REPORTS FROM THE FIELD: Dharma & Photography

Scientific Litteralsim

2011-11-10T09:12:00.000-08:00

Science is only one way of knowing, and its purpose is not to generate absolute truths but rather to inspire better and better ways of thinking about phenomenon.
-Wade Davis

Mulabandha

2011-09-16T10:55:00.000-07:00

This doming principle, which is so perfectly embodied by jellyfish, is what creates sustainability in our yoga posture. Create this feeling in the pelvic floor, the soft palate, the palms of the the hands and soles of the feet, the root of the throat, the armpits, and all the major joints of the body. Embody how the jellyfish looks, feels, and moves (the pulsation) in these energy centers and the posture will feel lighter and more joyous. It may take slowing down at first to begin feeling in this way.

photo source: http://pixdaus.com/single.php?id=120690&from=email and http://www.flickr.com/photos/cronos/

Shift Towards Relationship

2011-09-11T13:38:00.000-07:00

"We have to shift our attitude of ownership of nature to relationship with nature. The moment you change from ownership to relationship, you create a sense of the sacred."
-Satish Kumar

Lineage and Orientalism

2011-09-09T14:37:00.000-07:00

I wonder about yoga teachers who don't have a teacher, or have a mystery somebody, somewhere, from a mystical foreign land. Where is the root, baby? I don't think yoga needs to derive power or legitimacy through an outdated orientalist notion of the "magical East." If you are claiming a lineage, what is the basis for that claim?

Don't get me wrong. I place a lot of value on teachers from the East (Tibet, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, etc.) but the value they've given me has to do with the here and now, and I maintain transparency about that. You study with me, I tell you who I studied with. If you want to go study with them yourself, then by all means go! I'll even tell you the texts that I read. But for god's sake, why do we need to create "legitimacy" from East. We are applying these teachings wherever we are, and this moment is just a rich a field for realization as was a moment in the past. Or a moment in India. Just like the veins of a leaf, the lineages of true yoga practice remain connected to central vein, or impulse. To take the metaphor a step further, just as each vein needs the other vien's support to maintain flow and vitality of life force in the leaf, so too do the various yoga schools need each other in order to keep the entire weaving, or tantra, alive, grounded, and engaged.

Some folks think that because they studied with someone who studied with Krishnamacharya that they can consider themselves a student in the "Krishnamacharya lineage." Ok, think whatever you like, I am just wondering why you think that claiming this somehow empowers or legitimizes your studentship when you haven't even studied with the master himself. Why isn't it enough to say, I practice in the lineage of Pattabhi Jois, or BKS Iyengar, or Desikachar, who are actually legitimate students of Krishnamacharya. Can we consider the system to be valid if it's not linked somehow to a more ancient root? To what extent have yoga schools and philosphical systems emerged from historical contexts in the past and claimed themselves to be different? I think quite a lot. And I think this is good. Multiple schools bring us multiple visions of the Supreme. The Buddha did this. Gaudapad and Shankara also did this. It is good, clearly, but these schools emerged from realized beings, who had a clarity of seeing that many of us simply do not have, or do not have yet!

I say go ahead and make your own lineage for the sake of business, but know you're doing for that reason. Please don't overlay your notions of spiritual grandur on a system that you've created to make money from. Please continue to pay respects to your roots, to those that came before you. Please continue to pay homage to the lotus feet of the teachers, and the teacher's teachers that walked this path before you; that proved it to be functional and of lasting value. Please be humble enough to acknowledge your roots. Business is good for yoga and as a result of well-direct business initiatives many thousands of people have been effected by the power of yoga. However, if your business and the accompanying model of yoga that is being taught, has been made up because its gonna give you firmer abs or a tighter ass, or more muscular arms, or because its gonna make you sweat, please call it something else other than yoga. Perhaps a calisthenics would be more accurate. Why are you sequencing the postures in that way? Why are you doing them so quickly or slowly? and is this practice facilitating Awakening? What matters is the persistance of inquiry without becoming paralyzed by it. Continue to ask why throughout your practice in the spirit of continual awakening. A continual checking-in process; if not with your teachers then with your self and your true intentions. Yoga is not acrobatics. Yoga is not just posture. Yoga is not just breath. Yoga is not all happy and not all sad. Yoga is not limited one school or another. Yoga is arrived at through a process of inquiry and through a reminder of the process of the Upanishadic "neti neti" or a "not this, not this" analysis. If you put a box around it the spacious effulgence of the energy of awakening is lost.

