I know in my bones how beautiful fall is. As long as I can remember, I have felt a sense of satisfaction when the days darkened earlier and the moon seems fuller somehow behind the frame of leafless trees. The famous poet and spiritual nature lover Mary Oliver knows how spectacular fall is. "Look," she exclaims, "the trees are turning their own bodies into pillars of lights, are giving off the rich fragrance of cinnamon and fulfillment and every pond no matter whats it name is, is nameless now." I know in my bones the glory of fall. I hear its hushed quietness as the leaves fall heavy and pregnant in the wind and collect themselves in all of the corners and edges of our unexpected places.
I used to look forward to the warm cozy nights that wait ahead of us, the holiday season, the chaos, the energy, the cinnamon spices, the scent of wood burning, the gentle sting of cold cheeks when I come in from the cold. I still welcome the announcement of fall but over the past four years this season of color and promise has taken on additional meaning for me. Fall is now a reminder of damage to me. Damage to a friendship and family and loved ones that took place 4 years ago on a cold and damp fall day due to an argument between myself and my sister in law. Angry words said on both sides. Words and accusations that cut until we both bled. Apologies unacceptable. A lifelong friendship ended.
As the days turn colder and the trees darken with reds and bitter orange, I think of the autumn birthdays unacknowledged, the absence of my nieces and nephews at holiday tables, the exclusion at family gatherings, the silence between brothers and sisters. I no longer dwell on the words said in anger or the original things that I was hurt over. These no longer hold any charge and seem trite and meaningless. What I feel now is rejection and sadness and forgiveness and compassion all rolled up into one big ball that is knotted and tied in the center of my heart. My asana practice is filled with wheels and camels. Heart openers for my pain and sadness to come up and get out. It is intense. The strong wavelike feelings always come up but they never ever get out. Instead they feel lodged. Stuck in my throat, constricting my voice. Willingly I enter into counterposes to balance the vulnerable and open hearted backbends. My sadness gets buried in my child's pose. My sadness gets drowned out in seated forward fold. Gently stored with my breath in my belly and pelvis. Shielded by the back of my heart.
What do I do with this sorrow and grief? Do I store it in my body? Do I let it out like a caged animal without a home? Do I ignore it and pretend that it doesn't matter? To deal with this damage over the past four years, I have practiced "metta" or loving kindness. I have practiced anger. I have practiced listening and saying I am sorry. I have practiced forgetting and forgiveness and nonattatchment. None of these practices have gotten rid of the hurt and sadness and rejection and disappointment that reveals itself when I least expect it. None of these practices have repaired the broken pieces of my relationship with my sister in law. None of these practices have stopped the bleeding that I still feel.
As I dress for my morning sadhana, I reach for a familiar and cozy sweater to keep me warm and this simple act reminds me so vividly of my sorrow. I feel the sadness in my bones side by side with the colors of reds and bitter orange. I know that I need to let the disappointment go with the leaves that grow heavy and fall softly to their death. Leaves to be swept around in the wind. To be collected in corners. To be raked into piles and turned over into compost. A natural life cycle that has its own rhythm and cannot be rushed.
Each fall, I relearn that I need to practice letting go. Let go of the disappointment, the clinging to possible future reconciliation, the anger, the bitterness, and the emptiness. Let it all go softly and gently into the cold. Let it be buried in the earth. Let it be released from my bones. I must practice letting go and letting in those that are right in front of me, wanting and needing my love. My dear ones that want to love me as I am right here and now.
In my sorrow, it is my yoga and my poetry that I turn to for answers. In the wise words of Mary Oliver: "Every year, everything I have ever learned in my lifetime leads back to this: the fires and the black river of loss whose other side is salvation, whose meaning none of us will ever know. To live in this world, you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal, to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it, and, when the time comes to let it go, let it go."
In peace and love,
Anne
Sunday, October 23, 2005
Thursday, October 13, 2005
Our Stories
Matthew and I are moving into our 2nd year of Samadhi Yoga Teacher Training with 15 men and women studying to become Yoga Alliance certified teachers under our guidance. A sacred and big task to say the least. This past weekend we successfuly graduated 20 students who are now teachers. Another sacred and big task accomplished. We are grateful and tired.
