Good morning! I had a lovely weekend, as a very dear and old friend of mine, Michael E. Arth, was in Boulder this weekend to show his film at the MoonDance Film Festival here.His funny and inspiring documentary, New Urban Cowboy, follows his visionary ideas on New Pedestrianism after transforming a slum in Deland, Florida into a quaint pedestrian village. I hope you check him out at www.NewUrbanCowboy.comBut what I want to talk about today is the story in the body. As one becomes more focused in yoga, we return to our senses. A fantastic technique I learned from a body-centered psychotherapist is contact resonance. Whenever my mind gets extra wandery, I bring my awareness to my body and where it is making contact with something else. I feel that sensation and rest my mind in that space where I am making contact, and after a few minutes I am extremely centered and present. Being fully in my body was always elusive to me. Not having a safe childhood meant not being safe in the moment, nor connected to my body. I especially lost that root chakra connection and mula banda. I swear it took me 5 years of yoga practice to fully understand inner and outer spiral and mula banda, but when I got it, I REALLY GOT IT!. how important it is to be in the body and connect to the body and earth. To really be in rhythm with breath, the senses, and to be aware of every cell of your body and how it is moving. When I practice yoga and teach Mythic Yoga classes, we are keenly aware of every sensation in our body. What is that feeling coming from? What story is in that part of the body? By contemplating the body during yoga, sensations, discoveries and stories have come up. Sometimes deeply repressed memories come up. I listen to that tension in the jaw, that fifth chakra area that needs expression. I mull over my silence as a child, my hidden anger and frustrations. I surrender and not try to control everything. I notice my slouched shoulders and remember the grief that strangles my heart. I remember the violence that was in my family, the shouting and the anger. I've become so present that I can catch my mind wandering there when I lose patience with my own children and with awareness and mindfulness I make the choice not to react in violence toward them like my mother did with me. I instead choose love, to feel love, to move in love in my body and witness with gratitude this wonderful world. All of it. The difficulty, the joy. I don't resist the dark parts. (I must confess I am the ultimate tantrist, I don't deny anything! I'm taking up my part of duality, all the rejected parts of ourselves. I think that's what the Christian story of Jesus hanging out with all the outcasts is all about. Reclaiming those dark parts and loving them. ) With this practice of loving everything, even the dark, I have become at peace with the world. perhaps that is what Christ is talking about in turning the other cheek. I don't resist. I see this beautiful eternal life in every moment and it's awesome. I don't want to feel icky with anger and hatred and "this should not be in life." I just want to feel joy and love.  I beleive it's in Islam that the devil is God's most beloved servant. Lucifer refuses to bow down to man, and Lucifer was cast out from God. But Lucifer was the most loving to God. Love,Syd