yoga takes more than the mat...

Yoga is so much more than a series of ancient postures perfected over time in a studio… it is a way of living.
There are many ways to “live yoga” and Yoga can be practiced on many levels. Having an open, compassionate heart is a true goal of a practice. Jesus, Bhudda, Krishna, Kuan Yin, The Dalai Lama, Mother Theresa, The Divine Mother, all have a common thread, they live(d) a life of service, full of love and compassion. Compassion can spring from considering your actions from three levels, your thinking mind, your spirit (or your heart), and your body. Keeping thoughts, words, and actions all in alignment with the practice of ‘nonviolence’ (the use of peaceful means, not force, to bring about change) can be challenging in this contemporary culture. As a Wellness Specialist I assist clients in developing routines and environments, which make it easy and fun to live well. I am most often asked how to make time to fit things into already packed schedules. The first step is to assess where you are, the second is to determine your destination, and third, to create action steps to get there. There really is no finish line, so it becomes an ongoing process of growth, measured by success and a sense of peace. There are six essential elements of wellness that help in connecting all of these aspects. What you eat, and drink, how you move, breathe, think, and rest are the building blocks for your well-being.
Is there such a thing as yogic eating? Absolutely! Making healthy choices instead of convenient ones, making vegetarian, even vegan choices create a lower impact on the earth, not to mention on your digestive system. Reducing the amount of packaged foods that you consume has a two-fold benefit. You will reduce waste products in the environment, and you will consume fewer refined foods, which are full of additives and toxins. By eating locally grown whole foods, you will reduce the waste of fossil fuels from trucking in foods from afar, and will benefit local businesses. Remember there are degrees with any practice! Finding balance means beginning with a level of comfort so that one does not become discouraged and give up.
We are fortunate to have great drinking water here in St. Louis, full of minerals and not too many pollutants, although a good filtration system will help keep toxins out and minerals in. If you prefer bottled water to tap, make sure you are including a balanced mineral supplement to your half gallon per day minimum requirement. Also consider the plastic that you are using requires twice as much energy to recycle as it does to make in the first place. And imagine all the energy it requires to ship it from the hills of Tuscany or the fjord of Finland. Consider the corn syrup content of beverages before you imbibe, and the calorie content of your favorite coffee drink, which could be the hidden reason that those few extra pounds never seem to shed.
Breathing is living. When you hold your breath, you deprive your cells of necessary oxygen. It is surprising how little is taken in without conscious effort. Pranayama (in Hindu yoga) is the regulation of the breath through certain techniques and exercises. There are many forms of meditation that can assist with breathing techniques. Bhakti yoga uses breath and sound vibration as meditation. Tara Veda meditation teaches us to use the breath as a focus. There are also kinesthetic forms of meditation like long distance running or biking. Simply using controlled breathing can assist in slowing down the mind and healing the body one ‘exhale’ at a time.

I once overheard a yogi friend use the analogy of a telephone phone book, turning one page at a time. Eventually you will get to the back cover. He was talking about Asana to someone who had difficulty with flexibility. I have watched that process in action with some of my clients over the years, and receive great personal joy in seeing them find balance, strength and flexibility through daily practice.
Yoga, Pilates, and Dance can be perfect complements to sports and athletic endeavors as well as the good old-fashioned walk. A yoga lifestyle would have you ride your bike or walk to shop local, versus driving a car to a megamart. Riding your scooter to a farmers market is a perfect example. It takes core strength and balance to ride. Your awareness is heightened by the care you must use in driving without doors for protection. You will have homegrown selections of fresh foods that you will choose for yourself when you arrive. You will notice an euphoric state beginning to envelop you as your contagious smile affects all of the people you meet. You will feel (and look) so great that you will begin to share your enthusiasm at work, at home, and in all of your relationships. Your new way of thinking will begin to creatively shape your reality. You will notice many changes begin to ripple out. So will everyone else. Namaste!

