The Winds They Are A-Blowin'...

"It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by.  How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment? For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone. That is where the writer scores over his fellows: he catches the changes of his mind on the hop."

- Vita Sackville-West 

It's Fall here. Though you wouldn't know it most days, through the 80 degree weather and endless (ENDLESS) sunshine. You might scoff, you of the darker climes, but it is inhumane to live in a place where the weather never changes.  Sunshine, or no sunshine.  Two days ago we had our first bout of the Santa Ana winds...all night long they rattled windows and blew down unsuspecting plants. There is something unsettling about so much movement in the air, but I was grateful for it. Some weather, any weather, is a blessed event after this long, hot, summer.

(And as the winds blow outside, the winds blow within.)

Our apartment has been invaded with critters. Yesterday a cricket fell from the ether right smack into the middle of my keyboard and then hopped merrily off. The crickets are staging a coup, I'm sure of it. And the creepy drawer-dwellers, and the spiders, and even, the other day, a praying mantis, perched on our curtain rod.  Last night I spent twenty minutes trapping and releasing a giant brown spider that had housed itself in one of my scarves. All that work to keep it alive and away from the house, and then as soon as I let it free on our porch it tried to scurry back in. At which point I grabbed a notebook and whapped it, and whapped it, ready to kill.

Lucky for him, I missed.

I find myself, lately, thinking and thinking. Thinking of all the things that need to be done, thinking about all the time I don't have to do them in, thinking about where I'm going and where I've been, thinking about how I'm going to get to the next place, and why I'm not there yet. Thinking about my friends and my family, wondering how they are and what they need, thinking about my mind and my heart, thinking and thinking and thinking and in the midst of the thinking feeling nostalgia for this very moment as it passes me by, unacknowledged.

In a conversation earlier this week I confessed to someone, "I think I ought to be more present, but then I worry that if I'm present, I won't know what needs to be done next and how to do it." And she said to me that I only have this moment to deal with things, anyhow, and that I would just have to trust that I will know how to handle things, when and if they come up. And that in the meantime, there is nothing to do but be in my life.

And I thought about this for days, afterwards. I turned it over. I let the winds wash it around. And I discovered that she was right.

I can only be inspired in this moment, I can only affect circumstances in this moment, I can only take action in this moment, and I can only react to my life, in this moment.  What happens in the future is an unknown whether I'm preoccupied with worry about it, or not. It will come and present challenges and openings, whether I've been thinking about it, or not. But this moment is already here. This sun is already shining. That bird on the wire outside my window is already there. This morning is already upon me. This breath is breathing me, keeping me alive, and this silence is the only one I get. So, you know...use it or lose it.

I trust these winds. They are appropriately timed, all in preparation for the great hunkering down of winter. I will let them blow through and shake free the last dead leaves of summer.

The Simplicity of Trees...

I keep thinking back these days to the very first time I encountered what could be called a spiritual teaching. Well, maybe it wasn't the first time I encountered one, but it was the first time I encountered one that encountered me, back.

I was twenty-four. I was miserable. I was miserable primarily because I was feeling like a failure as an actress, but I was also miserable in much deeper ways, ways that I couldn't quite understand. I just knew that some days I felt happy and some days I didn't and the days I didn't were nearly as many (and oftentimes more) than the days I did. And I had a friend, a woman many years older than me, who said to me one day, very simply, hey, there's something I think you should hear, and she introduced me to some teachings. Just some audio-cassettes of a teacher that she followed, giving a seminar.

We listened to them in her car as we drove around near her home in upstate New York.

I don't remember, honestly, if I was skeptical going into it. I don't think I had expectations one way or the other. I hadn't been exposed to much, other than my brief brush with Episcopalianism when I was young, but I wasn't naive, and usually I was wary of such things. In fact, as a teenager and early twenty-something I prided myself on my skepticism.  I mean, I have no idea how I appeared to the outside world, but in my head I was a chain-smoking no-nonsense fuck-you-guys kind of chick. (On the inside, I didn't like myself very much, but that's another story). Point being, I wasn't starry-eyed, you know? I wasn't looking for some solution. I had no thought in my head that what I was about to listen to would be anything other than...interesting.

But, what happened was actually pretty dramatic. I don't know how to describe the experience except that I knew, cellularly, in my bones, as I listened to those tapes, that I was hearing truth. Possibly for the first time. And maybe it was because I didn't have expectations, or the timing was just so exactly, perfectly, right...but I think I changed. I think I had one of those experiences where you actually change, from top to bottom, in an instant.  I was able to literally put down everything that was worrying me, confusing me, upsetting me, dragging me down, and turn, 180 degrees, into the light.

And I stayed there.

I remember the next day, I was standing in her dining room, looking out this window she had that faced a little copse of trees (I have written about this before here on this blog, forgive me for the repeat). I remember I was standing there and I was just trying to take in the beauty of the trees. Because part of what happened, when I opened up like that, in her car the day before, is I realized that I had stopped looking at the world. I hadn't been appreciating the beauty of the world around me. And so I was standing there, looking at the trees, standing in this blissful interior silence, when an old voice arose. What about all the things you have to do..... It started to say.  What about getting a job or fixing that old relationship? Why should you get to stand here and admire trees? Etc., etc....

And I remember I just very simply addressed the marauding voice and said, no...you're not ruining this for me. And it, and it's accompanying dark feelings, vanished as quickly as it came. And, in that moment I felt an immense power. I can do this, I thought. I can really do this.

Fast-forward seven years.

I have learned a lot more. I have read a lot more. I have been through a lot more. I have even been through an extended period of time where what I thought I found disappeared completely. Entirely. With no sign of return.  I have swung back and forth and gained and lost footing, and landed ultimately, most of the time, somewhere in the middle. Which is not a terrible place to land.

But I have been thinking back to this first moment. Because, there was something that was so clear, in that first encounter, which has become...confused. It's challenging to read so much, to listen to so much, to hear so many reasonable voices of truth (and some not so reasonable), to hear ideas and prescriptions that sound like ways in, only to discover that they are not maybe ways in for YOU. And I'm talking about the spiritual path but I'm also talking about the path of an artist, the path of a career, the path of making a home and a family...it is possible to take too much in. It's possible to want and expect too much, and for that wanting and that expectation to be the very thing that keeps you from the simplicity of looking at trees.

