15 minute writing exercise blog….GO!

I just set the timer for 15 minutes. It’s a writing exercise where you just start writing whatever comes out, no editing, no going back and reading what you wrote. I’m doing this because I have not been blogging, hell I haven’t even been writing and I used to LOVE to write. I used to love seeing the world and making my observations and keeping journals full of thought meanderings and doodles and lyrics and all kinds of stuff. Writing is a practice just like yoga. And when you fall off the wagon, when you get out of your routine it’s hard to get back on. Sometimes, if it’s a minor blip, I can just chill out and rest and wait for the inspiration to come back, but not this time. I’ve been waiting, and waiting, and waiting….oh yeah and napping. But nothing’s coming back. I sit and stare at the little blinking cursor, I even have ideas about what I want to write about but nothing, just blinking pixels mocking my existence, my (what I once thought of as) talent. I used to think I was a good writer, sure my spelling and grammer are atrocious but I have spell just for that and grammar well I can write that off as my southern charm right? But lately it’s just a wash of………nothing. So I’m trying this little writing experience to see if I can get my juices flowing. I’m starting here with one public stream of conscious rant for all the cyber world to enjoy or not. And then I’ll take a little more disciplined path of writing. I’ll work at it. I’ll actually view this blog as an occupation, sort of occupation, no, not occupation. Practice. Like I said earlier, a practice. I will just sit and write of 15minutes a day about whatever comes into my little yoga brain. And I will reset my neuropathways, I will be a writer.

But why, why does this blog seem important to me? I don’t expect to get well known, I’ll never be a David Sedaris or….well insert the name of a blogger turned author here. But it does feel important to me. Maybe it’s because I’ve never found a blog about yoga that I like, because maybe I feel like yoga is just taken to damn seriously way too often. Sure it’s serious but it doesn’t have to read like a technical manual or a new age book promising the ultimate embrace by the Lord or Goddess or Universe or whatever! Sometimes yoga is just there, it’s just a part of us. Like the two by fours holding up our houses, it’s just the frame from which I choose to se my word. “Pause, build the foundation of your asana” I say that a lot. I guess I mean it. I guess I don’t think I need to be hit over the head with my yoga, or even told that my yoga has lofty potential. No. I just want to be reminded that yoga is there, always, every breath I take, every decision I make, ever stupid joke or pun I say and all the sacred giggles or eye rolls that follow. 

Yeah, I guess I blog because I need it. I need to remind myself about how I see yoga and I choose to make it public because that’s how I am. I share everything with my Community and even the tiny things I share sometimes find the right ears. It’s not why I blog but its part of it. Just me meandering around my brain and sharing it with a broader Community.

Ok 15 minutes up. Time to spell check!

Moon Flow

In honor of the full moon here is a beautiful, free style prana flow by Shiva Rea, Soma Mandala Namaskar, Moon Salute.

In Dreams, On Mat

For whatever reason last night I was dreaming about back bends. I couldn't shake the feeling in my spine that I had been doing a back bending practice all night. So I taught a back bending class today inspired by some of the bends I dreamed about. Like these:

 

So if that doesn't inspire you to do some back bends here is a video about gentle back bends. This is a video of a podcast I listen to a lot when I'm traveling or can't get to a class and don't want to do a self guided practice. The instructor if Jason Crandell of Yoga Journal. Enjoy. 

Could It Be Honey

New banner, freshly painted ceiling and honey line.

I had to close my Studio, it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. It had repercussions that reverberated through my life and my tiny town. It hurt me, it hurt my friends but I had to do it. The stakes were too high that I could feel my old gypsy ways creeping back in telling me there are no such things as roots, just pull camp and go. But I didn’t want to, though it was (and sometimes still is) a tempting idea. So I did what I had to do to survive, I close the doors to Second Star Studio and I hermited up for a while, trying to figure out what the hell was going on in my life, what I could change, what I had to walk away from and more importantly really look at the places where I had made mistakes and figure out what there was to be learned.