Walk Your Path

2011-09-04T11:07:00.000-07:00

Lotuses in the same pond don't grow at the same pace. While some are blooming, some are still in the water, and others are at the level of the water. You should do what you can according to your abilities. If you wait for the other, you might be eaten by the fish and turtles.
-Ajahn Chah

Las Tablas Finca, La Amistad Biosphere Reserve, Costa Rica

2011-05-09T16:22:00.000-07:00

This is a composite image to two shots that were spliced together using photoshop. The exposure was not adjusted to reflect the true softness of the early morning light and the stark red of the tree's tissue. Take note of the bromeliads and other epiphytes growing in the branches. The yellow flowers are from an Oncidium orchid.

Don Marcos

2011-03-15T15:55:00.000-07:00

I Like to Sit

2011-03-09T13:01:00.000-08:00

An embodiment of the Bodhi Tree along a riverbank in Costa Rica

Meditation provides one with the ability to choose; to look at what is arising and decide "yes I want to work with this," or "no, it is not necessary to work with this." I experience this when I suffer from insomnia, where thoughts are churning out virally and preventing sleep. In learning this type of discernment we free up vast quantities of energy that allows our mind to function more efficiently and to naturally be more easeful. In this sense, it gives our experiences more space, more of a balanced context from which we can perceive emotions, thoughts, and feelings for what they really are. It also supports us to see what we need (if anything) from these patterned unfoldings (the vritti). I need to meditate more.

Life on a Banana Flower

2011-02-20T15:28:00.000-08:00

Weave a Nest for Yourself: seedling on a palm frond

2011-02-06T09:58:00.000-08:00

Weave a nest for yourself in the depths of my eyes. O your slender body that resembles a young tree growing from the garden of my heart. At the sight of a bead of sweat on your face I may suddenly die.

- Ali Shir Nava'i of Herat, 14th century Turkish Poet

A Relative Relative

2011-01-31T18:11:00.000-08:00

Inner and Outer Heavens

2011-01-30T14:55:00.001-08:00

Glass Frog and the Porch View

2011-01-21T20:49:00.000-08:00

High Altitude Cloud Refraction Over the Rocky Mountains

2011-01-14T12:11:00.000-08:00

Costa Rica: Home for the Next 3 Months

2010-12-07T22:08:00.000-08:00

Hi friends. Many of you know that I have been intending to go to India to continue my yoga studies and take some well deserved rest. The fates, however, had something else in mind when last Thursday I received word from a friend and colleague about an opportunity to spend the spring working on a project in Costa Rica; the very same project that I worked on in February earlier this year. While this is an exceedingly last minute change of plans (that even required the cancelation of my ticket to India), I believe this decision will lead to balance. Had things unfolded as originally planned, I would be boarding a plane today for India. The entire architecture of the spring changed in a blink. A breath. Change can come that fast.

After so much running around in the last 4 years of my life, taking this three months to learn, hike, practice, mist net birds and bats, and to be still in the beauty of nature will be a medicinal downshift. The research I am supporting is subsumed under Stanford's "countryside biogeography" project, which endeavors to understand the dynamics of human land-use patterns on bird and bat communities, and to quantify the ecosystem services provided by forested areas in the Las Cruces area of Costa Rica.

I am thrilled to be a part of this project, and equally excited for the opportunity to spend my time with really great people and to practice my Spanish in one of the most bird rich, beautiful landscapes in the world. Here is a link to some of the results that have emerged from this project.

Lastly, I am cognizant of the fact that Yoga does not need the boundaries of a yoga mat in order to be practiced, and in fact the practice is truly tested when we bring what we learn on the mat out into the world--when the mandala of the sacred space is destroyed to reveal that its true nature is the nature of everything. The practice will always continue and I commit to being aware of the continuous unfolding of the opposites, of prana and apana, in the radiant dynamism of the natural world for the benefit of all beings.

