Sleeping and Waking...

So, I'm trying to start a meditation practice.

Again.

But this time, I'm being smart.  I have set what I feel like is an ACCOMPLISHABLE goal.  15 minutes, once a day.  I'm trying for everyday, but satisfied with as many days as I remember to do it.  In the past I have always shot for loftier...once I tried an hour a day (yeah. need i say more?)...once I tried 20 minutes 2x a day, and then once per day and even that became, I don't know...unmanageable.  And so, pride gritting its teeth all the way, I have decided to aim for a modest and meager 15 minutes.  15 minutes is doable.  For now, it's doable.

I could say much more on the foggy definition (for me) of a seated practice, what I think it means and definitely doesn't mean, and what kind of discipline in combination with vision I feel I need to have in order to even begin to feel that SOMETHING is being accomplished.  But that's not what I want to talk about.  I want to talk about my legs.  Well, my one leg.  Well...my foot really.  Because, no matter how I practice, or for how long...

My one foot always (ALWAYS) falls asleep.

And last time it happened, I had a small realization:

I was meditating in a tiny little phone-booth like room (don't ask)...doing my diligent 15 minutes, and for whatever reason the foot falling-asleep-ness was particularly severe, so much so that upon rising I had to lean against a wall, both palms pressed flat to it, the frozen foot hovering in the air, just waiting for the awakening to begin. 

First the foot is like a dummy...it looks as it is: fast asleep.  Held next to my other bare foot it truly does look...dormant...somehow.  And then, the waves of pressure begin--deep wide crests of tingles, spreading across the foot and up the leg.  It's unbearable (but also pleasureable, oddly), and the feeling is so intense I can't do anything but let my eyes close and my mouth hang open and wait.  These are the nerves waking up.  This is the foot coming back to life, and it is shocking to me how much sensation floods across the sole, arch, ankle, calve...just to bring this one little appendage to alertness.  And then, just as it comes, it subsides, the tingles dissipating, the foot returning to "normal".  Able to be walked on, matched up now with its twin other foot. 

And as I began to walk--to leave the little room and head back into my day--I thought about what it means to Wake Up.

I thought that my foot, were it a life, it's own little consciousness, well maybe it has just emerged from what could be called a dark night of the soul.  It was sleeping deeply...but did not know it was asleep...it was deadened, numb,  not feeling pleasant or unpleasant, just...asleep.  And then it was asked to move, to venture forth, but could not possibly do so in it's sleeping state, and so it was forced to wake.  But the waking wasn't easy, I thought, and maybe it never is.  It is unbearable--it is an unbearable intense deep sensation--but it is not a PROBLEM...it is just nerves, waking up.  But the pain of it, the pain and pleasure and strangeness of it is enough to leave one breathless...speechless...only able to lean against a solid surface and wait it out.  It is unbearable...to feel again...to feel each nerve as it comes back to life.  Who knew there were so many nerves and endings in that one little space of flesh. 

This must always be what it is to wake up:

Unbearable sensation...so intense it leaves you palms flat against a wall--you can do nothing but watch, feel it all ripple through you, wait for it to pass, and be flabbergasted by how much you have been asleep to all those firings of all those nerves.

And then, when it's over, there is nothing to gawk at...just a setting down of the next foot and the next, with nothing else but the knowledge that you were just asleep...and are now awake.

Waking Up

So, do you ever do this...you wake up in the morning and for whatever reason you decide to be good to yourself, first thing, and give your body a little stretch? You feel blood start to move around, oxygen start to move around and after just a few minutes, by god, you feel good! You think to yourself--why don't I do this more often? You think to yourself--why is THIS always what I resist when I need it the most? And maybe the opening of that window only lasts a few minutes, the one that blows in the air which whispers Everything Is Going To Be Just Fine--maybe it slams closed after you've only just felt your hot cheeks begin to cool down--but that one little gulp of air is enough. And you think, there IS something to this after all, because no matter how determined I might be to feel bad, somehow there is peace contained within my body? Do you ever do this?

This is what I want to talk about today.

The presence of the body.

