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Gregory Ormson

Writer, musician, yoga-loving motorcyclist.

My Portable Home: Finding Refuge on My Yoga Mat

From Yoga International      #YogaInspirationals

JANUARY 20, 2016    BY GREG ORMSON

In my twenties, I was the leader of an eight-member music group that toured through India for four months. Landing in Bombay, we took the rail south to Trivandrum, where the Indian Ocean, Bay of Bengal, and Arabian Sea merge. Going north through Andhra, Madhya, and Uttar states, we passed through Agra and ended the tour in New Delhi. It was my first international trip and I felt challenged by new customs, food, language, and climate. To a student fresh out of college, India was a new and vibrant world I did not understand.

Walking out of church one Easter Sunday, I saw an elderly man sitting on the church lawn near a busy sidewalk. He was practicing garurasana, eagle pose. Most people filed right past him as if he were invisible. I stared, and I thought he looked uncomfortable. That experience was 35 years before I began practicing yoga. I had no idea what he was doing.

After leaving Delhi, my transition back to the U.S. was rapid, and I felt strangely affected by my travels. I seemed to be seeing things differently. When I went into stores, I found myself looking for things to which I’d grown accustomed in India, such as the blue-faced representation of Krishna adorning wall calendars.

The quiet streets, typical of small town country living, was odd after I’d grown used to the shrieking sound of bus horns. In my music room, I replicated that dissonant and jarring pitch by simultaneously plucking my guitar’s E string on the eighth fret and the G string on the eleventh fret.

I thought back with nostalgia to those times when I was in India with my band, and people attending our concerts at hospitals, churches, or embassies placed garlands of fresh jasmine flowers around my neck and the necks of my bandmates, as often happened when our group performed. I was keenly aware that nothing in rural Wisconsin smelled like the luscious jasmine flower of south India.

But I was home in northwest Wisconsin. My town of 12,000 was quiet. We didn’t have legions of loud buses in the streets. There was no smell of fresh jasmine. No one was sitting on the lawns, the brown grass was still cold from an occasional snowfall, and the farm fields lay fallow.

I had six months before starting graduate school, so I began looking for a job and writing about my experience abroad. Writing was helpful, but I needed something else to help with my transition back to the Midwest. I found it with the county agricultural department. Every other summer the department gathered updates on the square footage of current crop fields and compared those with what appeared in their photographs from previous years.

My job was to get accurate and up-to-date measurements by placing a Rolatape® on the ground and walking the perimeter of the crop fields. Each Monday, I was given a large stack of maps. I got in my car, found the farm fields, and began walking. The Rolatape® is a 12-inch measuring wheel that looks like a bicycle tire, with a digital display on the handle to measure in either SAE “inches” or metric. Three months later, all the maps were done and my job was finished. More importantly, I had regrounded myself by walking the earth that surrounded my home.

This job brought me back from India in a way that was both intellectual and emotional. It enabled me to reconnect with my small niche in this world. While walking the fields, I learned the important function of finding my “place”—where I find comfort and repose. But after moving to Hawaii in 2012 and starting yoga, I’ve learned another lesson about my place in the world: It’s movable.

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.

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.

Within the 220 square inches of the mat, and in drishti gaze, I try to make sense of where I am and who I am in the world. When I recall walking the farm fields, I realize I was similarly engaged, but without the same intention. Then, thirty-five years ago, my gaze was to the meeting point of wheel and ground, with an occasional glance to the horizon (where my walking helped me to return and reground). Now, in yoga, I do that continually.

I think of a phrase my teacher regularly uses when encouraging the class to ground and become present: “Your place is here.” This helps the regrounding because it shrinks the size of the world from an unmanageable wide-open marketplace or busy street to 220 square inches.

One of the great gifts of yoga is that any place can become a wellspring of depth, a healing ground in the chaotic world, and a place to make sense of where and who we are and where we have been.

All I need to do at any time—Sunday through Saturday—is waiting for me on this small, rectangular place that is my mat. This is not complicated, but I still post anota bene to self: Ground yourself here and now, and watch what happens.

Nothing is more important than engaging fully in the moment on the healing ground of my yoga mat. In doing so, I’ve learned that I belong there and it was my destiny to find that place. It’s also my identity, for on that ground I come face to face with who I am in yoga’s most challenging moments.

