landing, again and again :: day one

i often find myself encouraging the yogis and yoginis who come to my classes to do just this, many times throughout the practice.  landing with breathe, landing in their bodies, touching down with the present…suggesting that the transition between postures is often a neglected time and if we give it attention it can be quite rich with sensation and information…i encourage this landing, this being present to the transition, letting go of the previous posture, attempting not to anticipate the next, but dropping down, landing in the pause.

i am passionate about facilitating the building of a bridge from practice on the mat to our way of being in the world, equipping students to integrate the clarity and connectedness they may glimpse on the yoga mat with that gift that is available in each moment in our day-to-day, if we might slow down, tap in, and land again and again.  each moment rich with opportunity to powerfully come to peace with what is present.  one may be in the midst of or be stepping into a more challenging posture that asks us to be uncomfortable…not at all familiar or secure, having stepped from or being asked to step from both feet, attempting to find equilibrium on one foot, being fully present there…in tension, in the instability, in the midst of the potential to fall over, landing even there, noticing breathe…watching thought…softening…opening…or notice the lack of breathe and opening.  and certainly life off the mat gives us endless opportunity to land again and again in our finite and infinite potentials, in times of pause and transition, of slow and booming growth, in the midst of the ebbing and flowing…

spring…of being and becoming…

upon my way out for the day this morning, i was greeted by a layer of ice on my windshield…

and yet new life emerges.  birds sing, echoing the promise of what we do not yet know to be true or cannot yet necessarily feel in our bones, buried still beneath our many layers (that promise warmth and protection)…

their song hints at the fact that there is much we cannot see or feel when we are contracting against the cold or the undesired..as we close our awareness also to the full presence of what is.  indeed spring is happening despite and in the midst of the cold and our resistance to what is.

when we are focused on and consumed by the cold, or the darkness, or despair, or the way others, or the weather don’t live up to our expectation…might we consider that there is much more hidden beneath the surface of what we can see in this moment…that which is incubating, gathering all of its resources to emerge from the cold ground, or already in fact erupting into sound and being even in the midst of what we claim unfavorable conditions?

in darkness, there is not only the potential for light, but the very existence of light resides there…as one cannot exist without the other.

my yoga practice this morning

when i first started practicing yoga, when jeremiah was just over a year old, i was rather dogmatic about my time on the mat, if i couldn’t have at least an hour un-interupted, then it was not worth it and any interuption to that was a frustration and stirred up resentment.  my relationship to my yoga practice continues to evolve and be shaped by a broadened understanding of the deeper work of yoga.  

at some point along the way my mat became a somewhat permanent fixture on our living room floor and asana (the physical postures or stretches of yoga) infiltrated our days.  my relationship became much more fluid and open, still carving out time, but also taking 5 minutes here and 10 minutes there to stretch and be pressent, and even welcome play with jeremiah and selah (it is a great assist to have them sit on hips in child’s pose:) or we set up their mat next to mine when i am in a place where i need space, a breather.  my mat also serves as a visual reminder that yoga is so much bigger than asana, it is a way of being in and engaging the world, and is a moment to moment practice and it prompts me to root in in the pressent, notice my breathe, bring my attention to what is pressent and how it might be shifted. 

this morning i rose early to attend to my carved out, uninterupted practice time and selah awoke minutes after and came to join me…and my practice evolved into playing farm with her as the sun came up.  though my immediate reaction to hearing her stir was “please go back to sleep, so i can have MY time”…it slowly faded as i tapped into the deep and transformative yoga practice of truly being pressent to her, as we drank tea, fed the animals, and went swimming in the river.

not just bliss

maintaining “balance” is a pre-carious undertaking…again i defer to the wisdom of a tree…the more expansive and healthy the roots the more capacity there is to support the growth of its branches and sustain the inevitable winds of life… and in the context of the juggling act that it can all be, my awareness of the importance of my own rooting in and nourishing my roots it foundational, creating space to reside in the infinite, and at the same time making peace with my being finite.  this space comes at an early cost, rising before the sun and the kids to spend time on my mat initiating the day seeking equilibrium, though even in silence and intention equilibrium is illusive, as distraction and pre-occupation are deeply rooted, and with the many complexities of the day-to-day living it allows for the potential of continuing to extend grace, gaining more clarity on my pre-occupation and distractedness….trusting that my devotion and practice will allow for clarity to continue to inform my way of being in the world (even if just in glimpses)…

