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Up until today, I’ve been in the dark when it comes to the shoulder blade chakra. Oh, well. Surprise! I found this because I was trying to get a good image of the thoracic vertebrae from the back, with some kind of indication of where the shoulder blades would fall.

Why am I looking for such a thing, you ask? Well, I think I might have experienced some shoulder blade chakra this morning, and I’m curious to visualize it.

I first noticed it in salabhasana, then again in bhekasana. A sense that there was some space between two vertebrae aligned (I think) with the bottom edges of my shoulder blades. And weirdly, as I lay on my belly, I could extend into the space and turn my upper back up more.

This may be a duh! for any natural backbenders out there, but it was rather a revelation for me. I have been perplexed by the notion of bending the thoracic spine. I mean, look at it: it’s a cage, for goodness sake — designed for stability and immobility. How could it bend?

I guess the answer is, as Matthew Sweeney would say, spice! It’s the spice in the spine that makes for the bend.

I guess I’ve been struggling to access the spice. But you know, since I’ve been stretching my nervous system instead of conquering the poses, I’ve found that a lot of the sensation comes from different places than I’m accustomed to. And it moves around day to day. I need to practice this consciousness more in order to really be able to conceptualize it, but suffice it to say, when I am trying to backbend, it is very different from when I am stretching my spine.

And I’ll also note that after a day of dietary fat, practice felt quite nice. I didn’t make as many crackles and pops as I usually do.

All in all, the experiment goes along nicely.

There is something incredibly delightful about thinking of practice as stretching my nervous system. I am super-sensitive to metaphor and simile, so these kinds of ideas can be very inspiring for me.

This morning: standing poses, half-primary, intermediate to kapotasana, Sweeney ustrasana variations, closing, and a 5 minute savasana. Total time: 60 minutes. Was my nervous system relaxed? Well, kinda. Pretty good for a Monday morning, certainly.

Given my real-life time constraints, I am usually willing to jettison savasana in order to do more poses. Or to give a pup a break. Waylon doesn’t love being in a closed space.

Today, though, The Cop got up early, so set the inmate free. (The Cop now says Waylon’s name with a Cajun accent — something like “Waay-lone” with an almost non-existent French “n.” It is very dear.)

Anyhow, Waylon goes into the crate at yoga time. I put his toys in the crate, and put some peanut butter in a Kong toy and gift him with that, but he pretty much can’t get past the closed door. This morning he stood for long minutes with the peanut-butter-filled Kong in his mouth, facing the door of the crate and willing it to open. It’s a wire crate, and it’s big, so it’s really not at all constricting — but still, he has a problem with the closed door.

He whines a bit, then settles with the Kong, then whines some more, then plays with another toy, whines, plays, whines, paces, whines — you get the picture. After about 30 minutes of that, he usually falls asleep.

But as I mentioned, this morning The Cop rescued him. Waylon happily ditched his crate and followed The Cop into the livingroom. I went on with my practice.

A moment later, Waylon was back. He marched into his crate, picked up one of his toys, and took it into the livingroom. Then he came back, picked up another, and removed it to the livingroom. With great gravity, he marched back for every single toy.

I figured that was it — he’d retrieved his belongings like some angry ex-boyfriend. He was done with me. But no, I looked up a few minutes later and there he was, sitting in his empty crate, door open, gazing at me.

Oh, little buddy! How I love you in these moments.

***

Okay, so my nervous system had its stretch and relax, and I’m also going to factor in an additional suggestion from Sri Narasimhan: dietary fat.

I never hold back on fat (Yay for nuts, avocados and mayonnaise!), but I need to get more conscious about it. I say this because I have incredibly dry skin to begin with, and it’s been especially bad lately.

So I’ll use the CRON-o-meter (which is an excellent little piece of software) to track my fat for a few days and see what’s going on. I’m betting some extra fat will help my skin and make me feel bendier.

