Crappy hostess

I'm never going to win any Martha Stewart awards. I'm just not cut out for this hostess business. Perhaps I am in a rut? It's all about practice and reading and simple everyday things for me. My idea of a great evening is something to the effect of: early dinner, a little relaxing, early bedtime. Just call me Grandma ;-)

Irishseoul came along to led class on Friday and Saturday. Actually, we got up at 4:30 and headed over to Mysore practice on Friday, but when we got there, the doors were locked. Uh oh, apparently there was a change to the schedule due to the holiday. Fine. We just went back for the special post-holiday led class at 9 AM.

Not too many participants on Friday, and even fewer on Saturday. Suzie Columbus, participant on the infamous ezBoard, was in attendance. Sanskrit Scholar pointed her out to me and I went to say hi. It's a riot meeting people you "know" from cyberspace. And then to practice with her in the same room just underscores the fact that the sangha is bigger than any individual roomful of people practicing together.

I picked up a book yesterday (bookstore visits count as good hostessing, don't they?): Hardcore Zen, by Brad Warner. A pop-culture post-punk reading of Zen. I wasn't sure who I was getting it for: me? The Cop? My Gift? I'm finishing it up so I can send it back to northern Arizona with My Gift when she drives back to school today.

Here's a little quote about emptiness:

Emptiness is the single most misunderstood word in all of Buddhism. The original Sanskrit word for this is shunyata, which ultimately points to the as-it-is-ness of things, the state of things being as they are without being colored by our views and ideas.

Emptiness is not a nihilistic concept of voidness. Emptiness is not meaninglessness. Emptiness is that condition which is free from our conceptions and our perceptions. It's the world as it is before we come along and start complaining about the stuff we don't like.

Warner goes on to give examples, using David Cronenberg's movie The Fly as a frame of reference. All this in his essay on the Heart Sutra. Also included: quotes from Gene Simmons, Isaac Asimov, and Eric Cartman of South Park. I am amused.

Thanks

Irishseoul and I got up at 6 AM and made our way through practice. It's funny--we spent many hours together in gyms in California, and now here we are, years later, practicing Ashtanga together in Arizona. We are good workout partners and good yoga partners: she is self-motivated and focused. As she was when we spent our time lifting weights and running on treadmills.

Meanwhile, My Gift and Maneki Neko went out with friends for sushi last night. They are sleeping in this morning, after a very late evening. The Cop worked until 3 AM, so he's sleeping, too.

Lovely to sit with Irishseoul and have tea and talk. I have very fond memories of tea with her over the years. About time for us to do a little cooking now, so enough blogging.

I am thankful for The Cop, My Gift, my friends and family. I don't have a huge circle of friends or a huge number of things, but those that I do have are dear to me, and I am very, very lucky.

Om shanti and Happy Thanksgiving.

Off and running

Global conference call at 5 AM. Therefore, no Mysore. My Gift has a rheumatologist appointment this afternoon, therefore no led class. So, at the end of the con call, I squeezed in a practice. The beauty part about being a fast breather is that I can roll through a practice in right about an hour. Was it meditative? No, not really. But I'm more grounded and the shoulder tweak is relieved. Not such a beautiful practice, but a practice nonetheless.

It rocks to have My Gift around for a few days, and Irishseoul and Maneki Neko are on the way. Looking forward to the holiday!

More fiction

In a recent comment, Tim mentioned how much he's been affected by fiction. I'm in the same boat, which is why my current disillusionment is rather surprising and a bit disturbing. I've been a reader all my life, with a particular taste for fiction. I absolutely believe that my moral compass was deeply affected by my reading (as well as John Lennon's music, but that's another story). Books like Tess of the D'Urbervilles, An American Tragedy, Madame Bovary, The Awakening, Nightwood, Anna Karenina, Middlemarch, Mrs. Dalloway, and of course, my true love, Ulysses, taught me about the aesthetics of writing, but more importantly, about the emotional lives of human beings. How else would I have known, growing up in the suburbs with stoical first generation parents hellbent on assimilation, about the inner lives of other people?

During and after college, I worked at bookstores for almost ten years (at a terrific independent bookstore in Harvard Square for a good number of those) and spent all my hours away from work reading and writing. Then off to grad school in New York, where I wrote and read some more. Honestly, I truly thought that the only thing more meaningful than life itself was a life devoted to reading and writing--to art. That was a core principle for me, a way I understood myself and the world.

So now, all of a sudden, there's this sense of ennui. Of just not wanting to indulge. Almost like I've eaten too much. Except for Haruki Murakami. I am always eager to get my hands on his new books. But what's the dealio? Not only am I off novels, I am feeling discombobulated politically. Yesterday on NPR, The Cop and I heard an interview with Ralph Reed, Andrew Sullivan and Dick Armey. I've always liked Andrew Sullivan and abhored Ralph Reed, but for goodness sake, there I was, AGREEING with Dick Armey's assessment of the current political situation. Huh?!?

Perhaps too much meditation and sloughing off of the ego? Is that what's making me seem less and less recognizable to myself? LOL! I say that kind of as a joke, but um, Dick Armey? He and Newt Gingrich are on the same side, for crying out loud! What is happening to me?!?!

Maybe it was the combination of indulgent liberals in the novel and a sensible-sounding Republican on the radio that threw me. Maybe it is some secret inner self revealing itself as my musculoskeletal system realigns. Or my ego dissolving. Who the heck knows? I have this panicky feeling like I need to hang on to what I recognize as the things I value, but then again...why bother?

Some Kiss We Want

There is some kiss we want with
our whole lives, the touch of

spirit on the body. Seawater
begs the pearl to break its shell.

