Broke Down Belt...

Took a beautiful class last night at my beloved Laughing Lotus (that's right, we're back in NYC for the holidays, ah sigh)--which always feels to me like coming home.  Even though the studio is blowing up in popularity and expanding and expanding and expanding, I have just sweated and blissed-out and suffered so many hours on those floors, beneath those colored curtains and spinning fans...as soon as I step into the place I feel remembered.  If not by the people who are there, which changes of course, and becomes less defined the longer I'm away, then at least by the walls and the ceilings...even by the bathrooms, which I spent many a night scrubbing in return for my free yoga classes.

On this trip I have been longing to MOVE in the way I only feel moved in my practice there.  So, as quickly as I could after arriving, I got my butt to class.

And as we began, Ali (one of my most beloved teachers), talked about how valuable the Vinyasa practice is because of it's constant changeability.  (I don't think she used that word...I don't know if that IS even a word, but I like it: changeability.  It reflects what it is.)  She talked about how important a practice it is for life, because of this ceaseless motion--something that is so FELT in a Vinyasa yoga class, and can be much more obscured in life, as we all try to pretend that it isn't the case.  That things are not, as they are, always always changing.  And I felt so moved by this.  Even though it's not a new idea--I've probably heard and even said it, a hundred times over.  But yesterday, having barely just arrived back in New York, back in our apartment in Brooklyn, back to all our books and plants and dishes and things that have just been left here, waiting for us, back to our old neighborhood, which is more new every time we return (new shops, new people, new atmosphere)--I needed to be reminded.  I needed to be reminded not too hold on too tightly, to anything.

I read once that all suffering is caused by stopping the natural flow of the mind.

And I remember when I read this I imagined a factory--some great conveyor belt, carrying on it all my thoughts and feelings and ideas, and that in its natural state, in its prime-functioning state, that conveyor belt just smoothly silently steadily flows.  It just moves by, carrying all of the stuff of my mind.  And everything goes along swimmingly on that big ol' belt, until I see something that seems broken or put together wrong, or maybe just an empty space I feel shouldn't be there.  (I'm the foreman in this factory, I guess, or maybe just the conveyor belt operator...that's still up for debate).  And when that happens, when I see something a-miss, I get all into a fuss and I pull the red lever that stops the movement of the belt, everything comes grinding to a halt, and I rush over and start fiddling or fixing or what-have-you, trying to perfect the products of my little mind-factory.

And of course, of course, this is where the trouble begins.

Things back up.  Production slows.  People get frustrated.  Everything, which was moving along of it's own accord before I got involved, starts to feel...overwhelming.

If I could just leave that belt alone...if I, if we, could just allow it to carry on, just allow even the broken pieces, the gaps, the stuff that's upside down or just badly put-together...if we could just allow that to continue its movement, if we could just trust that our job isn't the perfection of what's ON the belt, but merely that the belt continues to turn...wouldn't things be sweeter?  Couldn't we just admire?  Wouldn't so much more get accomplished?

I am thinking about this so much lately...as there is so much about the holidays that encourages looking forward and back, and I am trying as much as possible to stay steady in the present.  But nothing, I've found, roots me quite as deeply and sweetly in the natural movement of my life as does, well...moving.  Moving as I inhale, and moving as I exhale.  Moving so that my movement is a reflection of my breath. My breath which is ceaseless in it's progress.  So, Shanti-towners...if your conveyor belt feels stuck, if you're trying to glue some broken something back together before you let things move again, maybe...maybe just put it back.  Release your little red lever.  And let your life move.

The Creative Act. Step One: Just F-ing Do It.

When I first got back from my honeymoon, I was so overwhelmed with the desire to DO something, that I promptly bought a bed, a desk, two rugs and some curtains and went right to work rearranging our entire apartment.  (It looks good, y'all).  And when I got done with THAT...I had a minor meltdown about my utter lack of additional things to do.  

For about a week I decided I was going to quit everything.  

I was going to quit teaching yoga, quit this blog, quit most of the things I am currently doing, and get myself a nice well-paid job producing movies....  I even went so far as to start sending resumes.  Overly earnest resumes with doubly-overly-earnest cover letters, warning the recipient of said letter not to be swayed by my long and storied past as an actress...that I was done with all of that!  That I had gotten real!  That I had wised up and settled on this very sensible path of climbing the ladder from assistant to studio head. 

Heh heh.

Luckily, following some very wise advice from my very wise husband, I held myself at bay.  I was not going to quit anything, not right away at least...I was just going to wait.  Because maybe the desire and the fear and the anxiety about what I was and was not supposed to be doing with my life, would pass.  Or calm.  Either way, I was not going to quit.  (Yet.)

Had I been 21, instead of 31, I would have--as soon as I'd felt that fiery itch, as soon as I'd gotten even a whiff of the terror that I might be In the Wrong Place...I would have taken a giant hammer to the vase of my life and smashed it.  I would have closed up shop and scrambled my way into some new (and eventually equally fear-provoking) situation.  Thank god for age.  

But, because I didn't do that...because I wasn't going to allow myself to do that, I found myself...well...stuck.  Stuck with the feeling.  Unable to relieve said feeling by just tossing my life up in the air and giving it a good swift shaking.  And so I had to utilize some other skills, ones I didn't even know I had.  The main one being the ability to just keep moving.  I made a promise to myself (after wasting a few days feeling terrible about everything) that I would not waste any days feeling terrible about everything...that I would just continue.  I would continue to teach and continue to write and continue to live my life and I would not, as is my wired way, try to run away or fix or drastically alter...anything.  

And as I began to do that, this crazy thing happened.  I began to realize how much room I actually had in my life.  Without spending so much time examining and reexamining how things are going (All. The Time.) I could actually start to feel the mysterious forward movement of things.  And it felt--spacious.  And full of possibility.  

Maybe some of you don't have this problem, but I am the kind of person who needs to clean the kitchen in my apartment, before I can sit down and do anything.  And I try, almost always unsuccessfully, to apply this same way of working to my entire life.  MEANING, if my proverbial "kitchen" isn't "clean", I don't do anything.  This means, because I'm talking about a mind and heart and thought-kitchen (instead of a physical one), that what I end up spending all my time doing...is constantly cleaning the kitchen.  And always in my head is this imaginary someday, when the kitchen will finally be clean, and then I, finally, will be able to get to work.  

But that someday, never comes.

And so what I discovered, because I made myself leave the f-ing kitchen alone for once...was that, the problem isn't the mess.  The mess is never going to be clean.  The mess, probably, doesn't even exist.  What matters is doing what you want or love or feel compelled to do, in spite of the mess.  What matters is taking action anyhow. 

And I feel this way on a micro level, even about something as small as a yoga class...you know, there's a million reasons in a day, not to make it to class.  Too busy, too tired, too grumpy, wrong timing, wrong teacher, wrong outfit...etc., etc..  But what happens is, if you can just take that FIRST step, if you can just put your yoga pants on and get in the car or get on the train...the rest of it takes care of itself.  The creative act has its own motor.  So, as soon as you start the thing a runnin', it will just take you with it.  And suddenly class is over, you're lying there in savasana, and you did it.  And usually, you're so grateful to yourself for having done it. 

All it takes is the will and the courage, to get your pants on, and get in the car...

Whhoooooooosh! I love you!

Do I need to apologize for being so long in posting?  I don't know!  I'm sorry!

Ugh.

Sometimes I just, you know, run out of things to say.  And I figure it's best to spare you all my rummaging around for a straw to grasp, and just let there be these (sometimes) necessary silences on the ol' blog-a-roonie.

But now I'm back!  I've thought of something to say!  Hooray!

Okay, so, last week, as many of you know, there was a crazy weather event here in Los Angeles...on Wednesday night winds of many many miles per hour (up to 40 knots) hit most of the city.  It was very exciting.  All night long we could hear the wind shrieking outside, plants blowing over, furniture being dragged across the outdoor patio by the skinny fingers of mother nature--it was something else.  My husband barely slept.  I, who can sleep through anything (including once in middle school, feat of all feats, sleeping through an honest-to-goodness fire evacuation during an overnight in the school gym)--even I was a little tossy-and-turny due to the ferociousness of the weather.

