The following video was shared with me by a dear yoga student today. As I watched, my own practice as well as my teaching, grew truly inspired. And yet, there was a tiny nagging voice that asked, Do you really believe? Even after all of these years of practicing, studying, classes, teaching, I questioned my own belief in the transformational power of yoga.

How large is my capacity to change? How strong can I grow? How large is my faith? Can I move forward without becoming burdened and worn down by feelings of shame, guilt, sadness, and self-recrimination?

In the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, the ancient sage advises us to study and concentrate upon the qualities of an elephant  to gain strength (Sutra III.24). In the video, we watch the transformation of a human being, from burdened and weak to fast, and strong with a much wider capacity to live a bigger life, to express his own life force. How important it is to the development of faith to see examples of transformation in living beings!

May you also be inspired. Would love to hear your story!

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Most of us spend considerable time sitting at a desk and/or working at a computer and let’s face it, our necks and shoulders get really cramped and tight. Depending upon your particular line of work and your physical condition, those knots can begin tying up your mind as well as your shoulders. The antidote for me is frequent yoga breaks.

Today I gave a short demonstration for area workers of some yoga stretches that can alleviate Desk Stress. Here are two poses that will help yo release that tension. It’s a very brief, mini introduction to yoga in the workplace.

OFFICE YOGA Stretch and Relax while at your desk!

       Arms Overhead – Great for releasing shoulder and neck tension that occurs during computer work.

With hands clasped together, turn palms toward knees. As you inhale, raise arms overhead.  Continue softly breathing as you press through index finger mounds.  Release shoulders towards kidneys. When ready, exhale and release arms.

      Seated Spinal Waves -If you are feeling stiff and achy, try some spinal waves. The spinal waves gently move the spine releasing tension throughout the back of the body. As tension and knots are released, energy can flow in unimpeded waves of healing and rejuvenation throughout your entire system. Try them anytime you need a quick pick-me up during the day.

Sit with your buttocks on the middle of the seat with your ankles falling in line with your knees. Inhale and lift the spine. Place your hands palms down on your thighs.  As you exhale, round the back draw the tail forward while pressing the navel towards the spine to engage your abdominal muscles. Tuck your chin gently stretching the back of the neck. Invite the shoulders to roll forward, away from the spine.  Inhale and reverse the curve of the spine, lifting the chest and drawing the tail down and towards the back of the chair. Lift the chin and stretch the front of the neck.  Roll the shoulders back and squeeze the inner shoulder blades toward the spine. Stretch the front of the torso as you release the belly. Lift and open the heart center.

Repeat 10 times.

© Carolyn Kieber Grady 2012  

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Yoga is about learning to channel energy. Using your power involves channeling your energy. Not recognizing your power is perhaps the easiest way to negate the energy at your disposal. This tribute to women who have transformed their own energies into action to change the world in big and small ways is inspiring for all of us, men, women, children, elders alike.

Though International Women’s Day is March 8, I am inspired by this video TODAY. It really supports my intentions for the year 2012. How about you?

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Holy Smokes. There’s been a huge shift and I have finally created a perfectly imperfect meditation video. My first ever. Oh such wonderful new areas for me to grow and improve upon.

Thank you to my sis (in law) who is bravely battling cancer. You have inspired me. And inspired healing in circles known and unknown.

Blessings to all of you who are still hanging out at BarefootandUpsideDown. Would love feedback regarding this new adventure.

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This morning in class after we chanted OM ~ and the class is becoming less self-conscious and more vibrational as they grow accustomed to chanting ~ a student remarked how “good we sounded” as we had reached that exquisite blending of voices ~ that community of OMs.The experience reminded him of the Virtual Choir he’d seen on You Tube.  Eric Whitacre, the composer and conductor speaks in the following TED video of what the process of group singing meant to him. He said that the first time he sang in a choir he realized that he was part of something bigger than himself.

In yoga, we’d say that we ARE something bigger than our conception of our individual selves. This is the beauty of chanting before class. We acknowledge and surrender to that energy, that grace, that love.

It is from that space that we twist and turn ourselves in the poses and that we sit quietly in breath work or in meditation or savasana. This is true whether we have chanted in a hall with hundreds of yogis or if we chant silently to ourselves while practicing. This is the sound of the universe. Of the primal energy that flows everywhere. The vibration that is.

