Bottling My Journey to the Heart

I am so excited to have kicked off 2009 with a journey I've wanted to have been on for quite some time now; it's the 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training program with Didier Razon from Two Suns Rising Yoga School. A journal about my first 10-hour training day can be found on the blog of my new site, BottlingHealth.com.

Two weeks later, on the second 10-hour training day, Didier's wife, Ann, joined the class to do a 'Journey to the Heart' session. While sitting on our yoga mats, Ann began the guided visualization by instructing students to imagine we were shrinking in size. We were to end up being these itsy bitsy beings who could fit inside ourselves and travel along a path that would lead us to the threshold of our hearts -- where we were to step in, take a seat, and stay a while. After hanging out inside our hearts, Ann's voice eventually guided us back out...returning to our mats.

Some eyes that had started out dry were not so dry at the end of the journey. This exercise was powerful with helping us to "see" inside our hearts -- and get a 'visual' of where we might be stuck, wide open, etc. My tears were a result of the joy I felt inside my heart -- although the start of the journey wasn't as clear...but, whew, once inside my heart, there was no question about what was inside of it!

After opening our eyes, the next stage of the process was to journal, via writing or art, about our experience. Of course, I decided to write. Here's my story......

At the start of this "Journey to the Heart" exercise, my 'little' self began walking through nature along a path where I felt a little unsure about where I was going or who I was -- passing a person whom I thought was me but was not. (And that unknown person was indeed someone I would never want to be.)

Eventually, once making my way through that temporary phase, I entered my heart -- a HUGE space -- too big to merely walk into at the threshold; the only way in was to jump into this space that was bottomless -- just space!

I flew through the air as I had done when I went rock climbing in the mountains during the summer of '07. I swung on the rope like a care-free child -- then and today!

Next, my son turned up and joined me after I eventually found a place to sit in my heart -- on a natural rock formation (like the rock in the mountains as well as similar to the rock from which I used to jump into the ocean during my childhood in Bermuda). My son and I both played in my heart -- flying like Peter Pan in all of that space. Life was completely free!! Bliss!

We exited, turned and said, "Namaste," as prompted by the guided visualization. As I returned to my bigger self (not the 'isty bitsy' anymore), the threshold to my heart closed -- although my heart did not. There was only light remaining. Bright, white light!

(End of journey...)

At some point during this journey, Ann told us to think about why we were there -- in that 200-hour training. So, isn't it something that my heart journey ended with my mind's eye seeing bright, white light -- because the reason that showed up for me as to why I was there in was to learn to open my heart further "to spread more light to the world."
In Spreading Light...

LOVE from my HEART,

Penny