Shards

October 13

Last night I fell asleep thinking about the difference between doing something with and without intention.

What does it mean, to me, if I force myself through a sun salutation because I promised… what does it mean if in that process I don’t salute the sun… what does it mean if I do things because I have to, without my heart.

Of course, we have to do that all the time. For lots of reasons.

But isn’t what I’ve promised myself here a few minutes a day of heart.

I couldn’t clear my way to the mat yesterday – and didn’t want to go to it half assed… Though, I suppose, that is part of the point. You go, and then you find your way in…

For the past few days I have been struggling. Not with commitment or belief – but implementation.

It is so easy to let important things disappear forever.

Sunday I went to class – and it felt good to lean on that support – and it felt good to get that good a work out…

But Monday and Tuesday there was life. Monday the kids were home from school – and Tuesday I went to the gym, where I haven’t been in a week or so…

And it’s not just the yoga, it’s the writing.

I am a writer. I have not written for two years. I have fallen away from my heart and my pen and I have not been able to find my way back…

Clearing the space… creating the space… allowing the space…

There are so many layers of resistance – there is the habit layer – there is the other things layer – there is the difficulty layer…

But there is, beyond all that, the fear of failure.

I find this so strong right now – in practice – in art in love…

To say, broken heart. It means nothing. It is cliché and intangible.

The self is afraid of itself. It is healing, with parts in slings and parts in shards.

Up Side Down Time

October 9

I have done a head stand every day for several days. In the beginning, my arms were exhausted after about 5 seconds. 

Yesterday when I was standing on my head, sweet teacher said, to someone else, the goal is for you to take a five minute headstand. I think I fell out of my pose. 

A five minute headstand? She must be insane.

Today, I went to class again. I am still feeling so achey and sore and tired that I felt like I needed the support and I wanted to feel the movement. 

I stood upside down for a minute and a half. I didn't fall out -- I simply wanted to take child's pose.

I think in a week I will try for five minutes. What if that is like this whole thing -- or the drawing exercise… 

what can time teach that nothing else can?

Partner Poses

October 8

One of the things about this class is that the teacher is very into community. She makes us talk to each other -- smile at each other -- touch each other.

"the worst thing about your day can not be how close you are to someone else."

Sometimes I dread going in there just for this reason. I always leave feeling more connected.

And today is a day of cleansing and repentance. I actually was going to fast and go to temple -- which I do some times… I love this day.

But my oldest friend in the world asked me to go to yoga instead. And out to breakfast. Today, that seemed more purifying. 

In one pose we were doing a deep forward bend -- and my friend put her feet on my back, with her back on the wall -- and pushed. For the first time i felt like the real pressure in my hip was being confronted.

And it was really nice to be partnered with someone I consider a partner. While it is so nice to practice putting your trust and your hands in the hands of a stranger, it is incredible to take a moment to be supported by the truly supportive in your life. To trust them and to be able to talk to them as you push yourself; push through problems; help them on with their own space and shape. 

I am often amazed by the healing of touch. To hold hands -- and to simply feel another person.

Good morning, Sweet Body

October 6^th and a half.

I was so sick yesterday. I was in pain all day. I got depressed – my whole body hurt.

My kids were also sick – my daughter has an intense phobia of vomit and some kid did just that in school today. She didn’t want to go back today. My son also was really wanting face time – his snotty beautiful I’m going to make you so much sicker face…

I could not bear the mat. I felt my body would break – I kept telling myself, if I got onto it, it would let me listen better to my body but I didn't want to listen.

I suppose, the fact is, I didn’t want to listen to my body. I didn’t want to hear what it had to say. Furthermore, I was super annoyed at it for screwing up my day.

By the end of the day it was all I could do to lie in my bed in corpse pose – slightly wishing I was a corpse – and breathe.

It’s not a small thing. Breathing. It’s easy to forget – and it’s easy to underestimate.

When I was little I learned to meditate with my father. If I wanted to be in the room with him I had to do what he was doing. He would sit in front of a candle and chant. Om mani padri om. Om is the jewel in the lotus of the heart. Om.

