KonaYoga.com

Block Poster of a Blog Poster

Recipe: One blank wall, one new printer, 20 letter sized sheets of photo paper, one photograph of choice,and Block Posters.com. Upload your photo of choice (no larger than 1MB) and they will in turn give you a PDF file to print.

I used a photo of myself taken by Jerrie Stafford, turned it into a "watercolor" and took the 20 sheets and taped them together. You could cut off the borders of each print to eliminate the white lines, but I wanted the window pane effect. Five binder clips hang on picture frame hooks on the top and I added another five on the bottom just for balance and weight.

I took this photo before 6am this morning while my optic nerve was still asleep. I decided to use it anyway to give you an idea of what it is like to be near-sighted with astigmatsim.

Block Posters: easy and FREE.

Full of Me?

A wonderful little reminder from Tricycle Magazine about holding an open mind:

Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.

Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full then kept on pouring.

The professor watched the cup overflow until he could no longer restrain himself. "it is overfull. No more will go in."

"Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?" - Paul Reps, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones From Everyday Mind, a Tricycle book edited by Jean Smith

When I was a realtor, I had a client who bought and sold investment properties. She had the amazing ability to patiently ask the same questions of everyone who had anything remotely pertinent to offer. "They all have different viewpoints," she explained. "When you buy an apartment building, the janitor, rentor, owner and neighbor all see it in a different light. I want to know what they all think."

Showing up full of our own opinions and speculations may save time, but it might make for a poor investment.

Life Works

When you look at what is working, then you generate a vibration within you that says my life works, and then, in everything that you approach - your life works.

-Abraham-Hicks

If you always regard the good things that happen to you as miracles, it's a telltale sign that you might be viewing hardships and disappointments as a fact of life and to be normal for you. The old "glass is half empty" model of thought. What would the converse look like?

The Abraham-Hicks quote continues:
You could have ninety-nine things not working in your life and only one thing working, and if you would focus upon the one thing that is going right, for a disproportionate amount of time, saying "my life works; my life works; my life works..." the other 99 things would fall in line with what is working.

A crucial component is the way you feel as you speak those words, "my life works". If you're just spouting the words and still feeling angry or fearful, you won't register very high, if at all, on the Richter Scale of Happiness & Well-Being. It takes practice. You saw that coming, didn't you? Practice.

When we are new to yoga, we often have to be reminded to breathe. As our practice expands, we learn to allow our breath to become the thread that weaves through our physical movements. Then, through further practice, we are able to think of something that brings us joy as we inhale into each of the postures.

At that level of practice, every yoga class is a joy to us. The teacher, style, location or size of the class matters not. Our personal practice time becomes something to look forward to, not just an item to be checked off a list. We are able to extract joy simply through the act of inhaling.

If you have not yet experienced yoga or that aspect of it, you could begin by changing your focus. Start looking for things to appreciate that are right under your nose...even if it's just a mirror that fogs up because you're breathing.

The last part of the Abraham-Hicks article continues to say:
So when we say to count your blessings or look at the positive aspects, that's just about deliberately activating what is working in your life. Because when you do that, you get more and more, and more of that. That's how the better it gets, the better it gets - the better it gets. That's when it's easy to accept that Well-Being is the order of this Universe.

Reference: Abraham-Hicks.com: "My Life Works", March 22, 2003.

Photo:roadtomingulay

Looking Through Different Lenses

There's a great message on Senia.com today titled "6 Ways to Do SOMETHING DIFFERENTLY- exactly where you are". Her premise is, why wait to go somewhere in order to be more observant or to enjoy life? Why not do it just where you are?

Focus close-up as I did with the bottles on my windowsill, or focus wide-angle and enjoy all of the trust that every driver along with you at the 4-way stop possesses.

Today, I think I'll look for something that I haven't noticed or paid much attention to at the studio. Something to appreciate in a new way. Thanks, Senia!

4:45pm Here it is...

The studio floor. It takes a daily beating from hands and feet pressing down on yoga mats, to massage tables laden with bodies at rest. Lately, some of the underlying spackling is peeling off and exposing bare plywood and when I look at the floor I'm usually thinking about ways to replace it.

Today, I want to acknowledge our floor, represented here by the two hard working fellas who hold our movable walls in place. When I hold yoga classes and face the ocean, I look down at the floor and see them smiling up at me.

Painting the floor would have been a back breaking job if not for my years of uttanasana, and the sliding walls would not have been possible if not for the ingenious woodsmen, Albert and Mike. I think I'm going to look at the floor through softer lenses so I can see a way to transform rather than replace it.

