More on the Organ Body...

(p.s. doesn't this look like a tree? and a dancing gumby? sigh...)


I told you I'd be back for more...

I have to first give a little shout-out of gratitude to the amazing Tara Judelle, my teacher, who has been leading me and several others deep into this study of the organ body. Other than being a pretty glorious teacher, she has a mind and a focus that is so rigorous it makes me feel a little shy, just to be in the room with her. She's like a pioneer in the back-country of yoga right now and I am just happy to be hitched to her wagon (is that a mixed-metaphor? Did pioneers drive wagons through the back country? I really don't know...).

And as an apt preface I will say that my knowledge of the geography of my inner body is much like my knowledge of geography in general and that is...very, very poor.

I can best Sarah Palin, I'm sure, but the intricacies of my knowledge of the earth's arrangement stop at the very basics. I know the continents, the oceans, the general location of the countries within, but if anyone starts getting too specific I just kind of have to shut up. So as not to embarrass myself.

Same goes for American history, actually.

And my sense of direction....

But, that's all another story. I only preface my talk of the organ body this way to excuse any "revelations" I might have that are or may seem totally dully obvious to my more educated readers. Many of the people I am going on this little organ journey with are much more sensitively attuned than I am. Tara can actually FEEL and communicate with organs as mysterious as her gall bladder. I am just happy to have actually learned WHERE my kidneys are and to finally, finally, finally, after god knows how many acting classes and 16 straight weeks of Linklater training last year to finally FINALLY understand how my diaphragm works! I kid you not, that sucker has always been a total aggravation to me. Wait, what, it's like a parachute? Beneath my lungs there is a parachute that goes up and down in the wrong direction? You may as well have told me that the parachute is operated by a circle of little school children, waving it up and down...the image would have made as much sense.

So, while I am not yet able to communicate with (or even locate) my gallbladder, I am thorougly and happily amazed with what I HAVE been able to locate. My kidneys! My heart! My lungs and the little aveoli inside them, which, when counted as total surface area of the lung would make it equal to the size of a tennis court!! WHHHHAAAAAAAA?! And my brain! (Yes, the brain is an organ), and...my stomach! And my liver (kind of). In all honestly, sometimes I am just glad to be able to feel anything in there other than just a sort of general lump of space.

True confession: I think prior to this class I most often visualized the space my organs inhabit as just that...space. Seriously. Empty space. I mean, I knew I had a heart and lungs and all that, but...I don't know, I just never really thought about it.

I don't say all this so that I can ramp up into some kind of weird gross anatomy lesson, or even just to talk about the anatomy of the body as it relates to yoga and movement, but to instead talk about the way in which the idea of being "in your body" can deepen. So that, instead of walking around feeling like I am skin and bones encompassing an empty cavity where my soul resides (this is embarrassing, isn't it?) I can INSTEAD begin to think of myself as this entire collection of organs and muscles and bones that EACH and every one house my larger self...so that I'm not just a container to be filled and emptied but an entire universe of pieces ALL filled.

I won't even talk about how the organs hold memories and feelings, or how I have begun to notice where my body bears down in times of stress to cut off the flow of energy from one organ to the other, or how the organs all reach all throughout the body with veins and arteries, how the heart has arteries that end in your feet and in your hands and your head which means the heart is not just located in your chest but in your ENTIRE BODY, how the organs, like the poses, have not just practical use but also a symbolic use as well...how we might be controlled or cut off from one organ or another which is also the perfect representation of what we are cut off from in our lives...

It goes and goes people!

We have, right inside of us, RIGHT NOW, this incredible factory--a landscape of organs--and it is moving and pulsing and communicating, and sometimes, when I'm deep in there, trying to send a morse-code message to my liver or one of my two funny kidneys I realize that when I am living there, when I am breathing into all these spaces and listening for the echo-call of delight in return, there is no room for any of the things which keep me seperated from myself to begin with.

Russell Brand, Unlikely Spiritualist...

Okay, I'm not one to throw podcast links willy-nilly on to my blog, but this interview with Russell Brand had me just tremblin' in me little socks, it did!

I think he says some pretty incredible (and hilarious) stuff in this interview, so listen if you have a spare 28 minutes...

Organ Body Bright

For the last few weeks, in one of my quickly-becoming-a-favorite classes at Still, we have been guided (by the complex-thinker/former-filmmaker/kick-ass-yoga-teacher Tara Judelle) through the Organ Body.

I have been both longing to write this post and avoiding this post with all my might, since said beginning of said journey through the organs.

Let me preface this by saying 1) this is probably just one of many posts on this subject and 2) i am reluctant to write because before beginning this little dive into inner-space I knew exactly jack-squat about the shape, placement and purpose of my organs (save the stuff everyone knows, like my heart beats and my lungs inflate and my diaphragm does...something) and now at the close of week 3 of study I know approximately jack about the organs. Which, I have decided, is the next step up from jack-squat. Progress!

However, I am convinced that my jack-knowing self may possibly be a welcome tour-guide for those of you out there who also feel a bit--unacquainted with the insides of their torso.

The premise of the classes, for those who are still stuck on what the hell the Organ Body has been that (and hopefully my teacher will forgive me for possibly butchering her sentiments)--it is possible to:

1) become intimately acquainted with the organs, and

2) to then be able to MOVE--to generate movement--from the organs.

I know, right!?

At the close of the first class I was convinced that the only organ I was becoming more intimately acquainted with was my frustration organ (located, I believe, right between the ears?)...as my apparently woeful elementary and high-school anatomy education reared it's ugly head.

What the heck is a Zyphoid Process?!

Who actually KNOWS where their kidneys are? (Not to mention spleen, liver, pancreas, gall-bladder, etc.)

People, I kid you not, I did not even know that the heart actually sits between the lungs (like a cookie buried in a couple couch cushions)...I'm not sure where I thought it was.... I think I had just never thought about it at all.

And this was the thing that began to slowly Bloooooooow My Miiiiiiiind. I had Never. Thought. About it.

Any of you who have taken a yoga class or a meditation class or read an Eckhart Tolle book know that there is such a thing as an "inner body". This is something that is referenced all the time in yoga philosophy (perhaps with different names), but it is also a bit of a pop-new-age-spiritual-culture phenomenon. Your "gut", your "inner voice", your "heart center", your "spirit"...whatever it is that is contained WITHIN the magical spaces between your skin....this is your inner body.

I have done a lot of thinking about this space. I have meditated on this space. I have attempted to "check in" with this space in times of trouble. Over the course of my practice, I would say I have begun to consider myself a person with a pretty strong connection to that inner space...and certainly to my own heart. My god, it's actually one of the things which DEFINES how I think about myself, I am "big hearted", I am "heart driven", I "wear my heart on my sleeve", and yet always (always always always) in these conceptualizations about my Inner Self, I have never (never never never) stopped to ask myself what the actual physical construction of that space might be.

I guess I have always just pictured it as some bright amorphous blob.

("I shall be guided, not by my mind, but by my bright amorphous blob." That seems trustworthy...)

And so, to be asked to put a name and a face to this space...to be asked to feel these various parts, either from the outside with my hands or ribs, or from the inside with my sensory perception, really made my head spin.

Because what began as an amorphous blob...my Zyphoid what?...quickly began to fill in. My lungs--they're enormous! My liver...it feels different than my stomach or my kidneys...my kidneys! Crazy moveable kidneys...who knew!

And on, and on....

This is, I think, the sort of "teaser" blog post for this chapter of study, because something vital (no pun intended) will be left out if I try to cover all that I've learned in the past few weeks in this one post. But there is an image I am going to leave you with:

It was last week that we began really talking about the heart. Now, beginning to feel and think about my heart as an actual organ instead of just generally the space of my chest was powerful--what a vulnerable machine--all pink-fleshed and pulsating right there in my chest cavity. Yikes! That's about as far as I can go before I get the heebie-jeebies..... But, what was possibly more profound and definitely more beautiful, is the idea that the heart is tucked between the two lungs, because...

If the heart is tucked between the two lungs, it means it has an intimate relationship to my breath...

If the heart is tucked between the two lungs it means it is quite literally protected and housed by my breath...

