Lauran Janes

What We Focus on is Directly Related to Who Become

2012-01-23T12:54:00.000-08:00

(The following 'purposeful outcry' was inspired by an online 'push' from Miranda Pleasant, founder of Origin Magazine, after a conversation regarding 'body image' lit up Facebook.)

What we focus on is directly related to who become. This is why I suggest that every woman who has been silently or overtly attacked or diminished exclusively for her shape and size simply, loudly and with total joy REBEL!

REBEL against the very idea that we must be so many inches wide or tall. REBEL against the very idea that we should have a certain silhouettes or thickness of hair or sizes of breasts. REBEL against the notion that we or our mothers or our daughters need be different to be loved. REBEL against the notion that only until you 'change' can you be of value.

For these thoughts are like chains to the soul. A mind that focuses on not being enough will lose the gift her luminosity - the very seat of power in a woman.

REBEL!

Release the unattainable images. Open to the beauty that is here and now, the beauty that is you!

How?

Start by seeing and sharing the beauty you see in others. The gift of the feminine is how she is animated from the inside out (not how she looks from the outside). Notice the gifts, the expressions of service and kindness, movement, dance, laughter in your sisters and your female tribe. Observe and share the beauty you see! What you focus on is what you become.

Liberate yourself from the influence of a male-dominated media system. That system is designed to sell, sell, sell in a country that places so-called "economics" above health, vitality, and the very planet that supports us. Unleash yourself from the unattainable images that peak out of every billboard, magazine and T.V. station.

As the bumper sticker says, "Kill Your Television."

Revive your rebel & save your soul.

Let our rebellion be a celebration of WHAT IS! Our hips, our thighs, our vitality, our sheer strength of a woman raised in a free nation! Be free! Think freely! See yourself as a very force of Divine Intelligence. Promote discussions! Celebrate other women doing the same thing.

It's time to shift the conversation from "body image" to the SOUND OF YOUR SOUL SINGING! Change the focus from form to feel! We can throw our heads back and laugh and start a new conversation.

This is coming from a former bulimic who healed her self through the practice of YOGA, MEDITATION and AUTHENTIC SELF-EXPRESSION.

1) The yoga provided a consistent outlet to fully feel the gift of my body and my breath.
2) The meditation revealed the constant chatter of my hyper-active mind, and offered tools to guide it to its natural, loving cadence.
3) Authentic self expression gave my mind (my beautiful strong mind) a new focus and an opportunity to practice fearlessness and to listen and share my soul’s song.

This is also coming from a woman who is nearly 3 months pregnant, watching her belly and breast swell like sweet rolling hills. Our bodies are designed to change, like seasons change. We are such intelligent creatures - let the focus be on the miracle of our being and nothing less.

Who was it that said that it is the women of the western world who save the whole planet?

Let's place the focus of our minds consciously in life-affirming soil.

REBEL in love...for Love.

Love is the Ultimate Rebel

2011-10-10T13:10:00.000-07:00

Written on the “Save the Date” announcement for my friends’ wedding is a quote from the crazy-wisdom author, Tom Robbins.

“Love is the ultimate Rebel.”

Love rebels against the way we want Love to be. We want Love to feel like a Care-Bear caught in a freeze-frame, perpetually happy, always smiling. We want Love to feel like the ‘Big Win’ every time. We expect Love to be short lines at the DMV and effortless orgasms at will. It should be well-behaved, but not too predictable. And it should be the life of the party, but not stay out too late.

But, Loves rebels against the very ideas we have about Love. Love is the pain you feel that demands you change course, ‘keep seeking’ and not give up. Love is the suffering that precedes deep personal evolution. Love is the regret you feel that encourages higher more conscious actions in the future. Love is the loss that directs us into cherishing all that we still have. Love is that insatiable yearning that moves us forward and prevents us from becoming stagnant. Love reveals itself in the darkest moments of our life, as the darkness itself.

A while back my teacher said to me, “Lauran, don’t confuse ‘Love’ with something you are going to ‘like’ OR with your personal preferences OR with something that will wake you up gently like your grandma used to. Love is gonna kick your ass, Girl. Love is not here to make you comfortable. Love is here to help you GROW!”

I repeat: Love is here to help us grow.

Love rebels against the weakness in our minds and that’s the revolution that leads to growth. When the mind says, “I can’t”. Love says, “It’s not about you.” When the mind says, “I gotta stop.” Love says, “Keep on.” When the minds say, “That’s impossible.” Love says, “Let me show you the way.” When the mind thinks ‘It’s all about me’, Love says, ‘It’s all about we’.

The growth that love inspires is an expansion of our self to include others. Getting outside of our selfish comfort zone, showing up fully present for another person, engaging relationships with as much concern for the other's heart as we have for our own is totally non-conformist.

It is a maverick move to set down our ‘old rusty me-centered’ ways in exchange for ‘inclusive’ being. It’s totally rebellious to forgive your lover in the middle of an argument. It’s revolutionary to direct the power of your Love into the sole purpose of serving others moment after moment, day after day.

Now what does all this have to do with marriage?

Oh, right. Everything

Lay Your Body Down

2011-09-27T10:11:00.000-07:00

We left San Jose, Costa Rica, one month ago and now live in a small jungle town on the Pacific Coast. Here the gravel roads meander without a trace of straight lines, the internet comes and goes with the whim of a feral cat and the powdered-sugar beaches stretch for miles without interruption.

Where the jungle meets the beach, insects, birds and howler monkeys dominate the sound-scape. The fastest my body moves is determined by the speed of my mountain bike petal strokes. I keep track of time by counting the number of waves that roll under my surf board as the ocean and I slowly get acquainted. And at night millions of tiny diamonds shine without inhibition while giant sea turtles lay what will one day be the next generation of ocean elders.

Here the over-relied-upon machine of my mind comes to rest. Any feeble attempts to “make sense of...”, "assess" or "figure out" this great Mystery of Life are dwarfed by the sheer majesty of the endless blue horizon.

How much time do you spend meandering the inner-landscape of your thinking mind? Judging, critiquing, assessing?

Are you willing to experience more of the outer landscape of Nature’s beauty and less of the inner-landscape of your thinking mind?

Make a date with the Earth. Lay your body down. With your back on Her belly feel Her and let Her feel you.

The Good, the Bad and the Salty

2011-09-26T19:36:00.000-07:00

Today while I was being tossed like plankton against the oncoming waves of the Pacific, a board under my belly, a storm on the horizon, I was once again introduced to the physical presence of that great Power who repeatedly (with great certainty) tells me, “Lauran, my dear, you are NOT in charge.”

Gotcha. Splash...gurgle...No, really! Gotcha!

I can’t control the ocean. I can only master the art of using the its power to generate a deeper experience of my aliveness.

A similar lesson arises in regards to my emotions. At times I’d like to think that I have total control over these waves, but - noooooope - I am not the source of their undulations.

I think back during a time when I was grieving the tragic murder of dear childhood friend. Grief just took me...way under, like today’s stormy waves. It didn’t matter how much I prayed for the sorrow to end or how much I wished the pain to stop. Grief receded when it was ready to recede and not on my watch.

