My Rebellion

I didn't practice for a month.

It's interesting to me -- when something that you work to become committed to becomes something you need to rebel against...

My teacher went on retreat at the end of July and I simply could not make myself do hardly anything... I suppose I did some headstands -- and a few poses here and there -- but I just simply wanted no part of the mat. And I couldn't change it as hard as I tried.

I missed it horribly. I so often miss sweet teacher -- and as the months goes by, some of her voice stays, and some gets dimmer and dimmer and I wish I could hear her now...
My body began to rebel in all sorts of ways -- my knees won't work and things ache -- I don't sleep well. I forget to breathe...


So today I went back. And it is interesting to see -- what stays, what leaves, what fears are true, what remains within.

My strength was better than I thought.
But my stamina was weak. It was hot -- and I haven't been to a hot class in a very long time. I remember it used to feel like it melted my muscles and held me, the heat. Today it felt uncomfortable and stifling.

But still I am thinking about the rebellion...
I think I just got tired of working so hard. Summer vacation, I suppose -- but of course, there is no such thing. I need to find a way to bring myself restorative practice and space within life...

I find mid-life very long and hard -- and I think I sometimes rebel from it all.

on Interdependance and Dancer's Pose

I went to my first flow class today since I hurt my ankle. It was a gentle class -- it didn't feel gentle.

Healing is so slow.
I tried simply to listen and learn about my ankle...

I am amazed at how long it takes to heal.
I try to always use those times to learn compassion for people who are afflicted all the time... what if I spent my whole life in pain when I danced or ran...

I am amazed at the number of different parts that come into play with an injury...
the hardest thing was balance -- and trying to balance forced me to notice all the weakness -- the weakness surrounding the entire support system...
Dancer's pose -- one of my favorites -- was out of the question.

Holding oneself up and outstretched -- it's not an easy task.

Injury radiates through the body -- weakness is shared through proximity...

Each piece has to be strong enough to do its part to hold the weight of the body.

I am amazed at how frustrating it is to feel weak -- to be out of control of the time and the process...

It's one thing to be gentle with the namable pain -- but there are so many working parts which also become fragile -- also feel wounded -- also need to be cared for and built back slowly and with patience...
and the pieces that are seem so far away from each other -- on the other side of the foot -- in the other parts of my life -- they are unmistakable joined -- unmistakably interdependent...

and there is always so much to learn in the meantime -- who you become -- it's not who you were.

Brilliant Teacher

Hard teacher needs a new name -- I think it might be Brilliant Teacher. I am learning so much from her about life and practice and myself.  I miss sweet teacher -- but feel like this new space has opened...

The work Brilliant Teacher asks us to do is really hard -- it hurts and it pushes me and it requires me to understand the ways that I need to shift what I thought I had been doing well. This work requires me to shift what I thought I knew. They talk in yoga about the beginners mind... about the importance of always learning and listening and opening. There is no achievement -- of course -- there is only exploration, curiosity, understanding. Where you are strongest is where you have to grow the most. Where you are weakest teaches you about building...

And Brilliant teacher talks all the time about discipline and commitment. Her teachings support me every day...

but I realized yesterday her teachings have also completely blockaded my practice.
I work so hard for her -- push myself so hard -- that I don't want to do my own practice. I used to wake up and look forward to the mat -- but now it just feels like another struggle -- at the beginning of a day of so much struggle.

It's important to work. Discipline. Structure.
But I have to put her out of my mind, now. Sometimes the work is not in the difficulty. Sometimes life is the difficulty enough.

This week I will set an intention to enjoy my mat -- to let my body and my heart and my energy guide my practice. There is a poem by Ann Sexton I think about often when life feels exhaustive... she says, "I'm tired of being brave."
I will let my body and my heart and my energy be my guide and I will save my hard work for her supportive time.

And I will try too to ask only that of the people I love.

My Door

Yesterday in class, Hard Teacher read a passage from Light on Life which talks about the space within and the space outside a vessel. A vase, a body. In art there is negative space -- there is line and form and light and shadow. I have studied visually the way the one creates the other...

When we work a pose, she said, we are used to working on the outside space. What I want you to play with today is the interior space...

There are ways that when we contract, it creates freedom. When we push against ourselves from the inside, we become freer...

She had us take three belts with us to the mat.

At the end of class, we went into shoulder stand. But not just any shoulder stand; shoulder stand with three belts. It felt a little like some sort of strange bondage fiasco... One on our arms, behind our back -- one on our shins, one on our ankles.

You'd think it would be harder, holding oneself strapped in...
it's scary -- I thought I was going to fall...

but it was so unbelievably light.
it was as if, by being contained, the legs lost their connection to the earth...

