Where I Been, Where I Be, Where I Be Goin...

Enough said?

NOTE: This is not MY pregnant belly. This is a random internet image of a pregnant belly. I just liked it.

NOTE: I am, however, pregnant.

NOTE: It is, also in fact, a girl.

Oh, wow, you might be saying, that's great, did you just find out? Is that why we're only hearing about this now?

Um....

Weeeelll....

The truth is, I'm due soon. Increasingly sooner and sooner-er. Mid March, to be specific. So, no, I did not just find out. Have I been thinking about posting about it here for quite awhile? Yes. Have I been encouraged by others to write, in particular, about the pregnancy in this space? Yes, I have. Have I done any of that? No, I have not.

Oh, Shanti Towners...what can I even say for myself?

I will start with this...early on in the pregnancy I spent one tearful afternoon telling a very close friend (who is a new mother) all about how much trouble I was having getting work done...how I had made a commitment to myself this year to take my creative work more seriously and now, with the due date looming like a giant measuring stick (you must have gotten THIS much done in order to ride this ride), I was feeling...lost.  What exactly was I supposed to be focusing on? Where exactly was I supposed to be putting my energy? And who, for the love of ______, was I exactly, anyhow?

Said friend listened very politely to my struggle and then reminded me, as gently as possible, that I was currently involved in the biggest creative project of my life...the creation of another human being...and that it made sense that perhaps I did not feel like I had as much out in my output these days.

So I have allowed myself, Shanti Towners, a bit of a paring down, these last several months.  My creative energies have been going to projects outside of this blog, and that includes, in large part, to the creative project currently taking place in my belly. Hence the prolonged absence.

Which I can not promise you will not continue, but hopefully even the continued absence will be punctuated with some shouts and giggles from the other side.

As for now, as the due date moves closer, I find myself in the midst of a necessary shedding...a space-making, a time-taking, a head-clearing. Which sounds, I'm sure, very lovely and maybe even easy to some of you...but trust me, for this lady, it's not. It's not at all easy. It's confusing. And on certain days, it's hard to know exactly what I'm putting down, and for how long, and how and if and when exactly I will pick it back up again.

It is a time, for me, of learning (re-learning) how to trust the process.  What happens when you let something go? What happens when you trust that just because you're not actively worried about/working on/obsessing about something, it does not mean that something will disappear from your life or your heart? What happens when you give yourself space to just breathe and to be and to connect, whether or not you think you've "earned" it? What happens then? Does everything fall apart like your busy brain tells you it will...or does something else happen? Does something get clearer? Does anything?

For the moment...I'm not sure. But I'll let you know what I find out...

Until then, Shanti-Towners...sending you lots and lots of love...

The Simplicity of Trees...

I keep thinking back these days to the very first time I encountered what could be called a spiritual teaching. Well, maybe it wasn't the first time I encountered one, but it was the first time I encountered one that encountered me, back.

I was twenty-four. I was miserable. I was miserable primarily because I was feeling like a failure as an actress, but I was also miserable in much deeper ways, ways that I couldn't quite understand. I just knew that some days I felt happy and some days I didn't and the days I didn't were nearly as many (and oftentimes more) than the days I did. And I had a friend, a woman many years older than me, who said to me one day, very simply, hey, there's something I think you should hear, and she introduced me to some teachings. Just some audio-cassettes of a teacher that she followed, giving a seminar.

We listened to them in her car as we drove around near her home in upstate New York.

I don't remember, honestly, if I was skeptical going into it. I don't think I had expectations one way or the other. I hadn't been exposed to much, other than my brief brush with Episcopalianism when I was young, but I wasn't naive, and usually I was wary of such things. In fact, as a teenager and early twenty-something I prided myself on my skepticism.  I mean, I have no idea how I appeared to the outside world, but in my head I was a chain-smoking no-nonsense fuck-you-guys kind of chick. (On the inside, I didn't like myself very much, but that's another story). Point being, I wasn't starry-eyed, you know? I wasn't looking for some solution. I had no thought in my head that what I was about to listen to would be anything other than...interesting.

But, what happened was actually pretty dramatic. I don't know how to describe the experience except that I knew, cellularly, in my bones, as I listened to those tapes, that I was hearing truth. Possibly for the first time. And maybe it was because I didn't have expectations, or the timing was just so exactly, perfectly, right...but I think I changed. I think I had one of those experiences where you actually change, from top to bottom, in an instant.  I was able to literally put down everything that was worrying me, confusing me, upsetting me, dragging me down, and turn, 180 degrees, into the light.

And I stayed there.

