Christmas Day

When geometric diagrams and digits

Are no longer the keys to living things,

When people who go about singing or kissing

Know deeper things than the great scholars,

When society is returned once more

To unimprisoned life, and to the universe,

And when light and darkness mate

Once more and make something entirely transparent,

And people see in poems and fairy tales

The true history of the world,

Then our entire twisted nature will turn

And run when a single secret word is spoken.

-Novalis

Thin Lines

Super Slippery Slope.

So...October was nuts. Then again, I feel like I say this very same thing about every previous month at the beginning of every new month. And this pattern always leads me to the same thought. Am I nuts? I mean really...how do people keep it together?

My ideal week seems so simple. But it rarely plays out the way it's planned. Is this life or is my will power just not up to speed? I don't know.

My birthday is on the 28th. By some miraculous combination of dates and fate I will have 5 solid days off with my 29th birthday right there in the middle. I find myself faced with 2 choices. Home to eat, drink and be merry...or...to the Ashram.

Fitting. The 2 sides of the coin that is my life.

Indulgence/Discipline

See that tiny little line separating the two...that's where I live.

I drank a few beers last night before bed...after the gym. In my dreams, I was part of a very small audience with an enlightened master. I watched an eagle manifest from the palms of his hands. Then there was some sort of cautionary tale about someone manifesting a buffalo in the same fashion and the horns tearing her chest apart.

Hmmm....

Hatha Photos 9/23/09

So...here's the first few pictures of my practice. They were taken about a week ago. I plan to post photos every month or so. This way we can watch my hatha practice unfold like the dewey petals of the auspicious lotus blossom. (you know you love it) These pics are a good idea because I get to see where my practice needs attention and how my body is opening. Anyway...the yogini chick in the photos is my friend Amy...we get to practice together about once a week. And now, without further adeu...ladies and gentlemen... prepare to feast your eyes on these!!!! (for the full effect...picture gasps, applause, and music by C & C Music Factory.)

and you may want to hold your breath for this last one...she's a real beauty (actually, I love this one...we look like we're on drugs...we weren't).

Cats on Film

My cats are awesome. Here's some proof.

Balthazar

Bast

Teen Yoga Class

Here's a link to an article the local newspaper wrote on a class I teach sometimes. The article is a couple months old. The writer refers to bhujangasana as reverse corpse pose...but whatever, it's still awesome. Check it out!

Click on me...I'm the link!

Irons in the Fire

So, I got super sick last week. Like, I didn't go to work or yoga sick. Thanks Alcohol. We're officially breaking up. Good Riddance. Depressed, hung-over, unable to function...thanks, but no thanks. Anyway...I'm back in the saddle and riding strong.

Enough about that. Let's talk about the awesome stuff that happened during the week. First of all...I made some really sweet origami. (I love origami). I'll have to blog about it sometime and post pictures of some of my work. Hmmmm...I volunteered some of my time for this wicked cool community event called Seeds of Love for Errol. Errol is this super cute kid who was born into a body with some major challenges. Because of this situation his family is in oodles of debt. (the health care system is stupid) So the community as a whole puts on these big events to celebrate Errol and to raise money to pay these monstrous medical bills. That is true Yoga!!! Ayway, the event was really fun and they had a great turnout. There was a huge buffet and entertainment and a raffle and fun, fun, fun. I helped with the food.

Also...I got hired at the Rush! Fitness center as the new yoga instructor. So that's gonna be a new experience. I'm going to teach on thursdays and sundays and I get my membership for free. For Free!!! Other than that not a whole lot of new stuff to talk about. Big weekend coming up. New Planet has a table at SurThrival 2009 this friday. And then, at the studio we're hosting a kirtan band (The Mayapuris) and Swami Tripurari is coming to speak about ahimsa (non-violence) and all of the profits are going to bringing illumination to the dolphin slaughter off the coast of Denmark. So, I'm stoked! And that's just friday...there's all kinds of cool stuff happening this weekend. We'll explore it later, I gotta crash.

