Teachers, Guides Sign Post Along the Way.

I am taking part in a project called #reverb10 – which has become an annual event. An online initiative encouraging participants to reflect on this year, with and eye toward what’s next. “We’re connected by the belief that sharing our stories has the power to change us. We look forward to reading yours.” (This line straight from their site.)

Prompt: Defining moment. Describe a defining moment or series of events that has affected your life this year. Author Kathryn Fitzmaurice

A moment in time, it was an invitation to join my daughter in a yoga class! It would be good I had travel by car to a workshop and on my way back toward home, I had stopped in to visit Tirzah. Newly come to yoga, she wanted to share her studio and her friend the instructor Kimberly with me. I was delighted! I have a home practice and I drop in here and there. About 2 years ago I injured some muscles in my left hip; what does this have to do with my home practice you may ask. When you find a pose that is now almost impossible for you to do, pain-free ~ well, you are at home, nobody will know that you’ve skipped over your favorite pose – pigeon, or any of those other left leaning hip opener, oh right and squatting ~ out!

I’ve always been flexible~ much to the chagrin of my daughter. No stretching problems here. Enter Kimberly Musial of The Yoga Hive, Pittsburgh, PA. Teaching and inviting her class to move through the poses, she hits pigeon~ I think no problem. I love this pose! Oops

Oh, but I’ve not done it in 2 years, and my hip is still recovering. I find myself dropped to the matt, my daughter next to me, noticing myself. I am unable to do my favorite pose without or even with blocks! My heart breaks from within ~ I am able to stay contained ~ yet I am aware of all that I have lost, how I’ve cheated myself. Breath, a saving Grace; I take myself back to the mat. Noticing, I don’ t want to say just noticing, it is deeper then that ~ noticing it is all I can do, as we continue the practice for the morning. I will have time to sit into the feelings; I have a 13 hour drive before me.

What became of all this? I learned that we ALL need teachers to guide us~ no matter the level of our practice. It is easy to get into a groove, that doesn’t invite us to our growth, our Potent! This is not ok for me, for myself! That chronic pain takes energy away from what we enjoy; this has gifted me a better understanding of/for my clients that live daily with chronic pain. I had not been able to see this in myself.

With great gratitude, I bow to The Yoga Hive, Kimberly as teacher, my daughter Tirzah always the love of my Soul and teacher extraordinaire! I am filled to overflowing with Gratitude.

By December of 2011 I will again be able to do pigeon, crow and elephant ~ Pain Free.
This for myself ~ for my growth!
Namaste



photo by T.Griffin http://www.flickr.com/photos/tirzymcwirzy/
The Yoga Hive logo~

Growth Happens

What plan or goal? What design did I have in mind? Where was I headed?

All these questions easier answered when it comes to food, knitting, gardening and from where I am standing far quicker to repair, put back on track or set a new path in motion. Entering stage left or right we have old patterns firmly entrenched. Life full of laughter, and it hurts have created grooves, that are easy to fall into, there by playing the same song. Sometimes the skip of the same story, the same response.

How to then to notice? Just like we might if we were cooking, the smell of too hot or a touch of burn ~ the cook quickly turns down the heat slices a potatoe or two and in they go to absorb, the too spicy hot or the touch of the burn from the it’s too hot in here.

With knitting, the noticing sometimes comes some rows away from the error of pattern, those of us who knit will gently (sometimes) lay the piece down remove the needles, and pull out the work done till we find ourselves back to a place that we may renew the work in the design we were creating. At other times, we must put the piece down, take a breathe and walk away, to return later, beginning anew.

Gardens, somewhat the same, though they can be more like Life. There are things that happen out of our control. We have no way of knowing how fast something might grow, or if in fact it will come back after a long winter’s sleep.

What I do know is that all of these things require our willingness to notice. To really take care and look at how Life or our lack luster toward Life is taking us off and away from our intended design. Sometimes this pull toward another direction can be just the thing we need. Without our full awareness, we are pulled toward our own growth, we are lead to allow for some part of us to be left behind. Ah, we noticed! We are now someplace else, some other US has bloomed.

This of course is not to say we aren’t to take responsibility for our growth or the direction of our life. For me, personally it is a reminder of how deeply I am held as I believe we all are; by a force greater then ourselves. Love is part of that force and I am hopeful that it always draws me toward my and your greatest becoming.

