Sunspot Literary Journal Volume 5, Issue 2 Motorcycling to Mexican Time and the Zen Sea Gregory Ormson Rigel 2023 Finalist

Biking toward Mexico, the jagged mountains framing both sides of Arizona’s Highway 85 are now in my mirror. Wind and heat push me forward to where it is not much of a leap for my Midwestern imagination to place me in a scene from an apocalyptic biker movie on a two-lane road headed into the heart of dust. At the border wall, problematic for drug mules and Americans with criminal records trying to cross, the guards peer at my shiny wheels.

I’m neither criminal nor mule, but I’m wary of the gun-wielding guards; the mind-meld of television news depicts Mexico as dangerous, and at this wrecking wall I’m heating up like one of Dante’s eighth-circle bolgers.

My motorcycle brothers and I cross the wall into Mexico, and our bikes are screaming to hell with America and our jobs, if we still got them, left behind us with our families—fathers, children without fathers, and desperate mothers trying to become younger in their old age. Will I ever cross the border back to America?

So this is Mexico?

There’s a lot of dust.

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.… read more...

From the Riders Share Blog: Six Gears and a Mountain Ride, mechanical breakdown and communication rescue A Riders Share Owner’s Story By Gregory Ormson, Mesa, Arizona

Nobody wants a mechanical breakdown – ever! But think of your bike out with a renter and he is a thousand miles away. Worse, the nearest repair facility is over 100 miles away; your bike and renter are stranded on a remote mountain road. You absolutely don’t want a breakdown then, but that’s what happened to 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 on their trip, I watched their social media posts and they looked happy as they logged miles and smiles. Jose was posting maps on Instagram. In one, bikers in leather lay down on their backs and carved 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 my 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. And yes, it’s worrisome when something like this happens.

Not long after I spoke with Jose, Kendra from Rider’s Share called and we discussed my bike’s situation.… read more...

Utah’s Old Skool Motorcycle Rally in Panguitch – Read this and you’ll know

Asked what brings people to the rally, Steve Garrett, organizer, and leader said, “The riding. There are five National Parks all around us. We are about the bikers, the town, and nothing else.”

Garrett, his wife Sue, and a dedicated team of staff and volunteers have worked hard to strengthen ties with the City of Panguitch. This year, the city helped prepare the fairgrounds and cleaned the main building for biker registration. They also erected large tents and helped Garrett hoist a new welcoming sign, sponsored by Russ Brown Motorcycle Attorneys, on Highway 89, the ingress to both north and south Panguitch. “The town appreciates this,” Garret said, “with its big welcome to Panguitch message.”

Started officially in 2008 by Rick Story, a long-time employee of Timpanogos (now Summit) Harley Davidson, with assistance from his wife Sweetie, the rally grew in four years but health concerns forced Rick and Sweetie to take a break this year. Garrett, who’d worked with Story in the previous rallies, took over leadership with assistance from his friend, Rabbit Downward.

“Old school meant pride and brotherhood,” Story said. “It used to be that all bikers cared about one another, and it didn’t matter what kind of bike you had.” The rally is evidence that old school doesn’t mean old, and old school ideals aren’t dead.

Bikers helping bikers, at no cost, still lives as one of the main benefits of connecting with the Russ Brown Motorcycle Lawyers organization. They were a major sponsor of the Panguitch Rally this year, along with Zion Harley Davidson, and Wasatch Indian Motorcycles.… 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...

My 103rd #yogainspirationals Yoga’s Symphony of Movement: the soulful urge to let love fall OM YOGA MAGAZINE

When you engage with yoga, you are fastened into a deep and wide health corps, one steered by the way of breath and meditation, shaped by the forces of Hatha and time.

Neither you nor I can remain in a yoga session or meditation session without breath and patience, but when we attend to our guru – the breath – we are renewed, inspired, and transformed.
When led by a good yoga teacher, we’ll find words of encouragement and encounter something that we will not hear in other places. This “something” is embedded deep in yoga’s reforming curriculum where we find asana a positive but not necessarily easy pursuit.

Yoga’s teaching of ethics contains many ingredients. One not often talked of, but present like the yeast in bread – a small ingredient that raises the dough – is love. Love is the dynamic force of yoga’s recipe for change, the ingredient which creates healing for mind, body, and spirit. One key aspect of this ingredient proclaims to us that we are worthy of self-care while simultaneously teaching us what it is and how to apply it in our lives.

In savasana, yogis dip into a deep pool of love as they sink into the mat and their full body weight rests heavy and still. That’s when we remind ourselves to replace thoughts of self-recrimination and judgment with thoughts of praise and even love for ourselves and others. Recently, as the class was released into a state of savasana, the teacher said, “Let love fall upon your spine.”