Now, if you live in a place like Kansas or...New Orleans...or Texas...please forgive we inhabitants of La-La-Land for freaking the heck out about some blown down trees and broken street-lights.  We know not what we do.

But, it was, you know...a moment.

I remember, not long after I first moved to New York in the early 2000's there was that big Northeast blackout.  I was at the Crunch Gym in Union Square, fake-running on some kind of elliptical, when the whole floor just went quiet, except for the whicka-whicka sound of several people who tried to keep on running on dead machines. (Gotta get that burn!)  I went outside, still sweaty, and everyone on the street was gawking up at all the buildings around them...waiting.  9/11 was still very fresh for a lot of people, so I think there was this communal held-breath while folks tried to figure out exactly how worried they should be.

And it was August.  So it was hot.  Really hot.

I was subletting a little studio apartment in Chelsea, and I had no idea whether there were candles or flashlights or any of that, so made my way back home while it was still light out, and holed up.  Later a good friend stopped by with whiskey and some much-needed conversation.  I was in the midst of being heartbroken over a newly ended relationship, and I was new to the city and I had been feeling just so...alone.  It's the funny thing about New York...there are so many people around, all the time, but somehow, when you're lonely, the presence of all those strangers just makes you feel lonelier.  But, I remember, the morning after the blackout, I walked out my door, and instead of just pouring myself into the sea of nameless pedestrians as per usual...I felt like I was, for the first time, walking into my neighborhood.  The power was still out, the sun was still out, and people were gathered on stoops...and in little clusters outside of still-dark restaurants.  People wanted to talk to each other.  To find out "how was it for you?", "isn't this crazy?", "how long will it last?".

I remember that moment as the turning point.  The turning point of my broken heart mending, and the moment I felt like I had finally arrived in New York, as a resident, and not just a scared interloper.

And although Wednesday's weather-drama wasn't nearly so dramatic...the same feeling was in the air.  People were talking to each other.  People were marveling at trees and towers and checking in with their neighbors..."how was it for you?", "isn't this crazy?", and, if they happened to be one of the unlucky who lost their power..."how long will it last?"

I spent the better part of Thursday, the day after the storm, driving from client to class to class to client, and I marveled, the whole day at the traffic.  It was TERRIBLE, yes, there were dozens of blacked-out street lights, but still...it worked.  People, unaided by men in orange vests, in our individual and usually utterly separate cars...we all started working together.  Even at busy intersections, one in particular in my neighborhood where two giant streets split and merge, making for 10 individual lanes of traffic all trying to go and merge and turn and pass...even at those intersections, where people are normally giant a-holes trying to get their way first...we all turned practically nunnish in our deference.  You go, and then you go, and then I'll go.

And I was so moved by all of it...the way that (oh my god, nerd-out alert)...the way that Mother Nature or the Universe or whatever you want to call it, gifts us with these moments, where the curtains that normally hang down between us and everyone around us...get lifted.  Just for a second.  And we suddenly remember that we are in a community of people.  That we are connected to each other.  And that when shit gets crazy, when roofs are blowing off and trees are falling down...that we're not in it alone.  Now, obviously I've never lost anyone close to me in a disaster...and for those who have, I'm sure it's much more complicated than this.  But I hope that those people also, when the dust has settled, have felt held by their community.  I'm holding you, right now, in my thoughts...if that's any comfort.

It's easy to forget--mainly because our relationships with individual people can get so complicated--but we do, for the most part...we do all care about one another.  Or at least we do, when push comes to shove.   And I think it's worthwhile to remember.  Especially when we're grumbling our way through lines or through traffic or through whatever, that those jerks in the car in front of us, that they're the same jerks who are going to slow down and make sure we're alright if our car goes skidding off the road or if a tree falls on our house.

You get it.

I love you. (And I think you love me too.)  Namaste.

There's a Fireplace in Your Center.

Turkey Day is fast approaching! (Thanks-a-Chickie, as my dad likes to call it.) The time when we gather together with friends and family and try not to let them, and the giant meal, and the nearness of Christmas and New Years and oh my gosh, where has the time gone...drive us all to distraction.

I love the Winter...I love that it gets dark early, that it gets cold (even in LA), and that collectively we just want to snuggle up and spend our days in warm candelit rooms...it's so sweet. But, in addition to the dark-cave-like quality of Winter there is also this...holiday frenticism, that can make a person feel speeded up instead of slowed-ed down.

So, in the face of these cross-winds a blowing (one that is slow and steady and says, hey, just bundle up, drink some tea, fuggid about it, and the other which just kind of whips your hair around in your face), it's more important than ever for us to find the center...and to go there.

The center of what?

Well...in the yoga philosophy, the body is thought of as having these layers, these sheaths, all of which surround a constant center.  Right at the center of the body.  The sheaths are all the stuff that is NOT that center.  The sheaths are the physical body, the energetic body, the mind, the emotions, our wisdom, our bliss--and then, at the center of all of that is...um.  Just, uh.  Total Awesomeness.  What's at the center can be conceptualized in a lot of different ways. The yogis just call it the self, or Atman, but it is sometimes described as light, as pure awareness, as God, as source, as truth--whatever you want to call that big perfect divine A-HA! Which exists at the center of every single one of us.  (I like to call it Total Awesomeness.)  And the practice of yoga, is really just a practice of diving down through all these layers, through all these sheaths, until we can rest in this sweet center, and then try to live from there.  (Try to.)

And I feel like this image, of peeling away the layers, is particularly potent in the Winter.  As if, at the center of our body is where the fireplace is, and when we're stuck out in the cold, way out on the fringes of our experience, our job is just to start opening doors and traveling deeper and deeper in, following the trail of warmth, until finally we get to that fire lit parlor, way down deep inside.

What's so beautiful about this is that, yoga practice or no yoga practice, we can all be scavengers for our bliss.  We can all use our basic powers of deduction, to find the fire that burns at the center.  It goes like this: is this door warm?  No?  Wrong door.  Is this door warm?  Yes?  Open door.  Go deeper in.  Look for the next door.  Rinse and repeat.

That's it...just like a bunch of blind mice, following the scent of burning wood and charcoal, we can find our own way into the center of ourselves and our lives.  Without assistance.  Without books or tapes or teachers...we just have to reach our hands out, and look for the warmth.

So, if you're feeling the chill.  Or if you're feeling shut out...miles from the hot chocolate and s'mores that are waiting for you deep down in the center of your experience, just take your hands out of their mittens, and start feeling for a hot doorknob.  I promise, it's there.

Mouth-Hang-Open-Asana

Break ton Neck from Alex Yde on Vimeo.

Sneak Peek!

I had a super inspiring conversation with yoga goddess Meghan Currie of Vancouver, Canada for the next episode of the Shanti Town Podcast this week...and I can't wait to share it with you!  In the interim, as I get to work editing together our conversation, here's a little Meghan Currie gloriousness to whet your appetite (I hope to have the interview ready to go in the next few days).  Just try not to love her!

Read This Book!

Full disclosure:  I love Suzanne Morrsion.  There is evidence of this here, and here.

So, I was very excited to get her book in the mail (that's right folks, I got a reviewers copy, just like a real writer would!), and also very nervous to get her book in the mail.  Although I knew from being an avid follower of her blog that she was a good writer, there was always the off chance that her book wouldn't be very good.  And then I would have to lie.   Or just pretend that I had never received it.

Luckily, I didn't have to do either of those things.

Yoga Bitch; One Woman's Quest to Conquer Skepticism, Cynicism, and Cigarettes on the Path to Enlightenment, is everything it is cracked up to be.  Following here is the email I sent to Suzanne after finishing said book:

Yeah, um...notice the date stamp on that email?  That's right.  September 16th.  It's November, people.  I am a terrible book reviewer.  But, being of the "it's never too late" mind-set, I now present to you (drumroll, please): My Review of Yoga Bitch!!!

Ahem.

I remember when Suzanne went on her trip to Bali in 2002.  Well, I remember seeing her after she'd gotten back...or at least, I remember hearing from people say that she was IN Bali while she was there.  Suzanne and I went to college together...we were friendly, but not friends, so I have only foggy memories of her departure to Bali.  I didn't even really know what yoga was, when I heard that Suzanne was overseas, training in it.  I did remember being surprised, even with my paltry knowledge of yoga, since nearly all of my memories of Suzanne up to that point involved wine and cigarettes. I remember being impressed.  I remember thinking, well, maybe I've got this girl pegged wrong.

