Posted by David on July 17, 2015

Day 26

On vacation. Ahhh, sweet summertime in my East Coast homelands of Connecticut and New York.

I’m happy to say – more than halfway into week 4 of my commitment to “regular” yoga – I am still committed. I will admit, week 2 I did yoga 5 days instead of 6, between travel days, and celebrating my daughter’s 8th birthday on the Fourth of July. But I managed 6 days of yoga during week 3, with a little added time to compensate for my missed day in week 2.

In the name of traveling light, I did not bring such luxurious props as my Barefoot Yoga Zafu meditation pillow. A couple of evenings I found myself full of dinner, and still with no practice under my belt. I stacked a bunch of pillows which squashed down when I sat on them. Although this did not provide the comfort I’m used to from my mediation throne at home (a Zafu on top of a zabuton) – it definitely sufficed.

At this point in my “yoga revival” I have become much better about getting up early, and doing a morning asana practice – which is sometimes still difficult to motivate myself for – but seems to be getting easier. I have found rolling out a mat, setting my watch to 30 or 35 minutes, and just starting it without thinking too much about it works best. Also, I have done many of these practices outdoors, and have reconnected to the joy of yoga in nature. In a few instances, when I took my almost 90 year-old mother to her 3 day a week work out at the hospital, I walked to a small park/playground a few minutes away, and practiced on a nice flat patch of grass. I am looking forward to visiting this spot for a final time tomorrow.

I have also enjoyed yoga on the beach for the past two days. One of my favorite spots to meditate is where the water hits the beach, and creates a shelf. As one who has always been stiff in the hip and groins – a lift for my seat is a necessity for comfortable meditation, and the natural lift I get on the side of a hill, or the shelf on the beach works perfectly. I believe the roar of the ocean is as good a background sound for yoga/meditation as I have found, although birds chirping the sound of breeze in the trees is pretty darn nice too.

During some of these asana and meditation practices I have felt elation. I have felt increasing strength, and uplift. At other times, I have had to push myself to keep going. But in every case, I have felt better, more balanced, more even-keeled as a result of my almost daily practice.

Normally I accompany my words with pictures of various yoga tools our 17 year-old company Barefoot Yoga offers. Today, I’m providing a picture of me meditating on the naturally formed cushion that is without question one of my favorite for meditation. As we at Barefoot Yoga have said from the start, we offer these products as tools to help achieve more peace and stillness through the practice of yoga when there is restlessness of the mind, intellect and spirit. These tools are only external props that we have personally enjoyed in our experiences. The true pathway is within yourself.

Posted under Health and Fitness, Meditation, Styles of Yoga