Written by Philip Walter on Jun 5 at 10:11 am.
Photo courtesy of
Amy Walter
Anyone who owns a dog knows the amusement to be had when one of them takes off on a slumbering romp through dream-land. Even just five minutes watching their paws flutter in a sideways “jog-in-place” and their lips flap and furl in an attempt to pursue some imaginary squirrel beats the hell out of a whole night of American Idol. I find myself wondering what forest he’s sprinting through, what stream she’s swimming across, or what mailbox he’s pissing on.
Last week I was reminded of all this while listening to this story on NPR’s All Things Considered. The basic gist was that college students everywhere are awakened in the middle of the night by dreams of failing their last final and being unable to graduate, or of tripping on their way across the stage at their graduation ceremony, or of arriving at the show naked altogether.
This sort of dream, according to the story, seems to be stress-induced, triggered by anxiety surrounding the event of graduation, an event looked forward to and toiled over for many years. But these dreams don’t just pop up in the midst of the experience. They can show up years and years later. The theory behind this is that college in general and graduation specifically can be very stressful, so when we encounter stressful situations later in life, and our brains try to sort those situations out, our dreaming selves return to the images of college and graduation in an archetypal way.
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Written by Philip Walter on Apr 8 at 5:36 pm.
Editor’s Note – What follows are my personal impressions and interpretations of Scott Sonnon’s latest book, Prasara Yoga: Flow Beyond Thought. My use of the term “integral,” both in the title of this article and throughout the body of it, to describe Coach Sonnon’s work is not meant in any way to confuse it with nor to marginalize Sri Swami Satchidinanda’s Integral Yoga Hatha or Sri Aurobindo’s The Integral Yoga, both of which stand on their own as seminal works. I only mean to indicate how Scott’s approach employs the primary integral strategy (which produces the All-Quadrant integral model described in my article on Integral Fitness) of assimilating truths from all sources available, whether ancient, modern, or somewhere in between, in order to present the most complete picture of human development possible.
Photo courtesy of
the flow academy
I’d like to start by thanking one of my readers, Duff (of fallingfruit.tv and precisionchange.com), for turning me on to the work of martial arts champion and Circular Strength Training® developer Scott Sonnon. For a voracious seeker of light like myself, personal development can be charted along a path upon which the most significant twists and turns are tied to landmarks such as the reading of a specific book or the discovery of a specific writer or teacher.
At age 29, my own path has several of these major landmarks – Roshi Philip Kapleau’s The Three Pillar’s of Zen; the wonderful fiction of Tom Robbins, which led me to Alan Watt’s The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are; my first yoga teacher, Matt Krepps, who pointed me toward Godfrey Devereux’s Dynamic Yoga, and the work of Jed McKenna; the fiercely voluminous library of Ken Wilber; and now Scott Sonnon, who has empowered me to take yet another turn in my personal journey.
What Scott Sonnon presents in his latest book, Prasara Yoga: Flow Beyond Thought, is a digitally digestible, postmodern path to enlightenment. With the human body as the vehicle, it is an exquisitely sophisticated, integral approach to Hatha Yoga.
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Written by Philip Walter on Feb 24 at 12:34 am.
This is the last of a 5-part series of articles called The Search. Start from the beginning here.
Photo courtesy of Bryan Clifton.
Alright, now I am going to ask you to do something for me. I want you to try to do something spontaneous. Go ahead. Try it.
The truth is, it can’t be done. Spontaneity has nothing to do with trying. Spontaneity is only about doing. One of the definitions of spontaneous is to be “said or done without having been planned or written in advance.” To be spontaneous is to be without forethought, and trying implies forethought. You can do something spontaneous, you can even spontaneously try to do something spontaneous, but you cannot simply and intentionally try to do something spontaneous.
Now you’re probably thinking I make no sense. You might be saying, since the spontaneous, moment by moment expression of God through one’s life is what we’re talking about here, it seems like nothing I’ve said so far makes any difference. All I’m doing here is teaching you how to try to do something spontaneous, and we just established that was impossible. And you’d be absolutely right.
But that’s only half the story. This is the paradox of awareness. See, each and every moment you are aware of consists of two elements: consciousness and light. Consciousness being this vast empty canvas, and light being infinite textures and colors of paint soaking in, and together they make up the piece of art we call existence. Without one or the other, this thing that we are aware of, every thing we are aware of, ceases to be. This is the same old dichotomy between agency and communion, male and female, depth and resonance.
And I will now introduce this as the ultimate and most fundamental paradox of existence: one cannot wholly sit back, observing existence as pure consciousness, as transparent witness and expect to get anywhere, and at the same time, one cannot grow through complete participation, existing as pure light. These are ideals, concepts set at extreme poles where nothing can exist.
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Written by Philip Walter on Feb 23 at 1:55 am.
This is Part 4 of a 5-part series of articles called The Search. Start from the beginning here.
Photo courtesy of the Arkansas House of Prayer.
Okay, so what the heck have I been talking about so far, anyway? About depth and resonance, and about how they work together to create a certain generous understanding, which can open your eyes to the kingdom of heaven, right? And the kingdom of heaven manifests itself in joy, faith, and hope, which together can lead to a peaceful ease that reflects the holiness of each and every moment.
Sounds kind of far out, huh? Like pie in the sky sort of talk, yes? Well, generous understanding opens one up to a renewed spirit, constantly unfolding, vibrant, passionate, and energetic. This fills you with joy, it gives you hope, and faith comes closely behind the deep intimacy involved with living in the light of this generous understanding.
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Written by Philip Walter on Feb 19 at 1:01 am.
This is Part 3 of a 5-part series of articles called The Search. Start from the beginning here.
Photo courtesy of Bryan Clifton.
Resonance, as I mentioned in the last section, is the second characteristic of generous understanding, and likewise it is the second obstacle to developing generous understanding. It takes sensitivity to tune a guitar, finding just the right pitch, not too sharp but not too flat. Likewise it takes sensitivity to find the things that truly resonate in our lives. Depth experiences can be many, but only a few will truly resonate in your key. The depth experience is like the sound coming off your guitar strings, while resonance is like the tuning fork telling you when the sound is true to you. And what’s left after tuning the thing, after finding those sounds that resonate? Well, then you get to play of course.
But maintaining resonance is often difficult, as every guitar player will tell you. Once he’s tuned and played on a set of strings long enough, he’s got to buy another set. So it’s a never-ending process of tuning, playing, and updating; but eventually it becomes a never-ending process of playing.
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