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