Wholistic Fitness

Nearly a year ago, Ananda and i moved into Two Tree Manor here in Flagstaff beneath the Sacred Peak. The soon to be Temple H(om)e had been vacant for several months and previous tenants did not, evidently, do a whole lot of, well, zen gardening.

In fact, Two Tree Manor looked a bit more like Haunted Manor. The lack of TLC around TTM would require a Warrior without ADD. The shrubs were forlorn, the freeze/thaw cycles from an epic winter had splintered an orphaned birch, and the backyard was less a yard and more of a walking disaster area.

And then there were the Dandy Lions.

The omnipotent dandelions were growing like, like…well, WEEDS!!!! Knowing full well the karmic implications of my intended actions, i drove – not RODE as you might well imagine – down to HOME DEPOT; Turtle Island’s Head TeePee of All Yuppie Warriors, picked up the appropriate weaponry in the oceanic aisles of their Lawn & Garden section, drove back home with a focused eye and set about preparing to do what any warrior of my feeble caliber would do; Declare a Wholy War upon the Dandy Lion Tribe!
To hell with Nirvana! So what about Enlightenment! I swore upon Manjushree’s Warrior Sword to invoke deep Dandy Lion Karmic Protective Medicine upon my soul as i unsheathed my Dandy Lion Puller Upper Thing and…off i charged onto the Battlefield of Two Tree Manor!!

By the end of two weeks, the front lawn of Two Tree Manor looked like a Practice Zone for Air Force Bombing Missions. Having consistently stabbed, dug, uprooted countless Dandy Lion casualties while apologizing to the spirit of Rachel Carson and chanting, OM MANI PADME HUNG in futile attempt to rationalize my ahimsayan profile, the damage to the remaining grasses was faring worse than the Dandy Lion Tribe, whose members are apparently capable of such yogic feats as mass duplication, regeneration, invincibility, and utter radiance even while being destroyed. Hmmmmmmm.

To end the bizarre tyranny of the Dandy Lion Tribe would eventually extract from me a Higher spiritual path then my current Plan A of Seek & Destroy…a tried and true Western trait. One afternoon, after one final butchering job upon the “lawn,” i sat beneath Yab/Yum (our giant twin Ponderosa trees that loomed over my entire fiasco like Shiva and Vishnu having a good laugh at the human condition again). I began to concentrate upon the infinite resourcefulness of the Dandy Lion Tribe. The truth began calling to me as It allWays does; simply, with the teachings extremely clear; I suddenly reMembered not only my own dandelion incarnation but my former embrace of their medicine in this one! I used to eat Dandelion Salads, make dandelion cleansing teas (before SUNRIDER), and when SUNRIDER Herbs did manifest, i used to always eat the SUNRIDER Dandelion Root Formula!

I have seen again and again through my feeble Practice of yoga, with great sadness, that as soon i begin to drop into and move toward the Namaste Space of my challenges and challengers, it is only my ahamkara (ego) layer of mind that tries to complicate the most beautiful and perfect action. It became quite Clear to me that the Dandy Lion Tribe was so resilient to my efforts to kill them because they knew they were being fundamentally threatened…being fundamentally threatened IS the nature of the domesticated dandelion, thus their Tribe has in-gene-iously come up with a Survival Mode that is almost infinite, and the Dandy Lion Tribe is quite able to not only thwart our mean-spirited efforts to slay them at every stage, but also able to sabotage and pervert our very desire to be free of them. Or so it was with me. It was time to call upon another Yogic Guideline; Surrender. Ishvara-Pranidhana…from that moment onward, i would turn over my ahamkara about overcoming the Dandy Lion Tribe to my Highest Source. What came through? This:

“Do what you must with the Dandy Lion Tribe, however, never take them out of your heart.”

