Practice - A Balance of Effort and Ease

Be soft in your practice.  Think of the method as a fine silvery stream, not a raging waterfall.  Follow the stream, have faith in its course.  It will go on its own way, meandering here, trickling there.  It will find the grooves, the cracks, the crevices.  Just follow it.  Never let it out of your sight.  It will take you.  - Sheng Yen

My daily home practice was flowing smoothly last fall, but once I hit January it ran right into a brick wall.  I couldn't pry myself out of bed early for a bit of asana and meditation to save my life.  It became, at best, a feeble weekly attempt.  I hoped the season of Lent would jump start my efforts.  No such luck.  Daylight savings seemed like another good marker for gathering momentum, but it came and went and still I struggled.  Surely the transition to spring would have an immediate effect...it to passed without significant influence. Then last week, for no particular reason, I woke up early and found my meditation practice lengthened 10 fold without any real effort.  I resumed my study of the Sutras.  I welcomed the ease.

We like to think we have control over most things in life.  We like to think our shear will power is enough to keep any practice strong at any time.  We feel guilty when we fall short, convinced we've failed.  But life has a force all its own and we can not separate ourselves from the influence of all that swirls around us.  Darkness - whether lack of daylight or seasons of personal struggle - can hinder the best intentions for practice.  The effort to keep going can seem momentous.  And that feeling of exertion can build and build until we are all but ready to give up.

We can't predict when the balance will shift back towards ease, but we can trust that at some point we will cycle back around to a more peaceful place.  Our responsibility is to show up - not to be perfect, not to be the best - simply to show up.  To keep some semblance of commitment going, acknowledge when it's hard, and savor the times that it's effortless.

Be soft in your practice.  Think of the method as a fine silvery stream, not a raging waterfall.  Follow the stream, have faith in its course.  It will go on its own way, meandering here, trickling there.  It will find the grooves, the cracks, the crevices.  Just follow it.  Never let it out of your sight.  It will take you.  - Sheng Yen

Time Crunch

I'm still adjusting to the recent leap we took to "spring forward" an hour.  I love the extra light in my living room come late afternoon, but I feel behind as soon as I open my eyes each morning.  We're also coming out of a season that is supposed to provide a chance to hibernate and move at a slower pace, but with the holidays and new year's resolutions, winter is often just as exhausting as any other time of year. The shift of seasons (spring starts Friday) give us the opportunity to pause and reflect on what's working in daily routines and what isn't.  As we say goodbye to winter, I'm ready to re-focus my dwindling breath and meditation practice.  Turns out, this isn't just for yogis.  Anyone can feel less rushed and stressed by starting a simple practice. The New York Times recently featured an op-ed highlighting the link between our level of anxiety and our perception of goals.  That we live in a world of constant connection--allowing us to try and juggle numerous things at once--heightens our sense of busyness.  Mental exercises that focus on breath and re-framing how we think about time can actually lessen stress!

Rather than consider this as one more "to do," start small and see if it works for you.  Meditation doesn't have to be an hour-long practice to have benefit.  Five minutes is more than enough, if that's what you feel you can reasonably make time for.  Set your alarm 5 minutes earlier tomorrow, go sit in a quiet place, and set another alarm for 5 minutes.  Connect to each of your five senses in some way.  Then focus on taking three conscious breaths.  Follow the inhale and exhale in and out of your body.  Then think about a time you were at ease - feel the experience of relaxation throughout your body.  Try and stay with the sensation for about 30 seconds.  Go back to your breath and finish with three more slow inhales and exhales.  Repeat the following morning.  See what happens.

Mind and Meditation

Much is made this time of year about getting the body in shape - many of us commit to new routines, workouts, and diets in an effort to improve our health. Yet state of mind is just as important as shape of body.

"Researchers in the field of neuroscience have found that whatever you focus on shapes your brain. If you are constantly thinking negative thoughts...the neural pathway becomes stronger, and those thoughts become more automatic and habitual. The basic idea is that 'neurons that fire together, wire together.' The more you practice a new behavior, the more integrated or groomed the pathway becomes.  This news is both disturbing and liberating: through purposeful attention, mental training and practice, we can change our brains and ourselves."  - Ann Kearney Cook, Darling Magazine

The brain has been on my mind this week. In Sunday's New York Times Magazine, in an article titled "Mind Games", scientist Sebastian Seung compares the firing of neurons to a river and the continual wiring and rewiring as a riverbed - over time the river shapes the riverbed until, in an extreme case, the result is the Grand Canyon. And then the canyon determines where the water flows.

Meditation then, is more than just a way to calm the mind, it can shape our lives. A few years ago I was introduced to a "meditation misperception," namely that a blank mind is the goal of a meditation practice. To stop neurons from firing - that's just a fools errand.  What we're really after when we sit is awareness. Attention is paid to what the mind is thinking and from there, we can make changes. Positive thinking really does have power.  It can actually reshape pathways in the brain.

