do not mistake humility for weakness

How often do you do yoga?

This is a question I get a lot.

It indicates to me where the asker is on the path. Seems to me that they are stepping in, to some extent, and gauging how much or how often they need to step in. And when they say “yoga”, they are talking about asana — the physical movement, positioning, alignment, strengthening, and stretching. They’re talking about freeing the physical body. Which is totally valuable and yet is only one layer or level of the yoga game.

Eventually, if we're persistent in practicing, we come to a way of

being yogic,

where the application of all the ethics and metaphors in the body are applied more continually, into the life one is living.

So how often do I practice?

In each moment, if I'm lucky enough to be awake to mySelf (my way of spelling the atman, or higher self capabilities).

Longer mat sessions to free the physical vessel are helpful when regular, but there's still plenty of crucible to be had off the mat. I may imagine myself to be on a track of my own, yet in any instant, I can be faced with the (perceived) need of anOther.

Am I impatient? Yes, generally. I’m aiming for jivanmukti — liberation in this lifetime — and I have no guarantee of just how much time is available to me in this lifetime. So how do I keep my momentum and motivation and inspiration, all while deftly attending to the Other?

Humour helps. Lightening has been a lifelong yogic practicing. Practice is never performance and is never finished, so I emphasize the verb form of practicing. Humility and forgiveness (of self and others) are required on this path because there is no finished place to rest regally on, but rather more and more layers to remove.

Angels fly because they take themselves lightly.

So

Now

How can “I”

Fly?

Martyrdom creeps in Other

wise.

Yesterday's square between the gas giants of Jupiter and Saturn gave us an opportunity to do an energetic experiment on boundaries. Due to where these bodies light up my own birthchart, I was particularly plugged into boundaries within and around the home, and with significant otters.

Image of otters holding paws from this post of fascinating otter facts.

Practicing yoga within this day’s crucible of activating and challenging energies becomes about activating the intentions I’ve set and then embodying them in as many of my choices and actions as I possibly can.

The solitude of undisturbed time, without engagement with others, is essential for me in re-centring, recalibrating, and expressing my creativity freely.

i am an introvert and hermit by nature.

i am an extrovert and expressive artivist by design and necessity.

My essence thrives on a regular dose of tapping into the essential truth that it's all ephemeral. As Bön says, “This is just a dream.”

I can't take the physical with me, but the energetic — the soul —does carry on through the deep patterns within me. The conditioning cultivated from traumatic times carries across incarnations, because horrors have more weight and density to them. Additionally, when they have been reiterated and carved into our being so much that we become attached to them, even to the extent of identifying with them, we then mistake these patterns for our soul essence.

We tend to forget the power we can wield to rewire ourSelves and redirect trajectories.

We also tend to forget the newer energetic flows of patterns we’re only beginning to implement, because they haven't yet been embedded, embodied, and embellished.

Embodied consciousness is the thing.

You’ll find just as many talking heads in yoga as elsewhere.

being yogic

doesn't mean spiritual bypassing or even needing to share what you're doing. Yes, fo sho!, teaching is a great way to deepen one’s own learning while spreading the joy, but notice if the delivery is righteous, needy, or pushy.

Lead without expecting followers.

“Mountain Lion medicine involves lessons on the use of power in leadership. It is the ability to lead without insisting that others follow. It is the understanding that all beings are potential leaders in their own ways. The use and abuse of power in a position of influence are part of this great cat's medicine. By observing the graceful pounce of Mountain Lion, you will learn how to balance power, intention, physical strength, and grace. This relates, in human terms, to the balance of body, mind, and spirit.” — from the Medicine Cards by Jamie Sams and David Carson

Mountain Lion medicine feels to me like Varuna energy — one of our new dwarf planet bodies from the Hindu pantheon, who is about sovereignty. A sovereign does what they love and continues to do what they love because it’s an expression of who they are. It’s an effulgence or overflow of their essence.

So standing for it, and by it, does not necessitate pushing or forcing it. If someone asks, answer. If someone reaches out for assistance, because they see you might be of aid, show up! There’s a fine line between free expression and forced, even though, from the outside, they might look the same.

Even with this writing I am asking myself:

Am I sharing publically because it flows out of me as part of my unfolding evolution? Do I feel better having that outlet and channel for my self-expression (and worse if I bottle it up)?

Or am I sharing in a loosely disguised attempt to convert followers and acquire customers in order to pay bills and validate an identity?

When I find I am promoting and competing with others, then it feels less than yogic. It feels like a karmic tug, the hallmark of personal and ancestral grooves. And ultimately it’s absurd.

No one can compete with you because you are the only you!

This is tricky to embody and convey within a dominant culture that celebrates competition and celebritization, over competence and enjoyment in one’s own individuation.

What does yoga even mean anyway? From *yeug in Sanskrit, meaning ‘to join or yoke’, we yoke our less-evolved natures to our more-evolved natures. Yoga is often described as the union between body, mind, and spirit.

Yet it seems to me that bodymindspirit are already, and all-ways, unified!

What’s not in the mix is our awareness. We’re not paying attention to the messages constantly being broadcast from these layers of being. To cultivate unity we cultivate our awareness by using regular practices to wake up to the languages of the body, the mind, and the spirit.

Dharma makes itself evident in daily actions, not all of which need to be broadcast.

In being our yoga in this heavily broadcasted world of human peacocks, we might come across as humble, if we’re not downright invisible! There’s a fine line between true humility and insecurity. Those schooled in show-off-ery might even mistake humility for weakness, but just imagine how much strength it takes to resist the mainstream and stick to truth no matter how humbling.

Besides, what others think is none of your business and indicates more about where they are on the path — still stuck in their pride palace or their karma castle and yet to set foot on the pathless path.