Think about the powerful impact of this idea; the kind of thing yogis regularly hear during the marvelous privilege of practicing yoga, during which we absorb yoga’s ministry of spirit and its medicine for body and mind.… read more...

Thank you India for International Yoga Day and sharing yoga with the world

On International Yoga Day last year, Rochak Press of India Published Yoga Song. For sale on Amazon India at 1,417.92 rupees it looks odd and sounds expensive for people in the Earth’s most populated country, but a rupee is 0.012 U.S. dollars (India’s population recently passed China at 1.42 billion).

Even with a robber baron-sounding price, Yoga Song has generated interest from publicity in The Taj Mahal Review, Cyberwit, and the powerhouse book sellers Shree Hanumanth of India. Om Yoga Magazine (UK) Asana International Yoga Journal (India), and American Rider Magazine have also alerted their reading audiences to this book and I thank them.

I’ve been grateful for reviews, comments, and exposure from individuals who’ve written on Amazon or directly to me. And I’m grateful for opportunities to offer Yoga Song for sale here in the U.S.

My thanks to all who helped me with these two big undertakings: editors and book-format people for the paper version, and audio executives and sound engineers at Lantern Audiobooks. My friend Charlie Harvin, living in Bulgaria, designed the cover. People have complimented its look.

This year I recorded Yoga Song through Lantern Audiobooks, and it is now available on Lantern and 30 other worldwide distribution networks. On some it’s free with a trial and on others, less than five bucks.

Listen in to Yoga Song, an instrument of mass inspiration in 21 vignettes and five original songs. let the songs fall upon your heart, register in your body, and spark new life in your mind and spirit. Breath is yoga’s song, and when you breathe doing yoga, you are singing your love song to yourself.… 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.

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:

Trust
Breath
Embodiment
Community
Practice
Healing

What do you think yoga is?

Yoga Song (sample available)

Yoga Song, just released in audiobook as a sound track to your journey of transformation and instrument of mass inspiration

https://lanternaudio.com/yoga-song/

NOW you can listen to 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 your ears in “Yoga, A Breathcentric Community,” and much more.

Yoga Song now available on LANTERN Audiobooks, Audible, Kindle, Apple Books, Bookbeat, audiobooks.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.

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 and restoring your body’s equilibrium.

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.

Yoga Song preface with music, “Sit Where You Are.”

This preface to Yoga Song narrates the vision Gregory Ormson had when he expressed yoga as a song. The song, “Sit Where You Are,” co-produced by Randy Anagnostis, underlies the narration of this book, available soon on Lantern Audiobooks and many other platforms worldwide. 2:28 listening time. Underlying this text is the gentle chant and music of “Sit Where You Are.” It centers on explication of The Yoga Sutras, and Patanjali’s counsel in the opening thread “aham yoganasanam.” Music begins at 2:47

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.

This Bike (magazine cover) is on FIRE. See it and rent it for a ride to the Grand Canyon

Featured in six magazines: Thunder Press, American Rider, OM Yoga Magazine, Yoga Magazine (cover), The Taj Mahal Review, AZ Rider News; Four newspaper stories: The Green Bay Press Gazette, The Wausau Daily Herald, The Mesa Tribune, The Mining Journal; 2 University Alumni Publications and 2 other online publications: Yahoo.com, Phoenix Indian Center, Northern Michigan University, The University of Wisconsin La Crosse, LANTERN. Rent this great bike from me through RIDERS SHARE platform (the airbnb of motorcycling).

And a cool video link from my friend Ram Hernandez as he’s riding this bike

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Ram Hernandez (@ram7861)

AND the best part is, you can rent it from me through Riders Share. Here is my link through this great platform:

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

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...

Like Lava

Emily in Cali found inspiration from this paragraph in Yoga Song. (from IG).

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 becau

se 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.

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

When some friends gathered to celebrate my birthday at a Hawaiian beachside rental, my good fortune tricked me into thinking I had earned such leisure.

Ocean waves crashed against the black rocks and giant tree leaves bent in the Kona wind. Hawaiian music playing from a house next door accompanied us while we drank together and talked our way through the euphoria that comes from the first sips of alcohol.

That afternoon I started playing, for probably the 300^th time, “The Last Nail” 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.

Fogelberg’s song is 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...

Gregory Ormson New Landing Page

Camel Pose from the Inside

If you view a photo of someone doing a pose called camel, you’ll notice it looks uncomfortable and it is. Along with it, you’ll frequently see a list of physical benefits that happen over time when doing the camel pose.

I’m certain that the combination of the backward-bending camel, alternating with forward bends healed my back. I’m aware, from my own experience, of how camel posture feels and how it works toward physical healing.

The benefits of doing a camel pose are improved breathing, fatigue relief, increased torso, and hip flexibility, strengthened back and glutes, toned thighs, and hips, stimulated endocrine glands, tensed organs in the abdomen, pelvis, and neck, correction of slouching posture, the opening of the respiratory system to better oxygen use.