Want to try it out for yourself? You might start with a Heart Math technique.  Negative thoughts impact physical and emotional health. Instead, if we focus our attention on a previous experience of appreciation, we can rewire pathways to promote well being.  It's simple.  Find a quiet place to sit for a couple of minutes (you really don't need more, a 20 minute meditation goal is pretty intimidating). Close your eyes and take several deep breaths.  Recall a time you felt appreciated.  Imagine reliving that experience, rather than just thinking about it. Let the feelings spread through your body.  Stay with this experience for 30 seconds.  When you finish, take another 3 deep breaths and notice how your body feels.  Open your eyes and go about the rest of your day.  Find another few minutes tomorrow and repeat the practice.  It doesn't take much to start reshaping the riverbed.

Less is (often) more

I have a pretty short attention span.  I love new projects, I hold multiple jobs, I haven't lived in the same home for more than four years since I was eight years old.  In fact, yoga may be one of the most consistent aspects of my life since I took my first class over a decade ago. For a discipline that is truly the essence of simplicity when you boil it down, yoga in western culture has become a circus.  A practitioner can choose from a myriad of styles, products, teachers and studios to create a perfectly tailored experience.  Teachers often become entertainers, spending quite a lot of time outside the classroom to develop new and exciting sequences, not to mention playlists, in hopes of keeping students engaged.  It's really quite a spectacle and a long way from executing basic postures to ready the body for lengthy periods of seated meditation.

A student stopped me after class this week and politely suggested my teaching lacked the variety he feels he needs to advance his practice.  And so I spent a few days wondering - is our collective quest for new and exciting experiences, products, and relationships really advancement or just distraction?

Truth is, I saw some of myself in this student.  I went through a period of time where I craved new poses and sequences every time I unrolled my mat.  I mentally criticized teachers who repeated playlists.  I went through a teacher training and found I had fun developing the strength to execute complex poses I had previously shied away from.  More recently however, I've been influenced by practicing and studying with teachers who are returning to the basics.  Who spend entire classes on the pelvic floor, tiny backbends and alignment of bones in a handful of postures.  Who repeat the same sequences week after week to give students the chance to familiarize and refine poses.  Over the summer I spent a week working on Tadasana (Mountain Pose) and discovered a way to shift my alignment so that it felt effortless to stand upright on my two feet.  I came away as elated as if I'd conquered handstand.

Advancement in yoga doesn't have to be about mastering difficult poses.  For me, it's become about subtle shifts and attention to detail in poses I've been working with for years.  It's about how I move through my boredom that can surface during a short and repetitive daily practice.  About staying committed when I feel like moving on.  About believing that advancement often looks like standing still, or even moving backwards.

Fall is a particularly good time of year to return to basics and invite repetition into your yoga practice.  The season is full of chaotic energy, as evidenced by the weather outside my window today.  I woke up to rain, then ate lunch in a patch of sun.  Blue sky disappeared as deep, dark layers of clouds moved across the sky and the wind churned up the gray waters of Elliott Bay.  Soon my herbs and pansies were being pelted with driving rain and hail.  The rain continues as the sun creates a bright glare over the waterfront.

The pace of life, if it slowed at all during summer, has picked up speed once again as we hurtle towards December.  It's the perfect time to cozy up to the poses you love and fine tune them.  Explore the familiar faces of Downward Dog, Chair, Lunge, Bridge, Forward Fold.  Move through Surya Namaskar A & B over and over again.  Try these poses and sequences with eyes closed, with deep attention to the structure of your body.  Practice them until boredom sets in and then see what you can find within the monotony.  You just might discover a steadiness and peace of mind.

Does imagination hinder contentment?

One week into fall and it's really here now.  More gray, less sun, serious rain.  I live in Seattle because I like this kind of weather, but the transition from beautiful bright days isn't usually graceful for me.  I welcome fall with open arms, then mope around for a bit while I get used to my change of wardrobe, sky-high humidity, and the need for lamps. My struggle with transition is nothing new, which puzzles me because I love to orchestrate getting from here to there.  I'm the master of calendars, event planning, and navigating.  I get restless with routine, much as I crave it. Why aren't transition and I a natural fit?

The other day my husband inadvertently pinpointed the root of my issue.  Refusing to see his parents' condo remodel in progress, he turned to me and said, "I lack the imagination to enjoy transition."  At first I felt sorry for him.  I love all the details of planning, the thrill of seeing a work in progress and visualizing what it can be and will be someday.  Much of my life is spent in dreams of the future (along with analysis of the past).  In other words, my imagination is quite alive and well.  Seeing what's right in front of me, without any desire to change it, that's not so easy.  My husband though, he's the picture of contentment.  Life ebbs and flow around him and there he is, just being in it.

As I mulled over his comment, I realized that my imagination, lovely as it is, inhibits my ability to move peacefully through my life as it inevitably shifts and cycles.  I have developed such an ability to see something as other than it is that I've become quite clumsy at being right where I am.

Fall is traditionally a season of celebration, of abundance.  When I lived in Italy it seemed that each week brought a harvest festival for yet another crop.  Everywhere I turned, life seemed full (along with my belly).  We equate full bellies with feeling satisfied, so perhaps this is the perfect season to focus on the practice of contentment (in sanskrit, santosha). To savor what is and then let it go as something else takes shape.

Welcome Autumn!

