Awakening to Beauty.

What a lovely blanket of white that covers the earth today. It’s Mother Nature's sweet reminder to go inward and cultivate a living experience of being present. Slow down, take in deep breaths and relax into the beauty of living fully in the moment. The mind’s habits of roaming outward feed the constant seeking and pushing to do more.

This lovely quiet and peaceful snow is reminding me to enjoy the tranquility of slowing down. Please connect to the breath and use this day and an opportunity to come inward.

The concept of compassion is a moral guiding principle. To cultivate an awareness of self compassion takes the willingness to stop always going outward and practice bringing the attention of mind inward. This inner purpose needs nourishment, and as a yoga community, we must awaken this essential part in all of us—our collective heart.

There is so much fear and agitation being fed in our media today. We’ve become enslaved to our emotions and over think every aspect of our lives. It is too exhausting for our nervous systems. Our well-being is challenged to stay balanced.

Today, take the opportunity to experience an inhale breath. Take a breath in the sweetness of this brilliant snow covering the earth. The roots of every tree are being nourished just as your own systems are experiencing a flow of pranic sensitivity with the flow of breath. Feel the body soften and relax on each long smooth exhale.

This awareness to the seamless flow of breath is bringing in vitality and energy as pure sensation. Just sit with the flow of awarenesses coming on the inhale and moving through on the exhale. Each breath bringing you deeper into a pure awareness of inner awakening.

This is a conscious connection with the universal intelligence. Feel the support of grace unfolding and be in gratitude for the wonders and awe of your magnificent life.

Our collective intention of sharing our ease into the world will help heal humanities suffering. This is a collective practice for the world sharing our interdependence as a loving community of compassionate. Be well, be joyous and go out then and play in this glorious snow!!

Blessings and light,

Laura Jane

Letting Go of Resistance Opens the Doorway into 2021

The year 2020 has come to an end, and we welcome a new spin around the sun. The year was far from what I ever could have imagined, and I struggled with acceptance. I was not mentally or emotionally willing for many of the challenges that were presented.

However, today I am entering this new year with a blank canvas for that which is yet to be revealed. I am accepting the miracle of new beginnings. I am committed to cultivating the word, acceptance.

I might not be able to change the outer circumstances, but I can fully respond with the acceptance of the now. For now, this situation, this moment requires me to live fully in allowing a shift in my consciousness.

It has been a complete year of letting go and offering the situation to arise with my full participation in seeing the good in each moment. I might not like it. I might find it unpleasant; and yet, I have the freedom to choose my acceptance of it.

I find immediately this shifts the flow of my energy and the performing of any task with a lessening of resistance. It allows for a full expansive feeling of peacefulness in the action. This quality of peacefulness is a subtle energy vibration that then flows throughout my state of mind. This flow of peaceful energy is my consciousness.

I am choosing to be content with what is happening versus being caught in my habit of reacting to what I find uncertain or unfamiliar. When my mind links to this state of mind, I am only in fear. Hence my tensions on a physical, mental, and emotional body/mind only increase. And this has been the main cause of exhaustion or mental despair. The year 2020 has brought us the opportunity to start shifting inward.

It became very clear that 2020 is asking us to change; and acceptance of that change can be difficult, messy, and uncomfortable. A huge part of change is in releasing the grip on what we know for the possibility of a new creative vision. True transformation happens when we completely surrender our attachments to the old and welcome what is not yet visible. We must be able to rest in the open space of uncertainty.

This messy transition was happening around me on every level. In my personal life, in my professional life, and in my inner spiritual life. The awakening was slow to be fully embraced, and it has been an ongoing practice throughout the ride of the past year.

“True transformation happens when we completely surrender our attachments to the old and welcome what is not yet visible. We must be able to rest in the open space of uncertainty.”

Last year YAF became an on-line studio. I am not sure how my brilliant web-person, Therese, navigated us forward. I am forever grateful for her endless dedication and hours of support as we kept the studio connected to the community.

Our teachers’ willingness to jump into the deep end of the pool and swim those uncharted waters was beyond the grace of 2020. Their commitment and love of their students was greater than the fear of teaching remotely.

