Their is no resolution in paradox but therein lies it’s ability to heal.  It is part of the circle philosophy in that there is no end or beginning to a circle.  It never starts or stops and therefore reflects God.  Paradox forces surrender.  It humbles and creates vulnerability.  It eats away at illusion because it reveals the truth that it’s all illusion.  Of course this discussion of paradox will be paradoxical.  To know that you can’t know is to be free.  At that point you have given up everything (and nothing) to God, the ultimate paradox – that which you cannot know and yet is within you as you are within it.  Once you have surrendered to it, the fight with life’s paradox is over.  Shame, fear, delusion, disconnection, worthlessness-they all disappear as a result of starvation having no resistance to feed them.

Every truth has an equal opposite truth that is no less true.  This paradox is true and yet has it’s equal opposite truth as well which only perpetuates the paradox.  It seems there is an exception to every rule.  The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.  Paradox sends us around and around the circle spinning the wheels of consciousness only to bring us back again to where we started.  Everything that ever was, is, or will be, will end up back where it started.  Change is the only constant.  Just embrace it already.  

It comes out over-easy but at least I know it leaves me

I can’t see eye to eye with all these hoarders hypin’ fairytales

I try and die to myself but my will won’t seem to let me fail.

My sanity keeps shifting from the ending to beginning

The swirls and spirals sifting through the piles of paper pending

I want to live without and dwell within my inner spaces

But the cost of build-out swells and blows this Dust up in my face and so I

Close My Eyes

The world’s a freaking mess these female girls all got fake breasts

These words are pressed in plastic mesh the rest are caught in nets and stressed i guess

I’ll be feeling blessed if just I judge these jokers less and yet

I confess to failing best lest I am just like the rest.

At least a fire’s burning so to each his own concerning

How to teach of leaves and turning, the tides will keep on churning

While I continue yearning to be deeper in my learning

In my sinew I am stirring up this dust and it keeps blurring so I 

Close My Eyes

With the evolution of consciousness could we become aware of the position of our daily thoughts as they spread out into the space around us?  How would this affect what we think about if we knew the spaces that these thoughts would inhabit and the force with which these thoughts were being applied?  What if we could reach out with our thoughts like we could our hand.  Be careful of course, because we’re not looking to strike or cause harm.  We would need to make sure to project our thoughts in the right way from a good place.  This is one of the reasons for meditating as a form of prayer; to clear the ego and the desire that drives us to manipulate others with our powers of intention.  

Spiritually, could we begin to sense our position in the vast infinite void of the space of God?  Could we feel the strength of our spirit in it’s yearning for God? In this blind sprawling darkness, we could sense the heat coming off the light of our own spark; a fire kindled from the source.  Like lightning bugs, we would begin to light up the space and like stars form a constellation of God.  Maybe a caricature or an abstract interpretation, but a creative collaboration of all those beginning to reflective back the light we attribute to God.  

If nothing else, let us use our spiritual proprioception just to sense that we are always within the realm of God; to feel the body of God around us and within us.

This event will be every  Thursday night at 6:30pm in the month of May.  Registration required.

The cost is $75 and this covers 5 classes.  Although it is suggested that you try and attend all 5, you still might be able to start on the 2nd class if you’re really sweet and bring vegan chocolate chip cookies with you.

Call the Yoga Circle for more info in needed.

Philosophy is based on intellect by definition but I believe it to have a very instinctual origin as well, with much to offer to the intuitive aspect of understanding.  I believe it to be a necessity to living in a healthy way whether one is conscious of their philosophy or not.  It is a lubrication to keep sanity from cracking apart.  

Continuing with the visual of a circle, we find ourselves frequently away from the center.  We must remember that illusion will permeate all experience when away from the center.  Anecdotally, a solution to any predicament lies an equal distance across the center point much like a seesaw that teeters across the fulcrum.  This is where the lifeline is crucial to know in which direction the center lies.

Life is a balance.  Excess and deficiency create imbalance.  Excessive amounts of people; now deficient amounts of resources.  Clinging to one spot, attached and stagnant, the imbalance worsens.  An object in motion will be less effected by gravity and balance will be easier to come by.  The shape of a circle implies rotation or movement.  It is spinning, creating its own gravity, and therefore becoming more itself.  This is what we are supposed to be doing; being or becoming ourselves.  Becoming might be a better way to think of it as it too implies motion. 

