Hello 2008....(shake hands)...

Sati and I having fun at the Casbah...

This year is turning into an adventure already. I have taken on this role as Yoga Teacher/Manager of a Yoga Studio Lady and I tell you...it is amazing. This is what my life was made for. I feel as if I'm walking in someone else's shoes and then I realize their mine! I can only give love and gratitude to my teachers, Sara and Sati, and that they have prepared me for this moment.

My mind seems to be turning inside out right now. I feel like I'm shaking out my brain like a you shake out a rug trying to get out all the dirt, dust, and "stuff" that sticks to it. The stuff that not even a vacuum will pick up. For the first time, in a long time, I feel that things are starting to click and tick. Things are starting to make sense. I have to say that reading the Yoga Sutras has opened my eyes to the entirety of the Ashtanga System: an Eight-Limbed Practice. Asana only representing one of the limbs...I now know that I want to encourage my future students to study the Sutras and yogic philosophy and to practice the other seven limbs.

The Eight-Limbs of Ashtanga Yoga:
1) Yamas (Restraints)
2) Niyamas (Observances)
3) Asana (Posture)
4) Pranayama (Breath Control)
5) Pratyhara (Sense Control)
6) Dharana (Concentration)
7) Dhyana (Meditation)
8) Samadhi (Enlightenment)

Understanding how the limbs work together needs to be studied and contemplated at length. I am merely a humble student to be blessed with this tradition and lineage of greatness.

And now I must return to my studies.....

the end of an era....(kneel and bow)

It's going to be a beautiful New Year....I do have this inkling...

My life has changed, suddenly it seems, albeit a process from my yoga journey with the Teacher Training up until this moment. Although I am still adjusting to all this positive change....I feel that balance in life is what I need and what holds the key to happiness in life. I am finding that until you face yourself....until you stand in the mirror of your own accomplishments and defeats, guity pleasures, glaring truths, denials, egocentric ideals, and blinding realities, do you see the reflection of honesty that we all own.

It gives you something to work with for the progress. If we study yogic science it says that living in the present moment will keep you from falling too far forward or holding on to the past. But, I don't think that means not making way for progress. Setting goals can have amazing results and Quick! I have amazed myself with progress, but I think that means I just need to set higher goals but don't be too hard on myself in the meantime.

I do think this year's end has brought me a newfound peace within that was not present previously. Not that it is total peace...I am still a restless, damn distracted soul that needs discipline in her life, BUT I am learning a little bit about patience. Patience with others and more importantly, patience with myself......
namaste.

Part Dve

Tim assisting me in Utkatasana....Photo courtesy of Cynthia Bacani

I am finding that in my practice I was trying to muscle my way through each asana so much that I wasn't enjoying the "steady, comfortability" that is available to me if I just relax and let it happen. My teachers say that there has to be a balance between effort and ease....between strength and flexibility. Becoming light in a very physical, vigorous practice is the hard part...but to watch an advanced teacher make it look so effortless...It makes you hopeful.

So, I am just being patient with myself, easier with myself....SO I don't hurt myself anymore!

My teaching debut is this Tuesday night for an Abbreviated Ashtanga class. It's funny, though, because I feel so safe with Ashtanga....I have the series I can follow like a friend holding my hand and taking me on the path. I think I am more nervous to teach a Flow class where you have to create the path...Hmm....Sounds like I need to confront that fear then. But, going back to Ashtanga, I know I will have all my classmates and fellow Ashtangis in class who will know it's my proverbial "first time!" I just want to get the bugs out, find my voice, and start teaching people the beauty of this practice!

This teacher training awakened something in my Self that had always been there. All I needed was a knock and my doors were flung wide open! I have some wonderful classmates in my teacher training who inspire me so much...Here is our class....

holiday

This time of year everyone gets all freaked out and frantic about the holiday. I just got back from vacation and I highly recommend to anyone to take a holiday this time of year....you need it! Some time without shopping, family, or any engagements. I have this overwhelming sense of peace washing over me....acceptance, I think.... for where I am now. I have this whole lifetime to perfect my yoga practice. I want to be the very best teacher and inspiration that I can be...but i still am human...i am not perfect.