Although I am proud of our success with Yoga Teacher Training, I am very aware of the journey or story behind the accomplishment. I consistently try to teach to my students that we are not our accomplishments but we are "our stories" and everybody is a story. As a matter of fact, our theme for this upcoming weekend of Samadhi Yoga Teacher training is "Our Stories."
I love stories. Not the kind you read in a book or see at the movies but the real stories. The life stories, the history stories, the "Oh my God, you are never going to believe what happened to me!" stories. The everyday mundane stories. The stories of my grandparents lives, the stories of my children's day, the stories of my friend's lives and the stories of my students. To me, these stories are what is "real" and what is "true." Each story is someone's experience of the events of their lives. They are not the events themselves. We all experience the same event very differently. We have seen it, heard it, and felt it in our own unique way and the story we tell has more than a bit of ourselves in it.
All of our stories are unique. They mix fact with meaning. Meaning is the root of their power. Stories allow us to see something familiar through new eyes. As yoga teachers, we get the honor and priveledge of witnessing our student's stories, both in their bodies and breath and in their personal sharings of their own lives. We become, in that moment, a guest in someone else's life. The meaning we may draw from someone's story may be different than theirs but no matter. Facts bring us knowledge but stories lead us to wisdom.
Everybody is a story. You, me, our loved ones, people we don't know and people we don't like. Most of our stories have no clear beginnings or endings. This is very differnt than the books we read or the movies we watch. No neat packages, no fairy tale endings.
Real stories take time. Sometimes lots of time. In our fast paced techno society, we have lost that kind of time. We have stopped telling our stories. We have stopped listening to each other and ourselves. Stories take pausing time, stopping time, reflecting time, wondering time. We all need that kind of pausing time. I feel it in my bones that stopping and pausing is absolutely essential for experiencing our lives. To me, the scary thing is it is possible to live your life without experiencing "pausing time."
We are so fortunate as practitioners of yoga and yoga teachers that the contemplative practice of yoga is that sort of "pausing" time. Every time we go to our mat, we have this opportunity to let go of our push, let go of our fast paced lives and cultivate our capacity to watch and listen. We have the opportunity to watch and feel and listen to our own stories unfold.
Life rushes us along and few of us are strong enough to stop on our own but yoga gives us that "stopping" tool. As yoga teachers, our classrooms create that pausing or stopping time for others. On our yoga mats, we get to create our sacred space, we get to know our own bodies and breath. We get to know our own stories. With our own bodies, we get to tell it. With the compassionate witness we continuously create, we get to listen to our stories from a necessary nonjudgmental place. We get to remember that the real world is made up of just such stories.
This practice of yoga, this daily stopping and listening and telling of our stories through our bodies and our breath helps us to understand that although we can hope to put certain events behind us and get on with our living-we will see that certain of life's issues will be with us for as long as we live. We will pass through them again and again. Each time with a new story, each time with a greater understanding until they have become indistinguishable from our blessings and our wisdom.
Stopping, paying attention, listening, cultivating compassion, breathing, being in our body-Yoga teaches us how to live. Not only does yoga teach us living but the yoga mat is a level playing field. Everyone's story matters. The wisdom in the story of the most advanced yogi or powerful person is no greater that the wisdom in the story of the beginning yogi or a person with no power in the material world. What we learn about ourselves as a beginner yoga student can teach us as much as the life of a sage.
Parents know the importance of telling children their own story over and over again so that the child will come to know who they are and where they are from. On our yoga mat,our own personal stories emerge again and again. Stories that we have stored away in our deepest places in our bodies and psyches. According to the nature of yoga, we carry many of our stories in our bodies unread until we have grown the capacity and readiness to read them. When that happens, a physical and emotional release takes place often with newly found openings in our bodies accompanied by a river of tears.
In my own life, the story of myself as a creative being became a reoccuring theme. Thinking of myself as a maker of art had seemingly lied dormant in me since childhood. But not really. Many times as an adult I would hear my inner voice say that she would like to make art. But I had pushed this call for art aside as "frivolous", "self-absorbed" and just plain "ridiculous."
