TEXT FOR SUNKISS'D INSERT


First, Do No Harm...

Even though this is a gentle Yoga session, suitable even for complete newcomers to Yoga,
please still exercise caution when practicing with this video. Always listen first and foremost to your body, and if a given movement does not feel right to you, please feel free to skip or modify it. Yoga teaches us to love and honor our body and not harm it, for it is truly our Temple.


Namaste, Welcome to Sunkiss'D: Deep Heart Flow Yoga.

I see this present offering as a kind of "prequel" to my previous video, "SunSmile." Besides being a more advanced presentation, "SunSmile" only hinted at the deeper dimensions of this millennia-old practice we know as Yoga. You could say that it skirted the edges, but didn't quite get to the Heart of the matter. I still love it, of course, but it did jump right into things without really laying the groundwork. So I saw fit to go back to basics here, in effect saying to you: "Wait, I fell in love with Yoga because it helped to open my heart in a very profound way. If I do not include that in what I am presenting, you will see only the outer shell and not the Core."

Will this little DVD open your heart, then? Gee, what a claim that would be! Of course, I hope it will, but I have no idea really. All I can say is that when I myself practice sacred movement in the form of Yoga, I feel more present, more awake, open, receptive, joyful. I can enjoy life more, breathe more freely and love more deeply. More specifically, Yoga has helped me become more aware of my body and emotional state, so that I can immediately go to the source of blockages as they arise, and then use Yoga exercises to heal myself.

Yoga has also taught me certain universal life principles that, more than any specific exercise or movement, have been of immeasurable assistance to me. Principles such as unconditional love and forgiveness, non-harming and non-efforting, releasing negative thoughts and feelings to the Highest Good, seeing myself in all things and all things in me, living simply and naturally...these are not to be bought, and certainly will not be learned deeply from a DVD -- unless, that is, they are experienced directly and consciously nurtured.

Again, the good news is that Yoga exercises can help prepare you to experience life more deeply. And so too can Tai Chi, Qi Gong, Sufi Dance, Capoeira, and the various other forms of sacred movement. They all add their own unique elements, while at Heart all sharing the same Essence. I love all of these traditions, and that is why I have incorporated elements of some of them in this Yoga practice. For, after all, Yoga means "Union," "Harmony," and my feeling is that synthesizing these ostensibly distinct traditions will help to unify and harmonize the seemingly separate aspects of our beings.

In my own experience, I have also become more Whole through connecting with Nature. This is why we shot this all on the beach (in Naples, FL). To me, the Ocean represents the womb from which we come and to which we ultimately return. The Sun is our Father. The Earth (the beach) is our Mother. If you transpose the word "Earth," you have "Heart." For me this means that through connecting with the Earth, our Body, our Mother Nature, we connect with our Heart. If we do not respect the Earth/Body and do not nurture Nature, however, we grow more estranged from our Heart. If we do not simplify our lives and recognize that all of our science and technology is still really no match for Mother Nature, that even a simple precious shell washed up on the seashore is more wondrous than anything we have created, we risk destroying ourselves and our beautiful Earth.

Already we see this happening here on the Gulf Coast, with Red Tide each year killing masses of fish and causing respiratory illness in humans. We owe it to ourselves and future generations, then, to do our little part -- even if it is some seemingly inconsequential act like picking up a piece of trash on the beach -- to safeguard the precious Gift of Life in all its manifold forms that has been bequeathed to us. For my part, I would like to contribute by donating 10% of the profits made by this DVD to preservation of our Gulf Coast.

On this note, we would like to welcome precious Sean Edward to the world (in background), who reminds us of our pure, innocent nature. It is always open to us to remember that we ourselves were once like him, and can consciously choose to return to the pureness of Heart that we embodied as a newborn -- to "become like a child" with the awareness of knowing our True nature as an adult.

In some ways, our grand conception exceeded the execution here, so please forgive the decidedly low-tech and occasionally choppy nature of this production. My Beloved life partner, Angeliea, and I shot and edited this ourselves all this summer (2006), and believe it or not, logged literally hundreds of hours to bring this to you in its present form. I also spent considerable time composing the soundtrack -- primarily instrumental guitar and vocal pieces that came to me intuitively and which are meant to evoke certain feeling states such as love and joy. I hope they add to your practice.

I would like to close by thanking Angeliea for her love, support, and creative gifts. Angeliea did some of the camera work, the voice overs, the front and back cover photography, and contributed two of her beautiful poems, "Ocean of Love," and "Essence of My Being." Most of all, sharing the depths of Love and Understanding with Goddess Angeliea continues to open my heart more and more. And to Kevin Hunter whose Presence and Heart Wisdom was an inspiration for this project. Much thanks and props also to Don Sollins and Don Leeman Studios for his expert design and duplication skills. Finally, I would like to thank my Family for their love and support through the years, as well as all who have attended my classes and helped me to refine my teaching.

Namaste, My Heart Bows to Your Heart, Allowah


engulfed in an azure hue
sky blue pink floating overhead
i catch my breath and dive deeply

your immense Ocean of Love
permeates my
Being...

Allowah