Articles/Writing

Begin to end to begin…

Beginning...

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.

Today, let's celebrate the idea of new beginnings. When gathering info for this historical class, there, I uncovered many beginnings and endings. To quote Seneca, every new beginning comes from some other beginnings end.

There is a little thing called Samadhi or bliss in yoga. It's that beautiful feeling of peace while practice yoga. It sneaks up on you. Many people practice yoga because it's a great physical work out but after practicing a while, you realize you feel really good inside and out...Samadhi.

The satisfaction you have when you complete a yoga practice goes beyond the physical and you actually return to the original state you were born with, peace, calm, awareness of everything around you, openness to everything like it was the first time and wonderment. Each time we practice, we return, right back to where we started...but better.

Samadhi the 8th limb of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras and the 8 in Hot 8 where I teach yoga faithfully!

Call it one-ness or heaven or nirvana, we can experience it any time we want whether we are on the mat or in our lives by tapping into our breath and being mindful in whatever we are thinking or doing. Wherever you are, when we are one pointed in focus, fully conscious with what we are doing, engaged but in a state of surrender, our mind becomes still and we are home, residing deeply within, peacefully and passionately.

Savor that space between engaging a muscle and letting go, focussing the mind and feelings into bliss.

On May 31st 1879 Madison Square Garden opened in NYC.

...in 1907, the first taxi cabs were introduced in the states, NYC being the first city for it's swift and reliable, albeit crazy transport.

...The famous tower clock known as Big Ben, located at the top of the 320-foot-high St. Stephen's Tower, rings out over the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, London, for the first time on this day in 1859.

On June 1st, 1980 CNN launches for the first time. We no longer had to rely on the 6 and 11 o'clock news to be informed but could tune in at any hour of the day for up to the minute news around the globe. Where would we be without that information?

Ok, probably getting better sleep, but it is a source for information when and how we need it when we tune in and that is a great beginning, people!

On June 2nd Babe Ruth retires in 1935. One of the greatest baseball players of all time, he set the record of 714 home runs until that record was beat 40 years later by Hank Aaron. He was a pioneer from the Red Sox to the Yankees to the legend.

This month, Hot 8 Yoga celebrates it's one year anniversary, My HistorYoga has it it's one year mark as has the Lady Yoga Comic Strip in LA Yoga Magazine.

The Endeavor Space Shuttle makes it's final journey through space and back again after 25 years.

And one of our great role models, Oprah Winfrey, has turned off her ABC studio lights and hung up her lapel mic on the Oprah Winfrey Show of 25 years.

Things begin, they have their journey or they end, leaving room for more new beginnings.

What's your story today? What would you like to begin and what has run it's course in your life. Let the body tell you and let it unfold. Push through the sonic boom and celebrate.

Quotes

Those things of real worth in life are worth going to any length in love and respect to safeguard.

Julia Butterfly Hill

Everybody has a calling, and your real job in life is to figure out what that is and get about the business of doing it. It lights you up and it lets you know that you are exactly where you're supposed to be, doing exactly what you are supposed to be doing. But you also have to know what sparks the light in you so that you in your own way can illuminate the world. Oprah Winfrey

You are what you want to become. Why search anymore? You are a wonderful manifestation. The whole universe has come together to make your existence possible. There is nothing that is not you. The kingdom of God, the Pure Land, nirvana, happiness, and liberation are all you. Thich Nhat Hanh

Letting go is the lesson. Letting go is always the lesson. Have you ever noticed how much of our agony is all tied up with craving and loss? — Susan Gordon Lydon

The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking places. Author Unknown

When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. Franklin D. Roosevelt

Consider the postage stamp: its usefulness consists in the ability to stick to one thing till it gets there. Josh Billings

The greatest oak was once a little nut who held its ground. Author Unknown

He conquers who endures. Persius

Don't be discouraged. It's often the last key in the bunch that opens the lock. Author Unknown

If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep on walking. Buddhist Saying

Life is not about how fast you run or how high you climb but how well you bounce. Vivian Komori

Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Problems are not stop signs, they are guidelines. Robert Schuller

Vitality shows in not only the ability to persist but the ability to start over. F. Scott Fitzgerald

The great majority of men are bundles of beginnings. Ralph Waldo Emerson

But the moment you turn a corner you see another straight stretch ahead and there comes some further challenge to your ambition. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Not being tense but ready. Not thinking but not dreaming. Not being set but flexible.

