The Yamas and Niyamas of Parenting

The Yamas and Niyamas: the yogic guidelines for action towards ourselves and others, which form one of the eight limbs of the path to yoga.  As my asana and pranayama practice bumps along, buffeted by the demands of a clingy 9 1/2 month-old, I find myself turning more towards these other aspects of my practice–the ones that are so much more relevant off the mat and in the midst of parenting.  I have learned a thing or two about the challenges of living these principles with a child thrown into the mix, and I thought I’d share some of that wisdom with you.  I realize that much of what I’ve written is in the second or third person.  That may, possibly, be a form of avoidance.  Take these comments as my own realizations about myself.

Below I have used the English translations of the principles, and ordered them according to their relative significance and relevance to me, rather that in their traditional order as described in the Yoga Sutras.  I have included most, but not all of them.  Some of the translations come from the lovely book by Nischala Joy Devi, The Secret Power of Yoga, and thus are unorthodox.

Non-stealing, or, Being aware of Abundance: I am learning to become aware of the abundance of time.  There is always enough time and space for whatever it is that is happening right now.  We do not, in fact, HAVE to be wherever I’m rushing off to.  The diaper change/car ride/dog snack/phone call can all wait 5 minutes in the service of something cool and exciting, or in the recognition of the divinity of the moment.  Always take the time to say, and see, Namaste.

Truthfulness: When you are raising a child with another person, no assumptions or needs can go unvoiced, no actions unmentioned.  Raising a child is complicated and so, so dependent upon your own childhood experience.  Being honest with yourself and your partner about how and why you are doing things is absolutely essential, even when you have to admit to yourself (heh) that something is hard for you to do.

Nonviolence: Be gentle, be soft, be clear.  Be this way with your child, with yourself, and with your partner.  Meet your needs, pay attention to how full (or empty) your cup is, and do so often.

Devotion and Surrender to the Divine: Above all else, to be witness to the growth of a child is to witness the manifestation of the divine in the world.  From the moment of conception, the astounding, beautiful process of growth that a child undertakes is out of your hands.  It also demands your full attention and wonder.  Be there with it – say Namaste.

Dedication and Focus: This has been a tough one for me!  There is focus in raising a child, but too much and you can get in the way of their own path. (Aria has no interest in crawling or eating solids right now, thankyouverymuch!) For that reason, this has really been about me, and about my need to preserve the “Eve activities” that are not about parenting.  This is so difficult, but I also think that it’s very much a product of modern society, where we all put so much stock in our identities, in what we do and accomplish, and in our own self-esteem.

Purification: Keep your body healthy, and keep your baby’s body healthy.  Your baby is sensitive and being exposed to tons of things for the first time.  Their skin is sensitive, and they have lots of fat in their bodies, which can hide a multitude of toxins.  Their brains are developing a mile a minute.  You need to have the energy to keep up with your baby, feed them, and give them love and support.

Self-knowledge: Parenting requires you to make many decisions, most in the moment.  Why you make the decisions you do comes from your intuition, fears, expectations, and assumptions.  It is most important to understand why you’re making the decisions you are, and what those decisions say about what kind of a person you are, and what kind of a person you expect your child to become.  Listen carefully to this knowledge, and be fully aware.  I have come to understand (with much angst and frustration) that many of the decisions I make are designed to make the process of raising Aria less painful for me, and have nothing at all to do with her needs in either the short or long term.  Oops!!

Contentment: Parenthood changes everything, all of a sudden and completely.  It is very easy to think wistfully of that time before children when we a) got sleep, b) had time to ourselves, c) could make last-minute decisions and plans, or d) all of the above.  It is not useful to do so.  On the other hand, it is also very easy to get caught up in worry, future plans for babies who have yet to reveal who they are, and anxiety about making it all work.  The most valuable thing about parenthood is the constant reminder to be fully present and fully aware of what is going on right NOW, and to be content with that.  This evening, Aria figured out how to blow bubbles in her bath.  It was a fantastical moment–simple, straightforward, and amazing.  It was bubbles.

Rediscovery

So, I’m finally getting back to my mat after giving birth.  When I say “getting back to my mat,” I’m referring to the 20 minutes I have in between breastfeeding, eating, pumping, changing diapers, and doing laundry.  You know, the time I have in my day!

But these nascent practices are beginning to introduce me to my post-pregnancy body, and it’s quite the rediscovery. It’s also offering me the chance to consider, carefully, what my physical practice means, and why it’s so important to me.  Yoga, at its core, is not about a physical practice per se, but I came to yoga via the mat, and have always valued it primarily as a mind-body practice.  What getting back on the mat has given me is a reminder that my physical practice is about cultivating a relationship to my physical presence in the world–to the space I take up, to the way I embody my emotions, and to care I take in maintaining myself for and in the world.

