Main Street Yoga

It has been brought to my attention (Hi Catherine!) that my Daily Yoga Blog, has not been so (ahem) "daily."

There's a reason for that.  I am in the process of moving. Not from my house or town, oh no.  I am moving away from LiveJournal.

I would like to stay with LiveJournal but it is not meeting my needs for easy communication with the people I want to communicate with.  A blog isn't just a place where I write here to show off or to self-indulge.  A blog, as I have come to understand it, is a place, an etheric geography, where people come to hang out, listen, talk, argue, comment, and share.  And Live Journal's interface doesn't allow for that.  You have to sign up and have your OWN account in order to comment on the blogs of other Live Journal users.  And that's a shame. And that's why I'm moving to WordPress.

I want a blog with easy access. I want a blog where anyone who passes by can come in, sit down, listen, and put in their own 2 cents.

My new blog, which I will be unveiling in a few weeks, maybe sooner, will have a whole new look as well as a whole new purpose. My new blog will reflect the new turn my life has taken recently.  That turn has come about as the result of becoming completely inspired by certain people I have met recently, certain books I have been blown away by, certain other bloggers I have been reading recently, and certain insights I have been having recently. And, as a result of all this inspiration whooshing in on me in big huge waves...

I am feeling inspired. 

Totally. Completely. Utterly.  It is the way I want to live for the rest of my life.  I am committed to inspiration: to finding it, seeking it, uncovering it, promoting it, and then paying it forward.  I want to live an inspired life.  I want you to inspire me.  And I want to inspire you.  I need you to be an inspiration. Please. 

And I know you are. At least some times and on some days. And you know where you get your "inspiration fix."  And I need to know that place, too.

So I need an online  place where I can solicit this info from you.  And LiveJournal won't let me do that. And that's why I'm moving.

I am batting around ideas for what to "call" this new blog of mine.  I *think* it will be called "Inspire Me!" 

So, to give you a little preview....

Today I followed a link on Twitter and found this story about this man who got fired from a big, high-paying job in the corporate world and now he's making $10 an hour at Starbucks.  Here's the piece:


http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/worklife/02/05/starbucks.saved.my.life/index.html#cnnSTCVideo

At the end, the interviewer asks him if he would return to the corporate world if he was offered a half million a year salary.  Listen to what his answer was!  Even better, listen to what he says when asked if he lost his job at Starbucks what he would do!

Now THAT inspired me today!

Be good.

See you soon.

1. Hot Yoga in January
This was, as Zee would say, "brill." (short for, "brilliant.)  I loved toasting up the room to almost 90 and practicing a nice long vinyasa flow with some of my favorite yogarians.  I looked forward to this class ALL WEEK.  It soothed what ailed me.  I felt all the muscles of my body let go of their death-grip against the cold.  I felt my vata derangement come back into balance, if only for a few hours.  Yummy-yum-yum.

2. Fuji Oranic Face and Body Polish (Pineapple Coconut)
This was an impulse buy at Greenstar at the begining of the winter.  First of all, the smell of this stuff  alone transported me to another world (a warm tropical world).  Then the results were out of this world, too.  It comes in a jar with a scoop that I found hard to dig out so I just scratched with my fingers until I got a good sized glop of this sandy, lard-like substance on my fingers.  I then sat in the bathtub (filled with Aura Cacia Tranquility Bubble bath) and rubbed this scratchy sandy stuff all over, even on my face.  It says it isn't scratchy, but it is.  Think: Light sandpaper, rather than Coarse sandpaper.  It sloughed off all my dry skin, and even after a shower-off and a toweling, I did not need moisturizer.  My skin felt like it fit me again (rather than being 2 sizes too small).  All soft and smooth....ummmmm.....

3. Amaranth Cereal
This was something I discovered last April during my Ultra-Metabolism de-tox and it has become a staple.  I especially love it on these frigid winter mornings, though. Here's how you make it:
3 cups of soy milk
1 cup of amaranth
1 apple chopped
cinnamon (I like a lot)
Put all these ingredients in a pot, bring to a boil, then cover and simmer until it's thick (about 20 minutes).  (Watch it carefully though, because it bubbles over and makes a MESS!) During the last 5 minutes I add a handful of chopped walnuts.  Sometimes I sweeten it with a little agave, but mostly I find it sweet enough.  

4. Patagonia Capilene long johns
A must for XC skiing. A must under jeans for early AM dog walking. Then, once home,  I just slip my jeans off and wear them around the house during my morning rituals (see #5).  They are soft, silky, light  and warm.  "Warm" being the operative word.