If the heart is tucked between the two lungs, I could imagine how slow rythmic breathing could soothe and caress the heart, while sharp erratic breathing could be an instant sign to the heart to speed up and be aware. Not because the breath (as I may have imagined before) travels down some tube whcih then alerts the other systems to speed up or slow down (like a snorkel?!), but because the heart and lungs are literally feeling each other. Communicating with each other...

Sigh! Ain't that beautiful?



xo
YogaLia

My First Yoga Mag!

(Well, okay, it's the Kripalu catalog...but still!!)

A fire is a ragin'...

For the last two days I have regretted the fact that every shirt I own is scoop or v-necked, because I have had no reasonable way to cover the terrific heat rash that has appeared all over my chest.

If my Ayurvedic doctor read this, he would be very disappointed. ("My" being a bit of a stretch, as I've only been to see him once, and haven't really done a very good job of following his edicts...hence the disappointment). He told me! He told me that Los Angeles was aggravatting my Pitta self ("You have to remember, you're living in a desert..") and that I needed to do my best to cool down all that excess heat. He told me. He told me it wouldn't require all that much...cut back on the spicy foods, cut out the ice-cold drinks (this seems like a contradiction, but apparently ice-cold stuff heats a body up), cut out the coffee, do some coconut oil massage, take it a little easy in yoga class (not too much of the crazy stuff)...meditate, meditate, meditate. Basically...chill the f*&! out.

Yes, sir, doctor, sir!

Cut to: yours truly starting every morning with an iced latte and a cliff bar, rounding out the day with a bowl of piping hot spicy tom kah soup, kicking my own ass in yoga class, sticking the coconut oil in the way back of the bathroom shelf and, oh yeah, did I mention cutting WAY down on my daily water intake?

Um, wait. What?

So, yes, two days ago my chest exploded in a heat rash. And even though at the moment the heat rash appeared I was also dealing with a leaking bedroom, a broken kitchen sink, failing brakes, an absentee sublettor and an ant infestation, somehow the idea that my skin is no longer as perfect as it once was is what dissolved me into a wet sobbing mess.

What do they call that, again? Oh right...vanity.

I think what really sent me over the edge was asking myself "what is the lesson in all of this?" every time each new minor crises appeared. I don't think there is anything more aggravatting than feeling completely screwed by ones day and then asking oneself in a fake-y detached voice what the lesson is in all of this? The only readily available lesson at that moment is that if that voice doesn't stop asking what the lesson is there is going to be some serious trouble.

What's the lesson?! This apartment sucks and I should no longer go out in public! That's the lesson, you a-hole!

Ahem.

Now that I've had a few days, I have a slightly (note it, "slightly") larger view on the whole situation. Or at least, these are the things that strike me:

That all of my immediate problems seem to be due to an excess of heat, and that the advice I have been given has been to try and "chill", and that learning how to chill is the lesson I perhaps need to learn more than any other. That I have moved to this desert city to enact some large push towards an even larger goal and that the seat of the will (necessary for accomplishing said goal) is also the seat of fire in the body. And lastly, that the parts of my body affected by my heat-related skin eruptions are my forehead and my chest, which are also the places of the intuition and of the heart...whether that means I am paying too much attention or not enough attention to those places is anyone's guess.

All I can say for sure is that there is fire in me and it is trying to get out, and it may be time to actually commit to dousing some of those flames. And I will try to begin by being grateful to my body for attempting this vivid, complicated, mysterious communication with me. A speaker I really love often says, "if you ignore it, don't worry, it will get bigger!"

I am happy that there is fire in me...I want fire. I just don't want it to burn the entire house down. I'm going to go apologize to my Ayurvedic doctor now, and have a glass of water...no ice.

Victory!!!

Well, Shanti-Town, it's been a wild couple of weeks; I have been to the desert, I have turned one apartment into a another apartment, I have belted out some Carrie Underwood in front of a room full of strangers, I have celebrated A LOT and today I turned a corner...

Today marks the first day of the last year of my twenties. That's right, folks, today this little yogaholic turns 29. A birthday surprising in its momentousness. 29? Who knew THAT would be a big birthday? 30 is what it's all about. 30 is the birthday deserving of some total skin-shedding. Right? Am I right? Well...I may BE right, but 29 sure snuck up on me.

This morning, while getting in a quick cuddle with my love before heading off to (ugh) work, I was quietly overcome with a chest-gripping nostalgia: My god, time is just moving. It is a train that I have boarded and can not get off of (wouldn't, even if I could), but man is it just my imagination, or is it SPEEDING UP? My twenties have been such a mass of confusing emotions and big changes that for a long time I've felt...well, let's just say more than ready to say goodbye to them. But this morning my twenties did not seem to me like an aggravating ball of crazy, no, this morning I could feel all the sweetness, all the energy, all the veil-dropping-ness of what it is to be a twenty-something. I could have cried.

I could go on, trust me, all about growing up and revelation and this illusive thing called "womanhood", but I'll digress...because this post (please reference above title) is about victory. It is about a little tiny (giant) personal victory.

Drum-roll please!

Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, while sequestered in the tiny gym on the 7th floor of the lawfirm where I work weekends, I DID MY FIRST UNASSISTED DROPBACK!!!

(For those of you who don't know what one is, THIS is a dropback.)

Now, I've been doing assisted dropbacks for quite a while now, and I know--have known for some time--that I have all the flexibility and strength and know-how I need in order to be able to do one on my one, but, until today, I never have. I have wanted to, oh, how I have wanted to! I salivate over dropbacks. I have given myself many a neck crink just watching other people do them in class...they are...DELICIOUS. But, I have always waited for the teacher to come over, or some good old fashioned wall-time in order to get them done. And why? Because dropbacks are S-C-A-R-Y. Scary.

In Anusara they say that the back of the body represents the unknown (and of course for most of us the back of the body literally IS unknown, unless you happen to have a 360 degree mirror in your home, or have ever been on that Tim Gunn show where he makes a 3D computer mock-up of your body) and so for most of us dropping backwards in space is pretty f-ing freaky. (This is also what makes inversions pretty difficult for many of us...upside down AND backwards! Yikes!)

But, people, I have had a nearly daily practice for over 3 years now,and knowing myself and my own body there is no reason for me not to be able to dropback. Except for fear.

Fear, fear, fear, fear, fear, fear, feeeeear. (My arch nemesis).

So, this evening, as I was winding up my practice with some backbends, I suddenly decided that NOW was the time. I decided that, damnit, it is my 29th birthday, I have been stuck at work all day...I am going to overcome this one tiny pesky little fear. I figured, if I can start here, on this first day of my 29th year...if I can just conquer one small fear...well, the sky's the limit.

I stood up, heart pounding.

I started sort of sticking my toe in the water, bending back, bending back, bending back...whoop! Right back up to standing again. No go.

Heart pounding more, now.

Little voice says, "oh, come on, you don't need to do this today!"

Other little voice joins in, "yeah, who's gonna know? You'll do it later. You'll do it next time you're in class...when there's a teacher."

New little voice, "you could do it at home...maybe you can have Paul come stand near you when you do it, just to spot you."

First little voice again, "yeah, you should really have someone else there. Just so you don't hurt yourself. What if you hurt yourself!? What then? You're all alone in this little gym..."

And then, BIG voice chimes in, "No! Hush. I'm doing it."

I'm doing it, goddamnit. Heart still pounding. I breathe. I settle in to my feet. I set myself up--thighs back, tailbone down, ground through my legs. I lift up and start opening up to the sky and then behind me. I breathe. And then...like magic...like I've been doing it my whole life, I dropback into a perfect, silent, backbend.

I immediately get up and do it again, giddy, so that I know it wasn't a fluke and then, when I am finally on my back and on the floor, I pump my two fists in the air and let out a little whoop.

I did it!

And when I stand up I am shaking from the exhiliration and the adrenaline and for the second time today I well up with emotion. I did it. I did it. No one there to see it. No safety net. I did it.

I am twenty-freakin'-nine years old and I can do anything! Well...I can at least do one thing today that I was scared to do yesterday, and that is a huge birthday victory.

All my love,
YogaLia

Ode to my Bro...