“Community” became our mantra and our full intention in accepting the new frontier. We painted, threw out the sweet reminders of the last 23 years, and found a place of tranquility as we zoomed ahead into 2021.

This past year continuously reminded me that I am not in control of the outer world. Three weeks ago a construction company started to use this Covid winter as a time to drain and dredge our sweet pond in the park in which my house faces. Every winter, I get my joy from watching neighborhood kids gather outside and skate. Often at night, under the stars, I can go out and skate in the quiet, alone with my inner thoughts. My ritual of winter as a sanctuary of peace with nature.

The village chose this winter after more than 40 years, to start this nasty and ugly endeavor. At first I was so disappointed that the one year in which I am not traveling anywhere, I am stuck at home to be a witness to the muck.

And then, the moment of awe graced my consciousness. I decided that this was only a metaphor for the great gifts awaiting in 2021. This project was the actually churning up of the mud. The act of bringing the darkness up from the bottom of the water was stirring my own agitations up to the surface of my own conscious awareness.

I could shift my attitude and just accept it. Accept that this project is long overdue, that there is so much clutter in that pond where over the years people threw their old tires, sinks, and general shit. This was the clearing out.

I could accept this as a grace unfolding. Come spring when the trees start their sweet renewal of growth and the light of the sun is shining longer on the water reflection, there will be a beautiful new landscape and I will be the blessed recipient of all this abundant beauty. I can choose today to see the possibility of what is coming.

2021 is here. The days might be dark now and we are all tired. Yet, choosing the now to see what can be is the gift. Let’s welcome in this year not with fatigue and weariness, but with a renewed passion for what living can be.

We can create this year by digging deep into those places of resistance and simply choose to be accepting. Give in to more wonder and awe in living fully in joy and peace. Let us celebrate! Blessings abound in 2021!

Love and light,

Laura Jane

From Darkness An Awakening of the Light of Love

The interconnectedness of the Universe is the integrity of wholeness. Wholeness is in itself a participatory act both in the function of becoming internally connected to our inner soul and the collective soul of the world’s humanity. This is the constant journey in the art of living. To exclude is to separate our oneness with the Universe.

This week we are moving into the light of the solstice, a profound time as our gentle Earth tilts and we arrive at the beginning. A new dawn returns, and a small crack of light creeps into the dark night.

For many of us this past year as been a collective dark night of the soul. We have been forced to go inward and seek refuge within our separated homes. We have been asked to go deep into the well of our inner landscape and shine the light on our deepest fears. For many, this was not a pleasant experience and the pain brought us to our knees. For many, anger and rebellion is the norm of resistance.

The blame game is so easy to use when the mind refuses to take the gift that is being presented. I have asked myself everyday, “What is good about this”? I have had to dig deep into my own samskaras that keep me a prisoner to my mind’s doubts and fears.

Instead of sitting in the muck, I choose to seek the beauty in what is being presented. I breathe into my physical body and bring my roaming mind back into my inner home, preparing myself to seek the magic which is being revealed. I ask the Universe for help and open myself up to the willingness to move forward.

It is a collective desire to be apart of the grand experience that all of humanity is living now. I have a choice how to respond each day. If I am firmly established in my true self and firmly linked to being gentle and truthful, I am the healing in the world. Each of us can choose to be the healing in the world. The healing is love.

This has been a year of learning to love more by being fearless in the journey presented. A collective shift of consciousness that for thousands of years has created ritual to honor the mystery, the wonder, and the awe of creation. This is an inner journey of our own creation of living, not just in survival, but to thrive in the miracle of the Sun.

We come to a practice to turn on our own inner light, and to nourish our system as a whole. To cultivate the awareness of beauty which includes moral beauty, the seed of our collective humanity. The effort, to clear our mind’s lens to actually experience the full grace of this beauty, is to bring forth the passion and love that we must all plant again in our hearts.

This new year will not erase the loss, but from ashes, the phoenix arises. Bring in the rituals of reverence to your practice as this auspicious day unfolds. Together, we are moving into a profound new landscape. Creativity is born into this space of the open heart that is the wholeness of the entire Universe. Be present, be here, and be in love.

Blessings in this birth of the light,

Laura Jane