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.

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.)

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?

Goal Setting, Success, and More Aggravating Stuff Like That...

Several years ago on NPR there was an interview with an author who had written a book on success.  I don't remember the author, and I don't remember the book.  But, that doesn't matter.  What I do remember is this:  the author (or authors...maybe there were two?) had looked at "successful" people in various fields--their trajectories, their habits, their mindsets, etc., etc., for the book, and in the course of this research they discovered that there are two types of doers out in the world:

There are Type 1 doers, who plan their course from the get-go.  They say, I'm going to do A, which will lead to B, which will lead to C, which will eventually lead to D...and then, voila! There I'll be.

And then, there are the Type 2 doers, who don't plan, not one whit.  The Type 2's say, I'm going to do A, because A seems interesting. I'm not sure where A will lead...but I'm intrigued.

By and large, said this author (or authors), the people in the world who are considered highly successful, at the top of their game, masters of their craft...are the Type 2 peoples.  They are the non-planners.  The doers because it seems interesting-ers. The I'm not sure where this ride will take me but I'm gonna get on it anyhow-ers.

I remember, when I heard this, I was...deeply relieved.  A relief at that point unearned, as I am definitely (or at least have been in the past) on the Type 1 end of the spectrum (first A, then B, then C, then D, usually annoyed with step A right from the get-go, because it's taking too long to get to D already!).  It was a relief because I thought, OH...that's why the way I'm going about things is so goddamned aggravating. That's why my head starts to hurt every time I "goal set".  That's why.

When I made the decision to take a breather from throwing my headshots into the grand black hole of casting directors for awhile, when I decided not to say yes to yet another role I didn't feel quite right for, and for less money than I knew I needed, when I decided that my poor skull could not stand any more banging into that same closed door--it was terrifying. All I knew was that the old way--the A then B then C then D, wasn't working for me.  And worse, I was exhausted.  All I knew was that if I was ever going to move forward as an actor or an artist, of any kind, I needed to do something differently. And I knew one other thing--I knew that I was in love with yoga.  And so, either like a genius or a fool (the verdict still isn't in), I decided for the first time in my life, to be a Type 2 doer.  I decided, for the first time ever, that I was going to make a life choice, a career choice, based on what was in front of me...and not what was down the end of an imaginary road.

I was going to do A, because A seemed interesting.  I wasn't sure where A would lead...but I was intrigued.

I read somewhere the other day that the act of doing yoga and the result of doing yoga are the same.  Meaning, if I'm doing yoga--if I'm aligning my body and my breath, my mind and my heart--then I am also achieving a state of yoga.  Which is the goal of the doing in the first place.  Voila!  Done.  The process and the product are the same.  What this means is that the part of one's mind that wants to A, then B, then C, then D...is short-circuited by the practice itself.  The equation of yoga is A then A.  I'll do A, which will lead me to A. Oh, wait...I'm already there!

Which, oh god, it makes so much SENSE!  Right?  Everything should be this way? Shouldn't it?!

The reason that A, to B, to C, to D thinking and doing is so exhausting, is so frustrating...is that steps A-C are somehow lesser in that set-up.  They are just stepping stones to this larger goal out in front and so, if they're hard, if they take a while, if they're complicated--then where is the motivation to stick with them?  If they're only poor step-children to the thing you REALLY want...then for the entire journey of A, B, C--as many steps as there are--you're going to be dissatisfied.  And a long trajectory of dissatisfaction does not, as far as I've seen, lead to anything all that triumphant.

The beauty of doing A because of A...of doing A, because A is what you want...because A is both the journey and the destination...the beauty is that you are engaged in the art of achievement from the outset.  You are doing something because it already IS fulfilling...not because one day hopefully down the road it will lead you to something fulfilling. Hopefully. Eventually.

I'm not saying anything new.  I know that.  I'm saying this thing that's been said so many times before in so many more eloquent ways--that life is now.  It's happening now.  And though it's important, of course, to have goals, to have dreams...I have found that if you sacrifice the now-ness of your life in service of those dreams, there is not going to be much YOU left to enjoy the fruits of your labor when (and if) they ultimately arrive.

Mind vs. Body

I can not think my way into presence...



I can not think my way into presence...



I can not think my way into presence...


(but man oh man I'm gonna try)

Thought for the Day...

My body is always existing in the present.