KonaYoga.com

Waiting for James.

This is the day that Krista's baby James, is due to be born. We're all waiting...

Matt and Krista, pictured at water's edge, where they will probably spend a lot of their family time together, wait patiently. Loved ones and family are gathering! What more could a new being ask for than to be so welcomed and wanted?

Photo: Jerrie Stafford, Kailua-Kona

When We Remember

"Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth, but not its twin."
-- Barbara Kingsolver

The truth is that there have been wars that have taken the lives of thousands. The recollection of the events or the memory of the lives that were lost, remain specific to us as individuals.

Click to play "Taps", and I leave you with the space and time to reflect, this Memorial Day.

Photo: From the Heart Postcards

June's Main Event

Registration is now open for our June Workshop featuring John Leebold, June 22-June 26 at Kona Yoga. I've added pages to our site (upper part of the left column) with information about our weekly classes, our location, and this up-coming workshop.

Workshop sessions are open to all levels of yoga experience. All you need is a flexible mind and an open heart. Teachers of John's caliber are able to inspire students from entry level to the advanced practitioner, all at the same time.

While the efficacy of yoga appears to rely on the malleability of our physical bodies, open minds and hearts are the true prerequisites. In other words, it's your desire to learn...not your ability level that matters.

Our space is limited, and I expect many out-of-town yogis to attend, so please sign-up as soon as possible. If you have any questions, please call me at 331-1310 or 937-3768. You may also send an e-mail to [email protected].

Illustration: Colin Kirkpatrick

Let It Go!

The tighter you squeeze, the less you have.
-Zen saying

If you were to tell me your age, I have a mental spot for you on a number line that moves in different levels from left to right. All the other people of the same age that I know, are standing there together like a line up. It has more to do with a point of reference for me than the labels young or old. Days of the week are of a particular color and placement too.

Only within the last few years have I learned that this lifelong mental ordering of mine is known as synest hesia. It's a neurological condition that's quite harmless unless someone makes me queen of the universe and I try to make everyone see things as I do, altering calendars and even history.

Other "truths" or long held beliefs that I have may not be as harmless. As Ezra Bayda offers in At Home In The Muddy Water,

The most troublesome beliefs are related to our attachments, which are often hard to identify. Attachments are simple beliefs-fantasies, in fact - that have become solidified as "truth" in our mind. They also partake of the energy of desire, which is based on the underlying belief that without some particular person or thing, we can never be free from suffering. Attachment also takes the form of avoidance, we believe we can't be happy as long as a particular person, condition, or object is in our lives. To experience negative attachment, just think of your least favorite food or person.

Well I guess I asked for it. Months ago when I read this, I was of the opinion that I had everything I needed to be happy. It felt so good to be happy and I wrote in my journal, "Show me what beliefs I hold, not conscious to me now, that don't serve me. Let's clean house!"

Shortly after that, I began experiencing pain in my arms and hands. Throbbing pain woke me at night, there were days when it was painful to drive and finding the cause of the symptoms consumed me. Then about a month ago I captured the flu bug that was making its rounds and ended up in bed for several days. When I got back on my feet, a hacking cough moved into my chest and I'm just getting over it . The hand and arm pain comes and goes, often with pain in my feet when I get out of bed in the morning. Bleck!

When I decided to write this newsletter, I couldn't come up with a positive thought so I pulled Bayda's book from the shelf and re-read the above paragraph as I had many months ago. Bang! went the gong in my neurologically conditioned head. That's it! It's been my belief that I can't be happy when I'm in pain or when I am sick. The desire to feel good and to be healthy isn't the problem, it's the string of terms and conditions that I have tied to it that has me resisting the natural flow.

Ultimately, what we all want is to be happy. What we need in order to be happy is governed by our individual belief systems. But, says Bayda, holding these beliefs guarantees that we cannot be deeply satisfied, because we will always be anxious at the thought of losing what we believe makes us happy. If we wish to be really happy, we have to give up our attachments.

It does not mean that I have to give up a pain free and healthy body, just my attachment to it as a condition of my happiness. It has worked in many other parts of my life so I know it is a truth I can accept. But separating myself from my physical form, that's pretty tricky and requires more focus.

