And on a more down to earth level, it got me thinking how we come to yoga class -us mortals-and we end up doing poses that we didn't think we could do! This happens all the time. I get to witness and be a participant in this phenomena every day! Just last week I did a pose (Ganda Bherundasana) that I literally wrote off as a pose "that will never happen for me; ever." That pose was in my "To never do" list. You know how often we do that? How often we decide that we cannot do something and we simply stop trying? Just on Tuesday a student came in telling me that she was "really weak" and that she cannot do cobra. By the end of class- you guessed it- she did several beautiful cobras, forearm balance (and balanced for a second) and a few urdhvas. It wasn't me. It was her connecting and aligning to her power, which was there all along. Or today in class a student shared that she thought she would never get married, ever, and then at a later age met the love of her life and now is happily married.

Yoga -as my teachers say- is "an invitation and not an obligation." Yoga invites us to embrace all that we think we are, and more. When we join the threads of our mind body, emotional body, physical body and spirit together, and connect to source, we end up expanding our limited perception of who we thought we were. Maybe as we begin our new year of 2012 we can practice opening up to more. 2012 is a interesting year. It is a year marked by Mayan calendar doomsday predictions of the world ending. Maybe on a metaphorical sense we can end the way we perceive ourselves and choose to see ourselves from a broader window.

This weekend I will be taking a three-day course on Craniosacral therapy. Will I become a Craniosacral Therapist? Who knows?! I am simply trying to follow my heart, stay sensitive to its signals and stay open to all that I am becoming. 

May we stay open to possibilities.

May we not decide for ourselves how our day is going to go, how our practice is going to go, our year, our life is going to go. Whatever we are planning for ourselves is simply to small for all that life has waiting for us!

Theme: Open to possibilities.

Qualities: Honor and Open (ie, "Honor yourself, where you are at this moment, but stay open to possibilities.")

Focus: Inner Spiral

Pose: Hanumanasana

Cat/Cow

Down Dog/ Plank vinyasa

Lunge and twist

Uttanasana: with Shins in, thighs out

Half Sun Salutes,

Surya A

Uttanasana: with Inner Spiral adjustment

Surya B with crescent

Uttanasana: with Hamstring widening adjustment

Standing Splits

Handstands

Parsvakonasana

Trikonasana

Half Moon, Chapasana, Revolved Half Moon

Ardha Matsyendrasana

Eka Pada Koundyniasana #1

Baddha Konasana

Eka Pada Virasana

Hanumanasana

Eka Pada Koundyniasana #1

to Ganda Bherundasana

If time: twists using wall: Ardha Matsyendrasana and Krounchyasana twist

Hanumanasana again

Agni Stambasana

Upavista Konasana

Savasana