In my book YOGA SONG (Rochak Press June 2022) I treat camel – and yoga- from the inside out. Here is an excerpt from Chapter 5 where I write what happened to me during a pivotal moment in my practice doing camel in Hawaii. You see, yoga is an inside job, and a lot is going on under the surface and it’s hard to describe. But that’s why I wrote a YOGA SONG. It’s yoga from the inside out in 23 lyric narratives.

Excerpt from YOGA SONG on camel pose from the inside in Chapter 5 “Making Heroes.”

The workshop leader said a deep backbend is a heart-opening pose and reminded us that an emotional reaction to a camel pose is normal because the posture can make us feel vulnerable. Pointing to his heart as the organ which should be at the highest position during camel, he may have even said, ‘lift up your hearts’ when stressing the importance of making one’s heart the highest point.… read more...

A Rider, a Monster Truck, and a Friends Last Ride

In May, before leaving Arizona on a 6000 mile summer trip, I bought a toy “monster truck.” I planned to use it in commemoration for a deceased friend when a few of us would meet near Lake Superior.

Our friend loathed monster trucks and saw them as an American hyper-egoistic association with vehicles and a nutty obsession for more and more engine power and size. He thought of monster trucks as the perfect symbols of aggression, senseless destruction, and waste.

A lot of our travel this summer was on the Interstate system. I realize I didn’t enjoy it. The Interstate is no longer a gateway to the great American road adventure; it’s more like the great American road nightmare where games of bravado are played out by aggressive drivers with big rigs that come dangerously close to disaster on a regular basis.

In our commemoration for P.R., we talked about his love for travel and decided that I should take him for a final ride back to Arizona in the green toy monster truck. There were no hard and fast rules about what I was to do with P’s spirit riding along, but a loose suggestion that I might leave him (and the monster truck) in some public place where anyone could pick him up and take him on a continuing journey.

I thought I’d leave it (him) somewhere along Route 66, a road symbolizing the lost optimism of a wide-open American dream; a route marked by a faded joy in scenic adventure-travel, meals in friendly small-town highway café’s, and nostalgia for the history of an open road and open people.… read more...

Road Mishaps put a halt to Wind in the Face

An obstacle in the road sent my Road King to the HD hospital. Bull Falls Harley Davidson in Wausau to be exact.

DANG,

. . . just the way it goes sometimes.… read more...

Peter White Library’s “Author’s Reading Virtually Series.” Theme: health and wellness

I’m delighted to be included in this series of Authors Reading Virtually from Marquette’s Peter White Public Library. Professor Jonathan Johnson is a friend of mine and teaches in the MFA program at Eastern Washington University. He’s published widely to high accolades for over two decades with books in multiple genres. I will join him and read from my book Yoga Song, a story of transformation and redemption in 23 lyric vignettes. Jonathan will read from Bali in Indonesia, an island with a rich cultural heritage of spiritual and physical wellness. I will read from Marquette, a place occupying a large chunk of my soul.

Meeting link, ID, and code.

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82663987132…

Meeting ID: 826 6398 7132

Passcode: 103409

Read what others say about Gregory Ormson’s songs of redemption and transformation in Yoga Song.

“Your writing is very good and would be ideal if you ever fancy contributing on any regular basis, especially in our OM spirit section.” Martin Clark, ed., Om Yoga Magazine UK

“Gregory eloquently expresses from a place of depth and authenticity, inviting his readers to fully partake in the journeys he shares.” Cassandra Bright, Gilbert, Arizona

“Greg, you are a remarkable writer! I found it really interesting because so often we think about what yoga gives to us or what we get but very rarely do we think about what we give to the practice. I think what you wrote was thought provoking and absolutely beautiful expression. Leley Pelkey, Phoenix, Arizona

The book has been beautifully written and its words are well crafted. It will undoubtedly inspire students of yoga. Dr. Yogananth Andiappan, Hong Kong, Asana Journal, ed.,

“Your description of yoga as martial art of the soul, I love it, awesome.” Christen Tanner, Mesa, Arizona

“You are a very talented writer and storyteller, Greg. Congratulations on being published in Om Yoga Magazine and for sharing your path to self-discovery. You are an inspiration.” Bobbie Schmidt, Marana, Arizona

“This writing is really interesting and deserves to be in top 5 Google Search Results.” Sergio E (via Webpage email).

“Your articles interest our readers and that’s why we allocate pages every month in our magazine. Your view – and writing – of yoga practice is amazing.” Joe (sub-editor) Asana Journal

Yogi G! I feel so honored to have met Gregory while leading music and yoga . . . we have collaborated several times for Sound Meditations and Kirtan Cacao Ceremonies .… read more...