Wisdom vs. Knowledge: a Proposal

2010-11-09T23:40:00.000-08:00

Knowing something does not give you power over it, nor does it make you somehow more in control of the situation. Can you allow your knowledge of the said thing to provide you with insight into the fabric that weaves together the subject and the object? Can you allow your knowledge to actually make you more tangibly aware of your own vulnerability? To co-opt facts for the ego's benefit will only add strength to the fires of samsara.

Yogi and European Mysticism

2010-11-05T23:36:00.000-07:00

More Dew

2010-10-05T23:59:00.000-07:00

Morning Textures and Condensation.

2010-09-23T21:58:00.000-07:00

Nature taking it back.

2010-08-27T22:27:00.000-07:00

Ciudad vieja, en Panama

2010-08-23T22:00:00.001-07:00

Misty Morning Raven

2010-08-14T22:51:00.000-07:00

An old raven speaking the wisdom in the guttural way that they do. Location: Berkeley Hills

Hindi and the Harmonium

2010-08-07T14:21:00.001-07:00

La Hoja de Palma

2010-06-07T22:16:00.000-07:00

Strelitzia reginae

2010-06-07T21:53:00.000-07:00

Will work for the elation of others...

2010-05-27T23:32:00.000-07:00

YOGA PRIVATES

2010-05-16T22:16:00.000-07:00

Do you feel like your practice has plateaued, and are you looking to advance? Are you lost in your yoga classes and looking for clarity? Do you have nagging aches and pains from your practice that you just can't move on from? Do you want to know how to develop a sustainable home practice and have the support to make it happen?

Are you seeking a mentor to support you in your journey towards manifesting your teaching capabilities?

I am now available for for both periodic and ongoing private yoga instruction and yogic mentoring. Let's take it higher together!

Location: SF Bay Club or your personal practice space.
Length: 1 or 1.5 hours.
To reserve a session call 415-612-0190, or email matthew.champoux@gmail.com

~Headstand~

2010-05-06T16:48:00.000-07:00

Radiant Morning

2010-04-11T18:07:00.000-07:00

Flowers, Water, Tree.

2010-02-26T23:33:00.000-08:00

Home Tree

2010-02-06T14:28:00.000-08:00

-BE THE TREE-

The Architecture of the Universe and Avatar

2010-01-30T20:55:00.001-08:00

The Heart is considered to be the architecture of the universe; the great weaving that binds all of creation (and anything seemingly empty of the qualities associated with creation) together. The Heart is furthermore, and rather obviously, found at the core of all beings, and at this Great Center(according to the tenets of Advaita Vedanta) we find the seat of the Atman, or our true self--it is a commonality that binds us to each other. This is the principle highlighted in the brilliant film, Avatar, which I hope that everybody sees at least once. This film crystallizes very brilliantly the true nature (and value) of the world that we live in with its emphases on the Great Goddess Eywa and the intimacy of connection felt by the Na'vi to their home, to each other, and nature. Through realization of the True Self we pierce the knot of ignorance that keeps us from the heart splitting the reality and beauty of the universe. We realize that we are Brahman , or the totality of the universe. Our ignorance, avidya or lack of knowledge, is due to the fact that our conditioned mind extrapolates ourselves to be essentially separate from things and things from us). Through awaking to the nature of Atman we liberate the subtle energy of the body which flows naturally, like water down a deep and rocky gorge, into the honeyed center of all things and through diving into the great ocean of the Heart with a one-pointed focus, the apparent "thingness" that we ascribe to the processes of continuum around us (and which are us!) breaks down to reveal the dependent arising of all phenomenon. Through the disintegration of the rigidity that binds our mind to subjects as if they were perminant and essential we come to view the vastness of creation like a beautiful weaving, a tantra, of gossamer brilliance that is empty, luminous, dreamlike, and the very fabric to enlightenment. We are connected and always participating in this flow that binds. Every moment we are connected the heartbeats of all beings; even to the hummingbird sipping nectar from a shimmering red flower that rejoices as it spills its heart out into the world high above the buzzing, heavy aliveness of the rainforest. We are One. This is the lesson of the great wisdom traditions of the world and what will give the film Avatar its lasting value.

