Easter Sermon from the Mount

Blessed transformation day!

✨

Commemorating the rebirth of the sun in springtime, the reincarnation of all that seemed to die overwinter yet arises once again.

A little more evolved, a little more adapted to its environment.

Who would you be if you could recreate yourself with all you know now?

If, instead of having created your neurosis, everything you have experienced becomes your unique insight?

Are there steps you are able and willing to take to help yourself move in that direction from right where you are now?

From the incubation of winter into the fertile soil of spring.

What you do now is a prayer into what is becoming.

An offering.

A seed.

Redemption day.

No matter the winter,

Begin Again.

(It’s what the stories are saying?)

–

Won’t you help to sing…

“Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery

None but ourselves can free our minds

Have no fear for atomic energy

‘Cause none of them can stop the time

How long shall they kill our prophets

While we stand aside and look? Ooh!

Some say it’s just a part of it

We’ve got to fulfill the book

Won’t you help to sing

These songs of freedom?

‘Cause all I ever have

Redemption songs”

~ Bob Marley

Snowsports Conditioning Dynamic Balance Sequence 1

The first snow on Mount Washington, Mount Mansfield, at Jay Peak Resort, Stowe Mountain Resort, Smugglers’ Notch Resort, Sugarbush Resort, Killington Resort and Cannon Mountain (did I miss anyone?) inspires me to prepare myself for the upcoming snowsports season.
As skiing and snowboarding are dynamic balance practices, flow yoga and fluid movement meditation practices are useful and fun conditioning for pre-season and throughout the whole year.
This sequence is one potential of many.
If you have interest in working one-on-one or hiring me to lead a snowsports specific group yoga class, send me a message and check out the services section of this website to see some of what I have to offer.
Once again, sorry for the technology and cropping! I am working with what I have and learning as I go.

Just Enough and Not Too Much

I am generally not into slogans, although there is a Buddhist one I have heard that I think of a lot – just enough and not too much. It is kind of a Goldilocks approach to life 🙂
Practicing yoga helps me experiment with this balance on a physical, experiential level, balancing how much weight forward, how much back, where do I lift from, where do I contract, when I shift one aspect of the posture how does that affect the rest, a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Some of it is mental, I remember the ways I have played with the posture before and cues other teachers and students have suggested to me, yet it is not only a mental thinking it out. It includes body memory and develops an awareness beyond just the thinking of the mind, beyond just the discursive thought or continuous defining of the mind, it becomes a direct felt experience of the balance that integrates and grows with me.
I am also finding this true with my experience of the continuous learning curve of skiing and snowboarding, dynamic practices of the subtleties of the shifts of weight and posture responding to the shape of the skis or board, the texture of the snow and the contours of the mountain. The practice of yoga does help support the sport in that it can be cross training to warm up and bring awareness into the body and center the mind before going on the mountain and decompressing to unwind tension, reduce soreness and recovery time and prepare the body for the next day. Yet there is also potential for utilizing yoga to refine sensitivity to the effects of stance and the subtle shift of weight in any posture and especially in ones that directly inform the body of movements used in skiing and riding, teaching our bodies how to efficiently perform these movements and giving ourself practice both on and off the hill. Perhaps beginning with mental inquiry and developing into experiential wisdom.
When I ski and ride it is very much a physical yoga practice in that I start with a variety of cues in myself that gradually build – just enough and not too much, a little bit of this and a little bit of that – until it all flows together and I am not thinking out the skiing, all my awarenesses are coming together and the skiing is happening right through me. It is kind of a sahaja approach to life, the sahaja the purely spontaneous being who has trained their body and mind to instead of compulsively react to phenomena, appropriately respond to the specifics of each situation. In the case of your sport or your art this plays out as learning and practicing the form first so then the creativity can unfold and grow through that structure. If you never learned some of the building blocks, through a teacher and/or your own mindful practice, in snowsports you’d likely just fall down the hill. Yet with practice and experiential awareness of your posture, how to read the terrain and the conditions and how subtle shifts of weight drive the edges of your equipment, the falling down the hill can become a graceful and efficient dance of balance. Just enough and not too much.
This is what I am currently into 🙂 If you’d like to play with me with it come to The Mountain Club on Loon at Loon Mountain Resort on Sunday March 13, 2016 for Yoga and Snowsports as Movement Meditation 3/13/16 or be in touch and we can do a private with snowsports or just physical yoga – and develop a practice to support whatever sport or art you are currently into.
Love

the sound of ice melting

colonnades of golden light
through the twilight of the forest
in the waning of the winter
stillness escalates to spring
crystalized froth calves into cascades
breaking free of frozen silence
the sound of ice melting
quickening in me

mountain sage

~ vernal equinox sunrise ~

…i often look away from the source of the light to see the effect it has on what it shines upon…

nymphs

wisps of mist
the sighs of nymphs
frozen in the sleep abyss
the crystalline dreamscape
embrace of winter
time

awakened by the simple kiss
the warm caress of their dear lovers lips
their lover
who everyone’s lover is
the sun

shift

snowbanks contract
in the relatively sweltering
early springlike temperatures
of this late winter thaw
squeezing out the juice of life
to the cold and softening earth below
where crocuses and daffodils
lie dormantly in dreaming
of days when they uncurl from sleep
and unfurl through the surface
offering their tendrilous light
right up into the sun

lalita

i am a child
who is older than you
living in this body
that becomes younger with age

and my mind that was once wrest
as yours is now with strife
with shame and other’s taboos
has gradually left that behind me

for my foolishness has an innocence
that matures as i grow wise
and instead of turning cold and tough
i let it tenderize me

as i step into the interplay
of the light and shadow dance
shimmering on the snow
in pine forests

Snowsports Specific Yoga Retreats

Mindful dynamic vinyasa yoga and core awakening postures inside at The Mountain Club on Loon before a half day on the mountain at Loon Mountain Resort followed by indoor targeted stretching and decompression to reduce soreness and as a sort of savasana for the day. In the past we have incorporated partner, acro and Thai yoga into both sides of this, which we can do again as interest allows.
You are welcome to ride the mountain with me where we can utilize snowsports as a movement meditation in itself AND practice postures right in our boots or equipment that release tension, build strength and increase effortless balance, and/or take some time to ski or ride on your own as much as you like.
Everything is optional 🙂
I know its cold. Come play outside, it makes winter more fun ❤

Yoga and Snowsports as Movement Meditation Retreats