So I was thinking about that this morning -- as I went to start practice -- which I will have to return to later. I was thinking about how, in life, sometimes it is the restrictions that allow the space to open up -- outside and inside... the binding brings the light.


And it feels related to this other thing I was thinking about this morning. I am trying to change my headstand ascent to both legs and once -- as Hard Teacher feels this is the right way to do the pose... sigh. I'm solid in the way I go up now -- but the baby steps of reverting to two legs has me back at the wall...

the walls, in my case, are the doors of my living room. I managed it -- with a little hop, my two legs up -- this is a major feat for me right now -- I made it almost all of the way up -- then reached my toes to the door for a moment of steadying.

The door, of course, opened.
I fell sideways.  Landed on my ankle. Left my practice for later -- for which I am also judging myself...

You know, I am pretty sure I would have been fine if the door hadn't been there.
But if you think there is support -- and it fails -- balance is nearly impossible.

Maybe it's a matter again of looking to hold tight the container -- to feel the support in the vessel itself -- not looking for the strength outside -- but allowing the strength inside to be supported by the pressures and the binds of the day -- to take strength from the space that opens in response to constraint.

It Was In the Cards

This morning during my practice I kept finding myself just lying on my back staring at the ceiling. I was disappointed in myself -- and the practice -- and I'm just tired of my body today. It seems unfathomable to me -- after having so many varied ailments over the last year -- that I would fall out of bed and screw up all of my mobility for months to come. Irony of all irony, my own bed is on the floor.

As I was driving around this morning, running icky errands, I kept thinking, where is the yoga lesson in my practice this morning...

This afternoon I went card shopping. I love cards. Spend silly money on cards. My absolute favorite cards are letterpressed with a dark sense of humor. Love those! I was looking for a birthday card for a friend -- I got two for myself.

One is a get well card, it says -- "Heal in your own time." Then you opened it up and it said, "Get well soon seemed bossy."

Of course. Injury happens. Healing happens.

Because I have been off my feet, I have done amazing work on strengthening my core and opening my hips. I've learned how malleable the practice can be when I need it to be. I've had to choose again and again to find ways to adapt the practice to my body -- which is, truly, the core of the practice.

My own time.

The other card has a beautiful photo of a sunset beach -- reminiscent of something you would probably see Magnum P.I. walking off into in 1982 -- very orange and pink and there's a duck and glimmering water and in swirly letters it says,

"f*#$ yoga."

I dunno, it made me laugh.

Luxury of the fast

Again, during Pranayama today I was feeling so panicky on the exhale.
And I thought, for a moment, that is just the way I feel about love.
(Then I thought, for a moment, I should get up and write my blog now -- then I thought that would be decidedly not finishing my practice... sigh.)
And I'm always amazed at what happens if you stick around...

Sweet teacher says, it is a luxury to be in your body, with this hour, on this day that will never come again... (she did it, she left to give life... I learned so much from her this year. All health and safety to you and your family, Justine.)

I usually end my practice reading Rumi. I like the way that randomly flipped to input from the outside creates metaphors and connections in my mind. I like listening -- and I like the focus on meditation...

And today he said,
"Fasting
There is a hidden sweetness in the stomach's emptiness."

I like it when it works that way.

"We are lutes. No more, no less. If the soundbox is stuffed full of anything, no music."

I think I will read this again before my next breath work. Maybe I will read it again before my next goodbye...

 "When you fast, good habits gather like friends who want to help..."

I think it's so interesting to notice in me the force of the feelings of loss and fear when intellectually I know there is nothing wrong in the moment. Intellectually I know I am not in danger of suffocating -- and, in fact, it would be extremely difficult to suffocate in the middle of my living room floor -- even if I set that as my intention, my body would rebel -- would take the breath I needed against my will.

And still the fear can well with force and power.

I have enough breath. I am not in danger of starving. I am not in danger of being alone.
I have the luxury of choosing not to rush this morning.
I have the luxury of noticing...

"Expect to see it, when you fast, this table spread with other food, better than the broth of cabbages."

Because of love.

Went to yoga today with a sprained ankle... I felt dumb doing it -- I knew vinyasa was not a good idea... but Sweet Teacher -- she's almost gone now. And I am going to miss her a lot. So I went. And it hurt -- I learned and I practiced and I took breaks and I was very tender...

Sometimes you just have to go ahead and be there, right -- even when it hurts, and it exacerbates an injury or it calls up sadness or separation anxiety. Because of love. I had a dinner like that this week, too.

Today I asked about how to begin to work on balance in a hand stand.

We always think about extremities, right -- Sweet Teacher said. But it's not about that at all. Balance from your core -- let the strength and straight come from your center and your legs will have no choice but to come off the wall.

We waste so much time on the extremities... those things outside of the real change that needs to be made -- the real strength that needs to be found.

Travel safe and be happy -- you will be missed.