Spring Yoga Workshops

Is it time for you to emerge?   After a long winter yearning for sunshine and then receiving excessive heat in Mexico on my retreat, I feel the energy shift all around me and in me with a need to clean out, get organize and re-emerge like my daffodils on the side of my house coming up from under my fall leaves.  However, I didn't clean up the leaves from autumn so the outdoor clean up is a bit overwhelming at this moment.  This is the time of renewal and rebirth for all cycles, offering awakening, warmth and growth.  It is a time that the forces of earth and water elements are strongest and exert their influences on upon the earth and out bodies.   And the fire element emerges as the sun begins to speak louder in late spring after our April showers break away for summer heat.

Sometimes I look at the big picture too much and it becomes even more daunting. I know I am a big picture thinker and honor that with my diagrams, doodles and making pictures for operational direction vs lists. Instead of taking in just this view, I break it down into actions towards manageable chunks, similarly to how I break down a pose into its essence in my align & refine class. You know the feeling if you are not careful, it is easy to become resentful about all the responsibilities of daily living or being over whelmed in a complicated asana, or frustrated when a nice day arrives and your want to sit out on your patio but the furniture is filthy. So many “have tos “ of maintaining a home, putting food on the table, keeping the bathroom clean or yourself clothed with clean underwear.   (Laundry lovers and haters you know which one you are) Once when I was in a low mood of frustration, I figured out that on an average day, I do over 500 different things between home and work. Then I realized, when I’m in a better mood, the number is significantly lower.  Space in my life is available to just be “doing the nothing” except holding my tea, listening to the birds or feeling the sunlight on my face.

My recent time hosting a retreat and being away from technology reassured me of my hypothesis less is more!  I realized about 25 yrs. ago that in order to cultivate one point focus with concentration of the mind (Dharana – the 6th of the 8 limbs of yoga) it’s best to start with training in the tangible of the “doing” of the everyday tasks by decreasing in the multi-tasking mania of contemporary society.  When I was working as a textile designer in NYC on Tues and Wed, I trained my self not to be focused on the home tasks; they would still be there.  I turned a new leaf and raked the leaves into cleaning my mental garden by single task focusing. This includes all areas of my life, socializing with family, creating my artwork, teaching yoga classes, my morning yoga practices, and even doing the dishes.  In my daily life I have a system to let my global view make the map of what has to be done and then go about executing it one item of a time with space for life to happen weaving even mundane tasks as sacred.    It is really difficult to become a contented person if you’re keeping score of your entire do’s and don't do lists. Keeping track only discourages me by cluttering up my mind with what I’m doing and what someone else could do, and when can I do more, and so on and so on replaying the mind chatter (chitta vritti that we are trying to neutralize with our awareness and yoga practices ).   The truth is the small leaves can be left in the garden until spring and you can choose when and how you want to clean out the flowerbeds.  It is the effort, discernment and acceptance that make this cleaning possible without getting frustrated and letting the growth process happen.

I am ready to clean up and organize my home office and back patio now. Are you ready to clean out, so you can grow?  And I am really ready to offer your some key yoga practices and techniques in keeping with this theme of cleaning, awakening and growing!

I created a few workshops and classes that support awareness, growth, creativity and acceptance through traditional raja hatha yoga techniques sprinkled with my creative touch.  Take a look and join me in these unique yoga workshops at Ascend Center, Ful-Being Collective and Fahnestock State Park for connecting with your higher consciousness through weeknight yoga nidra, embracing color for cultivating creativity, learning practices to help with aging and getting outside to celebrate mother nature with yoga & a hike.

Hopefully, you choose at least one!   They can support you in areas of holistic health, inner work and creative living weaving your practice into a deeper place of connection to yourself. It’s easy to become resentful of the time is takes to clean, but know that your are making space by weeding out what doesn't server you to make space for your flowers to bloom.

I have settled my restless mind, and my heart is radient:

Living in bondage I have set myself free:

I have briken away from the cluth of narrowness.

I have attained the unattainable,

And my heart is coloured with the colour of love. ---- Kabir

OM SHANTI - OM SHANTI - OM SHANTI

Dani