And the lily, how passionately
it needs some wild darling! At

night, I open the window and ask
the moon to come and press its

face against mine. Breathe into
me. Close the language-door and

open the love window. The moon
won't use the door, only the window.

-Rumi

PasOWsana & No Martha Stewart

I have a crink in my shoulder. Hmmmm. "Crink" or "krink"? Actually, Merriam Webster says it's "crick" or "kink." Either way, something's going on in the right shoulder, under the shoulderblade. I'm thinking it's from The Cop's adjustment in pasasana. Upside of the adjustment: I had my fingers bound (however slightly) and my feet flat on the ground. Of course I was a bunched-up ball of flesh--no elegance whatsoever. But hey, I saw that the bind was possible, which is a great first step.

So there's work today and tomorrow (yes, I'm at work and blogging, so you can see how relaxing today is!) and then four days off. My Gift is driving home even as I write. And my best friend from California, from here on known as "Irishseoul," will drive down on Wednesday. Her daughter, who we will call Maneki Neko, will also visit. Maneki Neko and My Gift became fast friends as little children, while they languished in the childcare area of the gym Irishseoul and I attended. They were the instigators of my relationship with Irishseoul. As it turns out, Irishseoul and I spent many an afternoon lifting weights and doing cardio, and the girls became connoisseurs of the kids area of gyms. The best was Gold's in Palo Alto, with one of those bouncy slides and the tubes they could climb through.

Yay! A holiday! I am totally psyched. Holidays at my house mean a pre-holiday visit to our favorite sushi restaurant (that's tonight!). Holidays also mean not too much fancy cooking stuff (as in, not ANY!), but I do have a special recipe to try this year: jello shots. I know, I know, I should make a pie or some side dishes or something. But why, when what I really want is pineapple jello with Malibu rum? Actually, this morning one of the people on my team (who I will call "Partay Gal") told me about spodis. She couldn't believe I hadn't heard of it. I'm so behind the times. I think, though, that she's given me my special Christmas recipe.

Stranger than fiction

Early blogging today. I'm waiting for The Cop to finish his coffee before we begin practice. Going over a few emails from work. The holiday schedule thing is happening at work: too many meetings, too few hours. I have an 8 AM meeting this morning, and tomorrow is a global conference call, which means those of us in Arizona call in at 5 AM. Hence, no Mysore practice. Blech. I'll just have to block off my schedule so I can get to Volleyball Guy's 4 PM led class later in the day.

Yesterday, Tim left a comment about the book I was reading (and which I finished last night). I am having strange and confusing thoughts about fiction these days. As I was reading On Beauty, I started to wonder why, exactly, I was involving myself in this story. It is well-written, and has a compelling-enough plot, but...well, why? Why would I get tangled up in the drama of these pretend people? Set in a university setting in the Northeast, with the usual professor/student dramas, and liberal versus conservative political issues, etc., etc. I think I used to remember I didn't care for fiction with a university setting, but I wanted to give it another go. Um, maybe I shouldn't have. The characters, and ultimately the novel, seemed rather indulgent and overwrought. And I kept wondering, "Why am I doing this to my psyche?" After all, my emotions/body don't know that this is all pretend; my mind does, of course, but the emotional hangover of fiction is real.

These are distressingly blasphemous thoughts from a gal who usually relishes blasphemy (when applied to religion--but goodness, NOT when applied to fiction! ;-) I guess I'll try another novel and see how that goes. Maybe, though, I'll need to switch to non-fiction or something.

Better late than never

Below is a post from yesterday. We're just back from the mountains.

***

Sunday noon and I am in a cabin in Lakeside, a little town 3 hours northeast of Scottsdale. All I've done so far today is read, eat a muffin and drink a really too sweet mocha The Cop tracked down in town this morning. I will make this entry and mail it to myself to post later, because my Blackberry does not accept cookies, and apparently that is necessary in order to log on to Blogger.

It was The Cop's idea that we get out into the wilderness for a few days. We don't talk about work very much or in any detail, since we both prefer to keep work at work, but obviously he knew I was rather stressed lately. So here we are, away from it all, and it feels great. The only downside to lying around and relaxing is that I feel how SORE I am! Yikes! That said, I got a world class adjustment from Volleyball Guy at Saturday led. Attendance was quite low, likely due to holiday travel, I'd imagine. So there was plenty of room for Volleyball Guy to work the room. I was psyched when he came over at baddha konasana. We did a 15 count baddha k, where you can choose to do A, B, and C for five counts each, or any combo of them that you like.

So I took my opportunity to have my head on the floor for all 15 counts. I am not sure why it is so easy for me to do the pose with an assist, but so difficult without. Obviously, it will come with time, but still it is curious. I suspect this particular pose requires a certain kind of gracious surrender that is not my strong suit. Anyhow, yeah, I just need to let it play out over time.

Okay, enough of this. Time to get back to my book (On Beauty, by Zadie Smith) and the hot tub!

Pulling the rug out

Actually, no one pulled the rug out from underneath me. I just forgot it. I had an 8 AM meeting at the office, so I packed up all of my clothing and shower stuff and cosmetics and lunch and brought them, along with my mat, to practice with me this morning.

As soon as I got there, I realized I'd forgotten my rug. Uh oh. Just as I'd imagined, the jumpback foot drag thing that I have going on was made worse by the lack of a slippery rug. That's okay, though--it raises the bar for me. All in all, the lack of mat wasn't too bad at all. Kurmasana was where I really had problems. Usually I do the helicopter landing and slide my butt back on the rug as I tuck my shoulders under my legs. Volleyball Guy came over and adjusted me in kurmasana, so that was fine.

