Home Is Where You Hang Your Head

It’s an odd sensation of realizing you have attained what you wanted. As I yogi I try not to “crave” things but as a human I still yearn. When I moved to my tiny town I knew how awesome it was, I knew how awesome the people are and I also knew that building a yoga community takes time but that that community of people coming together to share a practice, no matter how far along in their journey they are or what their ultimate goal is, is the kind of community or rather circle of friends in which I would find my niche. I was practicing so much patience and trying to hard not to want that group of people that I didn’t realize it had found me. Until New Year’s Eve.

Me and New Year’s Eve have a long tumultuous relationship, which normally ends with me off alone somewhere wallowing in self pity. This year with the overall roller coaster like frenzy of my emotional state, adding one more year to a very long spell of singlehood and then timely death of my last Grandparent (my Mom’s Mom) which meant that I would be spending New Years Day on an 11 hour haul across the country to attend her funeral well the closing of 2010 didn’t hold much optimism for me. And in fact I woke up that morning sicker than I’d felt in quite a while and praying I didn’t have the awful stomach flu that had been going around. But by Noon I was able to hold down toast and by 3 I even managed a trip to the studio to meet with the woman who would be subbing for me while I am in Erie. And by 5:30 I had made it to my tiny towns local spot to see the local band play and be among the living. And that is where I realized that the yoga community I had been waiting for was here. People who I have connected with through the studio because of our shared yoga; I melted into hugs form other yogis, I rested my head on the shoulders of students, I held and danced with their kids and I cried as I looked around my heart so full of love. I knew the next morning I would be off to visit my family and grieve and celebrate with them but right there in that moment and blessedly for the rest of my time in my tiny town I have a new family. I can’t say it’s the yoga that binds us but for me it’s definitely the language that lets me understand that where compassion is, family is.

2 pieces

I haven't blogged in a while. I honestly think I was waiting for this to happen, the death of my grandmother. My mom's mom, my last grandparent, the soft sweeping of a door closing, the symbolic closing of so many different chapters in so many different lives in this big beautiful heartsick family. I would like to be more poetic about all this but I don't think i have it in my right now and besides there are 2 pieces from much more articulate souls running on a loop in my head. Here they are; the first by Ranier Maria Rilke I'm not even sure he's writing about death but that's the beauty of poetry it's open for interpretation. And the second is by Kahlil Gibran from The Prophet which is my spiritual touchstone.

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I live my life in widening circles

that reach out across the world.

I may not complete this last one

but I give myself to it.

I circle around God, around the primordial tower.

I've been circling for thousands of years

and I still don't know: am I a falcon,

a storm, or a great song?

~ Ranier Maria Rilke ~

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You would know the secret of death.

But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life?

The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light.

If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life.

For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.

In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond;

And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring.

Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.

Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour.

Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king?

Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?

And what is to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.

And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.

And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

-Kahlil Gibran

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So where's the yoga in all this? the "off the mat, into life" fortune cookie nugget? I don't know. I do know that death is part of life, it is not to be feared and that death is really only one more step on our spiritual journey. I know this all in my head but I don't feel it yet and that is my journey. So for now I will keep breathing, I will comfort my mother, I will receive comfort from loved ones and I will keep on this path and surrender to the fact that I may never understand the whole life and death thing and that is ok too.

Reading the Gita

You think asana is hard, have you ever tried to read the Bhagavad Gita? I’ve been trying for years, and that’s not an overstatement. I bought my first copy the year I got out of yoga school that was 2007! Now, 3 years later I’m find myself trudging through it once again. This time armed with 3 different versions I ordered from the library hoping I’d find a translation that, for lack of a better term, speaks to me. The thing about reading spiritual text…well there are a few so I’ll list some of my spiritual speed bumps for your consideration.

#1 For this one I’d go so far as to say this is across the board for any religion/spiritual way of life is that the texts were written thousands of years ago in languages no one speaks anymore. They are dead languages and they are ridiculously hard to comprehend. I just know the very, and I mean VERY, basics of Sanskrit and I get boggled by how many variations there are on ways to pronounce and spell just then names of the Deities. The big ones like Siva and Ganesh! And that’s in the actual Sanskrit. Once you get and translator involved all bets are off as far as I’m concerned. Most books I’ve read, even recent books by the Dalai Lama and translated into English, come out so dry or with obvious lack of knowledge of everyday English. Or worse you get them translated in “new age!” Now I come as granola as the next pagan/massage therapist/yoga teach as the next but even I draw the line sometimes. Maybe it’s my love of post modern fiction by the likes of Tom Robbins and Jeanette Winterson that I just can’t handle poorly constructed, wispy, un-engaging sentences. So there’s that problem.

#2 It’s not all in nuggets. At the end of every yoga class I sum up the meaning of the class or offer up and inspiration in the form of a quote. I call them yoga nuggets, they are short and clear and usually elicit a smile or giggle or thoughtful sigh, they make you think, or at least I like to think they make my students think. But when you are reading text like the Bhagavad Gita, it’s not all 20 word quips. No, no, no there are pages of things to wade through; sometimes they’re pages full of so much profundity that you are mired down and your brain can’t absorb it all or it’s setting or the 3^rd time something is being expounded on. Sometimes that extra explanation of a point is needed but maybe you got it the first or second time and are now day dreaming about what you’re going have for lunch.

#3 This one may just be my own personal problem but it’s a difficult one for me. I don’t soak up knowledge from the page I need more than that. I need discussion, experiments daily interaction with the theories and teachings. But I live in a tiny town and am the only yoga teacher here, somewhere lurking out there are more teachers and even some Buddhist but I haven’t connected with them yet. Which is frustrating when you are on a spiritual path and would like, if not a teacher, then someone to walk with you for while?

So those are the challenges I am faced with when all I’m trying, in essence, to do is sit down and read a book. What’s the answer? Well the same answer as when you come up on a challenge in your asana class; practice. Practice. Dedication. Self surrender. All the same principles as with our physical expression of yoga. Even if it means I read the same 3 pages over and over again for days, we do the same asanas over and over again until we “master” them and the you know what we still do them over and over again every day. Because yoga IS the journey not the destination and the Bhagvad Gita is a very important (and challenging) step on that journey.

Community As Such

What is community? I almost hesitate to begin this entry because community is such a commonly used word and everyone one has their own definition. But then again that can be said of many other words as well such as: family, religion, truth and love. So I’m not going to go on about what I think community is but rather share a few instances when I felt community; either as a part of it or as witness to it.

The Village Community

I’ll start with my village; among myself and my siblings we’ve always be partial to the saying “it takes a village to raise a child.” Having grown up with a broad extended family which I lovingly refer to as “the granola heads” our extended family included Catholics, Buddhists, Atheists, Artists, Musicians, Laborers and more. They were a tribe. And they instilled in me (and I think for my brothers and sisters as well) the belief that you draw to the people you need in life too you, those people are your village/community and that community becomes your family. So after I left home I went out into the world looking for my place, I knew I was going to be a gypsy for while because I held on to the belief that when I found the right place the universe would let me know. And 10 years later I did. I settled into a tiny town (so tiny in fact that it is technically a village, no joke) with an amazing community. Here I mean community as the town itself; the shops, the local artist, the farms the people behind the counters at the bank. It’s that kind of “soul” of a place that people allude to when talking about where they live. And I also settled into a nice community which you could call my family of friends. We all pitch in to help each other out be it taking someone’s kid to after school activities or watching someone’s dog or even dropping dinner over when someone has had a busy day. We look out for each other. A community recognizes its own needs within itself and fills them without question or hesitation.

The Collective Community

Recently I discovered another kind of community. I was off on a 2 ½ day yoga conference so excited to meet other yogis and other teachers and most excitedly to simply be a student for a while. I promised myself I would be more outgoing in the hopes of meeting some people I could develop friendships with. And I did connect with a few people I hope to stay in touch with but what I found more interesting was the kind of instant and fleeting friendships that were created. A lovely sort of 15 minute friendship lived out in the time between workshops and speakers. These brief encounters lifted my spirits but they did not symbolize community for me, that happened when I was silent, most often right before a workshop started, sitting and gazing around at rooms packed with yogis all with the purpose of practicing and learning together. In fact a few instructors had us turn to the people around us and say “Namaste” to acknowledge this fact, it did on few instances bring me to tears. I’ve always felt like yoga is a gift and there I was surrounded by nearly 400 people who felt the same way. But not as though it was a gift to me or to them but a gift to give away and share and love and revel in for one weekend together and on out into the world after that. See we were a community of communities, we all came from different places as representatives of our own community; some as students, some as teachers, some just curious. And we came together to grow and strengthen as one and then disperse taking with us new tools and knowledge back to our own communities to grow and strengthen them.

The Unwavering Community

This morning I saw community defined. I’m in Erie visiting my Grandmother who last year moved into an assisted living facility. She’s not doing to bad but over the past few months she’s started a downward spiral that has sent shock waves of worry and grief through the family. The thing that made me draw my breath in with anxiety was when I heard she had stopped going to morning Mass. My Grandmother is a devout Catholic and she’s what I like to call “old school Catholic.” She doesn’t judge, she doesn’t preach she simply embodies love, forgiveness and compassion. To my mind, the way religion is supposed to be. My grandmother’s church is her community. They rallied around her when my Grandfather died with loving arms and prayers for peace. So when her body finally weakened to the point where she could no longer get up and visit her community any along her community got up and came to her. I had no idea they were doing this until this morning when I was visiting her and a woman walked in who was obviously not a nurse. I was unfamiliar to her as well so she assumed I was there for physical therapy she said she’d quickly give my Grandmother communion and leave us be. When I heard that I nearly cried, I explained that I was her visiting granddaughter and she should take her time. As I sat there listening to her read my Grandmother prayers I did in fact cry. Not because I was sad, though that was mixed in there too, but because I was blown away by this act of kindness within a community. The woman told me how much they all love my Grandmother and miss her and how lucky I am to have her genes in me. I thanked her from the bottom of my heart when she left. She had brought kindness and hope not just to my Grandmother this morning but to me as well and when I leave here I know now that not only does my Grandmother have her family here to love and support her but she’s also got one amazing community. Amen!

