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12:45. Crumbs from the Boca on Ezekiel under my left elbow and 15 minutes to spare before my next meeting.

Long day. Up at 3:30 AM, accompanied by Waylon and Maxine, who welcome a super-early breakfast. Then Maxine back into the bedroom to snooze alongside The Cop, and Waylon into his crate with a chew toy for yoga time. He has accepted the daily morning practice & even gets into his crate by himself these days.

When I have more time, expect a post on how Waylon is the poster boy for kapha. It’s hilarious and also explains my effortless soulmate relationship with Tyler. It never occured to me until Waylon was here for comparison, but Ty was a total vata. We were a matched set.

Still, the lumpish sweet kapha-ness of Waylon is extraordinary. It makes you want to scream “squee!” and squish him in your arms.

Okay, so super-early practice so I could finish up and take a 6 AM con call. Then a quick turnaround for an 8 AM meeting in the office. Followed by a 9. And a 10. And an 11. And 11:30. The boca at 12:30. Yum.

For the past two days, practice has been a delight for reasons I cannot quite fathom. Better diet? More fat? Three extra pounds on me? Less sleep? Easter chocolate rationed out so I can have a portion each night before bed? Lumpy kapha love of Waylon? Who knows. All I can say for sure is that I was in one of those phases where practice kind of hurt — nothing acute, but just a tendency toward achiness and sore spots and creaks, and now –suddenly– it’s all a pleasure, both physically and mentally. A blessing, wherever it comes from.

Work is crazy and busy and stressful, and in the current climate, I cannot get sign off for working on the Ph.D., which is fine. This morning I thought about my occasional impulse to do a yoga teacher training. Perhaps that will be a new project…

The Venkatesh arches: If I stray at all from a still mind, waiting-for-it-to-be-over comes crashing in. And waiting-for-it-to-be-over (enduring) is something I am actually quite good at. I can push myself to do anything. But that’s driven by my mind, and a side effect of it is that I tense my body to get through it. Essentially, I “steel” myself. This has been an excellent strategy for getting lots of things done that needed to get done in life, lots of things I didn’t necessarily think I could do. But it has its disadvantages, e.g., diminished flexibility. And that plays out both physically AND mentally.

So this current practice is interesting. It would be easy to turn it into an endurance event, but that would negate its very purpose, which is to increase flexibility. The only way to make it work is to stay intensely grounded in each moment. And, hilariously, the practice involves standing on my feet, hands overhead, bending back. What more tempting posture for a vata to fly away?

The arches push stress up into the thoracic/chest. It gets really intense, like an anechoic chamber. I can hear my own heartbeat, the image in my mind is a hyperfocused visualization of the inside of my own mouth.

Trippy.

Data: Left QL is tight. Left psoas is tight. This is deep tightness — the kind that is about how I hold myself in real life, about how I am structured as an individual. I’ve certainly been aware of this structural “knot” for a while, but this week it is in much sharper focus, due to the alternate practice.

***

Waylon’s a Luddite. His breeder had outdoor kennels, and I don’t think the dogs ever went in the house. Which means Waylon was raised by wolves. Which also means he is good at being a dog: he loves to interact with people and dogs. But he’s not so good with modern or mechanical tools and technology.

The first day he was home, he didn’t want to have anything to do with the house. He was happy to stay out in the yard and goof around. The house totally wigged him out: I understand, because we have tile floors and high ceilings and minimal decorations, so the noise in the house is loud and it echoes. And the television? Forget it! Clearly the work of the devil. Also the refrigerator and the dishwasher and the washing machine and dryer. Oh, and the blender. And the blow dryer.

And the noise in the bathroom when the water is running in the bath tub! I did give him one bath, which was not fun for anyone. Over the past three weeks, he’s settled in. I can make smoothies in the morning again, now that he’s less freaked out. He seems to be getting past that scared puppy stage. Still, I’m not so sure about the bath thing. The Cop and I are going to visit my parents for Easter tomorrow. My Gift will come down for dinner, and my sister and her girlfriend are here from San Diego. They bring their young dog when they visit, so we’ll be bringing Waylon to meet everyone.

I thought about the visit last night. A holiday bath for Waylon seemed in order, but I felt concerned about setting him back, emotionally. He’d finally started calming down, and maybe a bath wouldn’t be the best way to reinforce his sense of security. He has been looking kind of worse for wear, though. He’s white, after all, and he likes to roll in the gravel and skid through the grass.

This morning, we woke to rain in the desert. I went outside with Waylon and he ran through the rain, cheerfully pawing at it and running with his head in the air as he sniffed the rainy breezes, and drinking every single puddle he could find. I wonder if rainwater puddles were a special treat in the outdoor kennels. Though the rain isn’t heavy enough to really clean him, his coat did come out looking spiffed up a bit.

For now, I guess he will be cleaned by being put out in the rain every now and again. And maybe a washcloth on his face for as long as he’s small enough for me to wrestle to the ground.

Here’s a picture of Waylon in the back yard with the bunny toy he selected during his first visit to PetsMart this morning. (God, I love the bunny’s expression!)

We went to PetsMart because I’ve been increasingly worried about how wigged out he gets about noises. It seemed like desensitization training was the way to go. Sure enough, he was horrified by the whoosh of the automatic doors. I carried him in, wondering if he’d be undone by all the noises and movement.

