Writer, musician, yoga-loving motorcyclist.
Our world is in need. People are distracted, fractured, busy, angry and vulnerable to emotional hijacking. When this happens, its hard to experience the joy of being alive because we lose touch with ourselves and others.
Yoga meets this need by offering time for the busy to rest for a few moments, connect to our battered selves, and learn to breathe again which brings us into wholeness and gives us permission to focus in on the moment and the experience.
In yoga, we put-away the agenda for just a few minutes to remember who we are as people imbued with a divine spark that need not be named, claimed, or tamed.
Tune in at 7:05 pm tonight when I read sections from Yoga Song. Live Facebook feed from Salt Motion and Meditation in Wausau, Wisconsin. Here’s the link: https://www.facebook.com/events/1382068342295624/… read more...
Available Tuesday on International Yoga Day from Rochak Press
https://rochakpublishing.com/book-details.php?bid=574&isbn=9788182539594… read more...
“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...
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...
Yoga Song is a story of transformation and redemption in 23 lyric vignettes from Dr. Gregory Ormson. Yoga Song’s author states there’s a song at the center of all time, being, and structure, and there’s a song in the center of yoga.
The instrument of a yoga song is the yogi’s body which includes: mind, spirit, emotion, energy, and consciousness. In a breathcentric yoga practice, yogis experience its transforming and therapeutic power where ordinary moments stretch into extraordinary.
Rochak Publishing ISBN: 978-93-88125-90-1 INR 200 US $ 15 — 109 pages. Available International Yoga Day June 21, 2022 www.cyberwit.net and on Amazon
ENDORSEMENTS FOR YOGA SONG:
“I am planning on taking 200 hour teacher training, and seeing your article yesterday, I was inspired to keep following my heart. I need to buy the book!” Pamela WB, Edmonton, Alberta
“I have been thinking of branching out and writing about my yoga practice so this is a big inspiration.” Dr. Chad Faries, Savannah , Georgia
“I am very glad to see you doing yoga Gregory. It is so good for the body and mind.” Sam Paul Raj, Chennai, India
“Thank you for a wonderful story.” Tee Daly, Austin, Texas
From chapter 3
Yoga’s song doesn’t just make a song with us, it opens us and makes us ready to receive a new song. This is the way of yoga’s song composition in, of, and through every asana in motion and stillness.
In a melody of motion, balanced by stillness, I open to gravity’s shaping no matter how I fail. I do yoga linked to breath in the moment.… read more...
Yoga Song is a story of transformation and redemption in 23 lyric vignettes from Gregory Ormson with a foreword written by Dr. Yogananth Andiappan of the Andiappan Yoga Colleges. Yoga Song’s author states there’s a song at the center of all time, being, and structure. There’s also a song in the center of yoga, and the instrument of a yoga song is the yogi’s body which includes: mind, spirit, emotion, energy, and consciousness.
In a breathcentric yoga practice, yogis experience yoga’s transforming and therapeutic power where ordinary moments stretch into extraordinary. Described in vignettes like “Transforming the Emotional Body,” “Ritual Process and the Yogi’s New Song,” and “Yoga: a Breathcentric Community,” Yoga Song proclaims to every yogi, with informative and inspirational content, that as they yoga they are a yoga song . . . a sacred song in mind, body, and spirit.
“This writing deserves to be in top 5 Google Search Results.” Sergio E (via Webpage email).
“This fantastic inspirational essay written by Gregory Ormson is . . . a must read.” Jennifer Taylor, Tulivesi Yoga, Marquette, Michigan
“Ormson has written some profound articles about his expansion through yoga. This piece was beautiful and I know all my friends who practice yoga will truly appreciate it just as much as I did.” Meagan Rasmussen, Kona, Hawaii
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.… read more...
Many 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. 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 where I build my satyagraha.
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.… read more...
A day after moving into my apartment in Hawaii, I was on the floor with back pain. I had endured many injuri
es: 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...
During the last class of spring/summer we were happy to welcome “Chuck-A-Dog.”
Good energy in yoga, good energy wind in the face, good energy in yoga.
It’s not surprising because yoga fully anchors the physical body in the moment. If someone has not really been present in their body, but focused on what they are doing while forgetting about themselves, yoga and grounding in the present moment through breath and movement will feel foreign . . . . almost like an out of body experience. But in fact it’s just the opposite.
