Things a prana flow yoga teacher needs to know
What the link is between prana and yoga.
How the wave model is related to vinyasa, and how we can apply it to Prana Flow.
How to describe the flow state.
How embodiment affects my vinyasa.
These, and 11 other need-to-know’s, I am putting into words right now. It’s my assignment, my Om-work, due TODAY.
Hanuman Jayanti Poornima ॐ
Happy Full Moon Birthday, Hanuman!
Idag, 30 mars, är det gudomen Hanumans födelsedag. I Haridwar i Norra Indien partajar idag ungefär 2 miljoner devotees vid Ganges – det kallar jag födelsedagsfest! (Och eftersom Indien är Indien, så firas Hanumans födelsedag olika tider på året i olika delar av landet.)
Hanuman – den största bhakti yogin av dem alla. En inkarnation av Shiva. Alltid i Devotion to the Highest; i Hanumans fall är det Rama som är hans herre, hans Gud.
Det är därför jag har Hanuman på min axel.
Som en ständig påminnelse om att alltid vara villig och redo, alltid försöka vara ödmjuk och alltid tjäna det Högsta, varandet, det Gudomliga, Medvetandet, Gud, Gudinna, Kärleken.
En tanke för dagen: How am I best a servant of the Greater Good, and not of my self (my ego)?
Förkyld.
Sköljer näsan och smörjer med sesamolja.
Dricker avkok på silverlök och ingefära.
Äter vitaminer och zink.
Skiter i bröd koffein och socker.
Käkar gurkmeja i honung.
Yogar.
Sover gott och mycket.
Ändå bor Förkylningen fast som berget.
Jag accepterar.
Stop being so religious!
I need a shot of Hafiz daily.
It helps set my mind in the right place.
Quiet, that is.
And grateful.
STOP BEING SO RELIGIOUS
what
do sad people have in
common?
it seems
they have all built a shrine
to the past
and often go there
and a strange wail and
worship
what is the beginning of
happiness?
it is to stop being
so religious
like
that.
– hafiz
Om work
Okej, nu är högväxeln igång! (15 maj ska allt vara klart. 15 maj!)
Jag är i Shiva Reas teacher trainings “Fast Track” program. (Fast is the word.)
Vi är ett gäng av hennes yogastudenter som tänker ta vår 200-timmars examen på fem månader.
Vi har för första gången fått ett speciellt “Fast Track” mentorprogram, ihopsytt och styrt med järnhand från Samudra Global School of Living Yoga.
För att lättare klara av att hålla tempot.
Vi har very, very mycket att göra fram till 15 maj …
Följande om-work (observera ordvitsen) för mars månad damp ner i mailboxen idag:
1. Vara klar med ett Embodiment Project, en analys av foton vi tagit av oss själva i olika asanas.
2. Vara på banan med projektet av de sex yogaböcker som ska studeras (läs: beställas från Amazon, alt lånas av snäll yogi i Stockholm)
3. Läsa The Heart of Yoga (Som jag redan har, puh.) (Men nu också måste läsa, hmm…)
4. Self practice VARJE morgon på fem olika flows 15 min
5. Undervisa dessa fem olika flows (hög tid alltså att sammakalla mina försökskaniner till klass)
6. Senast 31 MARS lämna in en massa skrivna uppgifter på The Heart of Yoga
… eh …
Hur hinna?
Tillkommer tidsmässigt gör ju den lilla detaljen av att finansiera hela projektet också.
Resan, och kursen i maj.
Dvs lönearbeta.
Och just nu ger inte något av mitt heltidsarbete någon inkomst!
Man kan lugnt säga att jag inte är sysslolös.
Fast för närvarande inkomstlös.
Någon som önskar en flink hand inom nästan vilken verksamhet som helst?
Jag skriver, är massör, fotograferar porträtt, går ut med hundar, vårstädar inne som ute, står i café, kör safaribuss – you name it.
You got the job? I’ll do the work!
Osa till yogaonwings @ gmail.com
Alla inkomster går oavkortat till yogalärarutbildning.
Ajaj, nu ringde alarmet!
Dags för dagens self-practice.
Snacka om disciplin.
Men vad lättare-än-någonsin det är ändå att ha lite disciplin, när det handlar om ens livs passion …
Med minnet av den här stunden med Shiva på beachen i Venice, LA för 2,5 veckor sedan, går jag nu till min yogamatta!
Sexual yoga and the new paradigms of partnership
We are evolving and changing into a different way of life.
A major shift in consciousness is taking place, right before our eyes. (And it’s happening faster and faster, too.)
Relationships take on different forms than those of the last generations.
Yoga is the state of liberation.
And its also a practice in many ways of living.
The target of the practice is always the same: the mind.
The mind that creates the illusory, and sense perceived, separation from our natural state of liberation.
Asanas on the mat is one way of living yoga.
