Say Yes to Life with Year Long Meditation

We know that our breathing is the inhaling and exhaling of air. Air is all around us, and when we take the oxygen into our lungs we are saying, YES to life. The lungs that lie round the heart, with the air passing through them, envelope the heart. Thus, breathing is a natural way to touch the heart.

And so, having collected your mind within you, lead it into the channel of breathing through which air reaches the heart. With this inhaled air, force your mind to descend into the sweet space where your true self rests and to open the gateway to something more profound than your intellect. Open to love, your intrinsic true nature. This is the gift of meditation!

Meditation is the conscious refined mind linked to this true nature. Bringing our roaming overactive thoughts into direct awareness of the grace of breath opens the door for wonder. To go beyond our daily habit of linking to all the distractions of mindless noise and instead link to the breath, which allows us to enter into a sanctuary of inner peace. This is the greatest tool of practicing yoga. —Yes, yoga offers the tool of meditation. It is a primary tool; and yet, everyone just believes it’s all about asana.

I am amazed when students call the studio and ask if we teach meditation. All yoga is bringing the busy mind into a refined steady place of focusing. it’s a practice which takes time and commitment. We can all benefit from great physical practice of strong postures, but that’s not the goal of yoga. The intention is for the agitation of mind to be able to move into a direct focus, and be able to sustain that focus, by first relaxing the tensions from gross to subtle. The beauty of practice offers a shift in the nervous system so the physical body is not being driven by the adrenals and the ego’s learned habits of avoiding being present.

In today’s busy and over extended world, we need all the tools we can gather to create a lifestyle that is not moving us into more suffering. Tools to help us ease our stresses and find more joy in being our best self. As a community of like minded souls, I am concerned that we are moving into directions filled with negative thoughts. I know that fighting or arguing with the outer world can only lead to more frustration and we lose the sense of feeling empowered to make greater changes in the world for kindness and inspiration of hope.

Therefore, Yoga Among Friends is thrilled and honored to be included in the year long commitment of meditation and joining of intentions for a better global world view with The Himalayan Institute and my dear teacher, Pandit Rajamni Tigunait. Whether you are just beginning a meditation practice or have been a dedicated student for many years, I’m passionate that our combined contribution of making a daily practice will have a huge ripple effect that will extend pass our small community.

The Year Long Meditation initiative is a global endeavor, and the shifting consciousness from hate to love is what must be felt as possible. I want to invite you to join in. If you are inspired to join on your own please sign up here and you can start tracking your own practice. You can also learn more here.

We can bring positive change by our collective consciousness expanding and benefiting all of us with a mutual understanding, wisdom and compassion with unconditional love. I know this to be true! And I am so passionate that we cannot stop hatred with anger, but with the light of bringing our hearts into a greater positive direction.

Meditation heals and let’s start here. Marina offers the Meditative Flow class as her Sunday offering, and Lisa teaches Meditation for Adults and Teens on Tuesday evenings. But know that all our classes bring us into reflection and breath awareness. I will also be starting in September a meditation class on Monday nights at 7:30pm in the small studio as my commitment offering.

In addition to meditation, I am excited to announce that on Wednesday, August 14, we will be participating in the first Global Yoga Therapy Day! I and three other C-IAYT yoga therapists will be on hand from 9am-4pm to offer FREE one-on-one yoga therapy sessions of 30 min each to those who have never tried yoga therapy. Each participant will gain a better understanding of and experience first hand the work of a yoga therapist. You’ll learn how we help assess and create a healthy practice to remove pain and suffering from physical injuries, emotional mood imbalances, and the suffering from autoimmune diseases. Please sign up for free sessions on our website. If you can’t make it, check out the live event on Facebook.

All of us at YAF extend our heartfelt appreciation to all of you for continuing to support us as a place of healing hearts. I personally know that we need community now more than ever in this ever-changing landscape of technology and corporations that leave us without the feeling of belonging. As we journey together on the path of promoting better thoughts, let’s rejoice that we are fortunate enough to be able to help the sweet earth. Together we are the service of intentional consciousness, and we are even more dynamic together.

Thank you and blessings for saying, YES TO LIFE.

LJ

The Celestial Treat of Spring

Welcoming the return of Spring is a celestial treat for my soul. Right as the sun moves into her presentation of longer days on our side of the earth, the glorious full moon is holding her own precisely on the equinox. It is not very common for the solar and lunar calendars to converge and when they do, it is a sign of more synchronized moments to follow. It is an auspicious time to be celebrated.

This is the holding of pure balance between the opposites when dark and light, yin and yang are in perfect balance and harmony. Beginnings are once again presenting their gifts through nature as the life buds and the trees are regaining their garments, and the sounds of spring are awakening. We are witnessing what true miracles as the mystery of intelligence says I AM.

The next 30 days are a gateway for listening. A great time to redefine who you are, reinvent yourself, return to your body and decide what part of your personality or life you need to liberate in order to gain the gateway into your true self.

The ritual of Spring Cleaning is upon us. Our own divine inner self is calling to purify and let go of what is no longer serving the greater good.  Whatever has not been properly allowed to become conscious cannot be digested nor assimilated and therefore cannot be properly eliminated. We hold on to the past as a safety net of regrets covering our possibilities forward. Fear gives us hidden permission to stay stuck in our own muck! 

