up-sTaNdinG!

aspen cathedral on the way to la vega-- santa fe, 2010.

in spite of how fantastic i feel in every other respect, today the nerve running up and down the back of my right leg is in the most excruciating pain i've experienced yet. after vinyasa today (which helped, especially right after a bikram session), i asked my teacher about it, knowing pretty much what her response would be: sciatica. it's ironic, really, because sciatic pain is typically caused by prolonged sitting and my lifestyle is really anything but sedentary...quite the contrary really, almost to my detriment i've been led to believe. however, it's not coming from the typical source of a bulging disc but rather from something stemming from the inside of the upper thigh/buttocks and burning like fire down my sit-bones and my leg, into the back of my knee. so i used to commute a lot last year-- such periods of prolonged sitting were absolute agony...now, i try to keep sitting to a minimum, but i've been told that over-exercising was my issue. there's no happy medium...although i'm thinking now that bikram's yoga is exacerbating the issue tremendously. need to work on healing this...it is absolutely awful...

in any event, i am celebrating the fact that i ENJOY being vertical-- not horizontal, or sedentary...vertical and vital! funnily enough, my POEM OF THE DAY from poets.org celebrates this very thing....



Vertical
by Linda Pastan

Perhaps the purpose
of leaves is to conceal
the verticality
of trees
which we notice
in December
as if for the first time:
row after row
of dark forms
yearning upwards.
And since we will be
horizontal ourselves
for so long,
let us now honor
the gods
of the vertical:
stalks of wheat
which to the ant
must seem as high
as these trees do to us,
silos and
telephone poles,
stalagmites
and skyscrapers.
but most of all
these winter oaks,
these soft-fleshed poplars,
this birch
whose bark is like
roughened skin
against which I lean
my chilled head,
not ready
to lie down.

LoVinG YouRseLf to LoVe the rEsT...

a piece of wisdom to slip into your heart today:


"Don't ask yourself what the world needs,
ask what makes you alive." H. Thurman


follow your fire.

GraVity'S wiNgS

The world is dying but now I’m writing

Writing
because it seems the last way I know how to hold it
Even though these words don’t even have the eternity that ink half-promises; no matter

To write is to dream hope-prints on to a page...

& if I dream of a world of pirates and seashell ships and rain in the afternoon and honey and flying and nests of cuddling moss, peaty and muddy green-glowing....it's realer than real.

It's a choice....so

If I choose to fly with the way I am feeling, with the colors I’m seeing behind my eyes and with the tastes that stick to my budding tongue in their curious bitter-brightness, does that really mean that’s the way IT is?

Sweet contentment lies in the ability not to dream-out reality but to see the dream within it, and in having the trust to believe it.

Without imagination I am nothing, and the world is cardboard flat and saccharin empty…

I sprawl on the quilted covers and dance on the ceiling and swing among the rafters.

Gravity only pulls because it’s heartbreakingly lonely.
So when I try to fly, why don’t I?

I am the slave-bride of Gravity; I can’t love him because he binds me to the rock solidity, but he won’t release his hold until he feels love,

so we are whirlpooled

until
I decide I can love his limitations, and wear them as wings

Dancing Soaring Singing all the forms of flight I can own in this atmosphere—all the more precious because they defy laws and breathe magic.


Gravity
You bring the miraculous smile to my body’s narrow curves; sparkle to my muscles; fire to my eyes…

It’s because of you that I know this exhilaration; you make me earn it.

And so I believe that the world is dying only because I let it mirror my own face and its failings which are only real until I choose to engage, actively, give energy to dreaming a smile and reimagining gravity's pull.

bEauTifuL (something for a sick day)

woke up this morning with burning throat, pounding head, aching heart. realized that no matter how stubborn i might be, there was no going into school today. again.

now, really, a day off is a day off in the positive sense, always, but i'm eager to get back in the classroom rhythm as i've been out of it since the start of our holiday break, and learning how to acknowledge a real need for a day off, to recognize when pushing through isn't the answer, and isn't even the expectation that i feel exists in the workplace, in the world-- what a challenge for me!

so i stared my compulsive need to gogogo right in the face, and crawled back into to bed to sleep, even as the day was breaking brightly...

and i know how silly this seems, but it's a strange part of my until-now story, a hiccup in the expected and accepted smoothness in the song, that's starting not to sound so sweet in its monotony...so to be content in this discomfort-- this is what gave me food for thought today, and the space and time in which to really dwell in it a little.
by the afternoon, i felt strong, and in need of focus and so i moved into a vigorous, and then restorative hour and a half long practice in my sunset-soaked living room.

as the day closes, i'm physically feeling better-- and in my heart? better also. i'm going to bed with the lullaby of this fabulous song-- brought to my attention by the beautiful bettina...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfJAh6hrCzw

"may the grace of god be with you always in your heart
may you know the truth inside you from the start
may you find the strength to know that you are part of something beautiful."