Masking Tapes

Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.
-James A. Baldwin

Has your personality changed in the last five years? Psychologists have determined that we have five main characteristic traits: conscientiousness, neuroticism, agreeableness, openness, and extroversion. Once believed to be genetic and static after age 30, new research suggests that we do change quite often and quite a lot.(1)

It's not certain if we change in response to the situations in our lives or, if the changes we make bring about new circumstances. It's probably a combination that varies but can you imagine operating with the same habits and beliefs developed at a time when your intentions were different?

Many times, change is already under way when a person steps onto the mat for the first time. He is open to the nuances of yoga but comes to class with old methods of learning and moving his body. I see a willing body, waiting for it's owner to change his mind.

As I have been taught, I instruct "feel, don't force your body". Then, there is a visible tug-of-war between feeling and forcing. The two are welded together like conjoined twins. When the separation occurs, it is like removing a mask to reveal the joy underlying the struggle.

I've come to believe that a lot of the negative self- talk we constantly listen to are nothing but old beliefs. They sound off in the background like an ignored, but persistent TV. We exist in the present with our fresh, new personality waiting to unmask.

Photo: Veneto's Attractions
References:
(1) Personality Changes Throughout Life. New Scientist.com

Do You Hear What I Hear?

"There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. It is the only true guide you will ever have. And if you cannot hear it, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls."
-Howard Thurman

I've been entertaining the flu for the past two weeks. All that's left is a lagging and unwelcome cough, but during the first week I was only able to get out of bed long enough to discern that I was alive and living somewhere in Hawaii.

I might have had a fever, I don't know. I wasn't awake long enough to feel hot or cold, or sore, or hungry. During one lucid moment I told myself that I was behaving like a retired slug!

Deprivation is a stern teacher of appreciation. As I regain my usual energy level, my senses (sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell) are what I appreciate most. One would assume that taste would be first and foremost but I find that I'm enjoying and craving, the sense of hearing.

I'm in love with sounds of my exterior: roosters crowing, trucks braking, and birds arguing for position at the feeder that hangs from a tree outside my door. All of the sounds within my living space are melodious and rhythmic: the whirring fan in my laptop, my wind chime and refrigerator, even the the trilling geckos.

Then there are the sounds archived somewhere in the seams and folds of my brain. I remember my old friend Mr. B., singing 'I don't want to set the world on fire', as he tossed golf balls onto the mat for me, making sure I stayed on the driving range. That's a memory sound byte that's nearly 30 years old but in the last few days it's played over and over. Watching

Celine Dion sing with Elvis on tv last last week, extracted some of the most well-aged sounds within me. You do remember my Elvis-obsession- confession and my wish for a life of Elvis sitings?

We experience, interpret, and remember life through our five senses. As we grow and mature, we learn to trust and follow our own senses, rather than those of the masses. In yoga, the next evolutionary step is to release our attachment to our senses. It is the practice of pratyahara.

Here's what I interpret the yoga sutras to say about this: "You've put your senses on cruise control, auto pilot. You'll continue to believe that you have no control until you remember that YOU and cruise control are distinct and separate entities."

That might be the opportune moment to ask for what we would like our senses to perceive: everything I hear, is music to my ears; all the sounds I recall, are happy love songs; I see only what is good in people; only the foods that are good for me, taste good, etc. When our senses and/or our beliefs are held in suspension, we lie open to divine suggestions. If I truly learned a lesson, I guess my days in stupor did not mean I was ill. I just took a few days off to get better.

Listen to: I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire (by The Ink Spots)

Read: Did You Hear?, another post I wrote about the subject of hearing. The 2 comments that follow are worth the time!

Photo:CultivateGreatness.com

Yogafont

  Bill Grainger, a yogi from the UK, has created an ingenious way for us to have access to asana pictures through type fonts, yoga-type fonts. The pictures above are the result of typing KONA YOGA in Yogafont.

I had them downloaded in my old PC and had forgotten all about them until I was ready to update the Kona Yoga printed schedules this afternoon. The download is free and much too good to keep secret. Just go to Bill's site, look it over and easily download it for your own use.

I sent Bill a "Thank you" message when I first came across his fonts, I think it's time for another note of Mahalo!

YogaFont site: http://www.yogafont.co.uk/

Another Toy Story

“Life is a sum of all your choices.”
-Albert Camus

A teacher appeared for me last week, in the guise of a 5 year old. The setting: the toy section at Wal- Mart, two boys (5 and 7) and a $20 budget (explained beforehand).

