Circle In The Sand-Preparing For The 108 Days Ahead.

October 9, 2007

Now, more than ever, I am drawn to practicing yoga. Ironically, now, more than ever, is the most challenging time for me to practice yoga. Maybe this is because of my own talent of taking on too many things at once or maybe this is because of things that I have no control over. As a yogi, I realize the value in letting go of blame and to be truthful. At this point in my life, at 41, there are more obstacles in the way of me carving out time for a daily yoga practice than ever before. The truth is that this is a problem. A problem for myself and a problem for those that rely on me, that love me, that need me to be present, kind and caring. I know I need a change. I have known for a while that I need a change. I need a large quantity of the purist quality yoga shot up in my arm. Piercing my skin, running through my starving veins and permeating into every cell of my body. Only then will I be able to breathe.

This is not the first time I have felt this way. This has happened before. There are many times when I have let life get chaotic and spiral way out of control until all of my essential structure gets pounded down by the raging waves of the ocean. I become tired. My yoga practice gets soft. My ability to take care of myself through meditation, writing, healthy eating, and thoughtful communication becomes almost non-existent. I begin to self destruct. I begin to feel inadequate and see only the inadequacies in those that I love and the world around me. I do an excellent job of combining self-abuse with self-neglect and then I fall apart. Am I there right now? At my self-destructive place? No, not even close. Thank God. But I am on my way. I could go there. In a moment, if I let it. The conditions are right for the eventual spiraling down. I feel the familiarity. Fortunately, I have a strong foundation of yoga in my life right now and because of this foundation-I can hear the voices underground. I can hear what I could not hear before I practiced yoga. I can hear the wise voice buried deep inside speaking to me-telling me that I have the tools to change this. I listen.

In the past, when I start to feel this familiar pull into the spiral of self-loathing and continuous overwhelment, I usually attend a yoga workshop. I go away. I go away by myself, most likely to Kripalu, and practice intensely for one week. Nobody to take care of but me. The week feels like a couple of hours. In the car on the way home, I feel changed. I smile at the people taking my tickets at the tolls on the Mass Pike. I crank up Krishna Das and chant at my loudest right until I pull into my driveway. I empty my mass of dirty yoga clothes dutifully into my washer. I have arrived back into my beloved home surrounded by my dear ones. I come back to my same life feeling recharged and that some pretty good yoga that has taken “root” inside my body. I feel the “bhava” or love of living my life. I not only see the glass as ½ full but I feel it and drink it. Sometimes I get drunk on it. I practice embracing the “fullness” of my life. These yoga retreats can usually get me through 6 months of my life. For 6 months, I can deal.

Sometime during this unseasonably warm fall, as the trees burn their fall colors into my mind and surrender to their own natural rhythm, as the afternoon sun beats down on pavement, as I fill my environmentally correct shopping bag with native squash and overripe tomatoes, I realize that I am barely “dealing” with my needs. I am not connected with my own rhythms, with the rhythms of this earth and the sacredness of the everyday. Fall is the time where I usually feel the most alive and vulnerable. Instead I am thick dust stuck to the forgotten and there is no Kripalu to rescue me this time around. There is no place for me to flee to- I have way too much going on: new studio, Matthew’s new business and a 7 month old baby who is obviously thriving attached to my breast at every chance she gets.

It occurs to me in obvious ways- I need to change. This time I cannot go away to do this. I need to revitalize myself and it occurs to me that I can. I must do this now and I do not need to leave my life to get the self-care that I am so low on. It occurs to me that it’s about time I find the nutrients in my own dirt. Be organic in my own practice and buy local. I can get what I need by going no further than my own “PVC free” luscious yoga mat.

So, I choose to practice yoga for 108 days. 108 is an auspicious number. A lifetime of reasons-none of which I pretend to understand rationally. But intuitively I understand the 108 beads stranded by hand on the sandalwood mala. 108 beads to touch, one by one, under my fingers. Each bead , a sweet inhale and exhale, a connection to life force, to prana, to being in the moment. I commit to practicing for 108 days in a row-not just the asanas but yoga in every way. I am drawn to the possibility of practicing yoga in every aspect of my life. The biggies are obvious: my relationship with myself, with my loved ones, and my surroundings. The subtleties are not so. I want to slow down. I want to slow down. That is the most profound and most challenging gift I can give myself. I want to create intention in everything that I do. I want to acknowledge the sacredness of the everyday, the mundane, the beautiful and the ugly that is right in front of me. There is no other way out. There is no one out there who is going to come in and rescue me. Not Matthew, my children, my therapist, my mother, my students, my teachers, or my friends. I have to do this myself. I have to draw my own circle in the sand.

With this said- to my family, my loved ones, my friends, and those that support me- I am drawing my circle in the sand. The circle is my boundary so that I can have the space and time to practice on my mat each morning at 6 am. The need for the boundary is essential to my success of completing a 108 day practice. What I need to feel full and whole becomes increasingly clear. I need to make the time, no matter what, to connect with what really matters to me. Being grateful, being in my breath, being in my body, being in nature, being creative, being fully alive. These are all the things I need but I don’t always know it. Instead I think I need a clean house, a chocolate chip cookie, a visit to my email, a new pair of shoes. None of these things ultimately work in the long run. I have learned that only I can change this. Only I can create meaning and intention in my life. There is no other way out. I have to draw my own circle in the sand.

So here I am….standing with arms open. I am scared and hopeful at the same time. I am at the threshold of 108 days. The completion of this 108 day yoga practice will bring me to Saturday, January 26, 2008. A new year. The middle of winter. A time where introspection and turning inward aligns with the winter season. I look forward to this process of meeting the yoga mat at 6 am, no matter what, every morning. Seven days per week. I also look forward to blogging it, to be open to what expresses itself, what traces of the practice will reveal itself in the written word. I also welcome your responses as well. I feel a bit strange about putting this out there so publicly but at the same time, I am a yoga teacher committed to teaching from my own direct experience and I seek to learn from others who are out there being real, authentic, honest and open about their connection to healing and what is sacred.

108 days of yoga stretch out before me. A path to take and where it will lead me-I do not know, nor do I care. It is the process I seek; the commitment, the discipline, the mindfulness, the love, the sweetness, the surrender. Each journey begins with one step, so they say.