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Finish your breath, Part 2

My body is happy for the Moon Day, but my mind is really wanting to practice. I don't usually get this clear a split on the issue, so it's kind of amusing. I had a feeling this was going to happen, so I got up late, in order to thwart my rebellious nature ;-)

Saturday's post-led lunch was great fun. A very good turn out--twelve people, including Crim Girl, Sanskrit Scholar, Volleyball Guy, Renaissance Man, Returning Guy and New York Chick. Girl with a Red Mat brought her boyfriend. It's always fun to meet significant others. And The Human Puddle joined us. He doesn't do Mysore, but is a pretty consistent participant at led class. I like practicing next to him, and always remember the first time I did: during chanting at the end of practice, as we stood in tadasana, I kept catching sight of a motion in my peripheral vision. Turns out it was the constant drip of sweat onto the puddle on his mat. LOL! Seriously. I'm usually quite Howard Hughes about these things, but on that day I was just impressed.

***

Back to the ayurveda story. When we left off, I was at the ayurvedic practitioner's place, getting more and more restless because I needed to get back to the office.

Interestingly, the more revved up I got, the more slowly the ayurvedic practitioner seemed to move and speak. She gave me a leisurely lecture on sesame oil massage, actually miming the way the oil should be applied over my body (elliptical motions over the muscles, circular motions over joints). It started to feel vaguely hallucinatory, the way we were going so intensely out of sync, but I kept pulling myself back to the funky room.

As I was paying for my session, I asked for directions back to the main road. She explained the route to me. Then she map-quested and printed a map, which she highlighted as she reviewed the route. Then she used a pencil to do a line drawing of the route in the margin of the map quest page, and reviewed that. Then she added an R in a circle or an L in a circle on the line drawing to indicate right and left turns. "This is a remarkable amount of time to spend answering someone's question," I thought.

Ah, but it didn't end there: she had a book she wanted to show me, and she also wanted to give me a card for an ayurvedic practitioner in Phoenix who did medical treatments, in case I ever needed those kinds of services. She was very clear about the fact that she could give me an introduction to the principles of ayurveda, but if I needed medical intervention, I should see this other woman. But she couldn't find the card. Not where it usually was. But perhaps it was over here. Or here. Or perhaps it was in a drawer. Finally, she found the card.

Was this slow, thorough interaction the answer to the question that brought me here? Perhaps. I was aware that my mind was already heading back to the office, and I kept bringing it back to my current situation as well as I could. Still, it was a split consciousness. I couldn't seem to just be present in the ayurvedic practitioner's office any longer. I was too torn by what had to happen next (Get back to work!) At the same time, I was feeling envious of this environment where people could go as slowly as they liked--pausing to think and to share thoughts. Yes, this really is what I am trying to figure out lately--how to bring that to my own life.

Of course, the afternoon ended with me going back to work, but not until I picked up some food for lunch. And when I got back to my desk, a couple of coworkers happened by. I invited them in, and had a nice chat while I ate lunch, instead of diving right back into emails and voice messages.

The results of the experiment so far have been quite good: since my visit, I've slept more soundly than I've slept in years. I've been able to keep more centered at the office, though there is still work to be done on that count. I really feel like this is currently my most significant question: how can I bring, sustain, and promote centered consciousness in my workplace?

So far I only have a few ideas about how I can get this going: 1) keep centered via yoga practice and zazen, 2) laugh as much as possible at work.

Oh, I should mention how the ayurvedic session affected my Ashtanga practice. The first Mysore practice after the session was very grounded and strong. I was going along happily, when the thought came to me: Finish your breath. Sure enough, I suddenly recognized that I often don't finish my exhale. It felt quite revelatory--I saw that when I am stressed at all (even quite subtly stressed, like by a shift in my attention), I hold some of my out-breath. No idea why that is, but it felt really good to make a point of finishing each breath.

Maybe that's what the ayurvedic practitioner was modelling for me when she did her slower-and-slower wrap-up of our session?

I am, of course, amused. Here I am, decades into my life, and the biggest project I have going on is trying to remember to exhale all the way...

Finish your breath

Wednesday was my appointment with the ayurvedic practitioner. A couple of months ago, My Gift was looking into ayurvedic practitioners and I asked her to send me the link she had, which listed exactly one practitioner in my (sort of) area. So off I went on Wednesday afternoon, driving out to the east of Scottsdale, in search of this practitioner in the mountains. It's not as Castenada-ish as it sounds. The mountains have highways and are built up with nice houses. Nevertheless...

I got lost, as is usual, and pulled over up on some hill overlooking more mountains, and used my Blackberry to access the internet and get myself squared away. Sure enough, after a bit of a drive, I found a funky little building with a green door, which led into a little office crammed with bottles and jars and heavy with incense. This must be the place. I stood there in my business clothes and thought, "How have I come to be here? No one in my family nor 99.9% of the people I've known in my life would ever want to track down a place like this..." Truth be told, I was brought up to be an east coast skeptic. Ancient medicine? Eastern philosophy? Even run of the mill fashionable new age? Not.

