An Eye on Asha

"Asha"

Asha is hope
is heart
is healing.
Feeling
from the inside out
to where the spirit is leading me.
I root,
to plant,
to sprout,
to bloom,
I rise,
a seed,
a dream,
a vision:
I am the universe in disguise.

I know my heart, my asha, with the openness
of an eye
wild and blue and knowing
like vast, wide, sky.
Fierce, Strong, Brave, Love
Asha.
I follow you.




A Friday poem? This is all that wants to come out today it seems, as I've attempted several times to write down my thoughts today trying to understand what the above mandala really means for me. Asha is a sanskrit word for "hope" and for some reason is the word that came to me when I drew this eye. Speaking of rooting and rising a vision, I've decided to commit myself to practice 1,000 hours of yoga with the intention of strengthening my connection to my heart. I don't have a time line, so it could take me years, but that's ok. I just needed to make the commitment with an intention. So I have! I've been trying to write about my relationship with "commitment" all week because its a concept that's surfacing in my life (like not committing to finishing projects I start or goals I set out to complete) and ironically enough, have not been able to commit to writing about it. Perhaps next week....Until then,

Have a wonderful weekend!!

An Eye on Asha

Eliza Lynn, Where've you been?

I didn't mean to disappear for so long! 

Perhaps some of you have been wondering where I've disappeared too...and to be truthful, I don't have a good answer. 

Sure, I've been busy:

~Finishing up yoga homework for my upcoming (and final part) teacher training (I finished this morning!)

~brainstorming and scratching out ideas for my final graduate thesis project and paper....I've got some exciting plans that might even include an installation/art show type thing!

~Socializing!

I had a wonderful few days with a dear friend who came to visit me for a few days last week.

I spent time with some family who were down visiting the ocean.

I went to a Senior Art show at Wheaton College (So much fresh, energetic expression!)

We went to a friend's house for a Lobstah dinnah (and got to witness a first timer open his lobster...it's all about hands on learning!)

and on Saturday, I got all dolled up and went with friends to the Boston Symphony Orchestra (14$ for nose-bleeder seats...totally worth it!)

And, in between all of this, I've been working on this series of Mandalas, sacred circle paintings. 

I'm not sure what's going to happen to them next...but I'm loving making them.

It is a really meditative process and that turns these circles into reflections of my emotions and at the same time, transforms them. I'm getting back to the studio this afternoon to see where I can go with them!

So, yes. That is what I've been up too these past few days of my silence. 

I wasn't planning on being silent for so long, but I fell into it anyway. 

I think that I am still learning how to be more visible in this online world. Sometimes I feel as though I don't really have anything to share, so why bother? Or I'll start a post, only to leave it in the edit box forever, unfinished. 

I go through these phases of quiet, introversion in my life too

and perhaps this blog (and my absence from it this past week)

is a reflection of that. 

Perhaps because I was so out in the world with all the socializing and such,

I didn't have the energy I needed to be that way on this blog.

This seems to be the balance I am trying to find everywhere in my life right now:

learning how to go both outward and inward enough and in the right proportion so that I don't wear myself to thin. So here's to finding the balance of outwardly and actively participating in the world, but also recharging enough (and I'm a person that recharges by going inward and being quiet) to not burn out!

Eliza Lynn, Where've you been?

Grumpy pants and a 91-year-old yoga Instructor

(My dog Tulsi with her grumpy pants on because she'd rather be outside too)

I have my grumpy pants on today. I think in combination of it being a BEAUTIFUL spring day and having to be INSIDE finishing up some homework and being on day Three of this Spring Cleanse. I am feeling luke warm about spring cleansing. About as luke warm as the lemon water I'm drinking every morning of it. Here's the reality: I really LOVE coffee and carbohydrates. Without them, I feel kind of...empty? Really...I do feel an attachment to these kind of foods that goes beyond being calorically satiated. I originally was just going to do a fruits and veggies cleanse, but by the end of day one of that, I was feeling so crappy, so tired and so cranky that I was ready to call it quits on the cleanse all together. (And oh so often I feel like quiting when the going gets tough!?...what is that saying, when the going gets tough, the tough get going? Maybe I am not so very tough then.) But I have decided not to quit, instead, at the suggestion of my loving partner, I have decided to just modify the cleanse. So, now with proteins (from beans and lentils) and carbohydrates (from whole grains like brown rice and quinoa), I'm a much happier cleansing camper. And while, may not be cleansing fully, I have adapted the process to a whole foods diet to meet my needs and haven't given in to the cravings of coffee.....yet.

Then just before I sat down to write this post, I came across a link at the blog Yoga with John,

that played a CNNmoney video about a 91-year-old yoga instructor (link will lead you to the video).

Yes. And she is a tango dancer and wrote screenplays for a bunch of Films in India.

and she said, (and today, I feel like this was a message I needed to hear):

"You can't help other people if your negative or afraid. Never be afraid."

Amen, sister!

so with that, I'm leaving the grumpy pants behind, putting down my yoga homework and am going to go sit outside and make some long overdue time for my art.

Grumpy pants and a 91-year-old yoga Instructor

What am I doing?

I am going to take a little hiatus from Creativity Meditations...maybe not forever...maybe just for a little while. I want to offer inspiration for creativity, but only when it is genuine. I feel that if I post something when I am not feeling inspired to do so, it will be obvious that its not coming from a genuinely inspired place and that won't do any good for anybody. I'm learning that when something doesn't feel authentic, its time to move on...at least until it feels authentic once again. So for now, I'm moving on...

What is genuinely inspiring me this Monday afternoon???

~daffodils blooming lovingingly in the window

~today is DAY ONE of my Spring Cleanse!!! looks like lots of Lemons for me! (Lemons in warm water, lemons and asparagus, lemons and cayenne....)

~catching up with a kindred spirit who reminded me of many wise truths

~Finishing the rough draft of my thesis proposal for graduate school! (and remembering that many little steps will get me to the end of the project)

~10 sun salutations first thing in the morning (three days in a row, wahoo!)

~this post by Amber Dusick: I have no idea what I'm doing (this is how I sometimes feel about my blog too!)

~This play list playing in the background of my days:

What am I doing?

Sprouting

My tomato sprouts have popped up! This year, my husband and I are trying to grow our very own tomato plants. We started them from seeds and now they are springing their green shoots skywards! I'm so excited for ripe tomatoes!

The other thing sprouting over here at Art Asana is the very green beginnings of writing a proposal for my graduate thesis...I am feeling a little more daunted by this kind of sprout.

It's funny how a topic that I've been reading about and writing about for almost two years now can seem so elusive when I have to pin it down into one short sentence.

I've been going back through all my work from semester's past, splashing through papers to pull out patterns, themes and threads that might help lead me to a conclusive statement

about what it is I am actually studying.

I picked up on a few things:

yoga, creativity, visual arts, creative writing, a narrative about journey, path and process, metaphors of mountains, oceans, trees, roots, and

oh yeah,

sprouts.

There is something circular about looking back on the past to come up with a statement in the present that summarizes all of what I've done. It has to be conclusive enough to close the circle, yet open-ended enough to keep the momentum of circulation going. Which brings me to another recurring aspect of my graduate work: making mandalas.

So, somehow by next week, I have to put all my ideas together and come up with a proposal for what it is my thesis paper and project will look like.

I think I might start with a circle. Write "Yoga and Creativity" in it and then write down all the other ideas that come sprouting out of it.

Do any of you have any tools you use for brainstorming ideas?

Sprouting