I have just embarked on a 9 month journey in to Anusara Yoga by spending the weekend with my teacher. It was really cool! My yoga practice has been a sort of middle space between my workaholic self and my lazy bones self. It's been a way to work towards bettering the vessel. It's my goal to use this practice in the middle space and to work slowly at expanding that space to embody more of who and what I am aside from what I do for a living and to bring new life into an old vessel.
  Over the weekend I have recognized how fearful I am of living to my potential. It's so strange how I can be looking at a threshold point-blank knowing that crossing It will only bring  about good, yet I will shy away or will have negative thoughts about the potential out-come in an attemt to divert myself from exploring the possibilities. 
   I am realizing how fear has controlled almost all of my actions for most of my adult life. Even the decisions that seemed fearless and bold or brave have almost been more hap hazard and carelessly dangerous. It's  almost as if closing one eye to the things which I feared allowed me to move through them. 
    Fear clutters the mental space when unrecognized. Making momentary functions, actions and thoughts less enjoyable. You could say that the desire for living is shrowded when fear dominates the thought process, manifesting itself in many forms of reactive emotions like anger,jelousy, and many others.

Om

It's wild how powerful the mind truely is. I've just spent 3 days alone in the woods and am amazed at how the slightest negative thought can manifest itself in to physical action. It's something I've been noticing in small bits for sometime now on my mat. Like when I'm doing a simple pose like down dog, if my mind is focused on what's coming next like "oh no I hate this next pose" the current pose becomes less enjoyable and seemingly harder. Just the same when I was hiking if I were focused on the fact that I had another 8-9 miles over a steep mountain, the next step during that thought seemed more difficult. If in savasana I am thinking of anything at all, I am not fully experiencing the moment, therefore unable to fully find the freedom in the pose. I find myself falling in to these same patterns in my professional life as well. At times I have been able to find a good creative flow where I am enjoying every aspect of my job and other times it's like pulling teeth. I am very blessed to have found a profession which I am passionate about, some people compromise their happieness and well being their entire lives. This makes me feel guilty when I begin to dread going to work. The times when I can relax and enjoy waking up, practicing some asana's and have some good food. Then head to my wonderful place of work, which I have created. A place where I can relax and fully appreciate the moment and the people around me. This is when grace has entered my life and I have allowed it. This is truely a blessing.
    Yesterday while I was sitting in the sun waiting for a ride out of the wild, A retired Marine walked over and began talking to me, (one of the luxuries of being heavily tattooed, random people strike up random conversations, usually about my tattoos and then to theirs or their feelings about tattoos or hopes and ideas of future ones..) During our conversation (largly dominated by him) he talked about the fact that he had not only given 20 years of his life in service but he now suffers severe mental illness and is so heavily medicated that he cannot act fast enough to speak the words his mind can process, (which are slowed) I thought to my self that this poor guy(named Joe I think) didn't ever expect he would end up where he is. Also I felt terrible that so many people, myself included, would swiftly pass him by never realizing this mans sacrifice of his entire life to (the best of his knowledge) create freedom for his people. This man was and is an inspiration. After our conversation he was on his way to voulenteer at a food pantry an amazingly selfless being whom was a real pleasure to listen to. At first I was like "oh great here we go another wacko who wants to tell me all his ideas for his next tattoos". Which I'm sure he did although I have a terrible case of selective hearing (I will almost unconciously block out all talk of tattoos unless I'm at work.)
     I guess I'm a true believer in the power of yoga practice. I wanted to introduce him to it right there on the side of the road. Probably a similar reaction that devout Christian missionaries have when "the spirit moves" them to "save" someone. I guess not as extreem. Haha. But I did feel that a regular practice might help clear some things up for him and could possibly help counter-act some of the effects of all the medications. It was nice to have the spaciousness to have those moments with Joe by the side of the road. It reminded me to be greatful for what I have with each moment. Also it reminds me act selflessly and to look for ways to perform  service or sava which can help bring freedom to others.
   It seemed Joe really just wanted someone to talk to, whom would listen. Had I judged him negativly on his appearance or his speach, I would have missed out on his delightful conversation and the message with-in it.  
   The entire experience with Joe was yet another realization of how a negative thought process could have potentially closed me off to an important reinforcement to stay open to the world full of offerings and teachings. Om. 

