Sarajoy Marsh's Blog, page 6

Bandwidth for Radiance – Part One

Each of us has within an underlying body-intelligence and spiritually-inspired intuition guiding us toward radiant health and equanimity. Yet inspite of the body-mind-psyche transmitting messages to us throughout the day (and throughout our life span), we can find ourselves going off-course. Fortunately, this will produce symptoms. Though these symptoms may be uncomfortable and undesirable, when understood as an invitation to return to deep respect for the messages of our body-mind-psyche, w...

Volunteering: Down Through the Layers of Social Justice

Much like yoga teaches us there are layers to the experience of being human, the experience of outreach penetrates the layers of community, creating a vital opportunity for social justice.

Annamayakosha: To the outside eye, we see volunteer teachers extend their hearts, bodies, and yoga practices on behalf of others. Students receive the benefits of the tools of yoga. Students and teachersalike practice tools that are freely offered – a message of the value of accessibility and inclusivity for...

Yoga and Love: Living Luminously, Not Restlessly

Join Sarahjoy and Jay for this annual retreat at Breitenbush Hot Springs.

Through the practices of yoga, we experience love, grace, openness, contentment and joy. Yet, we don’t sustain this luminous understanding. What gets in the way? This weekend explores the fundamental obstacles to living as love: human restlessness, out of balance living, mental habits, and conditioning that keeps us tied to our more primitive thinking.

Through psycho-educational discussions, Sarahjoy and Jay address key e...

Breathing In, Breathing Out

I spent several days exploring the dynamics of change last week at the prison. Discussions on neuro-physiology, brain chemistry, and the power of breathing to shift the human body-mind-psyche from catabolic to anabolic, from conflicted to curious, from resistant to participatory, and from sympathetic to para-sympathetic response created a hopeful and open atmosphere. I was teaching “yoga” but speaking “human”. English, Latin, and Sanskrit became the languages of hope and the tools of engageme...

Strategies or Skills?

In case you haven’t heard or noticed, yoga is a practice of discipline. I’ve spent years talking with people about their relationships to discipline. I invite you to travel with me into your relationship to discipline. Yoga teaches us essential life skills. Sometimes, we don’t realize we’re learning a life skill until we find ourselves using a part of our yoga lesson and realize “Oh, this is familiar! I’m dropping into the moment just like I heard in yoga class.” Every time you do a yoga pose...

Embracing Darkness as a Journey into Light

Each year it seems that more of us are celebrating the winter solstice and the messages from nature. All month, the days grow shorter, the nights darker. This darkness invites us to know it; and to know our own darkness as potent and fertile. Though more often we experience the unknown with trepidation rather than delight, through experience we have also discovered that the unknown can be rich with possibility. I’m reminded of three remarkable people from whom the world draws ongoing inspirat...

Containment, Restraint, and Self-Love (during the holidays)

This is for your (1) if your fuel tank runs low, (2) if brownies have more power over you than you do over them, or (3) if you find that your self-critical voice goes up in volume this time of year.

Containment:

In many ways, the practices of yoga are about containment. They require us to have a measure of discipline and self-awareness about our “container.”

We ask questions like: Who are we? Where do we end and others begin? What fills us up? What depletes us? How do we know where our boundarie...

Placing Yourself in the Right Conditions

When we place ourselves in the right conditions, we cause awakening to happen. I consider this to be one of the universal laws of nature. To state it in more neutral terms, let’s say this: With conditions, change happens. Change is always happening, of course. Rivers rise. Trees let go of their leaves. Rivers drop. Trees form buds for new leaves. The timing and nuance of each of these is subject to the conditions of nature. As humans, we’re also subject to the intelligent forces of nature. Ye...