Yoga & the Bhagavad Gita

Yoga & the Bhagavad Gita from Laura Lea Nalle on Vimeo.


Yoga & the Art of Living & Dying from Laura Lea Nalle on Vimeo.


The Battlefield of the Bhagavad Gita from Laura Lea Nalle on Vimeo.


Yoga & the Return to Fullness from Laura Lea Nalle on Vimeo.

Everything is divine...

Well hello from Austin!  I've been back from India for a little while now, and I'm excited to tell you about my experience this go 'round.  I have so many amazing things filling my heart and mind, so much creative energy, I feel like I'm on fire!  Instead of attempting some kind of linear exposition, I'm working on a little series of writings illustrated with photos and videos which will hopefully paint a good picture.  This trip to Mysore was beyond all my imaginings... very different from last year in so many ways, but also it feels like my experience this year only could have happened in light of how things unfolded last year.  No matter pain or ecstasy, India is sweet same-same, the motherland that cracks the heart open and pours in the light.  This year I feel like my lights were turned up to high beams, everything became illuminated in such a powerful way.  And coming back home to Austin has been a smooth transition.  Even the not so smooth parts have vibrated with a clarity that makes my response an effortless one.  I've been enjoying the process of bringing the sweet soulshine of my experience in India to bear on my life and relationships here.

One of the highlights of my recent time in Mysore was the philosophy/chanting/Sanskrit classes I took with James Boag.  James has been living about half the year in Mysore for the last seven years to work on a masters degree in Sanskrit.  I met him briefly on my first visit, and I am glad I reconnected with him this year to practice and study in a substantial way.  I dedicated a large chunk of my free time to study with him, and in the process, we collaborated on a series of short films that I think capture the beauty and power of his chanting and teaching - and a bit of the magic of India.  I'll be posting some of those videos here in upcoming blog posts, and you can always go to my yoga channel on vimeo to see them all.  

Today, I am pleased to share the first of these videos, one of my absolute favorites, Harireva Jagat (Everything is Divine).  We shot this one on location in the Devaraja market in Mysore after I had an image of Neitzsche's parable of the madman in the marketplace taking place in the beautiful madhouse that is India.  But instead of the madman proclaiming, "God is dead!  It is we who have killed him!!!" the madman would tell us how "God is alive!  Look!  Look inside, that is where you will find him!  When you see him there, you will see him everywhere!"  Because indeed, it is we who must tend to the holiest and mightiest within ourselves if we ever hope for something more.  Because there is so much more… And the whole universe opens itself up to the ones who dare to look at (to re-cognize, to re-member, to be at-one with) their indwelling, divine potential.  The whole universe conspires on behalf of those who set themselves aflame in that glory.

Harireva jagat (Everything is Divine) from Laura Lea Nalle on Vimeo.

I asked James to elaborate on the origin of this piece, as it has a very interesting story behind it.  Here is what he said:

This is a real favourite with me. I learnt it from fellow devotees of Swami Lakshmanjoo Maharāja at his Īshwar Ashram, in Ishber, Srinagar. Among devotees of Swami Lakshmanjoo in the lineage of Trika Shaiva Masters, this pair of verses are often added when we sing Bhairava Stava, this stava (hymn) which was given to us by the great Master who adorns the middle of the lineage, Śrī Abhinavagupta, one of the greatest personages in the whole history of Indian philosophy, Indian art, Indian aesthetics, Indian thought: one of the greatest intellects, one of the great masters, one of the greatest Beings of all time one might say!

As I understand it, these two ‘extra’ verses were given to us by Swami Vivekananda and Swami Rāma (Swami Lakshmanjoo’s great guru). And the composition of these verses is a wonderful story.  At a certain time on his spiritual journey, Swami Vivekananda was riled by doubts. His Master Swami Paramahansa Ramakrishna told him that he must go to Srinagar, to the ashram of Swami Rāma, this great master of Trika Shaivism. And you can imagine that just the journey itself afforded so much insight back then, from Bengal all the way over to Srinagar.

