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Yoga Teachers

  • Snow White and the Seven Chakras

    (Inspired by Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra Chapter II, v. 42
    samtosad anuttamah sukhalabhah)
    From contentment,
    Highest happiness is obtained
    Snow White’s Seven Dwarfs
    Are invited to explain….
    Consider us each a chakra
    An energy gate of sorts
    That we open, clean and balance
    For optimal support.
    Work on passing through
    The seven chakras {or gates}
    In order to visit the underworld
    And ascend to blissful states.
    Let’s begin in MOUNTAIN with SLEEPY,
    Awaken abundant roots.
    Stand with both feet straight
    Ground heavy in your boots.
    Each time you inhale,
    Think, I HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE HERE.
    Each time you exhale,
    Root your feet a little deeper.
    Reach up high with outstretched hands
    FORWARD FOLD and touch the ground.
    Prepare to balance GRUMPY
    Who needs some healthy bounds.
    Whenever you breathe in,
    Think, I HAVE THE RIGHT TO FEEL.
    Each time you breathe out,
    Circle your hips like a water wheel.
    Step your right foot back
    Into a STRAIGHT LEG LUNGE
    Here we balance DOPEY
    Soak up power, like a sponge.
    Each time you take breath in,
    Think, I HAVE THE RIGHT TO ACT.
    Each time you release breath out,
    Stretch your belly with great tact.
    Step your left foot back
    Press hips up into DOWNWARD DOG
    Open up to HAPPY
    Melt your heart free from smog.
    Receive your in breath and
    Think, I HAVE THE RIGHT TO LOVE.
    Give your breath out
    Feel Unworthiness? Get RID of!
    Shift forward into PLANK
    So BASHFUL can get clear.
    Soften your throat back
    And open up your ears.
    Each time you breathe in
    Think, I HAVE THE RIGHT TO SPEAK WORDS.
    Each time you breathe out
    Say, I HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE HEARD.
    Lower knees, chest and chin
    GRATITUDE for SNEEZY’s insight and vision.
    Draw back of eyes toward back of head
    To focus on decisions.
    Each breath in
    Think, I HAVE THE RIGHT TO SEE.
    Each breath out
    Cross your eyes to a degree.
    Stretch your crown forward and up
    To balance DOC in SNAKE
    Straighten legs behind you,
    Connect to what’s awake.
    Each time you breathe in
    Think, I HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW
    Each time you breathe out
    Stretch from head to toe.
    Lower back down
    Prepare to pose in reverse
    Remember your rights
    Remember to immerse.
    SNAKE back to GRATITUDE
    Breathe into your poses
    Up PLANK to DOWN DOG
    Your rights are like roses.
    STRAIGHT LEG LUNGE to FORWARD FOLD
    And back up to MOUNTAIN
    Keep moving and grooving
    Till your rights flow like fountains.
    When we know our rights,
    And pass through chakra gates~
    We develop a sense of contentment
    And more deeply relate.
    Happiness is indeed obtainable.
    When we follow the path of contentment
    Accept the ups and the downs
    of our very own presentment.
    May we be content with GRUMPY work
    Or no work at all~
    DOPEY or HAPPY states
    BASHFUL or baseball.
    May we be content when SLEEPY
    Or wide awake~
    SNEEZY or Doc
    It’s our right~For Goodness Sake!

  • Intention Tower

    Gratefully, I wake up every morning, breathing, heart beating and mind wide open. As I breathe into my heart I pray, “God, thank you for this day, thank you for this breath and thank you for this life.” I am passionate about living life through peace and love rather than through fear and hate. My…

  • Snow White Yoga

    {Tada drastuh svarupe vasthanam}
    Patanjali’s Sutra Chapter 1, verse 3
    Then the SEER abides in it own NATURE
    Surely, it’s meant to BE~
    To ABIDE in our own SPLENDOR~
    The mind must get real quiet;
    it needs to uncover the truth
    and go on a Cloud free Diet.
    No need to grasp for light
    For it is already here and there.
    Let’s thin out the distorted clouds
    Of ignorance and despair.
    Let’s work with the muddled mind,
    Accept that clouds are blocking,
    Train to be more observant
    Of thoughts that keep on talking.
    Just like the sun up above
    Our LIGHT never dims to slur.
    It does get covered up.
    And distortion may occur.
    Dwarfs mine for diamonds
    In the classic tale SNOW WHITE.
    We mine for JOY
    It’s our undivided RIGHT.
    SNOW WHITE sings joyfully,
    As she tidies up the cottage.
    Birds and animals dance along
    And MiIRROR her BLISSFUL wattage.
    SNOW WHITE glistens KINDNESS,
    and undisturbed PURENESS,
    That exists at the core of her being
    Her true SELF, that’s for sureness.
    In yoga, we use our practice
    To support the removal of clouds~
    To ground into our inner brilliance
    And shine out free from the shrouds.
    “Just whistle while you work
    And cheerfully together we can tidy up the place
    So hum a merry tune
    It won’t take long when there’s a song to help you set the pace ”
    Keep your ankles in line with your knees
    And your knees in line with your hips.
    Clasp your elbows behind your back
    And rise up high on your toe-tips.
    Bend steady your knees.
    Stay high up on tiptoes.
    Whistle or hum a tune
    While you work to hold this pose!
    “And as you sweep the room
    Imagine that the broom is someone that you love
    And soon you’ll find you’re dancing to the tune
    When hearts are high the time will fly
    So whistle while you work”
    Clean the sand trap of cluttered thoughts
    With camel pose in a chair.
    Sit on the edge of your seat
    Place your hands behind you with care.
    Lift the sides of your heart up
    And the back of your heart high.
    Pull your head of the arm bones back.
    Soften both sides of your throat and sigh.
    Sigh your throat back,
    And LIFT YOUR HEART HIGH.
    WHISTLE WHILE YOU WORK
    And allow time to fly.
    Place hands on your lap
    Lift your head back over your heart
    Ground your thighs and feet,
    And Feel the clouds depart.
    May we whistle while we work.
    May we notice our inner states.
    May our inner states be bright.
    And lighten our outer updates.
    May the sound that whistles tunes
    from within our deep heart’s abyss
    Ring loud and ring clear~
    OUR OWN TRUE NATURE IS BLISS!

