A yoga guide for beginners: YogaInspirationals number 65 published in THE HEALTH ORANGE
Yoga Breath, Breath of Life
In the workshops I’ve done at MOTTO YOGA, I’ve included others to help lead the experience. In January, Dan Meyer showed up and dropped a REAL SWORD down his throat and talked about how that is worship for him. In the other workshops, I’ve had Cindy Cain and Lee Swenson accompany me with fiddle, guitar, and voice/rain stick.
On (Sunday) for the “YOGA BREATH, BREATH OF LIFE,” workshop, I will be sharing leadership with Katori Noor, a certified yoga teacher and has an extra 300 hours trained in yoga and ayurveda, and another 40-hour training in yoga sound healing. She’s also bringing her incredible sounding gongs and singing crystal bowls for the two hour workshop on Sunday at 1:00 pm.
I’m planning a fun activity and sharing a tip from one of our students that grew up practicing yoga in India. I think this will be instructive for all and could even be transformative for your yoga practice.
So carry on with your lives and good work; breathe deep, and transmute the poison that seems to be so very present. Take care of yourselves.
And maybe I’ll see you at the workshop this Sunday at Motto Yoga.
To pre-register, see www.mottoyoga.com and click on the link to workshops.
APPLAUSE FOR SEEKERS
The assumptions of my inherited culture: Euro-American, Lutheran-Christian, mental dualism, WASP, have shaped my perceptions and limit my ability to truly inhabit yoga’s culture. From this conditioning, I’m positioned like a hungry-man at a feast; I taste the food, but the flavor escapes me.
My play to be a yogi brings me to discernment where the contraries press me to awareness and lead me to examine the how and why of fate. How did I, a Midwestern male, end up lying on my stomach – top and bottom of my spine arching up at the direction of an ancient Indian mind/spirit/body science – impersonating an Egyptian tomb-protector? My inhale takes me to the mystery of purushamrigasana, a figure with the face of Pharaoh that we call sphinx.
Each yogi stretches and lifts at the direction of the teacher: man, woman, Asian, African, American, and each one contributes to the curriculum growing into a great melting pot of diversity and energy. This restless American pastiche is soothed by the flavor of an ancient culture, and in the yoga room, we become part of its recipe.
The seekers are everywhere and I praise them. They take off with tender wings to do asana as if they were nimble dancers or the stony sphinx. On the surface, we are childlike; but with each asana, with each breath, I witness a hope in reaching and lifting, learning and growing.
I see them, and note they are living embodiments to mystery and mythology; I see them as material and matter, and I see them doing yoga from the ground up.… read more...
ITS NOT JUST EXERCISE
They practice yoga in a 104 degree room when it’s 105 outside. They come from all walks of life: age, race, physical condition, gender, profession, and status. But they all do YOGA to sharpen their mind and focus their will. They show up to strengthen their bodily systems, to ground their minds in the present and deeply draw breath to hold the vital principle.
This is inspiring to observe and compels me to write. I love yoga, and I love these yogis and yoginis that keep working, keep activating, keep grounding, keep breathing, keep centering, keep on keepin’ on to make their lives better, deeper, and more leonine.
They yoga to embody their asana, mobilize prana, focus the monkey mind, and surrender cares; and when they do, the transforming medicine of yoga in its physical, non-physical, and metaphysical form makes them anew.
The yoga journey is a process of transformation, and it’s stunning to observe. This is the privileged observation of a yoga teacher: nothing more or less than friend, companion, and witness to the truth of being.
A Beautiful Crush of Salt and Pepper
With the inhale, exhale, and hold, I’m moved toward completion. I learn my place, my contentment, is anchored in the link that yoga welds to me. These simple moves are a stunning antidote for worry. Yoga’s inhale and exhale has become my spiritual DNA, lodging in my soul and energizing my spine.
I fasten to this deep core with breath and meditation pioneered through music and time. I embody asana, mobilize prana, surrender cares, and focus the monkey mind to catch a glimpse of the periphery turned central, the outcome of a new pedagogy fueled by fresh oxygen.
I’m slowly refined by fusion of the particular and the universal which rises from within moment by moment. I’m led to a contentment where I know that we are all a beautiful crush of salt and pepper; its savory alchemy spices all material and reforms all biology. This is the how and the way of yoga.
YOGA AND LEATHER: Yoga for Bikers last class (Sunday, March 25 at 11:00 am), until October 2018
It’s been a good experience these last seven months teaching YOGA AND LEATHER: Yoga for Bikers.