Currents of Awareness

2009-12-26T11:06:00.000-08:00

Deep inside all of us is a place where we naturally become aware of our being, of the life force coursing through our veins. By simply allowing the presence to bubble up, much in the same way that lava churns its way progressively upwards from the depths (from the heart of the earth to eventually erupt), we find a vast well of comfort--a comfort that one might find swimming during a warm summer's night in a dark lake with the heavens illuminated by the radiance of the Milky Way. There are creation myths among certain indigenous amazonian peoples related to the Milky Way but they call it the River of Milk; it was from this River of Milk that people came from the creator riding upon the back of a great and powerful serpent. In Sanskrit, the Milky Way is known as the Akasha Ganga, or the great sacred river of space (the macrocosmic continuum of the holy Ganges River on Earth). Space, in addition to being an outer state is felt when we release through the soft palate.

Milk, of course, is deeply symbolic and has meanings ranging from our connection to the Mother Goddess, to our human mothers, nourishment, safety, abundance, and even to gratitude and jouissance. So in many respects, our practice of yoga is about finding a way back to a primordial, mythical state by observing the breath, conducting ourselves with dignity and respect for all sentient beings, and practicing alignment with wisdom and faith. This practice is about finding ourselves at home once again as a part of the expansive cosmos and free from the fear that is born from disconnection.

Through a continuous layering of the alignment principles associated with yogasana, seated or standing postures, we grow naturally more aware of how the energy of universe flows through our system in the form of gravity, fluidity, earth, air, fire, water, space, and light. This is not something that we are making up, rather these are the felt qualities linked to the process and unfolding of wisdom and freedom in the mind and body; of liberating the dormant serpent energy at the base of the spine. We are developing layered patterns of experience that wake up the body and unblock the rivers of energy in our system, and as these rivers become unblocked a great and natural joy begins to fill the networks of interrelationships that form the body-mind consciousness. As these currents of energy begin to open we then begin our journey back down the River of Milk; riding upon the great serpent energy that constitutes the substratum of the universe. In the words of Mason Jennings, "how deep is that river?" Join me and we will find out together.

Compassion for All

2009-09-26T17:20:00.000-07:00

May the capacity of our hearts to support and nurture each other, and every other life form on this planet, continue to grow.

Be Like a Mountain

2009-04-14T21:16:00.000-07:00

In the Dzogchen teachings it is said that your View and your posture should be like a mountain.

Your View is the summation of your whole understanding and insight into the nature of mind, which you bring to your meditation. So your View translates into and inspires your posture, expressing the core of your being in the way you sit.

Sit, then, as if you were a mountain, with all its unshakable, steadfast majesty. A mountain is completely relaxed and at ease with itself, however strong the winds that batter it, however thick the dark clouds that swirl around its peak.

Sitting like a mountain, let your mind rise and fly and soar.

The posture we take when we meditate signifies that we are linking absolute and relative, sky and ground, heaven and earth, like two wings of a bird, integrating the skylike deathless nature of mind and the ground of our transient, mortal nature.

-SOGYAL RINPOCHE

-photo taken by Herbert Wong

The Vehicle of Air

2009-04-02T21:42:00.001-07:00

When you bother a leaf katydid (seen below)!

2009-02-08T22:30:00.000-08:00

This is an example of both extreme crypsis and batesian mimicry.

After being disturbed, the katydid presents its back and under-wings that have clearly evolved a pattern to represent a great and glaring set of colorful eyes, which, it has been theorized, evolved as a means to frighten off color sensitive predatory birds (Batesian Mimicry). I am truly awestruck contemplating the dynamic processes that joined together to result in this refined and elegant being, which, lest we forget, is still under the influences of its environment and still a dynamic droplet in the river of evolution. This is a brilliant example of the innate intelligence present within the substratum of the energy of life.

Some Amazon Pics

2009-02-08T22:14:00.000-08:00

Breath, Desire, and How To Open The Heart

2008-12-28T15:50:00.000-08:00

As we breathe is it possible for us to die with every breath? Can we allow there to be a release that cascades throughout our physiological system that ensues with the termination of each breath? Can we breath in such a way that our eyes become like a crystalline still pools of water? Can we, even as we are stuck in traffic, waiting in line, or when our kids are screaming their heads off continue to breathe in this way?

