After two months of teaching Yoga Philosophy on Relationships it was perfect timing for Roy and I to arrange a meeting. I wanted to see what could happen if I invited someone else to join me in my spiritual practice in the woods. Of course, Roy is not just any other person. Roy has provided me with a distant but steady counsel in my yoga business for years, and we’ve remained fond supporters of one another--kindred spirits for sure. With this kind of person, a single get-together feels like it awakens many lifetimes of learning.

We loosely created an intention for our walk, as you can read in my invitation to Roy below:


With Roy, the inspired conversation began even before we stepped onto the path, as he expressed his willingness to have, what Buddhism calls, “the wisdom of no goal”. He said,


In the first half of our walk, before we mutually agreed to allow shared quiet, I shared a new concept I was grappling with. I tried to frame my thoughts in a way that wouldn’t seem strange or weird, nor require Roy to agree with me. His response was beautiful:

As we walked, we stopped to observe and appreciate the energy of certain rock formations, tree barks, spiders, dragonflies, and other people. I showed him many of the places that had inspired my Yoga Nature videos including the Cicada, Lady slippers, and Birch tree. We began experiencing the paradox between noticing these elements of nature as separate from us, but also feeling our interconnectedness. He expressed his concern that when we start to label and identify, there is separation that occurs that can also be said, in its extremes, to lead to the capacity to objectify people and nature in limiting ways.

From beginning to end, the most common theme of our walk was “Openness”. Roy shared that one of his favorite things to do, when he sees his children, but extending out to all people, is to say, within his own mind, “I wonder who you are today? Because you are not who you were yesterday.” We agreed that we could even say this to ourselves each day.

As we neared the end of our walk, and I continued to attempt to “figure out” some certain spiritual concepts, Roy gently questioned whether or not I could just rest in the unknowing. He said that one of his favorite things to remind himself is to:

“Unconfuse oneself through not knowing.” (from Toni Packer, Buddist Nun)

Or said another way,
“Not knowing is our Friend.” ~Roy

Thank you, Friends.
With great Love,

Julie

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Video track -  2:15 minutes (click on the photo)

to help navigate uncertain times . . .

The title of our study for August Yoga Philosophy was “Preparing for a New Reality”. I offered this subject to help inspire a positive focus during the continued uncertainty of COVID and a divisive election year.

It is more important than ever for us to know “who we want to be” but, first, we must figure out “who we don’t want to be”. This practice of “doing no harm” (ahimsa) takes awareness, courage and letting go of the old wounds and patterns that serve no one. The most common patterns worth letting go of are not feeling good enough and needing approval (weak ego), and judging or needing to fix/change others and/or the world (strong ego).

On my walk in the woods, the red spotted newt affirmed this possibility for positive transformation, as we allow the old parts of ourselves (and of our collective culture) to fall away. The newt can regrow a new limb if one falls off! What might our new limbs look like? Try on these new limb thought patterns: Un-doing, Not doing, Being. How about “Let me see every person and event as an opportunity to become a better person myself, and surrender the rest”. You’ll be surprised how much more goodness you bring to the world this way!

With great love,

Julie

For further encouragement, please click on "continuing reading" to read the heartfelt wisdom from our Yoga Community, based on this month’s Yoga Philosophy Course discussion:

The cidada shell stopped me in my tracks. This “cause to pause” has become a signal to me that I need to listen. Some wisdom is trying to come in, but I must open my mind, allow quiet, and focus my attention upon studying the energy at hand.

The shell made me laugh, in light of the theme of our August Yoga Philosophy Course. We are studying how to prepare for a New Reality, which begins with how to shed the old ways, programs, wounds and lower vibrations of both our individual and collective energy. The old shell becomes obvious to us when we are feeling judgmental, critical, worried, angry, possessive, rigid, controlling, fearful…got any of that? That’s our old shell. We can learn to look at it, perhaps with some compassionate horror!