In class at Panterra on Tuesday night, we were fortunate to have sitar player, Justin Scarimbola strumming his instrument while we fell deeply into savasana. As one note fell away, another appeared, then another and another. The evening raga grew a little “on edge” as daylight was fading to dusk and the notes picked up steam, coming faster, more insistent and then sliding back into quietude. The music took my mind along on its journey. Afterwards, I felt that somehow, I saw the world a bit differently. Time and space shifting in their tides just as the Indian raga grew louder, softer, faster, slower, smoother, rougher.

Today is windy and hot. Yesterday was hot and still. It’s all labile, change, flux, even when it seems to be static. Do not stay stuck, the music, the chanting, like our practice tell us.

We are capable of so much more love than we realize.

MANTRA for today: May I open to unknown capabilities within myself today.

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Rolling Brook Restorative (barefoot photos)

I am so sorry dear readers that it has been sooooo long since I’ve posted.

This is the thing, my father-in-law who moved into assisted living in Fredonia last fall, fell out of bed and clunked his noggin’ at the end of February. Ten days of hospitalization were followed by a transfer to a nursing home-the locked dementia ward. This man, who two months ago was enjoying homemade dinners and classical music concerts with us, can no longer walk, barely eats, is in diapers, has leg sores, and hardly knows who his son is, much less who I am. At nearly ninety years old, where is the dignity? What effect does my yoga training have on my response to his suffering…and the family’s grief and suffering?

Well, the first thing I rely upon is the breath. I take long sessions of ujjayi to assuage the grief that he is leaving us.

The second practice I engage in is TONGLEN meditation. I will write a page about that soon. Fortunately for me, my teacher, Mahala of ten thousand bodhisattvas dot com offered a Tonglen class shortly after Ben went into the nursing home.  Did the universe know that I needed this? I can hear my yoga teacher muttering karma, carolyn, karma!

As a caregiver of a ninety year old with end stage dementia, I now know that I need to learn how to take care of myself first because at present I am suffering from a very nasty case of the flue, probably due to exhaustion. So restorative yoga, here I come. The third practice. Pull out the bolsters and blankies, cause I’m resting, deeply. It’s the core practice of compassionate caregivers.

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Savasana, corpse pose (barefoot photos)

I am an experimental yogini. Lately, I have been approaching savasana, the pose of deep relaxation that I “do” at the end of my asana practice to see what I can learn from ten or twenty or thirty or sixty minutes reclining in a prone position.

The physical aspects of savasana are quite simple: stretch out on the floor on your back, roll the palms up to face the ceiling, allow the legs to flop away from each other, gently lower the eyelids, part the teeth slightly, cover yourself with a light blanket, place an eye pillow on your eyelids, use a folded blanket beneath your head and neck and a bolster beneath your knees, if you’d like. There are other variations and possible supports that can be used to induce a greater level of comfort, but I’ll cover those in another post.

Here are my journal notes after a savasana “lab:”

10 minutes: a sudden drop into physical relaxation. The body felt as if it were melting into the floor

13 minutes: another drop deeper ~ a deeper release down

17 minutes: Oh, now this drop felt nearly blissful ~ a tumble into bliss ~ so lovely

I was shaken out of it when hearing voices upstairs talking loudly and I picked up the phrase: “She’s really in bad shape.” Felt my mind turn on with adrenaline ~ thought maybe I should get up ~ racing thoughts, but felt my body still relaxed, so decided to drop back down into the deep relaxation, knowing the alarm was set and I could get up in three more minutes. Later note: this was an amazing realization: that I could CHOOSE whether or not to relax deeply!

20 minutes: the alarm rang and because I had already “come back” a good way, I decided to remind myself to come back s-l-o-w-l-y and resist the urge to run upstairs and find out what had happened (what had happened was in fact, a continuing deterioration of an 86 year old relative’s condition, and certainly not an emergency in the immediate sense of the word)

I’d love to hear of your experiences in savasana!

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Snow Shadows (barefoot photos)

A rambling excerpt of a practice journal entry that I thought might be of some use . . .  .

December 15, 2010, Wednesday morning, 9:10 AM

Just meditated with soft ujjayi breath for an hour. Shocked when I opened my eyes and realized how much time had passed. That happens so often. The timeless place opens and I enter.

Mind wandered. Thinking about the blog and books. But kept coming back to Breath.

Disengaging from the heaviness of the body, even the entanglement of the mind.