I remember the next day, I was standing in her dining room, looking out this window she had that faced a little copse of trees (I have written about this before here on this blog, forgive me for the repeat). I remember I was standing there and I was just trying to take in the beauty of the trees. Because part of what happened, when I opened up like that, in her car the day before, is I realized that I had stopped looking at the world. I hadn't been appreciating the beauty of the world around me. And so I was standing there, looking at the trees, standing in this blissful interior silence, when an old voice arose. What about all the things you have to do..... It started to say.  What about getting a job or fixing that old relationship? Why should you get to stand here and admire trees? Etc., etc....

And I remember I just very simply addressed the marauding voice and said, no...you're not ruining this for me. And it, and it's accompanying dark feelings, vanished as quickly as it came. And, in that moment I felt an immense power. I can do this, I thought. I can really do this.

Fast-forward seven years.

I have learned a lot more. I have read a lot more. I have been through a lot more. I have even been through an extended period of time where what I thought I found disappeared completely. Entirely. With no sign of return.  I have swung back and forth and gained and lost footing, and landed ultimately, most of the time, somewhere in the middle. Which is not a terrible place to land.

But I have been thinking back to this first moment. Because, there was something that was so clear, in that first encounter, which has become...confused. It's challenging to read so much, to listen to so much, to hear so many reasonable voices of truth (and some not so reasonable), to hear ideas and prescriptions that sound like ways in, only to discover that they are not maybe ways in for YOU. And I'm talking about the spiritual path but I'm also talking about the path of an artist, the path of a career, the path of making a home and a family...it is possible to take too much in. It's possible to want and expect too much, and for that wanting and that expectation to be the very thing that keeps you from the simplicity of looking at trees.

So, today the mantra is to remember the simple way. To remember the crystalline quality of truth. It's not complicated. It's not effortful. It's not pre-planned. It's the thing that makes your bones feel like they're humming. Just look for that feeling, and most likely, you're on the right path.

Back in Action...

So, you may very well be asking yourselves, if you're still reading this blog...if ANYONE is still reading this blog...

Um...where did the blogger go? 

I, the bloggee...I am here, dutifully it seems, more dutifully than aforementioned blogger. So...what's with that? One can not exist without the other. Especially after one (aformentioned bloggee) has already combed through the archives to see if there's anything either a. interesting to read, so that your visit to this blog was not a complete waste of time, or b. some explanation as to the radio silence.

I am hopeful that there is some of option a. available.  I am well aware there is none of option b.

Oh, Shanti-Towneres...where do I begin?

First of all, let me assure you that there is no tragedy or crises or meltdown to be blamed for my absence. That is a good thing. However, that does mean that blame rests squarely on my shoulders for this stunning lack of blog upkeep over the past several months. 

The honest truth, and put as simply as I am able--I am having a re-shifting of priorities. And I haven't quite known how to talk about it. At least, not here. My family and closest friends have had earfuls. But  you, sweet Shanti-towners, many of whom are ALSO close friends...I have not known how to talk to you about it, mainly because:

1.  I don't want to seem like this girl:

2. Because it's complicated, yo.  And;

3. Well, because, most everyone in my life has been so supportive of my embrace of yoga and my transition into teaching, that I haven't wanted to let anyone down or seem like a flaaaaaaake. (Again, please reference video, above).

Now, the whys and what-fors of this re-calibration are really, I promise you, deadly boring, unless you live inside my head, or maybe if you're married to me, and even then, it's only interesting insofar as it relates to my day-to-day happiness.

But the outcome of the why-ing and what-for-ing is: I have realized I am not done pursuing a career as a writer and actress. I thought that I might be. It turns out I'm not. So. What does that mean to you?

Well, possibly absolutely nothing. But, if you're a reader of this blog, it just means that the focus of my writing here and my exploration about life and practice and love and and and...will just be expanding a bit to (re)include my creative work, as well as my yoga practice.  Other than that...onward and upward!

Thank you, so much, for hanging in there.

I'm back. I promise. For reals.

xo

YogaLia

Grace in the Space...

"While individuals vary, the natural pace of human beings is slow. In an atmosphere of slowness, kindness and thoughtfulness flourish....Hurry (pressure) makes one slightly insane.... You cannot be violent to yourself (rush) and expect your [practice] ultimately to meet your standards. Being slow is a teacher." 

- Gail Sher
  Writing the Fire

I inherited my father's hyper-punctuality.  I spent countless hours as a child, entertaining myself in movie theatre arcades, waiting for movies to begin to which we had arrived forty-five minutes early.  If there weren't any video games in the vicinity for my brother and I to while away the time (and often there wasn't) it would mean three quarters of an hour watching corn kernels spin in the popcorn popper.

I apologize, in advance, to my own future children, as I'm sure they are destined for a similar fate...