As I stretch muscles in ways they haven’t been stretched for 10 months, and use muscles that have gone into hibernation, I am re-teaching my body to be not-pregnant, to be its own.  As I discover the semi- and fully- permanent changes to my body (nursing breasts, stretch marks, widened hips), I am also learning a new body, just as I am learning a new (or altered) identity.  I am embodying both the return and the change, and I am finding it through the repetition of familiar poses on the mat.

Every day each of us rediscovers our body through our practice.  The changes of pregnancy and new motherhood are particularly dramatic examples of change, just as they are particularly poignant opportunities for discovery.  As I explore and make peace with my new body, I am also able to come into my new self–the self that is now mother as well as all of my other pieces, yogini included.  The altered space I now take up on my mat is both metaphor and embodiment of the emotional, spiritual, and practical changes in my life.

Birth Story

Please welcome a new love and life to the world.

I passed my due date (March 4) with a sense of incredulity and frustration, and then made peace with the fact that the baby was going to wait for my mother to arrive on Monday the 7^th (she was supposed to be there a few days after the birth.  Look how well I planned!).  Monday arrived, and with it a huge snowstorm in Vermont that prevented my mother’s departure till the next day (and even that wasn’t a forgone conclusion till the last minute!).  So, more waiting.  During this time, I was experiencing lots of achiness in my low back and increasingly frequent Braxton-Hicks contractions during this time, but nothing that felt like labor had actually commenced.  I was also stressed about my mother digging out from the storm and actually making it to the airport, so I had a feeling that labor wouldn’t really get underway till all of that was over.

My mother arrived late on Tuesday night, the 5^th, and we all stumbled into bed around 2 am.  Wednesday arrived, and with it a desire to stalk up on some last-minute food items.  She and I also decided to enjoy the weather and the fact that she was around to help me wrangle the dogs and take a nice long walk with them.  One of our dogs ran off in the middle of the walk and got stuck in someone’s backyard, so we had an even more eventful time than anticipated, and did more running than I had intended…  After such an exhausting walk, I needed to rest my back at home, so my mom did some impromptu massage on my neck and low back/hips while I rested in child’s pose on my bed.  It was divine.  That night, I finally remembered to watch the Babies documentary (4 babies from around the world over the 1^st year of their lives).  It was adorable and sweet and fascinating, and left me in the mood for birth.

I tried to get into bed early-ish – maybe 10:30 – and slept pretty soundly till 3:30 am on Thursday morning, the 10^th.  I then had some rather crampy contractions (which I still thought were B-H) woke me up and I had to use the bathroom.  At this point I did the first thing that indicated I was indeed in labor – Dave told me that when I got up I threw the covers off the whole bed, uncovering him as well as me.  I’m usually very careful not to uncover him.  I didn’t bother with the light but thought that maybe I noticed some bloody show when I wiped.  I ignored it and climbed back into bed.  I slept fitfully until 5:30, when I had to get up to use the bathroom again.  As I went, I realized that I was having a bloody show in addition to loose stools and pee, meaning I was definitely in labor.  I went back to bed, hoping to sleep a bit more, but immediately began laboring more intensely and had more bloody show in the bed (which I thought was my water breaking – it was dark!).  Given the sudden change in feeling, I woke Dave up just before 6, and then got my mom up as well.  At this point, we started tracking contractions.  They weren’t at regular intervals, but after a few that were 5-7 min. apart, they started consistently being much closer together (2-4 min.), so I had a feeling things were getting more serious (the fact that they were kinda irregular still made me take them less seriously, though).  We called the doula (Rebecca) at 6:20 and paged the midwife on call.  My mom started breakfast and Dave jumped in the shower.  I started to pace a bit through the contractions.  I spoke to midwife Sharon at 6:40.  Since I could still talk through contractions (as I could the whole way, actually), and they hadn’t been regular for that long, she said, “I’ll tell Janice, who goes on call at 7, and you should call us again later.”  It felt dismissive, but also calm.  She also asked if I had felt the baby moving.  I panicked a bit at this point when I realized that I hadn’t felt her move in a while, but also realized that maybe I hadn’t been paying attention to that.  About 10 minutes later, after heading back to the bathroom and my bed, I felt her kick and yelled out “I felt her kick!” with great relief.  It was the last time I noticed it, though!  We then called Rebecca at 7 to ask her to come over, as contractions were increasingly regular.

In any case, I was able to eat some eggs & toast and fill up on water (the first thing that both Rebecca and Sharon told me to do was drink fluids!).  I began to need to pace in circles around the house or sit on the toilet through each contraction (I didn’t know I had that much to empty out…).  I was also beginning to use a rhythmic Lion’s Breath – tongue out and mouth wide – to help me through each contraction.