~iNvoCatiOn~

i have chosen SANTOSHA to be my focus-- this NIYAMA (or OBSERVANCE, as a piece of the Eight Limbed Yogic Path)means "contentment" by rough definition, though i call it "SWEET" because it was once described in this way by a teacher of mine, and truly, i can think of nothing sweeter...and possibly, more difficult to achieve..."santosha" involves the practice of gratitude and joyfulness—maintaining calm at all costs. this state of mind does not depend on any external forces or dynamics, but still exists in connection with them....
my hope for myself is to find the sweetness in the immediate moment.

i have been realizing more and more that i fall neatly into the cliche of not knowing what i have until it's taken away. in the now, i recognize that there is the capacity for beauty, for goodness, for joy, for peace-- but i am never content with it...the possibility that this sweetness IS true is never enough to convince me that i need to change, to move "forward." so rarely can i just be with something, sit with it, and not need to analyze it-- weigh its pros and cons. i long for the sweetness in which this tension doesn't drive me. i trust that it exists.

so, through yoga and its many facets (specifically the YAMA of SATYA or "truthfulness," asana (with sequences i will include here), and pranayama), through poetry and stories, through conversations with my brilliant girls, through inspiration from my enchanted southwestern home and the people who make it so-- i dream of putting wisdom, calm, strength, and vision that i cultivate on my mat into my perspective and approach to the world, and my place in it.

so, to start with some poetry: e.e. cummings' "seeker of truth"
seeker of truth

follow no path
all paths lead where

truth is here.

"karma" yoga

Until recently, I've misperceived the practice of yoga as only that of ASANA-- the physical postures and exercises meant to strengthen and release the body...

The practice of yoga is a service to our Selves, individual and collective. Through this personal endeavor, by heightening our consciousness, our awareness, our “awakeness,” and becoming a sound mind in a sound body, we can more effectively serve those around us. By turning inward and facing with honesty and love that which we find there, we cultivate the ability to see the outside world with more compassionate eyes. Here, for me, is where the connection between yoga and service takes root. What I do with the training in this powerful practice has and will continue to impact my own understanding of myself and my place in things, grounding me and inspiring me simultaneously and it is upon this foundation that all I do from here on out will be built.
I hope explicitly and directly to connect the teaching of yoga to my other passions in the context of “service,” particularly because I know the transformative power it holds as a compliment to anything and everything we each do. Specifically, there is one demographic in which I hope to apply my learning as a means of sharing the gift it’s given to me. I would love to work with adolescents, introducing them to this method of relaxation, of concentration, of dedication. I have worked with this population in various contexts, most recently and directly as an English teacher and a coach. Kids in middle and high school are searching for something to ground them in this tumultuous time when everything in their worlds is turning upside down and inside out. Many don’t get enough exercise, or they get too much overtraining for one or another specific sport. Many students, particularly those in the less privileged situations (such as where I did my student teaching in New York City) have such profound stressors and negative influences, on top of the usual horrors of “teenagehood,” to deal with that they cannot even begin to commit to fulfilling the responsibilities that the worlds of school and their social networks demand of them. It is they, as well as all teens, who would undoubtedly benefit incredibly from the practice of yoga. Even simple exposure to it and the ideas that are manifested within its rich and multifaceted tradition could serve to ground and sustain, and at the same time uplift and inspire young people to take care of themselves body, mind, and spirit. It has the potential, with the connection through an empathetic teacher, to instill confidence and compassion. Essentially, it offers a space in which people in this stage in life, who so often are written off as being lazy or apathetic or lost or unappreciative by adults and by their peers, and deemed failures and losers by themselves, to realize that they are unique and powerful and worthy individuals. They become empowered because they are their own teachers in this practice.
I have already spoken to the Boys and Girls club in my town about setting up free community yoga classes for kids their and I am offering an after-school program at the school where I currently work. I would love in the future to bring this into more schools throughout the country. The connection between body and mind is a profound one—and yoga, as an integral part of the school day is not just practical on a logistical level (the fact being that the kids are already here and don’t need to be driven or bused to another location for expensive classes) but also practical in the sense that it sharpens and focuses and calms the mind to prepare for academic learning.