PRESS KIT Yoga Song – audibook version Lantern Audio

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE –

Lantern Audiobooks presents Gregory Ormson’s Yoga Song, a print publication in 2022 by Rochak Press, now available on Lantern Audiobooks and other platforms. Ormson states the song of yoga is the breath that turns ordinary moments into the extraordinary. In 21 vignettes and five original songs, Ormson narrates a journey of self-discovery, sharing knowledge, understanding, and quotations to inspire listeners.

Every yoga song is composed by the yogi, an instrument made of mind, spirit, emotion, energy, and consciousness. In chapters like, “Transforming the Emotional Body,” “Ritual Process and the Yogi’s New Song,” and “Yogatecture: Blueprint of Transformation,” Yoga Song becomes an instrument of mass inspiration in a melody proclaiming to every yogi that their breath is their song, a sacred song and the soundtrack to their journey of transformation.

Bounced from a trampoline at 10, enduring a second back-injury weightlifting in school, and falling from a roof at 40, born-to-be-wild biker Gregory Ormson moved to Hawaii but was sidelined by debilitating back pain and couldn’t enjoy paradise. Dipping a toe into yoga, he discovered a healing road that reformed his mind and fixed his spine.

Yoga Song is an instrument of mass inspiration in the song of the body which includes mind, spirit, emotion, and energy. Its melodies are alive in the sound of Om or a vocalized heartfelt Namaste. In breath-centered yoga practice, yogis experience a therapeutic and healing power where ordinary moments stretch into extraordinary.

“The yoga mat became my turf of tears, washing, and regeneration . . . these essays deliver us to a place of beauty and grace in words lyrical and reverential.… read more...

A small sample from Ch. 14 on yoga for bikers from the forthcoming YOGA SONG

I glance around the outdoor deck and see the outline of my community. They are becoming new on a daily basis as they take up yoga. They acted on faith to get here, so I act on faith to teach as the practice of yoga meets them with its global and spiritual energy.

It takes courage to move beyond cultural stereotypes and do yoga. It also takes courage to teach this ancient, holistic discipline designed for everyone. As a teacher, I set the route; and when ready, they follow the road home to themselves.

Breath by breath, a universal yoga pilgrimage presses them to question their motives and boldly ask “why am I here?” When the question arises, yoga’s song takes over and the yogis remember their courage. They stretch into their containers of reform and travel back to the beginning once again.

The sun is setting on my biker-yogis, and I see them as hopeful; they tiptoe into newness, and sip nectar from an oxygen-rich moment. Western light, partially eclipsed by Earth, illumines their faces with golden rays as they play dead to integrate the last breathing moments of the best previous moments. Alone, quiet, and on the floor, they exhale. On their backs, they release into savasana . . .… read more...

From the Epilogue to YOGA SONG

Years ago, and far from the waters of Hawaii where yoga first tumbled me, I set out on a solo three-day vision quest in a barren land that Wyoming residents call the Red Desert. Before my quest began, I spent two days training in the Lakota way. Once I walked into the desert I would not eat or see anyone for three days. My instructions were simple and focused: drink water and pay attention.

For yoga, I’d give the same instruction today, only adding an admonition to breathe. I expected my vision quest would challenge me but also help me connect to that which I had not yet connected.

I didn’t know it, but at the time I was doing the work of yoga. At dawn on the scheduled day, I walked into the desert to seek a new vision. My intention was to strip away all distraction in my experiment with truth and give it my full attention with all my being.

This is what yoga is to me now. It’s a stripping away of distraction, which takes preparation and intention. It is the time and place to build my satyagraha or force of truth.

But in the Red Desert I learned from the birds that if I had a song to sing I had to sing it. It was not about how well I sang, but that I did. This is why I’ve written Yoga Song; it is not about how well I write or sing my yoga song, but that I do.

Sale links available soon.… read more...

YOGA SONG publication on June 21, 2022 International Yoga Day

Gregory Ormson’s forthcoming book, Yoga Song, will be published on International Yoga Day, one month from today, summer solstice – Tuesday, June 21, 2022

Comments from readers:

“Your articles interest our readers and that’s why we allocate pages every month in our magazine. Your view – and writing – of yoga practice is amazing.” Joe (sub-editor) Asana Journal

“These are fantastic words of motorcycles and yoga writing. Reality bleeds into fiction.” Russell Thorburn, Marquette, Michigan

“I’ve had many yoga teachers over the years and when I read your writing, I always learn something new: A new way of thinking about life after I leave the class; and to combine this with motorcycling is brilliant.” Kerry Verrier, Calgary, Alberta

From Yoga Song, Chapter 17, “Transforming the Emotional Body.”

Like many newcomers, when I started yoga I also thought it was about what I saw. I noticed people bending into forms that were — at first — perplexing. I also thought it was about what I heard yoga could do for my injuries; and at the beginning, that’s all I expected.

