Now that kids are finally back in school, we have resumed our regular schedule. Tuesday and Thursday noon Hour of Power classes are back as well as Wednesday 9:30 a.m. Vinyasa. We look forward to seeing you in class soon!

JOIN US IN MAGICAL BRAZIL!

200-HR VINYASA TEACHER TRAINING WITH CARINA TERRA, LIZ DOYLE & ALI VALDEZ 

Terra Yoga: February 22-24th 
Garopaba, Brazil March 1-14th

Terra Yoga: March 22-24th

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Ancient Wisdom & Modern Insights.

I hope you've had a great summer.

I've recently had the pleasure of seeing Samsara (a nonverbal, non-narrative film) at the state-of-the-art Cinerama movie theater in Seattle. Samsara is a Sanskrit word that means "the ever turning wheel of life." This nonfictional film feels like a visual guided meditation on the cycle of birth, death and rebirth, taking the viewer through both beautiful and disturbing images that represent the totally of our human experience and our connection to each other and to nature. The images in this film flow seamlessly from one to the next like the waters of a river into the ocean, or one yoga pose to the next in a well-sequenced Vinyasa class.

This film is a beautiful visual lesson in yogic philosophy. As I often say in class, asana practice mimics life.  While we are practicing yoga on our mats, we learn lessons that we can apply to our life off the mat. The flow of birth, death and rebirth that we experience in the film Samsara can be represented symbolically when we come together to practice yoga: we can start off as an infant being born in Balasana (Child's pose), mature into more elaborate poses during the flow of the practice, reach a peak pose, gradually slow down and cool off, and then take Savasana (Corpse pose) -- representing the death of the practice -- only to be born again when we get into a fetal position in preparation to sit up and live our other life off the mat... And the wheel of Samsara continues to spin as we come back to our mats over and over again.

If I had to sum up this film in a few words, I would say it is about "interconnectedness" and "impermanence."

INTERCONNECTEDNESS

At the core of the yoga teachings is the idea that we are all interconnected. Yoga means "union" or "to yoke." We are individual cells in the vast body of the cosmos, all with different but vital roles to play so the universe can function harmoniously as a whole. However, while experiencing life solely through our limited physical senses and the myopic lenses of our ego, we perceive ourselves as separate from everyone and everything else in the universe. This feeling of separateness causes suffering and pain. When we practice yoga, we start to remind ourselves that we are all part of a greater collective. As we learn to lift the veil of maya (or delusion) that limits our vision, we begin to see a part of ourselves in everything, we begin to experience compassion for ourselves and others. Albert Einstein brilliantly summed up this idea when he wrote:  "A human being is a part of a whole, called by us 'universe', a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." 

IMPERMANENCE

As a yoga teacher I have often talked about the impermanence and unpredictability of life. We can make plans, and set clear goals and intentions; however life is constantly changing and we often have no control over the outcome of our intentions.  When things don't go the way we planned, we suffer because we resist change. Therefore, it is important to practice non-attachment and to learn to be open to change so we can find contentment even when things don't go as predicted. This doesn't mean we should be passive and wait for things to fall from the sky, or stop caring because we can't control life anyway -- the latter is called detachment, which is not at all the same as non-attachment.  Detachment means "I don't care, I give up." Non-attachment involves experiencing real compassion for ourselves and others without either clinging or rejecting, while we strive to fulfill our personal dharma, or the work we came to this world to do. We are all here for a reason.  When we follow our personal dharma, we are in perfect harmony with universal dharma.  To quote my teacher Rod Stryker:  "Happiness is not about accumulating enough things that you want in your life; it's actually living with a purpose." When we focus on our dharma and not on material things, when we focus on being in the moment and not in the past or the future, then we can find true happiness. This inner joy and contentment is independent of the things that happen to us or around us. We can be in the midst of total chaos and find inner peace, once we learn to be adaptable and not resist impermanence and change -- all while working to fulfill our unique dharma. Nelson Mandela is a great example of this. Here is an extraordinary man who went to prison for what he believed was right. He could have become bitter but instead he chose to fulfill his dharma with compassion for all beings. Mandela's dedication to his dharma led to the end of apartheid in South Africa.

The film Samsara says that and much more without the use of a single word. It is a journey that you might want to embark on - it might change the way you view yourself and your relationship to the world. I highly recommend that you go experience Samsara while it is still being shown at Cinerama with its state-of-the-art screen and sound system. As with everything else in life, it won't last forever. 

Namasté!