Choose the moments of your life...

I have always loved the ocean. Looking out over the expanse of water as it meets the horizon always opens me up.   The rich colors of the beach and the sound of the waves always loosen whatever felt tight, heavy or constricted.

I suppose that's why I love yoga practice as well.  Moving my body and breath consciously for a committed amount of time is daily unwinding from the tension and heaviness that life sometimes brings.  The sound of ujjayi breath is the inner ocean coming alive, with the same soothing rhythm and quality of sound I love hearing when I'm near the shore.

I'm learning as the years go by that life is too short not to make the time for the things that bring me peace and joy.  There will always be things to do, there will always be excuses to stay caught up in whatever seems important in the moment and postpone practice or meditation.   But at some point we wake up and realize that life is moving along, and if we want peace and joy, love and self-awareness to be part of our experience, we have to choose what brings us to them.

Whatever it is for you--time in nature, sacred journeys, your daily commitment to yoga practice--that opens you up, unwinds the tension, lifts the veil of unconsciousness--choose it.  Only YOU can.  No one else can choose it for you or make it happen.  So choose it, for yourself, for the people you love, for the life you want to have now.

Deer Valley, Utah    January 2012

I am clearing a space--here where the trees stand back.  I am making a circle so open the moon will fall in love and stroke these grasses with her silver.

I am setting stones in the four directions,  stones that have called my name from mountaintops and riverbeds, canyons and mesas.  

Here I will stand with my hands empty, mind gaping under the moon.  I know there is another way to live.  When I find it, the angels will cry out in rapture, each cell of my body will be a rose, a star.

If something seized my life tonight, 

if a sudden wind swept through me, 

changing everything, I would not resist.  

I am ready for whatever comes.

But I think it will be something small, 

an animal padding out from the shadows,

 or a word spoken so softly I hear it inside.

It is dark out here, and cold.  The moon is stone. 

I am alone with my longing. Nothing is happening 

but the next breath, and the next...--Morgan Farley

To be alone with our longing, to stand with our hands empty and minds quiet, waiting for true inspiration and clear vision is an art we as a culture have lost.  The Vision Quest, vital to the people who inhabited this land before us, is all but lost to us in its original form.

And yet, asana and meditation can teach us the art of "clearing a space."  Day by day we learn to stand with hands empty and mind gaping.  We learn to listen for the words we hear from the inside. We reach the state where nothing is happening but the next breath, and the next breath.

It is a brave soul who willingly empties hands and mind and learns another way to live. It doesn't happen all at once.  As the poet says, "it will be something small."  Another way to live happens when we are brave enough to feel our longing, and we lean into it and let it shape us.  Let us all lean into our practice, our community, our stillness and the deepest longings of our heart and be the change we want to see in the dawning of this New Year.

December Newsletter, Power of Choice

Tree Seat, Near Twin Peaks, CA, August 2011

"Every night you release the spirit from its body-prison and erase the mind of memory. Each night the bird is uncaged and the waking narrative pauses.

Prisoners aren't in prison.  Governors are powerless.  No pain or aching. No worries about getting or losing.  No fantasies about this or that person.

This is the knower's state when wide awake." - Rumi

The practices of yoga and meditation give us back the freedom of choice.  All day long, the waking narrative of our life is telling us stories.  Who we like, what we prefer, what is pleasant and unpleasant, whether we are a success or a failure.  This narrative can be dictated by events or beliefs from our past, or ideas and themes chosen for us by others.

At times we live out a narrative that is not even our own story. Our perspective is skewed.  We see ourselves as governors when we truly have no power, or we see ourselves as prisoners, though we've always had keys to the cell door.

Through dedicated practice, mindful presence, open-hearted self-discovery, and grace we loosen the grip of our narrativeand glimpse the knower. As the knower, we choose the narrative we want to engage with.

If the story we are telling is a positive one, generating love and joy, we can enter it whole-heartedly.  If the story is unpleasant, limiting or painful, we can wake up from it, as if awakening from a dream. This is truly being at choice in our lives. This is the gift we give ourselves thru mindful, dedicated practice.

This season, give yourself, and by example, others around you, the greatest gift in life--the power to choose.

Blessings in this Holiday Season- Gia

Working with Pain

I've been working with a private client recently who's been in chronic pain over a long period of time, and over the course of our work together I've come to realize something interesting about the way our minds and bodies find to cope with pain.