My teacher, Mr. TKV Desikachar, would say that the practice of yoga is 95% purification for 5% percent of awareness —that the tools of breath must be established for the lungs to help with the purifying the blood.

A breath of air is inhaled, and the oxygen from the air comes in contact with the impure blood through the thin walls of the blood vessels in the pulmonary capillaries. As oxygen comes in contact with the tissue, a form of combustion takes place. The blood takes up the oxygen and releases carbonic acid gas generated from the waste products which has been gathered up by the blood from all parts of the body.

Now the purified blood is assisted by the circulation of the heart. From the capillaries, the lymph of the blood exudes, bathes and nourishes the tissues of the body. The tissues take up the oxygen and leave the carbon dioxide. The impurities travel up the veins to the right side of the heart where the cycle begins again with every breath and heart beat.

Life is happening as the miracle of our intelligence. We take for granted the incredible working of our brilliant systems. However, the moment we consciously exhale longer and begin a slight pause after the exhale, well life has the assistance to flow in with a greater abundance of vital Heath. To actually begin a practice of breathing, we are in co-creation to our divine nature.

But Spring is the time we are renewed with the magic of our inner wizard allowing us to wake up and connect to the miracle of life simply in saying YES. Go out, walk, and take in the beauty of the birth. Take in the fresh scent of life as we enter sweet April, which in ancient mystic teachings is considered the month of miracles.

In our hemisphere, spring means longer days and the birth of life. The full moon holds the female energy of going inward as the sun brings forth the male energy of action. The full moon equinox gives us the power to complete things we started in the past and could never muster the desire of will or energy to bring into fruition. Doors are now opening and opportunities are being presented with the return of this magical season.

I welcome Spring especially after this crazy winter polar vortex! The blessings bestowed are so appreciated as I continue our commitment to renewed health of mind, body and soul with the fires of enthusiasm at YAF as we take in another April fools day as God’s fool. That fateful beginning is the  comic joke of synchronized timing which never ceases to make me laugh. Having opened on April 1, 1998, I never doubt the pure fun of my inner mystic! 

I hope to inspire anyone that wants a deeper understanding of these ancient tools of living life with more joy to consider my teacher training that starts in September. It’s a way to go deeper and nourish that hidden unspoken place of longing to grow. It’s not the outcome, but the journey, and it’s a great opportunity for understanding how the tools of Yoga heal! The course is for those students who either want to explore teaching or just want their own practice to be more defined. Julie Pate and I will be hosting an information meeting and discussion on Saturday, May 4 from 1-2pm for those wanting to learn more. You can also visit teacher training on our website.

Blessings,
Laura Jane

"Attention is the Beginning of Devotion"

In deep respect to the brilliance of this quote (from my poet hero, Mary Oliver), I have spent the last few weeks watching how upside down and right side up our world presents itself as pure confusion and how quickly we shift perspectives. Years ago, I had a close student and friend who struggled with her embarrassment.

“Attention is the beginning of devotion.”

— Mary Oliver, 1935-2019

She was nervous to share that she worked for the branch of government called the TSA. She was ashamed and carried a belief that people were judging her for this job. She assumed she was a nuisance to the public as she endured endless long days of abuse and frustration from the many travelers annoyed with her required duties. I would listen to her and try and shift this perspective by helping her see the value in what she was doing for those many years of hard work.

Today, because of the government shutdown, the role of TSA is now seen as an unsung hero. There were cheers of gratitude and exchanges of “thank you” as I waited through the long and tedious lines back from California during the shutdown. I marveled at how public opinion can change and how our learned bias opinions are simply a perspective that can be shifted by holding the opposite.  

Yoga is a system of tools that help the mind hold balance in opposites. A state of yoga is a mind that is balanced. If I follow only what I like, it will without doubt lead to future pain. All addictive behavior starts with pleasure seeking, until the pleasure turns to pain.  If I avoid what I don’t like, I will remain in my pain and actually create more pain.

If the mind actually moves into attention of its habits, it allows for a space of grace for me to reveal a discerned choice. This glimmer of consciousness is the beginning of devotion. To be able to witness and hold opposites, and move in the direction that is going to serve the highest good for all, is the beginning of devotion to something greater.

Avoiding fear and discomfort is the path of a mind unwilling to let go and expand its consciousness. By making an effort to move into another thought and actually experience a shift of habit, is the practice of yoga. The ability to see from another perspective, and with compassion, is the opening of LOVE.

Love is not a striving (or a doing) of my constant desire to get love. It is a willingness to BE LOVE.  The pure action of love is opening, expanding and the willingness to let go of judgement, bias opinion, and the fear of not getting love. Survival is fear. Thriving in life is the gift of feeling the profound joy of being love.

I only know that to use fear as a manipulative vehicle is not in the integrity of this vibrational Truth. For example, trying to inspire health, by promoting fear of disease, is not going to change the mind to move to respect for life. To teach yoga as an outcome to win, or to be better than someone else, is also not in holding respect for the tools.

 I can only smile more, hug more. Let’s just commit to attention for a practice of being kinder to ourselves and see how little it takes to be the kindness you want to experience in the world. Attention to this vibration is the beginning of something that words cannot explain or understand. The intelligence of life is love and it is felt. Live, laugh, love and let go as you move forward through the heart. Thank you, dear Mary Oliver, for being this voice of devotion for me.