When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds; your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.

~ Patanjali







Photo by Allan Vasconcellos

Focus

My boyfriend and I were talking over coffee in a tiny streetcorner cafe this morning when his expression changed suddenly and he said, "Baby, whatever you do, don't look at the TV." Of course the first thing I did was turn to look. What I saw was a continuously streaming video clip of a young man being beaten to death by three other men. Over and over again they played the violent scene. The sound had been turned down low, so all we knew was based on the video and accompanying captions, which weren't at all informative. A man had been killed. We didn't know why. We didn't know when. All we were sure of was the terrible sensation of being assaulted again and again by ugly images. Feeling unsettled, we paid our bill and left to walk back home. "That was a public news program," Fede commented, frustrated. "There's something positive going on somewhere in this city. I'm sure of it! Why weren't they talking about that?" I didn't have an answer, so I didn't say anything, just nodded my head.

This evening, we sat together working to transform this blog to accommodate our new location. We sifted through the photos we've taken since coming to Buenos Aires looking for an appropriate new image. What we landed on, finally, was a tiny sliver of the most unlikely picture taken on the banks of the Rio de la Plata. It was crooked, out of focus, and not at all pretty, but there was something, some glimmer, that captured what I was feeling when I took the snapshot that made it just right. As Fede cropped and arranged I said, "It's so funny how Photoshop can work such magic. All you need is a fragment out of a total mess and you can preserve what's beautiful." "It can work the opposite too though," he responded. "Remember the news this morning?"

Life is just like that. It's good and bad, beautiful and ugly, messy and perfect, scary and sublime all at the same time. It takes acceptance of both sides to attain balance and wholeness, of course, because there will always be some of each.

Still, it's important to realize we get to choose what we zoom in on and what we crop out.

Burbujas!

Last December, l went to a 5-year-old's birthday party on the beach. lt was everything you'd expect from a kid's party: chocolate cake, presents and party favors, plus the added bonus of almond & palm trees to climb and play under with the ocean just a short sprint away through the sand. lt was the kind of fiesta even the adults could enjoy. Every child was sent away with little bags of fun: spinning tops, candies, mini action figures, and ice cream cone-shaped bottles of bubbles suspended on strings long enough to hang around your neck. Before l left, as always one of the last to leave the beach, Katherine (the birthday boy's mom), giggling, gave me my very own bottle of bubbles, which l didn't need to pretend at all was supercool. l put the string right over my head, unwound the cap and gave the wand a long blow in gratitude. Blue-tinted bubbles spewed out into the breeze and we all laughed out loud. Seeing how much l enjoyed them, Katherine offered me the last left-over bottle of red bubbles as well. Thinking maybe Karen would like them, l thanked her, said happy birthday to little Garrett, and headed home walking up the mountain, the bottle of blue bubbles bouncing against my chest as l hiked. With no shame whatsoever l confess to blowing them more than a few times along the way.

When l got home, Karen was sitting on the back balcony. She had her back to me and was staring out at our meager glimpse of ocean. l couldn't see her face, but from her posture could tell that she was feeling sad. l went around the side of her and sat down in one of the chairs. "Hey," l said cautiously. She looked like she'd been crying.
"Everything ok?" l asked.
"Not really," she replied and began telling me about what had her so down. As she was explaining, she noticed the blue plastic ice cream cone dangling around my neck (it wasn't exactly fashionable or small). She stopped mid-sentence, scrunched her eyebrows together and said, "What's that around your neck?"
"Bubbles," l told her, looking down and remembering they were there.
"Bubbles?" she asked, sounding a little bit like a sourpuss grown up. l blew bubbles at her. She just stared at me kind of like l was a little bit stupid. But when l fished in my handbag and said, "l brought some for you toooo-ooo," and revealed the red cone, her entire face lit up in a slightly reluctant smile. The latest drama temporarily forgotten, we sat on the back porch blowing streams of bubbles out across the backyard not saying a word. l have no idea what happened to Kar's bubbles after we moved apart and l moved in with Fede. (l hope she still blows them and smiles once in awhile.) Mine fell into the hands of 4-year-old Adira, our new downstairs neighbor's little girl.

She'd wander up to our place now and then and find whatever she could to play with. l saw the familiar brightening of face the first time she noticed the bubbles on the kitchen counter. "Burbujas!!!" she shrieked and started jumping up and down excitedly until l handed them down to her. She hopped around the house blowing and giggling as they fell down all around her until her father came up to collect her and bring her home. She cried so much when he told her she had to go that l let her keep the bubbles. Of course l knew they were in better hands, but still felt a small pang as l watched her go with them.

Months later in Nicaragua, walking down a street on the way back to our hotel in Masaya, l stopped in my tracks beside a sidewalk vendor. He had bottles of bubbles in all shapes and sizes dangling from strings amid suspended bags of chips and snacks. Fede followed my gaze and bright face and said, "Ohhh oookaaay," and asked the vendor to please take one down. l blew them down all three remaining blocks back to the hotel. Fede walked ahead, shaking his head slightly, but laughing.

Back in Manuel Antonio, l initiated a new house rule, applicable to everyone within its walls, as l put the new bubbles on the kitchen counter: lf you see them, you have to blow them. Since then, at least of few sprays of colorful fun have brightened up our every day. Josie's lightened up the mood with them during concentrated work sessions with Fede. Erin has blown her share while visiting for breakfast or lunch. My mom and dad showered us with some while they were in town. Even my friend Meg from home took her share of turns. Jessica's 7-year-old son Julian filled the apartment with bubbles, blowing through the wand with the bottle around his neck during a recent visit. Anyone who's eyes have fallen on them, no matter their age, status, or origin, has happily unwound the wand, shimmered bubbles all about and finished smiling.