Next year, I will pan once a month for riders to meet at Superstition Harley Davidson, and then ride bikes to a separate location (park, river-flat, desert plain), where we’ll practice yoga. This practice will also provide each of us with ideas on how to put our minds and bodies at ease when we stop or take a break from riding.
Here are photos from one class in January that will set the stage for next year’s YOGA AND LEATHER.
In the meantime, I hope you all find a home studio or a place near you to practice. I’m convinced that yoga will benefit us on the road, and the more all of us practice yoga the more we’ll discover this for ourselves. Thanks for a good 7 months. We’ll see you again in October.
#motorcyclingyogiG
Gregory Ormson
and many thanks to M.J. Britt for these photos of YOGA AND LEATHER: Yoga for Bikers in the Eagles Nest at Superstition Harley Davidson. Thanks also to Brina Brown and Superstition HD for opening the nest for yoga.
Follow link below to the podcast on OMBYoga to hear how YOGA AND LEATHER 
Preview of Yoga Temple 3 at MOTTO YOGA: The Pure Consciousness of Healing (Sunday March 4, Noon to 1:30)
Today, spiritual notions of integrated unitary consciousness are popular but suspect. Some people require facts, and without verifiable facts proving esoteric dimensions, will dismiss such notions and think of consciousness and chakra activation as nothing but wild speculation.
But quantum studies in the subatomic realm more than suggest that everything is composed of vibrational energy even if we cannot prove it. Yogic philosophy treated this idea by suggesting that anything in matter has previously existed in the unmanifest cosmic womb. Indian philosophy even had a name for this place of pure potentiality, calling it hiranyagarbha, or the Golden Womb, the origin of all creation. Technically, ‘hiranya’ means ‘golden’ and ‘garbha’ means womb, and its symbol is a golden egg.
The science of physics has opened up big ideas like the notion of energy as vibration, or a not-yet manifest form of matter. It has helped Westerners accept that matter is not as concrete as we thought. Quantum thought maintains that the unmanifest is as real as each of us here and now, but is unrecognizable until energy and matter manifest or bring it into material form.
This is how healing consciousness moves too, for consciousness of a thing also changes the mode of being in that thing which is beheld. The Heisenberg Indeterminacy Principle, from the field of physics, affirms this insight and points out that it’s not possible to observe matter without influencing its actions. And while it’s true that the principle was developed while observing the velocity and speed of quantum particles, it applies to all matter.
The paralytic man’s friends (story from the Gospel of Mark), were determined to place him in close proximity to the pure consciousness of healing in Jesus.… read more...
The Savasana Cloud
The Christian church used to be central to my life, vocation, and identity but it’s not anymore.
Still, I bring my past theological training to my yoga practice and on occasion I remember a word or idea from my past to interpret how I express and experience yoga.
I think of a scriptural passage where the writer is reminding his community that they are not alone. He tells them that they are, in fact, surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses.
Traditionally, the cloud meant a mass of condensed water vapor, usually white, or tinged in various shades of grey and black. But in our day, a cloud has come to mean a digital storage space. Ok, that’s cool.
But I also see a cloud as a continually morphing group of people that see me on my mat—sweating and putting forth effort—and it’s exactly how I see them. When practicing yoga, I am one member of this cloud, a group of people that witness to each other’s’ effort, practice, time, and presence.
I practice in studios with many members. I try to learn names so that I can address them personally. In one studio, I know over fifty people by name. These names remind me that I am not alone—even when my yoga feels like a solitary pursuit. Still, I work to remember each name in our studio because a name concretizes the amorphous nature of a cloud and it tells people they are not just a number but a person with a name.
Written out, these names would fill only one page, but if they were added to all the yogis and yoginis that have gone before, the pages would fill stacks in the tallest libraries.… read more...
YOGA INSPIRATIONALS #motorcyclingyogiG
Asana Journal Parable of Unmaking
YOGA TEMPLE WORKSHOPS: Embodying the Healing Grace of Yoga
I hope many of you can steer your way to attend one or all three YOGA TEMPLE workshops at MOTTO YOGA.
TITLE: YOGA TEMPLE: Embodying the Healing Grace of Yoga
WHAT: An integrative workshop series exploring Christian and Eastern thought / tradition. Workshops will embrace: asana, pranayama, philosophy, and experimental movement.
WHY: To address the inherent spiritual dimensions of yoga.
WHO: Anyone with questions about spirituality, faith, belief, and yoga.
WHERE: MOTTO YOGA, 7529 Power Rd. Queen Creek, AZ
Register at MottoYoga.com
January 14, Sunday NOON
Februray 11, Sunday NOON
March 4, Sunday NOON… read more...
