The Wake Up Call

Waking up at 5:55am again tomorrow.... I'm officially hustling and officially (self realization here) in the rat race. My last week of unemployment, I have no home and no full time job... just a few part time jobs that im stacking together to make ends meet...

Today I woke up at 5:55 as well.. I was at the BART (bay area rapid transit--think nyc subway but WAY more expensive) to meet Jessica, founder of getaround.com a local bay area car sharing service co. where car owners can rent their cars out and set prices for local renters (organically placed plug).

Man goes to California, goes broke, wanders from place to place sleeping on couches, floors, cabins, futons, works whatever jobs he finds on craigslist and occasionally busks in metro stations playing long wooden instruments that come from deserts half-way around the world.

Now I'm not making any of this wrong - nor am I blaming myself for the positions I have rightfully earned. I am poking light at the fact that I am stuck in California and couldn't leave to go back home even if I wanted to.. which I do-from time-to-time.  It's just ironic that I spent all summer making myself believe that California had the answers to my problems AND I thought I would for sure be able to do whatever I wanted OR AT LEAST what I was saying I wanted to do whilst in New York/New Jersey--which was...

"I'm gonna go out there and get a job, find a place to live and see if I want to be in the bay or LA... you know, just live and blah blah blah." As my friend Sarah would say, 'welcome to crazy town'... btw, I'm now the mayor of crazy town, usa, aka-California. Why you may ask?

Because I didn't have a CLUE what I was in for. If I knew that this was going to be shaping up to be the fight of my life I probably would have come up with some other grand idea.. and actually.. now that I think about it, would wind-up in the same place I'm in now, only someplace else.

I am really having to teach myself discipline here. Saving my money--ech-chem.. excuse me, I meant NOT spending my money on dance, cookies, juice, or whatever; breaking free from the expectation that the world will provide all I need and ask for as I comfortably sit in the grass, sun beating on my face in half-lotus position... no, this is not the time for that. I would like it to be.. but it's not. It's time to get to work.. and I have to work and I have to make ends meet in as many creative ways possible-right now.

(right now its sleeping in my friend Olivia's room who I met at dance camp while her mom is sleeping in the room next door b/c after 3-months couch surfing I can't afford rent... it's passing out flyers at 7am for cash in hand after my shift so I dont have to use my debit card.. it's ordering Thai food and splitting it up in two portions so I dont spend money on food the next day--its all of that) -much love/respect to the Obidah's, btw.

This 'trip' is also about looking at myself in new ways. Looking NOW to see how I impacted people when I wasn't noticing how I was being ungrateful and expecting, full of myself, arrogant.. This is the feedback I've been getting and it's been EYE-OPENING!

Only when ya travel do ya get this.. or when you wander? When I wander this is what I get.. a dose of medicine aimed at having me having to deal with how I am showing up for the world and let me just tell you I am so committed to transforming this IT HURTS! So, like I was saying, I'm stuck here in California. When I return to the east coast, whenever that is, I will not be in the same everything place I was when I came out here. I will return with honor and pride.

This is my lesson, and the test is called California. Now I gotta go to bed, I'm waking up in 6 hours to pass out flyers. And before I go I want to mention a few more things.

a.) I shaved my beard after a dream that I shaved my beard. To me this is a sign of coming out of hiding.

b.) After realizing that I have been being stingy and selfish with my recent housemates.. like ReALLY GETTING THIS IN MY BONES that I have been showing up like this all the while thinking otherwise--I can now see the possibility arising in the shadows.. And it's called being grateful and abundant for what I do have.

I have two amazing jobs. In one I get to greet San Franciscans each morning now and wish them all 'Good Morning' as I pass out a great new car sharing service.  Let me say if you wished your city or town good morning at least 300 times to their face, you would feel ecstatic. The other is with this incredible Jewish non profit that teaches resistance training and how to stand up to fight the good fight after learning about the Jewish guerrilla fighters who lived in the woods during WWII.

And it's all starting to shift; my context, my reality, my being, my face! This really is it. I'm living my life and it's only going to get better.

Wandering on...

~B

Divine Recognition; Gods and Goddesses Unite

yogic man or yogic god?

 "Hey man,.. YO, you are such a divine god! I was talking tonight about the use of the word 'goddess' in our yogic world and how women will sometimes refer to themselves and each other as 'goddesses'.  It's always been nice to hear this. To see a woman displaying her natural, feminine essence, radiating love and sensuality in subtle and intricate ways for the world to be witness too in mysterious moments. On the other hand my curiosity speaks; What's up with that?

 It got me thinking. Why haven't I referred to my buddy Drew who practices yoga as a god? How come men aren't recognizing each other in their divinity and saying, "wow, what a god." What started out as as just a joke is now turning into an inquiry.