Thus, to this very morning, one of my Practices along the ever colorful, ever deepening Path of Wholistic Fitness, is to yogi squat beside the Dandy Lion Beings, and crawl into that Namaste Space and pluck their pungent Manipura heads, sometimes mindfully uprooting them, but often not, and all the while tell them,

“By the same Power that will one day destroy me, i too have chosen to appreciate you, pick you, love you, and in your death there has been great life, and great learning.”

This is my Practice of the Dandy Lion Tribe.

Soygal Rinpoche: “However hard ego may try to sabotage the spiritual path, if you really continue on it, and work deeply with the practice of meditation, you will begin slowly to realize just how gulled you have been by ego�s promises: false hopes and false fears. Slowly you begin to understand that both hope and fear are enemies of your peace of mind; hopes deceive you, and leave you empty and disappointed, and fears paralyze you in the narrow cell of your false identity. You begin to see also just how all-encompassing the sway of ego has been over your mind, and in the space of freedom opened up by meditation, when you are momentarily released from grasping, you glimpse the exhilarating spaciousness of your true nature.”

Yoga is everywhere, if you look with Yogic Eyes,

May your Practice be as omnipotent as the Dandy Lion-Eyed Tribe…

namaste,

coach ilg

As captured this morning, the front lawn of Two Tree Manor in its sattvic state with no Dandy Lion Beings able to be seen.

Today, the lack of TLC has gone AWOL and in fact has inspired such fantastic bio/engineering as the N.S.G.C. (Not So Grand Canyon) which recent Intensive Student and professional Geologist, Anne Sasso is seen enjoying above!

Dandelion Dance:
Scientific Name: Taraxacum officinale
Uses: Digestive
Part Used: Root
In a Word: Supersonic Tonic for the liver and heart and a helluva Spiritual Teacher for feeble mountain yogis like me !
Came to Turtle Island from Asia and made its first appearance on Turtle Island in my beloved New Mexico from Spaniards around 1820 where it was known as chicoria and it was used for both food and medicine. To cure heart trouble, the blooms were collected and boiled in water until the water turned bright yellow. The liquid was then allowed to sit out of doors overnight, and a glassful was drunk every morning for a solid month.

In my old neighborhood of San Ildenfonso Pueblo along the Rio Grande in New Mexico, village mothers grind dandelion leaves, apply the paste to broken bones, and wrap wounds with bandages encrusted with fresh leaves to speed healing.
In Costa Rica, which is famous for its herb markets, dandelions are sold for treating diabetes. In Brazil, dandelion is a blood purifier, with the added benefits of treating liver problems, scurvy, and any urinary complaint that might be present.

Not surprisingly, the Chinese have been working with it longer than anyone else, and their scientific research has proven that the annoying weed has diuretic, hypoglycemic, antispasmodic, anticancer, antibacterial, and antifungal effects on the body. The dandelion is mentioned in all sorts of ancient documents, including the Pentsao and the Tang Materia Medica, as both food and medicine, and the Chinese have been using it to treat breast cancer for more than 1,100 years. They also use it for: abscesses, appendicitis, boils, caries, dermatitis, fever, inflammation, leucorrhea, liver ailments, mastitis, scrofula, snakebites, and stomachaches.

Chinese scientists have discovered that dandelion extracts have an in vitro bactericidal effect against a number of really nasty bacteria, including those responsible for diphtheria, tuberculosis, and pneumonia. Not to mention the fact that they control the ever-so-deadly staphylococcus aureus (staph infection) when it has invaded the body. The Chinese also found that the plant�s roots, leaves, juice, and extracts are effective in treating other infections, including chronic bronchitis and hepatitis, with few side effects.

It stands to reason that if the liver is in good functioning order, cleaning out all the toxins known to cause cancer, dandelion may indeed be a cancer preventative herb. As far as staying well in general goes, the plant has been proven to kill bacteria, in effect purifying the blood, which is what people around the world have been saying for centuries.
I have already placed a couple of bottles of SUNRIDER’s world-class Dandelion Root in my shopping basket after writing this entry…i trust you to do the same!

LONG LIVE THE DANDY LION TRIBE!!!!!