Random Act of Yoga

I visited my Mother today. She seemed to enjoy our time together. We haven't had as much time together as some mothers and daughters because of her schizophrenia. For well over thirty years she has lived in places where she has special activities and is supervised. We were separated when I was only a few years old, and have lived in different states since then.

Today we went around to some different places, and then stopped at Whole Foods for some soup. I had a deliciously spiced pumpkin-cashew hot soup, and she chose a cold vegan bean soup. We ate in the well-populated seating area of the store. After we had finished our soup she asked me, after wondering aloud if it was appropriate right after eating (...), if I would do headstand for her. At first I thought about her request, and then I responded that right after eating isn't the best time for headstand. And then I considered her request further. There were a lot of people sitting all around us at Whole Foods, but--so what! My Mother almost never asks me for anything. So I put my wind-breaker jacket down on the cement floor between our table and the next, and I got a small stack of napkins from the dispenser. I looked my Mom in the eye. I got down on my knees at the Whole Foods. I put my forearms down on the jacket with the napkin stack on the floor in the arc created by my interlaced hands, and put my head there. I went up into headstand. I stayed there a little while. I came down.

After a pause I lifted my head up, and picked up the jacket and napkins which had been a coushion for my head against the hard floor. When I sat down again we shared a conspiratorial look and smile that was priceless. It was fun.

When it was over my Mother said that when I was doing headstand everybody relaxed and got quieter. She also heard a man say that he would definitely come back to this store again. And according to my Mom, people were talking to one another from the heart. Isn't that a nice thought!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Georgia Gratitude

I enjoy Georgia. The view into the backyard of my Aunt and Uncle's house is so nice on a sunny holiday day like today.

I talked on the phone with my Mother, and we made plans to get together tomorrow. I am grateful for this. I am glad to be in Georgia.

I did yoga before eating anything today, and that's just the best! It helped me to clear the holding in my body that I was interpreting as resistance to change.

It's best to just go with the flow, appreciating the things I encounter along the way, looking for and appreciating the blessings that this experience of life offers. Amazing.

When I feel the resistance/tightness in my body, I know that I have the tools that can free me from this discomfort, yogic tools!

My Uncle is in bed with a difficult recovery from surgery; it is a post-surgical infection. He feels cold. I feel for him. He is a warm and wonderful man. I pray for his body to heal from this difficulty soon. Be well, Uncle Allan! You have been a blessing in my life ever since I can remember. I appreciate your curiosity, cheerfulness, and your presence in my life. My life would not have been as great if you had not been in it. Thank you for you. Please get better soon.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Theater in the Rump

Since the workshop at the Yoga Circle last weekend with Manouso Manos, my upper thighs--and even up into the lower pelvic region including the lower butt and pelvic floor--are like a theater in the round where the upper thigh bone is the stage and all of the muscles surrounding the bone are the audience. (So yes, there are really two small theaters--one on the right side and one on the left.) This is a highly interactive theatrical experience where the audience--the muscles, skin and other tissue all around the stage--affects the performance happening at the upper thigh bone. Even the position of the genitalia makes a difference!

I don't think I can accurately describe how I was aware of the hips before, I can only seem to speak about how it feels right now. Today it feels like there is so much to work with to affect the position of the upper portion of the thigh bones. My memory of the old perception is that it was thin and somewhat intellectual. But now the thighs feel thick with power, substance and potential. I can do a lot to affect the position of my hips.

On Saturday Manouso said that we were going to do Parsvottanasana about eighteen times--on both sides! (A rough version of the pose is shown in the picture above, except we did it in the workshop with our fingers touching the ground.) And on about the sixteenth time, my experience opened into a radically wider perception of my hips, starting on the left side. The left foot was back and the right was forward. The action was led by the top of the left thigh bone going back. And at a certain point my perception widened from working with a smaller distinct area in the center of the thigh, to an awareness that spread all the way into my pelvis.

After that class I felt like I was all butt and thighs. And even today I feel like I'm walking around with a lot more understanding of the region around my thighs and up into my pelvis. It's kind of fun to walk around like this.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

abeyance

The word came to me in a dream. Yoga teacher friends--a couple--were getting into a car with me. The woman of the pair was already in the back seat of the car on the far side, behind the driver. The man was walking towards the car and said something that I couldn't hear at first, but tried to. Then he got into the passenger side of the back seat with her, and I was in the passenger seat in the front. I don't know who was driving (God?). Somehow it was the man of the couple who told me that the gal (I don't want to name names, but they are significant to me) had written down a word that was in my blog that she didn't understand. The word was "abeyance" (I saw it in my mind's eye in the dream hand written in pencil on a yellowish torn-off paper scrap resting on a brown wood table or dresser.). I enthusiastically replied like I thought I was the smartest kid in class that I thought it had something to do with letting go of shame. This is of course not the actual definition, but it might be significant to the interpretation of this dream...

The meaning of "abeyance" from the Dictionary.com dictionary on my iPhone:
1.temporary inactivity, cessation, or suspension: Let\'s hold that problem in abeyance for a while.

There's a spiritual notion that a person's life can change in an instant. Like a person can have an awareness that SUDDENLY changes everything. It might be represented by a beam of light through the clouds, or the parting of the Red Sea (or more crassly by taking a sip of your favorite big name soft drink, if the commercials are to be believed...).

The day before I had this dream I had just written a post on this blog about resistance. I have been praying in every way I have encountered over the last several years for help with this block of my resistance to life. I have prayed with yoga, meditation, tears, desperation, service, this blog, in ritual processes, in the sweat lodge, with a psychic healer a while back, in nature, and with my breath and all the cells of my being in all the ways that came along. Oh yeah, there was also the 10 day silent Vipassana meditation retreat... I'm sure there's more like all the different retreats I've taken, and group work processes where I had opportunities to relive and heal traumatic memories, repressed or conscious. And all these things have helped in one way or another: I know myself a HELL of a lot better than I used to... But I wonder if I also fell in love with my problem. I got to know it so well I may have inadvertently made a secure bed for JUST the two of us: me and My Problem.

But, I like the sound of that definition: Let's hold that problem in abeyance for a while.

Yes, let's.

Is it kind of goofy to trust an interpretation of a dream? Maybe. But I'm willing to see if I can live without the resistance. The word "abeyance" is a bit ominous because it is a "temporary cessation" which in dream speak could mean that I have a window of opportunity to take action. Obviously, my lifespan describes some parameters... And maybe if I can trust life enough I can find a lasting freedom from the strictures of my wounded heart.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

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


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

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.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone