Mooooooooooon River...

I would like to take a moment, Shanti-towners, to speak to you about my moon.

That's right...my mooooooooooooooooooon.  This is what a woman, I'm sorry--a goddess--would be likely to call her menstrual cycle.  The first time I ever heard someone call their period, their "moon", I felt nothing but embarrassed for everyone present.  There is no way, not even if I remain a yoga teacher for the rest of my life, not even if I start to talk straight-faced-ly about the chakras, will you ever EVER catch me referring to my cycle as "my moon".

From herein on in, this mystical time of the month will be spoken of merely as my "lady time".  Or, if I'm feeling frisky, my lad-ay tiiiiiiiiime.  Aw yeah.

Why am I bringing this up, you ask?  Well, mainly it's because I'm obsessed with myself, but ALSO it's because, though I jest about it...I do think it's important for we women to pay attention to and honor this very (frustratingly) frequent occurrence in our lives.  And for you men...I don't know, maybe you'll get something out of it, too.

Fun fact:  (I learned this in my Human Sexuality class in college--always a sold-out show) the hormone levels in a woman's body during her period are nearly identical to the hormone levels in a man's body ALL THE TIME.  Yikes!  When I first learned this I felt a surge of compassion for the men in my life...no wonder you get so fist-fighty so easily.  (I mean, the men in my life weren't really fist-fighty, but men in general...)

Let me just say that currently, I myself feel a little fist-fighty.  And sluggish.  And hungry.  Ladies...can I get a holler!  Wha-wha! So, you'll have to bear with me as I slog my way through this attempt at sense-making.

This is the other often unspoken side effect of the lady-time...one might have the tendency to get a little punchy (punchy as in dorky-with-humor, not punchy as in fist-fighty.  We covered fist-fighty already).  Apparently I was a regular one-woman comedy show during my private class this afternoon, and I blame it all on the downward flow of prana in my body.

Okay, good...I knew this would get around to yoga talk.  So, I've spoken about this before, in relationship to whether or not to invert during your cycle, but as a recap...when a lady is on her moooooooooooon, the prana, the life-force in her body is apana, or downward-moving.  Necessarily so, right?  There's a lot of stuff that needs to be released and the path of that exit is, without question, in a downward direction.  And for me, right around the beginning of my period I can feel, pretty strongly, the downward pull.  One morning, a day or two before the big event, I wake up and everything in my body just feels...heavy.  Drawn towards the floor.  Sort of like I'm walking through mud.  And this, ladies and gents, is apana in action.

Side Note: For me, because I am often not the most grounded person in the world, these couple days, though they can be frustrating for other reasons, actually feel pretty good.  I get a lot of relief from this enforced grounding.  Double Side Note:  I'm hopeful that this means when I get pregnant I'm going to LOVE it, as pregnancy has this same grounding impact on the system, only for NINE MONTHS instead of a few days.  Hoorah!

So, this morning was one of those trudging through mud mornings, and as I headed off to go teach I was feeling a little conflicted about what the best course of action might be, in terms of the vibe of my classes that day.  Often, if one is sluggish, the prescription is to do an energizing practice...something to kick the sluggishness out of the body.  But this wasn't a I-haven't-had-enough-sleep kind of downward pull, this was the natural rhythmic down-down-down cycle of my body.  Wouldn't it make sense to try to honor this moment, in the way that I might honor a season or a time of day, and not try to go for a run at 2 AM to try and wake myself up from my necessary sluggishness?

The answer that I came to, resoundingly...was yes.

And so my classes today were a lot about the hips and the legs...about the feet in contact with the floor...about moving breath in and out, drawing it up from the earth and then sending it back down.  And  because I was being sensitive and listening to the guidance from my own body, I was able to connect deeply to what I was teaching (and, I'm learning, if I'M connected, THEY--my students--are usually connected, too) and I found myself, as classes progressed, becoming more and more energized.  And it made me think about how there is this lesson that yoga is always teaching, in terms of the body, and patterns in one's life...that there is no one-size-fits-all answer.  There is no always do THIS in THESE kinds of circumstances recipe for success.  I mean, I know that I probably spend way too many hours in every day looking for exactly those kinds of hard and fast rules, but the truth is...they just don't exist.

