Where's the Yoga?

I named this blog about five years ago when traveling to New Mexico for the first time to immerse myself in the kundalini yoga community of Yogi Bhajan and Snatam Kaur.  Over the last decade I have deeply explored a number of yoga traditions, spending hours in meditation, chanting many different prayers I memorized over time, playing the harmonium, meeting far out people.  But in the last year my interests have shifted.  I have become disillusioned or disinterested by so many teachers and teachings that held great importance for me in the past.  My discipline has become the home and my Guru, myself!   I have embraced the life of the householder.  I use to attend Gurdwara, or Sikh Sunday services in Poway.  But I began to realize that Gurdwara was a family experience, and my family was back in La Jolla wanting to go surfing.  It would be a greater devotion to God to leave the temple where I was worshipping alone, and return to my home to worship in my own special way with my husband, most likely with a visit to the farmer's market and a surf.  Yogini means a female practitioner of Yoga, and after a decade of practice, I believe yoga permeates all that I do.  I might be writing about bees or cooking, but really I'm writing about consciousness and integration of the self with the world.  Do you see that?  Do you read that?  It's hard to write about yoga specifically just as it is hard for me to write about massage specifically.  They are the backdrop to all my days, the foundation that supports all my other endeavors.  I am teaching seven yoga classes this week.  My focus is upon moving the body through all of its possible motions, developing a deep and regular breath and practicing the art of relaxation.  I probably won't attend any classes myself this week, choosing the garden, the dogs, the bees, the ocean and my man as my practice at this point in my life.  Handstands and enlightenment just don't hold the pull they use to on me.  Sustainability and service are my yoga in 2013...om!

A morning walk with Tommy and Sage