Tranquility is not waiting for me in Madras or Mysore. I haven’t found it in Los Angeles or Honolulu. It’s escaped my grasp nearly everywhere. But I can find calm and healing within, and I’ve realized I can name it and claim it when I’m on the ground of the 220 square inches. While I go to my mat alone, I embrace the solitude—because there my solitary dialogue shapes me.

Trying to make a living in the world, perhaps we cannot avoid the demands and stressors, the anxiety of the coffee-fueled masses, and the noise and lack of peace. But yoga has taught me where to go to find the calm. It’s a portable place, found on the 220 square inches of my yoga mat. These are the dimensions of depth, and the ground of healing.

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About Greg Ormson

Musician, writer, yoga-loving motorcyclist teaching yoga for bikers (Yoga & Leather) at Superstition Harley Davidson in Arizona.

Free diving in Hawaii, Greg learned the importance of breath management and has translated that into teaching Yoga-Breath, Breath of Life workshops accompanied by his band, Sat Song.

He’s traveled through five countries and most of the US to study world religions and other non-formal spiritual expressions. His doctoral degree at the Chicago Theological Seminary was cultural interpretation through a theological and psychological lens. He focused specifically on the power of touch for healing in ritual environments.
He widely on yoga with nearly 100 columns in 18 publications with a combined followership of over 5 million; his writing often categorized under #MotorcyclingyogiG. He contributes regulary to OM Yoga Magazine (UK).

In 2017 he won the Lyric Narrative Non Fiction Award from Eastern Iowa Review for "Midwest Intimations," and in 2016 won Indiana Review's contest for 13 word stories. His nonfiction has earned finalist mention in New Millennium and The Bellingham Review.

Dr. Ormson is an alumnus of The Chicago Theological Seminary; Chicago, Illinois;
The University of Wisconsin, La Crosse; La Crosse, Wisconsin;
Northern Michigan University, Marquette, Michigan;
Trinity Lutheran Seminary, Columbus, Ohio.

https://gregoryormson.com
Twitter: @GAOrmson
Instagram:#motorcyclingyogiG

His yoga articles have reached millions of viewers through social media and have been translated and shared in Portuguese, Tamil, French, Hebrew, and Spanish.

They can be found searching links the following titles and sources:

98. “Yoga & Leather’ NMU alum leads class for bikers,” The Mining Journal, Marquette, Michigan July 23, 2020
97 "Yoga and Leather: how yoga is helping Harley riders and other bikers to find their Ze3n on and off the highway,” " OM Yoga Magazine July 2020
96 “Clearing Space,” OM Yoga Magazine
95 “Why We Need Yoga Now More than Ever,”
94 "Seniorgrams from the Successful,"
93 “Jesus, Yogi” Asana Journal
92 “Yoga Precis: six steps to a complete yoga practice”
91 “Yoga’s Outliers: Men” OM Yoga Magazine
90 “Yogatecture: Building Your House of Truth,” OM Yoga Magazine
89 “Conducing Heat to Cleanse the Self,” Yogi Times
88 “Silence and Slow Time,” OM Yoga Magazine
87 “Rough Road? Breathe . . .” HOG Magazine
86 “Yoga and the Pure Consciousness of Healing,” Asana Journal
85 “Conducting the Awesome,” OM Yoga Magazine
84 “Yoga: A New Road for Bikers,” Yoga Magazine (UK)
83 “The Way to Sacred Being,” Bad Yogi Mag
82 “Let It Be: When Your Yoga Becomes You,” Bad Yogi Mag
81 “Yoga as Commencement Ritual,” Yoganect
80 “Yoga, Jesus and the Pure Consciousness of Healing,” Bad Yogi Mag
79 “Traveling OM: rediscovering the abiding peace of coming home in a frantic world,” OM Yoga Magazine (UK)
78 “Conducting the Awesome: What I’ve learned from 7 years practicing hot yoga,” elephant journal
77 “Nine Ways you Give Back to Yoga,”
76 “Your Yoga Mat: Dimensions of Healing,”
75 “Yoga and Spiritual Questions,”
74 “Making Contact with Yourself and Your Practice,”
73 “How Many Limbs are Required,”
72 "Por que Precisamos de yoga mais do que nunca.” Why We Need Yoga Now More than Ever. www. boayoga.com.br/por-que-precisamos-de-yoga-agora-mais-do-que-nunca-gregory-ormson
71 “Fixing our Backs, Riding our Bikes: common benefits of yoga have every day application to motorcycling." AZ Rider Motorcycle News
70 “Hatha, Hawaii,”
69 “Armor On, Armor Off: The Psychology of Yin Yoga,” Sivana Spirit
68 “Yoga Script for Health and Joy,” Sivana Spirit
67 “Namaste: Nexus of a New Identity,” Sivana Spirit
66 “Embraced by Joy and Bliss,” Sivana Spirit
65 “The Delight Song of a New Architecture,” Sivana Spirit
64 “Transforming the Emotional Body,” Asana Journal
63 “The Real Power of Savasana,” Sivana Spirit
62 “Intention: Your Golden Egg for Change,” Sivana Spirit
61 “Yoga Tips: 6 Easy Ways to get the Most out of Your Yoga Class,” The Health Orange
60 “Mantra for Me and You,” Sivana Spirit
59 “Slow Down and Breathe,” Asana Journal
58 “Tradition Trumps Trendiness,” Asana Journal
57 “Yoga Teacher Training: Revelations Encountered” HelloYoga
56 “How Yoga Ruins our Lives” elephant journal
55 “Yoga Teacher Training: Encountering Self,” TribeGrow
54 “True Presence,” Asana Journal
53 “A Parable of Unmaking,” Asana Journal
52 “Yogatecture: The Elegant Arc of Change,” Asana Journal
51 “Truth Force on Your Mat,” Asana Journal
50 “What You Give to Yoga,” Yogi Times
49 “Enter the Master, Enter the Child,” Asana Journal
48 “The Honorable Yogi,” Asana Journal
47 “Finding Your Depth,” Asana Journal
46 “Teaching Yoga: It’s Not About You,” TribeGrow
45 “In the Midnight Hour: How Yoga Brought My Soul Back,” HelloYoga
44 “Gifts from the Core,” Asana Journal
43 “Release into Savasana,” Asana Journal
42 “The Bridge Within,” Asana Journal
41 “By a Thread,” Asana Journal
40 “Coaching Up: Yoga for Newbies,” DoYouYoga
39 “Your Beautiful Feet,” Asana Journal
38 “Lessons from Yoga and Freediving,” Asana Journal
37 “Five Tips and One Requirement for Coaching Yoga,” Seattle Yoga News
36 “The Immigrant Asana,” Asana Journal
35 “Making Heroes” Asana Journal
34 “Namaste: Nexus of a New Identity,” Sivana Spirit
33 “Sphinx Pose: To Rise in Righteousness,” Asana Journal
32 “Storage Wars and Yoga’s Emotional Rescue,” Asana Journal
31 “Asana Back to the Innocent Age,” Asana Journal
30 “The Year of the Monkey and Yoga’s Counter-Cultural Mathematic,” elephant journal
29 “The Missing Link,” Asana Journal
28 “Your Portable Home” Yoga International
27 “Yogi, Heal Thyself” Asana Journal
26 “Health and Joy, Why Not Us?”
25 “A New Planting, A New Harvesting,” Do You Yoga
24 “Three Stages of a Yogi’s Transformation,” Do You Yoga
23 “Peace: Just a Pause Away,” Yogi Times
22 “How Yoga Helps Us Release,” elephant journal
21 “Why Unpolished Prayers are Still Good Prayers,” elephant journal
20 “Yoga and the Place of Soul,” elephant journal
19 “Yoga’s Covenant: The Promise of Change,” Yogi Times
18 “What is a Kind Yogi,” The Yoga Blog
17 “Yoga and Social Responsibility,” The Yoga Blog
16 “Who Moved the Yoga Mat,” Yogi Times
15 “Yoga’s Touchy Subject – Touching,” DoYouYoga
14, “A Yoga Parable,” Yogi Times
13 “The Yoga Pose that Healed My Back Injuries,” elephant journal
12 “Becoming Your Own Life-Changing Quote,” The Yoga Blog
11 “Finding Your Mantra,” DoYouYoga
10 “Will You Yoga 30 Years from Now,” The Yoga Blog
9 “Ego, Injury, and Your Yoga,” elephant journal
8 “Silence and Your Practice,” The Yoga Blog
7 “Your Breath, Your Center,” elephant journal
6 “Your Practice, Your Inventory,” The Yoga Blog
5 “Aligning and Refining,” elephant journal
4 “Understanding a Yoga Teacher,” The Yoga Blog
3 “Yoga and the Unconscious Mind,” The Yoga Blog
2 “You’re Not Alone on Your Savasana Cloud,” elephant journal
1 “Changing My Story: 365 Days of Yoga,” The Yoga Blog

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