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Gregory Ormson

Writer, musician, yoga-loving motorcyclist.

A Short Clip of Fantuzzi’s UNIVERSAL LOVER

At BhaktiFest in Joshua Tree, I watched Fantuzzi play his song, Universal Lover and thought I’d try it. Played here in DADGAD guitar tuning on my Taylor 414ce. I have to be careful with this instrument; it spent four years with me in Hawaii where it was soaked in humidity. The last eight years its been drying in the Arizona desert. Not good for an instrument. But this guitar has a deep resonance I love.… read more...

Who Moved the Yoga Mat Thank you OM YOGA Magazine (UK)

https://www.ommagazine.com/who-moved-the-yoga-mat/

Who Moved the Yoga Mat

Who Moved the Yoga Mat

Along the way, yoga takes over and changes people. We bend, stretch, breathe deeply, and pose moves our bodies to more flexibility and efficiency, increased balance, bodily awareness, and a host of other well-documented physical benefits. Along the way, the mind improves too as we enter the land of enhanced concentration, improved relaxation, ease in letting go, and a heightened awareness of what’s important. A result of these differences is what yogis think of as medicine.

I’ve directly experienced yoga’s positive changes and improved flexibility and balance. They are specific and objective measures that bode well for my aging that I can easily demonstrate to anyone. The other aspects are subjective; I cannot qualitatively demonstrate the ability to remain calm in stressful situations, a willingness to let go, better awareness, or better decision making and discernment.

I’ve learned that yoga is not about ability or athleticism; it’s about an altered perspective to deeper awareness. Greater awareness is not something I’ve achieved and is not something I can put on a resume as a past job accomplishment. Greater awareness is not a marketable skill as it will not convince an employer that I’d be a good candidate for a managerial position; but when I hold up the mirror of self-awareness, it tells me that I am fluid and open to learn, to change, and therefore poised for personal and professional growth. That’s the kind of person I want for my manager.

But my practice, 13 years in the making, has directly impacted me. If yoga could speak, it would tell me that since I started yoga, my mindset is more agile, my way of looking at life has shifted, and my adaptation to change is fluid, including a move to a new state, new work, a new community, and new goals.

… read more...

Hawaii, Yoga, and the Afterword

Ω  Thirteen years ago my yoga song began on the island of Hawaii, the newest and southernmost rock in the Hawaiian archipelago. I watched Pele pour her passion in hand-to-hand combat with ocean waves in a torrent that rocked my reach and stretched my learning. My heated engagement with truth force took place in a salty mist on a luminous cloud where a sea rose & circled back in three steps: breath in purach-ah, breath hold kumbach-ah, and breath out rechakh-ah.

Midwest born & raised; I saw the ocean but didn’t recognize it. The ocean’s blue tabla rasa didn’t reflect my gaze or provide a visible boundry. Sans boundaries or witnesses to corroborate my existence, I wondered if I lived or passed and I found myself gazing to the ocean in steadfast longing, the way everyone sits on a Hawaiian beach. Day and night in Hawaii, tide after tide, a rising moon and setting sun animated dormant memories of the deep & charged life with a persistent, wavy exchange. If wolves lived in Hawaii, they would howl at each tide & sing songs while clawing black rocks to raise a fire and flow.

The Hawaiian Islands were born when elemental opposites met in a forceful, earthly dance: fire and water, soft and hard, sand and foam. Yogis call this a dance of sthira and sukha, steadiness balanced in ease. This balance in the energy of opposites meets in practice & steadfastly holds every yogi through serenity or tsunami. Hatha (competing force) speaks an open sesame to the divine comedy of life prompting an exploration of how we are at once stones and flesh, sphinx, cobra, a warrior, then evolving back to a child in repose.… read more...

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

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

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

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

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

WE CANNOT FIND LOVE, IT IS NOT LOST

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

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

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

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

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

… read more...

Melody of Mass Inspiration in Audiobook form, Yoga Song

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

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

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

A Lightening Strike into Evermore Renewal

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

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

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

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

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

… read more...

Yoga Song, the audiobook for your yogi

AUDIO BOOK FOR YOUR YOGI:

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



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



What others say about Yoga Song:



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

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

American Classic

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

 

Photo in Thunder Press (now American Rider)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Video link from my friend Ram Hernandez.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Ram Hernandez (@ram7861)

QR DISCOUNT Code to rent Priscilla through Riders Share.

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

You can rent Priscilla too but be good to her.

… read more...

My Portable Home

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

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

Follow link below to the full article.

https://yogainternational.com/article/view/my-portable-home-finding-refuge-on-my-yoga-mat#:~:text=Share%3A-,in,-my%20twenties%2C%20I… read more...