DESCRIPTION OF MY WORKSHOPS AT MOTTO YOGA
TITLE YOGA TEMPLE: Embodying the Healing Grace of Yoga
WHAT An integrative workshop series exploring Christian tradition and yogic tradition.
WHY To address spiritual dimensions inherent in yoga.
WHO Anyone with questions about spirituality, faith, belief, and yoga.
RATIONALE:
As yoga awakens consciousness, spiritual questions come to the fore. It doesn’t have to be problematic, for while yoga comes out of the non-Christian context of India, India is not anti-Christian. Yoga embodies Christian spirituality in a way the Christian church has neglected.
The content behind the first workshop will (briefly) address:
- The thought (philosophy) behind our Western cultural inheritance
- The nature of consciousness
- The metaphysics of God
In 90 minutes, workshop participants are invited to: engage with spiritual themes, practice pranayama, and explore the theme in asana and other integrative movements deepening their experience of yoga as a body, mind, and spirit practice.
WHEN First Workshop is scheduled for Jan. 14, Noon to 1:30, followed by two others on:
Feb. 11, Noon to 1:30
Mar. 4, Noon to 1:30
WHERE Motto Yoga, Queen Creek, AZ.
These workshops on yoga and spirituality sound heady: the nature of consciousness, Western philosophical inheritance, the Metaphysics of God.
But in reality, the base idea is bringing us back to what we already are.
Yoga does this by reversing the familiar paradigm. For rather than accessing spirituality by mind or word, yoga takes the radical step of moving the entry point of spiritual practice to the body.
This is how yoga heals the broken of spirit and broken of body. By finding a time and place to come home and to re-member, to bring us back to ourselves.… read more...
Chop Wood, Haul Water, Go Below the Frostline
Yoga Inspirational number 58
Follow link to elephant journal article published on Oct. 31, 2017
Snippets from YOGATECTURE
With the inhale, exhale, and hold, I’m moved to completeness. I learn that my place, my contentment, is anchored in the link that is welded into me by yoga. These simple moves are a stunning antidote for worry. They have become my spiritual DNA, lodging in my soul and energizing my spine.
I fasten to this deep core with breath and meditation pioneered by music and time. I embody asana and rejoice in a glimpse of the periphery turned central, a new identity refined by fusion of the particular and the universal. Moment by single moment, I inhabit a contentment and know we are all a beautiful crush of salt and pepper.… read more...
Snippets from YOGATECTURE
THREAD also comes from the Old English braed, meaning pulled through a needle. The modern yogi can take one or several threads from Pantanjali and imagine them as bundles connecting breath to body and soul to that which is not of this world. The chosen thread guides the yogi but also braids the yogi to a light of brilliance into which the flaws of our lives and asanas are absorbed and dissolved.… read more...
YOGATECTURE
Thank you to Asana International Yoga Journal for publishing this 56th Yoga Inspirational.… read more...
Moves of the heart are the hotline to all stories
I want to unfold.
Let no place in me hold itself closed,
for where I am closed
I am false.
–Rainer Maria Rilke
Fluid yoga, going to six years, continues remaking and each remaking is connected to another. Born in water, I am dragonfly, now rabbit. I shift to camel, fish, or embody an ever-watchful sphinx. Then I evolve once again, going back and yet forward at the same time to my child in his innocent, trusting repose. My evolving is your evolving: inward, backward, downward.
Your asana is my asana, my bending and shaping is your bending and shaping, your practice of eustress and release morphs into luminous savasana. Your savasana is my savasana, and mine is yours: a cloud, salty and damp.
YOUR LONGINGS ARE MY LONGINGS
This cloud, a safe home for witnesses and their truths, where every joy and sorrow bursts forth in prophetic rain. And as colors bend to make a rainbow, these witnesses bend into their longings. Your longings are my longings.
We breathe into sweet release, and the turning becomes a roadmap for traveling outward. The trail makes little sense; it leads down to the place where gravity rests. Tracking energy for centuries, the Tao notes that water flows to low places. My gravity is your gravity.
My guru said the way out is the way in. Her wisdom comes from a bloodline far to the east, from a practice that bent and molded her matter-mind, from evidence etched into the soles of her feet. Tucked in like a child, she steps over the soles of my feet, and your East meets my West.… read more...
Get Your Yoga on at Superstition Harley Davidson
YOGA FOR BIKERS: OUR bodies take a pounding on the road, and sometimes driving is stressful. But people do yoga because it feels good and it helps mind and body. Yoga isn’t just about flexibility, it’s about improving mobility to turn sideways and check our blind spot; about balance in slow turns, and remaining calm in the midst of stress. Over time, yoga strengthens our skeletal, muscular, and digestive systems.