small change

My friend believes in change, she has big thoughts and aspirations, she writes eloquently about politics and offers up ways to bring opposing sides together to create a greater good, a true peace. I admire her for this it is not something I am wired for. In fact my exact words to her where, “I’d really like to be the kind of person who called their representative and signed petitions but our system it just so broken that it doesn’t do any good.” And the moment after the sentence landed out there in the ether of our discussion I felt a little broken hearted, I had just said out load that I had no faith. Have I given up on humanity, have I become so discouraged by our government that I have given up on positive change happening for people; red, blue or otherwise color coded. I left our brief conversation at the breakfast table and headed off to my studio to dust away cobwebs and mop the floor for a restorative class that evening. As I swept and tidied I pondered my friend’s belief in the system and her unwavering belief that we can change the government and what exactly am I doing to bring about good things and then I went up stairs. Standing in the loft and looking out over the studio I was washed over with a feeling of love and I thought to myself “I hope this feeling never goes away, I hope to always be overwhelmed by this place,” this place that has so much of my spirit in it this place that I created with the hopes of creating a very small change. The kind of change that happens inside of someone, a small shift on a very deep level that can then trickle out into the world. It’s like this:

The other day my friend and I were driving through a shopping center. We stopped to let a couple cross in the cross walk, it was a shortish balding man with a little beer belly pushing a wheelchair with a woman (assumed to be his wife) in it, both carry armfuls of shopping bags and smiling and laughing with their entire beings. We watched and smiled back and I commented on how happy they must be about life right now and my friend said how that made her day and her smile. And all they were doing was shopping and being together but their happiness affected us and brought us happiness, joy you might even say.

That story came back as I pushed the mop around my studio making ready for my student to come that evening and to hopefully leave a little happier, or peaceful or contented. That is the kind of change I have faith in, small change within our community and among the people you encounter everyday. Just imagine what kind of happiness you could inspire if you decided to smile for day, or what if you practiced peace for a day or non-judgment or compassion. All of these are principles I offer up to my student and I haven’t mastered all of them, I’m still on a journey just like they are. But what I sincerely hope is that within this place they can feel all that love I feel and that they can feel supported and safe enough to find their own bliss and maybe share that bliss, even if it comes only in the form of a smile.

a love letter

I was walking through the woods today taking in the sights and smells of autumn so I guess it was the brilliance of change that fall brings that got me to thinking about my yoga students and how far they have come since I began teaching in earnest this year. I went through each student and as though they were walking and talking with me I said in my head to them, “I challenge your self practice to be…” fill in whatever (I felt) an appropriate lesson for that person to focus on. And then I thought “what would I challenge myself to practice?” and the answer came not so softly as “I CHALLENGE YOU TO DO IT BECAUSE YOU LOVE YOURSELF!” I mean really! Really, how often do I do things for people because I love them and they appreciate it and are grateful that’s not the lesson. The lesson is why don’t I do things to help myself because I love ME? There I was sitting down at the bottom of a pit of depression with all the tools I needed to get better and I just couldn’t do it. I know how to meditate I know how to do yoga and what’s more I know how important they are to maintaining sanity and, to be simple, joy. But I couldn’t muster up the love to do it for myself or for my health and wellbeing. I came to the studio everyday and taught lessons to students whom I love greatly but I also felt like a fraud. What right did I have to lead them in yoga for an hour each day when I couldn’t bare to be on the mat for 15 minutes at home? And who did I think I was imploring them to have compassion for themselves and their practice when I was out right disgusted with my state of being. But I did, I kept up the pretense that I was fine because I love my fellow yogis and I did not want to abandon them on their path. So I guess it was only natural that the key to unlocking my own love was born from love of them. I had to put myself in the role of student and teach myself how to love me. The road back to life from depression is long and I am just beginning but everyday I feel a little better, in fact everyday I feel like I’m falling back in love with life. Everyday that I get on my mat and do yoga my body remembers why I started this in the first place. There are days I don’t want to practice but I remind myself that yoga is how I take care of me, it is how I love me, even if it’s only a few sun salutes in the kitchen its an exercise in compassion. So please, please dear yogis know that now when I talk to you about love and compassion and how I understand what struggle it is you can be sure I’m speaking genuinely because I am living those lessons right now. And it is the love that I have for my students that brought me back to loving myself again and for that I thank you.