blue moon... guru purnima

Leave it to Bernadette Birney to say it perfectly... on FB today she wrote:

On this day when it's traditional to honor one's teachers, I thank those who have helped me become who I am, starting with my mom and dad. You know who you are. Wishing you a non-creepy, non-culty, non-dysfunctional, guru-free, happy Guru Purnima.

The full moon - our 'blue moon' in Aquarius - was rising as we drove home this evening.  It looks so amazing but the best I could do to capture the moment with a photograph is this:

It sort of sneaks in under the radar like just another bit of light polution... but when we were looking at it first hand, it was enormous and grand... funny how it's hard to capture the essence of a moment in time photographically... sometimes we just have to be left with a memory.

I received a marvelous gift from the Universe on today's Guru Purnima - I got to hear the voice of one of my favorite yoga teachers of all time - a voice I thought would remain only a good memory.

This made me so happy to hear Gaura talk about Guru Purnima.  It made me happy to hear his voice... I feel like I can hear the construction of his thought process, so precise.  As the sound and meaning unfolds, I feel a deep softening of my heart - like the bija sound of a memory lost so deep inside my mind that it might never have come to the surface without that sound activation. He is not my guru, but he was a very important person in my yoga practice and life in Chiang Mai. In that year, yoga was my lifeline back to my heart.

Another teacher in Chiang Mai, Rachel, taught an arm balancing class in which I got air in Crane pose for the first time... quite out of the blue.  The trick?  She told us arm balances are all about core strength and there is more strength inside us than we realize.  On that day, I did the best arm balances of my life thus far... because of the magick of realizing that I was strong inside.

Another teacher who made a deep mark on me was named Meadow.  She taught Bikram yoga back in the olden days... last I knew she was going to Costa Rica. She was also a scientist.  She said the most wonderful and wise things in class. Just little bits... a story or a teaching that would thread, gem by gem, through the savasanas in the Bikram floor series, like beads on a mala.

She taught me a lot about accepting and finding peace in small moments.  She talked a lot about savasana & stilling the mind. The open-eyed savasanas in between postures in the Bikram floor series are an "open-eyed meditation" - she taught me to focus drishti or gaze on a fiber of my towel or a spot on the ceiling.  She counselled students to lie down without any extra movement or thought - to just be where you found yourself without fussing for perfect alignment, drinking, wiping sweat, adjusting hair, etc.  If you find perfect alignment by just getting right to it, that is a gift... but if not, find your peace and stillness immediately anyway.  Life doesn't always fall perfectly & that's when you need to swiftly find stillness and centered calm the most.

My other favorite yoga teachers are teachers I have now - Jess, Julie, and Benjamin. They make me think about my body, brain, heart, and breath in new ways every time I take class with them.  They hold space for wonder.  They are amazing.

They are all also human.  Not gurus, not demi-gods or supernatural beings - just people.  Really great people... but I don't worship them.  Today, though - in honor of Guru Purnima - I will venerate them in my heart for the gifts of learning they have given me & continue to give.  I am profoundly grateful.

I am also grateful beyond words to my mom and dad for being my first teachers and my best friends in this life.  To DRJ who is the love of my life and a true teacher of hidden wisdom - to his teacher and his teacher's teacher... all the way back to Aleister Crowley.