This leads me to a deep interest in the process of becoming more skillful as I navigate the uncontrollable powers that bring on intense waves of emotion. Daily in my own life and in the lives of friends and students I see the way emotions toss us hither-tither, knock the metaphorical boards from under us and hold us beneath the surface in the dark with salty brains and burning eyes.

So my meditations currently are: how can we become more skillful with the power that sources our emotions? How can we, knowing that we are not in control, grow into graceful “emotional surfers”. How can we learn to harness the power of grief, sadness, bliss, lust, joy, frustration, anger, delight for the ultimate goal of deepening our vitality, creative processes, relationships and service in the world?

After all, every surf session thus far - even the most laborious and taxing - have awakened me to what it means to really be alive: the good, the bad, and the salty!

Wrestling the Alligator til We Find God in His Teeth and Tail

2011-06-28T12:04:00.000-07:00

Conversations and practices that inspire people to experience themselves as the Divine-embodied may very well be the planet’s next Saving Grace. I recognize that globally people are awakening to the experience of the body (and all of Life) as a projection of the Divine and the Divine as Ultimate Benevolence. This awakening may very well be the perfect remedy for so many present-day ailments.

When one person steps into the Light, others remember and can embody their own God-ness as well. When one person recognizes in every circumstance the opportunity to dance with the Divine, then others can too see that even personal suffering can be the perfect escort to the Light. This knowledge frees people of the illusion that pain and suffering are bad or wrong and reveals instead that each moment is ripe with God, with Truth, with Beauty.

I share this after months of wrestling a great alligator of isolation and loneliness, sadness and depression while living in a Latin third-world city with a language barrier, no job and a fiance who travels often. However, long ago I decided that I would wrestle all of life's alligators with courage til I found God in their teeth and tails, until I found God in the darkness and hurt.

This seems to be tremendous part of my path at this point: refusing to back down until I am once again joined with the Lightness of Being that comes from living consciously with Grace.

When we stand in the knowledge that every second holds within it the perfect chemistry for Divine Union, then we become seekers of God in everything. Life - all it’s colors, shapes and forms - transforms into a giant game of hide and seek. Where is God here? Where is Grace there?

This is one way to Open to Grace: invite Grace to reveal Herself in ALL things, not just the obvious happy ones (like puppies and kittens and sunset walks on the beach).

Seeking and finding Grace in all things frees us from being trapped in the past or from fantasizing about futures yet to be known. When we are committed to knowing God through all things then we immediately arrive Here and NOW. Here and NOW we can receive the Grace that has always been holding us up, that has always been our very essence.

Our freedom can at once become a great service to others. And their freedom becomes a great service back to us and to all people.

Bouncing After They Fall

2011-05-31T17:35:00.000-07:00

KA-BOOM!

at once
this loneliness exploded
into thunder
reverberating off
the face of my heart

6 months in a foreign land

self expression
has been reduced to
“hola” and “adios”
fucking pleasantries

don’t focus on the dark
says the soft voice of a distant sun

but i am obsessed with my storm
i only watch one channel -
my inner-bad-weather channel

okay, then focus on the darkness,
but know that you’re suffering
at your own hands

get out! get out!
go play in the actual rain
revel in actual thunder
be blinded by actual lightening -
not this head-made fantasy shit

my circling clouds
have become my habit

and then my black dog
in a tornado of crazy joy
with the enthusiasm of creature
absent of an inner-bad-weather channel
tosses a crushed plastic bottle
up in the air
to himself
and catches it

and tosses it
and catches it

again and again
his body bouncing
like raindrops
when they meet the earth

bouncing after they fall

bouncing after they fall

My Mind (When She is Well-Behaved)

2011-05-25T19:30:00.000-07:00

She’s a child-like ‘old soul’.
Her definition of Power is Love.
She will not follow blindly.
She will follow beauty.
She succeeds in academic settings.
She thrives in nature.
She’s not that good at spelling.
She’s really good at ‘meaning’.
She’d rather evolve than be right.
She’s down for the challenge.
She loves a good question more than a good answer.
She’s also loves sun bathing at Barton Springs while the sun graces her chest and navel.
She loves to learn through touch, music, movement and breathing.
In fact, she learns best through these vehicles.
She’s a Truth-chaser often tumbling down the metaphorical rabbit hole, cascading into inner worlds, exploring new-found lands and drinking tea with the interesting characters she meets.
She pays attention and takes a lot of notes.
She’s been kneaded by loving hands who knew how to “work her” just right and let her to rise.
She’s fearless when it comes to expressing herself. This sometimes gets her in trouble.
She’s not a fan of confrontation, but she’ll stand her ground.
She’s almost always down for “talking it out”.
She’s willing to call out her own bullshit.
She’s communicates with kindness.
She is willing to forgive.
She feels safe to cry.
She loves to laugh.

She has quirks too:
sometimes thinks she’s fat, even though she’s not
sometimes she gets crazy angry in traffic - a sort of turrets effect
sometimes she gets real hard on herself for not yet saving all the children in africa and for other ‘human shortcomings’.

She is inspired by people who have symbiotic relationships with Forces greater than themselves.
She is inspired by just about everything Nature gives birth too.

She walks the tightrope, balancing between two poles: Humanity and Divinity.

She enjoys the company of people who are smarter than her.
She has yet to get enthusiastic about math...but she’s not a quitter.
She can spend hours with poetry in one hand and her dog, Lizzy, in the other.
She’s listens for Grace.
She listens to Grace.
She’ll always listen, eventually.

The World Comes From Us

2011-05-25T11:34:00.000-07:00

Three months ago...

“The world does not come at us. The world comes from us.”

Like an old childhood lullaby, I instantly remembered these words when I heard them. They were not news to me. I had heard these words for years from the voice within my heart.

Most recently I have been holding those words up to the reality of living in a third world country. And not just a third world country, but a third world city. And not just a third world city, but the largest third world city in this country.

Ah, San Jose, Costa Rica.

In San Jose there are people who make a living by risking their life helping you back-out of your parking space into oncoming traffic. God bless them - really, please bless them, God. There are people here who make a living collecting other people's garbage and reselling it on the sidewalk - old broken toy phones, half-used packages of stained napkins, batteries (used, of course), electronic cords for missing electronic devices, etc.

Here both sides of the economic spectrum are well represented: the ricos and the povres. The ricos live in houses surrounded by large cement walls adorned with barbed wire and the povres live in houses surrounded by thin metal bars adorned with barbed wire. There’s a saying here, “The one thing the rich and poor have in common is that they both live imprisoned in their homes while the criminal run ‘free’ in the streets.”

So how do I - in this third world city - implement this deep knowing that ‘the world does not come at me...the world comes from me’?

Because the truth is that a lot of fear has also been coming from me lately.

The fear has been brought on by not being able to speak Spanish, not being able to drive without envisioning the worst or not being able to walk alone at night or make my way to the other side of the city or avoid the dagger-like male gaze or avoid the toxic fumes of every passing truck or express myself authentically to anyone but Evan.

It seems the more fear that comes from me, the scarier the world becomes.