I have been meaning to do this for quite awhile, but better late than never...

(ahem)

Dear Shanti-Town Readers, I humbly present to you....(drumroll pleeeease)...

MY BROTHER'S BLOG (and website)!!!

For those of you who know me in real-life (not just cyber-life), you know how deeply I admire and respect and L-O-V-E (love) my big brother (and you know why he deserves a place of honor in Shanti-Town), for those of you who don't know me, you may be wondering what a bunch of plain ole' family pride is doing on a yoga blog? Well, I'll tell you. In addition to being just an all-around excellent person and stellar older sibling, my brother is also a FITNESS GOD.

I am not exaggerating. Following is proof of his other-worldy fitness skills:

1. When he was 9 and I was 5, we both started taking "karate class", for fun. My mom bought us matching white gi (the kind you could buy in plastic packages in the store, made of cotton, with iron-on dragons and stuff all over them) and in them we took ourselves proudly to class at the local Civic Center. I lasted about 8 months. My brother has never stopped.

2. When my brother was just a tyke he was tall and skinny-skinny and he wasn't so crazy about the skinny-skinny part so he started adding weights and various sports of force to his karate training. Now my brother looks like this:


3. When my brother was a teenager and running and lifting and karate-ing his brains out (and I was getting chubby and writing poetry) I once tabulated how many calories he was eating in a day (for breakfast he ate a mixing bowl full of cereal, so I figured it had to be a lot, and it was)....8,000 calories a day, people. 8,000 calories a day and not an inch of fat on him. (This is because he was already a FITNESS GOD-in-training).

4. At the tender age of 32, twenty-three years after he took his first karate class, my brother now holds the following distinctions:

He is a 3rd degree black-belt in Ishinryu Karate. (That's...well, that's really high up)

He holds a black-belt in Choy-lay-fut Kung Fu.

He holds a black belt in Arnis.

(Are you counting? That's three black-belts in three different styles of martial art.)

He runs an amazing karate/kung-fu academy in Washington State, which he has single-handedly made into a beautiful, dedicated, serious place of study for people of all ages.

He also heads up a thriving personal training/fitness business, AND...

He is developing HIS OWN STYLE of martial art.

I'm proud. Can you tell how proud I am?

My brother is one of the most focused, dedicated, passionate people I have ever been blessed to know. He has a rigor of mind and spirit that I am in awe of, and EVERYTHING I know about discipline, I have learned from watching him. He loves what he does. He loves martial arts and the improvement/movement of the body in a way that is so deep it makes me question my own dedication to everything in my life. And, to top it all off, watching my brother perform (no exaggeration) is like watching silk dance through water. Martial arts is his gift. His dharma.

Okay, enough, enough. I know. What can I say? I'm his little sister...I idolize the guy. But there is no need to simply take my word for it:

Check out the Academy HERE.

Check out the Personal Training HERE.

Check out the new martial arts style he's creating HERE.

Read his words, check out his photo galleries, and if you're ever in the Gig Harbor area, go and take a class from him. You will not regret it.

xo,
YogaLia

Blow it Out, People!

I'm thinking of the expressiveness of the body. I'm listening to a lot of passionate ballads (thank you, Beyonce) and thinking of nothing but explosive dance routines. And I'm no dancer. I'm thinking about how Seane Corn talks of the body as a vehicle for prayer. I'm thinking about watching an inspired performance and how the body really does seem to be a conduit for grace. I'm thinking that it is possible for the body to light up with the practice...I'm thinking that the body might just be the bridge between the mind, which desires divinity, and Divinity itself.

So, now I'm going to really piss off all my teachers who have spent so much time teaching me alignment and encourage everyone reading this to attempt the following: next time you are practicing, at home or in class, forget about everything except the potential for your body to be the carrier of inspiration. For just this one practice, worry less about if you're doing it right and more about what is moving through you. You are a channel for everything larger than yourself! Creativity, imagination, passion, grace, generosity, exuberance, f-ing ecstasy...it might just be in the air around you, and I dare you to consider how you can use your practice to actually open to the presence of these things.

Forget all the rest. Put your hands down, put your feet down and breathe like the breath might just be liquid gold coursing through you.

Close your eyes and have the most beautiful practice you have ever had in your life. I don't care if you look like a show-off, like a hippy-dippy, like a bad impersonation of a modern dancer, like one possessed. Maybe you don't look like anything at all. Just practice like you would dance alone in your room to your favorite song. Imagine being absolutely bowled over by bliss, and imagine that your body is the only path for that bliss to travel from the ether to your ever-loving mind and heart.

It doesn't matter if you're in a class with a hundred people or if you're at home in your tiny apartment, dressed in tattered sweats, listening to a well-worn yoga dvd (and you feel like you can't do half the poses)...it doesn't matter. Turn it off if you want. Just get in there with your body and turn off the editor. You have so much genius in you.

I want to hear stories of instant enlightenment people!! Or at least of one really really really delicious practice...

Love, love, love,

YogaLia

Listen to this!!

This is why I love Seane Corn.

Seriously, you will not regret it. I've listened to this interview 3 times, and I can not get enough of it. You have two options on the page, the edited (1 hour) and the unedited (1.5 hour) interview. I really dig Krista Tippett, the host, and for anyone who is artistically and/or spiritually minded, the archives of this show are a totally invaluable resource.

New Teachers, New Loves...

I've realized that I have not spoken too much about the teachers I have been taking from in LA...my New York favorites have odes written to them by me in this blog, but I have remained a bit tight-lipped about the Los Angeles lovelies.

Part of this, I have to admit, is a slow to retreat loyalty to my dear sweet Laughing Lotus. Oh my, I miss that studio. It was my home as a developing yogi in New York and there have been many times since coming to LA in which I have fantasized (I kid you not) about running back to New York just to be able to practice there again.

Don't get me wrong, the yoga in LA is great, and I was lucky enough to encounter Steven Espinosa (the great, the inimitable) as my very first Los Angeles yoga teacher and he promptly Blew. My. Mind. So, my seperation anxiety was kind of quelled from day one. But I miss the Lotus all the same. I miss Bryn and Stacey and Edward (now an Angelino himself, but not teaching currently), and Mary Dana and Alison and Sheri and all of them all of them. I miss getting off the crowded streets, riding the clunkly old elevator up to the studio and taking off my shoes for the first time all day. I miss hearing the traffic sounds waft up through open windows during the summer months at the studio. I miss the music and the radiator clunking in winter and oh god, I can barely continue...

You don't know until you leave a place, how deeply it's buried itself in you.

I have these sad little day dreams about Laughing Lotus, made all the sadder because I don't know if I am missed. Students come and go...that's the way of things, and by now I'm sure I am a bit of a memory there, and I can't help but admit that I have some deep heart pangs about that.

But look at me! This post is supposed to be about NEW teachers, and here I am waxing poetic about the radiator sounds, for gosh sakes.

Ahem. So. New teachers. Yes. Steven? I mentioned Steven? Yes...Steven Espinosa, god of yoga. Steven is my connector in the world of LA yoga and I owe my finding a home at Still Yoga in Silverlake entirely to him. He introduced me to Anusara and then graciously helped me to find a place for myself as a work-study student at Still, where I now spend many hours a week, sweating it out.

Side Note: I never thought I could really enjoy a yoga class without amazing music, but it turns out...I can! And I do, many times a week. I think the LA yogis think music is a bit blasephmous (I don't. And sometimes I make little fantasy mixes up in my head..."this is what I would play, if I were teaching...").

Anyhooooo, where was I? Ah, yes. The teaches.

Well, I'm not going to go through them one by one (not yet anyhow), but I will say that there are some AMAZING teachers in this fair city.

Like this one,

And this one

And this one

And also this one. This one has a blog, like me, and it is beautiful, and so is she. I'm going to be keeping an eye on her internet goings-on, whilst continuing to be inspired by her on a weekly basis in class...

These are not the ONLY wonderful teachers, of course, but they are the ones who are becoming my family of teachers here in LA, and I feel so blessed to have them. There has been so much that has been chaotic and unknown about the experience of coming here, and being able to return again and again to the studios at Still has been a hinge-pin for me in this city. No one can replace my first teachers (Jasmine! I love you!), and probably no studio can replace my home studio, but going to Still reminds me that moving forward can provide a respite all its own.

