Welcome to Yogi Sticks!

Do you know your Gomukasana from your Adho Mukha Svanasana? Is your Vrksasana all it can be? And how do you feel about Supta Baddha Konasana? Do you know what I'm even talking about?

Sometimes the Sanskrit - however beautiful it sounds - is not very helpful. So, to encourage my students to expand their yoga practice into their home, I sketch the poses we practice during class on a chart and add the Sanskrit and common name. Hopefully, this is a useful tool to help them along in their yogic journey. I also troll the internet, books, and journals to find interesting articles about yoga and the yogic lifestyle.

Your Heart's Garden

I came across this essay somewhere on the web and loved the visual nature of the meditation. So, with appreciation to the author, whoever you are, I'd like to share it with you here (and maybe in practice tonight).

"One of my favorite questions to meditate on is "If you planted your heart, what would grow?" It's a tough question to answer and even more difficult to answer truthfully. Sure, I would love to say that my heart would only grow a tree of fruit that is made up of beautiful light and nourishing love but the reality is my heart would also grow some less than favorable fruit at times. As someone who is comfortable wading in the light and the dark, and the area in between, I have grown comfortable seeing the bruised fruit.

When you think of nature and the fruit that gets damaged on the tree or is stunted and ceases to grow, you know it falls down to the ground. It falls and the nutrients seep into the soil. This enables the tree to grow. I relate this to the darker parts of my heart. The dark comes from experiences that may not have felt great, but those experiences provide for me. They nurture my soil and allow me to grow bigger.

So in honor of a month where we are surrounded by hearts in one form or another, I invite you to sit for a while and ask yourself, "if I planted my heart, what would grow?". Don't shy away from the ideas that are less than lovely. Embrace all the bits and pieces and honor the dark and the light in your heart. Once you take ownership of all parts of the tree of your heart, you will be aware of it's strength on all levels and see all the wonderful areas that it will continue to grow."

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