and the practice of yoga, i will argue is more who you are and what you take off the mat with you.  in the classes i offer (per my phoenix rising yoga therapy training) i always encourage space to reflect on awareness that may have arisen during practice and acknowledging the insight as an opportunity to attend to and bring deepened awareness to our way of being off the mat.  as often the things that arise on our mats and in our practice are links to our way of being in the world and when we are given (or prioritize taking) the opportunity in practice to be more fully present to what is arising, ideally that we begin to facilitate more awareness in our daily lives…

and awareness does not immediately equal ease, as in my experience it can initially feel like a set back on some levels, in that though we are aware, we do not always have the capacity with our gained awareness to make the shift that the awareness may require (or be asking for).  to make this more concrete…pressently and specifically relevant to my parenting.  i am encountering the consequences of my assuming a certain posture in my parenting (which for the most part seemed to work well with our first-born, who was much more responsive to re-direction), with my subconscious desire to maintain the peace with our second,  my compliance with her demands and perceived needs have facilitated her assumption that she can have it her way immediately, and the way she is asserting that impression is becoming less and less attractive.  at the same time i am becoming more and more aware of the fact that not only is this not serving her now, it certainly will not serve her in the future…and yes i have been aware of this pattern for some time and yet in the moment to moment of her asserting her perceived needs and my not having the energy to resist, the pattern has continued. i am aware too that the expectation of “perfection” in navigating the huge job that parenting is not only unrealistic but not at all helpful.  and i am mindful of the variables and limitations i am up against in any given moment, for example when i get home from working a long day for example and the strong desire for everyone to “just get along”, but also recognize the importance of shifting this pattern even in the midst of these perceived obstacles.

with my committment to nurture the awareness that this journey of parenting is presently a foundational underpinning of my present spiritual path…i also encounter the reality that it indeed is all spiritual, not just the times of ecstasy and bliss but also and even especially the daily resistance that insists upon my continued growth…and this certainly does not feel (or look or sound) blissful or ecstatic…and i trust that with practice and attention the roots of my being will have opportunity to expand and be strengthened and my hope is that my branches will become better equipped to bear good, adaptive, and healthy fruit even in the midst of the wild winds of life.

(some great suggestions for practices are found here: essential parenting)

in search of enough

i have recently been thinking a lot about the concept of enough…frankly feeling nauseated by the lies that are perpetuated by our consumer culture that spins its wheels in the mud of never enough…always something later and greater on the horizon…perpetuating an insatiable discontent…and i am saddened by the abundant symptomatology of dis-ease that the belief in these lies create.

as parent who is walking along side of two kids who are being asked to navigate this system of perpetual dissatisfaction, i am compelled to nurture and cultivate more boldly a lifestyle of simplicity, not only for its own sake, but for the sake of the world…as a blatant challenge to the destructive lies that have largely shaped the psyche of our country and is now being fed by its off-spring that don’t dare question this ethic that strips us of our contentment, heightening the intensified anxiety that we never have enough and the ever mounting fear around loosing that which we have accumulated, as if these things say something about us and our worth.

i do recognize that this question is not a simple one…what is enough?…certainly there are elements of maslow’s hierarchy of needs that fundamentally have to have satisfied in order for us to even have the luxury of asking this question..having enough food and warmth (provided by clothing and a place to call home) for example…and i also think there is room to play with the expectation of even these needs…even when these needs are satisfied, why might there still be discontent or anxiety (based on projections that we cannot know on this side of things)…

don’t get me wrong, this shifted perception of enough or choosing to practice radical simply, does not mean lack of complexity. life is complex, and many of us have to juggle many ball to stay afloat in our modern context…in order to put food on the table and a roof over our heads as well as cultivating opportunities to nurture and move toward our goals and hopes…the path of knowing we are and have enough is not a stagnant one… as our energy is freed from the beast of discontent we are better equipped to carefully consider where our hearts are rooted, refining our direction…which becomes more clear, rich, meaningful, and abundant regardless of the stuff we may or may not have or weather or not we have arrived at any final destination.

they are only clouds

recently i spent time in vermont for the final portion of the yoga teacher certification program i have been participating in for over a year with pheonix rising…with each of the four sessions that it has entailed, my times in bristol have been times of lucid clarity, where the business and distraction of the day-to-day vanish and i am able to be present to what is and what is becoming in ways that are always transformative…this last time i was also able to visit the amazing,  raging, steady, and still new haven river daily for a variety of swimming adventures…plunging in from various heights from 0-15 feet up, into waterfalls, sweeping current, and motionlessness waters…and seeing that i am a such a water baby, the accumulated result was feeling more at home in me then i have in a long time…

