What is the intersection of yoga and film-making

Its been a long time coming - shifting this site away from congruence yoga as a brand. I realized, belatedly that no better brand exists for me than me. Carlina Muglia. 1 of 1. That solves all the problems of needing a website for this thing here and yoga over there and film-making in a third place. The underlying truth is that all of those things are expressions of me - Carlina Muglia.

An aside: is it really any wonder it took me so long to figure this out? I was taught to mispronounce my own last name as a child so that US Americans could say it more easily. And I hated it. I hated the sound of my own mispronounced last name - MOOGLEEAH - so much that I didn’t even like to say it aloud. It took having a son who is keeping my last name to realize the mistake and correct it. My last name is beautiful and contains within it a distinctly Italian phoneme that is a gift of my culture to me. -GLI is pronounced as a unit ICYW. My full name Carlina Nicole Muglia is unique - there are no others.

I came here to write a thesis on what the intersection of film-making and yoga is. But in the processes I realized its just that simple. I am that. It me! I, Carlina Muglia, am the intersection of yoga and film-making. The way I live my life, the intentionality that I bring to it, my goal to do things holistically and with purpose - those intangibles flow through me. The actions I take, the words I speak and the thoughts I think are the union of my passions and expressions.

And as some final random thoughts that are related: “I am that.” in Sanskrit is an ubiquitous mantra “So’ham.” Also, yoga means union. So there we go. No thesis needed after all.

The web work is going on in the background. I’m trying to make a daily practice of it so that it becomes less daunting. I’m just as curious to see what happens next as you might be.

"In the view of infinity any defined long-term is short-term"

The morning sun in the gym at Keep Colony is as comforting to me as the embrace of friend or lover

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I left Virginia for Texas just as the season began to change from summer to fall. I entered into the climate of Texas, stimulated and positively energized by the heat. After two months of training at Black Swan Yoga and basking in a prolonged summer I came back ready to, yet again, extend my services to the community through Crossfit and yoga.  

I typically start any new venture with a plan, ready to modify as needed but with the assumption that I know the general direction in which my life is to trend. It was not long after my return to Virgina that I realized that all bets were off, my plans were very short-sighted and I was in for a long, cold winter.  

Here I am, in the gym again and ready to start demo down in the yoga-studio-to-be.  Zero articles of clothing pictured here remained unscathed by paint, tears and utter desecration through three months of demolition and construction.

What went so far astray from the course I had laid out for myself and my studio? The list is long but ultimately unimportant. The one and only constant that I had ever needed to consider was the constant need for tireless labor. And that is an ultimate life's lesson learned anew. What good is a daily yogic meditation and the strength derived from Crossfit and the patience learned from perseverance if, when faced by adversity, a person does not maintain the presence of mind to know all work is a thing of vanity that will one day pass?  That is not a statement meant to be negative.  It is an ego-check of the utmost sincerity and one that a doer must face time and again.  Even when a job is done it is both done and not-done.  Even when a person thinks the fruits of his or her labor is his or her own to cherish, external forces may exert themselves and destroy the very foundation of the work that was done.  

"In the view of infinity any defined long-term is short-term."

- Frank Herbert

God Emperor of Dune

An idea or undertaking that is born of love will maintain beyond its physical limits if it is truly rooted in the divine effort to bring humans closer to one another, nature and God.  What is a yoga studio or a life-time of teaching compared to infinite-being and an unfettered capacity to love?  If undertaken with humility and the assumption that there are no "brownie points" for hard work, perhaps one may hope that this small best-effort is enough.

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