When unpacking boxes this weekend my fingers tripped over this poem written nearly a decade ago. Amazing how our own written words take us back, back, back, like some strange warped time machine.
Sun-Shiny Beauty
When I was little I used to delight
in the sun-shiny beauty of dandelions.
I would gather them in bunches and bouquets
and give them to my mom with joy.
She always seemed to appreciate them.
One day the story changed.
Someone told me they were actually ugly
weeds that ought to die
at the hands of plant poison.
Plant poison, as it was explained to me,
was a reverse fertilizing product
created to destroy.
It came in giant white plastic bags
that weighed as much as my 4-year old self
for the bargain price of $4.50.
$4.50 was all it cost to kill the dandelions
in our yard for an entire year.
Perhaps the bag could have lasted longer
had I not dumped a large portion of it
over our fence into the neighbors yard.
Their prize-winning roses didn't grow that year,
but I managed to save a few dandelions
from a poisonous fate.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Friday, April 10, 2009
We Are Pacha Mama
Evan and I just returned from our back country journey in Big Bend...
When over-looking a 2000 ft cliff, my chattering ego-mind vanishes. All I am left with is the visceral knowing that I am a part of something greatly larger than myself, a part of Pacha Mama, Mother Earth. It is so easy to forget our inner connectivity to Nature in our day to day city lives. In so many ways we have constructed a world of "comfort" that separates us from Nature - we drive instead of walk, we eat in chairs instead of under canopies, we visually consume television instead of the nightly sunset. In detaching ourselves from Nature, we have forgotten that we ourselves are Nature.
Funny how the clickity-clatter of the mind can often find a way of muffling this knowing, replacing it with rowdy, clammering tales about the "weighty chore" of filing taxes, the "stagnant frustration" of Lamar traffic, or the "looming" skyscrapers of post-moving boxes that must be tended to in every room of our home.
But the beauty of merging with Nature is that we come to recognize that labels like "weighty", "frustration", and "looming" belong to our over-active minds. These labels do not belong to Nature. (But isn't our mind part of Nature, one might ask...) When consciousness merges with the Nature, the mind's suffocating labels disappear. This merging with Nature, this smoothing of my mind's waves (vritis), is the driving force of my yoga asana practice - another way to merge with Nature.
Just as Nature smooths the waves of our thoughts, reminding us that there is another mode of existing that is not purely mental, so too does yoga return us to a state free of heady-tinkering. Like Big Bend National Park, the breath too soaks the jars of my thoughts and peels back my labels, reminding me that I am a part deeply interconnected to the Whole. I am liquid. I am air. I am the cycle of life and death. I am the seasons. I am animal. I come from the Mystery. I will return to the Mystery. I am a peon. I am a miracle. I am both insignificant and divine.
Less labels, more freedom. Less labels, more flexibility. Less labels, more peace. Less vritis, more Truth.
On our last night Evan and I were humbled spectators of what seemed to be a never ending sunset. Pinks, oranges, yellows spread out across the omnidome of sky doppled with clouds and graced by falcons. Though cold winds whipped across the upper cliffs of the South Rim, our senses were muted by the grandeur of what surrounded us...in that which we are all interconnected.
As I return to Austin, the city, my life as a yoga teacher...may I remember to inhale and let Pacha Mama sweep through me. May my daily practice and this breath hear and now serve to remind me of the Nature I am...of the Nature we all are.
When over-looking a 2000 ft cliff, my chattering ego-mind vanishes. All I am left with is the visceral knowing that I am a part of something greatly larger than myself, a part of Pacha Mama, Mother Earth. It is so easy to forget our inner connectivity to Nature in our day to day city lives. In so many ways we have constructed a world of "comfort" that separates us from Nature - we drive instead of walk, we eat in chairs instead of under canopies, we visually consume television instead of the nightly sunset. In detaching ourselves from Nature, we have forgotten that we ourselves are Nature.
Funny how the clickity-clatter of the mind can often find a way of muffling this knowing, replacing it with rowdy, clammering tales about the "weighty chore" of filing taxes, the "stagnant frustration" of Lamar traffic, or the "looming" skyscrapers of post-moving boxes that must be tended to in every room of our home.
But the beauty of merging with Nature is that we come to recognize that labels like "weighty", "frustration", and "looming" belong to our over-active minds. These labels do not belong to Nature. (But isn't our mind part of Nature, one might ask...) When consciousness merges with the Nature, the mind's suffocating labels disappear. This merging with Nature, this smoothing of my mind's waves (vritis), is the driving force of my yoga asana practice - another way to merge with Nature.
Just as Nature smooths the waves of our thoughts, reminding us that there is another mode of existing that is not purely mental, so too does yoga return us to a state free of heady-tinkering. Like Big Bend National Park, the breath too soaks the jars of my thoughts and peels back my labels, reminding me that I am a part deeply interconnected to the Whole. I am liquid. I am air. I am the cycle of life and death. I am the seasons. I am animal. I come from the Mystery. I will return to the Mystery. I am a peon. I am a miracle. I am both insignificant and divine.
Less labels, more freedom. Less labels, more flexibility. Less labels, more peace. Less vritis, more Truth.
