ecstatic practice

Yoga as Ritual

/ soulinteraction / 2 Comments

india-yoga_1666113iWe step into class.  We roll out our yoga mats.  We gather our tools: blocks, straps, blankets.  We set the tone for the journey that is about to unfold before us.  Yoga is a beautiful thing.  We each come to class for our own reasons, we set our individual intentions, and we bring the mystery of our lives to our mats.  As the class begins, we harmonize with others and begin to share our journey.  Yoga is community.  Yoga is much more than just physical movement.  Each time we do a downward dog, or take a deep breath we are breathing with everyone that has ever done those things, is doing those things.  Showing up is the first, and often the hardest step.  This is where the magic of your journey begins.

 

Yoga means to “yoke”, to unite, to bring together.  What in your life are you coming into union with?  What needs to be balanced?

One of the things that I hope to explore through this blog is how yoga can be used to enact magic in our everyday experience.  Yoga is breath, connected to movement, connected to energy, connected to will, engaging desire, and blessed with beautiful uncertainty.  Yoga is a lesson in learning to trust.  We learn to trust the instructor.  We learn to trust our own bodies.  We begin to step into a process that may be new and dangerous, but that is life… and what keeps us moving.

Our yoga mats are sacred space.   I often encourage my students to lay on their mats at home if they are facing struggle and uncertainty.  Our yoga mats are places of power, they hold the energy of our classes and are blessed by breath and sweat.  Just taking a moment outside of class to find where our practice intersects with our lives invites our practice into the other parts of self.

What is yoga to you?  What questions do you have?  Feel free to ask them below and I’ll try to address them in future posts.

You are Loved.  You are Beautiful. You are Divine.

Namaste 🙂

Mike Brazell CFT CSN MAT PAT

www.michaelbrazell.com

www.soulinteraction.com

www.facebook.com/soulintuitive

www.blogtalkradio.com/michaelbrazell

Moving the Body, Engaging the Storm

/ soulinteraction / Leave a comment

indexThe storm is upon us.   The body follows the mind, and right now stress seems to be permeating the global experience.  Now, more than ever physical body spiritual practices important for connection and stepping into the storm.  Things are not easy for many right now (but when are they truly ever easy).  We are getting to step into our tests in new ways, and as we step into engaging spirituality, the divine, and intuition we cannot forget to include the body.  The body follows the mind.  When we are crippled by stress or overwhelmed by life the body reacts.  For many this means sore backs, achy joints, loss of mobility or even sickness.  The phrase “I’m worried sick”, become literal.

When we move the body, we are moving energy.  When we sweat we are building heat, we are breathing, we are engaging stagnation that might reside in the body.  This all helps us to move into the life experience we are facing off our yoga mats.  A lot of times I know my students come to class to get away from the storm.  They hope to leave it behind for the 90min that we are together.  They hope that by avoiding the chaos that it might disappear.  I encourage a different approach.  When we invite our chaos to the mat, when we invite it to the practice we engage the storm, we get to play in the puddles, and we move the energy.  We are not empowering the chaos, but we are proactively engaging it.  We burn off the physical and mental stress, and invite the body into the spiritual process.

You can use any physical body practice to do this work.  I recommend yoga because it elongate the body, opens the joints, we are engaging in focused breathing, and each asana is a meditation.  Spirituality is built into the yoga practice.  Start your practice with an intention.  If you are inviting life to the mat you could start like this: “Beloved chaos, I invite you to the mat… flow through me, ignite my body,  bring clarity to my mind, and let’s be at peace.”

Yesterday as I was walking home, my umbrella fell apart.  For a moment, I felt anger surge through me.  I did not avoid or run away from being angry, I sat with it.  Then I looked at my mangled umbrella, the up at the gray sky and laughed.  I l asked the rain to cleanse me, and perhaps that was the gift my umbrella was offering me.   I was able to engage the storm in a literal experience, and it was beautiful

Where is the storm in your life?  What do you do to engage the storm?

You are loved.  You are Beautiful.  You are Divine.

Namaste.

