My OHMazing™ Journey: Hey Maa!

 by Ahila Gulasekaram

Hey Maa!

Finally, my most favorite time of the year is here…BEAUTIFUL, WONDERFUL FALL!! 

Tree pose celebrating the return of fall!

What’s not to like about the cooler weather, field trips to the pumpkin patch, and homemade Halloween costumes? It’s the time of year that always makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside! Besides the steamy apple cider and yummy pumpkin pie, I’m most excited about this time of year because of the festival of Navaratri. I have the fondest childhood memories of this colorful, joyous festival which celebrates the Divine Mother in her glorious forms. 

The word Navaratri literally means nine nights in Sanskrit, nava meaning nine and ratri meaning nights. During these nine nights, three powerful forms of Shakti (Female Energy) are worshiped and celebrated. 

The first three nights are dedicated to the mother goddess in her primal force called Durga also known as Kali, in order to destroy all our impurities. 

On the second three nights, the Mother is adored as the goddess of spiritual wealth, Lakshmi, who is considered to have the power of bestowing inexhaustible prosperity on her devotees.

With my mother

The final three nights are spent honoring the goddess of wisdom, Saraswati, who is also known as the goddess of knowledge, music, and arts. We seek the blessings of all three aspects of the divine Shakti, hence the nine nights of celebration!

I am so blessed to have an amazing mother who truly embodies the essence of Durga, Lakshmi, and Saraswati. Her love is instinctual, unconditional, and forever. When I spend time with my mom I’m constantly reminded of the Jewish proverb,” God could not be everywhere and, therefore, He made mothers.” 

 

Five months ago I began my sweet journey into motherhood. If I can be half the mother that my mom is, I know that I’ve succeeded!

Jai Shri Maa!

How has your mother or other women in your life influenced your personal journey? Comment below for a chance to win the new Yogiños: Yoga for Youth® DVD, Vishnu's OHMazing™ Journeys.

Ahila Gulasekaram is a Yogiños:Yoga for Youth®-Inspired instructor at the Crow Collection of Asian Art Museum.  Ahila’s classes are uniquely influenced by her background and passion for Indian classical dance.  She is committed to helping kids make OHMazing™choices for themselves, others, and the environment!

 

My OHMazing™ Journey: Meredith Paterson

by Meredith Paterson

On Tuesdays throughout the fall, we will be blogging about our journeys in celebration of the release of our new DVD Vishnu's Ohmazing™ Journeys, created in partnership with Yogiños: Yoga for Youth® and the Crow Collection of Asian Art in Dallas.

Share your thoughts on your own journey in the comments below and you will be entered to win one of the new DVDs. We will choose one person at random each week.

*****
When Beth first asked me to write about my journey, I panicked more than a little. Journeys are slippery things, and I don't quite feel like I have my head wrapped around what my own journey means. But I guess that is kind of the point. We keep on moving.

My sister, Jennifer Seibel, Sara (my niece), and me doing
yoga at the Crow Collection of Asian Art

Right now, the word that most resonates with me in respect to my journey is flow. I can be a word hater sometimes, and flow is not my favorite-sounding word. I had trouble even writing it. Flow is hard for me. I like to resist and analyze and edit and squirm. But life is funny. Resistance is futile.

On my journey right now, I am learning to be more fluid. Fluidity, that sounds better. I am learning to be like water. And learning is the operative word here because still I resist like crazy.

I started my journey with yoga about 11 years ago. I was in grad school, struggling through a break-up, and like many people who walk into a yoga studio for the first time, in pain. Yoga became home for me, a time to move and sweat and get out of my brain. And the good news is that it never ends there. I have learned over and over again that yoga meets you where you are, embraces you, and before you're aware of it consciously, asks more of you.

Fast forward several years and I started wanting more than to sweat and get out of my brain. I wanted to get back into my brain and understand how yoga was working. I started yoga to disconnect from myself in some ways, and yoga taught me that what I really needed was to reconnect. The deeper I dove in, the more I realized just how powerful these practices can be. So powerful that it's often easier to shy away from them than to really feel them.

I was working in education at the time. I had always been deeply fascinated by brain development and learning, and my career was focused on helping struggling readers. As I experienced yoga, though, I began to understand in my body what we now know through research. Learning is a full-body experience. We do not learn very well when we're locked in chairs and lectured at, and unfortunately, our educational system (the system not teachers) willfully denies what science and our own experiences confirm.

Beth and Meredith at a training in Park City, UT

It became clearer and clearer to me that my path was to help children integrate movement, breath, mindfulness, and connection with their bodies into their daily lives.  Just as this dawned on me, I met Beth Reese, founder of Yogiños: Yoga for Youth®. Here was my calling, my dharma, a yoga program for children and families that incorporated language-learning (classes are taught in English, Spanish, and Sanskrit), art, music, social skills, environmental responsibility, and more into each class. She has created a brilliant program that helps children connect. To themselves, to others, to their planet. Through Yogiños, children learn how to learn.

I have met so many incredible, talented people through Yogiños. Each training that we do fills me up with excitement and hope for the future because all of the participants care so deeply about the health and well-being of our children. My heart swells with gratitude and love as I hear about how each teacher helps the children and families in their communities. To me, this is what it feels like to be tuned in to the flow.

with Sara at the Dallas
Aquarium

I'll finish with this, the thing that makes every struggle, every fumble worthwhile. Wisdom from my 4-year-old niece, a dedicated yogi who is always game to create new yoga poses with me and help me refine my skills.

