You Only Need One Yoga Pose

This photo is from about ten years ago, and yes, there’s my actual, original hair color. And this is me with Erich Schiffmann, still my favorite of all the “big” yoga teachers. He’s the real deal to the core. A gentle bear of a man who is brilliant and funny.

This yoga retreat with him took place in Yellow Springs, OH, now under an hour from where Craig and I live (and I can’t wait to take him there because that town is adorbs).

Okay… enough background stuff…

The whole retreat with him, we listened to dharma talks, meditated, and did downdog and child’s pose.

That was it… downdog and child’s pose over and over and over… it was WONDERFUL.

To focus on those postures alone was enough.

Because with a good teacher, one posture contains the entirety of yoga.

And to really get to know yourself inside one posture? That’s the entirety of yoga.

How much we distract ourselves with newness… even in yoga.

It reminds me of Butoh, actually… taking our time to notice the most micro of details. Going SO SLOWLY that we can’t help but run into our own crap.

And lately, as I listen to Sadhguru on my walks, he is constantly saying the same thing. He mocks American yoga with its obsession with SO MANY POSES.

KNOW ONE POSE, he says, that’s all you need.

As a teacher, I feel the pull to constantly be changing things up, but that comes from how we’re taught that everything is supposed to be endlessly entertaining.

In the meantime, we are turning our spiritual physical practices into yet another mode of consumption. More, more, more.

As we feel like less, less, less.

Nothing will fill an emptiness of that kind.

Slowing down. Paying attention. Limiting our intake.

We can finally truly come into contact with our wounded parts, and then we just might have the patience to sit with them.

A Question to Tap into the Wisdom of Your Original Self/Body

When I do one on one work with people, it can look about a million ways, but one thing stays consistent: Homework.

Mostly, I listen to you. I’m listening for experiments that you can run to get more into your body, to become more aware of what you really need, to take better care of yourself.

This can be something simple like taking the typical two weeks between our sessions to really notice what tastes good. Or to set up some mini altar to pay attention to a particular aspect of yourself every day for a few minutes.

Recently during a one on one, it was a question that came to me that I then told my client to ask herself every time she was starting to feel uncomfortable in a situation or with a person.

Or you can even use this question as you enter any new situation or encounter any person any time. It could become a really great habit, actually.

This question won’t necessarily create word based answers, and that’s the point of it.

This question will most likely create instant body based reactions like sick tummy, butterflies, a feeling of wanting to run, or maybe warmth and peace.

HERE:

Is my little self feeling safe and taken care of here/with this person?

It helps if you have a specific “little self” in mind. I use the one in this photo. Look at that silly/happy/open face. She’s my perfect go-to wise woman.

Now I know that a lot of my students experienced awful trauma, even at a very young and tender age, but that actually doesn’t matter with this question.

This question will STILL help you tap into your wise and knowing self. It will tap into the part of you that even at that young age knew what and who was wrong and bad and unsafe. It will tap into that part of you that even at that young age was developing coping mechanisms to protect themselves.

Ask the question and slow your breathing and keep asking it until your answer becomes clear.

The second part here is important…

THEN ask your ADULT self, what do I need to do to take care of this little self in this context, relative to their answer to that first question.

Because it’s your adult self that that little self was waiting for all along. You can do this.

Joy List

This selfie photo series about rebirth in that Phoenix way is freaking AH.MAZING. Taken at the perfect spot… an active volcano in Iceland. (Done safely as is pointed out.)

This habit tracker app is my favorite I’ve ever used. SO SIMPLE and clean. It’s really upped my movement and meditation. And though I just purchased premium for super cheap, the free was working just fine.

One of my greatest joys this year has been my renewed obsession with great novels, and wow… I just keep reading one amazing work after another. I’m focusing mostly on works by women of color to fill in the hole in my literacy created by undergrad/grad work that, of course, focused on the traditional white man canon. ((Extreme rolling of eyes.)) My most recent fave was this (though it’s hard to pick).

I’m starting to obsess over paint colors to redo some of the spaces in our new to us very old Victorian home. And I’m especially loving this green for the kitchen. I mean… even just the name!

While I’m walking, I usually — or lately — listen to happy happy music, but I’ve started inserting a bit of Sadhguru here and there for the first part of my work to work on some mindset issues I’m having and this is extra good.

When I go to a cafe to think and write, I’ve started listening again to this Max Richter. It makes my brain work at a higher level, I swear!

Roses. I keep finding more roses that I want in front of our house. Here are two frontrunners: this and this.

And finally these silly little messenger figures… so silly but they bring me so much delight to even just look at them. Which one would you love to have on your desk?

I would love to hear from you! What books/movies/music are you really geeking out over right now?

August Movement Art: Thursday Evening (Or Use the Video)

REMINDER: Go here to learn HOW to do these Zoom classes. Classes are live but are recorded so you do not have to be present during the live. You also can be present and not have your camera on if you’re uncomfortable for any reason.