A subtle shift in the air today announces the change of season.  Autumn, held at bay by an almost unbelievably warm (hot!) Seattle summer, is done waiting.  She arrives gently this time, easing us toward the inevitable gray.  Weaker sunlight pokes through high clouds and muted colors seem to surround a garden that only recently bloomed with vibrant energy.  For some, the goodbye is hard; others celebrate fall as the return of a dear old friend.  Those who find summer's pleasures overstimulating count on cooler, wetter days to rejuvenate minds and bodies. We've managed to make every season busy -- too busy -- for our own good, yet autumn has always carried an expectation of activity.  Time to harvest, time to store up what we need for winter!  Unless you're an avid gardener, farmer, or canner, you likely aren't bustling around to gather and preserve food, but you probably are looking at an overflowing calendar.  Our lives mimic that windy, dry air soon to be swirling colorful leaves to and fro.

My yoga will shift to compliment the weather and counter the heightened pace of life.  The body will need heating practices to sustain the warmth built up over summer months.  The mind will crave symmetry and routine to take respite from the chaos.  Fall is a time for intentional sun salutations, kapalabhati (a cleansing breath), steady rhythms, and grounding focus.  My teaching will offer space for students to explore these practices in depth.  My blog will offer tips for how to best approach the next few months of your life both on and off your mat.  I look forward to our journey together as we scurry towards Winter Solstice.

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Transition Time

It’s Labor Day, and though fall is still a few weeks off, this weekend feels like a transition time. School starts soon, nightfall is creeping earlier and earlier, vacations are becoming a distant memory.  

As a teacher, I talk a lot about the importance of honoring transition. "Focus on the journey, not the destination," is a common mantra in yoga. We encourage our students to pay attention to what's in between each pose, rather than rush through without awareness. And yet more than a few times this summer I found myself driving as fast as I could across barren stretches of road to "get there, asap!” On a plane to the east coast, I spent much of the flight longing for it to be over, convinced I was in the depths of misery as my skin dried out and ankles swelled.  

Travel is a mixed bag for me. On the one hand I love adventure and consider a handful of places dear to my heart -- spots I love just as much as home. Unfortunately, none of them are easy to get to.  Much of my childhood was spent in the mountain town of McCall, Idaho and I try to return every summer. My choices include an 8 hour drive or a 4 hour flight/drive plus airport madness. My best friend lives across the country in South Carolina. I adore my visits with her, but despise the plane rides (no direct way there). Preparing for the trip seems to take just as long as the actual travel time. I'm a notorious over-packer, anxious at the thought of leaving behind something I might need. I bring the comforts of home with me in attempt to feel poised, but the result is usually utter inelegance. I find myself lugging impossibly heavy suitcases through crowded airports while quickly working up a good sweat. Juggling a homemade lunch on my tray table never goes as well as I planned. Delays are inevitable.  

I couldn’t miss this Southern wedding, and so I became just one of way too many people headed somewhere else mid-August. As I tucked into a crowded seat near the back of economy, the guy next to me promptly hunched over our shared armrest and fell into deep sleep, head hovering just above my lap. I fervently wished to be anywhere but way up in the sky hurtling east. Then, somehow, I finally let go of my discomfort enough to do some reflection. I realized that over the past two months when I rushed the travel to and fro, to maximize my experience at home or my destination, I often set myself up for disappointment. What I rushed to get to wasn't always what I hoped for, like I somehow robbed the experience of some of its sweetness by trying to ignore the effort to arrive.  

The journey can be part of the adventure though. In June I went to Ashland with my love and two friends. We took our time as we drove, though I-5 isn't a particularly awe-inspiring trek. We stopped for a proper lunch and dinner, adding a couple of hours to our travels, yet pace felt just right. We got so caught up in our conversations that we literally ran out of gas many miles from our destination. We called for help and waited and eventually got back on our way. Though we spent less time in Ashland than anywhere else I travelled this summer, it didn't go by in the blink of an eye. We took walks and cooked. We found a yoga studio. We ran smack into my friend's sister before a play, unexpectedly.    

So much happens while I look back or wait impatiently for what's next. When I made peace with my two hour delay in Atlanta, I began to take notice of the people waiting with me. As we finally boarded the plane, the guy behind me offered to help with my carry-on. I’d seen him at the gate and pegged him for a southern boy. Now his manners convinced me I was right. We sat down across the aisle from each other and he struck up a conversation. “You were on the plane from Seattle, right? I was in the row behind you,” he offered. Turns out he was born and raised down the street from the University of Washington. We chatted about the Northwest, his plans for college this fall, and sustainability. Suddenly I wasn’t just one of millions on a plane that day. I became known, for a short flight, as a yoga teacher who just finished graduate school and can’t sit still on long plane rides. We landed, finally, in Greenville. As I waited for my friend outside baggage claim, the college boy from Seattle eased passed me one last time with a mountain of luggage. I smiled and waved, he did the same. Off he went to check into his dorm and I to the embrace of my dearest friend. My trip, flights included, turned out to the be sweetest of the summer. I chalk it up to making peace with the transitions.

