Author: Ki McGraw

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.

Happy Labor Day. This national holiday signals the end of summer. With some time off, perhaps we can look back and see that there has been a beautiful and bountiful season. Against several odds, there has been progress.

I am noticing more appreciation in our small stable groups. I see a deeper commitment to the yoga practices which have sustained us through the pandemic so far. I’m aware of an increase in kindness and compassion in myself and some others.

What progress do you see? Can you take time off today to reflect? Ki to Happiness labors in gratitude and joy.

These days there’s much debate about big brother. As we lose privacy and have more restrictions on freedom, rebels resist. Like little kids, pouting and tantrums threaten.

My own big brother instead loves his privacy and freedom, so he always has allowed me mine. That’s how I can also let him have his! On his birthday, today, I wish him happy freedom and privacy.

Do you have siblings? How does your answer effect your relationships to others? Ki to Happiness is a sister to all.

Tomorrow is my big brother’s birthday. Instead of visiting with him and being the annoying little sister that I have most often been in his life, I am respecting his private time to celebrate as he wishes.

When we were kids, mom made a lot of our clothes. His birthday marks the end of summer, the return to school, and the wearing of corduroy, jackets, jumpers and jodhpurs.

What memories come up for you on the Labor Day weekend? Can you celebrate your way? Ki to Happiness feels the texture of time.

All these months of restrictions have necessitated live streaming our Hatha Yoga Center classes. Now I am in the second month of daily posting my push-ups. I have been seen by many people. Old friends from grade schools, all the way up through graduate programs, family members I’ve never met, yoga students and trainees from around the world and lots of strangers. Thousands.

I balance that with lots of time being unseen. Getting up early in the morning long before my husband, only the cats witness my practices. Most days I find my way into the unseen world of the woods. I sleep alone, with my own private dreams.

How much time do you spend being seen? Unseen? Ki to Happiness shares the gifts of the unseen when it’s time to be seen.

As Covid continues to dominate our society, many are reporting an increase in body dysphoria. Restricted movement, limited options in food, and plenty of stress eating in our pajamas has resulted in weight gain for many. That, together with fear of the virus and all that goes with it has us feeling less at home in ourselves.

In yoga practice, we release the traumas of life and enter the body. Finding breath and freedom of movement stimulates biochemistry of euphoria. Aligning our body with the energies of the earth brings us safely back home to ourSelves.

Where are you on this continuum? Toward dysphoria or euphoria? Ki to Happiness chooses safe practice that facilitate conscious alignment.