The real difference, though, was in supta kurmasana. The stickiness of the mat made it much easier for me to walk my feet together. The resistance of the mat meant I could walk one foot in a bit, then when I leaned to walk the other foot in, the mat kept the first foot from slipping back. Oh yeah! I think I'll be practicing without my rug for a while--it's worth it for the little boost in supta kurmasana.

Did the pasasana through ustrasana sequence, then off to work. Things seem to be settling down here at work. I read someone's blog last night, and there was a mention of Mercury in retrograde. I know absolutely nothing about astrology and generally pay it no attention at all, but geez, work has been so stressful recently that I was happy to have something to explain it all.

Got milk crate?

I managed to find a metal mesh milk crate in a little designer-organizer boutique store (no plain old plastic milk crates in Scottsdale, apparently). It is ugly and bizarrely designed, to the point of compromising its actual strength. Sigh. What makes people produce poorly designed products?? This thing is actually made of more material than it actually warrants, which means it is probably pretty expensive to produce, but the design of said materials is so poor, so strangely arbitrary, that the darned thing isn't even as strong as a plain old plastic milk carton. Nice work, you crazy container designers. I guess it's supposed to be an aesthetically pleasing object. Too bad it's not.

Don't get me started about design. We are having design wars at work. One business unit seems to have decided that it should determine what we design. Oops, forgot about including designers!! No worries. We can have unqualified people dream up crazy ideas, and then tell the designers to make it. Yeah, that's sure to work. I imagine the container manufacturer was working under the same premise.

Okay, aside from the design issues at work, there are also major issues about control of the organization. Hey, I'm the first person to admit to fascistic tendencies. I'm singleminded and I have lots of energy and I can use language to sound like I always know what I'm talking about, so it's easy enough for me to run roughshod over the rest of the world. But geez, let's have a little self-awareness, people!! At least I have the grace to be abashed when I realize my ideas are impacting other humans, who do have the right to opinions and autonomy and respect. Sigh. So business units are pitted against each other. My boss is being extremely gracious--she's taking the high road. I have a zen commitment to right action, so I'm happy she's decided to go that way, but goodness, I sure am curious to see if the high road pays off.

Good versus evil. Really, is this something that should play out at work?? Yeah, yeah, I know it does all the time, for probably 99% of the population. Why do we create these soap operas for ourselves?? I always think about when I am a little old lady on my deathbed: I don't want to look back over my life and see my energy spent on years of corporate politics. YUCK!

Must. Rise. Above.

First thing Monday morning, one of my work friends came into my office, looked at me, and before either of us had said a word, announced, "You're on edge." I laughed my head off. He was so right and it was so stupid of me to be wound up at 8:30 on a Monday morning. Perspective, perspective.

At an afternoon meeting, another friend passed me a note. I opened it and read: "F**k this sh*t." Again I cracked up. I've been trying to keep that sense of humor all week.

So back to the crate. It's a good thing to lie across a milk crate (or a mesh crate, as the case may be). What is most apparent is that I have tight hip flexors. I tucked my legs under, a la kapotasana, and discovered just how ridiculously tight. Okay, so time to think about hip flexors more. And the shoulders/upperback-over-the-lip-of-the-crate stretch rocks.

Practice was good. A respite from my busy mind. Threw the crate in at the end.

Ready for another day.

Back to it

Back to Mysore today. Nice and toasty in there, as Volleyball Guy cranked the heat up. The British Director and The Other Dave were coming in just as I arrived, quickly followed by Renaissance Man and The Cat. Sanskrit Scholar showed up a little later, along with a few other folks.

Practice was good. I felt a little distracted to be practicing in a group, but not too bad. Of course, it was great getting adjustments from Volleyball Guy again. My hamstrings felt good enough to get my feet up off the floor in kurmasana, and supta kurmasana is hanging in there--bind getting tighter and tighter, soles together. Hmmm...just a little bit deeper to get the crossed feet... Anyhow, can't complain.

Volleyball Guy sandbagged me on baddha konasana (one on each thigh and two on my back) and what used to be searing pain as I put my head on the floor is now just intense pain. LOL! Just kidding. I don't know how this works, but once I am not afraid, the pain just becomes a feeling and it isn't so...well, painful.

After setu bandhasana, I went on to my little bit of second--through ustrasana--before urdhva dhanurasana. After urdhva dhanurasana, Volleyball Guy spotted me on dropbacks. Once that was done, I took a moment to savor the pukey feeling of my nervous system being stressed. Ahhhh! Such a lovely feeling. I haven't had it for a while. Seriously, I actually do have good associations with the seeing-stars-feeling-pukey feeling. The most intensely I've ever experienced it was when learning heavy squats and deadlifts. I could also get it from really hard climbing. And when I was first learning primary.

Of course, back in the day, I didn't have any fancy yoga way of understanding it ;-) When it happened from lifting, I called my brother, who was a personal trainer and gym manager, and he told me it was a normal reaction of the nervous system, a response to a new level of physical stress. "How far should I push it?" I asked him. "Well," he said, "Definitely don't puke on the equipment." This is not inconsistent with the messaging of rock climbers. In that environment, though, the word is: Don't puke on the belay ledge.

