divinity.

 “It is through your body that you realize you are a spark of divinity."

~BKS Iyengar

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reflect the light.

When we are born we are pure and uncut, just like a diamond. As life unfolds in its myriad of experiences, we can learn how to reflect the light in the world; each experience gives us a new cut, a new facet in our diamond. How brilliantly do diamonds sparkle whose facets are many, to whom life has given many cuts!

Diamonds are formed under intense pressure and heat. The same way oak trees grow stronger with contrary winds and lotuses appear from murky water. Strength and beauty can exist as a result of hardship. Remind yourself of this when you are under external pressure or when you feel the intense heat of emotion. Reminder yourself that you are working on unearthing and creating something profoundly beautiful like a diamond, strong like an oak tree and as sacred as a lotus flower.

Namaste.

let.go.

"Meditation is a surrender. 

It is not a demand. It is not forcing existence your way. 

It is a relaxing into the way existence wants you to be.

It is a   l e t  -  g  o ."

~Osho

Constant effort with great . . .

welcome a beginner's mind.

"Learning never exhausts the mind."

~ Leonardo da Vinci

Move from the Known to the Unknown. 

Leave room for the mystery and let the mystery carry you forward.

Stay open to what comes.

Life is uncertain. 

The goal is not to become more certain about anything but to relax more into the mystery of not knowing what will come next.

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mastery.

"Though you can love what you do not master, you cannot master what you do not love."

~Mokokoma Mokhonoana

pratyahara.

"Why do we close our eyes when we pray, cry, kiss or dream? Because the most beautiful things in life are not seen but felt by the heart."

~Denzel Washington

Let it Snow!

A Sunday spent in the countryside up in Ojai for a special invite to attend a session of Saul David Raye's teacher training while the sun was shining wintery bright was a great start to the day. Bhakti practice and then returned home to rain!!! It's not snow but rain down in California definitely signifies winter ... and some hydration after a long draught. The Christmas fairy lights are twinkling in the rain, the fireplace going as we cuddled up with coffee, and the excitement of Holiday travel on the horizon. Off to pack!

Near-blinding radiance.

This little love note from the Goddess, Danielle Laporte, landed in my inbox the other day and inspired my yoga teachings today. 

So grateful for the bright lights out there who light the way for those who forget - and yes, I mean YOU! 

You will have more to give—and you will LOVE giving it. You will seek to give. It will be the most incredible feeling. Someone is going to come to you with a broken wing, or low on reserves and you are going to have so much love and insight to offer them. You’ll actually say things like, "I can help you with that!” And you won’t feel taxed or burdened or obligated. You will feel like you are doing your work in the world.

In essence, you will become an Angel.

You will have a LOT more energy. (If, currently, your adrenals are shot and you’re just piecing together your exit plan, this may be hard to believe. But…believe.) You’re going to get up earlier and stay up a bit later. You will intensely want to live life. Making, meandering, pleasuring, giving, learning, LIFE. You’re going to want more of it than you ever have.

You will be intimate with joy—because at some point during your immense suffering you will have felt it. It seemed ironic, and then miraculous, and then…yes…even in the midst of pain, I can still feel my true nature—and it is joy. You’ll know that happiness and agony, and delight and grief come and go, but at the core—is always joy—YOU. And you will be confident that you know how to find your way back there more easily.

You’ll look different. As in better. A bit shinier, maybe even blindingly radiant. With all that weight off your shoulders, your spine will be straighter and the prana will be flowing more. The weariness in your eyes will be replaced with the sexiness of presence. It’s going to show in photographs and it will be seen by your tribe, and wow…holy shine.

You’re going to make better choices. If you’re on the other side of agony, chances are you’re way less inclined now to make compromises or bend to your breaking point—and you will spot the death eaters and dream stealers before they get on your property. 

When you’ve transmuted dark poison, you develop an appetite for light and only light. You will choose to eat the light, point out the light, paint with light, speak with light, make love with light, dance for light, work for light, laugh with light, rest in the light, inquire from the light. You will throw light around like the lightworker that you are. It will be stunning. 

Compassion. You will be that. You will smell other people’s suffering. And you will consciously decide how to respond. Sometimes you will lay your light all over them, ceaselessly and committed. Other times, you will keep your wisdom quiet, step aside and let it unfold. All compassion.