The yogis have told us for centuries that the body is not just the physical self: they believed what we see is a layer over four other layers which they called koshas. Koshas consist of the biological body — the one we see — but unseen layers are breath or the ethereal (which gives life); consciousness; spirituality, and the mental body.
When we get into the physical body, we also get into the spiritual body, the mental body, the ethereal body, and the consciousness body. This may be what some people feel for the first time doing yoga.
Spirituality is in our body even if most spirituality doesn’t honor this fact. Humans are spiritual by nature. This (spirituality) is not the same as holding a particular religion or belief system; rather, spirituality and the nature of being is not based on creed or belief for it is truly beyond definition.
Can anyone sufficiently package a multifaceted human being into into a summary or belief system? I’d say no, because mystery is at the center of human experience and being.… read more...
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...
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...
After graduation from the university, I toured through India with a music group. Before going there, my mentor had given me the name and address of a good friend from the time he lived in Long Island, NY, and asked if I’d stop by in New Delhi to say hello if I had a chance.
One night in Delhi, I borrowed a Royal Enfield Motorcycle and drove to where she lived. I didn’t have a motorcycle license and hadn’t ridden a motorcycle. It’s dangerous to ride without training, and crazy to ride a motorcycle in India, but at 22 I felt invincible; I mounted the bike and took off through the streets of New Delhi dodging animals and people.
I found where she lived, knocked on the door, and told her why I was there. She invited me in for tea and we talked.
After that day, I didn’t ride a motorcycle again until I was 46 years old; but from that night in India until the time I bought my first Harley Davidson motorcycle, I have cherished that memory and the thrilling experience of riding the bike dodging goats, cows, and people.… read more...
I’m camping, and the desert divot nearby is a scar of prickly pear, cacti, and sharp-edged boulders. Tonight it’s dark, stars are twinkling, and its filled with coyotes singing, rapping, and yipping a song of their own. I think it could be their version of “Party and Bullshit” by the Notorious BIG.
(Photo: desert-bleached coyote jaw) 
Indigenous people revered and feared coyote. Like its design, coyote is mixed bag. On one hand the mighty trickster stood for folly, comedy, or good luck. But coyote could also bring humiliating failure, misfortune, or disaster. American Indian lore bubbles with tales of coyote’s mystique and lessons of its big appetite, small vision, and aimlessness.
If you’ve been to the American Southwest you’ve seen coyote trotting, trotting . . . always trotting. Coyote is the scruffy, desert-worn, slinky one; the raggle-taggle gypsy of the plains and scarred, scrubby deserts.
Coyote is the product of compromise or committee; no single artist would fashion such a sad, unmatched composite of fur and bone: snout too long, ears too big, legs too skinny, fur too matted and messy, eyes and face the bemused markings of vexation and confusion . . . perhaps its coyote smiling.
Even so, some creation stories sing high praises of coyote for he tricked monster, the world-destroyer, to save himself and all of us. Lobos disparatado (absurd, goofy, wild, coyote) is the back-room ally of the two-legged ones able to disembody and send its spirit to carry out pranks or offer gifts.
Some creation stories tell of coyote bringing the gift of fire for two-legged ones, or coyote who out schemed his enemies, and how the wily coyote detached his penis and sent it upriver to have a party only to return and reattach to his body.… read more...
By any measure, a photo of this tree is unremarkable. It’s my yoga tree, an uncrowded place I go to move, breathe, and sit in stillness. This spot brings together my past and present; my past represented by the baseball field a few feet away and the present in my grounding movement above the roots of this gnarled cipher.
The twisted branches above remind me that yogis refer to the strands of yoga as limbs. But limbs or branches are also used to illustrate human avidya, our klutzy and misplaced aggressions and ambitions. The tree grows down and up; I stand in the middle where my biology holds pieces of both the cithonic and the radiant, dust and stardust. Above the roots I reach and yet am grounded; below the limbs I am grounded and yet reach. All the while, doing yoga in the force of hatha’s opposites.
Under the yoga tree I do my yoga and find – in this sparse, grassy veranda between past and future – my present. And it really is a present . . . for which I’m grateful. AND, it’s outdoors too for which I’m doubly grateful. I hope that you can get out and find a place to do your yoga today.
