THE SACRED TANGO

• Today's suggested practice: Six minutes to tune your body... (see below)

• My playlist while writing today's meditation: Gotan Project, Celos 

• My morning practice: 90 minutes, short warm up for lower triangle, followed by Kriya to Know the Other as Myself (mantra and mudra), Linking to the Infinite (pranayama and mantra)

• My vulnerability practice: Feel my self-doubt, my limiting beliefs —then inhale the trust and guidance of my oracle: I'm not like that now.

—Hans Peter Meyer

MY MEDITATION In a polarized relationship, in that dance where one embodies direction and purpose, and the other free and flowing unfolding, the one walks almost always forward, the other almost always back. This polarity is in my body, between what the yogis call my "masculine" and "feminine" energies. It is in the relationships outside of my body, the ones that give the greatest insight, the greatest difficulties.

It is not a simple duality of lead/follow. The structure sounds reductionist, but within in turns the whole paradox of this apprenticeship to the art of love, because to find the way forward the lead must first feel into the follow's needs. Our art of life, of tango, of love is made when the lead surrenders to the heart of the follow, and in this surrender is able to move the dance forward into the endless surrenders and misunderstandings and epiphanies that make each silence, each conversation, each dance its own art.

It is my gift in this dance, this life, to be strong and dense and capable of defending and guiding those who are more sensitive and vulnerable. This is my gift. My art is to be this stable and beautiful masculine presence not by denying my own sensitivity and vulnerability, but by first learning to hold safe space for myself to feel everything. And I do that through dedicated and daily practice. The most important of these is a meditative practice that tunes and aligns me with myself, tunes me to the world.

I am a powerful presence. I am a profoundly sensitive presence. Cultivating these qualities I become the man I am, the man I love, the man my beloved, the follow in this particular tango, needs to blossom into her radiance. I am, as Wineland encourages us to be, He Who Must Be Trusted. It is an art. It demands that I practice, daily, with devotion.

TODAY'S INSPIRATIONS 🌀You’re experiencing life as an ultra-sensitive caught in a callused, crude, and insensitive world.

[...]To live in this world without hiding, when your senses are so incredibly acute, you’ll need to find shelter [...] Meditation and yoga find this waltz in the heart...a gateway to the continuum. (Guru Singh and Guruperkarma Kaur, The 5th Dimension)

🌀The Conscious Warrior is committed to developing strength of the mind, physical body, and nervous system through dedicated physical, yogic, and meditative practice. (John Wineland, Precept 6)

🌀The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries; on the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust....But once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvelous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky. (Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet)

🌀You're not like that now. (My Oracle)

TODAY'S SUGGESTED PRACTICE Six minutes to tune your body.... Please join me at 4am Pacific time on Thursday, March 31 for a 22-minute version of this practice. The Zoom link is: https://is.gd/RA2EEK

Please read through first, then ...

• Set a timer for three minutes

• Sitting with a straight, firm (not stiff) spine, your chin tucked, heart lifted. Eyes are closed, focused on the brow point between your eyes. Place your tongue against the roof of your mouth. Relax your mouth open (but you will only be breathing through your nose).

• Place your left hand face-up on your left knee (for receiving). Block your right nostril with your right index finger and inhale through your left nostril.

• On the exhale, chant "Ong," exhaling and chanting for at least 15-20 seconds. Feel the vibration in your sinuses, your jaw, and beyond. You may notice the vibration all the way down to the base of your spine and in your genitals.

• When the timer signals, set it again and do the practice on your other side, ie...

• Sitting tall, place your right hand this time facing down on your right knee (for grounding). Close your left nostril with your left index finger. Inhale through your right nostril. Chant Ong as before.

• When the timer signals this second time, gently relax your breath, relax both hands to your knees, your eyes still closed, feeling into your body. Relax your mind if it starts to think thoughts. Take a few moments here to feel yourself, your body, the space around you.

• Open your eyes and take this "tuned" version of yourself into your day.