Two Things of Beauty

Sometimes an affinity for love can take place in me. This last couple of weeks I have fallen in love and become more devoted to two beautiful things
The first being my boyfriend Sonnie. For my birthday (27!) he flew me out to Smith Rock Oregon to climb and relax for a week. I found a new love for rock and a peaceful place in myself doing my practice in front of a fire over a steaming mug of coffee after a luxurious 8-10 hour sleep. Hiking and sitting quietly by the cliffs, watching the colossal wingspan of the drifters overhead and allowing the wind to swirl ringlets into my wisps of hair. I felt a true communion with nature. In the evening of our last day we sat in the hot tub and watched the stars overhead with a glass of wine... feeling bigger than I've ever known yet as small as the pieces of star dust that make up the vast galaxy. I got to experience Sonnie in a different light, training for a project that is really important to him. I studied him closely, and as simply as I can say it, am truly inspired by his life practice and the way that he styles the art of living in vivid colour.
A trip I'll never forget. The pictures are of the cliffs and one of us warming up before climbing the monkey face behind us. Sonnie is off to Scotland to redpoint climb one of his aspired routes by a castle over the sea... wish him luck!

The second thing being the practice of yoga. I came back to an inspired and passionate teacher, Mark Darby. My first practice after a week of sporadic and public sessions, was a trip into an awareness matrix. Extreme attentiveness and hightened sensitivity took over my being, coming from deep within myself. Every time I take a step away from the Ashtanga practice I come back feeling more engrossed with it's endless possibilities for evolution.
Darby keeps a tight class with an emphasis on facing your own personal challenges. Each student this week was completely present with their weak and dull areas, aware of when they were not harmonizing with gravity and becoming sharper in the knowing of the placement of their limbs.
I surrendered myself to having a teacher and ended up with a whole new practice! I don't even know the names to the asanas yet! These postures I have hardly even looked at on my own- for fear of injury and for practicing contentment for where I am at. I know there is no benefit for me from forcing, and having a clean pathway for growth has an ease and a natural feel to it. Becoming something can stop, and being and doing can take place, creating silence in my brain. Having someone with so much experience believing in me more than I do in myself is an amazing thing, and for this I am grateful.
Having Darby at the studio has such sweetness to it. Today he shared with us a day in his life, what his practice consists of and what he thinks about. To hear and feel how passionate and energetic he is for something that I feel equal proportions of enthusiasm for, makes my heart swell. He is still so vital with his generosity to teach and it is so obvious that he is in love with yoga. May he be blessed. Please check out his incalculable well of knowledge... sattvayogashala.com

"There is no beauty without love and no love without beauty." Vanda Scaravelli