This morning, anyhow, wasn't quite so dramatic as all that. It was just that crispy, slightly burnt feeling of exertion. Which I love. I thought a bit about how we learn to be more efficient in our practices: how we smooth them and work out the kinks and learn the places where we need to be patient, where we need to pay a little more attention and breathe. We adjust, physically (and mentally), to the stressors. So this morning was a great bit of fun, to throw in the new poses. Something to mess practice all up again ;-)

Afterwards, I couldn't resist asking Volleyball Guy about what I'd done. As I'm sure I've mentioned a million times, he is not a traditionalist. So it's kind of dopey for me to ask. But apparently I am a traditionalist, because I wanted to check and make sure that what I was doing was okay.

I asked him if adding the poses on was alright, or if I should get real and knock it off. He grabbed my shoulders and said, "Yes, you should do it. I'm proud of you!" LOL! He cracks me up. He acted like he'd been waiting for me to just go ahead and do it.

Well alrighty then.

Heart chakra

For the past couple of days, I've been feeling "off." Just kind of extra-emotional. Actually, probably just normally emotional (generally I'm a pretty stoic gal). Tried to chalk it up to the little cold everyone at work has, and which I've been fighting. Then I tried pawning it off on Ladies Holiday.

Then this morning, as I thought, "Gee, I need to buy a milk crate at Target," I wondered if this emotionalism has been exacerbated by the extra backbending and my generally crim practice behavior. Backbends supposedly "open your heart," right? Give me a moment to smirk. Okay, I'm back.

If my heart is being opened, it would appear that it prefers to be shut. That way, I can go about my business and practice and go to work and function like a normal person, rather than someone who feels like her skin's been peeled off. Oh wait ! It reminds me of the Gnarls Barkley song I have stuck in my head:

Even your emotions had an echo
And so much space

Oh wait, there's even a bit of wisdom in there, too, that likely applies:

Ha ha ha!
Bless your soul
You really think you're in control

Okay, so I'm just going through a weird emotional space. For whatever reason. Kind of like the pain of learning the supta kurmasana bind. Back then, anyone except a yogi would have told me to knock it off, to give it up. So alright: I'll buy my milk crate and do my backbends and see where it goes. No going back.

Actually, there was a great little Dogen quote in my reading this morning:

One success is the result of the ten thousand failures.

And then there was a little additional insight from Gerry Shishin Wick:

Those who practice oneness will be released. It's as straightforward as that.

I don't have control. It's kind of scary. There's no going back. Fine. Carry on. All is coming.

Curve ball

All psyched for Mysore this morning and Ladies Holiday intervenes. Okay, fine. Yin yoga, it is. I got out my little yin book and put on a flannel shirt over my yoga clothes, got the iPod, and was off and running.

Damn, it was cold in the house this morning. And to put it in perspective for everyone who lives outside of the desert, today's freezing house temperature is 68 degrees. I'm going to have to start turning on the heat when I practice at home. The little space heater, which I had blasting directly on me, isn't cutting it.

So yes, another attempt at yin yoga. Which always amuses me with its sweet and passive appearance, which masks intense physical danger ;-) Actually, of course, the practice isn't dangerous. I'm dangerous. My past forays into yin yoga have resulted in knee tweaks and back crinks. Why? Because in yin you are not supposed to push, and I don't understand what that means. My internal yin monolog goes: Okay, so don't push. Don't push. Relax and enjoy. Ooh, this feels nice. The whole point is to relax and not push. Hmmmm...I wonder if I can get a little further into this?

Today, though, I really didn't push. I just enjoyed the poses. Well, I enjoyed them while I was in them, and then I really hurt as I tried to get out of them. Therein lies the challenge of yin. If you lie there relaxed for five minutes, it hurts like a motherf***** when you come out of it. Who knew I'd need a motherf***** count for yin yoga? Today's count: around 3.

The fun part is listening to music. I have no compunction about playing music during yin practice. With Ashtanga, I sometimes listen to chanting. I always think before I turn it on, though, to see if I really want it. I'd rather not turn it into a habit. Usually I go with the low chanting about 30% of the time. With yin, though, woohoo, bring on the pop and the hip hop!

I spent some time downloading music over the weekend. And this morning I lay around on the floor in yin poses, reexperiencing the weird wonderfulness of Macy Gray's voice. Not at all what I had planned for myself, but pretty nice after all.

Serendipity

Led class was pretty full, but you can't tell as much, now that the room has been reconstructed. There was a flood at the Scottsdale Starbucks of Yoga, which meant Saturday led class was in the teeny room at the Phoenix branch for a few months. For the first class in Phoenix, we practiced on an unfinished floor (mostly concrete and concrete dust) and no door, just a curtain between us and the racks of clothes in the boutique. Don't get me started on the boutiques.

Anyhow, today was back in the old room, which is now larger, because when the owners had to make major repairs after the flood, they decided to expand the room, too. Good call. The room was full, but we had at least a good 4 inches of space between mats. It was nice to practice with people again. Of course, I practice with The Cop on Tuesdays, and he counts as a person--though I like to think of him more as a representative of the aggressive, potty-mouthed side of our shared partnership. He completes me ;-)

Practice was good. Volleyball Guy keeps a very constant count: his five count is almost always exactly eight of my breaths. No matter where he is in the room or what he's doing, he manages the nice constant count. Hanumanasana on the first side pissed me off (oops, channeling The Cop) because it hurts and reminds me that there's something going on with the right hamstring insert again. Left over from the year of insert pain, maybe--or, more frighteningly, maybe something new. The jumpbacks still involve a foot touch, but the motion is easy now, and consistent and smooth. I'm not going to push much, but just wait and see where it goes with persistent practice.

