Imagine No Longer Desiring Pain
By Swan Michelle “Suffering is necessary until you realize it is unnecessary.” Eckhart Tolle I practice a somewhat unconventional approach to New Years/cycles that I would love to share with you. It is not programmed, crafted nor engineered by a clock,...
A Chest of Jewels In Poem
Ode to 2020 By Swan Michelle I began writing and studying less and instead experiencing and contemplating more poetically in 2020. Please enjoy a list of ongoing poetry that I will add to, inspired by this year of growth and transformation, a chest of jewels in poem...
Embodying The Ongoing Whole Of Creation
by Swan Michelle The radiance of wholeness permeates the body And all directions simultaneously Wholeness is always here Already here before your noticing of it What we call whole is presence It is permission to exist -The Radiance Sutras 20 Purnamadah Purnamidam...
Conversations On Belonging
Oṁ Saha nāvavatu. Saha nau bhunaktu Saha vīryam karavāvahai. Tejasvi nāvadhītamastu Mā vidviṣāvaha. Oṁ Shāntiḥ, Shāntiḥ, Shāntiḥ, Om, May we all be protected. May we all be nourished May we work together with great energy May our intellect be sharpened...
Feeling Joy & Finding Guilt
By Swan Michelle Swan River Yoga · Swan Michelle: Feeling Joy & Finding Guilt Where guilt is found there can be no joy. When you attend to your personal guilt it will be very difficult to hurt others. Joy and harm do not rest together. ”You do not help at all...
I Choose Love Over Fear. Pandemic Silver Linings
By Swan Michelle Swan River Yoga · I Choose Love In one month’s pandemic time I have gotten to know most all of my neighbors. We wave at each other as though we are the only beings left on the planet, or as though we haven’t seen other humans in days,...
Collective Health & Social Sickness
Listen To Audio Version Here "Health Is wealth. Peace of mind is happiness. Yoga shows the way." -Swami Sivananda Listen to a FREE Meditation For Health Here What a wild ride, this life. With news of sickness escalating, it is vital right...
Daily Leaps Of Faith. Boundaries and Boundlessness
By Swan Michelle Space, or ether, is a container. It is easy to forget it is there, but it has boundaries. Space holds the Universe in place. In a time of responsible and mandatory social distancing, it is important to remember space is not isolation,...
Listen And Tell The Truth
By Swan Michelle The Art of Listening, Honest Speech and Sound Baths There is a reverberating, un-struck depth within each one of us. Can you hear it? For a moment, pause, become aware, and listen inside to the many sounds of you. Honor first a peripheral...
Commitment. You Can Not Give What You Do Not Have
Commitment. You Can Not Give What You Do Not Have "Love for no reason at all" -Ram Dass By Swan Michelle “The most important aspect of love is not in giving or the receiving: It’s in the being. When I need love from others or need to give love to others,...
All In: The Mystery of Manifestation & Divine Timing
By Swan Michelle “The Creator has a Master plan.” -Lyrics Pharoah Sanders “One of the most important moments is to step into not knowing, knowing you only need to make this step.” Adyashanti What is here and now is a co-creation of both you and the Divine,...
The Dignity To Grieve
Contemplations on despair, grief, loneliness and aloneness By Swan Michelle “In the path of devotion, absence is not the opposite of presence.” -Krishna Das Good Grief Grief is so incredibly soft and tender. It strikes directly into your pain unannounced, shattering...
Appreciation: All That Is Right Before Your Very Eyes
By Swan Michelle Thank you. I am sorry. I love you. “It is not happiness that makes you grateful but gratefulness that makes you happy.” The Book Of Joy- Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu & The Dalai Lama Revelation is there, right before your very eyes. Go all in....
Where Courage Lives Fear Dies
Dedicated To The Graceful Hearted That Face Suffering & Free Fear. By Swan Michelle “Suffering didn’t make me more fearful. It made me more real.” -Walking Each Other Home, Ram Dass Discomfort, shakiness, uncertainty and not...
When You’re Ageless And You Know It
<--BACK TO ALL SWAN TALKS (Click below to hear the full audio version of this blog post)by Swan Michelle“Aging; the party we have all indeed been invited to.” -Mirabai Bush There is something refreshing about mysteries coming out. This is why funerals in...
This Is Your Brain On Trauma & How I Discovered It Through Yoga Nidra
Trauma has been described in our trauma informed portion of our Yoga Teacher Training as “the inability to be present.” Through numerous evidence based studies shown in a Yoga Nidra “Irest” conference at the Sivananda Ashram, I learned trauma has substantially measurable effects on the brain’s function, particularly the brain stem, called the limbic system.
Embodying Clear Communication
Speak kindly to the waiter, to the grocery store clerk, to your children, to your parents, neighbor, peers, loved ones and friends. Belittling those whose values and morals you do not agree with, constantly judging them, purposefully diminishing or separating yourself from them means they will never listen to you.
A Soul Fire
A Soul fire is the spark of the embers of creation itself. It is the drive of life and the Soul’s willful ignition to exist. We’ve all got it. It’s our innate passion to survive, united with the yearning for meaning and endless conviction. No one has more or less of as it as it is the embers of our beginning, the light that never goes out and the force behind our inspiration.
The Guru Principle: Somewhere Over the Rainbow
In the story of The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy meets many beings on her path whom she seems to not recognize. Her seeking, in studentship, reveals a wealth of teachings. All those who wander are not lost. The map may be more familiar than we currently “think”. There is always an inner teacher within you. It is a Divinely gifted compass.
Emotional Health: Joy in Unsavory Conditions
Emotions are related to survival, heightening the sympathetic nervous system. Everything we do can further stabilize or destabilize our emotional health. If attended to, our basic self assists us as adults with healthy emotional responses…