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Can you find me?

The Gift

Yesterday I opened "The Gift" for the first time in many months. This was the poem I randomly opened to:

This
Sky
Where we live
Is no place to lose your wings
So love, love,
Love.

It turned out to be the perfect closing for my yoga lab that night. Love is the gift we give ourselves so we don't lose our wings. Yoga is the gift of love to ourselves.

Do I need to say more?

More on effort, Abhyasa: Do or do not, there is not try

I've been thinking a lot about effort lately. (Actually, it looks like I've been thinking about it for a while!) In terms of my yoga practice and new teaching, effort seems to be emerging as the central theme. Abhyasa means practice. But it's not rote. It's effortful, intentional. It's value is in the process itself.

It's also related to a distinction I want to make regarding a concept I put forward in my last entry: happiness. When I talk about happiness here, I don't mean pleasure. I mean the satisfaction that comes with effort. There is no substitute for it.

In my yoga lab last night, we worked on two things: effort and focus. My client has the tendency to shut her eyes and sort of drift through the postures. My mantra for her was: Open your eyes! And I gave her a workout--right from the start. Lots of teaching assists. Lots of what I think of as coaching: push! energy! We worked her abs right at the beginning. We flowed through surya namaskara A three times. She broke into a sweat. She kept her eyes open. And in the end, her sivasana was more satisfying.

Effort is subtly different from "trying." It's value is in the process, but it's not without outcome. I think it's more that the outcome of effort, the result of effort may not be what you thought it would be, but it is more satisfying than something delivered by chance.

As Gioconda said, no one can do your yoga practice for you. It is your practice. Mary said, no one is going to steer your boat. It is your life. You had to do it for yourself. I want to emphasize that my understanding here is on the word DO. You have to DO. Krishna tells Arjuna he must act. Juan challenges me to ask myself why I teach one thing and not another, why I think something is a good idea. You must act with intention.

Therein lies the satisfaction.

It's not that the unexamined life is not worth living. It's not that the unlived life is not worth examining.

It is simply, both.

Actually, a LOT of effort is required

I looked back to my New Year resolution for 2007--to be Aware. That was a good one. I think I tried it, off and on. But sometimes it takes frogs falling out of the sky to really wake up. And nothing close to that happened until late summer, early fall. But, a process has begun.

This year I didn't write here about my New Year's resolution. Ironically, without this public assertion, I've been more successful at keeping it in mind. Sounds simple, but it's actually been quite difficult:


DO the things that are good for me, are fulfilling and make me happy.
DON'T do things that are bad for me, leave me feeling wasted, and make me unhappy.

This has involved a great deal of tugging and pulling against my tendency to keep my head in the sand about some things. It's involved great efforts to identify, acknowledge and most importantly act on my own understanding of what those things are. It's meant expanding my awareness that some things make me happy (and I should DO them -- or NOT FOREGO them, or not sacrifice them) and add to my life and some things don't (and DON'T do them!).

My yoga practice has contributed to my ability to keep this intention in mind. I'm about six months into yoga teacher training; I've increased my practice schedule back up to where it used to be; and I've enrolled in another immersion with yoga teacher Mary Keator.

The central focus of our meditation and practice for this immersion is discernment, jnana yoga--wisdom. It's been an amazng experience--challenging, confrontational, self-affirming and liberating. Somehow she is able to put the theoretical teachings into the asana practice, making them real. I do need to meditate on it, more, though. I'll use this space to do that.

Mary said: Until you are rooted, you can't grow.

That is what I'm working on.

Nahhh...

I feel no strong need to blog anymore. New year resolution will have something to do with reducing stress in my life... often stress induced by some sense that I "need" to do something.
I don't NEED to do lots of things.

That is all for now.

A convergence of themes

Many many years ago I wrote a little essay called "No Woman is an Island." It was about how I was realizing that I only really know myself in relation to other people, that a person's sense of self and identity is shaped within relationship. At the time, it was a pretty profound a-ha! kind of moment for me. In retrospect, it seems both obvious and wrong. You can't ever get outside those relationships to evaluate the accuracy of your analysis. So many years later do I know myself any better? Still... the question lingers. Or recurs.

Now it surfaces not so much in terms of seeking some kind of metaphysical absolute, but how we navigate between contexts, relationship and activities... and who that makes us (think we are).

I think these questions were enouraged back to the surface under the influence of two literary sources: Isabel Allende's House of Spirits, and (actually, the film version of) Into the Wild. House of Spirits dealt in part with the recurring themes within generations of a family. Into the Wild chronicles a journey by a young man who touches many people's lives by entering into relationship with them, even while he rejects all forms of emotional intimacy for himself. He walks the line that the (true) knowledge that love/god/the divine is everywhere, but forgets that the experience really only materializes when shared in relationship. He clings to the abstract in defiance of concrete realities right in front of him. He makes his personal discovery of the value of human relationship too late.

This is a picture I took on the Costa Brava just a few days ago. We were walking along a trail on the coast in a little town that I think was called Llafranc Roma (but I could be totally wrong). Everywhere you looked there was a beautiful vista. The Mediterranean shimmered its deep blue in pre-dusk, angular, golden light, surrounded by a fringe of hardy cactus and agave thrusting through cracks in the rocky cliffs.