After reading Yoga Bitch I realized that, while Suzanne was clearly 11 million times more in touch with herself than I was during those college years (don't ask)...going to Bali for a yoga teacher training WAS as out of character for her as it seemed.

After 9/11, while preparing to move to New York from Seattle with her then-boyfriend, and sort of freaking out about all of it...Suzanne decided that going to Bali to study yoga with her favorite teacher and some fellow seekers, was just what she needed to infuse her life with some clarity.  Little did she know that she'd be shacked up with a bunch of yogis who thrived on journaling, hero worship and um, pee.  As in...urine.  As in...drinking it.  I can't even...this subject is well covered in the book, and in other reviews of the book, so I'm just going to leave it at that. 

(Would it be terrible to admit that while Suzanne was writing about all the myriad reasons that her fellow yoga-school mates were engaging in pee-drinking, that I thought, well, gee!  If it does all THOSE things....  Argh!  I'm a sheep!)

Anyhow, the book is funny and insightful and moving...it's a "yoga memoir" yes, but really it's a book about a woman who is probably too smart for her own good (hollah!) trying to find her way in the world.  It's about a woman who wishes she didn't need a little spiritual guidance, finding herself in a spot where nothing else will do, but a little spiritual guidance.  

And, it's about a woman who, while engaged in all of the above, has a serious earth-shaking moment of transformation.

This is the thing that I've not seen talked about in a lot of the other reviews of Suzanne's book, and for me it was the most riveting part of the book...I'll try not to spoil anything here, but whilst on her Bali adventure, Suzanne has a...what would you call it?  An awakening.  A real one.  For those of you not versed in yogic lore, there is something called a "Kundalini rising" that can happen to a yoga practitioner.  It is the Grand Prize of yoga.  The mythology goes that there is this coil of Kundalini energy that sits at the base of the spine, lying dormant, just waiting to be roused so that it can shoot up the spine and, well, make you enlightened.  That's right, dormant enlightenment.  And Ms. Morrison (lucky duck)...woke up her Kundalini.  Accidentally.  It's an amazing story, made even more amazing by the hilarious pot-shots she takes at herself while recollecting her time walking around Bali, acting like a saint.  

Yoga Bitch is a memoir, it's a love-story, and it's an incredibly insightful look at what it means to start down a spiritual path, even when you are the last person in the world who would ever use a phrase like, "spiritual path".  Suzanne is an incredibly gifted writer with a lot of wit and a lot of heart, who is able to delve into deep emotional depths, without ever being ooey or gooey.  In a nutshell, go get this book.  It's awesome.

Go to Suzanne's website for links to the myriad places to buy Yoga Bitch.  Or just go to your local Barnes and Noble and look in the "new non-fiction" section.  Last time I was there it was on the table right between Malcolm Gladwell and Kendra Wilkinson.  

Raaaaaaaawwwwrrr! Or; Dressing Up On the Inside

First, some business...the podcast is not over, folks!  I know it's been awhile, and for a moment there I thought it might have breathed it's last, but no!  I'm doing some revamping, I'm setting up some interviews, so look out for Episode 6 in the next week or so!  And, on that note...if there's someone out there you'd like me to interview...a yoga teacher, a yoga enthusiast, or just someone doing amazing work in the mind/body world...let me know!

Alright, so, yesterday was Halloween.  I know it was Halloween, because there was a woman in a skin-tight full-body leopard-print cat-suit in my local coffee shop at 7:45 in the morning.  There were also many fat adorable babies dressed as bugs and fruits and dragons being carted around by their proud mommas all day long.  This is the best part of Halloween...the fat dressed-up babies.

I have never been a dresser-upper.  I get sort of weird and shy and embarrassed when I have to put on a costume and I'm not in a play.  In college it was fun...but in college halloween (for the women, at least) is just an opportunity to look as sexy as possible.

Anyhow...I thought about leopard-print cat-suit woman a lot yesterday.

I thought about how often in yoga, or meditation, or art-making or whatever...the goal, stated or otherwise, is to remove costumes...to remove masks...to reveal.  Which is worthwhile, no question.  But can feel, sometimes, very heavy.  Very serious.  What is sometimes forgotten, is that there is a more aspirational way to approach a practice.  A way which involves trying on a version of ourselves that is not quite a reality yet.  A way which allows us to zip ourselves into our favorite cat-suit for a day, and see how it feels.

And what's interesting is that this spiritual "dressing up" can feel just as weird and awkward and potentially-embarrassing as getting your morning coffee in full Halloween garb.  I mean, once I got over feeling a little giggly about the cat-suit woman, my next thought was, "my god...she's brave."  I can barely leave the house in short-shorts without feeling a little flush-faced.  I can't imagine what kind of heavy sedation I would have to be under in order to wear a skin-tight body-suit out of doors!  And why is that?  Why is it so thrilling/scary to dress up?

I think, it's because people are going to look at you.  People are going to look at you, and they're going to know something about you.  You are going to be revealed.  You are going to be bright.  You are going to be taking up space in the world.

It's an old trope, I know...we're not actually afraid of the darkness, we're afraid of our own light, blah blah blah.  But, you've met those people, haven't you? The ones who are really standing in their full glory?  Who aren't apologizing for their existence?  Who are unabashedly reaching for what they want?  Those people are big.  They're bright.  They may as well be wearing a leopard-print cat-suit. (If we're talking about Beyonce, then it's possible that she IS wearing a cat-suit).

"Realized" people take up space.  And people are going to look at them.  And some people are going to look at them and think, oh my god, awesome cat-suit!  And some people are going to look at them and think, oh my god, you look ridiculous! And that is the risk we take when we're revealed.

And maybe it's just me, but I think that can be pretty f-ing scary.

So, if you didn't get a chance to put on a Halloween costume this year, maybe think about dressing up today.  No one has to know.  It doesn't even have to fit you exactly...you don't have to have the perfect thighs you've been waiting for in order to slip into that leopard.   Just, for one day, step into the fantasy of yourself.  Yourself as dynamic, yourself as bright and alive and unafraid.  And if someone giggles at you while you're ordering your coffee...just remember that they wish they could be as brave as you are.

Things We Have Control Over...and Things We Do Not.

We are back at the gate.  Again.  I don’t know how long it’s been since we first taxied away and looped the runway, and came back again…and I don’t want to know.

Travelling with Paul—it’s easy.  I never worry—about bags, about delays, about extra long security lines.  I know he’s going to be right there to help lift my bag on to the conveyor belt, or hold my jacket while I run to the bathroom, or tease me about my lousy attitude if I haven’t had my coffee/water/wine (depending on the time of day).  I have come to rely on this.  I have come to take this as a given.  So now, when I have to brave the airport alone, I feel unprepared at best…and like a sniveling grump-o, at worst.

And this afternoon, when I left our Brooklyn apartment to come home to our LA apartment (don’t ask), the weight of my over-packed carry-on was like a premonition in my hand.  I did a quick mental calculation of subway steps and train transfers, and walked out into the whipping cold—all by my lonesome.

It’s ridiculous, folks, for me to feel this way.  The number of years I spent navigating all the ups and downs and transfers of my life solo—there is no reason I should feel so besotted with loneliness at the thought of, gasp, carrying my own bag AND purse AND jacket.  The. Whole. Way. Alooooooooone.

Alright, so…I lug my bag down the appropriate number of train steps,  I brave a subway transfer or two, I wait diligently for the appropriate “A” Train to come by, the one that goes to Howard Beach/JFK, and not the one that goes to all the other millions of places the “A” Train goes.  I am assured by a very grumpy woman who is also carrying a suitcase (I wrongly assumed she was also airport-bound) that the train will say on the side that it’s going to JFK.  This does not turn out to be the case.  (And when grumpy-suitcase-woman snuck on to an unmarked C-train without a word…I became deeply suspicious.) However, sneaky suitcase woman or not, I ended up on the right train, somehow…though the whole adventure takes me a lot longer than it should.  And this is it—the beginning of things taking longer than they should.

