Ocean Gravity

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Dive into 2015 with LOVE and take care of yourself, you are precious.

Don't fall for any of the 'New Year, New You' nonsense that the fitness industry is undoubtedly filling your inbox with right now. Don't let anyone make you feel guilty, it's a waste of your imagination. Use it instead to make sustainable change fueled by self-respect. Or stay the same : )

If you do like to use January as an opportunity to make changes then take the following into consideration... 

“...I think we are well-advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were.”

― Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem

(image: J.S. Johnston, Stereocard of woman diving in a standard swimsuit, (1892) 
via www.consumingcultures.net)

Diving Diagrams

Diagrams showing the trajectory of the major dives as performed at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm. - See more at: The Public Domain Review

“Diving is a leap of faith plus gravity.”

― Gabrielle Zevin

The Diving Fool

Larry Griswold. The world's greatest comedy diver and co-inventor of the trampoline
he can move!

Dive in.

"At the very beginning of a practice, no matter whether you're starting lying down, standing or any other way, the moment your yoga practice really begins is when you take your whole attention fully inside your body, letting go of everything else. 

It's total immersion - just like diving into deep water...

...and having jumped in, imagine that you have become the lake itself. Settling in will have created disturbance - not just on the surface but throughout the body. As you start your practice, watch dispassionately as the whole body comes to stillness, starting at the surface and then gradually becoming quieter, deeper, deeper and deeper with each exhalation."

--Su Sareen 

from See How Yoga Feels

image found here 

Found here

“I can dive", Sophia said. "Do you know what it feels like when you dive?"
Of course I do," her grandmother said. "You let go of everything and get ready and just dive. You can feel the seaweed against your legs. It's brown, and the water's clear, lighter towards the top, with lots of bubbles. And you glide. You hold your breath and glide and turn and come up, let yourself rise and breathe out. And then you float. Just float."
And all the time with your eyes open," Sophia said.
Naturally. People don't dive with their eyes shut."
Do you believe I can dive without me showing you?" the child asked.
Yes, of course", Grandmother said.”
 
--Tove Jansson, The Summer Book

Jacques Mayol

Jacques Mayol was the holder of many world records in free diving.  He was the first free diver to descend to 100 meters (330 ft) (November 23, 1976), and descended to 105 meters when he was 56 years old...guess what, he was a yogi!

The film The Big Blue, directed by Luc Besson in 1988, was inspired by his life story (and the life story of the Italian diver Enzo Maiorca). It's brilliant, I highly recommend it!

images from here

Found via thesartorialist