Namaste!

I'm back from Yoga Trance Dance with Shiva Rea. It was incredible...amazing...so many powerful awakenings, insights and explorations into the great Dance of Life and the great Dancer who is moving me.

One of the most powerful experiences of the training was getting to go through a totally sahaja (spontaneous) Yoga practice. A spontaneous Yoga practice is a practice guided only by the breath (Prana). In other words, when we are practicing Yoga we often adhere to some guidelines that have been taught to us. We move according to how other people have instructed us to move. In sahaja yoga, the practice is to move totally spontaneously and freely, without reservation or limitation. There is no prescribed structure, only to totally listen to your body and your guiding energy. There is no 'proper' pose to begin in and no necessary way of sequencing the flow of the poses. Most likely, one wouldn't even go through traditional Surya Namaskar (Sun Salutations) in a sahaja practice. I hope you get to experience this liberating flow at some point in your Yoga journey. One of the greatest benefits of flowing this way is we let go of old processes, (ways of doing things, moving, etc.) and, by being in this place of discovery and exploration, we begin to perceive new ways of opening, growing, moving, being, relating, to our practice, our body, ourselves and our life. As Shiva Rea would say, new pathways of Flow emerge...

One of the other powerful parts of the training was when she talked to us about becoming conscious of the places in our life where we need to let go of and release that which is not serving us. We are at a place of energetic change and transformation as we complete the third week of the Spring Season/cycle. Spring is a time of new beginnings, and, for these positive changes to unfold we most let go to allow space for this growth in our life. Often our hands are holding on tight to something and if we would just allow ourselves to release it, we would find what fills its space to be lighter and brighter, freeing us to experience the unbounded essence/Consciousness of Life and the Life energy within our own Self.

And, of course we Trance Danced! Actually, we experienced three Trance Dances, two led by Shiva Rea, and one led by all of the students in the training. I'm looking forward to holding the first ever Yoga Trance Dance in Dallas! It's looking like it's going to be Friday, May 23rd from 8-10 pm at exhale dallas. I'll keep you posted as details unfold.

I feel so blessed to have found such an incredibly inspiring teacher who can be such a powerful river guide (as Shiva would call herself) to lead me along on this Yoga journey. One of the other gifts I get to experience, when I travel to Venice, CA for trainings with Shiva, is visiting, meditating and attending church service at the Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine in Pacific Palisades, California. The Lake Shrine was founded by Paramahansa Yogananda in 1950. It is one of the most beautiful places, not only aesthetically with lush landscaping and picturesque surroundings, but it vibrates spiritually at one of the highest levels I have ever experienced. I love it there, it fills my spirit unlike anywhere else.

So the months ahead in Spring will be filled with wonder as the journey continues to unfold in an always mysterious, and never short of, miraculous way. I can already feel a transformation, just in how I experience my Yoga practice. I can only imagine all the other changes this transformation will give birth to as I breathe into these new spaces being guided by the Intelligence of my own breath.

p.s.-I have to share this quote with you I stumbled upon while searching for music on iTunes:
"Stop trying to answer the "How" in life and focus more on enjoying the "Now" in life."
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