God is love. Growing up, I heard this over and over, and was never particularly moved. Until it hit me very recently that I was not applying proper sentence structure. I had always processed this truism as, “God is loving.”
Love, though, is a noun, not a tacked-on adjective. In fact, it’s a power noun, a predicate nominative equal in stature to the subject. God is love. Love is God.
Love is God. Accept this, and suddenly God transforms from a cloud-hopping, hierarchical being to an energy force that beams through us, magnified in our actions and broadcast by the recipients of our love. If love is God, perhaps we are too immersed in the divine to see it clearly.
Peeling Oranges
For my birthday, my husband painted our kitchen. We went from standard issue white to Raucous Orange just in time for fall’s brilliant maple show, and just in time to support a major sacral chakra clearing.
Read moreBubbling Over
Confession: It wasn’t yoga that taught me how to harness my breath.
Before I had ever heard of pranayama or mindfulness, my adventurous young adult self took up scuba diving lessons. I became hyperaware of the oxygen-rich atmosphere we oh so casually access as land dwellers as we forged a boot camp approach to prana (breath) yama(control).
Early in the classroom scuba training, my typical what-if anxiety scenarios kicked in. We sketched out calculations in which time, depth and air pressure directed an output of “safe” or “drowned.” Simple math under pressure was not my forte. Thankfully, I learned, this would serve as back-up to a dive computer, but a keen awareness of air supply remained.
At my final check-out dive, I suited up, eyeing my tank, hoses and regulator more as life support than gear. I tasted the last gulp of air before inserting my mouthpiece and embarking on a truly sink-or-swim lesson in breath work with four key teachings.
Read moreOn Quill Pose
The physical act of etching feelings in black, audible swoops across stark white pulp brings a level of self awareness that rivals the toughest balancing asana. As a writer and yoga teacher, I see the complementary nature of these tangential creative forces.
In the rhythm of free-form handwriting, as in the fluid transition from inhale to exhale, bubbles the wellspring of human creativity. At the intersection of journal page and yoga mat, I offer you Spirit Spur. Here yoga and free writing present an open plane to explore. To create. To delve. I hope that Spirit Spur helps you unearth your natural flow.
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