Thank you, to all of my teachers, East and West...

I'm going to go cry a little bit for the big apple now...

xo

YogaLia

Yoga Month!!

Waking Up

So, do you ever do this...you wake up in the morning and for whatever reason you decide to be good to yourself, first thing, and give your body a little stretch? You feel blood start to move around, oxygen start to move around and after just a few minutes, by god, you feel good! You think to yourself--why don't I do this more often? You think to yourself--why is THIS always what I resist when I need it the most? And maybe the opening of that window only lasts a few minutes, the one that blows in the air which whispers Everything Is Going To Be Just Fine--maybe it slams closed after you've only just felt your hot cheeks begin to cool down--but that one little gulp of air is enough. And you think, there IS something to this after all, because no matter how determined I might be to feel bad, somehow there is peace contained within my body? Do you ever do this?

This is what I want to talk about today.

The presence of the body.

Because--and I know you've heard this before--that is exactly what the body is--present. In fact, for some of us, in some moments...days...weeks of our lives, the body is the ONLY thing that is present. And it is, always, endlessly present. Your body is moving through the world in present time. It is feeling the machinations of your mind and your heart, in present time. It is taking in so much information--so much information that if something unexpected were to happen right now, your body would know it well before your mind. Why else would you turn to the doorway with a gasp before your eyes really had a chance to see who was there? Your body is processing all of your feelings, known and unknown, it is taking in the temperature of the air and the sound of the birds across the street. And when I am not present, when I am not WITH myself, my body (I've noticed) is also taking on the stress and strain of operating what is essentially a ship with no captain. Or at least, a ship with a captain who has fallen asleep.

And the tension in my neck, is a call to wake up.

And the tightness of my breath is a call to wake up.

And that funny feeling that I am not quite standing on the ground, is a call to wake up.

One of my teachers said the other day that she is now at a point in her practice where in every pose she is looking for the parts of her body which she can not feel, and from that she knows all the places in which she is still asleep.

And so, yes, yoga feels good because it is creating space, because it is making room for the breath, because it is working all the muscle groups, blah blah blah. But really what yoga is doing is reacquainting us with our bodies. And this is profound not just because we feel more connected to ourselves when we are in our body, but because our bodies might literally be the doorway to presence. I think we remember, even in just five minutes of moving around, what it is to be alive.

And awake.

Possible Impossibility

I wish that Blogger had a drawing feature so that I could make a little stick figure of the crazy thing I was attempting to do in class today. Many crazy things, actually. Things so out of my reach all I could do was prop myself up and gaze at the ladies on the other side of the room who seemed to float from one complicated position to the next. It's not all the time that I feel schlubby and inept in a yoga class, but today, I felt it. Big time.

Impossible Pose #1: Double bakasana. Okay, bakasana, for those who don't know, is Crow Pose. Basically your hands are on the floor and your knees are balanced on your bent arms, like this:

Not so bad, right? An intermediate pose, probably? Well, and I don't even know where this comes from exactly, but imagine spinning that little stick figure guy over so he's on his back, in bridge, his head and shoulders on the ground, his pelvis and butt up in the air, his elbows bearing his weight on the ground and his two feet in each of his two hands, so that basically he is balancing on his shoulders and elbows, with his knees bent bent bent and his feet pressing up against his bum and resting in his hands. This is double bakasana.

Can you even picture this?!

I could get one foot in my hand but couldn't even BEGIN to lift my other foot off the ground.

Impossible Pose #2: 4 minute handstand. That's all I have to say about that. You think 4 minutes doesn't sound like a very long time? Try it, mo fo! Seriously. It's not pretty.

Impossible Pose #3: I don't even know what to call this...the teacher called it "headstand droppings" or something like that, but I will try to describe it to you. The first thing we did was Urdhva Dhanurasana with headstand arms, which looks like this:

Which, I can do pretty well, because I have a really flexible back (though it's a bit rough on me shoulders)...but folks, this was just the WARM UP pose.

Next thing was, we were to get into headstand, sirasana A...which looks like this:

And then, from headstand, to DROP BACKWARDS into the above urdhva dhanurasana. Which I managed to do, but made the teacher come stand by me first (because I'm five years old, apparently), AND THEN (nope, not finished yet), from the urdhva with headstand arms we were supposed to "pump and jump", meaning pump with our heart and jump with our legs, back into headstand.

Now, this--ugh--my attempt at this was totally laughable. The teacher tried to spot me and she put her hands on my hips, asked me to pump forward with my heart, and began counting, "1...2..." and I knew when she got to 3 I was supposed to attempt to jump back up into headstand, but my legs pretended that english was not their first language. "Oh, you have to jump harder than that!" she said, and not one to turn down a challenge (even though I could barely tell what was up and what was down and was a little bit afraid I might break my neck in the process) I tried it again, flailing my legs up into the air, and somehow...landed back in headstand. "That's great," she said, "you popped in like 9 places."

Yeah, great.

I sat up to recover and looked across the room to watch a super incredible floaty boneless yogi, as she moved like a bird might move through the sky, from headstand to urdhva to headstand to headstand variations, to urdhva, back and forth back and forth, hopping with the ease of a little girl hopping over a puddle...and then turned to watch another woman, across from her, whose back seemed to bend in 600 different places as she did the same, back and forth, back and forth...

One girl caught me looking at her, with my mouth agape, and all I wanted to do was shout across the room to her, "how did your practice GET like that?!" I mean, my god. A practice so beautiful it makes me kind of choked up just thinking about it...

Sigh.

Of course my small mind (mini me) is sort of sniping in the background, like some petulant teenager leaning against a brick wall, cigarette hanging from her lips..."I bet she's a dancer. She's probably been doing it forever, it's probably all she does. How are her arm balances, I wonder? Has she seen my biceps...they rock."

And there were other things...hanuman (the bane of my existence!), twisted half-moon, pigeon pigeon pigeon...and by the end of class I thought, my god, this has been a class entirely composed of all the stuff I'm not very good at (except pigeon, I rock me the pigeon). And as much as I hate that...all the struggling and the feeling that my belly is just endlessly in my way...I was also really pleased with it. I have SO far to go, I thought. And it was a relief...the thought that it was all never-ending, was a total relief.

Which got me thinking about other things. It got me thinking about my work as an actress, and how hard it can be for me when I am not able, or not as good as, or totally in the dark about what some super-technical thing is supposed to look like--how I lambast myself, tell myself in a whole myriad of ways that I am hopeless and that my inability is just proof of that hopelessness. I started thinking about what a different feeling that is from this feeling in my yoga practice of an endless unfolding...about how I rarely beat myself up for not being farther along than I am, and how I am EXCITED to move toward the next thing and the next. I could use that, as an actress.

And I thought about my life, my quest for development of some kind or another, and how often I can do the same--how I can hone in on all the ways in which I am failing and write myself off as some kind of lost cause, forgetting that this same principle holds true: I will never get it done. Even when I get to the point where I am balancing only on my head in headstand, there is still going to be someone who can balance on her head AND have her legs in lotus. (For example).

I love you, dear readers, and I wanted to remind you of this...that it will never end. It will only grow and grow and grow. You will put water in the bucket and the bucket will grow. You get me? So go out there and just do, even if you think you suck, because you will get to where you want to go, I promise (and as soon as you get there...you'll have a new destination in mind.)

All my love,

YogaLia

M.E.L.T.D.O.W.N.

Okay, it's not as dramatic as all that...

But let me just say that after three weeks of hunting for cars, two weeks of family visits (I love you, my dear family, all of you, and it's amazing and rejuvenating to be with you, but all that rejuvenation can also be a little...exhausting, if you know what I mean), one week of meeting (or trying to meet) with headshot photographers, going on four weeks of many of my nearest and dearest being out of town, not to mention working all weekend, every weekend, not to mention trying to finish editing a short project and trying to set up meetings for the creation of another project, not to mention having newly signed with an agent and trying to...well...be ready for that, not to mention my forehead breaking out into nearly-invisible yet still aggravating totally never before experienced acne, not to mention my healing shoulder and the pure scheduling nightmare it has become to try and get to yoga when sharing one car AND trying to get to meetings AND driving all over kingdom-com to look at cars, AND having the brakes go out (sort of) on Ernie (our beloved Saab) so having to drive back and forth to our mechanic in Culver City, not to mention trying to find time to see people, buy groceries, do laundry, solve the ant problem in our apartment, write, meditate, send emails, remember people's birthdays and all the other day-to-day life stuff that happens and happens and happens...after ALL that...yesterday, I had a bit of a meltdown.

