The Charge of Chi with Monica at Yoga Loka: Reno, Nevada: June 21. 2018

"Love is a bridge between you and everything", says Rumi. When you slow down enough to connect, even a single sprig of lavender can help you learn about yourself.

I used to laugh at some of the weird things yogis say, but here I go being a strange one myself. Monica asked our class to hold a spring of lavender and notice the 'charge', if any. By charge she was referring to the energy, chi, there are many names for it, but for the purpose of making my point, let's just say the sprig of lavender talked to me.

I felt a huge amount of energy from that tiny sprig. It was a connection of one living thing to another living thing. Further meditative investigation revealed that I wanted the sprig to like me, to approve of me.  I was willing to move and shift for this love. If I sat a certain way I could "catch' more love. But it required I move slightly out of alignment of what felt like a comfortable seat. It was weird and other worldly and odd. Until it wound its way to the wound of co-dependency. Which stopped my heart cold because I feel I'm in her grips a bit these days and its something I hate to see, its my willingness to bend so far it breaks my heart.

I'm flexible by nature. Full splits, no problem, Full lotus, oh yes. Move to Nevada, OK. I miss Hawaii and California and moist air and beach every single day. Sometimes I wonder how I got back here? I mean, this is my second run in northern Nevada. And then I remember. Its about relationship and its about money, which happen to be two very big sticky places for me. There are lessons to be learned right here and now.

One of the dangers of being too flexible is it can overstretch ligaments and tendons. These magnificent parts help keep our skeleton system safely aligned and helps many things, including standing up straight.. What's needed when joints become unstable is strength. What's needed in relationship is the strength to stand up for who one is.

And I feel that part of me is unstable. Not to the point of falling apart, but enough to catch myself moving around in seated mediation so that a spring of lavender will love me. That's sort of pathetic, really.

Anger is a side affect of codependency and I've been really irritable lately. I could say its the remodel and not having a solid home base, but more mischief is really my codependency flaring up. The antidote to anger is self love and self compassion, so this is what I tied my breath to in practice today when I saw my codependent ways.

The ancient texts say seeing clearly is the salve for all our suffering. While there is emotional work to be done around the humongous issue of codependency at least I have a reference to why I feel so out-of-sorts. These practices aren't about self improvement, but about self study so that one can self correct because that's the only real way to transformation, as the texts say "from untruth to truth, from dark to light". Like magic, I felt stronger and happier, and more tuned into my own  heart at the end of class with the simple practice of attention to my breath and asana. These alignments of True Love naturally bloom forth when one is in yoga, not because one sought out to find Love, but because she came back into alignment with her own heart. Which is really the only place I want to live.

Health, Love, and Rock N Roll.

The very last time the Beatles played together. What an interesting song choice. xoxo