My two and half year old daughter has recently taken to announcing when "night" comes.  As soon a the sun's light begins to fade she yells "night!" and with equal fervor at dawn the next morning she yells "night all gone!".  I love her sense of rhythm.  I love that she gets excited the death of day and birth of night, and vice versa, with sensitivity to the continual cycling of our daily life. 

We're coming up to a time that represents to most of us the completion of yet another cycle.  We enter the death of our calendar year, and like with any other death this makes space for the springing forth of new life.  Ever regenerating, moment by moment we live and die, and live again. 

So, as we move toward the New Year I wonder if I can get as excited about the birth and death inherent in life as my daughter does every day.  I wonder if I can yell from the roof tops that  in me which I am willing to let die.  And, with equal zeal can I announce the coming of my renewal?  This happens at every layer of our existence - from the birth and death of jobs and relationships to my thoughts, emotions and cells  Author Gary Zukav says this:

"Every subatomic interaction consists of the annihilation of the original particles and the creation of new subatomic particlews.  The subatomic world is a continual dance of creation and annihilation, of mass changing into energy and energy changing to mass.  Transient forms sparkle in and out of existence, creating a never-ending, forever newly created reality".

I want to know this dance in my very bones - to experience the annihilation and creation of reality every day, in every moment.  Like everything else in our culture, the New Year celebration is often reduced to a time for dedicating to "fixing" our broken characters and chubby bodies and the meaning of renewal is lost.  This year, instead of yoga just being part of your weight loss or anger management plan, can you also see it as your "get to know the real nature of renewal" plan?  In the depth of your practice, when the mind has slowed and the moment has started to emerge in real time, begin to deeply sense the death and birth of life within and all around you.  Let it sweep you into swirling waters of the cosmos, - sensations, thoughts, emotions arising and dissolving in eternity.  Let go of your idea of permanence, until you can hear your subatomic self bellow out the arrival of it's demise and creation like a two year old announcing the coming of night.   

In Warrior II, for example,  this yielding means relying on the bones of the  legs for support.  This "bi-pod" of strength draws support directly from the  earth, and allows the upper body to yield it's characteristic tensions from the  brow, jaw, shoulders and ribcage.  Yielding to the downward pull of gravity we come to trust the earth, and our roots.  Only then can we come to experience the  upward moving force acting on the spine.  Until we yield our tensions, a false up-"tight" force is what holds us, not the natural, soft uprising of a spine sprouting from it's deep roots.   This gentle upward moving force is not rigid,  it is fluid and can be supported by the engagement of the deep core body.  Lifting the pelvic floor and engaging the low belly in and up slightly energetically propels this force to the crown.  Two forces suspend this pose - can you find yourself dwelling at their balance point?  

Once the core is engaged in Warrior II we have gathered our attention, energy and blood flow in the deep center of gravity.  To balance this inward moving force we expand through the 6 points of our
periphery:  the crown, hands, tail, and feet.   Drawing inward and expanding outward, begin to feel the place where the two forces are equal and be suspended there. 

Feeling the grounding and rising, inward moving and expanding forces can you let go of all that you think you are and become this play of forces?  As you become sensitive to these you will become sensitive to the myriad of other forces working in you - the movement of the breath and emotions, the electrical flow of thoughts, the deep stirring of your soul.  Let go of your identity and feel the inner current of life moving, heaving, tingling - ushering you moment by moment closer to your One True Self. 

The mind is like a tornado.  Whirling thoughts circling at various speeds and intensities and our attention, at the center - the "eye"- of the storm, is no longer able to distiguish itself from the violent upheaval around it.  We try to find some sort of foothold in those thoughts, something substantial, meaningful that we can ground ourselves in.  We try to find something firm about reality through them - if we could just catch one, hold on to it and develop it long enough it would create a truth that we can live by.  So we try to crystallize parts of the tornado and through it create habits of personality.  Meanwhile life continues to blow by and flow through us but we miss it, completely mesmerized by the aspects of our mind tornado that we have become desperately attached to. 

So long as we are trying to construct reality out of the tantrums and preoccupations of our thoughts we miss true Reality that can only be experienced through the body.  A deep and profound movement of our attention into the body is essential to finding genuine security in life and a new grounded perspective.  Our attention, then, become achored in REAL time rather than the fantasy world in the mind and the gap between who we know ourselves to be and Reality lessens.  The more we are congruent with what's REAL the more substantial we feel, the more there is a Force in us that is connected both to our humanity and Source.  Through this Force of Being we connect to the present moment, honouring and responding to what is. 

There are many ways to shift one's center of gravity from being caught up in the whirling tornado of thoughts.  First, we must re-establish our attention at the eye of the storm.  Disidentifying from the thoughts, we watch them, moving about as droplets of mental energy.  Second, we must drop our attention into the body.  Some traditions suggest remembering the breath, keeping part of our attention on the breath or a mantra all the time. It is somewhat arbitrary where the attention is moved to, as long is it remains in present time.  This Fall I will be leading my classes through deep work with the core body.  The intention is not only to develop strength and integrity for support the movements and actions of our day but re-locate our attention deep inside the gut. Imagine experiencing this moment not from the vantage point of the thoughts bumbling around inside your head, but from the very center of your body - how would things look different if the majority of your attention was situated here?  Bring your hands to your belly, below the belly button, and take a few deep breaths while you drop your attention to your core.  Experience, just for a few seconds, a center of gravity that exists outside of the tormenting tornado of your mind.