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NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY. CAN BE MODIFIED FOR ANY BODY.

August THURSDAYS
Time: 5:30 to 6:30 PM (Eastern United States time)
Dates: August 12, 19, 26, September 2
Cost: $65

The PATTERN of class (if you’re new to this):

Class always starts on the floor (or in a chair), exploring circular and spiral movements, especially in the spine. This is the most that the class is led in any traditional sense of that word.

For most people, the class is done either with closed eyes or downcast eyes so that they can focus on themselves and not be distracted. This is not a dance class with mirrors where people are staring at you and you’re being judged and corrected. (If I haven’t already made that clear.)

From that beginning, we make our way through explorations of joints, muscles, and segments of the body. No matter how long you take these classes, we’re always looking to learn something new about ourselves and these bodies. We try to approach our movement art practice each week as if we've never done it before.

Finally we start playing with the poetry of the body… FEELING our way into moving, followed by either some partner or group work to reground in community. (Yes, even virtually this can be done.)

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me here, on Facebook, or via email.

August Quickie Kundalini Yoga: A Return to the Spiritual Foundation

Yep. Just like clockwork…

During the summer, I tend to focus more on the physical and then in late summer/start of school year time, I start feeling the shift back toward the deeper spiritual work of Kundalini yoga.

So here we go…

For this four week session (as usual, twice a week for 20 minutes; recorded if you can’t make the “lives”), you’ll still get all the usual types of great, simple, effective primal-like movements along with all the wonderful breath techniques, but we’ll be increasing the focus on the breath stuff even more, and adding in a bunch more of the meditative aspects (which as you know in kundalini does not mean there’s not movement…).

We’ll also be using a moment at the beginning of each class to sit with a tiny reading from a tantric text like the Radiance Sutras.

This all feels really necessary to me so I hope it sounds good to you too!

LOCATION: Online, either live or videos on your own time
DATES: Tuesdays and Thursdays, August 10, 12, 17, 19, 24, 26, 31, and September 2
TIME: 10:30 AM to 10:50 AM (Easter United States time)
*NOTE: I get online at about 10:20 in case anyone needs to talk.
COST: $55 (includes access to me in a private Facebook group and access to the classes for the entire 4 weeks. Links do not expire during that time.)

If you’ve never done yoga with me before, read here.

If you’ve never had a zoom class with me before, read here.

PLEASE NOTE: You must be willing to be in a private Facebook group to access these classes.

Joy Gem in the City & The Function of Memory in a Happy Life

I’ve written about this idea that I use in movement classes called “joy gems,” in which I ask you to remember in great sensory detail a happy moment from any time in your life. This stuff is important for healing trauma on a neurological/biological level. You can read more details about how this works here.

This is a share of a joy gem of my own with some thoughts on memory…

Moving into this house in this part of this city has felt like a string of miracles or coincidences or whatever you want to call it.

So much had to go right, had to be just right.

Now if you weren’t around during this or if you just didn’t hear me talking about it, when we walked into this house, I knew it was for us. Immediately.

But later it struck me that I knew that because it had the energy of one of my favorite houses of my whole life — the house of my GreatAunt Ardelle in Erie.

She was a special human. (Some day, she deserves a book (or two) written about how special and all the things she taught me, whether knowingly or unknowingly.)

One of my favorite things when I was very little was getting to spend the night at Ardelle’s. I would sleep on her davenport right off of her bedroom. The front of the house was visible as the whole thing was quite open and the front big window opened onto what was one of the busier roads in Erie.

I would lie there, not sleeping, watching the lights drift across the ceiling as cars drove by.

When I was little, there was something so very thrilling and also so very soothing about this.

The other night, here, in Columbus, 52 year old me could not sleep, so I made my way to our front room and laid on the couch, facing the big window that looks out toward the street.

Suddenly, the car lights were washing across the ceiling…

I had not noticed this before. I hadn’t thought about it as a possibility.

And there it was… like a beacon from little, 4 year old me…

As I was getting ready to write about this, I decided to look for a quote about memory and one of the first to pop up was this, by one of my favorite authors:

“I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never
realises an emotion at the time.
It expands later, and thus we don't have complete emotions about
the present, only about the past.”
― Virginia Woolf

There is so much truth in what she says.

If you doubt, just think back to a day that was uber special — a wedding, a birth, anything of great significance — and think about how difficult it can feel to be truly present to it. How it’s so very overwhelmingly wonderful that it can almost feel like you are missing it as it is happening.

But later, LATER, looking back… there it is.

It’s this looking back at these sorts of moments that can heal us. And I think it’s a large piece of the puzzle of healing that can be missing, as we take so much time to “unearth” and “understand” and “process” the difficult things that have happened to us, which is important, but not more important than this… the work of constructing a memory edifice of light and love.