Rebecca arrived around 7:55.  I was pacing through a contraction by the front door as she arrived, and opened it with some huffs and a grin.  She immediately suggested that I get in the bath, so she and my mom ran one while I continued to pace and Dave quickly got our labor bag fully packed with last-minute items.  When I stepped into the bath I couldn’t imagine folding or bending down, so we quickly transitioned to the idea of a shower.  I marched in place in the shower to the same pacing rhythm I’d been using before, hands braced on the back wall.  I still had the presence of mind then to point out that we had to open up the drain again, or we’d have “the great labor flood of March 2011.”  Then I suddenly felt nauseous, poked my head out of the shower and threw up in the toilet.  I also noticed a bunch of blood.  I told Rebecca, who said, “good, that’s dilation right there.”  At this point the water started getting cold (we now know that our hot water heater is less powerful than we’d thought!), so I had to get out.  This may have been a really good thing.  I kept wanting to get into bed because I was cold in between contractions, but they were so close together that it required too much effort to keep getting up.  My mom and Rebecca helped me get dressed and I started to labor for a few contractions on my bed on forearms and knees, with the dogs hanging out around me.  Then this got too intense and I started to pace again.  I found myself flicking my fingers and shaking my hands, but also smiling through the contractions—I could just tell that this was happening in all its glory and if I celebrated that, it would be easier.  It was actually kind of exciting!  My mom helped by breathing and moaning with me – helping set a tone for me.  I started to moan differently at this point – vocalizing like our childbirth educator Liz demonstrated when talking about transition – which cued Dave that it was time to go.  He brought it up to Rebecca and called the midwives again.  They were apparently very skeptical that I was that far along, and told us to come into their offices in the professional building by the hospital.  He told me it was time to go, and I took a moment, then had a contraction that I realized would be hellish in the car, and said, “If this gets any worse, I don’t want to do it in the car.”  So, we headed out at about 8:45.

I kneeled on the front seat facing backwards, with my mom behind me, and Dave drove.  Rebecca followed in her car.  I weathered each contraction by rocking back and forth, grasping at the air and seat, and pulling on my hair.  It sucked.  Dave kept a hand on my hip to make him feel better about the fact that I wasn’t using a seatbelt (to that I had said, “there is no way in hell.”), to which I said, “like that’s gonna help in an accident.”  Luckily the drive over there is only 15 minutes, tops, so this torture didn’t last long.  Dave dropped my mom and I at the hospital entrance, and we raced up to the office (I couldn’t believe we had to go there first!).  We are all a little frustrated that they missed all the cues, apparently figured Dave to be a nervous first-time dad, and dismissed the idea that I could be as far along as I was.  In the waiting room, I continued to pace through contractions, at this point needing to grab at my pelvic bone and moan through each contraction.  There was a newly-pregnant couple in the waiting room, and I remember thinking, “Oh my god.  I can’t believe they have to witness me in this state at this point in her pregnancy.”  The minute the staff saw me (it was now 9 am), they raced me into the triage room and had me get up on the table.  Once Janice was able to examine me, she asked, “do you feel any pressure?”  I breathlessly responded, “oh my god.  So much.”  To which she said, “good, because you’re 10 centimeters.”  Wow.  OK!  We basically ran downstairs to the maternity ward at Evergreen, where they were waiting with walki-talkies and an open door.  (first I signed the world’s messiest signature on my admission form.)  In the room, I immediately stripped (I did put on a gown for a bit), and leaned over the bed to labor.  The nurse and midwife started hooking me up to a monitor to get a 20-minute strip.  I was pissed, but they were insistent.  I didn’t want anything on my body at this point!  I found the position OK, though, and soon said, “I really want to push.”  No one responded – at this point it was clear that it was time to do so!  Eventually someone hooked me up to the wireless monitor, but I was too far gone to really notice, and finally after 15 minutes, they gave up on trying to get a full strip and I just climbed up on the bed on my hands and forearms (the back of the bed was raised slightly) to labor.  With each contraction, I would rock back towards my heels and bear down strongly.  I was kind of screaming/roaring through the contractions, and during one my water broke.  Between contractions Rebecca started to lay warm hands on my shoulders and slowly stroke down.  It felt awesome.  I quickly felt tired, though, and turned to lay on my left side.  My mother held up my right leg and Janice took a hot washcloth to my bottom between contractions, which also felt awesome.  I found myself reaching up towards the top of the bed while I pushed, almost trying to pull in some strength and energy from the room to push the baby out.  They set up a huge mirror at the end of the bed.  Janice and Bennett, the nurse, continued to try to pick up the baby’s heartbeat with the monitor.  When I asked if she was moving down, Janice said, “yeah, can you tell that I have to move the monitor with each contraction?”  Eventually she asked me if I could feel the baby moving down, and when I said yes, she told me to put my fingers into my vagina to see if I could feel her head.  I could!  I got a burst of adrenaline and energy and got a huge grin on my face.  Oh my god.  It made the intense pressure more bearable.   I found myself reaching down to put my hand over my vagina, and could feel the pleasure that some women describe as “orgasmic,” but that abated as the stretching got more intense.

