“Let peace begin with me.
Let this be the moment now.”
Jill Jackson / Sy Miller

Have you ever looked up to someone who in time disappointed you terribly?  Perhaps it was a trusted minister who spoke every Sunday on ‘how to love’ and then filed for divorce.

Or the local health food fanatic you spied at a fast food restaurant chowing down on fries.

Or maybe it was soft-spoken Martha Stewie down the block whom you happened to overhear screaming full throttle at her kids. Vat a voice!

And what a struggle life can be.

Where to turn?  There’s got to be someone out there who has it ALL together?  But just when you find someone or something so incredibly good and true, something happens that rattles the bliss. That off the chart goodness moves into a B Flat Minor… almost…not completely…ahh forget it.

Life happens.  Rust eventually settles in.  And the hunt for eutopia begins yet again, and again…

Until ultimately we come to final relaxation or the ‘corpse pose.’  What a weird name for a yoga pose.  What’s the purpose in posing like a corpse?  Life is where it’s at!  All together now – Long Live Life!

Yet life and death are inseparable.  You and I, or any life form, can’t have life without the inevitable death.  In learning corpse pose one is actually learning to live.  It’s about releasing outer tensions and traveling into the realms of inner peace.  Who needs Vegas when inward travel is the ultimate trip.

Here’s directions for that infamous corpse pose.  It can be done sitting or lying on your back.

Start with your feet – wiggle and tense them.  Bring your awareness fully to your feet.  Then release the tension, stop their movement and for several breaths think: Relax the feet.

Next move to the legs.  Tense them slightly to bring your focus there. And then release the tension and for several breaths:  Relax the legs.

Continue this process of ‘Tense –Release – Breathe – Relax’ throughout your body.

The torso: Tense – Release – Breathe –  Relax the torso.

 The arms:  Tense – Release – Breathe –  Relax the arms.

Relax the shoulders.

Relax the neck.

Relax the mouth.

 Relax the eyes.

 Relax the ears.

Relax the head. 

Relax the brain by focusing on the breath going in and out.  When a thought comes along, let it glide away by gently bringing your focus back to the breath.

Simply the breath going in and out.

Awareness to the breath going in and out.

Breath.

Simple.

 Awareness.