Essence: Mystery

Musing…

“The ultimate mystery is one’s own self” – Sammy Davis, Jr.

So I have started this post with the picture of the flower, the title and the quote, not having a clue what I am writing here. It’s not figured out. I know there is a message, something to tell you, something imperative – an urging to listen to your inner cue, to go with it and see what it's about. To be willing to learn rather than to know what you are doing.

Charise’s Turn:

I recently participated in a workshop with master yoga teacher Erich Shiffmann (author of Yoga: The Spirit and Practice of Moving into Stillness), and he talks about trusting your deepest impulses. He is opening up the frontier of yoga with Freedom Style Yoga where you are invited to improvise for a portion of a structured class -- to see where your yoga practice takes you, how it moves you when a teacher doesn’t guide you. In effect, developing that inner teacher within your self. “Self-trust is the advanced practice”, he says. How often does someone tell you to do what you feel like doing with utmost faith that you will discover more about the mystery of who you are? It’s sweet permission.

Permission can be given in many ways. When I’m teaching I let my yoga students know they always have permission to self-adjust; to find what works for them in the moment of a guided asana; to see where a given movement takes them; to choose how they want to position their arms in certain stances or balances; to sway, rock, or undulate while stretching so there is feeling along with doing. As my mentor Charmaine Lee of SynergyDance puts it, movement is not mechanical, it is from spirit.  

Get Fired Up:

Be in the not know -- whether it’s yoga or any structure or basis of self-expression. Begin in the mystery of who you are, move from that mystery, be that mystery in infinite possibility of expression.  

www.coachingmoves.com

Essence: Both - And

Musing… 
Enlightenment for a wave is the moment the wave realizes that it is water. At that moment, all fear of death disappears.  
– Thich Nhat Hanh

The power of pure energy is incomprehensible. Metaphors can perhaps help us grasp the immensity of creative energy – its essence is pure energy. We see this life energy in all forms in our world, and we experience this life energy in our own being. We hold and are this essence – it is like lightning in a bottle – we are like a wave in the ocean.

Kate’s Turn: 
Every morning in the shower, I sing a song that my friend composed about the river of life – how it carries us and we also carry it, that essence, that pure energy I wrote about earlier, referring to it as heartlight. Thousands of miracles in each moment, expressed in the brilliance and reliability and precision of nature – creating beauty, giving freely – it is inexhaustible – this is how I understand the river of life. It flows around me and through me. So my song, each breath, is an expression of my connection to it. We share this nature and all forms are varied in its expression. We began as a tiny seed, and are generated out of the nature of our own being: light, expanding without end. Our nature is expressed in the intelligence of our body to grow, heal, and expand - endless giving when you think about it. All of us are expressing our nature and are a part of the web of life. Our form is the expression of this essence, which also happens to be our true nature. Mind-boggling, miraculous and natural simultaneously!

An image I use to connect with this essence is a drop of water in the ocean. When it takes form in a wave, it is both the form and also part of the whole. And eventually the form will return to essence. It is both a wave and water. My morning practice of Ocean Wave Qigong reminds me of this wonder: I am the essence of pure energy, creativity – and I express pure energy, creativity in Kate-form.

Get Fired Up:

How can you connect to this pure energy that is both something greater than you and your nature? What metaphor helps you both be and express this essence of creativity? A grain of sand in a desert? A breath of air in the trade winds? A sunbeam? 

www.kroskalifecoaching.com