5. Holosync
Since I have already written about this multiple times, I won't hyperlink to it here, but it's really the NUMBER 1 practice that has saved my sanity  and continues to be a rich, reliable source of calmness, focus, creativity and general all-purpose happiness in my life.  After my amaranth cereal, I go up to my room, put on the headphones and sit in my papasan for an hour and let Holosync meditate my brain for me.  After that hour, I pick up my pen and write for another hour.  If there is time, I will read for a while.  My life now has renewed focus and new goals.  Yay-uh!   **She dances around the room in her capilene underwear here.**

6. Feeding Birds
Put up a little cheapo birdfeeder I got at Walmart after Xmas.  Found I loved sitting on the windowseat with binocs and watching the comings and goings, as well as the territorial disputes of all the feathered wildlife.  Upgraded to a better feeder recently (a squirrel-proof one) and added suet and a thistle sock and another all-purpose feeder.  There's always a party in the yard.  Love it.  It's a great diversion from the fascistic hegemony of the computer screen.

Someone asked me if I had cake for my birthday.  You kidding me?  Of course I had cake for my birthday! 

Not to brag, but I think I make just about the best chocolate cake in the whole universe and that's what I was planning to make for myself this year and would have, except that I remember Emily sending me a link awhile back for a cake that she thought I really should try.  It was described as being INTENSE.  An intense cake?  I was intrigued

Well, I made it and it was (and still IS--please people, I need this cake to be GONE before I EAT it all!) and good gods and goddesses this thing really takes the ....  I'm not saying it.

Look for yourself.  The recipe and photos are here. Read the comments too.  One person said they were licking their monitor.

And this is how it turned out in real life:





(I would take a picture of the dimpled thighs to go with this, but nobody wants to see that.)

Little gap in the posting because I've been celebrating.  First, my birthday, and yesterday the inauguration. I don't know which event was more momentous. 

My b-day continues till the end of the month (I take 2 weeks to celebrate because I have learned over the years that it is totally impossible to celebrate the wondrousness of me in a measly 24 hours. Get real, people.) 2 weeks. Minimum. 

It started last Friday after Happy Hour Yoga.  G said, "Why don't we go over to the Nest and have a drink, kick the celebration off with a Blue Moon martini."  Brilliant.

Walked into the bar to find a collection of some of my favorite people in the whole world.  It was a set-up.  Not a party, just a get-together of people who have been holed-up too long in hibernation mode. G sent out an APB to anyone who was available and up for it to "Come out, come out wherever you are!" and lots of people did.  Lots of yogarians, too.  At one point Diane Kalata, who was there having dinner with her husband came into the bar, saw all the yogarians and said, "Oh! So THIS is Happy Hour yoga!" 

It was a good moment.  It was a fun night.

Last night in Beginner Yoga class at the studio I was teaching Bridge.  I was trying to emphasize how important it is to come down slowly. (Well, it's not important maybe, just yummy. And yummy is important, right? )

I say.  "Take. Your. Time." (with lots of space between each word, for emphasis.)

How many times do you hear that in your day, eh? Like about...none?  It's more like, "Could you have that to me by...yesterday?  Or:  "I need that ASAP."  Or: "Put a rush on that, okay?"  Or: "Can I get that express?"

Or if you do hear "take your time" you know the person saying it doesn't  really mean it.

E.g.
"Are you ready to order, or do you need a little more time with the menu?" 
"No problem, take your time," says the waitress.

(Really?  I can take my time?)

Puh.  No. 

"Take your time" in this case means: "I'm going to set that other table up with water? And when I'm done you better be ready to order or you're never getting your food tonight, folks"

But when I say "take your time" coming down from Bridge I MEAN IT!

I say it really slooowwly.  I take a big pause in between words, so I sort of sound demented. 

Take

Your

Time.

Thing is?  Nobody believes me.  Everyone comes down pretty fast. 

Nobody believes me. 

Ahhh...conditioning.  Gotta work on that.

Did Ashtanga this morning with Christine and Rob.  Ordinarily this practice makes me feel amazing.  Not today though. 

Today I was cranky through most of it.  (I'm sure Christine and Rob weren't aware of this. My only negative outburst was when we were finished and I said that I hated all the poses after Navasana.)

I hate them because I can't DO them, mostly.  And because I can't DO them, I am always thinking about them, thinking critical thoughts about them:

"What's the point of this?"  is the  mantra.

Bur today not only was I cranky  in all the poses after Navasana, I was cranky in all the poses before Navasana  too:

My forward bends were "pathetic." 
I still can't hoist myself up and float back into chaturanga. 
I still need a blanket under my hip in triang mukhaikapada paschimottanasana.
I hate sitting on my heel in janu sirsanana B
I hate janu sirsasana C altogether
Marichyasana C is impossible

Shall I go on?

