Balancing Act

I often make a point of going outside to a quiet spot in or on the edge of the woods and listening. I imagine my feet sinking into the Earth (which is tough when wearing big snow boots) and roots growing down from my soles into the core. I stay focused on my breath which helps to transport "my" energy (which isn't really mine at all) and at some point I can feel my feet (and the space beneath my feet) pulsing, as if there are indeed lines connecting me to the giant sphere we're riding. A unique and utterly pleasant warmth flows up through me and on this night, one of the coldest of the year, shifts my attention to the clear black sky flooded with stars. Ironically, for those of us in the northern hemisphere, the Earth is now at its closest point to the sun. In sixth months it will only be slightly further away, but it will have tilted in the opposite direction causing our entire environment to completely change. A foot of snow and freezing winds will be replaced by intense heat and abundant growth. Granted we humans wouldn't have evolved if not for this cycle, is there a more spectacular miracle than the balancing act pulled off by our planet in relation to perhaps our greatest source of power?

So as I stand and listen from the center of the world (having bought into the philosophy that the entire Universe exists within our own heart), the Earth talks to me. Sometimes the trees creek and crack, occasionally the wind howls, but usually the whole place just breathes. By breathing with it, we merge into one, at which point the Universe becomes as vast as one's imagination. At these moments I recognize myself as a satellite--a tiny planet spinning on an axis supported by the larger planet--and know that the only thing there is for me to do is to stay attuned and work on my own sense of balance.

Eli and the Hungry Ghost

Exactly this time last year I reunited with my friend Eli under peculiar circumstances.

In October my friend Paul had introduced me to Hungry Ghost granola during a hike, and I was hooked. He told me that the Hungry Ghost, a small bakery in Northampton, MA, also had the "best bread [he'd] ever had" and that he couldn't even make it home without eating half the loaf. Apparently it had been around for a few years and I'd driven right past it a number of times, but this was my first news of the hidden gem. Paul gave me a flier that lists what breads they make on certain days, and I stuck it in my wallet where it remained.

The previous Winter I'd traveled to Israel and Egypt, befriending a unique fellow named Eli Winograd, who I roomed with for a few weeks. Our friendship was, in retrospect, extremely special as we seemed to connect in a way that I don't often encounter. We listened to each other, attentively, with virtually every fiber of our being. In this way we became a unit, almost like a yin-yang. Soulmates. We improvised musically, never grew tired of one another, and seemed to harmonize every time we hung out. A beautiful guy, sadly we lost touch following our return to the States.

A week before Christmas I received an email from Eli's sister, Rachel, in which she divulged to me that Eli had in fact been living in Northampton--I couldn't believe that we'd been so close all along (I was spending more and more time in the Berkshires). I got his phone number and called him up immediately. He said that he'd been in town since April, playing music and working at a bakery...

Whirling & OMming

When I got home from the gym I took the dog out and, with him secured in his run, began to "whirl," like the Whirling Dervishes. The Dervishes, of the Sufi tradition born in Turkey, perform ritualistic dances in which they twirl their bodies by pivoting on one foot and swinging the other around one step per rotation. Meanwhile, they extend both arms outward from the body at approximately 90 degrees, leaving the right palm facing up so as to absorb Divine Light and the left palm down to offer healing to the world.

A few weeks ago I spontaneously began to practice this and immediately recognized its unique benefits, as it proved a valuable exercise in balance incorporating concentration on breathe, body, and mind. Initially, I'm amazed at the amount of awareness that whirling demands I place on my individual limbs, muscles, appendages and spherical space in general. I concentrate on creating a point on the earth and spinning on an axis, while breathing into the areas in my mind/body awareness or "energy body." Occasionally, sensations will develop beyond my physical body, and I breathe into these as well as if they're just as much a part of my being as those arising within my body. Bringing awareness to these areas helps to release tension and open them up, as they're essentially channels for energy that have become blocked with one stress or another. My upper arms take the worst of it, my feet come alive as if walking a tightrope, I move at a pace on the edge of dizziness, and I can feel a current running through both palms.

It makes me want to tune-in to the planet and give thanks.

OMming is another great stress reliever, allowing us to exercise our vocal chords, throat muscles, diaphragm, heart, belly, and basically anywhere else you choose to place your mind when you do it. I like to OM a few times into various body parts and organs, letting them fill with the vibration of the frequency of the Universe.

In these ways we allow ourselves to grow, as Nature grows a tree.

Here's my friend Paul with an American Ginseng root, which he says grows as potent here in the Berkshires as anywhere in North America.

Dreaming Reality

The Sanskrit word "Yoga" has a number of meanings in English, but at the core is the word "union." There are many branches of yoga, with stretching & breathing occupying only a handful. With few exceptions, what we in the West have come to recognize as Yoga is actually "Hatha" Yoga, the physical aspect of a much greater philosophy designed to help cultivate "awareness." Awareness is a rather ambiguous word, but in this case it refers to one's ability to perceive the world for what it really is--pure energy. As humans, we generally relate via our five senses. Yoga practice enables us to awaken other senses and to fine-tune the basic ones we've learned to rely on.

When I first began taking pictures, my process was extremely reactionary. I would sense something happening with my five senses, move in, compose the image, press the shutter. As time went by, I began to recognize that in some instances I was reacting to a "feeling" or intuitive sense rather than to a particular sight or sound. Furthermore, I began to play with the idea of using my imagination to coerce various forces or factors into alignment so that I could take a photograph in a way that appealed to me. Usually it was just a matter of time before the image would take shape.

Having practiced Yoga steadily over the last several years, I've witnessed a profound transformation in how I act creatively. I'm able to perceive things that I'd missed in the past (having become more aware of the infinite possibilities of space), and am interested in expressing what I see in my mind's eye rather than what I experience in society. My visualizations are increasingly reflective of what I observe in my immediate sphere, and mind seeks out in my external surroundings what it's playing with internally. It's as if I'm designing the Universe right before my eyes by drawing from the elements around me and allowing these concepts to evolve. This symbiotic relationship is proving to me that, as Yogic philosophy clearly suggests, there is no separation between inside and outside--it's all one.