RESPLENDENT PASSAGES: Motorcycling to a Yoga Festival, Diaries in Soul Craft

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

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

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

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

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

… read more...

Conclusion (part V). Yoga, an Act of Surrender, Faith, Spirit, Sacrament, Ecclesia, Missiology, and Anointment

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

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

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

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

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

In relinquishment, the yogi learns to open their heart and settle into the most important moment – – the one they live. This grounding in the present is conscious contact which opens one to engage the reality of their life.… read more...

Lessons from 30 Years of Teaching . . . It’s Not About You – Ever

10 Principles for Teachers Ready to Receive

Undergirding all communication is attitude to learners

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

The key to being an effective teacher

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

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

This is hard for teachers to hear because it requires putting ego aside.… read more...

Yoga Song, the audiobook – an instrument of mass inspiration and soundtrack to your yoga journey

Coming up on gift giving season, here’s an audiobook for your yogi so they can listen while driving to class. Yoga Song is an instrument of mass inspiration in 21 vignettes and five original songs.
Hear my integrative description of the humble warrior pose in “Yogi, Heal Thyself,” or the excavation of emotion rising up during the heart-lifting arc of a camel pose in “Making Heroes,” and the affirming mystery of yoga’s therapy falling upon your ears in “Yoga, A Breathcentric Community.” There is more, just follow this link for LANTERN audio presentation of Yoga Song. Sample included below:
https://lanternaudio.com/yoga-song/
Yoga Song available on LANTERN Audiobooks, Audible, Kindle, Apple Books, Bookbeat, audioboo
ks.com, audiobooksnow.com, downpour.com, Findaway, Google Play, Biblioteha LLC, Baker & Taylor, Follett Library Services, and 10 others, Hoopla, Kindle, Macklin Educational Resources, Overdrive, Kobo, Libro.FM, Nook Audio, Scribd, and Odilo and more.

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

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

… read more...

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

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

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood . . .

I took the one less traveled by

And that has made all the difference.”

The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost

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

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

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 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

 … read more...

Coming soon, Yoga Song in a two-hour audiobook by LANTERN audiobooks

Audio version contains one new chapter and five original songs in a  recording of 21 chapters
Ch. 1 The Sailing Forth
Ch. 2 Yoga: A Breathcentric Community
Ch. 3 OM
Ch. 4 Yoga: A Melody of Motion
Ch. 5 Yoga: Work, Play, Worship
Ch. 6 Making Heroes
Ch. 7 A Yoga Parable
Ch. 8 Finding Depth, Discovering Bliss
Ch. 9 A Child Leads
Ch. 10 Yoga and the Pure Consciousness of Healing
Ch. 11 Yogi, Heal Thyself
Ch. 12 The Power of Hot Yoga
Ch. 13 Endowed With a Longing for Connection
Ch. 14 Yogatecture: Blueprint of Transformation
Ch. 15 Transforming the Emotional Body
Ch. 16 Truth Force in Your Yoga
Ch. 17 Ritual Process and the Yogi’s New Song
Ch. 18 Release Into Savasana
Ch. 19 Armor On, Armor Off, the Psychology of Yin Yoga
Ch. 20 A Yoga Song for All Beings
Ch. 21 First and Last Breath

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

Review: INSPIRING AND ENRICHING

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

Gregory Ormson is an internationally recognised author also known as a motorcycling yogi.… read more...

New Reviews from England and Michigan for YOGA SONG

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

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

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

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

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

I invite you to listen in on this yoga song; more importantly, to tune into your electric body and sing your yoga song.… read more...

“Playing in Space: a yogic way of being,” the 102nd of my #yogainspirationals in March, 2023 Om Yoga Magazine

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

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

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

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

ON JOINING the 400 CLUB 10/27/22

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

The Tapas (fire) of Yoga

First, it will get harder

Then it will get easier

Then it will get different

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

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

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

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

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

Of Gardens and Graves, a story from Hawaii

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

“We walked together through the gardens and graves

I watched you grow to be a woman

living on promises that nobody gave to no one

they were given to no one.”

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

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

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...

Asana International Yoga Journal review of Yoga Song.

Thank you Asana Journal

 

 … 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 more...

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...

TAPAS from YOGA SONG Coming June 21, International Yoga Day

Chapter 11, Tapas

New Year’s Eve resolutions are often made with an eye toward immediate results but without a long-term vision that includes commitment to a future that is different. Not even three full weeks into the New Year, New York University published a story stating that 90 percent of New Year’s Eve resolutions are abandoned.

