoga Song in a two-hour audiobook by LANTERN audiobooks


Audio version contains one new chapter and five original songs in a  recording of 21 chapters

Ch. 1 The Sailing Forth

Ch. 2 Yoga: A Breathcentric Community

Ch. 3 OM

Ch. 4 Yoga: A Melody of Motion

Ch. 5 Yoga: Work, Play, Worship

Ch. 6 Making Heroes

Ch. 7 A Yoga Parable

Ch. 8 Finding Depth, Discovering Bliss

Ch. 9 A Child Leads

Ch. 10 Yoga and the Pure Consciousness of Healing

Ch. 11 Yogi, Heal Thyself

Ch. 12 The Power of Hot Yoga

Ch. 13 Endowed With a Longing for Connection

Ch. 14 Yogatecture: Blueprint of Transformation

Ch. 15 Transforming the Emotional Body

Ch. 16 Truth Force in Your Yoga

Ch. 17 Ritual Process and the Yogi’s New Song

Ch. 18 Release Into Savasana

Ch. 19 Armor On, Armor Off, the Psychology of Yin Yoga

Ch. 20 A Yoga Song for All Beings

Ch. 21 First and Last Breath


Ormson narrates a story of the yogi as an instrument made of mind, spirit, emotion, energy, and consciousness. In “Transforming the Emotional Body,” “Ritual Process and the Yogi’s New Song,” and “Yogatecture: Blueprint of Transformation,” Yoga Song advances an inspirational melody of motion, proclaiming to every yogi that their breath is their yoga song, a sacred song.


Review: INSPIRING AND ENRICHING


“Yoga song is the sound track to your journey of transformation.” This beautifully written book, expressing yoga in its most authentic way, is unique in its kind. This book takes the reader on a journey to self-discovery, providing helpful tools that encourage curiosity and introspection.


Gregory Ormson is an internationally recognised author also known as a motorcycling yogi.… read more... 
ANNOUNCEMENT:  Yoga Song on LANTERN AUDIO AUDIOBOOKS coming this month


I’m happy to announce the impending release of YOGA SONG as an audiobook available on LANTERN Audio Audiobooks, Audible, and these distribution networks:  Kindle, Apple Books, Bookbeat, Audiobooks.com, Audiobooksnow.com, Downpour.com, Findaway, Google Play, Biblioteha LLC, Baker & Taylor, Follett Libray Services and 10 others, Hoopla, Kindle, Macklin Educational Resources, Overdrive, Kobo, Libro.FM, Nook Audio, Scribd, Odilo




Yoga Song is an instrument of mass inspiration in 21 vignettes and five original songs. While you listen, yoga’s song will fall upon your heart, register in your body, and spark new life in your mind and spirit. I narrate this book with my conviction that breath is yoga’s song, and when you breathe doing yoga, you are singing your yoga song.




   Hear Yoga Song on your way to yoga class, while traveling this summer, or when resting in your comfortable place. Listen to an integrative description of Humble Warrior Pose in “Yogi, Heal Thyself,” follow my excavation of Camel Pose in “Making Heroes,” or let the deeply affirming mystery of yoga’s therapy fall upon your ears in “Yoga, A Breathcentric Community.”








   Thank you, and please tell your friends about Yoga Song as a LANTERN Audio Audiobook available soon.








   The excerpt below is from Yoga Song Chapter 2, “Yoga, A Breathcentric Community.”








   “Yoga brings a heightened discernment when yogis are pressed into a crucible of equal but opposite force. This force (hatha) presents us with the task of being at ease while stressed. It is yoga’s therapeutic, and we get it every time we bend, stretch, and breathe.








   I glance around the outdoor space where I teach and see the outline of my community becoming new every day.
… read more... 
New Reviews from England and Michigan for YOGA SONG




BREATH IS YOGA’S SONG, IT’S ALSO YOURS.


“I have never associated yoga with song, but I’ve practiced yoga with music for the past 25 of my 85 years. What a beautiful union that really gets you in the flow. I wish all the world leaders would read Gregory’s Yoga Song which could result in an ever so peaceful world.” John M. Manistee, Michigan


“Gregory Ormson’s Yoga Song is beautifully written from the heart and an absolute joy to read. This is a must-read for anyone who loves yoga or is simply interested in what it feels like to be completely present and fully connected.” – 5 stars, Amazon U.K – Sara Highfield, International Yoga teacher, retreat leader, model, and columnist for Om Yoga Magazine and others. Thank you John and Sarah for reading Yoga Song.


