Bernie Birney: It's About Yoga

Come As You Are

Home again; home again. 

The Mayan Riviera was incredible.  We mostly hung out, practiced, went to the beach, mealed, and drank margaritas. There were breakthroughs on the mat--firsts in handstand, bakasana and urdhva dhanurasa.  There's nothing quite like the sheer astonished delight when someone surprises herself, or himself, on the mat.  It's so infectious that everyone present feels it, and shared delight has a special kind of magic that transforms a group of strangers into shyly new friends.   

What I really want to tell you about is the temazcal but I already know I won't find the right words.  A tezmacal is a sweat ritual, a kind of ritual rebirth guided by a shaman.  It's intended to purify and heal the body, and to strengthen the spirit. 

The temazcal at Ceiba is a low, circular domed structure right on the beach.  After yoga, at sunset, we stripped down to bathing suits, and chose a pebble from the shaman's open hand to represent a heart's desire, a prayer, or a wish. One by one, we stretched our arms out at our sides while he swept a bundle of fragrant herbs over our bodies--rue, I think--from head to toe.  One by one we knelt before the door of the temazcal, folded our palms and spoke the words he'd told us to say, "for all my relationships," before stooping to enter. 

We filed in to the right, sitting in a circle on palm leaves upon the sand.  Four times, the door was opened and then closed.  Each time, nine lava rocks, glowing orange, were shoveled to the center.  Dashed with water and herbs, they created fragrant steam that smelled like heaven.

When the door closed it was dark. 

Joel, the shaman, told us that our bodies would resist, and that we would want to give up.  He told us that his goal was to guide us through the ritual, and to help us complete it.  He said that, in the beginning, the steam would scratch our throats, and make us cough.

He was right.

The group disappeared into the darkness.  We recognized each other only by voice.  Right away, I heard coughs in the dark.  I wanted to cough too but tried to hold back, fearing that if I started I wouldn't be able to stop.  It crossed my mind that I might not be able to see this through.   

Four times the door opened and then shut.  Four times new rocks were shoveled in.  Each door signified an element, and a particular kind of wisdom:  earth, wind, water and fire.  Every time the rocks arrived, we were to shout, "Ahoo!"  I'm pretty sure that's Mayan for "bring it, bitch!"

Joel spoke to humankind's innate instinct to climb the rungs of the evolutionary ladder.  Since we first crawled up out of the ocean, developed lungs, and opposable thumbs, and learned to shoot each other, humankind has strived to climb.  I had the deep recognition, then, that the urge I feel to reach, and to grow, is bigger than just myself; it's programed in.  Even while I marveled at the resourceful insistence of life to evolve itself, it made me weary. 

He spoke of our conflicting urges, of the spiritual urge to change, and the opposing emotional one to not let go.  He spoke of the possibility of reconciling experiences that challenge us.  He called us to courage and to action. The words he spoke are fuzzy, which is odd for me.  Words tend to stay with me but when I reach for his they elude me.  I guess that's what happens in extremely altered states of consciousness. 

The rocks sparked and blazed.  I saw jaguar eyes in them. 

It got hot.  Really hot. Toward the end of the third door I lay down, but even when my heart started to pound I felt supervised, and safe.  Still, when the door was opened to receive the final influx of glowing lava rocks, I began to seriously doubt that I could make it through.  Joel had said the temperature would reach 170 degrees. Maybe I didn't have it in me.

I poured water from a bucket, via coconut shell, over my head.  For a moment it was ecstasy but the water heated on my skin almost immediately, making me hotter.  I lay down again, breathing in and out through softly pursed lips. It was tolerable for only a single breath at a time.  Soften into it; soften into it, I told myself like a mantra.  Resistance would make it worse.  Resistance would defeat me. The only way to make it through was to entirely surrender to the heat. 

"Sitali breath," I wanted to tell the group.  "Do sitali breath.  It's cooling," but I couldn't speak.  My pounding heart became harder to ignore.  I thought about leaving but standing up was out of the question. I already knew I wouldn't be able to safely navigate the close quarters around the molten rocks but it was beyond what I could endure.  The tezmacal had defeated me.

Then the door opened. It was over.

I stumbled out and spilled beneath the starlit sky.  Dizzy and heart racing, I couldn't walk straight.  I thought I might pass out.

 Joel had said,"When you come to the ocean, come exactly as you are. Take your pebble and fling it in.  Dive."

