Since 2008, I’ve been setting one-word intentions for the new year instead of resolutions. It’s so interesting to end of each year and reflect on how those intentions unfold over the year. My word for 2011 was grace. I had some vague ideas of what grace meant and I knew I wanted more of it.

It’s been an intense year of learning to accept and live with grace.

I took two Anusara workshops in the fall and was introduced to the “Open To Grace” philosophy. As one of the teachers said: When life gives you something you don’t want, you can take it anyway (like you really have a choice) and choose to make something beautiful out of it.

I’ve gotten so much that I have happily accepted this year. I’ve also experienced being handed so many difficult things that I didn’t necessarily want.

For most of 2011, we have held equal amounts of joy and sorrow. Joy for the baby girl who will join us in March and equal sorrow as my second dad (a.k.a. father-in-law) drifted out of this life due to esophageal cancer.

As we sat with our grief and tried to wrap our head around it all, I remember one conversation in particular with my family as we talked about losing him and welcoming Baby Girl. We realized that all our joy and sorrow, equally expansive, come from the same deep well of love. It’s okay to be sad (such a simple word for such a painful emotion) just as it is okay to be happy.

So as I sat in the memorial service for my second dad, I thought about how my in-laws took the short-lived battle with cancer one day at a time realizing there were things they could control and things they could not – not resigning, allowing themselves to feel, and practicing a radical acceptance. I thought about the last time I saw him, in the hospice with his dogs in bed with him and family surrounding him. Losing count of how many times we said I love you as he shifted in and out of lucidity. It was like watching someone dissolve.

How fortunate Baby Girl is to inherit a legacy of kind, loving men in her life and for how much love is going to surround and support her.

My word for 2012?

Gratitude

There are many things I haven’t been writing about – teacher training, the loss of a beloved family member, where my teaching is going, and being pregnant.

Baby Girl is 26 weeks along and my goodness, she is rowdy! It’s been quite a process and transformation in ways I couldn’t have imagined. Here are some thoughts/observations in regards to yoga:

• If I go more than 48 hours without practicing – vinyasa or yin – my legs feel like they are stuffed with steel wool.
• I cannot practice in heated rooms. This is a HUGE change for me – I used to practice in rooms that left me drenched and turn up the heat when I taught classes.
• I love props. LOVE them. Bolsters, cushions, blankets, bean bags, blocks, walls. Yay for props.
• Everything in my body is amplified. As a result, I’ve gotten more particular about where and how I practice. I am slowing down. I am noticing in a way that I haven’t before. I am feeling, with this amplification, the importance of a well-built sequence where one thing leads to the next. In other words, the importance of going one step further from vinyasa to vinyasa krama (vinyasa krama: placing things in a certain order methodically, with a purpose in mind.) This has completely changed how I practice and, as a result, how I teach. More focus on alignment and how things feel. I’m taking my time.

  Sometimes this means I’m doing my own thing. I had an experience a few weeks ago where a teacher was encouraging the class to go faster going side to side from Vira 1 to Ardo Mukha Svanasana. As she stood by me and encouraged  ”We’re warmed up, feel yourself start to move faster!” Something deep inside of me politely said, “No thank you,” and happily moved with full, deep breaths a full pose or more behind the cues.

  I even had the experience of applying the, “if you take child’s pose for the whole class and just breathe, you’re still doing yoga,” saying. Wow. It’s true. It was a great class and wonderful savasana.

• I can still do running man and bakasana, yet I struggle to put on my shoes and socks. This makes me laugh.
• I look at arm balances and sequences that aren’t accessible to me right now with excitement. I think about how much more I will enjoy them after this experience.
• I wobble a lot as my body completely changes day-to-day. This makes me laugh.
• There aren’t any pre-natal classes that fit my schedule, so I’m still going to regular classes. I am learning so much from modifications. There are things I just can’t do (like fold right in half, deep twists, anything on my belly) so I have to listen and analyze what the pose is doing.

  For example: Instead of bhujangasana, I use a cow variation on all fours focusing on lengthening the side body and arching the thoracic spine. To warm up for chaturanga, I do these little 1-3″ push-ups focusing on the alignment of open heart/back with active core instead of lowering right down to the floor.