Shift Happens- the Yoga of Love

Shift Happens- the Yoga of Love

Yoga teaches us to dissolve the ego, to live in the moment with flexibility and courage. Yoga teaches us to “put ourselves in uncomfortable and challenging positions and to become comfortable with them so that when they come up in life, we’re already good at it.” We are ever changing beings in an ever-changing environment. The only real constant is change. The only time that we feel pain is when we resist the change.
Resistance to change is akin to fearing the unknown.
When we embark upon change, we are never quite sure of how we will emerge on the other side. Sometimes it is easier to continue to settle for things just as they are. When we make a resolution only to break it after a few weeks, or even days, it is because we are afraid of whom we might become if we succeed. Fear is an invitation to seize opportunity. A new standard of personal accountability can be daunting, but is ultimately rewarding.
It can be difficult to love what challenges us most, but those challenges provide us with the most magnificent magnifying mirrors. Seeing what we do not wish to see can send us rushing back to old habits of being unconscious, or unaware. As we deepen our practices of mindfulness in yoga and meditation, our hearts become more open. With time, opening becomes easy. Though we may rise to the task of gaining self-awareness, love and trust, the addition of loving ‘others’ adds to the challenge prolifically. Yoking ourselves to the divine is an essential aim of Yoga. The English word Love has so many definitions, whether it’s a noun, a verb, an adjective, or euphemism. Our objective with our practice is to connect with the divine, and our objective in relationship is to connect with one another. When we read things that tell us that we come from different planets, that concept seems to move us further apart when we are truly seeking union. When a loss of communication leads to a break down of connection with those who are significant to us, how can we come closer together? We are called to bring our true feminine essence and our true masculine essence into balance. Yoga has the power and the tools to bring us together. We learn the art of physical balance, which we learn to engage in our daily lives. We meet with resistance, but we learn to bend.
We can also learn to think and speak with compassion and flexibility through the philosophies of yoga.
First things first, learn your own language, know thyself- then when you tell someone who you are, it will be the truth.
Choose to refuse to wallow. Pick up the pieces of your self-esteem, mix them with your dignity, glue them into the shape of a heart and then courageously open it up. Refuse to settle. We teach the people in our lives how to treat us by the way we allow or don’t allow - with our boundaries or lack thereof. Yoga teaches us the art of self-acceptance, to love ourselves, the foundation for loving others.
Change really is the only constant in this world. Every breath we take, every thought and action, changes us on a cellular level. Virtually every message we receive in the western consumer society is designed to point our fragile self in the opposite direction of where yoga would take us.

So think with your heart. Even Nike says "Just do it".
Open wide, go deeper and real-ize… Shift Happens. Don’t waste the pretty.
"Creativity is the only outcome of conflict that satisfies the soul."
- William Blake

How I spent my summer vacation; or another transformation for Dianna Lucas

How I spent my summer vacation... Or another transformation for Dianna Lucas

As you can see, it has been a while since my last post. You might expect me to say the trite thing, "so much has happened I don't know where to begin", but that is exactly what this transformation has been about. Transforming endings into beginnings and knowing that no matter where I decide to jump in or begin, it's exactly right. That's right... BELIEVE and breathe. Rinse and repeat, vigorously if necessary, and then do it again and again.
Specifically, I started by making some changes in my home. I cleared out my basement, 10 years worth of accumulation down there, but really it amounted to over 40 years worth of accumulation in my life. Out with it. Next, the guest bedroom that had a very similar story. It was ON! I got complete with a relationship, left a job that I thought I loved in a company that I had co founded, and opened the floodgates of realizing my dreams. Though I am still in the process of "looking at my stuff", I am accelerating my endless possibilities every day. Or maybe I'm just growing my Lotus... From the depths of the mud of my genetic encoding and my subconscious ness, where not much is visible, rising up through the watery depths of experience, and finally emerging into the light. I can see the results. My friends tell me that I am radiating. I feel it. In every cell, I feel it changing me. My new form of interior design... I'm rearranging my DNA. You can too.