Fortunately as I continuously practiced my yoga and fully relaxed in shavasana day in and day out, I would literaaly see images that begged to be painted. I kept creating these mind paintings over and over again and I would feel in my body as if I was creating the art. I would feel an artistic longing over and over and eventually I came to know that I was a creative being whom need to express this visually. The more I "paused" and "listened", the clearer my own story became.
As we practice, the more we listen and the clearer our stories become. Our true identity, who we are, why we are here, is what emerges in our story.
Our stories are not our outer achievements or what we have acquired or built over a life time. Our story is who we are and not what we have done. It is what we have faced, what we have drawn upon, what we have risked, thought, feared and discovered in the events of our lives. Our true stories are about sex and power, loss and betrayal, courage, faith, lonliness,disappointment, joy, loving and being loved. Our stories tell our uniqueness,-So Ham, So Ham, "I am that I am." Our stories connect us and weave us all together. Tat Vam Asi,-"I am that"
Jai,
Anne
Although I am proud of our success with Yoga Teacher Training, I am very aware of the journey or story behind the accomplishment. I consistently try to teach to my students that we are not our accomplishments but we are "our stories" and everybody is a story. As a matter of fact, our theme for this upcoming weekend of Samadhi Yoga Teacher training is "Our Stories."
I love stories. Not the kind you read in a book or see at the movies but the real stories. The life stories, the history stories, the "Oh my God, you are never going to believe what happened to me!" stories. The everyday mundane stories. The stories of my grandparents lives, the stories of my children's day, the stories of my friend's lives and the stories of my students. To me, these stories are what is "real" and what is "true." Each story is someone's experience of the events of their lives. They are not the events themselves. We all experience the same event very differently. We have seen it, heard it, and felt it in our own unique way and the story we tell has more than a bit of ourselves in it.
All of our stories are unique. They mix fact with meaning. Meaning is the root of their power. Stories allow us to see something familiar through new eyes. As yoga teachers, we get the honor and priveledge of witnessing our student's stories, both in their bodies and breath and in their personal sharings of their own lives. We become, in that moment, a guest in someone else's life. The meaning we may draw from someone's story may be different than theirs but no matter. Facts bring us knowledge but stories lead us to wisdom.
Everybody is a story. You, me, our loved ones, people we don't know and people we don't like. Most of our stories have no clear beginnings or endings. This is very differnt than the books we read or the movies we watch. No neat packages, no fairy tale endings.
Real stories take time. Sometimes lots of time. In our fast paced techno society, we have lost that kind of time. We have stopped telling our stories. We have stopped listening to each other and ourselves. Stories take pausing time, stopping time, reflecting time, wondering time. We all need that kind of pausing time. I feel it in my bones that stopping and pausing is absolutely essential for experiencing our lives. To me, the scary thing is it is possible to live your life without experiencing "pausing time."
We are so fortunate as practitioners of yoga and yoga teachers that the contemplative practice of yoga is that sort of "pausing" time. Every time we go to our mat, we have this opportunity to let go of our push, let go of our fast paced lives and cultivate our capacity to watch and listen. We have the opportunity to watch and feel and listen to our own stories unfold.
Life rushes us along and few of us are strong enough to stop on our own but yoga gives us that "stopping" tool. As yoga teachers, our classrooms create that pausing or stopping time for others. On our yoga mats, we get to create our sacred space, we get to know our own bodies and breath. We get to know our own stories. With our own bodies, we get to tell it. With the compassionate witness we continuously create, we get to listen to our stories from a necessary nonjudgmental place. We get to remember that the real world is made up of just such stories.
This practice of yoga, this daily stopping and listening and telling of our stories through our bodies and our breath helps us to understand that although we can hope to put certain events behind us and get on with our living-we will see that certain of life's issues will be with us for as long as we live. We will pass through them again and again. Each time with a new story, each time with a greater understanding until they have become indistinguishable from our blessings and our wisdom.