So you'd think that savasana would be a welcome relief after all that, wouldn't you?

No.  The floor was too hard.  Even a blanket underneath me didn't help.

I came home grouchy.  Ate my egg and toast, had my coffee, went up to my room for my hour meditation, followed by writing and reading.

I feel better now, but man!  Sometimes yoga makes me grouchy.  Or maybe the yoga just magnifies or churns up the stuff that's already there, looking for an outlet?

(Bingo.)

It's cold. It's cloudy. It's fucking January!

I'm tired of 'armoring" against weather.  I want to be FREE!  I want to wear shorts and no shoes!  I want to GO! GO! GO! without having to check weather.com

(End of rant.)

Namaste.

Spent the weekend cuddled up with books.  Winter recipe: Books +snow + warm fire = Ahhh.

Working on my resolution to read more.  Finished Thresholds of the Mind by Bill Harris (the founder of Centerpointe) and am *this close* to the end of Tantra: Path of Ecstasy.  I have added Writing to Change the World by Mary Pipher and the Mahabarata to my in-progress list. 

I have had the Mahabarata on my list for decades.  It is the longest poem in the world.  I am reading it in novel form though, rather than verse.  I am reading this edition.  Started it today, in fact.  I only hope I can keep all the characters straight.  They don't  have names like "Jason" or "Stella."  More like, Dhritarastra and Vyasadeva.  Not names that exactly roll off the tongue.  (Kinda like reading Dostoyevsky.)
 
(And I only went to Walmart once, for birdseed.)

Did a yoga presentation on Friday as part of University Days.  About 12 people showed up.  Showed them yoga-y  things to do at their desks to break up tension during the day. Not Down Dog, and definitely NOT Happy Baby.  I did teach them Kapalabhati pranayam, though, complete with tissues.  I also taught them Lion's Breath.  As I was doing Lion's Breath with them and they were all cracking up, I wondered why I don't do that more often in the studio.  Will have to fix that.  I like it.  It makes me laugh.

Tonight is Hot Yoga.  I must say that I think I am pretty damn brilliant for scheduling this class now.  Last week I got the room up to 89 degrees.  89 DEGREES, PEOPLE!  Thermometer this morning read a big "SIX."  It is going to feel great to practice in there tonight. 

Another bliss equation:
16 degrees outside+89 degrees inside+ vinyasa flow yoga = Ahhh....

Those are the topics for the day.

Immersion
I have now completed 2 weeks of The Dive in my new Holosync meditation program, and yesterday I started the Immersion. 

It's rough. 

It's  rough because I am always nodding off.  In The Dive you hear a combination of background rain and foreground bells.  In the Immersion it's all rain, all the time.

After a half hour of bells and rain (which lure you into a deep delta state), the Immersion section of the cd takes you to an even deeper level and keeps you there for another half hour...in the rain.

No matter how rested, alert and caffeinated I am, it's a major struggle to stay awake.  Afterwards though, I walk around all spacey and slow.  It's cool.  Like being high without drugs.  I like it--A LOT.  But man, the effort it takes not to fall asleep in all that nice rain?.  Brutal.  And the thing is, I'm not even sure I should be resisting sleep.  The directions are to "be okay with whatever happens."  But it seems a waste of good delta waves to fall asleep, right? 

Water
I hate water.  I know, I know, but I do.  Everybody knows the benefits of being properly hydrated and everyone knows the deleterious effects of dehydration.  But still, I hate it.  If I could just insert an IV and sit here for an hour or so, dinking around on the computer and get myself hydrated, I'd be in heaven.
I hate water, and I pretty much hate the sight of my pitcher with my "daily dose" of 80 oz. in it that I have to choke down every day as part of my Strength For Life regimen
I don't know why I'm even writing about this. Just to vent.  Yeah. Don't tell me about how good water is for me.  I know.  I know.

Here's what I'm up against:

So I started Strength for Life today.  I'll be in Base Camp for the next 12 days.  There's something very "manly" about this program that's kinda unnerving me.  I may have to stop shaving my armpits or something. It's scaring me, frankly.

But okay, it is a strength training program after all, a male bastion, only recently invaded by us womenfolk.

So back to Base Camp.  Base Camp  is to prove to yourself that you have the chops (see? I'm using words like "chops"  already. When do I ever use the word "chops" without preceding it with "pork?"  See what I mean?)

The thinking here is, if you can't do the diet, sleep and water requirements for a measly 12 days, how will you ever prevail for 12 WEEKS.  The next 12 days are to prove to yourself that you are serious about getting strong. (**hoo-hah**)

The rules are as follows: eat lean, clean and green, (this means no alcohol, sugar or dairy); drink an abundance of water (80 oz.), get at least 7 hours sleep; and practice gratitude.

