The bell.

I interviewed David Emerson (the author I talked about last week who does work with yoga and trauma) last week, and it was so interesting to talk to him. He started out as social worker – but found he couldn’t get to healing through talking. “We just focus on the body. We don’t bring the issues into the room at all.”

The body has its own wisdom. We can heal through breath. Breathing.

Feeling the body.

I had a teacher several years ago – his pseudonym would not be sweet teacher – though he was one of my favorites -- He was a great meditation teacher.  As another unlikely beginning, he was a former Wall Street broker – and did bring a fair amount of the trading floor into the room. He pushed us to achieve difficult poses – and made a point of praise for reaching the goal… He used to search contortion sites before teaching us… I did amazing things in his class -- king pigeon -- a full split -- some crazy arm balances... twisting and turning and I always left feeling completely freed...

The point, he said, was to override the mind. To work so hard that you had to forget what you were thinking… and it worked.

He also would always have us say one particular prayer – touch our thumbs to our third eye, mouth, heart… see no evil, hear no evil, feel no evil. Can’t you see all those renditions of the monkeys… but I always thought of it as an ignorance plea – see no evil… but the prayer is more of a choice, in my current understanding – see good… see love, speak love, feel love.

I didn’t practice but for one class this week – I had a chest cold and breathing was hard. Now I remember. It’s not at all about what you cannot do… It's nice to be getting better -- to stand on my hands and my head and touch my knees to my nose... but I need it most the days when I can barely move at all. I need it most when I feel the worst.

I haven’t been able to get out of the way of my thoughts for days…