Reflections of our Sacred Spirit Yoga & Meditation Retreat

“We are the guides we seek. We are the love we yearn for.

Our beauty is here in our own reflections, if only we are to look.”

At the end of October, I headed out on another profound journey to a new land to meet new and old friends. What I did not expect was how incredible this trip would be in more ways than I can express. Not only is it an honor and privilege to have this ability to travel the world, leading people deep into their bodies, hearts, and souls while experiencing a new outer landscape, but it is also amazing to me how much I learn and understand each time from the sharing and friendships that form while we are all experiencing our new inner landscape as well. When we pull away from our day to day routines, the hectic pace that most of us live by, and let ourselves pause…things change inside. The shift is real! The clarity is so potent, one has the ability to make new relationships with self and with others. We have less fear to move through the world and show a much greater capacity for trusting and loving all. Maybe just maybe we can hold onto this new sense and continue to spread this love like sunbeams out to everyone in the entire world!

The incredible group that formed for this trip could not have been more perfect. Isn’t it funny how the right people magnetize together to hold space for themselves and one another for transformation when the time is right?! And so our retreat week began on a Saturday as they most often do. Several of us arrived together by shuttle van then onto our little boat taxi for a 10 minute cruise across the lake from Panachel to be dropped off at the Villa Sumaya dock. From one location to another, our eyes were wide trying to take in the majesty of the lake and mountains surrounding us. Only to land in the most magical of all Villa Sumaya. The property is beautifully laid out with paths weaving through the hillside, gardens and an abundance of large crystals everywhere on the property (you all know how crazy in love I am with crystals). Cozy nooks to lounge in everywhere and hammocks spread out near the lake to laze the day away! More about the retreat center to come.…

Lake Atitlán is believed by the Maya to be the center of the universe; the place where God’s seeds of mankind evolved. They also believed that this majestic lake represents the belly button or manipura chakra of the Earth. In human beings the manipura chakra is located at the solar plexus. In both cases, the location on the earth and the place in the body are characterized by the element of fire, which governs all processes of transformation. Cradled in the embrace of 3 majestic volcanoes, Lake Atitlán holds the potential for profound metamorphosis of mind, body and spirit. Here, we were supported in finding a deeper connection to the heart of the Earth, and therefore, our own heart, which allows the song of your soul to be clearly heard and wholeheartedly celebrated.

“Everything becomes fire, and from fire everything is born” - Herakleitos

Our first yoga practice began Sunday morning in our stunning yoga temple on the top floor of our house. With the energy of the land, I thought it was a perfect time for us to journey through the chakras. I had planned our practices many, many months in advance, with this intuitive sense that this was the right place to dig into this work! Being located in a temple high above the ground and which also represented the upper chakras, we began with grounding into our root! The root chakra also known as Muladhara (mul = base, adhara = support) is the chakra of the earth. It is the source of our earthly connection and survival, vitality and strength, our sense of belonging and trust. Metaphorically speaking, this is our most Primal Self; the instinctual animal parts of our being. Our fight, flight, freeze fear responses, and our sense of being grounded and secure.

Perhaps you can see why beginning with our root was relevant here. Not only to help us establish a connection to the earth and land we were residing on, but also to help release and remove the fear that had many questioning if this trip was safe. We practiced a mountain meditation, grounded with asana, re-centered and established our connections to self, each other, and the beautiful Guatemalan culture. All fear dissipated as we landed in our root and felt deeply content in our new home and in our hearts.

We continued our chakra journey day by day, connecting the second chakra with the water element and the lake energy. Our third chakra and the power of the sun and fire. Only to find ourselves midweek ready for the heart. Coincidentally, this was also our cacao ceremony day, which is also heart-centered. The heart chakra connects the lower and upper chakras together and is considered the first energy center that focuses inward and moves beyond the body, toward the center of compassion and love. Anahata, means unhurt, and is associated with healing, nurturing, and opening. Once the body feels safe, grounded and centered, it is able to open.

And open we did!

Our ceremony was led by 2 woman, Red Hawk and White Condor, who skillfully guided us through several rounds of sharing, cleansing, and clearing of our heart spaces. Needless to say, during the first round the tears were flowing, and we were ready for some of that cacao heart energy to be moving through our bodies.

