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I haven’t grabbed any video in a while, so here’s one of my weirdly dark vids. It’s kapo time!

kapo 09-02-10

I laughed out loud when I looked at this and saw how crazy my shoulders are. Some day my elbows will reach the floor. But you know, for as insanely tight as my shoulders are now, they are a billion times more flexible than when I started. And it’s too dark to really see in the vid, but I am managing to touch my feet before my head touches the floor, which is bouncy and extremely entertaining. (If anyone wants to opine on ways to get my elbows to the floor, go for it!)

But that’s not the fun part. The fun part is that after three years of kapo pain and anxiety, this posture now feels delightful and I actually look forward to doing it! It actually makes me happy! But that kind of begs the question, when you look at it from the perspective of a normal person: why in the world would you do something that hurt and was scary every single day (except Fridays and Saturdays and moon days!) for three years?

Then I thought of Dogen:
To study the way is to study the self.
To study the self is to forget the self.
To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things.

And then I thought of what Sharath says in Guruji:
It is a way of worshipping God.

Oh, and this morning’s practice was topped off with a terrific dwi pada sirsasana adjustment by The Cop. He’s getting really good at it!

Marching along.

In a couple of weeks, I am due to travel to DC to do a presentation to the Board of Directors about learning innovation.

Did you know there’s a study somewhere that apparently indicates that there are a good number of people who fear public speaking more than they fear death?

This whole thing isn’t as bad as it could be — learning and educational technology is my field, so I can endlessly chatter on about it. The worst are presentations when I’m talking about topics I don’t know a lot about. You think presenters always know what they’re talking about? Think again.

Anyhow, here’s how this plays into Ashtanga practice: Every morning, I march through primary and intermediate to yoga nidrasana. There are two places where I feel some chitta chatter: kapotasana and at the leg behind the head poses.

This morning I recognized that the anxiety around kapo is not about the posture physically. It actually feels *great* these days. Not EASY, of course, but good. Finally, my back is opening, my psoas muscles are releasing, etc., etc. I walk halfway up my feet and feel fine about that. With more practice, it’ll just keep getting better.

So what’s the anxiety? I’m anxious that I’m going to regress, after all of these years of hard work. So every morning I wonder if I’ll not be able to do as well as the day before.

I just have to get over myself on that one. Because there will eventually be regression, and worrying about it won’t affect its eventual manifestation — but it will taint my experience NOW.

The other anxiety is around LBH. Here’s how my body/mind cut me some slack and had a little joke at the same time. When I started LBH, I heard a lot of horror stories about LBH injuries, specifically back injuries. So I was concerned. I didn’t stop working the poses, but I did (do) always feel a bit of a black cloud over my head when I’m sticking my leg behind my head. (There was a similar black cloud over kapo for a good while, where I worried about my spine snapping and a puff of dust rising up out of it — desert-inflected nightmare!) Anyhow, as I was going about my slightly anxious business with LBH, I managed to irritate my right knee. It has kindly stepped up to divert me from my spine anxiety. Surprise!

So back to the public speaking gig. All of the backbends are opening, opening, opening my back, which is great, but I am also conscious of the fact that after a stressful day at work, my back gets kinda crunched back up. Like a flower closing. I feel like I’m going to be having a push-pull with it as the presentation approaches and I try to avoid curling up into myself like the introvert I am.

And that’s when it hit me that the LBH poses are exactly the counterpoint, psychically, to the backbending work. They are strengthening me and insisting I be present. I felt pretty raw during the months when I was doing the intermediate backbends but none of the LBHs: it was all opening up and no strength/resistance to counteract it. I suspect I even seemed overly flexible at work — all openness and not enough steadfastness.

So now I’m building the internal resilience. I am curious to see how that plays out as the presentation approaches. Will it feel different than the usual run up to a Board presentation? Will I default to my usual introverted… um, introversion?

Not yet.

Okay, I have to admit to watching “The Tudors” (kind of compulsively, truth be told). I am fascinated and horrified by the contrast between the highly mannered court scenes and the brutal torture scenes. And now that I have a mental image of someone on the rack, it has given me a new perspective re: my props.

The Cop helped me in dwi pada this morning. Folding back the left leg is easy, but then there I am, right leg flapping around next to me. “Just stick that leg behind the other one,” I said. He seems a little concerned about this every time he helps me. A gentle teacher. It’s coming along. But seriously, the balance on this?? As a wise woman pointed out to me about some poses, “It isn’t there, it isn’t there, it isn’t there, and then it is.”

I’m really hoping that’s true in the way it was for the lift in upavishtha konasana. It wasn’t there, wasn’t there, and then — surprise! — one morning it was. Better that than baddha konasana, where it wasn’t there, wasn’t there, still wasn’t there, hurt like a son of a bitch to even try, was SO not there, needed to be left out entirely, and then, finally, was there.

