The heart is a balloon.

Class: 2p-3p, "Flower Hour", Katrina.

Some kind of scramble
Some kind of inside out type of game
Shoulders clench
Invisible muscles
Hold together
Push and grip
If I could breathe there
Place a big balloon there
That might pop
Burst in liquid
And like a sigh it might descend
Just a single impulse
Sliding down the spine

If there is a path to grace
And if I might be allowed to travel it,
Trust me,
I would.

And so, if I am to venture there...
How how how?

Look, this is what I know:
My thoughts mean something--and I mean they mean something about the
meaning of the world around me
My breath means something--and I mean it means something about the
construction of my cells and my ability to be open and available in the
world
My body is not separate from my mind
My mind is not separate from my mind, and
It is possible to release and relent...
It is possible, I mean, to work with the mind and the body
It is possible to contact Being,
Which is something larger than body
Or mind

It means a breathing
It means a deep forgiveness
Like so many handfuls of stones
Being thrown into a pool
It means a wide-open heart
And wide-open eyes
And it means stepping straight right onto the juicy footpath of my life
I know all these things

And still my heart is full of questions.

Valentine's

Class: 8:15-9:45pm, Lotus Flow 2/3, Sheri.

Synchronicity. Coincidence of events that seem to be meaningfully related.

Example: walking to yoga class, feeling wide-open and full of breath and thinking "today I am going to dance through class--that is my intention--to dance dance dance" and to get to class and have your teacher weave Dancing Shiva throughout and in-between the asanas and to hear her call out, "Dance! Make the asana your dance!"

Those are the moments when I realize that the universe is big and open-hearted.

Still I am resisting handstand--there is an electrified fence in my consciousness, just beyond it lies that big chasm Out-Of-Control. I want to get there, but am still tender to the fence's little zaps.

It was Valentine's Day and I was struck by the monument of that holiday--for me it has never been much to fret over--but Sheri spoke at length about having to let go of her distaste for it. I never much worried over love, not until I found it, that is. Now the day means more to me, though for the last two years, P. and I have officially celebrated Oregon's Birthday (also February 14th) instead of Valentine's Day. I bake a green velvet birthday cake in the state's honor, and this year we even blew out one tiny candle and sang Happy Birthday Oregon--pulling down our smirks all the while.

My shoulder seems to be healing, though it still tweaks a bit in Upward Bow, and I'm trying to watch out and be tender with it, as I don't want to risk a more serious injury. I have this entire diagnosis in my head and feel that I am strengthening and then resting the tired muscle--over and over--in order to both heal and advance. I have no idea if this is physically sound, but it seems to be working so far.

I clean at Laughing Lotus now, once a week, in order to subsidize my classes, and so thursday nights, after Sheri's class, I stay late and scrub bathrooms and vacuum floors. When I first started doing this I would get very tense and nervous once everyone had left and I was in the darkened studio all on my own. I found myself jumping at the bangs of the radiator and the various creakings of the building settling after hours. But now, I have come to look forward to this time in solitude. The smells of the studio are so soothing--I'm pavlovian in my response to it now--and silence descends so quickly once the closer has locked the door behind her. As I clean and vacuum I feel I am somehow bonding with the space--solidifying the bond I have begun as a student--but now more intimately, with a silence that is private and, somehow, feminine. Many nights I have been tempted to stay and practice once the cleaning is done, to take advantage of the wide-open empty studios and to see what comes, but I am nervous. What if it's not allowed? What if I hurt myself? What if, what if, what if?

Once I took out a block and sat on it to meditate for a few moments, but I felt rushed and obligated--knowing that P. was waiting for me at home and fearing the fickle subways. One night I will do it. One night I will tell P. I won't be home until late and I will stay and see what comes. And I will keep my fingers crossed that what comes is not the Bogeyman.

Class: 4:00-5:45pm, "Cosmic Play", Edward.

Edward, though I'm a little intimidated by him sometimes, might possibly be the most innovative, creative, and all-around mind-blowing teacher I've had the chance to study with. This class--the one that (gulp) all the teachers take--is advanced and free-form and the music Edward plays always ROCKS!

