Evolution Yoga - Burlington, Vermont » Andrea O’Connor

Anusara Moment: Does it get any better?

workingwellvt — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 13:36:25 +0000

Does it get any better than this?

When you realize how perfect everything is, you will tilt back your head
and laugh at the sky.Buddha

Bill and I have been reading the “Chet and Bernie” mysteries. Chet, a mixed breed dog who failed police training, narrates his life with Bernie, the hapless and occasionally brilliant detective. While Bernie bumbles through relationships and jobs, Chet savors every moment, finding intense pleasure in anything. From riding shotgun in the car, to finding a french fry under the dining room table, to leaping through the air and tackling a perpetrator. His favorite expression is, “Does it get any better than this?

Taking a cue from Chet, Bill and I look for as many uses of that expression a day as possible.Does it get any better than fresh local blueberries for breakfast? A crescent summer moon in the west? A heart opening back bend? A chore accomplished?

I think that’s what enlightenment is – experiencing the best in any circumstances. Because every moment holds the incredible power, momentum and goodness of the pulsing Universal.

Is it that simple? Chet would think so!

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1000 Times a Day: Anusara Moment

workingwellvt — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 14:03:45 +0000

Our hearts transport blood around our bodies, a thousand times in a day. As well as a physical pumping station, the heart is the hub of the fourth chakra or energy center of the body that corresponds with love and compassion.

It’s fun to draw parallels between the physical and the energetic heart. One is transporting the oxygen-poor and oxygen-rich blood for filling and dispensing. Could the other equally be drawing in all manner of separateness and pain and transforming them with love?

I like to think so. 1000 times a day.

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Special Angels: Anusara Moment

workingwellvt — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 17:11:53 +0000

I’ve been told by several people that I have special angels who hang onto the car roof when I’m driving.

I speed regularly, take corners quickly, and strategically maneuver from lane to lane like a chess board advance. My hubcaps and bumpers are dinged from close encounters with curbs. But I’ve never had an accident, other than being rear-ended while waiting at a stop sign, and only one speeding ticket as an adult.

Bill, my husband, was following me one day as I sped off and screeched around a corner. He swears the angels got dumped off and had to fly really fast to catch me again!

I do believe the perfection and protection of Grace follows us closely in all we do. The presence of the Perfect Self consistently offers guardianship as well as the opportunity for kind and joyous thought and action.

As we slow down, Grace easily overtakes us. (If you would only do that in driving, Bill says.)

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Anusara Moment: Walkin’ feet

workingwellvt — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 14:18:33 +0000

Sometimes I can get stuck in my perceptions or ideas, as if I’m rooted in front of a bank of big screen TVs in Best Buy and won’t move. My feet are stuck in place.

Let’s say the program on each TV is an aspect of what’s happening in life. One might describe a work day that feels overwhelming; another screen shows a family relationship that looks “bad”.

Another might be a wonderful show. I could be looking at my flower gardens and the yellow finches flitting around the bird feeders. Maybe I think I can’t live without this scene in my life.

A part of our mind gathers information; another projects it on a screen, and the ego decides whether we like what we see. Or don’t like it. The whole ball of wax is our reality.

What I’ve been practicing this week is picking up my feet and walking, literally or figuratively, to a different place in all this. Instead of being frozen in front of the various screens, I take these walkin’ feet and move the body and mind. Get out of Best Buy! Take off for the lake or someplace beautiful!

It’s a new show from the top of Camel’s Hump or while swimming off Red Rocks. I’m less attached to it. Same screens: different reality.

Neat!
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Get rid of the rose: An Anusara Moment

workingwellvt — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 14:19:25 +0000

A fragrant white rose in my garden was never in the right place to catch enough sun for optimum health. For two years, I’ve watched her bloom tentatively and then be ravaged by bugs.

I’ve tried hosing them off, spraying them with organic pesticides (and then worrying about the birds and squirrels) and handpicking dozens of pests off the shrub twice a day.