 

Mike Brazell

Fueling Practice with Intention

/ soulinteraction / Leave a comment

yogablog2Most people come to yoga class for the physical workout.  The body feels alive after moving through the asanas, energy is raised, and we settle into meditation to close practice.

At the beginning of class I like to have my students take a moment to center on the breath and set an intention for their practice.  On the inhale we bring intention into alignment with the breath, on the exhale we extend intention out into the world around us.  Setting an intention as we go into our practice allows us to practice with purpose.  We can also dedicate the energy of our practice to a place in the world, or someone in our lives that might need a little extra energy.  When we move with purpose we have a greater connection to our bodies, our minds and our spirits.

I also recommend my students keep a yoga practice journal.  Writing down the intentions back into the world when we leave our mats.  With each breath we take we pull our intention down into our bodies.  Each out breath pushed intention into the world, and fueled with movement gives birth to creation.  Yoga means “to yoke” or “to unite”, but what are you yoking yourself to.  Often people come to class to escape, or they bring their problems to the mat hoping to work them out.  If you focus on a negative thought as you move through practice you’ll be breathing that thought into all aspects of your being.  Shifting to a positive affirmation allows us to align with purpose and not defeat.

You don’t have to wait for class to set and breathe in intentional space.  Take a moment right now and do this simple meditation:

  • Focus on an intention, a positive word, an affirmation
  • Take a deep breath into the body, down deep into the core of your being
  • Hold the breath for a count of 4
  • Exhale just as deeply as you inhaled, let your intention embrace the reality around you
  • Continue this process for as long as you need.
  • Even just doing this for a single round is powerful.

Doing this process at the start of the day allows you to bring connection into the start of your day, the same is true if you do this before bed and take intention into the dream world.

You are Loved.  You are Beautiful.  You are Divine!

Namaste

Michael A Brazell

http://www.soulinteraction.com

http://www.facebook.com/yogawitch

http://www.michaelbrazell.com

michael@michaelbrazell.com

 

Learning to Trust

/ soulinteraction / Leave a comment

trustThere is an energy of change moving through all of us.  You can feel it in the air, and see in those around you.  I know I’ve been feeling the call for deeper connection to spirit, to my path, and to my practice.  Change is not always a pretty thing, sometimes it is harsh, visceral and can be difficult.

I’ve been going through my own changes over the past few weeks, but thinking back on some of these changes, the seeds were planted years ago.  My life is constantly evolving, and I love this process.  The one thing that I do notice about my life are the things that remain.  There are constants that make up my purpose and are guideposts on my path.  Those constants keep me grounded in moments of change, and as an experiential learner my changes usually are more visceral.

A few days ago I made the decision to leave the yoga studio I’ve been teaching at for over a year and a half.  It was a difficult decision, but one that needed to be made.  I feel that my life is transitioning quickly.  My guides, guardians, souls, angels have been speaking to me with greater frequency, and the message they have been repeating over and over again is:  Trust.

Trust does not come easy.  This is evident in any yoga class.  We often struggle to trust our bodies within the asanas (postures).  We have to learn to trust our instructors, trust our mats, and even trust that the floor will indeed catch us if we fall.  We have to trust that the breath will sync up with the movements, and that we’ll be able to make it through the more challenging postures.  Trust does not come easy, but it comes.  Eventually we forget that we did not have trust, it becomes part of the process, our minds become more at ease… and then we get introduced to new postures, ideas, and concepts that challenge us.. yoga is an action of magick, and extension of trust.

Challenge helps us to identify trust, to encounter her and to sit with difficulty.  Letting go of one part of our lives allows space for new things to enter, and that is where I am finding myself.  I am going be dedicating a lot of time to creating a solid yogawitch.com community and engaging the unfolding path before me.  There is fear, but that is okay.  I trust that what is opening up for me is the most positive and most powerful, because I trust my soul unconditionally.

In the next few weeks I’ll be posting videos, meditations, poetry, spells, and much more.  I also want to hear from all of you!  If there are things that you’d like to see me discuss, videos that you’d like to see, and even if you just want to say hi!  You can contact me via this blog, or at:  theyogawitch@gmail.com

What is trust to you?   What is changing in your experience that causes you to sit with/challenge trust?

