On the eve of Yoga Month

Here’s the truth, people…I haven’t done a full practice in AGES (like 3 weeks), just trying to heal my left knee, which I managed to torque somehow, overdoing something when my nutty (read “schizophrenic”) left hip wasn’t ready. The result?? SEARING pain when I bent my knee, that means sitting, standing, walking all were hurting…let ALONE lotus (lotus??? whatever is that?). My body cried “Stop” while my mind argued “you can do this, forget the pain, you KNOW the right techniques now”….guess what won? Guess what ALWAYS does and will?

They say that the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again, whilst expecting a different result or rather…let’s spin that on its ear….maybe TRUE intelligence means applying the techniques that you KNOW in the safest way possible to your body AS IT IS…not AS YOU IMAGINE IT or IN A PERFECT WORLD…just as it is. Prosaic? Maybe. True? Absolutely.

So I listened, I rested my body when it asked for it, I took the yoga inside and remembered what my teacher Greg Nardi said to me when I was at a particularly low point during an Ashtanga intensive I did (remind me to share more about that)…”Remember, Shakira”, he said, patience in his voice like he’d NEVER said it before “it’s a breathing practice”. And somehow it stuck, I got it, I slowed down and honoured what was happening and why and what I needed to change.

All of this I recall now as we head in to September, which is Yoga Month!!! Yay! Even as I challenge myself physically for EVERY ONE of the next 30 days (yes, EVERY DAY!), I’ll keep the thought “BREATHE” first and foremost in my mind, and for me it’s much bigger than words like “pranayama”, “Ujjayi” and “mula bandha” (don’t get me wrong, they’re important)…it means “Just breathe, no matter what, be still IN your breath, everything else will come”

“Do your practice”, Pattabhi Jois said, “and all is coming…” and you know what? I think I’m beginning to really see what Guruji meant

See you on the mat tomorrow!

love
SWWW

Ok…it is time

I created this blogspace almost two years ago, telling myself “You’re interesting, you MUST have something of worth to say, something significant that the universe wants to hear”. And then…….NOTHING, rien, nada, niente….and so I left it, and almost forgot it was here.

But now it feels different, it feels RIGHT, “I” feel ready and I don’t even think I have to come up with anything earth-shattering, life is in the little things, after all.

So I’m going to write, sometimes epic rambling conversations with myself that I hope won’t suggest to my friends and family that I’m slightly nutty (they probably know this already) and sometimes pithy pieces of whatever happened to me in the now.

This blog is intended to support my site (still without name, except the word ‘sadhana’ will be in there somewhere…go google it ^-^ ) which is all about my passion for sustainable living in all its forms, so there are days when it’ll be serious, you may even think I’m pontificating…yoga and healing, awareness, activism, volunteerism, vegetarianism, sustainable agriculture, diet and tourism, philosophy and faith…(geez, that’s a LOT)

And then again, I’ll get silly (i PROMISE you the week of March 4-9, 2011 will be COMPLETELY devoted to me playing Mas in Trinidad – lookit my profile picture to see the cute costume I’m going to wear! woohoo!)…and that’s OK too

I write for me, because NOW I know there is no time like NOW…and I LOVE that…

so, OK, enough from me for NOW :)….que l’aventure commence -let the journey BEGIN!