Summer Practice

Much as I love summer in Seattle, I usually like to escape the city for a trip or two.  I always take along my yoga mat, but whether it actually gets used is a toss up.  Sometimes I find I just need a break from my routine, which is a lovely thing to give yourself permission to do.  Last summer I discovered that being away was a great chance to develop my own practice.  Morning yoga by the lake before a swim invited a new layer of calm into my being.  I'm looking forward to being back in in that place for a good long while this July and August.

Before the lake in Idaho though, there's always theater.  Last week I was in Southern Oregon for an annual trip to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.  Friends who are fellow yogis joined this time and they are both more adventurous about trying new studios than I am.  Emily even wrote about an experience for my blog last summer.  On this trip, she inspired me to walk a couple of blocks from our vacation rental to a beautiful studio on a quiet street in Ashland.  Rasa Yoga was the perfect place to spend the noon hour on a hot summer day.  The breeze teased the filmy curtains as I moved through reclined twists and watched a few high clouds skirt over the bright blue sky.  The teaching was familiar, spoke to the breath frequently, and promoted a balance of effort and ease--something I always appreciate in our over-asana-ized culture.  I get pretty attached to my studio and teachers in Seattle, and this experience was a nice reminder of the larger community of yoga and the benefits to trying something new.

So here's to summer, and a willingness to let go of our strict routines and embrace whatever comes along.

Accessing Anahata

Much as I like the idea of subtle energy, I tend to resist it when presented with the opportunity to deepen my practice in this way.  For some reason, that didn't happen over the weekend while studying meditation, pranayama, bandhas and vayus with two teachers I greatly admire - Jenny Hayo and Chiara Guerrieri.  I am deeply grateful to both of them for the space they held and the teachings they offered.  And I also know that I showed up ready to receive.  Perhaps 6 months of backing way off of my physical practice to focus on subtle alignment and sensations in the body had prepared me.  I felt my breath move in new ways and was refreshed in my desire for a consistent mindfulness practice. With that sense of openness, I returned to a guided meditation that I find quite powerful, though it had sat on my shelf for a good long while.  Maitri, or Meta, is a simple and beautiful way to increase the capacity of the heart for compassion towards self and others.  I shared my own interpretation of Maitri in my very first post on this blog.  It's certainly appropriate for any time of year, but as I discovered this week, spring provides an abundance of imagery to support the practice.

If you are unfamiliar with this meditation, it's a four-part offering to self, a loved-one, a neutral being, and finally to someone with whom you are experiencing dis-harmony.  I usually use my own words, but this week felt drawn to my teacher's rendition:

May I be happy, may I be healthy, may I be safe, may I live with ease.

May you be happy, may you be healthy, may you be safe, may you live with ease.

May we be happy, may we be healthy, may we be safe, may we live with ease.

Maitri is associated with the anahata chakra, or energy point in the heart space.  Each chakra has a color and anahata is green.  I often try to imagine my awareness dropping down into my chest and am always curious to see if somehow the color green will show up.  It doesn't and I'm left wondering what I'm missing.

I left my Maitri practice on Tuesday and had the rare opportunity to move at human speed for the rest of my day.  By this I mean that I walked to wherever I needed to go.  As I made my way from one neighborhood to another, I was suddenly flooded by green.  Everywhere I looked - neon, earthy, dark, mint - green.

It turns out that when I open my awareness, slow down and use my senses as I move through my day, I find that what I've been looking for is already all around.  Every where I go this week, I see green.  The world around me is alive with love and compassion.  It's spring and love is in bloom.  Hello heart chakra, nice to meet you.

Buddhism and Yoga

In an effort to deepen my practice and teaching, I'm enrolled in an advanced yoga teacher training program with 8 Limbs Yoga Centers.  Every few months I gather with other teachers to delve into a particular aspect of yoga.  This coming weekend the over-arching theme is Buddhism and meditation.  Certainly not all yogis are Buddhists and vice versa, but there are many connections between the two practices.  With this training on my mind, I stumbled across "What Does Buddhism Require" in The New York Times.  If you're curious at all about some the tenants of this tradition, I recommend this overview. Two aspects of this article caught my attention, as they relate to both my yoga practice and my graduate studies:

• "The third (jewel) is the Sangha, or spiritual community, conceived sometimes as the community of other practitioners, sometimes as the community of monks and nuns, sometimes as the community of awakened beings. The project of full awakening is a collective, not an individual, venture."
• "The Buddhist tradition encourages us to see ourselves as impermanent, interdependent individuals, linked to one another and to our world through shared commitments to achieving an understanding of our lives and a reduction of suffering. It encourages us to rethink egoism and to consider an orientation to the world characterized by care and joint responsibility. That can’t be a bad thing."

The more I practice and study, the more I experience the beauty of the collective and the value of embracing the impermanence of life.  Change is constant.  Community, if we dare to embrace it, helps us move through our ever-shifting landscapes with grace.

Playlist for Spring

While I generally practice at home in silence, I know music can add depth to yoga asana.  I've long enjoyed this playlist for spring classes, and brought it back this week with the addition of Marissa Nadler. Enjoy! Track 01 - Sacred Sounds Vol. I

Shree Ram/Om - The Best of Wah! - Wah!

Om Namah Shivaya - The Best of Wah! - Wah!

Trad: Simple Gifts - Classic Yo-Yo - Yo-Yo Ma, Alison Krauss

Les Abbeilles - eXtraOrdinary rendition - Rupa & The April Fishes

Western Days - Volume One - Gabriel Mintz

Le Soledad - Sympathique - Pink Martini

C'etait salement romantique - Coeur de pirate

Drive - July - Marissa Nadler

Was it a Dream - July - Marissa Nadler

Yaad - eXtraOrdinary rendition - Rupa & The April Fishes

Bach: Cello Suite #1 in G, BWV 1007 Prelude - Classic Yo-Yo Ma

Gol na mBan san Ar - Dialogues:agallaimh - Maire Ni Chathasaigh & Chris Newman

Mountain - Adagio: Music for Meditation - Peter Davison

Contentment, still relevant

It Felt Love

(by Hafiz)

How

Did the rose

Ever open its heart And give to this world

All its

Beauty? It felt the encouragement of light

Against its

Being, Otherwise,

We all remain Too Frightened.

     Spring has come, as it does every year, but I never grow tired of the awakening that happens when the days get longer.  My garden blooms as hibernation comes to an end.  It feels a bit easier to breathe and certainly contentment is less difficult to practice.

     I've thought a lot about Santosha over the past 9 months.  The turmoil of moving, a remodel, moving again and finishing graduate school made me realize how hard contentment really is.  I wrote about it last October, about how easy it is to think we're good at being content when we think within the context of ease.  Once effort is required, santosha usually becomes such a challenge that I brush it aside and focus on other ethical teachings of yoga.

     Spring seems like a good time to strengthen this particular niyama (internal practice).  It's a hopeful time and I can easily find moments in each day that feel good and contentment is nearly effortless.  But there's usually enough turmoil in this season to provide brief tests, when contentment is less a feeling and more a choice.  Like those days of rain and wind we get after a teaser of sun and warmth.

     Meditation is as good a way as any I've tried to encourage growth in this area.  It's easy to get carried away with the business of spring, to become over-stimulated with light and activity.  A few minutes of quiet, alone, goes a long way.  And when I say a few, I literally mean 3-5 minutes.  If you think you can't "do meditation,"  try it for a week.  Start or end your day in silence, just briefly, and see what happens.  Set the timer on your phone for 3 minutes, sit and breathe and observe your mind.  If that feels easy, add another minute.  If it's a challenge, be willing to stick with 3 minutes, even if it feels silly and a bit wimpy (it's not).  As someone wise whom I can't recall wrote, "solitude is where you gather yourself."  It's counter-intuitive in our hyper-connected world.  Silence can be unsettling, but spend enough time there and you just might build santosha capacity for life's effort-ful moments.

Happy (lunar) New Year

As I deepen my practice, I find myself surrendering to a lunar-centric cycle of life.  I notice my personal rhythms seem better aligned to the moon.  Shifting from observation to implementation however, is where the real challenge lies.  The Sutras say that our lives settle easily, comfortably into the deep grooves of our habitual patterns.  We won't get out of these patterns without slowing down to recognize them and then choose a different action.  I am free to act differently, and yet this choosing is perhaps the hardest part. I finally gave myself room to breathe this January.  I'm never ready for a new year when the calendar says I should be.  It's too soon after the hectic holidays, too dark, and too cold.  My appetite for routine needs time to build back up.  In the relative stillness this month I reflected on life's ever-present busyness.  The pace of life around me won't change, I have to decide how I engage with it.  Yes, absolutely, sounds great, will slow down...check.

And of course what did I do this morning to celebrate the new moon and new year?  Convince myself that I should go to a morning yoga class and run errands and so on and so on.  And once I've settled on should, I set in motion a familiar pattern of obligation, efficiency addiction, and guilt if I change my mind.  So, mind made up, I set my alarm.  Alarm buzzes, I get ready for my day in semi-hurried fashion, rush through breakfast, pack up a bag, panic at the time and run out the door per usual when I have to be somewhere before 9am.  The rain outside stops me -- I forgot my umbrella.  Back down the hallway.  Rush, rush rush...I'm now late.  Umbrella in hand and heart rate elevated I race once more out the door.  And then I stop, for just a moment, and see the absurdity.  I'm stressed out about getting to a yoga class.  I'm rushing around so I can go relax.  I'm so focused on getting to my practice that I forget to be in my practice.  The pause is just enough to break the spell.  I stop, slowly turn and walk back to my front door.  It's cold and wet outside.  I don't have to go anywhere.  I'm a yoga teacher for goodness sake, I can practice at home.  Heart rate slows, breath lengthens, body relaxes.  Another day will be better suited to joining others in the studio.

The Darkness is Back

It's just plain dark these days.  We can't escape it, the short days return year after year, right on cue.  I realized this morning that I'm learning to accept and appreciate cycles when I look at life through my graduate studies lens.  I just wrote a final reflection paper for a class and put a few words to this idea.

In so many ways it’s felt like running circles for three months and I’m right where I started, we’re right where we started.  Or not.  I think back to my professor's comment in our first residency as he held up our text book and asked us to consider that a re-read is not a repeated experience.  Each time we crack the cover open we engage with the words in a different way.  So it must be with each loop around the circle in a project, in classes, in life. Amidst the ever-present chaos and fogginess of our world and work we grew to appreciate our circular motion.  It may look like we stood still, but on closer inspection we created deepening grooves in a once smooth surface.  We're in the same place and yet we're not.

