motivation
Herstory – Part 4
The year was 2004, and it was a time of powerful shifts and deep study. I trekked off to The Windy City (Chicago, IL) in the middle of a nineteen degree winter for yet another yoga teacher training. I ate raw broccoli, walked the streets and bathed in Aveeno to soothe my wind-chapped, oversized thighs.
I read Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife, and wondered if I would die of shame in those crowded classes, completely surrounded by perfect, glistening, head-standing, urban yogis. I was out manned, and feeling out classed, as I studied how to teach Fluid Power Vinyasa yoga. The flaxen haired goddess of the commercial yoga scene, Shiva Rea was my guide. (Undulate!)
There, I fell in love with what she called “The Bhairava”. We read from it in the afternoons and I was just seduced by its beauty and passion. Coincidentally, I am actually re-reading it now, and I’m tweeting about its contents on twitter these days. More formally, it is known as the Sri Vijnana Bhairava Tantra, (by Swami Satyasangananda Saraswati) and it is now my very favorite translation of one of India’s ancient texts.
Six (6) days and thousands of Surya Namaskars later, I went astoundingly deep, feeling my first spontaneous posture flow and seeing startling images in my mind’s eye during savasana. I had a completely transpersonal / transcendent, exceptional human experience [EHE] on the floor of Moksha Yoga’s Riverwest studio that would later motivate me to 1). Question my grasp of reality and 2). Embark upon a spiritual quest for answers.