Liberation from the uneasy sense of confinement. It is being wholly and quietly alive, aware and alert, ready for whatever may come. Bruce Lee

It is easy to believe we are each waves and forget we are also the ocean. Jon J. Muth

Flow with whatever may happen, and let your mind be free: Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate. Zhuangzi (Chwang-tse)

Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet. Thich Nhat Hanh (Tik · N'yat · Hawn)

It is the power of the mind to be unconquerable. Lucius Annaeus

If you are unable to find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it? Eihei Dogen

When the mind is exhausted of images, it invents its own. Gary Snyder

Before everything else, getting ready is the secret to success. Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success. Henry Ford

Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time, more intelligently. Henry Ford

If you’re happy in what you’re doing, you’ll like yourself, you’ll have inner peace. And if you have that, along with physical health, you will have had more success than you could possible have imagined. Johnny Carson

There are two mistakes one can make a long the road to truth…not going all the way and not starting Buddha

There are no classes in life for beginners – right away you are always asked to deal with what is most difficult. Rainer Maria Rilke

There will be a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning. Louis L’Amour

A journey of a thousand miles must begin with one step. Lao Tzu

To have begun is to have done half the task. Dare to be wise. Horace

All glory comes from daring to begin. Eugene F. Ware

The beginning is the most important part. Plato

Beginning is easy, continuing is hard. Japanese Proverb

What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from. T.S. Elliot

Beyond the mountains, there are mountains. –Haitian proverb.

The Secret to a rich life is to have more beginnings than endings. –David Weinbaum

He who chooses the beginnings of the road chooses the place it leads to. It is the means that determines the end. Harry Emerson Fosdick

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal. - Henry Ford

In every way and every day you are showing people exactly who you are. You're letting your life speak for you and when you do that, you will receive in direct proportion to how you give. You can help somebody. You can listen. You can forgive. Look around and you'll see. You many not have to look any further than your own family or maybe even your own self. The power is the same. Carry whatever you're supposed to be doing - carry that forward and don't waste any more time. Start embracing the life that is calling you. Oprah Winfrey

