Baklava for Breakfast

Yesterday was such a great meeting of our Advanced Immersion. 15 amazing people committing to do a lot of work together over the next year.

We started with the first principle - Open to Grace - Open to the Highest first.

It seems to me that most people don't really "get" this principle - not consistently - and not in their bodies. Maybe it's a nice inspiration at a mental or emotional level. But in Anusara Yoga we are after the ability to cross the vibratory spectrum - "the rainbow bridge" - regularly and reliably - drawing the inspiration of mind and heart all the way down into the metatarsals.
We hope to use our Yoga practices to get really skillful at drawing the wide open sky of heaven all the way down to the gravity and heavy grace of the Earth, and remembering and celebrating the fact that we are both. WE are the joining of Heaven and Earth. We are the Rainbow bridge.

And we want to cross the bridge the other way too - using the wondrous gravity of flesh and bone and movement to fuel and open us to the miracle of mind and heart...... to open us to outrageous, unbounded grace - "The Highest," so that even at our last breath we will "open to grace".

As part ofour work together this year I am asking people to do a lot of contemplation and journaling. Here's my own journaling efforts from this morning:


Waking up this morning, I am open, relaxed. I feel - out there at the edges - a pressing in of SO MUCH that I have to do in the next 2 weeks. The 10.000 things are just like cats in the morning. If I move my attention even a bit - they will want food right now. So I keep my attention on the highest first, and sit to meditate. sit still to align with Shri, with Shakti - that supreme intelligence and goodness that wants to help me accomplish useful things.

During meditation, the thoughts and to-dos, as well as my cat, come by to be fed. But I hold my attention on the Highest first.

The first Shiva Sutra comes to mind - Caitanyam Atma. Everything EVERYTHING - is consciousness - a wild , expansive expression of the Divine. I open more....clearly feel my breath open and my femurs release.

And then it's time to get up, plant my feet into my one wild and precious life., feed the cat and the 10,000 things.

I opened to the highest first in terms of food by having home-made Baklava for breakfast. Sometimes the bliss-point is just a bite away. Thanks Olive.