Gregory Ormson

Writer, musician, yoga-loving motorcyclist.

YOGA SONG: a lyric narrative of transformation and redemption, coming this summer from Rochak Publishing

When born-to-be-wild biker Gregory Ormson (#motorcyclingyogig) moved to Hawaii, he 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. Ormson’s yoga writing and publishing (#yogainspirationals) led to Yoga Song.

From YOGA SONG

Yoga equips us to meet a stressful world and greet it with equanimity; it’s why we practice, study, and seek to discover who we are as we fall back into the fullness of Self. We breathe deeply to inherit yoga’s spiritual science, and with that breath, release and enter the realm of Om, the universal vibration of creation animating all life.

Yoga sings a song of connection to the ground of our being that his holy at its core; and it offers a redemption song for our mistakes and failures. We meditate, practice asana, or follow yoga’s inner path to the eternal Om and experience how yoga expands the dimensions in which we live and move even as the cultural spaces we inhabit are pressured and restricted.

Yoga’s melodies come to us in soothing voice, chant, or in the spirited sound of a group together in deep exhale. It leads us to deepen our range of motion, expand our lungs with full breath, increase our stretch of spine, and extend our energy body into space.

Formed from the crucible of scholarship and exercise, yoga empties and then fills the thinking reed that is hu-man and teaches us to inherit new dimensions. In time, yoga levels our judgments and brings us to the healing ground of calm detachment while simultaneously counseling us through the yamas and niyamas to do the right things.… 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...

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...

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

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

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

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

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

WHAT IS IT?

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

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...

SOUND HEALING EVENT SUNDAY, OCT, 3rd

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

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

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

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

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...

“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


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...

Yoga and Leather by Keith Uhlig, Wausau Daily Herald

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

Yoga Class Poster (2)

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

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...

WE STILL STAND

 

“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...

Talking Story and Riding the Medicine Wheel #rideformmiw

 

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...

YOUR DIRTY LITTLE LIES

“Your Dirty Little Lies,” is dedicated to us for putting up with the dirty little of the politicians; this protest music and word piece emotes that story. An Anagnostis/ Ormson piece recorded in Mesa, AZ.

 … read more...

THE LANTERN from UW La Crosse, on yoga and leather

This isn’t your ordinary biker gang.

Technically, it’s not a gang at all — just a community of denim-clad Harley enthusiasts who love to roar down an open road, and then unwind with some deep breathing and meditative poses.

“Learning to breathe, be calm, work on your body — these are all things that you practice in yoga and that can translate into motorcycling,” explains Greg Ormson, ’77, founder of the Yoga and Leather: Yoga for Bikers program at Superstition Harley-Davidson in Apache Junction, Arizona. “It’s all predicated on the notion that, if you’re at ease in the saddle, you’re going to feel better and be a much better motorcyclist.”

Greg Ormson, ’77

Ormson is a true renaissance man — a biker, a yogi, a writer, a musician, a world traveler and a student of several religions. He is a shining example of someone who doesn’t just defy stereotypes, but disproves them.

After retiring from his marketing and communications job at Northcentral Technical College in Wausau in  2012, Ormson and his partner moved to Hawaii.

But in paradise, Ormson felt mostly pain.

I saw all these signs on the street corners: yoga, yoga, yoga, I decided to try it.

He had long struggled with back issues — the result of falling off a trampoline as a child and tumbling off a roof as an adult. Years of motorcycling only made it worse.

Then, walking around the streets of Hawaii, Ormson had an epiphany.

“I saw all these signs on the street corners: yoga, yoga, yoga,” he remembers.

… read more...

Steering Our Way in Troubled Waters (video)

Steer Your Way – From You Want it Darker,  Leonard Cohen

https://youtu.be/k6ZEuXT422k

Resist the temptation to run away, put God on it, seek to justify or find salvation. It’s our mess and we deserve it. A Pandemic killing millions worldwide; Armed insurrection at US Capitol; a President calling to overturn a Democratic election; Giant problems rolling out vaccine; Economy for average Americans failing; A crumbling infrastructure (dams, bridges, highways, small towns), across the country; Planetary overconsumption and stressed resources (water, food, land); Unfettered Earth degradation = mining and pollution (air); Climate collapse and waste/plastics/Nano plastics – even in our bodies; Injurious chemicals in our food and on plants; Overpopulation; Hunger and Homelessness; Obscene disparities in wealth; Foreign policy disasters and breakdown of international cooperation; White supremacy and hate groups; Gun violence; Attacks on education and humanities; Machiavellian leadership. . . should I go on?
 
