New Dates- Hoping for the week of February 15th- just in time for Maha Shivratri!
Many details need to be arranged
She might be here as soon as the 3rd of January, 2015. This is exciting news and requires a lot of action on my part and hopefully the support of the local yoga community and the NEYogis who make up the sangha of asana practitioners and Sutra chanters plus all the new folks who are needing a dose of Mother India and the mystery and magic that gets conjured when a deep teacher shows up. This is all our chance to connect to a trusted source of dharma.
I hope we are all in on it. Having the teacher come from afar is what we all in the Ngondro tradition call out for. Well, here comes the teacher. Are you ready.?Am I? We shall see.
Heres what I was going to post. It’s fitting.
The Power Behind my Power
Just a week back from a glorious time spent chanting and swimming and sleeping in, in Hawaii, and I’m finding the dullness of the cool,dark solstice reality of Oregon impinge on my prior and preferred reality. I am getting over the loss of all that free time and sun but now can relate to why a retreat of any kind is important. The time away shows me so much. Im not really under my own Power alone, ever, and like any organ or instrument, I need to be retuned daily and in any new enviroment.
Practice is easy when the living is easy but staying with it when times are tough can be the biggest teacher. Of course some time period of strong practice can get us established in Dharma so to avoid the hard path is often the road to sloth and the loss of stability. The wisdom comes in striking out the for the middle path, sometimes hot sometimes cool with a balance made up in the average.
Getting up before the Sun and doing the direct method that is “Ashtanga Vinyasa Krama” is not easy and I commend the folks who get at it every day, rain or shine. (as i do it myself) they certainly get the benefit. Sometimes the benefit is a mystery, only to be revealed when we lose or gain perspective. It’s funny that a shift in our environment or lifestyle can limit or enhance the pattern and ritual we rely upon, but when are suddenly altered by a shift in the climate or the position and regularity of the Suns arc across the sky, we lose it a bit. Over all i am grateful from the shifts and lapses, they let me know I am human.
Some days I feel I am just getting to know myself, maybe stemming from age but certainly stemming from the effects of a chronic practice that holds to a specific time and location. As the world zips along and I hold the space, I see a lot and this is essentially my nature, all of our natures.
In the stability made possible through practice, I see the Sun and Moon and how they interact with the Earth and how all three interact with the Stars. The great magnetics of an orchestrated, symphony of astral proportions only equaled to, in the magnitude of its silence, must be the harmonic my Spirit needs to move with and sing with. The regular practice, or a sadhana of any kind that keeps me near these singing orbs and the Power behind them which I cant see but must also relate and even conform to is one i must keep up with. The stakes of not doing so, once have done,are too high. I like what yoga brings me. Somedays are hard but overall I am stronger and more adapted to life because I stick with the practice.
It seems the sooner I can get going the motions of retooling and re-calibrating for the immediate version of such-ness, the better I am able to maintain the condition of uprightness etc that we hope a yoga will bring. I will admit that I am sometimes slow to get back to a particular practice. Today is the first day, since being home, that I had a chance to both regret the loss of and feel the relief of holding space for the Song.
But, the parallax view of holding space for a long while, then letting go of the held position in order to explore the new dimension gives insights that only come from practice. We are seers by design and what we see is what we are made of. The Song of the Pancha-Tattwas is not for the ear alone, but also the remaining senses. IF we sing to them we can subdue our fear of them and abide in them. If i have a practice that either satisfies each sense and sense object alone, or in combination, then to activate that practice, would be to Sing the Song of Yoga and stay in tune with the deepest and most subtle reality.
If you want to know more come sing on Thursdays at 5PM, Fridays at 9AM and Saturdays at 11AM.
Cheers, Casey