Two Birds Yoga with Annie

04/06/2020

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about fear. It started when I realized that I’m not feeling fearful in the face of the Covid pandemic. In fact, I feel quite grounded and completely safe. So, because it is my nature and part of my spiritual practise (svadhyaya), I started to question and explore what was really happening for me. Am I truly not feeling fearful or am I just numbing it down?
Fear is a normal reaction in the face of uncertainty. When our worlds are upended, like this pandemic is doing to just about everyone, there is a feeling of our very basic survival being threatened. We just don’t know how we are going to survive and what the world will look like when this is all behind us. Our nervous systems are programmed to react in the face of threat, to keep us alert and ready to deal with or escape from whatever is being thrown at us. Or, to just freeze when we feel the overwhelm of it all. Physical threats, psychological threats, real threats or imagined ones - all can cause us to react and fear is just one of many emotional expressions.
In my exploration, I realized that, rather than being afraid, I find myself feeling a bit of excitement about all the possibilities for the future, not just for me but for everyone else and for the planet. A little naïve, maybe, but I know that I am not alone. “Fear is merely excitement without the breath” is a saying that seems to fit the situation perfectly here. I am not doing a lot of asana these days, but I sit everyday doing mantra, mudra and breathwork. For me, it seems to be doing the trick. I am feeling grounded and safe and excited during the craziness. Ask me again in two months, when the economic ramifications hit home!
I am currently in the planning phase of a yoga nidra offering focussed on breath which I will share when it is complete. In the meantime, here is a practise that I just learned this week (as good as I remember it!) that helps in dealing with our most difficult emotions. Give yourself a few minutes to explore each phase.
“Start standing or in a sitting position with your feet on the floor. Feel the sensation of your feet touching the Earth. Feel the Earth energy rising up through the feet … the legs … the torso … the arms … the head. Feel the connection, the sensation of being grounded.
Now, imagine all the things and places and people that you love … Bring them into your heart, surrounding them with the energy of love.
After you have done this, imagine fear, anger, hatred – all your feelings that you consider negative – and bring those into your heart, surrounding them with love. Allow the love that surrounds them to begin to transmute them.
After a while, imagine holding all that in your hands. Lift your hands up to the sky and imagine giving all that you hold in your hands up to the luminous beings, the angels, the ancestors, the descendants … whoever your helpers are. Imagine them being surrounded in love.
Then, return to the feeling of being connected to the earth. The feeling of your feet touching the earth, of being at home in your body.”
Enjoy the rest of your day.

03/08/2020

02/21/2020

When I first started this page, I had big plans for it. I was going to post every week, sharing information on my classes, things I have learned and reflections on practise and on life. Life, as often is the case, had different plans for me.
2019 was a really difficult year and in the summer I hit a wall. I just could't keep going as I was. I gave up my classes because I was no longer feeling connected to my practise and because teaching was just one more thing on an endless list of things that I had to do. I am now trying to take some time for me - time to build up my energy, my motivation and my strength, both physical and emotional.
Thank you to everyone who has liked my page and to those who have supported my classes and me as a person. I am drumming and practising mantra, breathwork and meditation every day and my practise has become rich and deep. I am hatching plans for a few new classes and look forward to being on the mat with you again. Sometime in the fall, most likely.
In the meantime, please keep supporting my page. I am learning so much these days. I plan to share.
One Love,
Annie

04/22/2019

"To be struck by the magnificence of nature is to be returned again, in all-too-brief moments, to the innocence in which we were born. Awe. Wonder. Humility. We draw them into us and are altered forever by the unquestionable presence of Creator. All things ringing true together. If we carry that deep sense of communion back into our workaday lives,everyone we meet benefits. That is what we are here for: to remind each other of where the truth lies and the power of simple ceremony."
Richard Wagamese, Embers

Happy Earth Day everyone.
One Love

04/21/2019

An Easter message of love with thanks to Richard Wagamese...
“It is love itself that brings us all together. This human family that we are part of, this singular voice that is the accumulation of all voices raised together in praise of all Creation, this one heartbeat, this one drum, this one immaculate love that puts us here together so that we could learn its primary teaching - that love is the energy of Creation, that it takes love to create love.”
Happy Easter everyone.

