Your suffering isn't useless

...how 'bout them apples?!

Thanks Ana.

Ana Forrest's Book Rocks

Have you ever done a Death Meditation before? Most likely not unless you've taken her teacher trainings or are reading the book. At first it might read morbid or scary, but fear not. And that's exactly the point.

:)

This type of meditation comes to you when you need it, as it did me. It's really ironic, as it's actually a way of deciding what you're living for. I wanted to refocus on why I am here. That is actually the point, isn't it?!

The meditation took me to realize that I need to get back on track with my sva-dharma (path). Not the small one, that can take me within my limits for a day. That one I'm friends with. It's the other one, the life-long path, the one I'm here for. That's the one I need(ed) a little work on. And yes I'm ending many a sentence with a preposition. Ahh literary Freedom! Gotta love it.

The path...it's basically the same as the title of this blog. My truth.

I'm here to give of myself. Hands-on. Teaching yoga is one way. What is the other? Perhaps personal training? Chiropractor? Perhaps mentally through being a psychologist (yes it took me 3 times to spell that correctly)? Social worker? I don't know, but it does have to do with Duke, probably Duke Integrative Medicine. So that's pretty cool, and 2.5 hours away. Not a far climb for your spirit's duty on this earth. In this lifetime. Shoot, it's taken me how many lifetimes to even get this far? I don't know, I'm only human. My Self knows though. Perhaps if I meditate long enough it'll tell me. Who cares?! I bet it'll say as long as anything existed, or even before. Before a thought was a thought, before the physical. We were all one spirit.

Well there's my answer.

Love to the world!

Let's DO this.

Thanks for the eye-opening meditation Ana. I know I will never forget this. And I hate to use the word never. And the word hate.

:)

Twists

I've been learning a bit more through webinars with Judith Lasater. The first was on twists, and really focused on the fact that twisting is less about compression of the spin and squeezing the discs and more about massaging the viscera (group of organs in the midsection). She also stressed that you can't twist (rotate) without a side bend. Same as you can't do a side bend without twisting (rotating). Also, twists flush organs. Hmm what else...

The spinal column is designed to be in curves. "Tucking the tail" isn't in accordance with our natural curvature. Intended curvature at the lumbar to "house" the delicate viscera right in front of it. When you "tuck the tail" the organs move from the front toward the back body. Perhaps they don't have enough room back there to be free and move with pranic intelligence and cleanse themselves?

Along the right side of the viscera is the liver, gall bladder is the tiny thing underneath, and kidneys that wrap around. The left side carries the stomach and the spleen. The middle houses the intestines and beneath those is the bladder. When we create a turnicate effect with the liver, heat is released and this may cause nausea. The omentum literally means apron and is the sac that contains all the organs. I think it starts beneath the diaphragm. Pelvis means basin.

Twists can be standing, seated and supine.

Judith shared a quote along the lines of "we think life is strong and love is fragile...but it's really the other way around".

:)

Thanks.

Santosha

So this might be the topic of my posts for a while, off and on. Until it sets in! When you're going through big change that affects all aspects of your psyche and physical and emotional bodies, umm, you gotta pull out all the stops. My stops have been getting up at 6am to do an hour of sadhana (spiritual practice of silent meditation, mantra and asana). And then today it came to abyanga (soft brushing of skin to clean skin and move lymph and coconut oil massage for cooling). That was of course after an hour of sadhana and a(n attempt to) run:). C'est la vie.