Mythic Yoga: Poetry by Sydney Solis published in The Caribbean Writer Anthology 2015 Vol 29

Yellow House, Frederiksted, St. Croix, USVI 2013
 photo collage by Sydney Solis

Mythic Yoga is about expressing our stories. These stories that our bodies, breath, voices, dreams live through us. I find voice to my self and the drama I take up participating in duality of life. Looking back on my life I see it has been one long mythic journey with testimony via via the arts: poetry, short stories, memoirs, photographs, collages. All an offering to life's journey to encounter the mask of my self, live a mythic life in an effort to transcend death.

And the body is part of it as well, the self-inquiry into the body, the emotions felt, the dance expressed while writing with the hands and breath. That's what Mythic Yoga has always been about. How amazing is this life in this body!

So I am very pleased to announce the publication of two of my poems in the 2015 vol 29 anthology of The Caribbean Writer. Little Piece of Paradise and Fisherman, St. Croix were based on my experiences living in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands 2011-2013.

The Caribbean is alive with incredible culture and storytellers. I enjoy mentoring a young poet on St. Croix, as I am involved in an ecclectic performance poetry scene here in the Central Florida and Daytona Beach area. Join me for my reading of the two poems during my next performance at the Dan Pels Poetry Show at Wine Me in Daytona Beach.

Also on display at Studio Solis in DeLand, Florida, photographs and photo/paper collage of the Caribbean by Sydney Solis.

Mythic Yoga: The Story in the Body

Mythic Yoga: The Story in the Body at Lighthouse Writer's
Workshop Literature Fest Denver 2015

It was my Mythic Return, leaving Colorado for 5 years on a personal Mythic Journey to heal and putting my Mythic Yoga and Storytime Yoga business on hold so that as a widow I could focus on being a homemaker and raising my two kids after the great trauma of my husband's death. Read my E-book, Mythic Yoga: Vishnu's Dream, Ancient Hindu Myth and Personal Story, which I first performed at the Boulder Public Library in 2004 and used myths to tell my story.

Rose Mandala 2000 Mixed Media Collage by Sydney Solis
Part of the Mythic Yoga Personal Mythology Series

Into my depths I went, practicing restorative yoga, meditation, eating locally, cooking from scratch, learning to knit and yoga homeschooling my kids in Buenos Aires, Argentina and for a bit in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands where we ended up and spent 2 1/2 years.

It took me two years to adjust back to the U.S. mainland and its hyper-consumerist society before starting Studio Solis. I won't even get into the commodification of yoga in the U.S. now. But the deep, real work continues, as my kids are now teens and I can venture a bit back into the world with my work. which has taken a big yoga therapy turn, as the healing powers of yoga and storytelling, myth and the body are deep.

Contemplating myth while moving the body brings insight via
mythic imagery

I taught my original Mythic Yoga: The Story in the Body at Lighthouse Writers Workshop Literature Fest in Denver this June. The first time in 5 years since I left Colorado. Conference are always so head and intellect heavy. The body thinks! Jung's four functions of the psyche let us know we don't even tough the intuitive function, all in favor of the intellect.

So via the body we can listen deeply for inspiration in our creative writing endeavors for svadyaya, self-knowledge. And by listening deeply and contemplating ancient myths, knowledge bubbles up with the symbolic mind we have long forgotten with great secrets, insights and information we never realized before with just our thinking minds. Through our art, memoirs, poetry, we create memorials and testimonies of our lives. We become living yoga and through our art transcend death.

Images bubble up from the soul with the realm of the imagination, the heart, within the body, the organs, our dreams. We return to our depths and unconscious via the body, and movement with symbols and imagery suspend intellectual thinking and activate the symbolic mind. We think in more ways than one! By listening to the story in the body, via chakras, body parts, yoga nidra, imagery, we can then articulate emotions, ideas, feelings and stories better via creative writing prompts.

Listening to mythology activates energies within us to
enable us to listen to ourselves and link via yoga. It's more
than yoga asana, it's Raja Yoga. Direct via the mythic imagination

Register for the Next Mythic Yoga The Yoga of Story training. Denmark June 2016. 

I still am a home-body, content living a simple, sustainable life with my kids rather than running around too much teaching. I will be adding more dates soon. Visit the calendar for one-day Mythic Yoga: The Story in the Body trainings.

Mythic Yoga: The Story in the Body Retreats were held each June from 2008-2010 in Boulder, Colorado and Rollinsville, Colorado in conjunction with Artist Wendy Rochman as required for master training in the Storytime Yoga for Kids Yoga Teacher Training and Certification. 

Mythic Yoga: The Personal Mythology Series at Studio Solis

Mythic Yoga: The Personal Mythology Series
By Sydney Solis at Studio Solis, DeLand, Florida
Copyright 1988 All Rights Reserved

Mythic Yoga cultivates the unknown within oneself to be known. From darkness to light, from untruth to truth. Art, poetry and other expressive creative efforts dig deep into the unconscious and bring forth self-knowledge.

The body holds a lot of this knowledge, so part of Mythic Yoga practice is to express the myths and the symbology that resonate in the body after yoga, dance or other contemplative movement into a physical container, such as art or poetry, to be expressed as personal mythology. Know Thy Self, The Oracle of Delphi implored. So we do.

For decades I have been doing the Mythic Yoga Personal Mythology Series of art and yoga. I will be having an art opening and poetry reading at Studio Solis in DeLand, Florida this fall. If you can't join us live, look for it on The Mythic Yoga Studio on Powhow.



Get inspired to write the Myth Poem of the Body with Mythic Yoga: Story Poetica
And check out some more Mythic Yoga Personal Mythology Series art right here at Studio Solis

I'm so very grateful to get to live the life I have always dreamed.  To live as an artist, mother, teacher. Life is so very beautiful. Thanks to the Great Mother. I was able to follow my bliss.

OM SHANTI

Sydney Solis

Mythic Yoga for Teens: The Hero With Your Own Face at DeBary, Florida Public Library July 9

The Mythic Yoga Studio IS
wherever you ARE

Superheroes are all the rage. They have incredible powers within them that battle evil and restore justice. Movies galore spin dozens of tales of everyone from Spiderman to Wonder Woman. So many I can't even keep track! What we can keep track of is the Hero within ourselves, and recognize that the powers Superheroes emit are really those within our own self.

Join me, Sydney Solis, at the DeBary, Florida Public Library this Thursday July 9 from 3-4 pm for some Mythic Yoga for Teens. We will be exploring Joseph Campbell's pioneering work The Hero With a Thousand Faces, as well as looking at modern Superhero mythology as well as classic mythology.  Through yoga, meditation, storytelling  and creative writing, we will discover how we are like them all and how to put those newly discovered powers into action in our own lives.

Mythic Yoga: The Story in the Body at Literature Festival in Denver June 18

Know Thy Self! Use dreams, myth, the body and personal storytelling for self-discovery and transformation! 

Come to the Lighthouse Writers Workshops Literature Fest in Denver for Mythic Yoga: The Story in the Body. Get out of your head and tell stories with your body. Learn the oral tradition and art of storytelling to listen for the story in the body with reflective writing prompts for poetry, memoir and more.

Live with Sydney Solis! Bring comfy clothes to wear, a water bottle, yoga mat if you have one and a blanket.