Anyway, Vivekananda has been on this journey, and all along, these tremendous doubts about the nature of ultimate reality and the nature of God, have been his companions. He arrives in Srinagar, finds Swami Rāma’s ashram, and there’s satsang going on. He goes in, as satsang’s in progress, and during the discourse, these doubts start to be, as it were, acted upon, worked upon, and they start to dissolve. At the culmination of the satsang, Swami Rāma’s devotees start singing this glorious hymn that Abhinavagupta left us, the Bhairava Stava, which really communicates the essence of Trika Shaiva Śāstra, the essence of Kashmir Shaivism. As Vivekananda hears the devotees singing this hymn, it’s like his doubts just get obliterated, completely dissolved. Like raindrops becoming one with the ocean, there’s just no more of them!

Then, in rapture with his doubts cleared, when the devotees finish, Vivekananda, his creative genius set free and aflame, composes and utters forth, on the spot, this additional verse:

Harireva jagajjagadeva hariḥ harito jagato na hi bhinnamaṇu
Iti yasya matiḥ paramārthgatiḥ sa naro bhavasāgaram uttarati

Then, Swāmi Rāma, pleased with Vivekananda’s understanding and his summary of the preceding verses of Bhairava Stava, follows immediately, with a second half to this colophon to the great Bhairava Stava, and he says:

Ādāvante cidrasa rūpam madhye cidrasa budbuda rūpam
Bhātam bhātam bhārūpam syāt no bhātam cennitaram na syāt

So this pair of verses added to the glorious Bhairava Stava provide a glimpse of the wondrous rasa or flavour of the teachings of Kashmir Shaivism. Also, when we hear them sung, they give us an immediate taste of the richness and transportative power of the way that Kashmiri devotional songs are sung.

Jai Guru Deva!

What a remarkable story, thanks for sharing that with us, James!  For now, I'll leave you with one more video from the Devaraja market - James reciting the poem 'If' by Rudyard Kipling.  I included this poem in a post while I was in still Mysore, so if you want to read it after watching the video, you will find it here.... Enjoy! 

If (poem by Rudyard Kipling) from Laura Lea Nalle on Vimeo.


Stay tuned for more, coming very, very soon!
Laura Lea

ॐ भद्रं कर्णेभिः श्रुणुयाम देवाः ।
भद्रं पश्येमाक्षभिर्यजत्राः
स्थिरैरङ्गैस्तुष्टुवांसस्तनूभिः ।
व्यशेम देवहितम् यदायुः ।

ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः ॥ 

This is the training ground...

Ok, yeah, so I haven't written a blog since I was in India.  I figure I should at least say hi and let y'all know I'm alive and well in Austin.  Ahhhh, to update you in a nutshell on the last several months... My rib injury healed and my practice has been going well.  It took me about two months to be able to catch the bind on my own in Marichyasana D after the injury. Now that I'm back to full steam, things have been progressing nicely overall.  I've been pushing the edges of my strength and am growing stronger and leaner every week.  I've also been sweating like crazy during practice, it feels like I'm condensating more than sweating.  Beads of water just drip drip drip off me out of every pore.  It was a long summer in Texas, and now slowly turning into fall, and I'm working hard in practice, so the sweat feels good.  It ushers in that post-practice lightness and clarity, like cleaning the soot off an oil lamp.  In the last month or so, I've moved into second series, so my practice is quite long now.... all of primary and second up to laghu vajrasana.  Kapotasana coming soon! 

Coming home from India was a tougher transition than I expected.  I came home all filled up with this amazing experience that words cannot adequately express, and I felt like a lot of people just didn't care or have interest or know how to relate to me.  I got asked questions like, "How was your vacation?" as if I'd been sitting on a beach drinking fancy drinks out of pineapples without a care in the world.  I quickly slipped back into my reclusive tendencies and rhythms of life, for better and worse, here in Austin.  I'm very comfortable here, too comfortable in many ways.  There is little sense of urgency, and I find I become too complacent with life if I'm not careful.  I started fantasizing about selling my house, buying a little airstream, packing up my dog and cats, a few essential things, and hitting the road indefinitely.  I daydreamed about all the places I would go, being free as the wind, spending months in places I love, finally going places I've always wanted to see.  I was escaping my present reality and getting lost in a fantasy.  And then... 