Gregory Ormson, former Motorcycle Safety Foundation rider/coach and a 200-hr. registered yoga teacher, is offering three Yoga for Bikers classes at Superstition Harley Davidson in Apache Junction. Come to one, or all three, and find out how YOGA helps bikers RIDE ON!
Details:
LOCATION: Superstition Harley-Davidson, outside upper deck. 
DATES: Sept. 24 (Sun). 10:00 am – 10:55
Sept. 27 (Wed). 5:00 pm – 5:55
Sept. 30 (Sat). 10:00 am – 10:55
SUPPLIES: Limited supplies available. Bring a yoga mat, and wear comfortable clothing.
This is not an exercise class, but an introduction to yoga with a focus on motorcycle riders including basic poses as part of the experience.
Gregory Ormson, 808.640.4624
#motorcyclingyogiG… read more...
Starting Yoga Teacher Training
I’m starting a yoga teacher training program this Saturday in Pine, Arizona. It’s been five years since I first walked into a yoga room in Hawaii, and during that time, I’ve learned from many teachers practicing at 12 studios in four states.
I’ve also been fortunate to attend three yoga workshops outside of regular classes, and while these were only a few hours or a half-day, I caught a glimpse of what a lifelong practice can look like. I was moved by what I learned and experienced with Kim Tang, Esak Garcia, and Lucas Miles. I’d like to borrow something from them and from all the teachers and yogis I’ve met. I hope to use it in my teaching and practice.
All these teachers are good at communicating and leading classes through basic asana. All of them speak of connection to breath and self and they all say breathe and stay present, everyone invites relaxation, and gives encouragement to do the work, and in this intentional engagement everyone discovers what they need to know.
Some use oils and music, some heated room, some chimes, bells and singing bowls, but not everyone. In some cases, they go beyond, as in the practice of Bhakti (devotional) and Naad Yoga -sound and healing – which opens self to greater Self (Cassandra Bright, Gilbert Yoga, Gilbert, AZ); speaking of how yoga restores hope and saves lives after horrible accidents, healing physical body which leads to spiritual restoration (Sheila Nelson, Motto Yoga, Queen Creek, AZ); energy healing and the way of chakras, sound, and the singing bowl (Suzette Johnston, Motto Yoga, Queen Creek, AZ); yoga after running and the pursuit of kundalini and continual learning to make intellectual connections (Leslie Pelke, Motto Yoga, Queen Creek, AZ); how to take joy and happiness from a disciplined practice (Kirsten Holmson and her team at Community Soul, Wausau, Wis); yoga as gift for all ages and peoples – especially kids – (Robyn Bretyl, Lightbody Yoga, Wausau, Wis); the willingness to take risks and reach beyond the normal (Lori Jokinen, Jennifer Taylor, and her team from Tulivesi Yoga in Marquette, Mi); the courageous heart – Croix Croga – of yoga (Katie Ziemann, Croix Croga, Wausau, Wis); yoga as the moving, transforming connection between heart and soul (Andrea Hutchens Tika Anandisari, Aaron, Melissa Katherine Lotus Heart, Brooke Meyers, Sarah Bloom, Jenna Rae, Dana Strang and Sai Fon Woozley from Yoga Hale in Hawaii); the affirmations and benefits of yoga, asana, and pranayama leading to a heightened breathcentric awarenss (a special shout out to Mark Hough, Shannon Matson, and Yolanda Bottomley from Bikram Yoga on the big island of Hawaii); the willingness to take yoga anywhere (Lorrie Blockhus, OM Sweet OM Yoga in the serene but tick infested northwoods of Wisconsin.… read more...
Truth Force on Your Mat (Article #yogainspirational no. 54) Thank you Asana Journal
Below the Frost Line
When you engage with yoga, it will slowly render the surface-self transparent to its underlying divinity. It will build a foundation well below the frost line.
Yoga will not be televised, its moves are not dictated by chart, table, or graph; yoga will not whiten your teeth, but you will be astonished in moments of fluid inspiration, and the deep breaths you take will sustain apprehension of a true presence at once ecstatic and sublime.… read more...
YogaInspirational number 54 in Yogi Times “9 Ways to Return Yoga’s Gift.”
April 2017
https://www.yogitimes.com/article/what-you-give-to-yoga-
Yoga gives each of us more than we can repay. It’s the reason we continue our practice and make it a long-term life discipline. Yoga creates new space and provides the impetus for us to search for our true self. It has our backs and has fixed our spines.