Then, there is the pre-training regimen involving 3 sets of push-ups, squats and sit-ups on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.  No weights yet.

I didn't think the push-ups would be such a problem because I can crank out plank like nobodies business, and my chaturanga? Psh.  No problemo.  So what are push-ups, right? Chaturanga on testosterone.

Wrong.  Down, and then UP again? Rnise and repeat 15 TIMES??  You kidding me?  Elbows out to the side? Srsly?  

So I resorted to the "girl" push-ups with the bent knees on the floor and the shaved armpits and even THOSE I couldn't push back up into.

I'm ashamed.  I'm pathetic.  I have a looooonnng road to strength ahead of me.

Time to start growing a few armpit hairs.

The spring catalog from Kripalu came this weekend.  If I had the resources ($$) and the time, here are the programs I would do:

March 13-15
Building Strength in your Upper Body with Karin Stephan.  Karin teaches at my friend Val's studio in Tampa and she does nothing but rave about her.  Plus, I am into upper body strength these days.

March 20-22
Intro to Ashtanga Yoga  with David Swenson. He's probably an ego maniac, but how cool to learn from the master, eh?

April 12-15
Pranayama Fundamentals with Larissa Hall Carlson.  Larissa is incredible!  If any of you yogarians ou there are looking for a great Kripalu getaway this spring, this is the one you should do. Too bad it happens during April, too. Conflicts with the April Yoga Challenge.

Someone sent me this piece from the NY Times about how some yoga teachers are breaking loose and bringing humor into their teaching.

(Hello?  Who ever said you couldn't be funny, or crack a joke, or laugh in class??)
It made me feel validated nevertheless, because if I couldn't laugh in yoga?  Or if I had to put my sense of humor on ice to teach? Pth.  I'd be so out of there! 

So here is the article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/01/health/nutrition/01fitness.html?emc=eta1

And then, within the article were some YouTube videos.  This one cracked me up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSK4zB_33Xc

Enjoy!

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Last night was so beautiful.  10 people showed up, which floored me. I was prepared for nobody. 

The weather was cold, and windy, and it had been snowing all day so the roads were not great.  All day I went back and forth about canceling or not canceling.  I told myself I would decide by 2 p.m.

At 2 the sun was shining.  The sky was blue. It was cold and windy, but I thought, "What the heck, go for it."

I set up the studio, put a sign on the door that said "Please enter in silence and remain silent." 

People began to arrive.  As they entered they were so so respectful, I would even say , "reverential."  I felt touched.  I felt emotional. I can't explain it.  It felt like the zendo, and I always felt emotional going into the zendo, too.

I love New Year's Eve.  It's such an important marker.  One year is ending, a new one is about to begin. It's a day of reflection for me; a day to make plans for course corrections; to make plans to change, to grow.  It is an opportunity  to become very still, very  quiet, and connect in.
It's a day to stop being busy, to hang up the phone, and  allow inner wisdom a chance to speak.

After the Yoga Nidra session, everyone spent some time writing a letter to themselves.  I did too.  I will mail these letters so they arrive in mailboxes on the first day of spring. 

I floated out of the studio.  I felt so happy.  There was so much love in that room.  It's weird, because nobody talked, yet there was a very deep feeling of connection.

(If you were there, did you feel it too??)

Today I woke up early, and when the sun rose, the sky was blue and there was no wind.  I walked the dog in the quiet morning, through the  squeeky, dry snow.  I spent a lot of time writing in my paper journal, planning for change. I took down Christmas. I went to the studio and cleaned and mopped and folded blankets and threw away all the cups.

New Year, new cups, Yogarians!

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These are the books I got for Xmas. Top row, left to right: The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire: Harnessing the Infinite Power of Coincidence by Deepak Chopra; The Earth Speaks by Steve Van Matre and Bill Weiler; Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.
Second row: Book of Obituaries from The Economist; Awaken the Giant Within by Anthony Robbins; The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner (audiobook)
Third row: Take a Paddle: Finger Lakes, New York Quiet Water for Canoes and Kayaks by Rich and Sue Freeman


Some of these were titles people found on my Amazon Wish list, but others were surprises, like the The Book of Obituaries  from The Economist. (What a rockin' book! We should all hope to have our obituaries written by The Economist.)and the Eric Weiner audiobook.

But the reason I am bringing this up is because I want to underscore, yet again, the importance of my staying faithful to The Computer Diet.  Otherwise there will be no time left in my day to read, and reading all the books on my list, not just the ones pictured above, is one big part of my 2009 New Year's Resolution Extravaganza.