As always-

You are Loved.

You are Beautiful.

You are Divine.

Namaste.

Michael A Brazell CFT CSN MAT PAT

www.michaelbrazell.com

www.soulinteraction.com

www.blogtalkradio.com/michaelbrazell

Day 10, 11, 12, 13 NaPoWriMo

/ soulinteraction / Leave a comment

Gotta be better about getting the posts up ON TIME, but here they are!!   I decided to use Tarot cards to prompt these poems.  I used the Crwoley Thoth Deck

 

Day 10

My heart is bound by faith, the arrows of indifference hold tightly to my desire to expand. I grow weary of the fractured moments where grace falls in love with falling… Like the dying leaves on trees, like space between inhaling and exhaling, and Im tired of holding my breath, the grey clouds of distance hold us like thunder hugs the earth, sometimes we are shocked into the realization that we are trying to hard…  let’s learn to fall easy like rain, like tears from heaven, a kiss on a cheek, a moment in time caught like thunderclap.

Day 11

Warrior of light, dancing, riding into oblivion… you chase shadows into darkness and come out whole… I want to dance with you, in the dark parts of your brightness…  You shatter the stained glass windows of my church,  I’ve made them into kaleidoscopic tubes that reflect back the broken beauty of all I was before you, you are my hero in stunning armor, my prince divine, your sword swings every so gently…

Day 12

 

I am overflowing ups of happiness… the smile across my face a disease I hope to spread, a virus that I hope takes hold… we are trapped by the technology that connects us, like cancer we become bound to the keyboard, our eyes trapped by flashing cursors, our fingers dancing a death dance while the world moves around us… Happiness is letting go of separation for momentary smiles, happy bugs that grab us if even for a brief moment,  a connection, like the spark  between heartbeats… a drum we’ve forgotten how to dance to… break away, overflow into the spaces where happiness has forgotten, spread smiles like wildfire, and set this world ablaze…

 

Day 13

Holy Mother, sitting statue like beautiful… the waterfall of your love drowns me… drink you in… like a fish swimming through infinite oceans…  I get lost in treasure chests, overflowing moonbeams, drunk on your moonshine… holy mother, hold me in your arms, stardust in my eyes, blinded by your light, but open to the beauty within..

 

 

 

 

Day 4 & 5 Napowrimo

/ soulinteraction / Leave a comment

So, yesterday got a bit busy, but today I’m making up for it with a double poetry post

 

Day 4

There are poems here, if you close your eyes and open your heart you can hear them.. They fly like fireflies through my caverns, little blinking illuminations, like snow globes you shake to remind yourself to “shake it up”… and each poem I bleed on to paper is shaking it up…  I write until my pen runs out of ink, my poems never run out of memories to fuel them… they are speed cars racing around tight bends, and crashing something beautiful into kaleidoscopic fragments… You might not get them, and I’m okay with that…. I’m not writing these for you, they are my poems, and they are hear… so close your eyes, and open your heart so you can hear them…

Day 5

Spring has sprung, and the birds… they are singing life back into the blossoms, and the grass, she is kissing our feet.. Dancing clouds move from images of cotton balls to animals and soon we’ll be blowing wishes on dandelions…  The crispness of the air gently reminds that winter, she’s only napping…  The clouds dance fiercely in the sunlight, and my feet… kissing the earth.

 

Nanowrimo Day 5

/ soulinteraction / Leave a comment

Tonight I’m looking for falling stardust… my out stretched heart catching blessings like pennies on a homeless night..  My idea of God is a Cheshire cat smile shining down from a cloud… the cloud shifts from goddess to god to mirror… My reflection a blessing, my many imperfection worn like ink on skin kissing its way into forever… and most things.. are forever.. Like us, holding our outstretched souls hoping for a momentary miracle, a chance to let go, a flying kite signaling how free we are… every night I fly a bit higher, I dance a bit crazier…Look at that moon, she gets me drunk on moonshine, and I can help laughing.. a Cheshire smile across my face… a penny in my heart, and my soul… overflowing with blessing.

