Category: yoga

change, yoga

Step 143: The Last Class

Christa Avampato

“Often when you think you’re at the end of something, you’re at the beginning of something else. I’ve felt that many times. My hope for all of us is that ‘the miles we go before we sleep’ will be filled with all the feelings that come from deep caring – delight, sadness, joy, wisdom – and that in all the endings of our life, we will be able to see the new beginnings.” ~ Fred Rogers

My birthday falls under Pisces, the final sign of the zodiac. Pisces enjoy endings, resolutions, and projects completed. Today marked the final day of our 200 hour teaching training at Sonic Yoga, a happy-sad day as my friend, Vivian, called it so eloquently and accurately. We look forward to the time that will now be open again on our calendars, and at the same time have tears in our eyes that exactly the way we have all been together for the last 3 months will never be again.

As a closing ritual, we all lit candles, and one by one, stared into each others eyes with the silent gesture of Namaste, “the light that is in me honors the light that is in you.” We so rarely have these moments with others in our daily lives. We don’t acknowledge one another in that profound way nearly enough, and in our world today we so desperately need that mutual honor, respect, and support.

I found all of those things in abundance in Sonic’s teacher training. 23 women gathered together for 3 months, with incredible teachers, to pay tribute to one another’s light. We laughed, cried, worked, and played together. It is a rare and precious gift to join a community so filled with joy, one that recognizes the beauty baked in to each of its souls in a unique and stunning way.

I tried hard to think of a way to say thank you enough, to the students and to our teachers. For someone who nearly always knows exactly what to say and when to say it, I found that the silent gaze into the eyes of each person conveyed more authentic gratitude and love than any phrase I could have uttered. The best way to honor the gift of this training is to pay it forward with wild abandon.

faith, music, yoga

Step 137: The Sound of Faith

Christa Avampato

“All major religions carry basically the same message. That is love, compassion, and forgiveness. The important thing is they should be part of our daily lives.” ~ Dalai Lama

Last night I hopped over to Sonic Yoga’s kirtan to make up a few teacher training hours that I’m going to miss on Saturday. I attended the first kirtan in March and was excited to see how the event was evolving. Most of the people there were involved with the teacher training currently or were alumni of previous trainings. Sonic has done an incredible job of keeping its teachers in touch and bridging the divide between classes. My friend, Courtney, leaned over to me at one point and said, “I’d really like to just roll out my mat and sleep here because it feels so good to be in this.” I felt the same way.

Though Sanskrit is a foreign language to me, I feel like I’ve spoken it before. The words have so much power and vibration in them, sometimes subtle and sometimes so strong that I think my heart might leap out of my chest. I’ve heard some people express the same feeling about their religious faith or going to their church. For me, yoga is my church, and kirtan is the soundtrack to my experience on the mat.

Last night as I walked to the subway with two other friends from my teacher training class, we talked about how alive we felt after the kirtan, about how it swept away our tired, worn-out feelings. Somehow that song that is almost entirely improvised breathes life into us in a way that food and water and even relationships cannot. It’s the sound that awakens something in us that is very tangible but somehow still too elusive to put a name on. It is a feeling we can take out into the world and infuse into everything we do.

We walked out into the night wanting very much to bring the peace and confidence and creativity we found at the kirtan out into the world. Even this morning I am still humming the melodies, sometimes purposefully and other times subconsciously. Sound and song have been a part of so many revolutions throughout time. I wonder if our little kirtans at Sonic, in some small way, are helping to shift the world’s energy in a way that we so desperately need it to shift.

books, commitment, yoga

Step 136: A Dedicated Life

Christa Avampato

“Learn to lead a dedicated life…the dedicated ever enjoy peace…the entire life is an open book, a scripture. Read it. Learn while digging a pit or chopping some wood or cooking some food…OM Shanthi, Shanthi, Shanthi. OM Tat Sat. (OM peace, peace, peace. OM unlimited truth.” ~ Sri Swami Satchidananda

In one week, I will complete my 200 hour yoga teacher training. I’ve been trying to take my yoga practice out into the world. I practice my balance on the subway as it roars down the express track. I find it while cooking my meals. I use it when I encounter someone who is having a tough day and showing it. In the mornings, I try to be mindful of my commute, visualizing my day and what I will be able to accomplishment. I am trying to show up and be present at every moment. I look at service as yoga, too, even though my mat may be no where in sight.

