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A Real Hero
Clark froze, his knuckles turning white as his grip tightened around the steering wheel. ‘What the heck?’ he thought, his gaze fixed on the mailbox of the old home, its soiled contents spilled out on to the rotting porch below it. He turned his attention to the cars in the driveway. Their brilliant red and blue paint jobs shone in the afternoon sun. It appeared as if they both had recently gone through a wash and wax. ‘That’s odd,’ thought Clark. The old, unkempt house stood next to the gleaming vehicles. The gray paint peeled off the siding in some places, and in others there was no siding at all.…
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A Place Worth Fighting For
Deep within the forest, a gnome encountered a giant… Gonat glared at the giant. ‘Was he a threat? Could I take him?’ he thought, considering his next move. He was only half of a moon away from his homeland, and he was surrounded by the same trees his people dwelled within. He thought about his family and felt a small knot form in his stomach. ‘They are better off without me,’ he reminded himself. Gronash was confused by the small creature in front of him. The tiny thing should be cowering away; everyone else had. That’s why he hid in the forest. But this creature stood firmly below him, meeting…
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Kind of Fierce & Fiercely Kind
In Albany there is a weekly gathering called “Spin Jam” where the local (and sometimes not) fire spinners collect, practice, and share skills. It takes place down by the Hudson riverfront where there is also a large homeless population. One evening a drunken homeless man rode his bike into what the spinners refer to as “the Eye” (an eye-shaped section of pavement outlined by bricks of a different color where fire spinning takes place and spectators are not allowed for safety reasons), parked it in the center, and began to look around confused as if lost. Two of the male spinners approached him aggressively; cursing and yelling and demanding that…
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An Abundant Mind
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Rewriting the Rewritten Nervous System
Healing PTSD Through Yogic Practice When we consider how a regular Yoga practice can improve an individual’s range of motion, most would consider the greatest anatomical factor involved to be an increased flexibility of the muscles, joints, and connective tissue. However, in individuals with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), limited range of motion is often linked to a dysregulation of the autonomic nervous system. The autonomic nervous system (ANS) is a part of the peripheral (outside of the brain) nervous system and is composed of a collection of neurons that receive information from the environment and other parts of the body and regulates the activity of multiple organs (such as the…
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Winter Birds
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Solace
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Ethics & the Yamas
In the ‘Yoga Sutras’, Patanjali divides the practice of Yoga into eight stages known as the ‘Eight Limbs of Yoga’. The first of these stages is ‘Yama’, meaning abstinence. He describes the existence of five Yamas: ahimsa (non-violence), satya (truthfulness), asteya (non-stealing), brahmacharya (continence), and aparigraha (non-greed). These Yamas act as a moral code for Yoga practitioners, and serve as a guide to Yoga instructors for maintaining a trusting and ethical relationship with their students. Ahimsa translates to non-violence, or non-harming. This Yama can be explained simply enough as “do no harm”, but it is open to greater understanding when we consider in what ways we can be harmful. According…
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Anger, Sorrow, & a New Path
I live on a small, quarter acre of land that is town-locked in a community of perfectly manicured lawn wastelands. There’s a bike path with a small creek that my son and I enjoyed spending time with. He would throw stones as I cleaned up broken glass and litter and talked to the plants. Beside that creek I met Peppergrass and Wild Basil for the first time, both very tasty! I was excited for them to go to seed, to gather those seeds, and to attempt to plant them on my homestead and add their delicious flavor to my lawn pesto next Spring. One day my partner and I brought…
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Healing with the Chakra System
“Yoga is a journey of contemplation and self-discovery on the path to personal enlightenment” (Ambrosini 4). The Chakra, or Energy, system of our subtle bodies serves as a map during this journey, helping us to recognize where we are not in alignment with our highest Self and aiding us to discover that alignment. Within each chakra is both a power and a lesson. When the chakra, translated to “spinning wheel” (Ferretti and Editors), is open and flowing we can experience its power. When it is closed, blocked, or misaligned we can experience its lesson. According to Dr. Caroline Myss, author and medical intuitive, “[e]ach of the seven levels of power…