Not always easy, yet I hope to be able to find a moment to give gratitude in both the good times and the difficult. Each has it’s own gifts. We need to take notice, to open our eyes and heart to hear and see the gifts offered. Blessing abide with thee.

Belonging

The world is brought back from the brink of destruction-
Every time YOU smile.
From a bulletin board in Rincon, PR

How is it that we lose sight of belonging? That we find ourselves disconnected from the greater whole of the world? We can make up all kinds of reasons, some of the least of them religion, language, the way we might look through the eyes of another.

What if we could invite ourselves to the notion that as Beings living on the Planet Earth, we are indeed connected by the fact that we each feel the vibration of each other under our feet. Have you ever laid on the ground or the floor and felt the rumble of another’s foot steps as they walked toward or away from you?

Recently, I was gifted an opportunity to lay on the sand and at the ocean of Puerto Rico I watched as the tides came in and out, floating in the warmth of the water, feeling small. Thinking at one point about the fact that I was in a weather pattern that was part of a tropical storm; now the reason this is an important fact is that during this time of year, we in Maine are lucky if the water reaches 63 degrees. Here I was laying in water that would be pushed by the storm up, around the coast of Puerto Rico and on up the eastern sea front to the beaches I call home. With that would be the essence of me, carried home. My friends still brave enough to get into the ocean, would have a change to feel the whisper of me and the warmth of the water I was swimming in!! The ripple of Humanness in the Ocean, not only could they feel me, I too had a change to feel them, knowing that this Ocean I was in has traveled round and round, top to bottom. How long must that journey take?

I was also in a country that the native tongue was not English, but Spanish. How far a Smile, Ola, Gracis or a simple nod of my head could take me. We are indeed of the same family, we all wish to be acknowledged; by noticing another we ourselves are given Form.

I suggest a world wide “Wednesday Wave as you Walk Day”. Or a Smile a Day, keeps us connected to the ripple of life. For our smile, moves from our face to the next face which causes another smile and it continues to move like a tide. Smile at someone you don’t know ~ Make your Day a better day.

Blessings to those that laugh, smile, sing, cry and share the treasure of their Human – Beingness! I am Blessed by Being given form in the noticing of others. Thank you, friends!





photo taken on the beach in Puerto Rico or is it Maine?

Little Lessons

Little lessons learned. Each day brings it’s own challenges, struggles and joys. What is it that we take away from those moments? It all depends on how we choose to take them on. Are we going to buy all that is laid out before us? Take it home even though we can clearly see that it doesn’t fit?

Little lessons learned. Some come round on a return; perhaps something you knew; thought you’d walk that old way again, see if the outcome would be different. Shocked, I tell you. Shocked, when it gives us the same answer or knowing that we all ready have deep set in our bones.

Little lessons learned, perhaps in truth they are little treasures offered. Opportunities to look at the way we ‘react’. We allow a certain amount of complacency to enter our Being, then wonder as it all backs up to and end that is not what we were thinking or planning. We forget that it is not all about ME. That sometimes we are doing our best; when we find ourselves caught in others mood of being. I feel that what is important at those moments is that we see ourselves outside of who we are striving to become. That we invite the opportunity to gift us little gems of wisdom. Life is a practice.

To find compassion for our self, to know that it is not our place to point out to an other how it is they could be doing it better. We can only offer up our Being and walking our talk, wearing our own growth. This will in turn show someone not near as ‘enlightened’ as WE are how they might find a different footing. I found it is also not my job to point it out, try to force change; what is my job is that I take to heart my personal learning and grow. That I may leave a path of gems, worth stopping to pick up, hold, looking at what it may offer and then continue to be in the moment that is now in front of me.

It is my job to be attentive to how I could act in right relations with the world around me. This is as I see it our most important job of BEING. See if perhaps for today, we can allow each person we come in contact with to be right were they are, for in fact it is right were they are and need to be on their personal walk.. Invite the ripple that comes from you to be one of compassion for ALL, yourself included.

Little lessons learned, what a treasure! Feel the gratitude for these precious moments. I live in abundance. I am blessed.






Not sure who took the picture at Chris and Jan's
Hands belong to Debbie G. and myself.