On 9-11-11 I actually lived a dream.
I had a vision to create a labyrinth on a campground. I was planning a women's retreat and wanted to include the powerful transformational experience of walking a labyrinth. I shared that idea with the woman I had just met who was hired to plan and promote the event. During that initial meeting, I had not become aware that an amazing friendship was beginning. I could see the interest spark within her as I described the labyrinth and explained my perception of the value. An idea that it could become a living entity at the camp that would touch many hearts and connect everyone who participated in it. She was so moved that she presented the idea to the camp owners with me and then tenaciously reminded them until a space was cleared by the camp staff and she laid out the pattern for the 5-circuit Chartres replica labyrinth herself, with the help of her children. Please watch this video that she posted. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a moving picture is priceless. We went to camp together prior to our event, to work on completing the labyrinth. As I stepped into the center I had another vision- of women standing shoulder to shoulder together at the center, as a symbol for strength, for unity, a symbol of safety in uncertain times. I saw each woman bringing something to leave behind, a touchstone to connect them to the place and to the ritual. I shared my vision with Debby. She added that each woman could paint a word that means peace to them on a rock. The vision continues to evolve. A labyrinth is an ancient, geometric pattern creating a single path that leads into the center and out again. It is not a maze, a labyrinth was originally based on a circle, a Mandala, the ancient symbol for healing, unity and wholeness. A maze offers a choice of paths, dead ends and false starts; it is the cognitive mind, or left brain, that loves to problem solve. Walking the labyrinth invokes the creative and intuitive mind, our right brain, and has been proven to create a state of calm, balance, and peace. To walk a labyrinth is to begin a spiritual journey. When the trees were cleared for the Manitowa labyrinth, one was left near the back of the outer circle, or exit path. I don't believe in accidents. In Native American lore, a transformation tree is one that has two trunks emerging from the same root system that form a "V" at the ground level. When snakes shed their skin, they crawl through the "V" and the bark catches the old skin helping to remove it as they emerge on the other side, transformed. As one walks through the labyrinth, they can also physically step between the tree's trunks. During that first ceremony on 9/11/11, we met in the middle and stood shoulder to shoulder. I spoke these words: "Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it towards others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will be in our troubled world." I shared the mantra Lokah Samistah Sunkinoh Bhavntu which I translated to "May all beings in all worlds experience Love Peace and Joy in all ways always". They sang it with me. Each woman brought a rock to the labyrinth and laid it in the center oner by one. They stepped aside for one another and stood in silence, observing their intentions as each rock was placed. The last person to place her rock was just three years old. She stood in silent contemplation for a long time. So long that I finally knelt down and invited her to place her rock. She continued to decide. Finally she placed her small rock on the inside of the collection. The word she had chosen was "mama". That signaled the end of our ritual and the women turned to make their exit, I was the first to enter and hence the last to leave. Every woman in that group chose to step through the Transformation Tree instead of going around it. I don't think there was a dry eye in the group. Sometimes the path can seem difficult or narrow, but what I learned that day was that in community, anything is possible, and transformation is a choice.
I didn't make it back to camp for a while. I had to kneel on the path and weep, tears of joy, of realization, of humble gratitude for my Seva, for all of the love and labor and community I was experiencing, and for the labyrinth that brought it into my world.
I have been creating connections and building community for my whole life. That was the tipping point experience for me to realize my own identity and my place in the world. Krtagnyatam- Gratitude for the walking in circles that lead right back to the Bhakti Path.

Thank you Debby Siegel, for your vision, your energy, your dedication, and your friendship.

Lucid Fluidity

Lucid Fluidity
My early morning was heavenly. So was last evening, for that matter.
My first morning meeting came with farm fresh eggs, hand delivered and whirled into a divine scramble with basil and bacon (yes, the real deal!) and Opera... such a metaphor for what is happening in my daily reality.
This has not always been the case. I feel like a veil has been lifted and the shrouded vision is no longer affecting my perception.
This is the summer of truth and beauty, where all messes sort themselves out effortlessly, all bright beings come together in community, and realizing that the more we "hug in" the more we can levitate- on, as well as off of the yoga mat.  This blog is not only relative to my personal journey of wellness and evolution through meditation and yoga, but through the beautiful lessons that my clients, coaches, and teachers deliver as well.
Alchemical transformation of the mundane into the extraordinary using nothing but good old fashioned thought, will and action. The 'dictionary definition' of magic. But then again, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." -- Arthur C. Clarke 
So, here I am with a little help from my friends once again.  Words on a page, rippling out, invoking change. Thoughts create things.  What would you love to see when you open your eyes?     
Look around, happiness is trying to catch you too.

There is a rich and flowering place within each of us. Join me on a  journey there.
Close your eyes and envision yourself entering the lush and fragrant gardens of your mind and heart.

Can you find peace by avoiding life?

This is an invitation to explore the  freedom to create a healthy, meaningful life through integrating your body, mind, and spirit with a sense of clarity and gratitude. By focusing attention to all three aspects of the self, by developing an awareness of the needs and desires of others, and considering the practice of generosity, a sense of wholeness and balance envelops the individual.

Discovery and personal evolution through self care and self respect, respect for those around us, as well as the earth we all share, are the tenets of holistic living. Creating an environment where you can feel nurtured, supported, and safe as you discover new truths about yourself and your world  are experiential, transformational and attainable. The same as Asana practice- with perseverance, any posture
 can be attained. And if I can do it, anyone can!

I'm certain of one thing, and that is change. Please bear with me, I'm still learning as I go. I'm sure that I will meander, but I will remain true to my vision. Your feedback is essential to my experience. Without a mirror we are only able to look within.

In gratitude,
Dianna