2020 has gifted us with time to think, to feel, to contemplate.

Which are my true desires?

Which are the things I can live without?  

Which aspects from my pre-2020 life are not sustainable? 

What do I want to do with this life, ephemeral, uncertain? 

Human embodiment is a precious treasure, an extraordinary gift from the Maha Shakti.  The body-mind is an incredible vehicle for the experience of different levels and stages of consciousness. 

When we live in misalignment, there is a fragmentation between our experience and our essence. Our desires spring forth from  darkness and our vision is limited. And so it is the reality of our life. 

It is our responsibility to refine the instrument of the body-mind

Sages and masters from all times, invite us to dive into the heart and taste the hidden currents of Shakti. What is know in the esoteric hinfu traditions as rahasya (the secret).  

There it is the power of sadhana that allows us: 

To release limitations that endarken our experience 

R  E  C  A  L  I  B  R  A  T E 

Attune with higher and higher frequencies 

From there desires and vision get refined, aligning with the divine energy of will, of desire

I C C H A   S H A K T I

My theme and my wish for 2021

ELEVATE YOUR VISION

For your own realization

For your own happiness

For the evolution of humanity

In this planetary moment of deep transformation, collective vision is the sum of individual visions 

Accept your responsibility 

ELEVATE YOUR VISION

I leave you with a powerful, beautiful, inspiring teaching from the Upanishads 

“You are your deepest desire.

As you desire is, so it is your will.

As your will is, so it is your action.

As you action is, so it is your destiny”

BRIHADARANYAKA UPANISHAD

¡ Feliz 2021 !

This Solstice keeps up with 2020: special, intense, different

On December 21st,  the darkest day of the year, it will take place one of the most important astrological events of the year: the Great Conjunction between Saturn and Jupiter.  

What makes this event so relevant is not only the conjunction of these two giant planets but the fact that they do at 0 degrees in the sign of Aquarius.  

It is not surprising that the date for the vaccine approval regulation in Europe, set before for December 29th, has been moved to the 21st.  Either we are in favor of vaccines or or not, the fact is that they represent a social inflection point into the post-pandemic future.  

So, why is this astrological event so relevant?

Lets go one step at a time 

If Saturn and Jupiter were your friends, Saturn would be the resourceful one. That person that goes the extra mile to do anything needed. With stable and conventional life, his success is the result of hard work. Demanding and maybe excessively arrogant, he is usually not the soul of the party.  

On the other hand, Jupiter is the friend you have fun with, optimistic and in high spirits. Spite of his lighter attitude towards life his improbable plans magically turn into manifestation. He inhales abundance and exhales joy. Júpiter also represents the teacher, the guru, the container of wisdom.   

On Solstice day, when a cycle of light closes to start a new one, they will be standing together in the sky in the sign of Aquarius.  

Aquarius is the sign of innovation, of alternative thinking, of revolutionary change, of cutting edge ideas. It is the sign of the future. A future that has never been more uncertain but that shows up with fresh and youthful energy.

Aquarius is as well the sign of society, of groups of people with similar vision; the sign of community. With the current plutonian transformations, Aquarius  invitation is to the power of the collective, to the establishment of systems in agreement with our evolution as human beings, of where “the different” have its place.  

Aquarius is the sign of electromagnetic waves, the Internet and social networks. Their  relevance is obvious in 2020 is obvious. We are worldly connected at a click. New ways of communication, with lights and shadows, nd with undeniable power. Aquarius  invites us to embrace them for the benefit of humanity.  

Saturn and Jupiter get here after a long journey through the sing of Capricorn. They have been closely accompanied by Pluto (Shiva, Kali of deep transformation and dissolution).  Saturn has moved through his own sign, questioning world structures, but also our inner mind structures. Intense. All together have razed the world as we knew it and shaken the foundations of our individual lives. 

Pluto stays behind dissolving what still has to go, as hard as it feels. 