It’s a tremendously uncomfortable feeling to go from existing is a relative state of ‘fearlessness’ in Austin to feeling cloaked (from within and without) in a heavy dark veil of fear. Fear, which could also be discussed as ‘insecurity’, uproots any and all ability to rest, relax, trust, have faith, be calm or be quiet. And, as a yoga teacher, I long ago began making my living and building my life upon my ability to rest, relax, trust, have faith and be calm and quiet.

Who am I if I am in fear? Or rather where did ‘I’ (the one who once lived without fear) go? And where did my old free-of-suffocating-fear reality go? Are my fears legitimate and not to be downplayed or are my fears giving rise to the growing disdain and discomfort in the world o' San Jose? Is it me? Is it my environment? Is it both? Am I creating my own reality? Is my reality creating me to be a fearful person?

Today...

Some months have passed since the largest of my fears were gobbling up my light. During that time I began to learn Spanish. I knew nothing of Spanish before moving to Costa Rica. Nada. No-thing. Not a lick. So along with learning the language came the ability to once again express myself. Granted I can not express myself ‘profoundly’ or ‘poetically’ as I did in the states - but I can express bits and pieces of heart, parts that have not seen the light of days for months.

Interestingly, as soon as I began to express myself everything in my world changed before my eyes. The world does not come at me. The world comes from me.

It’s not that the city suddenly became clean or crime-free or that the men became any less macho or that the buses gave off any less black smoke, no, it’s that I was no longer imprisoned by my inability to communicate. I was no longer trapped behind a verbal cement wall decorated with barbed wire. I was no longer imprisoned by my inability to express myself through the medium of my art - language.

In the same moment that my inner light was finally able to once again shine out through the gift of language and communication - in Spanish - the big dirty city ceased to be so big and dirty. Instead the city of San Jose became the home of many dear friends and fellow teachers, the place where I was brought to my knees with humility for anyone who ever moved to a foreign country and couldn’t speak the language, the perfect contrast to the comfortable passivity that so many of us get stuck in at certain times in our lives.

So does the world come at us or from us? What are your thoughts?

Deep Humble Love.

Look and Listen

2011-04-08T06:12:00.000-07:00

Have you ever heard a moth dream of being more than brown?
Or the honeysuckle demand rent from the butterfly?

Have you ever heard a tree bad mouth a mountain?
Or a bird sing, “For $100k the sky can be yours!”?

Have you ever seen a river run for tighter thighs?
Or a beaver constructing an investment fund?

Have you ever heard a hummingbird tweet,
"Hey! Hey! It’s all about me!"

Or a cloud complain that it will soon be gone?

She Wears 'Woman'

2011-04-07T16:05:00.000-07:00

She wear 'Woman'
like I wear my pajamas,
comfortable in her hips
comfortable in her breasts.

Autobiography in Five Short Chapters

2011-03-13T13:51:00.000-07:00

One of my favorites...

AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN FIVE SHORT CHAPTERS
~ By Portia Nelson

I.
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in
I am lost . . . I am helpless
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

II.
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I am in the same place,
but it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

III.
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in . . . it’s a habit.
my eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

IV.
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

V.
I walk down another street.

Sunshine and Sadness

2011-03-09T12:59:00.001-08:00

A waterfall down my face
Evan's cheek against mine
"My sunshine is all backed-up"
He touches his heart to mine

A Letter to a Stranger

2011-01-27T14:18:00.000-08:00

Dear Cyber-Stranger,

After viewing one of my online yoga videos you wrote: "Sweetie, though you look sexy on tape, you better come down to earth now. Stop playing with your dolls and your imaginary friends. Hinduism is a joke and God is not real."

While reading your words I experienced pain - at first my own pain and then yours. So I took you 'in' and held you in my Heart. I sat with you for quite some time.

At first it was challenging. My hurt feelings returned and then receded, returned and receded, again and again. I felt your hurt do the same.

I prayed to recognize myself in you. I prayed to recognize you in myself.

At times I felt violence towards you even though I do not know you. Please forgive me for this. Did you intend to hurt me with your words? I forgive you for that.

I wondered if you are often angry? If your heart has been broken by a lover? By a parent? By the circumstances of your birth? This world can feel so cruel and the pain unbearable. I have been hurt too. I have had my heart broken. I have also broken my own heart.

Part of me told me not to waste my time with you. And another part whispered, "You have everything to gain by inviting him into your Heart."

I prayed for healing for us both.

I prayed that I might recognize your Light.

I bowed to the place in you where Love is boundless.

I celebrated the part of you who chooses actions that heal instead of hurt.

May the eyes of our Hearts be open.

Deep peace to you,

Lauran

Dearest Grace,

2011-01-25T10:45:00.001-08:00

I know I have a purpose here
and I know that purpose is great.

I just don't know exactly
what that purpose is yet.

So until I know exactly
what I'm supposed to do,
I'll just Love.

I know I'm good at Loving.

Maybe through my Loving
I'll find what it is I'm to do.

Maybe in my doing of Love
I'll find my purpose.

Or maybe I'll just be Love
and let the "Being of Love"
be purpose enough.

I'm open to suggestions.

Amen.

~Lauran Janes, 2002

Before True or False

2011-01-15T05:29:00.000-08:00

Hurry! Hurry!
Let’s take our hands
off the safety bar and ride
this roller coaster.

Let’s tell our brains
to take back seat and let
our spiritual instincts
navigate this place.

Let’s lick the far reaches
of our imaginations and
dive to the underbellies
of our psyches.

Let’s howl at the moon.
Let’s celebrate our fears.
Let’s laugh at all the shit
we hate and embrace
our scars, abuse, and pain.

Let’s re-examine
the infinite beauty
in this finite world:
the way the fuzzy-bellied brown spider
spins his silken matrix between
the star-shaped Sweetgum leaves;
the way he waits patiently, unmoving,
for the blind busy bee to crash
into his sticky web.

Oh, how I relate to that fucking busy bee.

Oh how I strive to be that eight legged Zen master.

Let’s be the Zen masters we once were.
The children we once were before
True or False questions, The Brady Bunch,
straight edges, and school desks warped
our perfect miracles selves.

Let’s fight like hell
(play like hell)
to take back the wonder-filled
beings we once were.
We still are.

Let’s ride this crazy ride
‘til we’re all out
of quarters, then let’s hot wire
the damn thing
and ride it some more…
’til our britches are rubbed thin
and our asses cry for mercy.

Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!

~Lauran Janes, 2006

Happy New Year...12 days after New Year!

2011-01-12T12:24:00.000-08:00

Our dear friends Drew and Jillian came to visit us is Nosara, Costa Rica over the holiday.

We did some serious frolicking, beach hiking and surfing (who am I kidding, I 'surf' 18" waves). We body-checked waves, danced in the kitchen, collected sea shells and got weak-kneed over every magical sunset. Basically we were all 5 years old again.

Drew and Evan have been dear friends for many years. Their last adventure was a three month journey through Asia just before Evan and I started dating. Drew’s animated style reminds me of a giant wind-up toy who playfully chases his own shadow until nightfall all while spewing rivers of colorful, rarely-considered, fun-to-argue philosophies. He’s a ball of positive energy.