Still, I cling to linear advancement in my personal life. I demand forward/upward/onward progress from myself.  I'm tired of what feels like the same circles, the same choices, the same mistakes.  I keep expecting to arrive.  Arrive where?  After finishing up my paper it hit me.  I may feel like a keep retracing the same path, but it's not the same.  Life is cycles.  If we allow space for reflection, we just might discover we gained some wisdom on the last lap that eases the next just a bit.

So here we all are again, in the dark.  Thank goodness.  This is where we rejuvenate. It calls for us to return the hurt and dead parts of ourselves to the darkness, to let them become rich soil for new growth.

I love the following passage from Seasonal Yoga, I return to it ever winter and summer solstice.

The dark is good. It is a place for rest and renewal, the place of healing, wisdom and inner knowing. I use meditation, inner journeying and visualization to get in touch with this place within myself. I am developing my intuition, catching the receptive flashes of insight and messages that seem to jump out of nowhere and have become a natural way of life for me now. This has brought me a deep inner stabilty and inner peace.

I invite you to make peace with the darkness.  Not just with the next few days and weeks.  Welcome it and learn to anticipate it as sweetly as the light.  Because it will be back in one short year.  And just think of what you will have learned in that time!

Contentment

Contentment is a practice.  Wise words from a teacher as I prepared to leave a week-long retreat and re-enter the chaos of everyday life.  As we explored santosha, one of the niyama (internal disciplines), she gently pointed out that this practice of contentment is not just some nice feeling we cuddle up to when life is flowing along as we like it.  Contentment is a practice that we continue to live out when life is hard and throws us around.

Contentment is a practice.  This turned out to be pretty easy as I returned to my daily routine for just a week and then headed off to Idaho to study/vacation next to a mountain lake.  What ease filled my being as I practiced asana every morning on the dock before a refreshing swim in the sparkling water.  Meals day and night were eaten outside with friends and family, the whirlwind of life slowed enough to hear the neighborhood frog and enjoy the occasional thunderstorm as it rolled through…contentment, piece of cake.  Easy as an exhale.

Contentment is a practice.  I certainly set myself up for quite a shock upon returning home.  Autumn seemed to arrive early and I struggled to switch gears from 90 degrees/sunshine to rather bone chilling rain and wind that first week of September in Seattle.  Add in the end of a quarter of school followed by the upheaval of a move and that peaceful, easy-breezy contentment feeling fell away pretty fast.

Contentment is a practice.  Indeed.  On the final morning in the home I had lovingly built for myself over the past four years, I took time to set up my yoga mat.  I sat down, let my Sutras book fall open and there is was staring up at me "santosad anuttamah sukha-labhah" -- Sutra II.42 with a note scribbled from a class with my teacher Jo, "contentment is a practice." In other words, it's a choice I make each moment, whatever swirls about me and however I feel automatically in response.

It's as the wise farmer Fukuoka says (once again graduate school and yoga intersect)... Day by day hair and nails grow, tens of thousands of cells die, tens of thousands more are born, the blood in the body a month ago is not the same blood today.  If participation in this cycle can be experienced and savored each day, nothing more is necessary.  But most people are not able to enjoy life as it passes and changes from day to day.  They cling to life as they have already experienced it, and this habitual attachment brings fear of death.  Paying attention only to the past, which has already gone, or to the future, which has yet to come, they forget that they are living on the earth here and now.  Struggling in confusion, they watch their lives pass as in a dream.

Contentment is a practice.  I invite you to join me in an exploration of santosha as the days become short and dark.  Leave the dreams for your sleep and live the rest of your moments fully awake.  Some will be easy and others quite challenging - Yoga is an ongoing balance of effort and ease.  Contentment can be found at both ends and everywhere in between.

silence is golden

Before I left for three weeks in Idaho, one of my teachers offered up a bit of wisdom.  "With family," she said, "never miss an opportunity to say nothing." Attempting, or at least thinking about attempting, to keep my mouth shut is a good way to practice listening.  I'm trying to use my ears as much as my mouth and my eyes while up in the mountains.  There's a frog living out back, I'm surprised how alert he is mid-afternoon when I just want to nap in the shade.  The chime of the sailing mast lulls me to sleep at night.  Water lapping against the sand offers refreshment before my toes hit the waves.  The lack of hum from motor boats this morning tells me August is winding down.  Stories told over dinner invite glimpses into siblings lives.

Better still is when I quiet enough to listen to what's beyond words and familiar sounds...

He stood there under a bright moon, with his finger to his lip.  "Shhhhh, listen," he said.  "If you listen, the silence has a lot to say."  (M Paterniti, NY Times).

Vacation Yoga

I recently had dinner with my friend and fellow teacher, Emily Bedard.  Aside from our shared love of yoga, we have a summer vacation spot in common.  Emily had just returned from McCall, a lake-town in Idaho where I will head next week to spend time with friends and family.  Her recent experience had me laughing and looking forward to my visit even more.  I asked Emily to guest blog for me, and her post follows the photo (Payette Lake at sunset) below.

