Shakti Rising Yoga

I left John Friend’s Anusara Therapy Training in Park City this past June with an abundance of information. One particular thing he said has flowed through my mind often since then. He stated that tears of joy and tears of sorrow leave the eyes at different corners. Tears of joy leave from the outer corners and tears of sorrow from the inner. Hmmmmm……I had never noticed or even really thought about it, but I was excited to bring more awareness to this detail.

This evening, inspired by a beautiful movie with a soundtrack consisting mostly of songs from the Polyphonic Spree, I rounded up the Hound, set the Ipod on my personal collection of Spree songs and headed to higher ground for a dusky ramble in the desert. Many people, at some point, follow a spontaneous thought into action, and somewhere along the way realize, in a serendipitous moment, that they are being guided by something much bigger than their own cerebral movement.

As I climbed Little Park Road toward the increasing presence of juniper and pinyon, my focus was on the particular beauty of the setting sun that only happens when sky is filled with smoke. The west flank of the Grand Mesa has been on fire for days now causing extreme haze in the Grand Valley. However, at this moment I did not notice, as I had been for the past few days, the dryness of my nose or the thick quality of the air I was breathing. The volume on the stereo was high, I sang Spree songs at the top of my lungs and reveled in the magnitude and radiance of the glowing orb hovering over the Colorado National Monument.

Those who study and practice yoga will, at some point, begin to learn about the Sanskrit term “drishti” which in short refers to the gaze. Through their practice, the ancient yogis found that when the gaze is directed, our attention naturally follows to that place and that the attentiveness of our gaze will reflect in the timbre of our thoughts. I have heard several Anusara teachers invite students to evaluate their drishti both on and off their mats. Cultivating your awareness of your drishti can empower you to direct the flow of your life onto paths that serve and nourish you.

Tonight as I navigated higher into the desert, I realized my gaze, my focus was the present moment. The moment was a symphonic blending of music, the setting sun, a happy hound with ears billowing in the wind, and my cumulative joyful experience of it all. And in that moment, I was excited to discover that tears were streaming from the outer corners of my eyes…

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It occurred to me that this is the second time The Polyphonic Spree has been mentioned on this blog and both times have been an integral part of the experience I have been writing about so I wanted to share more about this incredible group. To me, The Spree is about celebrating fragility and deepening our connection to our heartspace.

“The Polyphonic Spree march to the beat of their own drum, promote vulnerability against all odds, prove that choirs should dance, offer relief from the seductive trap of cool, know about sadness but point to lightness, are more than a band ( A community? A penal colony? Noah’s new ark?) should be seen live, once confused with terrorists but only by the very, very afraid, spiritual midwife to your fears, a house with all the doors removed, an inexplicable slogan that you know is right, proof that the revolution may be soft and loud at the same time. Explosions can be fun and easy. The mess is honest. We have each other.” -artist/filmmaker Mike Mills-director of “Thumbsucker”