I hated it. I was squirmy and fidgety and bored. Far better to go back into the other room and search for Kenny Rogers on the radio.

Years later, when it came to prenatal breathing classes I refused. I did, in fact, refuse and speaking of meditation until after my kids were born. I was firmly routed in the idea that I would take drugs and that the process would be… well, whatever it was.

But when the contractions started, the training came back all on its own. My oldest friend, who had carefully studied meditation for months before her own birth – and had found it marginally helpful – watched me in disbelief. “How do you know that – that’s everything I learned.”

The thing about practice is that it does support you – when you need it. When you learn things they become part of you – inside – part of your being.

Emily Dickenson’s punctuation was another thing I learned like that.

The teacher says, good morning sweet body – in her beautiful Australian accent…

Good morning, sweet body.

Protection, Support, Leaning

October 5

Today I am thinking about the relationship between protection, support and leaning.

Rushing in without protection is reckless. Someone told me I was that way once – when I was just out of my marriage. And I suppose they were right. I think it’s easy to be reckless when you have been cooped up too long – haven’t flung yourself at a wall or a feeling or a destination – for as long as you can remember.

It doesn’t work, of course. You are off balance – the dog is trying to lick your face so that getting your feet over your head is, seriously, impossible.

Protection. A crate for the dog. A shirt that is not going to come down over your face causing you to look like some moron on TV who just got immobilized by a simple swipe of the hand…

Support. It is amazing to me all the muscles that go into one fluid movement of upside down. The need for each piece of each arm to be aligned. I’m working on the endurance of staying upside down longer – but the getting up is so different from day to day. Yesterday, my first head stand was effortless. Without thought. Today I could feel disquiet everywhere. I stayed up longer when I managed the pose – but I felt the breeze of my body – reconnecting to the mat and faring through the shifts of balance.

And then there’s leaning. I am a leaner.

I heard an interview with the biographer of John Lennon yesterday on NPR – he was talking about how Lennon had been forced to choose between his parents at a very young age – how horrible that had been for him. How as a result he always had partners – created strong bonds to not be alone.

I think I’m like that. And it’s survival, of course – along with healthy connection. But I think it can be debilitating too –

The wall makes me believe I would fall on my head without it there. The wall, of course, can not make me believe anything. I believe that the wall gives me support even when I don’t touch it – so that without it – with it – I don’t trust myself.

I don't trust myself. 

Permission

October 4

It is often extremely hard for me to do things without being told what to do.

This is a very strange thing, because no one has ever really told me what to do at all… I look at my mat and I think, if I go there by myself – I will feel silly. I sit on the mat and I think, what will I possibly do.

I wrote my first poetry book when I was 10 years old. I was in this dismal enormous school in Maine – fifth through twelfth grades and a jarring shift from my previous little Montessori open classroom… The teacher wanted me to do a project with her for a gifted and talented program (imagine a time when there was money in education for such things) – but she said, “I know you can do the work – but it has to be independent. I don’t know if you can do something independently.”

I was surprised she knew that about me. I did it. It was because she gave me permission – that I could do it then.

I have been practicing yoga for 10 years. Beyond that, I grew up with yoga and meditation – less as a practice, but more like learning swimming, in a way. So that when I came to it as an adult, it felt like a familiar old friend.

I say this to prove my credentials, I think. To tell myself I have the right to want what I want. But it doesn’t mean anything to me at all.

I want to stand on my head.

What if I fall. What if I hurt myself. What if someone sees me – or if I see myself as a fool.

Sometimes I crave movement – sometimes I imagine.

If it gives you pleasure… the new teacher says.

She also has us fold our mats in quarters before head stand. Imagine, it doesn’t have to be hard – the floor… doesn’t have to be unyielding or solid or painful…

So – the first definition of “Permission” in the OED is “The action of permitting, or giving leave.” The definition of “Permit” is “To allow, suffer, give leave, not to prevent.”

The second definition of Permission is, “Giving up. Abandonment.”

I can’t quite get my mind around it, but it feels like an inversion, doesn’t it?

The inherent nature of the relinquishing of power…

What is the relationship between not preventing and abandoning?

This is the first time I have wanted to write in over a year.

