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.  

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