We (Aasne, Denise and I) had the good fortune of going up to the Midwest Yoga Conference this year. We started the first day of the conference with a class called Yoga at the Wall. I was really excited about practicing with the wall~I thought gentle, slow and restorative. That was the kind of practice this body was needing on that particular morning. When Nancy McCaochan walked in the room I was struck by her grace and beauty. She has long, gray hair and skin that has the look of a life well lived. I should mention here, it was a challenging practice (we were all a bit sweaty when we finished). However, what struck me most were the words that came out of Nancy’s mouth. I wish I could have written down every word she said, because they were all beautiful and instructive. One of the lines she said about our asana practice was: “when we grasp to lightly or too tightly we lose what we were trying to grasp in the first place.”
This line is so true in our asana practice. Can’t you feel it when you are muscling into a posture and holding your breath and sucking in your stomach and trying to be a contortionist? Maybe I’m the only one who ever does that. Anyway, it’s a sure fire way to miss the beauty of the asana~to miss the point. We might be in the physical posture, but we aren’t able to experience it the way it was intended. I think it is anti-yoga. What are we grasping for anyway?
I was recently at the doctor’s office receiving my allergy shots. Nurse Donna, who has been my shot nurse for approximately forever, asked me what I had been up to in the past 28 days. I told her what life had been looking like and I started to say “You just get to the point where” and she finished it with “there is no point.” You just get to the point where there is no point. Out of the mouth of nurses. What thoughts and ideas are we grasping onto that are leading us to feel like there is no point.
My friend Lindsay has talked about feeling the effects of the daily grind. You know? You get up, you go to work the same way you always go, you work, you go home, you fix supper, you watch a movie, you go to bed and you start all over again. Maybe this sort of dilemma is implying that we have forgotten what we were grasping for in the first place. Maybe we are grasping too lightly.
All of this has led me to recently ask the question (over and over and over) “what is the point?” What is the point of anything and everything. What is the point? Maybe this is implying an existential crisis on my part. If so, it’s not a new one. It’s one I believe I come back to over and over and over again. Maybe it keeps me fresh or maybe it keeps me from ever sinking into bliss.
So, I’m on the phone with Zoe the therapist in California. I love her. I love sitting in the park, under a big shade tree, talking on the phone with her about “the point”. Our sessions typically last an hour and they typically fly by. So, on this day, the day of “the point”, I am spinning and feeling like I have lost the anchor of security. You know, the illusion that we have control over everything. So, Zoe, in her magical way, leads me to question the thought “there is no point.” She asks me if I can absolutely know there is no point (answer: no, I can’t know for sure). She asks me how my physical body feels when I believe there is no point (answer: belly tight, shoulders tight, breath shallow). She asks what is the opposite of there is no point (answer: there is a point). She asks me to come up with three reasons why the thought “there is a point” is as true or truer than the thought “there is NO point”. I come up with three answers and suddenly there is no more question. There was silence. There was the sound of the guy mowing the lawn at the park. There was the sound of the ducks in the pond. There was the sound of the birds. There was a view of two squirrels chasing one another and there was a brilliant shadow on the grass. There was nothing. There was no question “what is the point” and there was no need for an answer to the no longer relevant question. There was just awareness of that moment. Just presence. There was just that moment, right then, under the shade tree with the phone in my left hand and silence on both ends of the line. I said I thought I wanted to finish early.
Towards the end of the class with Nancy and the wall, she said “Yoga is directional~pointing us towards understanding its about the journey.” I suppose we could say it’s about the journey we take while we grasp that we don’t need to grasp at all.
Nancy McCaochan’s book is called:
Yoga at the Wall
Like stanzas in a poem
It can be ordered through nancy’s website www.yogaatthewall.com
After the fireworks~BLISS
We have the good fortune of being able to live a few blocks from an amazing park that has a carillon. When my head is quiet I can hear it from our front porch. Each spring there is a Carillon festival that ends with a night of the best fireworks the city sees. This year, we walked down with our friends, our dog Bear and lawn chairs. We sat down in a crowd of people and waited for the fireworks to begin. As we waited, I noticed a bit of tension in my body. As I tuned in, I knew it was because I really hate the BANG sound of fireworks. So, about as soon as I remembered this the fireworks began. They were beautiful and they were loud. Really loud.
I realized the best part of fireworks is the quiet in between each one being shot off AND when they are all over. I think this might be a metaphor for life~being present for all the loud and flashy stuff so we can recognize and appreciate the quiet, tender stuff. It's about the contrast, about opposites. Just like Hatha Yoga is the physical practice of opposites, sun & moon, left & right, hard & soft. Just like relationships, after the fireworks we need to know how to sink into the calm.