Jupiter and Saturn start their mission in Aquarius holding hands. Complementary opposites. Saturn gets down to work. There is a future to create, new structures to consolidate. Step by step. Jupiter adds optimism, a high vision, joy and abundance. 

Future is already here 

And the Universe offers to us the gift of wisdom and expansion, with a great dose of tenacity and realism.

 …..

This Solstice 

Create an innovative vision for your life 

Make the collective part of it 

Envision the humanity you desire 

Happy Winter Solstice – Happy Yule

This year, the ending of summer makes me sad.  

In some way I like fall. It is the season I was born in. But I like summer a lot more.  

What is clear is that I like fall in some places more than others. 

It is my favourite season in Morocco. When beaches become a gift only for locals, after summer hustle, first swells arrive and with them the surfers,

It was my favourite season when I used to live in American Midwest. Finally, the suffocating humid heat os summer appeased, and the countless trees  were dyed in surreal colours. Psychedelic yellows, oranges and reds made me feel part of a magic dream. 

It is hard for me in my hometown. Cold arrives early there.

This year is particularly hard, because is showing up loaded with the wounds and uncertainty of spring. 

Ok, enough nostalgia

Lets celebrate today this special moment of balance.  

B a l a n c e  

 Always searched for. Always desired.

We talk of physical balance, mental balance, emotional balance, balance between this and that. We talk about it as if it was a goal, a place to arrive to and in which to stay.  

Nature, on one hand, shows us the ephemeral of that place of  pure equality between opposites. Two days in a full year. Equinox. 

On the other hand, it shows us the importance of certain balance for life. You just have to look at your body. The human body utilises great part of its energy to regulated values of parameters such as temperature,  pH, chemical compounds blood concentration. The body is unceasingly trying to maintain itself in a state that in Biology is called homeostasis. A state of variable equilibrium, on which its existence totally depends,  

Balance is always Dinamic.

The Universe works as a increasingly push and pull.  

Sometimes sweet and fun; sometimes, challenging and intens. 

And some days, like today allows us to taste the place in which opposites become equal in intensity.

And that we will have to let it go. As the trees start to dye, and then release, their leaves, to gift us with the most beautiful images of the season.

 And we will keep on feeling the trembling, the doubting,  the vibration…

Happy Fall Equinox  – Happy Mabon

Every Full Moon is a challenge. Two opposite forces pulling us in different directions. Today, there is an additional tension in the sky with Mars/Neptune squaring the conjunction Sun/Venus and the Moon. As if we need something else… a Lunar Eclipse! 

Time to look into our shadow material .

Can you feel it?

I am sure you do. It is intense. 

Venus, the planet of relationships is traveling with the Sun in Geminis, placing the focus on this area of our lives. Being retrograde, it pushes us to look deep inside and question the way we relate to other. At a collective level, it is a profound investigation of how the different pieces of our society hold together, to which are the wounds in the connective tissue of society.  

And here it comes Sagittarius. Showing the naked truth with zero consideration  aquí apart we are bothered with what we find. 

In this moments of protest and activism, a Full Moon in Sagittarius can be gasoline into the fire. The Moon in this sign overflows passion. It can be also full of anger and rage, bringing uncontrollable emotional bursts. There is so mucha pain and rage in the world right now. An accumulated rage, mostly justified. 

 It is crucial that we connect with the highest road of the Sagittarius element of fire. Rage can consumes us in the same way a fire can destroy an entire forest. Rage can also be fuel to ignite action for change. Be aware of dramatic behaviours or exaggeration.

The invitation is to cultivate wisdom and hold a higher vision.

For your life. For humanity. For the Earth.

How can we do that?

As yogis and yoginis, we cultivate our fire. In Sanskrit is called   tapas and it is one of the fruits of sadhana, of practice. We want to cultivase a healthy fire. A fire that brings purification and transformation, but not destruction. A fire that breaks patterns and inertia bringing positive change. 

