"Fitness" "Influencers" and Ageism

This meme has been going around. I think I even shared it in the Sanctuary just for the giggle of it. But it stayed in my head for a couple of weeks and I finally figured out why.

But first, let’s clarify some things.

The ideas of fitness and exercise, as they are currently packaged and taught, are repugnant to me. As usual, our culture thinks you can a) buy something that will fix all your problems and b) that the body is somehow this separate mechanism from our minds and hearts and culture and family and c) that certain kinds of bodies are the “goal” and d) that certain kinds of bodies represent “health” and and and…

It’s ironic (or a bunch of other things) that the person who made this meme go so very viral and who crossed out the 30 to replace it with 40 is a very, very, very thin, white actress. I’m assuming she doesn’t understand the layers of meaning she added when she, a representation of so many problems with our ideas of bodies and success and beauty and health, was the one to up the age to 40. (I could go on forever with this stuff but it’s not my point so I must move on…)

And the idea of “influencer” is just, well, GROSS.

All of that said, the reason, I finally realized, that this meme really bothers me is the ageism. And I don’t mean the ageism of assuming only 20 year olds are the epitome of beauty.

I mean the ageism of assuming that someone in their 20s doesn’t have something to teach us.

The ageism of assuming that just because you’ve gotten to… 40… means that you do have something to teach us. ((cough meme creator case in point cough))

Just because you age doesn’t mean you’ve gained any deeper self understanding.

Just because you are young doesn’t mean you don’t already have a deeper sense of self understanding.

Self understanding and the ability to challenge one’s self to grow are the prerequisites to good teaching and they have nothing to do with age but everything to do with experience and then what we do with that experience.

So here’s what I don’t want in a teacher or a guide on my body/mind/soul journey:

I'm not interested in being taught by someone who has not struggled and been challenged by and in their bodies.

I'm not interested in being taught by someone who has never had a serious injury and then worked their way back from that.

I'm not interested in being taught by someone who has never had to struggle with moderate to severe mood disorders and fought like hell to get back in their bodies to heal their minds and hearts.

I'm not interested in being taught by someone who doesn't have a deep understanding of not just their own trauma but of the myriad ways that trauma can manifest and the unique struggles of traumatized brain when it comes to getting back into our bodies.

And I'm not interested in being taught by someone who has not experienced heart shattering grief and still managed to breathe and move in some way through it all.

That doesn't fit on a meme so of course we distill it and think it has to do with age because that's simple.

It's not age... It's experience.

And it's not just experience but CONSCIOUSNESS AND EFFORT relative to those experiences.

And finally, the person I am interested in working with, learning from, or even teaching (as I do) is the person who gets that the body is no less and no more important than the mind and the heart….

…that mind, body, and heart are not separate but integrated and separating them does violence on a personal, cultural, and global leve.

…that the body is a vehicle to process life.

…that the body is an expressive tool to say things that can’t be said with words.

…that the body is not a story of your goodness or your badness.

…that the shape or size or condition of your body is in any way a moral proclamation regarding your personhood.

…that fitness is actually about wholeness and connection and has nothing to do with your abs or how many fucking burpees you can do.

SURPRISE! Sunday night Kundalini Yoga for six weeks starting October 17th!

I know… it’s been a while since we’ve done the Sunday evening thing. I taught Sunday nights for so very long and the break has felt good but we need this longer, one hour practice.

I’ll be offering a six week session of this every couple of months. I won’t be running these one after the other like I do other classes. Just a heads up!

HOW?

As always, you can participate live or watch the video on your own or do both, because the videos stay available for the whole session.

I’ll stream out of Zoom.

You’ll get the recordings in a private Facebook group.

Music will be provided via a Spotify list and a YouTube list. You’re in charge of using it for yourself or you can do this class in silence, of course.

DETAILS:

DATES: Sundays, October 17, 24 (skipping Halloween), and November 7, 14, 21, 28
TIME for LIVE: 5:30 PM (Eastern United States) to 6:30 PM (and I get online at about 5:20 if you wanna chat)
COST: $85 (for six classes that you can use over and over during the six week period)
*As always, if the cost is a stretch, just message me and we’ll figure it out. Please don’t miss out for that reason.

WHAT?

If you’ve never done my Kundalini classes, go here for more details about my approach.

For this session, we’ll be going back to basics. Which is pretty much what we always do in Kundalini but we’ll be re/membering this practice form the ground up.

October Session Themes: Overall joint health and connection to self and others via the fascia

October classes start next week, of course. Please remember that these are LIVE but also RECORDED. So you get the best of both worlds. The recordings don’t disappear after 48 hours like in so many virtual studios. You have access to them for the whole month.

In quickie yoga, we’ll be focusing especially on the lower three chakras and the joints of the lower body, including lots of FEET action. The goal is more emotional balance with its mirrored physical body balance.