So, today the mantra is to remember the simple way. To remember the crystalline quality of truth. It's not complicated. It's not effortful. It's not pre-planned. It's the thing that makes your bones feel like they're humming. Just look for that feeling, and most likely, you're on the right path.

Sunday Q and A. (Without the A)...

Action as Cliff-Diving...

No complaint. Action.

My husband has been bandy-ing this about lately.

(Bandy-ing? Bandieng?)

Anyhow. He read it somewhere, and it touched him. And I have grown to like it quite a lot, too. No complaint...action.

And we've been using it. In moments where we find ourselves slipping into mutual bemoaning...jobs, careers, creative projects, money, weather, driving, social outings...one or the other of us has been piping up, "no complaint, action!" And it has an immediate silencing effect. A positive silencing. A silencing of the mental wheels turning and a clarifying of sharp irrefutable CHOICE. As in...we have the choice to do something about that which gets us down...or not. Either way, the complaining either pre- or post- or during, is useless.

But, this is not about blind action or action as the only force of change (because I firmly believe that action is a partner in the process of creation, not THE process of creation)...because sometimes the "action" that rises up to release the complaint is just a few deep breaths. Sometimes the action that rises up is just about going back to driving the car or writing the email or eating the food--DOING whatever it is you were doing before you found something to complain about.

And I realize, that there are things that seem unchangeable, there are things that seem to have no complementary action...either because they are out of our control or because they just feel too big to ever be able to DO anything about them...but still, if you were to apply this equation, even to those peskiest of concerns:

No complaint, action...

Then wouldn't the only choice be to engage in SOME kind of action, in place of the complaint? A long walk. A phone call. A book. Sitting down and making something. And wouldn't that result in a kind of letting go? A softening around that thing that seems so impossible?

I had a conversation with a student after class today about falling out of handstand. She had taken a falling workshop and hadn't been able to master the art of the fall. It was too scary. The giving up of control too great. And we talked about how much courage it requires to fall. We talked about how it is so much more about the body and so not about the mind.

And, I thought about what it's like to jump into water from a great height...you know that feeling, when your toes are at the edge of the cliff, or the edge of the diving board, and the water is stretched out underneath you? Do you know the one?

Being the younger sister of a highly physically adventurous brother, and not being one to publically turn down a challenge (especially if presented by said older brother), I have found myself a reluctant cliff jumper on many occasions.

And what I have discovered, is that my mind is never what leads me off the cliff and down to the water below. To the contrary. My mind, if it had its way, would have me standing and contemplating possible outcomes, my calculatable physical safety, why on earth I'm doing this in the first place, until the sun went down behind me.

It is my body who has to decide. It is my body who has to take action. Body just steps...and falls. And it's done. Whatever happens afterward is a present-moment experience, and there will be no choice but to take it as it comes. Action, action, action.

(Perhaps the state of presence is nothing more than a state of action. Without complaint.)

Regardless of what else you may believe, it is clear that we are physical beings, living and breathing and loving and working in a physical world. We are meant to act. Action is a delicious thing...and it exists, it only exists in the present. You can't take action yesterday or tomorrow...only now.

And so today, if you feel yourself drifting into complaint (which includes self-criticism, which includes any thought/feeling/story that concludes that what is happening in your life in this moment is somehow not appropriate), stop, take a breath, and look for an action to take. Not to SOLVE what you're complaining about, but for the pure pleasure of engaging in the present-moment-ness of your life. Jump off that cliff.

(No complaint. Action.)

Buy Soap, Accomplish Less...

Does reading other people's blog posts count as writing?

(Please don't answer that).

I am on a writing regiment. I have assigned myself a certain number of hours a day to write, and for the most part it has been swimmingly easy. On many days it goes by so quickly I think, well, shoot...I could double this.  But on other days, (today, for instance), the allotted time feels like a pitch-y cavern laid out in front of me. One that I desperately want to avoid. And so, as my designated start time approaches I will suddenly find myself accomplishing a whole list of very necessary tasks that, no, can not be done at any other moment except this one. Ordering that face wash I've run out of. Checking my spam email for stray job offers, giant checks, missives from long-lost friends. Putting laundry in. Taking laundry out. Making a list of all the other very necessary tasks that I ought to get done at least that day, if not right this very minute.

And the time ticks by.

Procrastination, I believe they call this. (Who me? No...I'm just being productive in other ways.)  In The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali he lists procrastination as one of the nine obstacles to practice. He doesn't call it procrastination, in the Sutras it's referred to as styana, or self-defeat. Self-defeat. As in, I have made an agreement with myself that I'm going to do this thing that I want to do, that's important to me, that makes me feel better in the doing of it, but I--the other I, the other half of this contracted pair--am going to go ahead and disobey that agreement, ruining the whole plan from the outset.

In the midst of procrastination, both of these I's are present. If they weren't, there would be no conflict, right? It wouldn't be an uncomfortable state. The problem with procrastination, this styana, this self-defeat, is that both the you who made the decision to take the action and the you who now doesn't want (for whatever reason) to take said action, are present. And they are duking it out. 

This to me seems to be at the heart of all personal conflict.  There is the you that wants what's best, and there is the you that doesn't want to comply, or doesn't think she's capable of complying, or doesn't think she's worthy of complying, and those two you's are at war. Even the term "self-defeat" implies that there is a SELF (a bigger self, a she-who-knows-best-eth) and then there is that which defeats the self. These two forces are not equal--there is truth, and then the destruction of it.  There is me, and then all the crap I do to get in my way.

And what I love about this, and the philosophies of yoga at a whole, is that the basis of understanding, the hypothesis is that what is underneath, what rises up when we stop doing all of the stuff we do to get in our own way--is good.  That the big Self, is good. And contains in her all of the truth that we're after and the growth we're seeking and all of it. And that there is not, then, some perfect action that we have to take, all we have to do is stop defeating her. Allow her to be. Stop procrastinating. And see what happens...

FRESHness...

I had an experience in a class I was taking, many moons ago, in which we were doing partner poses, and I, pro that I thought I was, was proudly holding up one of my partners legs, when I heard from across the room the rather stern voice of my teacher, calling out:

"Lia! What are you doing? You're spotting the wrong pose!"