I, mistakenly, put my mat in the front of the room for this class--there weren't many people and we were all asked to move up--and I had an hour and 45 minute wrestling match with my ego because of it. As such, I had the following realizations (while attempting to do one of the many one-handed inversions that Edward demonstrated with such wood-nymph-like precision):

1. I am nowhere near beyond the point where I want to be the "A" student in class--and this holds me back more than it motivates me.

2. The poses that are the most difficult for me are those which require either total abandon, total upside-down-ness, or total relaxation. This means handstand and forearm stand (in the middle of the room--I'm alright against the wall) dropping back into wheel and, yes, shavasana, are among those poses which give me major trouble.

3. The poses that I can not do, or won't allow myself to do, represent the culmination of struggles in other areas of my life, i.e., learning to let go--as these poses literally will not happen without my giving over to the pose and relinquishing my conscious ego-hold on getting it right.

4. I worry a lot about looking stupid. This one is a bit of a surprise to me, as I'm constantly looking stupid in front of big groups of people as an actor and auditioner, but also it makes total sense to me, as my biggest set-back as an actor is my inability to let go and trust my own instincts (see above).

5. I want to develop a practice that is more deeply and personally mine, so that I am not so easily thrown by this "how am i doing" head.

6. Watching people in that class glide from handstand into wheel and back into handstand, without making a sound or rippling the air makes my heart sing. I. Want. That.

7. Somersalts are awesome.

I will say that my alignment in all my inversions is improving a lot--I think I have the strength and balance and breath-work to be able to DO all of the poses I'm kind of fiddling around with right now: dropping back, handstand, etc...but my mind just takes over. I stand on the edge of the cliff and I just start staring at the water and the distance between me and the rocks, and all the possible miscalculations, and I cut my nerve to ribbons. One day I'm just going to have to dive off the edge.

I'm looking forward to that day.

-YogaLia

Upside-Down

Inversion Workshop, 2:30-4:30pm, Mary Dana

(written before class)

Something has washed me this morning
and the building opposite also
is washed
in sun squares and winter wind

I fill notebooks and he reads the paper
we are tired
and impatient with each other
I tell him I hate it
when I feel like he's putting up with me
"No, I love it" he says
and we go back to our papers

Across from us I watch a mother
smiling down at her infant daughter
they just sit like that
across from each other
smiling

It has been called the bliss body
it has been called nirvana and samsara
it has been called the flow and the source
it has been called inspiration
and ecstasy and most often, love,
it has been called
and to some it lies at the center of the heart
and to some it lies in the center of the belly
and to some it is Chi and to some
the Holy Spirit and to some just firings
of several neurons and to some,
it is a mystery which needs no naming

I hunt and peck and hunt and peck
I devour texts and dive in
my body twisted into a hundred red shapes
hoping with each one
I will break the surface of the water
and submerge
and not, no, never
need to come up for air again
(where some bubbles rise
and pop
with small squeals of delight)

If I could fill a suitcase, I think,
with every impediment
drop it at a bus station and walk away...
But just the thought of counting
all the weights to be untied
only makes them seem heavier
more solid
and every knot grows infinitely
more knotted

But (bubbles breaking)
there is another way.
It is not to rid of, to fix, to alter, to repair--
not these constant messages
each one spelling:
Something. Is. Awry.

There is another way

Ahimsa

Class: 12:00-1:35pm, "Love Saves the Day", Alison

The light in me, is the light in you. So they say.

These Saturday classes are always crowded. Today I was hugged right up against my classmates to the right and left. I don't often mind the close quarters--especially on days like this, when the woman to the right of me is breathing so beautifully and rhythmically I can't help but get drawn into the spell of her breath with her. But still I am angry and avaricious at times about my practice: She's breathing too hard. He's being so masculine. She doesn't know how to do that pose. His towel is all over my mat. I'm better than her. I hope they're watching me do this headstand. He's cute. She's skinny...and on, and on.