I won't go in to it, except to say it definitely involved my sobbing like a little girl, a lot of unnecessary yelling, and a post-meltdown-hangover which lasted well into the afternoon.

And this morning we replaced the battery in our car and a little light went off for me (not in the car, mind you, in my head)...

First of all, I am really blessed to have a man in my life whom I consider wise beyond belief, and who is capable of reminding me (even in the midst of his OWN aggravation) that the trick is not (as I often think it is) to eliminate stress from one's life...the trick is actually to integrate stress.

Integrate stress? What the hell does that mean?

Well, for me it means not feeling like I have done something wrong and am being punished by the universe in the form of rescheduled meetings, faulty power windows, ants in the kitchen sink and any number of other things, but instead to look at those things as challenges, and therefore opportunities to expand.

Not, I'm never going to be able to get any creative work done because I have to look for a car, BUT...

How can I get creative work done AND look for a car, OR...

How can I use the looking for a car as fuel for my creative work, OR...

(the possibilities are endless.)

So, my challenge to myself these days is, how do I allow for all the various odds and ends: the family, the "stuff" maintenance, the love-life, the health-care, the fun, the job-job AND the creative work...how do I allow that it's a lot, that sometimes it feels like too much, that there's more sometimes of the stuff I don't want to be doing and less of the stuff I do want to be doing...how do I allow for all of that without throwing up my hands (or my keys. heh, heh), falling onto the floor and sobbing all over myself?

Do I have to drain my battery totally until one morning I go to start up and nothing happens? Or can I conserve my energy so that the charge I have still propels me forward?

And if not, can I just calmly call AAA and get a jump-start, drive my unshowered butt down to the AutoZone, get a new battery, and start all over again? Without. The. Drama.

?

Ah geez, this is what happens when all you do is look at cars. Everything is a vehicle metaphor...(the other morning my dear P. asked me if I wanted to walk down with him and get some gas. "Some coffee, you mean?" I said. "Yeah," he said, "what did I say?" I told him to step away from the craigslist, immediately, before he blew his spark-plugs.)

So, to my Dear Readers...if you are overwhelmed, even in the least little bit, know that you are not alone, that we are all crazy jugglers, and that I completely endorse your avoiding a melt-down of the above variety by saying yes to it all, and knowing that even though you don't feel like there is enough of you to go around...THERE IS.

More than you know.

xoxo

YogaLia

Fear and Yoga-ing in Los Angeles

My shoulder is better. (Mostly).

I have been forced to continue to do Chatarunga with my knees down, which has ceased to make me feel dumb, and now makes me feel pretty good: A. because I'm actually learning proper shoulder alignment in that pose (or so I hope) and B. because I am giving my competitive streak a short rest while I *gasp* modify.

All yoga teachers say the same thing--for some people, it's the laying off that is the challenge, not the muscling through. Big Me knows this is true for me. Little Me is sure glad that I'm never going to be some wussy who can't make it through a vinyasa with her knees lifted.

Ha! Says the Universe...we'll just see about that...

Otherwise, things have been great. My practice is expanding, I am trying to slow down more than speed up, and I have even (drum-roll please) started to develop an at-home practice with some real consistency. It's been necessary, as my schedule has been all over the place, folks have been visiting from out of town, and my job-job (I don't want to talk about it) has made it hard to fit in a class on the weekends.

We have an apartment big enough to practice in, and I look forward now to the times I can (or have to) practice at home (mostly), but I continue to run up against the following problems:

1. More often than not, all I want to do is like a million forward-bends and five minutes of standing on my head. And, though I know you're supposed to follow the wisdom of your body in these moments, I can't quite be convinced that this is a balanced practice. Child's pose for 20 minutes, anyone?

2. This is the big one...it is much, much, much, much, much harder for me to keep my mind from wandering all over the place when I practice by myself. There is something about the group environment and the teacher directing the flow of the class that gives me permission to Focus, in a way I can't seem to master when I'm by myself. Sometimes I quit early out of total aggravation because I am so far afield in la-la-land--who knew a yoga practice could actually make someone MORE fretful?

and,

3. If I'm not just being "restorative" (see #1) I am often doing pose after pose after pose, never holding anything for long, just sort of hovering around in one before catapulting myself into the next...a kind of "this is good enough" approach to practice. I would NEVER do this in class! In class I am like a focusing MACHINE! I also blame this (call a spade a spade, Lia) laziness on the absence of a teacher and, well...an audience.

That's right folks...if no one's watching, it doesn't count.

I'm not even going to do the work of extrapolating larger meaning from the above, as I'm sure it's pretty bleeping obvious, but if there was anyone who ever needed to learn to practice on her own, it's me! Right? Gosh golly, my mind wanders and I'm either doing too much or too little, and not doing anything quite well enough since I'm not getting the validation of an adoring crowd...I can't relate THAT to any other areas of my life (ACTOR ACTOR ACTOR ACTOR ACTOR). But, oh, holy bhagavad gita it's hard!

That's all for now...I just saw Julie and Julia last night and have made a vow to myself to blog more regularly. I promise. For real this time. Not like all the other times when I just say that and don't do anything about it.

Stay tuned for my upcoming project: Lia/Julia, wherein I teach Julia Child all of B.K.S Iyengar's "Light on Yoga"!

Things Which Pull at Other Things...

I have just returned from an extended family vacation, and while I felt focused and clear nearly the whole time I was away, I was woken this morning by a racing mind. Possibly due to the fact that I had a big meeting scheduled for this afternoon and have been ramping myself up for it all week. Possibly due to the book on Focus which I was devouring on the plane (devouring despite the warning from the small voice inside me that said perhaps reading a book which encourages me, the queen of to-do lists, to make a bunch more to-do lists might not be the best course of action) -- that could have been part of it.

The feeling was so distinct upon waking that I thought it must be due in part to some sort of dream from the night before, but the only thing I could remember dreaming about had something to do with leaping off a building into a mountain of books.

(Hmm...)

Anyhow, I spent much of the morning sort of ambling from one half-cocked task to the next before learning that my meeting scheduled for this afternoon is now postponed a week, and sinking into a brief "what now" paralysis.

That the meeting was about my actor life and that my feeling of distress all morning had been about the existence (or non-existence, depending on my mood) thereof, did not help my "focus" in the least. Alone in the apartment, the sun shining outside, utterly incapable of choosing from the myriad of things I "ought" to be doing in order to find the one perfect thing I "should" do, I wandered from computer to couch, the poster-child for unproductivity. The only thing I really wanted to do, faced with a free afternoon, was go to a yoga class, but folks, I can NOT go to a yoga class, because I, being the grand show-off-y too-proud-to-say-ouch girl that I am, I royally screwed up my rotater cuff over the weekend while dangling from a swing-set at an ocean-side resort.

"Now, Lia," you might be saying "that sounds pretty dramatic. Were you being held hostage by fisher-people when this happened?"

No. No, I was not being held hostage by fisher-people.

"Well, were you trying to rescue a small child who had become entangled in the swing-set and the only way you could rescue him or her was to swing like a monkey to his or her rescue?"

No. No, there was no child-rescuing.

"Then what on earth were you doing?"

So....now, don't laugh. My brother, martial-artist/personal-trainer/all around incredibly fit exercise guru that he is, was demonstrating this new device called the TRX Suspension Trainer, which is essentially composed of two hand/footholds, a caribiener, and some spandex-y straps. He swears by it, my brother, and I took one look at the thing and immediately began thinking of ways in which I might be able to go upside-down in it, so I was all for participating in said demonstration.