Yoga balances our perceptions and teaches us to look to the horizon even when we resist and find it would be easier to look down and fall flat upon the mark of our diminished vision.
Yoga levels our judgments to a place of calm detachment; but also fills us with courage to say and do the right thing (on and off the mat) as often as we can. Yoga moves us to meet, greet, and bow to worlds upon worlds, and that is why those of us practicing yearn to find our limits, breathe deep to fully inherit the spiritual science of health, and release everything into the realm of OHM.
What do you give to yoga?
Every yogi answers in their own way, but here’s one yogis answer:
I give my pain.
Perhaps it’s a surprising answer, and this is open to misinterpretation. But yes, I give yoga pain. I know the pain I need to release, and I know from experience that yoga will keep teaching me how to release it. It’s a pain I hold in my being, in my body, and it’s the pain I hold for the world.
I give my love for family and friends.
I see them aching not just from the slings and arrows of misfortune, and the lance of gossip and backbiting envy.… read more...
MIDWEST INTIMATIONS
Port Yonder Press / Eastern Iowa University will be publishing its third volume of lyric essays this summer. Work by two writers is now online, including my essay, “Midwest Intimations.” The other essay online, link included is, “You Will Have a Son,” by Cindy Lamothe, an expat living in Antigua. Thank you Port Yonder Press.
| Eastern Iowa Review |
MIDWEST INTIMATIONS
Let me pry loose old walls.
Let me lift and loosen old foundations.
Beat me and hammer me into a steel spike.
Drive me into the girders that hold a skyscraper together.
Take red-hot rivets and fasten me into the central girders.
Let me be the great nail holding a skyscraper through the blue nights
into white stars.
–Carl Sandburg, 1918
The American Midwest is a great nail in my body. Its rusty gestalt formed me, and my heart pumps iron history through my arteries and veins. The Midwest broke me and made me strong. It formed my hard-edged will and chastised me with ice.
I’ve lived in Hawaii, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, and Washington. I’ve traveled to 43 of the Continental United States and motored through Spain, Korea, India, Argentina, Haiti, Germany, England, and Mexico. I’ve rubbed elbows with people in the sovereign nations. Their names drip from my tongue: Navajo, Potawatomi, Lakota, Menominee, and Ojibwa.
I’ve embraced Midwest geography; most of it is not beautiful, however, some sites rival the rugged, purple Andes of Northwest Argentina, the coast of Barcelona, and the tumbling waterfalls hidden deep in Molokai’s rainforests.
The friendliest people don’t live in the Midwest, except once in a while we are the friendliest.… read more...
The WRITING Cabin, August 14, 2016
Decompression in a short video. https://goo.gl/photos/pdBb7KKt2JtGT268A
It’s been called The Old Style Place for 42-years, four months. I like to call it Oz. But at this Oz, there is no wizard behind the curtain. Not one is capable of changing the weather or bringing dreams to fruition.
Here, it is still. It is quiet. One is left alone in the heavy gravity of time and its discontents.
I keep coming back to Oz for those rare moments when the jagged edges of my psyche melt into the infinite now. A breath in and a breath out in gratitude is the best that I am.
I live for this one breath, and revel in the harmony of one biosphere and one ecosphere, where each waving branch is a small sun and its wild music is mine.
YogaInspirationals #39
My Purpose? That’s simple.
To live, to love, to tell stories.
This fluid journey called yoga – four years in the making – continues its remaking over me.
My practice takes place in the heated mist of a hot yoga room. It’s a practice of eustress and relaxation which morphs into a luminous cloud, salty and damp.
I am connected to you through drops of sweat.
Your asana is my asana, your bending and shaping is my bending and shaping.
To return again and be in that dusty – but it’s not really dust – cloud becomes the road-map for traveling outward as breath moves to sweet release.
My longing is your longing, my travel is your travel.
I’m dragonfly, now rabbit, then camel, now fish – now myself.
Then I evolve once again, going back and yet forward at the same time to child in his innocent repose.
Your evolving is my evolving: we go back to child.
“The way in is the way out,” my guru said
Her wisdom, “the way in is the way out” comes to me from her bloodline far to the east, from a practice that bent and molded her matter-mind, from evidence etched into the soles of her feet. Tucked in like a child, she steps back and forth over the soles of my feet and east meets west.
Moved to low places like water, propelled by gravity, heating, bending, and shaping, I’m an ongoing story of learning. My teachers are ancient yoga reformers.
My reformation is your reformation, my learning is your learning.… read more...