My yoga education was gradual. At first I practiced to feel better, then to learn good alignment, and then to accomplish more asanas. As a dedicated student, I paid attention to words from my teachers as they led me to correct placement of my feet, my hands, and my gaze. I followed their instructions leading me through breathing techniques and transitions. At the end, I lay down with other yogis in stillness, like a motorcycle resting on its jiffy-stand.

But right away, I sensed there was something happening well beyond what was taking place in my physical experience on the mat.

OM YOGA MAGAZINE, Yoga, the Sailing Forth

A day after moving into my apartment in Hawaii, I was on the floor with back pain. I had endured many injuries: at 10, I bounced off a trampoline and landed on the ground, a second back injury I endured while weightlifting, and yet again in my 40’s when I fell from a high roof.

In Hawaii, I noticed signs for yoga studios everywhere and I started thinking about claims I had heard regarding yoga and healing for back pain. One day, in a desperate attempt to fix my damaged back and with no background or knowledge of yoga, I decided to try it and hoped to find something to make me strong in my broken places. I feared collapsing in the hot yoga room, but was also confident that if my back held up I would too.

I planned to try yoga for 30 days and then decide if I would continue. I made it through 24 classes that month. My resolve was galvanized and my hope for healing ignited. In my journal entry I wrote, Yoga is the way to go for healing back pain. It’s so simple, why don’t more people do it? But my transformation from injury to healing went beyond my back as yoga steered me into deep waters.

“Sail forth – steer for the deep waters only

Reckless O soul, exploring, I with thee and thou with me”

American poet Walt Whitman in, “Passage to India,” from Leaves of Grass

I continued with yoga and wrote about my experience because I thought my practice in a heated room would also benefit me in other ways.… read more...

Thanks OM Yoga Magazine (UK) March issue, for publishing the 101st of my YogaInspirationals

A couple paragrphs from the full text (below) written originally as: “Endowed With Longing for Connection.”

Perfection in yoga may have been an ancient goal, and to achieve that goal many yogis spent time alone and in isolation; but I don’t know anyone with perfection on their bucket list. I’ve not heard anyone say, “Yea, I want to become the perfect yogi, to levitate, reach santosha, and become one with God.

. . . The myth of rugged individualism, a notion that’s driven the ethic of individualism and ambition in my country really is a myth. We all need connections with others; and that need is so powerful that people will change their identities, alter their most treasured beliefs, or explore far and wide to find a niche or group from which to draw comfort.

Yoga communities around the world continue to be deeply affected by an invisible virus called COVID-19. Starting in 2020, our community in-person gatherings have been stunted and its intensified the challenge to make important new social connections.

Now for the third time, I’ve scaled back my regular yoga attendance at a studio and I’m bummed about it. But with a worldwide pandemic still happening, and my aversion to sickness, I’m on pause.

All of us in the yoga community have responded the best we can, and we’ve learned to use social media tools to stay in contact with others. But we also noticed that while communities established through the World Wide Web were important, they were different.

I taught online for six years, but it never felt natural to me.… read more...

St. Patrick’s Day Gig by Irish Glee (‘G and Lee) at R.T. 0’Sullivans in Mesa

IRISH GLEE is G and Lee performing songs and stories, limericks and verse, to celebrate Ireland Forever. Phoenix area friends, come out for our two hour set and a limerick contest with a prizzEE – on St. Patrick’s Day at R.T. O’Sullivan’s Bar, 6646 E. Superstition Springs Blvd from 4:30-6:30.

We’ll pass on Irish history associated with the songs, and an interpretive reading from a famous Irish poet. C’mon out for “a hundred thousand welcomes,” to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day.

Gregory Ormson guitar and bodhran and Lee Swenson fiddle and guitar. With the two of us, plus each of you, we’ll ring the Auld Triangle on St. Paddy’s Day. Request links or more information contact G at 480-432-2667.

Three weeks to St. Patrick’s Day.

Stepping to a New Parade led by an Old Song

Yoga teaches us to be still and live in a way formed by new dimensions from an old script. It levels our judgments and brings us to the healing ground of calm detachment while simultaneously counseling us through yamas and niyamas to say and do the right things.

In the pressured spaces of post-Modernism and its perilous stress, yoga moves us to meet a difficult world and greet it with equanimity. Yoga’s song teaches us to expand the being out of which we live and move as we practice, study, and seek to discover who we are as we lean into the fullness of Self.

In that center, lessons of motion and stillness teach us to extend our range of motion, deepen our breath and fill our lungs, lengthen the stretch of our spine, and grow the reach of our limbs in space.

To fully inherit yoga’s spiritual science we breathe deeply, only to release and enter the realm of OM. Yoga formed in the crucible of scholarship and exercise will empty and then fill the thinking reed that is the human-being. It redeems scapegoats and embraces the full panorama of humanity in all its races, colors, and identities.

