What is the rhythm of life?
Remember, Atlas shrugged, too.
Seeking an answer is like trying to understand the tree by only looking into its shadow.
In the silence, the beat, butterfly wings pulsing at your heart.
Witness sacred in mundane.
Take care of yourself and wear your apron.
Sweep your own floors.
Make dinner as you linger in another’s depth.
See the resonance – the relics and the seeds.
Look to the tree, inspiration between limbs. It holds up the sky where you shine.
Sometimes we make important life decisions based on what we think we should do. The “should” can become a barometer for being loved or accepted by others. Much of my life was spent as a purposeful outsider… Never wanting to be adopted into one group, I joined them all. It is like how I can’t choose my favorite color – wouldn’t green get its feelings hurt if I chose pink?
While working in an art gallery and at a museum, I found yoga. Finally, something pure enough for me to want to dig my teeth into. I said my vows, got my membership card and thought of how to best serve yoga itself. I wanted to give people something to look up to… I wanted to be a leader. I wanted to be heard.
So I traded in my vintage hat collection for an ascetic life, trying to free myself from desires and craving. I cleansed. I purified. I tried to honor what the yogic teachings offered me. Glamour and elegance no longer mattered to me. I wanted to embody the perfect yogi. As a girly girl who started wearing high heels before she could ride a bike, it was a stretch to stop wearing make up, but I did.
I became obsessed with my ideal of what I thought I should be. My self-esteem was garnered from an external perception and I somehow always fell short.
All this did is isolate me further from my own truth: anything other than following your heart is a form of self-deception. I was too truthful outwardly to others but little by little, I lied to my heart.
I’ve embraced more of myself – who I am beyond archetypes and titles – and my art is now reflecting my heart instead of my issues. It’s ok to be in love with who I really am and at the end of the day, I’m the only one who is keeping score.
I don’t want to be an ascetic. That isn’t the key to happiness. Happiness lives in the space. Happiness lives in gratitude… Fall down on your knees kind of gratitude. Find the things that make your heart smile and do more of that. I don’t want to be a part of anything less than helping people remember this. We all know it, we just need to be reminded – everything is cool.
Score one for me – I can finally put on my cocktail dress, open a bottle of champagne and do yoga in my favorite pair of heels. Ok so it wasn’t the most comfortable of endeavors, but you get the point, right?
I’d rather stand on my head than talk about the weather.
The sacred overwhelms my heart
Love for the fearful covers doubt
Perfection lives in the heart of nature
Return to her roots!
Your rapture is found in her flow!
The golden thread that weaves me as a tapestry
braids me to you.
You
Me
The Divine…
The Trinity of the Now.
Do you think I am fat? If I were in front of you in typical yoga spandex, would you judge me?
I’ve gained weight and I’m not pregnant. I’ve followed the brand new, yogi-approved Seat Diet.
See it… eat it.
As a yoga teacher, this could be considered career suicide. Instead of slaying my means of supporting myself, I want to slay the notion that people who do yoga need to look like the beauties on the cover of magazines. Last year, my best friend said crying as she dealt with her lifelong eating disorder, “I don’t want to be known as the fat yoga teacher.” I was taken aback by this statement because I would classify her as beautiful, fit, and trim. I wanted to explore her statement that resonated in my mind like the frequency of fingernails tagging with sound their presence on the chalkboard.
To me, ‘fat’ is an arbitrary word that is used as ammunition to harm another. I’m not at war.
I thought this would be an experiment in empowering people to love their bodies and not try to fit society’s mold. Instead, reality of my latent insecurities came like a football team’s kicker being put in as the center (my identity was pummeled).
The stories I made up about what people thought of me were changing and I was emotionally affected. Suddenly, my self-worth was proving to be connected to how good I looked wearing spandex – something I completely denied giving a shit about before this experiment – and that pissed me off. Guilt from eating foods I typically considered bad for me were constant companions in my thoughts. Shame did cameo appearances in my mind’s movie reel daily.
My most shocking discovery through the process is that I’m afraid of not being loved. I noticed the self-talk was that my beauty is only on the surface. I feared no man would want me this way and that I would die alone, probably from choking on a potato chip. There was a war going on inside of me and neither side was winning. Once I unraveled the fears and self-assaulting language as irrational, they no longer had power over me and I began to relax into my new found “goods”.
Nietzsche says the thing separating men from gods is the belly. May we all expand our bellies to digest our fears and empower our minds to think. May we all understand that we all want to be loved for who we are… however we are in the moment. And may we all find love and not die alone, from potato chip asphyxiation.
PS – I’m not fat; I’m fucking awesome!
My favorite thing to do is be creative… however that shows up – whether through creating an experience for my students, cooking for my friends, painting, or photography, it is something that brings me an infinite amount of satisfaction and joy to share.
There are a select few who have seen me in my creative state. It is sacred for me. One of my closest advisers has pushed me to another level where I am exploring the idea of sharing parts of my creative process. This video is part of this new idea.
I’m scared to death as I post this. It isn’t about fear of what people think or how people may judge me. It is a vulnerability – a true showing of my heart. I figure I might as well be even more real and more honest. Isn’t it true that is something scares you, it is worth doing? 🙂
Today, it was announced that researchers at CERN discovered a particle that is in line with the “God particle” Higgs believed to be at the core of the Theory of Everything… It explains why matter has a mass. Pretty cool stuff.
Before this discovery, it was just a theory… An idea… Somethig floating in the ether with no proof to ground it to reality.
Isn’t that what all dreams are?
I’ve always been a dreamer. I have always lived in my own mind, and as Lyle Lovett says, ain’t nothin but a good time. My mom has been my sounding board for most of these ideas and she always, without a doubt, thought I was crazy and that it couldn’t happen. I think it always surprises her when my dreams come true.
The bottom line is we are here for a limited time. With our dreams, it is like some people see there is an expiration date on the milk, but ignore it… Nah, there’s time.
I see two reasons why my dreams come true:
1. I visualize whatever it is happening… And I get a little bit obsessed with it. I work tirelessly toward fulfilling that dream.
2. I believe it can happen. I have faith.
A dream of mine is coming true tomorrow as I teach my new Creative Process Yoga class at The Crow Collection of Asian Art. I get to fulfill more of my purpose to teach about the creative process and yoga.
I see the expiration date but I’m not fighting against it… today. Today, the “God particle” was brought down to reality and I watched several mindless clips on YouTube… really. I think everything is right in the world.