Yoga Inspirationals #34 Asana Journal
STORAGE WARS AND YOGA’S EMOTIONAL RESCUE
http://www.asanajournal.com/storage-wars-and-yogas-emotional-rescue/
A reality TV show on the Arts and Entertainment channel is called, “Storage Wars.” In it, a group of bidders look for five minutes at the contents of abandoned and locked storage units, but they can’t go into them. After competitive bidding, the winner is declared the owner of everything in that locker. They rush in with great hope and begin looking through boxes, drawers, and accumulated piles of mishmash.
Sometimes they find valuable coins or artwork, antique toys, or newspapers; however, their newly-bought pile could be old tee-shirts, magazines, or dirty linens and parking tickets, vestiges of life in transit. More often than finding gold, the winning bidder digs up a clutter of left over’s from a human pack-rat.
Storage Wars is popular because it’s a modern day version of the mother-lode gold strike. And in rare cases, the winning bidders of Storage Wars make hundreds of thousands in profit. One discovered Spanish gold coins dating back to the 16th Century valued at half a million dollars, another winner found a model grand piano, and a third uncovered classic toys worth nearly $13 thousand.
CONTINUED IN ASANA JOURNAL. http://www.asanajournal.com/storage-wars-and-yogas-emotional-rescue/
Yoga Inspirationals #31 Asana Back to the Innocent Age
Link: http://asanajournal.com/asana-back-to-the-innocent-age
Asana Back to the Innocent Age
On an overcast February day, my move toward balasana (child’s pose) began easily enough; “breathe into your truth, breathe into your center,” my teacher said.
The words moved me like someone taking my hands and gently walking me backward into a calm refreshing lake. I would have welcomed this after a slow and voggy day; I mean a day full of vog – volcanic gas cloud residue – suffocating everyone within miles of my writing desk. Things just weren’t happening. I blamed the vog.
Like anyone, I’m involved in making a living and positioning myself for security. I hope for happiness and peace for myself and my extended family. And like others, I want to register my mark in the world and hope my contributions help move the human family in a compassionate direction. I’ve had a good education and learned my civics lessons, so I also embrace my role in helping to alleviate suffering of those less fortunate than myself.
In my best efforts to make a mark in the short time I have to walk the Earth, I’m required to sift through ever-increasing complex data and stimuli that comes to me through my senses. Like all yogi’s living in a material world, I’m obliged to select what I’ll take-in or reject based on my priorities and values.
HARD CHOICES IN AN INTERCONNECTED WORLD
A yogi’s awareness of the world’s interconnectedness leaves him/her with sometimes agonizing choices over what course of action is least-harmful. One approach to this post-modern dilemma is to adopt the ethical creed of non-malificence, or do no harm, a part of the Hippocratic Oath.… read more...
New Ways to Cope – YogaInspirationals
In preparation for a piece I’m working on for the AARP Bulletin, and other magazines that focus on aging and health, I attended a senior yoga class today taught by Andrea Hutchens. Afterwards, I asked the students for a few comments about yoga and aging. In just a few minutes, I heard enough to affirm, once again, that this ancient discipline and practice can change lives.
It doesn’t happen in an instant, and the change isn’t easy or predictable. One student told me “I was 58 when I started, but I really wish I would have known about it and started when I was a kid. I think Kaiser should have a program. I think it should be in schools”
She went on to tell me why she started yoga and what it’s done for her. I’m saving that for my article. It’s never to late to start a practice that treats mind, body and soul sans medications and expectations. And when it comes to finding new ways to cope in a world that’s increasingly distressed and dangerous, yoga is a good place to start.
Photos from class at the West Hawaii Civic Center.
Yoga’s Storage Wars
Perhaps you’ve watched the A&E Network’s show, Storage Wars. In it, a group of people look for five minutes at the contents of a storage unit from its periphery, but cannot enter the unit. Then they bid to own the unexamined contents inside. The winner is the highest bidder, and his/her reward is ownership of everything in that unit.
The highest bidder might find valuable coins or artwork, antique toys or newspapers. In rare cases, they find instruments. However their newly-bought storage unit could be filled with dirty tee-shirts accompanied by soiled linens and parking tickets, vestiges of life in transit. More often than finding gold, the winning bidder finds the clutter of unresolved issues and remnant droppings of a human pack-rat.
The show is popular because it’s a modern day version of a mother-lode gold strike. In a few cases, bidders have made hundreds of thousands in profit. One bidder discovered Spanish gold coins, some dating back to the 16th Century, valued at half a million dollars. Another winner found a model grand piano and a third stumbled into classic toys worth nearly $13 thousand.