It is our responsibility choosing which are the changes we want to implement in the world.  

Each thought matters. Each word matters. Each intention matters. Each action matters.  

Lets not make the same mistakes over and over again.  

For the last weeks, we have been studying the Bhagavad Gita in the Immersion groups. One of my  favourite teachings in this sacred text, source of inspiration of generation after generation, is 

“Establish yourself in yoga and, then, act” 

If we want to see powerful, sustainable, conscious change we need to stop reacting. We need to take the time to connect, to move deep through the layers of conditioning and act from a place of love. This is the Sagittarius energy as seeker of the Truth.  

Mars, planet of action, seems to be in an uncomfortable place in Pisces in conjunction with Neptune. It shows the confusion we are immersed in, the sensation of not being able to take the necessary actions. We can take this place of Mars into our advantage, precisely, to increase our capacity to dream big and create new collective visions from Consciousness, with capital letters. 

 These days the path is through meditation, contemplation and focusing in how I can, specially through my daily actions, serve others better, serve the world better. 

This Full Moon …

Offer your limitations and conditioning to the fire of Consciousness in the heart 

 

Contemplate your highest intention now 

 

Ignite your individual fire through the power of your sadhana 

 

Get ready to act from there 

Contemplation

How do your daily actions and your highest vision hold together? 

NAMASTE

This pictures reflects, in some way, some of my impressions at the moment .

A diffused spring 

immersed in this futurist, surrealist panorama 

in which I learn, more and more, to live in the  present,

with the sensation, as in the picture

of not being able to see further than the close instant.  

It is in those instants, when I find myself distinguishing  as never before the detailes in the landscape that, from the window, accompanied me in my afternoons of study during my teens. So much looking though the same window, in this, another time, the colours offer me an unusual richness of nuances and the horizon gets full with exquisite details.  

I can say the same about my inner landscape, with more time to explore and wonder at its exuberant reality. 

r e a l i t y

interesting concept

If I speak about the reality pulsating  with light and filled with possibilities that abides inside of me, those always ready to raise the tirant flag of rationality would reproach that I am not a realistic person.  How daring to forget that dense and weird “reality” we universally inhabit?

There are moments in which that reality suffocates me. But I must admit that, so far, are the least. 

 yoga has innumerable, and some times nearly antagonist, teachings about reality.

One of them is this list of the four states of Consciousness (that Tantra broadens later): 

waking
dreaming
deep sleep
“turya”  or meditative state 

 

Which one is more real? 

What I live in this moment sitting in front of my computer, feeling the freshness of the morning and watching a flock of white doves to take flight at once?  

Tonight´s dream when I was in my Moroccan home with a feeling that something was differente?  

The darkness I perceive when I close my eyes that has its own permission to change into any form or no-form at every moment?  

These days, more than ever, the different states of my Consciousness intermingle dancing among them  

… And I am grateful.

I am grateful to be reminded that reality is less solid than I think. 

I am grateful to be reminded that everything is One.

What is reality? 

No doubt it is a  mystery 

A mystery that guides me to keep on practicing,

with deeper love for the practices 

and with deeper love for life.

NAMASTE

…with love to Shyama

March 25th 2020 – DAY 12th of lockdown 

In a rebellious act, I looked into the mirror and, as if breaking free from this invisible cage in  which I have been twelve days already, I paint my lips red.

Maybe I did not have a red lipstick in my make-up purse for the last twenty-five years. Yes, since those times in which I used to disowned my tanned skin during summer and attempting to look like a geisha/punk/what-do-I-know, I used to apply a very expensive greenish cream that, below the make-up, several tones lighter than my skin, cancelled any rose color from my cheeks.  At those times, in which Pluto was hanging hands with my Sun, a gothic and sinister entity possessed me and it only allowed me to dress in black and show up in ways that know I see as very little flattering.