Breath is one. Breath is life – Prana.
To create harmony and harmlessness in the environment we live in.
And the giving of our innermost selves – the depth of God – through sexual love.
Sexual yoga.
Yoga as in the longing, and hesitation, we have to give of our innermost selves through sexual unity.
The openness that is everything there is – and that we are.
I want to recommend highly, the work of yogi David Deida.
What he teaches on sexual yoga, and the new paradigms of partnership, is simply the best I have come across over my 20+ years of expansion in the subject.
You find his website here.
And here’s also a book recommendation, one of his many titles.
Yoga download center!
Wao! The most practical thing ever!
På yogajournal.com kan man nu köp-ladda hem yogavideos till sin dator eller iPhone!
Yogaklasser för alla sorters yogis.
Meditations- och filosofiklasser.
Och annat.
Otroligt bra, tycker jag!
Check it out here!
Good morning, God
Awakening is a very powerful time of the day for me.
I exit the deep unconscious state, ascend into the conscious.
Leaving my last nights grave to enter life again.
I am often deeply, or fully, in touch with the Source at this time.
It communicates, and I can really listen.
This morning, I woke up from my alarm and from my cats persistant licking of my fingers, purring and meowing away, kneading dough with her paws on my pillow.
It was 6.30 and I actually decided to wake up and not snooze for an extra hour … otherwise one of my favorite things to do.
So I disabled my alarm, and I also disabled the mute button on my phone, something I usually never do at this time,
I usually let it be on mute for another hour or so, until I’ve done my time of meditation and such.
But this morning I turned the sound on.
I kissed kitty and said good morning to her.
I also said, “Good morning, God”, as I do each morning, and with my next breath added, “I miss my hippie man”.
Never said that waking up before.
It’s now 6.33.
6.35 my phone receives a text.
It’s my hippie man (in a country far away) and his great love pouring through.
I haven’t received a text from him for at least four weeks before today.
Texting didn’t work while I was in the US, and we usually write emails, or call.
That to me is being with God.
That to me is what “God” is.
God or Goddess the Source, the Divinity, the great Spirit, Atman, Pure Consciousness, Being, the inexplicable, yet so knowable.
It doesn’t just happen upon awakening, it happens all the time (but this was such a delicious example).
And it ain’t external in any way – yet it takes form and voice in external-to-this-spacesuit objects and events, so that I in the spacesuit can percieve and know It in my senses, and in something that’s beyond my senses as well.
In the Pure Awareness of that Pure Consciousness.
My Pure Knowledge.
And so I awake smiling, knowing.
God is, and I am.
I have awakened a bit more, just through awakening.
And yay, how logic is that anyway!
It’s all provided.
All the clues and doors.
All I needed to do was to remove my self out of my own way.
For that I thank each and every one of my gurus along the way.
And my own willingness.
I guess I must have done something right in some past life, to earn that willingness.
Hafiz of the Day
THE SEED CRACKED OPEN
It used to be
that when I would wake in the morning
I could with confidence say,
“What am ‘I’ going to Do?”
That was before the seed cracked open.
Now Hafiz is certain:
There are two of us housed in this body,
doing the shopping together in the market and
tickling each other
while fixing the evening’s food.
Now when I awake
all the internal instruments play the same music:
“God, what love-mischief can ‘We’ do
for the world today?”
Music is Yoga, Yoga is Music
And tonight …
ANYONE who is in Stockholm tonight, DO take the chance and see the world’s greatest band play LIVE:
Dave Matthews Band!!
34+ million albums sold, they are gigants in the USA. And sooo unknown, yet, in Sweden! The venue is the littlest place, it’s gonna be an intimate luxurious treat.
Join me!
Fryshuset 7.30 pm!
Yoga photo shoot
Yesterday was the funnest, best shoot.
In my turqoise haven/studio/home.
Perfect light.
Tons of props, ideas, planning.
One great Canon photographer.
One yogini.
These are just some behind shots.
Wait ’til you see the real deal!
Wisdom should be funny!
“It is not the amount of years in your life, it is the amount of life in your years! Or is it the amount of wax in your ears, I always get these things confused.”
-Unknown
Arunachala
I want to share an amazing article on Arunachala, the holy mountain in Tamil Nadu, south India. The incarnation of Shiva.
I will never forget when I first laid eyes on this sacred piece of land.
I was on pilgrimage from my guru Papaji’s house in Lucknow, to visit what had been (and forever was) his guru, Bhagavan Ramana Maharishi’s, home for some 55 years. The mountain Arunachala. Which enlightened Ramana to the irrevocable ultimate state of Freedom; of Pure Being.
Arunachala Shiva was Ramana’s guru. And so Ramana never left its feet. In eternal devotion to the mountain, he lived there until he died.
Still to this day, 15 years later, I choke with tears from the deepest place in my heart as I tell my story of coming to the mountain.
I will never forget.
I looked out of the window from the bus, approaching Tiruvannamalai station. At some turn of the road, suddenly He appeared.
Shiva.
The mountain.
Arunachala.
And I cried, from the deepest part of my Heart. I cried with emotions that words cannot encompass. Tears of Freedom. But even more so, of Grace. And of more Grace.
In the article, which you can read here, the author describes the anthropomorphic tale of how and why Shiva incarnated into this mountain. And indeed, Lord Shiva says: “This glorious Arunachala is that of which the mere sight suffices to remove all demerits which divide up Being into egos and finite worlds. What cannot be acquired without endless pains — the true import of Vedanta — is easily attained by all who can either directly sight this hill or even mentally think of it from afar.”
Ouch!
Major hip opening period ongoing.
Känner mig som en jätte-jättegammal tant.
Låsta höfternas moder, liksom.
Det är den där fasen som bara gör ont.
Som sinnet och inte minst kroppen stretar emot.
Den skulle MYCKET hellre sitta på café, eller surfa på nätet, eller vissla mot himlen, än att sitta kvar i agnistambhasana.
Tur då att yogalärare Jonas finns, som får mig att sitta kvar.
Och att mina fötter tar mig till Jivamuktiklassen på yogayama, som är där jag yogar hemma i Stockholm.
Tids nog är ouch-fasen över och höfterna kommer att flyga friare än någonsin och upptäcka helt nya höft-universum. Yes!
4 minutes of absolute deliciousness
Watch this wonderful video! ❤
En munsbit från våra 10 marsdagar i Venice, California i teacher training med Shiva Rea.
Catch the bug! Have a taste of the Venice 10 day Prana Flow teacher training immersion with Shiva Rea.
Video by Rich Van Every.
>>> Here’s the link: Shiva Rea ver 2
Philosophy of a spacesuit
For my Swedish readers:
Jag är yogini, copywriter, fotograf och globetrotter. Och det här är min blogg där jag yogafilosoferar fri som fågeln.
Jag är inte ens språkligt trogen! My spacesuit eats, sleeps, loves and explores the world. I’ve given it this blog to play with. Ibland på svenska. Ofta på engelska.
Jag bor i Stockholm, och är elev hos yogini Shiva Rea i Los Angeles. I sommar ska jag vara “färdig” Prana Flow yoga teacher. Eller yoga servant, som jag föredrar att säga. Bloggen kommer förmodligen att bli min skolbänk, där jag bollar och benar ut allt som jag som lärare har att lära mig i yogans ändlösa värld. Och jag vill väldigt gärna veta vad ni vill läsa om.
And for my English speaking readers:
I am a yogini, writer, photographer and globetrotter. And this is my blog where i philosophy around the vastness of living yoga as freely as I please.
I’m not even committed to one language! You’ll find this blog in both English and Swedish.
I live in Stockholm, and am a yoga student of Shiva Rea in Los Angeles. This summer I should be a certified Prana Flow Yoga Teacher. Or, Yoga Servant, as I like to call it. This blog will probably pretty much be my study room, where I toss and spin everything I as a teacher (or servant) have to learn in the vast world of Yoga. And I would like to hear back from you.
Välkommen. Welcome. Namaste.
Nothing’s like poetry
Last fullmoon I was in Venice, CA.
We had just ended the 10 day Prana Flow Teacher Training immersion with Shiva Rea, and took our friend Sharon for her first tattoo. Her birthday ink to herself.
Me, Rhythm and Ryan accompanied Sharon for support and love. To sooth her pain and tension, we played tribal meditative music from Sharon’s iPhone. And read poetry.
When Rhythm read us this poem, we all cried, overflowing of the beauty within ourselves that had so strongly been evoked during our ten blessed days with Shiva, our mistress yogini.
And Sharon LOVES her tattoo.
From The Odes of Solomon (1st century)
My heart was split, and a flower
appeared; and grace sprang up;
and it bore the fruit for my God.
You split me, tore my heart
open, filled me with love.
You poured your spirit into me;
I knew you as I know myself.
Speaking waters touched me
from your fountain, the source of all life.
I swallowed them and was drunk
with the water that never dies.
And my drunkenness was insight,
intimacy with your spirit.
And you have made all things new;
you have showed me all things shining.
You have granted me perfect ease;
I have become like Paradise,
a garden whose fruit is joy;
and you are the sun upon me.
My eyes are radiant with your spirit;
my nostrils fill with your fragrance.
My ears delight in your music,
and my face is covered with your dew.
Blessed are the men and women
who are planted on your earth, in your garden,
who grow as your trees and flowers grow,
who transform their darkness to light.
Their roots plunge into darkness;
their faces turn toward the light.
And those who love you are beautiful;
they overflow with your presence
so that they can do nothing but good.
There is infinite space in your garden;
all men, all women are welcome here;
all they need do
is enter.