I waded, disoriented and still off balance.  The water was warm.  Ultramarine by daylight, now it was dark.  Placid waves rolled in to greet me.  I plunged in.  The ocean opened up its arms and embraced me.

I'd gone through trial by fire, hoping to gain courage for transformation, but instead had been released and held exactly as I was.

I wanted to weep. 

In a good way.

I sat down on the shore, right at the water's edge.  I sat there a long time.  When I could move, I lay on my back, looking at the stars, communing with the wind. When I started getting cold, I laughed.  After the temazcal, it seemed absurd to be cold.

I gratefully wrapped myself in the enormous white towel that had been held out, and went back to my room, skipping dinner.  I couldn't speak.  I wasn't back yet. 

What I want to know is:   when do we grant ourselves permission to be as we are, to come to ourselves as we are, and to embrace ourselves as we are?

 

 

Photo courtesy of L. Young. 

 

 

Bienvenidos

I’ve decided to allow myself coffee this week.  I am, after all, on vacation.  Well, okay, it’s a working vacation but still.

Awake at 5am, I lie in the dark.  My body needs more rest but I am too impatient to sleep.  The wind is rustling palm fronds, and knocking at the balcony doors.  The ocean is calling my name.  I throw off the covers, throw on a bathing suit, brush my teeth in a rush, and take the few short steps to the beach at an almost run.  The resort is not yet awake.  I am alone in the place where elements collide.  The ocean is a sultry lover, caressing the sultry curves of the shore.

The wind is a living thing and I am in its belly; the sand soft and white.  I put my feet in the sea.  It is warm but not so warm as I’d expected.  The sea nibbles and sucks at my toes.

I eye the long pier that juts into the ocean's mouth where, yesterday evening, a couple exchanged wedding vows.  Entirely disregarding the sign reading Privado, I easily step right over the chain fence.  I travel the length, and stand at the edge, turning my back on the land.  The sun is new in the sky and the tide is coming in.  Sun, wind and water move toward me, extending their welcome.  "Where have you been?" they ask me.  "What took you so long?  We've been waiting for you." 

I thought I would close my eyes and meditate but my stubborn eyes remain open.  The elements look me in the eye and I look back.  I meet their gaze. 

Sharing the pier with me is a black and white crab.  He fixes a cautious eye on me, scuttling away sideways when I get too close.  He navigates around to the underside of the weathered slats, and  believes his is hiding.  Funny little crab--we all try to hide sometimes.  How ridiculous.  Still, he is good company.  I want to take his picture so I'll remember him but he's too skittish. 

Life here is slower but there's an urgency screaming at me: hurry up!  Unpack, and get down to the ocean!  Linger over coffee, and then go for a run on the beach!  Practice.  Book a massage!  Curl up in the hammock on my balcony to read.  Write something down!   Don’t forget to sit down and document the moment of transition between two worlds, two selves, and the way it feels to begin to settle into the pulse and rhythm of this sleepy, alive place, and to keep time with it!  Don’t miss a minute!  Hurry!  Hurry!  Hurry!

I am only just  arriving.

Silly me.  Why the rush?  The land is not in a rush.  The land opens its arms up and welcomes me into them.  Mayan magic thrums like a palpable heartbeat.  It feels good to strip off layers and feel the salt air against my skin.  It feels good to begin to feel the place pull, and to yield to it.  Along with my clothing, will I slough off layers of self that have become too tight a fit?

Somehow I understand that this place has magic to work upon on me. Can I be receptive to it?  Can I lay down my weapons and unfasten my armor and say yes with every fiber of my being? 

I hope so.

 

 

Such a Lonely Word

I like to think of myself as an honest person.

Truthful; forthright; candid.  Good words, even words I've received in emails generated by this blog. 

Yoga has its own set of ten commandments and honesty ranks right up there near the top.  It's the second one.  It's that important. 

Must we really be told to be honest?  Being told what to do is sort of a hot button issue for me. I like telling people what to do just a little too much.  I do it for a living:  "Trikonasana.  Step your right foot forward.   Breathe.  Feel the sensation of your feet on your mat, and upon the earth's surface.  Draw strength from your feet up your legs into the core of your pelvis, to cultivate the strength to stand upon your own two feet, etc."

Telling people what to do is fine.  Being told what to do, however--not so much.  I don't cotton to it--pretty much ever.  My typical responses when I suspect someone is trying to control me are, in this order:

1. Hackles up.
2. Howling rage.
3. Rip off head.
4. Eat it. 
5. Rolaid.

(Unless you happen to be my spiritual teacher, in which case, please, please--I am begging--can you, in your supreme wisdom, just tell me what to do?  Pretty please with stevia on top?)

