Darlings,

Darlings,

In Lady Yoga fashion, it is my goal to look back in history to see where we have come from, find the yoga in the moments past to keep us rooted in the present and passionate about where we are going in the future.

On that note...

Our collective intention today is to celebrate the idea of unconditional love. Many of this feel this in the love of another or the love of the passion or the purpose we have in life. But is it so very obvious and evident in the love given from an animal. The words they can’t speak we can see in the quiet love and nurturing back unconditionally towards us. It’s the same nurturing we feel when we practice yoga, if we chose to accept it. It might not look as cute and fluffy as a puppy, but our practice is there to give back to us unconditionally and fuel that love forward. Today, we honor the anniversary of the founding of the ASPCA-the prevention of cruelty to animals back on this day April 10, back in 1866. The Society spurred on many humane movements from pets to people for over a century, engaging in the reminder and awareness of all living things and that love is all you need…unconditionally.

On April 10, 1866, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) is founded in New York City by 54 year old philanthropist and diplomat Henry Bergh.

Nine days later, the first effective anti-cruelty law in the United States was passed, allowing the ASPCA to investigate complaints of animal cruelty and to make arrests.

From slaughter houses to house pets, he worked with police, schools etc. to educate and eradicate abuse. As the pioneer and innovator of the humane movement, the ASPCA quickly became the model for more than 25 other humane organizations in the United States and Canada. And by the time Bergh died in 1888, 37 of the 38 states in the Union had passed anti-cruelty laws.

Bergh’s dramatic street rescues of mistreated horses and livestock served as a model for those trying to protect abused children.

Mercy to animals means mercy to mankind. Henry Bergh

A dog will teach you unconditional love. If you can have that in your life, things won't be too bad. Robert Wagner

Groundless hope, like unconditional love, is the only kind worth having. John Perry Barlow

Unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right…is stronger than evil triumphant. Martin Luther King, Jr.

If you make the unconditional commitment to reach your most important goals, if the strength of your decision is sufficient, you will find the way and the power to achieve your goals. Robert Conklin

Love is supreme and unconditional; like is nice but limited. Duke Ellington

No other terms than unconditional and immediate surrender. I propose to move immediately upon your works. Ulysses S. Grant

The greatest gift that you can give to others is the gift of unconditional love and acceptance. Brian Tracy

The only love worthy of a name is unconditional. John Powell

Intense love does not measure, it just gives. Mother Teresa

There’s nothing wrong with tough love, as long as the love is unconditional. George W. Bush

To give and not expect return, that is what lies at the heart of love. Oscar Wilde

True love begins when nothing is looked for in return. Antoine de Saint – Exupéry

Only when we give joyfully, without hesitation or thought of gain, can we truly know what love means. – Leo Buscaglia

The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them. Thomas Merton

Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get–only with what you are expecting to give–which is everything. Katherine Hepburn

Love is, above all, the gift of oneself. Jean Anouilh

Love someone for who they are, who they were, and who they will be. Chris Moore

Give love and unconditional acceptance to those you encounter, and notice what happens. Wayne Dyer

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. – Rumi

Only from the heart Can you touch the sky. – Rumi

Love rests on no foundation. It is an endless ocean, with no beginning or end. Rumi

Love is a force that connects us to every strand of the universe, an unconditional state that characterizes human nature, a form of knowledge that is always there for us if only we can open ourselves to it. Emily Hilburn Sell

As you continue to send out love, the energy returns to you in a regenerating spiral... As love accumulates, it keeps your system in balance and harmony. Love is the tool, and more love is the end product. – Sara Paddison

Harmonizing heart and brain through love is what can establish a complete intelligence, a complete self, where a child can look at life and realize there are no dead ends, there are always possibilities. The greatest gift a parent can give a child during all the ups and downs of life is love. Doc Childre

Love is the best medicine, and there is more than enough to go around once you open your heart. Julie Marie

You'll discover that real love is millions of miles past falling in love with anyone or anything. When you make that one effort to feel compassion instead of blame or self-blame, the heart opens again and continues opening. Sara Paddison

Our true identity is to love without fear and insecurity. Our higher potential finds us when we set our course in that direction. The power of love and compassion transforms insecurity. Doc Childre

**Love the heart that hurts you, but never hurt the heart that loves you. Vipin Sharma

Enthusiasm created from the heart is the spirit of the matter. It ignites your whole system so there's no drag, no resistance, no thoughts like "Do I have to?" coming from the head to sabotage the power of your surrender. Sara Paddison

Love fulfilled sees where we could have gone the way of love before, if we'd known how, and how insecurities limited many of our choices. Love fulfilled perceives new meaning and higher reasons behind many of the mysteries of why things happened as they did. Living from the heart is business — the business of caring for self and others. Doc Childre

Love is not automatic. It takes conscious practice and awareness, just like playing the piano or golf. However, you have ample opportunities to practice. Everyone you meet can be your practice session. Doc Childre and Sara Paddison