The train, the other train, the harried trip to the self-check-in kiosks…all of it took longer than it should.  And at the airport, as I’m shoving my scarf into my jacket and fretting about whether my carry-on is going to fit properly into the overhead bins when I get there or whether, like it happened on the way there, some nice old man was going to have to help me jam it into one of the compartments while a dozen aggravated travelers wait behind me…the strap of my purse breaks off my arm.  (This early death may, and I emphasize may, have been hurried along by my trying to jam my laptop into a purse that a laptop for certain does not belong in.)  Regardless of the cause, it breaks…and the guilty laptop and several other things go spilling out onto the floor.

“Oh, your purse broke!” Calls out a woman from across the way who is trying to be helpful.  People are always trying to be helpful like this when you’re in New York. 

Yes, thank you, I said.  I noticed.

As I knelt down, repacking my now-disabled purse, I kept hearing my friend Saskia’s voice chanting in my ear, saying, “the hurrier I go, the behinder I get.”  It’s something that her father used to say to her when she was young, and it stuck for me, just as it must have for her.  I love it.  The hurrier I go, the behinder I get.

Now barely able to keep my personals in check, I go hurrying (yes, I know) down the million mile airport hallways to the security check point where, for some reason, only three of the many security lines are open and traveler traffic is at a standstill.  I look at my watch.  My plane will begin boarding in fifteen minutes.  I can feel my face starting to get flush.

There are very few things that upset me more than being late.  It is a pathological upset for me.  That, and food getting cold before I am able to eat it.  These are two turns of fate that make me feel like I am losing my grip on the handlebars of my life.  Being late makes me crazy.  I used to have serious meltdowns about it.  I have gotten past that, now that 1. I am an adult and can’t really justify having meltdowns about totally meaningless things and 2. I have been late enough times in my life that I now know the world won’t end.  However, the fact of my aloneness and my giant carry-on bag and my broken purse and the idea that I could miss my plane through no fault of my own, was all conspiring to elevate my temperature and heart-rate and internal rage-o-meter.

And as I stood in line, shuffling from one foot to the other, sighing and rubbing my forehead and aggressively planting my bag in front of some chick who kept trying to cut in front of me, I thought back to the yoga class I had taken the day before. 

There is a new (ish) studio in my beloved DUMBO neighborhood that I am trying to pop into when we’re in town, and I was lucky enough to get into a class yesterday with a teacher I knew from Laughing Lotus, back in the day.  She’s lovely and either Australian or South African—(she is cool-accented, wherever she’s from) and wild-of-hair (like me) and grounded.  She’s one of these teachers who has studied yoga with all kinds of people in all kinds of styles, and you can feel it in her teaching—it’s round and robust.  Full.

Anyhow, for all her gifts in the yogic arts, she started class wrestling with the stereo.  The studio’s stereo system is apparently finicky, and so for the first several minutes of class all we could see was her prone body and the back of her curly head as she coaxed the volume on the ancient set up and down and up and down.  And as she fiddled and groaned about the volume (which refused to budge), she told us how she’d been reading an article earlier that day about all of the things in our lives we think we have control over but actually don’t.  “Electronics,” she said, twirling the volume up and down, “elevator buttons…we think that somehow pushing that button over and over again is actually doing something…but it’s not.  It really has no effect on it, at all.” 

And I thought about this, as I stood in the security line, trying not to scream.

What, honestly, was there to be done?  All the griping and forehead wiping in the world wasn’t going to make things go any faster than they were going.  My angry face was not going to stop me from missing my plane, if that’s what was going to happen.  The fact that I, good student that I am, already had my laptop and liquids and shoes ready to go when I was still fifty feet from the conveyor belt was not, as much as I might want it to, going to change anything about the behavior of anyone else in line in front of me.  I was stuck.  That elevator was going to come when it was going to come, no matter how many times I pushed that goddamn button.

(And let me just tell you…it was a lot.)

And for what felt like the dozenth time in as many days, I thought about how much easier things can be, what a relief they can be, when you can just get comfortable with where you are.  Even (god forbid) if it’s not where you want to be. 

The universe does not owe me an on-time flight.  It certainly is not so deeply indebted to me that I am allowed to act like an a-hole, just because I am in a hurry.  No amount of mental gymnastics are going to change the reality of slow trains, slow lines, and broken bags.  So, why does it feel like it might?  What is it, what little crossed wire in the brain makes it seem like if we just get upset enough, if we just grouse enough or pout enough or rail enough against…that things might actually rearrange themselves in front of us, and more to our liking?

It’s never happened that way for me.  What happens for me is that I get myself worked up into enough of a lather, enough things break or malfunction or trip me up (literally), that I eventually have no choice but to surrender to the reality of the situation.  This elevator is not f-ing coming, and so I had either better take the stairs or find something interesting to read while I wait, because I am going to be here for a while.  And when that happens, when I’m able to snap my little internal control freak in half, then things open up.  Suddenly the line doesn’t move so slowly, the machine-operators don’t seem so incompetent, and before I know it, I’m sitting on my plane.  Happily engrossed by the in-flight magazine…waiting to take off.

Speaking Sanely...

So, I have to admit, I listened to this interview with Mormon author Joanna Brooks because I wanted the dirt!  I wanted the juicy insider-info about the Mormon church!  I wanted the gossip-monger satisfaction of secrets revealed!  I wanted to dish about weird underwear and weirder customs!

But that is not what I got...

Joanna Brooks is, according to her website, an "award winning writer and scholar of religion and spirituality"...and also, a Mormon.  She is a Mormon who grew up in a conservative Mormon household, but as an adult sort of accidentally turned into a feminist.  And then not-so-accidentally married a Jewish man.  Whoops!  She is a Mormon who struggled and volleyed with her faith, but who ended up making a decision that so many people, on so many spiritual paths, have made before her--which is to not abandon the religion to which she was born, even though at moments, it might have felt like she should.  And, because of this, she is a Mormon who has found a way to expand enough to hold all the nuances and contradictions within a faith that she obviously loves very deeply.  And I will tell you, Joanna Brooks may be a Mormon, but as far as I'm concerned...this chick is a yogi.

I loved her so much, I wrote her a fan letter (email) immediately upon the conclusion of the interview.  She and Ira Glass are now the only two people I have written fan letters to.  (As an adult.)

(And for those of you who know my deep love for/borderline obsession with Ira Glass...that is saying something.)

 Joanna Brooks wrote me back.  Ira Glass did not.  Point, Joanna.

Okay, so full disclosure--I don't know a lot about Mormonism.  I had a good friend when I was growing up who was Mormon, but we were young, and all I knew was that her family had a big store room full of food and supplies (the encouraged "years worth of food"), and that she, my friend, was constantly in pre-teen agony about the boy she loved not being a Mormon.  When I was graduating from high school, years after she and I had grown apart, I got an announcement for her wedding.  Not, of course, to the not-Mormon boy she was in love with.  To some other boy, someone I'd never met.  At only 16 myself, and just beginning to discover the world, I remember feeling so...disappointed.  How could she get married?  She wasn't much older than me, maybe two years at most, and at the time I thought, well, that's it for her.  She's done.  She would get married and then there would be babies and babies and more babies, and that would be it.

So this, until today, was my basic understanding of Mormonism--it was strict, you couldn't marry who you wanted, and if you were a woman, your job--your life--was going to be about having babies and being a wife.

And then there's the, ahem, politics of the Mormon Church, which are unquestionably ultra-conservative slash deeply disturbing.   And though it's not really integral to this post, I do feel like it's important to mention that I do not agree with the stance of the Mormon Church on gay rights or women's rights--or on social issues in general, it's probably safe to say--and no interview, no matter how lovely, is going to change that.  Though of course, the same could be said for the Catholic Church, and the Evangelical Church, and for countless others.  I just want that on the record.

But, it's not the Mormon Church that I found so moving, it's not the history and ritual of the Mormon faith--though it was beautifully rendered by Ms. Brooks in her interview--which inspired me to first write to her, and now to write this.  It was, instead, the power of her flexible, and sane way of speaking about her faith, that moved me.