I have been planning on starting up the blog again, but have been struggling as to what it was that I wanted to do with it. I have been intending for some time to write about water. I thought that would be a natural second year to learn one thing about water every day… It is a natural sister to oil and certainly does seem to be our next major issue.

But it has never felt right.

In my first year of Product of Compression I learned far more about myself than I ever expected -- I learned about my writing and my own personality. I learned a fraction of a fiction about oil -- which has deepened my understanding of the world exponentially... but I am not really interested in another year long exploration of some mushy mix of poetry and journalism.

What I love, is the practice. The commitment -- and the unfolding understanding of life that comes from long projects.

Product of Compression.

The name came from a definition about the creation of oil. And the oil, in so many ways, became a metaphor for myself to understand how I felt about and understood the world around me.

So much of my life, I believe, is the product of compression...

I have a story I often tell my college students when they are struggling over the many drafts I give them in the attempt at showing them the layers of understanding work.
I was in college -- in a drawing class -- I was an art student surrounded by academics -- and that class was a haven for me.
One day the prof assigned us a 10 hour still life.  It was really ugly -- a boot, a tea pot, something stuffed. Nobody did it. A few hours -- maybe 5. I did 11. I just wanted to see -- I figured if she was assigning it, there would be something I would learn by seeing my way through the time -- letting go and trusting the process.
It was amazing -- the drawing began to live. I also learned about small changes -- of light, of things on a table -- of a room. So much lives and breathes around us when we begin to notice. So much is learned in our body -- our fingers and our seeing. It was an ugly still life --  and at the end the teacher looked at me and said, "you really spent 10 hours?" incredulous and I wondered if she had been cavalier with our attention… But what I learned from that assignment has carried with me always.

In my life I am dedicating more time to journalism, and so in this Blog I think it is time for a more personal practice.

I have a new yoga teacher. She is absolutely amazing. She has a lovely music way of speaking, and a teaching style which pushes the body to pain -- and strength -- and understanding. I've taken to taking her class on Monday morning. And each week I find myself joining her on the type of path that comes when I am open and receptive and ready to grow.

At the moment, I am in the process of deep recovery. Over the last six months, my body and my heart and my life have all experienced the kind of wounds that radiate down into the core of personal pain and fear…

Last week she had us do this strange pose -- she said it came from days as a dancer -- lying on your back you open your legs, with very bent knees, and let them drop open. Then you roll from one side to the other slowly -- letting one leg and then the other take the lead -- without pushing anything -- and feel what it is like to have different parts of body lead.

One of my injuries is in my right hip. It has kept me in constant pain for nearly a year. How I got this injury is ironic beyond ability to convey (sex) -- and got worse over time as I tended to every other piece of my life (affair) first.

What I noticed that morning was what it felt like to lead with an injured part. My right hip couldn't lead, you know. It could only stop me and fill me with pain. In isolating the muscles, I had no choice but to respect their limitations and their current state.

Much of my life is in that state these days. My heart.

I do not have the strength to lead with that muscle. I can only stretch it -- see if I can begin to ease the blocks -- begin to open the joints and the memory of movement.

Product of Compression.

Let me say here that I was raised a hippy fruit cake -- and hated it.
I was raised on carob, knew how to seed marajuana at the tender age of 6, chanted in hidnu and ate glutton roast in the 70s. I did, indeed, sing Kumbaya.
I never wanted any part of such things.
I fell in love with a republican. I went to Smith. I did everything I could to never ever to talk about anything anything like this ever. Ever.

Product of Compression.

I want to learn one thing about life everyday for a year. I am afraid of going out on my own. A personal practice has been taunting me for years -- I'm afraid of any path that I have to quiet to explore -- I only walk in circles -- I like to be told what to do...
Today the teacher gave us three ways of working into being upside down. One was strong and energetic. One was assisted. The third was slow and supported. Measured. I do things best that way.

I am going to begin 365 days of yoga practice. And for each of those days I will write about the practice. I would like to see what will happen to my understanding of the world and myself. Watch what I will grow to learn and understand.

I think in the end this will all be related to oil. We will just have to wait and see…