March | 2013 | Reflections On Sunrise

Yoga: Inhale God, Exhale Service

“When you inhale, you are taking the strength from God. When you exhale, it represents the service you are giving to the world.”
~ B.K.S. Iyengar

What a beautiful thought for this magnificent Sunday! Like the blazing sun, I was up bright and early this morning, ready to meet the day with new awareness. I was on my yoga mat at 4:45, no alarm needed. My body and mind were demanding it.

After a week of slouching off from my practice, my body really felt it’s age yesterday. While I prepped the villa for incoming guests, knees crunched as I bent to wipe cabinets and didn’t enjoy coming back up out of squatting. My lower back was screaming at me by the end of the day, to the point that I had to put China Gel on it. This morning revealed old latent patterns of holding in my shoulders, which begins to effect the lungs and the heart on both a physical and an emotional level. read more

Trimming Sails

“One ship sails east and another sails west
With the self-same winds that blow.
Tis the set of the sail and not the gale
Which determines the way they go.
As the winds of the sea are the ways of fate
As we voyage along through life,
Tis the act of the soul that determines the goal,
And not the calm or the strife.”
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox

In all this stillness, the Rolex Regatta began here on St. Thomas yesterday. It’s a bit breezier today, but I was marveling this morning at how skillful these sailors must be to move their vessel, even in these lightest of winds. I think sailors are great opportunists. read more

Eternity

Lessons from a Cat

“Water, if you don’t stir it, will become clear;
The mind, left unaltered, will find its own natural peace.”
~ Buddha

Spring is here! Last night, for the first time in months, I almost needed to turn on the fan. So still, so calm this morning. My photographs were just as much about reflections as they were about the sunrise this morning. Again, making it hard to chose just one photo, each moment being beautiful. I took 39 photographs in all. I finally chose this one, as it best reflects the stillness. read more

Being in the Flow & The Tao of Productivity

“Flow is a highly focused state of relaxation concentration that obliterates all else out of consciousness. It is the state of self-actualization or transcendental behavior that is euphoric.”

~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in his book ‘Flow’

The rising of the sun was quite dramatic this morning. The multi-layered clouds made for a dreamy, pink sky. And when the sun did finally make it’s appearance, it held a very warm -and reassuring – glow.

Today, I have to admit that I am tired. Not tired in the physical sense, but tired mentally. I’ve had enough experience over the years to know that it is time for a break. I’ve been pushing myself a bit too hard, or maybe just enough, but now it’s time to ease up a bit. Work has begun to feel ‘out of the flow’. So I was again thinking about Michael Jordon, and his gracious ability to push himself with a seeming effortlessness. read more

Joy!

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