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Practice has been super delightful lately ’cause of the breath. My flotation experiences (and yes, I wish they’d just go back to calling it what it is: sensory deprivation) reminded me how much I enjoy breathing when I’m wearing earplugs. So practice these days includes props: the two sticky orange earplugs I bring home from the flotation spa sensory deprivation tank.

Lately I experience my breath as a sphere. Each inhale/exhale is one sphere and a single moment. I don’t think of anything that happens outside the sphere: nothing from the past, nothing from the present. If it isn’t part of the sphere, which is just the inhalation and the exhalation and the sensations of the particular posture or vinyasa, then I put it down. Sweet. It gets progressively harder to do as the week wears on; I find myself thinking about work stuff and playing scenarios in my head. No! No! No! Get out of my breath sphere! I’m entitled to at least 90 minutes per day of being beyond thought constructions, right?

***

Speaking of 90 minutes: at this point I am trekking through primary to yoga nidrasana five days a week. At almost every practice there is an interruption, usually towards the end, where my mind yells, “THIS IS A LONG HAUL!” Then I start the next breath sphere and go on.

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Waylon, after spending close to two months going around with cuts all over his jowls from Daisy’s violent affections, finally corrected her this weekend. Apparently he nipped her. Neither The Cop nor I saw it; we just heard her yelp, then saw him immediately comfort her. Talk about not holding a grudge. He did it three times over the course of the weekend, and she is now approaching him a little more gently.

Interestingly, The Cop and I had recently started reprimanding her when she was trying to rip his face off, because it didn’t seem like he ever would and it was getting too crazy. I wonder if he finally felt like it was okay, once he saw that The Cop and I didn’t like what was going on.

Still, no matter how rough and tumble she is, how can you not love a face like this?

The other night, Daisy launched herself at the sliding glass door, pawing frantically. Figuring she had to go pee, I slid the door open… Oh, no! As soon as I did it I recognized the sound of the lawn sprinklers, which had just turned on. She’d slipped past me in the moment it took me to realize what was happening, and all of my commands and pleas that she come back in the house were ignored as she romped from sprinkler to sprinkler, biting the tops of them and running away like a maniac.

When the sprinklers finally switched off, she bounded back in — soaking wet — slid on the tile, then threw herself at the couch a number of times, before finally catapulting onto the The Cop. All of the dark spots on the couch are her failed attempts to get to him. Did I mention he hates getting wet? Still, he let her snuggle up once she’d managed to summit the couch.

And here’s a picture that I suspect pretty accurately illustrates Waylon’s experience of Daisy.

She warned me

When I was in Tucson, Lisa told me to get past the fear in Bakasana B, then go on to the foot behind the head poses. ““This is the treacherous part,” she said. “From here you keep adding poses to karandavasana, and it can turn into a very long practice.”

Word.

Something else she said, that I just reread in my journal

At the end of Friday led primary she said something as people were lying down for savasana: “Don’t start thinking about how you did, or whether you did well or not well. Just be grateful for the circumstances that brought you to your practice and keep bringing you to your practice every day. You are very lucky to be among the few people who do this. Be grateful to your teachers.”

This morning’s possible misinterpretation while listening to Yoga Matrix

The expansive nature of the prana (inhale) invites flights of imagination, potential for ungroundedness — which can be tethered through a grounding through the navel.

The nature of apana (exhale) invites anxiety about death (abinivesha), which can be *released* through the navel.

[Physical interpretation: It makes a kind of figure eight.]

A Year of Cats and Dogs

Yes, I suspect I would be appalled to find myself liking this book if I were actually reading it. But I had a credit to use up at Audible, and I wanted something amusing to listen to as I did housecleaning yesterday. And the narrator of the story can communicate with animals! My favorite thing!

Anyhow, her communications with dogs in a shelter range from delightful to utterly heartbreaking. Likewise her relationship with her elderly, failing Dad. I give the book a thumbs up, even though I can also be snotty about its literary value. And I give my self a thumbs down for that.

Primates!

About 75% of my FaceBooking involves commentless sharing of this blog. Yeah, I’m a FaceBook slacker, but come on! Look at the subject: Primates! (Well, the subject is stress, actually, but I’m in it for the PRIMATES.) Yup, I not only look like a chimp, I love to read about chimps. (Shout out to Jane Goodall!) As soon as I started reading this entry, I got all excited to read about baboons! Then I read his hilarious observation:

“One of the first things I discovered was that I didn’t like baboons very much,” he says. “They’re quite awful to one another, constantly scheming and backstabbing. They’re like chimps but without the self-control.”

I think I’ll probably stick with the chimps. They’re pretty unruly as it is. Baboons sound like a non-human version of “Lord of the Flies,” and I’m depressed enough from the cats and dogs book.

After an ugly morning of emails pouring in as I sat on con calls, helplessly watching the work pile up in my mailbox, I spent my lunch break at the eye specialist.

This all started at my annual eye check up. The doctor looked in my eyes with the bright light and asked if I’ve been experiencing any visual distortions. Negative. Still, he said he saw an abnormality in my retina and that I should book an appointment with a specialist.

So that’s where I went today. Nice office but no wireless or 4G reception. Great. Finally some time as I sat waiting for my appointment and I couldn’t even get at my emails, which were continuing to increase. Sigh.

A technician puts drops in my eyes to dilate them, and I sit there. Blurry.

Finally my eyes and the doctor are ready. She then takes a series of instruments with increasingly brighter lights and shines them directly into my eyes until I feel like she is burning a hole into the middle of my skull. Ow! I am light sensitive to begin with, so this was AWFUL. She was VERY thorough, combing my eyes over and over with the blowtorch light. I don’t complain about the dentist; I don’t complain about root canals. I am complaining about this. Seriously, it seemed like a good torture device.