For Tuesday’s Peony Method, we’ll be focusing on exploring all the joints of the body. This will be a freeing investigation of mobility, strength, and internal alignment.

For Thursday’s Peony Method (excuse the 80s chick who wrote the title for the class), we’ll be deep diving into the fascia and what that means for your individual body but also how that awareness affects your body in space and in relation to all other bodies.

Go here to register.

As usual, if payment is, for any reason, difficult, just email me.

Peony's Legacy

If you’ve not been following me on Facebook, you might not know that Peony Yuki passed away a week ago. She had been struggling with some chronic issues for quite some time, but what was hidden from us was an underlying heart disease that finally, and thoroughly, showed itself. To say we are devastated is an understatement.

My life is changed, as always happens with death, but this time, I am able to feel the devastation and to navigate the crashing waves of grief with a level of awareness and self-compassion that I have never known.

Part of this is, of course, the result of a stable love in my life. In the past, I have lost myself when I lost dear animals because their loss exacerbated my own, very real aloneness in the world. Not this time. Thank the Big Cat in the Sky for Craig. And thanks for spiritual practices that over time have, well, worked.

As most of you know, Peony has been around for most of the 12 years during which I’ve been developing and refining and reimagining and adding to my movement art/dance based therapeutic practice.

I’ve named it here and there but no name has ever stuck.

Over a month ago, the right name hit me and then I let it go, second guessing myself as usual, and then Peony passed away and I knew it was beyond right.

Peony blooms are delicate and vulnerable, and thanks to ants, which seem quite agitating, they are protected (from other petal eating insects) and then they are able to bloom into their fullness.

Much like our practices and their effects on our hearts.

And so I introduce to you, in her memory…

Things Pretty Much Suck and Yet We Still Must...

I’m writing this the day after the Texas fuckery. I don’t have the capacity to really write about that yet. I’m seething.

It feels like the world is just falling apart… or imploding… Like I said, I don’t have the words yet.

Which makes me feel like, oh, right, duh… movement.

Isadora Duncan was once asked what one of her dances MEANT, and she said, “If I could tell you then I wouldn’t need to dance.”

Exactly.

At times like this, it can be easy — for me anyway — to succumb to an externally created depression. To just give up. Lay down. Do nothing.

Which is what evil shits want, right?

Getting into these bodies and feeling the anger and the grief and the overwhelm is the only way. Once we do that, we can start transforming that energy into something to counter what’s happening — even just in tiny bits at a time.

Like in that image to the right… I was working some serious stuff out there. Without the need for words.

Anyway… like I said… I’m feeling pretty quiet.

But if you need space to move and be with others, the next session starts on Tuesday, September 7th.

All the yoga and movement art are right here.

AND remember that you can participate live or use the video whenever you want.

AND FEEL FREE TO WRITE TO ME TO ASK ABOUT A DROP IN IF YOU’RE CURIOUS ABOUT WHAT WE DO.

The Power of the Gayatri Mantra

I don’t remember when I first came across the Gayatri Mantra, but it was at least over 10 years ago. And there was a time, when I would turn on a version of this and listen to it on looping for a huge chunk of my day. I could feel it repairing some part of my mind/heart without even understanding, at the time, what it was about or how mantra worked in general.

The Gayatri Mantra comes out of the Vedic tradition and is probably from around 1500 BCE (Before the Common Era, for those in the world who are not Christian and therefore would not say BC).

It’s also mentioned in my favorite text, the Bhagavad Gita (link is to my favorite translation/commentary), as the “poem of the divine.”

In Hinduism, it’s said that chanting it or even just listening to it brings happiness and light.

I’m sharing a version from Deva Premal because I love her and find her easy to chant with. This video has it looped a few times to make it longer. But just go on YouTube and start searching for the one that really speaks to you.

The Gayatri Mantra in Sanskrit:

Om bhur bhuvah svah

tat savitur varenyam

bhargo devasya dhimahi

dhiyo yo nah prachodayat.

The Gayatri Mantra Translated:

The eternal, earth, air, heaven
That glory, that resplendence of the sun
May we contemplate the brilliance of that light
May the sun inspire our minds.

*Translation by Douglas Brooks

As is usual with Sanskrit, there are so many translations. Sanskrit is a deeply poetic language and is difficult to translate into English.

Here are some more translations. I believe spending time contemplating these can open new spaces in our mind/heart. Try them out, especially, first thing in the morning, when it’s said to be the most auspicious time to work with this particular chant.

"O thou existence Absolute,
Creator of the three dimensions,
we contemplate upon thy divine light.
May He stimulate our intellect and
bestow upon us true knowledge."

Or

"O Divine mother, our hearts are filled with darkness.
Please make this darkness distant from us and
promote illumination within us."

And one more:

"We contemplate the glory of the light
that illuminates the three worlds:
dense, subtle and causal.
I am that life-giving power, love,
radiant enlightenment, and the divine grace
of universal intelligence.
We pray for that divine light to illuminate our minds."

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.