The myth of a free republic for all seems to be a fairy tale falling under the weight of a hubris-fired dream married to corrupt ambition. This myth is fueled by a rabble chanting – USA USA USA – a prideful slog morphing into destructive action.

Diversity, nature’s fail-safe, is rejected by the fearful. The mob thinks they are losing something, but they can’t describe what it is. And how will the rise and fall of a once-great  country work?

It will work like humanity and the planet, all three evolving on the same arc where the end is written in the means. And the means of our present say something sinister and deadly about the ends of our personal, corporate, and planetary journey.… read more...

Babba, Gaia, Prana

Recorded with Audacity, Gregory Ormson lyrics and Washburn D-Series DADGAD guitar, played through Boss Acoustic Singer Pro Amp; keyboard by Randy Anagnostis on Yamaha PB125 with Focus Scarlet Gen 3 Audio Interface. One of several Anagnostis/Ormson original song collaborative pieces.

VIDEO link                      https://youtu.be/NfClYOCX3xA… read more...

At the Heart of Yoga: Response

Yoga’s blueprint, passed originally by word of mouth, then written on banana leaves and now shared by books and digital media, is steeped in an elegant heritage which admonishes the yogi from seeds of an encounter with self.

This deepening with self is born in stillness and realized in the mind, body, and spirit. It’s a yogatecture, and with the application of  yoga tools: meditation, deliberate movement, breath, and ease in stress, the yogi constructs a flexible yet strong building in their body.

The process is simple, and the blueprint is clear; take a seat and start with one conscious breath followed by another. Link this to meditation and deliberate movement for the start of a makeover that each yogi embodies in their own way. Yogis build a sacred and sound structure by following this practice. It’s the physical, non-physical, and metaphysical work of yoga; it is also yoga’s therapeutic.

Builders say the most important structural aspect of a building is its foundation. When building, it’s necessary to create a strong foundation. In the north, if the foundation is not set below the frost line, the freeze and thaw cycles of Earth will crack the base which starts the slow process of destruction.

B.K.S. Iyengar spoke directly on foundational work in, Light on Life: The Yoga Journey to Wholeness, Inner Peace, and Ultimate Freedom. “In each asana, if the contact between body and the floor – the foundation – is good, the asana will be performed well. Always watch your base: Be attentive to the portion nearest the ground. Correct first from the root.… read more...

Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride 9/27/2020

Help me fill out this page by going to the URL listed below my name. #ridingforacause #dgr

I’m riding solo for the Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride on Sept. 27, and I’m inviting anyone to donate under my page. You are not donating to me, but to

*MENTAL HEALTH*        *SUICIDE PREVENTION*

*PROSTATE CANCER*      *TESTICULAR CANCER*

I put the goal at $500 and right now it’s $94. Every few days I’ll recycle this just to put it in front of you, if you feel moved, follow this link to the donation page.

I’ll be sharing it, along with our video entry on social media in the next week or two.

DGR Purpose, “The Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride unites classic and vintage style motorcycle riders all over the world to raise funds and awareness for prostate cancer research and men’s mental health.”
… read more...

תרגום של כתבה : “הפסיכולוגיה של יוגה yin להיום Armor On, Armor Off:

מאת Gregory A. Ormson.  A writer and yogi from Israel asked to translate my yin yoga article for publication there. The copy below is it for my Hebrew reading friends. Yoga writing now published in five languages.

כתבה  שהוא  פרסם  בפייסבוק ב- 27 ביולי 2020

למתבונן מבחוץ  yin yoga  נראית תירגול קל ופשוט אך זה ממש הכל חוץ מתירגול קל. מבחוץ נראה שהמתרגלים  ישנים, או נחים בכדי  להכין  את הנשימה שלהם  לתרגול  ממריץ שעלול לבוא אחר כך. במצב “מנוחה” זה משהו  אכן קורה. אבל זה לא שינה; גם זה לא תרגיל חימום  לסדרה נמרצת הבאה.