A few more contractions later, someone said, “there’s the head!  Wow, look at that hair!”  At this point I started feeling a lot of stretching and burning, which progressively got more and more painful.  It was the only point during labor when I felt like it might be too much.  This is when I let a few choice words fly.  I feel like I kept making eye contact with David during this time, but he was stationed to my back, so I’m not sure what I’m remembering (I also turned onto my back right at the end – no one remembers quite when at this point – so that might be when I turned to Dave).  In any case, the baby’s head came out after some horrible burning feelings, and then Janice said, “you can birth the rest of her with just one more push,” and I did.  It was amazing and I was flabbergasted and in love.  I said, “We have a baby!  Oh, sweet thing!”  She came out silent but alert, and there was silence till she let out a cry (and didn’t stop for about 30 minutes!), and then everyone exclaimed together.   Her Apgar scores were 8, then 9.  I cuddled her for a while, getting to know her a bit while I birthed the placenta and while Janice sewed up a few first degree tears.  Then Dave and kicked my mom & Rebecca out while we talked about her name and Dave gave her a bath with the help of the nurse, Bennett (and promptly fell entirely in love).

In the end, my labor lasted 7 hours, and I pushed for about 40 minutes.  Aria Stella Edery was born at 10:20 am on Thursday, the 10^th of March – 7 lbs and 2 oz.  Her name means lioness in Hebrew – a fitting tribute to the roar with which she made an appearance.  I was blessed to have an easy AND fast labor that never overwhelmed me – I just kept remembering that I could do this, that my body knew what it was doing, and that if I let it happen, it would happen.  Aria was healthy initially, but the irony of the fast birth was that she came out so fast that some of the fluid didn’t get squeezed out of her lungs, and she started breathing fast and labored, and had trouble latching during day one because of the breathing.  Eventually, on Friday morning, she was admitted to the NICU for observation and then put on an IV and monitors for about 30 hours.  She improved quickly and it was a relatively uneventful NICU stay, which was really another blessing, but we all could have done without the extra day in the hospital!

Ahimsa, the First Amendment, and “Chinese Moms”

Nonviolence.  Ahimsa.  The yogic Yama of doing no harm.  One of the principles  by which yogis and yoginis are expected to live.  It starts with oneself, and extends outward to all living beings.  (similar, you might say, to the adage, “you can’t truly love others unless you love yourself.”)

The First Amendment.  Freedom of speech.  Freedom of the Press.  Ingrained in the American psyche in an entitlement to liberty and the ability to say (and think) whatever we wish.  Interestingly, it does not extend towards bodily (literally, violent) threats.

These two principles are fresh in my mind following the recent tragic shooting outside of Tucson that killed six, the details of which we by now are largely familiar.   In the aftermath of the shooting, many rushed to find fault with:

• right-wing rhetoric that incited violence
• a polarized culture of extremism on both sides of the political fence
• the mental health system/health care system in the U.S. (what system?)
• gun safety laws (or the lack thereof)
• a broken community college mental health system

In other words, there was fault to be found everywhere.  A good Salon.com article points at that the rhetorical climate, in particular, isn’t to blame, per se, for the shooting, but is most definitely a part of the environment that enables people to take and act on extreme views.  Rhetoric begets familiarity, which begets acceptability.  A willingness to imagine acting in a particular (violent) way makes it possible, down the line, for someone to actually do so.  This is is similar to the slow progression strategy with which the Nazi party so effectively desensitized the German populace to its antisemitic, xenophobic laws over the course of its rule.

A wonderful analysis from Towleroad.com (which I read regularly for its thoughtful and thorough coverage of same-sex marriage and related issues) points out, further, that although the First Amendment does not specifically prohibit the type of rhetoric, that does not detract from its inherent inappropriateness.  The First Amendment does in fact guarantee the ability to engage in extreme forms of rhetoric if one so chooses, and is often used as a rallying cry for “liberty” and “freedom.”  However, that does not mean that it is appropriate to do.