This year I removed the infested beauty before the surrounding plants were affected.

It’s tough sometimes to eliminate something in life that SEEMS like it should be OK. Or we WISH it was OK. Or we don’t understand why we can’t MAKE it OK. It could be a habit, belief, possession or even a livelihood that ultimately isn’t serving us.

Rumi, the 13th C. Sufi mystic and poet writes-

…. if you wait and just let it happen, you’d bite your hand and say “I didn’t do as I knew I should have…Quick! Take the pickaxe and pry the foundation.

Get rid of the rose so the rest of the garden may flourish.

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Marathon: An Anusara-Moment

workingwellvt — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 14:23:42 +0000

Written June 2, 2010
At the 15 mile mark after three hours of running last weekend, the Burlington marathoners were tired in the body but their heart and mind’s intention were propelling them forward.I biked down to the finish line, and after 26 miles, these runners were looking strong in the body. And, with their intention about to be realized, they glowed with the powerful triumphant energy.As I watched these runners at various stages, I was so inspired by their palpable desire to complete the race. And I knew it was an intention born many months ago, followed by hundreds of hours of often grueling training.

Intention can sustain us through so much, whether it be reaching a long cherished goal or just a bad day. It can keep us on course in life where there are many distractions and impediments to realizing one’s true desires.

Hold and nurture your intention gently and it will give you much joy. And if your not sure what that intention is right now, doing some yoga or quiet sitting in nature are good ways to get some clarity.

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Anusara Moment: Unfolding and Blooming

workingwellvt — Tue, 25 May 2010 12:59:14 +0000

Peonies are just about to bloom. Meditate on such sweetness in your heart too!

It’s a great blooming of early summer in the northeast! The magical unfolding of tree leaves, rising of temperatures and blooming of flowers is no small event after a long winter.

I think there’s a blooming, an unfolding in human consciousness happening now too. More and more people are looking inside and discovering innate goodness.Feeling good about oneself leads to an attitude that everyone and everything else is good too. This makes us happy more often! Even our everyday struggles become a means to appreciate goodness and create a higher perspective.Whatever separates us from this delight and graciousness is just noise or illusion. Poets, artists, and yogis have been telling us this for thousands of years! But it’s new news to each of us as we come to recognize it.

It’s only possible for the intention in a peony bud to unfold as lovely and sweet. As we align our intention to the goodness within, so it will become impossible to create anything but beauty.

-Andrea O’Connor
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Anusara Moment: a River Within Me

workingwellvt — Mon, 03 May 2010 17:31:26 +0000

Hafiz, the Sufi poet from the 12th Century writes ” When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.”

Over time, I’ve learned how to be happy. I’ve learned how to practice living from my true intention and highest Self. And feel the flow of that power, like Hafiz’s river within.

All other things, toys, objects, even my sweet husband can’t ultimately make me happy. Only this river within brings genuine joy on it’s current.

A river can be swift or slow, murky or crystalline. It finds its own course, overflows at times, all but disappears in drought. What a trip – this river journey.

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Anusara Moment: Five Faces

workingwellvt — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 07:05:58 +0000

Ahh- the feeling that comes with winter being over! You can walk outside and stretch your neck long instead of hunkering down. Then you can reach around in all directions, truly seeing.

Looking in all directions brings to mind the yogic philosophy of panchamuka or five faces in all directions, each representing a characteristic of life.

East is consciousness looking at itself. Our ability to observe what we are doing.
South is the terrifying face of utter freedom. The face of the teacher; that which rips us apart so that we come back together with more understanding.
West is the moment, the instantaneous happening of reality. The moments of clarity when everything makes sense to us.
North is the lovely face of the divine. Love, peace, compassion, joy- no one can argue the merits of these.
Above and below are the opposition of the one. The God who rules and the Goddess who creates.

So stretch yourself around in all directions. Look! Live!

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Spring into Yoga with these Special Series

Evolution Yoga — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 14:58:53 +0000