Sources of Inspiration

I'm a cerebral person. A thinker. I am also a doer. But the doing comes after considerable amount of thinking. And pondering. And sometimes worrying. And wondering. And all of that cerebral action translates into my yoga teaching too. My students have come to realize that "it ain't over til the poem gets read". Or the prayer, or literary witticism, or song lyric. Or just what happens to be rollin' around in my head at the time. I do worry sometimes that someone will be put off by something I say, that I may offend or irritate someone's religious or political sensibility, but that is never my intention. I seek to teach, to share words of wisdom (rarely my own!), to comfort, to inspire.

I wrote this piece a year or so ago, added it to the website, and share it here:

“I find that my best epiphanies or insights come during or directly after meditation. This morning on my cushion it came to me that perhaps I offend when I read or recite something at the end of a yoga class. Last night, for instance, I referred to Buddhism; other times Islam or Native American teachings. I draw from many, many resources as I believe that on our own spiritual/human path there are many ways to travel and therefore many from whom we can learn. So I draw from:

poets and blasphemes authors and philosophers maidens, mothers and crones

yogis and seekers imams and shamans priests and rabbis

monks and nuns

Native Americans and Druids

atheists and pagans scientists and essayists Buddha and Jesus saints and Mother Teresa the Bible and the Bhagavad Gita and, and, and . . .

Knowledge is everywhere; growth, insight and enlightenment come from everywhere. Knowing yourself and your connection to God/the Divine/the Universe comes both from inside yourself and from all that you gain from living in this world.

You need only open your heart.”

And you know, sometimes that's the hardest part, opening the heart. Sometimes it hurts, but mostly it brings light and energy and truth and joy. Give it a try. And like the Grinch, may your heart "grow two sizes" today.