Anyway.

When I practice asana, I don't take my thighs back in alignment because someone tells me to, or because it's the virtuous thing to do.  I do it because it feels good.  It's sensuous.  I get to have the deep recognition, "Yes Ma'am, that has just got to be good for me."

Telling the truth works the same way.  Mostly I'm pretty honest, like I said, but there's a particular part of my life in which I have told some fairly serious lies.  Whoppers that started out as self-deceptions and then grew bigger than just me. 

Being untrue to myself doesn't feel good.  Unwinding the little deceptions, and the big ones, of my own device is terrifying.  I mean, it is really, really scary.  I am just so frigging smoothly persuasive that I can convince myself that my own lies are true. That is not a good thing.  

I can convince myself to maintain the status quo but then I have to live in it.  There's a price for that and it is high. Too high. 

I am so ridiculously fortunate to have had the good luck to literally stumble into the arms of The Handel Group.  They are teaching me how to better recognize, and own, what's true for me. Just last month I whined to my incredible coach, Juliana, who was prodding me on a specific assignment that she'd given me:

"I'm trying."

"I don't believe you," she kindly challenged. 

I was floored.  Not only do my students usually not retort that they don't believe me--although it did happen recently--they generally believe me so much that they take notes during class, writing down what I say in dedicated yoga notebooks. 

I had no idea how to respond to Juliana.  Then I tried to convince her I wasn't lying, so I could remain convinced, but she wouldn't budge. 

Wow. 

I have some work cut out for me but telling the truth feels a lot better than telling lies.  It's one thing to see honesty in a list of yamas and niyamas. It's a whole other thing to learn how to get really clear on what's true for me, and to insistently live from the authenticity of that truth, no matter what. 

It could take some time. 

The Handel Group has a Crash Course coming up, and I can not recommend highly enough that you check it out. 

What Can't be Seen by Eye

Snow on the second day of spring?  Ugh. 

Just yesterday, on the vernal equinox, I taught on the cycles of creation and dissolution by way of Kali, Sarasvati and Lakshmi.  I am now officially ready to put winter behind me. 

Sometimes it's visceral with me. I may hear myself articulate something I've been teaching for a while in a way that's slightly new, and think, mmm, yeah, that's exactly right.  It's telling that I can easily spend a half hour effusing on the ferocious goddess, and then zip over the more civilized and courteous two goddesses in a matter of moments.  

It's that time again.   

Inevitably--when it stops snowing--Sarasvati will triumph over Kali.  Already, the blackness of winter turns daily toward spring.  Beneath exteriors and bare branches, sap quickens the veins of winter trees.  Already, tightly furled bunches of snowdrops and crocuses have driven toward light, broken earth's surface, and unfurled.  Before long, summer's yield of heavy bowers will seduce.  The cycle shall bear fruit, crest, and peak at the height of Lakshmi's extravagant, refined and lush sensuality.  She'll climax in a tangle of blossoms and blooms guaranteed to stun the senses. 

This much I know. 

Kali's horrific darkness is the perfect metaphor for fear of the unknown, fear of that which has yet to be revealed, fear of what's below the surface, fear of what I can't see, fear of buried truths, and what happens should/when they break the surface. 

Within the darkness of my own consciousness lie seeds, potencies that are as yet un-sprouted:  talents, proclivities, abilities and tendencies.  Yoga invites me to purposely close my eyes, and journey to my own dark interior. I'm asked to plant my own seeds and to tend to them, to develop myself, to evolve, and to grow. 

Hopefully, with enough cultivation and some luck, I'll bloom into maturity and bear fruit.  Rooted in the fertile soil of my own consciousness, I may grow into the most cultured, refined versions of myself.

Which sounds all well and good but you see...

I can't actually know what will happen when the seeds of my potential take root.  I mean--right?  What will I grow into?  Who will I become?  What will happen?  I have to wait and see.  Knowing the unknown requires time.  What if I don't even like the taste of my own fruit?  I am journeying in the dark, as are we all. 

Yes, I'm pretty sure that fruit grown in this fashion can't fail to taste good.  Yes, without the darkness we would never see a crescent moon, a supermoon, or a star's light.  Yes, with all my heart, I hold these things to be true but it doesn't mean I don't lose my footing, and stumble in the night.   

