Hello Friends!
It has been so long since we all played together and we miss you so much that we are having a improptu exploration tomorrow night! Friday Aug 20 at 7pm at Mandala Yoga Community. It will be very casual and exploratory and we would like to you join us!
Love
Vasudeva
Hello Friends~
Our next Vasudeva class is Friday May 14 at Mandala Yoga Community from 7-9pm. (*note the new time.) The class is $15 in advance, so sign up early, space is limited.
See you there!
Namaste~
Vasudeva
You can sign up here > yogapearl.com
Namaste!!
We are at Yoga Pearl in Portland Friday Mar 26 7-9pm and Flow Yoga in Hood River Saturday Mar 27 7-9pm. We hope to play with you in the beautiful PNW.
Here’s inspirational article written by Shiva Rea to get you in the mood.
Poetry in Motion
The simple words of ancient poets provide divine inspiration for your yoga practice.
In the quiet beginning of my practice as I start to listen to my breath, I often call to mind the yogic teachings of a beloved mystic poet who can transform my inner experience with just a few thunderbolt lines:
Of friend, understand; the body / is like the ocean / rich with hidden treasures / Open your innermost chamber and light its lamp.
Like a strong tide, these lines from the poet Mirabai instantaneously pull my mind from surface details toward the interior of my body. Whatever tension I bring to the mat softness, and my anticipation of the journey before me grows … I am inspired to open my body to the intimacy of practice.
Like the great sages of yoga whose works are now classic texts … they are revered as much for their simple, passionate, and often unconventional ways they lived their yoga as they are for their poetry. Lalla was a wondering yogini in Kashmiri who left her marriage to devote herself fully to yoga, a radical choice for a woman at that time. Her poems express her absolute abandon to life.
My teacher told me one thing / Live from the soul / When that was so / I began to go naked / and dance.
Lalla spent her days literaly naked and dancing, a countercultural lifestyle that has never interfered with her status as the greatest poet of Kashmir. Mirabai, a princess of Rajasthan, became so consumed by her love for God that poetry poured out of her. She left eventually home to become one of the most beloved saints in India. She proclaimed
The energy that holds up the mountains is the energy Mirabai bows down to.
Not all poets left home, Kabir spend most of his life in a tiny shop down a twisted Benares alley, weaving cloth and spinning his poetry.
In the yoga sutra Patanjali refers to the two qualities that are part of asana: sthira, or steadiness, and sukha, happiness or inner joy. While many hours of practice can make you steady, sukha often requires more subtle nourishment. The visceral nature of poetry cuts through the intellect and often goes right to the intuitive, feeling mind. If you are willing, you can feel a quiet shift inside your body when Hafiz says:
Awake, my dear / Be kind to your sleeping heart / Take it out into the vast fields of Light / And let it breath.
It is as if your spiritual heart hears a call and says, Yes, I would like to come up for air. When you experience this awakening of the subtle body inside the msucles and bones, you begin to bring sukha into your practice and life … A tender, reverential approach to body’s soul that encourages students to release their surface effort and feel behind the sensation for the space where yoga-communion-starts to happen. When a student starts to move with sukha, it does feel as if “vast field of light” start to open inside them.
In Ujjayi Pranayama, I often refer to Kabir:
Student tell me, what is God / God is the breath inside the breath.
This poetic reminder of the subtle divinity of the breath usually allows me to go 10 notches deeper.
Often my poetic teachers remind me to let go of limited ideas and tentative actions and to dive deeper into life. The words of Rum and Hafiz resound across centuries like a muezzin’s call to prayer. Rumi’s teacher Shams through all of Rumi’s theology books into a pond. In that spirit, Rumi offers this reminder:
You’ve been walking/ the ocean’s edge, holding / up your robes to keep them dry / You must dive naked under / and deeper under, a thousand times deeper!
Sometimes these lines are all I need to lift up into a Handstand or take a creative leap instead of playing it safe.
Spill the oil lamp! / Set this dry, boring place on fire!
This is no adolescent search for continual excitement, but rather a soulful insistence that we need to bring passion to every precious moment. Sometimes our ideas control the free flow of our life energy. Although learning to surrender habits and conditioning is part of the yogic path, yoga practitioners can get entrenched in our beliefs about the correct way of doing things just as easily as anyone else. With a poetic invitation, Rumi points out that we need to moved beyond our attachment to our judgements.
Out beyond the ideas of wrongdoing and right doing / there is a field, I’ll meet you there
Try applying poetry while you are on your mat and see what unfolding occurs. You may start to discover images that bring your inner yoga alive. Trust what inspired you. Knowing which tone will have the greatest theraputic effect is part of the art of living yoga.
You do not have to be good / You do not have to walk on your knees / for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting / You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Vasudeva will be heading North by Northwest March 26-27. We are so excited to share the love and joy we feel from this practice with the communities of Yoga Pearl in Portland and Flow Yoga in Hood River. Vasudeva is very unique. We are a group of musicians and yogis & we seek to live our yoga through sound, through movement, through our thoughts, words, actions and how we live with our family, our friends, within our community, and on this planet. And, we seek to do this spontaneously and most importantly .. from the heart. We hope that you will join us as we explore together.
With Deep Love & Deep Gratitude,
Kat
“Throw out your plan and live. Just moment by moment. See what happens & see the magic of what happens by dancing with the river of life. Though it may be unsettling, be in the unknown, because there is a lot of magic in the unpredictable. Yoga is to be able to express the power of being alive. To be immersed in the water and when you rise to be transformed.”
Friday March 26 | 7-9pm
Yoga Pearl | 925 NW Davis, Portland OR
$25. Please pre-register.
Saturday March 27 | 7-9pm
Flow Yoga | 118 3rd St., Hood River OR
$25. Please pre-register
Thursday, February 25th: @ Asmi Yoga in Bend | 7:30pm – 9:30pm
It’s gonna be a grand ol’ time. Bring the kids, and get ready to flow under the stars…. Laser stars, that is!
Preregistration is encouraged! Cost is $20.
Check out www.asmiyoga.com for more info and directions!
Vasu Love!
Sorry for the late notice! Our Vasudeva performance scheduled for this evening at Bend Yoga has been canceled due to a promotional snafu!
Catch us in two weeks for Shivaratri at MYC, Friday, Feb. 12th. Come on out and join Vasudeva and friends for a night of traditional puja, yoga, and chanting until the wee hours of the morning in celebration of Shiva! Dive headfirst into the spontaneous creative music-and-yoga experience that is Vasudeva, experience traditional Hindu rituals, and chant all night with a special kirtan led by Phil Hamilton and friends.
We are also gearing up for a tour this spring, with dates at studios in Hood River, White Salmon (WA), Portland, and Eugene. We’ll announce our dates as they become finalized!
Many blessings to you…
Check out the photo below, from our workshop at Studio Sabai in LaPine on Jan 9th.
See ya soon!
What a cheery bunch!
Here it is folks… hope you like it. Granted it is not a whole set, but the segments will give you a good idea as to what we are all about… minus the people practicing yoga! Enjoy… and be sure to join us every second Friday of every month at myc yoga | downtown bend | or.
2010
FEBRUARY
Friday | Feb 12 | 6pm til Late
Shivaratri Celebration!!!
a Ritual Yoga Experience with chanting, music and dance!
m y c | yoga
$25. Details/Register
MARCH
Friday | Mar 11 | 6-8:30pm
Ritual Yoga Experience
m y c | yoga
$25. Details/Register
__________________________
OCTOBER
Friday Oct 15 – Sunday Oct 17, 2010
Sacred Thread Festival
Fort Mason, San Francisco
Details: sacredthread.net