תירגול של yin yoga מוביל לפתיחה פנימית מלאה שלוקח זמן להתנסות ולהבין  אותה באופן מלא.

אחרי ש Gregory Ormson  התחיל לתרגל yin yoga  הוא  הבין שהאתגר  ב yinהוא נפשי ופסיכולוגי. הוא  למד שהעקרונות היסודיים של yin  שהם ויתור וכניעה –  הם המפתח להשפעה הפסיכולוגית, הפיזית  והיעילות של התרגול  על ידי: כניעה, שחרור, וויתור. מבחינה  פסיכולוגית, הכניעה ביוגה היא המפתח לכל דבר.

מזמין אתכם להתבונן פנימה, ותמתינו לכך שהקול הפנימי  שלכם  יומר  לכם  מה צריכים לרפא. לשחרר את ההתכווצויות בצוואר, בלסת, בכתפיים, את האי הנוחות בגב, ובקדמת הגוף. קחו נשימה ארוכה  ושחררו אותה לאט. תרגישו איך בגוף משוחרר ומקורקע. למתרגל yin yoga, ככה זה מרגיש  על בסיס קבוע.

השיעור  yin yoga  מביא אותנו לתחום   של healing  בו אנחנו משחררים  משהו שאנו מגנים עליו או במשהו שאנו מתגוננים ממנו . זה מוחזק בגופנו, בפאסיה שלנו ובמוחנו. ב yin  אנו  מוזמנים לשחרר  מתח, להפנות  את המודעות   שלנו פנימה  ולהיפתח בכניעה ובאמונה  ללב  yin yoga המרפאת הזו. “… read more...

YOGA, a Melody in Motion

Yogis embody asana and rejoice in the periphery turned central. Their melody in motion forms a new identity through the habit of engagement with particularity and universality. In every moment, yogis come to know they are a beautiful grey, a crush of salt and pepper.

Surrendering to moments that bend and shape, yogis open as flowers to spring and seek to follow an inward compass. When we insert our egos and rough-hew the curriculum’s established gravity, a shining divinity is dimmed.

In steady motion to yoga’s entry point, yogis release and listen to yoga’s song and follow their breath to an inner melody. That melody is a score to a beautiful transformation. Near the end, we sink into a liminal space where a guru points the way in rechaka, kumbhaka, and puracha, breath in, steady hold, and release.

Yoga class ends and we hear, “May this practice give strength to your body, kindness and compassion to your heart, calm and clarity to your mind.”

We take it in and learn to embrace yoga’s alchemy. It connects us to all and we remember to not dig up in doubt what we planted in faith.

AUDIO, Yoga Song, the afterword: 

https://soundcloud.com/greg-ormson/024_afterword-1… read more...

Alumnus Leads ‘Yoga and Leather’ Class for Bikers

Ormson with his Harley (photo by Randy Anagnostis)
After falling from a roof and injuring his back, NMU alumnus Greg Ormson (’99 MA) found that yoga delivered both pain relief and a new vocation. He became a certified instructor in the practice, just as he had with another avid interest: motorcycling. Ormson has found a unique way to blend both passions. He leads “Yoga and Leather: Yoga for Bikers,” the first—and, to his knowledge, only—specialized class of its kind in the nation to be held in a Harley-Davidson dealership.

It may not seem a logical pairing, but to H.O.G. (Harley Owners Group) member Ormson, the two effectively complement each other and share some similarities. He said beginners in either activity benefit from the guidance of a qualified trainer.

“With motorcycle instruction, the emphasis is on developing riding skills and environmental awareness,” said Ormson, also known as Motorcycling Yogi G. “But spending several hours in the saddle and handling unexpected situations that may arise requires mental focus, strength, flexibility and stamina. That’s where yoga comes in. It is increasingly viewed as the ideal exercise to improve overall mind-body performance.

“When riders are faced with executing a challenging move like a tight U-turn on a heavy bike, breathing shallows and the body tenses, affecting performance. Yoga training can lower stress levels through controlled breathing and meditation. The stretching and strengthening poses reduce the risk of injury by keeping the joints and muscles bikers rely on—hips, back, neck, shoulders, elbows and wrists—flexible and strong.”