The boys were on a quest for the most powerful Yugioh cards this side of the universe and I was looking for a way to entertain them on a rainy day, as their last-minute-stand-in-not so-Super Nanny.

In less than a minute, the older one decided that K-Mart had a bigger and better selection and they both agreed to my decree: "we will NOT be coming back to Wal-Mart if you don't find what you want at K- Mart." Reacting with glee to the queen's ruling, my little knights marched on ahead of me until we reached the evil Clearance Items toll bridge!

The toy trolls are a savvy bunch and their child-level lures grabbed the 5 year old's awareness. "I need this, and this, and this! I beg of you!!!" Who taught him how to speak to a queen?

After a few minutes of being reminded of his spending budget, he narrowed it down to a set of Matchbox race cars with a Monster Mummy Track (see how bad the toy trolls can be?). Now it was time for his final decision. I had to remind him that if he chose this toy, he was giving up the chance to buy anything at K-Mart.

What followed was the most brilliant display of a 5 year old brain at work: First, a bit of whining. I want this AND I want Yugioh cards. You have to buy them for me. Hmmmm. No immediate effect, she's even smiling...I don't know how long I have to whine before she gives in and time is of the essence. Next, let's try to entice my older brother to buy something so we won't even go to K-mart. That's the ticket. Look at this! You can make monster food. It doesn't look good but I'm sure it will taste good! Drat, no sale. Third try, plead guilty. I can't make a desidjun! I can't!

Luckily, I was long on time and patience and the older brother was very understanding and generously patient. A bit of explaining about making choices, acknowledging the difficulty to do so and dodging the stream of passers-by, led finally to a lesson on coin tossing. Of course, none of the tosses landed correctly. We tried a bigger coin. When the coin toss turned into a game of its own, it was time for the ultimatum.

What I really wanted here was a happy decision and a happy boy. No prisoners. "All right. You have to decide now and you have to decide to be happy with this toy, or happy to go to K-Mart and make a choice there....or make no choices and have nothing."

As though I had knighted him Sir Happy, my dear friend picked up the toy, we paid the toll and rode off to the kingdom of K-Mart. He didn't ask for any Yugioh cards, though tried to tempt his brother with some videos. When we left K-Mart, big brother couldn't wait to open his set of cards, but the Mummy Matchbox Race Set sat on the car floor, unopened. A happy 5 year old sat singing and smiling over his decision.

How often do we agonize while trying to make a decision because we fixate on all the unhappy possibilities? What if we find out that we want that and not this? We don't want to make bad choices but in reality they are simply, choices.

ToysR(NOT)us. We just want the joy and happiness that we think they'll bring. We love choices but loathe to choose. What would happen if we consciously held happiness as our guide to choosing? We'd have to trust our emotions and quiet the fears of things that may never happen. I suspect there would be more singing and smiling in all kingdoms, this side of the universe and back.

Photo: Artbandito

A Life of Sundays

When any experience of body, heart, or mind keeps repeating in consciousness, it is a signal that this visitor is asking for a deeper and fuller attention.
-Jack Kornfield

When I sit down to write this part of my weekly message, there's often a theme or thread that has run through my life for the last seven days that inspires me. I'm usually able to find a picture and a quote with ease but distilling the theme down to a few cogent paragraphs sometimes takes hours. I might be satisfied with an article in the morning and then come back and wipe it out in the afternoon. But by the time I press the send key, I've understood my lesson, run spellcheck and sent a copy to my e-mail to be sure that all the embedded links work correctly.

I have come to cherish my Sundays for that simple act of defining the past week and the act of completion. When my eyes open on Monday morning, they're looking forward to What's Next.

The other reason why Sundays are so special is that I have a standing dinner date with my parents: their home, my mom cooks. It's a steady, constant rhythm much like a heartbeat. I take all of the bits and pieces of my week and tie them neatly together on Sunday. The following six days are all a bonus.

I know that I truly love and guard my Sundays because it's so easy to say no to everything else. I'd like to find more days within the week to claim sacrosanct. That, was constantly on my mind last week so I'm about to pay fuller and deeper attention to it.

Photo: skier_abc

Looking for more Sundays

Some people look forward to Sundays as a time to take long naps, do the crosswords or do nothing. Are Sunday's enjoyable for you? Tell us. Inquiring minds want to know!

Is any other day of the week more special to you? Why?

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Photo:Lukim