Because--and I know you've heard this before--that is exactly what the body is--present. In fact, for some of us, in some moments...days...weeks of our lives, the body is the ONLY thing that is present. And it is, always, endlessly present. Your body is moving through the world in present time. It is feeling the machinations of your mind and your heart, in present time. It is taking in so much information--so much information that if something unexpected were to happen right now, your body would know it well before your mind. Why else would you turn to the doorway with a gasp before your eyes really had a chance to see who was there? Your body is processing all of your feelings, known and unknown, it is taking in the temperature of the air and the sound of the birds across the street. And when I am not present, when I am not WITH myself, my body (I've noticed) is also taking on the stress and strain of operating what is essentially a ship with no captain. Or at least, a ship with a captain who has fallen asleep.

And the tension in my neck, is a call to wake up.

And the tightness of my breath is a call to wake up.

And that funny feeling that I am not quite standing on the ground, is a call to wake up.

One of my teachers said the other day that she is now at a point in her practice where in every pose she is looking for the parts of her body which she can not feel, and from that she knows all the places in which she is still asleep.

And so, yes, yoga feels good because it is creating space, because it is making room for the breath, because it is working all the muscle groups, blah blah blah. But really what yoga is doing is reacquainting us with our bodies. And this is profound not just because we feel more connected to ourselves when we are in our body, but because our bodies might literally be the doorway to presence. I think we remember, even in just five minutes of moving around, what it is to be alive.

And awake.

365 Days of Yoga - Day 2

Long class tonight with Stacey (whom I LOVE)...she's an actress and singer as well as a yoga teacher and I feel some kind of unspoken bond with her because of it. She is also both fierce and open-hearted--a combination I find incredibly likeable and not an easy balance to strike (in my own life at least...it seems it's usually one or the other).

The room was packed, everyone eager to get their post-new-year sweat on, and I found myself way in the front corner of the class. Not bad--I never mind having a wall to one side of me, and the closer to the windows the better. Though lately I find that I gravitate more toward the middle of the class--I like seeing the synchronicity of movement of the yogis to all sides. But tonight it was just me and wall and window and a woman to my weft. Heh heh.

The class was pretty vigorous...it was an upper level and Stacey is not one to shy away from the hard stuff. We were doing a lot of twists and arm balances and, um, the one where your big toe is in your hand? Pat a goose asana? Just kidding. I'm trying to learn the Sanskrit but it's slow going, and I feel shy about giving it a try and massacring the name. (Sometimes I feel this way when we're chanting--singing out the chants like some pop-star from the back of the class knowing that I have NO IDEA what word I'm chanting--just faking my way through it like I've just graduated from Sanskrit school.) Anyhow. We were doing that, and some standing marichyasana...the one where your arms are bound around a knee that is jammed up into your armpit. (Not "jammed", Lia, that's not very yogic). Ahem. The one where your arms are bound around the knee that is moving toward your armpit--reaching for your armpit--longing for your armpit...

Anyways, apparently some of the people in the class who weren't familiar with the pose were kind of dropping out during the sequence and just kind of standing there...(I didn't see this, as I was up in the front corner, jamming my knee into my armpit...) but at one point Stacey stopped all of us and explained that if there was some frustration going on, or some discouragement, that maybe she could address it...

She explained that the point of yoga is never the pose--or the finished product of the pose. She said that the reason things get continually more difficult is that as soon as we know how to do something--as soon as we have mastered something, some pose or some sequence--then we can do it and still think about all the crazy stuff we always think about. As soon as we've mastered it, we can do it in our sleep. And the whole point, she said, is not to be able to do the poses in our sleep--but to allow the poses to wake us up. So, she said, you do the pose as you can do it--you do it so that it is waking you up--you do it so that it requires your whole effort and focus, so your mind can't go running off in all directions as it normally does. You try not to just get frustrated and give up. Even if all you can do is put your hand on your knee while you stand on the other leg, then that's what you do.

I thought about all the things in life I can do while asleep--that I do, do while asleep--and about how much I'd like to wake up--how much I'd like to find more things that wake me up, and wondered if the point here, in my life, is the same as in my practice--to challenge and deepen my practice, my life, so that it never becomes a sleepwalk, but is a constant shaking of my sleeping shoulders to wake up.