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.
Getting behind the wheel is something that gives me a feeling of freedom… the car door is like the door to a secret passage way that you KNOW will lead you to adventure. I packed up my car with my dog in the backseat, Joseph Campbell and Kahlil Gibran audiobooks, two new music albums and headed from Texas to Colorado with hope. I’m not sure what I was hopeful for or hoping would happen but I was inspired to the very core of my soul. My sense of sound was bathed in truth by these sonic muses as a new awareness permeated my being.
Back when I started training to be a yoga teacher, I sold my TV because I didn’t want it as a distraction from the work I felt ready to do. I decided to follow my bliss and figure out what I could do to help make the world a better place. I felt a strong calling and I needed to use my time wisely. This trip taught me that I was consumed with my work and it became an easy way to hide from love by making myself busy.
The time in the car helped me see my television addiction just shifted to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, & Instagram. What was my motivation for all this checking in? I wanted to connect with more people but instead I avoided connecting to the silence and depth of my love. Afraid of my own sensitivity, I used my library card.
I can’t wait to get back into teaching this week so I can keep having the conversations that really matter to me. I start my new Creative Process Yoga class when I do a month-long residency at The Crow Collection of Asian Art in Dallas. My hope is to provide space for deeper listening and honesty with this class… Both for myself and my students.
After I re-apply my melted face from the show, I lay awake in my hammock listening to music through my headphones. I remember the moment my boyfriend introduced me to an intimate stereo sonic experience – I was hooked. The way a stereo sound evokes the imagination is like the difference between being friends and lovers. Then, my next boyfriend sat me down in his “listening chair” and through his super-duper-amazing Naim speakers, I saw an entire symphony in the space of sound. The waves came from the speakers and somehow each wave placed itself strategically as if the band was performing in his listening room. It was crazy.
I was never really into live music (except blues and jazz) until recently. The idea of listening to songs with a bunch of strangers wasn’t my idea of fun. It wasn’t so much a statement of the crowd or the performers but more of an acknowledgement of my anxiety in big crowds.
What I’ve come to realize is I’m less interested in a performance and more interested in witnessing creative process as it unfolds. The former is fun while the latter is spiritual. The performance art outside the Kessler was both performance and creative process. The performances inside the Kessler were both performance and creative process. Ahh, the bliss!
My life is fun and spiritual. I aim to live both aspects to their fullest extent and Saturday night was an idealized version of that goal. I witnessed creative process through performance art in two venues – inside and outside The Kessler in Dallas. I won’t even go into the details but suffice it to say my heart was broken open and my face was melted off.
As I listen to my music tonight in bed, I am reminded of the power of connection. I’m grateful.
It’s been quite some time since I posted a playlist. Tuesday’s Open Flow class was special for me because I was thinking about how I’ve been inspired by beautiful art and performances recently.
I wanted to bring forward an exciting energy to help us get closer to our human desires and ultimate longing. I posed the question, “What is your purpose?” I’m interested in those dreams you fear are too big to be uttered… those things you pictured doing when you were a kid… the ideal life you know you are meant to lead.
I think it was 1999 and I was watching a rehearsal on the SNL set. Lorne Michaels’ office is at the top of the seats and there were two kids hanging out there. I introduced myself and learned that one was Lorne’s son and the other was Paul Simon’s. They were on a baseball team together and Paul Simon’s kid said when he grows up, he wants to colonize the moon. Really. That was his dream.
Some of us know exactly what we are supposed to be doing with our lives and some of us aren’t even sure where to begin in writing life’s mission statement.
I’ve always known I wanted to be a teacher. I’ve always known I wanted to be an artist. I’ve always known my main goal is happiness. I was not, however, always true to that vision. I adhered to a standard of what was expected of me. I lived my life through the lens of another’s expectation. Then everything changed and I kept my focus on what I truly want, re-defining the means to get there along the way. The path isn’t always clear but I do keep stepping, even when it seems like the next step my lead me off a cliff. It’s ok, if I fall, I know how to use my wings to land safely again.
What makes you happy? Joseph Campbell calls it “Follow Your Bliss” and how beautiful is that notion? You possess the bliss already… you just have to follow the path.
The thing that unites us is love. It is our highest calling. Love is the best we can possibly be. It is a presence, an openness, a vulnerability, a doing… it is a way of being. We can think about this pretty easily as we’ve all loved and been loved before. But are we fully living up to love’s standard of equality and infinite capacity? If I were to gather an accurate picture of how much I am fully, 100% loving, I am sad to say that far too often, fear and judgement make guest appearances in the sitcom of my mind. We can make it a practice – practice love. Practice acceptance.
We’ve all built up ways of protecting our hearts and hiding from our co-created destiny. But it is time. It is time for us to live! It is time to live our lives inspired. It is time to watch our dreams come true.
All. of. Us.
Sending you love. 🙂
I’ve been asked by hundreds of people about yoga privates for creatives. OK, that is a lie… no one has asked me about that but I have found that as an artist, my yoga practice is the single most valuable thing that helps me remain creative.
I am now offering custom privates for any creative professional who would like to light their creative fire again, find peace of mind, or just relax while on the road or traveling.
Creative Process Privates – Designed for the musician, artist, or creative professional who is looking to find their muse again. The privates are custom-designed for the artist’s needs and goals to include yoga poses, mindfulness techniques, meditations, and guided relaxation. The sessions are recorded so they can be taken while traveling.
Email trina at treenuh dot com for more information.
It was so much fun celebrating the two-year anniversary with The Mat Yoga Studio and all our students. At noon, I taught a fun class and this was the playlist. For those of you making a playlist at home, the class begins with Firecracker.
For the 6:30 Open Flow and Meditation classes, we brought in The Sound and the Meaning for a live music yoga class. If you haven’t done yoga to live music, you are missing something Uh-freaking-may-zeeeeeng!! Do you remember the first time you kissed someone? It is similar… filled with unfamiliar sensations and once finished, you REALLY want more.
Taylor says, “I still have a smile on face due to last night’s class. Practicing yoga between Trina’s style and live music was a memory made. Taking in the music while moving my body was extremely pleasurable and I feel blessed I was able to experience such….. Coolness.”
There you have it – she says it was cool…. besides our moms, not many people say that. We will take it! Gravy.
… and we decided live music + yoga is ALMOST as good as sex… almost.
Persephone dreamed of a man she had seen.
Sounds of a soul
peeking through
The face, a cerulean hue.
“Yoga is a tool to help us connect to the Creative Source.”
Here is the playlist you guys requested from June 18, 2011… thanks for waiting!
I was asked by two people for the playlist from tonight’s packed flow and meditation class at The Mat Yoga Studio in Richardson, Texas.
Sometimes the energy of a class spreads to everyone like butter. Tonight was one of those nights – everyone connected to their bodies, to their highest potential, to their dreams. I asked everyone to recall their dreams (not the ones at night, but the ones you fantasize about but don’t share for fear of it being too big). We created space in our hearts to make room for compassion, placed the dreams in our hands and sealed our dreams with our breath.
Tonight’s meditation accessed the Witness and connected us to the light of the full moon. The room was completely still… each person meditating on their Witness brought us to a place where everyone seemed to be breathed by a force greater than all of us combined. WOW – they really went there and it was beautiful!
It was a night I will remember. I’m so grateful – my students make my life so much richer.
Free Me by Joss Stone… sing it gurl.
What I’ve Done by Marie Digby is amazeballs (thanks to Zach Braff for the nomenclature). Certain songs say, “Hi, I’d like for you to cry today, human.”
treenuhyoga.com 
