Carving the Path Deeper

April 1, 2025

Greetings,

While the sun makes his grand, eastern debut, I survey the lid of fog starting to peel off the Marin headlands from a lush, hillside vantage point. Slowly but surely the soupy layer of mist gives way to pockets of mottled azure overhead. This exquisite moment contains a million opportunities and choice points to begin again, a million tiny sails of hope filled with fair winds, each carrying the star chart for freedom.

And as the morning continues to brighten, the graceful trunks of the Monterey cypress, now drenched in the contrast of illumination and shadow, reveal their beautiful forms lining the impossibly steep hillside. By 10 AM we’re swimming in a sea of blue sky and have almost had a complete clearing. I’m smiling, what needs to be revealed will be. By the end of the day, into the later and darker hours of dusk, the blanket will likely roll in again, covering what was witnessed by our naked eyes.

It’s like this in our daily practice and lives. Glimpses of awareness and oneness, only to fall back into the great blindfold again. Moments of clairvoyance and truth, knowing our divinity with absoluteness, only to slip into forgetfulness in the next instant. How do we carve the path a little deeper and remain in these moments of pureness in a more sustainable way?

Simply put, we keep showing up. We catch ourselves when we drift off into complacency, distraction and avoidance. When we stumble off the path, we simply smile and think to ourselves, “How adorably human of me,” and then get back to work. Chopping wood and carrying water, day after day. My dear teacher, Rusty Wells, would always remind us that practice simply makes – and he would take a suspenseful pause – practice.

There is no lofty place to land where we can simply brush the dust off our hands and cross it off the list. What’s called for is the commitment to return to it over and over again, day in and day out, rain or shine. To say yes to polishing the mirror again this morning, clearing the lens of our limited perception and burning through the fog of forgetting.

Two of my favorite yoga sutras remind us so poignantly to carve the path a little deeper…

1.12 abhyasa-vairagyabhyam tan-nirodhah

The mind is made tranquil by practice and non-attachment...

1.14 sa tu dirgha-kala-nairantarya-satkarasevito-drdha-bhumih

Practice becomes firmly established and deeply rooted over a long period of time, when done without interruption, with constant effort, dedicated focus and great love.

May we all fall in love with our practice over and over again, continuing to carve the path deeper and linger in our moments of illumination longer. In that grand luminosity we witness ourselves and each other, our incredible divinity and our intricate connections. From that place of clear seeing, we then find it much easier to walk each other home with grace, care and kindness. This is needed now more than ever. Let that be the most noble practice to return to, day after day.

May we all know peace,

Nat K

Om Shanti Shanti Shanti