  • The Okey Dokey Yogi

    inspired by Dr. Seuss’s Sutra: the Zax and Patanjali’s Sutra: yatha abhimata dhyanadva (Chapter 1, v. 39)
    One day, making Okeys
    In the mountain of Dokey,
    Posed a West-Going Yogi
    And an East-Going Yogi.
    {See, an Okey is approval,
    An endorsement as such.
    Each yogi seeked okeys
    So very much.}
    And it happened that both of them posed in a place
    Where they bumped. There they stood.
    Foot to foot. Face to face.
    “Look here, now!” the West-Going Yogi said. “I say!
    You are blocking my mind. You are right in my way.
    I’m a West-Going Yogi and I always think west.
    Get out of my way, now, and let me do best!”
    “Who’s in whose way?” snapped the East-Going Yogi.
    “I always think east, making east-going okeys.
    So you’re in MY way! And I ask you to move.
    And let me go east in my east-going groove.
    Then the West-Going Yogi puffed his chest up with pride.
    “I never,” he said, “take a step to one side,
    And I’ll prove to you that I won’t change my ways
    If I have to keep posing here thirty-nine days!”
    “And I’ll prove to YOU,” yelled the West-Going Yogi,
    “That I can pose here in the mountain of Dokey
    for thirty-nine years! For I live by a mantra
    that I learned way back in West-Going Tantra.
    “Still the mind! That’s my mantra. Still the mind is the best!
    I’ll pose here, quite still! I can and I will
    If it makes you and me and the whole world stand still.
    Hey… said East-Going Yogi
    I learned that as well.
    Let’s check yoga sutras
    Won’t that be swell?
    Chapter1, verse 39
    to be quite exact.
    Focus on things that
    you won’t find distract.
    There are numbers of ways
    For the mind to become still.
    Focus on what you please
    To Fulfill!
    It is the process of focus
    Which makes us a yogi
    Not the specific practice
    You see, Okey-Dokey?
    Patanjali says to practice
    Right from the heart
    Allow this to deepen,
    For that is the art.
    Fix the mind!
    Any object you choose,
    As a focusing prop to
    Fully fix and bemuse.
    Get absorbed in your focus,
    Without distraction.
    You can attain stillness
    And sweet satisfaction.

  • Roadmap to Lucidity

    Or
    The map to LUCIDITY
    Inspired by Yoga Sutra 1.33 which reads:
    maitri karuna mudita upeksanam sukha duhkha punya apunya
    visayanam bhavanatah cittaprasadanam
    The map to LUCIDITY?
    YES! Have you heard?
    Takes four states to get there~
    Not that absurd.
    The first is of FRIENDSHIP
    toward those who are happy.
    Even when you feel distant,
    resistance and slappy.
    The second is of COMPASSION
    toward those in distress.
    Tough when annoyed,
    imposed on and stressed.
    The third is of JOY
    toward those who are good
    through roadblocks of useless
    and misunderstood.
    The fourth is of EQUANIMITY
    toward those who are foul
    who are lacking in virtue,
    and react with a growl.
    Here in our mapping
    Four residents are mentioned.
    How we perceive them
    Is our fierce contention.
    Our attitudes we go for
    From composure to kind~
    Get us closer to LUCIDITY
    Where we STABILIZE our mind.
    Memorize these four~
    And observe in daily life.
    During times of quiet,
    Noise, and even strife.
    So buckle up~
    And prepare for a ride~
    To align your attitude,
    And try the untried.
    Close your eyes~
    Feel the state you are in~
    Soften your heart~
    your throat, and your skin.
    Drop your breath
    right into your heart~
    It’s made up of LOVE~
    And that’s where you start.
    Inhale with the thought~
    May I be friendly~
    Exhale with the thought~
    May I give friendship.
    .
    May I be COMPASSIONATE
    with your next inhale
    May I give COMPASSION
    with your next exhale.
    Inhale with the thought~
    May I have JOY~
    Exhale with the thought~
    May I give JOY.
    May I have EQUANIMITY
    with your inhale.
    May I give CALMNESS
    with your exhale.
    When someone comes to mind
    Offer these prayers
    No matter their issues,
    Their stains, or their stares.
    May you be LOVING~
    May you be LOVED ~
    May you be PEACEFUL~
    May you give PEACE~
    Your states of envy and mean
    Get smaller each time~
    Intolerance is removed
    You get closer to SUBLIME.
    Once your mind is CLEAR,
    And you’re CENTERED and FREE
    Skillfulness in ACTION
    Will be … Will be~