Sri Swami Satchidananda wrote the translation of the Yoga Sutras that we read for the yoga teacher training. While I didn’t agree with all of his notes, the quote above that he used to close out the book has really stuck with me throughout this training. It’s great to be able to start to do arm balances or be on the verge of doing headstead in the middle of a room without a wall. My physical yoga practice has grown by leaps and bounds – for the first time I actually understand how my body is pieced together and why it works the way it does. I began a daily meditation practice with this course, a practice that will always be with me, even when my body stops working so well. I grew to look forward to change, and accept that all of this is temporary. But the real achievement for me is that I am conscious every day of living my yoga, on and off the mat. Yoga gave me a way to grow my dedication to my own happiness.

The most beautiful piece of yoga is that there is no end to the learning. In all the years I’ve been going to class and even with this wonderful training at Sonic, I haven’t even scratched the surface. Yoga has been around for ~6,000 years. Its applications in the world, in our lives, and in the physical practice have no end so long as we are dedicated to their study and to our own personal exploration. Tat Sat, indeed.

The image above depicts Sri Swami Satchidananda at his Yogaville Ashram in Buckingham, VA. Ironically, his ashram is only 40 minutes from where I went to business school; I never knew it existed until my training at Sonic.

adventure, courage, yoga

Step 133: Souls Like Kites

Christa Avampato

“A certain amount of opposition is a great help to a man. Kites rise against, not with, the wind.” ~ John Neal, American author and critic

I thought about this quote on my yoga mat today as I kept practicing my arm balances. I’m not good at this group of postures – the entire weight of the body is balanced on the hands in different positions. It requires a lot of core strength and coordination – two things that I don’t quite have in abundance. So I keep practicing. Doing the prep postures, trying them on my back, giving it a go, falling over. Actually, today in handstand I did a forward roll, exactly what I was afraid of doing. And you know what? I was fine.

Arm balances are for me what wind is to a kite. They are a good challenge for me, especially as I work on building more courage and confidence. I try to get my very soul up against them and rise. Most of the time I lose, but I keep at. Everyday I get a few moments of that floating, fluttering feeling that arm balances provide. I feel the full strength of my upper body. Eventually my body will figure it out. Eventually it will learn how to fly. It’s what we were made to do.

The photo above was taken by David Martinez for Yoga Journal.

learning, work, yoga

Step 130: Climbing and Coasting

Christa Avampato

The downhill path is easy, but there’s no turning back.” ~ Christina Georgina Rossetti, British poet

We have all types of negative connotations that refer to climbing uphill: ‘an uphill battle’, ‘a vertical learning curve’, ‘moving up the corporate ladder’, ‘getting to hump day in the work week’. Last week my yoga teacher, Jeffrey, talked to us about the joy that’s found in the uphill climb. If the different kramas (stages) of an asana (a yoga posture) are akin to how a mountain climber ascends up a slope, he encouraged us to be at whatever stage we are and enjoy the view. If we can only do headstand prep and not full free-standing headstand, then he asked us to consider how powerful that prep posture is and the benefits we are receiving from it. It works in yoga, and it works in life.

While coasting requires very little effort, whether we’re talking about yoga, careers, relationships, or any other part of our lives, it’s tough to turn back and take advantage of the views that we had the opportunity to see on the upside of the climb. They go whizzing down the mountain too quickly. As we head downhill, there’s less time for learning.