The woman who greeted me...eventually (I was thinking, Gee, they leave the door unlocked, aren't they concerned about security?...) was not at all the kind of person I was expecting. I couldn't tell how old she was, but she had long, spiky platinum hair (imagine Tina Turner hair, but messier) and old, funky clothes. Kind of a combo of Scottsdale chic and mountain camping utilitarian. Okay, I'll go along with this.

Sure enough, this was my ayurvedic practitioner. We went into a smaller room, where she started off by telling me that she'd had a facelift three weeks ago and still wasn't feeling quite recovered, that her face was still numb in places and kind of tight across the cheekbones.

I've never talked to anyone who's had a facelift (or at least, I've never talked with someone who's told me they've had one and wanted to discuss it) and it was quite fascinating. For one thing, this woman was an attractive woman, or more accurately, she was the kind of woman about whom people would say, "She used to be a very attractive woman," quite admiringly. So now she was a woman who used to be an attractive woman (presuming you believe aging detracts from initial attractiveness) and was now restored, via facelift, to a different kind of attractiveness. A facelifted attractiveness. Which, as I sat and looked at her, is simply a different kind of attractiveness from the natural youthful attractiveness she was born with, and the aged attractiveness I'm sure she had before the facelift.

Apparently, though, the wrinkled attractiveness made her unhappy, so she went for the facelifted one. Where you can see the wrinkles, but they are pulled tighter--well, I guess they are simply flattened wrinkles. It's just a slightly different aesthetic. Looked at without judgement--and it was easy to do this, once I got past the intial shock of Hmmm, I've never interacted with someone quite like this, because she was just a lovely, open person--I suddenly saw her in all three stages, and she was equally attractive in all three stages, though each face was a little different. Inside it, though, they were all, very clearly, her.

Okay, so anyhow, she did eventually get to talking about me. Vata pitta. I'm not terribly surprised. I knew I wasn't slight enough, or ethereal enough, to be a true vata. On the other hand, I'm not muscular enough or angry enough ;-) to be a true pitta. We reviewed my eating habits, my sleeping habits, my energy levels throughout the day, etc. The biggest reason I made the appointment was because work has been sucking the life out of me, day by day, and I couldn't seem to get a handle on it. I just felt energetically burnt out, and like I couldn't rejuvenate myself at all. Even weekends didn't seem to help me get my energy back.

We went over my eating habits, which tended toward light eating during the day, lots of raw food (and lots of days when breakfast was forgotten about or lunch missed because of meetings), and then an evening meal with The Cop. Sleep cycles were also reviewed. I had to 'fess up to the fact that I try to get enough but almost never manage, due to waking at 4:30.

She sketched out a couple of diagrams of eating and sleeping cycles and pointed out where I ought to be. Food: warmer, oilier foods, biggest meal between 10AM and 2PM, very light evening meal. Sleep: well, try to get a little more, and perhaps I'd sleep better with an evening nightcap of warmed milk with cardamom and cinammon. And then she suggested a sesame oil massage each morning before showering. And a sesame oil foot rub at night. She also had a few things to say about breathing (Yeah, yeah, I always think, Breathe. Yeah, I know.) You'd think I'd actually have more of a clue about breathing in "real life," but we'll talk about that later in this story.

Okay. All of this sounded do-able, and actually quite lovely. Well, maybe except for the milk idea, because generally dairy makes me feel sick. At this point, though, it was after 2 in the afternoon and I was starting to get restless and spaced out. I'd eaten a carrot on the way to the appointment because I forgot about lunch, and I had to rush back to work for a meeting. Ah yes, immersed in the glow of my ayurvedic consultation, and now I'm all revved about dashing back to the office.

This whole experience was starting to feel like a wake-up call. Fine. I decided to go get some lunch to bring back to the office, even though it meant I would be returning to the office even later than I expected, and that I'd be eating a late lunch despite the fact that I was slated for a work-related dinner in the evening. I didn't care. My time with the ayurvedic practitioner was very bizarre in some ways (perhaps one day I'll tell the story of her co-worker, who took a minute to tell me about a technology he has for healing people at a distance through his computer) but also...well...a wake up call. Something brought me out here to the ayurveda lady, so it seemed like a good idea to try out some of her suggestions.

***

Time to get ready for led class. Sanskrit Scholar suggested a post-practice lunch today and we've been inviting Mysorians, so that ought to be fun. There is even a possibility that Crim Girl and The British Director, both of whom have been absent lately due to life events, will join us. I'll go on with my adventures in ayurveda in a later installment.

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!