Cacao was cultivated by Mayas more than 2,500 years ago and it was called “Ku-Ku”. Ku in Mayan Language means Sacred and Ku-Ku “above sacred”. Aztecs learned from Mayas how to cultivate and prepare it, they called Cacao “Cacahuatl” and the bitter drink that they obtained from his fruits “Xocolatl”. This drink was consumed just by Emperor and Nobility and is called Kakaw in Mayan Language that means “Drink of the Gods”.

According to Mayan Elders and Archaeologists, Spirit of Cacao is one of the most powerful Deities of Mayan Cosmology. With the Spirit of Cacao we can travel towards our Innerself where our Wisdom and Love live. This ceremony is oriented to reconnect with Beauty, Sweetness and Love in ourselves. Cacao Goddess is our magic companion that will invite us to open the Heart Door: it is up to us and our level of consciousness if we will be able to cross the Door.

The cacao ceremony left us with full bellies and warm open hearts!

On Thursday, we had planned to travel to the ChiChi market, the biggest market in the area held only on Thursdays and Sundays. Everyone was excited to shop for some colorful gifts and tapestries. However, after the long and winding bus trip through the mountains, all were a bit deflated and nauseous on arrival. The market was certainly colorful and bustling from end to end. Also just a bit of shock to arrive to the frenetic energy and the constant soliciting when coming from such a peaceful environment prior. Fair warning here…if traveling to Guatemala know this is not a necessary thing to see unless you enjoy haggling and being packed like sardines in the street with people and dogs. With all that we made the best of our time and many of us bought some great gift items for our families back home.

Exhausted upon our return back to Villa Sumaya, we took the evening to enjoy a nice dinner together and rest. The food at Villa Sumaya was wonderful as well as the staff! Our meals had variety for the vegetarian, vegan, gluten and dairy free. They were creative, nourishing and always delicious!

Friday was our last day and most of us chose to soak in the land and peaceful nature of where we were. I took a walk on an ancient path on the sacred land, along the lake through the jungle of leaves and vines, roots and rocks. Hoping to carry the essence of this great land, our time and practices together. Carrying this home and into our daily lives.

Remembering our way back to self is often a tough road when we feel buried under so many stories or ideals of what we think we are and the stressors of life in general. At times we may have to go far beyond familiar ground to find that place we call home. And sometimes traveling outside of your comfort zone is just enough to shake you out of your slumber to begin the transformation.

A reminder to all my retreaters and to my future retreaters…

Take whatever awareness or realization you acquire in each moment and use it to guide you out of any uncertainty in life. Aim to move from a place of compassion in your thoughts, words, and actions. Set up your conditions to receive grace. This is like practicing the correct form in a yoga pose. The flow you feel is the flow of grace, raining upon you when have set up the right conditions.

If we are gentle with ourselves in our daily lives and in our interactions with each other. If we are balancing grace and effort, we may also live life like that!

Connect to the purpose of your heart, sit still, learn to listen…pure listening. Draw your maps from there and then bound forward.

Traveling gives one a passport to the soul, it peels the hardened edges away from the heart, it softens ones entire being to an incredible awakening and truly shows us how interconnected we all are!

Let’s choose love always!

Until our next journey together!

Every step is a conscious step…stay awake my friends!

www.angelluciayoga.com

Sign up for where and when I’ll be in your area or on retreat!

www.zenevate.com/angel

Practice with me online!

What is Yin Yoga?

“Silence is like a cradle holding our endeavors and our will; a silent spaciousness sustains us in our work and at the same time connects us to larger worlds that, in the busyness of our daily struggle to achieve, we have not yet investigated. Silence is the soul’s break for freedom.”