I was drawn to this little view. The rocks in the water. This morning I think it's more about the water between the rocks. You can't just do well on each of your little rocks. You have to be able to get from on the the next. You have to be ok getting wet in the process. You have to navigate as well in the water as you do on land.

I've been splashing around in the water for a while, forgetting that the water may be all there really is, forgetting that even underneath the water there is a rock.

Teresa took off all her clothes and dove head first into that cold water! I was awe struck at her courage.

****

How different a religion inpsired by contemplating water than one whose edicts were delivered on mountain tops.

****

random thoughts...

Since I've now BLOWN my anonymity...

... and doing yoga teacher training, obviously I'm going to have to change myh name. So I took a test to see which Hindu goddess I am. Turns out I am most like Gayatri:

Gayatri, the many-headed symbol of Devi, or the divine feminine. As you can see she is closely associated with the lotus and with feminine beauty. She is a wise and good goddess and carries the weapons and items carried by other gods in her many arms. She is a reasonably good goddess and intellectually inclined, as she can see in all directions from the eyes on her heads.

Link: The Which Hindu Goddess Are You? Test written by mirchini on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Back to basics...

Originally, this blog was supposed to be a place for me to wax metaphysical. Then it became a place for me to post for really cute baby animal pictures (equally, if not more important... and if you haven't seen these, click away!)

Anyway... now that I've started yoga teacher training (oh no, am I even LESS anonymous now?), I'm going back to my original intention for this space. This will be where I "think" about some of the yoga teachings and things I'm reading as part of my training. So, if you're at all interested in tracking my spiritual journey, stay tuned here.

Love is Everywhere

Love is Everywhere, originally uploaded by gesualdo.

I do believe that.

Cheesy, but I loved this song so much in 1986

And his words were these...


Hope you find it in everything that you see.

Namaste

If I Had Not Fallen

If I Had Not Fallen, originally uploaded by gesualdo.

I'm losing it.

I'd rather be...

Tai Shan's Su Lin impersonation, originally uploaded by atomicdolll.

lounging around?
doing yoga?
flashing my panda box?

I've got too much to do and lots on my mind and can't deal with the anonymous blogosphere... tired of acting out in the real world. Blogosphere too dangerous. Real world too... virtual.

Thought for the day

"Life is change. Growth is optional."

I didn't realize it was the name of a (possibly cheesy) book... but it was something my yoga teacher said last week.

But, in an effort to be conscious, and into this very moment, it's worth considering. So, I put it here to remind myself when (in my vanity) I check my own blog to see if the two or three people who read it have left any comments!

More unnatural animal husbandry in China

Gratuitous Baby Animal Cuteness

Head like a hole

I had a molar pulled yesterday.

I wish I could think of something witty to say about the whole nightmare... but I can't. I'm just trying to get the cracking sound out of my head.

Did I gross you out?

Brush your teeth!

I'm so tired of feeling crappy

Seems like I'm sick all the time.

Mom says I'm not. I guess she would know.

Guess I need to remember to pay attention.

I'm telling you stories. Trust me.

"There's no such thing as autobiography there's only art and lies."

Make of it what you will.

I will. And gamble everything.

Grief

I'm still thinking about my experience at Molly's vigil last night.

Genevieve looked like her soul was being sucked into a giant hole in her heart; like she was trying to hang on to the edge. Don't fall in, Gen!

I didn't walk up to her. I swooped in. Everyone was looking at her.

Look at her.

I wanted to hold her so she could fall into that hole a little bit. Molly was family to her... Molly was a real person in her life. More than a symbol. More than an inspiration. More than a party host.

Can she really fill up that hole with memories?

****

Betsy looked like she was in shock. Stunned. Lost. When does it really hit? What am I going to do?

****

Lisa's voice shook as she told storied of Molly's support during nightmarish legislative sessions. Bruce fought back tears and said with wonder, "we just keep losing our heroes." Elliott, recovering from his second heart surgery, came but didn't stay long. But he came.

****

In another part of my world, two of my work colleagues are waiting for a parent to die. Both have been told that death is imminent. They're in that process of waiting, taking turns with family members. Holding off the grief that is also imminent. That's gotta be the worst part... until worse parts come later.

I didn't know her personally

My friend Debbie organized a remembrance for Molly Ivins tonight.

Molly died yesterday of cancer. She was only 62 years old.

I didn't know Molly personally. I went to her house a few times... for her notorious final Friday parties and for a handful of fundraisers for liberal causes (Molly liked being a Liberal!). I didn't think her columns held effective answers to our problems, But I loved her wit, courage, example and heart.

I almost didn't go to the remembrance tonight. I drove by and there weren't that many people there. I had a vision of some news person asking me to comment on her passing--like I have any place doing that. But I went. I went because I have friends who knew her; friends I knew were devastated by her death.

I saw one friend -- a women I've known for almost 20 years, who grew up among Molly's crowd. She was heartbroken and there by herself. She thanked me for being there, hugging her, holding her hand and giving her kleenex.

I'm so glad I went.

Who will fill the void?