Aaron Baker: From Motocross Injury to Recovery and Healing

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Never has that been reflected more clearly than in this powerful documentary that chronicles the life of Aaron Baker from paralyzing spinal injury through years of recovery and healing. Coming to My Senses tells Aaron’s remarkable full story within the context of his courageous walk across Death Valley. In this trek, he covered 19.6 miles in six days, one step at a time for 78,400 steps.

This documentary of courage, rage, fear, discovery, and more is intertwined with the step-by-step walk as we follow his literal ups and downs across the desert.

In 1999, Aaron Baker was a professional motocross racer, mischievous and charming, always pushing the edge. Following a devastating spinal injury as a result of an accident on the track, doctors told them there was a one in a million chance he would ever even be able to feed himself again. He reflects in the film, “Who are you to tell me what I can do?”

Thus began an amazing, and often painful, quest that affected him as well as everyone around him. Aaron’s self-awareness and insights are inspiring. As are the reflections we see and hear as we watch him progress from complete paralysis to years later dancing at his own wedding.

Coming to My Senses Exclusive Clip of Aaron Baker

Watch an exclusive clip of Coming to My Senses.

Aaron Baker on Exercise and Rehab

One of the most poignant stories told in this film is the lack of available care and resources for spinal cord injury survivors. Only five months after his injury, Aaron was discharged from rehab for insurance reasons. He moved from the hospital into a hotel room. Horrified that she could find no help for her son, Aaron’s mother, Laquita, tells us how she finally discovered Taylor Kevin Issacs. Issacs is an award-winning kinesiologist, exercise psychologist, and certified strength and conditioning specialist. Laquita credits Issacs with “saving our life.”

According to statistics cited in the documentary Coming to My Senses, there are currently 1.46 million Americans living with a spinal cord injury. Yet there are only 35 long-term exercise facilities nationwide that specifically serve their needs. Aaron and his mother share their joint discovery of finding a higher purpose by working in this area.

Laquita says, “That’s the new step—instead of keeping it for ourselves, we need to share that.” So in January 2011, Aaron, Laquita, and Taylor opened The Center of Restorative Exercise (C.O.R.E.) in Northridge, California. To date, C.O.R.E. has helped more than 600 people reclaim levels of mobility that were previously thought impossible.

Aaron Baker Reflecting in Death Valley

Aaron does a lot of reflecting throughout. While crossing Death Valley, he pauses to be in the moment, recognizing the beauty of the desert that he used to just ride through on his motorcycle. In a deeply moving moment, we witness him enjoying the crying of a baby at his wedding. His mother shares her vulnerability on screen; Laquita talks about her struggle with alcohol resulting from this accident, and how Aaron was affected by her drinking. Overall, Coming to My Senses is a story of tragedy to triumph and of the spiritual lessons we can experience if we do the physical and emotional work.

Inspiration on Film

Coming to My Senses is truly inspirational. Aaron’s story here includes the hard physical work, intense emotional hurdles, and moments of purity. It is a rare film. And its a film worth watching more than once.

Cheyanne Sweet

Cheyanne Sweet works with several organizations in the conscious community. She currently lives in Central Florida.

The post Coming to My Senses: Aaron Baker Walks from Tragedy to Triumph appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

Mantra artists Deva Premal and Miten have been traveling the world for more than 27 years living life on and off the stage. As professional travelers, they’ve had to develop some routines and rituals to maintain their health and vitality. Between mantra repetitions, they took a break to share some of their secrets with us.

What are some practices that you do to maintain your own health while on the road?

It’s obvious – we chant mantras – day in, day out! We have been traveling for 27 years now, without a home base—so we don’t waste time looking over our shoulders wishing we were home. For us, home is wherever we find ourselves. This feeling of being fluid and going with a cosmic flow of healing mantric energy is the way we maintain our health.

Up until Miten’s heart surgery [March 20, 2018], we’d only missed three concerts through illness in our 27 years together. As you might have heard, Miten just underwent open heart surgery due to a blocked artery. The doctors couldn’t understand why that happened with Miten’s vegetarian diet and healthy body. But it is hereditary and many in his family had the same thing. So that made us miss our Gayatri Festival in Costa Rica. But Manose stepped in and oversaw the festival while Miten had heart surgery. Miten is healing amazingly well and we’re all hoping he will join us on stage during our Soul of Mantra – Live! Tour.

What are some of your daily wellness rituals?

The basic go-to is shaking our bodies first thing in the morning. Sometimes it is difficult to maintain in certain hotel rooms, but we’re pretty disciplined.

