Wet Paint Week 25 and Week 26

As summer rolls by I find my fingers and toes smattered with paint and a little dirt. Life is fine when there is time to make art and practice yoga until my heart's content. That it is. 

Whitman says, "To me, every hour of light and dark is a miracle." 

How do we capture something as fleeting as time? 

One way is to be an observer, like a "fly on the wall" in your own world. We talk so much about breath in yoga. What happens when you take full breaths? 

Your body starts to slow down. Time is no longer important.  You are in the Flow. 

Just like when I'm painting. 

I don't think that you need to be an artist to consider yourself a creator. You might be a writer, a dreamer or a singer. My sister Cece finds her flow when cooking her favorite dish. 

So, don't let society fool you into thinking that you are here to consume, and consume alone. 

See if you can find a miracle in this moment! 

t.

btw: The bridge above is of the one on Lake of the Isles (near the dog-park)

Endless Sky

In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; 

people create distinctions in their minds and 

believe them to be true.  

- Buddha

This season has been filled with unbelievable skies and clouds to match. It always takes me aback, and made me want to paint it. The above painting was my first attempt to juxtapose a human-made structure with the endless sky. 

This quote by Buddha, reminds me of the difference in talking about/labeling yoga and living it for myself to find the truth in it.

What's the point in labeling when you can instead be in awe that here we are floating through the universe with a blue bubble that hooks us up?

t.

Butterfly Effect - Wet Paint Week 21

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful,
committed citizens can change the world...
Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. - Margaret Mead

This week was filled with butterfly sightings; monarchs to be exact. It seems every time I took a walk there they were seemingly aimless in the direction that they were flying in, yet they've got the basics figured out. What to eat, who to mate with, where to go on "vacation" --- Mexico of course.

How to be a little more instinctual on my mat this week was the underlying theme.

Also, thanks to my friends at Wikipedia, I found this info...

In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions, where a small change at one place in a nonlinear system can result in large differences to a later state. The name of the effect, coined by Edward Lorenz, is derived from the theoretical example of a hurricane's formation being contingent on whether or not a distant butterfly had flapped its wings several weeks before.

Sounds like the interconnected sense a person can get from practicing yoga to me...

t.

 

Life is Sweet - Santosa - Wet Paint, Week 17

When you do things from your soul,
you feel a river moving in you, a joy. 

-Rumi

All week as I considered a focus, honey/nectar/bees kept popping up.
As a student in a yoga class, I listened to my teacher describe a nectar flowing through my system.
It makes me think about Santosa (Contentment). How could I be anything but content when thinking about nectar flowing through my veins!

In a time when we can go out to the grocery store and buy a tomato; any time of the year -from clear across the world.  In a place where bus stops and magazines scream things like, "Buy this product... You need it... It will make you happy."

Where do we find contentment? 

Let's start with a cup of tea with a bit of honey. Sit with the tea. Consider its journey. Sit with the honey. Where has it been? How many flowers and how many bees did it take?
Feel the temperature and taste it.
Take time away for this screen that you are reading for a spot of tea.

t. hutch

As a result of contentment, one gains supreme happiness. 

Patañjali, Yoga Sutras

Find Your Balance - Sauca - Wet Paint, Week 16

Find Your Balance through Sauca

Time for some spring-cleaning. Sauca (sow-cha) or purity is a good place to start. I was thinking that it is like the daunting idea of cleaning my entire house; including my basement! Don't do it all at once, instead just pick a closet.  

Cleanliness of the body and mind develops disinterest in
contact with others for self-gratification. 

When the body is cleansed, the mind purified and the senses controled,
joyful awareness, needed to realize the inner-self, also comes. 

Patañjali, Yoga Sutras

It all starts with awareness and a little faith. Think of your body as sacred and remember that the chemicals that we consume and the processed food that we eat isn't as good as the real thing; fresh out of the ground at the farmer's market. 

So hop on your bike and breathe the air. 

t. hutch

Wet Paint - Week 9

I've been lucky enough to be doing a lot of yoga recently. Good thing, since this is what I call the "dog days of winter." I was feeling kind of blue when I wrote this, which may sound surprising. 

I do love to swing. The feeling of being weightless and weight-full and then weightless again takes me back to being a kid.

All of the troubles in the world melt away. 

I'd like to take this feeling into my Week 9. Going back to the here and now. 

Nothing to do, with nowhere to go. 

- t.