I have realized, since writing this blog these last few years, that if I have any goal in mind...if there's anything that I really WANT from all this writing and interviewing and talking and teaching and practicing, it is to seek out and nurture spiritual sanity.  To figure out how it is that those of us who are on fire with God in some form or another (whether your God is one God or many Gods or whether your God is Art or Breath or Movement or just the sacred stuff of your Life)--how is it that we can bring this God into our lives in a way that is real, and meaningful and leaves room for the very necessary doubt and constant change that is so much a part of our world.  Is there a way to be a person of faith and have a dialogue about it that doesn't include dogma but DOES include divinity?  And love.  And compassion.

And people like Joanna Brooks make me feel like that goal is accomplishable.

Because, without question, she and I are very different.  We have very different backgrounds, and very different conceptions, maybe, of the practicals of God--what that looks like, how it came to be, and how to call it by name--but I would imagine, though I can't speak for her, that our ideas about the essence, the heart, of God...are probably very much the same.  The easy road, of course, is to retreat to opposite corners, to claim lack of understanding and to grudgingly go on our ways.  The difficult thing, and the thing that Joanna Brooks is trying to do, that all of the teachers and speakers I respect most are trying to do, is to stretch the walls of her understanding of God so that it becomes more inclusive.

I was reading something the other day by Thomas Traherne, a "metaphysical poet" (thank you, Wikipedia) from the 17th Century, and he was talking about how we all, as children, are born with a divine knowledge of presence--the world is new to us, and everything is one unfolding mystery.  But, he writes, the real work, the real trick of divinity, is not to somehow go back to before we knew anything, it is, instead, this process of "unlearning" everything that has darkened our view thus far.  This is the more miraculous thing, he says: to travel from corruption back to innocence.

And I couldn't help but think of Joanna Brooks, and how devoted she is to this work, not of abandoning her faith, but of instead, stripping away the layers of corruption, to get back to the sweet center.

Check out the interview, if you have a chance, or Joanna Brooks' blog: Ask Mormon Girl.  And then let me know what you think of her and the work she's doing...yay or nay?

No Butts About It...

We are great fools.  "He has passed his life in idleness," we say.  "I have done nothing today."  What! Haven't you lived?  That is not only the fundamental but the most illustrious of your occupations.  "Had I been put in a position to manage great affairs, I would have shown you what I could do."  Have you been able to think out and manage your life? You have performed the greatest work of all.  In order to show and release her powers, Nature has no need of fortune; she shows herself equally on all levels, and behind a curtain as well as without one.  To compose our character is our duty, not to compose books, and to win, not battles and provinces, but order and tranquility in our conduct.  Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately.  All other things, to rule, to lay up treasure, to build, are at most but little appendices and props. 

- Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533-1592)

Need I add anything to that...?!  Maybe just this (written by the same dude):

It is an absolute perfection, and as it were divine, for a man to know how to rightfully enjoy his being.  We seek other conditions because we don't understand the use of our own, and go out of ourselves because we don't know what it is like within.  Yet it is no use for us to mount on stilts, for on stilts we must still walk with our own legs.  And upon the loftiest throne in the world we are still sitting on our own ass.

What My Head and Drew Barrymore Have In Common...

I have been thinking a lot lately about posture.  Blame seeing too many photos of myself with round-y shoulders, blame an ever-increasing (sometimes aggravating) awareness of how my body is moving through space, blame the simple fact that I'm teaching yoga, so I feel like I probably shouldn't be, um...slouching.  All. The. Time.

Whatever the reason, it's been on my mind.

When I first started noticing my own sometimes suspect shoulder slumping, I asked Paul, (no demanded, actually), if he would please point it out to me if he ever saw my posture go all wonky.  Which he, dutifully, did...but only on a few occasions, because I don't think he could stand the look of abject horror that crossed my face if he happened to remind me at the wrong moment.  Oh, I'm sorry, whaaaaaaaat?!  My posture isn't good enough for you?  Well, excuuuuuuuuuuuuse me!

Poor guy.

First, let me just say that my own particular misalignment, turns out, is not an uncommon one.  My shoulders round slightly, my head pokes forward, and the back of my neck compresses.  (Pretty!)  The result is the picture an eager-yet-uncertain student.  Or of a person endlessly reaching for something with the tip of their chin...or...ugh.  It's depressing, just writing about it.

I take some small comfort in the fact that Drew Barrymore and I share the same affliction.

(Oh, Drew...sigh.  Just one of the many things we share in common, I'm sure.  Why can't we be besties?)

So, okay, so I'm interested, obviously in having good posture for all of the body-mechanical benefits.  I want fluidity in my body and efficiency in my muscles, but I'm MUCH more interested (surprise sur-freaking-prise) in the psychological and emotional what-fors behind the whole thing.

Here's what it feels like in my own body:  it feels like some part of me thinks that my head reaching forward is keeping things under control, like that if my head can beat my body--can cross the finish line first--then I'm going to be in control of whatever is in front of me.  My head, in this position, is in front of my heart.  It is, in some ways maybe (and I apologize for the necessary cliche-ness of this next statement) it is protecting my heart.  I mean, of course it's NOT.  But it feels like it might be.  Because I'll tell you what, anytime I remember to lean my head back in a yoga class or, like I did just before sitting down to write this post, I stand against the wall with my butt and shoulders touching it and then press the back of my head into the wall...the vulnerability I feel when I get my head in proper alignment...is marked.

In the yoga philosophy, the front plane of the body represents the individual, the egoic, self, and the back-plane of the body represents the universal, the larger self.  If this is true, then the larger self is something we only have to lean back into, and the little "I" self is always something that's just out in front of us. And while I'm sure you could diagnose a head-reaching-forward posture as something which is simply the result of too much time on the computer or in the car, or talking to people who are taller than you (I made that one up), I'm going to venture out on a limb here and say, maybe...maybe it's something bigger than that.

Maybe Drew Barrymore doesn't feel totally safe resting back into that big unknown.  Maybe Drew is a bit of an overachiever (being famous at age four, or whatever, for being totally adorable...I think that could do it), and maybe the only way she's known how to navigate is by reaching and grasping and "me first" ing.  And maybe this used to be something that helped her survive, but maybe now it's just doing more harm than good.  Maybe her little system would like a break.  Maybe if Drew could just, exhale, and lean her little head back...who knows what might happen.

I'm talking strictly about Drew Barrymore here, obviously, not anyone else.  Just to clear up any confusion.  If any of you thought I might be talking about...someone...else.  I'm not.  I'm really just going to keep my analysis to the postures of celebrities.  Tune in next week when we'll delve into some deep discussion about Jennifer Aniston's lumbar curve.  Wowza!

(Alright, I'm talking about me.)

I have no real solution to this posture dilemma, except that I am trying to remember to sit up straight, and to tell my little head (softly) that maybe she doesn't need to work so hard all the time.  Maybe the world won't end.  Maybe her life won't go slipping out of her grasp if she just...rests back every once in a while.

Now if someone could just send me Drew Barrymore's number...I could tell her, too.

A Man on a Mission...

"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work.  And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.  If you haven't found it yet, keep looking.  Don't settle.  As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it.  And, like any great relationship, it just get's better and better as the years roll on.  So keep looking until you find it.  Don't settle."

- Steve Jobs

Digging Deep

It's raining.  The rain in Los Angeles is one of my favorite things.  It drives Paul crazy because all of LA is designed for outdoor living, and so on rainy days it's hard not to just feel...left out in it.

I, however, have always been a lover of the rain.  Having been a child who was much happier reading books or playing pretend in the confines of my own room than going, ugh, outside...the rain was the perfect wash-away-er of any playtime guilt.  No need to make excuses for not stomping around in the woods...it's raining!  Also, having grown up in the Pacific Northwest, the majority of my childhood memories are under-written by a soundtrack of rain--rain on the nylon tent roof, rain being whisked away by the shoosh of windshield wipers, rain filling the gutters and splashing down the sides of the house.  The smell of rain, the feel of it, the patter as it hits the sidewalk below the window...it is a tool for load-lightening.  So, today I am happily ensconced inside, letting the rain sooth my tired brain.

Yesterday I went to class for the first time in several days.

