a wannabe yogi-

In Yoga, I learned a number of things that had several tangible meanings and metaphors for life.

First- yoga means:   Union. 

Some conjecture that it is the union of body, mind, and spirit.

The union of breath and movement.

The joining of every facet of what we are combined with the faith in what we can become.

Most importantly, upon learning the very definition of yoga, I was taught that all practitioners most devote to this exercise and this active meditation daily. 

Yoga is ninety percent practice, and ten percent method.

What's all the babble about yoga?

Honestly, I don't know. 

You wouldn't catch me doing downward dog, or a bakasana anytime in the past few months. I have fully moved away from the teachings and practice, and become a slovenly boring American.

However, the mindset and the concentration that can be applied to my life has stayed with me.

After all it is my belief that we are intended to understand the "union" of all that we are and everything around us.

Take for example:  Your relationship with your shoes.

Silly really. I know. Just hear me out..

We spend so much time walking, running, sometimes leaping through life. Tripping over our own problems, whether they are physical, or just all in our heads. 

Do we ever truly focus on our feet? What we put them through? The things that we put ON them?

The biggest relationship I used to have with my shoes had to have been; oh crap, I seem to have a blister.

Some humans rely on comfort.

Some rely on the presence of style.

We base our foot attire on names.

We purchase them because of what magazines say.

So really, our relationship to our shoes a good portion of the time is based on our wants and desires, and not really sustaining the comfort and healthy continuation of our feet. The rudder to our ever-living and breathing machine we call our bodies. As dramatic as that might sound-- Several nerve fibers, blood vessels, and bones are intricately laid out in the very foundation of what keeps our body upright. So shouldn't we have a keen and knowledgeable idea as to what types of shoes we wear?

What type of union are we expressing to our whole selves when we wear torture devices around our little piggies?

Ten percent of this issues lies in the details, and ninety percent is in the practice of day to day life...

If we take the comparison of shoes out of the equation, and we just say that life is finding a union between everything around us. Life is acknowledging and finding a direct NEED to sustain what we are as a whole.

Life is yoga.

Breath.

Movement.

Meditation.

Finding answers within ourselves, and not other people.

Not our fancy cars.

Designer footwear...

 

In the coming weeks I am moving into the mountain time zone. I will be in the very gullet of where the rocky mountains are to the west, and the plains are to the east. Sandstorms, monsoons, and cactus graveyards.

The area so close to where over a thousand native Americans were marched out of their land and into foreign territory and monitored. Aside from the grim historical reference, and the fact that there are several poisonous creatures hiding under rocks- I find a lot of spiritual significance and a deeper connection to this place than anywhere I have ever visited.

There is an amazing contrast with red rocks and a bright blue sky overhead. 

I look forward to the orange sunsets and starry night sky.

The dry climate that will be easy on my body.

I have found a union for who I am in that place. I foresee another evolution of who I am occurring while I live in Arizona. Both spiritually and physically. 

In the past year I have really started to read and study native American culture, and more importantly the connections of it to my family history. My whole life has been littered with basic knowledge and references here and there, but I am finally diving headfirst into the unknown.

I feel called.

If I don't use the gifts I was born with, they will die with my body.

So cheers to a new chapter in life.

I sense changes coming, and things already being set into motion.

Light the fire.

Speak the words..

-z-