SOL Yoga Centres

Walking through the woods of Connecticut, immersed in philosophic discourse, I found myself quoting Kenny Rogers:

“You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em.

Know when to walk away, know when to run

You never count your money, when you're sittin' at the table.
There'll be time enough for countin', when the dealin's done.”

With a wink and nod to my Alberta roots where line-dancing to this song was mandatory phys.ed curriculum, this is rich teaching on life and yoga.  I often draw comfort from the poker metaphor when I am having a challenging day here in Earth-school.  It is not the cards I am dealt but what I do with them that matters.  I create my reality through my perception and my perception is malleable through deep mental, emotional, physical and spiritual work.  Taking responsibility for what I do with what I am experiencing allows me to reclaim my power and this feels good.

Kenny takes the poker metaphor even deeper.  He captures the timeless wisdom of being a warrior of discernment.  When is it time to stand my ground and be fierce? When is it time to let go and move on? The answer is, of course, always within me, sometimes right at the surface, sometimes so deep that I doubt that it’s there. 

I have just returned from the first module in a yearlong apprenticeship in Integral Psychotherapy with Robert Masters and Diane Bardwell Masters and the first tool I was given was the mantra of “TRUST MY  INTUITION”.  What would life feel like if I knew that I knew? If I knew I was guided by the greatest wisdom possible from WITHIN?  And if I acted from that deepest knowing, living by heart?  I find myself sitting taller, lifting my sternum to shine my heart, breathing deeper into my belly and feeling my feet claim their place of this earth when I remind myself again and again to trust my intuition.  I do know when to hold’em and when to fold’em and knowing that makes life seem much less scary and much more exciting.  

The other mantra I have been using frequently in my adventures of late is “PACE  MYSELF”   and the second verse speaks to me about this.   I have often in my life been impatient, demanding and fixated on the outcome.  Shocking, I know.  I launched out of the gates early in life at full tilt determined to get “it” done fast and furious.   In retrospect I don’t even know what “it” was.   Life is in the living, I now realize, not the finishing.   I am grateful for yoga for slowing me down enough to catch up with myself, to get grounded and present.  There is so much space in NOW.  Space to meander and celebrate and savour and enjoy and breath and be.  That is “it”!   Life is a process and I am learning and there will indeed be time enough for counting when the dealing is done.   Yoga reminds me on a daily basis that there is all of eternity to sort things out and I can relax.  In fact, relaxing is the only way to sort things out.  In the hurry and worry, clench and constriction I only tie myself into more knots and trash my energy.  Relax, breath, pace myself.  AAAAAhhhhh!

In the poker game of life what we are gambling with is not monetary but is our freedom.  WE are all healing our way to liberation.   In Robert Masters words…“to heal is to make whole, to reunite and integrate all that we are.  To heal is to no longer let our separateness separate us.  Then we are together, even when we are apart.  One step at a time, learned by heart.  Home is where healing brings us.”    

Our freedom is in intimacy with all that we are, with all that is, with every aspect of this beautiful, challenging game we are playing.   One of my adventures in the last few weeks was to be in a bridal party of a yoga wedding.  It embraced the loveliness of time honored marital traditions while playing the edge of incorporating meaningful yogic rituals and the vows ended with the offering “I set you free” .  Our freedom is to be found not by avoiding the sometimes messy, sometimes exhilarating thrill of the game but by diving in and playing it with our whole being. 

“You have been walking the ocean’s edge keeping your robes dry, dive naked a thousand times deeper.  That’s where love flows.  “    -Rumi

APOLOGIES IN ADVANCE IF YOU FIND YOURSELF HUMMING “THE GAMBLER” SONG FOR THE REST OF THE DAY.  Come to yoga, it will free your mind.