Flags, Rainbows, and Jesus: Taking Back that which Hate Wants to Steal

I was talking to Craig recently about the American flag, and that no matter how much I know it’s wrong, when I see you flying one, I assume certain things about you.

This makes my seven year old heart sad. That’s how old I was when I got to go to Betsy Ross’s house in Philly for a school trip. I LOVED that tiny house and her and the idea of her sitting there and sewing that first flag.

Symbols are more powerful than words, and right now, symbols can either send out the message that if you are different in any way, you are safe here or you are not safe.

It happens instantly.

I’ve always really disliked brightly colored rainbow stuff. I have always found it garish. But I understand now that it says “I’m with you,” and so I’ve started to embrace it in our distinctly diverse and beautiful neighborhood in this city that makes so many feel safer than the very small city I came from.

As a woman, I’ve for as long as I can remember struggled with Christianity. Let’s just say that and know that I could write BOOKS about this particular struggle.

But I also have a strongly Catholic heart… the best of it speaks to me in profound ways that nothing else can touch. Our Lady of Guadalupe. Mary’s yes. The work of mystics like Thomas Merton. St. Francis. A pope who SEEMS to understand compassion in a way we’ve not seen before. Smells and bells. Deep contemplation. Ritual. The Catholic Imagination, to use Fr. Greeley’s book title.

And yet… my GOD, the damage done, the lives hurt and lost, and now the twisted, demented, evil version of Christianity that the far right has latched onto and claimed.

It makes my heart hurt and my head feel like it could POP.

To say that the far right’s view of Christianity is antithetical to everything that Christ taught is not even close to the reality of what they have managed to do through their deformed messaging.

So when I’m reading books on this subject matter, let’s just say, if I’m out in public, I might hide their covers, lay them cover down, slide them into my bag upside down…

I don’t want anyone to feel unsafe around me. What a sad sentence that is … that I had to write that.

Gandhi looked to Christ as one of history’s greatest prophets of nonviolence, and here I am, rightfully afraid that someone will perceive violence toward them via my reading materials.

I needed to finally write about all of this because I was sitting on our front stoop today with a book about Clare of Assisi next to me. The sun was shining. I had on my “hex the patriarchy” tshirt (but the print is small…).

A young woman was stopped at my stoop by their dog, who insisted on visiting me. I laughed and told them it was fine. The dog was so pretty!

Then I realized as they walked away that they had been staring at my book and that their demeanor shifted in that moment.

It made me so sad.

That’s what all the hate in the world is doing even on a micro level.

It’s making us suspicious of one another’s very hearts.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t be. That hate is toxic and has proven itself deadly.

But I’m wondering how we can counter it with a love that is so much more powerful if we keep losing important symbols of love.

I want to take them back and recombine them with obvious symbols of love and openheartedness. I’ve seen it happening but we need MORE.

Chronic Pain is Exhausting... Duh...

I’m privileged in that not only do I have access to excellent healthcare, but I have, for large parts of my life, had extra quick access due to family connections to medicine. So this Thursday, I get to see a top rated ortho guy for my shoulder, and I am so grateful.

It has not always been like this for me, especially when I needed it most. From my late 20s until about 40, I was constantly spiraling in and out of serious depressive episodes, and when I wasn’t just trying to survive, I was still not healthy or happy. During this time, I also had constant, ever-changing chronic pain and migraines.

I believe in my case that the depression and chronic pain fed each other, growing from and then into each other, back and forth.

You might be someone who understands this enough to know then that I had little energy for anything but living.

That’s what chronic illness and pain does to you — forces you into a basic level of living, and all the while, the world around us does not allow for that in any way. You’re still expected to be a good little producer of work and maker of money. It’s a wonder that more of us do not fall through the cracks than already do.

Right now, my issue is independent of my most recent cycle of depression… or is it?

Because when we’re depressed, it’s really hard to get ourselves literally moving, and in that context, you’re simply more likely to experience pain or injury.

Then pain and injury makes you less likely to move and thus increases your depression.

It is truly a vicious downward spiral.

Which is why it’s important that we talk about it more, that we ask each other for help, that we do everything we possibly can to move something.

Move something… what the hell do I mean?

Move SOMETHING… ANYTHING.

I’ve had students with such serious knee issues that they couldn’t stand to dance and so they worked from chairs. Those students were of all ages.

I’ve worked with elders post stroke and serious illness, who danced with whatever they could in their body in a wheelchair.

And then there’s me… fighting this fight right now on a lesser level, for sure but still…

Some days, I want to just lie down and GIVE UP. Just lie down and say fuck it.

That’s the old and dangerous depression lurking, seeing its chance to pounce.

But instead, after all these years and all of this learning and all those students who worked so hard at my beckoning, I cannot give into that.

I get up and walk.

I do the movement that I CAN.

And what I can leads to what I thought I couldn’t.