Today there was a girl in the front row who obviously had not taken a class before, or was at least very very new to the practice. Between each pose she would look, wide-eyed, to her left and right and behind, mimicking the shapes of the poses, but often ferociously out of alignment. I silently cringed every time I saw her yank herself into upward dog, her toes curled under, her shoulders hunched, her legs splayed out and her neck straining backwards. I began to get angry at her. Angry at her for being in the front row, for thinking that she could be there--angry at her for not investigating the kind of class she was taking, and angry at her, most of all, for not taking the practice seriously enough to really pay attention to how the poses are supposed to be done. I was angry at her for doing. It. Wrong.

Ali started the class by talking about the first two Yamas: Ahimsa and Satya. Nonviolence and Truth. I had heard of these yamas, these yoga dictates, before, but am for the most part ignorant of the complexities of the yoga sutras. Ahimsa: nonviolence. Satya: truth. She made a big point of the fact that Ahimsa, comes before Truth. First there is nonviolence and THEN there is truth. And I was reminded of something Lil, my dear therapist, said to me the other day about a certain habit of thought. Often she asks me, "who is this benefiting" when I'm spinning into the ether about some thing or another, both of us knowing that the answer is "no one", but in our last session, after posing this question she said, "you aren't damaging anyone else. You aren't damaging any of your relationships. The only one you are hurting, is yourself." At the time I nodded, yes yes of course, I know this line of thinking--but while Ali was talking I remembered it, and it circled round and round in my head. The only one I'm hurting is myself. The only one that is being impacted or damaged or torn up or even implicated in any of my suffering, is myself. And it is of no benefit to anyone.

I didn't understand why Ali wasn't correcting this girl's posture, berating her, embarrassing her for being so utterly clueless. Are you listening to this? I felt infringed upon because she didn't know what she was doing. She, however, did not seem bothered in the least. She just hitched up her stretch pants and looked around and dove back in to every pose--all twisted and crunched--by the end of class there she was, huffing and puffing her way through all of it, and I could not help but be impressed. Would I have made it through this class, in the front row, and been able to maintain my composure? And all the while next to me, the woman with the magical breath--in and out, in and out--breathed beautifully next to me, and I let myself fall into synch with her, inhaling up and exhaling down, inhaling open and exhaling cartwheeling down to the ground. Like two breathers of one breath.

Ahimsa. Satya. Nonviolence. And then truth.

-YogaLia

God! Please Bring Me More Suffering!

Class: 4:15-5:15pm, "Happy Hour", Alison.

My teacher today was someone I rarely take from but whom I love--(she is brown skinned and tiny and muscular and her face is all almond eyes and strong cheekbones)--and so I should have been happy to have found the hour to be with her, to watch her sinewy body against the gray outside and to practice there with her, but I was not. Because I watched her today, all through class, as through some waterfall..."as through a window. On one side of the glass, happy untroubled people, on the other side--you" (John Patrick Shanley). This is how class was for today--me, wishing so much I could be there, really be there, and be pulled from the muck of my worry--but unable all the same.

I near my 21-month anniversary of an almost daily yoga practice. These days I can hold my own in the most advanced classes. I still can't do a handstand in the middle of the room, but I can do a hundred things I never would have thought possible. These days it is rare that I do not leave behind what ails me within the first several minutes of class.... But, today was an exception. Today I listened with one ear to my teacher and listened with my other ear to the angry struggle taking place between my forehead and the back of my neck. Today I could have cared less. Today I flew through the asanas, absolutely unwilling to stop. And breathe. And feel. Today I refused to let my practice in. My body felt good and open after a day or two of rest from the more vigorous classes and I marveled at the fluidity of it, even in the midst of my mind's turmouil.

There was a point, a couple years ago, at which a daily and vigorous physical practice of some kind, any kind, became desperately necessary in my life. I was suffering from an anxiety theretofore incomprehensible to me...anxiety like a constant cloud above my head. My boyfriend encouraged me, during this bout of panic, to start taking yoga every day. Up until that point I had a yoga practice that was...sporadic. At best. I had a couple of yoga videos on my shelf and memories of a class I had taken (my very first) for several months nearly 4 years prior. Since then, I had not stepped foot in a classroom. My boyfriend told me that when he had suffered from an extended bout of anxiety in his youth, a doctor had ordered him to go out and do something fun and active for one hour every day. He reminded me that anxiety is pent-up energy, and that getting out and sweating a bit of it off every day could only help me. Besides, I claimed to love yoga (what I knew of it), and had often complained that I could not (would not) find the time to do it.

