Las Tablas Finca, La Amistad Biosphere Reserve, Costa Rica

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

I Like to Sit

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

Weave a Nest for Yourself: seedling on a palm frond

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

Inner and Outer Heavens

Glass Frog and the Porch View

High Altitude Cloud Refraction Over the Rocky Mountains

Costa Rica: Home for the Next 3 Months

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

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

            

More Dew

Morning Textures and Condensation.

Nature taking it back.

Ciudad vieja, en Panama

Misty Morning Raven

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

Hindi and the Harmonium

La Hoja de Palma

Strelitzia reginae

                  

Will work for the elation of others...

YOGA PRIVATES

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~

Radiant Morning

Flowers, Water, Tree.

Home Tree

-BE THE TREE-

The Architecture of the Universe and Avatar

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

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.