Nanowrimo Day 4

/ soulinteraction / Leave a comment

Today I tossed a penny into a wishing well shaped like my heart…  Dreams come true, and my hands… are dream makers, my poems, echos of prayers kissing life into memories…  I’m learning slowly that perfection is found in falling down, life is about getting back up again, learning to dance with two left feet and my shoe laces tied together, but I dance… I sing a bit out of key, my voice.. tuned to my heart strings.. pluck me open, kick down the doors of my soul, lets dance in the rain, splash puddles under out feet, sweat glistening  something beautiful on skin… the moment sinking its way in… another poem kissing a memory, making beautiful love..

Napowrimo Day 3

/ soulinteraction / Leave a comment

A Love Letter to my Broken Pieces

You lay on the floor, puddled memories drip from clenched eyes, tear holding softly to cheek.  My shadow sneaks up on me.. Memories sneak up on me, like hide and seek.. my anxiety never picks the safe places to hide… I wear my imperfections like tattoos on my face…  safe places are for dreamers, I’m someone that lives for a living… which is why I’m poor, but who needs a car when you can walk the line of a razor blade.. balance has never been my strong suit..so , I choose to teach yoga, hoping that in some ancient pretzel I can find nourishment…  I stand in the center ring of my circus, dreaming imperfectly beautiful dreams… coloring out of the lines…

 

The Yoga of Falling Down

/ soulinteraction / 1 Comment

fall2One of the things I see most often in the yoga classes I teach is the frustration that so many feel when it comes to balance, or to getting the new postures just right.  There is a “perfection” mindset that a lot of people bring to their mats that can add a lot of resistance to their progress and their path.

What a lot of people do not realize it that all the falling, the being off-balance, and the struggle is where the real yoga lives.  Once we own a posture the work to get there is done.  It is in all the off-balance, catching ourselves states of being that the body, mind and the spirit are working in overtime.  When you are off-balance the senses heighten, the core engages to stabilize you, the breath becomes engaged to add power, and spirit shines through when we get back up and keep trying.

 

Yoga is beautifully frustrating.

 

We live in a culture where we see beautiful people doing a lot of perfect asana (postures) on the cover of magazines and in videos.  We often take these images to our classes and our mats.  I feel that it is our job as instructors to help guide each student the beauty that is found in imperfection.  Our bodies are beautiful when the move through the postures.  Yoga is not about being perfect, yoga is about showing up.  Yoga means “to yoke” or “to unite”.  Showing up is always the hardest part, and anything beyond that is icing on the cake.  Frustration is also not a bad thing.  It keeps us moving through the postures, it keeps us evolving our craft, our practice.  We learn to open up to the divine that rests in the process.  When we show up to class we want to be sure that we are setting an intention.  That we move through the postures and carry that intention into all our many parts.  We want to embody the intention fully.  Our bodies become conduits for energizing intention, our breath aligns and fuels will and desire.  When we finish our practice we meditate and move intention into reality.

Falling down is an important part of the yoga process.   What we do in class is an extension of what we do outside of class.  A simple meditation that can be done in a yoga class is to sit with the action of falling or coming off-balance.  Reflect on a time in your life where you may have fallen, or were shifted off-balance.  Bring that image back to your practice and bring balance to that past event.  If there is something in your current life that is causing you to be off-balance, bring it to the mat.  The intention of bringing balance into that area of your life will live on once you leave class.  Life is not something we leave with our shoes when we enter the yoga studio, nor is yoga something we leave on our mats when we go back out into our busy lives.  Using your yoga to help generate energy for the other areas of your life help you to unite with all aspects of self.

When is a time where you felt off-balance?  How did you react?  What can you do right this moment to bring balance into your life?

Falling is a beautiful thing.  Fall with grace and rise with power.

You are Loved.  You are Beautiful.  You are Divine.

 

Michael A. Brazell CFT CSN MAT PAT

www.michaelbrazell.com

www.blogtalkradio.com/michaelbrazell

www.facebook.com/yogawitch