Small bit of history: my brother has been a martial artist since he was 9, and for that long and longer he has loved nothing more than to "try out" things on his little sister. I will leave out the story of him putting a paper bag over my head and punching me through it to see how close he could get to my nose without actually hitting me (he failed), but I will say that I should know better! My brother is like in 10,000,000 x better shape than I am and as much as I would like to be able to do everything that he can do...I. Can. Not.

Anyhoooo...he hooked the ole' TRX up to the swing sets outside the cabin where my family and I were staying for the weekend, strapped me into it, and began to show me all the different ways in which a body can be thoroughly stretched and strengthened on the system.

(Side Note: This thing ROCKS! It really is kind of mind-blowingly effective, you can feel it right away, and I really want to get one. As soon as I heal.)

So, I'm happily working my little patootie off...performing in front of the audience of my family, and even though I'm feeling fatigued, there is no way that I am going to give up before the end of the demo. That would just be too embarrassing. Not warmed up in the least? No problem! Feeling a little nervous about the small twinge that's been going on in my shoulder during yoga class the past couple weeks? Fuggidaboutit!

And forget about it I did, until, towards the end of the demo when I had moved on to the exercises where my feet were suspended in the straps and I was doing a combination of push-ups and crunches supported on my hands, when I landed a little weird on my right shoulder and felt a pretty excruciating pain which I knew (having experienced pain like it in the past) was my rotater-cuff.

"Well, gosh, what did everyone say when you stopped and told them you couldn't do anymore because you'd just hurt yourself?"

Um...

"You must have at least STOPPED, right, even if you didn't admit that you'd hurt yourself like a big show-off-y bonehead?"

Um...

!!!!!!

I mean seriously! You should just stop reading this blog right now, for good. You should honestly just be like, you know what, this girl sounds like sort of a bonehead and I think that maybe I should look for sources of yogic-ly-inspired insight elsewhere, seeing as how she has too much pride to even end a backyard demo of a piece of fitness equipment she's never tried before when there's no one around to be embarrassed in front of but her OWN FAMILY!

I won't hold it against you, I promise.

In my own defense, the excruciating part of the pain sort of stopped after a second and I even thought, oh...maybe I just sort of knocked something back into place. That's right. Not only did I not stop to make sure I didn't do any damage, I convinced myself that maybe I had done something GOOD for my shoulder and the pain was just some last vestige, some cork on my shoulder's full range of motion...like popping open a bottle of champagne.

Cut to hours later, after having completed the demo AND done some yoga AND swung around a 45 lb. kettle bell...and my shoulder is VERY very unhappy. It is making me wince with pain every time I move it in any kind of rotation and I am reduced to slathering myself with muscle cream and popping my brothers Arnica pills every few hours. Thank god he travels with all that stuff.

It's been several days now, and though my shoulder is definitely feeling better, it is not anywhere near ready for a yoga class...which extends my absence from classes to over a week...which makes me feel sort of cranky and deprived, and my larger self keeps annoyingly reminding me that THIS is why our injuries are our greatest teachers. It's not just because they teach us how to do things correctly in future, so as not to continue to injure ourselves, but, as is so often the case for me...they teach us how to slow down, how to be more honest about where we actually are, and to not try to do too much too fast.

I am trying to take that in this morning, as I race around making to-do lists, punctuated by bouts of staring out the window trying to lock in on that one thing that is finally going to help me break through some kind of stalemate. As if I can will the universe into providing me with the things that I want, if only I try hard enough. I am trying to remember what it felt like to wrench my shoulder all because I was moving too fast--the embarrassment of it, the price I am paying now--and that if I had only taken a moment to really ask myself what was right for me, I might have known to hold back, to take it easy, to go one step at a time. I can't help but think that the same thing happens in my own life when I am racing around, trying to get to the finish line or get it all accomplished right away--not only do I not get it all done, I can actually end up setting myself back while I recover from whatever injury I may have incurred. Physical or otherwise.

Please be ashamed of me, dear readers, for being a giant goober and hurting myself, and please, so you don't end up like me, take a minute, if you're feeling rushed...if you're feeling that someone out there needs you to prove that you're good enough...if you have left yourself in order to pursue some imaginary trophy out there in front of you...take a moment. Breathe. Ask yourself--is this a good idea? Am I ready for this? Do I NEED to do this right now? And if I rush right on ahead without taking the time to ask these questions, am I possibly going to end up having to bowl left-handed when I take my nephews to the arcade because my right shoulder feels like it's made of glass whenever I move my arm?

Save yourselves! Do it for me!

Yours in Recovery,
YogaLia

Gratitudinous

Of the many things for which I am grateful, here are just a few:

Dark branches against a blue, blue sky
The smell of a candle, burning
Birds on the morning
Light filtering through red curtains
Dawn and dusk
Moments of quiet, hard won or not
My ten toes
My two legs, two arms and single head--all in the right place and healthy
My endlessly beating heart
Love, in all its forms
Green tea in the morning
The smell of lavender
A clock, chiming, from far away
The impulse to create
The ability to create
The creation itself (good or bad)
A night curled up on a couch
Words on a page
Flowers, barely moving their little heads
My mat
My practice
Friends, what that means to have them...
even if you speak often
or never...
The struggle and eventual triumph of partnership
Unexpected adventures
To have been raised with love
To have known delight at an early age
And at all the ages following
Getting older
To have days to fight with, relax into, love and hate and wail about
To have days at all
To have anything at all...

Thank you, little universe of mine,
for continuing to spin
and challenge
and mystify...

A Short Note on Commitment

In class, the other day, the teacher presented us with the option of doing a 5 minute headstand for our inversion practice. 5 minute headstand! Sounds like heaven! I love me some inversions, headstands in particular, and I had never done one for so many consecutive minutes before. Bring it ON, I thought. I am all about this...

1. I rise (gracefully) into headstand. I think, this is going to be a piece of cake.

2. I start to feel just the tiniest bit fatigued. I think, hmm. I've never been in a headstand this long before.

3. My arms, neck and legs begin to get shaky. I can feel how much I'm sort of "slacking off" in the pose--paying less and less attention to proper form. My god, I think, this is taking forever.

4. I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this.

5. The teacher announces it has been 3 minutes.

6. I give myself a talking to. Okay, I say to myself, you can do this. You are going to have to recommit at this moment, or hurt yourself. I scan my body and re-press my forearms into the ground, re-melt my heart, re-engage my core, re-press my thighs and legs together and re-stretch all 10 of my little toesies into the air.

7. I feel better, but still I have to breath through my rebellious mind which is lecturing me currently on why we ought to just come out of this never-ending headstand.

8. I breathe, knowing that it will soon be over.

9. It is...and, arms shaking, I come back to the ground.

10. I sit in child's pose, and think about what commitment is.

Old Ladies and Pilgrims...

A very wise woman I know once confessed to me that she felt she had a puritanical pilgrim who lived inside her, dictating her wrongs and rights. I so loved this image, and it made me curious, at the time, about what my own inner critic might look like. (I just loved imagining a tiny version of my friend bedecked in bonnet and long dress, shaking her head grimly at every misstep.) Not a terrible inner demon to have, as demons go--not like having a devious thug living inside you or anything....

Anyhow, many months have passed since this exchange with my wise friend, and it is not until now, these past few weeks, when I believe I may have come face to face with the shape and consistency of my own inner critic. And folks, it is not pretty. 

Let me back this up by saying that for the last month or so I have been working at a Los Angeles restaurant which, when I got the job, seemed like the perfect solution to my "day job" problem. Busy place, family run...good money, nothing corporate about it...in my neighborhood. Everything a girl could ask for. (Let me also say that I have not waited tables in quite a long time, and had been having some, oh, nostalgia for the ol' actress/waitress storyline in my life...and have also been determined since coming here to work the least amount of hours for the most amount of money...) But it's not as if I wasn't warned! I was! When I interviewed for the job I was told that the owner (an older woman of foreign birth) had quite the temper and one had to have a thick skin to deal with her. And I remember at the moment of being told, a little warning bell going off in my head, one that sounded a bit like...

"Lia. You do NOT have a thick skin. Nor do you want to. And people yelling at you makes you cry."

But, I ignored this little voice in my head, so convinced was I that I NEEDED this job. 