Ahimsa would dictate otherwise, for sure, as it demands consideration of any harm that might arise from our actions.  In the Towleroad post, Ari Waldman labels speaks about “propriety.”  I would go a step further.  In her book, The Secret Power of Yoga, Nischala Joy Devi offers a translation of Ahimsa that encompasses kindness, compassion, and empathy–concepts which invite us to experience the world fully from the perspective of the other, and to act in concert with that understanding.   The ability to act in this way comes not from an external dictate, in other words, but from an internal experience of deep understanding and reflection.  In other words, Ahimsa asks us to consider what freedom and liberty in speech mean in the context of empathy, compassion, and kindness.  It means that rather than starting from an external principle, it will bring you closer to the divine (or, “oneness”) to speak from a place that considers other first, rather than secondarily.  A wonderful chant from the yogic tradition is translated as, “May all being be happy and free, and may the thoughts, words and actions of my own life contribute in some way to that happiness and to that freedom for all.” Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu.

And this brings me to my last point, about this recent Wall Street Journal article that has so many people astir.  It’s written by a Chinese American mother who has extraordinarly strict and high expectations of her daughters, and pushes them extremely hard to achieve perfection.  Her daughters have performed at Carnegie Hall as teenagers and get straight A’s at school.  While these achievements are impressive, they come at the price of severe limits on these girls’ lives, and demonstrate a narrow set of values around achievement and mastery that leave little room for creativity, thoughtfulness, friendship, and other experiences.  That said, the article takes issue with the obsession on the part of U.S. parents with their childrens’ self-esteem, and notes that many children are supported to such an extent that they miss the opportunity to learn values like persistence, or the satisfaction of mastery of a challenging subject or task.  But that valid piece of criticism on the part of the author misses the mark when paired with the obvious sense of superiority she feels in the external successes of her children.  The arbitrary, narrow expectations she has set for her children lack any sense of Ahimsa whatsoever.

This is the other side of the coin from the First Amendment debate I cover above–this article describes the limitation of freedom to such an extent that anothers’ ability to make choices is entirely constrained.  I understand that in one case we’re talking about adults (although I’m not entirely sure we can call the accused shooter, Jared Loughner, age 22, an adult) and in the other, children, but I don’t think that is effective argument here.  Children are people–with moral reasoning skills of their own that develop in significant ways throughout their formative ways.  The philosopher Kohlberg, building on Piaget’s theory of child development, held that moral development occurs when children navigate among contradictory views in order to develop new perspectives. It recognizes that young people themselves are moral philosophers and struggle with matters of obedience, loyalty, fairness, difference, and acceptance, rooted in their own identities and experience.  Where in the Chinese mother’s parenting approach is an acceptance of multiple perspectives and contradictory views?  Where is there a chance to develop a moral compass–or even simply an independent perspective–in the midst of all of this narrow expectation?

In toggling between these two extremes of violent expectation and rhetoric, I am more and more deeply convinced of the importance of Ahimsa as a principle for action in the world, and in its usefulness as a tool for thinking constructively about how to navigate the challenges of our current political and social dynamic.  I offer it here as an alternative orientation, and, most importantly,  as a reminder to myself of the possibilities available to me in the spirit of yoga.  Namaste.

Yoga, the pregnant body, and the spiritual plane

I have not written in months.  I am pregnant, and first felt protective, then exhausted, then just tired, and then out of the habit entirely.  Now, with only 7 ½ weeks until my “due time,” and with a week away from the demands of work, I find myself once again ready to think critically and carefully about what this pregnancy means in terms of my yoga.

On the surface, practicing through my pregnancy has provided me with a sort of constancy as I experience my rapidly changing body.  The poses have changed, for sure, but the relationship to my mat has not.  It is still sanctuary, classroom, and challenge all at once.  Teaching through my pregnancy has been an adventure as well—my “condition” is so visible, and so impacts the way I can demonstrate poses—that it is fully present, as if it were another teacher, in all of my classes.  The baby girl inside me has also started to be present, kicking away during class and making her presence known.  I have also started becoming a student once again, taking prenatal classes regularly from my lovely friend and fellow student of yoga, Anna.  This chance to once again be on the mat and learning in a community is a gift.  That it is a community of women sharing this transformative experience is also such a blessing during this time.

As I think more deeply about the pregnant experience, I find myself both delighting in the yogic teachings and noticing the contradiction of such a physical experience.  Pregnancy is, above all else, a deeply physical, visceral experience.  The body expands, shifts, consumes, reacts, and accommodates constantly.  No two days of the process are the same, and over the course of about 40 weeks, you find yourself becoming a new body—a holding body, a vessel.

This process has been repeated on spiritual and emotional levels for me as well.  At the emotional level, the physical process has triggered (because it must, because it is so present) a transformation from “woman” to “mother.”  My first trimester was a largely miserable physical experience (exhaustion! nausea!).  During the second, I found myself simply enjoying the feeling of pregnancy and the capabilities of my body.  And now, in the third trimester, with baby moving inside me and my body becoming something almost foreign to me, I find my thoughts turning not towards me, but towards the life that is coming, and parent I am preparing (or not…) to be.