I have a message to share with you: Yoga song is the soundtrack to your journey of transformation. It will take you to self-care and open your body, mind, and spirit to wider circles with deeper draws of inclusion. In yoga, you are the embodiment of a mind/body/spirit therapeutic where ordinary moments stretch into extraordinary.


Yoga Song weaves a tapestry of meaning from the inside-out in 23 lyric vignettes: “Transforming the Emotional Body;” “Ritual Process and the Yogi’s New Song;” and “Yoga: a Breathcentric Community.” Yoga Song is informative and inspirational, proclaiming to every yogi that their yoga is their song . . . a sacred song.


I invite you to listen in on this yoga song; more importantly, to tune into your electric body and sing your yoga song.… read more... 
“Playing in Space: a yogic way of being,” the 102nd of my #yogainspirationals in March, 2023 Om Yoga Magazine


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 




Her comment had me think about yoga as play in space. Playing doesn’t eliminate effort and the physical work of asana, but I think it can lighten the mental aspect and open a sense of joy in us that may be a timely renewal point.


In the book, Work, Play, and Worship in a Leisure-Oriented Society, Author Gordon Dahl issued a stern critique of American culture when he wrote, “We work at our play, worship our work, and play at our worship.” Dahl maintained that we miss the point of all three if our intentions are misaligned with our actions.


From the age of 16, and through college, I had to work part-time at my father’s grocery store, and since I had to spend a lot of time there, I never liked going into the grocery store as an adult. We are required to work for our living, and work is satisfying when it’s something aligned with who and what we are, but at 16 I was just doing it from necessity, and it wasn’t my intended career.


In time, I started thinking about my avoidance of grocery stores and realized the problem was me, so I set out to change my perception (an important aspect of yoga life according to Patanjali). I tried to make grocery store visits fun by putting a smile on my face and offering random comments to people. Occasionally, I stopped to juggle oranges or avocados. Now when I go to a grocery market, I tend to frame it as play.… read more... 
Excerpt, A Motorcycle Ride in Mexico


Dust eats away at my skin. The leather I wear makes every minute an inferno on the motorcycle. Heat explodes up my ass, creeping past crack and sack to pillage my spine and overburden my shoulders. But I am an adult, I am in Mexico, I have documents and a clean record; I can drink, buy drugs, or pay to make fantasies come true. I can also do none of that, or get a ticket to take the pirate ship and sail into the mystic with tourists, eating as much shrimp and drinking as much Dos Equis XX lager as I can handle while daydreaming in the Zen of a blue sea.


Deeper and deeper in a broken territory I’m riding a two-wheeled track called risk. It’s as if reality stalls and the motorcycle dances in time with the dazzling sun of Mexico. With eyes to see, anyone looking around would swear Salvador Dali painted the street where bar balconies, groaning under the weight of heavy bikers, bows like snow-covered branches. On the third floor of the Iguana Banana, above the balcony facing the Malecon, a band is kicking out a version of Bowie’s “Five Years.” Inside the Iguana, I sing along with them, “A cop knelt and kissed the feet of a priest, and a queer threw up at the sight of that.”


In tune or out of tune, nobody cared, as the thump-thump of Evolutions announced the schedules be damned ‘cause the party’s on, and ripe are the two-legged coyotes primed for this biker party happening everywhere. One, in fringed buckskin and patches, says he’s from the land of Geronimo.… read more... 
Another Kind of Boundary: the Hallways of Menomonie High School   


Drumming, an Uncivilizing Reverberation




At 17, when Colt 4 broke up, I immediately joined a second band. We were disorganized and unpopular, but our singer had a teenage superpower – access to his grandmother’s remote cabin in the woods – and after high school basketball games, classmates drove into the country and trudged through the snowy woods to the cabin with party plans.


They grabbed beers from cases half-buried in the snow and stepped inside a small cabin. As the freezing cabin warmed and ice melted from boots and beers, our crappy band played loud while classmates danced in stocking hats and sweaters.