Bayda continues, as I intend to,

When we fully see through and experience our attachments, the result is freedom. When we see through our fears, the result is love. When we see without our filters, judgments, and desires, the result is appreciation and the quiet joy of being.

Life is up for grabs. We reach in for a handful but then the only way we can enjoy and share it is by releasing our hold. It's also the only way we can reach back in and grab more.

Photo:yospyn

My Mother's Gift

"When I stopped seeing my mother with the eyes of a child, I saw the woman who helped me give birth to myself."
-Nancy Friday

 

This is a photo of my mother, Clara Uechi, taken before she became a mother. I imagine that she was anxious as she applied color to her eyebrows and lips and brushed the curls in her hair to carefully frame her face. She might have wondered if she had chosen the best dress as she lifted her chin slightly to tie the bow beneath it. My mother has always been in my life and so it seems odd to think of her as having had a life without me. A child's myopic sense of importance, for sure.

When the photo was taken, it was a time in her life when dreams and wishes, needs and wants were all her own. As she became the mother of four during the span of 16 years, her love for each of us became a filter to her own needs and wants. She gave her time and energy to us first and what was left at the end of the four part process, she got to keep for herself.

That's my observation, as an adult. My mother, however, speaks of it in reverse. There were no filters because as each of us were born, more fuel was added to her fire. Our dreams and wishes as well as our needs and wants simply, and perhaps not consciously, became hers.

I think I can speak for my brothers (the oldest child's myopic sense of importance this time) when I say that we have never had to compete for our mother's love because no competition exists. She has one love, and it is in constant and unwavering supply. That love has made it easy for me to love myself, a gift as important as life itself.

It's in Your Hands.

You can't shake hands with a clenched fist.
-Indira Gandhi

A friend and I were talking a few days ago about forming the habit of feeling good. I can best relate it to the practice of sitting up straight. If I am not vigilant when I sit in front of the computer, gravity reels me in and at some point I just don't feel good and notice that my spine has begun to slouch. As soon as I sit upright again, all is well. It's a habit that I've acquired, thanks to yoga.

During the last few years, I've come to realize that maintaining a state of joy and happiness also requires a diligent practice. If I am not vigilant, I easily slouch and succumb to the emotions and energies of those near to me, yet I have so much more to offer when I am upright and happy. I'm learning that my emotional posture is my primary concern.

It seems absurd that anyone could find comfort and familiarity in arguing or delight in depreciating another person. It must be an acquired habit, just like slouching. As Abraham-Hicks observes:

"We have a fun way of looking at it: Let's say you have a piece of very fine sandpaper, and you rub it with your fingers. It is so fine that at first, it feels almost like velvet. So you rub it a little more, and a little more, and a little more...

In the beginning, there is no detriment to this experience. But the longer you rub it, the more unpleasant it becomes. Your skin is beginning to feel some sensitivity--and after an hour or two, maybe even some beginnings of blisters. Yet sometimes, that sandpaper is really the only thing visible in the room. And even though the experience is not very pleasant, you've got this habit going.

Then, all of a sudden, you realize "Hey, I don't have to do this!" and you simply lift your fingers up off the sandpaper!

This is a deliberate intent to remove yourself from this irritation. The sensation of lifting up is wonderful. As you lift off, it almost feels like spider webs pulling from your fingers. We want you to begin reaching for that ensuing sense of relief.

You've had your eye on this sandpaper. It seemed justified, it seemed important. People talked to you about it, there's evidence of it in your life, and everything seems to be somehow about sandpaper. But in reality, there is it, and there is the absence of it, and you do have a choice of whether or not to lift your fingers--your thoughts, that is--off of what is evoking this unpleasant experience.

Begin to take pleasure in feeling relief from it."

Handshakes are believed to have originated as a gesture of proof that the hand held no weapon. So the next time you bring your hands together in namaskar , come in peace and give thanks to all of the habits you now engage in that lift you. As your hands press open to each other, feel the relief of knowing that your happiness lies in your hands.

Photo: CDRP