Spiritual leaders through the Centuries have reminded us that living in the present is important; yet this counsel is often overlooked. We might want to ask of ourselves then:
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?
My sitar flows in 19 bands of light called baaj, chikari, and tarab. Its journey to my hand is a mystery, but its music-medicine landed on my doorstep from an old land, gripped me from the eons, and pulled my soul into a note-bending journey unlike any other.
On sitar and its emotional gravity – something beyond definition – a musician friend and professor said, “It’s all angles.”
I first heard the sitar’s otherworldly drone years ago and felt it in my chest. Now when my sitar strings bend to raise a siren-song from the fathoms, Saraswati dances to an ascent and descent on every note. This sacred dance is a never-ending river shepherding me to a place close and yet far away.
My teacher speaks in common tones and offers up clusters of daring: “Consistency, consistency, consistency,” she says.
Her words, the wisdom of learning and teaching, and the kernel in every guru’s curriculum. I’ve walked the rivers
of India, but today can’t put myself and my sitar on their banks. But once at dusk, on a hot July night in Arizona, I made my way with this gourd, rosewood, string & steel riddle to the banks of the Salt River in east Phoenix. Sitar did not accompany me alone. Looking to the Salt, I could see a funeral pyre, a desert-inspired mirage bobbing with the current like a lazy raft ablaze in flames, scented smoke, grief trailing behind.
At river’s edge, my sitar smelled like burning incense and the hymnody it raised came from an earlier time. I followed the current but can not understand.… read more...
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
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/kirtan-cacao-ceremony-sound-healing-tickets-150131119219
I’m inviting you to a Cacao Ceremony this coming Friday from 5:30-8:00 pm, December 3 at RADICILE SANA, 22 N. Bellview, Mesa, AZ. Space is limited to 15 people with payment in advance through eventbrite (on the link above). Click it to register & for details on what cacao actually is, what to expect during the ceremony, and some items you may need.
A sound healing musician, friend, and yoga teacher Crystal Valentina, has led Cacao Ceremonies and sound healing for over five years. Such a ceremony meets in a community setting around the elements of chant, sound healing, and cacao.
If you’ve never participated in a one, why not try something new? Expand your comfort zone and learn what you may need and want even if you are not aware of it. Think of the possibility to experience heightened sensations, focused intentions, and active empathy.
By invitation, I’ll be a guest musician and participant with everyone on Friday night. It will be fun to make voice with you and play sitar and guitar. NOTE: The kirtan style chant, a common part of cacao ceremony, is not a singing contest. The purpose of chanting in mindfulness is discovered when the gathered community sound as one voice (the vocal instrument) accompanied by other instruments.
From The Empty Mirror on writing, “With Crooked Legs of Hackberry”https://www.emptymirrorbooks.com/publishing/with-crooked-legs-of-hackberry
http://www.portyonderpress.com/gregory-ormson—midwest-intimations.html/
And the Diamond Speaks in Runes – The Twin Bill
Injury As Wise Teacher | Asana – International Yoga Journal (asanajournal.com)
#Yogainspirationals number 99, OM Yoga Magazine, May 2021 (gregoryormson.com)
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...
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...
When dream
s meet Self, descriptions abate and prophesies grow into fullness, while the wisdom of silence and balance of polarities root and branch in the 5 koshas.
When dreams meet self, every yogi is shattered and burned. Forgetting everything they thought they knew, they are steeped in the new identities of sojourners on sacred paths, beggars in great need, and apprentices to humble sages.
When dreams meet self, yogis standing on the shoulders of gurus are transformed by echoes of the past. Trusting yoga while being remade by deeper awareness, growing surrender, and firmer resolve, the yogi becomes new and draws from a spiritual blueprint steeped in time.
When dreams meet self, yogis resign worry to the trash bin; they relinquish what can’t be changed and take up residence in the room of ho’oponopono (Hawaiian for the practice of reconciliation and forgiveness), where encounters with I and Thou teach a larger trust. They respond gratitude and present themselves for service – and dreams – not found in mass.
Asana Journal articles link to 21 yoga articles #yogainspirationals
I’m pleased to have this article in Thunder Press featuring a strong group of Indigenous Women Motorcycle Riders and Leaders.
