FRIVOLOUS YOGA LOVE

Guest Muse by Andyogini:



"I say beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes."
-Henry David Thoreau, Walden

I love yoga for all the usual worthy reasons, and I love yoga for some frivolous ones, too.
I am entitled to shop at Lululemon and carry their cool bags.
Toting my pink yoga mat seems to disperse what I call my Senior Cloak of Invisibility.
I find I can reach my right hand all the way around to the left side of my head and thus trim my hair more evenly.
I can get a lot closer to my feet to tend to my toenails.

YOGA FOR EVERY BODY



I never thought Yoga could be for me. Stretching was just that—a stretch. I thought it was for ancient Indian gentleman and supple young women with Gumby-like ligaments. I was lured into a class once by an acquaintance. It was full of ladies who all seemed to be showing off and showing me up! (And, turning me off.)

Years later, I had the great good luck to encounter Brooks’ class. There I realized it didn’t matter how far I could bend or how long I could balance. I embraced my yoga and did what I could and it was enough. My yoga was my yoga and my classmates’ yoga was their yoga. We’re individuals on our own journeys, yet we’re traveling together. I wish the best for my yoga mates and for me, and that is part of my practice, too.

Thanks Brooks!

-Andyogini


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Knowing My Resistance

I have been in silent protest of life for most of mine, and now I see the dim outlines toward another way of being. It has to do with knowing my resistance, which has become such an intrinsic part of my experience that I confuse it for “me” most of the time. My resistance, when I identify with it, keeps me stuck in a silent “no”. “I won’t do it,” “I don’t want to,” or “I don’t have to,” my resistance says. When I’m in this kind of space I am a slouching “no”-monster.

And, I have been in conflict with the world for a long time. "No" is a part of the truth of my experience. I don’t like a lot of what I see. How can anyone look around and be at peace when people are so mean to one another. Crime rates, murders, suicides, abuse, pollution, species-extinctions are at all-time highs. Pretending that I am happy with everything in the world around me is just that—pretending (or even lying).

I am looking for intermediary steps between "no" as a general attitude, and "yes" as a fierce agenda. The ruthless yes-sayers can really hurt those of us who experience conflict with a world that seems unjust. It’s just not tasty medicine. Plastering a happy face on a devastating moment is absolutely brutal.

What if I could navigate this harsh territory by simply living the best life I can live? So instead of the slouching “no” monster, I can be the compassionate yogi. The one who listens, understands, and takes action. So instead of my silence being a quiet expression, I allow my voice to speak my truth and my hands to start to pick up the mess. Instead of feeling paralyzed by the “NO” alarm that is going off inside of me, I’ll start to take the steps that I can. So instead of being a stuck “no”-saying wounded android, I can instead be an alive creative person doing something that moves the world in a direction that I can start to agree with. Instead of silently disagreeing, I am stepping forward to speak with my actions. I am doing things in synch with who I know myself to be instead of what the others told me to do.

In knowing my resistance I just might be able to separate from my identification with it just enough to do something good instead of merely shrinking back into a reactive "no".

Alone

Cold. Rain is falling.
Alone in my loneliness.
I am full of lies.

(So if I believe that I'm alone in my loneliness when others are also alone, I am out of synch with the truth.)

Alone and lonely,
I have lots of company.
Let's break through our shells.

I like illusion.
Solitude is my drama.
Just leave me alone.

I want to reach out.
Comfortable in solitude.
I think I'll stay here.

Large crowd of loners,
Each one thinking she's alone.
Paralyzed and sad.

Programmed to believe
Others have things figured out
We are in a trance.

Inspired by Dr. Jay's post.


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Handstand is so Cool

This post is dedicated to RB and others (like me) who have been stymied at one time or another when trying to kick up into this intriguing pose.

Handstand is so cool.

A while ago I wrote about how it made me really pissed.

For myself, I don't think I can own handstand. These days I can do it more often than not. It seems to be easier, but I wonder if it's just because I'm not taking it as seriously as I used to. I really love the handstand and find it incredibly empowering, and mysterious, too. Like a rare bird that you know where it usually lives, but it might not be there on some days. I suspect that my relationship with this pose will also continue to change.

There was a time when a yoga teacher friend was watching my handstand struggle. She shared that it looked like I just had a long way to go with my tall body--I had a lot to kick up. But while this assessment is technically true in that I am tall, I don't totally buy into it. Sometimes my handstand is very easy. When it is easy I still am kicking up the same amount of me so there is something different about the times I can easily do it and times I can't; I don't change my height, body mass or weight. So even though I have a lot to kick up, it's not my height that makes the pose easy or hard for me.

The obvious answer is practice. When I am practicing my handstand every day--sometimes several times a day in between classes--I am much more likely to nail it when I am asked to do it in a class I am taking. But, even within the last few months there have been times where I have had performance anxiety when asked to do it in a class. Even if I pop into one right before class, I sometimes have failed to do it with ease when asked to do it later during the class.