And I looked down to discover that, indeed, I was spotting my partner in the non-rotated version of the rotated pose we were supposed to be doing.

"Notice that." my teacher said, rather brusquely, "You're not paying attention."

And for many minutes afterwards I fumed, silently, about the way she'd spoken to me. I felt scolded. I felt reprimanded. I felt called-to-task.  All of which, I was. And all for good reason. Because she was right--I wasn't paying attention. And I knew it.

I have, over the last several weeks, been noticing a lot of this in my own classes. Students jumping ahead, assuming they know where we're going, when most often, they do not. Students going through the motions without listening either to me or to their bodies, when it's clear to me from across the room, that either I have just said something...or their body has...and that it has been ignored. I am sensitive to it these days.  It gets under my skin.

I think about stories of spiritual masters who give "shaktipat", the experience of instant enlightenment--the direct transference of awakeness from themselves to their students--and how some have been known to give it with a quick smack at an opportune time. That was what my aforementioned teacher gave to me. A well-placed THWACK to shake me out of my sleepiness.

But, it's not a surprising thing--all of us, anyone who does anything with repetition, anyone who practices anything, is going to fall occasionally under the spell of their own expertise and fool themselves into thinking they don't have to pay attention anymore. It happens in yoga, it happens in art, it happens in relationships...things get known, they get forgotten...and they get stale.

And so this word, freshness, has been coming to mind. Such a perfect word: fresh. One of those lovely words that is how it sounds and sounds how it is. Fresh. Freeeeeeeeesh. Fresssssssshhhhhhhhh. 


There are ways to be "present" that just involve the mental regurgitation of the learned pattern of things, meaning: Here's a tree. I know what a tree looks like. Here is my mental picture of tree, laminated over the top of that actual living tree. Isn't that pretty. And there are ways to be present which require an absolute newness, as in: Branches moving. Leaves fluttering. Solid trunk. New moss on the ground. Heat vibrating off bark. 

One requires more effort than the other.  

And in the practice of yoga, we are asked to practice the latter. We are asked to use our breath as a guide.  The breath, which is never ever ever the same (not ever once will this inhale be the same as the last) but is a perfect teacher because it can be mistaken for sameness. If you're not looking closely, the breath could just seem like the same pattern, repeated over and over. So, in order to see it for what it really is, in order to keep attention on the breath, in order for it to be FRESH, you really have to be there with it. You really have to be feeling out, each inhale and each exhale.  And, that is the way we are supposed to be coming to our practice.  Every time, as if it's new. Even the poses (especially the poses) we have done 100,000 times before--we are supposed to be looking with fresh eyes. Every time. What's new about this? Have I seen this? Have I really seen it? Or am I just holding myself in this position, because it's the way I've done it before, and so that's the way I'm going to do it now. Am I paying attention?

THWACK!

Am I paying attention?

Back in Action...

So, you may very well be asking yourselves, if you're still reading this blog...if ANYONE is still reading this blog...

Um...where did the blogger go? 

I, the bloggee...I am here, dutifully it seems, more dutifully than aforementioned blogger. So...what's with that? One can not exist without the other. Especially after one (aformentioned bloggee) has already combed through the archives to see if there's anything either a. interesting to read, so that your visit to this blog was not a complete waste of time, or b. some explanation as to the radio silence.

I am hopeful that there is some of option a. available.  I am well aware there is none of option b.

Oh, Shanti-Towneres...where do I begin?

First of all, let me assure you that there is no tragedy or crises or meltdown to be blamed for my absence. That is a good thing. However, that does mean that blame rests squarely on my shoulders for this stunning lack of blog upkeep over the past several months. 

The honest truth, and put as simply as I am able--I am having a re-shifting of priorities. And I haven't quite known how to talk about it. At least, not here. My family and closest friends have had earfuls. But  you, sweet Shanti-towners, many of whom are ALSO close friends...I have not known how to talk to you about it, mainly because:

1.  I don't want to seem like this girl:

2. Because it's complicated, yo.  And;

3. Well, because, most everyone in my life has been so supportive of my embrace of yoga and my transition into teaching, that I haven't wanted to let anyone down or seem like a flaaaaaaake. (Again, please reference video, above).

Now, the whys and what-fors of this re-calibration are really, I promise you, deadly boring, unless you live inside my head, or maybe if you're married to me, and even then, it's only interesting insofar as it relates to my day-to-day happiness.

But the outcome of the why-ing and what-for-ing is: I have realized I am not done pursuing a career as a writer and actress. I thought that I might be. It turns out I'm not. So. What does that mean to you?

Well, possibly absolutely nothing. But, if you're a reader of this blog, it just means that the focus of my writing here and my exploration about life and practice and love and and and...will just be expanding a bit to (re)include my creative work, as well as my yoga practice.  Other than that...onward and upward!

Thank you, so much, for hanging in there.

I'm back. I promise. For reals.

xo

YogaLia

Introducing...Lady Libertine!!

Dear friends and family of Shanti Town...may I please introduce you to Lula Graves and her new AMAZING skincare line...Lady Libertine!

Hooray!

Lula is a dear friend, and over the last many months she has been like a scientist in her lab, working and experimenting to create the best possible ALL NATURAL, EDIBLE, skin care products, and now finally they are available for sale.  Hoorah!  Several months ago she asked me to be a guinea pig, and gave me a trial of the four products, the Honey Cleanse, the Day Oil, the Night Oil and the Wunderbalm, and asked me to keep track of my skin's reaction and give her my feedback.  Shanti-towners, I can not tell you how much I love this stuff.

I have been looking for a few years now for a line of facial care products that were totally natural and WORKED.  I don't believe in slathering chemical things on my skin BUT after moving to Los Angeles I was having some reactions from the dry weather--mainly "forehead bumps".  So I needed something.

And Lady Libertine came to my rescue.

From day one of use I noticed a difference.  My skin felt fed.  Nourished.  Clean. I have already re-ordered with Lula a few times (as I just had little sample sizes to start).  The products are lovely, simple to use, and have left my skin moisturized and supple and totally blemish free.  No more forehead bumps.  Gone. Vanquished.

