The Body Speaks

just finished practice

it amazes me how the body holds onto things and only lets you know what is going on when it feels safe to do so. for a while now i've been out of sorts in my left hip. that translates into a tightness on my whole left side and it doesn't do much to help my right shoulder. my entire body is trying to compensate. in my practice i've been trying to open that hip, to open that left side, but nothing much seems to help. today i used muscular energy and my body kept leading me in and in and in. and i think i've found it. my tailbone is in the wrong place. it is ever so slightly off to the left. as i worked hard in my legs i couldn't quite get it to move back, not the way i can often pop the SI joint into adjustment. so i kept at it, kept trying and finally just decided to rest. knowing there is more work to be done but nothing more for today, i put myself into savasana. there in corpse pose i was drawn back to the birth of my daughter. all of the emotions (ones that i didn't even feel that day) came back too, with a softness and an opening. and i knew then, that my misalignment happened during the birth and i never got back into place. hopefully, letting the emotions, joyful and sorrowful and fearful, flow helped soften the pull of the muscles and ligaments and will help move my tailbone into alignment again. life is better when i'm aligned. but either way, i am amazed that on this rainy cloudy cold morning when i didn't really want to practice at all, just going to the mat took me to a place of such profound insight and deeper awareness, not just of my body but of my whole life. after some practices, you are never the same.

Coming Home

The yoga is like coming home for me. It's like turning a corner after a long road trip and seeing the place most dear. then walking through open doors into the embrace of long loves.. and some days they're baking chocolate chip cookies and serving cocoa too. but sometimes it's like going home when no one is there. when the place is quiet and empty and not only that, it's dirty and tired. sometimes i can't even find the street the house is on.. i'd like to say i keep searching on those days but i'm likely to either roll up my mat and 'forget it' or stumble through nothing poses as i ponder my toenails and pick at my clothing.
and i'm supposed to teach people?
but maybe that is the lesson. when you first come home after that first semester away at college you are suddenly hit with the knowledge 'i don't live here anymore.' but you don't really live at college either. you are hit with the uprootedness of life. we are always uprooted. and in our society so disconnected from our truly divine nature.
yoga is that chance to plant roots. to try to go home for real. home to the back pocket of the universe where we can cozy up and bathe in the love and warmth that comes with the knowledge that we truly are whole.
these days as i struggle in the first moments of motherhood i remind myself this life is a journey, this home i'm creating for my child is a warm safe holding ground for exploration until we all return to the heart of the divine. and i remind myself i too, am divine. even in my most difficult and challenging moments
I am a Goddess

Darkness and Light

I teach a sunday morning yoga class at YS. tomorrow i start back up after the break of maternity leave. it is like restarting into something i know i am meant to do but from a place of total disarray, from a whole new ground level. like there has been an earthquake, a cosmic shift and the new ground is HERE. but where ever it is.. Here is where i start from.
my sunday morning class is usually pretty small but i prepare fully for it because it is the most dear to my heart. it is the class where i have the most freedom to teach from a theme and to teach anusara alignment. so in some ways, not only do i prepare the asana for the class i also feel like i am preparing a sermon.

tomorrow's theme is dealing with darkness and light. tomorrow is the winter solstice. the darkest day of the year. and yet in the midst of this darkness... probably because of the darkness all of the holidays will hit and we will celebrate the LIGHT. we will come together, drink eat sing dance and laugh in a huge celebration of life and abundance and of spirit. in this yoga, too, we say YES to life. we acknowledge the darkness without trying to run away from it. because without darkness there could be no light, we wouldn't know what light is. so we acknowledge learn from and embrace the darkness. but out of that we CELEBRATE and align with and invite the light in every moment. the light of universal spirit that dances in all of us no matter what we call it. maybe we just call it life. and so we say LIFE IS GOOD and celebrate that.

so tomorrow we'll dance with darkness and with light. i'll bring images of candles and stars and of shadow and shining out your own true light. and hopefully tomorrow students will come and practice with me. i am SO ready to be there again.

Returning

About a month. that's how much time i took before practicing again. the last day before the baby was Oct 10th. and i practiced on my own again yesterday, nov 9th.

i felt my downward facing dog and think it feels pretty much like a beginner's dog. nothing like where it was before pregnancy or in honesty, even during pregnancy. hopefully my hamstrings will open again.

being in this place of having to re-build my practice again gives me SO much sympathy or empathy for beginner students. even for mild students who don't practice very often. this stuff is hard and usually i just bounce around in and out of poses no problem.. but if you're not used to doing it the body can be a challenge.

but happiness, joy, fear, unknowing all crowding in as i get started. and as always the reminders : go slow, it will come, live for this moment and know change is happening.

it just feels so good to breathe again.

unknowing and unknown

i do not know when this baby will come

i do not know what she will be like when she is born

i do not know when my last chance to practice yoga will be before my body is wrecked by childbirth and nursing and carrying this child for hours in my arms rather than in my womb

i do not know and so i wait

and i am lethargic

i think about meditating, about repeating the breath and the birth mantras in my mind

i think about practicing cat/cow and the standing poses left in my repertoire

but mostly i sit

and i stare at the mat rolled in the corner between the bookshelf and the wall

and i wish for a backbend and a headstand

i do not know when i will be able to practice them again

but i know that i will

Summer Doldrums

Summertime, i'm learning, is the lean time for yoga teachers. the number of students in all of my classes has dropped off dramatically and i'm pretty sure this isn't about ME specifically. Summer, especially August, is prime vacation season. this year vacation season also came with the increase in energy costs and i'm sure that had some effect on the number of students in my classes also. so a few weeks i had no one in a class here or there... i also had the chance to work solo with people a few times. and the numbers at the health club, where i'd gotten up to 12 or 14, went back down to 4 or 5.

on one hand, it's very hard not to get discouraged when the numbers are low. the energy of the room seems to sink down and it feels like my voice is lost into the depths of space. but on the other hand, with low numbers it is easier to get into the more difficult poses or to get into poses that require more supervision.
in class at the health club the other night i had 6 people, one of them was a teacher who was in just to observe my class and get a feel for it. so i had five members and a teacher. so even though it is a level one class i was able to teach them handstands at the wall. in a roomful of 14 at very different skill, strength, flexibility, and listening to instruction level i would not have felt comfortable doing that. but knowing my crowd and being able to see them all at once made it possible. and the outcome was great because the true level one students really got to try something new and the level two students who just come to the level one class for fun got to work on the pose more slowly than they do in the level two classes. they got to build up to it with lots of poses beforehand and they got to ask questions without worrying about sounding too beginner.

so i just try to be grateful that i have the time to teach, no matter how many students actually make it through the door. i'll just keep putting myself and my words and my heart out there and see what happens. and i guess we'll see what september will bring.

Intentional Chocolate

When i was in Ohio, Ann and Todd shared this one minute shift video with us. The idea behind all of this and the reason to share is the reminder that our intentions.. our thoughts really do have profound impact on our lives. it is so easy to go through the day thinking negative thoughts and then attracting negative events to us. it is much harder but wiser to teach ourselves positive thinking and then watch as positive events are attracted to us. at any rate enjoy the one minute shift and then, this reminds me to offer gratitude and love before each meal.