Yogis then join a long line of grateful beings stepping into a parade made by kings and queens where many are yoked together as one in yuj (union), cleansed and restored into a new creation by the old song of an eternal melody.… read more...

A Western Yogi’s Evolving Precis

My yoga starts when I acknowledge the Western inheritance of the yoga tradition or some blended combination of traditions. Western yoga shares widely in the thread known as hatha, a tradition of opposing forces coming into balance and working together for the yogi’s mental, spiritual, and physical development.

A scholarly treatment of ancient texts or a detailed study of yoga’s historical variations – each with schools, histories, practices, religiosities, and gurus requires intense, academic study in linguistics, theology, sociology, history, medicine, and mythology. This would be the work of a lifetime.

Knowing this opens me to become an incomplete scribe articulating a perspective behind a yoga encounter in matter and consciousness. Yoga is a force which puts an encounter front and center for every yogi. Faced with this, each one responds in their own way. And while I think it’s good to know about tradition – so that we do not claim something as ours that is not ours – like most Western yogis, my practice and study draws from the deep well of yoga’s healing waters.

Yoga and its variations were formed in a complex, multifaceted cultural context that very few Westerners understand. This culture created yoga from its particular situation and in its evolving timeline.

The truth is that yoga has always been and is always changing and the proof is that yoga today in India looks different and is vastly more inclusive than it was just one hundred years ago. And just as yoga has morphed and changed through the Centuries in India, it will also change and evolve in the West.… read more...

January BREATH & MOVEMENT FOR BIKERS OUTDOORS (formerly yoga for bikers)

Yoga outdoors happening for year 5 at Superstition Harley Davidson. Short read below about yoga for bikers (breath and movement) the how and why. Two January classes on the outdoor deck – facing north to the Goldfield Mountains in the east valley – open for anyone. January 11 at 5:00 pm, and January 25 at 5:00 pm. Each session is approximately 50 minutes. Donations welcome.

Motorcycling and life are improved when we learn how to breathe with ease in the midst of stress. This calms the nervous system and makes it easier to concentrate on what’s important.

When we’re riding motorcycles, being at ease and focused are not just good ideas, they are life-saving skills. To that end, a deliberate and conscious linking of breath with movement.

Two times this month you can take advantage of breath and movement for bikers (formerly yoga for bikers) at Superstition Harley Davidson.

WHAT IS IT?

A 50-minute session of breath and movement with yoga like moves focusing on breath, flexibility, and motorcycle performance improvement.
The purpose is to provide an experience of movement and conscious breath connection for stress management leading to life and health benefits.
I’ll provide encouragement and integrity of movement and breath to both motorcycling and yoga.
The sessions become a positive event – offered with a voice of reassurance, sincerity, and encouragement – to motorcyclists and non-motorcyclists.
DATES: Tuesday Jan. 11, 5:00 pm at Superstition Harley Davidson, outdoor deck; and Tuesday, Jan. 25, 5:00 pm at Superstition Harley Davidson, outdoor deck.

LUNAR SOUND JOURNEY – event Sunday 4:30

Everyone lives with failures and mistakes. It’s part of being human. But we also carry within us our wildest unarticulated imaginings and hopes.

Perhaps sometime during 2021, we’ve experienced great happiness and joy. Maybe we’ve celebrated something in our lives or the lives of those in our circles. But life is a balance, and we also may have endured something we could describe as sorrow, regret, or a private deep grief.

Whatever it was, it was our experience. That’s why it’s good to take stock at the end of one era (2021) and the commencement of another (2022).

On Sunday, during this first Lunar Sound Journey event of 2022 led by Crystal, you will not only experience the vibrations of healing, and words of wisdom from sages through the ages, but you are also given a time to use pen and paper for recalling and writing something that you need to write.

It will be your private exercise and yours alone. You may journal about 2021 or this New Year. Maybe you don’t want to do that part at all and that is also okay. It is your time and the sound healing and vibrational goodness will be there for you to enjoy.

If this is something that you might want to do in an intentional way, I hope you can attend Lunar Sound Journey on Sunday, January 2, from 4:30-6:00. Reserve your spot through Eventbrite. Use the PROMO Code GREG for 20% discount. CLICK POSTER BELOW TO RESERVE YOUR PLACE ON SUNDAY. Details follow link below

www.eventbrite.com/e/lunar-sound-journey-2022-tickets-233960019717… read more...

Lunar Sound Journey: an event for you on January 2, 2022

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A post shared by Gregory Ormson (@motorcyclingyogig)

RIDING WITH WARRIORS – Thunder Press December, 2021

Thanks Kevin (ed.) Thunder Press, and my photographer friends for helping me light up this story on Run to the Rez. It’s one of my favorite rides every year. Read about fabulous riding in Arizona and how Run to the Rez started nearly 20 years ago. See you in October 2022 for the next Run.