***

Ever read Chuck Palahniuk’s book, “Choke”? If I didn’t know better I’d think it was about Daisy. She has driven me to research doggie Heimlich maneuvers. Pretty routinely, she scarfs up her food in a way that makes her reel around the bowl, gagging and making horrid noises as she tries to dislodge the obstruction in her throat. It’s pretty scary. Then she goes in the backyard and eats the longest palm frond she can find, or a length of Bermuda grass rhizome. Then she wanders back in the house, stumbling and retching and heaving until I grab it and pull the length of the vegetation out of her throat.

Last night, she grabbed a long nylabone by the end and ran full force toward the couch, launched herself, and hit a bank of pillows. The force of it drove the nylabone straight down her throat. More retching and stumbling until I pulled it out. And sure enough, she did almost the exact same thing this morning.

Canine panchakarma?

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.

***

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?

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.

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.

“I have puppy exhaustion,” I announced to The Cop this morning. Indeed, Daisy is an utter joy — she is the happiest, bounciest, most irrepressible creature I’ve ever met. But man, is she a handful. For one thing, she rolls around in her crate all night. Every hour on the hour, she snorts and flips herself over in her crate — it sounds like someone repeatedly throwing a huge pot roast onto a counter top. At 4:15, she snuffles and scratches and flips some more, then whines to get out. Bleery, I open the crate, and she falls out, rolling over herself to get to me and Waylon, wiggling and snorting and biting at us as best she can.

Adorable.

Holy crap, though, I’m tired.

***

New book. Essentials of Hinduism. Another great read. I am always thrilled when I find a new interest — every book about it is a joy, a whole new world opens up. (Go ahead, ask me a question about old school alpine climbing or about whaling in the American Northeast. Or shipwrecks! God, I love reading about shipwrecks.)

It’s always curious to me how we have/develop affinities. If you’d given me this book 10 years ago, I would have glanced through, said, “Yeah, that seems interesting,” and put it down. Now I can’t wait to get home and have at it. Curious.

***

This morning was the first morning Daisy got into her crate in the yoga room by herself. I love the routine of dogs; I love that they like sleeping or watching as humans do yoga. During supta vajrasana, my head was right up against the crate. There I was, upside down, and I looked up and straight into Daisy’s green eyes as she calmly watched me do the posture.

Maybe it’s crazy, but I feel like dogs who watch yoga are preparing for a next lifetime, or remembering past ones. Creating (or sustaining) an important affinity.

So in Buddhism, there is reincarnation, but not of an individual soul. Basically, you “return to the one.” Hinduism posits an individual soul. I guess my intuitions about dogs and yoga are more aligned with the Hindu belief system, which is as it should be.

Okay, enough from this exhausted mind. I chatted with Owl this morning, and now I have a little tune playing in my head (always appropriate, as the Beatles tend to be): And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.

Don’t forget, you guys. We’re here to make energy to share with the others. (Yogi Manifesto)

Cave of the sacrum. We’re all familiar with that (thanks, RF!).

In the flotation therapy pod on Saturday (of course I went back!), I was struck by how empty my head was. Nice. The darkened pod as container a strong metaphor for the inside of my skull — as if I were a tiny figure floating in there. Except in the dream, the pod/skull is thick black rubber. I have no idea why.

Nevertheless, it is a womby container for the empty that is inside the figure inside the skull that isn’t me.

How do I know? By the breath.

The breath gets cave-y and resonant in the empty. Indication of and access to.

During Ashtanga practice, that same cave-y breath. I can hear the empty in my head (which I love and am accustomed to). There is a new cave, though, which I can intuit, if not actually feel. Cave of the heart. This frightens me. I am accustomed to the heart being full.

Full or empty, same or different?

If listening to Swami Jyotirmayananda isn’t enough for you, and you want a more formal education on philosophical aspects that underlie this practice of ours: check it out.

Next round of sessions begins in October. Registration begins in August. The price is right, there’s lots of flexibility, and as Sati points out, being able to recite and riff on the eight limbs of Ashtanga does not a comprehensive education make.

I’ve been reading The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Hinduism, and I’ve got to say: it’s a great way to get started. I have all kinds of tidbits floating around in my head, thanks to many teachers and many classes, and this book has been a good way to start organizing some of those concepts. Plus it’s an entertaining read.

So I’ll be signing up for the October session at Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies. You get 12 weeks to complete the material. At first, I thought, “I’ll do all four!” Now, though, I’m thinking I should be reasonable — they run the courses every October and April. No need to be greedy…