Thanks Kevin (ed). All photos by Oliver Touron, rider and photomotojournalist extraordinaire. click on photos to enlarge text or go to thunderpress(dot)net for the digital copy.
Read the Medicine Wheel Ride story by going to the digital Thunder Press site, along with the reasons for the Medicine Wheel and coverage of the Sturgis Medicine Wheel Ride. Very recently, the national press has caught on to the facts of Indigenous women and children gone missing and/or murdered with little or no effort to find them. A recent episode of Big Sky (on Hulu) mentioned this, as did a major television network recently during all the press for the missing Floridan woman, Gabby Petito.
The Medicine Wheel Ride and riders are making statements with bikes and voices so that the crisis of missing will be silent no more. Read the full story click each photo below, and/or other motorcycle oriented writing on ThunderPress(dot)net
peace: just a pause a – YOGI TIMES
"Peace, Just a Pause Away," originally published July, 2015 by YOGI TIMES; republished August, 2021 by YOGI TIMES. #yogainspirationals number 24
When my yoga class begins, one of my teachers will often remind me to “let go” of what happened during the day. This first step is part of an overall readiness for yogi’s, helping us to clear our minds and become present and focused before class. I thought also of how it’s important to let go of what didn’t happen during the day.
Recently, I was holding on to expectations and waiting to hear news about writing, news about how my daughter was doing after her dog was run over by a car, waiting to hear about plans with friends, hoping for news about my work. Responding to anxious feelings, I checked my email and social media accounts too many times. Nothing happened.
By early evening, I went to class wishing that I’d had a better day. That’s when I realized that I needed to let go of those things that didn’t happen – what I might call my wishes.
I was in the right place, for I’ve learned that yoga teaches me how come to terms with what happens and also what doesn’t happen. It does so by grounding me on the mat with intentionality and presence. I’ve also come to believe that the harder those moments are on my mat, the more present I am by necessity.
Maybe that’s why I love yoga so much, it takes me away from the un-happening and stretches out my emotional maturity so that at least for a while, I’m taken away from my selfish self and am at peace.… read more...
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!
Register here: https://www.facebook.com/events/206409277791797/?ref=newsfeed
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...
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.
September’s issue of Thunder Press includes a 2021 review of Sturgis Bike Week and my story below. Thanks Kevin Duke (ed)., and Oliver Touron for this photo of Debbie and I heading west on I-8 closing in on Yuma, AZ. Riding for #MMIWC on the way to San Diego’s #MedicineWheelRide. Link to full issue below
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
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...
Thank you WIFW and Kyle Pozorski!
https://www.wjfw.com/storydetails/20210823070608/connecting_yoga_to_motorcyclists\
Of all the fun things this last month, this was one of the best. Meeting Nick, Briana’s friend, and playing a few tunes.
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...
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
'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...
Learn how to extend your riding life and improve overall well-being through a FREE 90-minute yoga workshop at on Saturday, Aug. 21, where Gregory Ormson #motorcyclingyogig will lead “Yoga for Bikers” from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at Bull Falls Harley-Davidson, located on 1570 County Road XX in Rothschild.
“Ultimately,” Ormson said, “both motorcycle riding and life are enhanced when riders continue applying the key lesson of yoga . . . and that is being at ease in the midst of stress.”
ALL ARE WELCOME to attend this workshop; no yoga experience or special clothing is necessary. The active movements are beginner level and focused on bikers’ needs: backs, necks, hips, hands, and wrists. Passive movements and a continuation on breath management will be part of this workshop.
Ormson is a former certified Motorcycle Safety Foundation rider/coach for the state of Hawaii, a long time Harley-Davidson rider, and a certified yoga teacher. He started YOGA & LEATHER: yoga for bikers, at Superstition Harley-Davidson in Apache Junction, Ariz., in 2017, and has led yoga and breath workshops in Queen Creek, Ariz.; Marquette, Mich.; and at D.C. Everest Fieldhouse in Schofield.
Ormson first saw yoga in India and started practicing in Hawaii where his injured back had forced him to temporarily suspend motorcycling. “Healthy spine, healthy life they say in yoga; and after I started yoga, I could bike again and do many other activities I had to quit for a while,” he said.