… read more...

Inversion

Yoga’s inward move is the great inversion of energy and attention. This inversion of heart is fully accessible to every yogi from the first timer to the decades-long yoga practitioner.

It appears as if nothing is going on and therefore not as impressive to the outside world as inversions like a hand stand; but the move from without to within is a highway to the heart, the compass for every decision, and the sacred center of every temple.

We’ve been on Earth for a while, both corporately and individually, and we know falling and rising. Aware of failure and success in life, in teaching, and in yoga, we listen when a guide addresses us with the courage to be.

Following my guide, I give myself to the moment and find my lifting gaze opens a new potential both fierce and divine. I lift my spine from behind my head and imagine never moving.

The crown of my head rises up and into an unseen sacred net of prana. I stand rooted as if I am a monument. I follow for several near-transcendent seconds where I become a living, breathing stone. Then I exhale to feel my shoulders slump setting myself at ease.

I go back with heightened awareness to calm breath. I stop traveling and arrive where my teacher’s soft words land in my ear. Her question is not judgment. It teaches awareness, “Where is your breath?” She says, “Let it go, it’s in the past.” In that yoga moment, I’m a thirsty man who’s been given water. It was all I asked of the day.

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ACOLYTE OF TRANSFORMATION: Fire and Medicine Deeply Interfused

“And I have felt a presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.”

   This sense of something “far more deeply interfused,” of which Wordsworth wrote, surrounds us; yet existing within the deep heart’s core there’s a divinity which shapes our minds and sets us to ponder with wonder a sinking sun or rising tide.
   When we are focused on ourselves, the mind can pick us apart. This self-criticism distracts us from experiencing the sublime sense Wordsworth knew and wrote of when describing sun, ocean, air, sky, mind, motion, spirit, and the Spirit which impels objects and subjects of thought.
   Yoga’s manifold program is designed to heal the human in all thought and motion. When the yogi steps onto their mat in true presence the fire of yoga is applied to their minds and bodies as medicine.
   And what is the goal of fire? Fire wants to burn. In the case of yoga, fire burns up the rubbish that is unnecessary and unhelpful.
   What is the goal of medicine? Medicine wants to cure. In the case of yoga, entering into true presence provides more than we can imagine.
   Aiming for a presence to know, we do our work and kindle the inner fire. We pay attention to our constant, deliberate movement, and pray for an endowment of constancy:
   • Let me be truly present in my asana
   • Let me be truly present in my decisions
   • Let me be truly present in my mediations
   • Let me be truly present in my service
   • Let me be truly present in my emotions
   “Crying out loud and weeping are great resources,” Rumi penned in a classic truth from the 13th Century.
… read more...

How bikers and yogis can get their zen (and their maintenance) in yoga and on the bike.

Thank you to Om Yoga Magazine for covering Yoga & Leather (May 2020 issue) on how bikers and yogis can get their zen (and their maintenance) in yoga and on the bike. Teaching yoga in a Harley Davidson Motorcycle dealership in the American South is not common but OM published this story of an uncommon yoga outreach. Read all about it here, or see the video link at the end of this post.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opNRRVg8O_M&t=185s&fbclid=IwAR0BYkPKzvvUTjSkTdlzDK_3pQ0tzv4eD6QBznvIa6m9o5IipiDuoz4tWP4

See the May issue by going to pocketmags.com., where a free digital issue can be yours, or by ordering a subscription for the hard copy magazine. Yogainspirationals number 97 by Gregory Ormson,… read more...

NATIONAL POETRY MONTH: a poetry/song series for the last 8 days of April. Number 8, “Hour of the Wolf – Pilot Me.”

All those yellow lines we cross over in our sleep. This is how we are driving through the pandemic head on with the night and winter’s disguise. Here is Greg singing a Jesus song. Picture the musician with his guitar riding a bus across the Upper Peninsula and using a handheld mike to record the Jesus song. He departs from Jesus to read a poem entitled “Hour of the Wolf,” a homage to Ingmar Bergman and his vampire film he made with his former love Liv Ullman, who happened to be pregnant with his child. But always return to the “pilot” and those late-night scenes moving through winter on a bus. R. Thorburn

I read Thorburn’s “Hour of the Wolf,” from one of his poetry books, The Drunken Piano, shortly after its publication in 2009. I knew what it was to see my reflection in a bus window at 3:00 am, and I could hear the bus driver singing a blues song, late at night, driving his life away. I felt what it was to be mid-twenties and anxious; I knew the pinch of wire-rim glasses.