Your sense of time will morph, considerably. You may exist in the paradox of peaceful urgency. You will know that you have all the time in the world, but...NOW. Let’s make it happen NOW! And this is what happens when you fall in love with a new person, romantic or otherwise; or a new cause, or, best yet, The New True You: real love makes time holographic. A year in a day. A day in an hour. You will enter the zone of no regrets.

You will be mindfully grateful. You won’t necessarily be grateful for the shit that went down, but you’ll be immensely grateful for all that you learned from it.

There will be a Before & After delineation. “Before the death, the crisis, the break, the break up, the break through. Before the revelation, the birth, the Truth.”

Not much is going to scare you. Because you got through THAT. And you did all that it took to get through THAT.

You’ll be decisively flexible. You won’t bend for just any cause now. In fact, your boundaries are going to be damn firm. But when you flex, when you melt...watch out. With all the inflammation gone from your being you will have full range of mobility in your Soul. You’re going to really dance when you dance.

You’re going to know more about what Love is. Very specifically, Self love. And you are going to amaze yourself. And we will recognize you by your light.

you are an alter.

"You are an alter to the flame of life."

~ The Radiance Sutras

How you invest your love is how you invest your life.

If life wasn't changing, we wouldn't exist. Everything in the Universe is continually changing because our universe is made of energy. Energy can exist only if it is in motion and changing. If energy stopped being in motion, our entire Universe and all Life would vanish.

Our lives are also energy, and therefore they too must always be in motion and continue to change. You cannot stop the motion and change in your life and nor would you want to. The changing nature of energy gives us Life. It causes Life to grow and causes us to grow.

Remember that how you invest your love is how you invest your life.

pause.listen.

The Universe is guiding you and communicating with you in every second of your life. It is responding to your thoughts and it's giving you invaluable feedback through your feelings. Your feelings are cosmic communication. The good feelings mean, GOOD FOR YOU. The bad feelings are to get your attention so that you will change what you are focusing on.

Tune into the cosmic communication that is with you every day. You are never alone, not for a second. The Universe is right with you at every step, guiding you. All you have to do is listen.

finding softness

"Water is the softest thing, yet it can penetrate mountains and earth. This shows clearly the principle of softness overcoming hardness."

~Lao Tzu

wings to fly

“God turns you from one feeling to another and teaches by means of opposites so that you will have two wings to fly, not one.”

~ Rumi 

She Let Go

She let go.
She let go. Without a thought or a word, she let go.
She let go of the fear.
She let go of the judgments.
She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head.
She let go of the committee of indecision within her.
She let go of all the ‘right’ reasons.
Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, she just let go.
She didn’t ask anyone for advice.
She didn’t read a book on how to let go.
She didn’t search the scriptures.
She just let go.
She let go of all of the memories that held her back.
She let go of all of the anxiety that kept her from moving forward.
She let go of the planning and all of the calculations about how to do it just right.
She didn’t promise to let go.
She didn’t journal about it.
She didn’t write the projected date in her Day-Timer.
She made no public announcement and put no ad in the paper.
She didn’t check the weather report or read her daily horoscope.
She just let go.
She didn’t analyze whether she should let go.
She didn’t call her friends to discuss the matter.
She didn’t do a five-step Spiritual Mind Treatment.
She didn’t call the prayer line.
She didn’t utter one word.
She just let go.
No one was around when it happened.
There was no applause or congratulations.
No one thanked her or praised her.
No one noticed a thing.
Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go.
There was no effort.
There was no struggle.
It wasn’t good and it wasn’t bad.
It was what it was, and it is just that.
In the space of letting go, she let it all be.
A small smile came over her face.
A light breeze blew through her. And the sun and the moon shone forevermore…

~Rev. Safire Rose 

Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less. 

~C. S. Lewis

How do you stay humble? 

How do you remind yourself each day of your place in the world, 

while still pursuing excellence? 

rasasvada

Wherever you go, there you are.

via zsazsabellagio

The Year of the Horse has got me galloping right along! This year has been a whirlwind of love, adventure, opportunity and travel . . . and it's only July!!!! All I can say, is thank goodness for yoga to keep my busy world centered. One of the things I love about my yoga practice is just that: wherever I go, home is at heart. 

now.

"You are not in the now. You are the now."

~Eckhart Tolle

integrity

"Integrity is the absence of contradiction between what we know, what we profess and what we do." 

~Nathaniel Branden