In our yoga bodywork, it’s not long before we are like most of those treasure seekers who run smack dab into unwanted leftovers and are faced with cleanup. It’s widely understood in our yoga communities that our bodies are storage units of past traumas. This includes mental and psychological trauma along with physical injuries.
Dr. David Berceli describes his work treating “deep chronic tension created in the body during a traumatic experience or that has accumulated from prolonged stress.” His therapy to clean up the human body’s storage unit is called TRE, Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises. … read more...
Excerpt from Yoga Inspirationals, Day 29.
Think of standing on your mat in class holding Mountain Pose, and that your mat is the entire focus of your attention. In your mind, shift your awareness to the place where the soles of your feet make contact with your mat and pretend as if that place is all that exists. Your entire world is made up of the space that forms two outlines on the bottom of your feet. This is what Gestalt calls the “figure,” and everything else – except that one patch where your two feet make contact – is the background/landscape of perception and awareness.
My yoga class sometimes reminds me of lectures in Gestalt psychology when my professor spoke about making contact; and with that heightened contact, the impact of fully digesting food and digesting experience. His inference was that one can digest both life and food when one takes time for focus on the figure of awareness.
Recently, while absent-mindedly walking barefoot on a wood floor, I reached for something and felt a little off balance. Immediately, I was aware of a strong corrective to my imbalance, but it wasn’t coming from my brain, it was coming from the soles of my feet.
I was surprised, for I had never before felt a corrective to in my balance coming from my feet. I asked myself, Are my feet becoming smarter, or am I just becoming more aware of their contact and catching up to that reality? This small example is the wider truth of yoga practice. It increases bodily intelligence and directly related mental intelligence.… read more...
Yoga Inspirationals
“Because breath is life, the art of judicious, thoughtful
ungreedy breathing is a prayer of gratitude we offer to life itself.” B.K.S. Iyengar, Light on Life.
YOGA Inspirationals, 25th Installment, based on ritual studies, “Three Steps to a Yogi’s Transformation.”
July 20, 2015 DoYouYoga.com/the-three-stages-of-a-yogis-transformation-59820-97291/
July 2, 2015 Yogi Times http://www.yogitimes.com/article/peace-just-a-pause-now-accepting-practice-yoga
June 20, 2015 elephant journal http://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/06/relinquishment-how-a-trip-to-India-can-redefine-our-lives
June 12, 2015 elephant journal http://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/06/why-bad-prayers-are-good-prayers/
June 5, 2015 elephant journal http://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/06/yoga-and-the-place-of-soul
2015 Yogi Timeshttp://www.yogitimes.com/article/yoga-covenant-agreement-vow-commitment
Marach 2015 elephant journalhttp://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/03/how-yoga-makes-us-kinder/
February 21, 2015 DoYouYoga.comhttp://www.doyouyoga.com/why-yoga-should-bring-us-to-social-action/
February 15, 2015 Yogi Timeshttp://www.yogitimes.com/article/who-moved-the-yoga-mat-practice
January 6, 2014 DoYouYoga.comhttp://www.doyouyoga.com/4-reasons-teachers-should-use-touch-in-yoga/
December 27, 2014 elephant journalhttp://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/12/the-yoga-pose-that-healed-my-lower-back-injuries/
December 11, 2014 Yogi Times http://www.yogitimes.com/article/story-of-yoga-poem-parable/
November 24, 2014 The Yoga Blog http://www.theyogablog.com/favorite-quote-practice/
November 21, 2014 DoYouYoga.com http://www.doyouyoga.com/mantra-the-power-of-word/October 22, 2014
The Yoga Blog http://www.theyogablog.com/doing-yoga-30-years-now/
October 16, 2014 elephant journal http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/10/ego-injury-10-questions-for-yoginis/
October 2, 2014 The Yoga Blog http://www.theyogablog.com/find-silence-yoga-practice/
Sept. 21, 2014 DoYouYoga.com http://www.doyouyoga.com/how-yoga-moves-from-it-to-it/
Sept. 17, 2014 elephant journal http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/09/mapping-yogas-breathcentric-diamond-body-gregory-ormson/
Aug. 15, 2014 The Yoga Blog http://www.theyogablog.com/take-inventory-yoga-yoga-like-aa/
Aug. 2, 2014 elephant journal http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/08/the-savasana-cloud-gregory-ormson/
July1, 2014 elephant journal http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/07/the-importance-of-living-in-alignment-gregory-ormson/
March 12, 2014 The Yoga Blog http://www.theyogablog.com/yogas-hidden-benefit-unconscious-mind/
Feb. 3, 2014 The Yoga Blog http://www.theyogablog.com/365-days-yoga-completely-changed-life/… read more...