[On the playground last week]

Sara (my niece): Aunt Mere, we have to jump and move like this.
Aunt Mere: Why, Sara?
Sara: Because it makes our brains grow.





I dedicate this to my husband, Steve. There aren't enough words to express how supportive he has been as I move down this path. He understands intuitively what it means to flow with life, and I learn from him every day. He reminds me to laugh and move and dance and not take it all so seriously. Love.


Meredith Blanks Paterson is the Director of Yoga Trainings for Yogiños: Yoga for Youth® as well as the Director of Yogiños: Yoga for Youth® Austin.

108 Days of OHMazing™ Journeys

Welcome to our 108 Days of OHMazing™ Journeys!

Today we launch our new DVD, Vishnu's OHMazing™ Journeys, created in partnership with the Crow Collection of Asian Art, we invite you to participate in 108 Days of OHMazing™ Journeys. . Each Tuesday for the next several months, we will post about someone's journey. Starting today, we will be giving away a FREE DVD each week to a randomly chosen person who comments on the Tuesday blog post.

Purchase the new DVD here!

For the 108 Days of OHMazing™ Journeys, we also will post each day of the week on different topics including poses, wellness, healthy snack ideas, being a hero at home, and much much more!

Join me, please, and celebrate the unfolding of our paths.  

Shanti ~ Peace ~ Paz
Beth 
_______________________________________________________________________________

When the Teacher is Ready the Student Arrives

"People say when the student is ready, the teacher appears. I also think when the teacher is ready the student appears... and it is here where our life's path often begins to unfold."
~ Rama Jyoti Vernon, SYTAR CA 2011

Jordan on her 10th Birthday.

On February 25, 2000, my first daughter, Jordan, arrived. At 37 weeks I woke up at 4am feeling that her journey into this world was much closer. After watering new plants and taking care of a few things, like packing my bag, at noon I went to see my doctor.

"Yup. I see what looks like snowflakes under the microscope. That's amniotic fluid. We should admit you to the hospital to prevent infection," said Zis Weisburg, my fantastic doctor.

A short-time later my other doctor joined me in my room. I remember him sitting down next to me and looking at me with compassion and saying, "I know you have spent a lot of time on your birth plan. We have discussed it at length and it's really well-done. And I am so sorry to say it's pretty much out the window."

IV?
check.

Pitocin?
check.

Pitocin cranked?
check.

Give-in and get epidural?
Big check.

Walking?
no.

Breathe and be flexible?
.... when the teacher is ready the student arrives.

Me and Amy Hofland (right).

Jordan arrived 10 hours later. My favorite call was to my dear friend and colleague, Amy Hofland. "Amy, I've been trying to think what the best birthday present for you would be.... and all I've got is a baby....!?!?!?" Laughter and tears and hugs from miles away came pouring through the phone.

Jordan, as many of you know, has Sensory Integration Disorder (I really prefer "Gift" than "disorder," but that's a topic for another day.). She was a gift from the moment she was conceived, and that became crystal clear that first night in the hospital. Never before in my life had there been someone who desperately needed me and my unconditional love and patience.  The intensity of her presence still remains rather constant and I find myself turning toward my yoga practice for grace and help daily. .... when the teacher is ready the student arrives.

When Jordan was 6 years old we learned her challenges had this name. We were told she would not grow out of it, but needed to learn to grow into it. Embracing this idea, we entered an ongoing conversation about the solution and management of the challenge, rather than the problem itself. Here I discovered that much of what I was learning in yoga, Jordan was learning in Occupational Therapy. We work together to reflect and respond on "misfiring dendrites"; what does that feel like and can you sense when it starts? We developed a "tool box" that "make my dendrites feel good," Jordan would share.

Indeed, my dendrites felt better, too. .... when the teacher is ready the student arrives.

Jordan enjoys writing screen-plays.

Flash forward 11 years. Jordan's toolbox is one she shares with friends when they are in need. She is a gifted screen-writer, movie-maker, director, producer, and editor; she is learning professional editing programs. We had a conversation last night reflecting on how she needs a job "like yours mom, because you do different things everyday and I don't work right when it's too routine." .... when the teacher is ready the student arrives.

Four years ago I disembarked from a career as a University Galleries director and Visiting Professor of Art. I left in part because the work was no longer right for me. I was scared. Who would I be if not an academic? I also wanted to spend more time with my kids including my son, Cole, and then newborn, Andersen. I wanted to be with them, and I dreamed of helping them feel confident with navigating this ever-evolving planet. .... when the teacher is ready the student arrives.

We can choose to see life as a churning ocean bringing forth treasures.

Three years ago I began Yogiños: Yoga for Youth®. At its core, the program strives to offer youth and families tools and techniques to make their lives rich with OHMazing™ Journeys. I never dreamed that by following this unexpected path I would have the opportunity to gaze eye-to-eye with so many youth, or laugh and cry with so many adults, or work and play in partnership with the world-class Crow Collection of Asian Art, or feel so at-home knowing that I am the perpetual student in my own OHMazing™ Journeys.....

Meredith Paterson views and discusses art in the museum.

To each of you—my teachers—I extend from my heart gratitude-filled light and love. Whether we are already friends or friends yet to meet, I honor you and your patience, laughter, smiles, hugs, and knowledge that we are "all in this together". 

What are some of your journeys, expected or unexpected? Take a moment. Close your eyes or 
 burst out in laughter or tears and reflect and respond to your unfolding path .....................

Share your journeys with us in the comments below, and we will enter you into a drawing to win a free DVD!