“To live with truth is fundamental. Submission into reality is going with the flow. Adjust yourself to reality, not reality to yourself. If you can let go of who you think you are, where you come from, and become a part of the whole, it will flow. . . . It is all within you. You and God are one, and God is in you.”
I learned in India that everything is sacred. That one can live a spiritual life in whatever they do. If you do your work with love and gratitude, being a vessel for God to flow through, it is spiritual.
I ended up staying in a little cottage with no running water above a small town. Everyday I would walk down to the yoga shala and practice and every afternoon I would climb the mountain again passing the water buffalo or the cows on the path through the forest. It was while I was living on the side of the mountain in the foothills of the Himalaya that I realized I needed to go create a home.
I returned from India with the love of the holy cow nestled in my heart. I used my hands to build a cottage on the side of the mountains of Colorado. There I grew my food and nurtured my children. I learned how to ground myself into mother earth, giving thanks for the opportunity to steward a piece of her. As I put wood from the apple trees into the wood stove for making dinner, I gave thanks for the fire that kept our family warm all winter. I inoculated my body with beneficial organisms, healing my gut with the live foods I produced off the land, the ferments and the raw milk.
Everyday, I walked down the hill and herded the cows into the temple of that land- the dairy barn. Milking the cows became my daily spiritual practice.
After years of healing the land in Colorado, the universe decided it was time for another journey. Another searching for healing in my heart began. This time I turned to myself. I looked myself in the mirror and I loved the woman I saw. I truly fell in love with myself again after many years of not loving myself. I could see all the steps that had led me to that point were there to teach me lessons. At that moment, I was grateful for the pain and the shame because it had all led me to that very point in time. And I could look myself in the eyes and fall deeply in love. I knew I was a strong women and I was meant to help empower other women. I knew part of my life’s work would be to help guide women through their darkness, their pain and shame and into the light of their self-love. I was meant to teach women the tools that I have used to return to self-love.
I began to practice Qi Gong, Tai Chi and Kung Fu for the first time. Electric bolts of Chi were flowing through my body and opening channels that had been blocked. I could feel my energy in a new way. Yoga Asana for me has helped me stay flexible, and correct my alignment, but the Qi Gong opens the pathways for my Chi to flow freely through my body.
I continued to journey into the depths of the pain and hurt in my heart, and it was then “my medicine” found me. As I submitted to the pain, the universe asked me to hold space. I was gifted the teachings of this breath work. I began to practice daily, this new form of Pranayama Yoga. I knew at once that this was my path. I knew I was meant to be a healer.
“When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” Buddha
Practicing this breath work is a spiritual practice. I have had many profound experiences with this breath. It has awakened my eyes to seeing, my ears to hearing, and my heart to feeling. I have felt Spirit pouring into the palm of my hand. I felt Spirit entering my yoni and rising up my spine to merge into my heart. I felt spirit pulsating my entire pelvis area. I have felt the spinning of my chakras.
I have purged many impurities with the breath. I have felt the negative emotions lifting out of my body and the pure white light of love rushing through me. I have barfed out the toxic emotions- vomiting negative entities. My body has arched in back bends to loosen the negative emotions. I have “cat and cowed” and “tiger breathed” out the negativities. I have burped the stagnant chi out. I have screamed and cried and laughed and sang. I have had visions where I was flying, and visions of dancing. I have joined in sacred union with the mother earth and joined in sacred union with father sky.
My teacher in India told me, in Pranayama, we burn the impurities (negative entities/energies) that are released. That way we do not have to carry them to the next life.
I have submitted to the will of Spirit to guide and teach me. I have let go of who I thought I was- a farmer, a wife. I have let go of where I came from- a privileged white girl from the city. As a humble student of life I am hear to bring this breath work to people so that they may have their own spiritual experiences.
This breath work has brought tremendous healing to my life. I know that I am here to bring this gift of healing to others. I am here to teach people the breath work so that they can have their own spiritual experience. This is what I am on this planet to do. I am here to share with people the tools that have worked for me. The keys I have used to open the doors of self-love, self-empowerment, and connection to Spirit.
I am so grateful everyday that I have the breath work. It is an honor and a joy to share this gift of breath with others. All the searching I did in India to heal my heart and connect with my Spirit did not bring me the answers. It was here in America that I learned this form of Pranayama Yoga. I am so grateful to be in community with healers. And I am honored to share this gift.
May we all find ways to reconnect with our Spirit. May we all find ways to deepen our love for self. May we all find our soul’s medicine. And may we each share our gifts with the world.
LOVE Ali