04/17/2019

There is no simple answer to the question "what is yoga anyways?" When I first started practising and teaching yoga, waaaay before goat yoga and vino and vinyasa, I found it difficult to explain what yoga was to me. It was so many different things. But now I think I've got it and I am going to try.

Over the years I have had the good fortune to experience teachings from many different amazing (and not so amazing) teachers from many different traditions. My experiences have led me to conclude that yoga is much more than the postures, much more than the breath practises, much more than the mudras, much more than sitting crosslegged for hours focussing on your third eye. (I can honestly say that I have NEVER done that!) Yoga is more than a practise ... it is more than the sum of all the practises.

It is a way of being.

Yep, a way of being. Patanjali teaches us that in the second thread of the very first chapter of the Yoga Sutras. Yogascittavrttinirodha. Simply put, the state of yoga exists when one ceases to identify with the movements of the mind. And he gave us an 8-fold path for attaining that state.

But Patanjali gave us even more - something that invites us to take yoga, that state of being, into our daily lives. Into a way of being. And that is Kriya Yoga, or Yoga in Action. At the beginning of the second chapter, he offers "Tapassvadhyayaisvarapranidhanakriyayogah". (We might need to break that down in order to even begin to understand what that means!) Tapas is often translated as fire or inner heat ... and is the inspiration for many vigourous practises. Svadhyaya is the study of scripture and/or self-study. Isvarapranidhana is literally translated as surrender to God. Put them all together and they give you Yoga in Action.

I had to work with this sutra for a while so that I could understand it in a way that I could bring it into my life. With the literal translation, I found that difficult, if not impossible. So I began to explore the different aspects. Tapas, fire, can also refer to a deep determination, a passion (in Finland, they call it sisu but that is another post). Where do we bring our determination into our lives? Where is our passion? This leads us to svadhyaya, self-study. Our yoga practises help to increase our self-awareness and our ability to study how we move through the world - how we move in relationship to ourselves and to others. It is the practise of watching ourselves consciously. Isvarapranidhana or surrender to God, was a bit more tricky. God is such a loaded word for so many people. What were other ways to describe God? My favourite is the Beloved but that didn't quite work. Truth was the word that resonated and it made sense to me that isvarapranidhana could be surrendering to the Truth in each moment.

Put that all together? In my understanding, Kriya Yoga (Yoga in Action) is having the determination to watch yourself move through life, watching and staying with your reactions to life's offerings, surrendering to the Truth that is presenting itself in each moment. On your mat, that could be as simple as watching that you can't touch the floor (or your knees!) in a standing forward bend and watching the ego's reaction to that Truth. Can you let yourself be at peace with the fact that you can't touch your toes and just do what you can do? Does asmita (the ego) take over and push you farther, perhaps into a place of injury? Can we be present as ego takes us into a pose that we can't really manage with awareness and without judgment? An example in our life is facing emotions - can we be determined to stay present with our sadness, our anger, our dismay and experience them fully when they arrive, perhaps understanding the message that they are trying to give to us? Or, when we stuff them down with food (my go-to) or alcohol or s*x or television, can we bear witness to the patterns of resistance that we have developed in our lives? Kriya Yoga, as I understand it , allows us to be who we are, in full acceptance of the good, the bad and the ugly. And when we can be who we are with full acceptance, it opens our hearts to allow others to do the same. (That does not stop judgment from arising in the moment - can we be at peace with that?)

This, to me, is yoga. The poses, the breathwork, all the other stuff, can be super fun and are super important, in addition to the other benefits, for helping us to build the awareness that allows us to be present for ourselves and others. But its the presence that is the real practise for me.

