From well beyond and well within and above and below . . . part one

I've been remiss in blogging since coming back from the retreat. The retreat is such an unbelievable experience, where we all somehow get along and love each other and bring out the best in each other. And then we come BACK, to the news. News of oil spills (how can we really call it a "spill?"), brutally murdered children, and anti-"everyone who is not the same as me" propaganda. 

So, for a while I was just feeling sad and tired and impatient, but also feeling a deeper despair, unnamed, the feeling that there is nothing I can do to make a difference. We've all felt that despair. I felt like I was just kidding myself that all this work I did at the retreat actually meant something. And yet . . . and yet . . . I still keep coming back to the hope; to the memory of the beauty that shows up at every retreat, in every yoga class. And I realized that part of that beauty is watching a group of yoga practitioners stew in their own shit and come out cleaner and brighter because of it. 

I don't mean to be gross, I mean to illustrate an actual powerful tool in Yoga; a way to actually face our demons, our darkness, our secrets. Smell what we actually smell like without spraying perfume over it. Feel what we actually feel, without popping a pill to "kill" the pain. See what is really in front of our face without creating stories to explain our seeing away. 

And then realizing that the part of us that is smelling and feeling and seeing these "outer stimulants" is ACTUALLY who we are; THUS we are NOT the stench, NOT the pain, NOT the scene. We aren't the darkness. We are the light shining on that stuff. This allows us to: 

BOTH acknowledge that there really is stench and pain and ugliness in the world 

AND realize that it is okay to discover it, bring it into the light, and eradicate it. FIERCELY.

I invite you all for at least a few of your practices to watch how yoga facilitates this in a very safe way. It allows us to come face to face with what is usually hidden away inside of us. And in that seeing it also frees us from identifying with what we sense. SLowly this leads us to a different way to identify ourselves. This is self realization at its finest.

Comments

[Joi]

God I love you...definitely been 'stewing in my own shit'...still working through & waiting to 'come out brighter & cleaner'...

LOVE LOVE LOVE to you...
Joi

[Abbey Daw]

I love you! Thats all I must say my guru and friend D'ana Baptiste