a couple of pix

lululemon asked me,  as part of my upcoming ambassadorship, to provide them with some pictures... it was a humbling experience as this is not as easy as i thought and it was a bit more of a time investment than i had anticipated... but it worked out and i think a couple of them turned out ok... have a peek.

let me know what you think... 

i have a photoshoot coming up with a photographer from lulu next week... here's hoping that a pro can help me out :-)

btw, if anyone has ideas for other pix, i'd love some help...

bfn.

t

preparing for a new life

i have been very busy with both the life that i have coming to a close and the life i am preparing to ramp up.

last week i was on the road with my job and i was able to take some time for a favorite class of mine in toronto. it is called prana flow and it is a flow class accompanied by a live drum beat. it is quite nice and the teacher is very good. it was a nice retreat while in town preparing for my last institute advisory board meeting... yes, the last of my big responsibilities. now i am tying up loose ends and pitching in for the next little while.... :-)

speaking of which i handed in my letter of resignation today, making it official. i am really looking forward to becoming a full time teacher. although part of me is having a hard time believing that i'm actually doing this. eeks. my last day at my office gig will be the last day of july.

in preparation for all of this change, the month of july i will be starting to teach every night at updog from monday to thursday. the schedule will be:

monday 5.45: hips, abs and legs power

monday 7.30 hatha inversions

tuesday 7.30 vinyasa for strength

wednesday 7.30 hatha inversions

thursday 7.30 vinyasa for strength

i will also continue teaching saturday mornings there at 7 am and 9 am. in addition to this my monday, wednesday and friday mornings at the sportsplex in orleans continue.

july will be a busy month but i look forward to the challenge.

i start teachers' college at the U of O in September... 

Difficult Decisions

more than a few times this week, people who care for me have said, "maybe you should meditate on that"... so, as many people reading this blog know, i'm leaving my job as a very well paid bureaucrat to follow what i think is a path more in tune with my nature... making a move that i promised myself that i would make when i graduated from yoga teacher training four years ago, namely, to live more from my heart than from my head.

this decision may seem like a fairly easy one, to most, but i have struggled with it, since i have 3 very beautiful and young children. they play a key but complicated part in my decision making process. on the one hand they make the golden shackles of my government job all that much stronger... big paychecks, great health plan, pension... blah blah... but the conflict lay in the fact that i want to live more in tune with my beliefs. what does that mean exactly? i mean i work in health research funding, and as far as i can tell that's probably the best kind of job i could get in the government. i work in an institute that keeps me close to research results and research in general that i am interested in... so what's the problem?

i suppose the biggest problem is that i want to interact and share knowledge with people and i have always loved school. i am passionate about learning and i think that kind of passion from a teacher can be infectious and can make one a good teacher.

bottom line, i think i can be a good teacher and that i can help people.

this blog will be about yoga alot of the time, but since i am starting teacher's college in the fall, it will likely touch on my experience and philosophies around different modes of teaching as well.

returning to my meditations, 2 thoughts keep coming back... the first is Nietzche's eternal return...

[T]ime is infinite, but the things in time, the concrete bodies, are finite. They may indeed disperse into the smallest particles; but these particles, the atoms, have their determinate numbers, and the numbers of the configurations which, all of themselves, are formed out of them is also determinate. Now, however long a time may pass, according to the eternal laws governing the combinations of this eternal play of repetition, all configurations which have previously existed on this earth must yet meet, attract, repulse, kiss, and corrupt each other again...^[12]

Nietzsche calls the idea "horrifying and paralyzing", and says that its burden is the "heaviest weight" ("das schwerste Gewicht")^[13]imaginable. The wish for the eternal return of all events would mark the ultimate affirmation of life.

this, i have to admit, horrifies me to no end when i think that with my very short existence that i may continue to make the wrong decisions... but the question is, which "wrong decisions" am i most comfortable with? staying the course in a job that is easy but out of tune with my beliefs in a few very critical ways? or would i feel better having risked being happy and possible great at something that seems to be a grand challenge?

which brings me to the idealist perspective... and where i will quote mr Frost, as he is worlds more eloquent than i will ever be.  

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Why Yogi Ojas?

when i graduated from my teacher training under the tutelage of my dear teacher Yogi Vishvketu, he lovingly gave me the spiritual name "Ojas".

wikipedia describes Ojas as "primal vigor" or "the essential energy of the body which can be equated with the "fluid of life". it also continues on by saying that "Ojas is both the gateway and the container. It is the gateway between consciousness and physiology, between spiritual and material. As the subtlest physical, it is a container. It contains the flow of cosmic energy (Prana) from Atman through the individual."

that's a whole lot to absorb, right there...

now, spiritual names are funny things... they generally represent things that one must or might meditate on. They often represent concepts or traits that are significant for the bearer in their current life...

so, what does that mean for me???

well, i suppose i'm still working that through ;-)

there are a great many things that this might mean... and i think especially with the major upcoming changes in my life (as i am preparing to leave my office work and move towards different kinds of full time teaching), i will be exploring the many meanings that this name may hold for me through my own yoga practice, which does include my teaching and all of my interactions with my students...

essentially, this blog will be a living document of my exploration of my yogic path both through general observation and through my day to day life... let's hope i remain as committed to this journal as i am to my practice.

i suppose we'll see. :-)