Eat. Pray. Yoga.

I've been thinking a lot about doing a lot of things that A) I don't feel like I have the time for, or B) I don't have the time to think/reflect on, and so can't possibly come to fruition.  I was watching a documentary on Permaculture with Josh the other night (one of the rare times in the last few months we've actually had time to sit down and simply be with one another, which was delicious), and the father of Permaculture, Bill Mollison, said something I can relate to.  He said, of working for a lumbering company back in the days before he contemplated the inherent wrongness of cutting down trees needlessly, that [logging] was the sort of job that did not allow for any time to simply sit down and think about things, which, he said, can drive a person crazy.

I can relate to this.  Everyone can, I'm sure, if they're really trying to notice how they feel after days or weeks on end with no time to be introspective.  I for one have been at my most whole during the times in my life when I'm doing something which is actively good in the world, and when I have lots of time to be introspective, read, journal, and generally notice life.

Adversely, I also know that ample time to be introspective can sometimes allow for lots and lots of time to notice how fucking psychotic I feel sometimes, which is a sort of unpleasant feeling, but that's neither here nor there.

Anyway.  I'm about three weeks away from Teacher Training.  THREE WEEKS!  I'm so excited I almost pee myself sometimes with excitement, and when I remember that a week or so after my training marks the end of my job, life in southern California, and just generally feeling stuck in the trough that is the Inland Empire, my whole body almost melts with the sizzly, awesome, magical feelings of embarking on a new adventure in the Bay Area.  Excited?  Why yes, yes. I. am.

I picked up Ravi's translation of the Yoga Sutras this morning, after making my coffee (I'm out of creamer, note to self), standing in my underwear at my bathroom mirror with life-affirming post-it notes all over it and struggling to want to be productive, and I asked myself, "What do you want your mornings to be like?"

I asked this because, working the shittiest schedule in the world (2-11pm, Monday-Friday) often makes me just want to be a blob and do nothing but surf Facebook all morning in anticipation of working a mindless job all night.  But the question is about something bigger: not just what I want my mornings to look like, but how those mornings turn into days and weeks and years, which comprise a whole way of being and existing in the world.  My vision is to make time to really be home when I'm home, nest and clean and make my living space lovely, make time for yoga, yoga teachings, and myself as a budding yoga teacher. 

One of them is also being productive, organizing my house, and preparing to leave it for a life in the Bay Area which will be simpler and full of things that are fulfilling:  time to relish in Life's beauties, contemplate and seek the Real, and lots and lots of yoga.

Enter: Eat. Pray. Yoga. 

Blog surfing yesterday morning (not packing my house or doing my dishes, like I told myself I would), I got a fabulous idea:  I want to create a group, a club, a church, a whatever: a group of people gathered together to be alive.  To eat delish food, make it, share it, swoon over it; to pray, to be with Nature and the Self, to seek the Truth's place in our hearts, and to yoga it up. 

Eat. Pray. Yoga.

This community can be local or global, and exist in many many forms.  There will be t-shirts.  This is not about the specifics, doing headstands on street corners or being an asshole yogi who thinks juicing and wearing Lululemon are the only way to achieve insight, but a mentality of graciousness and gratitude; a momentum, and an intention to be in the world consciously, to savor its delights, offer oneself to the benefit of the collective, and do it through the many mediums of yoga: movement, thought, action, stillness and intention.  And hey, if that still includes juicing and Lululemon, then rock on.

I guess in a way, this sort of embodies the way I want to exist in the world, and my thoughts on creating a community of good, rad people to share it with is driven because I've found it so difficult to really cultivate community here in southern California, where everyone drives around in big metal boxes, tuned out and zoned for isolation and consumption of the wrong kind of energies.  I want to change that, and perhaps selfishly, I want people around me to enjoy who enjoy the same things.  I really hope Berkeley will offer an outlet for this, because I need it in my life.

That said, I might be changing the name of this blog to Eat. Pray. Yoga.  Because really, it's rad.