breaking barriers

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built.

Rumi

Painting of Shiva and Parvati with their son
the remover of obstacles, Ganesh, by painter
Anand from Mysore.

A friend just posted a good question: why do we hold on to the barriers that keep us from love when all we want is to love and be loved?

Instantly I thought, "Yah! WHY is that?" It seems crazy or silly or just plain old stupid! And yet I know it's just not that simple. If something is there--and barriers often are--then there's a reason for it.

It made me think of part of today's discussion at my class at Yoga Philippines. I cited the Gita, how Krishna urges Arjuna not to be attached to the results of his actions, but instead to act according to his dharma with the appropriate effort.

I get into these patterns of thought: I want love, I want to be in love, I want to love someone. And yet, the barriers are there: walls need to be scaled, crocodile infested waters and miles of booby trapped terrain need to be crossed, before some other seemingly random obstacle comes into view.

But it's actually not that random. As Rumi puts it, I am the architect of my own mad labyrinth, my issues, my house of mirrors. And it is my job to dismantle it, take it down, to swing a giant wrecking ball to it. That is the act of love: creation out of the destruction of all other hindrances.

What I suspect is this: when the walls are down, love will simply be everywhere. Without the blockages, love will flow freely. It is not a question of finding love, but recognizing that it simply is all pervasive, and the only thing that is keeping us from swimming in oceans of it, inhaling it into our lungs with every breath, living in love, is ourselves.

don't underestimate the heart

It's all I have to bring to-day.
This, and my heart beside,
This, and my heart, and all the fields,
And all the meadows wide.
Be sure you count, should I forget,--
Some one the sum could tell,--
This, and my heart, and all the bees
Which in the clover dwell.

--Emily Dickinson


I always forget the weight and breadth of my own heart. I consider it so little sometimes. And I know I'm not the only one. We so little understand/utilize/cultivate the sheer power of our heart center.

Above is such a gem of a poem from Miss Dickinson. At first the heart seems trivial in her poem, just something that is thrown in. Then she seems to say, tough it may seem small, it is so very expansive. Offering it may seem like a tiny gesture, but it is really a gigantic one because it makes whatever we "have to bring to-day" greater, first fields then meadows. It grows exponentially with love. It is filled with the generative power of nature.

If you have bees, you have honey! If you do things with a whole heart, the entire world will open up to you!

freedom in manila

Metal sculptures, "Kaivalya I and II" by Grace Katigbak.

Love, love, love this: "Leap of Love" by Grace Katigbak.

I went to Alliance Francaise last week to see liberation in paint, metal and stone. Kaivalya, which in Sanskrit means freedom from the bondage of karmic patterns, is an art exhibit put together by painter, sculptor, poet and all-around-beautiful heart Grace Katigbak, fellow-ashtangi and yoga classmate.

To see Grace's artwork really brings it home, that yoga is wherever you find honest expression, that freedom comes in all forms and exists in all places. Of course, I can't help but especially relate to her work, so much of it inspired by yoga, especially ashtanga.

Yes! "Seed of Ashtanga Yoga"

Yoga is a creative process. As you clear the way with whatever yoga practice nourishes you, you create space for new things. Grace embodies this as an artist and captures this in her work.

As a yoga practitioner myself, her artwork evokes that creative energy that practice inspires. In "Seed of Ashtanga Yoga" I see my self, my practice, how it has given birth to a new me, many times over. In "Urdva Dhanurasana" I see how the practice has to opened me up in ways I am still trying to fathom.

This is the creative power of yoga, it transforms and sheds light to new possibilities, in the body, in the mind and in the soul.

Urdva Danurasana
By Grace Katigbak

"The one who is seeking, is the one you are
seeking..."

Why am I:
Mirrored in the bodies of sweat?
Plucked from the sanctuary of my solitude?
Fallen into a forest of young limbs?
Learning to find my cave
in my lowered lids?
Moving in order to be more still?

Who I am is more than what I am.

Learning a new dimension into my bliss?
Constantly asking, never knowing
Is it this? Or this? Or This?


Grace's work, like herself, is bold, infused with a quiet wisdom and wonder, and full of grace. I really love how her pieces relate the intricacies of yoga practice, the devotion that develops with it, and the liberation it cultivates. Her exhibit Kaivalya: Liberation will run until March 8 at Alliance Francaise de Manille, Nicanor Garcia Street, Makati.

Clearing the way: "Ganesha".

open to love

RISK

And then the day came,
when the risk
to remain tight
in a bud
was more painful
than the risk
it took
to Blossom.

Poem By Anais Nin

Love is a risky business. I think we all know this, which is why most of us proceed with extreme caution. There are no guarantees. No sure bets. No insurance plans covering broken hearts. Too risky. Premiums would sky rocket.

Still, open to love, I say. Open to it because the alternative is criminal, stealing from yourself the opportunity for honest to goodness happiness and vitally real connections.