With this particular client, my assumption was that a long relationship with an injury would heighten awareness of the area of pain and it's exact nature.  But my experience in this case has been quite different. As we are working together, when we approach a posture in which I anticipate she may have sensation, I ask whether or not the work is aggravating the area.  And what I am surprised to learn is very often she is unsure of an answer.

It seems as if in order to cope with the pain, her mind has vacated the area of sensation.  It is a challenge for her to take her mind into that place in her body and to discern what the sensation there actually is.  It's as if the area of pain has been such an uncomfortable place to be that her mind has learned to avoid the experience all together.

Through gentle exploration, and through conscious inquiry, she is learning to feel what is pain, what is tightness, and what is simply unfamiliar movement to an area of the body that's been locked away for a long period of time.

Our emotional pain and history can be quite similar.  When we've experienced unhappiness or trauma in an area of our life, our mind will sometimes do it's best to avoid that entire arena of life, sometimes to the point that we stop "going there" altogether.  That aspect of ourselves atrophies, and becomes a place we avoid in order to stop unpleasant feelings.  But just like the body, these parts of ourselves are parts we need.  And left alone, over time, the numbing that served us initially begins to leak out into other areas of our life, or to stop us from doing the things we want to do.

It takes great courage to be willing to face our pain.  My client inspires me in her dedication to the gentle practices we've put in place in her life.  Her determination to come back into her body and to learn to move and function as a whole is a testament to her inner resolve to heal.  By shining the light of conscious awareness into places that were avoided, she is reclaiming movement and freedom.

The practices of yoga inspire us to be courageous.  They invite a willingness to shine the light of conscious awareness in places we've left in the shadow.  Through loving compassion and our capacity to feel, we can revisit the places we've shut down and open the door to a more complete understanding of ourselves.  Often the places we are fearful to go are the very places we must illuminate in order to claim the fullness of our being.

Yoga doesn't promise us a pain free life.  But it does give us the capacity to be with our pain, to understand the message it has for us, and to work with it in an intelligent and loving way.     

Interview for the Austin Yoga Festival

If you're interested, check out my interview for the Texas Yoga Festival.  http://www.austinyogafestival.com/blog/interview-with-artful-vinyasa-yoga-teacher-gioconda-parker/

What wants to be...

What wants to be through me?  Sometimes when I ask myself this question, I have no idea.  At times, I have fear, or doubt, or confusion.  But none of these things are real.  What is real is the voice that comes through, inspired language that speaks and writes through me...a channel that opens in a fearless way when I step out of the pattern of anxiety and focus on the creation, not that which is blocking it.

When I go with the spark that inspires me rather than shrink back from it, I am in the flow.  When I don't, tension grows and the spark flickers. In the open space of innocence, desire and joyful creativity, there is life, excitement and exuberance.  In 2011, I pledge to devote myself to find what wants to be through me and to allow the channel to stay open.  So Be It!

December Newsletter

Recently, I've been diving into studies in Ayurveda, the "yogic health care system."  One of the first things James Bailey said that caught my attention is that Ayurveda seeks to understand the individual, and upon understanding the individual, to help them move toward their own unique balance for optimal health.  There is no external concept of "ideal" people should conform to, but rather "ideal" is informed by the individual person's constitution.  Optimal health is defined by being uniquely balanced to one's own nature.

Since then, I've been considering this same concept with a broader scope.  What would life be like if we were to determine our success based on a criteria unique to our own nature rather than measuring up to some external "ideal"?

For one thing, it would be hard to compete in a world where there wasn't a single finish line, but instead various paths going in different directions with varied lengths, challenge levels and topography.  And we'd be less tempted to value someone else's opinion of our progress since they wouldn't necessarily know our route. We'd be continually redirected to an internal compass and map, and we'd make it important to learn to use them and to feel when we're off course.

There are general guidelines in Ayurveda towards optimal health: Eating fresh and vibrant foods, resting as appropriate, taking care of our bodies.  But exactly which foods, how much rest and what kind of care depends on the individual.

In navigating life, there are general guidelines to staying on course: finding work we love and doing it wholeheartedly, spending time with friends and family, playing, practicing and giving back when we can in return for all we're given.  But again, exactly how it all comes together is as singular as our fingerprint.

When we leave behind competing & comparing, we are empowered to choose that which allows us to flourish and grow in our own uniqueness.  We begin to develop a sense of what brings us joy, harmony and vitality. We open the door to creativity and exploration.

As more of us journey our fingerprint-like individual paths, life on planet Earth becomes rich in diversity and expression...like the remarkable Red Sand Beach, beautiful and incomparable.

Love & Light this Holiday Season!  Namaste - Gioconda