It took two weeks before I was even able to walk back into the studio, to sit in silence there and beg the universe from some guiding light. And you know what, it never came. It never became because asking for answers isn’t practice, it isn’t yoga. Doing the work is yoga! So I decided while I figured all this out I might as well move forward on some much needed renovations to the space. And with a small army of volunteers that’s just what we did.

As it turns out I have some really deep roots in this community and more importantly some people have developed deep roots in their own yoga practice, they needed their yoga studio back and they needed their teacher. They needed me. So they and I got to work.

The biggest project we tackled was removing the drop ceiling that was in the space (go ahead, cringe, I did). Once it was out it was like the studio had a face lift, but instead of younger more inviting face we found a tired, smoke damaged, pealing face. We also found a line of holes drilled into the wall that were once used to blast insulation into the walls (though I doubt its lasting effectiveness) and were left with the question if to patch or not to patch until one of the volunteers said, “why don’t you just make a banner to cover it all and paint some sanskrit on it?” Brilliant! And I instantly knew what prayer should be there! 

This is my very first teaching notebook, this prayer has been inside the front cover for years and is the template for the sanksrit banner now in the studio.

And so it began the scraping, cleaning, and painting of 1,000 square feet of sooty ceiling and the cutting, priming, transferring, and painting of 50 feet of sanskrit. It was a long haul, amid other projects those 2 things took nearly 2 weeks on their own but they really do change the space entirely and create a warm and openness to the studio that there wasn’t before. Towards the end of the 2 weeks precisely as we were hanging the banner, piece by piece, something started oozing from the walls. An amber goo trickled down from the ceiling just as we were mounting a piece of the banner right on that spot. Me and the 2 volunteers who were in command of hanging the banner investigated the mystery goo. They touched it, smeared it between their fingers and smelled it but it had no distinguishing scent, so I took a finger tip full said a quick prayer that it wasn’t pesticide and tasted it. It was honey. It was weak and full of debris but it was honey and my next thought was, “please dear god don’t let me have a bee hive in the wall.” So out I went and on to the roof of the adjoining building to search for an entrance to a hive. Nothing. The mystery continued. Until the building owner stopped in.    

 

Like most of the country Wisconsin has been suffering a heat wave. Well it turns out that a few years back the building did in fact have a bee infestation. The bees had found a hole in the brick exterior and decided between the walls was a great place for a hive. The owner was unclear as to whether he poisoned the bees or just blocked up the hive entrance or what really, but what he didn’t do was tear the brick wall open and remove them. So after a week of over 100 degree weather what probably happened was that the wax combs holding the honey started to melt and the honey seeped out, finding a tiny hole in the studio ceiling where it meets the wall and started flowing. 

I’ve cleaned the honey line up a few times now but it’s still flowing. I guess like some things it just needs to run its course. Then I’ll wash up the line, touch up the paint and get back to running mine. Whatever course that is… of course. 

Meet the Blogger

Greetings readers,  I feel the time has come for us to meet. See, I'm a little shy when it comes to the internet, never really sure how much info i want to put out there. I don't really know why but for whatever reason I've been running this blog rather anonymously, today that changes, I am coming out of the cyber closet! And I'm starting with my name, Amy E Mills. Shocking I know, but when i look back over my blog there are some very personal things here so why not give y'all a chance to relate not to a faceless ghost writer but to me. I hope it's not too much of a shock like when you see a picture of your favorite public radio host.

So that's me, blogger with resident bead head as seen usually with a cup of (usually decaf) coffee. I am Amy, I live in southern Wisconsin (in a tiny town) and I am a yoga teacher and part time blogger.

And since this is a blog we should get down to the actually post for today and since I'm being all honest here are 5 true things about me as a yoga teacher.

1. I never intended to be a yoga teacher.
Nope, I went into my first teacher training with the goal simply to deepen my practice and gain a greater understanding of yoga's history and philosophy.