It’s not that the downhill offers no value at all. It does provide us with the opportunity to reflect upon everything we learned on the climb. On the downhill, we can bask in the glory of all the work we did in the ascent. We get to feel proud of our accomplishments, and the joy we find and exhibit is an inspiration to others to start their own climbs.

The key to happiness may just be to enjoy wherever we are, knowing that it’s all temporary, that we’ll have many uphills and downhills, and that each has something magnificent to offer us on the journey.

adventure, books, change, yoga

Step 126: Reflection on The Bhagavad Gita

Christa Avampato

“As a man adorns worn-out clothes and acquires new ones, so when the body is worn out a new one is acquired by the Self, who lives within.” ~ 2:22, The Bhagavad Gita

“The awakened sages call a person wise when all his undertakings are free from anxiety about results; all his selfish desires have been consumed in the fire of knowledge. The wise…have abandoned all external supports.” ~ 3:19, The Bhagavad Gita

For my yoga teacher training class, we needed to read The Bhagavad Gita, the most famous poem in Hindu literature. It was powerful read for me. While many of our readings in the class focus on calm and steadiness, The Bhagavad Gita is a guide to action, authentic action.

On Labor Day weekend in 2009, my apartment building caught fire. I was almost trapped inside and only by following my intuition was I able to get out in time. Most of my belongings were lost to extensive smoke damage. September 5, 2009 was a kind of death date for me; a date when stripped of almost all my material possessions (my “worn-out clothes”), I realized that none of it mattered at all. I stood outside in a t-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops, holding nothing but my keys (which were now useless), watching my apartment building burn. Looking back, I think of that day as a day when I stepped out of my old, worn-out Self, and into a new frame. I still don’t know what the art inside this new frame will look like just yet. I’m a work-in-progress.

Verse 2:22 in The Bhagavad Gita resonated with me, as does that image of Shiva the Destroyer dancing in a ring of fire. Sometimes we get in the way of our own personal development. We get bogged down with belongings, material and emotional. We need not stand on a burning platform, literally nor figuratively, to recognize that change is needed. Yoga can be the practice that helps us recognize our truth, our purpose, our dharma.

Verse 3:19 speaks directly to the danger that surfaces when we get lost in the demands of our society, demands that others put upon us that do not align with our own personal truths. After my fire and after studying these simple words laid down in The Bhagavad Gita, I’ve come to believe that being “results-oriented” and “goal-driven” cause us to miss so much of life. To be shooting for the result, while remaining blind to each step leading to that result, denies us the beauty of practicing the yama asteya, nonstealing. Yes, where we’re going is important, and it is equally, if not more important, to be mindful of how we’re getting there. If we miss the journey, we deny ourselves the wonder and joy of the act of discovery.

Bearing this sentiment in mind, I read The Bhagavad Gita as if it were a map, laying out a method of living whose goal is boundless freedom. And from that freedom all good things come – kindness toward others because we no longer see them as competitors but partners; justice because we recognize in realizing our own freedom that all people everywhere have the right to be free; peace because all we’re really fighting for is our own self-discovery which doesn’t involve any type of harm to another being.

Several years ago, I read a book called Women Who Run with the Wolves. Although the actual words and anecdotes are different, the message is the same as the one delivered to us by The Bhagavad Gita around the question “How do we acquire freedom and mastery of the mind?” The answer in Women Who Run with the Wolves: “crawl through the window of a dream.” The window may be small. Undoubtedly, we will have to leave things behind in order to continue our journey through it. We may wonder why on earth we have to struggle so much, why we should even try at all when the big room full of our belongings that we currently live in is really just fine.

No matter how much we love our current room, that window will not be ignored. It will continue to stare at us until we take up the challenge of crossing over. Through that tiny little frame, lies Samadhi, enlightenment. The only thing stopping us from getting there is our courage, our own belief in our abilities to make the journey at all. Arjuna struggled with this same quest, just as we struggle with it. We’re all in this together, across the globe, across the centuries. The struggle does not change; we have to change. The only way forward is through.