My practice lately is hard-won.  I came back from the wedding with a lot of questions about my life at large, and for the first time, my heretofore-blissly-uncomplicated relationship with yoga has become, well...complicated.  In a class I taught on Monday I talked about how important dedication is, and how it's easy to devote yourself to something when it brings you nothing but pleasure, but the challenge is to devote yourself to something even when you don't want to.  Like for me, lately, going to class.  One of my favorite teachers at Still Yoga, Gina Zimmerman, likes to quote this saying:

"If you want to strike water, don't dig twenty wells ten feet deep.  Dig one well two-hundred feet deep."

In private Gina has told me that her meditation practice used to be a catch-all of methods.  One day she'd try one technique and the next day another.  When she found her teacher, she told me, one of the first things he said to her is that the worst thing you can do, when sitting down to meditate, is think, "what should I try this time?" His point being that dabbling, when it comes to a spiritual practice, isn't going to lead you very far.  You have to dig one well, and dig it deeply.

The trouble, I find, is that usually for the first, oh, fifty-feet of well-digging, things go along swimmingly.  It's all sand and grass and silt, and you feel like progress is yours for the having.  Until, eventually, you hit rock.  And you're just banging your shovel against it in a spray of sparks, feeling, for the first time maybe, the impossibility of the endeavor.

This is the moment you either tell yourself that you're probably digging in the wrong place and that you ought to pick up and move elsewhere.  Or you continue.  With only the faith that there IS water down there, and with your aching arms as the only proof of forward movement.

There was an article in this week's New York Times magazine about these two schools in Manhattan, one a fancy-pants private school in the Bronx, and one a charter school for lower income students, both run by progressive headmasters, both of whom are deeply engaged in a mission to change the way that studentship is measured.  For years both of these men have been studying trends in learning and psychology in order to develop a practical way to both measure and develop character in their students.

Their reason for doing this?

At both the fancy-pants school and the charter school a disturbing trend was emerging.  Those students who had done the best, academically, were exhibiting the largest failure rate in college and beyond.  At the private school it became clear that the students of privilege were so accustomed to sailing through their life that they crumpled at the first instance of push-back, post-adolescence.  And for the kids at the charter school, the students who had learned how to get the grades, had not learned how to have optimism about their future.  No one else in their family had managed to do it, so why should they?

The problem for both sets of students was the same...they had not learned how to fail, and they had not learned, in particular, that after failure must come re-commitment.

Grit, both of these headmasters soon discovered, along with qualities like optimism, curiosity and zest for life, were the real factors that contribute to success.  Not GPA or even IQ scores.

Grit.  The trait that allows one to set a goal and follow-through, no matter how long it takes, and no matter how many obstacles show up along the way.

Grit.  To keep on digging, even when it feels like you're going nowhere.

The Bhagavad Gita, one of the great (and aggravating) texts of yoga, is full of recommendations for enhancing grit:

"It is true that the mind is restless and difficult to control.  But it can be conquered...through regular practice and detachment.  Those who lack self-control will find it difficult to progress in meditation; but those who are self-controlled, striving earnestly through the right means, will attain the goal... 

Through constant effort over many lifetimes, a person becomes purified of all selfish desires and attains the supreme goal of life."

Phew!  Talk about taking the long view..."constant effort over many lifetimes"?!  That is one deep f-ing well.  But the point is well-made.  Keep on keeping on.  In meditation, in particular, the idea that we could learn to control our mind--our mind which we have been letting run wild, most of us, for as long as we've been alive--the idea that we could achieve this without real discipline and dedication is just...foolish.

And so it goes for anything that we want.  To change our habits.  To make a contribution to the world.  Just to achieve the very simple trophy of saying we are going to do something and then actually DOING it...these things take devotion.

For myself, I am going to class.  Even if I'm not sure I want to.  I am writing.  Even if I'm not sure I have anything to say.  I'm finishing the articles I have started reading, I'm making recipes into food, I'm studying and progressing and completing, even in those moments when I don't know why I'm bothering and what it's all for.  And though for the most part I'm having to just put up with the little voice in my head that says we should just shove off and find another place to dig, there are moments, like yesterday when I was in class, where all of the sudden the sky turns a dusky pink and the sidewalk becomes a sudden matrix of raindrops, when I feel like maybe all I need to do is just...keep...digging.

Say No to the Normals!

It has been hard to come back.

Even though one of my friends teased me today that I was just suffering the post-wedding let-down of "not getting to be a princess anymore", I would say that's only part of it.  And for the record, I wasn't really so much a princess as I was, an...I don't know...an 1800's-era sepia-toned photograph?  Of a cowgirl.  Getting married.  To a prince.

Heh heh.

So, maybe it's a little bit that.

I will save you the gory details of all this and just say, when one (me), does something momentous in one's life (maaaaaaarried), it tends to get the ol' wheels a spinning regarding what one's purpose is and how far down the path to exceptional-ness one is.

And there, of course, lies the rub.

Because that pesky search for the exceptional is, for this writer, just a one-way ticket to despair.  And I can not believe that I'm alone in this.  Aren't we all suffering just a little bit from the sting of constant failure in the face of one-million-and-one messages of, "you are special and can have whatever you want" that are being beamed at us on a daily basis, not just in our various careers and endeavors, but also in our advertising, in the anxiety-death-trap of Facebook and even in (gulp) our yoga practices?  Am I the only one who feels that having to acknowledge, over and over again, that I am neither Oprah nor Angelina Jolie nor Eckhart Tolle, is downright galling, and proof-positive of my having failed in the world at large?

Anyone?

I was listening to an interview with Carolyn Myss the other day (who I find completely terrifying and mesmerizing...terrifying because she gets so yell-y about lazy spiritualism, and mesmerizing because she's the angriest mystic I've ever encountered, and that's just hard not to love), and she was talking about how so many (lazy!) people are running around feeling terrified of being ordinary, and because of that, are just filling their lives with distraction.  Anything they can use to prove to themselves, and everyone else, that they are not (god forbid)...one of the normals.

(quick tangent: one day, when Paul and I were looking for wedding venues, we got a tour of this resort place in Big Bear, and the woman taking us on the tour kept talking about how celebrities come and stay there sometimes and how you'd never know they were celebrities, "because they look just like normals".  As if these were the only two categories of human:  Celebrities...and Normals.)

And this, Shanti-towners, this quest to not be one of the Normals...is a totally destructive one.  And I know, because I am very, very, very familiar with it. Very.  Veeeeeeeeeeery.

The desire to be exceptional driven by the fear of ordinary-ness, is not just really, really painful, it is also totally and completely unproductive.

Because, in order to measure one's life against the ordinary/exceptional-o-meter, one has to step out of one's life.  You can't measure that which you're, you know, actively participating in.  So, everything has to come to a halt while you jump OUT of your life, drag out your various methods of calculation and evaluation, and then, once you've proven (once again) that you are NOT in fact a gorgeous genius in the way you thought you were/were told you should be/promised you would be, then you have to spend some time...weeping.  Or breaking things.  (Whichever way you're wired).  And then?

Well then you need to make a PLAN.

You need to make the Big Plan to Once and For All Change Things For The Better.  But, oh! Shoot!  Before you even MAKE the Big Plan to Once and For All Change Things For The Better, you have to make sure that you've sussed out all the possible options of arenas in which this plan will take place.  This is going to take some real serious fantasizing and pointless internet-searching.  After all, you don't want to commit to the Big Plan to Once and For All Change Things For The Better and have it be the wrong plan now, do you?  That would be really bad.  That would mean that you might never actually be exceptional.  No, no, you have to paste together all the appropriate clues and signs and hunches into exactly the right formula or else, who knows, you might not end up taking the right exit.  And then your exceptionalness will just be waiting there for you, stranded...and she's a fickle one, that exceptional-ity, and she might just take off with someone else.  Some hapless traveler who took YOUR goddamn exit.

No, you must think carefully.  Best not act too quickly.

And so there you sit, wondering if it's this path or this one or that one, and how it might look, and how great it's going to be, and how all the struggles of your life have probably just led you here, how this moment, picking your toes on your couch is probably your watershed moment, and when they make the biopic about your life, this is going to be the surprising turn-around moment, the one where all your family and friends are like, "we always knew she'd do something big, and finally she did"....  But you wonder why, then, you feel so stuck.  And you wonder why everyone else seems to be...getting things done.