In no particular order, here's what this year's Extravaganza looks like:

• Continue with my ass-early wake-up time of 4:30 a.m  Right now this is kinda brutal, because it is a whopping 3 hours (!!) before sunrise, but before long it will be sunrise (or just about)
• Continue with Holosync. Next week my current 30 minute session ramps up to a full hour.
• Be able, by this time next year, to do a free standing headstand and a forearm balance, and lie back in Hero's pose. My constant mantra will be: Practice "incessantly, with reverence, for a long time" (Sutra 1.14)
• Read The Mahabarata.
• Read most, if not all, of the books on my List
• Follow the strength training program in Shawn Phillips book Strength for Life

As I have been writing this post, the sun (or, I should say light) has started to fill the room.  Time for the dog walk, meditation and the 11 o'clock yoga class.

Namaste!

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(Before I describe my Holosync experience thusfar, the answer is "yes," I did change the background colors for this blog.  All that white was getting on my nerves.)

Not that my nerves have been frayed or anything!  No, no! Quite the contrary.  I just got finished my 5th Holosync session and I feel totally great. Here are a few things I've noticed since starting.

My eyes are looking at things longer.  Instead of darting around, hither- thither, sucking in visual sense data like a Hoover Wind Tunnel Supreme, I now stare.  I am calling this staring: "feeling focused."  I think it's a good thing. Slower is good, right? It's not as if I live in a high stim dangerous neighborhood where I have to constantly be on the lookout for evil-doers and other perpetrators of darkness, right?

I might be missing out on some cool but non-essential sense data, but the up-side is that I am now fully aware of (and intrigued by) what is actually coming in.  For example, I didn't yank on the dog  this mornng as she put her nose down every single mouse hole in the snow. Instead, I noticed that there were about 50 starlings in a tree right over my head tweeting like it was the first day of spring.  Normally all this mouse hole sniffing woud have me beside myself with impatience: C'mon! (yank)  But today I just stared at her, and the birds, and let it go.  (It also didn't hurt that it was 45 degrees and sunny this morning). 

Since Holosync, I haven't been feeling so ADD either. As it stands, I really don't run the advanced "Pro Version" of ADHD anyway; mine is still pretty much in beta-testing, but even still, I am noticing much less picking-up-and-leaving-off- without- finishing behaviors.  Mulit-tasking is all the rage now, but I'm sensing that its fashion-forward days might be on the wane. At least for me.

My mind still wanders while I listen to The Dive, but I seem to be able to catch these wanderings faster. (Loads faster than when I meditated on the cushion, for instance,  where the timer would go off and I would I realize only then that I had been off in la-la land the entire time!)

So yeah, Holosync is working for me.

Today I plan to start de-constructing Xmas: taking down the tree, etc.  It's time to clean up the old year and start thinking seriously about New Year's Resolutions.  I have some ideas already.  Stay tuned.

Hey, Merry Christmas Yogarians! 

Hope you are happy today, whatever you are doing, whoever you are with, and wherever you are.

In a few minutes I will put on my yoga clothes and set up my mat in the living room, right in front of the Christmas tree and do my practice.  I've been doing it there for the past few days and it is so pretty!  (the tree, not my practice.)

I saw an interview with Michael Phelps (I think it was on 60 Minutes) and the interviewer was asking him about his training.  He said he didn't miss a day of practice in 5 YEARS!

"Even on Christmas??" the interviewer asked.
"Yep."
"How about your birthday?"
"Yep."

I like that.  So what if it's Christmas?  What better day to practice, eh? I hope you get a chance to roll out your mat today and take your Downward Dog for a nice long walk.

So in other news, I want to tell you about my new "toy."  I didn't get it for Christmas, I ordered it a few weeks ago and it came the day before yesterday.  I've been researching it, and thinking about it, and thinking about it, and researching it some more.  And then I just took the plunge and bought it.  It wasn't that expensive ($180) so that wasn't the cause for all the hemming and hawing and hesitation. 

It was the 'too good to be true" thing. 

I was REALLY skeptical of the claims of this thing, but then a person I respect said that it totally changed his life, so... I got it.

I got Holosync.  You can read about it here.  Or you can get "the voice" telling you all about it here.
Or, you can just read on and I'll tell you about my 2 day experience with it.

Holosync is neurotechnology.  It's an audio program designed to change your brainwave patterns and bring you into a deep meditative state without all the effort of meditating.

Here's how it works:

After you plunk down your $180 bucks, you get  box with a whole bunch of stuff in it including all the research, complimentary cds and the main cd called The Awakening Prologue.  This is the cd that is going to change your brain. You must listen to this cd with headphones. Essential. 

The  "Awakening Prologue" consists of 2 parts and each part lasts 30 minutes.  For 2 weeks you listen to part 1 every day  (Part 1 is called The Dive --I know, I know, but stay with me here.) 