Pounding drums, I heated up and removed layers down to my T-shirt. Steam rose from my sweaty back, but I kept an eye on my Buckhorn Beer, perched on top of the wood-burning stove; I watched golden liquid thaw and bubble up from the brown bottle and then drip down the side of the glowing, red, hot stove. The loud hiiiisssssss of steaming beer meant the party was on.


And when the cabin started rocking on its pine log foundations, I worried that we’d tip it over and slide downhill like a wayward toboggan into the river. I imagined the headline on Saturday morning’s Eau Claire Leader-Telegram front page “20 Menomonie High School Seniors Drown in the Red Cedar River.”


At 17, I was a living volcano and existed to smash cymbals and snare. The loud retorts distracted me from self-recrimination and unhappiness. Everything was a drum, including my brothers, and I hit all of it with force.… read more... 
Rocky Point Rally – Motorcycling in Mexico as reported in American Rider Magazine January, 2022


It’s almost as if reality stalls and the motorcycle dances in time with the dazzling sun of Mexico. With eyes to see, anyone looking around would swear Salvador Dali painted the street where bar balconies, groaning under the weight of heavy bikers, hang low like winter branches and the thump-thump of Big Twins announce ‘schedules be damned’ the party is on.


 


Get your issue of American Rider Magazine where you can learn: the technical aspects of motorcycles and motorcycling, racing and race events, homages to motorcycling and its history, insight on the bike-building profession, riding equipment, and a lot more. Reading any article over the last year, I’ve wanted to get out and do it. Isn’t that the purpose of writing about motorcycling? 


Click on these photos below for my article in American Rider on the November 2022 Rocky Point Rally in Mexico.
















All photos by Oliver Touron. Big kudos to American Rider Ed. Kevin Duke


Rocky Point Rally next year anyone?… read more... 
See you at The Foundry Yoga in Tempe, AZ, on Saturday morning. Copies of YOGA SONG are available.


Four reviewers from Canada, the UK, Ohio, and Wisconsin have published their review on Amazon.  Here’s a quick sampling: “This is a must-read for anyone who loves yoga, or is simply interested in what it feels like to be completely present and fully connected.” Sara Highfield, yoga teacher, International Yoga Model, and regular columnist for OM Yoga Magazine, UK.


“A beautiful book inside the journey of the soul. One of my favorite chapters is “Seeking Treasure.” It’s a must read, and I really enjoyed it. Probably in the top ten books I’ve read in my whole life.” Pamela WB, poet, yogi, and psychologist from Canada.


“Dr. Ormson’s languid language, sonorous sounds, and poetic prose invites us to sit on a yoga mat under the Bodhi trees of our lives. His brave brilliance and sage-like invitation to the initiation of yoga . . . will help you to find the yoga mats of your existence. Rev. Bob Ahern, Ph.D., Zen practitioner and professor of the year at the Ohio State University.


“Dr. Ormson explains how and why yoga can help us to heal emotionally, physically, and spiritually, which is very comforting in these troubling and broken times. Highly recommend!” Mary Pulvermacher, light worker and student in Wisconsin.


From YOGA SONG  


As we do yoga in motion with attention, or sit in stillness, we come to embody the counsel of its ethics. As we do yoga, we take its wisdom into our bodies and minds where sacred self and ordinary human meet in the depths of our nature . . .


This breath is yoga’s song, arising within a body electric that is both unique and universal.… read more... 
AMERICAN RIDER MAGAZINE, covering the diverse motorcycling world with style and substance




American Rider Magazine, covering motorcycling with style and substance.  Two of my friends have really taken the motorcycle writing and photo game to a high level. Pictured on the cover is Oliver Touron, photomotojournalist extraordinaire, sitting on a Harley in front of the Eiffel Tower. Oliver wrote the lead story, “American Rider: Riding Harleys in France” It’s a fitting theme because his wife Shelly is the American in Paris. The photo shows her on the roundabout in front of the Arc de Triomphe on Champs-Elysees avenue. After reading Oliver’s story, I wanted to motorcycle through France.








Another friend, Gary Kos Mraz of Sedona, filled out the frame to Hollywood’s narrative of Route 66 as a mystical wonderland. His story, “The Folklore, The Forlorn, and the Future,” fleshes-out the Seligman to Kingman route on the Mother Road 66. It’s a great story with lots of unique detail that I recommend for any Arizona rider. Gary’s story makes me want to get on the bike to ride, write, and photograph.