If we seek to manifest love by utilizing our inherent abilities to serve others in whatever we are doing, we find the greatest opportunity for development, for then we are giving expression to our love for our neighbors and ourselves. David McArthur and Bruce McArthur

Love isn't just for the smart of talented, but for all the animals God created. Sarah Wonders

True love does not come by finding the perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly. Jason Jordan

Grief and tragedy and hatred are only for a time. Goodness, remembrance and love have no end. George W. Bush

Love is fire. But whether it's gonna warm your heart or burn your house down you can never tell. Jason Jordan

Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need. Mary Baker Eddy

The devotion of thought to an honest achievement makes the achievement possible. Exceptions only confirm this rule, proving that failure is occasioned by a too feeble faith. Mary Baker Eddy

Perfect love is rare indeed - for to be a lover will require that you continually have the subtlety of the very wise, the flexibility of the child, the sensitivity of the artist, the understanding of the philosopher, the acceptance of the saint, the tolerance of the scholar and the fortitude of the certain. Leo Buscaglia

You can understand the facts of life. But facts of love are much different. To love you love someone or someone loves you.. But when you both love each other you're in love with one another. First become friends and let it go. Then get serious and get together. Just make yourself known as a person not as someone you don't want to be known as... Unknown

***Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart. And try to love the questions themselves. Rainer Maria Rilke

If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it was, and always will be yours. If it never returns, it was never yours to begin with. Unknown

***Love doesn't make the world go 'round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile. – Franklin P. Jones

Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love. – Hamilton Wright Mabie

Trouble is part of your life — if you don't share it, you don't give the person who loves you a chance to love you enough. – Dinah Shore

***True love never lives happily ever after - true love has no ending. K. Knight

***We are, each of us angels with only one wing; and we can only fly by embracing one another. – Luciano de Crescenzo

The thought manifests as the word. The word manifests as the deed. The deed develops into habit. And the habit hardens into character. So watch the thought and its ways with care. And let it spring from love, born out of concern for all beings. -Buddha

from The Lathe of Heaven Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new. –Ursula K. LeGuin

What you love is a sign from your higher self of what you are to do. –Sanaya Roman

Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much perfoms much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well. – Vincent Van Gogh

To love is to receive a glimpse of heaven. – Karen Sunde

If we discovered that we had only five minutes left to say all that we wanted to say, every telephone booth would be occupied by people calling other people to stammer that they loved them. Christopher Morley

I have never met a person whose greatest need was anything other than real, unconditional love. You can find it in a simple act of kindness toward someone who needs help. There is no mistaking love. You feel it in your heart. It is the common fiber of life, the flame of that heats our soul, energizes our spirit and supplies passion to our lives. It is our connection to God and to each other. Elizabeth Kubler- Ross

In all that we do let us do it for love. Chris Cotton

You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection. Buddha

The day will come when, after harnessing the winds, the tides and gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of Love. And on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire. Teilhard deChardin

Love fails, only when we fail to love. J. Franklin

Love is friendship set on fire. Jeremy Irons

To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides. David Viscott

Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love and be loved is the greatest happiness of existence. Sydney Smith

Love is the force that ignites the spirit and binds teams together. Phil Jackson

The world is too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything but love.

We can never really love anybody with whom we never laugh.

Love is in the giver, not the gift. William Sloan Coffin

Where there is great love there are always miracles. Willa Cather

To love is to place our happiness in the happiness of another. G. W. Von Leibnitz

If you don't have it here (pointing to the heart), it doesn't matter what you've got here (pointing at the head). Barbara Johnson

Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved.

Fear less, hope more, eat less, chew more, whine less, breathe more, talk less, say more, love more, and all good things will be yours. – Sweedish Proverb

Love is the difficult realization that something other than oneself is real. Iris Murdoch

Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved. - Barbara Johnson

Love and magic have a great deal in common. They enrich the soul, delight the heart. And they both take practice. Nora Roberts

Love is not just looking at each other, it's looking in the same direction. Antoine de Saint-Exupery (ex-yooh-pe-ree)

For in the end, we will conserve only what we love. We will love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught. Baba Dioum

The pain of love is the pain of being alive. It is a perpetual wound. – Maureen Duffy

The secret of love is seeking variety in your life together, and never letting routine chords dull the melody of your romance. - Unknown

The Grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for. Allan K. Chalmers

In those whom I like, I can find no common denominator; in those whom I love I can: they all make me laugh. W. H. Auden

In dreams and in love there are no impossibilities. Janos Arnay

To be loved, be lovable. Ovid

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. H. L. Mencken

The most important things to do in the world are to get something to eat, something to drink and somebody to love you. Brandan Behan

Close - Don't forget to love yourself. Soren Kierkegaard

With love and patience, nothing is impossible. Daisaku Ikeda

Absence sharpens love, presence strengthens it. English Proverb

Love is but the discovery of ourselves in others, and the delight in the recognition. – Alexander Smith

It is not how much you do, but how much Love you put into the doing that matters. Mother Teresa

Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of our tasks; the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation. Rainer Maria Rilke

Nirvana or lasting enlightenment or true spiritual growth can be achieved only through persistent exercise of real love. M. Scott Peck, M.D

Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love. Albert Einstein

We can do no great things; only small things with great love. Mother Teresa

No matter what, no matter where, it's always home, if love is there. -Unknown

If we deny love that is given to us, if we refuse to give love because we fear pain or loss, then our lives will be empty, our loss greater.