The Yoga of My High School Reunion

So...I went to my high school reunion this past weekend. I went to a super small high school and there were maybe like 70 people in our graduating class. So needless to say, I had a blast. When you're school is that small you kinda get to know every body pretty well and you form some really tight friendships. So it was awesome getting to see everybody. That being said...I drank like a fish. Open Bar + Big Celebration = Wasted Wasted Wasted. Whatever...it just kinda sucks because I'm not such a big fan of intentional intoxication. In fact, I think it's kinda dumb and I tend to wake up feeling excessively guilty...if I drink...which, by the way, is next to never. Oh well, better luck next time!

Yoga in the Buff

So, I'm kind of in love with this idea. Genius. In fact, the only thing that I can think of that would be more awesome...would be eating a big ass mango right after class with my bare hands. Right On.

Meditation, Maya, and Me

So, let's start this post off with a few things we've all probably heard about meditation...just so we're all on the same page. According to modern science and the medical world, meditation is incredibly beneficial, having more positive effects on our bodies than can possibly be mentioned. Various forms of meditation have also been practiced by spiritually advanced eastern civilizations for thousands of years.

So what's the big deal? Here are a few of the physiological benefits claimed by practitioners and various clinical studies. Meditation has been know to calm the mind, reduce stress, improve concentration, reduce muscle tension, enhance the immune system, decrease the rate in which the body ages, improve athletic performance, help with weight loss, and provide significant relief from asthma just to name a few. Those are just physical benefits! Here's are some psychological benefits. Mediation is said to build self-confidence, resolve issues surrounding fear, help with concentration, increase creativity, improve memory, develop intuition, develop willpower, improve social skills, reduce road rage, decrease restless behavior, improve tolerance, decrease tendency to worry, and on and on and on...What about these yogis and monks and swamis? What are they out to gain through meditation? Here are some incentives...peace of mind, happiness, perspective on one's life, increased compassion, harmony, cultivates a sense of "oneness", helps to learn forgiveness for self and others, deepens the capacity for love, discovery of a self beyond the ego, and the big one...enlightenment!

So with a list like that, why wouldn't everyone practice meditation? Who knows. I can speculate that most peoples reasons are a lot like the one's I've had experience with. I always thought meditation seemed so rigid and stiff. With lots of rules and codes of conduct. I've also never really been such a big fan of commitment and the commitment to meditate always seemed like such a big one. I've pretty much always been an instant gratification kinda guy. Mediation promised all of these magical benefits but they always seemed so far down the pike. Sitting completely still for hours on end? Um...thanks, but no thanks. And here's the big reason...I never really thought things were that bad. Of course some nights I couldn't go to sleep because just being alive seemed overwhelming. And... then sometimes I would get completely wasted just to get out of my head for a while. Hmmm.... it's like there was always this mild anxiety that was with me everywhere I went. I felt like at any minute the sky might start falling. It seemed as though I was missing some really important piece of life and no matter where I looked, I just couldn't find it. Do you hear what I'm saying?

So anyway, I went to Yogaville for this teacher's training class that I mentioned before. Part of the curriculum was to meditate at least twice a day. Once at 6 am and once at noon. Let me tell you all about it. I tend to be a person who's pretty gung-ho about lots of stuff...until it starts, that is. I guess you could say I'm sometimes excited about the theory of what's about to happen and not so much the practical application. That's why I feel that meditation by force is one of the best things that ever happened to me. I got up all bright-eyed at 5:30 am the first morning of class, took a shower, and proceeded to walk to the academy (I was living in a tent in the woods) for morning meditation. Oh boy! Well, we sit down, Ohm a little bit, and then we start. Hooray, I'm meditating!!! I felt this exhilaration for all of about 5 minutes. That's right about when things started to suck. I was getting super antsy and these surges of energy kept flowing through my body like crazy juice. My breath was becoming labored and I felt like I was going to start screaming "Fuck" at the top of my lungs and maybe start running around the room smashing windows with my fists. Then the real fun began! My back started to hurt sooo bad. When I got to finally open my eyes 400 years later I was pissed. Needless to say I wasn't really looking forward to the noon meditation or the 35 hours I would be sitting in meditation that month. Great.