Sexism, gender stereotyping, post-feminist revolution and divine recognition comes to mind. Is it some kind of feminist revolutionary language women will say to empower themselves with?  Or, is it just divine recognition of each others' truest qualities coming forth through language and being that women are comfortable with in showing and recognizing in each other?  What is the dark, shadow side of this? Is there one? Is it a way of demonstrating a gender power shift? What if a man referred to another man as a god? Would that be too sexist or macho for women? Or would it be too radical for how men are supposed to act towards each other in our aging Piscean world. Hmmm...This is getting interesting.

In any case, I still find the whole sociological breakdown funny. We've all gone through this life together, from the beginning-man and woman have walked the earth side-by-side, have we forgotten this? I wonder if sometimes we have and think that maybe we really are from different planets. Even Venus and Mars in Roman mythology speaks to our differences, it's not just a book.

Mars being the god of war who was married to Bellona but had a lover in Venus. War is synonymous with destruction and in todays current, brutality, selfishness, greed, capitalism and in mythological terminology-deceit and even adultery, the savages! It's easy to blend the connotation of man/god/Mars together and drop it in a not-so-friendly box of stereotypes. Venus on the other hand represents love, beauty and fertility. Today women celebrate and are celebrated for their ability to procreate and shine out in the world, at least in the West. But it's funny how we as men don't refer to each other as gods. Could it be b/c we are still enacting a 'boy psychology' as authors Moore and Gillette coin in their book, 'King, Warrior, Magician, Lover?'  In this case why would we want to be referred to each other as god's when we are clearly acting like mortal boys.  So, yeah, whew.  Us men being called god's.  And I'm not even pushing for it to happen.  But to hear it out there in the world, well that would just be weird, wouldn't it?  'Yo man.. Drew, he is such a god, so powerful and handsome!' Never happens. Maybe cool or smart or something?

But who am I to be the world's authority on divine recognition? Maybe men do call each other god's? Maybe in remote places around the world like some Polynesian islands or California men are cultivating a new way of referring to themselves and each other in the transformed dialect of 'God'? I mean why not? Women are goddesses, right? Wouldn't that by default equate a man to be a god? Actually, now that I am writing this I remember my friend Patrick, who lives in Burlington, VT. Patrick has a section of his house where prayer, yoga and meditation take place. That room is called the 'GGIT.' An acronym for 'God's and Goddesses In Training.'

Ahhh, I see now. As long as it's an all-inclusive affair for Zeus's and Hera's we're kosher. It's been an imbalance of power all along! The goddesses need the gods, and the god's need the goddesses! It's a call to action for men all over to become more godly and step into their natural essence themselves! Right? Women have been referring to themselves as goddesses b/c they secretly want their male counterparts to step up and do the same so they can too be recognized by men as such and so that men can become the idyllic personification the women are so longing for,... yeah?

Is this what divine godliness looks like?

Men have for years played out the terms; cool, hip, trendy, manly, smart and handy with each other. 2012 is upon us! We are reading David Deida! We are becoming (or supposed to becoming) more collectively conscious! So, isn't it time as we further dredge into the age of Aquarius we- as mature and masculine leaders, fathers and husbands, maybe even boyfriends and single guys refer to each other as gods? Or would that just be pushing the envelope a little too much?



B~

AUgust.

It's August.. for me this is the end of the year. September has always been a new beginning for me as it used to be the time to go back to school and is the Jewish new year. It also feels like a new beginning. The summer is winding down as the season changes into autumn and it is a time of creative and new beginnings, much more-so then January, right?

This month is a crucial month for me. I am subletting my apt. and possibly moving out for the first time in 2 years. I love living with the Bright Street Boys in Jersey City. More importantly this is a time for me where I am looking to root down and start something special. I just don't know where this is yet.

I will make a voyage out to California and places between later in the month and see just where I want to create in this dream. It really is just a dream, you know. We are on one giant dream-board, dreaming together a collective dream that we are calling life.

So, we shall see? I will be out on the west coast soon and I am still completely open to coming back east and living in this area. But for now, I dream.

B~

Giving is Receiving

Revamping life. It's time for a change. If anything being away taught me, it's that being away is the best way to find my way. Of course I would want to be around communities and local sustainablity and connect more to my own passions and gifts that I have cultivated over the last 10 years of my life as an artist and a healer.

To get out of the NY/East Coast/NJ rut was the best medicine I could have ever asked for.  I'm ready to come back more connected and aligned to who I am and to what my heart is saying. Being in California was feel good. I worked with a lot of people on the YogAlign Method and even found myself leading a shot-gun style class at this raw food/superfood collective one night where raw pie and poetry was the theme.  And it felt good, not to try but to give, know what I mean?