Oooh, I think there may be an article for Naive Science Journal a-brewin’!

This morning I decided to try a 40 minute practice to stretch my nervous system. Standing poses, intermediate to kapotasana, a handful of ustrasana variations from Matthew Sweeney’s Vinyasa Krama, urdhva dhanurasana, dropbacks to the dune, abbreviated closing. Then a 15 minute savasana. Total time: 55 minutes.

Yes, my nervous system relaxed. But boy, does it have a way to go.

Waylon… um, “helped” from inside his crate in the yoga room. I gave him a beef tendon to keep him busy. Supposedly, they amuse puppies and small dogs for hours. Yeah, well, not so much. First off, he kept dropping it outside the crate, meaning I stopped three or four times during standing poses to return the thing to his crate. Then he managed to swallow the whole thing within about 15 minutes of having it returned to him. Yeah. Hours of chewing fun. Not.

I guess he was exhausted after watching me retrieve his toy, because he promptly fell asleep. Which is actually the ideal state for a puppy during yoga practice.

At that point, the relaxation really began.

P.S. Now that I’m done and have had a cup of tea and am writing, I feel kind of guilty for not having done “enough.” What’s that really about? I’m kind of afraid to really look at that. I suspect it is rooted in personal insecurity and my impulse to achieve and do more more more!

Definitely related to what Owl was talking about when she said:

Westerners have reinterpreted the practice in a way that takes away from the basic keys of

RELAXATION

and

CLEANSING THE NERVOUS SYSTEM

We really do (1) eat like shit, and (2) refuse to learn to relax the whole organism. And then use asana to get a temporary feeling of cancelling out those behaviors.

It’s easy for Ashtangis to get into running on empty, I think. Little sleep, little food, lots of caffeine, long practices — it’s really easy to turn the system into a treadmill, into a grind. And the physical practice feels intense, and the psychological habit feels compelling, so it’s easy to think the grind is proof of the efficacy of the system. Uh oh, potential for a blind loop…

I don’t think this is just about Ashtanga, by the way. You can do it with anything. I’ve certainly done it with cardio workouts, with academic striving, with corporate ladder climbing.

***

Okay, there’s another zen practice to discuss. Bow to your teacher.

It’s an interesting practice. Especially when you add in the following information: your teacher is whoever stands before you.

Oh, this is easy when you’re talking about your kid (yes, we learn from our kids), your dog or cat (they’re particularly good teachers), or your spouse (provided your relationship is in good shape).

What about when it’s the person you really can’t stand at work? Someone who really sets your teeth on edge?

Yup. That’s part of the practice. Now bow! Yes, bow in your mind to the person who torments you.

Why? ‘Cause it’s time for you to get humble and knock off all the high-horse ego stuff.

You go to a teacher’s Mysore room? Yes, you chose to go. Now BE there.

BE in the meeting room with the person who drives you crazy.

Bowing helps you accede to the situation, to the moment, to the present. Notice I didn’t say “surrender”? People have fits about who they’ll deign to surrender to. Whatever. Surrender is a word. Stop being silly.

Once you are present in the situation, you can learn. From your teacher. Who may be someone you think you don’t like. Someone you don’t think is QUALIFIED. (Yes, I AM laughing at you. And me. And all of us.)

Okay, time to stop thinking. Just bow to your teacher.

It’s a practice. Stop judging this idea with your mind. Just try it. It’s a challenge, and fun even if just on that account.

What if you are just present in the moment and open to the teacher in front of you? What if you learn from everyone, whether you like it or not?

What happens then?

***

And here’s my current teacher. Playing Fort-Da.

Puppy love

Waylon loves the couch. He isn’t allowed up unless he is calm and sleepy. He can’t get up by himself, though he hurls himself at it when he’s feeling feisty. I wait, though, ’til he’s all drowsy and sweet before I give him a boost up.