And like RB, once I'm up I tend to be solid.

When I have had difficulty with the pose, I usually think that it has to do with something psychological--like I am afraid to be strong and selfsufficient. True. I can fake it pretty good but I have fear. I actually think that I've nailed it right here.

But there is also something about my abdominal connection. When I swing my leg up where my "leg" includes my low belly--that helps. Or sometimes, when I kick I think of bringing my navel back towards the wall behind me--that really helps. It's almost like I can get disjointed around my mid-section. My back can feel weak when I try to kick up with just my legs below the buttocks, but when I include my low belly to navel in my kick it works much better.

After years of practice, my body continues to stabilize, strengthen, and open in new ways so I'm just excited to continue. It's cool to see where yoga practice takes my body and mind over time.


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Hey, wow.

I wish for everyone to have moments, or even a moment of seeing a difficulty in life and witnessing it as having a healing effect. It's a moment where you feel a bit softened and sweet, in awe of how a situation--that just happened--really changed you into who you are today. Wow...

Yesterday, I joked about seeing a cosmic prank in some events and symbols I saw repeated and set against one another in my life: being a tall woman v/s wanting to be small, and from dust bunnies to real bunnies! Wow.

I believe that our stories of how we have suffered do offer opportunities to heal and grow--yielding a better result in the end. What is the lesson learned? How can lives be made better based on what you have learned through your having directly experienced suffering up close and personal? How do you understand others better because you have been there, too? How is life just a friggin' creative miracle in how in unfolds? Wow.


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Me with the Dust Bunnies

It is this height of mine that has revealed what is quite possibly a cosmic joke. I always wanted to win or disappear when I was a kid. When I won a game I would dance a flamboyant happy dance. And when I lost I wanted to get lost with the dust bunnies in the darkest, most unseen places. I felt so ashamed. (And I wasn't very good at games like board games or cards.)

I think it had to do with proving my worthiness in the household. When my mom became too ill to care for me, my family didn't know where I should live. Even though I was small and couldn't understand it the way they did, I had my own way of understanding it.

By any means necessary, I had to prove to whoever I was with that I was loveable. I would identify who I needed to please in any given situation and do absolutely anything to win them so they would keep me or love me. So when I saw evidence to the contrary: like loosing a game, I wanted to hide that evidence as soon as I could. This just wouldn't do!

Pretty soon, it seemed like my own physical body was evidence of my own unworthiness of love--so needy I was. So I learned, as best as I could, to disappear, to hide.

But this kind of hiding is like when a small child thinks that they have disappeared when they cover their own eyes with their hands--it is only the child's vision that is blocked, nobody else's. People were always dressing me in cute outfits, and teaching me that my appearance was important. I just learned to be quiet.

So if I appeared to not be noticed by others I thought I was safe--it was all about how the world appeared to me. And then I step into a room, super-tall and needy... Hard to miss me! Thank God! I'm so glad I'm here (Now I am!)!

So that's the cosmic joke! And now I have bunnies which is quite possibly another cosmic zinger. (Thanks, Fawn for your cute face! She's in the above photo.) And now I am also called to be louder as I tell my story, and teach yoga--kinda' funny. My creator has a sense of humor.

---
Thank you for one.
Thank you for all.
Thank you for my interpretations of experiences that made me feel small.
And thank you for my height: 5 feet 10 inches that made me not small at all.


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Thank you

Thank you for all I have.
Thank you for the blessing of sight.
Thank you for the power of cognition.
Thank you for the fortification of breath.
Thank you for my knees to fall on.
Thank you for loving eyes to look into.
Thank you for sunshine.
Thank you for rain.
Thank you for healing.
Thank you for pain.
Thank you for wellness.
Thank you for disease.
Thank you for the hand that covers my sneeze.
Thank you for birth.
Thank you for death.
Thank you for revelation.
Thank you for things I don't understand.
Thank you for work.
Thank you for play.
Thank you for the people who say, "Have a nice day."
Thank you for the ordinary moments.
Thank you for specialness.
Thank you for those who say, "Fuck you!"
Thank you for the people who have held me when I cried.
Thank you for the vast range of experiences.
Thank you for aging.
Thank you for youth.
Thank you for lying.
Thank you for truth.
Thank you for purity.
Thank you for profanity.
Thank you for children.
Thank you for lovers.
Thank you for fathers.
Thank you for brothers.
Thank you for sisters.
Thank you for mothers.
Thank you for sex.
Thank you for chastity.
Thank you for lips.
Thank you for words.
Thank you for yoga.
Thank you for sound.
Thank you for art.
Thank you for cigarettes.
Thank you for quitting smoking.
Thank you for dancing.
Thank you for quiet.
Thank you for anger.
Thank you for peace.
Thank you for nature.
Thank you for trees.


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