Ending,

Lady,

Beginning,

Lady,

Bliss,

Lady

Meditation nation…

Darlings,
So, I have this beautiful student at Hot 8 Yoga in Santa Monica, that's created a group on facebook about meditation. It's inviting us to engage in one hundred days of meditation. We are at day 39.
It's a difficult task to commit to, but once you do, you have many others that, even if you don't know them, you are secretly accountable to and for to hold you to your meditation practice. And, it's also amazing that, once you put it on your schedule of 'to do's', you WILL do.
Meditation, for me, was always difficult.
I know, I'm a yoga teacher AND superhero so it should be easy for me to sit in a cross legged position for hours with no sound, clear my mind and raise the frequency of my energy to a dog's hearing.
But alas, I always remember where I came from...
a NY girl (with Superhero strength she got from her dad) and a NY state of mind.
I love NY but have lived in LA longer in my lifetime than NY. NY always reminded me of a geographical me. The place is frenetic with tons of energy - every which way and rarely sleeps.
I'm still that way, but a little more balanced. If it wasn't for yoga, my prana, life force or energy, would be seeping out of every hole and pore in my body. With yoga, now I can harness that energy and use it when I want. It's like having an energy savings account.
But I'm still out of my mind...in the cutest way possible.
Remember that kid at your last family function that was running around the room like a lunatic knocking into your legs and flailing their arms all over the place only to pass out on the floor moments later after eating too much sugar? You find her an hour later...her little dress blanketed over her head, black paten leather shoes knocked together and half off, arms and legs are sprawled out in an exhausted wonder for adults to laugh at and ooh and ahh at the cuteness of the whole thing? FINALLY, she calmed down!!
That's me, at 36. I really have so much energy that sometimes, I don't know what to do with all of it. So, when I did my first yoga teacher training almost a decade ago, and was informed that meditation would be part of my daily, 'at home' practice, I almost threw up in my mouth.
To be still AND conscious, no freekin' way!! Could I get away with it if I didn't do it?
But, it happens and it happened.
In fact, meditation creates so much more energy in a controlled IV drip sort of way that it's impossible not to want to hit the meditation cushion or mat and feel the bliss of dumping out the excess mind, listening to the quiet and finding the solutions to all life's problems and questions in one fell swoop. For real.
I've done Yoga Nidra, guided meditation, silence and still point focus. I've done specific yogic traditions of meditation Buddhist and non linear, just sit and 'be' meditation.
And, nothing is more fascinating then making up a meditation right where you are, in the middle of everything busy and hectic in the day and finding the yoga and meditation in it.
Case in point,
the other day, I was walking to teach class. I always have my iPod mini playing just the right songs to keep my energy up to teach and stay focussed. Today, my iPod died in mid stride.
It's going to be quiet, I thought. I am going to feel lonely, I thought. There is nothing like the companion of distraction to get you through.
Instead of being annoyed at the circumstances, I decided to take in this universal decision to deprive me of music and get me out of my regular routine.
Use each step as a moment to take in the auditory stimulus and engage in its wholeness.
A child laughing. The crosswalk telling me to walk. A couple discussing plans for the weekend. A car driving by and playing Nicki Minaj, a runner stops in mid stride to answer his iPhone. He answers, 'Wei." I know this to mean, talk or talk to me in Chinese and I'm mentally propelled to when I lived in Shanghai. A nice and distant memory. I smile. I remember the foreign sounds of China and then I move on...
I hear a car coming up a drive way, the gate closing behind the car. I hear the bouganvilla rustle in a short breeze. The sound of a bike locks in it's position. A rustle of lazy beach feet on concrete.
Meditation.
Each moment was 'heard' till the next.
Each moment was 'felt' to the next.
Each moment was present, until the next.
This morning, one of my favorite clients was stressed out and told me she didn't want to move quite yet, but sit in meditation for a while so she could get into the space of 'doing' yoga.
She doesn't like to sit still and finds it difficult to close her eyes without 'falling asleep.'
It's hard to disengage the multi-task and engage in the uni-task of just
one
thing.....
I told her to just sit as comfortably as possible, keep her eyes open and watch her dog. We work in the peaceful courtyard of her house in Beverly Hills so I told her to watch Ellie as she sits in the sun, her eyes squinting then releasing, her front paws tucking under her chin and tongue pressing through her teeth then retracting.
Watch Ellie as she gets up and slowly saunters to my mat.
She sniffs my nose and wanders to my bag.
She climbs the handles and snoops inside.
She retreats and walks over to my client, sits, watching patiently as if waiting for instructions.
The postman comes and Ellie runs to the gate and barks.
The postman leaves and she hops several hops to a torn rope at the corner of the courtyard and gnaws at it. She comes back and licks my clients toes.
Then, Ellie calms down and sits beside her, lying down again, squinting in the sun, her front paws tucking under her chin and tongue pressing through her teeth then retracting.
She reaches for my client's sock and brings it under her chin.
She stays...adorable and peaceful in the sun with a little sock under her chin.
Each moment, slow and thoughtful. Each moment brought that sweet dog to the next. Each moment was a reminder to live in just that.
I'm reminded of my eating disorder.
It was difficult to be an overweight overachiever as a youth but even more difficult to be an adult in the fitness, health and mindfulness industry and know that it never goes away.
You always have to keep the disease in check and as I do, I think of my breath.
I fill up my belly, expand my side ribs and back body with breath and hold.
How does it feel to be full? Full of breath and life and stillness. To be grounded in the fullness of life - the nurturing of the spirit and the mind is a blessing.
I let go of the breath slowly and controlled. I hold.
To feel empty, with nothing but the beat of my heart and pulse of blood moving throughout is a blessing.
I savor the space between feeling full of life and letting go. The union of them both as it fuels and expends.
And it is a blessing everyday.
To treat the body with such care instills the mindfulness necessary to treat everything else with just as much care.
You don't have to sit still on a cushion to find your meditation.
I watch surfers at sunrise simply sit on their boards, riding the pulse of the ocean before a wave propels them to stand.
I watch my sister bake cakes and cookies and extravagant deserts and she is quiet and thoughtful, measuring each ingredient then blending in sweet repose.
I watch my mother with her cup of tea in the afternoon. The ritual of filling the kettle, opening the tin for her green tea bag, finding the cup amongst other cups for the one cup she uses every time and sit to enjoy, not walk around the house to busy herself, but to enjoy and sip and watch Oprah.
I watch trained athletes in the playoffs, with strong muscles engaged everywhere dancing from one side of the court to the other, with there mates, pause and toss the ball into the net, the crowd quiet for a moment until they roar in unison when the ball makes it through the net.
Meditation is mindfulness. You can find it anywhere you are present with the breath, what or who you are with and what you are doing.
You can find it sitting still and you can find it moving around.
You can find it if you BE it.
When you ARE it, everything shows up, the good and the bad. What you need comes up and what you don't falls away.
Try it, you'll like it. Money back guarantee.
Being,
Lady