Not only that, the prices are incredibly reasonable.  Go now, to her site, ladylibertinebeauty.com, and place yourself an order.  You won't regret it.  And right now, to celebrate her debut, Lula is offering a 15% discount on orders of $100 or more for the entire month of June. Just enter the code LONGLIVELIBERTINE and enjoy!

xo
YogaLia

Please Continue Being Awesome, Meghan Currie....

...so that I continue to watch you do stuff like this:

Starting Over. And over. And over. And over.

I am a terrible journal-er.

I have always tried to be a good journal-writer, and in my more angst-y teens and twenties, I was fairly diligent about it.

I wrote
A lot of poems
That weren't really poems,
but just long, long sentences,
that I divided up
into separate lines
for meaning
and

emphasis.

But, as I've gotten older, my journaling has become more sporadic and every year less and less excusable.  In my mind, I always imagine I'm going to be one of those older women with boxes of journals that highlight her artistic and spiritual development. Little works of art that she can pass down to her children and grandchildren.  But, in order for that to be reality, I would have to be one of those women who journaled about all the beauty in her life. One of those people who filled her journal with tiny paintings and detailed descriptions of the blooming orange tree at the bottom of her steps. (I have one of those, btw...it has never appeared in my journal).  Or better still, one of those women who wrote only about her ideas...about projects and images and all kinds of other healthy, adjusted, artistic stuff.

I would have to be one of those women and not, as I am, the kind of woman whose journal is full of awkward diatribes about ongoing neurosis, and the occasional poem;

Still written,
as are all the others,
line by line.
By line.
You can not know,
the power of the line break...
until you've tried it.
Namaste.

So, what I end up with are boxes full of journals, full of weird embarrassing gobbeldy-gook. The idea being, that writing the gobbeldy-gook will get it out of my head and onto paper. But most often what actually happens is that it gets out of my head, and onto the paper, and then back into my head again...amplified. Heh heh.

And the worst part? The journals? The ones in the box? They're all only half-full.

Because, at some point, with every one, the percentage of healthy to neurotic journaling tips in favor of the neurotic, I get embarrassed, I vow to change my ways, and then I realize that what I really need, what's really going to help me turn over a new leaf...is a new journal.

So, I box up the old half-full one, I pull out a fresh brand spanking new leather bound treasure trove of possibility, I breathe a deep sigh of relief, and I start over. Blank page. Fresh start. New me.

Only to have the same thing happen, all over again.

But, enough is enough, people! Sitting next to me on the couch right now, as I type this is, is my current journal. You would not be allowed to read it. I really want to abandon it. I really want to close it up, tape it up, and throw it the f* away. So that I can start over. So that I can pretend to start over. So that I can have the momentary satisfaction of the ritual of starting over. But, not this time.  One of my teachers said recently that the practice of yoga is the practice of focus. Of continuing. Of remaining steady. And if I can't make a positive change in what I'm putting out, even in the small world of this leather-bound book, without having to throw everything away and start over...then what am I teaching myself?

It's easy to start again.  It's easy to toss everything up in the air and feel like the world is just possibility. What's hard is to hang in there. What's hard is to allow yourself to stray from the path, to delve deep into teenage poetry, and then to come back to yourself again. Without punishment. And, without having to get rid of everything that came before.

Am I the Last to Know?

Have you all seen this?

Am I way behind?

This is, without a doubt, one of the most inspiring stories I've heard/seen in a very long time.  I donated to this little love-bug's college fund, and if you've got a few extra shillings laying around, you should to!

The Bully Inside

Alright, I know. I've been gone. I have been, markedly absent, the past few weeks.  Luckily, Blogger is very forgiving. I click back in to login and I don't even get a hint of resentment or "where have you been" eye-squinting from my trusty Google account.  The truth is I've been busy...busy in my secret other life as a (gasp) actor, and busy this week just feeling lousy (both physically and mentally), and so I've been hang-dogging around, not feeling very worthy of sharing.

But now I'm back! Ta-da!

(Thanks for hanging in there)

So, yesterday, whilst in my cold-recovery funk, I went to go see this movie, which I had seen previews for (the previews alone nearly brought me to tears), but had somehow forgotten about and naively went to go see as a "cheer up" film.  It will be uplifting, I thought! A triumph of good over not-so-good! And it is. After it shatters you into a bunch of little pieces and leaves you weeping into your fruit snacks, yes, then it does get uplifting. Sort of.

But, one of the things that struck me as I was watching it was how, when you see some of the bullying on film and the bullies who are doing it, you see that they are just that...bullies. They are, it's so clear, actually much weaker in most cases than the kids being bullied.  One convicted standing of his ground by a targeted kid who figured out his own worth, would probably send said bully running for the hills.  Maybe.  I mean, please forgive any ignorance on my part if you have personal experience with this, I could be dead wrong.  And, I realize in many cases, well, it's just not possible. And no kid should HAVE to learn to stand up for themselves in this way.  BUT, as an adult, sitting safely in my cushy theatre chair, it just seemed so clear..."tell that kid to go to hell!" I wanted to say. "Tell that kid you are not going to take his crap!"

And as I was sitting there, rooting silently for these kids, I realized...I wasn't actually even talking to them. I was talking to me.

I suffered some minor bullying when I was in middle school...nothing like these kids in the film are facing, but it was enough to send me home crying on a regular basis.  I was chubby and a little weird.  I didn't have a lot of friends. I didn't shave my legs. I had a weeks worth of the same outfit, ala Albert Einstein, that I wore nearly every day to school. And, worst of all, I was a bit of a know-it-all. (Example: taking dressing cues from Albert Einstein). So, I suffered. I was teased and note-written about and often ended up eating my lunch in the bathroom in order to avoid having to sit at a table all by myself.

And though I got through all of that relatively unscarred...there is still one bully that even today I still deal with on a regular basis.  One who makes me want to hide under my bed. One who knocks me around and takes my proverbial lunch money and threatens me with all kinds of terrible fates. This bully knows all my weak spots. Knows just when I'm most vulnerable to attack and comes at me with a vengeance.  And the worst part about this bully? She lives inside my own head.

And so avoiding her, is near to impossible.