A month after I got home, my beloved dog, Amallah, died suddenly and so very unexpectedly.  I loved that dog more than I've loved any human.  The heartbreak of her death and the big gaping hole she left in my heart and my home have been a daily struggle and tremendous source of sorrow.  I slipped into what was probably the worst depression of my life.  Most days it was all I could do to show up to practice.  And I decided that if all I do is my yoga practice, then that's enough.  Everything else falls away as irrelevant and arbitrary.  Practice is an anchor, a lifeline, and I truly believe it's kept me alive during some of the darkest times of my life.  Some days, tears come with the very first ekam inhale; some days not until savasana.  Some days, something resembling joy seeps back in, and all I know is that I need this practice like I need the very next breath.  It is perhaps the greatest act of love and devotion that I know, and this becomes especially apparent when there is nothing but darkness, like a fever you can't shake, all around and inside you.

 

The Uses of Sorrow

(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)
 

Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.
 

It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.  

~Mary Oliver 

One of my dearest friends helped me tremendously through that very tough time after my dog died.  I don't think I have ever known heartbreak like that.  My friend kept saying, "Use this pain, let it galvanize you!  Let it transform you!  It is a gift."  Of course the instinct is to close yourself off to that kind of pain, to turn away from it.  It is overwhelming, to say the least.  And it takes a kind of deep, sustained courage I did not know I even possessed.  But if you make the choice to stay, tap into your deepest well of courage and lean into the pain, let it burn down all the defenses you've built against it, let it move through you, let it come in and uproot the darkest places within yourself, sweep out the debris, it will change you in the profoundest of ways.  Shantideva tells us, we are like a blind man who finds a jewel in a heap of garbage.  Right there in all that you'd rather throw away is your treasure.  If you throw away the garbage, you throw away the treasure too.  Instead of running away & thereby reinforcing old patterns of suffering, be loyal to this experience irregardless of good/bad, pleasure/pain.  Staying, no matter how uncomfortable, is where the treasure is.  In fact, the harder it is to stay, the bigger the treasure.  When it hurts like hell and pushes at all your edges and you're full of doubt and fear and every impulse in your heart and mind tells you to run, that's how you know you're onto something wholly worthwhile.  As an ayurvedic healer in India told me, laughing, "Pain is noooo problem.  Pain is very good sign, indeed.  Pain means happiness coming soon."  Oh, how those words have rooted themselves in me and make me laugh at my own suffering, no matter the cause.  Those simple words continue to ring true in the deepest of ways, so very, very true...

Showing up to practice is one thing; showing up to life can be a whole other battle.  If you practice even when distracted/distressed/hurt/upset/in pain, then you are training well.  This is the training ground, afterall.  So let us train wholeheartedly.  It's easy to show up to practice, to work, to relationships, to life, when things are flowing effortlessly.  But how do we respond to our pain, our fear, our hurt, our anger, our distress, our wounds?  How do we respond to others who are battling their own darkness?  Do we run, do we close ourselves off, shut people out, fortify our defenses, harden our heart, become apathetic, numb, uncaring?  Or do we stay present even though it hurts like hell and scares the holy shit out of us?  Do we stay open even though it makes us vulnerable, even though others can see our darkness, our doubt, our fear?  Do we take a sledgehammer to our hardened defenses and open up our view to greater possibilities?  Are we able to sink deeper into the sources of love, compassion, and equanimity?  It is this place - between the running and the staying, the closing and the opening, the hardening and the softening - where we see precisely what we're made of.  This is where we can initiate meaningful and substantial change within ourselves.  This is where we become better people, more integrated, more open, more loving, more clear.  No one is exempt from fighting this battle within him or herself.  The only real choice you have is which side you fight for.  It is the choice you make - between the fear and the love - that becomes the story of your life.  Which side are you fighting for?  What story do you choose to tell?

If you bring forth what is within you, 

what you bring forth will save you. 

If you do not bring forth what is within you, 

what you do not bring forth will destroy you. 

~Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas

The last few months, I've had a lot more sunshine and clarity seep in.  I'm working hard, staying just the right amount of busy, enjoying my relationships - even the difficult ones, and I'm excited about the projects I'm working on in all areas of my life.  I recently launched a new line of wearable art called Soul Azul, much of it directly inspired by my trip to India and the photos I took there.  I'm also working on some spoken word film projects that have been a long time in the making, so stay tuned for those in the coming weeks.  I love this time of year, the fall always feels like spring bursting forth in my own creative cycle.  So much comes flooding in all at once.  The days are shortening, the leaves are turning, the wind is stirring up delightfully unexpected little treasures, the weather in Austin is divine.  A breath of fresh air.  And I've been having epic adventures in my dreams... realizations about how much India felt like a home coming... and learning how to come home to myself no matter where I am or what the circumstances of my life may look like... And seeing so clearly how, in each others' light, we become better people... and how much work there still is to be done... and how far we've already come...

Read On friendship, this is the training ground part 2...

 

P.S.  I am so very grateful to everyone who reads my posts here, takes interest, comments and emails... I am really so very humbled and blown away at the response from people all over the world who can relate to my experiences (and are trying my recipes!)  It means a lot.  I am energized by your remarks and your willingness to share your experiences, too.  While I juggle many projects, I feel this is one of the most worthwhile ones, and although I may come and go at odd intervals, I do intend to keep up with things more regularly here... so check back every so often, and please do stay in touch... I love hearing from y'all!  Om shanti...

Come home, it's time...

I am getting on a plane to India tomorrow to go study and practice at the Shri K Pattabhi Jois Ashtanga Yoga Institute in Mysore.  I have been having a lot of dreams leading up to this trip, dreamland visitations by people I will soon meet.  Mostly they are anonymous dream characters who give me an information download, but one night Sharath came to me as I was wrestling with the decision to go and the timing of my trip.  He had a very light, joyful, playful energy, at the same time commanding my unwavering respect and trust.  He told me very clearly, "Come home, it's time."  Well ok, then!  

When I originally started planning this journey, my intent was to go to deepen my practice.  Something has shifted though in my practice to allow me to see the depth of the work there, and now I feel like I'm going to heal something within myself, first and foremost.  The practice has become such a deeply devotional activity for me, that I have no attachment to what asanas I may be given, or whether or not I'll get the bind in supta kurmasana once and for all, or if I'll start second series.  I only care about any of that insofar as it supports the spiritual dimension of the practice.  The asanas create gateways to the inner work.  They show me where to look, where my fears and suffering hide, where my weaknesses and vulnerability are, where I need to pay attention more closely, where I need to push myself harder, and where I need to let go.

I want to practice in that room with people from the world over, where the roots of the lineage have grown deep through the generations, where the spirit and history is palpable with every ekam inhale.  I want to go deep into my own work, to push my edges, to sweat and burn through the things that no longer serve me, to heal old wounds and discover things I don't yet know about myself.  I want to taste my capacity for joy and sorrow and suffering and courage.  I want to confront my fears and pain and know the source of my own strength.  I want to walk to that edge, to see my limitations, and then go a little further to see what I'm made of just beyond the present horizon.  I feel like my whole life has led up to this.  In many ways, it feels like I'm preparing for battle, like I'm about to step right into the fire.  And I'm ready for whatever is in store for me.  I am, afterall, about to be practicing under the sway of Durga who slayed the demon Mahishasura in the Chamundi hills on the outskirts of Mysore.  My recent experiences in backbending (which Kino mentions at the end of her recent article) have given me a look into the depths of what is there and how much work there is to be done.  After a couple of weeks of almost daily full body sobbing after practice, I've had several days of respite from the emotional purging.  A lot of joy and laughter have been bubbling to the surface, even in the midst of the somewhat stressful hustle to get ready to leave the country.  I feel like I'm peering over the edge of a rabbit hole, about to dive in.  I am ready to surrender to the current, wherever it takes me, whatever painful or blissful or beautiful or ugly places it has to show me within myself.  I'm willing to do the work required of me, to confront whatever demons need slaying and to bow down at the feet of gods, trusting completely in the unfolding.  I feel held and supported and blessed by my amazingly awesome friends, my teachers, the community, and something so much bigger than me, something beyond my wildest dreams.  I am filled to the brim with gratitude and a deep sense of trust as I venture forth on my journey...

Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers
but to be fearless in facing them.

Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain
but for the heart to conquer it.

Let me not look for allies in life's battlefield
but to my own strength.

Let me not crave in anxious fear to be saved
 but hope for the patience to win my freedom.

~Tagore 

Samskaras, tapas, & burning through...

The only way out is through.  Last weekend I took a workshop with Ashtanga badass Kino MacGregor.  One of the main points of focus was about developing agni, or the karmic fire which burns through obstacles we encounter along our path.  Kino talked about tapas, the significance of pleasure & pain, and the importance of burning through samskaras.  She said that if things are uncomfortable enough to make you want to skip practice some days, then you're onto something important, and if things are so uncomfortable that you think about giving up the practice altogether, then you're really onto something important.  It's those times that are absolutely crucial to show up on the mat, to stoke the inner fire and burn through whatever is in the way, be it pain or fear or old emotion or unhealthy habits.  If your practice is comfortable and pleasurable, you may not be doing it correctly, or at least not maximizing its potential for your own transformation.  It's that burning sensation, whether burning muscles or burning emotions, that let's you know you're on the right path.  Kino recently wrote a great article, Let Her Fall.  The entire article is worth a read, but for those short on time, here is one part that particularly resonated with me as it relates to the things I'm confronting in my own practice. 

I recently heard R. Sharath Jois say to his assistants in Mysore, India, to let certain students work on challenging arm balances or backbends for awhile before going over to help them. His actual words were “let him suffer” or “let her fall.”  These two experiences tie directly into the discussion of pain and suffering within the context of our yoga practice, and as such they also offer the most potential for growth and development in the student.  When you learn a new posture you often need the teacher present to go to places inside of the body and mind that bring up fear and pain. After awhile, you will need to strengthen your nervous system and face these places with your own inner resolution. Sometimes, asking for the teacher to help you every day is a kind of escape that prevents you from experiencing exactly what you would need to experience in order to learn the tough lessons contained within some of the most difficult postures in the Ashtanga Yoga method. If you always either go to the wall or ask a teacher to spot you, then you will never develop the kind of self-confidence that it takes to master the posture on your own. You have to learn to…let yourself fall... Learning how to fall is about understanding what suffering is, how to face it, accept it and ultimately make it your friend. This is at the core of yoga’s deepest teaching (Kino MacGregor, Let Her Fall). 

In my last blog, I talked about fear in backbending.  Last weekend in morning mysore practice, I dropped back and stood back up by myself for the first time ever.  Kino was standing there in case I needed help, and I rather shamelessly pleaded with her to spot me, as I'm used to my regular teacher really holding onto me so I know he's there.  But Kino does things differently, and I have to trust her and surrender to whatever it is she is trying to show me.  Honestly, I wanted to run away.  I wanted to tell her to hold my hips so I could feel she was there and feel safe and not be so fucking terrified that I'd fall.  But she stood there, a few feet away, smiling and sweet and a little scary like a stern but tough loving parent all at the same time, and said, "It's ok, I'm here.  Just your fear in the way.  Body, no problem.  Now go."  She was throwing me in the deep end.  I felt like I was about to sink straight to the bottom.  And despite wanting to run and hide, I dropped back anyways.  And I actually did it.  And then I came back up.  Kino was there smiling at me, "Good.  See, you did all by yourself, both ways."

