The Most Beautiful Rocks

“The most beautiful rocks have faced the hardest of waves” …

 Kruti Joshi

For me, Sept has always been my benchmark to reflect, reset, and restart. I love the smell of the crispness of the autumn air through my nostrils in the North East and cherish the seasonal shift of the winds coming in blowing the colored leaves to the ground. This smell brings me back to remember the ritual of getting a new pair of school shoes. All while thinking about the endless miles to be walked jumped and skipped in those shoes on the playground. Being that I wore a uniform during my formative school years – shoes were my form and still are a way of self-expression that is dear to me. Did I mention when studying in Italy in college I came home with lots of shoes tied to my backpack? Each told a story. They say a lot about a person!  Now I buy new shoes in the fall on sale just because I can and I celebrate them because I am barefoot a lot with teaching yoga asana. 

In addition, I still buy myself a new notebook for evening journaling, daytime brainstorming, list-making, and yoga teacher training in September. I also add a new sketchbook into my back to school autumn arsenal of purchase because it’s a new start or a clearing of the slate-like John Locke’s “Tabula Rasa”. It gets me ready to have a new place for growth within the process to let my imagination run wild with no worry of outcomes of thoughts, marks, or doodles.   A true place for me to let me be real. Like my yoga mat, these notebooks are the water to which I jump in for a new space for self-study and self-inquiry. This self-study is a key component of one of the fundamental tenants of a yoga practice. It is one of the Niyamas called Svadhyaya.  As a Raja Hatha yoga teacher, I look towards the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, especially the Yamas & the Niyamas for guidelines in my daily living towards a spiritual life of truth, kindness, right action, and love towards myself and others, basically, the ethical principals that Hatha yoga is based. Through self-study on and off the mat, I am able to dig a little deeper into what's happening within me with awareness to see how I relate to change, unjust action, and emotional responses with myself in different situations. Self-study is not just about reading ancient wisdom texts or looking at how we move, breathe or rest in a pose.  

It is the willingness to dig deeper, sift through the muck of our selves and nurture our true nature even if it is not what we think we are or want. 

We can't be afraid to look under the rocks. Are you willing to be in the water not knowing which rocky shore to dock yourself into? Continual self-inquiry or Svadhyaya in your life will change your perception of what the yoga practice is and isn’t. It might cause a shift in you to see yourself acting differently off the mat. In other words, you might need a new notebook, or pair of shoes for your path of living because not only does the terrain shifts but your perception does too. 

Most of you already know, a good yoga teacher helps you hold yourself accountable for our own self-inquiries for awareness and growth through asana and other areas of your yoga practice. The questions posed through the asana practice on the mat are there to help you direct your awareness to subtleties of yourself when you get off the mat. Questions like, can you notice your tailbone on the earth? Is one pelvic bone higher than another? Are rooted to make you ask questions for your self about yourself off the mat. Have you any inquiry towards your emotional responses and actions to yourself before and after your practice?  Do you see and feel different? And how about how you are interacting with family members as we are daily living and working during this time of isolation with covid, social injustice, and political turmoil? What's coming up? That’s self -inquiry. 

During these times of anxiety, pain, sadness, joy, and connectedness, I have found that the tools of my asana, pranayama, chanting, meditation, and art practices create an invaluable refuge for my self-discovery in being with the wide range of emotions that are simultaneous going on.

Yoga is not escapism from reality but rather a tool to tap into the deeper questions of what does it mean for me to be human? Why am I here?  And how can I leave the world a better place for the future?  And how can I help change the structure of social injustice? Once we ask the questions, we can’t be afraid to dig deep through the water, the dirt and come over to some deep rock beds to create a better place for others and ourselves.   It is seeing that the river constantly shifts as it flows carving new riverbeds or pathways over and under the rocks. It is though swadyaha that we can see the rocks or boulders placed in our flow of life as obstacles that can teach us something about ourselves so we can live, connect and act in our lives with consciousness. We have to be honest ad hold ourselves accountable for our own actions. We have to be willing to see and go into our patterning of ignorance, ego, attachment, avoidance, and fear for growth. 

What good is a beautiful headstand if you’re screaming at your partner because they finished the salad dressing? or your friend makes racist remarks while hiking? Self-study holds you accountable so that you are able check-in truthfully with yourself to see what’s under the surface of your thoughts and actions giving you the space to reroute behavior.   What am I doing and why did I really say that? The tools of the yoga practice on the mat help us be self-aware to take action to help bring us into a place of spacious so that our heart space can feel and know that we are all part of a collective spirit.

This self-study is important in our yoga practice. It is through our lenses of perception that we see our past conditioning, belief systems, cultural lineage, and distortions. The reflection is not always the reality as the water is never truly still.  We all have a purpose here on this earth and it is through deep self-study that we can know our light within, see the shadow self-flickering, and the darkest spots resisting to be brightened. If we can learn to come from a place of awareness of truthfulness in our self-study on the mat, we can take it off the mat to see ourselves for all that we really are  … we can see with clarity the work we need to do to brighten the light.

Rocks on the Shore     by Dani

Bridges connect 
Bridges divide 
One side opens it leaves the others behind 
while letting it pass without making a choice 
to dock somewhere 
In the middle it rocks & flows with no anchor 
So strong those rocks that were from way before 
Will their be time to form some more
So steady, stable and sure 
They can connect the long awaited action

to heal the crumbled shores 

The constant flow of injustice
They will bridge the divide

to no longer hide one side

Bridge the shores just like before 
I cant no more 
I cant go to that shore 

Let the river carve the way

and let the bridge have no say 

as we float away …