And it’s a big boost. We went to the vet for a check up and he weighed in at 31 pounds. He’s like picking up a frozen turkey. The vet was kind to me, recalling that we’d spoken so recently about Tyler’s necropsy. And then she took a very, very long listen to Waylon’s heart, which — it dawned on me as she listened and listened — was because she was being especially careful on my behalf.

Waylon’s nervous system is distinctly different than Ty’s. He is not exuberant like Ty. He’s given to puppy craziness, of course — wild, frenetic running and jumping and sliding through the grass in the backyard. At the end of one of his crazy runs, he even had grass stains on the top of his white head. But he is thoughtful and holds a bit back for the most part. He’s friendly with people and dogs, but deeply suspicious of mechanical things: the cars, the TV, the washing machine, the refrigerator.

It’s fascinating to watch a creature manifest its personality. And yes, I mean all creatures — dogs and cats and kids alike. All with our own unique nervous system, but all part of an all-encompassing nervous system. The variations within the whole are pretty awe inspiring.

***

Speaking of nervous systems. Check out Owl’s astonishing post about Sri Narasimhan. The comments on this entry are well worth reading, too.

Even though I practice every day, I often forget what yoga is about. This is a terrific reminder.

While we’re on a zen roll, we might as well take a look at another practice from Seung Sahn. Last time, we reviewed “Put it down.” Next up is “Don’t check.”

Not checking means not spending your time policing everyone else’s behavior. Ah, freedom! You don’t have to decide whether someone is acting the right way, you don’t have to “punish” them if they do the wrong thing. You can keep your dristi and just go about your business.

The Cop has to watch people’s behavior, because that’s his job. Interestingly, though, he does not cultivate much moral outrage — he has to verify that people’s behavior aligns with the laws, and if they don’t, he arrests them. It’s impersonal, because the law is the issue at hand. Black and white.

In regular life, though, the black and white comes from our selves. Someone may do something I disagree with — the laws of Karen have been broken! I must exact retribution! LOL! You see how silly that is.

Someone isn’t keeping dristi! Someone said something inappropriate in a meeting! A salesperson was rude! All of these things break Karen’s laws!

Whatever.

Instead of acting as judge and jury, go ahead and observe your judgment, and then put it down. The universe takes care of everyone according to the laws of karma (“you reap what you sow,” etc.), so if someone is being a jerk, you can rest assured that their life reflects their habit of being jerky to other people. You don’t need to do anything — you don’t need to point out their jerkiness, you don’t need to punish them for their jerkiness. You don’t need to judge and you don’t need to punish. You don’t need to do anything. You can observe behavior and then carry on with your own life. Because you are better off spending your energy attending to your own behavior.

In other words, swim in your own lane.

Astangis are pretty much guaranteed a good foothold in these practices. We already have established practices — using breath, bandhas and dristi to still the mind. Most of us have at least tried a bit of sitting practice. So these zen practices are just continuations, or variations.

And a quick note about these practices: you know how sitting in meditation, the whole point is to “put down” whatever pops into your head? Same deal here. Don’t deny the thoughts, don’t berate yourself for having them, don’t imagine they’ll ever go away. But as they arise, put them down. Thought by thought by thought, moment by moment by moment.

It’s a practice. That’s all.

Okay, so my first zen teacher, Seung Sahn, taught the practice of “putting it down.”

What does that mean? Well, it’s the practice of not hanging on to perceived insults, aggravations, grudges, bad feelings, etc. Lots of people think that if you practice zen, it means you don’t have aggravations or anger — but that’s ridiculous. Of course you have those things, at least if you are human. The point, though, is to practice putting them down.

First off, it’s interesting to think about why you have those things in the first place. If you take a moment, when you’re livid, to observe your feelings, what you’ll find (pretty much 99.9% of the time) is that you are pissed because your concept of your self is being offended somehow. It’s all about what Seung Sahn called “my-me-mine.” It’s all about you being the center of your own little universe, and when something doesn’t go the way you think it should, you have an internal hissy fit.

