The meaning of the Sanskrit word, tapas, has eluded me for many years.  It is often translated as austerity.  I never liked the word austerity as it never sounded inviting. Why would I take time out in a stress filled world to do something that sounds like the deprivation of  pleasure?  The austerity of fasting, get rid of all possessions, walk out in the cold in bare feet, or sleeping on a bed of nails just don't appeal to me in the least. 

     However,  the other meaning of tapas is heat or more specifically the shining radiance of fire that gives off heat. (1) From this interpretation tapas drives the effort of actions by which our inherent radiance can shine. Now that sounds  worthy of doing my yoga practice. From this perspective tapas is about shining with vibrancy, attractiveness, beauty, health, and strength. Tapas is whatever moves us closer to our true state...

     A major factor in the development of chronic diseases is poor life style habits.  Lifestyle involves the choices we make around diet, alcohol and substance use, exercise, sleep, and social connections. The good news is that we are empowered for the most part to manage the trajectory of our health. We are able on the individual and community levels to guide health outcome. On a larger community level life style also means the way we interact with our environment in terms of working to have clean air, water, and healthy soil for our food.

     Western allopathic medicine is beginning to turn to salutogenesis as a means to approach health issues.  Whereas pathogenesis  focuses is on the development of disease, salutogenesis focuses on the factors that promote and maintains physical and mental health. We need to look at what is working well just as much as looking at the problem....

      If I were to sum up what yoga is about in three words, it would be "to know thyself."  Going back to the last two posts, to know which of the three autonomic nervous system states you are in is a good start to knowing yourself. To review Stephen Porges' Polyvagal there are three states of the ANS: 1)social engagement -safety, 2) mobilization -threat/challenge, 3) immobilization - imminent death.

         To increase awareness of which state you are in at any given moment increases the power of discernment. This power of discernment opens you to more choices and less reactivity.  The tools to auto-regulate and to co-regulate become more meaningful and accessible. 

     Being in touch with your body states awakens more awareness.  Becoming more aware brings understanding. Greater understanding grows compassion.  Growing compassion brings you...

        Last week I posted the three states of our autonomic nervous system (ANS) according to the Polyvagal theory of Stephen Porges. Just to recap from the last post (https://somalumina-yoga.mykajabi.com/blog/what-is-the-state-of-your-nervous-system), there are three states of the ANS: 1)social engagement -safety, 2) mobilization - threat/challenge, 3) immobilization - imminent death. This is hard-wired in us.  It maximizes our chance to survive.

     A dysfunctional ANS is one that over responds or under responds to a stimulus.  A dysfunctional ANS decreases the ability to be resilient and adaptable. A dysfunctional ANS blocks the ability to return to calm and social engagement.

     If you were being charged by a bear you want a sympathetic fight or flight action to occur.   That is an appropriately functioning ANS.  However, if the next day you are...

        Many of you are probably familiar with the "fight or flight" response, and maybe the "rest and digest" state of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) The former is a hyper-arousal state in response to a threat and the later is a restorative state of calm in times of safety. As biological creatures, we are wired through our autonomic nervous system (ANS) to maintain proper balance of all the physiological processes in our bodies, i.e. respiratory, cardiovascular, digestive, immunological, endocrine, psychological, and reproductive.  The ANS  provides protection in times of perceived threat by revving up output through the sympathetic branch of the ANS or damping down the output through the parasympathetic branch of the ANS.  Increasing output can take place with conditions such as  acute hemorrhage,  infection, extreme cold, combat,  physical assault, or any situation in...

      With the Westernization and the commercialization (was I just being redundant?) of yoga a lot can get diluted - or left out entirely.  For many people  yoga is synonymous with exercise. Yoga is seen as getting a cardio-workout by "flowing" through a series of poses in rapid succession or it means working up a sweat in an over heated room.  The holding of postures is usually for some measurable outcome of wanting a "yoga butt" or increased strength, or flexibility.  With this view of yoga people can be discouraged from taking classes feeling that they are not flexible enough or are not of the right  body type. Certainly there are physical health benefits from the practice of postures, but that is not the primary goal of yoga practices.

     Other people have the concept of yoga as being the way to relax.  The image of this has usually been in the form of a yogi in complete isolation sitting crosslegged on a...

     I recently picked up an audiobook of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, by Robin Wall Kimmerer.  What a beautifully told story by this scientist and storyteller from the Potawatomi Nation about the wisdom of plant life, and what we as industry oriented, consuming humans in the 21st century can learn about our  relationship with Nature. It essentially comes down to our human ability to re-establish connection to Nature and  to acknowledge our interdependence. This will require a humble respect towards the wisdom that Nature holds.  For if we continue on this current path of "progress" led by the human need to control and acquire, we will watch the ground literally crumble beneath our feet.

     Listening to the audiotape is a remembering and a welcoming to my soul.  This is why I practice yoga to bring myself back into right...

The breath is often revered as a connection to Spirit. The Latin word spiritus means “breath.” In English, the word “inspire” means to uplift. The word “expire” means to run out of life and die. “Inspiration” implies an energizing source that animates our mind-body complex, and “expiration” is letting go of such connections to the mind-body complex to rest in absolute consciousness. Every breath cycle is a dance of birthing creation on the in-breath, and surrendering this creation to the infinite being-ness on the out-breath.

The impulse behind this movement of the breath is a force called prana. This prana drives the breath through our waking and sleeping hours. If we average 15 breaths a minute, then over the course of a 24 hour periods we would have breathed 21,600 cycles! You are not the breather. You are too busy during your day to pay attention to your breath let alone breathe yourself. The prana flowing through...

    Tantric yoga holds the view that there is a temporary reality inside a lasting reality. Another view is that this reality is an illusion and a higher reality exists outside this illusion. No matter the viewpoint my take away is that what I am living may not be the entire reality. Think of a video game. At the moment the mind is focused on the video screen, the game is the immediate reality.  As you manipulate buttons or a joy stick, the eyes are fixed, the body may tense and blood pressure may increase according to the actions on the screen. For that moment of engagement with the screen you are living in virtual reality.

     Turn away from the virtual reality to the objective reality of the natural world that we take in through our senses.  The mind is engaged with the world of physical reality.

     When we sleep we are engaged with the contents of the mind. For the moment the dream state is our...

      During the the 1960’s Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. rose up as the spokesperson for justice and peace. This was a time when “Leave it to Beaver” (television’s prototypical white American family)portrayed the illusion of  white American middle class comfort and democracy in America.  Civil rights protests and the Vietnam war broke this illusion, and the hippie movement emerged. The hippies were the counter culture to Beaver and his brother Wally by following psychologist, Timothy Leary, in the psychedelic experimentation and attitude of  “turn on, tune in, and drop out”. Even if Dr. Leary meant something different, it was interpreted as drop acid, tune out the world, and your worries would be over.

     Meanwhile nightly news brought images of civil rights clashes of protesters and police in the United States, and families fleeing from bombed villages in Vietnam.

    Reverend Martin...