Change is in the air.

I decided to participate in Marianne Elliot's 30 Days of Yoga from early October 'till early November. I have been needing something to get me more focuses and rededicated to my yoga practice. I want to start attending yoga at an ashram near where I am living but while I have made it to meditation and a kirtan there, I have yet to make it to yoga. I am so comfortable doing yoga at home. I am nervous about going to a class. I am nervous about sun salutations and upward dog which always causes huge suffering in my shoulder and neck. I am nervous about not feeling strong enough or flexible enough. I realize it's rather crazy. I have been practicing yoga for a couple years and it is all an individual journey so there is really no such thing as not enough. I am doing this 30 days of yoga to challenge me a little bit and maybe help calm my nerves and get me to the ashram for yoga by the end of November. If I can only stop sneezing non-stop for a few hours every morning then I can get to the morning meditation too. I could really mess up people's silent meditation with the constant sneezing. I am sure they would love me there. :)
In my never ending quest to feel healthier and get more clarity in my life, I am going to also go gluten free and soy free for the 30 days to see what happens. I don't have much soy but gluten is another story. It will be fun to challenge myself to make yummy vegan, soy and gluten free meals. I wonder what I will come up with.
I am hoping and praying that my life starts to move forward and out of this interesting holding pattern it has been in. Spiritually and emotionally I have made huge gains but I want to be working more with people again. I want to be meeting new people in my personal life. I know that all of the work I have been doing on myself will help me to be so joyful in my life as I start to move forward but I am trying to feel some joy during the process too. Maybe all the yoga will help.

2 things on the journey.

Photo by my amazing friend Megan on our trip to Cumberland Island Georgia.

I cannot figure out how to start this post. I keep typing and erasing. I have something so deep to share that it is so hard to know where to start. In my steps towards growth and change there are a couple of big things I am working on. One is to have my heart so open and full of love for everyone that I stop making judgements about people. I think most people would say I am a pretty open and non-judgemental person but I feel like I have spent a lot of time getting irritated by people and saying how I just can't understand. The truth is that no one really needs to understand why anyone else does something. We can never truly know what is inside anyone else. We are all our own people on our own journey's. I had a conversation with a friend the other day and I remember saying that one thing that is really hitting me lately is that we can never really know everything about a person. We only know them from our relationship with them. We know our parents, friends, lovers, children from that relationship with them. Our parents are our parents and because of that relationship, I believe that no matter what we really can only see a small part of who they are. I hope that at least someone is following my train of thought. Anywoo, so on my journey to open my heart more and only feel love and openness to everyone, I am making a ton of progress. My days of chanting and being held in the womb of Omega really helped that. My heart feels open and I feel these very gentle and very powerful shifts taking place in me. I see more clearly how we are all exactly where we need to be at every moment and we are perfect.

The other big thing I am working on is to feel loved and protected by the Universe or God. To really know deep inside me that everything is fine and that I am safe. I have never felt that way. I feel like there is always this tension in my body that is waiting for the next bad thing to happen. That is how my life was for so long that it seems to have been so ingrained that it is hard to let go of. I want to really be able to lean with all of me into the amazing stream of love that is available to all of us and feel totally loved and supported. I think that is what I love about water. I love that if you can relax your body totally that you are supported and can just float. That is really how I want to live my life. That doesn't mean I don't believe in working hard. It means that I really believe that if you can just relax and trust that amazing things will happen. If only I found that easier to do. I am working towards that in this endless stage of growth and change. Boy life really is beautiful!

Ecstatic chant....

I went to the Ecstatic Chant weekend at Omega over Labor Day weekend. I cannot express in words how incredibly amazing it was. I will be going there every year now. It was really one of the most amazing experiences that I have ever had. There was tons of dancing, singing, chanting, clapping and very little sleeping. My heart blew open. It cleared so much from me. It left me feeling more like my authentic self than ever before. I can see my life before me so much clearer. I feel so much more accepting and loving towards everyone. I am forever changed!!!

Patience and Alice.

This is a word I really need to see a lot and be reminded of. Patience can be so difficult and I feel like I have been patient for so long. As I often write about, I am in such a time of transition and really have been for the last four years. That sounds crazy doesn't it? Four years sounds like such a long time to be in this kind of stuck/lost place. Part of it is an astrological transit I am going though. I am Alice in Wonderland at the moment. I have journeyed deep down the rabbit hole. I have been finding all these parts of myself that I had lost or I never knew that I had. I have learned so much about myself. I feel like I am being born again many times a day. It is a wild ride. It has been a wild ride I really would like to be able to get off soon. It's time!

It's time for me to feel more settled, more confident, more loved, more calm, more joy and basically more found. Sometimes I get this kind of panic rising up in me. Panic about how I will ever actually make enough money to support myself in a way that is authentic to who I am. Panic that I will never feel any of these things that I need more of. Panic that I will never find someone I love deeply and who loves me deeply back. When this panic arises, I take a deep breath and remind myself that I am exactly where I need to be and that I already am more than I can even imagine.

Phases.

We all go through phases in our lives. Sometimes I want to immerse myself into the world of literature and writing. That often means that I do more blogging. These days I don't want to write. I also don't seem to want to pull my camera out to document my day's happenings. What do I want to do? I want to knit and crochet beautiful things. I want to sew myself some new pants with organic cotton fabrics. I want to cook amazing things like homemade pita, falafel, tomato bisque, corn chowder and eat lots of yummy garden fresh tomatoes. I want to listen to music and lay in savasana for long periods of time.

I get weekly vedic astrology updates from David Hawthorne. This weeks horoscope for everyone said to "write off August." There was more but that part cracked me up. So, yep, I am trying to take a bit of a break and do things that feed me.

What feeds you? I would love to know!

This weekend.

farmers markets (2 of them)
yoga
reading outside
knitting
crocheting
playing
mantra
lentils
melons
olives
and lots of yumminess!

Some things are just meant to be.

For a few weeks I have had the feeling that I need to go to this Ecstatic Chant weekend at Omega. It isn't very far from where I am living and I don't think I will live here too much longer. I have never even been to an official kirtan before. For this to be my first is amazing! It isn't cheap and I was pretty worried about the money. Last week I sent an email to a friend of my mom's to ask him about it because he has gone for the last five years. Much to my shock and amazement he offered to give me a big chunk of money upfront to be able to go. He had been thinking that he would love to help someone financially to get to go to this amazing event. I am going to trade him some acupuncture treatments for his generosity. I guess I really am meant to go. I am finally opening up to the Universe and accepting abundance into my life. I guess it's ok to accept a little help from others. One day I know I will have the opportunity to do the same for someone else.

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