Author: Ki McGraw

Now that the holidays have all subsided, the decorations are put away, the treats and leftovers have been enjoyed. The visitors have returned home. Most travelers have unpacked. Attention starts to truly shift into this new year.

Perhaps the laundry needs to be done, or house needs to be cleaned, and the New Year’s resolutions may already need a revision. Your word of the year may be more interesting to you now. The dark cold wet of winter in the Northern Hemisphere takes hold.

What will remain of your holidays? How may the joy of reconnecting and deepening bonds with family and friends inform your new year? Who are you missing? Ki to Happiness infuses fond memories into this present moment.

Today is the celebration of the Epiphany. Three wise men followed a star in the east, bringing gifts of frankincense , gold and myrrh to welcome a newborn child. They followed guidance, and found something miraculous, which has been celebrated now for a very long time. Their “Aha moment” has become the inspiration for us to utilize of the word “epiphany”to mean striking moments of insight, awareness, enlightenment, and Satori, often brought about in the simplest ordinary events, like a child found wrapped in swaddling cloth lying in a manger where animals keep watch.

The gifts were brought from far away, bringing benefits to ensure the child would have enough resources to live, and grow, into a healthy and loving brother to All.

When have you experienced “Aha moments”? What gifts might you offer to that occasion of discovery? Ki to Happiness honors each enlightened moment with right offerings.

The planet Saturn has specific and far reaching influences into our lifepath. The placement of Saturn at the time of one’s birth indicates the karmas that are likely to be needing to be examined in the course of a lifetime. Saturns orbit around the sun takes between 28 1/2 and 31 years. As Saturn returns to the place it was when we took our first breath, we are faced with these issues. It often brings up the need to examine one’s choices thus far, and make course corrections. The next Saturn cycle is influenced by those changes and choices. As is the next.

What would you like to face when you’re 90? How can turning 60 facilitate that intention? Is 30 ahead or behind you? Ki to Happiness celebrates these cycles of life, welcoming the opportunity to grow into the future self, cocreating with the Highest Guidance.

Today, we reconvene the present Yoga Teacher Training. Our focus will be on Yantra. Yantra is a tool for meditative focus, using a visual stimulant to concentrate, contemplate, and integrate. Artwork, photographs, graphics, nature and objects as simple as a nail in the wall can be used. As the eyes become still, so does the mind.

We become whatever it is we meditate upon. As we focus the eyes, and mind, we begin to introject those objects into our consciousness. With repetition, we become absorbed in that which to which we are binding our eyes.

What are you looking at? What is in your surroundings that pleases your eye, uplifts your spirit, and keeps you focused on your truest intentions? Ki to Happiness chooses wisely what these eyes behold.

Every year our most senior students at the Hatha Yoga Center choose a posture for us to focus on all year. This year it was agreed that the posture will be Plank, like Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg practices daily. Special attention on alignment, with classic cat and cow postures will broaden that focus to insure safety as we strengthen and open.

In personal training, Plank is considered to be one of the Pillar postures. It is basically the preparation position for push-up. Holding the posture while breathing, correctly aligned, results in a stronger core. With a stronger core, we are able to remain centered, as we experience these first days of 2020, and perhaps throughout the year, as well as the decade.

What practices will help you stay centered through this new year? In what way can you ensure safety as you strengthen your core alignment? Ki to Happiness practices staying centered safely.

It’s a good practice to select one word for guidance and intentional focus for the new year. More likely to stick with it than a resolution, research shows. And it can be used as a mantra, repeatedly saying it for spiritual benefit. This year, I’m selecting Sovereignty.

Sovereignty gives me the full right and power to govern myself, without interference from outside sources. I do so in awareness of the current legal and civil agreements I’ve chosen to live within.

What word comes to your mind as you contemplate this practice? How might you sum up your truest intentions for this new year, and this new decade in a single word? Ki to Happiness upholds your sovereignty in selecting your word of the year!

Happy new year. The fireworks have all quieted now. Peace crackles in the stillness. The earth has completed another cycle of orbiting around the sun. Life continues.

Bringing into this newness wisdom from what has gone before, evolution is possible. Connecting with Guidance, all is as it need be for the next iteration of consciousness expressing itself physically.

What wisdom do you bring forward into 2020? How connected are you to Guidance? Ki to Happiness delights in manifesting peace.

This day begins with a focus on New Year’s Eve. 2019 is about to end. And with that the entirety of the decade of the twenty-teens. In retrospect, we look back in order to be emboldened as we move forward.

What are you grateful for at the end of this year? How have you grown and changed and evolved in this decade? What continuity is present in the midst of these changing calendar pages?

Ki to Happiness is grateful for you, dear readers, and the blogosphere that has brought us together here. Gratitude is one continuing practice to bring with us into the twenty twenties!

This morning, at 10 AM I teach my final yoga class for the Hatha Yoga Center this year. The practices sustain me in a way that inspires me to continue teaching and training future teachers as well as working privately with clients on all levels. On a daily basis, it fills my empty cup, to overflowing.

I was first asked to teach in the mid-80s. 35 years have passed, with many changes on the planet, in myself, and in the awareness of the ancient practice globally. The practice itself, remains the same with its broad inclusion of the body, mind, emotions and spirit. Integrating these aspects of self into oneness and joining with the greater Oneness brings happiness, serenity, and peace.

How will you spend these last days of 2019? What has consistently sustained and inspired you? Ki to Happiness encourages you to give that preference…

As the calendar page is nearly ready to be turned, we have this Sunday upon us. How can we best spend it? Which practices will best assist you?

In your reflection through the fall, and the beginning introspection of winter, what has presented itself? Who do you wish to communicate with? What would you like to complete? What loose ends can you tie up?

Celebrating accomplishments and learning from our failures, both are appreciated as we look upon Life’s material with an eye toward spiritual growth. Ki to Happiness knows there’s great truth in the old adage “all is well that ends well”…