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Monday, November 1, 2010

Sunday at Noon - Level One Yoga - Starseed Yoga in Montclair

10-31-10 Happy Halloween!!!

O Sacred season of Autumn, be my teacher, for I wish to learn the virtue of contentment.
As I gaze upon your full-colored beauty, I sense all about you, an at-homeness with your amber riches.
You are the season of retirement, of full barns, and harvested fields.
The cycle of growth has ceased, and the busy work of giving life is now completed.
I sense in you, no regrets:  you have lived a full life.
I live in a society that is ever-restless, always eager for more mountains to climb, seeking happiness through more and more possessions.
As a child of my culture, I am seldomly truly at Peace with what I have.
Teach me to take stock of what I have given and received;
May I know that its enough, that my striving can cease in the abundance of God's grace.
May I know the contentment that allows the totality of my energies to come to full flower.
May I know that like you, I am rich beyond measure.
As you, O Autumn, take pleasure in your great bounty, let me also take delight in the abundance of the simple things in life, which are the true source of joy.
With the golden glow of peaceful contentment, may I truly appreciate this Autumn day.
-Edward Hays, Earth Poems

3 Om's and opening chant: 
Lokah Samasta Sukhino Bhavantu - May all beings everywhere be free and happy.

Sequence:  Table, cat/cow, Adho Mukha Svanasana (downward facing dog), Balasana (child's pose), Adho Mukha Svanasana, lunge, Adho Mukha Svanasana, lunge - high lunge - twist lunge, Adho Mukha Svanasana, Uttanasana (standing forward bend), Tadasana (mountain pose), Surya Namaskara (sun salutations) with lunge and Ashtangasana (eight pointed pose), Adho Mukha Svanasana, Virabhadrasana II, lunge - Parsvottonasana (standing forward bend with legs seperated) - Parvritti Trikonasana (reverse triangle pose), inverted hanging child's pose on the ropes, Viparti Karni (legs up the wall), Dandasana (staff pose), Paschimottonasana (west back stretch), Janu Sirsasana (head to knee pose), Upavista Konasana (wide leg seated forward bend), ankle to knee pose, happy baby, Savasana (corpse pose) with guided relaxation.

Played the heart chakra crystal bowl coming out of Savasana preparing for seated meditation portion of class.  This week's focus was on a breath meditation with Deergha Swaasam (three part breath), following the inhalation and exhalation.  Let go of distracting thoughts, let them float by like clouds in the sky.  Be the witness but pay no attention to them.  Resolve to be still and silent for ten minutes.

Ending reading from Hugh Prather's A Book of Games - a course in spiritual play
Miracle Wand - A Light Game
     On your hip, held there with a thin golden chain, the Master has placed a miracle wand.  It looks very much like the once widely used magic wand except nothing about it is in any way mysterious, illogical, or "magical."  As you might expect, it has several attractive features.  The special rainbow feature is the one you will be using today.  All other features you will easily discover the next time you play with the wand.
     Can you imagine how happy its bright yellow belt makes a bumblebee feel?  Or how delighted a daffodil is with its soft-suede yellow jacket?  And the sky truly grins with the primrose-colored clouds as the sun rises to greet it?  For a moment, it looks like the smile of a halloween pumpkin with a twinkling yellow candle held in its mouth.  Pull your miracle wand out from unders its chain of gold and touch lightly each of these sparks of yellow light, and the many, many others that you see, and then tap once the one you wish to bless.  All the golden light you have gathered will flash in his features and sweep throughout his hands and limbs, and he will sparkle like a freshly lit fire in a hearth.  Now he knows the joy of bumblebees, the gentleness of daffodils, and the splendor of the rising sun.
     Again, look over this lovely earth.  Do you see the purple robe that drapes the king?  Soft where it brushes his neck and wrists.  And do you see how peacefully the blueberries sleep in the purple shadows of the forest?  No queen, sleeping on blue velvet, has had a deeper rest than this.  And no tiny robin, snug in its blue-tinted egg, could be safer.  So run your wand along the soft skin of the mulberries and touch the turquoise troughs between the ocean's waves.  Gather in the light of the plums and forget-me-nots, lapis lazuli and lavender mountains in the dawn.  Now turn to this one that you have touched with yellow and touch him now with blue.  See the peace of a still blue sky in every part of him.  See his smile open like the opening blue fan of a peacock's tail.  And let his eyes dance like sapphires.
     Follow now with green, and the orange of apricots, and the red of roses.  And when you have brought all the colors of the rainbow to this one you bless, combine them all into a single burst of pure white light.  And let this blessed one be brilliant, a shining sun forever set in the shining heavens.

Lokah Samasta Sukhino Bhavantu - Om Shanti Shanti Shanti.
May the entire universe be filled with peace and joy, love and light.  Om peace, peace, peace.

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