Category: Beautiful Things

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Beautiful People Beautiful Places Beautiful Things

Intentions create the energy of the space. When there’s collective intentions, the energy is palpable. As an observer, it is visible. The quiet calm glow that’s rather oozy – sloooooow progression.

I am struck by it each time I make an offering of that space to be shared…I feel the calm, peaceful “energy” that re-surges as I look around and I see a human re-fueling station. I don’t mean fuel as in food and water but us humans require more than the minimum sustenance of food, water and shelter to “re-fuel”. We harness energy 2-ways; By working-out & by working-in. Both are needed and complement each other.

My intention is to make the space safe and place of nature…We can’t always get-away to connect with nature; Our daily commitments mean we cannot always escape to the beach or to the mountains – and for some, workplace is life, your home (now employers want you at workplace all the time so all the perks – espresso machine, tea bar, salad bar… the gym with round-the-clock yoga…everything provided for – you can work longer hours!) but we can with the power of our own mind – connect with nature; connect with your own truth – in an urban mini-“spa”, a sacred space, because anyplace you practice “metta”, a Buddhist concept of compassion, kindness … benevolence… is SACRED.

Intentions in a Christian sense or in any religion is probably similar to a prayer, and setting an intention is a kind of an “affirmation” that gives validity and a horse-power to your desires. It does not have to go on a moral high ground UN-ish like “world peace” – it can focus solely on you – a desire for a transformation even on a micro, Nano-level…from within.

Here are some intentions you can try…or custom make one for yourself – it can be a fun exercise – let it become an affirmation.

– My body has its own wisdom and I trust that wisdom completely.
– Today I choose to honor my beauty, my strength and my uniqueness.
– I love the way I feel when I take good care of myself.
– Today I put my full trust in my inner guidance.
– I allow the universe to bless me in surprising and joyful ways.

If you are going through tough times, this may be challenging but soften your gaze, look within and find the fire again…may hope and faith guide you…and as Judith H. Lasater taught us, exercise this technique:

“be RADICALLY present”.

If you can memorize mantras in Sanskrit, this should come easily:) … Chanting mantras has a different effect and a purpose but affirmations may come more easily to you – Realizing that we all have so much on our plate – sometimes it’s hard to digest all but even digest just a portion provides nourishment – it need not be a Grande super-size portion – you may come to see what I mean by re-kindling your own inner-fire that resides in your belly – it just takes a spark or sometimes, just far reaching oxygen (“breath”)so that the flames rise up to warm your heart…

Haaahhhh, BIG sigh- stretch:)

Gratitude for the space filled with collective intentions.

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Beautiful Rituals Beautiful Things Yoga

 

blognewmoon

“Once each month, the moon comes all the way around in its orbit so that it is more or less between us and the sun. If the moon always passed directly between the sun and Earth at new moon, a solar eclipse would take place every month. But that doesn’t happen every month. Instead, in most months, the moon passes above or below the sun as seen from our earthly vantage point.

Young moon, visible a day or two after the new moon phase. A young moon is seen in the west after sunset. It’s a waxing crescent moon.

On the day of new moon, the moon rises when the sun rises. It sets when the sun sets. It crosses the sky with the sun during the day. That’s why we can’t see the new moon in the sky. It is too close to the sun’s glare to be visible. Plus its lighted hemisphere is facing away from us.

Then a day or two later, the moon reappears, in the west after sunset. Then it’s a slim waxing crescent visible only briefly after sunset.” (excerpt from http://earthsky.org/moon-phases/waning-gibbous)

That new moon, a delicate crescent you see in the evening sky, is a time of rebirth and renewal. The waning and It represents a powerful time to set our intentions for what we want to see to fruition in our lives during this cycle.  Feel a fresh sense of re-charging and an energy of new possibilities at the onset of another natural cycle of change..

I can see the aura of people, the color and how with each progression of poses in restorative sequence, the waves of light around them slowly charge up – the aura strengthens in color and in brightness –  it’s strangely visible…They just literally “light up”! Really!! We are all balls of vibrating energy, sometimes in need of recharging.  In tribal setting, it’s nice to see that energy as we lengthen our breath, extend our lives so we can touch more people and spread that light, that’s within the luminous you.

In all things of nature

there is something of

the marvelous.

– Aristotle

It has been said that making an intention, more an affirmation, the week of New Moon sets your cycle to accept all that is positive and beneficial in life.  Sometimes, without knowing you might be denying and rejecting all the gifts presented to you – accept graciously and open these gifts, unwrap the present… Savor that “present” moment with gratitude.  You would be glad you did.

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Beautiful People Beautiful Things

Mantras, prayers, songs, sonnets, poems, hymns… and … there’s always…haiku.  Yes, Haiku…Whatever works as one of my teachers (in yoga, yes, yoga teacher) used to say.

If a mantra works, what then do you make of Haiku ?  Like a song stuck in your head – The following poem chants the aforementioned haiku…

釣鐘（つりがね）にとまりねむる胡蝶　（こてふ）かな

与謝蕪村

“TSURIGANE-NI-TOMARI-NEMURU-KOTEFU-KANA” (5-6-5 not 5-7-5…heresy?)

“On the (huge one ton) temple bell, a moon-moth, folded into sleep, sits so still.”

Buson (1716-84)

Translation just does not do justice – and that’s typically the case in comparative literature world.  It never does unless merely a technical manual. Out of context, translated work nearly always betrays THE original ever so slightly, even if the text is translated by the most qualified… word for word translation will not do… AND as with most anything, original at its authentic expression of the creator, is of course ultimately the best… but that does not mean we give up on making the fruitless attempts and valiant efforts to introduce and share what is so amazing – a microcosm, a world of wonder contained in so few words…　reminding us that, at times, less is …

more.

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Japan

Today I pass the time reading

a favorite haiku,

saying the few words over and over.

It feels like eating
the same small, perfect grape
again and again.

I walk through the house reciting it
and leave its letters falling
through the air of every room.

I stand by the big silence of the piano and say it.
I say it in front of a painting of the sea.
I tap out its rhythm on an empty shelf.

I listen to myself saying it,
then I say it without listening,
then I hear it without saying it.

And when the dog looks up at me,
I kneel down on the floor
and whisper it into each of his long white ears.

It’s the one about the one-ton temple bell
with the moth sleeping on its surface,

and every time I say it, I feel the excruciating
pressure of the moth
on the surface of the iron bell.

When I say it at the window,
the bell is the world
and I am the moth resting there.

When I say it at the mirror,
I am the heavy bell
and the moth is life with its papery wings.

And later, when I say it to you in the dark,
you are the bell,
and I am the tongue of the bell, ringing you,

and the moth has flown
from its line
and moves like a hinge in the air above our bed.