I can't bear to be late.  Being late makes me feel like the earth is spinning in the wrong direction.  When I first moved to New York, I would give myself an hour to get anywhere.  Sometimes more.  I have, more often than I would like to recount, been the first one at a rehearsal, at a party, at an audition, at a class--for gods sake--even classes I didn't like.  I have, even as an adult--unfettered by parental time tables--found myself much too early for a movie and (sadly) too old for the arcade.  Pop, pop, pop goes the popcorn popper.

But, it's not the punctuality that I've come to find troubling...it's the hurry.  E.g., to be added to the above list: first one finished with her test, first one done eating, first one across the street, first one to the end of the book, first one to the end of the sentence, first one with her hand raised, first one to know what to say to you in this troubling situation, first one to the silverware drawer, first one in bed, first one out of bed, first one to the passenger seat, first one to finish her to do list, first one to start thinking thinking thinking upon waking waking waking, first one with the bright idea, first one with the funny, first one to the end of the inhale, first one to the end of the exhale, first one to the end of this paragraph...

(you get the idea.)

I checked out a book from the library the other day on yoga and anxiety (it's for research, okay, Mr. Librarian...it's for research), and I was reading a chapter all about the symptoms of anxiety and the traits of an anxious person, going along at my usual break-neck pace (I've always been a very fast little reader, able to take in entire chunks of text at a time), and as I sped to the end of the paragraph, I read the following:  "Did you hurry to the end of this sentence? Go back, and read it again.  Slowly."

Yikes.  You mean, this whole time I thought I was just a super special smarty-pants speed-reader, and you're telling me that I might just be...rushing? Anxiously?

(I can literally HEAR my husband smirking as he reads this.)

There are three things in my life that make me slow down:  my husband, my writing, and my yoga practice.   My husband, because just the feeling of his arms around me or hands on me or voice in the room actually changes my physiological make-up, I'm sure of it. It's happened ever since we first met...I can remember the way his voice on my voicemail, even at the very beginning, made me feel like I could just...breathe...easier.  Writing does it because, well, writing just does that to me--quiets me.  Similar to husband's arms around me as calming influence (though not nearly as sexy) is the feeling of my fingers on the keyboard.  It changes my chemical makeup.

And then there's the yoga...oh, the yoga.

My body seemed to know, when I began to practice seriously, that there was an untapped wellspring of grace somewhere in that clutzy form of mine.  And one day, it just let it out.  I remember being in a class, and moving between two poses and feeling, suddenly, that my body was no longer made of body...but of silk. Or water. Or thick smoke.  I remember feeling like I could move, not just the grosser elements--the big limbs and muscles--but everything in my body, all the way down to the ends of my hair.  I could move from my cells.  I could move from my skin.  And I felt the way that pose could slip into pose into pose into pose...and, oh my, oh my.

This, you have to understand, born from a girl used to feeling more scrappy than serpentine, more used to the sound of her body accidentally running into things than the sound of breath moving through it...the feeling of grace, I'm trying to say, was not one I was used to.

I remember thinking, "well geez, body, if this is was what you were made to do...why didn't you tell me sooner?"

And as I practiced more and I more, I realized that in order to feel all of this juicy stuff...in order to really move from my toe-tips to my hair-tips...I had to slow down. I had to allow some time.  Things don't melt all in a flash...it takes a slow steady application of heat, (if you don't want to end up with just a bubbling pot of burnt).  It's this way with food, and it's this way with muscles, and it's this way with pesky and particular thoughts.  There has to be room and time for things to transform.

But, until very recently, this slow-ness has been confined to the space of my mat...it has been my sole refuge of slowness.  Until recently.  When, for whatever reason, it has finally become apparent to me that if I want larger change in my larger life, I have to take what I am learning and make it...larger.  I have to begin to stretch out my little yoga-bliss-sweater so it covers the whole of my life. Which means, consciously bringing tools out of the classroom and into my living room/bedroom/kitchen/waking life.  Which, in this case, means slowing down.

Walking a little slower.  Talking a little slower.  Doing less all at once.  Breathing. More. Thinking. Less.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Our natural pace is slow.  When we are relaxed, when we are calm, when we are happy, things move slowly.  Our breath. Our thoughts.  Even the changes in the room around us.  Haven't you noticed--when you feel turned on or connected to your life, you suddenly have time to notice the way the breeze moves the curtains just so?  To notice the sounds of a chain cling-clanging against a far away fence somewhere? To notice the way the little hairs on your arms wiggle?  To notice the color of the sky outside the window?  Has, in those moments, has the speed of the world changed...or have you?

If you have some time today (heh heh)...try it.  Take something slow. Anything--a walk down your block, the next forkful of food you bring to your mouth, the speed at which you are reading to the...end....of...this...sentence.

Try it out.  See what happens.