Then, after 2 weeks you listen to The Dive plus the second part (called Immersion), which brings you up to a one hour listening committment everyday.  And you do this everyday for 4 months.

If you go to centerpointe.com they will tell you all about Beta brain waves and Delta brain waves and all the waves in between.  I believe them.  I think we really know a lot more about the brain than we ever have before.  And how to manipulate it. It's all about the binaural beats and adjusting them.  Gradually.  Over time.

 
( my experience with meditation before this )

So here's what happened the day before yesterday.  I sat in my papasan chair, dug out my Discman, put on my Bose headphones, put the cd in, closed my eyes and what did I hear?

Rain.  Temple bells.  Soft rain.  Temple bells.  Steady soft rain.  Ding.   Dong.  Ding-ding.  Dong. 

About 15 minutes in, I remembered that I had been here before.  I had been to this very place.  It was the place I was "in" after the 2nd day of retreat.  It was the place I was able to access after all the hulabaloo of  "life" died down. 

I remembered living in this place for days at a time at Springwater.  It was deep and very...plain.  It was a plain, simple, pared-down place.  It was extremely beautiful.  But in the past I have only been able to access this "place" after sitting very still for many, many hours in an environment that was deliberately set up so that I did not need to talk to, or look at anyone else and could only look inside, or at crows or clouds or carrots.

After my first half hour of The Dive I felt amazing.  I felt so focused.  They tell you to sit for a few minutes after you take the headphones off, then go about your day. 

I had to wrap Christmas presents.  I usually hate to wrap presents.  Wrapping presents taxes my patience.  My presents always turn out looking like they were wrapped by a 5 year-old. 

I wrapped about 10 beautiful presents.  It was a pleasure to cut and tape and be-ribbon the presents. 

I really like this.  I REALLY like this!!  I like Holosync!

I will be blogging about this in the coming days and weeks as things "happen."  In the meantime, does anyone need anything wrapped??

In an hour or so I will head off to the studio and start warming up for my class.  It's been a crazy week and I can't wait to practice tonight.  It's the Chalasana class which will be the perfect antidote for how I feel. 

Yesterday and the day before I've gotten out on my XC skis.  Not for very long, but long enough to begin to feel calmer, more centered, as well as more  energized. It was SO VERY NECESSARY.

I have been feeling really crazy lately. 

I've been baking cookies.

Lots of cookies.  Too many cookies.

These cookies:



Pretty?  Yes. 
Declicious?  Omygod. 

BUT...

beyond mixing cookie dough and forcing it through a press,  I cannot remember  what else I have been doing.  I have the sense that there has been a lot of doing, though.  More doing than being (as in being mindful, being quiet, being...happy) 

I have a vague memory of a lot of socializing and talking and going-going.  I have a body  memory of a manic "busyness" but with little if anything,to show for it.  (except, of course, cookies.)

Tis the season to be jolly? 

Really? Really??

More like: Tis the season to curl up on the couch and read until spring. 

So yeah, where was I?  Oh yeah, the skiing. 

Getting out into the snow to ski was great--as well as necessary. I took great big gulps of cold air and great big kicks into the unbroken snow and when I was done, all the cookie-doughy, sugary, manic, slow-down/ speed-up/ hurry-up, what am I forgetting? Oh forget it!  When is this going to over? brain-blizzard was over.
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Today it was too bitter to ski, (negative integers are not my friend), so I went to the gym instead and rode the Expresso bike.  Worked up a good sweat too, and now I feel I've shaken the Cookie Monster Brain Virus that had taken over my head for the past week and a half.

Also, we're passed the winter solstice now, so today it seems a lot brighter.  What a difference a day makes. 

That, and a big  endorphin rush.

Oh, btw, If you're coming to yoga tonight? 

Bwahahahaha......

 

While it is certainly true that I feel that my life is now in the "Renouncer" stage, it's been there for a long time.  It was there during my "Householder" stage and even, though to a much foggier degree, during the "Student" years.

I think there are lots of people who come to vertical concerns really early.  For me, the death of my father when I was 9 did it.  I distinctly remember driving in the hearse on the way to the cemetary and passing my grade school and thinking: From here on, everything changes.

That event was my initiation into verticality.  I needed to know the meaning of life, the meaning of death.  I started walking at age 9, the path I'm still on.

Lots of people I know came to verticality early in life.  It was usually brought on by a traumatic life event like a death, or a disease, or a divorce.  Some came to verticality through books or other art forms. Others were just tempermentally predisposed. 

For these people, vertical concerns were, and are, being  expressed through their daily lives in how they raise their kids (i.e.conscious parenting techniques), or how they run their businesses and treat their clients (i.e.conscious business practices), and by the choices they make in their day-to-day interactions with others.  So many people are making personal ethical choices to live lightly and cleanly on the earth, for example.