As soon as I stepped foot into my studio, I knew I had found the right place to practice. I still get that feeling, everytime I step onto the third floor, head down the hallway to the studio, and open the door to be washed by the smell of incense and bare clean feet. This studio is unlike any other I have been to, before or since, and I will hold tight to my claim that it is the best, most creative, most welcoming and most challenging place to practice in New York City. My heart jumps a little bit in my chest every time I walk through the door...knowing that we are in for something together, my heart and I. It's amazing to me how the body knows things, and how it can recognize a sanctuary so immediately.

So, I was compelled back into practice. I was desperate to reconnect with myself and to shake off at least some of the weight of the heavy coat I felt like I was suddenly every day wearing. And, I did not expect some revelatory change. I did not expect to slide into downdog and watch my anxiety slide right along with me, onto the floor and into a million pieces. I did not expect that, and that's not what happened.

The story of the evolution of this...anxiousness...is a long one and too personal and too indulgent and much much much too boring to tell here, but I will say that it did not take long for my practice to develop into something seperate and necessary in its own right. The thrill of watching my body respond and lengthen and open began to overshadow the I need this feeling with which I had first entered the studio. But, also, the physical side effects of the anxiety began to diminish and diminish. Even on days when I could not seem to stop spinning my wheels, even on days when I felt only half-present in my practice, still the feeling diminished and diminished. Still my body felt more calm, more open when I left class than it had when I went in. Even if I refused to let go of my worry for the entire hour or hour and half, even then, as if against my own will, still things began to change and loosen.

But, as I said, today was an exception.

We are asked, as yogis, to embrace all the qualities of our existence, to embrace and to desire all that we have, including the yuck. A teacher once cried out to us again and again in class, with the most joyful exuberance, "God! Please bring me more suffering! God! Please bring me more suffering!" We are charged to approach our lives with this much openness and delight...to bite down into all the juicy meat of it...And though I would like to rail against my own failings...rail against the fact that I still, two years later, still am susceptible to days of what feels like never-ending worry...as much as I would like to do that I am stopped, utterly stalled, by something undeniable: I have been given a gift.

It is none other than this worry, which I claim to despise and want only to leave me, that led me to my practice. This worry, this black-mark on what I consider an otherwise clean record (ha!), is the reason I am where I am today. Since that day, two years ago, when I first began to suffer from this somewhat unnameable fear, I have turned my life around in ways too numerous even to name. And though I convince myself that I am failing, again and again, for not having rid myself entirely of all traces, how can I forget that without this worry I would never have lept so wildly into my practice. I would not have read the books which have broken my heart these last years. I would not have returned to my family with arms so much wider than they have been before. I would not have changed my financial life. I would not have written five plays and a novel. I would not have lived and struggled and fought and loved with my love. I would not have questioned and doubted and sought after God. I would not have cultivated the several beautiful friendships that now blossom in my life and, I would not have faced the past with such painful honesty. I would not have learned that it is, indeed, possible to walk around in the world hurting and ungaurded--and survive. I would not have learned that there are things I am afraid of that are unexplainable and unsolvable and I would not have learned that the most beautiful by-product of pain is compassion.

-YogaLia

A Brief Introduction...

My hope:

That this, gulp, Yoga Blog, might be as unpretentious and vital as this lovely shimmery lotus flower.

That someday, some interested yogi(s) might stumble across this and want to par-lay about yoga and all it's isms.

That I can stop boring my boyfriend with "guess what happened in yoga class" stories, by getting all that mojo out here.

That I might actually learn something more about my practice.

That I can avoid those same "guess what happened in yoga class" stories on my other blog (also to minimize boredom) and still have a place for them, here, where my yoga-minded brothers and sisters can seek them out at will.

That I never again use the phrase "yoga-minded brothers and sisters", as this is in direct violation of hope number one, try not to be pretentious.

That I can write good about yoga-ing.

and lastly,

That I don't embarrass myself, or others.

And with that...we're off, I believe. Here's hoping. Namaste' and shanti shanti shanti, yo.

-Yogalia