Breath is so light and free. It is always here, always available, as much as I want it. A gift I need to be present to.

A tool for growth rest healing love.

Breath teaches me to love my essential self, my core, my self dis-embodied and de-minded, essential, free, perfect, and imperfect.

Breath is eternal and brings me into eternity.

Breath is who I want to Be.

Breath is who I am.

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Prescott AZ Clouds (barefoot photos)

I LOVE the energy of a new year.

So many possibilities.

Such delicious energy to savor and digest.

In the studio, we opened the intentions we compiled last January. At least one of us (me!) felt a shiver of excitement up and down my spine as I realized how well each one of my six intentions had played out during the year.

Here’s my list:

1. Lose weight (I dropped 25 pounds)

2. Publish my poetry collection….well, I DID submit it for publication.

3. Develop a stronger support system. (I worked with a writing coach during the fall to develop the yoga book, and began working with a new meditation teacher)

4. Get artsy (I created a couple of collages ~ one was called The Perfect Yogini~ all of them I gathered without gluing the pictures and placed them, like grains of sand brushed off a mandala, into a folder) AND I finally broke open the paints and have created a couple of pieces I’m rather happy with)

5. Work on organizing the house (With Rebecca’s help, I embarked upon some serious cleaning/organizing jobs)

I’m psyched to create my 2011 list. Deepening my commitment to yoga and to studying the yoga sutras is on my list for the  year. Figured I may as well begin meditating, chanting, and writing about the very first one wherein Patanjali informs us that THIS is IT….HERE they are…perhaps in modern parlance, he’d say JUST DO IT.

The Sanskrit verse, atha yoga anusasanam is variously translated as:

With humility (an open heart and mind), we embrace the sacred study of yoga. (Nischala Joy Devi)

With prayers for Divine blessings, now begins an exposition of the sacred art of yoga. (BKS Iyengar)

Now concentration is explained. (Swami Vivekananda)

Now is set forth authoritative teaching on yoga. (Bernard Bouanchaud)

Now, the exposition of yoga. ( Rev. Jaganath Carrera)

Some questions to assist your meditation on Sutra 1.1:

If you are new to yoga, are you ready to commit to practice and study?

If you already are a practicing yogin, are your heart, body, and mind open and receptive for receiving the teachings?

Are you open to the transformation that will take place as you travel deeper into the heart of yoga?

What space is necessary in your life to make room for yoga? Do you need to shift anything, or get rid of anything in order to delve deeper into the study and practice of yoga?

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Wrapped Gift (barefoot photos)

Woohoo….let the drums roll and the bugles blare.

There are two winners of the Free Yoga Book Giveaway announced on the Your Presence, The Most Generous Gift post.

Kathleen commented that “It is not about the “stuff” but about being with each other and spending time with those that we love. It is also about taking time for self.” Both thoughts I want to hold close to my heart during this new year. Spending time with those we love, and I include MYSELF among the beloved, is a core practice. Any nigglings of alienation dissipate when I am present to love. Self-doubt, one of my “corrupting nigglers” also wears thin in love’s presence. In the presence of love, I know who I am ….and feel good, spiritually and mentally healthy, and whole.

For K., A copy of Esther Myers’ book beautiful and honest book, YOGA & YOU Energizing Yoga for New and Experienced Students, is awarded. Esther passed away in 1994. Though I was never fortunate enough to have a class with EM, her struggle with breast cancer as well as her honesty describing the daily ups and downs of yoga practice continue to inspire me. Fortunately for us, her teachings live on in this text. Kathleen, I hope you enjoy, learn, and your practice is inspired in 2011!

Perce wrote that it was during a yoga practice (don’t you love those little epiphanies that arise out of nowhere during practice ~ I sure do and they remind me that my BRAIN needs yoga as much as anything else) that she realized she had many items already on her shelves that her family would enjoy. Don’t we all, Perce!

Thanks for the reminder to look around and mentally, or in your journal, inventory, your assets. There are so many gifts already in our possession, from the “stuff” we own, such as the jewelry you mentioned in your comment, to the personal characteristics we’ve developed over the years, such as an ability to listen and be present to another person.

For you, a book that was on my shelf: Mira Mehta’s How To Use Yoga, A Step-by-Step Guide to the Iyengar Method of Yoga, Relaxation, Health, and Well-being. Perce, I hope the precision shown in the writing and the clear photos in this book will assist the alignment and sukham (happiness) in your practice.

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