Supta kurmasana feels good: the bind is tighter and tighter, and today it even felt like some room is opening up for me to slide my shoulders under more. At this point all I can do is put my feet together, but the ankle cross isn't that far off. Biggest issue was baddha konasana--I'm used to putting a sandbag on my back and taking extra breaths to get my head to the floor, but there isn't time for that sort of thing in led, so I had to let it go.

We get to the vinyasa after setu bandhasana, and I hear Volleyball Guy say, "Pasasana!" Woohoo! How psyched am I?!?! We went along through laghuvajrasana, which is the absolute last pose for me when I'm being crim. He called for kapotasana, but I decided to be a tourist for that one: practicing to my right was the Serene One, who has freakishly melty backbends, so I just sat and watched her execute a gorgeous, heel-grabbing kapotasana. Lovely!

On to urdhva dhanurasanas, then closing, then some chanting. Volleyball Guy did a call and response chant, and after we chanted a phrase back, he'd ask Sanskrit Scholar to translate and chant it in English. Very humorous, hearing her chant back in English, with the extra syllables kind of thrown in there and the translation going on in her head, and the trying to sing it back in the same melody. What an astounding challenge!

Got to hang out a little bit afterwards with Returning Guy, Sanskrit Scholar and The British Director. Good to see everyone. I was happy to be there.

Gate gate paragate

Woke yesterday with a bit of a sore throat and some sniffles. Nothing too bad, just a little something from being on a plane last week. A souvenir.

Didn't quite feel up to practice--whether this was a physical thing or mental, I'm not sure. At any rate, the right hamstring was tweaked (damn you, hanumanasana!) and I was a little off. Still wanted to do some backbending, though. My back and shoulders are nicely tender these days, from the routine of more focused and persistent backbending and all the gomukhasana fun.

So practice was something I never tried before: standing poses followed by the first few intermediate poses (pasasana through ustrasana). And I went with the full vinyasas. I've never done full vinyasa before, and I have no idea why it seemed like a good idea, beyond the notion that I needed more movement than half vinyasa would afford. I always wonder if these little notions ("Do a different practice today!" "Hey, how about full vinyasa?!") are indications of intuition, of my body/mind telling me something I need, or if they are just the actions of monkey mind. Maybe they are creative intuitions that should be followed. Or maybe they are delusions. Or maybe they just are what they are and my reactions to them the result of my own personal form of fundamentalist brainwashing. Or maybe:

Form does not differ from emptiness,
emptiness does not differ from form.
That which is form is emptiness,
that which is emptiness form.

The same is true of feelings,
perceptions, impulses, consciousness.

This morning is led class at Starbucks of Yoga. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone.

Poor research

Yesterday Andrea posted a comment, asking why I felt guilty about doing some intermediate poses after primary. It's an interesting question.

I don't feel guilty because of how I was "brought up" in Ashtanga ;-) Volleyball Guy is not a traditionalist. Or if he is, it's a West Coast kind of old school. Basically, we're encouraged to explore. Any fundamentalist streak in my own personal practice comes from my self. So I don't feel guilty in regards to my teacher.

When you get right down to it, I suppose I feel guilty from a scientific perspective. I am curious about the traditional system (perhaps more from a physical than a spiritual perspective, given I do not share the same belief system as Guruji and other traditionalists), but I am even more curious from a "how does it work" perspective. So a little more than a year ago, I launched the experiment of Ashtanga using my self as a lab rat. Throwing curve balls (i.e., crim activities) into the mix makes me feel remiss from a research perspective. I'm adding variables, and, therefore, compromising the experiment.

The majority of my educational background is in the arts, but my second graduate degree is in a technical field--so though I do not have an innate love of the scientific, I do have great respect for the beauty of well-designed research.

So yes, here I am. In the midst of another muddle of the spiritual and the material, the absolute and the individual. And shame on me, who just a couple of hours ago read the end of the Diamond Sutra and apparently did not learn a thing. Ain't life grand? ;-)

No matter. This morning I did the intermediate poses again. I had an interesting day yesterday, both physically and emotionally. Felt both more centered and more edgy simultaneously. So I can't resist trying it again and seeing how it plays out today.

Not gonna make any pronouncements one way or another. Just gonna see how it goes.

Too much ezBoarding

Yes, I'm going to blame the ezBoard. It turns my head. And thus, today's seriously crim practice.

It came from out of the blue. I did the usual trip through Primary, which was quite lovely, except for a sense of tension in my hip flexors and lower back. Like there was a build up of energy--kind of like the feeling I get when I need to pop my knees or crack my knuckles. A restlessness. Didn't think too much of it, but as I finished up setu bandhasana, I just kept on going. What was I heading for? The shalabhasanas, dhanurasanas and ustrasana. Ahhh, relief! My hip flexors and lower back felt great! Knocked off at ustrasana and went on to urdhva dhanurasana. Then a little gomukhasana arms up against a doorway (to nudge the shoulders open a little more). More urdhva dhanurasanas. And then closing.

Sigh. Now there are feelings of guilt to process. Perhaps I will put the whole thing down (about good and bad and guilt and rebellion) and just go on and see how things go. See how I feel today. See what happens tomorrow at practice. Play it by ear. Be flexible. Not decide one way or another. This should be easy, shouldn't it?

Shouldn't it? ;-)

My Cop, My Mirror

Yogamum is tracking her progress on a novel (with a daily candy consumption count), and I track my progress on poses (minutely, I know--sorry!) and The Cop...well, Tuesday is practice day for The Cop, and though we could track his progress in Primary (which has been quite good), I think perhaps the thing that needs the most attention is his swearing. To that end: Motherf****er count: 2. That's not too bad, but still two too many for, say, a led class. The Mysorians might be amused, but who knows.