I could spend the next several paragraphs describing the various crazy and chaotic things that go on in this restaurant. I could talk about the disorganization and general grumpiness that abounds (no rare thing, in the restaurant biz, I know), but what I want to talk about is what it has been like to find myself faced, externally, with a kind of emotional chaos I have as of yet not experienced much of in my life.

Okay, that's not true. I have experienced this kind of emotional chaos...in fact, I experience it a lot...INSIDE MY BRAIN!!!

When I first started to see all the upset all around me at this place, I went through a fearful "oh my god, what is going on in my life that I am in the middle of all this craziness?" phase...which of course only made me feel worse about myself--as if working in this restaurant (for gods sakes) was some kind of shameful admission that I, too, am a miserable angry person. The aforementioned probably the best summation of my worst nightmare: myself as closed door instead of open book. 

Phase 2 involved me attempting to treat said craziness as spiritual exercise: how do I stand in the middle of this chaos and remain with myself? (This, I now see, working as a kind of denial...or as a way for me to pretend I have no involvement in said chaos). But as the craziness of the place has gotten closer and closer to me, culminating the other night in a confrontation so upsetting I still have not shaken it off, I have come to the realization that the craziness around me is, and must be, a direct product/reflection/embodiment of the craziness inside me.

It was when I heard myself saying (angrily) to myself, over and over (about aforementioned angry foreign woman), "Why is she so mean?! Why can't she say anything nice? Why does she criticize everything I do?" that a little light went off, like a neon sign emblazoned on my brain, and the sign read:

Girlfriend, why are YOU so mean to you? Why can't YOU say anything nice to you? Why do YOU criticize everything YOU do? 

And it hit me, oh my god, I have an angry foreign woman living inside me!! She gets red faced at any tiny mistake and she just can't wait to lash out at me...she is watching me like a hawk and she is trying to control my every move!! And, folks, I desperately want away from her. (In the external world and the inner one...) But I can not help but be astounded at the generosity of the universe...

Generosity? You might be saying, what generosity? You're slinging food under the angry gaze of a crazed old lady...what kind of generosity is that? Which, believe me, I have been feeling up until now that there is little to be thankful for in this situation, but when I LOOK, when I really look deeply I see that there is a partnership going on here in my life. I am not allowed, under any circumstances to run away from or ignore my own ill treatment of myself. If I do--if I try to deny it or shove it down to the depths, not only will it increase, it will present itself IN PHYSICAL form, for my investigation. That is a gift so great I can barely fathom it...that everything I need to learn in order to continue to open, and to grow, will come to me in the exact form necessary to force change.  In some moments the agent of change is beautiful--a birth, an experience in nature, a falling in love...and in some moments the agent of change is hard and sharp. But here's the deal--the universe (or god or your higher self or just your SELF, period) knows what it is up against. If your heart and mind are soft and open, well then, no heavy tools necessary. But if you are feeling closed, tight, fearful...man oh man, there's only a certain kind of machinery that's going to get through all that stone, and it might be a bit painful. But it's going to get there. Even if the heart doesn't break open until the millisecond before your last breath...that persistent partner that we all have in the universe will not quit. And that is a blessing of enormous magnitude.

So thank you, universe, for all of the things that break me open...including angry old ladies in restaurants...

What Would Yoga Do?

Confession: I am a show-off. I have made this admission before, and while it may not be outwardly visible during my practice, it is definitely going on in my head, and especially when I'm taking from teachers I consider "fancy". I have these little imaginary dialouges wherein some teacher approaches me after class while I'm beautifically putting away my mat and says things like:

What a beautiful practice you have.

Who, me? Thank you. I just...you know, I just love it so much.

You're amazing. I couldn't stop watching you.

Thank you.

Would you like to follow me around and be my star pupil?

Well...gosh. Okay!

(And so on...)

I really thought that these kinds of fantasies were restricted to my acting life (like the one where the limo comes skidding to the side of the road and George Clooney rolls down the window and asks me to come with him right now to audition for the new movie he's producing) but apparently magical thinking has no boundaries...

Why did I bring this up? Ah yes...I brought it up to say that I am now attempting to use these flights of fancy as objects to work with in my practice. Meaning, if I feel myself concocting scenarios in which some teacher is deeming me Best In Class, instead of just pushing it out of my mind and declaring it un-yogic, I try to just...notice it. Just--aha, I'm doing that again. And I breathe. And I remind myself, gently, to return to the practice. I remind myself that my practice is for no one but myself, and I turn in and turn in and turn in. And you know something? It's working. I have been studying with so many new teachers these past few months and it has been the rare class in which I felt I was practicing half for myself and half for whomever might be watching.

The desire to be recognized is a strong and pernicious thing, don't you think? I don't know...maybe none of you have this problem...maybe your demons are other colors, but this is something I struggle with a lot. (Which, I'm certain, is why I chose to be an actor...the opportunities to wrestle with it being so plentiful). But I am once again just so grateful to have this space of my mat upon which to practice all the situations of my life. Because that's really what we're doing, isn't it? "Practice" isn't about the asana or the breath as much as it is about the practice of being with ourselves in all these states, and then practicing not getting carried away by them, and then practicing breathing through them, and then practicing standing at the center of all of them.

When I am really witness to that...the practice working on all these places where I am stuck...I feel like I have stumbled into some...mecca. I want to run up to sad-faced people on the street and ask them if they have found yoga yet? Sir! Have you accepted yoga into your heart? Do you know that yoga loves you? I am a mushy-minded convert.

That settles it...tomorrow I head to Mexico to start handing out bracelets that say WWYD. What Would Yoga Do?

Add Saul David Raye to the list...

This week we are in Culver City, staying at a Radisson Hotel (3 stars, oh yes), which is odd and close quarters and just a screaming red underline of the limbo we have both been feeling as we put phase 1 of LA living to bed and gear up for phase 2, but there is one highlight to this displaced life...

My proximity to Exhale, Venice. Exhale, home to yoga's many gods and goddesses. Exhale, where the studio is giant, the beach is blocks away, and the yoga clothes for sale are feeeeeirce. Exhale, where the practice is deep and flowing, and the clientele are poster children for "hip yoga". Myself included, no illusions there. Though sometimes I go without washing my hair, just to feel rebellious. (I would love to be snarkier about the feeling of "elite yoga" that permeates studios like Exhale but the real truth is 1. it's BEAUTIFUL there, and the teachers are many of the best in the nation, and 2. I am not seperate from the elitism of western yoga. The mere fact that I can afford to practice, with both my dollars and my time, is a total and utter luxury. And I am endlessly grateful for it. And, 3. it's possible I feel just a tiny bit intimidated by places so, so, so...shiny, and my desire to make it into something "less than" is my way of feeling, well, MORE than...).

Anyhow, I have been finding every opportunity to drive the mere 15 minutes to Venice and practice there. It's been a delight to get back to some good ol' Vinyasa and to take from some people I've heard about but never taken from, like Saul David Raye--who teaches a lot of the Exhale teacher trainings and so I have been more than curious to take from--and I was BLOWN AWAY by his class.

First of all, and I think this will remain one of The Best Classes I Have Ever Taken because of this--there was live harp music throughout the entire class. Yes. A kind-eyed young man played an eastern harp throughout class and it was so beautiful I thought I might just float right off my mat and have to practice in the rafters for the rest of the hour. Up among the lanterns. If you have ever wondered if you are, indeed, made of water, I suggest you take a vinyasa class while someone plays transcendent harp music. You will find out.

This is not to take any credit away from Mr. Raye, who was both quiet and exuberant--steady and vibrating--like the practice itself, and a teacher I will definitely take from again. And again and again.

Pairs of Opposites...

I'm a Libra, let me just start by saying that. And I think I'm, like, a hardcore Libra. I think probably if someone looked at my chart (which someday I'm going to do, because I love that stuff--any system that attempts to explain even a little bit the mystery of who and what I am, I'm all for it.)--that if anybody looked at my chart everything would just line up to form a picture of two perfectly balanced scales.