Strangely, by watching the unfolding currents of the breath and the continuous flowering of sensations that accompany each cycle we are slowly able to disentangle the fixity of our labels for things and the things as they are themselves--the fixity of our labels of how things are or we think they ought to be slowly dissolves. As thought structures begin to dissolve we can, if we are attentive with soft eyes, open ears and a vacuous palate, develop a relationship with the oceanic force that connects all things and is the energy of desire that drives and directs our lives.

This force, says Lama Yeshe, is the wellspring of energy that we must draw upon and direct towards awakening, or enlightenment. Otherwise, this energy will inevitably orient itself towards the unquenchable desires the are limited to the world of NAMA and RUPA, or NAME and FORM. Yoga of course is that ultimately satiating experience that comes from embracing the totality of our world in all of its forms, names, their interconnections, and the sparkling hollowness that lies at their core. Yoga is not limited to the shells of things and the names that we give them. From brushing our teeth, to surfing The Web, to calling our friends, to driving to work and sharing moments with loved ones, this energy of desire is pulling us ever forward like a great and surging tidal wave. In fact, it is this perpetuity of desire that enables us to become fountainheads of positive change in the world around us and to become beacons to light for those who have lost their way in the dark. And through the cultivation this energy and working tirelessly for the sake of others, we find what is means to live with a truly open heart.

Ornate Hawk-Eagle

2008-12-20T20:48:00.000-08:00

The Shape of the Universe

2008-12-20T20:41:00.000-08:00

One physicists idea of the great meta-structure of the universe, and perhaps also the structure our our energetic hearts.

A reminder for all who dwell in the urban jungle

2008-12-20T20:33:00.001-08:00

(courtesy National Geographic)

Serpent Power-Shakti

2008-12-20T20:27:00.000-08:00

Unknown species of asian pit-viper (perhaps a Wragler's Pit-Viper)
(courtesy of National Geographic)

May the People of Tibet once again live free.

2008-12-06T11:09:00.000-08:00

A Prayer Composed by
His Holines Tenzin Gyatso The Fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet

Honoring and Invoking the Great Compassion
of the Three Jewels; the Buddha, the Teachings,
and the Spiritual Community

O Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and disciples
of the past, present, and future:
Having remarkable qualities
Immeasurably vast as the ocean,
Who regard all helpless sentient beings
as your only child;
Please consider the truth of my anguished pleas.

Buddha's full teachings dispel the pain of worldly
existence and self-oriented peace;
May they flourish, spreading prosperity and happiness through-
out this spacious world.
O holders of the Dharma: scholars
and realized practitioners;
May your ten fold virtuous practice prevail.

Humble sentient beings, tormented
by sufferings without cease,
Completely suppressed by seemingly endless
and terribly intense, negative deeds,
May all their fears from unbearable war, famine,
and disease be pacified,

To freely breathe an ocean of happiness and well-being.
And particularly the pious people
of the Land of Snows who, through various means,
Are mercilessly destroyed by barbaric hordes
on the side of darkness,
Kindly let the power of your compassion arise,
To quickly stem the flow of blood and tears.

Those unrelentingly cruel ones, objects of compassion,
Maddened by delusion's evils,
wantonly destroy themselves and others;
May they achieve the eye of wisdom,
knowing what must be done and undone,
And abide in the glory of friendship and love.

May this heartfelt wish of total freedom for all Tibet,
Which has been awaited for a long time,
be spontaneously fulfilled;
Please grant soon the good fortune to enjoy
The happy celebration of spiritual with temporal rule.

O protector Chenrezig, compassionately care for
Those who have undergone myriad hardships,
Completely sacrificing their most cherished lives,
bodies, and wealth,
For the sake of the teachings, practitioners,
people, and nation.