Long story short, yoga is about being present. It is a way of being that welcomes everything. I hope that this resonates with you somehow. I am here if you any questions or comments about what I have just said. I love the depth of the teachings so be expecting more of this type of post from me (though I am pretty sure that weekly is an expectation that I set but am unable to meet!)

May the blessings of Love rest upon you,
Annie

04/03/2019

This is the first of what I hope to be many musings on the teachings of yoga. I hope that you will enjoy it. And remember ... this page is not just about me sharing what touches me. I am sure that many of you have your own yoga and meditation experiences or understandings of the teachings that are meaningful for you. Or maybe some questions. All are welcome here.

I was never drawn to the physical practise of yoga for the benefits of building strength, flexibility or mobility. Or for side effects of looking good and feeling great. I had loftier ambitions! I wanted to cleanse my energy body. I wanted to find my way to bliss, to transcendance, to the experience of being one with the universe. My target was nothing less than eternal peace and joy. Once I tasted the bliss that was there for the taking (in my very first yoga experience), I wanted nothing else. THAT was my goal.

With that as my goal, it was easy to dismiss the important role of the body in my practise, even when I regularly stepped onto the mat. It has taken me years to truly love and appreciate the body for what it is - the ground in which all of life is experienced (and I mean ALL of life, not just the pretty). Input from the senses results in physical sensations that allow us to experience and revel in the outer world. Emotions and beliefs are experienced on a physical level in the body as a movement of energy (e-motion, energy in motion). Or, if we repress them, a stagnation of energy that might translate into a physical tension or discomfort or perhaps express itself as dis-ease. If we are really paying attention, our physical practises can connect us to the deepest whispers of our hearts.

In the teachings of Sankhya and Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, the physical expression of the creative principal (Prakriti) is separate from Purusa, Spirit, the ground of our being. The goal of practise is kaivalya, isolation or liberation from the physical. The body is seen as something to transcend in order to merge with Spirit. This is different in the teachings of Advaita. (I have not really studied this deeply - what I am going to say comes from a trusted teacher!) They saw that everything is Spirit, or Oneness (A-dvaita, not two). It's just that the body was a bit of a distraction. Best not to dwell on it too much! The teachings of the Kashmir Saivites looked upon the body even differently. They teach that everything is Oneness - and that we can use physical sensation, emotion, belief as pointers to this Great Presence.To a vast Love that is the ground of our being - that from which we come, upon which we live our lives and to where we will return.

Long story short, the body is an integral part of yoga and an integral part of life. It is the ground in which we experience EVERYTHING!!!! The physical practise provides us with strength, flexibility and mobility but it offers us something more. It allows us to attune to the sensations, to the messages that our body is giving. It allows us to feel and process emotion, if we let it. It allows us to get in tune with our hearts deepest whispers.

I still struggle to get on my mat. I love breathwork and I sit in meditation every day. But when I do manage to get on the mat, I enjoy the conversation with my body, the exploration of the physical that often leads me to interesting, if not great, discoveries.

Makes you think a little differently about those poses, doesn't it?

03/25/2019

Tonight's class will be held at Alpine Summit Seniors Lodge 6:30 - 8:00. Bring your mat and a blanket. We have some props but not a full set up. See you soon.

02/18/2019

I hope that everyone is enjoying the long weekend and getting out into the sunshine. Starting tomorrow night, I will be cancelling Yoga Nidra. Therapeutic Yoga for Shoulders and Hips will continue on Monday nights, running from 6:30 - 8:00 (I already appreciate the extra 15 minutes which will allow us some more time for a longer savasana at the end.) I hope to see you at Jasper Wellness tomorrow night!

01/14/2019

Starting tomorrow night. Hope to see you there.

12/31/2018

Yoga Nidra - guided meditation for relaxation, stress release, inner exploration and much much more. Starting Monday January 14th 8:00 - 9:00. $10.