I used to think (heh) that Libras were Libras because they were sooooo balanced. What I have come to find out, as my life marches unflaggingly into Adulthood, that Libras are endlessly SEEKING balance, which, if you carry that thought just a little further--if they are seeking it, it probably means they do not have it, i.e., ergo...Libras are probably endlessly, endlessly out of balance. Or else what fun would the seeking be.

But, I'm sorry, this is a blog about yoga, not about astrology. That would have to be called Celestial-Town or something and my sign-off name would be AstroLia. (Hmmm. AstroLia...that either makes me a pet on the Jetsons or someone who lives in a pink-painted house on Pico with a neon "Psychic" sign out front...). Anyhoo...what this has to do with yoga is the following:

I have, over the past few months in La-La-Land, been practicing obsessively at a studio called Still in Silverlake. (Which you will be hearing more and more about over coming weeks and months, I promise). This is my first intimate acquaintance with Anusara Yoga and, folks, I'm in love. I can tell you the following, upfront, about Anusara:

1. It was started by a guy named John Friend, who is apparently a Texan and names poses things like "Wild Thing". Also, apparently you can either say he started Anusara, or you can say he "downloaded" it. (Yikes!)

2. John Friend is still alive and he looks very friendly. (pun intended)

3. It's based on 5 principles, of which I am not totally clear, but it's a very very detail-oriented practice when it comes to alignment.

4. To become an Anusara yoga teacher you have to study like a maniac. It's something like 4 years of hatha practice, 2 years of Anusara, 500 hours studying with Mr. Friend or another master teacher, a written exam (that's like 30 hours of work), a video exam...it just goes on and on. Needless to say...the teachers know their sh--stuff.

5. Anusara is a lot about the heart. It is a heart-based practice, one might say, and this is what draws me to it. As my life, I am learning, is also a heart-based practice...

6. I can almost do a handstand without the wall, my backbends are rocking, my shoulders are finally opening the way they should and I have about 3,000 times the alignment knowledge I had before studying at Still. Before now the only "inner spiral" I knew anything about was the one that happened in my mind on a really bad day.

7. Twice I have been moved to tears by the practice here.

8. While not a vinyasa practice, there is a definite flow-y-ness to Anusara that feeds my need for speed.

(That's it I guess. Those are the 8 things I know about Anusara. That list will grow as time goes on, I'm sure.)

But, what was the point of all this? Balance. Ah, yes. Balance. So, as I begin to learn more and more about proper alignment in this thing called Anusara, the following themes keep appearing:

that, in order for there to be inner freedom there must be strength in the structure. Meaning, the pose has to be set up properly in the periphery (hands and feet and head), and in the big muscles, everything aligned properly, in order for the heart to be free.

that both rigor and softness must exist in the pose. Meaning, if you are only technically minded, there will be no place for the heart to soften. But if you are all ooey-gooey soft and lovey only, there will be no structure and the pose will fall apart.

and,

that you must first hug to the midline in order to expand. Meaning, muscle energy must draw in to the midline of the body and the core or focal point of the pose in order for expansion to be possible*. Both the drawing in and the expanding out then and must happen simultaneously.

*any Anusara teachers reading this PLEASE feel free to correct misinterpretations!

Sense a theme here? B-A-L-A-N-C-E. Apparently, it's everything. And I cannot help but think of how often in my life I play either one end of this spectrum or the other...I am either muscling through my life, attempting to get everything done and done perfectly, or I am just completely loosey-goosey, claiming "openness" but really just allowing things to get sloppy and out of hand, and how much I long, long, long for the middle path. (Libra, I told you) And I see this message repeated, of course, in every form of spiritual thought I am interested in: you must not be too hard and you must not be too soft--you must, you must must must must must must must find the midline. And it is this way in art making too, isn't it? You must have structure to have freedom, and it is impossible for one to function well without the presence of the other. Art without structure is a mess, and art without heart is, well...empty. And this practice, this Anusara practice and this constant daily reminder has been so necessary, as I am in this new city, embarking for the first time maybe ever in my professional life on a path of true focus, and every week I am struggling with myself and the seductiveness of clinging to one extreme or the other: WORKING HARD or GIVING UP and finding that in-between place is difficult, to say the least.

But this is what I love about yoga, people! This is the one thing I am trying always to wrap my mind around--that the poses are metaphors, that the practice is just the physical map of what it is like to journey towards steadiness, open-heartedness and grace. It is amazing to me, the gift that yoga gives in that way--that you can have a teacher lecture about alignment, speaking only about the anatomy and the specific lining up of muscles, head, feet and hands, and that contained within it (whether they know it or not) are these really large lessons about how to live your life.

Line up.

Find the heart in the pose.

First go in, before you expand out.

Breathe.

You know this. I know you know this. It just breaks me up, over and over again.

All for now...

YogaLia

Xerxes and other Deities...

Last week I practiced with Xerxes, God of Yoga and took a class from Seane Corn, Goddess-Teacher-Curly-Girl Extraordinare. All in one week.

I know. Come to LA and pretty soon you're partying with the Gods...

He's a lovely guy, that Xerxes, with one of the best yoga practices I've ever been in the presence of...you would assume that I guess...what with him being, well, holy. I've had a bit of a yoga crush on the All Powerful One for quite some time now, and up until last week only had the privilege of being his student, but this time he actually came with me to a class and set up his mat within arms length of mine.

It's an amazing thing folks, to practice in the presence of greatness. It seeps into you. It crawls into your breath and your body and pretty soon your limbs feel nearly as liquid-y as his (0r hers) look. And you remember how a teacher once reminded you that we're all sharing the same oxygen, trailing it in and out through our nostrils and passing it along, all perspiring and respirating into the same invisible soup and you think Yes! I'm doing that now! Here, now! And you think for a moment you might be able to twist as deep and jump as high as the great One himself (or herself)...and for a moment, maybe you can. But even if you can't, it doesn't matter, because you feel his (or her) inspiration and it hooks into you, or you hook into it, and you remember why you are there and the possibility for the deeply personal in the practice, and that the more it is your practice, the more it is everyone's. Because truth is truth, I suppose.

See, this is the kind of estoerica that comes from being in the presence of the divine.

I recommend highly finding a deity you can hold up high and also occasionally be in the presence of, like my dear Xerxes. Or...Seane Corn.

Seeeeeeaaaaannnnnnne Cooooooooooorrrrrn.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways:

1. Hair like mine.
2. From Jersey. Which is just cool.
3. Hot.
4. Not someone I would ever fuck with. Seriously. She's so full of love and also not somebody who anybody would EVER walk all over, if you get my drift.
5. Awesome eyebrows.
6. Teaches without makeup on.
7. Heart-driven, oh yes indeedy.
8. A mystic without bullshit.
9. Did I mention the hair? And that she's hot?
10. Kick-ass sequencing.
11. Knows her alignment.
12. Knows her anatomy.
13. Knows a whole hell of a lot.
14. Married to an actor. I don't know...I just think that's cool.
15. Just 'cause.
16-1,000,000. Inspires me to want to do good, be better, work my ass off.

You may remember my raving about Seane Corn after the Omega Being Yoga Conference, at which I completely geeked out and could barely speak to her coherently, and so it may come as no surprise that as soon as I found myself in Venice I tracked her down at Exhale Yoga and, boy oh boy, I was nervous like a puppy--sitting on my mat, hoping she would remember me, and then hoping that she wouldn't, hoping she would give me an adjustment during class and then hoping that she wouldn't, just so dang pleased to be in the room with her (when I wasn't secretley scowling about all the "show offs" in the front row who kept throwing in perfect yet unnecessary handstands at every turn. Jerks.) and also slightly embarrassed by my own silly reverence for this person who may or may not know more than any of the other amazing teachers I have been blessed to find, but makes me feel all giggly inside and I guess that's why you can find her face on every yoga/healthy living/etc. magazine around. I guess that's what they call Cha-Ris-Ma. And she has got it in spades.

For those keeping track: she didn't recognize me, but did give me one small adjustment during class. That's either because I'm AWESOME or because I sort of fell down with nerves everytime she passed within three feet of me.

(Oh, Seane...why can't we just bond over our hair?)

Thank you, Gods of Yoga...you are too many to count here. Thank you for keeping me inspired and childlike (in the best of ways)...

xo
YogaLia