We can no longer  "Renounce" the world.  What forest are we going to move to?  Where is that cave? 

What people do now is retire.  In Vedic times, "retirement" meant eschewing horizontal concerns and going off to live "vertically" in the forest, praying and meditating in order to become a Liberated Being before one died.  

Today retirement seems to mean getting even more deeply "horizontal."  It means unshackling oneself from the "job" but to do what?  Ever ask people on the verge of retirement what they plan to do?  Ever hear an answer that inspires you?  The only thing they seem to want to be liberated from is their job.  They don't want to go deeply into what it means to live.  

If all of Manu's stages are bleeding into one another in how we live today, this could be an exciting development for us.  It could mean Liberated Being status could occur at any point on the timeline, or at any moment during our day.

Liberation could hapen while dealing with a cranky baby, or a cranky customer. It could happen while separating the recycling, or doing the dishes, or setting one's feet firmly in place for Warrior 1. 

The lifestyle of the Liberated Being is inherently integrated.  Sometimes it's lived on the horizontal plane, some days it's intensely vertical.  But the Liberated Being isn't attached to either, but can dance back and forth, in and out of each of them as the situation arises.

Cool.

I'm currently reading Tantra:The Path of Ecstasy by Georg Feuerstein.

It's really good.  Georg (why he has no "e" on the end of his name is kinda baffling, but I'm getting used to it) is a Sanskrit scholar who writes to be read, rather than to show off his learned erudition. 

I like that in a writer.  In fact, I have absolutely no time for erudite writers who write to be put in the footnotes of other unreadable erudite writers who spend most of their time attending conferences, drinking chardonnay and  back-slapping  each other about their opaque erudition.

(rant over)

But here's what I have been thinking about in regards to Georg with no "e"'s book:

He tells this story, in Chapter 3, of  this guy named Manu, (who sounds a little like he could be a Sanskrit  version of Adam, but an Adam who wrote philosophy) who had this theory that the the course of a human life could be divided into 4 stages, with each stage lasting 21 years.  It goes like this:

0-21 yrs.- Student
21-42 yrs. - Householder
42-63 yrs. -Renouncer
63-84 yrs - Liberated Being

The Student part from birth to age 21 seems right and is self-explanatory. This is where the moral, intellectual and spiritual foundations of a person are laid.

The Householder's age from 21 to 42 is when he/she is preoccupied with stuff on the "horizontal" plane: family, job, belongings, status, prospects.

When the kids grow up and leave home (a big fat IF in our society) and the empty nest happens, the Householder proceeds to the Renouncer stage where he/she moves to the forest, or to a remote cave, and starts spending all of his/her time focusing on getting Liberated (meaning, transcending the concerns of the horizontal plane and learning the the true nature of Reality with a capital "R".)

  The Renouncer does this by intensifying his/her ritual practices of prayer and meditation. The Renouncer is definitely on a vertical path.
This takes 21 years. (Firm.)

At the end of these 21 vertical years (by age 63) the Renouncer is now, hopefully, if everything went well, a Liberated Being.  He/she has transcended the limitations of the horizontal plane, realized the true nature of the Innermost Self (capital "I" capital "S") as well as the true nature of all other beings and things.  Once this happens, The Liberated Being is then free to live a completely Spontaneous Lifestyle (whoo-hoo!).  A Spontaneous Lifestyle is a completely integrated lifestyle where the Liberated Self can now spend all of his/her time dancing a kind of Shiva dance (insert multiple arms going all which ways here) between the horizontal plane, and the vertical plane, without being confined to either.

So, as I have been making spritz cookies, and wrapping Xmas presents to send to Oregon, and teaching my classes, and all the rest of it, I have been thinking about these 4 stages and examining my own life in the light of them. And although I understand where Manu is coming from certainly, it has been my experience that these stages have been bleeding into one another for years. I think there is a New Age version of these 4 stages, and I will pick up with this again tomorrow because I am dangerously close to blowing my entire Computer Calorie budget for the day.  

Later!

It's already 10 to 6, so I have to hurry up now and do all my "fun and fluffy" things on the internet because at 7 AM I have to start counting my "Computer Calories."

That's because I've put myself on a very strict Computer Diet.  I am only allowing myself  2 hours a day (120 minutes) of non-work related "dinking around."

(You know "dinking around", right?:  Reading news feeds, blogs, Twittering, following random links wherever they may lead, writing friendly non-business related emails, blogging-- in short, dinking.)

I'm not one of those people who have what is called an "addictive personality." Normally. 