The curses were for utthita hasta padangusthasana and for trying to come up from bhujapidasana. Fair enough.

It is fascinating to practice with The Cop. In the end, we share the same character flaws ;-) For example, both of us are appalled to find we cannot do something pretty much as soon as we try it. Why in the world would I not be able to do every pose in Primary the first time I try it? And even if I can't get it the first time, surely I will be able to on the second try, when I apply my WILL. Luckily, we're both stubborn, too. So if something eludes us, we are perplexed, and possibly irritated (or enraged ;-) and then we go back over and over again until we figure it out.

We are greedy and impatient. Human, I guess.

I threw in the samakonasana/hanumansana West coast criminal add-on today, and found myself focused on my right hamstring for the rest of practice. Do the benefits of this add-on outweigh the extra stress to my hamstring? Not sure yet. I had a year of aching-hamstring-inserts practices, and I'm not going to lie: I love the current pain-free practices. On the other hand, I could stand to open up my hip flexors. Will just have to see how this goes, I guess.

Duvet & the Art of Being

Usually when I get home from work on Monday evenings, The Cop is at home. It's his day off from work. Tonight, though, he came in late. With a card and a bouquet and a gift for my birthday. A few days ago, I told him about a duvet I saw and liked. He spent his day today looking for the duvet. As it turns out, he bought a different one, but an even better one than the one I was talking about.

Another thing I saw and liked this weekend was the film "Ayurveda: The Art of Being." A terrific documentary, available from NetFlix. About Ayurvedic practitioners from all around the world, but the most notable were two elderly men practicing in India. Wonderful old men--funny and charming and delightful. Coincidentally, I spoke with My Gift on the phone last night and she was researching Ayurvedic physicians in her town. So I figured, what the heck, I might as well check this out. Found a practitioner in my area. Ought to be an interesting experience.

Practice this morning was good--easy and light and thoroughly enjoyable. Last night I thought about when I was first learning Ashtanga. Practice was absolutely the high point of my day. Now, with some time, it is a good part of my day, but something I've perhaps grown to take for granted a bit. On the one hand, that helps me integrate the practice into my daily life; on the other hand, some of the excitement, some of the pleasure, gets pushed into the background. Not a problem, really--I just have to be mindful of how good it feels to practice, how lucky I am to have those 90 minutes every day. I set an intention to be more aware of those good feelings this morning, and for more mornings. It's a habit now, my practice, but I have to remember that it's also something joyful, something to really treasure.

Like The Cop. Like My Gift. And the dog and the cat and the new duvet. Plain old every day life. Doesn't get better than that.

Taste for ambiguity

I don't like when I wake to news items about the death penalty. Even when it is Saddam Hussein that we're talking about. The Cop does not agree with the death penalty for the most part, though he does have certain exceptions--child molesters being one of them, or criminals who commit egregiously violent crimes against a defenseless victim. I'm pretty sure Saddam's death penalty is okay with him, though he did make note of the fact that Iraq uses hanging as a method, which he does not like.

All of this seems like splitting hairs to me, though. I just don't see how a crime plus an execution can possibly add up to justice. It's a disconnect, to my mind--a specious logic. Making more karma, even in the pursuit of "justice," is still making more karma. It just doesn't seem like a good idea.

***

I always do a little reading about zen in the morning, and now that I'm finished with Huang Po, I am on to "The Art of Just Sitting," a compilation of essays about sitting practice. Dogen this morning. He addresses my ongoing question about how one transitions between practice and "real life":

We should calmly give concentrated effort to the investigation of this question... Is there no path to be figured outside of seated meditation? Should there be no figuring at all? Or does it ask what kind of figuring occurs at the very time we are practicing seated meditation? We should make a concerted effort to understand this in detail. Rather than love the carved dragon, we should go on to love the real dragon. We should learn that both the carved and the real dragons have the ability to produce clouds and rain. Do not value what is far away, and do not despise it; become completely familiar with it. Do not despise what is near at hand, and do not value it; become completely familiar with it. Do not take the eyes lightly, and do not give them weight. Do not give weight to the ears, and do not take them lightly. Make your eyes and ears clear and sharp.

After I read this morning, I thought a little about how important ambiguity is to me. I love that space where you can just start to grasp at something, and yet it always seems elusive. As if the meaning doesn't quite reside in the words, but in the spaces between them. Where there is no black and white and no clear form. I guess that explains my love for zen writing and poetry.

And speaking of just starting to grasp something: gomukhasana. Gomukhasana has always been one of those poses that seemed entirely out of the realm of possibility for me. I didn't even think about imagining I could do it, given my shoulders of stone. Last week, though, I saw Returning Guy pulling off some beautiful urdhva dhanurasanas, and asked how he'd managed to get his shoulders so open.

"Bikram," he said.
"That's not the answer I want," I told him. "What poses?"
"Gomukhasana."

Sigh. Okay, so I set that info aside and went back to my lying-over-the-Swiss-ball routine, patiently waiting for my shoulders to do something...anything... Last night, though, I had the bright idea to see if I could use one of the vacuum motor belts as a prop to do a lame gomukhasana. I started off with the bigger one, which is about 4 inches in diameter. Held it in my top hand and struggled mightily to find the lower hand. Sure enough, I finally got it! Managed to pull it off on the other side, too. So I upped the ante and tried it with the smaller belt. Yup! Managed to get both sides. Then it struck me--duh!--that I should use the mirror in the bathroom to actually see what I was doing. Okay, yes! I could see that my fingers were actually just a fraction of an inch apart. And with the aid of my reflection (yes, I felt like a chimp the researchers would be excited about: "Look, she finally figured out how to use the mirror!") I touched my fingers together in gomukhasana. Then I went back to the livingroom to show The Cop, who was just waking up after a night shift, and who has to wonder, at least occasionally, how he's found himself married to a woman who can be so entertained by something you'd expect from a 5 year old. Our sports team won the title? I got a huge raise? We won the lottery? World peace has been declared? Oh no-- it's all about Look! I can touch my fingers together behind my back!