Insofar as I imagined this day would come at some distant point in the future, I imagined I would be ecstatic with joy of the accomplishment.  Like jump for joy happy.  Like feeling as if I could do anything I set my heart and mind to.  Instead, I finished the closing sequence, laid down in savasana, covered my face with my hand towel, and cried.  Sad tears, not happy tears.  After practice, I got in my jeep and cried some more as I drove home.  So much sadness.  When I got home, I drew a super hot salt bath and cried even more.  Bawled, actually.  Big whole body sobbing.  I let it all go into the salt water, got it all out, and then crawled into bed and took a nap until it was time to go to the afternoon workshop.  It felt like some kind of spontaneous combustion happening on an emotional level, like I'd set aflame old things that no longer serve me.  It's the burning through of old emotions, the emotional detritus that accumulates over a lifetime, or even over many lifetimes, and roots itself into the body and heart and mind. 

During my post-practice, post-cry nap, I had a dream.  I was tending a vegetable garden, with big, almost ripe veggies I knew I would be enjoying for dinner in a day or two.  Plump, juicy, sweet, and brightly colored veggies.  Down in the dirt, I see a little thorny weed sprouting up, just barely three inches tall.  I pinch it just below the surface and pull, but it barely moves.  I dig a little further in and start to tug.  It feels like it is starting to move a little but is clear it has roots down deep.  I pull and dig some more, my fingers are covered in thick, dark, sticky mud.  As I dig and pull, I discover a massive, gnarled root, so imbedded in the earth it takes all my strength and focus to get it out.  I don't want to pull too hard too soon because I know I could make the root break and leave part for it to grow up again.  With what seemed like a lot of time, a lot patience, and a heroic effort, I pull the entire root system out in tact and examine it.  The little tiny thorny sprout was growing from a massive, hardened, and mostly dead root clump.  I throw it in the fire pit in the center of the yard and watch it burn.  It hisses and smokes and burns brightly, quickly to ash.  Then I wake up.  

I know I've carried a lot of sadness throughout my life.  Not just my own, we inherit our parents' (and countless generations passed) sadnesses, too.  I have some deeply rooted traumas from my childhood and early adult life.  I grew up in a physically and emotionally abusive family to parents wholly incapable of loving me in the ways I want and need and desire.  Thank god I had a natural capacity for love and empathy, and a proclivity for independent and creative thinking combined with a fierce stubborn streak that served me well enough to keep my head above water during some dark times.  I've dug through and healed much of those traumas over the years, and yet it's an ongoing process and one that continually reveals new and more profound lessons and layers of healing.  The old traumas no longer guide or control my relationships.  If anything, now, they help me hold myself and my relationships to the highest levels of integrity.  And yet, it now feels important to talk about it even more openly as part of burning through those remaining dark spaces.  There are more layers there needing the light, even deeper roots sunk into that thick black earth that need burning, like that big mass of mostly dead root from my dream that needed to be thrown on the fire.

The things that have been coming up in my practice in general, and backbending in particular, feel very much like they're tugging on and uprooting those traumas, whatever remains of them.  All the fear, issues of trust, vulnerability, sadness, anger, pain.  There are also profound moments of joy, love, hope, strength, and glimpses into the depth of my own courage and the opening up of new possibilities.   It's like when we discover a nuance in our asana practice, and then suddenly there is a whole new space that opens up in postures that once were impossible or uncomfortably constricted.  To find courage and hope where there seemed to be absolutely none at all, that's where the work begins.  It is only by confronting the struggle and burning through samskaras that we open up new landscapes within ourselves.

"Think of the yogi as a brave warrior going on a long and epic journey to the center of the soul. Just as in every heroic epic there are fearsome, painful and worrying battles that test the limits of the hero’s ability, so too in yoga are there challenging, difficult and nearly impossible postures that test the limits of your body and mind. But if you are the hero who is committed to the whole journey, then you also have the heart to see the experience all the way through to the end and win your final freedom."

~Kino MacGregor

Check out Kino's website & youtube channel.

Life, happiness, and the pursuit of liberty...

