Step off!

The sky is bright and blue as Spring is making a comeback here in our beautiful community. The emptiness and expansiveness of the blue sky is similar to the spaciousness of mind that we can cultivate through meditation. Our days are filled and our minds are filled with thoughts of yesterday and tomorrow. As we sit for meditation we simply observe those same thoughts and step off the wheel. You know the little wheel the hamster runs around? In meditation we step off that wheel. The wheel is the story that you are running about your life, the complaints, the regrets, the thoughts of revenge. The wheel is still there, the mechanisms of the mind, the old thought patterns and habits are still there but something else manifests. A vacuum is created as we "step off" and drawn into the space of the vaccuum is a deep sense of peace. When do you experience deep peace in your life? I bet you know how often you experience its opposite. Peace is not a luxury to be felt by the unencumbered but rather the very foundation of health, the proverbial fountain of youth. Find a way to experience peace every single day and if you do a little peace inventory and find your life wanting then get to yoga class and take back what only you can give away.

We will have yoga at the boathouse tonight with Claudette as I am traveling today. She may not want me to say this but Claudette radiates peace in a way that is deep and rare. She will guide you to move your body with awareness and with the intention of peace; to strengthen and to lengthen the body within the embrace of peace; to contract your muscles and relax your muscles with the attitude of peace and finally to relax deeply your mind and body so that you may realize peace to the very core....AS the very core of who you are.

I read a quote the other day that said, "Tension is who you think you are while relaxation is who you really are."

Namaste,

Steve