The circle says, “Keep moving towards yourself and create your own gravity.  Then life will come to you instead of you attaching to it.  Use you center to relate to where you are now and to philosophically understand where you’re going.    Your circle is contained within a larger circle and you are spiraling towards its center.”

This concept overlaps with a vision I’ve had of the whole world stopping in one exact moment.  Just stop and do nothing for one second.  Don’t go immediately into how hard that would be and all the reasons it wouldn’t happen – just imagine it.  This would be an act of consciousness.  And everything would change as a result of it.  Not like God would come down and say, “Congratulations kids, you have moved on to the next level in the game of life!”  But peace and understanding would be a lot easier to come by.  More movements toward organized moments of consciousness would start popping up all over, like the latest fads do in our culture.  The internet would catapult it across the world in a flash.  Mega corporations would adopt the theme into product lines. Starbucks would have a Conscious coffee blend, meditation bars would be on every corner, and it would replace sex as the top seller of retail.  Actions counter to consciousness would be reported in the media like, “Today, with a blatant lack of consciousness, insurgents bombed a building.”  Or among peers, “That was so unconscious!”

As it grew, consciousness would check itself and people would be called out on their unconscious acts.  We just need that one defining moment to take us to the next level.

Our minds have become like our planet; crowded.  Or is it the other way around?  We have all become hoarders of a sort.  We collect history and preserve it; too caught up in the future to learn from the past; excessively conditioned by the past to change the future; the present moment passes by too quickly to catch up to it.  This leaves us nowhere and yet here we are.  The cursor sits there and blinks incessantly, as if asking the question:  “Well, are you going to do something?”  

Why does the cursor blink anyway?  It too is lined up with the reality that we are all blinking in and out of existence.  It’s just like a heart beat; its’ artificial cardiac muscle beating until the battery runs out, or the computer dies, or the power sub-stations run out of juice.  But life is plugged into something besides the wall and it goes on without analyze or consciousness of itself.  It is regulated by the circumstance of environment (space) and is subject to time (God). 

What does this now mean that life is becoming conscious of itself through humans?  It’s all life and if the biosphere is becoming aware of itself, will that eventually lead us to a more evolved existence?  If so, right now must be the storm before the calm. It seems the water is boiling.   

What if too much knowing puts all this space between us and God?  Why are we trying to know what we already are?  Time and Space will bring us back there soon enough.  What if God, lacking arrogance and immersed in the wonder of her own creative potential, was unaware or uninterested in the separation of the details?  The knowing lines us up, when the line is just one of many radii from the center of the circle.  We have to be 360 if we are to be whole.  These lines forget they are part of a circle.  The amoeba is blissfully ignorant of any radius and content to be a single cell, wholly without knowledge.  When will we relinquish the thirst for hard evidence and soften into faith?

Yoga is all-inclusive in every way.  It improves every aspect of our lives, from physical health to mental, emotional, and spiritual health.  Yoga steers us toward our healthiest weight and also removes clutter and debris from the mind and spirit.  Yoga helps us sleep more soundly; it brings awareness to our breath, enabling us to live more peacefully;  and it make us better in all of our relationships, from being a better friend to being a more productive employee.  Along the path of yoga, we become better individuals, which eventually betters the world.

I officially began my yoga journey at age nineteen, though I can remember doing yoga as a child – from sitting quietly and breathing while listening to classical music, to playfully performing handstands in the front yard.  Yoga will be a part of my life as long as I am living

I considered opening a yoga studio  in her community but realized that I needed to be on the other side of the teacher/student relationship in order to be truly committed to teachers as well as students so I began a Yoga Alliance 200 hour certification at North Shore Yoga in Chattanooga with Dolly Stavros in 2009 . This Vinyasa yoga teacher training was taught with loving attention and deep spirituality that literally turned my yoga world upside-down. I now want to teach as much as possible and share the gift of yoga to to any and all.

I have also taken many workshops over the years and will always continue to further my education with the true belief that all good teachers are inherent students. My teachers and influences include Akasha Ellis, Doug Keller, Kathryn Budig, Jessica Jollie, Natasha Rouzopolis, Sadie Nardini and I am still looking for more!