EverydayBliss: Look Up for a Lift

The Watson-Curtze Mansion in Downtown Erie.

Listening to right now: MIDival PunditZ, Ali

Today's Bliss Formula: The new relationships I am developing -- especially in the yoga community -- thanks to this site. Today's reading: The Anti 9 to 5 Guide, a book about which I have long been excited.

On a trip to Paris too many years ago (what a sad little phrase that is -- must get back to Paris!), I noticed something about Cathedrals.

At the time, I was in one of my anti-religion phases, but I still couldn't stay away from the Cathedrals. And when I went in, regardless of my then-cynicism, I felt something. I didn't want to, but I did. I found myself lighting candles -- completely embarrassed but still doing it.

And I wanted to stay inside those cathedrals, just sit, for hours, but I couldn't -- I was with some people who had lists of things to accomplish and just sitting would mean wasted time.

My memory may be wrong, but at the time (around 1994) they were in the middle of a major restoration and there was no seating inside. I could be making this up; memory is tricky. But I do clearly remember having this unbearable urge to sit on the floor, to lie on the floor, and just look up.

Coming back, I forgot all about this, until a few years later when I started attending Mass sporadically and realized why I preferred the Cathedral downtown to any of the smaller, neighborhood churches -- it was the height.

Something about looking up into that vast expanse of space, made me feel good. And the architecture just added to the sensation. Outlining the space with beautiful, well thought out lines and curves seemed to make the space more apparent -- rather than limited.

Looking up into the sky, of course, can give you the same lift. And living on a lake, with no mountains, no forests, is, to me, the ultimate. I am a flat-lander for that very reason -- my love of big sky.

Reach up for the sunrise.
Put your hands into the big sky.
You can touch the sunrise.
Feel the new day enter your life.
--Duran Duran

So what about out own bodies? If the body is the temple, is there a way to access these feelings internally, no matter where you are?

Of course. Think about someone with really poor posture. They are hunched; their head is aimed toward the ground. The vibe they send out into the world can vary from "I don't care" to "The world doesn't care." And their posture helps fulfill that prophecy, does it not? They literally drag themselves down.

Standing up straight, with your pelvis positioned in line with your spine, activating your core, can make you feel better. Every time your mother or father yelled at you to stand up straight, they were giving you emotional and spiritual advice as well as physical, whether they were aware of this or not.

And in Kundalini yoga, this principle of looking up is taken to anther level: the third eye is key in Kundalini yoga.

For most of a session of this distinct type of yoga, you have your eyes closed and are instructed to look up and through your third eye.

Traditionally, people say that your destiny is written on your forehead. A good enough reason to look in this direction! But Ravi Singh asserts in Journey through the Chakras, that the point of opening your third eye is really so "you can see clearly where your destiny lies and you can go there and live it."

So it might sound silly but stand up straight, raise your eyes to the sky many times a day, lay down on the grass and just gaze, start taking pictures from underneath things, and feel the lift.

And to paraphrase Ravi Singh yet again (or to quote him exactly -- I couldn't find the quote in my many, many DVD's),

Your feet are roots and your skull a skylight; let heaven and earth conspire within you.

We are spirit and flesh, not any less of one than the other. And when you look up, you remember that your mind and your life are as big as any sky, as beautiful as any sunset, and as promising as any sunrise.