I do know with certainty that I can only bloom into the possible--that which is already inherently embedded into my DNA.  I can discover possibilities that already exist there but can't purchase new ones on Amazon--just as a pear tree can't spontaneously yield plums.  The only thing I can possibly hope to grow into is my authenticity.   

The darkest of dark places lies within, and I simply can not use my eyes to pierce it. Literal vision doesn't penetrate.  Before breaking surface to be warmed by the sun's benediction, I must to be willing to grope in the dark.

It's the only way to learn to see by heart. 

 

(Incidentally, if you haven't been there, the Bedford Post Yoga Loft is a gem of a place. My friend Courtney, who is a teacher there, wrote an awfully sweet post mentioning the workshop, and me.  Go check out her great new blog  here.)

 

No Point Wrestling With a Honey Badger

Recently, it was pointed out by someone I love that I'm as stubborn as a donkey on steroids. 

Actually, the word used was tenacious, and the conversation pertained to particular things in my life that I have been almost psychotically unwilling to let go of:  people, ideas about the world and myself that are at best not helpful and at worst pernicious; old cookbooks; bottles of shampoo.  I've never let go of anything that really mattered to me without leaving bloodied claw marks gauged into it. 

Of course, in my own defense, I actually do let go of things all the time--you know, things I don't care about, and things that are good for me. 

My tenacity is selective. 

Right on the flip side of this coin is an over-willingness to give up on things I actually do care about. I have been known to (metaphorically) host cocktail parties on the edge of the abyss, and recklessly fling my dreams over its edge. 

The honey badger's astonishing, bad-ass tenacity has made it a sort of unofficial mascot to Rajanaka Yoga.  As evidenced in the below video, there's zero point in wrestling with a honey badger.  It just keeps getting up; it just keeps coming. 

Since I suspect my inner honey badger might be undefeatable, I'm thinking it might be a good idea to make friends with it.  Let it go wilding and it causes problems but if I come to terms with it, bring it into alignment, and put it to work devouring what poisons me and sniffing out life's honey, then I think we'll get along just fine. 

(Thanks for the link, Beryl!)

 

 

Setting an Example?

Recently, I had a conversation in which it was pointed out that as the writer of a (y'know sort of) well-read blog, and as a teacher in a local community, that I am--to some degree or other--in a position of leadership.   I was, in a sense, urged to responsibly consider the kind of example that I set, or don't set.  

I've been giving it some thought. 

I've written many times about the joy that teaching brings me, and my commitment to it, and my conviction that if doing what I love touches other people's lives then in some small way the world is better for it.  This blog is dear to me, as are its readers, who extend far beyond my local community.  I love you guys, and am not going to effuse very much more than that today.

But if there's one thing I'm really clear on, it's that I'm emphatically not on a crusade to set any examples.

While those who set out to set examples may be fine people, they're probably not people I want to have drinks with.

Just like everybody else, I'm a fairly flawed person.  I consume too much caffeine, am sometimes acerbic where I might have been kind, and have too much clutter on my desk.  I haven't had a chance to do laundry in two weeks, and I fight with my husband.  I feel guilty because I'm bad at keeping in touch with people I love.

I have been known to zone out of conversations because someone is wearing something sparkly that I'm eyeing like a parrot.  I probably own at least forty pairs of yoga leggings that I do not technically need but that make me happy.  Given a choice, I would prefer being Madonna than Mother Teresa.

I practice yoga, and teach yoga, because someone really smart taught me that yoga is about loving my life.  Everything I do, I do to fall more in love with my own life.  I try to be true to myself, to love myself with all my many quirks and shortcomings, and to evolve and grow.  I don't set out to present myself as any kind of example; not to anyone. 

I'm actually not quite that presumptuous.

I think that when people are really true to themselves, in the highest way, that the world is served. When I'm most true to myself, I'm called in the direction of words, poetry, literature and laughter.  I like music, good food, good wine, and good company.  I like to be silly and laugh at myself. I'm a little in love with love.

I think people should do whatever the fuck they want to, so long as it's not hurting anyone.  It's none of my business, anyway.  I actually believe that figuring out our hearts' truest desires might be the very point of the yoga. 

I don't encourage anyone to try to teach like me, write like me, live like me, love like me, or be like me.  You couldn't be me any more than I could be you.  Anyway, one of me is more than enough for the world--too much, sometimes, I think.  Just be you.  Be your authentic self.  That would be more than enough.  That would be perfect, actually. 

If being my authentic self somehow gives even one person a sense of permission to be their authentic self, then great.  Maybe that authenticity moves them to find a cure for cancer, or to heal the planet, or to create a work of art.