Stopping, paying attention, listening, cultivating compassion, breathing, being in our body-Yoga teaches us how to live. Not only does yoga teach us living but the yoga mat is a level playing field. Everyone's story matters. The wisdom in the story of the most advanced yogi or powerful person is no greater that the wisdom in the story of the beginning yogi or a person with no power in the material world. What we learn about ourselves as a beginner yoga student can teach us as much as the life of a sage.
Parents know the importance of telling children their own story over and over again so that the child will come to know who they are and where they are from. On our yoga mat,our own personal stories emerge again and again. Stories that we have stored away in our deepest places in our bodies and psyches. According to the nature of yoga, we carry many of our stories in our bodies unread until we have grown the capacity and readiness to read them. When that happens, a physical and emotional release takes place often with newly found openings in our bodies accompanied by a river of tears.
In my own life, the story of myself as a creative being became a reoccuring theme. Thinking of myself as a maker of art had seemingly lied dormant in me since childhood. But not really. Many times as an adult I would hear my inner voice say that she would like to make art. But I had pushed this call for art aside as "frivolous", "self-absorbed" and just plain "ridiculous."
Fortunately as I continuously practiced my yoga and fully relaxed in shavasana day in and day out, I would literaaly see images that begged to be painted. I kept creating these mind paintings over and over again and I would feel in my body as if I was creating the art. I would feel an artistic longing over and over and eventually I came to know that I was a creative being whom need to express this visually. The more I "paused" and "listened", the clearer my own story became.
As we practice, the more we listen and the clearer our stories become. Our true identity, who we are, why we are here, is what emerges in our story.
Our stories are not our outer achievements or what we have acquired or built over a life time. Our story is who we are and not what we have done. It is what we have faced, what we have drawn upon, what we have risked, thought, feared and discovered in the events of our lives. Our true stories are about sex and power, loss and betrayal, courage, faith, lonliness,disappointment, joy, loving and being loved. Our stories tell our uniqueness,-So Ham, So Ham, "I am that I am." Our stories connect us and weave us all together. Tat Vam Asi,-"I am that"
Jai,
Anne
Monday, October 03, 2005
Ahimsa or Becoming Vegetarian
Consider this quote by Swami Kripalu, "To read uplifting books or listen to spiritual discourses is good. But to practice even a little is of the utmost importance. The profound meaning of yoga is only understood by those who study it systematically through personal practice. The day you start to practice, your true progress will begin."
Yesterday, I chose to practice the yama of ahimsa or non-violence. Yesterday I became a vegetarian. Don't get me wrong. This is not a "holier than though" blog entry or a "Though shall not" entry either. This is just one yogi's account of what happened to me when I choose to bring my yoga into my life and off of my mat. This is my account of why I can no longer make the choice to eat meat.
My newfound choice to go vegetarian did not originate out of health concerns or even ethical concerns. My choice originated out of my desire to take my yoga beyond my yoga mat.
I have been practicing a lot of asana lately and although I am deeply appreciative for my physical practice and where it brings me during my daily sadhana, I have become aware lately of the need for more. In some ways I feel as though I am stepping into a new area of growth and yoga for me. I have become acutely aware of how I would like to incorporate the peace and surrender and clarity that I find in my physical practice into all of the other aspects of my life. I originally believed that as long as I was a physical practitioner of yoga, that the rest would take care of itself. That I would naturally become peaceful and anxiety free. And I must admit I have seen significant changes in how I navigate my self through this world but I am also aware of the need for more inner peace, less reactive ways, less judgementalness of self and others, etc.
So, how do I do this? How do I really begin to let the yoga guide me as I swim my way through housework and mommying and paying bills and relationships with family and friends? How do I live my yoga? At first it overwhelmed me to think about it but lately it does not feel so overwhelming and I credit this to the seated meditations I have been regularly incorporating into my days. 5 minutes a day of dropping into my breath above and beyond my regular asana practice.
Through meditation, I have had my wiser self tell me to turn to the yamas and niyamas of yoga and begin there. Begin to incorporate one yama or niyama into my life. Just choose one as trying to practice all ten would be overwhelming. Pick one and practice it daily. (This is also an assignment I gave to my yoga teacher training class.) Yama translates to "restraints" or "things to avoid."