Story and poster by Scott Steuck, courtesy Bull Falls Harley-Davidson
Check out the venue (Buddhas Brew Coffee Café) for this event: Location for community yoga and song in Mesa
Music is an extraordinary medium with the capacity to bring the world together. Yogis think of the human body as the oldest instrument which has been called the Gatra veena (or human stringed instrument); humming or singing – especially in groups – can create healing shifts in the body, mind, and spirit. The songs are grounded in the language of soul along with repetition of words and melodies ideal for yoga events. Yoga experience is not required, a few yoga mats are available.
In the yoga tradition of reverence for all life, SAT SONG offers a magnetic blending of East and West in yoga and music with Soumya (Somi) Parthasarath and Gregory (G) Ormson.
Somi is a yoga teacher who’s studied Indian classical music in Chandler, Arizona. She practices Astanga style yoga and enjoys singing songs of the soul. G teaches yoga for bikers and has practiced music instruments and vocal from the time he joined a choir at 10. He’s a guitarist and studied sitar at the SPK Classical Indian Music Academy in Chandler, Arizona.
RSVP to gregormson@gmail.com; @motorcyclingyogiG; 480-432-2667
Brown Bag online literary is out today including two of my contributions and many more. This issue, which they’ve titled Jackson, takes readers on a journey through the solar and lunar system in words and sounds; it highlights the individual story – and music in that story – with the complicated tangle in the biggest of big pictures. It is dedicated to Jackson Rose, described as an artist and open soul. Links to click in and listen to “Voices from The Woodland,” which Brown Bag has linked to Mercury, and “Whale Song from the Corners of Eternity,” linked to Neptune.
“We still stand.” An Agnostis/Ormson collaboration dedicated to ongoing and growing movement for change driven, in part, by the activism of #MMIWRiders and #mmiwg #rideformmiw #NoMoreStolenSisters keyboard, composition, photos and video randy anagnostis. lyric, background sounds, and vocal gregory ormson Original song, “Indigenous Souls.”… read more...
Many thanks to the #mmiwriders for allowing us to support and be part of the 2021 San Diego Medicine Wheel Ride. The many thousands of murdered and missing Indigenous Sisters is beyond tragic. The efforts created by #mmiw – to champion greater awareness and change – are necessary and commendable.
⊕ FAST FACTS: “In 2016, there were 5,712 cases reported of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, according to the Urban Indian Health Institute, but only 116 cases were logged in the U.S. Department of Justice database.” by Nienke Onneweer, Arizona Republic April 30, 2021.
“IN some communities, Indigenous women are sexually assaulted and murdered at rates as high as 10X the national average.” ⊕
This GRSound piece “We Still Stand” testifies to the Indigenous peoples’ resilience and tenacity. Still standing, and still celebrating after abuse and terror. (melody and keyboard Randy Anagnostis, lyric and vocal Gregory Ormson).… read more...
Truer than ever before, much of the world was asleep in their screens during 2020. Television, cell phones, and computers offered connections during the worst of the world-wide pandemic, but connections sans touch.
Such connections seem void of what I’d call true encounter. An incarnated connection is more real for it’s in the flesh and is sustained over time by meeting, greeting, touching or holding intimate space for one another.
Emerging from the last year of sleep and screens, 2021 is sparking a new consciousness. We are realizing something critical to the survival of Earth and the human species. We need to talk with one another.
I’m discovering that as we sit down together and engage we learn how to listen again. Listening teaches how build and sustain by giving, taking, and willingly offering disclosure and feedback. This happens when we “talk story,” a phrase and practice I learned from the Hawaiians. Talking story is no small thing. It’s the way movements start, and the way the medicine wheel ride started.
Talking story, the indigenous women spoke about the missing and murdered sisters, mothers, aunts, cousins, daughters, and grandmothers they knew – from all nations – they realized the tragedy was three-fold. First, that it happens at all. Second that it happens at an alarming rate among indigenous peoples than anywhere else; and third, that nobody was talking about it.
These crimes continue to break and destroy the bonds of family and community everywhere but especially on indigenous lands.
The Medicine Wheel Ride was formed for awareness, disclosure, feedback, justice, and change.… read more...
Music spoken word by Gregory Ormson, Russell Thorburn, Darrell Syria.
Lightning Bolts and Scars – New Plains Student Publishing (newplainsreview.com)… read more...