Well, it got better. The first few days sucked, don't get me wrong. But then some cool stuff started to happen. For starters, the intrinsic muscles that run along my spine started to strengthen, so my back stopped hurting. I got my breath under wraps and it soon became my favorite focal point. Then I started having some strange experiences. I started remembering all of these bits and pieces of memories that I hadn't thought about for years. Nothing super earth shattering, but still, interesting that this stuff was just floating around in my subconscious mind. Then the dreams started. Horrible nightmares actually. Like being murdered or chased or horribly humiliated. Gee whiz! All of this stuff was having an effect on my psyche and I wasn't even aware of it. Apparently nightmares can be common occurrence when someone starts meditating regularly. The idea is that I was releasing these fears and dealing with emotions in my dreams, and that was cleaning up my mind. I was seriously starting to feel a difference in just the first couple of weeks. Like this feeling of "ahhhhh". It was like I was truly beginning to relax. Here's the real kicker...one morning (probably around the beginning of the third week) during my meditation I had this very personal vision of Lord Shiva. Immediately I felt this lump grow in my throat and this overwhelming sense of beauty and compassion throughout my being. As I sat there, bathed in this ocean of feeling, tears began to stream down my face. It felt like I was finally able to take off this huge backpack I had been lugging around. Needless to say the rest of my day was awesome. It's like I was seeing through brand new eyes. I'm sorry if the metaphors are a little lame. It's hard to fit these feelings into these tiny little words. Anyway, I felt more emotion in those few weeks than I had for the past few years.

Within a few weeks of coming home my entire practice had all but withered away and died. I though about it all the time but it was like I just couldn't get going. That wasn't really working out so well. It was creating massive amounts of anxiety, like I was letting all of this wonder that I had just experienced slip away. Here's a little bit of advice. When your soul is crying out for something...LISTEN and make it happen. If you don't your heart will break. So I've started practicing again. I didn't really have any choice. I made it happen.

My practice is easy. I try to sit twice a day. Once in the morning and once at night. If I miss one here or there I don't freak out but I do try and sit at least once a day. I think it's easier to meditate in the evening. There's all kinds of energetic explanations for this but basically I'm more relaxed and find it easier to sit and concentrate. That's how meditation begins, by the way, concentration. The definition of meditation has been misconstrued by some new age ways of thinking. Guided journeys, pretty music, and flowery words, are not meditation techniques. These are called visualizations. Useful, but not meditation. How can we find stillness when we're introducing a whole new set of associations into the consciousness? Again, the idea is to concentrate on a single point. That's how we clear our minds and through this we find stillness. In that stillness lies our true identity. You see, as soon as we're born into our bodies we receive a name, a birthday, parents, and all kinds of associations. From the second we take our first breath we immediately start having relationships with the outside world. Through these relationships our ego selves set an identity. And through this growing identity we begin to form attachments. Through these attachments we learn fear and separation. Meditation brings us back to our center and reminds us at the core of our being that these associations are simply that, associations...not who we authentically are. We play these games of association, of right and wrong, of attachment because this is how the ego operates. The ego is a necessary tool because of the world we live in. A world of duality where everything has an opposite. Because of this polarity it is necessary to make choices. In the Hindu tradition this world is known as the world of Maya. Maya is the goddess of illusion. It is her magic to create a division and that division is where we make our home while in these physical bodies. Maya is the creator of the illusion of the individual self. The mother of the ego. Ego is illusion. When we can quiet the mind of all of it's chatter about association we can find our identity in the stillness that remains.

To learn a little more about this concept follow this link yogas chitta vritti nirodha

Here is an artist's rendition of Maya dancing her dance of illusion. Pretty...BUT NOT REAL!!! ha ha ha...





