What inspires you to get on the yoga mat? What inspires you to take your yoga off the mat?

diidhiti : Sanskrit for many amazing things, including – inspiration, devotion, light, splendor and majesty…

One day these wonderful ladies and I were talking about yoga stuff (go figure) and eventually this led us into creating this guest blog extravaganza – Thais of ‘Living in the (K)now’ and Tara of ‘Imagine Balance’ and I will be sharing posts on the topic of ‘Beaming diidhiti’ with a focus on ‘Inspiration’.

“Inspiration” is generally a loaded topic for me as an artist- as soon as you “admit” some source- you automatically are tied to said “source”- or at least, to the onlooker you are. But with yoga asana, the idea of “inspiration” is a wild and varied sentiment- with allowances in every direction- a certain “can’t put my finger on”quality that begins to permeate your life- before you even realize it- and regardless of what you think of it- it’s there, all the time. All mixed in with the bus pops and squeals, the trains honking, the graffiti, the air, the sun, the handicapped, the drug addicted, and the one eyed man yelling at you on the street.

To be inspired to get on the mat for yoga asana or to be inspired to take yoga off the mat are essentially tied to each other, similar to cause and effect. The easiest way for me to explain that is when regular yoga asana doesn’t happen taking my yoga out into my life is much more difficult, to be mindful, to watch my speech, to smile on the bus are all fundamentally related.

Come back every Tuesday in April for posts on being inspired in relation to yoga!

When

Beaming diidhiti

was created Thais, Tara and I had gone from yoga talk, to talk about trading creative buttons (which you can see below) to advertise our blogs on each others’- then this guest posting idea flowered up which developed into this project- which I later found out coincides with the ‘YIOM’ project (Yogi’s Inspiring Oneness Month) which basically turned into creative blogging synchronicity!

#YIOM post number 2

it used to be that most of my friends smoked, but now that i have more than my toes in the yoga community it has flopped over to most of my friends don’t smoke. if someone wants to put those chemicals in their lungs, so be it, my issue is more with the butts that are everywhere. cigarettes, cigarettes, cigarettes… butts butts butts… ohkay, my gripe is clearly with the butts.

so, in the passed few months i have noticed these ash trays being attached to tree supports in my neighborhood. the number of them had grown , they spread to surrounding blocks…. they are old soup and tuna cans, painted green and the word ‘ASHTRAY’ painted in white- i found the sheer consistency of them interesting- not every other tree- every single one… anyhow… i was going to put this off- i have been planning on writing a weekend “neighborhood” entry, but i have so much work to get done, that i was going to put it off- ignore my intention. it was apparent  this bugged the heck out of me, and was going to continue too. i decided it would be an quick and easy decision to just jump outside and get a neat photo of these ashtrays. on the way home from the park about an hour earlier i noticed a few new ones…. so, i grabbed my camera and went outside…

this was supposed to be quick, ha ha, right. … so, here i am walking to the street with the better lighting to get his picture, when i realize that i am not seeing any ashtrays… hmmm .. so i keep going, looking around, walking around the block…not a single one… has someone taken them all away? a simple addition to a messy  neighborhood has been taken away? odd… ok, so i go to the street where i saw a few new ones… just an hour earlier… only one was there- the sad little one shown above…  i wonder ….

anyhow, i was going to write about how i appreciated this movement in the neighborhood… but now i wonder where they went, i highly doubt they got taken out for cleaning… or, maybe….

day9

update: if anyone is actually reading this, i found another block with the ashtrays…