Author: Ki McGraw

Yesterday one of our members of the push-up challenge let me know he dropped out. This morning I pushed on without him. When I was posting, I did my tricep dips. In the mirror reflection I saw myself on camera doing push-ups and in person doing tricep dips.

This gave me a chance to integrate both aspects of myself. Strengthening my front and my back as a contribution, I join the two together. With or without any one particular other, I live my commitments.

How are you doing with your commitments? Are you able to stay in integrity? Ki to Happiness integrates.

I started my morning certain it was Thursday. I had in mind my appointments and my teaching schedule. I sat into my practice and laughed. It’s Wednesday!

Delighted to learn I have an extra day of life to live, I sucked the juice out of my practice. Each aspect seemed refreshed and clear. Gratitude does that. It seems to change the aperture our eyes so we are able to take in more light.

How are you doing on this extra day of life? What will you give your energy to? Ki to Happiness is celebrating Hump Day anew.

Lately I’m noticing my intimate others have been hitting their limitations. Attitude has shifted toward the curmudgeon, like my grandpa used to display in his expressions. “This world is going to pot.” Or “ we’re all going to hell in a hand basket”, he’d say.

It’s always been the case for those of us who have been on the planet a while that we can see the degradation of society and the building of what has been called the “Idiocracy.” It’s also always been the case that choosing happiness is “an inside job”. My happiness exists, and I’m free to choose to attend to it.

Are you using your freedom to choose well? What will help you choose better? Ki to Happiness takes responsibility for manifesting her natural inborn state.

I’ve been processing the bounties of summer. I put up several pounds of plums from one of my client’s trees. I used her pear apples to make a clove cinnamon strudel. I served it with pluot crisp.

Sharing the goodness with my husband and our dear friend multiplies the blessing. While I am abstaining from travel during this intense time of the variants, I am benefiting from experiencing the roundness of the year. Seasons subtle shifts are move apparent as I stay put.

What will you do with your summer’s bounty? Any end of summer needs? Ki to Happiness salutes the season.

It’s so important to have a day off. It allows time and space in which spontaneous awareness can arise. Hatha Yoga Center has the building to ourselves on Sunday. I open all the doors and curtain to the commons area so the cats can explore the grande foyer. When they’ve had enough, they come back in.

Today they wanted to just stay in. Sometimes we feel that way, too. A quiet morning in the dark at the end of summer calls us to linger a little longer with our head on the pillow. My folks call it lollygagging.

What do you call it? Have you had enough? Ki to Happiness lounges in post practice leisure.

20 years ago our lives changed. With the largest terroristic attacks on the US soil in my lifetime came the end to many tremendous freedoms. I choose to remain with the Hatha Yoga Center for the stability and structure it provided as the changes occurred.

29 years ago I experienced the level five hurricane Iniki on Kauai. With it came massive damage to the Garden Isle. I remained to help rebuild. In doing so, the course of my life altered. Forever remembered, this day reminds me to love what I can in the present before it disappears.

What do you remember of today? How can you best honor your experience? Ki to Happiness loves remembering the significant events that shape life.

As we have experiences, we generally give them all the meaning they have for us. Then those meanings contribute to the way in which we experience the world. Working the interface between the two, we toggle between ourselves and others, between the inner and outer.

Most of us prefer one or the other. Experience or meaning. One without the other is like the questionable sound of one hand clapping. When we put our hands together, we call it prayer. As we integrate experience and meaning, our lives may become prayer.

Are you an experience junkie, ever looking for that next experience? Or do you prefer to dig deeply into the meaning of things? Ki to Happiness applauds both meaning and experience.

Just this breath now. One inhale and then a moment before one exhale. That’s better. Try it again. Breathe in, then out. One time. Again and again.

Sometimes that’s all I’ve got. Growing wiser, I choose this breath to focus on. This one. Inhale and then exhale.

How is your inhale? And that exhale? Ki to Happiness breathes with you.

Rain returned in the night. A feeling of freshness is in the air as dawn breaks, indigo and topaz. New moon has just begun to fill with light, illuminating our intentions set during the last couple days. Wet pavement replaces a summer of grunge and debris.

I set intentions for a Fall’s simple comforts and great progress. Making use of the restrictions in my area, great reorganization and purging is supported. Revising my manuscript is underway, with renewed passion. Yoga practices turn inward.

How conscious have you been with your intentions lately? If the last two days set in motion your next month, how might that turn out? Ki to Happiness intends a happy outcome of all things as is taught by A Course in Miracles.

We took some time on Labor Day to go out into the sunshine. In the afternoon the long rays warmed us as if it were the middle of summer. The rose bushes nodded down their heavy heads of spring blossoms as we put our heads down, too.

Resting into the earth, the bees buzzed in vivid green grass around the buried sprinklers. Breathing deeply, I took it all in. Enjoying each blessing of Labor Day, I’m ready to labor again.

Did you get outside yesterday? Are you ready to resume your labor? Ki to Happiness is.