So, yeah, okay, we've all got some version of this right? That sneaky little a-hole who is just waiting around in there, in the ol' noggin, to tell us that we're stupid or worthless or fat or lazy? Only, these bullies, the ones lying in wait in our cerebral cortex, they are especially pernicious, mostly because they've learned how to disguise themselves as something other.  My bully speaks to me in very quiet grave tones. My bully dresses up like some kind of nasty-tongued guru and tells me continually that she is really just looking out for my best interests and my spiritual development.  But I know it's her by the way she makes my stomach curl up into a tight little knot. That part is unmistakeable.

And you know how I usually deal with said playground-ruffian in-residence?

I deal with her just like most of the kids in this film deal with their bullies.  I try to get her to like me.  I take her punishment and then I try to be cool about it. Or I just put my head down and soldier through because some part of me thinks, way deep down, that she's probably right...I am probably worthless.  And then I curl up into a little ball on my couch and cry and watch Hulu. Because, you know, what's the use? If I go back there, I'm just going to get wailed on again.  May as well cue up another episode of the Celebrity Apprentice and wait for the storm to pass.

But, I don't think it has to be that way.

There must be a point at which, a girl (or a fella) has to learn to stand up to those voices in the head...the ones that are telling her (or him) that there's something to be afraid of, or that she's incapable or unloveable...there is a point at which her better self has to stand her ground and say, once and for all, I AM NOT GOING TO TAKE YOUR CRAP!

Because, here's the secret, people.  Bullies are weak.  Bullies are all air and no fire. And all it takes, I'm learning, is just one moment of decisiveness. And the choice to put more faith in the voices of truth and love and assurance, and less faith in the voices of fear and intimidation.

At least, that's what I'm going to try, the next time that little she-devil comes a-raring to the surface. I'm going to tell her just where she can shove all her little ideas about what I should and should not be doing. I'm going to tell her to go pick on someone else, because I am nobody's punching bag.

I'll let you know what happens...

Yin and the Art of Enthusiasm Maintenance

Painting by William Bouguerau

The first time I ever went to see an Ayurvedic doctor, he told me two important things. One, he looked at me when I first walked in and said, "You know what you are, don't you? I don't even need to take your pulse."

I did know. In the Ayurvedic constitutional matrix, I am made of two things. Fire and Air. Pitta and Vata. Either burning up or drifting off into the cosmos. Surprised?

He took one look at me, and he knew.

The other thing he told me was that I should be avoiding caffeine (what?!) and that--and here's the part that, at the time, I just couldn't swallow, even more than the no caffeine--that I should mellow out my yoga practice. "You should not be doing a bunch of handstands and backbends," he said (my two favorite things).  "You should be meditating. You should be getting close to the ground. You should be spending a long time in savasana."

At the time I smiled and nodded, yes of course, with absolutely NO intention of following this advice.  Was this guy joking? He wants me to lay on the ground and call that a yoga practice? Maybe after I bunny-hop like a mad-woman up and down into handstand a dozen times and do something ridiculous on one leg and heat up my breath to within an inch of my life...maybe then I'll lay on the ground.

I suppose I knew, empirically, that he was right. Of course, it wouldn't hurt for me to spend a little more time rooting and a little less time...expanding.  But I really felt, at the time, that there was no way something that felt so good, could ever be bad for me.

Have you ever heard it said that people tend to go in the direction of their imbalances? In the same way that someone with a sweet-tooth craves sugar, I have discovered that a yogi who is revved up will want more rev, and a yogi who is slowed down, even if nearly to stuck-ness...will yearn for more slow.

Such is the way with me.

Until recently.  It has been years since that Ayurvedic prescription was handed to me and summarily torn up and thrown in the trash (by me), but recently, I have found myself digging it out and pasting it back together.  Maybe my body has hit some kind of tipping point.  Maybe I've just been practicing yoga long enough now that I can finally feel the signals coming from a subtler layer of the ol' body/machine.

For a long time, a yoga practice is just about the poses. And the breath. And the philosophy. It's just about the style you love and the teacher you love and the time of day you love to practice. It's about struggling with something new and mastering it (or not).  And it can be just that, for a long time. Which is plenty. And plenty deep.

But, then...then something starts to happen.

Because maybe you want to start reaping the larger benefits of yoga. Maybe you want to learn how to find the state of yoga in other areas of your life. Maybe you start to realize that you are different than every other body that has ever practiced or ever will practice, and therefore you have to bend the yoga to fit YOU. Maybe you realize that even though handstands seem more productive, that for you to really begin to touch the center of YOU...that you need to just lay on the ground.

The impulse I used to label as "laziness," this little call from my body to just hang out and open, I have finally begun to let express itself.  And, yeesh, okay doctor...maybe you were right.  Because, I have to say, for my body, which begins to rev up and pump and think and desire and long and all sorts of other various and wild and electrical things, from the moment I wake up in the morning, for this often over-taxed body of mine, in order for this body to get to the real yoga, that blissed-out oneness-with-the-world state...it needs to slow down. And ground. And relax.

Your prescription may be entirely different. Your prescription might be more fluidity. Or more fire. Or maybe more lightness and air.  For you to find the yoga in your life it might mean more time to yourself, or less. It might mean more investigation, or less. Whatever it is, though, most likely the answer is already right in front of you. And if that's the case, then all I have to say to you this morning is...

"You know what you are, don't you?"

Oh, Rumi...

For more on Rumi, Mr. Amazing Himself, go here. Or here. 

Words for the Weekend...

How I Spent My Week...

Sorry for my absence, Shanti-Towners...last week I made an impromptu trip home to Seattle to see my loving family (with a bonus dinner out in Portland with the in-laws!).  Here is a picture of my dad's chickens to make up for it...

Yay, chickens!

Back next week with more yoga-goodness.  And hopefully a podcast!!

Swim, Fishy...Swim!

What is the difference between effort and surrender?

This week I heard it described like this:

Imagine a fish swimming in a river. When the fish is in the current, she is surrendered.  She is letting the flow of water carry her.  And if and when she ever loses that current, then (and only then) she uses her effort, to find her way back.

Her effort, her will, is what she calls upon when she's fallen out of the stream.  When life starts to get hard, get rocky, when it feels like nothing is moving and certainly nothing is moving her...that is when effort is required.

And then, lucky fish, once she's reunited with the river's current, then she is carried.

And on and on it goes.

