Nothing better to help us over a hurdle (or mid-week hump) than a poem. Each Wednesday will feature a new one sent with a personalized invitation: pause, read, relish, sigh. Repeat as desired!
Self-Pity
I never saw a wild thing
sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
without ever having felt sorry for itself.
~D. H. Lawrence
Each Sunday will feature an asana sequence. Feel free to add, omit, or interpret as you like!
With the intention of radiating out from center:
Constructive Rest with tennis or golf ball in glute, 3 minutes of massage on each side
Sukasana – easy side bends side to side
Easy twist each side
Loose eagle arms with neck movement
Downward Facing Dog
Lunge of choice
Dog
Lunge other side
Child’s Pose
Extended side angle “imprint” – just legs
Dog or “vinyasa” between sides
Warrior II – big arm cartwheel to plank
Big round plank – full back
Dog or “vinyasa” between sides
Malasana squat – “barbie leg”
Crow – big round back
Dog
Extended Side Angle
Dog or “vinyasa” between sides
Lunge to standing straddle – dog arms
Stand up Goddess
Vinyasa
Other side lunge to straddle – walk hands back between feet
Stand up Goddess
Vinyasa
On back – happy baby
Bridge
Eagle legs twist each side
Figure 4 each side
Knee hug
Savasana
Like last time, some of these links direct you to my personal blog. More like a diary, raw and less polished...
Looking back on the start of the month (which I now affectionately call my Recess), I see how I had certain expectations: to be instantly relaxed, to have major epiphanies, to avoid all usual discomforts.
Of course, none of that happened. I some ways, it was a just a month. I am the same person.
In other ways, it was extraordinary and I am forever changed.
And isn’t that the way it is with this extraordinarily ordinary life.
As we head into the last days of February, I am creating some closure for my Recess and want share some observations from my month:
Thanks to the IAY family of friends and teachers for their support and encouragement this month. It’s been nothing short of wonderful.
How has your month been? Any “ordinary” observations of Spring?
Each Sunday will feature an asana sequence. Feel free to add, omit, or interpret as you like!
A practice to nurture the new roots and shoots from your feet into the soft earth.
Baddha Konasana – rubbing, massaging, loving the feet
Side Bend, both sides
Tuck both feet to one side, Bharadvaja’s Twist, change sides
All 4s, spinal balance
Modified Side Plank on knee
To standing, Tadasana
Tree
Easy Warrior III
Utkatasana – lift heels
Dive to Uttanasana
At wall, Calf Stretch
Straddle fold
Sukasana – Sufi Circles
Supta Padangusthasana
Happy Baby
Supta Baddha Konasana
Savasana
Time is one of those things that can really mess with your brain.
We tell ourselves there’s not enough, or we experience it as dragging on forever.
Yet a second, a minute, a day passes at the same pace every time.
It’s our awareness of it (or usually lack of) that changes.
It is approximately the middle of February: about two weeks have passed, and about two more are to come. This means I am halfway in my month “off” (now affectionally called My Recess).
As this halfway mark approached, I noticed people’s reactions and language around the timing of the month:
Oh no, you’re month is half over.
Oh no, you have to go back to work soon.
While I am attempting to create a frame that is very different:
Wow, I’ve had two full weeks of rest and rejuvenation.
Wow, I don’t have anything scheduled today.
Feels very different, ya?
I have a wise friend who often says Don’t wish time away. Phrases like I can’t wait until… or I wish this week was over abuse our experience of each moment. Let us not wish one second away.
Noticing is the first step to more conscious living.
And when it comes to noticing, all we need is now where time is endless.
Nothing better to help us over a hurdle (or mid-week hump) than a poem. Each Wednesday will feature a new one sent with a personalized invitation: pause, read, relish, sigh. Repeat as desired!
***
Elephant in the Dark
Some Hindus have an elephant to show.
No one here has ever seen an elephant.
They bring it at night to a dark room.
One by one, we go in the dark room and come out
saying how we experience the animal.
One of us happens to touch the trunk.
“A water-pipe kind of creature.”
Another, the ear. “A very strong, always moving
back and forth, fan-animal.”
Another, the leg. “I find it still,
like a column on a temple.”
Another touches the curved back.
“A leathery throne.”
Another, the cleverest, feels the tusk.