— David Whyte

Yin yoga has been a great blessing in my life. When I first began practicing yin I wasn't at all prepared for the quiet, stillness, and drama that ensued inside my head. I was coming from a very active Ashtanga Vinyasa practice and had been in a place of push thru it, keep going until you get that arm balance, more hang time in handstand, just one more chataranga. All that intensity and pushing began to break my body down, as well as my spirit. Yoga had become to competitive, no longer about the practice simply being a practice or your practice. Of course this was partly my fault as I had forgotten the true essence of my practice and what my first teacher Kali Ray had imparted upon me. I also got caught in the competitive motion of things. The teachings and practices became all about how many chatarangas can be turned out in 90 minutes, who has the most amazing arm balances, handstands, and who is who in the fancy yoga pose world. We all know yoga is not a competition, but that was exactly what it had become at this time. The emerging of the rock star yogi 's had hit the scene. Things became flashy, showy, with way to much fan fare around what the teacher was wearing and what fancy pose they were going to do. With all this my body began to breakdown, a feeling of being contracted, less flexible, and always very sore. My practice no longer nurtured me, softened me, allowed me to let down my protective armor that I was trying desperately to let go of. However I didnt see it until I began to practice yin. My first exposure to yin was back in 2006 when I happened upon a class while practicing in LA. I found myself in a random class having no idea what was about to happen and honestly not knowing anything about yin. Well, it blew my lid off! I was more challenged than ever before, more challenged than any active practice had offered me. That first experience shook the very core of my being. The teacher spoke just a little bit about the shapes, offering some variety within the same primary shape according to your body and then set a timer and left us in silence for majority of the time. He would interject with little cues and suggestions while holding. And once the bell would go off we would slowly find our way out of the shape and into another. Sometimes with a little movement in between and other times we would move right on to the next shape. All the while my body sinking deeper and deeper into places I had never felt before. My mind on the other hand was freaking out from the stillness, and the time seemed to go on forever. I remember wondering if the timer was broken and wanting so badly to get out of the shape. I was resisting, restless, impatient, moving between tension and release. As soon as I felt some release I had fear flood my body and mind and would pull back again, resisting the sweetness that the earth was right there to catch me. Over time I slowly learned the art of surrender in both my body and mind. I released my strong hold on life and allowed myself to sink deeper than ever before. My mind melted into spaciousness wandering from breath to sensations to soft sounds floating around. I became present to just being, my body let go of long held tensions, and I felt more space in all areas of body, mind, and heart. I truly allowed gravity to move thru my being, pulling me closer to the earth so I could be held in the loving arms of our greatest mother. I melted, I cried, I surrended myself! 

The practice of yin is both challenging and liberating. It takes us out of our hectic lives and gives us time to slow down, release, to pause rather than push. A beautiful practice that reminds you to come home to yourself...your inner self!

Today my practice is very different. I no longer push myself beyond what my breath body is allowing in Vinyasa. I play my edges safely and let my breath body tell me where we are going. I am no longer interested in what fancy shapes I can make with my body. If I naturally find my way into them through the progression of my practice then I play, if I feel heavy or resistent I pause and find my way into a long hold to investigate the resistence. Is it my body, mind, or breath resisting? And what am I resisting? I have been fortunate to have studied with many great teachers Paulie Zink. Paul Grilley, Denise Kaufman, Sara Powers, and many more that have gifted me with guidance and support through my yin process. I highly recommend giving Yin a try. If you are looking to study yin, seek out the greats, the original yinsters I mentioned above. Paul Grilley and Denise Kaufman are my two faves as they both offer the space and quiet to truly unfold.

Here are 2 great articles on Yin!

http://www.yogitimes.com/mobile/article/everlasting-youth

http://www.yogitimes.com/mobile/article/what-is-yin-yoga-pain-free-restorative-release-relax-body-gentle

Now go give your body and mind the gift of a quiet yin practice...love yourself, release yourself, and just be! 

XO A

Mediation - It's already happening so dive in!

What do you love so much in this life that you want to meditate on it, the things that tickle your soul.

To meditate, we sit and pay loving attention to the rhythm and pulsation of life renewing itself. 

How does life renew itself? Life is always in motion, rhythmically pulsating as it heals and evolves itself. 

The breath, for example. Breath is one rhythm we can pay attention to. Just for a few seconds, notice the way the breath is flowing into and out of your body. There are many little things to love about the way breath feels, and if you start paying attention in a loving way, you will settle into meditation. There are innumerable other rhythms, such as the heartbeat, or the rhythm of thoughts and silence. 

Meditation allows us to access a naturally occurring rest state; it is resting in yourself while remaining awake and alert. It is different from sleep, in that the rest is much deeper and happens quickly, and you become more aware than usual. Meditation happens spontaneously for a few seconds or minutes when we gaze at the horizon, a sunset, a river, the ocean, or lie on our backs and gaze upward at the night sky.

We can cultivate meditation intentionally, we can set aside a time each day to meditate, and this has great benefits. Even a few minutes of meditation here and there can help your day to be more full of grace and good humor.

There are at least three ways that meditation helps with healing on a physical and emotional level.

– Meditation lets the body rest more deeply than sleep, even though you are sitting up and are awake.

– During meditation your body-mind system lets go of the past, and of the hurts of the past. As if a lot of time has passed.

