There’s over two feet of snow on our roof, and it’s starting to melt. Giant cornices are forming over the gutters, and icicles are growing like prison bars over the windows.

They are starting to leak, the windows, and drips are falling ominously from the door frames, making the house feel a little like the Titanic. So while Nana (our two-year old) was taking her nap this afternoon, I shoved the monitor in my pocket and went up on the roof to try and break up the ice flow.

For the first 20 minutes or so, I pretended I was Superman, slowly destroying the Fortress of Solitude, but as I continued to work, I came face to face with the unavoidable truth that I was much more like Clark Griswold putting up his Christmas lights.

Around that time, I realized that this was obviously a blog post, so I snapped a selfie.

I felt self-conscious and a little ridiculous to be curating my experience, but then I encountered something unexpected. Just thinking about the blog triggered the practice of mindfulness.

So there I was, breaking up the ice and saying to myself, “breaking up the ice,” and then watching the next thought come. “Worried Nana will wake up from the noise.” Then the next thought, “Don’t fall, moron.”

After a bit, I’d fall into forgetting and start identifying with the thoughts again, but then I’d think about the blog and sure enough, the mindfulness would restart, and I’d be labeling: “Judging. Enjoying. Calculating. Seeking approval. Having fun.”

When I first created this website, I didn’t really think of it as part of my practice. I just thought it would be an entertaining way to extend my teaching and talk about the places where my life and my yoga practice intersect. I quickly came to realize however that it would involve a lot of svadhyaya (self study) and vichara (inquiry). Now today I discovered that thinking about the blog can trigger states of pratyahara (turning inward) and dharnana (concentration).

In my last post, I pulled from Tantric texts and intellectually labored to describe a few of the formal practices that one can weave into a yoga practice to help make your life your practice and your practice your life, but it occurs to me that my experience today is a perfect example of the way Tantra works.

You do the practices and then they start to influence the way you write or do your job or parent, and those activities then become portals through which you re engage the practice so that one carries into the other until there is no difference between the two.

I’m feeling a lot of gratitude right now. Grateful for the moments of insight, grateful that you took the time to read this, and grateful even for the leaks in my house. 🙏

Live virtual vinyasa flow tomorrow @ 8 am central. Sign up through AhimsaYogaStudios.com

If you want to get the posts by email to stay up with live and recorded class offerings as well as other yoga content, sign up here. 👇