Blow it Out, People!

I'm thinking of the expressiveness of the body. I'm listening to a lot of passionate ballads (thank you, Beyonce) and thinking of nothing but explosive dance routines. And I'm no dancer. I'm thinking about how Seane Corn talks of the body as a vehicle for prayer. I'm thinking about watching an inspired performance and how the body really does seem to be a conduit for grace. I'm thinking that it is possible for the body to light up with the practice...I'm thinking that the body might just be the bridge between the mind, which desires divinity, and Divinity itself.

So, now I'm going to really piss off all my teachers who have spent so much time teaching me alignment and encourage everyone reading this to attempt the following: next time you are practicing, at home or in class, forget about everything except the potential for your body to be the carrier of inspiration. For just this one practice, worry less about if you're doing it right and more about what is moving through you. You are a channel for everything larger than yourself! Creativity, imagination, passion, grace, generosity, exuberance, f-ing ecstasy...it might just be in the air around you, and I dare you to consider how you can use your practice to actually open to the presence of these things.

Forget all the rest. Put your hands down, put your feet down and breathe like the breath might just be liquid gold coursing through you.

Close your eyes and have the most beautiful practice you have ever had in your life. I don't care if you look like a show-off, like a hippy-dippy, like a bad impersonation of a modern dancer, like one possessed. Maybe you don't look like anything at all. Just practice like you would dance alone in your room to your favorite song. Imagine being absolutely bowled over by bliss, and imagine that your body is the only path for that bliss to travel from the ether to your ever-loving mind and heart.

It doesn't matter if you're in a class with a hundred people or if you're at home in your tiny apartment, dressed in tattered sweats, listening to a well-worn yoga dvd (and you feel like you can't do half the poses)...it doesn't matter. Turn it off if you want. Just get in there with your body and turn off the editor. You have so much genius in you.

I want to hear stories of instant enlightenment people!! Or at least of one really really really delicious practice...

Love, love, love,

YogaLia

Listen to this!!

This is why I love Seane Corn.

Seriously, you will not regret it. I've listened to this interview 3 times, and I can not get enough of it. You have two options on the page, the edited (1 hour) and the unedited (1.5 hour) interview. I really dig Krista Tippett, the host, and for anyone who is artistically and/or spiritually minded, the archives of this show are a totally invaluable resource.

Xerxes and other Deities...

Last week I practiced with Xerxes, God of Yoga and took a class from Seane Corn, Goddess-Teacher-Curly-Girl Extraordinare. All in one week.

I know. Come to LA and pretty soon you're partying with the Gods...

He's a lovely guy, that Xerxes, with one of the best yoga practices I've ever been in the presence of...you would assume that I guess...what with him being, well, holy. I've had a bit of a yoga crush on the All Powerful One for quite some time now, and up until last week only had the privilege of being his student, but this time he actually came with me to a class and set up his mat within arms length of mine.

It's an amazing thing folks, to practice in the presence of greatness. It seeps into you. It crawls into your breath and your body and pretty soon your limbs feel nearly as liquid-y as his (0r hers) look. And you remember how a teacher once reminded you that we're all sharing the same oxygen, trailing it in and out through our nostrils and passing it along, all perspiring and respirating into the same invisible soup and you think Yes! I'm doing that now! Here, now! And you think for a moment you might be able to twist as deep and jump as high as the great One himself (or herself)...and for a moment, maybe you can. But even if you can't, it doesn't matter, because you feel his (or her) inspiration and it hooks into you, or you hook into it, and you remember why you are there and the possibility for the deeply personal in the practice, and that the more it is your practice, the more it is everyone's. Because truth is truth, I suppose.

See, this is the kind of estoerica that comes from being in the presence of the divine.

I recommend highly finding a deity you can hold up high and also occasionally be in the presence of, like my dear Xerxes. Or...Seane Corn.

Seeeeeeaaaaannnnnnne Cooooooooooorrrrrn.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways:

1. Hair like mine.
2. From Jersey. Which is just cool.
3. Hot.
4. Not someone I would ever fuck with. Seriously. She's so full of love and also not somebody who anybody would EVER walk all over, if you get my drift.
5. Awesome eyebrows.
6. Teaches without makeup on.
7. Heart-driven, oh yes indeedy.
8. A mystic without bullshit.
9. Did I mention the hair? And that she's hot?
10. Kick-ass sequencing.
11. Knows her alignment.
12. Knows her anatomy.
13. Knows a whole hell of a lot.
14. Married to an actor. I don't know...I just think that's cool.
15. Just 'cause.
16-1,000,000. Inspires me to want to do good, be better, work my ass off.

You may remember my raving about Seane Corn after the Omega Being Yoga Conference, at which I completely geeked out and could barely speak to her coherently, and so it may come as no surprise that as soon as I found myself in Venice I tracked her down at Exhale Yoga and, boy oh boy, I was nervous like a puppy--sitting on my mat, hoping she would remember me, and then hoping that she wouldn't, hoping she would give me an adjustment during class and then hoping that she wouldn't, just so dang pleased to be in the room with her (when I wasn't secretley scowling about all the "show offs" in the front row who kept throwing in perfect yet unnecessary handstands at every turn. Jerks.) and also slightly embarrassed by my own silly reverence for this person who may or may not know more than any of the other amazing teachers I have been blessed to find, but makes me feel all giggly inside and I guess that's why you can find her face on every yoga/healthy living/etc. magazine around. I guess that's what they call Cha-Ris-Ma. And she has got it in spades.

For those keeping track: she didn't recognize me, but did give me one small adjustment during class. That's either because I'm AWESOME or because I sort of fell down with nerves everytime she passed within three feet of me.

(Oh, Seane...why can't we just bond over our hair?)

Thank you, Gods of Yoga...you are too many to count here. Thank you for keeping me inspired and childlike (in the best of ways)...

xo
YogaLia

Not Yet Done...!

I'm sure you have all given up.

I would have, by now.

I almost did...

But, I've decided, no! I'm going to give it another go! I am NOT going to be hushed by my own busy-ness or anything else!

It's an interesting thing actually...the meshing of this practice with my life, and maybe the last several weeks have been an illustration of the front burner/back burner switcharoo that must naturally take place as my acting career ebbs and flows. Lately there has been a lot of flowing, for which I am truly grateful, but I won't pretend that my yoga practice hasn't suffered. My steady five classes/week has hovered around 3 on my busiest weeks, and I can FEEL the difference. My legs and arms get cranky for movement, and I, too, get cranky. I want to chide myself for being so dependent on a practice to feel at home in my body (and in my life, oftentimes) but then I remember that I ought to just shut up and be grateful. How did I ever get along before??

I am settling in to the speed of my schedule now and am making a larger effort to get my ass to class and am nearly back to my previous schedule, and am no worse for the wear, thankfully. In fact, I feel like some small gap has been closed and am more intimately connected to the asana than ever before. I'm convinced that part of this is due to my newly found attentiveness to my core throughout the practice. There is such a lot of fire and dynamism down there!

Oh, Shanti Town, I have so much to catch you up on! The Yoga Conference at the Sheraton! My ensuing obsession with Seane Corn. (Seriously. I love her.)! Halloween Yoga! My new favorite teacher at the studio! More Edward stories! There is so, so much...

But, in time. In time.

For now, I would just like to say...I'm sorry to have been away so long. I can't promise it won't happen again, but my hope is to always return, no matter the absence...