But then you make yourself feel better, because you realize that those poor sods, those folks out there in the world actually making movies and writing books and designing footwear...those folks probably haven't done this important work you're doing.  Those folks probably aren't destined for greatness, so it's much easier for them, to waste their time...accomplishing things.  Let them have their toys of productivity!  Let them be engaged in the day to day process of living!  Fodder for the Normals!  You are better than that.  You are heading towards greatness!

How do you knooooooow?  Well, you're...

thinking about it...

a lot, and um...

it's really a high priority...

eventually, so...

uh.

(Am I making my point?)

What I come back to, again and again, in my own uncomfortable quest for...something.  For purpose, I guess.  For engagement.  Is that the art of living requires a kind of real surrender.  Not surrender to some greater "god" force (though that's part of it), but surrender just to the daily back-and-forth act of living.  Surrendering to your actual life. The surrendering up of the part of you that wants to evaluate and control. Surrendering so that what is in front of you, is enough.  Surrendering so that you can DO things without constantly evaluating the worth of those things based on what they might GET you.

So, maybe all of that energy, all of that time we're taking to figure out how we can and what we need to do in order to make our lives BETTER.  Finally fixed.  Finally perfect.  Maybe we should instead be using all of that energy to live the life we currently have.  Imagine what we could do.  Imagine the kind of awesome shit you could do, if you weren't trying to change anything...if you were just trying to glorify what currently IS?

Because THAT, I'm coming to believe, that day-to-day communion with our own lives, no matter what they look like...that is just about as exceptional as we can get.

Why The Universe Can Suck It

Some bidnezz first:

1. For those of you who have asked for pictures of the wedding, they ARE coming.  We are way behind on the post-wedding upkeep (including thank you cards, eek!), but I promise, pictures will come!

2. My new husband (giggle) has graciously agreed to guest blog the Paris half of the honeymoon for Shanti Town, so look out for that this weekend!

Now, ahem...on with the show!

Why The Universe Can Suck It.

So...I was talking through a problem last week with a dear friend of mine who, like me, has a tendency toward the symbolic when working through tangled situations  (or, well, I do this with EVERY situation, not just tangled ones)...what does this mean?  She asked me.  What is the universe trying to tell me?  And I pondered this, seriously, as we spoke.

I thought of all the times in my own life I've searched for answers in little clues.  I thought about the times I've spent minutes or hours or days deciphering some happenstance encounter or phone call or dream or...license plate (yikes!)...pulling it apart, trying to discern it's deeper meaning, it's buried clues.  Why did that car show up at THIS moment with THAT message written on it?!  I thought about how this usually never leads me anywhere but into deepening anxiety.  But how I always feel like I must be doing deep spiritual work, investigating the minutia of my life in this way.  But that deep down I always also sort of feel like a giant goober, letting my day get hijacked by a street sign.

And then I thought about my new mantra:

The Universe Can Suck It.  

(Sometimes it's more strongly worded than that in my head, but this is a family blog so...insert expletives as you see fit).

The Universe Can Suck It, people, not because there's anything wrong with the Universe, not because I no longer believe in the Universal, but because, come ON.  Dude (Universe), if you want me to KNOW something, can you try to be a little less cagey about it all?  I mean, is this really how I think the larger forces in the world, the ones that are supposedly all-good and all-knowing, work?  Do I really think that they're just planting mildly uncomfortable and completely unintelligible signs in my life for me to turn my self into knots trying to work out?  If so, then I have a few ground rules that I am going to need to lay down for this frat-boy prankster of a universe:

1.  If you would like me to know something, please make it clear.  If I'm, you know, "off the path", or about to make some mistake or missing some big piece of the puzzle...just go ahead and lay it out for me.  I can take it, just put them cards on the table.  UNTIL then, until I have clear and unmistakeable clarity about your intentions, please don't be offended if I just ignore you.

2.  I'm in charge.  This means, I make the decisions about my life that I want to make.  I will base those decisions on my personal well-being and present-moment happiness.  If you have a problem with that, I apologize, and please see item #1, above.  In the meantime, I will NOT be searching the world for signs of your approval.  Turns out, I don't actually need your approval to make decisions.  So there.

3.  And this is a big one...I am done with you being cast as some distant mean-girl frenemy in my life.  If you want to be a participatory force in my world (which, you know, I know you dooooo), then you're going to need to work WITH me.  I'm making the decision that my own peace of mind is more important than figuring out what the hell you're up to, so...I'll be over here living my life, and you are welcome any time.  But I'm not going to bring anything to a halt to go chasing you down.  You little snot.

This is what I'm telling the Universe, this is what I told my friend, and this is what I'm telling you, lovely beautiful amazing Shanti-towners...which is: who CARES what it means.  Signs, omens, premonitions...it's all either just one more thing that can hold you back from living your life and living it fully, or it's not.  And I'm choosing not.  Because in my heart of hearts, I can't believe that any of those things, the "signs" that fill us with dread at their possible meaning...none of those things come from the big giant heart of the Universe.  Those things come from the tiny and unimaginative universe, the one that lives in all of our heads, and they are best disposed of quickly and totally.

Trust me on this one, if the Universe wants you to know something...she is going to make it known, in no uncertain terms, and it's going to feel like LOVE.  Not fear.

So the next time you find yourself trying to untangle the hidden meaning of the black cat crossing your path or the cockroach on your wedding dress (don't ask), just tell the Universe...

Well, you know.

Returned!

That's right, we did it.

M-A-R-R-I-E-D!!

I'm going to try not to gush too much, but this was, without question, one of the happiest days I have ever had. And I feel very, very (very) lucky.  To be married to the man I'm married to.  I am more in love with him now than I have ever been.  And that is saying something.

Everything went so beautifully...the whole week leading up to the wedding, Paul and I were both blown away by the efforts of our families and friends, we just felt love and support coming at us from all sides and it made for an incredible ceremony and reception.  I didn't want the day to end...I thought I was going to want to leave the party early, I thought I would be too exhausted to stay up until the wee hours, but it was all just too good to say goodnight to.  Eventually I just sort of collapsed onto Paul's lap and closed my eyes, and this apparently was the sign that the festivities should come to an end.  It was 4AM.

We crazily volunteered to host a brunch the next morning after the wedding, and so me and the husband (giggle), barely got any sleep before we were up again, clearing out empty bottles and figuring out how exactly we were supposed to make eggs for 70 people by 10 AM....  It happened, god knows how it happened, but it did.  Thanks again to our intrepid friends, who were busily running to the grocery store and making pancakes in back-rooms in order to make it all come together.  And after brunch there were goodbyes to be said and cleaning to be done and tables and chairs to prep for the rental company...before we knew it was 5pm, and Paul and I were loading ourselves into our jam-packed rental car and heading off to a nearby hotel to try and get some real sleep.  In the car we went over and over the details of the day before...how wonderful it all was, how beautiful, how eloquent and smart and lovely all our friends are...and by the time we got to the hotel I was too tired to even attempt a "we just got married" upgrade.  Any room would do.  As long as it had room service and a bed, which it did.

The next two days were full of unpacking from the wedding, returning all the various rental equipment, and then re-packing and preparing for the honeymoon.  There were several honeymoon details which had been flagrantly overlooked in service of wedding planning, and now we only had 48 hours to get prepared.  We barely had time to catch our breath after the wedding before we were on to figuring out what the best currency exchange rate was in Iceland.  It's a crazy transition, that wedding to honeymoon thing.

We flew all night long and arrived in Reykjavik early in the morning on a Thursday.  We arrived. Our bags, however, did not.  Our bags...containing all of our warm clothing for Iceland and all of our best clothing for the second leg of the trip in Paris.  The baggage clerk for Iceland Air told us she was sure our things would arrive late that night, but I had to fight to keep from crying all the same.

"Did you tell her it's our HONEYMOON?" I asked Paul.  As if her having that piece of information would get our bags to us any quicker.  As if they were just hiding our bags in the back room at the airport, waiting to see if we had a really goooooood reason that we needed them before they brought them out to us.