Shaking is a great meditation. Feeling your feet safely on the earth, relaxing your knees …allowing the shaking to happen…loosening your arms, your shoulders…your hands and wrists…extending the belly with deep breaths…relaxing the jaw (we hold much tension in the jaw)…opening the mouth…and relaxing the neck…relaxing the throat/fifth chakra…letting the head drop…so the whole body becomes fluid energy…for around 15 minutes – we have special music to accompany this practice.

Then, depending on time, we do our various movements and stretches we learned in the ashram, called ‘Divine Healing Exercises’ which are based on shiatsu. Deva practices her mix of yoga and Pilates.

We eat organic food, no meat, no fish. Deva was born a vegetarian and has never tasted meat nor fish. Miten has been a vegetarian for 40 years. We find that diet is so important. In every city we visit, we’ve been able to find vegan or vegetarian restaurants. Even airports are offering more options.

How do you suggest that people utilize mantra in their own lives while traveling?

The best way to utilize a mantra is to fundamentally make friends with one. First, find your mantra. Before the age of technology in which we now live, you would have had to travel to India and sit at the guru’s feet for lifetimes and then one day he/she might just whisper in your ear your personal mantra. Now, these days, you can Google a mantra!

So, do some inner and outer research. Find a mantra that resonates with you. There are mantras for sacred love making, for removing energy blocks in your life, mantras for inner peace. There is even a mantra for attracting a life partner. Find your mantra and then you can begin your exploration. Make a commitment to at least 21 days of practice and see what happens.

Deva has even chanted a number of mantras in the traditional way of 108 cycles in albums such as Mantras for Precarious Times, Mantras for Life, and Tibetan Mantras for Turbulent Times.

Do you have a particular meaningful recent experience on the road that you’d like to share?

Every step is a meaningful experience. This includes chanting with inmates at San Quentin prison, receiving messages that a child has been born to our music, and people telling us they were suicidal before making contact with mantras. We’ve met people in airports who just want to say ‘Thank you’ and share a hug because they have been touched by their experiences of how the music has supported them in extreme times.

Once we were asked to help raise money by a young woman who had had a stroke, was paralyzed, and needed a guide dog. So, for our subsequent three concerts in Germany, we told the audiences about the young woman needing a guide dog and asked for donations. We had buckets in the lobby of the theater. In the three concerts we raised the 10,000 Euro needed for her guide dog.

This is the power of our ecstatic chant sangha or community. It is global, and we have the sense of community and support as we go through life. Chanting is a shortcut to the heart….from darkness to light. (This is the journey of the mantra “OM Asatoma.”).

What are some of your favorite things about living life on the road?

We like movement. No matter how beautiful a place is, we are always ready to leave and get on the road. This movement keeps everything fresh between us as a couple so we don’t stagnate. The music, the people who come to sing with us, our great road crew, it is all a constant flow.

Do you find that the mantras that you share have universal appeal across different countries and languages?

Well, the mantras are in Sanskrit, which is an energy-based language. It is not a descriptive language like English, Spanish, or German. Sanskrit is the mother tongue –which means it resonates with us all.

For instance, if the sound ‘ananda’ is chanted continually, it will deliver the chanter to a state of ecstasy. Ananda is the actual sound of the energy of bliss. We are chanting sacred healing sounds with thousands of people, night after night. These sounds are not descriptive, not emotional, they are much more.

So whether we are chanting in Moscow, Miami, Buenos Aires, or wherever, we are all chanting in a language that is not our own. It’s not that we sing a French song because we are in France…in actual fact, everyone is chanting in this unfamiliar language.

Actually, Sanskrit is not a language, it is a collection of scientifically determined healing sounds that were discovered and channeled by the ancient Rishis of India. So, we are in it together.

There are no leaders and no followers. Our cultural restrictions and boundaries are dissolved with the first OM of the evening. The circle is complete, and our journey into redemption begins. It’s a matter of life and death.

Chanting mantra is definitely not entertainment. It is not a show. There are no fans, just a circle of kindred spirits.

That’s the way we see our events: as a huge circle of kindred spirits!

Chant Mantra with Deva Premal & Miten

Deva Premal & Miten with Manose bring their Soul of Mantra-Live! Tour to Los Angeles on Tuesday, May 8 at the Wilshire-Ebell Theatre. For more information, visit: http://store.devapremalmiten.com/tour/.

Cheyanne Sweet

Cheyanne Sweet works with several organizations in the conscious community. She currently lives in Central Florida.

The post Mantras On the Road with Deva Premal and Miten appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.