THE BROAD SPACE

As a childrens yoga teacher I constantly ask myself..."Are they ready?".  How do I successfully teach my littles that trying the thing that seems difficult, and a little scary, may be the correct choice. That the attempt, not the outcome, is where the joy is.  On the other hand, I must also allow them not to try , if unready.  That not trying today doesn't equal failure: It opens the door wider for tomorrow.  It's a delicate balance. I tell my students that Yoga, like life, is both THIS and THAT. I ask them if they are always happy. They shake their heads no. I ask them if they are always sad. Again, they shake their heads no. I tell them the secret truth...that most of life falls somewhere in the middle. I tell them that when they are sad, remember, happy is coming back.  I tell them that when they are happy, sad will also come again. I tell them that the in between place is where we can find our balance. We can find calmness and be grateful t...

Painting by John DiLorenzo "Everything is on its way to becoming something else." - Dave Hickey If the above is true (and I'm quite sure it is), how do we find a sense of place?  I've been chasing the idea of feeling grounded my whole life.  Looking for a solid, non-shifting plate on which to stand.  It doesn't exist. Seven years ago I felt the deep shift.  My mother, my friend Elise, my father-in-law all died within two weeks of each other.  Mortality came home.  I was scared.  Fear settled in and finally I sunk. I went down into the mire of my frightened mind, a bottomless fault line of self pity. If everything is constantly in a state of flux, where nothing ever stays the same anyway, what's the point?  From this place, there was no point.  Asking 'Why?' was getting me exactly nowhere.  Then it occurred to me that my question was missing something.  And so I began asking myself, 'Why Not?'. Adding that one word chang...