2. I don't practice everyday.
Nope again. I try to get on my mat but sometimes I get bogged down by my schedule, my emotions and on the off days an illness. And sometimes I have to accept that my yoga for the day is walking my dog or the couple of sun salutes I did between classes or simply trying to bring a little more awareness into my posture for a day.

3. I'm pretty dyslectic so mirroring is really tricky for me.
Yep that whole right and left thing has always alluded me. I flip numbers in addresses and credit card numbers, i write lower case Bs and Ps and sometimes i can't tell the difference between a lower case D or B without major debate. So with my natural inclination so switch things around in my head I went into theater, even more backwards because stage directions are given from the audiences perspective and left or right. So, should you ever take one of my classes you might hear a favorite catch phrase which is, "I'm going to turn my back on you know, not that I don't love you I just can't mirror today." My students love it!

4. Sometimes, when I'm standing in the classroom watching my students practice I get teary because they are so inspiring.
Speaking of students, I have an amazing group of dedicated yogis. I am easily one of the most blessed teachers ever, I know everyone's name and have seen their practices grow and change over the past 2 years. Sometimes it's what gets me through a class.

5. Quite often I have no idea what pose I'm going to teach next.
So True. I have gotten away from using my teaching notebook. This has its ups and downs; I'm not running to the front of the room every sun salute to see what I have planned next. But sometimes I build a great sequence on the fly and then forget it as I am saying the words out load. Sad but true. My students don't seem to mind or notice for that matter and sooner or later I'll hit the happy medium of book vs. improve.

Yoga of Heartbreak

It said that yoga begins the moment you want to leave the posture that is also true of relationships. If you love someone but there is struggle and even pain it’s just like being in a difficult yoga pose, you have 2 choices: you can get out of there, back to the safety and comfort of child’s pose, or a friends couch or a bottle of wine. Or you can stay and work, you can listen to your body and learn how to adjust your self so that the strain eases some but you also keep going deeper into the asana or deeper into the love between you and your partner.

I’ve been doing yoga for a few years now and there are still many asana I haven’t mastered, in fact full pigeon I think is something I will only experience in my dreams (yes I dream about yoga poses). But I still work towards opening my body because I know that it’s not getting into that picture perfect magazine cover expression of the pose, it’s about all the work that I do on the way there. It’s accepting my practice each day for what it is. And each day brings its own challenges. Just like a relationship. To love someone so fully that you accept exactly where you are each day for what it is, celebrating the moments that where so precious and looking forward to the moments not yet created. So there you are on your mat all warmed up and energized as you begin to move into that asana when you hit the edge, you are questioning whether or not to go further. Should you draw back and do a few more preparatory poses, did you exert all your effort already and can’t push any more or do you push too far and fall out of the practice all together. The metaphor should be self explanatory. This is where your yoga begins, the working it out part, the stick to, the good faith effort because you know deep down that this yoga stuff is good for you just like you know this relationship is good for you. But then sometimes it’s not.

What if a relationship or an asana just isn’t for you? What if you’ve been working for something but it remains unavailable to you. This is also where yoga begins. Yoga is also acceptance. Sometimes there are things our bodies just can’t obtain, so this time yoga isn’t moving deeper it’s being where you are, learning your lesson and moving on. Sometimes in class I tell my students when they come to a difficult asana to ‘wrap it up in love’ and try it again. And that’s what I’ve been doing in my yoga off the mat, when the difficulties arose I would wrap my whole relationship up in love and try again. I wanted to love my relationship into working just like I want to love my thoracic spine into a beautiful back bend.  But it’s not time for back bending and it’s not time for pushing anymore. There will always be love around my former relationship, there will always be quite a lot of love in fact but it’s time to step away and accept that this practice is now the practice of letting go. This yoga of heartbreak is about observing and healing and eventually growing. Maybe one day pigeon will be less elusive and maybe one day my thoracic spine will open enough so that this heart of mine can find some more love. But for now it’s me, my dog, and the mat; Om Y’all.