That Window Ain't Open, Fool!

I got interrupted by a bee during my meditation this morning.

If you know me at all you know that, while not usually the type to get squeamish, if a bee comes into my personal space while I'm doing ANYTHING I get a little...idiotic.

Usually I just sort of squeal and run away...

Which is exactly what happened during my meditation...I heard his foul buzzing and, without even taking a moment to think about it, I leapt off of my cushion and ran across the room.  Once safely the requisite 10 feet away, heart pounding, I watched the little bugger banging into the window and thought about how probably at some point I should actually just, um, try to sit through the bee in my space if it happens again during meditation.  Seeing as how, I don't know, that's the POINT of meditation.

And then I thought about how often I react to uncomfortable thoughts or feelings in this same way..."Eeek! Get it away from me!" (scramble, scramble, scramble).

And with bees I have this great excuse...about how my brother and I were attacked by a nest of hornets or wasps or something when we were kids and we both got stung many many times and it was very traumatic, blah blah blah...but don't I have those same stories for upsetting emotions?  And thoughts?  Don't I have my traumatic childhood story that justifies WHY I don't want to deal?  Why I can't just sit while it buzzes around me?  What do I think is going to happen? Worst case scenario, right, I get stung (be it bee or thought).

Ouch.

Yes, ouch...for like 15 seconds, ouch.  And maybe a sore spot.  And then?  Done.  Over.  And the poor bee...the poor bee is DEAD.  I'm definitely the winner in that situation.

So, I'm thinking about all this, and I'm watching the bee, and I'm watching him do the thing that a lot of bees do in our apartment, which is:  they fly in an open window, they land on a closed window, and they repeatedly buzz-bump into the window pane of the closed window, over and over and over again.  And the whole time I'm watching and I'm thinking, dude...the open window is right over there.  You just flew through it.  Can't you feel the breeze?  Can't you hear the noises from outside coming in from over there?

The smarter bees only get stuck like this for 30 seconds or so, but some of the younger and/or stupider ones can do that for a really long time.  I've seen some of them DIE doing it.  (I don't actually see them die, but I see their little carcasses on the ground next to the window later in the day).  And, I don't know if it was because I'd already sort of made this bee into a symbol for my inner-workings, but I watched him doing this little window-dance and I thought, oh my god, that is just so perfect.

How many times does the mind make a decision based on faulty information, that we then just blindly follow?  Because the mind is like, nooooo, no no, this leads outside.  It has to lead outside, because I can SEE outside.  So, yes, I know there's some sort of invisible barrier preventing us from getting there, but I'm certain this is the right way, so if you'll just bear with me a little longer, let's just keep ramming our heads into this glass until we finally get free.  And all the while this other voice (our intuition, our other senses, our body) is like DUDE...can't you feel the breeze? 

Because what we're supposed to be looking for is the FEELING of the BREEZE.  The feeling of freedom.  The feeling of sunshine on our skin.  That's the input we're supposed to be using as our little guidance system.  No matter what looks like it might lead the way...if it feels like repeatedly ramming into an invisible wall, probably it's not the best plan of action.

So, for all the bad things I've said about bees, I'm issuing an official apology here and now, because it seems like they might actually have a thing or two to teach me...

Ribs, Anyone?

No...not the barbeque kind....(heh heh)

Alright, y'all, so this line of inquiry started for me several months ago when, after many moons of wondering how on earth I am supposed to "open my heart" without "sticking out my ribs" a teacher FINALLY gave me an image that rocked my little rib-cage world.  "Imagine," she said, as we stood in tadasana with our arms raised (um, that's the one where you're just standing up, for those who left their Sanskrit dictionary in their other pants), "that your rib-cage is heavy and descending downward."  And maybe she said something about thinking of the rib-cage as one solid unit, or maybe that's just how it occurred to me as I tried it, but something about that image just clicked for me, and suddenly I felt how my ribs could...how do I put this...RELAX?

Yes, that's it. 

I imagined my rib-cage dropping straight down...as if it were some kind of bony sweater-vest being hung to dry from the clothesline of my collar-bones, and everything my teachers are constantly telling me to do ("pull in your bottom ribs", "expand your back ribs", "tuck your ribs in") it all just happened...effortlessly.  And I felt this immense and I mean IMMENSE relief.

And I realized that my heart is inside this cage of my ribs...and that if the whole structure descends and then the heart lifts...well there's more room for it to peak its little heart-head over the top of the cage, like a prisoner checking to make sure the coast is clear before she escapes.

I mean, I'm positive that physiologically that's not what's happening...but still.

So, it's this image I've been working with in my own practice for months now, and the more I work with it the more I realize that my ribs have been trying to do waaaaaaaaaaay more work than they need to do.  My ribs are showy little buggers--"Here I AM!"--they seem to be always shouting, all jazz-hands and protruding chins.  Well, no more, you scene-stealers! No more!

It's just one more way, I'm coming to see, that my body is trying (sneakily) to escape from itself.  Because when I hush those ribs, when I quiet them down and in, when I let them descend, when I give them the day off...I become...with myself.  The ribs literally become integrated back into the center of my body and likewise I become more centered.  My breath drops to my belly.  My shoulders relax.  And as things begin to loosen up down there in that protective armor of my torso, I realize...my god, I have spent so much time walking around HOLDING on.  My ribs have been like some puffed up bodygaurd.  (I'm mixing metaphors like crazy, here...my heart is a jailbird, and my ribs are apparently both like an attention-starved choreographer AND a juiced bouncer at a club.  What can I say, but that it's 3AM and I'm blogging...). 

What I mean to say is...my ribs used to be like some puffed up bodygaurd and NOW they are not.

Isn't it interesting, how we hold on to ourselves in all these ways...thinking that it will make things easier, or safer, or more perfect, and isn't it interesting how that is just never the way? When when when when when will we learn (and by "we" I mean "me) that the safety and the ease and the beauty comes from fluidity...from letting go...NOT from always gripping so damn hard?