Notes from the US Tour: A Journey Of Faith

Across the expansive plains of North Dakota, over the majestic mountains of Idaho, carried through the dewy air of Washington and Oregon, then down the sunny California coast, through the red rock of New Mexico, surviving the scorching heat of Oklahoma, Texas and the Carolinas, I now sit under a canopy of droopy tropical trees in Florida listening to the symphony of bugs and birds that chant in July's steamy sauna-like forest.

 

Rishi just drove away to look for food for dinner that we can cook on our camping stove, taking with him the van we have called home since the end of May, when we first left Toronto. More than my first US musical tour, this journey has been repeatedly a call to faith, to take bold leaps into the unknown, trust and expand to meet unforeseen possibilities.

 

During a recent meditation, I saw beneath me a bridge of light. I could not see it with plain sight, but in surrender, in openness, I trust, I saw it there, carrying my every step. Limited cell phone reception, intermittent Internet, bookings that spontaneously dissolve as others magically arise, we are being asked to live right here, right now and engage life fully.

 

By grace, all those who have come to my shows and workshops love the sharing. We have been asked to come back to every venue we have attended. I will also be performing at BhaktiFest in Joshua Tree, California (an invitation that came to us while on tour) the first week of September. So we will be on the road longer than anticipated.

 

I am now alone in a large campsite, sitting on the ground that has been freshly moistened by a typical mid summer afternoon downpour. No tent near me, no van to call home that carries all my gear that I hold dearly, I sit in the open air and become familiar with these raw surroundings. In the aloneness and quiet, I feel drawn to meditate and listen to the immense pulse of nature that is so vocal in this heat. Squirrels and geckos are coming close to check me out. Who is this girl who sits alone amongst us? Cicadas swell to answer: She is one of us.

 

I can see RVs in the distance that look like strange metallic beasts in this treed land, where long clusters of moss hang and sway in the breeze from thickly sculpted yet almost furry mossy branches. Lush leaves of deep green are drenched with the moisture in the air, seemingly relaxed in the heat.

 

An unexpected vulnerability has come over me, as I sit by myself. I feel tiny in a massive world, yet also more intimately connected now out in the open air to the planet, the mother herself. I pray and listen. There is an earthiness I find in simple living, that brings me to touch an honest frailty of being. It also empowers. Through surrender, I find love and feel immensely connected to it all. 

 

It is from this place of surrender that I sing the new songs for my new fans on this US tour. It is from this place I am drawn to create. Is She, the Mother, not so immense, so vast, so potent, infinitely loving and compassionate? And all we need to do is open in stillness to find Her patiently waiting, right here, right now, wherever we may be.

 

The sun is going down and light fading in a cloudy sky. The pot of rice, that I am minding on the camping stove beside me, quietly cooks as I await Rishi's return. Time to close my eyes now, and rest in the precious moments of surrendered meditation...

 

Hello from Dallas, and Parvati Magazine

Dear friends,

As this blog entry goes live, I am at Tsada Yoga in Dallas, TX, having completed a three-hour YEM: Yoga as Energy Medicine workshop and preparing for a YIN: Yoga in the Nightclub show.

The latest issue of Parvati Magazine is now live with articles about keeping a sense of fun and making the most of your vacation. Enjoy!

Success, Joy and Abundance

Everyone has his own personal definition of success. Culturally, we tend to consider success when we receive accolade and praise from external accomplishments, like fame and fortune. For the most part, our measures of success are external. 

 

Some people measure their success based on an internal compass, attempting to meet their own personal best. However, often, even these seemingly internal measures are driven by attachments to external ideas of success. 

 

I met someone recently who asked me, puzzled: “If I don’t want to be better, how will I ever become better?” Success for her was out there, and she was tired running after it. She felt there must be another way, but was unclear what it could be. She had lived a life driven by what she felt others wanted for her rather than fueled by her own personal joy. 

 

Joy often seems elusive, something we will get to eventually, once we complete this task or that one, or once we have achieved this goal or that one. To me, living like this is being the proverbial donkey that chases the carrot held out on a stick in front of him. It is an impossible chase. In that situation, our impulse to move arises from what we think will make us happy ‘over there’ and from feelings of scarcity in this moment, rather than tapping into the reality of eternal abundance.

 

Abundance is a bit of a popular catchphrase that seems to, in itself, contain external measures of success. For many, it often relates to financial wealth, whereas for me, it expresses a life of possibility and energetic opulence that is available to all and is not conditional upon the external. When we live by abundance, we feel we have enough, no matter what the circumstances may be. The notion of ‘more’ is a possibility, an organic arising, rather than a reaching or a wanting. We don’t need more to be happy. We are open to more, should this be the expression of life and of our highest good. In a state of abundance, there is no push/pull struggle, but a dance with life, in this moment, as it is.

 

Joy has a lot to do with abundance. Perhaps it is why the phrase “follow your bliss and doors will open where before there were none” became so popular, thanks to the late professor Joseph Campbell. When we follow our joy, we feel an impulse to participate in life. We feel an impulse to share, because we feel connected to our inner wealth. 

 

We can find temporal motivation through fear, feeling “if we don’t” do a certain thing, “then we won’t” get a certain reward (such as approval). Yet joy is also a tremendous motivator. But unlike fear, joy taps into a wealth of energy that far outshines the capacity of fear. By following our joy, our impulse to act comes from a deeper, more rooted and expansive place, and brings to our lives a vital force unlike any other.

 

As I travel across the continent to get to my next destination on the US tour of my show YIN: Yoga In the Nightclub and my yoga workshop YEM: Yoga as Energy Medicine, I am thinking a lot about joy, abundance, vitality and success. I realize that for myself, my sense of success comes from the courage to travel inward to places I could easily avoid. And in this case, traveling inward has led to me traveling outward.

 

To me, success is about the courage to say yes to life, to joy, to all of who I am, to all that this moment brings. I do this work because it is what my joy calls of me. It is an impulse that arises from the voice of my soul and connects me to an energy far greater than my limited sense of “me”. 

 

As I evolve, there are aspects of my shadow that I must see in order to grow. I could choose to hide from and mask them by becoming distracted with passing pleasures. Yet it is my joy to go deeper, to go beyond the fear that says, “I can’t”. There I find the acronym for fear to be true: they are “False Expectations Appearing Real”. So I remind myself, “Be here. Be now. I have all I need. All is well. All is unfolding as it should.” This redirection of consciousness brings me to inner places that connect me to something so much greater than my ego, and my perception of the world shifts.

 

I don’t know what this tour will bring, but no matter what happens, I feel at some level I already have success because I am on the road to newness, I welcome possibility and I am open to the fullness of myself and of life.

 

May you touch your deepest expression of your version of success and may you live by it. May you follow your joy and share that light with the world.

 

Until next time, be well.

Parvati