COURTNEY ROHAN YOGA

This week I had an opportunity to see more of myself. Living is like that if we take the time to see, hear, use our senses to be present to what is within us, and how we interact with what is around us. What do you see within yourself? Do you see the good or do you see the not so good? Can you see both?  After a meditation with the People of Color Sangha on Thursday, the dharma talk, as shared by Rev. Liên Shutt, was about the "Enso of Wholeness." The "Enso, a Japanese word meaning 'circular form' and usually translated into English as 'Zen circle,' is the symbol supreme of Buddhist enlightenment"(lionroar.com). Rev. Shutt shared that we often forget that the inside of the circle is just one aspect of the whole that we are not trapped or defined by. In some cases the enso has this slight space where the beginning does not meet the end, in which we can see that we are incomplete and yet complete, inside but also beyond as well.  This week as I was s

  Patience is an important virtue full of ripe lessons. One must be still to behold her, and she must be held with honor or none of her vital juices will be obtained. This is Divine timing in short. We can not force her to give us what we want. Without care, she will not produce.  This year with California being in a drought like never before, I have stopped watering my grass. My once green grass has turned brown. I am Ok with this as I would rather have water to drink and bathe in than to worry about my curb appeal at this time. Still, I have other plants in my yard that need watering, so it has been a trial to discover how much water I can not give them and still have them thrive. How much is just enough?  Opening to Divine timing   For a while, I stopped watering to see what would happen. Weeks went by. The leaves on my lemon tree showed signs of dehydration. Her leaves began to yellow, and her fruit remained small and green, taking much longer this year to ripen.  She will ripen ce

For the longest time, when people would talk about joy, the best I could think was that: if I was in joy, I was just really, really happy. In joy meant that I was having the best day ever. I was in bliss. Nothing could bring me down.  But then something would and I would say, I lost my joy .  And though happiness is how joy manifests sometimes, that is not always the case.  Have you ever felt something so deeply, something so beautiful, so heart felt, you couldn't help but cry? Have you ever cried "tears of joy"?  Sometimes, these are the moments that bring us to our knees.  The loss of a loved one, and as a result, the bird that comes to sit outside the window and chirps us a love song. The depth of the experience felt, the connection made, as a result of the pain from losing that which we love.   Joy can be like this too, not just surface happiness because things are going our way.  No, rather we feel the magnitude of our heart and its overflow. We feel the wellspring

What does it mean to be balanced? What can one do to find balance? And, how can it be sustained? Recently, I have been contemplating these questions because so much can appear to be in or out of balance in the world. If you look with your two eyes, it can seem from day to day that a great many things are not as they should be. The rich can continue to get rich, and the poor can continue in their path the same. No matter how much one might pray for it to be different, for all of us to be free and vital, our eyes show us people who are unhappy, struggling to make ends meet and unhealthy in their body-mind and spirit. Maybe you can relate? We've also seen the rich become poor, bank accounts or life energy depleted. The rich sports athlete does not take care of their income/ energy flow/ body, and at the end of their career, they have none of their once acquired gains to show for their time. Or, the come-up scenario where the poor, who through hard work or Divine intervention reconnect

You never know what is ahead. Five years ago, we never could have dreamed we'd have come to this juncture. Ten years ago... shoot, a day ago sometimes now, things change very quickly.  I never did believe my parents, till now, when they said that as I got older the boredom that I would often feel, stuck in a situation, would not be but a "blip in the sand." I do believe that "blip" was really the word my father used. And, it's true. The time that has past, though some moments have not felt small, in relationship to the whole that is our lives and collective lives, is just that: a blip.  Thank goodness for blips when we are unhappy!!  This year I have seen a lot of things change. We have all changed. As we reflect, halfway through the year, this blip has thrown me into a letting go of what does not serve. It has afforded me a chance to be more still and discern what is best for me, to listen to my heart in order to make clearer decisions.  Used to be, I was m

  How do you remember? What do you remember?  This past Sunday, before Memorial Day, I e-hosted in the Elevation Church chat on Youtube. This is my service. I volunteer, enjoying the experience of “walking people to their seats” online, welcoming them with the appropriate links/ information to support their experience, and prayer.  This Sunday while volunteering, someone placed a prayer request in the chat. It was for their elderly friend who has Dementia, who is struggling to remember. It was the woman’s birthday. I thought about this for a while. How much we take our ability to remember for granted. How, in some cases, we go out of our way to try to forget.  Today, Memorial Day, I offered a Memorial Meditation through Revolution Yoga. We used the Kirtan Kriya in which you chant Sa Ta Na Ma in a loud voice, then in a whisper and then silently to yourself and Infinity, while moving your fingers into various mudras. This is a meditation that has been scientifically studied and offered