Manipura is solar energy – located in the solar plexus. Summer is the time to absorb that energy. There is still time left! Get outside! Move your body! Declare your passions!
I’ve been rocking out this summer, flying around huge hills and single track on an amazing mountain bike, having fun with beautiful souls, and soaking up the sun. I’ve made the conscious decision to be really active during the summer, filling up my joy and creativity batteries. Winter is the time to write and paint and do yoga and enjoy the wood stove. Oh yeah, and snow bike (fat tires), and cross country ski (I will try it this year), and find ways to stay warm and snuggle.
I never dreamed I would race, let alone place!
Riding has helped me to build my self-confidence more than any thing I have ever done in my life. It’s so much fun! I never thought I’d race, but I did about a month ago – and for my category – I won 2nd place!! Whoa. And one race expanded my riding skills hugely. (When I was a performer, every performance was like having 10 rehearsals. Racing is a similar experience).
I started riding seriously about 4 months ago. I’m 43 years old. I believe I adjusted to riding so quickly because of my yoga practice, and because I have been riding a cruiser town bike as my main transportation since 2009. This is beyond cruiser riding though, there is work, and breathing – so much breathwork – and my coach/companion has talked me through breathing – slowing it down, slowing the heart rate down as I am climbing 2500 feet up a mountain. Breathing into the belly. Breathing through fear.
I have loved cycling since I was a child. It was my way to be free. Cycling will be a big part of my life for the rest of my life. I am sure of it!
What do you love to do? Are you doing it?
3rd Chakra: Manipura ~ Lustrous gem • Will • Personal Power • The Right to Act • Fire
“When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not yet ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back. A week is more than enough time for us to decide whether or not to accept our destiny.” ― Paulo Coelho
“If you end up with a boring miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest, or some guy on television telling you how to do your shit, then you deserve it.” ―Frank Zappa
One of the beautiful views I get to see for riding up the mountain!
“Make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservation, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. If you want to get more out of life, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty.” ― Jon Krakauer
“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.” ― George Bernard Shaw
“Resist much, obey little.”
― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
“My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.”
― Maya Angelou
“The sun shines not on us, but in us.” ~John Muir
“Creativity ignited a spark. In that moment, I saw that art is not peripheral, beauty is not optional, but a strategy for survival.” – Terry Tempest Williams
“I do not think, sir, you have any right to command me, merely because you are older than I, or because you have seen more of the world than I have; your claim to superiority depends on the use you have made of your time and experience.” ― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
“Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.” — Charles Bukowski (1920-1994)
“The only way to deal with an un-free world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is
an act of rebellion.” — Albert Camus (1913-1960)
“Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire.” — William Butler Yeats
“If we don’t change our direction, we are likely to end up where we are headed.” —Reuben Snake (1937-1993), Winnebago Medicine Man
“When I am dancing, it feels like my prayer. Its’s like an offering. I offer my head back to the dance, I offer my shoulders back to the dance, my elbows, my hands, my spine, my knees, my feet, my whole self, my bones, my blood, my experience, my suffering… I offer it all back to the dance and I say: Take it, do whatever you want with me. Release me.” ~ Gabrielle Roth
“There’s always some further action to take.” ~ Pierre Boulle
“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” ~ Alice Walker
“All of our suffering in life is from saying we want one thing and doing another.” – Debbie Ford
“Good things happen to those who hustle.” ~ Anais Nin
“Without personal power, life is a frightening and painful experience.” ~ Caroline Myss
Filed under: affirmations, chakra, yoga Tagged: cycling, frank zappa, jon krakauer, manipura chakra, Maya Angelou, paulo coehlo, third chakra, thomas faeh