Ah, the theme of this blog comes through. When I give my gift freely without trying to or being attached to doing so, my own expression comes through with more vibrance.

I have found this true before in the past as well. For instance, last week when I was sitting around talking to people about life and yoga and hawaii what naturally came was, "I can show you some stuff" and bc it was natural and in the conversation, the gift I offered was more readily able to be received- and thus received as I showed Alexander some neuromuscular breath work. He benefited from it but even if he didn't the experience for me was rewarding as I too received the gift of service. As they heal, we heal.  I wondered if I had come with the intention of working with people at the party, would it have come naturally as it did just by me wanting to help others and share? 

I always thought there was this rigid formulaic way to go about marketing and 'getting' clients as a practitioner, but what I keep noticing is that it's always a natural process for me and if anything I have been fighting my gift of spontaneity, charisma and connection with people.  I could easily be myself, go up to strangers and talk to them, I do all the time. And to then share with them my talents is what's next.

As a health counselor in the past when I tried to make things happen I rarely achieved success in that model. But I always noticed that when I was natural and in my own wanting to share what I know with others, openly and without expectation of a return, like money, I wound up being successful in the relationship, which could be the initial consult for bringing back clients who will pay.

There are many times when I see someone suffering or ailing on the street, that I just want to go up to them and give myself, without any expectation in return. I most of the time restrict that natural energy, thinking "that would be weird," and go about my life. But now I see it differently and as my recent travels have shown, I am more open to sharing and giving which excites me because when people ask, "are you going to teach when you return home," I say yes, but really don't want to force anything. I'm really just most interested in helping others and letting the energy flow as it does, and if it leads to clients and classes, etc. great. If not, then so what, I'll do and be where I'm guided.

What are your talents you share or don't share? Where have you noticed yourself in command through the energy of giving? What would be possible for you if you were present with yourself and your gifts? What would you receive? What could you give to others? What difference would that make for them?

Mainlanding

I think I'll mainland it for a while, maybe a looong while? I arrived in California today and after 3 flights the most challanging aspect to my travels was no doubt the bus/train/bus/train/cab connection from San Jose-->Berkeley. Took me 4 hours to commute, but only $11. That's a big mahalo to the finance gods and a sure fire slowdownyourasana tenant.

And, apparently I brought the Hawaiian sun with me! It was easily in the 80's. Plus, I am completely and absolutely bringing the Aloha spirit with me as well. Big mamish mahalo to Darius and the Mahasiddha Buddhist home for hosting me. I am in exactly the place I am supposed to be. Totally clear.

Conscious like-minded people here openly sharing life and each others gifts. I was already invited to share Yogalign with the crew here. You guys are all amazing. Aloha spirit-stoked! It's time to be the teacher I know myself to be.

Although I must say that perhaps the most interesting feature of being back on the mainland (it's not the noise or grotesque, endless shopping) is that my back is peeling like a mutha'! When I was a kid I used to love it when I would get tan and peel. But I ain't seen nothin' like this before, check it out!

(granted the pic doesn't do complete justice)


Was it because my body knew I had left island and now the re-acclimation process has begun? Was it the countless hours on the 3 planes trying to sleep unsuccessfully while I squirmed against my seat? Or was it the mainland water from the mainland shower that I took today which sent signals to molt?  No matter, any which way I slice it, I'm mainlanding now.

Right Now & Moving On~

4 days left in Kaua'i. Damn I'm gonna miss this place. People have said, "why don't you just stay?" I say, "I don't know, my home is in New York (or New Jersey)." Sure the air will be dirtier, the food not nearly as fresh, the people a little more aggravated and the pace A LOT FASTER. But, it's my home, so that's where I will be, for now.

Moving on, this blog will serve as a place to learn about alignment and yoga, and the humor and wonder of taking the philosophy of yoga (remember it's not just postures) out into the world with our people in our lives.

BUT, I promise you I will continue making videos of smoothies and fruits and foods that serve the yogic lifestyle of simplicity and wholeness, as well as other fun ones, just because. AND, I will be in California and Oregon until May 13th, so you will get to see more adventure and fun along the way, and hopefully some videos of me working with, I don't know, you!?

Let me know if YOU would like a session to check out the amazing benefits that YogAlign provides for feeling light and free in your body. It really is the bomb. We'll work out the details later.

Right now I am teaching a man for 4-days who has been a yogi for longer than I have been alive! He knows a lot, but what I am finding is that just because one practices yoga doesn't mean one doesn't have pain. It's amazing teaching Roberto, hopefully he will write in on this post and share. I'm almost in as much disbelief as he is witnessing his quads opening more than he has ever felt. Ever! Or seeing his face as he experiences his psoas (or hip flexors) opening up, he seems as though he is in shock! This work really does work, wow.

Mahalo for reading, B~