The Travelling Yogi and the Cycles of Life

After my wonderfully early Friday morn (I teach two private classes at 6 and 7am), I came back home to finalize some details for my upcoming trip. Yes, one of the delicious perks of being a yoga teacher is that your certification enables you to teach, study and practice anywhere in the world! My dreams are to travel and conduct yoga workshops in various locales, where I can meet a whole bunch of bright and eager students from all over banding together from a similar passion and love of the mat. Until that dream materializes, I get my travel jollies from the occasional yoga training abroad. Early December is the perfect time for me to fly out this year, for it lies in between the end of the busy fall season at Balance (the fitness studio where I teach the majority of my group and private classes), and the beginning of my second workplace, Kula Annex Yoga Studio, which opens it's doors mid-December.

Life goes through many cycles, varying in level of action and focus. When I returned from my last long trip abroad (I went to Israel and Italy August & Sept. 2007), I found myself quickly immersed into a hubbub of activity, working lots of hours in order to pay my way through many consecutive teacher trainings. I currently have had the privilege of living rent free with family to aide in my recent career change, so whenever I heard of another Anusara training or workshop coming to Toronto, I quickly signed up. Summer brought a much needed break from the ongoing study, but as soon as the leaves started to change color, I knew it was back to the classroom. The fall cycle must be something ingrained into us from childhood, not simply the beginning of the school year, but in many traditions the beginning of the entire year. In the Jewish tradition, Rosh Hashanah, the New Year is celebrated mid-September. In the Celtic calendar, Samhain, the New Year is celebrated on another popular date in the fall, Halloween. Spiritually I can sense that this fall season is a change within as well. Time to go within, take inventory of your self, see what behaviors and beliefs are ready to be discarded, which new challenges and values are ready to be unleashed. The cycle of birth-death-rebirth is seen within the seasons each year, so it makes sense to see this within yourself annually as well.

My upcoming trip is to Tucson, Arizona, where I will gratefully study with esteemed teachers in the Anusara tradition, Darren Rhodes and Christina Sell. Darren's claim to fame is being written up in the Yoga Journal as one of the top 21 teachers under 40 shaping the future of yoga, and being the limber gentleman photographed on the poster, "From Tadasana to Savasana", highlighting over 300 asanas (this currently decorates a wall in my bedroom-come-mini-home studio). Christina, a traveling yogi herself, is a also a writer of "Yoga from the Inside Out: Making Peace with Your Body Through Yoga", a book highlighting the philosophy of hatha yoga which aides in self-love, acceptance and a healthy self-esteem and body image. Also included in this fun-filled week is a weekend philosophy intensive with Paul-Muller Ortega, a renowned scholar and teacher of Tantric yoga philosophy. This week-long intensive is a predicted marker along my journey, highlighting the cusp between the death and rebirth cycles within.

Prior to my trip, I am currently focusing on trying to soften my practice, bring more of the water element into my life, the current of allowing. I'm a pitta-kapha dosha in Ayurvedic definition, meaning I naturally contain a lot of fire and strength. I naturally aim to transform and grow in everything I do, I love to create, to control. What doesn't come as easily to me are the softer qualities of allowance and acceptance, and this is my current focus in my personal practice and in my life. I am trying to be more allowing of my natural cycles, not aiming to constantly push myself in my yoga practice. And whatever I aim to practice on the mat, ends up translating into my day-to-day activities and relations with others. You see, knowing I have a big training coming up in December, my pitta wants to practice yoga every day, advancing my practice with great feats and large leaps. Instead, I am aiming to advance my practice by softening my skin, my mind, my heart and accepting where I am at this present time.

I expect on my trip, as with every Anusara training, a transformation of the heart, an opening and allowance of my true self to occur. Which in turn prepares me for the next cycle of my journey, teaching full-time at Balance and Kula. The synchronicity of the names of my two places of work are simply fantastic! Balance, something I always aim for, and kula, the idea of a chosen family, a spiritual community is one of my desires. Returning from the sun in Arizona to the cold winter of Toronto is also significant. The warmth and love in Tucson fortifying me like a hearty bowl of soup for the cold, winter season. I return to begin new things and to continue with some old, teaching and growing my private clientele at Balance, and writing.

My passion is yoga, but my creative inspiration is writing. This blog is the first public outpouring of my thoughts in a very long time. It has got to be the most daunting, fear-filled, scary project I have taken on in a while! I have always known I was a writer. I've written for as long as I can remember, poems in my teen angst years, short stories, magazine articles, screenplays, I've tried it all. I've intuitively known this is my outlet, my craft. But, with such inner expectations on something you value so dear, the thought of sharing my writing was terrifying. So blog first, then book. Build up my confidence in my writing talents slowly. Indulge me. Read my entries, maybe something will speak to you within all the drivel.

Why I Write

I write for I am a writer
I have always known
This is meant to be written
For my healing and growth
To inspire others as well
We are all on a similar journey
With uniquely different tendencies
There are parallels within all of us
That make this story not just mine but yours

I am simply the writer
The recorder of these thoughts and experiences
May you draw what you need from this
and enjoy the rest as a story
A tale of a young woman
trying to comprehend the world she lives in,
while trying to awaken the world within.

Namaste