Lessons in Balance

Walk a Tightrope, Walk a Straight Line

Have you ever noticed how easy life seems just after you experience something harrowing and difficult? I see it all the time in the yoga classes that I teach; people find it easy to balance in a yoga pose after spending time in more challenging postures. I often liken the correct foot placement in Parsvottanasana as being similar to walking a tightrope, it takes practice to do it gracefully.

I like the idea that experiencing hardships and discipline in the present, allows for a more comfortable future. It feels much better than the idea of forcing and pushing yourself to prepare for unhappy outcomes.

Life is always a tightrope or a feather bed. Give me the tightrope. - Edith Wharton

 

Related posts: Reverb 10 - Body Integration, Taming the Hungry Bear.

Photo: The Telegraph

May I Speak?

 As a yoga practitioner and teacher for nearly twenty years, I've been able to learn the Sanskrit names of quite a few yoga postures, or asanas. I know three chants, two by memory, one still needs repeating. Every year when my teacher visits from India, I watch him write and hear him speak Sanskrit. I sit there and wish there was a way for me to learn it without leaving home. Rosetta Stone is no help...yet.

I did come across a site today that looks promising, one I'd like to try. Ibiblio.org offers Learn Sanskrit Online with audio recordings to help with pronunciation, lots of clear explanations, and it's free. I'm going to try it out, it just might give me the incentive to learn the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.

 

Related post: Reverb 10 - Try

Illustration: The Australian National University

I'd like to get even with this man.

The only people with whom you should try to get even are those who have helped you. ~John E. Southard

I could stop right there. The title, photo, and quote say enough.

The man is my yoga teacher, Jehangir Palkhivala, from Mumbai, India. He makes the trip to the U.S. once a year, to teach his sequences of yoga postures. He enthralls his audience with mythic tales of gods and goddesses, remarkable healing experiences, and equanimity. I see and experience him just once a year, I appreciate and learn from him, every day.

How would I get even? How could I get even? I guess if I'm going to announce to the world that he is my teacher, it would be proper and respectful of me to be a good example of his teachings. That would take a lot of doing, and time.

Maybe I should stop right here.

 

Related post: Reverb 10 - Appreciate

Photo courtesy of Aadil Palkhivala

Reverb 10 - Defining Moment

Reverb 10, The Prompt:

December 29 – Defining Moment

Describe a defining moment or series of events that has affected your life this year. (Author: Kathryn Fitzmaurice)

My Response:

It happened several times this year while I was either teaching or practicing yoga. My body surprised me and allowed me to do something I'd never been able to do. Can you imagine what kind of message that sent throughout my nervous system?

My brain got excited and started sending out propaganda to my entire body: "You're not only getting older, you're getting better!" Those few moments continue to draw me back to the practice. As one of my favorite stories dealing with cellist Pablo Casals, practice, and progression goes:

American comedian George Carlin, in his interview for the Archive of American Television, refers to Casals when discussing the restless nature of an artist's persona. As Carlin states, when Casals (then age 93) was asked why he continued to practice the cello three hours a day, Casals replied "I'm beginning to notice some improvement ... [A]nd that's the thing that's in me. I notice myself getting better at this", Carlin continued.-Wikipedia

 

That's the Defining Moment, when I notice some improvement.

 

 

Reverb 10 - Body Integration

Reverb 10, the Prompt:

December 12 – Body Integration This year, when did you feel the most integrated with your body? Did you have a moment where there wasn’t mind and body, but simply a cohesive YOU, alive and present? (Author: Patrick Reynolds)

My Response:

These days, whenever I'm in the middle of my yoga practice, I feel as though all parts of me are present and involved, integrated in a single action. My mind is not lunging fifty minutes ahead of my limbs, and my breathing and emotions rise and fall within the same measure. Yoga, voluntarily takes me there.

Every so often though, in the moments when I first awake and slowly come back into my physical form, I feel like a thought bubble floating in my bedroom. The bubble is empty and unattached.  It's an involuntary action that I try to recreate throughout the day, but somewhere between rising and falling asleep, I lose it or it disappears. Until it happens again.

I hope it happens again.

Reverb10 - Beautifully Different

from Reverb10, The Prompt: 

December 8 – Beautifully Different. Think about what makes you different and what you do that lights people up. Reflect on all the things that make you different – you’ll find they’re what make you beautiful. (Author: Karen Walrond)

My Response:

• I sit in front of people with the intention of making them feel better about themselves.  I teach yoga, that's my job.
• I have a neurological condition known as synesthesia. I don't see dead people or read auras but chronology (days, weeks, months and years) appears in colorful order so that every person and event has a place in my mind. I see order in the Universe so I'm okay when disorder surrounds me.
• I'm left-handed and right-eye dominant so I believe (!!) that both sides of my brain communicate well and I don't mind the chatter.
• I have learned to accept my disparate personalities and they, in exchange, allow only one character and voice to be heard. I am, constantly me.

 

Since we are all 99.95% alike, the .05% that makes us all Beautifully Different is infinitesimal. Do you see what I see?

 

Reverb 10 - Wonder

Reverb 10, The Prompt:

December 4 – Wonder.

How did you cultivate a sense of wonder in your life this year? (Author: Jeffrey Davis)

My Response:

Physical pain fascinates me because of its ability to immediately grab my attention and suck me back into my body. It fascinates me so much that I've begun playing with it.