Jillian is equally radiant with the most loving warm blue eyes. For the last four years she has been a nanny for a wealthy Austin couple and, let me tell you, Mary Poppins has nothing on this woman! The family flew Jillian and Drew to Costa Rica to help with the kids over the Christmas holiday.

Together Jill and Drew took the kids up and down the 'Rich Coast'. They visited an African animal sanctuary, national parks, volcanoes and - the kids favorite - Bouncy Land. Bouncy Land is an inflatable amusement park that stretches in stripes of yellow and red for acres and acres. Think National Park meets McDonald’s-Bouncy-Toy.

As they approached the park the two little girls (4 yrs and 6 yrs) began panting and squealing, pressing their wide-eyed faces against the car windows. They cocked their piggy tails sideways, drooling in momentary disbelief of this bouncy dream-come-true.

“Their joy was uncontrollable,” said Jillian. “They were literally convulsing in rapid waves of ecstasy.”

Drew imitated the little girls body language, reminding me of how our pups look when they catch a sniff of the local p-a-r-k from the back seat of our car...joy literally attacks them from the inside just before they erupt into unstoppable fury bullets of enthusiasm.

May your New Year cause you too to convulse in rapid waves of ecstasy & to erupt into unstoppable bullets of enthusiasm.

Here’s to 2011! Go Life!

An African Prayer

2010-12-14T10:56:00.000-08:00

as i prepare to bring a small group to africa in 2012 for a yoga & cultural immersion educational adventure i am reminded of one of the most powerful days from our trip last april...

though evan and i had both long been exposed to poverty (his first exposure came during his peace corps years and mine as a young volunteer for third-world house-building projects), rural ethiopia was beyond our imaginations.

one village in particular stands as a monument in my heart to do something - anything - to bring further awareness to the disparity of resources between the first and third worlds.

many of the children in this particular village had leaky noses and open wounds. they smelled of feces. their clothes were filthy. their bellies were swollen tight like small brown drums. one boys eyelids were blistered shut from an infection that i imagine could have been helped with a simple antibiotic.

a 15 year-old mother holding her six-month old baby approached me. she spoke to me in a language i did not understand and then held her child up to me. the baby’s eyes were tired and worried, like somehow he knew he'd been born into a hard life - somehow he knew he would grow old before his time. i reached out for the child, but then...stopped.

in my naivete i had not understood what the young mother wanted. she didn't want me to hold her baby. she wanted me to take her baby.

i politely replaced my hands at my sides. “your child. your child.” i took a few steps backward. the mother persisted walking towards me, nodding her head to say that it was okay for me to take her child. she said the only english words she knew. “you. you.” she the baby inches from my face.

in that moment i thought, why not? why not take that child away from this village to a place where it would have a worldly education and access to medicine and the best food on the planet. i could provide an environment - emotionally and materially - for this child to live a vibrant, healthy life. a voice within said, it would be selfish for you not to help this child out of this mess.

but was this really a mess? was this rural poverty really the sob-story that my mind had made it up to be? what if rural living was a necessary part of the balance on the planet?

i could feel myself becoming guarded and confused.

so what if the roads to this village aren’t paved. can you imagine a world where every road was paved? the destruction! so what if the houses are made of mud and dung? can you imagine a world in which every house had laminate counters? our landfills are already overflowing with non-biodegradable products.

and what of education? the fact is that not everyone should be educated behind a desk. some people must be educated in the fields and farms. some people must stay connected to the earth’s rhythm, not just to the momentum of industrial and electronic revolutions.

and, further more, not everyone can have access to medication.

wait, what? why not?

i wait for my mind to justify that one.

silence.

over 2,000 children a day who die from diarrhea in africa.

though it is always easier to justify someone else's suffering above my own, that is unjustifiable.

evan called my name, “lauran! time to go.” i turned to seem him getting back into the truck. "okay."

i faced the young mother for a final time. “i know you can’t understand a word i’m about to say, but i can't take your child. i wish you health and happiness. i will pray for your life and for the well-being of your baby. i'll pray for you." and then i left her and the baby in the mud.

never had prayer felt like such a cop-out.

as we drove away from the village thirty children ran after our car. they waved their arms and hollered with high-pitched squeals. i couldn't take my eyes off of them - their small bodies hurdled over the earth, their limbs flailed and the yellows of their eyes were set ablaze.

prayer was my only means of sanity. may all beings be free of suffering. i prayed until they vanished out of sight. may all beings find happiness. i prayed til our car touched pavement again. may all beings be content. i prayed til we arrived back at our $8/night ethiopian hotel and then, in the privacy of our room, i curled up in evan’s arms and cried myself to sleep.

Pura Vida in Costa Rica!

2010-12-07T16:33:00.000-08:00

“Lizzy, no, sweetie. Don’t eat the butterflies.”

We arrived in Costa Rica nearly a week ago. Eight pieces of luggage, two dogs and two adventurous spirits. For the last five months Evan and I have been working towards this move. Finally, it is here.

Our pups, Lizzy and Quito, made the trip with the expected amount of stress. Now that they are off the plane and safely on the ground they are happy to smell the tropical soil and chase the mariposas (butterflies).

Evan and I are ecstatic and humbled to have made this dream a reality. He is now heading up the Latin American micro-finance projects for Whole Planet Foundation. After 2.5 years in Ecuador in the Peace Corps, integrating with the Costa Rican culture is as natural as breathing for him. Over and over again I hear the locals say to him, “You speak Spanish very well! Very natural. Where are you from?”

I, on the other hand, studied French for ten years. So at this point no hablo espanol. Luckily there are many similarities between french and spanish so I trust the language will come quickly.

We’ve made friends with a local Costa Rican couple, Fehdra and John. Evan calls them our “Costa Rican twins”. Fehdra, the woman, is a yoga teacher and John, the man, is a mountain bike fanatic. Yep, twinsies.

Though Fehdra doesn’t speak much english and I speak hardly any Spanish, we understand each other loud and clear when it comes to our love of yoga. During a recent dinner, she and I dominated the conversation with our enthusiasm for the practice of yoga. Yoga, like math, is a universal language.

As they say in Costa Rica, Pura Vida! (Pure Living! Pure Life!)

New Season

2010-08-13T14:45:00.000-07:00

It came on sudden. The immediate urge to not do, to do less and less, to create more "white space" in my life.

Previously every moment, second, hour was packed with some event, task, meeting, obligation or activity. And, previously, I liked it this way. Business demands were exciting tasks that provided the opportunity for me to be a "solutionist", a leader, a visionary. Where shall we relocate the studio? What new teachers will we bring into our community? What new workshops will we offer? These questions had once filled me with the thrill of an entrepreneurial spirit & the rush of achievement.

Previously I had accepted all invitations to b-day parties, engagement parties, sporting events and ladies nights. My social calendar was pregnant. I considered this loving evidence that I was deeply involved and connected to my community - a community that I adored and cherished.

But something new was happening now. Something had grabbed a hold of my waist and firmly sat me down. Sit here and breathe. Do not get up. Breathe. Sit. Be still.