A red lipstick was one of the last things I bought before the quarantine. I was desiring one  for a long time, and in several occasions I went into a make-make-up shop, leaving with my empty hands. Infinite options of red. I do really back choosing among so many options. I get blocked. But that day of tension, the day that the toilet paper was sold out in Madrid, I went down to but Kleenex and, as it was forbidden to test the lipsticks for the posible infection, I asked the saleswoman to chose one for me. 

I did not think about the lipstick in all these days. Until today. It was the day to go out shopping.  Tired of the unrecognisable image of myself in the mirror, I dressed in black and grey, as the energy of the last news. Delighting myself in the moment, that I consciously made longer as if stopping time, the mirror lit up with my blood color, life color, lips.

In my imagination were the  passers-by I would cross with. There looks of gratitude for the joy of my lips. My little grain of sand in an uncertain and sad world.

The town look like a desert. Not even my beloved Murakami would have imagined the possibility of a whole world in pause, with all the people isolated. Once in the street I took out from my pocket the mask that my mom had made hours ago, sewing close to the window.  Mask.  Walls. Borders. Cages into cages, like Russian matrioshkas.  

I look into the mirror. I see myself different. Tomorrow I will make some waves in my hair. Waves of freedom that remind me of the Ocean. 

Nature is an artwork. The coronavirus image could be a contemporary art painting hanging in any of our, now closed, city museums. 

But I am saying this thinking in a more masterful sense. In a momento where the human species was unstoppably moving towards its own destruction, Nature, yes, Mother Earth, manifests its grandiose power as a single ARN chain that is challenging our way of life.  

Covid-19, one more of the species that form this complex entity that we call Earth and from which we are part of, shows up as a weapon of the Mother, in its most ferocious form, know in the Hindu tradition as Kali, to give us a time to contemplate, to recalibrate our habits, offering us the possibility of survival as humans on this beautiful planet.

In my morning walk with Ananda, I was thinking on how nature continues its course with no alteration. Sun rises in the morning, the sky gets painted in blue, birds sing (it seems even louder with the absence of other sounds), flowers show off happy in their branches. Only humans are missing, and this brings a sense of both emptiness and relief.  

This world-wide experience is a great opportunity for growth and evolution. I hope we all use this time in a wise way to elevate our energy, our awareness so we can start anew with a renovated vision. 

I have been trying to write this blog for a few days, navigating through certain lack of concentration and a inner bombing of  ideas for writing. So I have decided to codify in smaller contents. The most important message I want to convey today is: 

It is not possible to insist enough about this: your sadhana is more important than ever.

Sadhana = regular, constant, devotional practice

It has not been a more important moment to practice YOGA than now, both for your individual well-being and for the opportunity to elevate human consciousness.  

This are  some of the benefits of establishing a regular and constant practice during this time at home:

• At a physical level, practice of asana and pranayama strengthen the inmune system and gives vitality. It will also help you to sleep better.  
• At a mental level, it gives you a rest from so much information and helps you to maintain clarity. 
• At an emotional level, allows you to connect with the observer and not been swept by the intense emotions that can bring episodes of anxiety. On one hand, the emotional body is altered and the nervous system on alert. There is a whirlwind of emotions, thoughts, feelings. Human beings have a brutal capacity for adaptation but even though, we all feel we are in front  of an extreme situation in which we lose control over our lives. It is important NOT deny your emotions. It is totally normal to feel fear sadness, rage,… Allow yourself to cry or to express your emotions. 
• At a spiritual level, yoga connects you with the essence and generates trust.

As yogis we have been preparing for this and, in fact. many of us see this time as a time of spiritual retreat.  In the same way that social discipline is important to stop the infection, the discipline and energy of our sadhana is key in these moments to bring  light into the world

  If you do not have a regular sadhana. this is the perfect moment to create this discipline.  

With the intention to help, I am starting to offer on-line classes in my on-line school rasalilayoga.online in the upcoming days. There will be some free classes and the possibility to subscribe to some more. Lets be in touch. And write me with suggestions about what you need in these moments.