This morning, l woke up and put on my glasses. The first thing l saw was that bottle of bubbles sitting on the bedside table. Before l even sat up, l blew a few clusters up into the air. As they rained down softly and popped landing on my skin, l wondered in my early morning haze, "What is it about bubbles that always makes you feel so happy?" Maybe it's that they very simply remind us of so much we already know. Floating spheres of different sizes, colors, and duration, all made of the same substance, drifting surrounded, impelled by, and filled with the same invisible stuff. They are beautifully contained space. And when they diminish, they're still exactly what they were, minus the shiny outer shell; you just can't see them anymore. They're like the giant planets and stars, microscopic molecules, or even us. maybe it's because they show us the truth of existence in a playful second. They remind us to enjoy the fleeting trip that we all have, the little things. They remove the weight and make us feel the lightness we are, all in a colorful instant.

l got out of bed and lit a candle on the balcony, got a cushion from the couch and sat down. l closed my eyes and breathed the fresh morning. At first, there were lots of thoughts, sensations, weight to wrestle with, and achy awarenesses. But the longer l just sat there breathing, l found the sameness between what was outside my bubble and within. l found the peace in that, the truth in the space, and then lifted up and floated off into my day.

Slow down.

Where are you rushing off to?


b r e a t h e

Pay attention.

THlS is life.

There are hundreds of paths up the mountain, all leading in the same direction, so it doesn't matter which path you take. The only one wasting time is the one who runs around and around the mountain telling everyone else that their path is wrong.

~Hindu Teaching

Continuity

l've been having so many aches and pains lately they've become an excuse for not practicing. l can't practice today because my back hurts too much from sleeping in this awful bed. l can't practice because l have menstrual cramps. l have a headache. My neck hurts from the chiropractic adjustment l received a few days ago. Even as a yoga teacher and long-time practitioner/believer, sometimes l manage to forget that it really is the cure-all for everything. Our laziness has a way of telling us lies sometimes and when we're out of practice (perhaps as a result of listening to that lazy voice) we might tend to take the route that seems easier. The whole thing turns into a vicious cycle. Precisely why we need to practice our way out of it.

My screaming low back finally spoke louder than the lazy voice and led me grimacing to my mat. Just a gentle practice, is what l told myself, coercing myself into Savasana to begin. The Earth, as always, rose up to catch me as l lay myself down. Then, all those other little voices inside of every ache and pain became audible enough for me to hear. l listened in to every whisper, every twinge and groan, and coaxed openness where things had been shut down for too long, sent kindness where it was needed. l hugged myself over and over again until l felt better all over, outside and in, even way deep down. Then, l spread out and let the Earth hug me too, and remembered that l'm just a speck of substance in a great, swirling universe. l sat up feeling much lighter for all my realization.

Sri Pattabi Jois passed away today. l read the news when l logged onto the internet this morning. l never practiced with him. ln fact, l've never even practiced in an Ashtanga class. But yoga is yoga to me, whether you practice on a mat in your own home or studio, in an ashram in lndia, or on a surfboard out in the ocean, and l gave a moment of pause, gratitude to the spirit of him for guiding so many to their paths. l thought of my own teacher, who'd followed his way and is surely feeling the loss today, and sent love to her. Surely, his light has not gone out, for people far and wide are glowing with the tiny flicker he passed on that has been regularly stoked and passed on in turn. lt's important to remember those who lit your flame with love, honor, reverence. More important still to know it's up to you to keep it burning.

The light within me bows to light within you.
Namaste.

Reflection

Everything's reflective.

The sun,
admiring itself in the open sea.

The sky-kissed surfaces of the shiny black rocks.

My boyfriend's camera lens.

Each of us to each other
and others to us.


We should remember this whenever we start to compare.

Only Breath

Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu
Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion

or cultural system. I am not from the East
or the West, not out of the ocean or up

from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not
composed of elements at all. I do not exist,

am not an entity in this world or in the next,
did not descend from Adam and Eve or any

origin story. My place is placeless, a trace
of the traceless. Neither body or soul.

I belong to the beloved, have seen the two
worlds as one and that one call to and know,

first, last, outer, inner, only that
breath breathing human being.

~Jelaluddin Rumi
From Essential Rumi
by Coleman Barks

Why do I teach yoga?

When a wave of ocean tumbles onto the shore, the white, salty froth disperses into thousands of little foam islands of all different shapes and sizes. But as the water recedes back into itself, each individual is collected back into the frothy fold. They never really left each other, but I bet they thought they did. The spaces between them after such togetherness must have felt like emptiness for sure, when all along, they were swimming in their own source.

To me, even more interesting is the rim of foam that edges the sea as it rolls out upon the beach. Though this rolls on further away from the rest, it stays connected, each bubble one with the others besides it, as if holding hands to create an invisible barrier to send all the rest back home. Not to create separation, water from land and vice versa; merely to remind them where they come from. It remains behind in absolute surrender, embracing the sand with absolute acceptance until they melt into one. And they are, after all. Are they not? Millions of years of embracing like that is how the sand came to be. The whole planet, born out of a love so big that a single grain of sand, a tiny island of substance, could not possibly know.