So I chose to study and practice the first Yama of yoga which is Ahimsa. Ahimsa translates to non-violence. According to yogic scripture, when one practices non-violence, one refrains from causing distress in thought, word, or deed to any living creature. Non-violence is the root of all other ethical precepts.
Well, imagine my surprise when, on my first day of practicing ahimsa, I go to my church and the service is on becoming a vegetarian and how animal do suffer. The service explains how we can do our part to help stop the endless suffering that happens to animals on our planet because of our desire for meat and animal products. I won't go into the details although I will say that the service was not at all gory or accusatory and that it was beautifully done. (For more information on my church go to www.uuse.org. )
So, anyways, here I am. At the beginning of my ahimsa and vegetarian journey and I would like to add that this is one of the first times I have made a choice about diet that doesn't have do with what is best for "body most beautiful." This is a conscious decision. Certainly not the decision I thought I would put into my day. But it is a definite first step in my decision to live my yoga and live in a way that is cruelty free and non-violent. I desire to live in a way that brings inner peace and where violence is not the basis for what I say, think and do.
In the words of metta,
"May all beings be free from peace and suffering."
Namaste,
Anne
Yesterday, I chose to practice the yama of ahimsa or non-violence. Yesterday I became a vegetarian. Don't get me wrong. This is not a "holier than though" blog entry or a "Though shall not" entry either. This is just one yogi's account of what happened to me when I choose to bring my yoga into my life and off of my mat. This is my account of why I can no longer make the choice to eat meat.
My newfound choice to go vegetarian did not originate out of health concerns or even ethical concerns. My choice originated out of my desire to take my yoga beyond my yoga mat.
I have been practicing a lot of asana lately and although I am deeply appreciative for my physical practice and where it brings me during my daily sadhana, I have become aware lately of the need for more. In some ways I feel as though I am stepping into a new area of growth and yoga for me. I have become acutely aware of how I would like to incorporate the peace and surrender and clarity that I find in my physical practice into all of the other aspects of my life. I originally believed that as long as I was a physical practitioner of yoga, that the rest would take care of itself. That I would naturally become peaceful and anxiety free. And I must admit I have seen significant changes in how I navigate my self through this world but I am also aware of the need for more inner peace, less reactive ways, less judgementalness of self and others, etc.
So, how do I do this? How do I really begin to let the yoga guide me as I swim my way through housework and mommying and paying bills and relationships with family and friends? How do I live my yoga? At first it overwhelmed me to think about it but lately it does not feel so overwhelming and I credit this to the seated meditations I have been regularly incorporating into my days. 5 minutes a day of dropping into my breath above and beyond my regular asana practice.
Through meditation, I have had my wiser self tell me to turn to the yamas and niyamas of yoga and begin there. Begin to incorporate one yama or niyama into my life. Just choose one as trying to practice all ten would be overwhelming. Pick one and practice it daily. (This is also an assignment I gave to my yoga teacher training class.) Yama translates to "restraints" or "things to avoid."
So I chose to study and practice the first Yama of yoga which is Ahimsa. Ahimsa translates to non-violence. According to yogic scripture, when one practices non-violence, one refrains from causing distress in thought, word, or deed to any living creature. Non-violence is the root of all other ethical precepts.
Well, imagine my surprise when, on my first day of practicing ahimsa, I go to my church and the service is on becoming a vegetarian and how animal do suffer. The service explains how we can do our part to help stop the endless suffering that happens to animals on our planet because of our desire for meat and animal products. I won't go into the details although I will say that the service was not at all gory or accusatory and that it was beautifully done. (For more information on my church go to www.uuse.org. )
So, anyways, here I am. At the beginning of my ahimsa and vegetarian journey and I would like to add that this is one of the first times I have made a choice about diet that doesn't have do with what is best for "body most beautiful." This is a conscious decision. Certainly not the decision I thought I would put into my day. But it is a definite first step in my decision to live my yoga and live in a way that is cruelty free and non-violent. I desire to live in a way that brings inner peace and where violence is not the basis for what I say, think and do.
In the words of metta,
"May all beings be free from peace and suffering."
Namaste,
Anne
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