I didn't listen at first and consequently I was getting a lot of diarrhea. I continued not to listen and tried to continue my previous work load, but the more I did the more discomfort arose within. A strange feeling started to gnaw at me. It gnawed. It stabbed. The diarrhea got worse.

Come to find out that this sharp gnawing is what some people call anxiety. I had never experienced anxiety like this before. The simplest tasks would trigger it. I'd sit down to check my email and WHOOSH-BAM my heart would start to race, my nerves would get shot and my over-all general irritability would sky-rocket. The result of this was often a hot current of anger and exhaustion just below my surface. The slightest bit of traffic or interruption could trigger the lava to erupt in a volcanic explosion at my surface.

(On a side note: Don't you remember when email was a funny-loving, happy cyber-experience? Do you remember when email brought you friendly notes from people who loved you? Now email is a black-leather-pants-wearing task-master named Hilda. Every time I open email my email she screams, "Do this! Don't do that! Do more of this" Whip! Whip!)

I remember one morning being in a face-off with 'Hilda' when Evan came in and asked, "Hey babe, what kind of eggs did you cook today." I stumbled out of my cyber-anxiety and blurted back, "I don't know...eggs!" I said it as if his question was a big imposition on my morning. "Ahhhh. Mmmm," he said back-peddling down the hall to the bathroom. He didn't emerge til he left for work.

Pressure cooker. That's another good description for anxiety. I had once danced gracefully with the demands I put on my life. And those demands had been the perfect form of elevating my professional career, my yoga practice, my interpersonal relationships and my relationship with myself. But right now those same expectations and responsibilities were no longer serving me.

I no longer thrived on the busy-bee pace.

Then a friend calmly told me, "You're in a new season now. You can't hold back the winter months, but you can enjoy the falling snow."

Slow down. The new season whispers. Slow down.

The Message vs. The Method

2010-07-27T12:50:00.000-07:00

This a calling for Peace.

I grew up with two sets of parents. One set of parents was deeply immersed in the spiritual-ritual world of Native American tribal wisdom. With them I danced Eagle Dances and Sundances. With them I participated in countless sweat lodge ceremonies and full moon pipe ceremonies. With them I studied what is known as “Medicine Wheel” teachings, teachings that assist our understanding of the inner and outer universe through 8 directional qualities. There was great wisdom there.

My other parents raised me, in part, in a service-based Presbyterian church with which I traveled yearly to Mexico, building houses in the slums of Tijuana. From the age of 14 to 22 I built seven houses for seven loving families. The act of service kept calling me back to the work. The love and inner transformation available to the Heart through service became apparent during those years. There was great wisdom there.

Today I find myself deeply integrated the in the practice of yoga. The practice helps me understand my body’s sacred geometry and how to align the body to experience visceral, mental and spiritual freedom. The practice enlightens me on my breath, assists my capacity to receive the gift of Life through the vehicle of the breath. The practice calms my busy-bee mind, assisting my capacity to sit in the Great Silence and Space within. The practice, like the Medicine Wheel teachings and the service projects, directs me into my Heart. The practice guides me home to that Great Love that's living through me. There is great wisdom here.

I share this because I practice a type of yoga called Anusara Yoga. And, like many other types of yoga today, the type of yoga (or the method of yoga) is getting more attention than the message of Yoga. When I hear folks saying “I practice ‘X’ yoga and it’s superior to ‘Y’ yoga”, I feel compelled to be a voice of remembrance for the MESSAGE versus the METHOD.

There are many, many, many methods...there are many, many different types of folks with whom different methods will resonate. Service, ceremony, Yoga, motherhood, fatherhood, Chi-Gong, Tai Chi, silence, prayer, mountaineering, gardening, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism...to name a few.

At the core the message is one: Life is a Divine gift. We are the creation of the Divine. Our lives are a gift for co-creating with the Divine. We are a miracle of Love. Our soul and the world are one. Love never leaves us. Love is always present. We can choose to stand IN Love and when we forget Love, Love is always there to Light the way again.

Be free of judgment and spiritual arrogance. Celebrate the rainbow of methods. Share the message of Love that lies at the Heart of each method. May every method assist people into their Hearts. May all methods return us to Love.

Woman, Finally

2010-07-16T13:56:00.000-07:00

Time warp.
Highschool’s long over.
Crows feet now decorate your smiling face. You are dreaming of babies, babies, babies. You are ‘over’ having to be that all-powerful-famous-rich person and have moved on to being honest, living with integrity, devoted to love-based values and loyal to your family.
Loud music seems a lot louder than it used to.
Stilettos seem like an overall bad idea.
You don’t cancel plans with friends any more because you intentionally make half as many plans.
You’ve forgiven all the major criminals in your life.
You’ve forgiven yourself.
You’ve accepted yourself.
You respect yourself.
You still make mistakes, but they are no longer held up as evidence as to why you’re ‘not enough’.
You don’t pounce on your ringing cell phone anymore.
You canceled your ‘text’ plan.
You schedule email ‘hours’ a couple times a week and hike, play, make love, work, relax, teach, cook and enjoy life in the moments between.
You prefer reading to watching television.
You have a sharp discerning eye.
You’re not angry anymore.
You don’t speed when you drive.
You kindly let others into your lane. Why not? What’s the rush?
You make time for your friends.
You cook for your friends.
You listen to your friends.
You laugh a lot.
You are relaxed and you help others relax.
You stop eating long before you’re full.
You mostly choose colorful fruits and vegetables... and dark chocolate, the expensive kind.
You can afford a $5 chocolate bar - you’re all grown up now. And though you rarely drink, you can tell the difference between a Shiraz and a Cabernet.
Your husband loves you with a hug, not a cage.
He admires who you are and how you are.
He kisses you on the tip of your nose.
He kisses you everywhere.
Getting into bed with him is like landing softly in Love’s tender arms.
He’s your best friend.
Other women no longer scare you.
You cheer on the hot-bodied 19 year-old who bubbles over with gleeful enthusiasm for every subject under the sun. “You go girl,” you whisper to her. (And you send her a silent prayer of protection as you watch her sexuality spill unconsciously onto every passer by. She’ll learn.)
As for those women who glare with jealousy, who roll their eyes, who still gossip...your heart goes out to them.
You’ve learned to meet female cruelty with indifference. This was not easy.
You no longer strive to meet the demands of society or race to match society’s pace.
You take up yoga or move to another country to remember your natural cadence.
You discover space and quiet within you.
You discover a deep Peace - a Peace that words can not touch but that deeply touches those around you.
You embody Love.
People experience you as Love.
And this is enough.
You are Woman, finally.

Ethiopia

2010-05-02T13:18:00.001-07:00

HAWASA

Thus far, Evan and my time in Ethiopia feels like swinging on a pendulum from
extreme wealth to extreme poverty and back again. We’re driving
through impoverished villages and desolate landscapes in a Toyota Land
Cruiser, which I believe cost more than my college education. We’re
staying in tidy hotels that neighbor urban slums. We’re feasting in restaurants outside of street children beg for food. This constant undulation (from wealth to poverty and
back again) has an effect similar to going from North Dakota to
Ecuador, back to North Dakota and back to the equator. The physical
body goes into relative shock and becomes slightly ill before finding
equilibrium (equilibrium, might I add, is not guaranteed and I am
still searching for mine).

