I just realized (yes just today) WHY practicing yoga puts me (and most people) in such a super-content (santosh-ic!) good mood! To practice yoga is to become one with the Divine, which resides WITHIN US.

Therefore, when practicing yoga you are doing something very special, you are connecting with something so much greater than the YOU you usually consider. And it's so amazing that that YOU, that DIVINITY is within you and you have access to it, anytime.

I spent my lunch hour practicing in my office and then came home to a longer home practice with the heat cranked up in the house. When finished I was just dancing around the house making a salad and listening to Wah! (I am such a yoga nerd sometimes), and that is when this revelation, that really isn't a relevation, but something very simple, hit me!

Then I heard a loud THUD!
Having no idea what it was, I inspected from whence it came and lo and behold my kitty cat, Ella, had knocked my mat down from it's resting upright position andhad it rolled out whereupon she was seated on it like the freaking Queen of Sheba. Oh Ella, you too can connect with your divinity!

OBAMA!

Today I did a long intuative vinyasa practice at my house, focusing slightly on the hips and sacrum. I was hungry when I started my practice and thought I might cut it short to eat something, but that hunger faded and I ended up having a nice very long meditative flow. Afterward I sat in meditation and chanted:

Om Namah Shivaya Gurave

Saccidananda-Murtaye

Nishprapancaya Shantaya

Niralambaya Tejase

which translates into:

I bow to the goodness within myself,

known as the Lord Shiva, who is the true teacher.

This essence inside takes the form of truth, consciousness, and bliss.

Always present and full of peace, this essence inside is completely dree, and sparkles with a divine luster.

How can one go wrong with that!?

While chanting my thoughts came to two of my friends that have passed away, one a month ago today. He was someone I would "go to the mountain" with, meaning we would have deep spiritual discussions that sometimes lasted late into the night. Consequently, the other friend that past away nearly two years ago was also a "go to the mountain" friend. I miss them both intensely, and while in meditation I almost cried for the loss of them, but then, I recalled a poem that I used to comfort me after Audrey's death. It's too long to type here, but it in sense presented death as a very beautiful passage - a drop of water reentering the ocean. When I remembered the poem I then pictured the souls of my two friends meeting somewhere beyond and although they never met in this life, they were kindred spirits and I like to think of them connecting somewhere.