On our last night Evan and I were humbled spectators of what seemed to be a never ending sunset. Pinks, oranges, yellows spread out across the omnidome of sky doppled with clouds and graced by falcons. Though cold winds whipped across the upper cliffs of the South Rim, our senses were muted by the grandeur of what surrounded us...in that which we are all interconnected.
As I return to Austin, the city, my life as a yoga teacher...may I remember to inhale and let Pacha Mama sweep through me. May my daily practice and this breath hear and now serve to remind me of the Nature I am...of the Nature we all are.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Beyond Technique: 'The Un-nameable Something'
A dear friend, Virginia, commented before class today, "So about all these technical manipulations of the body - arm bones back, inner spiral here, outer spiral there, tail bone in - something feels lacking. After all those manipulations something still feels lacking."
And the other day a dancer friend reflected, "You can be the most technically brilliant ballet dancer, but boring as hell to watch if you don't have that 'un-nameable something'".
And in less poetic terms I can offer this: Yes, we can do everything (on or off) the mat just "right" (just like our teachers or parents or bosses tell us) and we can still be f-ing miserable. We can still be dense, stuck and stale, even after having followed every little commandment and order of operations.
In the Anusara method, founded by John Friend, I find a response to “there’s something missing.” The first principle of alignment in Anusara yoga is “Open to Grace”. In my experience Opening to Grace is an expression for quieting the ego, the thinker, the do-er. Opening to Grace is a state of surrender, receptivity and luminescence that unfurls inside of us. To Open to Grace is to acknowledge with our inner most being the revelatory aspect of Spirit that has made itself known by our very existence. And it is from this state that we begin to witness our breath. It is from this state that the breath begins to inspire physical movement of “arm bones back, inner spiral here, outer spiral there...”
Virginia is so very right. The physical manipulations are but loud dense actions without first Opening to Grace, the ‘un-nameable something’, that I just gave a name to.
And the other day a dancer friend reflected, "You can be the most technically brilliant ballet dancer, but boring as hell to watch if you don't have that 'un-nameable something'".
And in less poetic terms I can offer this: Yes, we can do everything (on or off) the mat just "right" (just like our teachers or parents or bosses tell us) and we can still be f-ing miserable. We can still be dense, stuck and stale, even after having followed every little commandment and order of operations.
In the Anusara method, founded by John Friend, I find a response to “there’s something missing.” The first principle of alignment in Anusara yoga is “Open to Grace”. In my experience Opening to Grace is an expression for quieting the ego, the thinker, the do-er. Opening to Grace is a state of surrender, receptivity and luminescence that unfurls inside of us. To Open to Grace is to acknowledge with our inner most being the revelatory aspect of Spirit that has made itself known by our very existence. And it is from this state that we begin to witness our breath. It is from this state that the breath begins to inspire physical movement of “arm bones back, inner spiral here, outer spiral there...”
Virginia is so very right. The physical manipulations are but loud dense actions without first Opening to Grace, the ‘un-nameable something’, that I just gave a name to.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
"The Love Coop"
The creation of Love Yoga Co-Op is unfolding daily. So too is the reality of the time/energy output involved to get the project started (and to help it flourish). Truth is I'm not interested in running or managing a yoga studio. I am interested in sheparding a space where driven yoga teachers can grow, flourish, build a community and get paid a living wage. But, as a dear friend and yoga studio owner recently shared with me, "like it or not, Lauran, you will be a small business owner as soon as you sign your name on the lease. This means that part of your day will be spent tangled in the nitty gritty of cash flow, teacher management, marketing and promotion and rental space up-keep."
The rising sun of responsibilities is at first daunting -- enough to make me wonder if the day to day operations involved in the co-op will throw off my life-work balance. What I am saying? Of course this project is going to dramatically change the flow of my day, especially during the early stages of the co-op when my understanding of "how to make it work" is more like a gravel road than a super highway. But, still, part of me knows that diving into this will be an amazing learning experience. It already has been. And more than anything I've learned just how many people want to help make it work! I've had friends come out of the woodwork to help with the lease negotiations, website development, logo/graphic design, prop/mat donation, insurance quotes, financial flow charts, and non-profit education resources. Though, yes, I am managing the process, I also feel very much like nurturinig the growth of an already living organism..."It takes a village."
Really the next step, as I see it, is to continue to educate and empower teachers about how the co-op works and why the co-op might be a sweet addition to a studio setting.
The rising sun of responsibilities is at first daunting -- enough to make me wonder if the day to day operations involved in the co-op will throw off my life-work balance. What I am saying? Of course this project is going to dramatically change the flow of my day, especially during the early stages of the co-op when my understanding of "how to make it work" is more like a gravel road than a super highway. But, still, part of me knows that diving into this will be an amazing learning experience. It already has been. And more than anything I've learned just how many people want to help make it work! I've had friends come out of the woodwork to help with the lease negotiations, website development, logo/graphic design, prop/mat donation, insurance quotes, financial flow charts, and non-profit education resources. Though, yes, I am managing the process, I also feel very much like nurturinig the growth of an already living organism..."It takes a village."
Really the next step, as I see it, is to continue to educate and empower teachers about how the co-op works and why the co-op might be a sweet addition to a studio setting.
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