Greetings!

 

12.12.12. Something about this date thrills me. 

 

I'm contemplating 12 today. How about you?

• What are 12 aspects of your life for which you are thankful?
• What are 12 practices, routines, or habits (whether annually, monthly, weekly or daily) that support your well-being?
• What are 12 dreams, desires, and aspirations that you want to experience in this lifetime? 

 

I don't know what comes to mind for you, but franticness, exhaustion, and stress are not included in my responses. During this season of great beauty, we tend to have even more than usual on our calendars. How can we experience it all with genuine joy, love, peace, and vitality?  

 

...By intentionally, deliberately, keeping first things first. Putting first things first enables us to experience all of life - gatherings with family and friends, gift making/purchasing and receiving, fitness routines, business transactions, everything - from a limitless abundance of always present joy, love, and peace. 

This image inspires me as it reminds us of this: 

 

 

"OM" or "AUM" is the core sound of all of life, containing all sounds. (For a modern Western scientific take on this concept, check out quantum physics - specifically string theory / superstring theory.) 

 

Voicing AUM, as we sometimes do in yoga classes, is one practice that can help us center in the heart of it all. One might say that the sound of AUM is the sound of first things first. 

 

Even if voicing "OM" isn't currently your thing, what are the practices - the actions you repeatedly choose to engage - that connect you with your greatest authenticity? That open you to joy, love, and peace even (especially) in the midst of full schedules? 

 

I'd love to hear from you about what comes to mind for you on 12.12.12. And I'd be delighted to see you at the shala in this month of December, as together we practice putting first things first.

 

 

With joy,

Kassie

Director, Yoga Sukha Shala