Spiritually, I have experienced the power of creation in this process.  My body, which is now serving not just to keep “me” alive, but also to grow a new life, is now the seat of creation.  It is a microcosm of the beginning of the universe, of the seed of life.  I am goddess of all the world, creation embodied.  I am also the vessel, the baker, the potter, the guide for this new being, transmitting my feelings, preferences and habits to her through my blood, my movement, and my noises.  I am part of the endlessness of the universe, the universal.

But I find a contradiction here, sometimes, because this spiritual process is so tied to the physical transformation—it is not a purely esoteric experience.  My true Self, which watches all and does not react, seems sometimes so distant from the process of creation (which will end, in a way of speaking, in this intensely physical, messy way in labor).  And I find this interesting, to say the least.  It reminds me of the male-ness of the yogic framework (not unlike the maleness of my own native Torah), and also of the singularity of birth—its unique place in the life cycle.

I think I could say much more, and quote sources, but I will leave it here, preferring to consider these thoughts rather than nail them down.  I will revel in the fluidity of this moment, the liquidity that now defines my body and this time.

Sometimes, It’s Not That Deep

We’ve all said it, and appreciated it.  This time, I’m quoting Adam Lambert.  If you’ve watched American Idol in the last 2 years, you’ll probably know who he is.  If you’ve read Rolling Stone or watched E! News, the same.  And I know this not because I watch or read any of those things regularly.  I know this because I found out about Adam Lambert partway through LAST year’s American Idol (AI, for those in the know) run through a post on a blog, and got mildly obsessed (my husband would dispute the “mildly” modifier) with him.  I am now part of an online fan club.

I like him for a whole host of reasons, including, in generally descending order, his voice, his flamboyance, his niceness, his joy, his sexiness, and his propensity for doing R- rated things on stage with his dancers and band.

I also like him because his message is, really, that the glitter and glam are just an image–an opportunity to play.  If you can see that it’s not too serious, than you can step back and let the serious thing be the joy and love you share with the people with whom you’re being not too serious.  Sound complicated?  Let Adam tell you more succinctly (and yes, I’m going to see his tour this summer).

And I think that the reason I like this message so much is because it’s actually a very yogic message, wrapped up as it is in glitter and sexiness and a fantastically gorgeous voice.  He’s saying, basically, that the physical, everyday world we live in is, well, not that significant.  He emphasizes the importance of love and connection instead, and what is yoga about?  Union.  tapping into the universal life force (prana), letting go of our attachments.

So?  All this to say that I have a perfectly good reason to be, well, totally obsessed with Mr.  Lambert.

What?

He’s sexy.

Transformation

I have been focusing on transformation in my practice for a little while.  Granted, that’s a little bit like saying that I’m trying to be spiritual in my spiritual practice, but bear with me.  It’s easy for a regular practice to become rote, and for the act of getting on the mat each morning to become a chore.  Trust me.  I know.  But I have found that when I actively believe that each moment on the mat, each decision to engage in practice could potentially be a moment of change/discovery/beauty, it actually works that way.  It’s not instantaneous or constant, and it doesn’t necessarily mean that my whole life has changed in a moment.  It does mean that transformative moments have now become more available to me because the practice I do is aimed, really and truly, at creating this type of change.

As I embark on this new stage in my professional career (teaching more yoga, doing less grant writing eventually), I need this type of transformation—courage, confidence, strength, etc. (this was the language I used with all of Dave’s business school classmates last weekend at his 5-year reunion.  It works for them, and actually helps to remind me that teaching yoga does in fact require skill, knowledge, and ongoing development.)  As I think about having children, my body also needs strength and vitality.  So, the idea of physical and emotional transformation seems like a good one right now.  I’m coming out of a very challenging time for me and my family (hi guys!  Love ya!), and it’s necessary that I can imagine health, happiness and stability as constants in my life again.  It’s also exciting to come to a place where I can once again imagine such a situation.

In a class I taught a couple of weeks ago, one of my students expressed frustration with her abdominal strength.  As a relatively new mom with a lot on her plate, this was unsurprising.  As we spoke about where she was at, I mentioned the concept of pratipaksha bhavana from the yoga sutras (II.33).  The sutras outline the tenets of yoga practice and philosophy, and in this case, they encourage us to develop new perspectives instead of trying to change the world around us.  In other words, reorient your own world view, and you will stop feeling the need to fix everything that’s wrong around you.  For this student, that meant letting go of the need to “fix” her abdominal muscles and instead recognize that they were different now.