She pushed her chair back after five leisurely minutes spent searing my eyes and my brain and everything that connects them. “I don’t see anything,” she announced.

Huh.

Well, that’s good news, though hard to feel really cheerful when I am blinded and teary and thinking about migraines.

I make my way through the check out process mostly by remembering where the desk is and estimating where the face of the attendant is when I smile and say “thank you.”

She says, “You had your eyes dilated. Would you like some dark glasses?”

“No, thanks,” I say breezily. “My glasses darken in the sunlight…” and then I step outside into a July Scottsdale sun and my brain screams, “…but not FAST enough! And not DARK enough!” I stumble to my car which has crazy dark tinted windows (which I usually rather hate), and yay, my eyes stop imploding.

A probably not entirely safe drive to work. And as I walk down the hall to my office, everything is lightness and blurry edges. “Like walking toward God,” I think. Yup, this is just how Hollywood would style an office building set in heaven.

45 emails and 4 hours of conference calls between 8 AM and noon. Not funny.

Quinoa salad

Quinoa, raw corn, sunflower seeds, chopped carrots, black olives, tamari, olive oil, lemon juice.

Protein bars

Mashed banana, chopped dates, oats, peanut butter, hemp protein powder, sesame seeds, maple syrup.

Dog food

Ground raw chicken legs and thighs — bones, fat and all.

Hemp protein powder

Yes, there is one that is super-powdery and melts easily in liquid. Now I don’t have to worry about wearing hemp grit in my teeth to afternoon meetings.

Snake(s)

The one I found: it’s either a lyre or a night snake, according to Russ at the Phoenix Herpetological Society. He responded to my email and pictures within 10 minutes. It was kinda getting to me, watching the dogs play out in the yard and not knowing whether there was a rattlesnake living in the grass.

Saturday night, The Cop and I were in the back yard. I saw a movement, the thrashy sidewinding way snakes move when they’re in a hurry.

“Look! A snake!” I said.

It was a tiny one, much smaller than the one I saw on Thursday.

Not sure what’s going on out there, reptile-wise. Lots of ‘em, and they all seem especially bold. On the other hand, I haven’t seen or heard a coyote in ages.

Fly

Yesterday’s delightful holiday nap was marred by an enormous divebombing fly in the bedroom. His mission, apparently, was to cavort on human skin and buzz more loudly than any fly has ever buzzed before. I fell asleep with the sheet pulled up over my head.

Last night, as I was falling asleep, The Cop announced, “I may have to terminate this.” I fell asleep, so I’m not sure how it turned out.

Daisy

You’d think since she went to bed late, after spending the afternoon and evening patrolling the perimeter, barking at neighbors who dared celebrate the holiday outdoors, tormenting Waylon, jumping up trying to bite The Cop’s wrapped hand, attacking the lawnmower, the weed whacker, me, my shoes, the curtains, and the fence that keeps her out of the yoga room, she’d sleep in a little. Not so. 4 AM is wake-up time. If I carefully ignore the progressively more frantic scratching, whining and crate-biting for 10 minutes, it’s like hitting the snooze button: she crashes for another 10-20 minutes. Three rounds of ignoring bought me 40 extra minutes of sleep this morning, in three micro-bursts.

Love

this picture of a beautiful kapotasana, along with a post
by someone who clearly thinks about more
than what it looks like.

Re: chimp grins and my reluctance about being photographed. A little info from the San Diego Zoo:

- Chimpanzees don’t like to be in water and usually can’t swim.
- Some observers have noted chimps feeding on medicinal plants when they are ill or injured.
- Research has shown that chimps and humans share 98 percent of their genes.
- Chimps can recognize themselves in a mirror.
- Chimpanzees make a grunting sound when they are happy.
- A toothy “grin” actually indicates fear or anxiety.

I’m not down with submissive gestures. For all of my cultivated equanimity, I’m off the charts on the D of DISC tests.

Anyhow, see the resemblance to my work photo? Really, it’s uncanny.

***

Reptile fest!

This morning, right before I stepped on the mat, I heard Daisy barking and barking. Nothing new. She likes to go out in the middle of the yard and bark, in hopes that the neighborhood dogs will bark back. She loves to pick fights. If she’s human in her next life, she’ll be a cage fighter for sure.

Something sounded a little different about the bark, so I looked out and noticed she was barking at something on the ground. When I went to check, I found a little (18 inch) snake coiled up & looking upset. Whoa! I grabbed Daisy, called Waylon, and retreated to the house. Where I got a camera so I could take pictures.

Here’s the picture I took to investigate its markings. You can get an idea of how little this guy is — or else those are some big grass blades.

Then I Googled to try to see if it was a rattlesnake. I figured that if I could make a positive identification, I’d need to go back and kill it. I don’t like killing stuff, but I do make exceptions for black widows and I think I’d feel the same about rattlesnakes. They’re a threat to the dogs, and I don’t think you can relocate them very easily.

Anyhow, from what I can gather, baby rattlers usually have a bud (though very small) on their tails right from the get-go. This snake had a pointy, non-rattler tail. And its marking didn’t look like what I found online. So I left it alone.

Went into the yoga room to practice and as I was pulling the curtains against the sun, I noticed that the huge lizard who hangs out on the top of the block wall was sitting on the ground next to the lawn mower! This is very weird — he ALWAYS stays on the top of the wall.

The reptiles are going berserk around here.

I tried to get a picture of the big lizard, but he took off when I opened the door to try to sneak up on him.

At this point, I am monitoring dog visits to the back yard. In fact, I am at home for lunch right now and wearing my dress along with The Cop’s muddy outdoor sneakers so I can supervise the dogs on their pee runs.

Animal kingdom. Over and out.