When I started doing yoga some years ago, I started in a city. The studio was on the second story of a commercial building in a busy neighborhood, and the soundtrack from outside was a mix of tires on pavement and bus hydraulics and sirens and people calling to each other on the street. Inside the studio, the crowd was young, mostly, and urban and eclectic and hip. I loved it there. When I went to other cities, I could find more or less a similar experience. But when I went to the beautiful little Idaho town where my husband's family vacations, I had to do my yoga alone and that meant it didn't happen much. There were just no studios or classes or workshops to be found.

The town's name is McCall, and it wraps around the lower half of the deep, cold, mountain-backed Payette Lake and extends south from there. When I first visited in 1997, the town felt considerably more hardscrabble then it does now. No handsome downtown ice rink, no prettily appointed central park, no sushi restaurant. Those features began to pop up as McCall developed more of a resort identity over the last 15 years, but I've loved it in all its phases. And then recently it happened: I showed up one July and a yoga studio had, too.

Of course, I was curious. What would I find in a studio class in my favorite tiny Gem State town? Was this the way to link my Seattle life and my Idaho mini-life? What I found was this:

When you do yoga in McCall, the temp outside might be 95, but the second story room with its exposed rafters will still be mysteriously, pleasantly cool. When you do yoga in McCall, you might set up your mat next to a smokejumper, who probably recently jumped out of an airplane—on purpose—into a wildfire. When you do yoga in McCall, you notice a lot more callouses and a lot fewer pedicures, and this is instantly uplifting. You look east out the window in Warrior II and see the grocery store where you could buy a snap shirt after class, if you wanted. (You find that you sort of want to.) You count more men than in your city class, and more kids, too. You find you are the only one who seems surprised when the teacher asks you to "pistol-grip" your big toe in a forward fold. You take a dolphin pose and imagine your forearms are forks on a forklift, just like you're told to. And, finally, when the teacher closes class with a single Om and a moment of silence and a sincere Namaste, and then tells everyone, "Now, go jump in the lake!" that that is exactly what you ought to do.

So, yes, it was the link. And also, no, it wasn't. The experience was simultaneously familiar and new, comfortable and a bit awkward. It was, in short, just what yoga always is for me: That space and place where "Whoa, look at that!" and "Oh hey, I know you!" are somehow two sides of the same amazing coin.

-Join Emily on Sunday evenings for a 75 minute Slow Flow class at Yogalife Greenlake.  View her bio here.

Antara Drishti

I've been studying the fourth chapter of the Sutras with one of my teachers this summer.  It's all about finding our own way.  We each see the world differently. We practice so we can turn down the heat that gets the mind all frothy, so we can take action without an agenda.  Meditation is training for having awareness in the midst of life.  Though there are patterns to being human, though past and present exist for us all, we each have our own unique path.  We must pay attention to find our own way, rather than relying on what works for someone else.  This is lonely, we long for others to "get" us.  We attach to being understood.  I have faced this quite intensely in my life and though I surrendered in a big way several years ago, the desire crops up again and again.  I want to be known and understood deeply!  The ache of loneliness can take my breath away.  And without breath I lose my connection to the present.  In reality, each inhale and exhale draws me into a new moment, a different self than the one just before.  Each breath brings hope and freedom. Tonight I notice the sun setting just a tad earlier and the reality that we're edging towards late summer begins to sink in.  For the first time in my life, I'm in school during this lazy season and to my surprise I'm not at all resentful.  Turns out permaculture is as much about yoga as it is getting my hands dirty.  I'm reading this amazing book - The One Straw Revolution -  which is about life and philosophy as well as agriculture.  I found a passage that seems straight out of the Sutras fourth chapter, if I substitute "yoga/students/practice" for "agriculture/farmers/ farming."  Here's my adaptation:

A truly successful practice requires not so much arduous labor as awareness, observation, connection and persistence.  In today's yoga culture, businesses lure us into products and brands promising that by applying them to our practices according to fixed, prescribed schedules, without much thought about our unique circumstances, yogis can be sure of reliable results.  This might be termed "know-nothing" yoga - very different from "do-nothing" yoga which calls on the self to question conventional practices that may be needless or even harmful to her/his own unique body.  Let's advocate for a curiosity, openness, and willingness to fail so that we can trust.  This is not simple yoga but a more complex, aligned yoga.

Summer is a good time to explore your practice in new ways.  To break out of your usual habits.  What does this look like?  Perhaps the heat of the season poses a significant challenge.  I usually avoid evening class at all costs when the temperature rises above 70 degrees, but this year I've surrendered and found myself loving the heat.  By pushing just a little past my comfort zone I find a whole new depth to my practice.  This isn't by any means the only option.  Why not try out a new class time with a teacher you're unfamiliar with?  Or pull out your mat at home.  Both are opportunities to assess your practice through new eyes.  A vacation can also become a chance to practice alone, to explore asana, pranayama and meditation without a teacher and others surrounding you.  It can be scary and uncomfortable, and it can also be freeing to discover the teacher inside you.  No one knows your body as well as you do, practicing on your own is a way to build trust with yourself.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not calling for an end to group yoga.  There is power in community, in joining together with our breath and intention.  I think balance is the key.  We seek out space to explore on our own so we stay true to self when we come together.  We give up mindless yoga and come to class with an awareness and sense of responsibility for our own journey.  Rather than rely on someone else to point the way, we find alignment from within.