I have also been reading (still, and still slowly) the Radiance Sutras that I mentioned a while back.  These sutras remind us of the beauty and revelation that exists in every day acts—starting with the breath.  It has been so useful to me to remember that I can come back to just the breath, the prana, the very foundation of my practice and find inspiration, challenge, and transformation there.  I have not had to do anything particularly complicated (well, standing on my head might well be considered complicated by some of you).  I have only had to reorient my perspective and remind myself of the wealth I have available to me just by breathing in and out.

During this time of transformation, I needed to remind myself of the possibility that I could find transformation in my own practice, find the strength to let my body change, and that I had the knowledge, intention, strength, and focus to find something new and wonderful on my own.  I needed to find the transformative potential inside me, and commit to spending the time on the mat (and sitting, in meditation) that would allow me the opportunity to find it.  For a while this spring, I felt as if I were a chrysalis, changing into something wildly new and fantastic, but still yet to emerge.  It turns out, however, that I am still me, though.  Transformation was always a possibility; I just had to remind myself that I could find it.  Now, I embark on a new yoga teaching schedule, connections to a growing yoga community, and plans to soon(ish) become a mom with the knowledge that really I had it in me from the get-go.

My Day at the Airport

As I write this, I have been at the airport for 8 hours.  I missed my flight, and the next flight out is tonight, at 10 pm.  I have to take the redeye.  (Yes, I have learned by lesson.  yes I will always get to the airport on time and check-in online beforehand for ever after from this point on till death.  yes.)

I thought about going back home to wait it out, but I was already in travel mode, and didn’t want to spend oodles on a taxi home in the middle of the day, and then ask another friend to take me back tonight.  So, I hunkered down.  I ordered some protein to go with the lovely garden greens I had brought from home and had lunch.  During lunch a nice grandmother from Bang, Texas sat down next to me to eat her burger.  She was in transit from two grandchildrens’ graduations on to two more.  We talked about gardens & preserving, and enjoyed our food together.  It was sweet.  After she left, I snagged a table overlooking the gorgeous view west at Sea-Tac (of the Olympics, or, in this case, the clouds covering the Olympics).  I used the airport’s free wifi and got some work done, surfed the web, and watched planes take off (this still amazes me.  they fly.)

Then, a lovely woman named Rena asked me if she could use the other side of my table.  I could tell from the moment she opened her mouth that she was open, friendly, and interesting.  It turns out I was right!  Two hours later, we exchanged emails after a conversation ranging from nonviolent communication (her work) to Facing History (my work) to yoga (my vocation) to Democratic Party politics, AIPAC, and the Arab-Israeli conflict to the amazing young man from Sierra Leone that she is housing for the summer to intellectual privilege and finding ways to truly understand anothers’ perspective.  Oh, and we also managed to cover gardening & the weather.

After that remarkable interlude, I got some surprisingly good hot chocolate and sat down to read an exciting federal grant application that Facing History just submitted, and then got a lovely call from my mom, during which she read me poetry, discussed family business (read: drama), and chronicled her recent forays into singing.  My wonderful and rather solicitous hubby also called then, just to make sure I was doing OK.  Then, I got a 30-minute chair massage, adn actually totally blissed out for about 10 of those minutes.  wow.  like, a real relaxing moment in the middle of the airport!

Now, I’m sitting with some hot tea (which I unfortunately spilled down my arm, but, oh well) and blogging as I watch the late evening sun make its way towards the Olympics (which I can now see).  And I’m happy.  And that’s the point.

I cut it too close this morning (although my morning was amazingly productive, and I did manage to get everything ready to leave AND still practice yoga & walk the dogs), and I just barely missed my flight, but in so doing, I opened up the opportunity to be here all day.  To realize that I needed to just let go of any frustration and see what the day would bring.  To be fully present with the airport and its thousands of people.  So, really, I should thank the TSA for changing its rules without me knowing (PSA: the check-in cutoff at Sea-Tac is now 45 minutes, not 30), and I should thank all the people to whom I’ve spoken today for the amazing experiences and small wonders.  Here I am.

Belief and Attachment (or, an answer for David)

I’ve been meaning, for over a week now, to write a really interesting post about belief and attachment.  About ten days ago, I was driving to an appointment, listening to a conversation on, I think, BBC radio (could have been some other NPR show).  The host was interviewing two men who have recently published books touting their “solution” to the climate crisis.  Both agree that climate change and changes in our energy consumption are essential.  Both care deeply about addressing climate change.  But they disagree about the strategies for getting there.  One man argued that wind and solar technologies were the answer to our challenges, and were ready to be deployed now in huge quantities in order to reduce or eliminate our reliance on oil.  The second was arguing that we don’t have the ability to store solar and wind energy in sufficient quantities, and that we must rely on nuclear energy to enable the world to address its energy needs.

