Intention: A Dialogue with the Divine

It's been a solid month since my last post and I am excited to report that this hiatus was a consequence of some very exciting globe trotting! I spent the better part of June trekking around the great country of Israel - touring, learning, laughing, being in community and teaching yoga to new friends.

While there, I was privileged to experience the holiest day of the Judaic week, Shabaat, at the holiest site on the planet,  the Western Wall in Jerusalem. We arrived at sunset, walking across the city, through the great stone gates that led to the interior Old City of Jerusalem where I was met by an uproar of voices. As I descended a broad stone stairwell that led to the main floor where crowds congregated in modest clothing and head coverings. As I scanned the panorama of ancient architecture among sunset backdrop, I witnessed a few thousand people gathered in two seas split by a thin partition - men to the left and women to the right. There was so much movement! I stood in a kind of surreal awe at this mass of people in prayer of all kinds - dancing, singing, swaying, reading holy texts, repeating scripture, standing in silence, crying. (This remains an ineffable moment for me, but I'm doing my best to illustrate some sense of it for you here.)

Standing among thousands of people in their most sacred space, listening to the clamor of individual prayers coming together in waves of sound, I started to unravel the yogic idea of intention, and it's power. 

Without hesitation, I will tell you that I am not a religious person and I do not pray. That being said, I understand the desire to have a dialogue with something great and, albeit, divinely more "put together" than myself. I get that prayer is like intention, with a religious twist.

When I make an intention, I am creating a dialogue with myself in order to realize a more integrated version of who I am, my practice, or some other aspect of my life. Focusing awareness to draw up an idea or vision of what we want to see in our lives allows our quieter parts a chance to tune in to this idea, grasp it, and begin to create it.

Standing within the walls of a city that's been revered for it's holy antiquity and fought over for centuries, I felt at home with this sense of reverie and conviction. Often, I am beside myself as I learn how the body works as an integrated system, and that I am consciously aware of this inner working. The kotel symbolizes for the Jewish people the last tangible structure of their most significant house of god, their temple. They stand before it in honor, in worship and on Shabaat, in prayer.

It is commonplace for a person to come to the kotel  with a small piece of paper inked with a prayer. They press these notes inside cracks in the wall as a way to communicate directly with god. People come to this place from all over the planet, to dialogue with their holiest and most sacred.

As I walked through the stone corridors that led the way to my hostel, the echoes of mass prayer trailed behind in a blurry kind of bass. During very quiet moments, I feel this kind of reverberation in my own body, in the chambers of my throat as I chant and within the walls of my lungs as I breath. Inside of me their is a city whose people are reverent and history, antiquated -like Jerusalem.

How Do You Hold Yourself?

Since my last post, Earth Day and my Birth day have passed, along with several other exciting things. First, I was accepted into the 300 hour teacher training at Black Dog Yoga. This means that in about 1 year I will be a certified 500 hour Registered Yoga Teacher!!! Following this, I began the first step (of many) on this journey 3 days ago, participating in a workshop lead by my mentor, Sigrid Matthews [www.sigridmatthews.com].

Here is some of what I am dissolving from these last few weeks: How do I hold myself? Where do I hold too much? How do I stand in my life, on the Earth, in my body?

Taking from the incredibly precise and concise teaching of my mentor, I have been talking a lot about core alignment in my classes. Specifically, how to connect the abdomen to the rest of the body. "Drop your mid-spine into the floor," while students are on their backs, "move your frontal hip points toward your low ribs," "draw your belly button toward your spine as you exhale," etc. We experienced this a step further in the headstand workshop this past weekend, where Sigrid talked about "suspender abdominals." Simply put, we are closing the ribs, engaging our deepest abdominal muscles, and breathing like a yogi.

It is simple, but not necessarily easy.

I instructed these same cues tonight in a Gentle class where students stay on their backs or bellies the duration of the practice. Several of the students spoke with me after about how much work it is to keep the core connected! It's really true. Even though the body isn't moving in a gross or high-impact way, there is a lot of conditioning and alignment happening on subtle levels. As one student said, "You always feel it the next day."

It is interesting to see how these principles translate across planes, like when you move from your back [where it is easiest to feel your spine grounding], to standing [where you are moving against space]. More often than not, the body will lose the structure over a shorter period of time. Sit up tall where you are right now, and notice how much time passes before you are slouching your shoulders or leaning forward with your chin. What is supporting you? Where do you need more support?

In our yoga practice, we move from the core and aim to clarify this in all of our movements. In our daily life, we also move from a center point; a point of view that supports a belief, an attitude that supports a point of view, a pattern that holds us in a particular shape. Do these things support your neutrality? Do they support your most optimized state of being?

Here recently, I am asking myself all of these questions and not always coming up with solutions. At least I know that much of this will become clear as I continue to practice.

Cheers to studentship!

Principles of Alignment

"Come what may"

Practicing yoga offers us opportunities to open beyond our habits of normalcy.
Working within the breath-body we connect to our mental, physical and emotional bodies and this offers us opportunities to expand our perceived limitations, which ultimately offers us to experience a truer quality of our life.
In order to do this, agreements must be settled internally.

First, a commitment to the cause [surrender/Ishvara Pranidhana]. Then, a willingness, a real willingness to move in this direction [fire/tapas]. Lastly, but hardly the very least, an agreement to be honest with yourself [honesty/santosha] about the process, the expectations, the grievances, the desires, the complaints, the reasons, the excuses, the habits and the fear.

Whether you practice yoga postures or you don't, moving beyond discomfort in any area of your life is first and foremost a private decision that must embody these 3 elements.

Today, as I move toward limits of normalcy in pursuit of what is natural, I am reminded of this mantra:
Come what may.


may we all move with such grace and softness.


enjoy the rain Los Angeles.

With love,
niki