Or maybe they just feel a little more at ease in their own skin.  

That would be just fine too. 

 

And If It WERE True?

Shiva is sometimes said to be the Adi Guru--the first teacher from whom the traditions of yoga descend.  So, we yogis tend to like him a whole lot.  

 

 

Depending on which calendar you're looking at, Shiva's very most favorite night of the year was Wednesday night, Maha Shivaratri, the great night of Shiva.

Sometimes, it's claimed that on this night the power of thoughts, words and deeds become magnified by 1000.  That would be pretty convenient if you happened to be repeating mantras with a specific purpose in mind, huh?  One iteration would be the equivalent of having spoken it 1000 times.  It's not uncommon to maximize upon that night's potency by staying up into the wee hours to do puja, sit meditation and say Shiva mantras. 

I'll admit:  when I sat for meditation yesterday, I found myself paying closer attention to see if I noticed any extra wattage.  Maybe, I thought, just maybe.  The part of me that wants to believe in wishes made upon dandelions would be enchanted to believe in the power of potency magnified a thousandfold for one magical night.  Think of the possibities!

But my inner skeptic demands, "How on earth would one ever verify that even if it were true?" 

Then, too, I have to consider, with dismay, the many inappropriate, snarky things I've undoubtedly thought, said, and done over a course of 24 hours.  Do those things get magnified too?  What does it say in the fine print?  Am I screwed by the power of 1000?   Whoopsie!  Is there, um, a mantra for damage control?

Far more interesting to me than the literal truth of magnified potency is what you would think, say and do if it were actually true.  What would you be sure to say or to not say?  To whom would you say it?  Behind what intentions would you throw your efforts if you knew they would be 1000 times more likely to succeed? 

Who would you think about?  What would you want them to know?  Who would you tell, "I really, really love you"?  What would you do on a day when your actions had a chance to really matter? 

It's the ritual possibilities for reflection and recognition upon and into our own hearts that makes Maha Shivaratri most interesting to me.  It's an oppportunity to consider what matters most. That's far more intriguing than the simple, literal truth. 

By marking one night as magical, and creating a sort of urgency  to wisely choose thought, word and deed, we're reminded that this power of choice resides within us every night, and every day, too.  So long as we draw breath we are making these choices--whether consciously or unconsciously. 

I think the most potent thing about celebrating Shiva's night is the powerful recognition that when we practice the art of consciously choosing our choices then every night is Shiva's night, and all the days too.  The more we take ownership of our experiences, the more we honor that part of ourselves that is potency--that part we call Shiva.

Namah Shivaya.  

An Excellent Day

You know how schedules can be really grueling even when composed of things that you genuinely love doing?  That's sort of how my life has been for the last couple of weeks. 

The next four days are insane:  I won't get home tonight until 8:00, then I'm teaching straight through until Sunday night.  This comes on the heels of the exact same schedule last weekend, while simultaneously fighting off the plague, and chugging bottles and bottles of Elderberry Syrup.

But yesterday I decided to have a really excellent day anyway and you know what?  I did.  So, I've  decided to have an excellent day again today. That's right; we've got choices, people. I may not make the sun rise and set, and I'm definitely overscheduled but, instead of whining about it, I'm going to do my very best to take the day with grace and humor, as it comes.

Random Reasons--in No Particular Order--to Have an Excellent Day

1.  Blue, blue skies and sunny, sunny sunshine.

2.  I get to do what I love!  With people I love!  Lucky me!

3.  Elderberry Syrup doesn't actually taste all that bad. 

4.  Nothing is more fun than scheming a scheme with a creative someone who brings out my own creativity, and that is exactly the kind of scheme that I'm scheming, and the kind of person I'm scheming with.

5.  Fighting off the plague is a fantastic reason to indulge in lots of Spicy Chicken & Coconut Soup--my latest obsession.  It's made with cellophane noodles, shitake mushrooms, whole cloves of garlic, and more spicy green peppers (jalapeno?) than seems like a good idea. 

6.  Things really don't last forever.  You know how you can be persistently blue, heartbroken even, about a particular thing, and how it can seem certain that you'll feel exactly this way forever and ever?  Well, one day, as you ruminate upon the same tired old subject, you'll realize that instead of suffering as no-one has ever suffered before, you're actually kind of bored, and could sorta go for a Kombucha.  You'll surprise yourself by realizing, "I'm over this."  You'll marvel at the resilience of the human heart that beats within your chest, and then just get on with the business of living your life.