Okay, so much happiness on the shoulder-opening front. Until this morning, when I woke up feeling REALLY sore. I guess this is a glimpse of my future. The pain, though, is outweighed by the pleasure of finally getting some progress. I've always been pretty easygoing, pretty comfortable with ambiguity--just basically a flexible character. Except for this little core of tightness and control, of constriction. I wonder if that will start to come undone as the immobility of my shoulders unravels.

Last topic: good books. I'm off to the library this afternoon and could use some suggestions. Great fiction suggestion, anyone? Only thing I really don't care for is the American multi-generation family saga. Beyond that, I'm open.

Fighting spiders

No, it's not a new, more aggressive kind of arachnid. It's what I was just doing out in the backyard. It all started when I identified the little round balls all over the couch I'd just cleaned. Birdseed! Our perp is, of course, the dog. The thing is, even as she stands out in the yard and eats the seed, she never looks like she is particularly enjoying it. She just feels obligated to consume anything that is edible, apparently. So she ate all the seed I put out this morning, then came into the house and spread the crumbs that were stuck to her jowls.

Clearly, the Buddha birdfeeder had to be up higher off the ground. The Buddha has been on a low platform of...I'm actually not sure what they are. Paving thingies. Rough-edged bigger-than-a-brick, smaller-than-a-concrete-block things with one rounded side. The rounded side allows you to make curved walls when you stack the bricks. I fashioned the low platform when we first moved into this house, pilfering a few of the paving thingies from a structure the old owners had built under the master bedroom window. Apparently it was a kind of flowerbox--about three feet high by four feet wide, and full of dirt. The Cop has been dismantling the structure and removing the dirt in installments. I guess having something like that against the house can compromise the house structure. Whatever. I just wanted some of the blocks.

The Cop has gotten to the point where we now have a deconstructed flowerbox, which means a bunch of stacks of paving bricks under the tangerine tree, and a pile of dirt. The bricks would do quite nicely for an upgrade to the Buddha's platform. As soon as I started picking up a brick, though, my desert mind kicked in. First thing I think of, when I am dealing with corners and crevasses, are black widows. I've killed a few black widows over the years--and felt pretty bad doing it--but the thing you notice most is how incredibly aggressive they are. When something gets into the web, the black widow goes tearing straight at it. Second thing I thought of were scorpions. I think bricks might be too cool for them in the fall, but they do like small spaces. They, too, are aggressive.

Just as I was thinking this over and picking up a brick, something went scurrying away. Too fast to really identify, it could have been a small lizard or a spider. Not a black widow, though; a black widow would have come right at me. Maybe a brown recluse? Okay. I picked up another brick, shuttling it over to the platform. Then another brick, and another frantic rustling amid the remaining pile. I thought about all the things it could be. Another brick. And another. Once I got uncomfortable enough, I realized I was going to have to break down and get my gardening gloves.

Ah, but wait. Right on the patio were The Cop's gloves for the heavy bag. Actually, they're more like mittens. Either way, though, they were the perfect solution for the rest of my paving brick adventure. I put them on and was ready for battle.

It was very interesting to me, how when I realized there might be some danger to picking up the bricks barehanded, I felt compelled to push the envelope. I could have just gotten gloves. But I wanted to see how far I could push it before it really bothered me. I'm not sure how, but I feel like that little game also manifests in Ashtanga, that it's something I love about practice. I thought about rock climbing. I remember sticking my hands into the cracks of rocks and having things fly out--bats, birds, bugs. I heard stories of people grabbing snakes as they reached for holds. Of course, being up high and clinging to a wall helps put getting bitten by a surprised animal into perspective, but still. I never thought about the danger to my hands.

I think I love practice because you can court that little danger--that uncomfortable feeling (What if I fall on my head? What if I hurt myself?) and learn to move through it. There is always a lot of debate about injury in Ashtanga, with plenty of people willing to believe that if something is dangerous, we shouldn't do it--but where do you draw the line? I want some danger. I want to feel some adrenaline and have the opportunity to challenge myself to keep a clear mind. I think lots of people use personal or emotional drama to create those feelings. I don't want that. I want the (albeit small) physical frisson; I want to have some skin in the game. It makes more sense to me, philosophically, I guess: mind unchanging, body transient. Keeping a still mind and playing the edge with the body is all about how life is--how death is. The body is always out there in the wilderness, no matter how we try to pretend otherwise.

The Buddha is now up at a height that should discourage the dog. I imagine she could climb up, but I don't think she'll bother, not for birdseed. Already the doves are out there, checking things out. Maybe eating any spiders that were on the bricks I moved.

No practice today. I'm thinking that since I am in a self-practice kind of mode, I might keep a more classical Sunday through Friday schedule.

It's just another day

Home practice. And a very sweet one. Traveling really does stress me, and the exciting class has me all revved up--so much so that I couldn't sleep last night. I'm just kind over over-adrenalized in general. I was so psyched about the class that my boss asked for a presentation about it. Scheduled for noon today. LOL! That's what I get for sharing. The presentation request gives me an opportunity to review my notes, though, and gather my thoughts. Usually upon return from conferences or classes, I get swamped with the backlog of emails and phone messages and eventually the glow wears off, and somewhere down the line I write up a trip report and am sorry I didn't get to it when the memories were still fresh.