O.K.? So anyway, where was I? As you can see meditation is pretty much essential to spiritual growth and enlightenment. If we are under illusion about who we are then we're not really getting anywhere. So....back to my meditation practice. Here's the skinny. I'm doing the best I can. As I was saying, I shoot for twice a day. It doesn't always happen. Sometimes I concentrate on my breath, sometimes I concentrate on my third eye. Sometimes I repeat a mantra (I haven't found one that really calls out to me yet) and sometimes all I can handle is just sitting there trying to keep my eyes closed. Sometimes I scream. Sometimes I wake up at 10 am and I meditate at 11:30. That's awesome as far as I'm concerned. There's a whole universe going on inside of my head and as long as I'm making the effort I feel good about that. The thoughts don't really stop yet. I don't let this upset me. I just try not to let them run away with my consciousness. I gently come back to my focal point and I carry on. This is my meditation practice. Easeful, peaceful, and useful as a great teacher once said things should be. Sometimes it's amazing and sometimes not so much. But it's progressing and that's awesome.

Om Tat Sat.

Please allow me to introduce myself...

Sooo...

Here's a little back story. I like to think of myself as one of those wide eyed stud horses you see in movies. All full of fire, and crazy in the head if caged for too long. Stoic, eh? But seriously...I'm kind of a free spirit. I've seen a lot of places and I've met some really amazing people in the past few years.

This is how it began. I was a fat kid. Not enormous, but pretty fat. Like if I smiled you couldn't see my eyes because my face was so big and I definitely carried lots of extra chub around the midsection. At 13 I would eat an entire block of cream cheese while I watched Saved by the Bell and then whatever else came on for like all day long. My parents were never very conscious of nutrition and I didn't really know any better. (My parents are awesome by the way, just in case my mom is reading this). Anyway, so a couple of years later I get this job at Subway making sandwiches. I couldn't drive, so I would roller skate to work. I lost the weight and I vowed to never get fat again. Then a few really cool things happened. My mom started working at a chiropractors office. I got a job at a gym and later a second job at a health food store. Bodda-bing. This whole love of fitness, nutrition, and natural health was born. I couldn't get enough! It was amazing. I was fascinated. I became super concerned about what I was eating and far more physically active.

Hmmm, let's see...in 1999 I enrolled in the Virginia School of Massage in Blacksburg. I learned lots about the human body, loved class, and later learned that I hate giving massages. You win some you lose some. I would have done it all over again though. I learned SO MUCH about how the body works and it really made sense to me. Weight training completely evolved for me because I had this whole new understanding of physiology. That, in itself, was worth the tuition. So now I had all this knowledge. I had a great understanding of spinal health, nutrition, weight training, the muscular and skeletal systems of the body, and I've always been way into my spirituality. So what am I going to do with all of this stuff? Absolutely nothing.

When I was 22 I decided that my life had become Groundhog Day. You know, that movie with Bill Murray where he wakes up everyday and literally nothing has changed. Yup, that was pretty much how things were moving along. So...I left. I had this super inspiring conversation with my friend Amelia and that very day I bought a one way ticket to Alaska. Adios. I put in my two weeks notice at work, filled in my landlord, found homes for my cats, sold my car, got rid of a bunch of stuff, got on a plane and flew away. Hooray!!!

Alaska was beautiful. I worked at a resort in Denali State Park. Traveled around for a bit and when the season was over I flew to Kauai. I Bummed around, lived in a van on the north shore, and stayed stoned pretty much the entire time. Hawaiians have great weed by the way. (It's true) I sold the van and I flew to San Francisco. I found an awesome roommate, signed a lease, got a job, and decided to kick it for a while.

