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?

Permit Me...

The first time I ever really began to understand that the way I think about things, and subsequently the way I feel, affects EVERYTHING else in my life...was several years ago.  Many years ago? (What's the dividing line between "several" and "many"?  Five?  It was more than five years ago, so many.  Let's go with many.)

Ahem: it was many years ago.

I was at a good friend's home in upstate New York.  This friend and I had been talking (well, she had been advising, and I had been peppering her with questions) about the importance of choosing our thoughts.  Specifically, the importance of choosing thoughts that support rather then drag down.  And at this particular moment she had gone upstairs or to the bathroom or something, and I was alone, standing in her dining room, looking out into a copse of trees swaying outside the window.

Side note:  this friend's house is a wonder.  Viewed from the outside it looks much like any other new york upstate home--it has rambling stone steps and a drive-in garage and big sleepy-eyed windows, but inside (much like the friend who owns it, actually) it is just a bastion of serenity.   It is inviting the way a set of clean crisps sheets is inviting--it just wraps around you as you walk through it.  And the quiet.  Oh man, the quiet.

(I love this house.)

Anyhow, so there I am, standing at the window, looking at the trees, and I'm consciously--I'm letting the trees in.  I'm choosing the trees.  And I remember, at this moment in my life, I was recovering from the end of an intense (though short-lived) relationship, I was jobless, I was living in an apartment about the size of my thumb, and I was feeling just...lost.  So, I'm letting the trees in, which was not something I had been taking time for, due to this lost-ness feeling.  Because who the hell has time for tree-gazing when there is anxiety to be tended to?  But we'd been having this good talk and I was interested in this idea--this idea that I might be able to CHOOSE my thoughts (which I didn't really quite believe)--and so I was admiring the trees.   And for a moment I felt--just glorious.  It was just me and those trees and that silent house.  I started to settle into my own skin a bit more...

And then BAM!  A very familiar voice piped up: "Yeah, great, this is going to help you get a job...how?" WHAM!  Stomach drops to knees.  POOF!  Beautiful trees?  Disappeared.  And in their place...just a big old bucket of shame and aggravation.  Trees?  What trees? 

Now, I don't know if it was the magic of the house, or the power of an inspiring conversation, or just the plain and simple fact that I had had ENOUGH of feeling lousy, but I did something in that moment that I had never ever done before.

I said no.

In that moment some other voice--some from-the-depths-of-the-well voice rose up and told that first voice, the hall-monitor one, to go fuck herself.  I think the exact words I spoke to myself were, "I am not letting you take this away from me."  And I turned my attention back to the trees.

And in that moment, as the trees reconvened in my consciousness, a kind of bliss washed through my body the likes of which I have rarely felt since.  I was...dumbfounded, that I had this kind of power.  I mean, why didn't anyone tell me this?  Why didn't anyone ever tell me that I get to decide which thoughts I want to entertain?

I have been thinking a lot lately about that moment.

I have been thinking a lot about those trees and that house and that...liberation.   Because sometimes, Shanti-towners, I feel like I have lost the ability to choose.  Sometimes it feels like my thoughts are wild animals.  And they don't want to be hushed or told no.  Sometimes, Shanti-towners, it doesn't feel like there are even any trees outside the window to choose instead.  Sometimes it feels like it's the hall-monitor, or nothing.  And at least she's an old friend...

And I know, or I'm guessing at least, that if I feel that way...then some of you might feel that way, too. Sometimes.  So I want to tell you (and me), I want to remind you, that you DO have a choice.

I want to remind you that you don't need anyone's permission to feel good.  You don't need permission that comes in the form of money, you don't need permission that comes in the form of friends or lovers or parents.  You don't need permission in the form of books or of grades or of beautifully executed handstands.  You don't need the permission of a yoga class or a meditation workshop.  You don't need anyone's say so or any concrete proof of your good-ness in order to make choices that support your well-being.

This is the magical (and challenging) thing about the space inside our own heads.  It's ours.  No one, and I mean no one, can get in there and mess around (for better or worse).  That's your little kingdom up in there and so, Shanti-towners, that voice inside that says you're not allowed to be happy?  That voice can go fuck itself.  Because you know who's in charge?  YOU are.

And, damnit, there is some bafflingly beautiful array of trees out there somewhere, just waiting for you to come and admire it...