Anyhow, practice this morning felt nice and grounded. I took away some poses. I haven't done that for a while. Volleyball Guy is a laidback, surfer dude kind of teacher. I can muddle through, so he lets me. Always has. I have to take poses away from myself. What I'm noticing, now that I can make my way with equanimity through the Marichy D - Supta Kurmasana sequence that used to get my breath and focus kind of discombobulated, is that I start stressing around baddha konasana. So I'll stop there for a while. That way, I can get some energy focused around the pose, without having to worry about conserving energy for the last few poses.

The Cop just called. I always know something is up when he calls at the end of the shift: it means he wants to tell me something before I see it on the news. He and one of the other cops had a big drug bust, so he's running late. The funny thing was that when he called he said, "What are you doing?" "Practicing," I replied. "Oh, sorry to bother you." I think it is lovely that he's in the midst of a drug bust and yet is concerned about disturbing yoga practice.

I've come to the end of "The Zen Teaching of Huang Po." Throughout the whole book, I've wondered to myself, "How can I apply this to 'real life'? How can these things work at my job? How can I give up discursive thinking and judgement in a corporate environment?" Among the last few entries:

Realize that, though you eat the whole day through, no single grain has passed your lips; and that a day's journey has not taken you a single step forward--also abstain from such notions as 'self' and 'other.' DO NOT PERMIT THE EVENTS OF YOUR DAILY LIVES TO BIND YOU, BUT NEVER WITHDRAW YOURSELVES FROM THEM.

The last entry is:

The Master passed away on this mountain during the T'ai Chung Reign (A.D. 847-859) of the T'ang Dynasty. The Emperor Hsuan Tsung bestowed upon him the posthumous title of "The Zen Master Who Destroys All Limitations." The memorial pagoda is known as "The Tower of Spacious Karma."

Thanks, Huang Po. Nice work.

Ruined

Yup, yoga has ruined me for flying. I only had to go as far as Chicago (~3 hours), but the sitting still part was unbearable. I had this really intense ache in my left hip joint that I couldn't resolve. I'm sure the people sitting near me, both flying to and returning from Chicago, were ready to strangle me, I was so fidgety.

There was no room for a Marichy A, and that was just what I was dying to do. LOL! Airplanes really do seem to be designed to thwart asana. I've been okay on flights where it wasn't packed full--then you can find a little space to stretch. But these flights, unfortunately, were both overbooked.

Chicago was great. Cold! I think it was even cold for the natives. I realize I am a wimp, coming from the desert and all, but the general folk walking around on the street looked like they weren't having too much fun either.

Class was amazing. Very intense, very concentrated. We started at 8:30 AM and ran until 9 PM each day. I've read Julie's accounts of conferences in the coding world, and she's remarked on the male-to-female ratio. Interestingly, this class was around 50 people, and only 3 of us were women. Product design and development. Engineers, designers and a few marketing folks. Who knew the demographics would be so skewed? So the days were full of doors being opened for me and people asking me to go ahead of them at the buffet line at lunchtime. Dinners were sit-down affairs. I was talking to someone and then looked up. Everyone at the table had been served, but no one had picked up their fork. "Seriously?" I thought to myself, "Are they waiting for me?" Opportunity for experiment: yup, I picked up my fork and everyone began. Emily Post, apparently, is alive and well.

Lots of discussion of product development (duh! that's what the class was about) from many different perspectives. Discussion about Monsanto's transition from chemicals to seeds for farmers; Proctor and Gambles' development of "new molecules" for cleaning products; car manufacturers' attempts to have people equate their cars with their emotional selves. Uuuuuuuuuugh. I started to have a pretty severe case of capitalism nausea. When the discussion was about how the weedkiller RoundUp was developed to go into plant stems and kill weeds, even if just a bit of the chemical got on the leaves, and how the company then used their technicians to develop corn and soy seeds that could resist those chemicals, it was characterized as a stunning commerical success, ensuring, as it did, that the vast majority of crops would be grown with those altered seeds. I shook my head and said to the guy beside me, "Really--we, as a species, deserve to die." Sigh. A couple of things I learned in class: 1) focus groups are out of fashion, and for very good reason (biased data), and 2) it's probably not a good idea to eat anything or clean anything or breathe.

Yoga while traveling is interesting. I had my mat in its bag, and the hardest thing for me to do was to check it in. I had books to carry and read on the plane, so that was my carry-on item, so the mat had to fly in the hold. LOL! You have no idea how difficult it was for me to leave it with the TSA guy. He had about a hundred bags all lined up to go through the x-ray machine, and there I am, handing him my mat bag and tempted to say, "Please, look after this." Sure, lose my clothes and all that, but let my mat make it to Chicago!

Chicago is an hour ahead of Scottsdale, so if I got up at my usual 4:30, that'd be the equivalent of 3:30 Scottsdale time. Sigh. I compromised and set the alarm for 5. The carpet at the hotel was squooshy, but there was a marble foyer in the bathroom. Practicing in the foyer reminded me of practicing in the foyer of the old house, along with My Gift's and The Cop's shoes. Traveling practice is never spectacular for me, but it is soothing and familiar and sufficient. Oddly, though, I always kind of wonder if that soothing, familiar feeling doesn't indicate that my practice is a little OCD. When my nerves are jangly, it makes me feel better to practice. I know it's a healthy habit, in the grand scheme of things, but is ANY habit really healthy?