It may have been during the very first yoga workshop I attended, when the teacher addressed my comment about my cramping toes with an "Ignore it." He said it in a way that at first amused me and then challenged me. As though I was sitting at the piano and someone put pages of printed text, rather than notes, in front of me and said, "Play it."

I ignored the muscle spasms and they went away. Maybe the time it took for our verbal exchange was all the time the muscle needed to release, but in my mind, ignoring the pain worked. I do know that the ability to sense pain is what prompts us to withdraw from the cause, be alert to potential danger, and avoid it in the future so I don't ignore all aches and pains.

I'm just beginning to wonder, what would happen if I were to view pain as my ally rather than the enemy. Like a trusted guard dog as opposed to a vicious junk yard dog. When it barks and yanks at the chain, I would then know that there's something that needs my attention rather than fear that I'm being attacked. I wouldn't then ignore pain. I'd check out the situation, deal with it, and then thank my guard dog for being so alert...probably give it a treat of some sort.

 

 

Image: Endeavors

 

Serendipity, is it a Conspiracy?

Serendipity. Look for something, find something else, and realize that what you've found is more suited to your needs than what you thought you were looking for.

-Lawrence Block

I write this in a very light and playful mood today. It seems as though every thread I pick up and pull is connected to something that's bigger and/or brighter. It's a lot like flitting through web sites.  For example, one day I was reading a breaking news story on CNN.com and a small text link on the lower right side bar caught my eye: "8 feel-good websites to brighten your day". I clicked it.

I then discovered  Happy News , 1,000 Awesome Things, and finally, Old Man Dances to Lady Gaga. As I watched the video of a white haired man dancing non-stop to Lady Gaga's Poker Face, I saw a beautiful metaphor to life and realized that the man was exposing my Mantra for Aging:

Stay healthy, strong, and flexible enough to try new dance moves.The man obviously has some dance experience, he didn't wake up
one day and decide to go dancing. It's been a part of his life and he's kept up the pace.

Don't just listen to the Oldies or degrade the new. Could you imagine, if the man had sat in the corner mumbling about the good music back in his day? He'd never get up to dance to Poker Face. I think he lives in the present.

If you miss a beat, catch the next one. If we don't go with the flow, we get stuck in the mud.

That's how Serendipity plays with me. I pick up a thread here and there and keep pulling and pulling until a light bulb goes off overhead. I think it may be a Conspiracy to keep me happy and moving forward.

This may have something to do with it: Yoga's Caution

Photo by Katy Rogan.

I want all my senses engaged. Let me absorb the world's variety and uniqueness.

-Maya Angelou

While I was at the computer one morning, the smell of the ocean was so persistent and pleasant that I found myself drawing in wide breaths. I had to share it with my friends so I Tweeted, "The smell of salt air is constant this morning. The surf must be up!"

Within a few minutes someone replied, "My farm is blanketed by the fragrance of the orange Michelia champaca tree, aka joy perfume tree. Heavenly!"  She's breathing in Joy, was my first thought, and so am I. Different smells, same emotion.

When I'm teaching yoga, I will often suggest that folks think of something that brings them joy when they inhale. As I once explained, joy has become a conditioned response for me when I breathe in deep and slow and I'm always looking for ways to relay that in class. I engage my senses of touch and smell to access joy. I've used the same triggers for the past few years. Although, after my salt air - perfume tree experience, I'm determined to find more triggers and to involve my other senses.

I think I'll start noting those things that make me sizzle with joy when I taste, touch, hear, see, or hear them. Why wait until the waves are crashing on the rocks on a breezy Kona day? Why wait until I accidentally happen to hear my favorite Chopin ballade and pianist? I'd like to have more buttons to press that lead my heart to spasms of joy. Wouldn't you?


~~~~~
Do you know which of your five senses you respond to most of the time?

Interesting read: The Sense of Smell by Lynn Jericho.


Image: Nutty Gal's Waffles

 

Consider Impermanence

Consider impermanence and do so deeply.  All that happens is that your sense of clinging to the unclingable will erode.

 -Gelong Tashi Gonpo

I read a beautiful article yesterday by Tashi Gonpo, then typed "clinging" into a Google search bar, clicked "images" and found this photo of snow clinging to a fence. Impermanent, the sky will change as cloud patterns alter and the sun's path proceeds. The snow will melt soon and the fence, eventually rust and rot away.

We know this to be true of our physical bodies and all that we have materially gathered in this life, yet we cling. Tashi Gonpo suggests that we could live more consciously and fully, if we truly accept our transient physical existence:

Your relationships won't be based upon future security but rather upon a sense of current wonder.  Your appreciation will sky-rocket as you'll not fatally attempt to wrest a probable tomorrow out of the wonderful today. You will sense contentment, gratitude and love in ways you've never-before experienced them.

While I was in San Francisco a few weeks ago, a city with no discernible mauka (toward the mountain) or makai (toward the ocean), I found that I was really okay not knowing exactly where I was at any given moment. There was joy in my heart as I watched my brother's health improve every day and I loved everything I saw, did or ate. I owe that to yoga. I'm grateful for the yoga that I practice because it focuses on a joyful spirit while in this physical body as opposed to being joyful because you've obtained a perfect physical body or mastered a set of postures.

I can totally accept the impermanence of my physical body as long as I have faith in the permanence of my  joyful spirit.


Photo: 1GreenThumb