Wholistic Fitness

Happy Apres Valentines (Anahata Chakra) Day!

Before my anahata chakra exploded into infinite Divine Compassionate Oceanic Grace whilst meditating upon a Santa Fe sunset,  ilg was a classic Hallmark Holiday curmudgeon.  When i was in my hard-core WF Wholeness-Is-Higher-Than-Whatever-You-Practice phase, i renounced any and all celebratory actions even remotely associated with manufactured holidays such as Valentines Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, etc.  Publicly i pleaded with my students, fans, and enemies to thwart any wallet-opening acceptance of such obviously economic booster shots.  Even birthdays were to be refused by the stalwart WF Yogi, for yogis – traditionally – do not celebrate Gregorian Calendar ‘birthdays’…such are a nuisance to the genuine inner attainer of Enlightenment*. Biologic birthdays meant little.  Spiritual re-birthday was what we sought.

A Hopi-land evening Brahmamuhurti, as captured by myself in 2007…not unlike the Sunset which opened my Anahata Chakra in Santa Fe…

Then came that Day when my Anahata Chakra opened…

Evening to be precise.

Brahmamuhurti (Yogic hour of God…sunset or sunrise) to be even more accurate. during those years i was the manager of the Center For Self Healing in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  Santa Fe is a world-renown spiritual vortex which speeds up whatever Inner Work you may need to accomplish.  ilg was as that time a pranic drunk;  etherically gorging myself each day from the chronic smorgasbord of delectable world-class spiritual appetizers for which Fanta-Se was known.  you name it?  ilg was there;  Rolfing, Yoga, Kundalini, Re-birthing, Astral Navigation, Zen Sessins, Tibetan energywork, Buddhist chanting, Feldenkrais, Cranio-Sacral, Past Life, Tarot, Sufi Dancing, Men’s Tribal Drumming…whatever it was?  SIGN ME UP, baby!

Then, perhaps neurally, nadically, and physically fried – since i was maintaining all my race training and competing while doing all the spiritual stuff simultaneously – Shiva just complied with my addiction toward Spiritual Seeking and for one Divine Instant, He destroyed all the pretty foil-wrapped hearts in my spiritual buffet seeking and melted my entire Being into Self.  just for a mOMent; i gave up and ilg Realized the opening of my Heart Center. My genuine Valentine had arrived courtesy of the (W)Holy Trinity.  Shiva, Vishnu, Brahman.  Buddha, Dharma, Sangha.  God, Christ, Holy Spirit.  Atman, Purusha, Prakriti.  The real “Big Bang”…the Heart Granthi combusted.

Telling you that reMinds me of that great response that His Holiness The Dalai Lama gave to a questioner who asked Him; “So, what are your thoughts on the Big Bang?”

To which H.H. instantly asked, “Which one?”…implying of course,  ‘The Inner…or the Outer one?”

Since then?

ilg is okay with manufactured wholidays.  really.  it’s not that big of a Story Line with me any longer.  my own mOM just barely survived colon cancer last month;  each month i perform countless hours of unpaid Bardo Meditations for students or their family dying…

So,  as much as i’m hard-wired towards Hallmark Holiday skepticism?   it’s hard to knock a holiday that is essentially about expressing love.

ilg’s Hallmark mOMent…two cards for ‘my’ two girls, and roses…photo by ilg, yesterday.

So, i yesterday morning i pedaled my bike over to Walgreens, across from the Rec Center where i worked out within, and i spent the money i really did not have on a beautiful God-given bouquet of roses and baby breath…bought two overpriced Hallmark cards, one for Ananda and one for Dewachen…pedaled home, penned some lines of Love onto the cards, and set the Hallmark mOMent out in the sun-drenched living room which i knew they both would be entering soon.

Then, like any yogic gift…i let the Gift go without attachment.

Dewachen expressing superb abdominal/core strength during sock-pulling on…photo by ilg, last week.

Of course,  my little love-deposit worked like a dream,  and later, when my hands soothed the half-moon of Dewachens’ naked belly and my lips did a slow flow chaturanga against Ananda’s own lips,  i felt my own life lift a significant bit…and tonight after kissing Dewa to usher her into her vast nighttime, i whispered into her sweet ear, “Abba is so proud to be your Daddy…You are my most Beautiful Heart.” quite frankly?  i was shocked at the Hallmark-edness of it all…

Then came the last line of the spontaneous Haiku as Dewa whispered,  “You’re the best Abba ever,” her sleepy syllables spilling out like the most beautiful yogic sutras of all time.

So yeah…i recognize that Fatherhood has softened my hard lines.  it was probably ‘kneaded’ anyway,  if i know how the Higher Ones do their mysterious Work on us.

i accept that Hallmark Wholidays can be grist for the mill of Awakening as surely as can Grandfather Sun cresting a shadowy, snow-choked couloir from a frozen-foot bivouac cleaved from my former life.  Family yoga is a lot different from Renunciate Yoga; however, it certainly has its own hall-mark mOMents.

That is all,
your feeble teacher

* according to yogis, the mOMent a mOM feels her chi-ld ‘kick’ for the first time in her belly,  THAT should be the yogi’s birthday for it means that the Atman has entered the fetus which up until that auspicious ‘crash landing’ of the Soul into mOM’s belly, the fetus is naught but a ‘tumor’….nothing special.