donutszenmom.com

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’!