I love this description so much (lifted from an interview with Mark Nepo) because we hear so much about surrender.  Surrender is the thing we're all told we're looking for--or at least that's what our yoga teachers tell us and our books tell us and our wise friends tell us (they tell us other things, too)--and often they're right.  Often letting go is what's needed.  Often it's needed because we live in a world where nearly every other influence in our lives is urging us toward the opposite.  Towards more, towards faster, towards harder, towards sweat, towards effort.  Towards multi-tasking our effort.  And so, the encouragement towards, sheesh, softening some of that, is good.

But, what about the times when surrender is not the answer?  Are we really just meant to go from splashing wildly, or worse, swimming in panicked circles, certain the current is there somewhere...to just being lazy fishies, letting the water take us where it will?

That doesn't seem right.

That would imply that the human system is flawed.  If surrender were the only solution, if the only thing which existed other than surrender was a kind of aggravated repetitive belly flop...that would imply that there is nothing to be done.  We either give up, or we suffer.  And I just think that the human mind and heart are too complex and too gorgeous (sorry), to write them off simply as the agents of our own destruction.

But if you think of a wise fish...of a little guy who finds himself suddenly out of the flow of water...what is he going to do?  I don't think he's going to freak out.  I don't think he's going to start slamming his fish body against the rocks along the bottom of the river because he's just so upset that this has happened to him, yet again, and all his other little fishy friends seem to be doing just fine thank you very much and why the heck can't he ever catch a break?!  No, he's going to quiet his little fishy mind (remember, he's a wise fish), he's going to stick his little fish nose and little fish ears (do fish have ears?) into the water, and he's going to use his will to start his little tail and fins a flippin', and he's going to swim himself back to that current.

And when he's there, he'll know he's there, whether or not his eyes are open (whether or not he even HAS eyes), because things will suddenly get...easier.

Ahhh.  Exhale. 

He'll know he's in the current, because he'll be able to fold his little fins against his fat little rainbow-scale sides, and coast.  He'll know he's there because he'll be moving with the river.  He'll know he's there because he'll suddenly be able just to enjoy the ride.

And if ever the time comes when he falls, one more time, out of the grace of the river, he'll know he has his effort, his will, and his good sense...to guide him back.

A Problem of Thinking...

Have you ever considered, that perhaps this is not a thinking problem?

Have you ever considered, that perhaps problems get solved in your life in spite of, and not because of, your thinking?

Have you ever considered (I rarely do) that perhaps all the moments of all the days don’t need to be filled with thinking?  That maybe one doesn’t need to think from the bedroom to the bathroom, from the bathroom to the kitchen, in the kitchen while the tea is bubbling, in the car while the wheels are turning, on the walk while the door is looming, over the sink while the dishes are doing, above the stove where the food is cooking, in the place where the work is happening, at the end when the lights are turning, back in the car as the eve is dawning, back up the steps to where the door is waiting, and on and on and on?

Have you ever considered that the mind is not meant for such stuff?

Have you ever considered that the mind is meant for mind-matter:  for chair building and computer programming and book-reading and play-writing and lightbulb choosing and car driving and philosophy grasping and fire starting and gadget inventing and all the other hundreds and thousands of things that the mind is perfectly suited to?

Have you considered that love, is not the domain of the mind? That feeling, is not the domain of the mind?  That instinct, is not the domain of the mind, art-making is not the domain of the mind, sex and fucking and love-making...all not the domain of the mind?

Perhaps you have.  Perhaps you have considered all of this, because these are so obviously products of the heart, and the senses, and the pumping of the blood.

But what about decision making?  Have you ever considered that decision making is not the domain of the mind?

What?  You may be saying.  Of course decision-making is for my mind.  That's what my mind done does.  That's what it always done did and always will would.

But what if it's not?

What if...if when faced with a decision...you were to get soft and quiet, instead of tight and loud? Not letting the many voices of reason that occupy all your many spaces pipe in immediately with their suggestions.  What then?  What if you were to close your eyes and drink in the smells around you and just rub your face against the wind that is rubbing against it?  What if you were to unclench your jaw and unclench your eyes and unclench that poor little mind, that just wants to help, that always wants to help, but maybe, possibly...can not serve you here?  What would come rushing in?  What would establish itself in clarity?

Albert Einstein would have all his greatest ideas in the shower.  So he said. Or while shaving.

Isaac Newton talks about problem solving like one would talk about watching a flower open, "I keep the subject of my inquiry constantly before me, and wait till the first dawning opens gradually, by little and little, into a full and clear light".

"It is curious," said Mark Twain, "-- the space-annihilating power of thought."


All great men.  All great doers.  All, somehow, in agreement about this--spaciousness.  Be it spaciousness of shower, or spaciousness of dawning realization.

And for myself...every real stroke of insight or clarity or brilliance I have ever had, has bubbled out of silence, and not out of the morass of thought. Never ever ever has it bubbled out of the morass of thought.  Sometimes I have driven myself near to insanity with thought and then finally, because I just could not take it anymore, or because I had cried tears and the tears had broken some kind of dam...finally I relented.  And in the relenting came a ready solution.  And so, sometimes I have equated these two things:  the exhaustive death-match with thought and the miraculous solution at the end.

But perhaps you could have the latter without the former?

The great guess of spiritual practice, the grand hypothesis of yoga and all the others, is that the world, at it's essence, is born from space and from silence.  And, in that silence is the power of creation.  And our small piece of eternity, our sippy-cup of heaven, as humans, is that if we can get ourselves as quiet as that space...then we can taste a bit of what it has to offer.  We can actually step into the power that makes worlds.  That is the experiment.  It's the experiment of meditation and the experiment of yoga and the experiment of writing and the experiment of song and the experiment of love and the experiment of play...what can we do to step in?  How many things can we find that can quiet us well enough and for long enough that we might just get a little eternity juice on our hands and our face?

I am still in the trial phases, myself.  I will report findings when they are available.

In the meantime...if you are struggling with something, if you are turning it over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over in your mind.  Just consider, that perhaps your mind is not meant for such things.  Perhaps it is the silence, right down there in the center of you, that is best suited to hurl that particular boulder, to that particular moon.

