Greetings from Montana

Greetings from Montana!

"He who has led you so far will guide you further." ~Rumi

After four long days of travel, with two vehicles towing two trailers, two kids, and two dogs, we arrived safely to our new home. Phew, what at an adventure that was!

In just a few short weeks, I feel I have lived a lifetime. Diving headfirst into a Montana winter while embracing the unknown is not for the faint of heart. But I often wonder, isn't that what life is all about?

As Pema Chodron wrote, “To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man’s-land. To experience each moment as completely new and fresh. To live is to be willing to die over and over again.”

Our family settled into a new area, with a new job for my husband, new schools for the kids, and experienced weather of all kinds, from pleasant sunny skies to -35 degrees, to 19" of snowfall in one day, and everything in between. And even though we had been planning our move here for quite some time, you never know what to fully expect until you arrive. I honestly think the best thing we did was to have no expectations at all.

This allowed us to see each new day and experience for what it was, without wishing for it to be something else. It created room to experience the wonder and delight of what each day had to offer and to witness with humbled reverence the fluctuations of nature. It was an opportunity to reset and re-align ourselves with a more natural rhythm of life, rather than creating our own that was not in sync with the greater flow of things - inclement weather and darker mornings here require you to move more slowly!

And we've been reminded of just how small we are compared to the grandness of this planet, but yet how magnificently designed we are in our beingness. There is not a moment when casting my gaze on the snow-covered mountains, with the earth underneath my feet, where my heart is not stilled by this understanding. It's as if I'm tuning into the pulse of the earth itself.

This life experience resonates so much with my yoga practice, where each time I step onto the mat, I intentionally tune into my breath and body. Forgoing the remembrance of my last practice, I can be ever so curious about how I am today, and what it is I need today. Exploring what allows for the best care of ourselves is the greatest inquiry we can have.

This is the practice friends - to be curious, alive, and awake without presumption. To let the chattering mind step aside so we can listen to the body, heart, and soul. To worry not of what has come before, trusting that each moment is an opportunity to begin again.

I'm excited to share that I will begin a weekly live-streaming class - same time as my Thursday class I taught at the studio in CA. You can practice with me from home, no matter where you are, being able to show up just as you are (yoga never judges or questions, the practice simply eagerly and happily awaits our arrival).

You can sign up here. All classes will be recorded with the recording available for seven days, so it's okay if you can't make it live!

If you have any questions, feel free to email me at seasideyoga@sbcglobal.net, leave your phone number if you prefer to chat :)

As I get more settled in, I'll begin to share more regular posts on Living Our Yoga - simple ways we can carry what we learn on the mat and apply them to our daily life.