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JANUARY 12, 2011.  Here is a really beautiful, fluid playlist aligned with this snowy winter's day. Enjoy!

PLAYLIST:  

Beautiful Friend, Light Rain

Gate To The Silkroad, Mokhira

Ananda, Solar Quest

Deep South, Layo Paskin & Matthew Bushwacka

Nogo, Issa Bagayogo

I Ka Barra (Your Work), Habib Koite and Bamada

Do U Wanna Partner, Clington, Shaan, Suzi Q, Udit Narayan & Wajid

Everything (...Is Never Quite Enough), Wasis Diop

Ganapati, Girish

One Step Closer to You, Michael Franti & Spearhead

This is How I Feel, Finley Quaye

 

JULY 17, 2010:  I get asked all the time what books I recommend for students of yoga. Well the list I personally suggest is as follows:

Yoga History: 
1. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali,Swami Satchitananda or Secret Power of Yoga, Nichala Joy Devi (ALL TIME FAVE!)
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Practice: 
2. Yoga The Spirit and Practice of Moving Into Stillness, Eric Schiffman 
3. Jivamukti By Shannon Gannon and David Life 
4. Yoga for Wellness, Gary Kraftsow, Penquin, 1999 
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Professional Ethics/Connecting the Heart of the Student: 
5. Teaching Yoga: Exploring the Teacher-Student Relationship, Donna Farhi
6. Anusara Yoga Teacher Training Manual, John Friend 
7. Living Your Yoga: Finding the Spiritual in Everyday Life, Judith Lasater 
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Anatomy/Physiology: 
8. Anatomy of Movement, Blandine Calais-Germain 
9. The Anatomy Coloring Book - Kapit & Elson 
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Pranayama and Breath: 
10. The Heart of Yoga: Developing A Personal Practice, Desikachar
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Recommended Books: 
Yogi Bare by Philip Self 
The Language of Yoga by Nicolai Bachman (to learn how to pronounce stuff)
Yoga from the Inside Out by Christina Sell 
A Path With Heart: A Guide through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life & Wherever You Go There You Are by Jack Kornfield
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SEPTEMBER 14, 2009:   Today I realized as I was driving home after yoga class and my mind was freed up that I uncovered another Samskara.  Part of me said UGH! Not this again. And yet the other part of me after I stopped crying was like ok let me care for this and before I fall into the proverbial hole in the sidewalk (that I've been in before!) let's see what I can change.  But let me say seeing it doesn't make it easier to change especially as it relates to love it just makes you more responsible for yourself. And yup sometimes that's harder.

 

As is written in the Secret Power of Yoga my favorite translation of the Yoga Sutras, "our thoughts and feelings form these clusters of habitual patterns, tendencies and potentialities called Samskaras. These Samskaras accrue by the constant churning of our thoughts and emotions.  Whenever any thought or feeling is encountered it is easily fed into one of these patterns.  Then our habits and patterns become set.  The pattern of HABIT or samskara is difficult to change, as our consciousness is often unable to reconfigure the obvious."

 

You see our thoughts (all 60,000 per day) are trained by habit to flow in predictable patterns.  We are tuned out to most of these habits, especially the Unhealthy ones.  The practice of yoga inspires us to recognize who we really are, our true selves and we begin to see our "MINDLESS HABITS" (Samskaras).  We then begin making more conscious choices.  It is like we wake up.  Chapter 1.50 When experiencing the absolute true knowledge all previous Samskaras are left behind and new ones are prevented from sprouting. 

 

In the yogic model, two reasons exist for remaining stuck in negative emotions or unhealthy actions:

• The first is samskaras, or karmic knots, that develop over time.
• The second is a lack of prana, or vital life force, oxygen in our bodies. 

How yoga can help:

• Releases emotions/stress locked in the body.
• Brings in more oxygen/prana or life-force. (For instance we learn when we hold our breath)
• Balances the brain.
• Calms the mind and develops the “witness” - we see our thought pattern or physical habit.
• Helps us reconnect, become more awake or conscious. 
• According to Stephen Cope, MSW, LICSW, a psychotherapist and author of Yoga and the Quest for the True Self (Bantam, 1999), hatha yoga's postures improve mood by moving energy through places in the body where feelings of grief, stress, worry or anger are stored. "Hatha yoga is an accessible form of learning self-soothing," he says. "These blocked feelings can be released very quickly, [creating a] regular, systemic experience of well-being." 

So today let's dedicate the metta meditation to where we are personally stuck in an less than healthy samskaras (patterns) and let's offer this practice to someone in our life that is living in the darkness, someone who doesn't see they are repeating the same negative cycle over and over again.  As I said to a friend yesterday, it is like being in a dark room and you have to first want to find the light switch, the thing is the light switch is always there on the wall (it doesn't move around) and it may take some crawling around to find it but all you have to do is flip the switch and all in your life will be illuminated! Sending you all courage to change your life for the better!! Love, Silvia

 

METTA (LOVINGKINDNESS) MEDITATION

May I be happy, may I be healthy, may I be peaceful and free

May you be happy, may you be healthy, may you be peaceful and free

May we all be happy, may we be healthy, may we be peaceul and free

 

MARCH 5TH, 2009:  Yoga is a process towards looking inward to develop insight, awareness and understanding. To do this, we must practice Shani-- the slowing down between impulse and reaction. This slowing down naturally facilitates mindfulness and introspection and gives us the choice on how to respond rather than impulsively reacting to situations and events. So tonight the focus of our practice is SHANI.  When we multi-task too much we actually create that buzz where life seems to be going faster and faster.  Our nervous systems get wacked out and the constant flight or fight response goes into overdrive.  Yoga helps us to slow down to the sweet speed of life, which some psychologists call "easy speed." 

I personally slowed down this week by making more space to let the story of my life unfold on its own without too much over organizing. I made my To Do List but then crossed off all but 3 things on it each day.  I put down my IPHONE and stopped to breath more.  I took more yoga classes, practiced more pranayama and hung out more.  It has been a wonderful week as I slowed down enough to enjoy each moment!

One of my all time favorite ads for the lifestyle/yoga company prAna was where there was a picture of the middle of the woods and posted on a sign it said, "Slow Down, People Breathing."  Think how different the world would be if from this point forward everytime you approached a stop sign there would be a sign underneath it saying this same thing, "slow down, people breathing."  The thing is this signpost is in our mind.

So today enjoy the sunshine, stop multi-tasking so much, slow down and BREATH MORE!  Love in all ways, Silvia