Structure and the Creative Urge…

Several weeks ago in a class, one of my favorite teachers, Maria Cristina Jimenez, had us rig up a little strap-sling for our upper arms, and in several poses she had us press out into the strap with our biceps as we folded forward.  Our charge was to find (and revel in), from that pressing out, the magical extra opening of the heart that quickly followed.

And for weeks I have been using and adjusting and playing with this same trick (thanks, MC!) and variations on it in my own practice, and in classes.

Right away, while testing this out in classes, I realized that there are two types of people.  There is the type of person who is all loosey-goosey flexi-pants, who really needs to draw in instead of pressing out.  This person has got enough out.  This person needs some holding to their center, and so for them the strap is actually about restraining, about holding them to the middle.  And then there is the other type of person (I fall into this category), who errs toward the muscular, rather than the loose, and who needs a little less holding it all together, and a little more expanding to their limits.  For them, the strap is really about something to expand against, to relieve all that constant contraction.

We all need structure.  Boundaries.  We all need something to push up against—whether that is a literal pushing out, or an invisible drawing in (a pushing up against one’s own center)—whoever, however…there has to be some kind of structure in place or else…chaos.

We know this about children.  You hear it all the time, that if kids don’t have boundaries, they are going to go crazy in the looking for them.  If you have ever made theatre or made a painting or made just about anything, you’ve probably heard a variation on this theme—that the rules have to be in place before anything really creatively free can take place.  You need to know who is doing what, where things are happening, what the beginning and what the end is or else…the whole creative work would just devolve into nonsense.

When I first started writing in a more serious way, several years ago, I used to ask P. to give me a list of random elements to make a script from.  He would come up with five or six things, sometimes practical like, “only use one location”, sometimes plot-based, “there has to be an explosion”, sometimes more moody, “it should feel dark all the time,” and off I’d go.  Immediately, list in hand, I felt free.  Because, though I didn’t know much of anything else, I at least knew that there would be an explosion, there would be darkness, and we would stay put. 

And the body, perfect metaphor that it is, is no different.  As soon as the boundary lines are established, as soon as the feet and the head and the ribs and the arms all know what they’re doing and where they’re heading—that is when a real opening can begin to happen.  You take a shape, and then you spend some time in that shape, and you explore its dimensions.  You push out, you draw in, you soften, you engage…the pose is a playground within which you experiment.  You play.

But the challenge is, that for most of us as adults, we are left to our own devices when it comes to creating structure.  I remember when I first moved to New York after college, at 22 years old, it was such a shock to my system to have no rhythm to my days.  I didn’t understand how people made it work, this whole life thing—where exactly was I supposed to go?  How was I supposed to spend my time?  Who was handing out the grades, here, anyhow?  It took years for me to realize (and I think I’m still figuring this out, day by day) that I had to be the arbiter of my own structure.  If there was something I wanted to do or make or be…I had to be it.  And without anyone nodding their approval I had to set aside the time and the means to make things happen.

I am a person who craves structure.  But, I am also a person who craves freedom and craves a creative life…often these two things do not go hand in hand.  There are days when all I want is for someone to tell me where to be, what time to be there, and what I should do once I’ve arrived, but what I often forget is that, that person…is me.  I am the one who gets to (has to) tell me where to be and when and what to do when there.  I am structure-maker and I am play-er within. 

Some days it’s harder than others.

But, on the days when the structure feels futile, when all I want to do is navel gaze and ruminate, I have learned to enlist my block-builder self, and set to work.  That is why the structure is there.  It’s there to hold the shape on the days when passion alone can’t suffice. 

These days, I just imagine a strap hugging against me, hugging my arms together, and I close my eyes and press out.  And then I wait for the opening that is sure to come…

How Not to Drown...

"Yoga practice is like an obstacle race; many obstructions are purposely put on the way for us to pass through. They are there to make us understand and express our own capacities.  We all have that strength, but we don't seem to know it." 

- Sri Swami Satchidananda

This morning, facing the blank page, I have to take it to the books.

This morning, in the words of John Patrick Shanley: "I have doubts.  I have such doubts."

Not about you, dear readers.  And not about the progressive march of Spring, and not about the tea in my cup and not about the breath in my body and not about my lovely husband and not about my sweet friends, so many of whom are walking these days into big life changes...but about other things.  Things relating to practice (of all kinds).  Things relating to future and money and art and the big P.: Purpose.

Upon opening this blank page this AM and staring, un-impassioned, into its depths, I could feel only the gnawing of doubt.  Knowing that something had to be done, if I wasn't going to waste the next two hours hemming and hawing and sewing and clawing...I typed "doubt" and "yoga" into the magic 8 ball of Google.

I have doubted my entire life.  When I was younger my doubt expressed itself in dozens of moves, dozens of half-fledged relationships, dozens of days spent agonizing about what I had done and should do and would, from now on, obviously have to do differently.  In my adulthood, my doubt is less destructive.  Nowadays you can find it in my dozens of half-read books, my dozens of half-finished scripts, and the dozens of days spent agonizing about what I have done and should do and will, from now on, obviously do differently.

(So, that part hasn't changed.)

I can now, after being the bedfellow of my own doubt for these many years, watch myself ride the roller coaster of it and it's aftermath with so much more (awful) clarity.  And it looks like this:  choose goal (big or small), progress down path toward goal, feel inspired, talk too much about how inspiring and how close said goal is, get nearly to goal...suddenly realize that goal maybe is not the goal I should be going after, after all...suddenly realize there is DIFFERENT goal which is much more important...kick myself for wasting all of this time on the wrong goal...throw progress toward former goal into the fire of a tearful meldown...and repeat.

There is, of course, a sutra about doubt.

(There is a sutra about everything.)  It is one I'm familiar with...a series of sutras, actually...about the obstacles to practice and their remedy.  These obstacles (of which doubt, samsaya, is one) are the universal distractions, the most common obstacles to the spiritual practice...but I'm going to venture a guess here and say that these are actually the most common obstacles to, um, everything.

"Disease, dullness, doubt, carelessness, laziness, sensuality, false perception, failure to reach firm ground and slipping from the ground gained--these distractions of the mind-stuff are the obstacles."

(Note:  I think "sensuality" in this case, is about the tendency to dive into the more sensory pursuits in the face of all these other distractions.  Sensory like television.  Sensory like another slice of red velvet cake.)

