Here and Now

I was chatting with a dear friend,  and she was asking me if I thought her yoga practice was not strong enough to join in a mixed level class.  It brought me back to all of the times in my life I have felt less than... often not enough,  and then again,  the devastating feeling that I'm too much.  I feel strongly that yoga is not at all about the poses,  but about the feeling.  I t is about filling the empty spaces with your entire being.  It is about expansion,  and gratitude.  It is about touching the pain with tenderness,  bowing to the hurt,  and honoring those spaces with grace.  Yoga is union with your inner self.  The self you doubt is the self that needs your light.  "Grace flows only where there is an opening. It pools at obstacles, waits with infinite patience, it never trespasses where it is not free to go. Yet, a single sorrow healed, and Grace floods thro...

Naked How do I tell you of the hands  and my heart and the hands so I curl myself around  your back like a translucent shell fish we are both so fragile terrified I will break you do not understand I am naked Angela Minard 2015© Photography by Marta Orloska

"Hurt people hurt people." I don't know where that quote originated, but isn't it the sad truth? It is an endless cycle that continues out of anger and unspoken needs. We throw around the word "forgiveness" as if that will solve everything, but it doesn't erase the pain. The more compassion I have for myself, the easier it is to let go of the anger. The pain is a different beast. You have to befriend the pain, acknowledge it, and keep it company for awhile. This I am learning...I can't starve it away, or drink it away. I can't check out anymore. No...I have to be present with the pain, and that kind of makes me mad, and so I return to the anger. I reach for compassion and forgiveness toward myself, again so that I can soften the anger, soften my heart, and it is a process of coming back again and again to loving myself. I'm a novice at this, so I make mistakes. I lashed out in anger at someone that I love because they couldn't lov...

Sometimes we move through our days in survival mode,  and how in the world does that even happen?  It just does... This was my day I'm struggling... I haven't slept much, and when I do sleep, I have bad dreams.  Still, here I am, on the other side,  heartbroken.... Instead of a positive mantra, all I hear is, "I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this." I CAN do this, but my energy is focused on these intense feelings of want.  I need to let go of wanting and needing because it only causes pain.  I don't truly want or need for anything.  I have everything, but I'm always searching for more.  It causes my suffering.  How many times have I said, "Let go of what is no longer serving you?"  This is what I need to do, but letting go is not what it seems to be.  It is not simple.  It takes time.  It takes more time than you will ever realize.  It will hurt It ...

I am thinking tonight about the Yin yoga class that I teach at Darling Yoga . I teach it twice a week, and I love planning the postures, and choosing the right music. Yin yoga has taught me a great deal about riding the waves of emotion, and maybe that is why I am drawn to the practice. Yin is a passive type of yoga, with supported and long held postures. The poses are held for anywhere from three to ten minutes, with little to no muscular engagement. The idea is to allow gravity and time to delve below the muscles of the body, and deep within the connective tissues and fascia.  When I started teaching this class, the plan was to teach a class incorporating both yin and yang. I mainly practice a more yang type of yoga, which is faster paced, using more muscular energy and balance. I love that type of practice, but am actually more challenged by the slower and less energetic yoga. The students seem to have embraced this practice as well, and complain when I try to flow w...

Silent Treatment If you want to communicate through lack of words I will always win diving into your silence as if my life depended on it withdrawing into a place I know only too well I will swim through the blackness never tiring I've been here before lucid my shallow breath hovers still Angela Minard 2015© Artwork~Silence-Henry Fuseli

A Joy Walk In my dream we walked side by side speaking  without words without windows  or walls surrounding us  only a sky dancing with flames laughing  on the inside   as we exhaled iridescent bubbles floated from our lips bursting like fireflies at dusk before fading away... Angela Minard 2015© "Right or wrong, joy or sorrow, these are of the mind only.  They are not yours.  You are everywhere,  forever free." ~Ashtavakra Gita