Slow and Steady

Here we are, over the hump of the summer solstice.  Once we actually pass over into summer, the incredible momentum and energy (usually enough to drive me insane) leading up to June 20 gives way to something more mellow.  If we let it, if we give in, summer is here to carry us along at a leisurely pace as it meanders towards autumn.

Speaking of pace of life, I've been thinking quite a bit in the last week about choosing a different path than "full speed ahead."  Not just how much I pack into a day or week, but how I manage and respond to what comes my way.  I think this is actually a harder road to travel.  I find it easy to go to extremes.  It's easier to decide at the beginning of a yoga class that I will practice intensely throughout - no matter what.  Trickier, much more so, is to be open to how I feel and what I need in each moment and then adjust.  This is why I practice.  Yoga teaches me awareness.  This awareness of self is not someplace I arrive at and then stop working towards, it's a continual commitment.  And I find that slowly, over time, it gets just a little bit easier to accept and surrender to.  I learn to trust myself as I know myself better and better.  And it's in this trust that I can approach life in a less extreme manner.

My dearest friends in the world just left Seattle.  They sold their house, packed up all of their things and their dog and their kids and headed east to the Rockies.  The night I said goodbye I experienced a broken heart for the first time in my life.  If you'd asked me before last week I'd have said "sure, of course I've had a broken heart before."  I just figured it was the same as sadness, as intense anguish felt after a loss.  I didn't realize it is an actual, physical pain at heart's center.  It hurt to breathe, I felt ripped apart inside.  Anytime this week that I slow down and sit in quiet, I feel it.  I am overwhelmed by the intensity and I literally can not bear it for too long.  I know myself well enough at this point in my life to recognize that this isn't avoidance.  The sorrow is so great, it must be felt and I simply can't take it on all at once.  What an inconvenience.  Wouldn't it just be easier to totally ignore it or just get it all over with at once?

Doesn't it seem that our culture would tell me to pick between those two options?  We like to fixate on all or nothing, don't we?  We're either lost or found, we're good or bad...  Once we realize we need a change, it has to come all at once, BAM, and then we're on a different path and we don't look back.

What if we adopted a different approach?  We could embrace the challenge that comes with self-awareness and commit to taking it slow, to trust that we will find our way.  Sure, we might have to fuss around a bit, it might not be a straight path (oh how we like our linear roads).  It's harder this way, less gratifying.  And it is also life-giving.  When we slow down - take life as it comes, are willing to let grief come in waves and not race to get it over with - we are rewarded with moments of peace.  We shouldn't be in such a rush to arrive at some perfect state that is painless.  We'll miss the good stuff, the space in between pain and bliss.

In a class I regularly attend, we've been practicing a stair-step pranayama lately.  We inhale for a specific count and then pause for the same count.  And then we inhale again.  This last part is an "echo breath."  It isn't logical.  I feel full of breath before the pause, and then magically, I suspend the inhale and somehow create space for even more breath.  My capacity increases just by pausing.  What a lovely lesson for life.  I take in what I can - be it pain or joy - and then rest.  At some point I will find I can take in more...effortlessly.

Summer Reading Suggestions

The past month has been a big ego check for me.  When I started my blog I was determined not to be "one of those writers" who posts consistently for the first few months and then fades off into oblivion.  I should have known that would only set me up for a little humble pie!  Fortunately, I'm a big fan of pie, even this flavor.  Lesson learned.  Spring quarter has been busier than usual for me and my writing energy has gone into essays for grad school.  The rest of my creativity seems focused on teaching.  And so it goes. Last week a student of mine stopped me after class to thank me for a book recommendation I'd given her.  I often read a passage during our studio practice from something I've been assigned in grad school.  Chipping away at a masters degree in Whole Systems Design ties nicely into my continuing study of yoga.  Whether a book is about the environmental history of Seattle, cross-cultural communication or science, it inevitably brings me back to my practice.  With summer just around the corner, it seems like a good time to post my grad school reading list as I finish up my third quarter.  Hope you find some time to sit down with a good book or two in the coming months!

Reading List - in no particular order

Hidden Connections  |  Capra

Thinking in Systems  |  Meadows

Post Carbon Reader  |  Heinberg & Lerch

Emerald City  |  Klingle

Soil and Soul  |  McIntosh

Walk Out Walk On  |  Wheatley & Frieze

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down  |  Fadiman

Bridging Cultural Conflicts  |  LeBaron

Group Genius  |  Sawyer

Paradoxes of Group Life  |  Smith & Berg

Bulldozer in the Countryside  |  Rome

Original Instructions  |  Nelson

American Cultural Patterns  |  Stewart & Bennett

Four Fold Way  |  Arrien

Finding Our Way  |  Wheatley

Practice of Adaptive Leadership  |  Heifetz, Linksy & Grashow

Basic Concepts  |  Bennett

Leadership and the New Science  |  Wheatley