The image above is not my own. It can be found here.

yoga

Step 125: Ease on Down the Road

Christa Avampato

The word vinyasa means “to place in a special way.” My yoga teacher, Will, encourages us to conduct our yoga practice, and life in general, with ease. Even, and especially, when we’re in an uncomfortable posture or situation. No matter what, can we find ease in difficulty, peace amidst conflict, calm while stressed? It’s a tall order, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot this week as I grind through a series of tough days with looming deadlines, piles of work, and a packed schedule.

My yoga teacher, Stacey, has been encouraging us to slow down and notice how changing our speed in class changes what we find in each breath. The goal isn’t to jump to the front of the mat or crank into a deep twist. It’s to float and to glide in the way that our minds want our bodies to do. And it requires placing our hands and feet in a special, intentional, slow way. And if we can’t do the posture with some sense of ease, then right now it’s not the right posture for us.

So I’ve started exploring ease on the mat, challenging my body while also thanking it for all of the tremendous work it’s doing. If the mat is a microcosm of the rest of my life, then finding ease on the mat should translate into finding ease in life. When my wrists hurt, I pull up in my core. When I twist, I also focusing on lengthening. When I flip myself upside down, I search for the new point of view I find by standing on my head. It feels good to know that in my life I’m heading down the right road. Now I want to find a way to ease through the inevitable obstacles that are cropping up.

The image above is not my own. It can be found here.

courage, fear, yoga

Step 122: Facing Fears

Christa Avampato

Since my fire in September, I haven’t been able to walk down the street where it occurred. I’ve taken a few steps, and then I quickly cross the street, averting my gaze and avoiding any chance of looking through that door. To look at the building now, you’d never know that a fire happened there. It’s been reconstructed with new brick, repainted, doors and windows replaced. Everything covered over. For me, that street has a smoky covering, an eerie, uncomfortable feeling. Yesterday, I finally needed to stare it in the face.

I got out of the subway and made the turn I’ve been avoiding for almost 8 months. Since it was the Beltane yesterday, a day that celebrates life in all its glory, it felt like an appropriate time to face fear. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. I didn’t cry. I didn’t really feel anything until I got right up to the building, and saw to my right a giant statue of Ganesha above a psychic reading place. Ganesha is the Hindu deity who removes obstacles to our spiritual development. On occasion, he will place obstacles in our path for us to deal with so that we grow and evolve. He gives us what we need, even when we don’t know exactly what we need at the time.

In that moment, seeing Ganesha juxtaposed to that building where the fire happened, I realized how much I needed that fire. In the three years that I’ve lived in this neighborhood, I’ve passed that statue many times. I just didn’t know who he was until my yoga teacher training. Now, it has a special significance to me. Now, I understand what I’d been seeing all along. I guess life is like that: we look and we look and we look, and then one day, the clarity that has been staring at us all along finally comes in to focus. I wish it didn’t take us so long to really understand what’s in our line of our vision, but then again, if we understood everything on Day 1, what would we have to look forward to? Here’s to seeing more clearly and facing more fears in the days ahead.

The photo above is of the Ganesha statue next to my old apartment building.

celebration, holiday, yoga

Step 121: Celebrating Workers Everywhere

Christa Avampato

May 1st – May Day. Honestly, I had no idea what May Day stood for, a day to celebrate workers, until this year. It is also the Beltane, the halfway point between the spring equinox and the summer solstice, a time for celebrating re-birth and burgeoning life. In honor of both holidays, I took the afternoon off. Way off.

This morning I took two difficult yoga classes back to back, and I struggled through the second one. My mind is tired. As my yoga teacher training is rapidly coming to a close and there is increasing ambiguity at work to navigate, I find that I am much more tired than usual. I can push myself to work hard just so far and then my mind and body need a break. I am literally forced me to surrender and take some downtime. I had a very long to-do list after yoga class today, and most of the items remain unchecked. My body and mind needed to rest today, and so I let them. I spent the day dreaming.