And he was unhappy about all of the movement, for sure, but I was very happy to see that no matter how uncomfortable he felt about his surroundings, he was delighted to interact with people and other dogs. I think the key, at this point, is to bring him to new, busy environments pretty much daily.

He’s passed out now, snoring on the floor at my feet, exhausted from his adventure, but happy to get a delicious rubber bunny out of it.

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’!

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.

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.

I understand there’s a new “tradition” of led primary on Friday (last day of week).

My particular situation offers an opportunity to both honor the tradition and be crim at the same time:

1) Friday home practice primary (correct day, incorrect format)
or
2) Saturday led primary (incorrect day, correct format)

This week, I did my usual end of the week Friday primary. But yesterday I REALLY felt like it’d do me good to spend the day outside of my own head. So I took the led class from 10-12, and then headed over for a visit to Candice’s massage table from 2-3. Heat and humidity, and then a nice massage.

No work thoughts or chores. No housekeeping thoughts or chores.

I needed a day off. And as I told The Cop at the end of the day, there was a moment during the afternoon when I actually felt like the grief veil was lifted and the world was composed of bright colors and I felt some happiness and peace.

***

Led practice was nice. The British Director was there, and Muscle Man gave me a big hug when he saw me.

I hadn’t been to Mysore practice or Saturday led in a number of months because both of those things take place when The Cop is sleeping after a night of work. When Tyler first came home with us, I stayed here with him (i.e., practiced in the yoga room) because he got upset and cried if I was out of his sight. When he was a little older and could amuse himself, I went back occasionally. Then, when he was older still, I had to knock off because he was goofy and super-noisy when he entertained himself in his crate, throwing his toys around in there and jumping around and making enough racket to wake The Cop.

I certainly couldn’t explain this at led class when Muscle Man said, “It’s so good to see you. Where have you been?” So I stuck to a vague “Oh, work and home…” response.

Which got me to thinking: the cybershala knows about all of this, but not the analog shala. I think it’s interesting that we get to know each other so well online, and I think a good bit of it is due to the asynchronous nature of the communication. When I go to practice, I may or may not have time to chat with someone (generally not, especially at Mysore), so it’s easy to have relationships where you don’t share very many thoughts (which is fine, by the way). The digital shala, though, is a place where I can talk when I feel like it, and I can read about what other people are thinking when I feel like it, and none of it relies on us being in the same place at the same time.

I’m sure there are plenty of people who would think it’s very sad that we have relationships via digital media, but I don’t understand that at all. Physical presence is certainly nice, and it’s a delight to be in the same place with your friends. But for thoughtful expression of someone’s perspective, you really can’t beat writing.

Which now makes me think of people who can’t or don’t write. I guess that really does bar relationship-building via digital means. Unless you use audio or video. Still, access to those media are kind of mediated by text instructions/information. This reminds me of a discussion I had with a traditional Freudian analyst many years ago. He said that one requirement of analysis is that the analysand be articulate. Same deal for the cybershala.

***

Okay, so yesterday was a day off for chores and my mind. We’ll make up for it today. Today will be plenty of chores — The Cop’s parents are coming to visit on Monday and will be here for a week. So today will be all about cleaning and preparing and thinking up events to amuse them.

We finally had word back about the pathology report. There is no clear cause of death for Ty. Basically, he was just perfect, physically.

The Cop called me at work to tell me the vet had called and that I should touch base with her to ask any follow-up questions I might have. The Cop was shocked and dismayed about the lack of a clear cause of death. I wasn’t. It was kind of what I had imagined.

I’d been out on the internets doing my research over the past couple of weeks, of course. And I’d narrowed the possibilities down to two: fatal arrhythmia or epileptic seizure.

So I spoke with the vet and discussed what kinds of signs would be left if either of those two disorders were in fact the cause of death. She pretty much ruled out epilepsy (as much as she could, being objective about the fact that we just really won’t ever know). Still, she said that she’s known dogs who’ve had seizures that lasted 30 minutes and lived. If he’d suffered a vascular event so dramatic that it would cause death, there would be evidence of it for the pathologist.

On the other hand, a single fatal arrhythmia, while rare, could leave no trace. It would essentially be the body’s electrical system seizing up. Like when a computer freezes.

That seems consistent with what happened that afternoon.

After I talked to the vet, I came home and The Cop and I discussed. He was really hoping for some definitive answer that would offer closure. I hadn’t been expecting that, and just wanted to know if Ty’s death could have been prevented. I was terrified she was going to tell me he’d managed (finally, after many tries) to eat some dirty socks, or that he’d had a disease that needn’t have killed him if only we’d known about it.

So that is all the information we will get.

Honestly, I used to be undone by unanswered questions and painful experiences that I knew I would never be able to understand. There’s a whole class of koans designed to pry our grasping human fingers away from the delusion that we can know the answer to “Why? Why? Why?” — so thanks to the monks who’ve brutally and compassionately smacked me upside the head about this.

***

Last night in my dreams I had a chat with Richard Freeman. Ty was there, too, hanging out. A beautiful California day, with wildflowers and warm breezes. RF wanted me to know that Ty would be coming back as a fuzzy rescue dog.

***

Might as well wrap up with a little learning technology humor. I am a huge fan of Web 2.0 — blogs, wikis, discussion forums — but there is always hesitancy in corporate about these technologies: what if the information is inaccurate? Horrors!

Much to my satisfaction, the organization is carrying on with a project to build an online community for our customers (and non-customers — just plain old uncontrollable strangers!). Really, it makes me proud.