One of the interesting paradoxes of ashtanga practice is that the more regimented and disciplined I am, the freer I become.  Somehow, keeping a strict schedule around the times I eat, practice, sleep, etc, frees up a lot of energy.  Maybe it's the virgo in me, or maybe it's a promise, a gift of making the commitment.  As the legend goes, many great philosophers, artists, scientists, inventors, athletes, etc. throughout history kept very regimented schedules and thereby eliminated as many mundane choices as possible for themselves in order to free up their energy to focus on the more substantial work at hand.  Having spent many years of my life sleeping and eating at irregular times, exercising irregularly, working at odd times, I can look back and see how enslaved I was by this 'freedom' to do what I wanted whenever I wanted.  Now that I'm disciplined and consistent in how I conduct and apply my focus throughout the day and where I spend my energy and mindspace, I feel legitimately at ease and joyful and approaching something resembling freedom.  I think part of this freedom is the result of making an internal shift in my intention for the practice from being a physical exercise to a devotional one.  I also think this freedom is in the quality of experience itself, allowing for much greater depth and opening a whole wide range of possibilities within the consistency of the framework I have created for my life. 

There is a saying, "Chance favors the prepared mind."  It is through consistently applied effort that we become open to chance, or grace, or any of the infinite possibilities to touch the awesomeness of the world.  And this reminds me of the Tibetan Buddhist and Bön view of Dzogchen, where a person is capable of achieving spontaneous realization, or enlightenment.  Some may make a cursory interpretation of that and reply that they'll just keep living any way they damn well please because if enlightenment comes spontaneously, what's the point of putting forth effort.  But dig a little deeper into the Dzogchen literature, and there's a huge emphasis on ripening ourselves through consistent practice, so that spontaneous realization is even possible.  This ripening and spontaneity are both deeply rooted and grow from our consistently applied effort.

The concept of ripening really resonates with me and is something I've thought a lot about in terms of my artistic/creative process and in terms of my experiences in life in general.  John Dewey's philosophical work on aesthetic experience is particularly relevant in this context (every context, really).  While Dewey talks in terms of art, he is really painting a picture of the possibilities for human beings in every area of our lives.  He argues that art is not some thing separate from us, that we put in special places like museums or galleries, but that it can be found in every moment of our lives, in the sunset and rainstorm and even in the act of cleaning our house.  For Dewey, we are capable of engaging our world in such a way as to cultivate very rich, some would say even mystical or transcendent, experiences.  There is a continual doing and undergoing which characterizes our interaction with our environment.  The more consciously we engage that process, the more those moments build up to a consummatory moment, or an experience.  According to Dewey, an exerperience is the sign, the result, and the reward of our active and alert commerce with the world.  He goes on to explain that what artists do when they make a work of art is express this consummatory moment onto canvas or page or whatever the medium.  He uses the term express as in squeezing forth the juice of a grape in order to make wine.  Think about that in terms of our experiences.  We gather up experiences over time in a continual process of doing and undergoing until those moments reach a crescendo and are expressed - squeezed forth - by us into some new form.  There is very much an emphasis on conscious cultivation of our way of being in the world so as to ripen ourselves and our experiences.  The process of ripening naturally entails a distillation of our experiences down to the most relevant and essential parts.  While art is a convenient and clear way to talk about this process, Dewey's view, I think, is ultimately a deeply spiritual task and one that, when applied consistently, can free us from many of the burdens and sorrows of the human condition.

So what do Dzogchen and Dewey have to do with keeping a disciplined, consistent schedule?  Consistency in our daily routines allows all those ten thousand little mundane things to fall away into the background static.  We don't have to concern ourselves with making those choices anew every single day, freeing an immense amount of energy and mindspace to focus on more substantial endeavors.  This sort of cconsistency paradoxically allows for greater spontaneity, because we become more tuned into the ever-increasing subtleties and nuance of our experiences where infinitely greater possibilities present themselves.  We see this benefit in the ashtanga practice itself because as we do the same sequence of asanas every day over a period of time, we become very tuned into the subtle shifts from day to day.  As our awareness of increasing levels of nuance is heightened, our experiences become even richer and more substantial, distilled down to the most essential parts.  The continuity of our sustained efforts, over time, nurtures the sort of ripening of experience that is central to both Dzogchen and Dewey.  Every moment becomes replete with a fullness that alternately emerges and falls away, like the breath's inhale and exhale.  Our engagement with this process is able to be sustained indefinitely over time, allowing the consummation of our efforts to bear even greater fruit and varied forms of expression.  And these experiences have a quality of freedom which was previously inaccessible to us.  Like experience itself is the sign, the result, and the reward for our active engagement with the world, this freedom is the promise and the gift of our commitment.