Currently we are in Hawassa where I
feel very much like a princess protected from reality high up in her
tower. When said princess decides that said tower
is starting to feel like prison, she heads down to Hawassa’s main
street for some third world urban site seeing. There she is bombarded
by homeless peoples’ coo for “one birr” (equivalent to about $.08),
broken English catcalls and an ocean of harmless but lingering eyes
into which she attempts to look with loving compassion, “We are all
one…We are all one…We are all one, Namaste”. After some 2 hours said
princess is exhausted by black clouds of toxic diesel fumes, the site of emaciated
nursing beggars and weight of the unconscious barrier
she has now erected around her heart regardless of any loving mantras.

And so said princess retreats once again out of poverty’s sight, into said
tower until said tower begins to feel like a prison at which time she
descends upon Hawassa’s main street for some (more) urban third world
site seeing…. (It goes on like this for 48 hours.)

Clearly I am deeply grateful for my tower even though I am still making peace with the feeling that I am a spoiled clean-sheet-loving American who somehow (through dumb luck or good
karma or stellar celestial alignment) won the metaphorical lottery.

BIT 'O HISTORY

Every country in Africa has been, if not officially colonized at some
point, altered by Europe’s long reach. For some reason this used to
really piss me off. Why can’t the West just keep to its own business?
Why does the West insist on tasting everybody else’s honey? Or sugar
or oil or timber? Turns out in the late 1800’s Ethiopia was the first
African nation to defeat a European power. “Hip, hip, hurray”, I
silently cheered upon learning this fact throwing up a fist-pump for
the people of Ethiopia. And then I learned about the “Red Terror”, a
bloody era when Ethiopia’s own military government over threw the
Ethiopian king, killed all his ministers and then proceeded, in the likes of
Nazi Germany, to murder over 500,000 innocent Ethiopian civilians. Let me clarify, they didn't just murder 'innocent' people, they specifically murdered the best and brightest, the intellectuals and innovators. They wiped out anyone whose intelligence or inner power might threaten the military's standing. Whoa. Ethiopians killing Ethiopians on purpose without cause? Maybe
being under Italy’s control wouldn’t have been such a bad idea after
all. At least then they could have blamed someone else for their
current state. (I don’t sound much like a yoga teacher any more. Honestly, I don't even know what "yoga teacher" means anymore. This is only one of the many aspects of my former reality that hardly seem 'real' anymore. “We are all one…We are all one…We are all one,
Namaste.”)

Anyway, power has pretty much been a game of hot-potato for last 100
years in Ethiopia. This constant changing of the guard, in combination with
severe droughts, high inflation, the recent tragedy of the “Red Terror”
and a lack of education and medical resources, leave millions of rural
and urban Ethiopians out to dry in the unforgiving African sun.

But you guys probably know all this. I’m just sort of having my 31 year old
mind shattered as the reality of Ethiopia’s “situation” bulldozes the
china cabinet of my naiveté. This destruction of my previous model of
reality, by the way, is excruciatingly uncomfortable. Necessary, I
know, but uncomfortable as hell. Basically the tidy box I had
designated as “Real” is now but a pile of wood chips and bent nails.
And here, amidst this rubble, is where I stand. “Okey dokey,” I look
around with my hand on my hips. “So where shall I go from here? “

Love Yoga's Philosophy on "Teaching" Yoga

2009-11-03T13:23:00.000-08:00

Authentically teaching Yoga has it’s roots in living Yoga. Kristina and I designed the YogaLife program with this philosophy at the heart of the matter. The entire program is designed to assist each student’s better understanding of and application of Yoga - yoga philosophy, yoga psychology, yogic science, yoga practices of breath and movement - in his and her day to day life.

If one is to teach patience, it’s best to practice ‘being’ patient. For many of us ‘patience’ must practiced day in and day out. For many of us this means cultivating moment to moment awareness of our behaviors, actions, reactions, thoughts and words. Over time the practice of 'patience' yield great reward: we are less reactive, calmer, more compassionate, better listeners, etc. And, additionally, through the very act of being patient we will teach others patience.

Yoga is similar in this way. Yoga is learned actively through the daily application of ethics, cleansing practices (for mind-body), devotion, Self reflection, and meditation. It is not learned through passive reading or purely intellectual study. Yoga is not learned by mindlessly following someone else’s choreography (though we may be introduced to a surface layer of the practice through this experience). And Yoga, in its wholeness, can not be taught if it is not being lived.

How do we “live” Yoga?

WITNESS THE SELF
Firstly, we must stop pushing and shoving our way through the crowd claiming to be ‘patient’. We must slow down and examine (with a magnifying glass and the Truth) our current behavior. We must be willing to see ‘whatever’ is. For many of us when we arrive on the scene of our own behavior we’re shocked at just how hurtful, life-depleting, self-lacerating, out of control, judgmental, unconscious, unkind and impatient our behavior is.

At first consciously witnessing the self can be a bit like watching the same train wreck, over and over and over again. It is good to have a very loving teacher in these early stages. Someone who can remind you just how miraculous you are even when you eat the whole pan of brownies, binge drink, get stoned, wake up next to Mr. What’s Your Name Again?, yell at your mother, buy things you can’t afford on credit, etc. I kid, sort of, but you get my point.

My initial 'conscious witnessing' (waking up) period involved the end of my engagement, the healing of a 10 year struggle with bulimia, the direct confrontation with a pattern of habitual lying, the painful realization that I was utterly mean to my self and unable to esteem myself, and so much more not-fun-stuff. The Lauran Janes train wreck, really.

Kristina was one of my first teachers during these early stages of awakening. In her words: "The inner Witness is the Source of Love itself. And this Love is more powerful than any negative outward behavior and therefore, is the greatest protection for humanity. The practices of Yoga soften the roughest edges of the world and brings you back to behaviors that stem from Love."

Though we may feel very far from Love when we first begin to witness ourselves, don't be fooled. For interwoven in the very act of witnessing the self is the Source of Love.

ASANA
In addition to WITNESSING THE SELF, the art of ASANA as a daily practice is an integral part of living Yoga. Asana is a practice of ‘cleaning out’, ‘undoing’, ‘pushing the re-set button’, ‘getting back to Love’, ‘finding the happy place’, ‘calming the mind’, ‘tapping the unconscious’, ‘unsticking’, ‘gaining strength’, ‘increasing confidence’, ‘becoming excited about the body-mind’, ‘practicing non-violent actions’, ‘witnessing thoughts’, ‘expanding my boundaries’, ‘playing again’, ‘focusing on anything other than the chattering-list-making-machine of the mind’ and more.

Asana assists our movement out of the head and into the heart - physically and literally. We move our attention to something greater than the ‘jumping beans’ between our ears and we literally expand the tissues around the heart. We align the skeleton as a means of strengthening the scaffolding of the ‘playground’ of the body. This process opens brilliant channels of energy to flow from heart to mind, toes to hair, Love to all.