Home Run…

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 May 25, 1935, at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Babe Ruth hit his 714th home run, it was a record that wasn’t beat for 40 years (by Hank Aaron in ’74, the year Lady was born!!). He was a pitcher for the Red Sox and outfielder for the Yankees and one of the greatest baseball players and attractions of all time even past his retire year in ’35 and death in ’48. 22 seasons, 10 world series and the hall of fame.

This was one of Ruth’s last games, and the last home run of his career. Babe Ruth, born George Herman Ruth was called Babe because of his youthful attitude but maturity in skill.

He Dreamed. Reached. Succeeded and kept his youthful babeness. Let's use his record, youthfullness and strike our practice out of the ballpark. Reach past what you think you can do and go for it. Strike out, fall and pick your butt up again. Set your record, beat it and set a new one. It's all good. Hot dog!

Don't let the fear of striking out hold you back. - Babe Ruth

Every strike brings me closer to the next home run. - Babe Ruth

Never let the fear of striking out get in your way. Babe Ruth

The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don't play together, the club won't be worth a dime. Babe Ruth

You just can't beat the person who never gives up. Babe Ruth

And some other home runs...

To accomplish great things, we must dream as well as act. Anatole France

We need men who can dream of things that never were. John F. Kennedy

The key to realizing a dream is to focus not on success but significance - and then even the small steps and little victories along your path will take on greater meaning. Oprah Winfrey

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal. Henry Ford

Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars. Les Brown

The important thing is to strive towards a goal which is not immediately visible. That goal is not the concern of the mind, but of the spirit. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Some of the world's greatest feats were accomplished by people not smart enough to know they were impossible. Doug Larson

Goals are dreams with deadlines. Diana Scharf Hunt

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. T.S. Eliot

If you want to make your dreams come true, the first thing you have to do is wake up. J.M. Power

Life's problems wouldn't be called "hurdles" if there wasn't a way to get over them. Unknown

Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending. Unknown

God gives us dreams a size too big so that we can grow in them. Unknown

The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me. Ayn Rand

Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresea, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein. ~Life's Little Instruction Book, compiled by H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

The best angle from which to approach any problem is the try-angle. Unknown

How am I going to live today in order to create the tomorrow I'm committed to? Anthony Robbins

Sometimes the path you're on is not as important as the direction you're heading. Kevin Smith

The impossible is often the untried. Jim Goodwin

The vision must be followed by the venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps - we must step up the stairs. Vance Havner

It is easier to go down a hill than up, but the view is best from the top. Arnold Bennett

I am looking for a lot of men who have an infinite capacity to not know what can't be done. Henry Ford

One of the secrets of life is to make stepping stones out of stumbling blocks. Jack Penn

There are no shortcuts to any place worth going. Beverly Sills

Know your limits, but never stop trying to exceed them. Unknown

Part of the issue of achievement is to be able to set realistic goals, but that's one of the hardest things to do because you don't always know exactly where you're going, and you shouldn't.George Lucas

The greatest dreams are always unrealistic. Will Smith

Out of the strain of the doing, Into the peace of the done. Julia Woodruff

The only thing that has to be finished by next Tuesday is next Monday. Jennifer Yane

Map out your future, but do it in pencil. Jon Bon Jovi

Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

You must have long-range goals to keep you from being frustrated by short-range failures.Charles C. Noble

Arriving at one goal is the starting point to another. John Dewey

I’m you’re guide buy you know what you want to see. Each hold, each moment and movement creates the space you need to grow, change, dream, reach, succeed or just enjoy being exactly where you are.

Running home,

Lady