– After meditation, you are less likely to get stressed over little things, so you will tend to have less stress-related illness.

Rest is one of the most profound human needs. We all need to sleep and dream. We all know how rejuvenating sleep is. Meditation gives us access to that kind of renewal, only on a deeper level.

Life organizes itself in a rhythm of action and rest, action and rest. And if we do not get rejuvenating rest, our performance degrades. Meditation gives the body a chance to reset its clocks and enter action and sleep in a more harmonious manner.

When we rest, the body (including the nervous system and brain) tunes itself up, repairs damage, gathers energy, and gets ready to go.

Think of the deepest rest you have ever had in your life. You woke up and you could hardly move. That correlates to about an 8 percent reduction in oxygen consumption. Oxygen consumption is an indicator of how much work the body is doing.

During sleep, oxygen consumption gradually declines over a period of four or five hours, to eventually reach this 8 percent reduction. During meditation, oxygen consumption decreases by 10 to 17 percent within the first 3 to 5 minutes. This is a spontaneous side effect of paying attention in a meditative way, and is felt as a powerful sense of physical relaxation and ease. In other words, the body spontaneously goes into this state when you practice a meditation technique that suits you.

Meditation is innate, and your body already knows how to do it. The human body has an instinctive ability to shift into profound rest states in order to heal, energize, integrate, tune itself up and assimilate learning. It is almost a sure bet that you have already experienced this many times in your life. Meditation can happen spontaneously, as when you are sitting on a hill looking at a sunrise or sunset, or when listening to music. Most people I work with remember meditating many times in the past - only they did not call it meditation. It was just a personal time, a special time they had with themselves or with nature.

Meditation is paradoxical in that you are resting more deeply than sleep, yet you are wide awake inside. It is similar in some ways to taking a nap but you don’t fall asleep, you fall awake. You can induce it by attentively doing anything simple and repetitive. We breathe all the time, and breathing is rhythmic, so you could pay attention to your breathing. There are so many ways in.

Meditation promotes a heightened awareness of the details of everyday life. Even a few minutes of meditation will help you move through the world with more relaxation and alertness.

Meditation is giving attention a chance to explore its full range, both inward and outward. It is a conversation between your inner and your outer life. This sounds simple, and it is. But there is no end to the delights of attention; there is always more to learn, more to explore, more to awaken to.

What's needed to meditate
- all of the senses
- movement / mudra
- dark or light 
- smell and taste / rasa
- balance / 

come out of meditation slowly - take a few breaths

An example of a "nutritional" meditation Buddha gave can be found in the Anapanasati Sutra, 

"He trains himself to breathe in sensitive to rapture, and to breathe out sensitive to rapture. 
He trains himself to breathe in sensitive to pleasure, and to breathe out sensitive to pleasure.
He trains himself to breathe in sensitive to mental processes, and to breathe out sensitive to mental processes."

Here the tone of attention is nutritious, nurturing. These teachings direct attention to be sensitive to rapture and pleasure. You are taking delight in simply existing. Your body, nervous system, and your senses can set their own parameters.

Meditation is selecting some aspect of life’s rhythms of self-renewal, and then riding that inward to touch your essence, rest in essence.

Life renews itself through rhythm: the flowing breath, the pulsing heart, cycles of activity and restfulness, flows of energy and passion in the body, all the subtle nerves (nadis) flowing with prana, the prana humming and singing mantras to itself as it flows through the bodies, rhythms of brightness and darkness, wakefulness and sleep and dreaming. These are just some of the rhythms of life.

The rhythm of life renewing itself feels like love.
Feels like falling, floating, melting, opening.
Love brings up our fears to be healed.

The physical body and the prana body love each other and love to play together, coordinate, in the way that your different muscles love to coordinate and synchronize. It’s a deep joy to flow together. Meditation is a way to let body and soul come closer, inter-permeate each other, care for each other. 

Select aspects of life’s rhythm that appeal to you - use the same hunting instinct you use when finding music you love.

a whole meditation practice can be in movement, and at some point when the energy settles you will want to close your eyes and let yourself linger in the shimmer of sensation!

Now go meditate, delight in life renewing itself!

“Whenever the attention rests on anything -
on the emptiness of space, looking at a vast blue sky,
when looking on a wall or some wonderful person,
let that attention gradually be absorbed into itself,
so that the one who is paying attention be known.”

— The Radiance Sutras