This photo by Oliver Touron, photomotojournalist extraordinaire, and inside photo by Randy Anagnostis, a bright dude who’s my music partner, Superstition Harley Davidson photographer, and businessman.

Find the full story at this link https://thunderpress.net digital

“San Carlos, Arizona, is nestled like a gem within the seven sacred mountains of the Apache people, and its the home to Run to the Rez, perhaps the most spiritual charity ride you’ll ever attend.” GAO

Breath and Movement for Longevity in the Saddle (Nov. 10 and 24) @ SUPERSTITION HARLEY-DAVIDSON

Come on up to the eagle’s nest (outdoor patio) at Superstition Harley-Davidson (2910 W. Apache Trail), for breath and movement for bikers a week from today (November 10 at 5:00 pm). It’s the fourth year of breath and movement designed to keep bikers at ease and in the saddle long term.

Teaching riders for the state of Hawaii as a MSF rider/coach, I watched how new motorcycle riders held their breath when making difficult figure 8 moves on the riding range. Holding one’s breath tightens the entire system. When holding our breath, it’s nearly impossible to be relaxed and at ease. If we are not relaxed and at ease when riding a motorcycle our riding ability is diminished. To be at ease in the midst of stress is a critical factor in athletic performance.

In a 1977 book titled, The Centered Skier, author Denise McCluggage presents 12 chapters of Zen goodness on the mental aspects of skiing. She quoted Jean-Claude Killy, the world and Olympic alpine ski champion at the time. Killy said, “You cannot win if you are not relaxed.”

Maybe you say to yourself, so what, I’m not competing. No you may not be competing and maybe the stakes aren’t at the level of an Olympic medal, but in reality the stakes are higher. You are on two-wheels, or three-wheels, and the stakes are about your life. Breath and movement in ease is for bikers because being relaxed in the saddle happens when we learn to be at ease in stress.

This is the therapy of yoga and it is the design of breath and movement.… read more...

The RAKE, The Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride, and the Royal Enfield #5

About a year ago, a high dollar magazine out of England started showing up at my door every three months. I didn’t recall ordering it, but there it was.

It is impressive, displaying an incredible array of contemporary fashion, luxury items, high-brow writing, and in-depth feature stories by writers at the top of their literary game.

All of this is displayed on top of the line quality magazine stock with superb photography. I love it, but also held my breath preparing for a big bill while still confused about why The Rake was showing up.

Today, over a year later, I was paging through The Distinguished Gentlemen’s Ride Website and saw my name on a list from a photo I had sent a year ago. Apparently my Royal Enfield – and rider – were selected from worldwide submissions as a top ten biker dapper ride pic for 2020 (hey, thanks for telling me I got #10).

Contest prizes included money and expensive watches to the first thee, and a year-long subscription to The Rake for the next seven. Alright. No watch or $$$, but cool anyway. BTW, where’s my cigar?

Rake Magazine, and Revolution Magazine founder Wei Koi (black helmet) was the judge for the 2020 dapper rider and bike contest. He’s known globally for his work in fashion, and expertise in watches (explaining why there are so many watch advertisements in The Rake).

Since 2015, Koi has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the DGR (men’s health issues and prostate study and research).

The Distinguished Gentlemen’s (and women’s) ride for 2022 will be in May. … read more...

SOUND HEALING EVENT SUNDAY, OCT, 3rd

Lunar Sound Healing 2021: Intention & Manifestation. Utilize Breathwork, Meditation, & Sound Therapy to connect Mind, Body & Spirit. Learn about Lunar and Solar cycles, Eclipses and Astrology in a commUnity setting!

See you this coming Sunday (October 3) 4:30 pm for a 90 minute session @ Spirit of Yoga, Tempe, AZ. I’ll be joining Crystal as guest musician. She’s an E-RYT 500, and a Yoga Alliance Continuing Education Program Provider. She’s been leading sound healing events for over six years, frequently combined with yoga classes, reiki, yoga nidra, acupressure, meditation techniques and workshops. Find her at https://crystalvalentina.com

I first met her during one of her sound and yoga events in June at Buddha’s Brew Coffee Cafe in Mesa, AZ. The combination of her teaching and sound event was excellent; both yoga and sound were imbued with a sense of invitation rather than direction. Her sessions at Buddha’s Brew continue on October 10, November 14, and December 12.

Details below for Sunday’s Lunar Sound Healing event. From eventbrite, Lunar Sound Healing 2021: Intention & Manifestation. Utilize Breathwork, Meditation, & Sound Therapy to connect Mind, Body & Spirit. Learn about Lunar and Solar cycles, Eclipses and Astrology in a commUnity setting!