7.  Yoga teachers are required to wear neither socks nor underwear.

8.  Magic is real.

9.  Everybody dies but not everybody really lives.

10.  Biting down on life like a badass pit-bull in no way precludes the wearing of lip-gloss and phenomenal shoes. 

 

 

 

Telling Your Mind to Shut the Fuck Up

This post is inspired by my friend, the brilliant and incandescent Linda Coletta, owner of Blackbird Yoga. 

(Also, inspired is actually a synonym for stolen.  PotAto; potAHto.)

I wasn't there when she taught an entire yoga class using, "Tell your mind to shut the fuck up!" for a theme but I wish I had been.   I would have totally touched her lotus feet. 

I always feel most at home in tantrika-ville so I'll qualify that, for me, the best reason to tell my mind to shut the fuck up would be because it's not telling me the truth, not telling an empowering narrative, not advocating for me, not serving, and is instead wallowing, blaming, clucking about falling sky and impending doom, and generally up to old, self-deceptive tricks.

My inner rogue vigilante--who has trained in a secret village on a Himalayan mountaintop--and who tells my mind to shut the fuck up, looks something like this:

 

Imagine the possibilities:

Mind:  "Take that risk and you are going to wind up impoverished, alone, naked, and living in a cardboard box on the side of the road without any teeth because you can't afford a dentist."

Rogue Vigilante:  "Shut the fuck up!"

 

Mind:  "It's not really all that bad.  Maybe you should just maintain the status quo..."

Rogue Vigilante:  "Shut the fuck up!"

 

Mind:  "Why not just turn the alarm off instead of getting up to write that book?"

Rogue Vigilante:  "Shut the fuck up!"

 

Mind:  "Maybe you don't still have Celiac Disease.  Maybe it was all a mistake.  Maybe you actually can eat that slice of pizza..."

Rogue Vigilante:  "Shut the fuck up!"

 

Mind:  "So-and-so just does that because he/she has too many responsibilities, is confused, is going through a hard time.  He/she will eventually see the light, come around, and treat you the way you want to be treated.  Tolerate it for now."

Rogue Vigilante:  "Shut the fuck up!"

 

Mind:  "Why even bother finishing this book?  It's never going to get published."

Rogue Vigilante:  "Shut the fuck up!"

 

Like that.

PS:  with very heartfelt thanks to The Handel Group who is teaching me how to tell my mind to shut the fuck up.

Something Big

"...as a teacher of yoga do you believe the universe speaks to us through meditation?"

That question was posed to me in a wonderful email I recently received.  

What an interesting question to be asked.  Yes, I do believe that the universe speaks to us in meditation--in a way.  Meditation can open us so deeply that we glimpse our own nature with recognition of the nature of everything. 

We may meditate upon particular deities, with particular mantras, to experience ourselves in particular ways, so as to see ourselves kaleidoscopically from slightly different angles.  I've learned more mantras over the years than my stubbornly average brain can remember. 

Mostly, I say the syllables beloved by my tradition, my teacher, and my teacher's teacher because, for me, they are honeyed.  They have become full and sweet.  Saying them reminds me how fortunate I have been to have encountered such very great beings upon this path of yoga, and then my heart becomes as honeycomb. 

Or, sometimes I simply sit with my own breath, opening to the experience that comes.

Some days I'm just achy, restless, bored, distracted, hungry, or pissed off, but on the good days meditation opens access to something big inside of me. That's my experience and I've been taught that it's a universal one.  So, if it's true for me then it can be be true for you, too.  It can be taught, and learned.

To be brutally honest, I'm just a fairly average yogi--if I can have such an experience then I'm pretty confident that almost anyone can. 

For me, lately, meditation truly is the nectar of the practice. Sometimes I think I won't contain the ache; it literally throbs. When it washes over like that I want to stay, and stay, and stay. 

Then I come to. I'm not some kind of uber-yogi in everday life either. I'm just as overly scheduled and overly stressed as everybody else.  

But I've had that experience of something big and I can go there when I want to, maybe not every single time but more and more.  Something big bumps up against my every day like a cat insistently butting up against my leg.  The veil between the everyday and something big is thinner.  Sometimes I see something big glimmering, like mica in the sidewalk, as the matrix of my everyday experience.   

So, it's not really that I think the universe speaks to us in meditation.  It's that I think the universe has always been speaking to us but that in meditation we (sometimes) actually hear it.