Sunset over the canyonlands near Moab. photo by Laura Lea Nalle

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, 

the chance to draw back-- 

Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), 

there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which 

kills countless ideas and splendid plans: 

that the moment one definitely commits oneself, 

then Providence moves too. 

All sorts of things occur to help one 

that would never otherwise have occurred. 

A whole stream of events issues from the decision, 

raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents 

and meetings and material assistance, 

which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. 

Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. 

Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.  

                                         ~Goethe

Blessings for the new year...

"Amidst a lifetime of learning, labors, loves, and sorrows - the small victories and harsh losses, momentary pleasures and indelible pains - echo the very birth cries of human consciousness:  "Who am I?  From where have I come, where am I going?  Why this suffering, this darkness, this confusion?  What is to be done, to be left undone:  what is to be said, and what left unuttered?  By what bond am I bound?  Is it all by cause... or without a cause?"

And with faith or doubt, hope or horror, the cycle draws each man and woman toward the finality of death, the waiting mystery.

The quest for happiness, for tranquillity transits through these fundamental conditions and questions.  All of the world's great religions and philosophies provide solace for the jouneyer.  It is the gift of Yoga to create that union of body, mind, and spirit capable of truly understanding and existing within the serentity offered by eternal truths.  Whether it leads to liberation from a karmic cycle of life and death may be a matter of belief.  Unquestioned is the possibility of obtaining freedom from the confusion and sorrows of the life we may be certain is at our disposal."

~From Health, Healing, and Beyond:  Yoga and the Living Tradtion of T. Krishnamacharya by T.K.V. Desikachar

Two ravens over the canyonlands near Moab. photo by Laura Lea Nalle

Being healthy is a revolutionary act...

"Being strong and healthy in an unhealthy culture makes you part of an empowered minority. It gives you freedoms and opportunities that poor health and fitness prohibit. It endows you with the energy, clarity and resiliency to fully enjoy your life, and to make bigger, more meaningful contributions in anything you do.  Choosing a healthy way of life involves making some revolutionary choices, and it also has revolutionary results.  Because when you change your health for the better, you change the lives of everyone around you for the better, too.  In a very real way, you change your world."

I recently stumbled on this fantastic article and this one too.  I am very taken with the idea that being healthy is a revolutionary act.  With deep roots in activism, the idea that my healthy choices are revolutionary makes them have even more gravity to me.  When all our social systems are set up in a way that actively create dis-ease and illness, then indeed being healthy is revolutionary.  I've talked a lot about how my choices often alienate me in social situations.  But I'm not sorry that I won't eat fried or processed or pesticide laden food, and if that means I turn down your invitation or bring my own food, then that's fine by me.  I'm actually happy to bring my own food and show people that healthy food is absolutely delicious!  I'm not going to compromise my health and wellness just to go to a party or dinner, and I hate to stand in witness while other people eat crappy food (and stuff that barely qualifies as food!).  These decisions often put me on the outside, but I'm perfectly comfortable there.  And after reading that article, I feel even more convicted in my choices.

I have recently noticed how many more people have been seeking me out and asking me about raw foods.  I think this is part of me being so vocal and convicted about my choices.  More people are realizing they could feel better, look better, BE better, and they are seeking out information on how to facilitate their own revolution to a healthier life.  I think I am going to start hosting regular gatherings to show people how to incorporate more raw vegan food into their lives.  It's really not difficult, in fact, is way easier than most people think.

It seems clear there is a major shift happening in the general awareness of how the food we eat affects every part of our lives.  With obesity and type 2 diabetes at an all time high, people are seeing how the food they eat can literally kill them.  It's time to make different choices and to not just settle for not being sick, but to create optimum levels of health and wellness so they THRIVE.  I know what healthy feels like, and it's full of joy and empowerment and excitement for every part of life.  This is possible, and every single person is capable of achieving this when they make the choice to be healthy.  And that choice is, indeed, revolutionary.