Yoga Inspirationals #24 Peace a Pause Away
24th Installment Yoga Inspirationals. July 2, 2015
Peace just a pause away. July 2, 2015
http://www.yogitimes.com/article/peace-just-a-pause-present-now-accepting-practice-yoga
With thanks to the following, where these articles first appeared:
TheYogaBlog.com, elephant journal.com, DoYouYoga.com, and YogiTimes.com
June 12, 2015 http://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/06/relinquishment-how-a-trip-to-india-can-redefine-our-lives/
June 5, 2015http://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/06/why-bad-prayers-are-good-prayers/
http://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/06/yoga-and-the-place-of-soul/
April 12, 2015 Yogi Times http://www.yogitimes.com/article/yoga-covenant-agreement-vow-commitment
March 11, 2015 elephant journal http://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/03/how-yoga-makes-us-kinder/
February 21, 2015 DoYouYoga.com http://www.doyouyoga.com/why-yoga-should-bring-us-to-social-action/
February 15, 2015 Yogi Times http://www.yogitimes.com/article/who-moved-the-yoga-mat-practice
January 6, 2014 DoYouYoga.com http://www.doyouyoga.com/4-reasons-teachers-should-use-touch-in-yoga/
December 27, 2014 elephant journal http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/12/the-yoga-pose-that-healed-my-lower-back-injuries/
December 11, 2014 Yogi Times http://www.yogitimes.com/article/story-of-yoga-poem-parable/
November 24, 2014 The Yoga Blog http://www.theyogablog.com/favorite-quote-practice/
November 21, 2014 DoYouYoga.com http://www.doyouyoga.com/mantra-the-power-of-word/
October 22, 2014 The Yoga Blog http://www.theyogablog.com/doing-yoga-30-years-now/
October 16, 2014 elephant journal http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/10/ego-injury-10-questions-for-yoginis/
October 2, 2014 The Yoga Blog http://www.theyogablog.com/find-silence-yoga-practice/
Sept. 21, 2014 DoYouYoga.com http://www.doyouyoga.com/how-yoga-moves-from-it-to-it/
Sept. 17, 2014 elephant journal http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/09/mapping-yogas-breathcentric-diamond-body-gregory-ormson/
Aug. 15, 2014 The Yoga Blog http://www.theyogablog.com/take-inventory-yoga-yoga-like-aa/
Aug. 2, 2014 elephant journal http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/08/the-savasana-cloud-gregory-ormson/
July1, 2014 elephant journal http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/07/the-importance-of-living-in-alignment-gregory-ormson/
April 5, 2014 The Yoga Blog http://www.theyogablog.com/reality-check-yoga-teachers/
March 12, 2014 The Yoga Blog http://www.theyogablog.com/yogas-hidden-benefit-unconscious-mind/
Feb. 3, 2014 The Yoga Blog http://www.theyogablog.com/365-days-yoga-completely-changed-life/… read more...
Yoga and the Place of Soul. Yoga Inspirationals #21
Published June 5, elephant journal. Link below.
http://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/06/yoga-and-the-place-of-soul/
Yoga and the Place of Soul.
Via Gregory Ormson Jun 5, 2015
On a recent trip out of state, I attended yoga class seven days in a row with no duplicate sessions. Some featured music, some included chanting near the end and some used scented oil.
I was surprised that being in an unfamiliar place and experiencing new forms of practice created an opening within me that I hadn’t previously experienced. In one situation, during a slow-moving class, I was connecting in a new way. Afterward, I realized that is what yoga was made for: to tune into a deeper and more authentic self.
I think I briefly touched what I can only describe as my soul. The music, scented oils, meditations, slow movements, breath work, chanting and bell-ringing were new vehicles that helped me find previously untraveled roads. In those few moments, a fresh mantra came to me, which I now use in meditation. It’s a spiritual mantra, helping me focus on being a better person and presence in the world, both to myself and others.
B.K.S. Iyengar also wrote about how yoga goes beyond mere physical practice: “My own body was the laboratory in which I saw the health benefits of yoga, but I could already see that yoga would have as many benefits for my head and heart as it did for my body.”
I’ve had more than my share of spiritual experiences, including spiritually focused sweat lodges, Andean mountainside pyramid building and centering rituals, Indian prayers and meditations at the Gandhi Center in New Delhi, Gestalt doctoral-level group practicums centering on spirituality and psychodrama, spiritual retreats, peace center events, drum circles, church choral gatherings, 14 years working as clergy developing and leading a variety of rituals, and even an encounter with a shapeshifter in India.… read more...
Yoga and other bendable subjects from Hawaii’s Big Island
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