SCIENCE OF THE MIND
Additionally, to live Yoga it is extremely helpful to better understand the SCIENCE OF THE MIND. Just as we can learn how our digestive track works (and feel the body’s varied reactions to what we consume) we can also understand how the mind ‘digests’ the constant inward following current of information. In our YOGALife program we study how the mind receives information, creates perceptions, sensations, and feelings. We study how the mind reacts to these feelings and how these reactions give birth to our underlying “story” of self. We study how our deep attachment to these stories hinders our sight. Experiencing life with hindered sight (through the veil of our mind's story - ego) is like driving with a foggy wind-shield. Though we can still drive, we are very likely to cause harm to ourselves and others.

More to Come...

The Cave Behind the Water fall

2009-10-29T13:22:00.000-07:00

While exploring the interconnection between Neuroscience and Nirodha this image of the stillness of thought waves (the cave behind the waterfall) arose and came through as a poem...

Rest yourself Inside
behind the veil of thoughts

Sit in the glow of the Cave
behind the waterfall

Dry and calm

Watch the descending current without judgment
Without taking pride in the water
Without scolding the water
Without wishing there was no water

Move within

Not easy
Nor is childbirth
Nor any process of Becoming

Most are closer to water than the Cave
Cold & drenched, hand scratching head

That’s okay

From beneath the water read the Sign Post:
"Move within. Now. Love you, Your Divinity."

Trust the moments of warmth
the glimpses of Light
the echoes of Silence
the hints of the Heart

Step out of the water

Some days very hard
Some days easier
Some days dry and warm
Some days wet all day

That's okay

Pratice watching the ‘lonely’, the ‘hurt’,
the ‘fear’, the ‘jealousy’,
the ‘right’, the ‘wrong’,
the ‘good’, the ‘bad’,
the ‘she’, the ‘he’,
the ‘I’, the ‘me’...

Endless drops

Watch and breathe...without judgment

...or maybe there is judgment...

That's okay

Practice again

Keep practicing
moving inwards
recede completely
into the Fire of the Heart

The Great Surrender

2009-07-30T14:23:00.000-07:00

Upon returning from an 8 day "Raise Your Vibration" yoga journey with Desiree Rumbough at Kirpalu, this poem whispered itself to me.

softly landing
in my own skin
again tender

after so much clinging
gripping the bit
controlling
but not controlling

my breath
lays me to rest
in the openness
of my own heart

nothing to fight here
not even my own self

a smooth baby-body
asleep in mommy's arms
in daddy's hands

today i am baby
i am mommy
i am daddy

i lull myself sweetly
towards the great surrender
that precedes freedom

The Mind is Like a Dixie Cup

2009-07-30T14:09:00.000-07:00

A young Krishna is playing with his friends, eating dirt, as boys will do. His mother catches him and insists that he spit out the rocks. When he opens his mouth wide she peers in and catches a glimpse of the entire universe...with in him! Stars, suns, moons, boundless space. At the sight of The Everything with in him, Krishna's mother momentarily passes out. The mind is like a Dixie cup. It can’t hold that ocean.

This is story paints such a delightful image of a foundational aspect of "Yoga". "Yoga" is the state being where nothing's missing. The state of yoga is a cellular recognition that every planet, every star, the building blocks of every living thing exist within each of us. Intricate systems work together inside our being. Water, electricity, waves, and powerful vibrations animate our every moment, our alive-ness. Nothing’s missing.

Of course, we will forget the grandeur, the twinkling of the stars inside, the multitudes of universes inside us. Part of the human experience is forgetting the miracle of The Everything of which we are composed.

That is why I practice yoga daily. The practice helps me move beyond the waxed paper border of my mind into the greater space within. Whether it's asana, mediation, pranayama...the practices help me touch the space my mind can't reach. In this way it brings me into a direct experience with The Everything...if even for just a moment.

Preaching to the Choir

2009-07-03T20:46:00.000-07:00

Whenever possible I climb to the top of the nearest mountain or speed bump to declare my ecstatic love for this practice called ‘yoga’. Yoga brought me back to my own Self - like a shepherd to her sheep. In the style of ‘Amazing Grace’, I was lost and then I was found.

When yoga found me I had long intellectually understood that I was composed of divine intelligence - the same divine intelligence that makes waves in the oceans, brings about spring after winter and designs animals of every color, shape and size. I understood with my head the miracle of my being, but that didn’t stop me from making very poor, selfish, fearful, hurtful, self-defeating decisions over and over and over again. My understanding of my own Grace-nature had not integrated into my cells, my heart, my breath or my every waking moment. Not even close. Bridging that understanding from my head to my heart occurred (and occurs daily) via my yoga practice on and off the mat. Yoga integrates what we know with our brains with the boundless life-force energy of the heart.

It is for this reason that I will share this practice with others for as long as I live. The practice is a direct extension cord to the Love in our hearts, the Love in every living vibration on the planet. Plus it just feels so dang good to play and breathe and squirm and find stillness again on the mat. So I teach yoga as a means of giving back the greatest gifts I have been given by this practice - health, consciousness, self-reflection, calmness, peace, vibrancy, and, oh yeah, Universal Love.

I am madly in love with the human race. Many of my friends can not fathom this possibility. And, let’s face it, as a race we are not always so lovable. We do things that hurt each other. We say things that sting like daggers. We are fallible, angry, violent, cruel and selfish. But, somehow, the practice of yoga gives one X-ray vision of sorts. With this vision we are able to see through the fallible ‘ways’ of man and woman, right into the root of the root of the heart of the matter that gave birth to the anger, violence, cruelty and selfishness. It’s a radical gift to see through the hurt to the heart. And that is the gift that keeps on giving in the practice of yoga. Sure, your hamstrings will elongate, your backpain will go away, your self-doubt will finally step to the back of the stage - but even cooler - you will learn to see love where previously it was hidden. It’s a crazy, beautiful, thrilling, exhausting, liberating thing. It’s like going to the best optometrist on the planet. Dr. yoga, yo.

So from the top of every mountain let yoga ring.

The Sky is Waiting

2009-06-08T10:59:00.001-07:00

Lift Off

Come fly.

Leave your left brain.

Bring your heart,
your trust,
your quite eyes and ears.

Leave your fear,
your no's,
your cant's,
your wont's.

Bring your wonder.

Bring your laughter.

Bring the wings of your breath.

Come fly.

The sky is waiting...

The Cat in the Hat & Resistance in the Body

2009-05-18T10:44:00.000-07:00

Like Dr. Seuss’s book, Oh The Places You’ll Go, perhaps some day I’ll write a book for my yoga students titled Oh The Obstacles You’ll Meet.

In class I often refer to these obstacles as “resistance”. When I first began the yoga asana practice I met the resistance of my hamstrings, my hips, and my spine. I met the resistance of neglected and denied emotions. I met the resistance of my self-doubt, the twisted knot of my lack of self-compassion, and the exhaustion of an unloved body. I met the resistance of a chronically dense sensation in my heart-center. I met the resistance of an over-active inner-critic. I met the resistance of an over-active perfectionist. Oh the Resistance I Met.

