YES, I WANT IT ALL

• Today's suggested practice: Day 24 of this month's practice... (see below)

• My playlist while writing today's meditation: ...the neighbour talking to his dog, training the dog to not pay attention... a daily song of a curious relationship...

• My morning practice: 90 minutes of physical, yogic, and meditative practice, including Infinite Trust pranayama and meditation

• My vulnerability practice: There is only one way, and I am learning to let this tide move me as I need to be moved...

• There's a ps. at the bottom

—Hans Peter Meyer

TODAY'S MEDITATIONAnd yes, you see, I want it all.

I am greedy. Not just her eyes, so open with trust. Not just the sound of her pleasure as she enjoys the meals I prepare for her, at her request, or just because I know she needs to eat and needs to sit and needs to hear the words of love I speak across the kitchen. Not just her body pressed against me as I hold her in a too-rare and tight-enough embrace. I am greedy and I want it all.

But what is that? And, not sure what that is, I receive what she gives me: her silence, her absence, that rich mystery from which I draw wisdom. My oracle. Riches wrapped in the paper of mystery. Today, flying away.

And so, I want this mystery and this yearning and this flying away perhaps as much as I want anything. With practice she schools me in this set of holding the space for impossibly uncomfortable beauty and pleasures.

I breathe. I stand, my posture my truth. I hold this holy space for the unknown —and for this yearning as discomfort, as pleasure— and I am everything. Shiva, Shaki, the eternal tango of desire and awareness and love and presence, all of it.

And yes, I want it all.

Ps. It's wonderful to have so many men committed to the Basic Six program this month. Thank you if you are one of these. To the rest of you, thank you for reading what I write and for the comments some of you leave. This is important work for me. To that end, watch for an announcement by Friday, June 30. I'm very excited about what one of my colleagues and I are going to be offering to our community.

TODAY’S INSPIRATIONS 🌀You see, I want a lot.

Maybe I want it all: the darkness of each endless fall, the shimmering light of each ascent.

So many are alive who don't seem to care.

Casual, easy, they move in the world as though untouched.

But you take pleasure in the faces of those who know they thirst.

You cherish those who grip you for survival.

You are not dead yet, it's not too late to open your depths by plunging into them and drink in the life that reveals itself quietly there. (Ranier Maria Rilke, Love Poems to God, by way of Kendra Cunov)

🌀You can fight and hassle for whatever you feel that you want in life (the mode of conflict in which most people live), or you can make yourself so beautiful and divine that God will love to come and sit in your lap and all your desires will be pre-fulfilled. This is the hassle-free life of complete surrender. (Tim and Marieke, Kundalini Yoga School, Infinite Trust sadhana, Day 24)

🌀I’m always impressed by you. (My beloved, my Oracle)

TODAY'S SUGGESTED PRACTICEDay 24 of this month's practice, just seven minutes to listen to your body ...

Please read through first, then ...

• Today, sit (or stand) in stillness with one question, asked by my teachers Tim and Marieke in their Infinite Trust sadhana (daily practice): Chasing things or letting it come to you?

• Set your timer for seven minutes.

• Sit or stand. If you are feminine-identified, please sit or lie down to allow your body to be still, rested while your inner voices speak to you. If you are masculine-identified, consider standing, consider feeling the tension in your body as you hold space for yourself and your own voices as you do this practice. In both cases, feel your own resistance to the wisdom of your body as something to notice, appreciate, hold space for, and allow to dissolve...

• Begin by closing your eyes and aligning your body into its truest, most elegant posture, tucking your chin to lift your heart, tilting your pelvis to straighten your spine.

• Breathe slowly through your nose and down through your softened throat. Feel the "almost-snoring" of your breath as it passes into your body, filling your belly, your heart. Let this full belly and heart press down into your pelvis. Sitting or standing, lift out of your pelvis, letting your pelvis and legs become heavy, dropping into the earth below. If you are laying down, let the weight of your hips and shoulders be held by earth's gravity.

• Feel your breath moving your diaphragm in and out, up and down, becoming slower and deeper, opening your body. Today, let your body simply consider, Chasing things or letting it come to you? Let the question settle wherever it will. Then, notice. Sensations may move. Feelings may blossom. Thoughts will come and go. Return to the question: Chasing things or letting it come to you ? And listen. Without "figuring it out," just listen to what your body tells you, if anything. Again, there is no right or wrong. The most important thing is that you are holding this safe, elegant, full-of-breath space for your own body to notice itself. Love this body as it holds this question. Love everything it gives you, even if that "everything" is stillness, silence, ease. What a gift that is!

• As the timer signals the end of these seven minutes of listening allow your eyes to slowly open. Take three, relaxed breath cycles and see yourself sitting or standing or lying in the space you are in. Allow yourself to sigh —or to exclaim! Then, step into your day or evening.

✨