In case you weren’t paying attention, this magazine underwent a name change from Thunder Press to American Rider back in May. Along with the change of handle, the format segued from newsprint to newstand quality magazine stock. Among other things, the photos suddenly popped, and if you ask me, the writing is solid.









But it’s not only a magazine of stories and tours for those who love that, it also covers technical aspects of motorcycles and motorcycling, racing and race events, homage to history and the bike building profession, equipment, and a lot more.
… read more... 
ON JOINING  the 400 CLUB  10/27/22


400 sessions of the 26+2 yoga series known as Bikram Yoga. Each class is 90 minutes in a hot room, a yoga style that builds mental and physical willpower. For ten years now, I’ve observed and experienced how this yoga changes people.


The Tapas (fire) of Yoga




First, it will get harder


Then it will get easier


Then it will get different


Then it will get way different . . . but so will you.


I started yoga in Hawaii when I happened to walk into a Bikram Yoga Studio to fix my bad back. After starting, I kept track of each session because I knew it could become important. I completed 325 classes during the four years I practiced in Hawaii. Most of my Arizona practices – by contrast – have been 75 minutes with music and limited dialogue.


It’s been known for Centuries that applying heat in ritual transformations tends to create and accelerate change. Mircea Eliade, former chair of the Department of History of Religions at the University of Chicago, wrote in YOGA: Immortality and Freedom, that the Rg-Veda identified heat and ardor with ascetic effort as a tapas. It serves to “heighten the Physico-chemical processes (of making gold) and is the ‘vehicle’ for psychic and spiritual operations.”


North American Medicine Men shared this practice too in the sweat. Eliade wrote of this, and other transformational rituals in his 1951 book, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy.


Yoga people find out that the practice of yoga in a hot room is hard. Writer Alyssa Dunn put it like this, “My yoga practice isn’t always stable.… read more... 
Of Gardens and Graves, a story from Hawaii




Gathering with friends to celebrate my birthday in Hawaii, my good fortune tricked me into thinking I had earned such leisure. Ocean waves crashed up on the island and giant palm leaves swayed in the wind. Hawaiian music playing from a house next door accompanied the party as we talked our way through the euphoria that comes from the first sips of alcohol.


That afternoon I started playing, for probably the 300th time, “The Last Nail” a song by Dan Fogelberg. It’s not a love song or a song with a happy romantic arc, but a song I had turned to when I was a long way from home or in a time of introspection – like a birthday.


Its about the final nail which closed the coffin of a relationship. Realizing it had ended, he delivers a poignant and deep-diving lyric.


“I hear you’ve taken on a husband and child and live somewhere in Pennsylvania


I never thought you’d ever sever the string, but I can’t blame you none.”


I continued and played The Last Nail’s lyrical sarcophagus to the end.


 


“We walked together through the gardens and graves


I watched you grow to be a woman


living on promises that nobody gave to no one


they were given to no one.”


For years, the song was a catharsis and helped me accept the reality of a gradual goodbye. She wasn’t in Pennsylvania, but she lived close to Pennsylvania, and a long way from where I was.


On the beach, the sun moved from a bright white to a muted orange as my party day crawled toward dusk.… read more... 
Tavelpictalogue May 17 – Sept 23


Going: Arizona, New Mexico, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan. Returning: Wisconsin, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Texas, NM, and AZ.















































































































































 


 


 


 


 


 


 




… read more... 
YOGA SONG review Amazon




The first review of YOGA SONG by Mary is now published on Amazon. Thank you, Mary! If you have read YOGA SONG, please go to Amazon and add your review.
















From Chapter 7 “A Child Leads,” in YOGA SONG








A toddler’s openness and enthusiasm mean they don’t distinguish between yoga or weightlifting, and they don’t compartmentalize yoga as either fitness or enlightenment; they simply see it as something adults are doing and they join because it looks fun and natural. The example of children will benefit yogis to do what they do:


1. embody the song this is fun.’


2. practice when they want and quit when they want


3. receive a gift more profound than they can imagine


4. relieve self from the punishing drive for perfection or correctness


5. practice and let yoga flow, allowing it to bloom when the conditions are right


6. learn by copying what others do and enjoy, doing so to the best of our ability


7. forget about evaluation or comparison, rather be fully present to enjoy the moment






More where this came from by going to Amazon or Barnes and Noble to order YOGA songs.


… read more... 


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