In the face of resistance on the yoga mat I have found the following questions to be very powerful and empowering tools: How am I meeting this resistance? Am I meeting this resistance with a fight - with my fists clenched, teeth gripped and shallow breath? Can I meet this resistance with its opposite - with a patient exhalation, a soft loose jaw and with loving compassion directed to the area of resistance?

Consider the lives and choices of Martin Luther King Jr, Mother Theresa and Gandhi. These individuals lives reflect the possibility (and power) in meeting resistance with something other than...more resistance. They met life's inevitable resistances with non-violence, calm, compassion and intelligence. Their lives teach me that since resistance is inevitable how I handle resistance is my only choice. Staying tuned to how I confront obstacles and choosing a love-based response to them is one way to practice living yoga off the mat.

Oh the Compassion We'll Cultivate.

Sun-shiny beauty of dandelions...

2009-04-13T19:03:00.000-07:00

When unpacking boxes this weekend my fingers tripped over this poem written nearly a decade ago. Amazing how our own written words take us back, back, back, like some strange warped time machine.

Sun-Shiny Beauty

When I was little I used to delight
in the sun-shiny beauty of dandelions.
I would gather them in bunches and bouquets
and give them to my mom with joy.

She always seemed to appreciate them.

One day the story changed.
Someone told me they were actually ugly
weeds that ought to die
at the hands of plant poison.

Plant poison, as it was explained to me,
was a reverse fertilizing product
created to destroy.

It came in giant white plastic bags
that weighed as much as my 4-year old self
for the bargain price of $4.50.

$4.50 was all it cost to kill the dandelions
in our yard for an entire year.

Perhaps the bag could have lasted longer
had I not dumped a large portion of it
over our fence into the neighbors yard.

Their prize-winning roses didn't grow that year,
but I managed to save a few dandelions
from a poisonous fate.

We Are Pacha Mama

2009-04-10T13:50:00.000-07:00

Evan and I just returned from our back country journey in Big Bend...

When over-looking a 2000 ft cliff, my chattering ego-mind vanishes. All I am left with is the visceral knowing that I am a part of something greatly larger than myself, a part of Pacha Mama, Mother Earth. It is so easy to forget our inner connectivity to Nature in our day to day city lives. In so many ways we have constructed a world of "comfort" that separates us from Nature - we drive instead of walk, we eat in chairs instead of under canopies, we visually consume television instead of the nightly sunset. In detaching ourselves from Nature, we have forgotten that we ourselves are Nature.

Funny how the clickity-clatter of the mind can often find a way of muffling this knowing, replacing it with rowdy, clammering tales about the "weighty chore" of filing taxes, the "stagnant frustration" of Lamar traffic, or the "looming" skyscrapers of post-moving boxes that must be tended to in every room of our home.

But the beauty of merging with Nature is that we come to recognize that labels like "weighty", "frustration", and "looming" belong to our over-active minds. These labels do not belong to Nature. (But isn't our mind part of Nature, one might ask...) When consciousness merges with the Nature, the mind's suffocating labels disappear. This merging with Nature, this smoothing of my mind's waves (vritis), is the driving force of my yoga asana practice - another way to merge with Nature.

Just as Nature smooths the waves of our thoughts, reminding us that there is another mode of existing that is not purely mental, so too does yoga return us to a state free of heady-tinkering. Like Big Bend National Park, the breath too soaks the jars of my thoughts and peels back my labels, reminding me that I am a part deeply interconnected to the Whole. I am liquid. I am air. I am the cycle of life and death. I am the seasons. I am animal. I come from the Mystery. I will return to the Mystery. I am a peon. I am a miracle. I am both insignificant and divine.

Less labels, more freedom. Less labels, more flexibility. Less labels, more peace. Less vritis, more Truth.

On our last night Evan and I were humbled spectators of what seemed to be a never ending sunset. Pinks, oranges, yellows spread out across the omnidome of sky doppled with clouds and graced by falcons. Though cold winds whipped across the upper cliffs of the South Rim, our senses were muted by the grandeur of what surrounded us...in that which we are all interconnected.

As I return to Austin, the city, my life as a yoga teacher...may I remember to inhale and let Pacha Mama sweep through me. May my daily practice and this breath hear and now serve to remind me of the Nature I am...of the Nature we all are.

Beyond Technique: 'The Un-nameable Something'

2008-12-09T14:34:00.000-08:00

A dear friend, Virginia, commented before class today, "So about all these technical manipulations of the body - arm bones back, inner spiral here, outer spiral there, tail bone in - something feels lacking. After all those manipulations something still feels lacking."

And the other day a dancer friend reflected, "You can be the most technically brilliant ballet dancer, but boring as hell to watch if you don't have that 'un-nameable something'".

And in less poetic terms I can offer this: Yes, we can do everything (on or off) the mat just "right" (just like our teachers or parents or bosses tell us) and we can still be f-ing miserable. We can still be dense, stuck and stale, even after having followed every little commandment and order of operations.

In the Anusara method, founded by John Friend, I find a response to “there’s something missing.” The first principle of alignment in Anusara yoga is “Open to Grace”. In my experience Opening to Grace is an expression for quieting the ego, the thinker, the do-er. Opening to Grace is a state of surrender, receptivity and luminescence that unfurls inside of us. To Open to Grace is to acknowledge with our inner most being the revelatory aspect of Spirit that has made itself known by our very existence. And it is from this state that we begin to witness our breath. It is from this state that the breath begins to inspire physical movement of “arm bones back, inner spiral here, outer spiral there...”

Virginia is so very right. The physical manipulations are but loud dense actions without first Opening to Grace, the ‘un-nameable something’, that I just gave a name to.

"The Love Coop"

2008-12-03T07:51:00.000-08:00

The creation of Love Yoga Co-Op is unfolding daily. So too is the reality of the time/energy output involved to get the project started (and to help it flourish). Truth is I'm not interested in running or managing a yoga studio. I am interested in sheparding a space where driven yoga teachers can grow, flourish, build a community and get paid a living wage. But, as a dear friend and yoga studio owner recently shared with me, "like it or not, Lauran, you will be a small business owner as soon as you sign your name on the lease. This means that part of your day will be spent tangled in the nitty gritty of cash flow, teacher management, marketing and promotion and rental space up-keep."

The rising sun of responsibilities is at first daunting -- enough to make me wonder if the day to day operations involved in the co-op will throw off my life-work balance. What I am saying? Of course this project is going to dramatically change the flow of my day, especially during the early stages of the co-op when my understanding of "how to make it work" is more like a gravel road than a super highway. But, still, part of me knows that diving into this will be an amazing learning experience. It already has been. And more than anything I've learned just how many people want to help make it work! I've had friends come out of the woodwork to help with the lease negotiations, website development, logo/graphic design, prop/mat donation, insurance quotes, financial flow charts, and non-profit education resources. Though, yes, I am managing the process, I also feel very much like nurturinig the growth of an already living organism..."It takes a village."

Really the next step, as I see it, is to continue to educate and empower teachers about how the co-op works and why the co-op might be a sweet addition to a studio setting.