So this is the part of the story where I FINALLY mention yoga. Were you beginning to think this blog should be called Who Gives a Shit Loaf? This is where it really got started for me. I mean, I had taken a few classes before...but this is where it all happend. I started taking classes a few times a week at this awesome studio called Castro Yoga (the name of the studio later changed to Yoga Garden of San Francisco and is still alive today). Castro Yoga was an Iyengar centered studio. The style is very hatha (physically centered) and is super intense. The positioning of the body is very exact and one of the major ideas, as I understood it, is to work through the pain. Iyengar yoga is pretty common in S.F. because one of the world's major Institutes is there. Anyway, more about Iyengar later. Back to my story. I was in the studio for many hours a week and began to really develop my physical practice. I practiced pretty hard for about six months and then later kind of lost interest. I took a few Bikram and Ashtanga classes but nothing ever really rooted. It's super easy to get distracted when you're 23 and living in San Francisco. To make a long story shorter I partied like a rock star and later moved back to the east coast.

When I moved back to Virginia I became involved with this international school of occult studies known as The Modern Mystery School. I spent the next few years studying the Kabbalah and a few other subjects before later moving to North Carolina where I am currently living. When I got here I had a hard time finding work that didn't suck. (I've been waiting tables for about a trillion years...which, by the way, is an EXCELLENT way to support yourself if you like to travel.) But as it turns out when the economy is going through a massive transition eating out is kinda one of the first things to go. This I found to be pretty stressful since when I needed work before, I never really had trouble finding it. So I stressed and I stressed and I worried and I worried...and then one day I had this epiphany. IT IS AS IT IS. I could be broke and I could be a stressed out mess...OR... I could be broke and I could be happy. It's really that simple. So I started to look at this time as an opportunity to explore other aspects of my life. Made some friends, read some books, slept in, made some dinner, drank some tea, you get the idea. I was still looking for a job, mind you. It's not like I was in a bathrobe all day referring to myself as The Dude. But...I did decide this year that money will never own my happiness or my peace of mind ever again.

So as it turns out I had time to pick up my mat . I started taking a meditation class at this local yoga studio in January. The studio was beautiful, I had lots of time on my hands, and I thought "well alrighty then, I'm gonna do some Yoga". So I did, and it's been at the center of my life ever since. In April I went to study in Yogaville, Va for a month...(yes, it's a real place.) Yogaville is where the Satchidananda Ashram is located in the United States. I'll speak more about Satchidananda in another post. Anyway, the ashram is absolutely amazing and I had plenty of time for self reflection and meditation while I was there. Not to mention an in depth look at the many aspects of yoga and what it means to truly live a yogic lifestyle. When I left the ashram I was a certified Integral instructor. I was officially able to teach the arts of pranayama (breath control) and hatha yoga. For the first time in my life I was truly passionate about what I wanted to do!

Well, it looks like we're about up to speed. I'm back in North Carolina. I'm waiting tables at Mary's of Course! Cafe (the most awesome restaurant in Winston Salem) and I'm teaching some classes and continuing to cultivate my practice at New Planet Yoga. I have a room in my home dedicated specifically to my practice. I'm meditating on a regular basis, I'm eating well, and I'm in great shape. Life is beautiful. My 11 year high school reunion is coming up next week and I can't wait to go. I've had an awesome ride these past few years and I love where my life is headed. Things are great.

So there it is. That's where I'm at.

Salabasana (Locust Pose) 06/09

Me in May.

What's this Blog about anyway and WTF is a Yoga Loaf?

This is a blog about yoga. Not just the physical practice of yoga. Yoga as a lifestyle. I've been practicing the physical aspect of yoga (hatha) off and on for the past 9 years. Sometimes consistently and sometimes not so much. But for the past few months (since like January or February) my interest in Yoga has grown and grown. I mean sometimes it's all I think about. So this blog is going to serve as my journal, as my confessional, and sometimes as my motivation to keep my practice moving. I plan to document my experiences, discuss what I learn, and basically see how my practice unfolds. I'll explore books, asanas (poses), nutrition, philosophies, whatever comes up. Or, whatever I feel like talking about. So...it's kinda like a recipe with lots of ingredients. I'm making a Yoga Loaf. Delicious! We'll see where it goes...