This all comes in time for Vince and I to celebrate our 15 year wedding anniversary. We have been together for 17 years. This math doesn't all add up in my head because I feel like I'm about 25 on the inside (not sure what that says about my maturity level). Not surprisingly, after fifteen years of sharing a a bathroom there often aren't a-lot of surprises. Or, some might say fireworks. It's a skill to stay in and appreciate the calm of the relationship, the grand spaciousness and quiet that can exist with two people who really know each other. It's a skill to not create lots of drama and fireworks, no matter the type. It takes a willingness to be transparent with one another and to be present with one another to keep the quiet, steady flame alive. We all know fireworks don't last and often only come around for the fourth of july. We can live with one another as if the relationship consists of the trunk and roots of a tree and we are each the branches, finding our own way, our own path. This will most definitely take a commitment to live in our hearts, rather than our heads~to live in the moment, where everything is fresh. Our relationships can be just as much of our yoga practice as asanas can be. They can help us stay connected with our bliss. And as Deepak Chopra says "Nothing is more important than reconnecting with your bliss. Nothing is as rich. Nothing is more real."
Where have I been?
Where have you been? That is what someone asked me recently when I was at the studio. I responded with "uh, i don't know, I have been traveling quite a bit for work and wrapping up for the summer." If my meditation cushion could talk, it would say the same thing. It was about day 50 of the 90 day BIG SIT that I realized I forgot about the Big Sit. Seriously, one day, I'm just minding my own thoughts when it occurred to me that I had forgotten my commitment. It wasn't that I made a concsious decision to quit the Big Sit. I just wasn't sitting anymore. Interesting, because during the first 30 days when I was sitting, I did notice an increased amount of space between thoughts and less attachment to the thinking that incessantly swirls around in my head. Maybe my head was so empty I intuitively knew I could toss the meditation cushion. Not even close to possible.
On March 31st, I posted the idea of a 30 day practice commitment project. I had gone to the other 2 owners of the studio and asked for their blessing, I had figured out how to use the mobile camera on my Mac, had made about 30 different videos before I decided which one I could live with, I posted it on the blog and then, yep, you guessed it, I forgot about it.
I did not forget anything while negotiating a contract for a different job and I did not forget anything while I was wrapping up the job I was leaving. I did not forget to attend the meetings out of town for work, I did not forget my toothbrush while traveling, I did not forget to get the oil changed and on and on and on. I didn't forget that sometimes I feel crazy on the inside when I live on autopilot, just completing the to-do list. I didn't forget that there is only so much time in the day.
I completed the to-do list until it landed me speeding on the interstate to get to our vacation destination. I mention the speeding because as we were leaving town the headlight on the car went out. So, our friends, who were driving their own car, started the trip without us and we headed to our favorite mechanic shop (Floyd Imports if you are wondering). After the headlight was fixed, I started the drive while Vince slept soundly in the passenger seat. In my mind, I thought if I just sped a bit I could get kind of close to being caught up with our friends. I put some tunes on (rather loudly which didn't seem to phase my sleeping mate) and occasionally talked on the phone (with headset of course!). Low and behold, I called our friends to let them know we were going to stop for something to eat and I find out I was ahead of them, way way way ahead of them. I passed them. Speedy Mcspeedster.
We arrived at our lovely condo across from Lake Michigan and I started reading the book I had purchased before leaving for the trip called "In Praise of Slowness". Really, I did. The girl with the lead foot somehow knew she needed to slow down. "In Praise of Slowness, Challenging the Cult of Speed" by Carl Honore is fantastic. I read it quickly (honestly, I am just a fast reader). It is a book that explores slow food, slow driving, slow yoga, slow sex and slow exercise. After reading for a while, I headed up to the rooftop where there was a nice breeze and the Michigan sun shining on me. I sat there alone for a long while. I just sat. I didn't read, I didn't talk, I didn't plan. I just sat. When Vince arrived to the roof I turned to him and said "Where have I been for the past six months?" It was as if I unraveled like a tightly wound cord (I think it might have been around my neck).
What I have come to realize (AGAIN) is that it isn't what's on our calendar that leads to the question "where have I been for the past six months." It's really about our state of mind and how we approach each moment of the day. If we have "watch the sunset" on our to-do list (I didn't just for the record) then first we need to get a grip and then really we need to investigate our state of mind, our approach to each moment and what thoughts are swirling around in our head that we are believing hook-line-and-sinker. If life is just about getting to the next thing and the next thing and the next thing we are gonna be missing what is right here, right now. In this case, I had some ideas that I was excited about and apparently their time had not come, maybe because I was in "to-do" mode rather than "right now is all there is mode." I hadn't investigated the thoughts that apparently sounded something like this: hurry up, hurry up, hurry up, hurry up, hurry up, hurry up...............
So, having said that, I have returned home from vacation with a sleu of things on the summer to-do list. Some of which include slowing down and driving the speed limit, exploring a slower asana practice and a slow exercise program. So far since our return, I know exactly where I am.
In Praise of Slowness
Challenging the Cult of Speed
by Carl Honore
ISBN 978-0-06-075051-0
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