Thus, the protector Chenrezig made vast prayers
Before the Buddhas and Bodhisativas
To fully embrace the Land of Snows;
May the good results of these prayers now quickly appear.
By the profound interdependence of emptiness
and relative forms,

Together with the force of great compassion
in the Three Jewels and their Words of Truth,
And through the power
of the infallible law of actions and their fruits,
May this truthful prayer be unhindered
and quickly fulfilled.
-----------------------
This prayer, Words of Truth, was composed by His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet, on 29 September 1960 at his temporary headquarters in the Swarg Ashram at Dharamsala, Kangra District, Himachal State, India. This prayer for restoring peace, the Buddhist teachings, and the culture and self-determina-tion of the Tibetan people in their homeland was written after repeated requests by Tibetan government officials along with the unanimous consensus of the monastic and lay communities.

Full Moon sychronicity

2008-10-16T20:58:00.000-07:00

My dear friends, I would like to share with you a bit of synchronous joy that I encountered the other evening just preceding the full moon. Rather spontaneously, I developed one of those bed-time hankerings for Rumi. I think that sometimes reading a few poems can be as riveting and satiating as reading an entire book. The first poem that I opened up to was titled

"Quietness"

Inside this new love, die.
Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.
Do it now.
You are covered with thick cloud.
Slide out the side. Die, and be quiet.
Quietness is the surest sign
that you have died.

Your old life was frantic running
from silence.

The speechless full moon
comes out now.

-(translated by Coleman Barks).

The surest sign to me that the yoga is working is when that moon can be felt illuminating the sparkling inner walls of an opened, released, and soft-palated cranium hovering there in the spacious inner sanctum of "akash" or the "space that dwells" in the pallet during khechari mudra. It is as if the moon were a dangling droplet of nectar that condensed there as a result of pure, beautiful release. Finding this poem just reminded me of the odd, joyous brilliance that makes up the binding weave of our existence. Full moon inside and out.

New Class Time!

2008-10-12T20:02:00.000-07:00

I am thrilled to announce that I am teaching a new alignment-based vinyasa class at the Bay Club every Sunday at 9am.

Consider the value of ecosystem patterns of thought and awareness

2008-09-13T16:28:00.000-07:00

Forthcoming...

All endings are really just beginnings.

2008-09-13T15:40:00.000-07:00

New Classes

2008-09-12T20:24:00.001-07:00

I am continuously astounded by the variability of each yoga class that I teach in terms of the energy that it contains. Each class begins with a negotiation process between the teacher and the student, a negotiation of our egos and space. Are the students listening? Are they listening and not paying attention? Are they listening and paying attention, but my instructions are not making sense?! What are the areas of the poses that need more articulation and highlighting, or what are the general physiological trends of the student body? And of course, am I talking too much? Whatever the answers to these questions, I find that the most valuable seeds of the practice that can be transmitted in a class are those that emphasize the feeling-tone of a process within which we involve our imaginations to create a feeling-image within the pose that recalibrates our sense of ordinary reality. In his book entitled, The Heart of the World: a Journey to Tibet's Lost Paradise, Ian Baker describes the value of imagination from the Tibetan Buddhist perspective: "...imagination does not so much transform as reveal what is already present, the mind's inherent creativity realizing it's essential unity with all phenomena and events." So, in the context of our yoga poses, there are infinite forms of feeling that can be imagined and meditated upon that range from lotus,' swords of light, serpent hoods, tidal waves--mostly nature oriented images, since a study of our body's form cannot be extract from our evolutionary and environmental past--to mythical and transcendental visualization that bring us to the brink of the quantum field and the realms of the gods. Interestingly, while I find myself negotiating the waters of teaching a yoga class with a properly tuned level that will be valuable for the students, or focusing on the pragmatics, I enjoy it most (and think that the students are equally) when we can dissolve/relax our existences (or roles) as subjects and objects, our roles as students and a teacher, and simply relish in the soup of the present experience, that is the effulgent, radiantly unfolding lotus of the present moment that binds all of us inexorably upon a single golden thread.