What I love so much about this is the mention of both, "failure to reach firm ground" and "slipping from the ground gained"...I mean, come on!  Seriously, Patanjali...I freaking love you.  Slipping from the ground gained.  Failure to reach that ground in the first place.  Our job, then, is not just to establish a ground underneath our feet, it is to stay there, and to not let all these other things...this doubt, this competition, this fear, this boredom...to not let any of it knock us from the ground once gained.

I came across a really lovely little story (my favorite kind--about a mischievous guru) while doing my internet-ing about doubt.  And it goes like this.  A student was practicing with a guru, studying with him, for many years.  But the student became frustrated and bored and doubtful of the whole experience...what was this thing he was working so hard at, anyhow?  And one day the (mischievous) guru snuck up on the student while he was taking his bath, grabbed the student from behind and held his head under the water until he was nearly drowning.  Just before the student was about to lose consciousness, the guru released his head and he came back to the surface sputtering, gasping for breath.

The guru just looked at the student and said, "you must be desperate for spiritual practice...like you are now desperate for air."

Um.  Yes.

Doubt is like...doubt is like a reality star sunbathing on an air mattress while a swim race is taking place.  Doubt is like wearing sunglasses indoors.  Doubt is a whiny teenager.  Can you imagine being underwater, close to running short of breath and just shrugging your shoulders...taking a few moments to decide whether or not you reeeeeeeeally want to be above the surface?  No.  In the absence of doubt, you do.  You act.  You get yourself to the surface of that water and you suck in some air, dang it.

So, why then, is it so easy to fall off the path?  Why is it so easy to lose that ever loving ground and find yourself, breathless, once again under the waves.

Satchidananda's commentary on this is as awesome as always...he speaks about how we can take comfort in the fact that we are not alone in these distractions, that they are actually a part of the process of growth.  "We seem to need to be challenged and tested," he says, "in order to understand our own capacities.  In fact, that is the natural law.  If a river just flows easily, the water in the river does not express its power.  But once you put an obstacle to the flow by constructing a dam, then you can see its strength in the form of tremendous electrical power.

So, if you are doubting today, or just feel that you have lost sight of the ground, know this:  you are not alone, AND, you do not have to let doubt drag you under.  Fight your way back to the surface, take a big breath, and carry on.  And, yes, I will do that too.

Have You Showered Today?

I’m sorry…before I even begin, can I just say GRRRRRRR to my local coffee shop?  What is with this trend in local haunts of covering over all their electric outlets so no one can plug in their computer?  I know, I know, you don’t want people to hog your tables for hours for the measly price of a cup of tea, but I tell you what, as someone who looooooves going to coffee shops to write—if you can provide me with a reasonably warm environment and access to a power supply, I am yours. 

I mean, come on!  Aren’t you interested in winning the love and devotion of Los Angeles’ army of underemployed writers?  Don’t you know that your generosity with electricity will be paid back in full by the not just one maybe two maybe even three coffees or teas that I and my fellow key pluckers will purchase not just today…but every day?  My god, little neighborhood coffee shop, your tables are always half empty…wouldn’t you rather I stayed and drank my fill than that I have to give up and pack up after an hour or two because I’m out of juice?  Well, I know where I’m not wanted, little down-the-road café…don’t think I don’t.

Okay, wait, I’m sorry…what am I supposed to be talking about?  Is it…how cute Jay-Z and Beyonce’snewborn baby is??!  Squeeeeee! 

Hmmm.  No, that’s not it.

Is it that lately my practice (such that it is) has consisted of a lot of lay-on-the-floor asana, some hang-over-my-legs asana, a little what-was-that-one-with-the-bolster-again asana?  And that, for shame…I don’t mind a bit?  Is it that? 

I remember once, years ago, having a conversation with a friend of mine about repeated patterns.  “Why,” I asked her, “do I keep making the same mistake, over and over again?”  And she thought for a minute and then said something that I still think of, to this day, all. The. Time.

“Well,” she said, “it’s like taking a shower, I guess.  You don’t take a shower and say okay, that’s it, now I’m clean.  I’m done.  I never have to do that again.  You have to shower every day.  Because dirt builds up.”

This is one of the first things you learn in a yoga practice…in any spiritual practice, really.  And you learn this as an artist.  (As an actor often this is the only thing keeping you going, when nothing I mean nothing else will.)  And that is: just keep coming back.  No matter how many times you screw up in the same old way, get aggravated in the same old way, stop paying attention in the same old way, overreact in the same old way, get disappointed in the same old way…you just have to come back. 

Fwoop!  Swap!  Unroll your mat.

And start again.  Not because you’ve done something wrong—no one feels that their daily need to shower (again) is a sign of their broken-ness.   You just know that you’re living your life.  And the more you live your life the more you sweat and get dirty and so the more necessary it is to get naked, turn on the water, and clean it up.

And what does this have to do with my floor-bound practice?  I think it’s this:  I think that I no longer feel that my yoga practice is something which I have to master in an allotted time frame.  (My god, the number of THINGS in my life that I feel I have to master in an allotted time frame!  Yeesh.)  I know that I will be practicing yoga for the rest of my life. Whether or not I’m teaching.  Whether or not I’m writing about it.  I will be doing this practice until my body stops working and even then, I’ll probably practice with whatever I’ve got left…I’ll do eye-blink yoga like the guy from The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. 

There is no fury and no flurry and no rush. 

If I’m having a day (or a week) where I feel heavy and slow (but sweet) as I do this week…then my practice will come with me.  If all I want to do is master press-up handstand (someday, you will be mine!)…then my practice will come with me.  If I’m feeling good and just wanting to breathe deep…my practice will come with me.  And I don’t have to play catch-up.  Because this practice is not something I just layer on top of my life or jam squarely into the round crevices of my life…it is part and parcel, hand in hand, ankle-to-knee…with me. 

All the best things in life are this way.  (Yes, husband...this means you.)

And it’s true, isn’t it?  All the best things are this way.  Sometimes I think that all we should be looking for in life are those things and those people and those places that we know, reward or no reward, accomplishable goal or not…we will keep coming back to. And then all we have to do is turn on the hot water, strip down, and step in.  Again, and again, and again.