-Antonio Porchia

Summer session 2 has come to a close, and I am so grateful to have practiced with you all.  Working through the chakras was enriching and truly a beautiful experience.  Thanks for a wonderful summer.  Keep in touch <3

Much love, and until next time,
Jai!

Hello beautiful students!  Sorry I missed class today.  My body is definitely telling me to slow down.  BUT, with Cindi making up the class for you, I'm positive you had a wonderful intuition-based experience of Ajna, the brow chakra.

Here are some of my thoughts on Ajna.. maybe a different perspective? Enjoy, and keep playing yoga!

Ajna, the brow.  It's wisdom and clarity and sight (both physical and meta) and imagination and all around goodness.  With a color like indigo, it has to be good!  When we work with Ajna, I like to focus on the whimsy, fantastical side of things, tapping into our mass of creativity we so often leave unaccessed. 

"Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living; it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope."  And that, brought to us by Dr. Seuss, is a great way to to "see" life, as Ajna "sees" all.

I guess I'm in a silly mood, because I also want to share  this clip. (click me!) 

Much love, jai!

We're on to the 5th chakra, moving into the more conceptual, spiritual, granola-y classes of our session.
Which is awesome.  (...my empathy if you're not into that)

Meeting with a friend from my YTT inspired our class explorations today.  We had a great conversation about "authenticity" versus "nice".  Honoring Vishuddha, the throat chakra, is about honoring your personal truth in expression-not about pleasing others in what you say. 

And that, my friends, can be SO hard.  How many times a day do you move away from who YOU are in order to please or pacify who someone ELSE is?  If you're like me, it's a lot.

But life is a work in progress, so keep in it, opening yourself to your authenticity a little more each day.  It's a challenge, but so worth the effort.

"Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."  -Howard Thurman

Also, a little Jack Johnson love.  (click me!)  Jai!

When class is about opening the heart and letting love in, you'd think you should feel all lovey dovey loopy "wonderful world" esque during and after class, right? 
...
well maybe, if you're like some yoga master guru who has nothing better to do than flip around in Scorpion all day.  BUT if you are a regular human being, like me, or the person practicing next to you, you probably aren't experiencing this blissful "yogic" state all the time.  And that is completely okay.  When we are opening the heart chakra, we are allowing all of our emotions through-not just the blissed out ones.  Here's a great poem about Fish pose that totally gets it.  (click me!)  (slightly different interpretation of the fish we practiced today!)

When I was surfing the net before class, I found a page that describes different thoughts (vrittis) our mind tends to focus on when we are working with Anahata.. and they're not all "blissy."  The ones that really got my attention were -lust -indecision -hope -arrogance and -anxiety.   So yep, it's okay, it's normal, it's natural to have these thoughts during your practice.  Just keep bringing it back to the breath and work through it!

Jai!

...there's not much time for anything else!

Doesn't it feel like our practice goes by so quickly?  Sending LOVE and LIGHT to my early birds <3 
Here are some tidbits that inspired our session... play with your practice and experience the fire!

• "If you want enlightenment, lighten up" -a friend mentioned this..how true. we always take life too seriously!  
• What's great about Manipura?  It's all about taking charge of your life and channeling the strong warrior energy inside of you to make positive changes in your experience.  Now THAT is something you can say yes to.
• Click Me for YJ's interpretation of the chakra... I know, I know, Yoga Journal? Trust me.  It rocks.
  
• Annnd here's a preview to next week's "anahata chakra" class...GIVE LOVE