You can find Crystal’s Lunar Sound Healing schedule on her Website: Dates scheduled are October 3 & 17; November 7 & 21; December 5 and 19.… read more...

#Yogainspirationals number 99, OM Yoga Magazine, May 2021

OM YOGA MAGAZINE

Yoga as a life-altering gift: From freediving to chess: how a yoga practice can enhance every aspect of your life. By Gregory Ormson

Shortly after starting yoga I realised its life enhancements could be applied to any activity of mind or body. Nobody was teaching yoga specifically for motorcyclists and as a rider and former motorcycle rider coach for the State of Hawaii, I realised I could serve bikers in a direct way.

While teaching motorcycle riding, I saw how people tightened up and held their breath when the riding range was wet, when they were evaluated, and when they were asked to do ‘figure eight’ moves in a tight space. If yoga classes could help people with stress and challenges during yoga, I thought asana poses targeted specifically to bikers’ needs could help bikers in many ways.

Yoga for bikers targets poses for: hips, back, neck, shoulders, arms, wrists and hands. Preparing to teach an unusual yoga group, I searched and discovered many stories of yoga’s effects on performance in unusual places; the most unexpected were the worlds of freediving and competitive chess.

Freediving and yoga
In Hawaii, one of the first things my freediving instructor asked me was: “Do you practice yoga?” He said yoga people do better in freediving because they’ve learned how to breathe and relax when in stress.

For most people, there is nothing more stressful on both body and mind than holding their breath while swimming underwater and it’s even more true in a deep-water underwater situation. To deal with the stress of water pressure and low oxygen, free divers focus on deliberate breath training and meditation before going in the water.

Yoga and Leather by Keith Uhlig, Wausau Daily Herald

Thank you Keith Uhlig at the Wausau Daily Herald for this story; and also to Pookie, Scott, and all the folks at Bull Falls Harley Davidson for allowing me to offer this important class. Come out Saturday, 10:00 am to Bull Falls HD, Yoga for Bikers happening to keep you in the saddle long-term. #bullfallshd, @bigcheese107.9, @UligK #wausaudailyherald, #superstitionhd, #motorcyclingyogig, #randyanagnostis, #bribri1119, #randyanagnostis

Yoga Class Poster (2)

https://www.wausaudailyherald.com/story/news/2021/08/18/motorcycling-yogi-teach-yoga-moves-bull-falls-harley-davidson/5416236001/?fbclid=IwAR2pLbVrdx5DzvWU_-jLYCSTnHXiLswxaOTH70nn6rYUSlT4_Zvh9wzBc0E… read more...

WIFJ TV report on yoga 4 bikers

Thank you WIFW and Kyle Pozorski!

https://www.wjfw.com/storydetails/20210823070608/connecting_yoga_to_motorcyclists\

Playing Catch: A Simple Magic Endures

Days up in the trees are coming to a close for Debbie and I. We’ve done zero to 61 in about 30 days. That’s not a measure of speed but a marker of age for the people we hold dear. To be exact, it goes from six months to 61 years.

Here, a short video with my friend Chris King in Wisconsin, as we play catch and speak of our mutual love for baseball. For both of us, it was the passion of our youth. We loved playing then, and had similar paths as ballplayers; but now in these years, the magic and mystery of baseball takes on even more meaning to both of us as we throw and remember all our wins and all our losses. It’s the stuff of life and a pastoral shot in the arm on green fields of hopes and dreams.… read more...

YOGA 4 BIKERS at Bull Falls HD

https://www.wausaudailyherald.com/story/news/2021/08/18/motorcycling-yogi-teach-yoga-moves-bull-falls-harley-davidson/5416236001/?fbclid=IwAR07msLeXONfmeVRqaIXKbJZACQNn1V6WN9erv05pc5SS-xCWbP-itnf1vk

The ‘Motorcycling Yogi’ brings his calming yoga methods to Bull Falls Harley-Davidson

Keith Uhlig

'Motorcycling Yogi' to teach yoga moves at Bull Falls Harley-Davidson – Wausau Daily Herald – https://t.co/3d8QhH2zp5 #GoogleAlerts #harleydavidson #yogaforbikers

— Gregory A. Ormson (@GAOrmson) August 19, 2021

Wausau Daily Herald

https://www.wausaudailyherald.com/story/news/2021/08/18/motorcycling-yogi-teach-yoga-moves-bull-falls-harley-davidson/5416236001/?fbclid=IwAR07msLeXONfmeVRqaIXKbJZACQNn1V6WN9erv05pc5SS-xCWbP-itnf1vk… read more...

A Riders Share Owner’s Story

The Tapas (fire) of Yoga

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE –

OM YOGA MAGAZINE

Yoga as a life-altering gift: From freediving to chess: how a yoga practice can enhance every aspect of your life. By Gregory Ormson

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