But when it comes to the computer?  Oh man.  The open laptop on the dining table? (which is where mine is located) it sings to me, calls to me, beckons with its finger of blue light, it's bloopy instant email notifier, its lure of "information I REALLY NEED."

It's like the Island of  the Sirens in Homer's Odyssey that  I am hypnotically drawn to. And unless drastic measures are taken, I will surely crash the ship of my life right into it, and drown.

(Well, maybe that's a little dramatic.  But you get the idea.)

The real reason I have put myself on this time-restriction is that I want more time to read.  (PS. Santa?  I would love a Kindle for Xmas!)

It's as simple as that.  I have been hearing about, and amassing a daunting list of titles of books people have been recommending to me, telling me I  must read, "you will SO love this book!" and I know that unless I get off this computer, time will never break open and allow me to do so. 

(I have Brian Johnson and Philosophers Notes to thank for much of  my "must read" book list, btw.)

So here are the "Rules" of The Computer Diet:

• The computer "day" does not begin until 7 a.m.  All a.m. hours before 7 are "free."
• Legitimate "work" does not count against the 2 hours.  Things like business emails, working in Excel, building schedules, working on John's novel--all that is "working."
• What does count against the 2 hours are things like posting here, Twittering, shopping online, reading blogs, news feeds, and all general dinking.
• The weekends are "free" starting Friday night and extending into Sunday night.  This allows time to "catch up" on all the fluffly things I missed (and love!) during the week.
• Minutes will be tracked in a memo book beside the computer.  I am on the "Honor System."

And that's it.

To support my reading habit, and to keep track of all the books I've read lately, as well as my burgeoning list of ones I plan to read, I've started actually using the Good Reads account I set up a long time ago.  It's a very cool site.  Kasey Cox of From My Shelf turned me on to it.  You can see my account here.

I see that I am now 11 minutes into my Computer Day, so I am going to go DO Things!  Things that do not involve a keyboard and a screen!  I am going to eat breakfast!  Yes! 

Good morning!

Yesterday was a snow-shoveling day.  We got about a foot overnight. 

I like shoveling snow.  I find it relaxing to do repetitive, mindless activities on occasion.  But even still, I found myself creating little strategies for the shoveling: dividing up the driveway into quadrants, making sure the drainage grate was clear, deciding where the shoveled snow was to be amassed.  Like that.  I stood on the driveway for a while just thinking it all out. 

Midway into the job, I became bored with it.  "This is pointless," I thought.  I don't have to go anywhere today I can't walk.  I am digging out cars.  Cars that, once the driveway is clear, I won't even drive.  If I didn't have a car, would I be shoveling at all?  Maybe just the walking pathways around the house, but that's all," I thought.

When I was in grad school in CT I rented a house from a professor on sabbatical.  He had a lot of cats, and taking care of the cats was part of the deal.  They were outside cats.  I fed them on the front porch, but they lived in an old button mill on the property.  The button mill was about 50 yards from the house.  Every morning I would watch from the kitchen window as a long parade of cats made their way across the lawn for breakfast.  (I think there were something like 18 cats.  Lots of cats, in any case.   A good-sized herd.  (None of the males used condoms, obviously.)

Then came The Blizzard of 1978. We got a ridiculous amount of snow.  55 inches the Wiki-pedia article I just looked up said.  It seemed like a lot more than that, though.  The house I lived in was a little cape and the snow covered the front door up to the roof line.  Fortunately, the back door was clear and I could get out.

Fortunately for the cats, I should say, because they were trapped in the button mill and I was their only hope for rescue.

Now that, my friends, was shoveling!  I had a mission!  I had to save the cats!  It was great, and even at the time I thought so.  I felt like a fireman, or an avalanche rescue person, or some other brave being who forsakes all personal comfort to come to the aid of...well, you get the idea.

It took me from morning until way into the night to shovel a narrow path to the button mill.  I was up to my sternum in snow  the whole way. When I  looked up from my shoveling I could see little cat faces at the windows of the button mill, watching me. I waved my red shovel like a flag at them and yelled, "Hold on, cats!  I'm coming!"  (I think the more wise-assy ones were in there laughing at me, little mouse tails dripping from their lips.)

Once I got to the mill and cleared their entryway, they came pouring out, cat after cat, and then they slowly made their way to the house, lifting their little feet and shaking off the filthy snow every so often like it was glue they had just stepped in. 

Once at the house, I filled 3 oblong baking dishes with warm milk and treated them to canned food.  Gradually they made their way back to the button mill.  With full bellies. 

I was as tired as any human being could be that night. 

But it was a great day of shoveling.  It was a noble, valorous kind shoveling.  I had saved the cats. 

It was the closest to feeling like Mother Teresa I have ever felt.