I have my own thoughts about the positions these two took, but that’s irrelevant to my current point.  I was sitting at a stoplight in my car, listening to this debate, and realized that these two men were arguing about something they agree about.  I have since realized that this is something that David and I sometimes do, trying our hardest to debate each other out of a point we have been sharing, trying to be the one who gets to make the point.  In academic circles, where these two energy experts sit, the person who gets to make the point gets the credit, and the promotion (or, better yet, the tenure).  The person who thinks the same thing is called a copycat, or simply doesn’t get to take the credit or reap the benefits of the idea.

In both cases, these arguments are more about the health of our ego than they are about the ideas themselves.  The flash of inspiration I had in the car that day was that these two men shouldn’t be arguing, they should be working together.  There isn’t one big idea that’s going to save the world–it’s a series of small ideas that work well together and solve a series of small problems over time.  The world is complicated and diverse, and we’re going to need a lot of different ideas to work in order to solve the thorny issues of climate change and energy consumption.  Instead of attachment to ideas that will boost our ego, we should recognize that we are all a piece of the puzzle–a piece that fits in amongst a huge mess of other pieces, all about the same size, to form one big world.

It is so easy to lose the forest for the trees, though, and begin to grasp at the things that will help us shore up our little, individual worlds.  We mistake our own belief for truth, or get so attached to our own thoughts that we forget that other people are standing in very different places, looking in very different directions.  The other day David asked me if, by trying to teach more yoga and concentrate less on my other career, if I was giving up on my dreams of changing the world.  I told him no then–that yoga was the way I felt I could best change the world, but I didn’t have a good way of describing for him how I thought my teaching yoga could do that.  So, David, here is your answer.  Yoga (as do so many other sacred practices) insists that you let go of your attachment to your achievements and to your affect on the world.  In so doing, yogis and yoginis are encouraged to recognize the spark of the divine in each living being, and find the point of connection, the place of union, the point of non-attachment.  Wouldn’t starting from that place be so much more effective in solving the climate change crisis than this arguing over the finer points of who has the right solution?

Taking My Own Advice

This weekend, I went to an amazing workshop taught by Shiva Rea.  It was part of a weekend-long teacher training session she offered, but I came just for the Saturday morning, 3-hour extravaganza.  It was a session on “Tending the Sacred Fire: Living Yoga Sadhana,” so the focus was on dynamic movement, heart-opening backbends, sharing with others in the room (we were probably 150!) and building fire in your body & soul.  It was ecstatic and beautiful, and also sweaty and pretty intense.  I left feeling like I was floating (and also famished, parched, and a little jell0-legged).  I could tell my body was pretty tired, but I also felt the fire, and I’ve been needing that fire recently, as I figure out how to get to the next chapter in my life.  I also couldn’t stop thinking about the workshop, digesting what we had done, what I remembered most, and what was still percolating in my mind/body.

Then, about 10 pm, I crashed.  My upper back was fatigued and cramping up a bit, my hamstrings were starting to feel like they wouldn’t be able to support me any more, and I was just tired.  I dragged myself to bed, lay flat on my back with a heating pad under the back of my heart (thoracic spine) for a bit, and then slept like the dead.  for about 4 hours.  Then my body started to let me know that it was too tired, too stimulated, to let go.  Ugh.  And I was just happy, relaxed, energized, clear-headed.

But then, on leaving bed (which took a while, since I was so groggy from my interrupted sleep), I walked outside into a perfect, beautiful, sunny spring morning full of flowers and birds and warmth.  It was gorgeous, and I realized that while I was sore, I also felt really good.  As in, that right hip tightness that I have been trying to release for years was gone, and the attendant knot in my left hamstring was also gone.  Oh my god.  Like, wow.

But, of course, that wasn’t the whole story.

My wrists were hurting.  Like, aching.  I had abused them and I hadn’t really realized that they had taken so much stress.  It took me till this morning (2 full days later) during my practice to realize that I had hurt them doing this one arm balance that I had abandoned years ago for the same reason (left).  It requires deep flexion of the wrists, which I can’t do.  A good alternative is cobra pose (below).

Credit to yogajournal.com

I had an ego moment in the workshop, with so many folks around me getting into this fantastic pose, and I went for it.  I managed to get into it, but could feel the strain on my right wrist.  Of course, I managed to forget that pain immediately afterwards…

Which is to say that it was an amazing workshop, but I also learned that I need to respect my body’s limits, and pay attention to twinges when they happen, rather than powering through so I look good and strong and capable (I am good and strong and capable, especially when I work within my body’s limits).  I learned a lot more about the power I have to transform and energize myself, but this seems to be the important lesson of the day, and the one that hit me as I was working my way through a wonderful but hands-free practice this morning…