• By taking time, I am noticing nuances and details – like right now, I am so fascinated with hasta bandha and hands-arms-shoulders-heart connection. Also, equally fascinated with the diaphragm-pelvic floor-hip connection. I have noticed where my body was hiding weakness by moving quickly. My definition of power yoga is changing.
• The little girl interacts with chanting. If she’s been quiet for a while, she will wake up when I chant. She went nuts when we were in the room with a harmonium. One day, she was kicking me so much I thought she would break my ribs. I put my headphones on my belly and she settled down to this:
• Zobha and Beyond Yoga are awesome.

I have a few posts I’ve been sitting on for a while – I’m hoping to get caught up in the next couple of weeks. Thanks for your patience! Enjoy this little magical story……

A couple months ago, I was waiting on the sidewalk outside Yoga Seed for a class to end so I could help set the room for a talk with Lama Marut and Lama Cindy on Bhakti, Yoga as Union.

Like most of Sacramento, the studio is in a neighborhood with a very wide socio-economic spectrum. In that particular neighborhood, there is a lot of low-income housing and it is close in proximity to places that serve our town’s huge homeless population. We get quite a cast of characters sometimes wandering by and even sometimes dropping in to ask, “What is this place?”

It is the perfect place for a beautiful non-profit, donation-based yoga studio.

Back to the story – soon there was a group waiting on the sidewalk. We were chatting and laughing and the teacher wrapping up class inside asked us to keep it down for savasana. We moved away from the door and saw two women making their way down the street towards us. One was in a motorized scooter, the other struggling with a wheelchair. The woman in the wheelchair paused to take a breath and someone in our group asked her if she was okay.

“I am GREAT,” she declared. She then launched, like a preacher, into a long story about how she landed into the wheelchair. A few of us got a little nervous since she was talking so loud while the class was in savasana. Then, the longer she went on, the concern washed away.

Long story short: one week, she had a back ache. It got worse so she asked her friend to take her to the emergency room where it got even worse. The doctor left the room for a few moments and she decided she wanted to get up. Suddenly, she realized she was paralyzed from the waist down. After numerous tests, The doctors told her she would never be able to walk again.

Her reaction? “Well, they always say that the mind is stronger than the body. So I started waking up every single morning and spending 30 minutes to an hour looking at my legs and telling them to move. I’d say – hey you, right leg, move!!!”

After a few months, her right leg moved. The doctors were amazed. Later, her left leg moved. She moves a little more each day. Now, she can walk for short periods of time with a walker.

After about ten minutes of sharing her story, she started to move on pulling her wheelchair with her legs, breathing heavily with a big smile on her face. She turned over her shoulder when she was a couple doors down and told all of us to never doubt that our minds are capable of amazing things and miracles do happen.

I love it when things like this happen. I had my little notebook in my purse, ready to take notes on what the Lamas were going to talk about and what happens? A great teacher comes seemingly out of nowhere and delivers a real, powerful lesson.

Never doubt that our minds are capable of amazing things.

Miracles DO happen.

Here we go again. I signed up for another 200-hour teacher training that starts in a little under a month. It’s completely different from my first one.

In asana, we are constantly exploring the balance of stira and sukha.
Sukha means with ease, comfort and happiness. Stira means with a fixed, attentive mind. Sukha = sweet / Stira = strength. I’ve noticed that the stira has been taking over lately – which is funny because for so much of my life a “fixed, attentive mind” was not exactly how a friend would describe me. (like one time, in college, I was walking out of the art museum with a friend and got so wrapped up in our conversation about the exhibit, I almost walked right into traffic. He pulled me back to the sidewalk. I like to think I’ve come a very long way.)

So I’m doing a training to get down with my sweet self in a grounded way. Dive a little deeper into meditation, breath work, and a different level of asana exploration. (Also, we are required to have a neti pot and a tongue scraper, so I know I’m in for some new experiences.)

So here we go again, further on up the road, following the spark through the foggy field.

Continue reading →