Why Yoga and the Value of Transcending Opposites

2008-07-05T17:24:00.000-07:00

Through the practices of yoga we are cultivating a synergism of process in directional movement. When dialectically opposed patterns are joined together, they merge to create a more potent, higher state of being that has within it higher levels of potential energy, light, freedom, and grace. If the patterns were left to their own divisive tendencies, we encounter less of the just mentioned qualities and miss the opportunities of a dynamic equilibrium. Also, in the dissolution of opposites we find a heightened source of power, joy, vitality, through which the ecosystemic processes of the breath-mind-body system can be fully tapped and enlivened. In yoga we are planting seeds, the bijam, of the various yoga postures in the the soil of our lives, into the fecund ground of the mindful heart, where their encapsulating psycho-physiological effects take root, accumulate, and join together as a radiant, towering forest. As the postures age and begin to accumulate, all you have to do is let go of your efforts and allow the exfoliation, the flowering of the process, to unfold within the present moment. The general tendency to this experience equates to the process underlying the word "bliss."

For example, by spreading the roots of the feet in Head Balance, through expressive and articulate legs, our intention echoes the feeling-tone, the bhavana, of a lotus blossoming and unfolding its heart towards the heavens, with roots that draw their energy from deep within our hearts. The applications of this process, of course, extends well beyond our personal lives.

Arachnid Physicists

2008-07-02T19:13:00.001-07:00

Long before Einstein was theorizing about the time-space continuum, a spider in the Amazon was weaving it!

She dwells within a little leaf tent, which dangles innocently from the bottom of her web, as if it had fallen there by chance, carried by a moist breeze.

My Dear Friends

2008-06-24T11:06:00.000-07:00

My dear friends,

How I wish that I could share with you the delights of the Amazon, the delights of the heart of the world. If I could take you there, I would show you.

I would bring you to overlook the turged and spinning, milky brown waters of a rain swollen river whose banks rose 30 feet last night, in which the four dimensions of watery space are illumined by the cavorting, playful spirals of forest earth that mingle with the water.

I would bring you to look out over the darkened and humming night canopy of the forest, 90ft above the ground. We would look out over the articulated skeleton-like branches of the vast carpet of trees that extends to the horizon, a filled and expansive horizon of lungs. Lungs that breathe with mine and those of the incalculable masses of other being that share the vast and shimmering night air, a synesthesia of colors in the night blackness. The backdrop? A radiant, shimmering cathedral dome of the brightest starts that you have ever seen, that you could ever imagine seeing.

And oh, how I wish that you could feel with me the soft, moonbeam caresses of moth wings as they dance across our faces, brought to these heights by the nectarous allure of the flowering forest giants. Lured by the flowers that open only on this special night, spicy with energy, like discs of quicksilver, the gentle moths dance through the air--spiraling their way to the source. Your flashlight beam would pierce the dark, and then there would be nothing, nothing but the sparkling cranium of the heavens. If only you were here, I would show you the key that opens the space between yourself and the expanse.

We would walk together before dawn, in the dewy, dripping dark heat of the in between twilight. Together we would listen to the guttural roar of the distant Jaguar, to the piercing and mournful calls of the forest falcon, to the descending notes of the Potoo, and to the pure and resonant, chiming calls of a tinamou. They echo in this time of the quite forest. For miles they calls float through the vast and open understory. We would then watch as our torchlights lost their strength in the increasing blue light of the morning, a blue and black world of shape and hues. A world of great buttressed trees, draped heavily with lianas as this your arm, that spiral like the intelligent sinews of our share genetic heritage. Together we would smell the peppery jasmine-lemon scented, musty air and wonder to ourselves about the smallness that we all are and yet also the vastness of all this that we feel in our hearts. The day would slowly dawn and the morning chorus of 240 bird species would begin, each a valence of the million faceted gem of the forest and her architecture. Sparkling.

Natural Dharma

2008-04-30T11:59:00.000-07:00

From the dedication chapter in Shantideva's Guide to a Bodhisattva's Way of Life.

"May all embodied creatures
Uninterruptedly hear
The sound of the Dharma issuing from birds and trees,
Beams of light and even space itself"
V37

and

"For so long as space endures
And for as long as living beings remain,
Until then may I, too, abide
To dispel the misery of the world"
V55

Emergence of Our Work

2008-04-28T19:53:00.000-07:00

Last night I watched a beautiful film about Sharks, called Sharkwater (www.sharkwater.com). It was one of the most beautifully shot underwater films that I have seen in quite some time and highly recommend it to anybody out there. The film also highlighted the serous attention that ought to be paid to our planet's top oceanic predators--we have no idea what the impacts of loosing millions of sharks will have on the rest of the trophic levels below; this includes the phytoplankton and alga that produce a vast proportion of the oxygen that we breath.
On a final note, I was particularly struck by a comment made by the director of Greanpeace who said, "you have to bring people the story of the beauty of the world... to bring the story of the living miracle of life and show it to people."