LOL!

Try it, though. Okay, so you’re driving and someone cuts you off. Anger flares! But wait a minute! Why is it there? Because someone has offended ME! Someone has not acted the way I want them to!

So you have the huge rush of anger. What does it mean, then, to practice putting that down? It means that when you feel that rush, you feel it, and then you dismiss it.

Or what if someone says something and it makes you feel insulted? What?! How dare they?!

Go ahead and try this: Put it down.

Yup. Simple as that. Practice it over and over. And when the little voice in your mind brings the insult back up again (again, and again, and again!), put it down. Again, and again, and again! The interesting thing you’ll find is that you are probably a little addicted to feeling that it’s IMPORTANT that you wring every drop of anger and insult out of your experiences. You’ll find that you think the angry insulted feeling BELONGS to you. That it’s IMPORTANT and REAL. That you shouldn’t just drop it.

So try dropping it. As a little experiment.

And if you like the results, you can keep putting things down. Over and over, every time it happens.

You know what you’ll probably find? That you don’t miss it. That it isn’t important. Imagine that: something that YOU feel isn’t all that important. LOL!

Welcome to some pretty delicious freedom.

Yes, I am a zen practitioner, and yes, I bring zen principles to the office.

Sure, but I am also a sharp-humored gal with a scientific streak, so I like my psychological and sociological experiments. The Market Research guy calls me the Cultural Anthropologist.

When someone has a difficult conversation to hold with an employee, or when someone has a daunting presentation, or has been given a dysfunctional team to manage, well, I like to sit with that person and frame the whole ordeal as an experiment.

This is useful for a couple of reasons:
1. It introduces some objectivity into the equation. It’s hard to freak out when you are busy observing the situation.
2. Experiments are fun! No matter how awful an experience might be, if you have data to interpret at the end, it can’t be all bad.

Okay, so there you have it. There are things I notice and experiment with that don’t exactly fall within traditional zen parameters. And so we introduce Machiavellian Tips and Tricks.

Tip 1: Dress for success

Can you bend people to your will, depending on how you’re dressed? Oh yeah.

What you need for this experiment:

Put on suit and shoes. Go to work. Pay attention to whether everyone thinks it’s a good idea to listen to what you say and do the things you suggest. It’s magical! (Men, you are on your own — I have no idea what the guy-equivalent of this experiment is.)

Could I be disingenuous and say the pencil skirt suit and high heels combo has no power? I could. But I’d be lying. Clearly, they do. Magical corporate power. My red purse actually seems to have some, too. Red accessories in general. This is a function of my particular office, I think. Other colors probably work in other environments. We are traditional and buttoned-down. In a more avant garde office you’re gonna have to experiment to find out what works.

Can you bend people to your will, if you dress a certain way? Oh yeah. Should you practice your zen and be mindful about how you use these powers? Yes. Yes, you should.

He’s gonna grow up and be a big old bulldog, like his parents:

Yup, he needs a nice big name.

Funny, though, to apply a big name to a little pup. I keep calling him “Pupito.” But that won’t last for long…

Waylon is settling in nicely. He defers to Maxine and bounds around the backyard joyfully. He only has two nemeses so far: the curtain near his crate in the bedroom, which he growls and barks at last thing in the evening and first thing in the morning, and a small solar light in the backyard, which he considered picking a fight with yesterday afternoon.

Love is an endless resource — always available, and plenty of it.

We brought this fellow home yesterday morning. He is settling in beautifully. No name, though. We can’t seem to find anything that “clicks” in that way that makes a name feel intuitive and inevitable. So, everyone, feel free to offer suggestions.

Practice this morning included Martin Wolff chanting and the puppy in his crate in the yoga room, whining and barking a bit. He made it through half of primary fairly well. Good enough. We can add on poses day by day, in traditional fashion.