… upon re-entry to my day-to-day, where water sources are abundant but are not easily accessible to swim in daily, where i am committed to working 40 hours a week to help make ends meet, where my children are now bickering in the next room while i carve out time to invest in things that i know will continue to feed my clarity, where it has felt more cloudy than clear as i consider how to integrate the truths i encountered in the hills of bristol and how to allow them to be nourished and cultivated even now in the midst of it all seems far off at times…

…this time when i went to upload this photo of the brilliant blue summer sky, (which was so stubborn to appear with my attempts with my previous post) it appeared without hesitation…and i am reminded that though there is a big cloud creeping in that may look threatening and in fact even if the sky were to be completely grey, if you were to peel away the layers of clouds the blue sky still resides…indeed even when we can’t see it, the blue sky remains. ..clouds are not good or bad, they just are, they are both what they simply are (the day-to-day juggling?) and they may also be opportunities for continued growth and perspective… there is something comforting in remembering that even though the clouds feel overwhelming at times, the blue sky is a constant, it has not disappeared it just gets covered up now and then and might i consider that i have a choice as to where i might focus my attention?  maybe my energy is not best spent consumed by focusing on the clouds i allow to create doubt and lack of clarity, but better yet on the blue sky that is our constant companion?

and i am ever grateful for the space that my yoga practice holds to welcome my tapping into the reality of this gracious blue sky that is a constant companion with breathe and pressence even here, even now…

curiosity

it has been some time that i have made my way to this space…and i hope this post finds you well and enjoying these beautiful days of summer…

i just attempted numerous times to upload a photo i had taken of the bright blue summer sky…to no avail… and just out of curiosity i attempted to upload this one and it appeared without any hesitation…i had grown frustrated trying what usually works over and over again with out success…out of curiosity i shifted things and when  i went to upload this one the very slight shift i made in fact seemed to do the trick…

i have been playing with and trying on this idea of approaching my life and the things that emerge in it with a posture of curiosity…it is inspiring to see my children’s living example of what it looks like to frame experience this way and how this exploration is so generative and often light hearted vs. what tends to happen in the heaviness of my adult mind when things aren’t working the way i would like them to work (right now)…or when i want to know (or at least  get glimpses of ) the end product before i dare risk the               in-between fumblings around… 

during my final portion of the yoga teacher training i completed just recently with pheonix rising yoga therapy’s program, i was reminded to look at what is arising on my yoga mat (and in my life) with curiosity,  holding space to notice, and holding space to consider daring to allow and accept what is pressent…and what is curious in this exploration is that over and over again i have experienced this posture as a potential avenue for moving with it (maybe parting ways with that which is no longer working, but maybe not) vs.  approaching that which is with resistance, which can often fuel it with more power and even perpetuate that which is being resisted…

since returning from my training i have been in the midst of my busy mind that is growing weary of the business of trying to figure out all of the details before they are even relevant…and i am hopeful that with the consideration of  continuing to hold a gracious space for what is, with this posture of curious exploration there may even emerge new unforseen potentials or more easeful ways may unfold in the process…and as i was reminded with the upload of this photo, curiosity may allow for even the slightest of shifts that may allow a completely different landscape to be considered.

from the roots up

might we notice where our awareness is attended

and consider that it is from that place that our days find their color?

hunting it down.

…i am off to vermont for 10 days to continue the yoga teacher training program i have been in the midst of since march of last year…i hope that you have a beautiful week and that you might find courage to hunt down those things that may bring more life and joy to each of your days.

the body’s deep wisdom

one of the transformative aspects of yoga that i have thus far tapped into is how it has brought deepened awareness to the amazing tool and gift our bodies are….something that i have struggled with for most of my life…as for most of my life my mind has been a harsh and unforgiving judge of my body.  the fact that i grew up within a framework that indicated that not only are our souls separate from our bodies (it being merely a shell or “temple” for our spirits) it was considered downright evil “ie, sinful flesh”.  though i recognize that is not the full perspective of the christian religious tradition, it is the one that i seemed to most internalize (not to mention how the cultural framework i grew up in informed that dynamic ie, the objectification of it).

My training in yoga therapy and my yoga practice have allowed for so much healing in my relationship with “my flesh” and i am realizing that the mind, spirit, and body cannot  be separated, because they are one.

i am learning to listen to my body’s deep wisdom with so much gratitude.

i am noticing when i can’t quite seem to change my mind (about a perspective, mood, judgement, anxiety…ect…), when i open my physical heart it lets my mind off the hook and it doesn’t to work as hard.