So, I was doing my walking meditation on the beach, right? I started thinking that the beach is really an ocean's graveyard. All of these beautiful little homes for sea creatures were excavated and left on the shore for me to find. And....there is such childlike joy in finding that perfect shell half-buried in the sand at low tide in one of the tide pools....It's like you found some treasure that you didn't know you were searching for until there it is in your hand shining with salt and sand. Funny now that I have the shells back home...they have dulled just a bit, some of the luster left back on that island in the sun.....

Maybe that's how it is when we live our everyday lives....sometimes we get a glimpse of something real inside ourselves, something to keep us connected....and then we get caught up in the whirlwind of our busy bee lives and forget that shiny piece of treasure in our hearts. I was going to say "it's my goal to keep it shiny" but you know....I don't want to make it a goal...because that just means i have to keep grabbing for it. I think I'm going to just try and know it's always there. Maybe it'll work this time.

inspiration

Tim was here this last weekend. What a gift....what a blessing....I have so much gratitude for my teachers in that they arranged for him to be here to shed his light on our studies....and how apropos that it is Thanksgiving week. Great things come to those who create.

New beginnings....Abrupt endings....And Everlasting Momentssss....over and over.....

All that I know is that I was inspired and educated. I was bended and I was broken. I am now aware of all that needs to be tended (for the moment). Awareness is the key. Slow as I go....Letting go of all my tenacity for getting it. Hoping it will just happen....no anticipation....no aspiration....Just willpower.

Just letting it all sink in now......

Stay tuned for Part Dve....

my first time

Today was the first class that I was the teacher....albeit only the Closing Sequence....I've never been excited and anxious about the Closing Sequence of Ashtanga as usually it is the winding down portion of the practice. There was something that came over me though when I was leading the class....it was as if I just stepped out and someone else stepped in and got the job done. I'm trying not to be too self critical at this point because I know I made and will make mistakes. It is inevitable. It is how you learn from the mistakes that is important. I took the first step, though. I dipped my toe in the water....and I thought....it's warm.....I'm jumping in!

On my drive home, I could not wipe the goofy grin off my face...and when I walked in the door.....I just looked at my husband and said, "I just taught my first class. I have to practice." All that nervous energy vanished as I moved through each vinyasa that I just witnessed during class. Watching the intent and hard work, the sweat, the pain, and the surrender is enough to make me a humble student of this amazing practice called Life!

JAI NAMASTE!

evolution

All I can say is that it is happening. On one level I, me, Jessica am evolving. On another level, I just feel this entire wave of evolution in the consciousness of mankind. All of this accumulating to what....2012 global shift???

"An important cosmic event is occuring now. The winter solstice is now at a point in conjunction with the galactic center....This should cause a slow harmonization of humanity with the Divine will as transmitted from the galactic center....By the account thinkers like Plato, the flood that destroyed Atlantis (and probably ended the Ice Age) occured about 9300 BC (9000 years before Plato). This appears to have been when the summer solstice was in conjunction with the galactic center--a point completely opposite to the one today. --David Frawley"

So, there is evidence to show that there is a Polar shift occurring on the Earth level....It is like the whole universe is going to have an eclipse.... Galactic alignment is a rare astronomical event that brings the solstice sun into alignment with the centre of the Milky Way galaxy every 12,960 years. Untimately, the winter solstice mentioned above will happen on December 21, 2012. What effect will this have on humankind?

"At this time, we are given the means whereby we can know the so-called esoteric truth of our system and its EVOLUTION, and the part the Earth plays therein, as well as each of its inhabitants. We can go so far as to know that there is a great Centre to which we in our system are related and which determines our course, because it is this Centre that finally holds key to the Precision of the Equinoxes. It is this Centre that makes the axis Capricorn and Cancer the Evolutionary Axis of our planet. And through our study we can know that in ourselves, in our own very bodies, we can find the exact reproduction of this Galaxy which then gives us the revelation of the Supreme Herself. --Norelli-Bachelet"

With this thought, it can be said the Galactic Center is based in our own bodies as the root chakra and the Supreme evolutionary energy is the Shakti....Magnificent.....so as we our aligning and this global consciousness is happening, in fact, the entire universe is moving into alignment as well.......What happens when the entire universe is aligned? Pure light, I think! Something to think about....Awareness is the key!

...inspired by a book I'm reading, "Galactic Alignment: The Transformation of Consciousness Acoording to Mayan, Egyptian, and Vedic Traditions"--John Major Jenkins