The great news is that we, like the cidada, will emerge, and with wings! In fact, that which delights, uplifts, enlightens and makes us feel like we’re soaring is great guidance to follow! That’s the direction we are going. And, like the cidada, it can happen quickly. Both recognition of the old shell, and the fast pace in which we all are waking up, invite us to take good care of ourselves, allowing ahimsa (non-harm) to lead the way through intentions of humility, gentleness and discernment.

We can bring this forward into action via our voice and, again, take wisdom from the cicada. Most known for its sound, the cicada sings in various harmonies and rhythms that have fascinated and mesmerized people for ages. Honor rhythms by knowing when to speak and when to stay silent. Let us sing in harmony with those around us, and notice how it is this harmony that is molding, shaping and calling forth the new reality.

The cidada borrows a famous quote (attributed to pacifist A.J. Muste) as it offers this wisdom: 

"There is no way to Harmony. Harmony is the way."

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Video track -  2:15 minutes (click on the photo)

Have you seen the mushrooms popping up in the woods, especially these last two weeks? They seem to come so quickly and out of nowhere, with amazing vitality and color. Such is true as we awaken on our spiritual journey. All of a sudden we can know (or remember) something we didn’t know the previous day, and it doesn’t have to come from a book or person. It can come, perhaps especially, in the quiet of our own mind. 

The mushrooms remind us that each new day brings new understanding, if we listen and trust the guidance. I’ve come to see the wisdom as nudges or direction on the path, with an almost cryptic quality. Just enough to get me interested, my mind stumped and curious, to take the next step, and study the information that presents itself. It becomes rather exciting--crazy even--and the serendipity and amazement increase as the clues drop in.

It gets close to what I imagine are some of the qualities of a psychedelic experience with mushrooms. Mushrooms have a property called psilocybin which, when studied in psychologically healthy people, results in a decreased sense of separate self, and an increase in interconnectedness and universality. One can also experience these ego-softening effects in meditation, when falling in love, being in nature, or having an unexpected and enlightening conversation.

I suspect that in this current evolution in consciousness, we have a lot more willpower than we think to choose a softening of the Ego. This election year, and continued COVID anxiety, is the perfect challenge. Let us be inspired by the mushroom to willingly suspend our ego, our beliefs and opinions, in favor of embracing an alternate reality of our own making. As Buddha said, “Sometimes it’s better to be kind than to be right”.

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Video track -  2:15 minutes (click on the photo)

Though the rose is a very good choice for our National Flower (understood to have the highest vibration of all flowers), we have some work to do to reach that enlightened state! For now, my vote for “most helpful National Flower” would be the Milkweed.

It couldn’t be more timely, its flower resembling the fireworks of Independence Day, reminding us to celebrate the small ways in which we free ourselves from that which oppresses us--especially and perhaps only the very thoughts we allow and cultivate in our own mind.

As we learn how to better “do no harm” (ahimsa) within our mind, we simultaneously begin to see the contrast between what no longer serves us and what nourishes and supports our personal growth. When we begin to release the old and find situations and relationships that lift us up and make us feel amazing, we feel so FREE! Free to be ourselves, and to enjoy this amazingly beautiful world.

The Milkweed plant is the ultimate in supportive relationships...so much so that the Monarch butterfly will not breed unless Milkweed is present. The eggs are deposited on the underside of the protective leaves, the larvae eat the leaves as a sole source of food, and the otherwise “toxic” nature of the milky substance within the stems actually protects the butterfly from predators too.

The Milkweed, in turn, receives assistance from the Monarch butterfly in pollination, allowing it to successfully produce seeds for the years to come. This relationship also benefits other pollinators, like bees, which together are responsible for one in every three bites of food we take! Wow! Milkweed wins. Monarch wins. Bees win. We win. This is the beauty of interdependence. These kinds of relationships help each participant thrive...to be free to be who they were meant to be.

May you feel your independence from anything that doesn’t serve your Highest Self, and may that void be filled by newly inspired and supportive relationships, leading you to be FREE to be You!

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"Independence Day" Video playlist -  (click on the photo) Track 1:  2:37min; Track 2:  2:21min; Track 3:  2:23; Track 4 (Yoga Practice):  40min