Sianna was her radiant and creative self- she is by far my favorite yoga teacher and I simply feel so welcome in her presence. Her energy is so grounded that I feel I can come to her classes/workshops feeling any rasa and she will reach me no matter what. 

Paul Mueller is this powerful Siva-like presence, shining radiant intelligence through his piercing blue eyes and thundering timbre. He oozes brilliance and through my years of sporadic study with him I find myself unpacking things he has said a while back. I always want to meditate even more whenever I study with him.

There was a lot said this weekend and I am still unpacking it.

Interestingly enough one of the phrases that both of them used at different moments was that yoga and this philosophy "rearranges" you. That yoga has the potential to transform our lives and re-organize it. There was a lot of talk about how if everything is made of light, then our work as yogis is to create an alchemy and melt anything that has become frozen, petrified in our lives so that we can tap in to its basic essence, its shakti.

Hugely powerful metaphor that of "melting"; 

melting our identities; 

melting and releasing what needs to be released; 

melting our samskaras.

My favorite story that Paul shared was about the 19th Century sage Ramakrishna Paramahansa. Born in 1836 and died in 1886, he only lived to be 50. But this radiant Indian mystic led an incredibly full and inspiring life. He had so many moments of ecstatic visions that his family thought he was crazy. Later they realized he was a saint and they left him alone to meditate on his beloved Kali-Ma. 

Paul related how Ramakrishna would do puja in front of a Kali-Ma statue in her temple and he would cry and beg the goddess to "show her true form" and "reveal herself to him." Nothing would happen. Ramakrishna was in despair. One time he grabbed a knife that was near the statue (it's Kali-Ma after all) and he threatened to commit suicide unless she revealed her true form. And according to the story he suddenly was filled with an intense light and became completely absorbed into the ocean of consciousness. He famously taught that there is one energy, one God and that it is both form and formless. Paul said that he was a Tantric yogi and he was responsible in great part for the ushering of yoga into modern times.

I kept visualizing Ramakrishna (and if you google him you will see many sweet images of him) crying to the Goddess, asking her to reveal herself! How I can identify with this! I think in some way, whenever we mediate or show up to our practice, we are in some small way asking the Goddess to reveal herself; to reveal her true form. To help us melt away all that separates us from this radiant energy that is who we really are.

I will carry that image of Ramakrishna in front of Kali-Ma with me for a while.