As conservationist and biologists, we have to remember this key aspect of our work that involves re-enchanting people with the awesome beauty of nature. Bringing people into the "story of the beauty of the world" is a key aspect in our endeavor as conservationists because it facilitates a unification of our sentiments and emotional bodies. This then becomes a force that can be transmitted, passed between people, and amplified intergenerationally.

How can we live our life as messengers of the world's beauty?

Crystaline Vibrance

2008-04-05T09:55:00.001-07:00

Measuring biological diversity is like measuring the angle of prismatic constituents within a crystal, or an iridescent feather. On its own, the substrate looks dull with very little luminosity. But contextually, the particulate constituent takes on a radiant luster. The relational elements of a system, repetitively organized, magnify the pattern of potential within them. This pattern, however, is simultaneously a result of the properties that surround the constituent (fundamental) unit and is yet utterly inexorable from the fundamental unit in and of its self. By appreciating the ways that a system collectively interacts, we become more acutely aware of the deeper, vivid reflections and textures that course through it like veins just below the surface, or like the color of a shimmering crystal that comes bursting forth when you align it properly with a roaring beam of sun.

MULA BANDHA

2008-04-03T22:37:00.000-07:00

How do you honor the Earth?
Grow Roots
Integrate
And Reach your Tendrils
Deep towards the Core
Of the Heart
Of the Planet
Of the empty and Luminous Channel
The Self.

Do as the Trees,
As the Plants that branch and reach reticulate
Spinning on this Fair Blue Globe
And send yourself Deep
Into the Moist
Lightless Verdant Depths.

Allow the Plants to Teach You
The True Foundation
Upon Which We Utterly Depend.

All Life.

Honoring is just a Gesture that Ties your Action
To a Continuum of Actions
That Carry 'Weight of Process'
A Gesture around the Organizational
Impulses
The Lattice Work of Interrelationships
That is Life.

So grow roots and honor yourself
Roots of Mind and Action
A Drawing, A Condensation
Into the Liquid, Molten, Nectarous
Core of the Heart.
Effortless Effort.

Veg Work

2008-04-03T18:36:00.001-07:00

This is what happens when a tree is felled in the forest: light! One of the primary determinants of forest succession is access to light and the intensity of that light.

This tree was cut by a small-holder 1-2 years ago.

Big Moth

2008-03-30T13:16:00.000-07:00

These are the things that you seen when your are doing vegetation surveys in the tropics. Things that your eye will totally miss if you are just walking through the forest. The blessings of doing "veg work" that compensate for the myriad of sweat bees lapping up your salts and crawling all over your body in the process. Mind control.

Can you believe that camouflage?! If you squint, you can barely see it. The container of nature is like giant spherical mirror that contains smaller mirrors, impersonators of the larger, flitting around within it. The more that they appear like the larger mirror, the higher tendency they have to pass their continuum of adapted energy onwards. The energy is never lost.

This Ghost Moth, was so big, that I was startled when it flew from the tree--even after I touched it! It flew like a leaf would fall and then quickly flip itself up onto the surface of another tree. So fast, that if you looked away for a moment you would miss it.

Avain Diversity in the Anthropogenic Forests of Tambopata, Peru

2008-03-29T21:41:00.000-07:00

Please Check out my thesis: it wont bite...

Download here

Welcome to my Blog

2008-03-29T15:17:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my blog where you can find about about the last changes in my life and can encounter my thoughts regarding the nature of 'Nature' and how we as humans might cope with the increasing urbanization of our lives that leaves us feeling disconnected from our source. Biophilia, is a term that was developed from the work that Steven Kellert and E.O. Wilson did regarding the innate love that humans have for nature and the important role that nature, through its structures, plays in promoting psychophysiological wellbeing. Topics herein will range from poetry and philosophy to ecology, biodiversity conservation, and Yoga.