I wanted the wolfing hour to have a melody, maybe a divinity to accompany that grainy ride, and I came up with the song below – borrowing from Edward Hopper’s Hymn, “Jesus Savior Pilot Me” as a floating refrain from the incessant and noisy wheels of the bus. I saw Thorburn and the bus passengers related by anxiety to disciples in a boat on a stormy sea, and as I see many people these days, anxious about something they can’t see.… read more...

Yoga and Leather: bikers get their zen on

Bikers: Covid-19 has paused everything.

It’s a gift given to us, a rare break in normally busy lives to think about things and even make plans to do something new. “Yoga and Leather: Yoga for Bikers,” is for you. This is not gymnastic yoga where your goal will be to nail a handstand or accomplish the splits. Yoga for bikers is for motorcycle riders showing up to a space apart for breathing with simple movement; and it’s a settling down in one place for a few minutes.

Doing a yoga class doesn’t mean you give up your identity, or that yoga makes you stop doing what you do. But yoga will lead you to experience yourself in a different way from what you ever have before. That’s it. Anything and everything else is your choice.

The story of yoga for bikers – in the OM Yoga Magazine May issue is for you. It’s now free to read because OM Yoga Magazine will not be printed for the month of May.

Take a moment to read how yoga benefits bikers. It’s all right here, the story of Yoga and Leather at Superstition Harley Davidson.

Here is your link for a FREE issue of OM Yoga Magazine:  www.primeimpactmags.com

And if you want to see what Yoga and Leather looks like, follow this link to a YouTube video of our class from February, 2020.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opNRRVg8O_M&t=185s… read more...

OM Yoga Magazine writes how Bikers and Yogis get their ZEN ON. Where? At Superstition Harley Davidson

Thank you @omyogamagazine for sharing (May 2020 issue) how bikers and yogis can get their zen (and their maintenance) in yoga and on the bike. Teaching yoga in a Harley Davidson Motorcycle dealership in the American South is not common. What is common is your willingness (Om Yoga Magazine) to publish a good story when you see it.

Your sharing of this three year outreach to bikers was wonderfully done, and I’m grateful to Martin ed., and the entire staff of Om Yoga Magazine. See the May issue by going to pocketmags.com., – or by ordering a subscription for the hard copy magazine – where a free digital issue can be yours. #yogainspirationals number 97 by Gregory Ormson, #motorcyclingyogiG.   Writing on yoga, motorcycling, music, and landscapes at https://gregoryormson.com

… read more...

EXCERPT: setting the table to release old-fashioned hierarchies and mobility obsessions

An entry point to yoga often begins with quiet meditation or breathing exercises. We set our intentions and enter into our dedications with mindfulness. Through active imagination, we create positive mental space enabling us to move in every direction.

We may practice with others, but each yogi sets the table for their yoga banquet according to their capabilities. Setting the table well serves to elevate our mind/body readiness and prepares us to carry it through the session.

At the end of a one-hour session, I was moved when the teacher said, “Release into savasana.” This was a new phrase and a fresh way to enter the savasana moment.

In Living Your Yoga, Judith Hanson Lasater wrote that savasana taught her to dis-identify from mental storms and go within. “I learned to recognize more quickly when I had abandoned the present moment once again, and I learned not to judge myself when I had done it for the millionth time, and not to dance away so quickly with my thoughts.”

In a larger sense, releasing into savasana means to loosen my grip and to take a break from managing the persona, known as the outer image we construct, identify with, and project to the world. It’s important to get a grip on our lives, but it doesn’t have to be a stranglehold.

Perhaps this is why participation in yoga is growing. Many of us long for a place to release our grip – and we desperately need moments when the noise dissolves. We thirst for moments of freedom from the grasp of our ego, and are satiated by savasana as it leads us to soften investments in this life shaped by old fashioned hierarchical structures and obsessions with upward mobility.… read more...