“A rounded sword made of porcelain.”
He’s proud of his description.
Each of us touches one place
and understands the whole in that way.
The palm and the fingers feeling in the dark are
how the senses explore the reality of the elephant.
If each of us held a candle there,
and if we went in together,
we could see it.
~Jelaluddin Rumi
Each Sunday will feature an asana sequence. Feel free to add, omit, or interpret as you like!
Seated
Notice breath and sensations
Interlace fingers and stretch arms overhead
Baby side bends
Arms forward parallel to floor, round back
Release hands behind back, chest expansion
Release hands, change interlace of fingers (and legs if crossed) and repeat sequence
Feet on floor, knees bent – windshield wiper knees
All 4s, cat/cow
Root hands, spinal balance (arm first, opposite leg optional) alternating sides
Press back to squat
Up to standing
Mountain pause, notice
Step wide, star pose
Goddess
Warrior II side 1
Star
Goddess
Warrior II side 2
Star
Mountain – wide feet
Forward hang, knees bent
All 4s, calf stretch each leg
On belly, sphinx
Child’s pose
On back, knee hug
Simple twist each side
Knee hug
Savasana
Nothing better to help us over a hurdle (or mid-week hump) than a poem. Each Wednesday will feature a new one sent with a personalized invitation: pause, read, relish, sigh. Repeat as desired!
***
Sewing Up the Ears
I live
with a sheet
over my head
because
I like it
that way.
It used to have eyeholes
but I plugged them up
so I see only white sheet.
It used to have noseholes
but breathing my own breath
over and over
is so much warmer
and now there is only a blister of damp
where the mouth used to be.
Bumping into things, tripping,
it was awkward at first,
but I learned to take narrow steps,
to walk through the middle of rooms
without touching anything.
You say I look silly –
you forget that I can’t see that.
You say I’ll suffocate,
but it isn’t so.
You say that it’s childish, that I’m showing off,
that I’ll tire of it soon enough.
In a while I won’t even hear you.
I’m sewing up the ears.
~Kathleen Aguero
From Thirsty Day
Some of the links in this post take you to my more personal blog where there is some less-polished sharing. And swearing. Just so we're clear...
When my beloved teacher, Mary, was here in December for our workshop, I was blessed to spend a bit of time with her.
In the process of catching up, I shared about my kidney stone, the forthcoming culmination of our first Teacher Training program, and other bits about the pace and fullness of life.
She looked at me. And then looked me again… and this time she looked through me. Through the surface layers of excitement and adrenaline and momentum.
And she said, “You need some time off.”
“Oh ya,” I said. “Ron and I will probably take a weekend away after the new year.”
“No, you need a month off.”
Even with the sophistication of her british accent, I thought she’d totally lost her mind.
After some banter and a list of all the reasons I couldn’t take that much time off, her response was, “That’s exactly why you need to do it.”
Her point is multifaceted… that the intensity of our lives in this culture is such that we often don’t even know how tired or depleted we are.
That I am not being true to the practice or a good example for our community if I don’t take care of myself.
That I have been working radically hard, long hours, and I need a radical break.
While this idea has been hard to digest, it has certainly stuck with me.
A month off of teaching? A month for my own practice? A month for me?
I already knew my word for the year was going to be self-care. I knew the holidaze, a whirlwind trip to NYC, and Haramara were all coming up, and come the end of January I would be tired.
Still, the committee of critics in my head was busy:
You have to be at the studio or everything will fall apart.
Followed by the popular,
No one will care if you’re at the studio, in fact it might be better without you.
There were many reasons like these, all based in fear, smallness and ego.
It was perhaps these reasons that made it all the more clear that I needed to take time off. A month off.
And so… I will be taking the month of February off of teaching! I am excited. Elated, really. And so so thankful that I have the ability to do this.
I will be at the studio (probably more) soaking up the good love that our amazing instructors give so freely and skillfully. I will be posting updates on both blogs (the mild here, the spicy here). I will be taking it easy, lying around, and not feeling bad about it.
I never would have done this if it weren’t for Mary. And maybe you read this and know in your heart that you need a break… be it a month, a day, an afternoon. As she promised to do to me, I will hound you until you take care of yourself.
And all the reasons you say you can’t do it are just the reasons you need to.