What does exist is the sensitivity of our own system.  What does exist is a constant flow of information and guidance in the form of sensation that, if we're paying attention, will probably lead us out of the woods.  And I keep realizing, over and over, that there is a certain amount of bravery required, that there is some courage demanded of all of us, if we are going to stay present with ourselves and actually truly listen to what's going on, and what's best for us.  In. This. Moment.

Put very simply, there is no way for us to be in tune to the information being beamed at us through the systems of our body, information that MIGHT, if we were able to listen to it, really clear some shit up for us, if we are superimposing that information with prescriptions.

So, ladies of Shanti-town (and men-folk, too) I guess what I'm saying is...next time you're faced with some natural and un-ignorable change in the energy of your body (or heart or mind)...maybe take a moment to tune in to what is really being asked of you.  It's possible that there is some serious wisdom up in there that could make your relationship to that changing shifting self of yours a slightly sweeter one.

P.S. Please send chocolate.

xo
YogaLia

Shanti-Town Trivializes World Events, Episode 1 - The Gulf Oil Spill

Maybe it was the video of the non-stop billows of oil into the water.  Maybe it was one more disaster on the heels of so many others, in a time when all of us are consumed with the threat of (dunh dunh dunh duuuunh) Climate Crises, or maybe it was just the unavoidable fact that what I was looking at on my television screen and in the news was in fact a giant energy leak--not from a tanker or a plant or a factory, but from the center of the earth itself.  Whatever it was, a question has risen to my mind while watching the events of the last 67 days unfold, and the question refuses to leave me:

Where is the oil spill in my own life?

If I am to buy into this "oneness" thing, and really buy into it, even just in a blanket kind of we-are-all-part-of-the-same-world way, then I have to believe that what is happening in the world around me must be reflected SOMEWHERE in my own universe; the microcosm of body, mind and heart.  And if that's true, then also everything that is happening in the world around me must also be reflected in my ever-widening circles of family, neighborhood, community, city, state, country, and on and on.

And so, if there is an oil leak there.  There must be an oil leak...here.

And what is an oil leak, really?  It's not a random substance...it's not maple syrup or battery acid or, I don't know, gelatin...it's not something messy and yucky but lacking in resonance.  It's...energy.  At this moment of heightened awareness about all things "green", the earth, our big old mama, is leaking energy.  Gushing energy.  Bleeding energy.  And we don't know how to stop it.

So the question came up, "where is the oil leak in my own life?"  Where is it that I am wasting energy?  Letting resources just spill out of me, gush out of me?  Where is it that I am letting vital stamina-making fuel be wasted? 

And what pristine waters in me are being toxified because of it?

How have I attempted, in the early stages of my own oil spill, to cover it up?  To claim it's not as bad as it actually is? To throw garbage on it?  To clamp it down?  To deny it?

And how have I been bribed to look away from where the problem might have originated?  What treats and monies have I taken in exchange for my complicity?

The answers to these questions are surprisingly uncomplicated.  I, in innumerable ways, allow my own ecosystem to get covered in toxic sludge, over and over again.  My oil is envy, it's despair, it's hopelessness, it's vanity, it's greed, it's worry, it's fear.  Man oh man, is it fear.  And I look away, and I claim that I am not responsible.  I am not responsible, but somebody better clean this up, because damn it, it's costing me.  It is costing me peace and it is costing me money and it is costing me precious valuable resources that could be so much better served--used to power education and mobility and service and advancement--instead of just spilled, barrel upon barrel, into the ocean. Which is me.  Which is my life.

I am not, I promise, trying to get into a bunch of new-agey "I don't have to worry about the world around me because it's all iiiiiiiin meeeeeee" world-view-ing, I'm really not.  In fact I feel more and more convinced that we must (I must) we must get MORE attentive, MORE outward-facing, MORE action-taking as our spiritual practice evolves, but I also think that there is no way to look at what is going on "out there" and not turn inward.  How can I expect that "out there" to get cleaned up, when I am a walking oil spill way too often in my own life? 

So the question then becomes, in this (forgive me!) anthropomorphizing of what is a true disaster in the real world--is it possible to take a look at what is going on out there and promise to do better in here?  Can there be a direct communication between natural world and internal world, where each is constantly endlessly reflected in the other? 

Can I finally say enough is enough this is no one's responsibility but my own I AM CLEANING THIS OIL SPILL UP!?!

I don't know.  I hope so.  I'm trying.