He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much. Bessie Stanley

Love is not automatic. It takes conscious practice and awareness…(like yoga – added by me) However, you have ample opportunities to practice. Everyone you meet can be your practice session. Hari

For in the end, we will conserve only what we love. We will love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught. Baba Dioum

Love, salty licks from dogs, snuggles and purrs from kittys and unconditionally yours,

Lady

Darlings,

In Lady Yoga fashion, it is my goal to look back in history to see where we have come from, find the yoga in the moments past to keep us rooted in the present and passionate about where we are going in the future.

On that note...

On this day, April 3rd 1860, The Pony Express debuted bringing mail between Missouri and California in a speedy 10 days. It was a time before Radio, telephones and only lasted 18 months before the telegraph was invented but it was the start of rapid communication and union between people and places far and wide. A form of yoga, which we don’t always think in terms of our instant communication these days but when we communicate, we connect and when we connect we are in yoga, just like when we come to the mat to connect with ourselves.

Great timing for this lesson.

Mercury is in retrograde so communication is especially difficult around now.

Communication is not just with words, but also with thoughts. As our collective intention today, in practice and in our daily routine, focus on the communication of swift but kind words within so that swift and kind thoughts and words can be sent out…pony express style.

To speak and to speak well are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks. ~Ben Jonson

If you wouldn't write it and sign it, don't say it. ~Earl Wilson

By swallowing evil words unsaid, no one has ever harmed his stomach. ~Winston Churchill

The kindest word in all the world is the unkind word, unsaid. ~Unknown

Talking is like playing on the harp; there is as much in laying the hands on the strings to stop their vibration as in twanging them to bring out their music. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

People have to talk about something just to keep their voice boxes in working order so they'll have good voice boxes in case there's ever anything really meaningful to say. ~Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Cat's Cradle

Euphemisms are unpleasant truths wearing diplomatic cologne. Quentin Crisp

Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech. Martin Farquhar Tupper

The true genius shudders at incompleteness - and usually prefers silence to saying something which is not everything it should be. ~Edgar Allan Poe

The trouble with talking too fast is you may say something you haven't thought of yet. ~Ann Landers

Everything becomes a little different as soon as it is spoken out loud. ~Hermann Hesse

The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right place but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment. ~Dorothy Nevill

The easiest way to save face is to keep the lower half shut. ~Unknown

Be careful of your thoughts; they may become words at any moment. Ira Gassen

Foolishness always results when the tongue outraces the brain. ~Unknown

The words you choose to say something are just as important as the decision to speak. ~Author Unknown

It is better to keep one's mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and resolve all doubt. ~Abraham Lincoln

Every conversational pause refreshes. ~George Sanders

Isn't it surprising how many things, if not said immediately, seem not worth saying ten minutes from now? ~Arnot L. Sheppard, Jr. (arnawt)

Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret. ~Ambrose Bierce

Once a word has been allowed to escape, it cannot be recalled. ~Horace

Don't speak unless you can improve on the silence. ~Spanish Proverb

One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say. ~Will Durant

If writers wrote as carelessly as some people talk, then adhasdh asdglaseuyt[bn[ pasdlgkhasdfasdf. ~Lemony Snicket

Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving evidence of the fact. ~George Eliot

Calvin: Sometimes when I'm talking, my words can't keep up with my thoughts. I wonder why we think faster than we speak.

Hobbes: Probably so we can think twice. - Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes

Not the fastest horse can catch a word spoken in anger. ~Chinese Proverb

Never miss a good chance to shut up. ~Will Rogers

One way to prevent conversation from being boring is to say the wrong thing. ~Frank Sheed

Talk to people about themselves and they will listen for hours. ~Benjamin Disraeli

Discussion is an exchange of knowledge; argument an exchange of ignorance. ~Robert Quillen

The difference between a smart man and a wise man is that a smart man knows what to say, a wise man knows whether or not to say it. ~Frank M. Garafola

I just wish my mouth had a backspace key. ~Unknown

No man would listen to you talk if he didn't know it was his turn next. ~E.W. Howe

If you keep your mouth shut you will never put your foot in it. ~Austin O'Malley

If everybody thought before they spoke, the silence would be deafening. ~George Barzan

Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them. ~Adlai Stevenson

The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn't being said. ~Unknown

Always and never are two words you should always remember never to use. ~Wendell Johnson

Talk is cheap because supply exceeds demand. ~Unknown

Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference. ~Unknown, attributed to Mark Twain

Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut. ~Ernest Hemingway

Message sent,

Lady