It’s because changes happen by small degree and over time. It’s not by adding requirements or resolutions that our lives change; it’s by subtracting from our lives that which is unnecessary or unproductive.

This is one gift of yoga, we learn by the process of tapas to define more clearly what is necessary and leave the rest; it is yoga’s counter-intuitive mathematic, an equation suggesting that discovery and addition happens by negation and subtraction.

Yoga philosophy develops within the ebb and flow of culture, story, and time. It’s an ongoing journey of subtraction and addition. Civilizations grow, but they also burn to the ground. This is the key to yoga’s tapas, the burning away of that which is unnecessary.

More on Yoga Song, https://gregoryormson.com/writing/yoga-motorcyclingyogig/yoga-song-press-kit… 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...

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...

Visitor to Yoga Class at SHD

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.

 … read more...

Out-of-Body Yoga: get in on the last two sessions at Superstition Harley Davidson in April (at the most beautiful setting for yoga in Arizona)

It’s no longer surprising when a first-timer says “This is the best thing ever. I feel like I had an out-of-body experience.”

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...

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...

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...

Desert Bent Angles: thoughts on playing sitar

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...

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...

Got 5 (koshas) On It

“I got dreams that are too big for mass.”   #thisbeinghuman

When dreams 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

https://www.asanajournal.com/author/gregorygregoryormsonormson/

… read more...

THE MEDICINE WHEEL RIDE: shedding light on an invisible crisis

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

… read more...

Peace: Just a Pause Away

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

be here, now

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...

“Injury as Wise Teacher,” the 100th of my #yogainspirationals

Happy to include “Injury as Wise Teacher,” the 100th publication of my #yogainspirationals. If you are injured in any way, read this for practical tips on using a Gestalt chair technique to get at the psychology of injury and how an injury can be a wise teacher for you.
Asana International Yoga Journal was one of the first English language yoga publications in India; serving as a communication piece for he
Guruji Andippan Yoga College in Chennai, Tamil Nadu.

INJURY AS WISE TEACHER

Gregory Ormson


In the West, we understand the notion of ego as the anchor of our public identity. While it’s not talked about in casual conversation, some psychology terms are part of our regular vocabulary to the degree that most of us have some understanding of the unconscious. No matter how we interpret the unconscious today, it lays the groundwork for a post-modern study of personality and the mind.

Ego isn’t a bad word. Ego is necessary, and having an ego allows us to differentiate ourselves from others. Ego is part of our engagement in place and time. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, an oft-cited yoga philosophy document, even point to ego’s role in identity formation, using the word ahamkara(a) as the sense of “I” or one of ego’s three aspects.

The ego is elusive though because humans are complex. The American poet Walt Whitman wrote in “Song of Myself,” “Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.).”

The truth is, we are all multitudes and it’s only a question of how conscious we are of this.

… read more...

#Yogainspirationals number 99, OM Yoga Magazine, May 2021

Yoga as a life-altering gift

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.

… read more...

In The Golden Moment: A riders journal on sunset, highway, and wind by Gregory Ormson

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

https://thunderpress.net/digital-edition?oly_enc_id=… 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\

… read more...

Thank you Wisconsin Public Radio

https://www.wpr.org/wisconsin-native-motorcycling-yogi-shares-his-love-bikes-and-yoga… 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

https://twitter.com/gaormson/status/1428311933388787712?s=21

Wausau Daily Herald

14278f8d-b827-4fe2-a5aa-91bbd5d9f48d-Tree.jpg.webp

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...

ALL WELCOME 4 COMMUNITY YOGA AND SONG Sunday, July 25, 3:00 – 4:30

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

 

 

 

photo Randy Anagnostis, Salt River, Arizona
… read more...

Community Yoga & Bhakti Music at BuddhasBrewCafe with SAT SONG

Sunday, July 25, 3:00-4:30 at Buddhas Brew Coffee Cafe 

RESERVE your place RSVP gregormson@gmail.com  (limit 18)

Feed your soul and spirit with song, breath, and yoga led by Greg and Somi, musicians and yoga teachers forming SAT SONG in a blending of East and West in meditative moves and song. All Welcome! $15 includes a cold brew coffee or tea from Buddha’s Brew. Once you go to Buddhas Brew, you will return  as a customer. Located @ 710 E Main St., Mesa. Space for 18, no experience required.  #buddhasbrewcoffeecafe… read more...

Brown Bag Literary – sounds of the universe – “a literary platform for art to live in conversation with one another”

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.

… read more...

Story of Yoga for Bikers – OM Yoga Magazine, May, 2021

Yoga and Leather – Yoga for Bikers

Yoga for Bikers – Yoga & Leather • OM Magazine

click link for full story

… read more...

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