I like to know what astrology has to say every now and then. Specially around significant astrological events. This Tuesday September 17th we have the beginning of eclipse season with a lunar eclipse in Pices. What I am reading from the astrologer that I follow has hit very close to how I have been feeling lately. This is a time to practice self care and learn to take things and ourselves gently. It is important for everyone to take the time to care for ourselves and slow down whenever we need to.

Every now and then a tendency to want to practice yoga the way other people do sticks its head out. At the beginning it feels like a jolt of invigorating energy to my practice but later on it might not turned out to be too good for me. The way other people practice may be great but if we are not ready for it or it is not the way we are supposed to practice then we run into trouble. My teacher once said that it is better to walk our path imperfectly than to walk somebody else's path perfectly. In the first instance we are learning what we are supposed to be learning, it is our path. In the second instance we are learning somebody else's lessons that we might not need to learn.

I remember one of the first teacher trainings that I took was at a yoga school near the Yuba river in California. The school was in the forrest in the middle of nowhere. I loved walking among the trees in the mornings after it had rain because I got to smell the wet earth. Sometimes when I am walking in Central Park  after a rain I can smell the earth. That smell kindles the memory of the many places in which I have experienced that fragrance. The breath is very powerful and can trigger so much in ourselves.

I just came back from a week vacation and remembered how important it is to have an extended pause every now and then. A pause from our daily routine is not only good but necessary for our well being. In yoga the name for pause is Madhya. This sanskrit word refers to the middle, an in between space. We practice this in every time we step into the yoga mat. At the beginning of the class we have a pause, a moment to signal to our mind and body to leave behind what came before so we can embrace and experience fully our yoga practice. At the end of the class we practice śavāsana which is not only a resting pose but also a way to let the body assimilate what you have done and to signal to the mind that we are entering back into our life outside the class.

I remember when I first started practicing yoga like many of us I used to check out the people around me in class. Some times I did it to admire what other people could do. Other times I did it with a competitive attitude as though I was in a competition with them. This second outlook helped me to push harder which did not necessarily turned out good for me in many occasions. Over time I realized that I had to really focus on my own practice. What this means for me is to observe how I am doing the a pose or how I am transitioning in or out of it. It also means to observe how I am breathing and how the breath affects a pose and vice versa.

Today the full moon looks the biggest among all the full moons of the year. This is because at this time the earth and the moon are closer so as we look at the moon in the sky it looks bigger than usual. In the tradition that I follow on this night we celebrate the Guru or spiritual teacher. I met my teacher in 1996 during a Meditation retreat weekend I was attending at the Masonic Center in Pasadena, California. I decided to attend because I thought it would be a great way to spend a relaxed weekend. Little did I know that life would take a turn I had not even thought was possible or existed. In some many ways the world was still the same and yet so different after that weekend. I still contemplate every now and then how things shifted on that day and continue to shift to this day.