This week I had an intense conversation with someone about the need to celebrate in life, failures and successes. The person disagreed with me that we don’t celebrate enough, particularly when it comes to accomplishments in the workplace. It’s been my experience that there is such a desire to keep moving that companies often don’t take the time to genuinely congratulate and thank people for their efforts. We’re so worried about what’s next that we don’t pat ourselves on the back for all of the work we’re doing. Some companies, and some people, are much better at regular celebration than others. Where we find celebration, we find happy companies, happy people, and not surprisingly, a higher quality of life.

My friend, Amanda, got me interested in a blog called Hip Tranquil Chick, written by yoga teacher Kimberly Wilson, whom Amanda used to take class with. Kimberly’s post today talks about her dreams for May and her progress on her April dreams. She’s a celebrator. I like this idea and am adopting it, in honor of workers everywhere and their dreams. At the first of each month, I’ll share my up coming dreams and plans for the month, and provide progress on my previous month’s dreams and plans. It’s a positive way to stay connected in the here and now, while also celebrating past accomplishments and looking forward to new ones.

My May goals:
1.) Complete my 200 hour yoga teacher training and testing, and celebrate it.
2.) May is a stressful month for me with visitors, a heavy work load, travel, and the general feeling that I need a serious vacation. I’m going to make the effort to build in some much-needed downtime, letting myself rest and relax between the burst of energy needed. This is interval training to the max.
3.) Complete my travel plans for my Radical Relaxation yoga retreat.
4.) Maintain my meditation practice.
5.) Continue building my plans for my own business.
6.) Setting up some new writing goals for the second half of 2010.
7.) Stay present and in the moment during each task at-hand.

April accomplishments:
1.) Gave up any fear of teaching.
2.) Recognized that my fear in starting my own business was related to the dips that are inevitable for every business.
3.) Established a regular meditation practice after many years of not being able to do this.
4.) Started planning a much-needed vacation after I realized I have not taken any break since Christmas.
5.) Made progress on my writing goals and booked two more regular freelance columns – details forth coming as the new sites launch.
6.) Got up the courage to talk down the street where my apartment building fire happened and decorate my apartment again. (Blog posts on the way)
7.) Stood up for myself in my personal life, setting boundaries and striking a balance between being authentic and being tactful.

If you have short-term goals you’re working on this month, I’d love to hear them! Happy May Day!

The image above is not my own. It can be found here.

nature, yoga

Step 119: Finding Beauty

Christa Avampato

“Real beauty isn’t about symmetry or weight or makeup; it’s about looking life right in the face and seeing all its magnificence reflected in your own.” ~ Valerie Monroe

The beauty industry is a funny one. We spend gobs of money on creams, gels, cleansers, toners, and coloring to cover, extract, fill-in, pluck, nip, and fade every trace of experience from our physical appearance. I’m as guilty of it as anyone. I have a stash of products that I love and use every day. But I don’t feel my most beautiful with a face full of make-up and my hair done up. I find the most beauty on my yoga mat where I can see and feel the strength of my body, the clarity of my mind, and the joy of my smile. The rest is just a nice cover-up.

My yoga teacher, Jo, talks about aging in our teacher training. We’d all like to reverse the lines that time is leaving on our faces, and yet, those lines make us who we are. The experience they reflect allows us to connect to one another. And it is amazing to look at people who are truly joyful – they literally glow. Jo is one of those people. All of my yoga teachers are. Their beauty comes from being on the path.

Part of being on the path involves recognizing that we are a reflection of the world we live in, and that the world we live in is a reflection of who we are. There is no separation. It’s a gentle, continuous give and take. Real beauty isn’t in a jar, bottle, or tube. It’s out there, living, moving, and breathing through the world. You want to find real beauty? Go into the heart to see what lies there, and then get out into the world and share it.

The image above is not my own. It can be found here.