We spent the first day in Reykjavik purchasing scarves and looking up things to do and drinking so-so Icelandic beer at a local haunt:  Dillons, A Rock and Roll Bar, said the sign out front.  It wasn't very Rock and Roll at 4pm on a Thursday, but it was nice enough.

It was so gray and cold and we were so tired and everything felt so alien...especially without our bags and maybe doubly especially because the wedding now seemed like some beautiful far-away dream...how did we GET here?  On the bus ride in from the airport, looking out at the gray harbor and the still un-opened shops of Reykjavik I thought, oh...this is why people go to the beach for their honeymoon.  The idea of doing anything other than, well, nothing...seemed just too exhausting.

But the next morning, just as the baggage woman said they would be, our bags were delivered to our hotel, and it felt like the honeymoon might actually be able to begin.  Ah, to shower!  To change my socks!

We spent the next day and a half in Reykjavik, exploring what there was to explore...we went to the Blue Lagoon and treated ourselves to the "VIP Lounge", we wandered through the harbor, we ate...a lot.  The food in Iceland is amazing.  No one tells you this, but it is...it's so good.  Everything we ate, literally, no matter whether we'd gotten it at a restaurant or a bar or a coffee shop or some little sandwich stand...everything was perfectly prepared and just...delicious.  So, we partook of a lot of Icelandic cuisine.  We tried to find some theater to see, but didn't try very hard.  We walked a lot, took a lot of pictures, we even ended up at the art museum downtown just in time for the opening of a new exhibit and stood and drank the free wine while we listened to people give speeches in Icelandic.

But we realized quickly that we wanted to be deeper in to the natural beauty of the country, and so we took a tiny plane across the island to Husavik, a little fishing town way up north.  Almost as far north in Iceland as you can go.   Which is almost as far north anywhere as you can go.  Iceland is amazing because it's huge, but very sparsely populated.  There are only 330,000 residents, and nearly 85% of those residents live in Reykjavik.  This means you can drive and drive and drive in Iceland and not see another person for hours. Not even a car.  Sometimes not even a house.  But lots of sheep.  There are very fat and adorable sheep everywhere.  I think that Paul wanted to take one home...he was very taken by the sheep.

In Husavik we whale-watched, we ate, we fished in the little ponds near the cabins where we stayed, we soaked in a geo-thermal hot tub and drank more Icelandic beer, we read, we ate, we drove out to waterfalls and lava rock fields and strange martian landscapes, we drove through fog so thick you really couldn't tell whether the car was still on the ground or just floating in mid-air...it was good.  It was really, really good.

And just as we started to settle in, just as we started to get that, oh yes, okay, we're getting a handle on this place...it was time to get on a plane and fly to Paris!  (Tough life, I know).

Oh, Paris.

Oh, sweet, gorgeous, well-groomed Paris...

TO BE CONTINUED...

Doot-doot-doo-doooooooo....

(that was "here comes the bride", in case you don't read type-humming)

Alright, ladies and gentlemen of Shanti Town...it's time.  I am officially signing off until after my nuptials and post-nuptial-vacation (otherwise known as a honeymoon).  I can't fake it anymore...I have NOTHING else on my mind.  So, it's really better if I start the blog-cation now, and not keep anyone clicking around any longer.

I hope that while I'm away you'll check out this book, maybe amuse yourself at this amazing blog, maybe catch up on some episodes of any of my three favorite podcasts.  If I'm really lucky you'll hang out in my archives and catch up on some Shanti Town's of the past...but whatever you do, I hope you'll still be here when I get back.

I'm so touched that any of you are here and reading and commenting in the first place...it means so much to me, and I promise that when I return there will be more posting.  You'll have to let me know if the writing gets better or worse once I'm just another married lady!

I'm so excited, I can barely stand it.  I promise to share stories and pictures and all kinds of things upon my return.

Until then...namaste, y'all.

xoxo
YogaLia

Not Your Grandma's Props

It's a rare moment of quiet here at the ol' homestead...I'm in between classes and errands (like a trip to the makeup counter at Nordstrom where I will try not to reveal myself to be the clueless galumph that I am when it comes to all things cosmetics)...and I'm happy to have a moment to sit and write and sip at some overly-hot green tea.

(No, I have not successfully given up coffee...but I'm now down to one soy latte every-other day.  Pretty much.  They're so goooooooood.  And I'm not drinking any wiiiiiiiiiiiiiine.)

Aren't I allowed?  I'm allowed.

Anyhow, I want to talk props, people.  Not the movie-set variety, but the foam blocks and straps variety, and specifically why they are awesome and more specifically, why more people should know that they are awesome and actually start using them.

Some people are really good about this...some people dutifully grab an armful of blocks and blankets and straps before setting up for class and are quick to slide them underneath errant hands and feet when necessary.  These people are happy when using their props.  These people are usually not trying to win the yoga class, and so it is no great bruise to their ego if they occasionally need a little square foam help.

But not everyone is so, ahem, flexible.

The other night I was teaching a class in which there were several older men (60's?), some of them I knew, some of them I didn't, and all of them had obviously done yoga before...a couple of them seemed like they had probably been doing yoga for years and so their practices were pretty strong.  They were not, however, completely free from physical limitations.  (Who is?!)  And while one or two were doing a good job of taking care of themselves, there were a couple others--men who obviously knew each other, men who (it seemed) had something to prove to one another--who were not interested in this wimpy "taking care of yourself" business.  There was no resting for these fellows, no vinyasa skipping, no childspose-ing...just tight-jawed huffing and puffing their way into and out of poses.

Okay, fine.  Cool.  That's not my lesson to teach anyone.  I mean, god knows when I first started practicing I was just constantly trying to climb my way to the top of the class so I could earn some kind of "best student" trophy...so I knooooow from whence they come.  But there was one pose that we were doing, that involved reaching back for the foot of a bent back leg, that was just proving impossible for one of these gentlemen, and so I encouraged him to use a strap.  A strap, in this pose, would have made it not only possible, but actually ENJOYABLE.  He would have found the rolling back of his shoulder, the stretch at the front of the back thigh...but when I encouraged him to try the strap, even offering to help him set it up, his answer was a very definite:

No.

That's it.  He just looked at me and said, "NO.  No, thank you."  And then went back to aggravating himself with his out of reach foot.

And all that night and this morning I kept thinking...the poor guy doesn't know what he's missing!  He doesn't know that props are amazing, and that they will only improve a practice, that the body will actually open faster if it's supported.  No one's ever told him that.  Or they have, but someone more compelling has apparently told him that props mean you. Can't. Do. It.  And that taking a prop means admitting defeat.  And I have to admit...had this been a young woman who had so frankly refused me, I might have made it a point to say something about props to the class, about how yoga is not about successfully executing poses as much as it is just witnessing yourself attempting to execute poses...but I didn't.  Because, I don't know...I feel like you shouldn't mess with old dudes.

But it got me thinking about props in general, and about this strange stigma around them--I see it in so many students, and certainly for years I saw it in myself.  I had a student this morning who has an injury, an actual injury, and when I told her she should start using a block in triangle on that side of her body she looked absolutely crestfallen.  And I thought, well, this must be because props=help, and we can not avoid our ingrained protestant work ethic which finishes that equation as: props=help, help=failure.

And I thought about how reluctant I am, sometimes, to reach out in my own life when I need supporting.  To use my family and friends and therapist and doctors and dentists and whomever else to prop me up.  Because I don't want them to know I need it.  Because I want to do it on my own.

NO.  No, thank you.

But if it's true that the body will open more quickly if it's supported--isn't the same thing true of the heart and the mind?  Isn't this why we need our homes and our families and our friends so very, very much...because just the knowledge that they're there, just the fact that they make the ground a little steadier, allows us to take wing that much quicker?  And isn't this the really magical part of the yoga practice?  Because by gosh, if you are unwilling to even allow yourself the helping hand of a square piece of foam in a yoga class, a place where there are no real stakes whatsoever, you can bet that same pattern is resonating all over your life in other ways.  And if you missed it in your life, it's going to show up for you right there on your mat.

I just...I love that.

So, Shanti-Towners, do yourself a favor...prop yourself up.  Use whatever you've got.  Just bring the ground a little closer, and then see how much further you can reach...