Next weekend I begin 100hr Anusara Immersion with my wonderful teacher Stacey Millner-Collins. The immersion will take place at City Yoga in Columbia SC one weekend a month over the next 9 months. This is a place which has become sacred to me over the last few years. I am extreemly excited to expand my understanding of yogic philosophies and deepen my practice. 
   This is a threshold for me and my level of commitment to anything other than tattooing for a number of years now. It feels amazingly freeing to be commiting to something other than work, something for me. I am very excited!!!            

If I could walk 500 miles.....

At the beginning of the week I flew to Manchester NH to begin my journey towards the White mountains to do some backpacking on the Apalaician Trail. It had been about 10 yrs since I had done anything like this and although my lower back and hips were plenty ready due to a rigerous yoga regiment, my knees and ankles however weren't ready for the abuse of my weight plus a 35 lb pack hammering down on them as I hiked up and down over numerous mountains and rugged terrain.
My hike is over for now. It was really nice, it rained for the first 24 hrs. I ended up hurting my knee on the 2nd day and hiked on the rest of the day, by that evening the pain was excruciating I stopped to camp in a nice flat clearing by an ice cold spring fed stream. I spent the evening reading "Poised for Grace" which is sort of an interpretive study on the Bhagavad Gita by Duglas Brooks and using cold water from the stream in my drinking pouch to cold-compress my knee. The next morning I woke feeling like some one had smashed my right kneecap with a sledgehammer. I spent about an hour easing in to movement while I prepared breakfast (apple&oatmeal!!! My fav!!) and broke down my camp. By the time I got my boots on I was feeling pretty confident in my knee and decided to continue on even though I was at a road crossing(stubborn). I had looked at a topo map and seen that the next 10 miles were gradual hills in comparison to what I had done the past few days, so of course I chose to push on even though the weight of my pack alone created a shooting pain from my knee in to my heel. I hiked about 3 hrs at the pace of a snail covering about 1.8 miles in the first couple of hours by 2 pm I had been hiking 5hrs and only gone 4.8 miles. I was at a road crossing and had paused to let a truck pass by, In A split second I left things to fate and decided that I would throw my thumb up, if the truck stopped I would leave the trail, if not I would continue on. The old truck stopped and two scraggly backwoods logger types said "it's yer lucky day! You wanna lift down to the store?"  so I hopped in and had a dusty 15 min ride in the bed of the rickety pick-up. They dropped me at the store and after sharing experiences on that particular stretch of the trail they took off. I called my family who were about an hr away, for a ride.

Reasons to start

For some time now I have spent my life traveling the world experiencing all that I could absorb. I've taken hundreds of photographs and had a vast expanse of diverse experiences most people I encounter in daily life would only think happened on television. There for I rarely share my experiences with others outside of my close social network. I have always wanted to document my life so others could peer in. Now I have however shared my professional life with world. The purpose of his blog is not to show my work at all. Please if you have comments or are interested in my Tattooing than please find me on myspace. This is an atempt to have another expressive outlet aside from my professional life. I, for too long have sacrificed and given all of myself to tattooing to the point of extreem deprivation of my entire being. This is part of marking out a space for me to live outside of tattooing. From time to time I will probably write about tattooing because it is my passion, my love and I owe alot to tattooing, it has given me a wonderful life of abundance and freedom. The tattoo world today scares me and makes me sad. I was drawn to tattooing at a youg age because it was truely punk and very much against the grain, and today it doesn't feel that way it's gross to me how commercial and mainstream it's become. Don't get me wrong I don't mind more of the masses getting tattooed but the western capitalist business mentality pollutes and dilutes the integrity which makes tattooing so magical for me. I envision myself living in the rainforest of east Maui or The west coast of India, tattooing for barter using handmade tools and supplies for a period of my life. Well I am about to embark on a week long hike through the White Mountains of NH. I am very excited!!!!