Open to love. Pry open your tin can of a heart and offer it up to your lover, to loved ones, to friends, to strangers even. It will feed the masses, like fish and loaves in the Bible.

Open to love. Unlock your doors and throw open your windows, allowing it to air out your haunted mansions; release your ghosts and set yourself free.

Open to love. Surrender all that you have, all your hopes and all your dreams, all your fears and all your baggage. Love knows no gravity. Open to love and be weightless.

Open to love and it will open to you.

Open to love and it will open you.

Open to love to open.

new kind of love

This is month of love has really sparked many miraculous things. Love transforms. It transcends. It reveals itself so surprisingly and yet so seamlessly at the same time.

This is my newest favorite love poem. That one can love oneself as much as one can love another is so often forgotten. That one can dive into love so completely and never forget oneself is so rarely done. Love, like everything, is a balance of forces. Thank you, Sarah Teasdale, for putting it so beautifully. Thank you, Universe, for helping me better understand it.

I too "long to be/Lost as light is lost in light."

I AM NOT YOURS

By: Sarah Teasdale

I am not yours, not lost in you,
Not lost, although I long to be
Lost as a candle lit at noon,
Lost as a snowflake in the sea.

You love me, and I find you still
A spirit beautiful and bright,
Yet I am I, who long to be
Lost as a light is lost in light.

Oh plunge me deep in love -- put out
My senses, leave me deaf and blind,
Swept by the tempest of your love,
A taper in a rushing wind.

valentine's day, love and yoga

So, it's Valentine's Day, the one greeting card holiday that fills most single women around the developed world with absolute trepidation. How can it not? With the emphasis on dinner dates, heart-shaped chocolates, long stemmed red roses, and Valentine cards. The whole thing is built around the idea of coupling, having someone special to share it with.

Recently, I've been on the fence about V-day in general. I am single and female but decidedly not bothered by this detail. Last year's Feb 14 was a trial as I sadly moved out of an apartment I shared with a partner. This year's is a cakewalk in comparison.

More than anything, it feels odd to make a fuss about love one day a year. Surely, we should be celebrating love, declaring ourselves, being loving and generous with gifts, flowers and chocolate every day of the year. Maybe we might even break out of the mold and give each other presents of the heart rather than the standard tokens.

In fact, this morning, Valentine's Day seemed to be an afterthought. I casually greeted everyone at the start of my first yoga class at Yoga Manila, Chi Spa, remembering only because of the unusually small turnout, which I attribute to pre-Valentine date preparations. Then at my solo pho lunch, my server delivered my bill with a complimentary heart-shaped cookie with "LOVE" iced on it. I thanked her politely and went on my way, feeling too tired to really digest the holiday.

Later at home, exhausted, I wondered whether I'd missed the point somehow. Had I turned into some embittered single, a Valentine hater? Hater no, but my ambivalence worried me. Here I am writing about love and all that. What do I have to say for today of all days?

So this is what I came up with:

I'm not having a typical Valentine's Day, to be sure, but today is filled with love--the last few days, in fact. Weeks--no, more! And I feel so utterly blessed.

I have felt the support of the yoga community here in Manila, who have welcomed me into their teaching spaces, some of whom know me very little but have been so lovely. And it feels so good to be teaching again. It feels amazing to share with students.

I'm slowly reconnecting with my Manila network, within the yoga circle and beyond it. I am inspired as I practice beside truly committed yoga practitioners. I am overjoyed to meet in "sangha" or "community," to talk about practice, to share struggles, and to help build each others' dreams, which somehow seem to flow into the same pool eventually: teach, spread yoga, be happy.

I still feel the steady uplifting energy of my beautiful friends from Mysore. And, of course, I feel the support and patience of my family as I trek all over this sprawling mass of urban chaos, tying up the extra set of wheels they usually employ to get to and fro work; that-is-love!

So, after some thought, YES! I feel so incredibly loved today and not just today. If I really am aware, it's everyday! For me, at the center of this love-fest is yoga. Yoga, which means union. And well, St. Valentine, supposedly a renegade priest who illegally wed young lovers, resonates with the union of Shiva and Shakti, the divine couple, the unbreakable union. Love and Yoga. Same, same, no difference.

expect nothing

Just another stunning sunset in Boracay. June, 2011.

Been thinking a lot about the Bhagavad Gita, which--yoga geek that I am--am apt to doing when faced with everyday challenges. This poem by Alice Walker reminds me of it today, particularly the part about not being so attached to the fruits of one's actions, finding that balance between the desire of being and expectations of living and peeling away the layers to get to "the tiny human midget".

To living frugally on surprise...



Expect Nothing

Expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.
become a stranger
To need of pity
Or, if compassion be freely
Given out
Take only enough
Stop short of urge to plead
Then purge away the need.

Wish for nothing larger
Than your own small heart
Or greater than a star;
Tame wild disappointment
With caress unmoved and cold
Make of it a parka
For your soul.

Discover the reason why
So tiny human midget
Exists at all
So scared unwise
But expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.

By Alice Walker