EXCERPT – tapas

We’re all flat on our backs in a liminal place, fired by tapas and its heat of transformation. I’m listening as a guru points the way, and slowly my doubt is burned by fire and sent to the trash bin of insecurity.Heat and gravity are my honest teachers, and they’re worthy companions delivering an exacting curriculum of change. When I insert my ego into the moment and rough-hew its curriculum, I mute the shining fire of tapas branding me in this container.

The tapas of yoga is not of my making. It doesn’t heed my objections, or accept my charges to change or comfort me in the twinkling of an eye. In fire, I am only left to breathe and positioned to trust; by my simple presence and trust I participate in the yoga economy of rebirth out of the flame.

This economy doesn’t just subtract or burn away, it also adds, multiplies, and divides certainty into millions of shades. Yoga’s economy is Gandhian in its disciplined core, negative in its spiritual logic, countercultural in its teleology, and hotly shamanistic in its strategy.

In this season of our discontent, our wiser revelry may be composed of welcoming close the sublime inside a spoonful of shaman, holding forth with a pinch of subtraction for division and discontent, riding with attention on the coattails of science, and supping together with a cup of cheer for our endings not yet defined.

#Kilauea, #breathnotes, #satsong, #gregoryormson, #amwrititing, #yogainspirationals

Writing on yoga, music, and motorcycling @ https://gregoryormson.com Tweet@ GAOrmson… read more...

EXCERPT

The land was drunk on money and the illusion of freedom fired the Westlanders’ imaginations. Yoga’s eight limbs twisted in the creative chaos of post-modernism and strange ideas whispered in the wind. Gurus saw it all and wondered where the surf boards came from.

They didn’t understand what had happened to their movement and some of them lamented the loss of yoga’s mystical heart. They questioned the roots of atman and were agitated by vibrations from superhighways.

In time, yoga prospered, and people realized the teachers had brought good medicine. It seemed to help prisoners, alcoholics, those suffering pain, and even angry youth –  but many feared it  – especially the counsel to sit alone in silence.

Power brokers were terrorized by the nightmare of employees chanting Namaste and yoga threatened stakeholders in the pharmaceutical industry.

Westlanders didn’t want gurus, they didn’t read books, they didn’t meditate, but they did compete. Soon the gurus were silent, confused by what happened and haunted by memories of peace and stillness. Some gurus returned to the source, giving up their mission.

One day, all the gurus were called to an ashram. They lamented the hubris of culture and false prophesies of comfort through technology, money, and convenience.

One reminded them of the illusions in misdirected ambition and they became silent. At the ashram, a yogi read a passage from Shelly.

“Life, like a dome of many-colored glass

Stains the white radiance of eternity.”

The gurus wept, and a world opened like the many petals of the lotus in a soft rain. A light from the crown of their heads went out to the dark and returned as eternal light in a deep, dark night.… read more...

EXCERPT

In shadow and in light, we yoga, and our teachers observe. Together we’re co-creators in a new architecture – a yogatecture – and celebrate moments when a yogi gives shape to an old blueprint written on a banana leaf.

Everything is prepared as I enter yoga class where the nexus of a new identity is continually reforming me. I step into the room and hear the soothing melodies of dahina, tabla, and harmonium. Their compelling sounds pour over me like waves from the ocean. A pause . . . then class begins.

I’m present and following directions, but then mentally, I become unhinged for a moment. I try to concentrate on my pose, but my mind tracks the music, so I follow the sound like a rising cobra hypnotized by its flier. My reach aims for the sky, but my imagination takes me to a Hawaiian beach where I’m preparing for a dive.

My training reminds me of a breathing routine: a deep breath in, calm hold, and a slow release. Breath is my vinyasa, and for a moment, my yoga-pose rides side-saddle. My heartbeat slows, awareness creeps closer, and I focus on every sound.

I’m still in class, but I’m also down in the deep blue of the Pacific. I pine to hear the whale, and imagine the sound from its massive heart. I leave my imagining, rise to the surface, and open my eyes where I’m back in the yoga room and yoked once more into my corner of eternity.

Yoga moves me to imagine a long line of yogis fed by the garden and connected to source for nourishment.… read more...

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