donutszenmom.com

If today wasn’t a moon day, I’d repeat my experiment with the binaural track before I said anything about it. But moon day it is, so my report will be based on just one use.

What did I find? Well, I guess a little context is in order: I am on the waning side of a deep, easy yoga phase. I imagine this happens to everyone — phases where asana feels very clear and easily accessible? They come and go for me — generally practice is comfortable, so I can’t complain, but the deep phases are particularly marvelous.

For the past week or so, that easy accessiblity (where I just lock into tristhana automatically as soon as I raise my arms for the first surya) is diminishing. Not too sad — I know it’ll be back. But it makes for a good time to experiment with the binaural track.

So what did the track do? Well, it seemed to help me wipe my mind clear really easily. If something about an asana wasn’t what I wished, I just went on. When something went really well, it didn’t cause much internal celebration. I felt like I was experiencing everything, but not “sticking” to any of the particulars of the experience.

I know this idea makes non-Buddhists nervous. What, no highs or lows? No vividness to life? No desires? Whatever. I’ve had my fill of vata sensibility: flying off into fits of inspiration, getting jangly with too much energy, rebounding into judgment and loud inner monolog, etc., etc., etc. Sure, those things still happen, but to a much less intense degree. And I’m happy for the smoothing out, which I definitely attribute to practice, both zazen and Ashtanga. You know what feels really freaking good? Peace. Stillness. Presence. We are enculturated to desire thrills and joy and drama and all kinds of emotional acquisitions. Sheesh. Who made that decision?

So binaural practice was… meditative. Just as promised on the package (6 Hz for theta waves & meditation).

***

Well, Matthew Sweeney starts his half-year of continuous world travel (seriously, look at this schedule!) in March. And he will be in Minneapolis July 10-16. As will I! Woohoo! I’d been mulling over the idea of going for a while (would it be too repetitive? should I go somewhere else? would it be better to experience a different teacher?), but when I got a note from Gracious Yogini, who lives in MN, that 9 of the 15 Mysore spots were already spoken for, I decided to go for it.

***

I can’t read on planes, trains, or in cars. For my recent flights to and from DC, I entertained myself with TV shows on my iPhone. At My Gift’s suggestion, I watched the first few episodes of Heroes. And was instantly hooked.

The Cop laughed and noted that I am now an iPhone addict — I watch TV shows on it, and read books via ereader in bed at night.

Remember those big huge “entertainment centers” people fell in love with in the… was it the 80s? the 90s? Anyhow, the entertainment center is now handheld, which amuses me no end.

Okay, so I’m a problem-solver and tool afficionado. This week’s challenge was a three-day meeting (yes, all day, every day!) with a global consultant. I told The Cop at the end of the ordeal, I mean, meeting, that practice really reveals itself most clearly in challenging situations. In this case, I was able to sustain my focus quite effectively for three 10-hour days.

There was a bit of a lull during the couple of hours we discussed rules around VAT (value added tax) in Europe, but the lull felt more like a little bit of relaxing, rather than exhaustion or boredom. And there was a bit of hyper-focus when we talked about IP strategy, because that’s the kind of thing that really captures my imagination. But the point is, my attention was on and my mind was processing well for three very long stretches.

This is good news because I generally do so many things in the course of a day, that I wonder if I still possess the ability to train my attention on a single problem in any kind of sustained manner.

So after the three-day meeting, I felt kind of crispy around the edges. I’d spent so much time in the high end of the beta state that it was hard to kick back into alpha. Well, until I found BrainHack for my iPhone.

BrainHack is a little app that offers binaural beats that can be used to entrain the brain. (The concept is that if one receives a stimulus with a frequency in the range of brain waves, the predominant brain wave frequency moves toward the frequency of the stimulus — a process called entrainment.) This is one of those things that cause me to feel two things equally strongly at once: 1) crazy hippie stuff! and 2) there seems to be some good research backing this up.

When the perceived beat frequency corresponds to the delta, theta, alpha, beta, or gamma range of brainwave frequencies, the brainwaves entrain to or move towards the beat frequency. For example, if a 315 Hz sine wave is played into the right ear and a 325 Hz one into the left ear, the brain is entrained towards the beat frequency (10 Hz, in the alpha range). Since alpha range is associated with relaxation, this has a relaxing effect.

>40 Hz Gamma waves = Higher mental activity, including perception, problem solving, fear, and consciousness

13–40 Hz Beta waves = Active, busy or anxious thinking and active concentration, arousal, cognition

7–13 Hz Alpha waves = Relaxation (while awake), pre-sleep and pre-wake drowsiness

4–7 Hz Theta waves = Dreams, deep meditation, REM sleep

<4 Hz Delta waves = Deep dreamless sleep, loss of body awareness

(The precise boundaries between ranges vary among definitions, and there is no universally accepted standard.)

Okay, and the app costs .99. At the very least, it’s a fun experiment.

This morning I’m going to try a 6 Hz theta binaural beat. It sounds like a thunderstorm, which is appropriate, as it’s raining today in the desert.

Today feels like it’s all about abundance. Tyler in the backyard, lying in the sun, chewing a nylabone. The Cop sleeping in after a week of long shifts, thanks to the FBR and the bad behavior of its attendees.

And me? A nice practice at a leisurely pace, then a new GTD app for the iPhone. I am Pavlovian about my GTD practices at work — closely managed by Outlook mailbox and calendar promptings which are pushed to my iPhone & make a ding every time an email or appointment arrives (I can switch the sound off, and do, when I start getting insane). So I am accustomed to thinking of something, identifying the next step, and documenting it ASAP. Very efficient. Keeps my mind nice and clear. But then there are all those “real life” things. Buy Tyler a new chain collar (26″). Ask My Gift if she followed through with her eye doctor appointment. I don’t want to put stuff like that on the Outlook system. It’s a boundary I am loathe to cross. So I was happy to find Things for my iPhone. Now real life can be as efficient as work. Yes, I say that with irony.

And then eReader for the iPhone. I love accessing books immediately, right from the ether. And since it’s a trial run, I can read something trashy and amusing. Twilight. And have I ever admitted my perverse love of historical novels? I’m rather ashamed to admit it, but a lot of the things I know about the French Revolution, Tudor England and the Black Plague (God, I love a good plague novel!), I’ve learned through historical fiction. (Note to Patrick: I don’t believe there are any historical novels about the Dadaists. May be an interesting niche. Just sayin’)

And last, but not least, a diary app for the iPhone. For practice notes. You thought you got the practice notes on this blog, didn’t you? Well, not so much. I tend to write cryptic little notes-to-self in a notebook I keep in the yoga room. We’ll see if having it in the iPhone is useful.

Happy SuperBowl Sunday to all. I’m not particularly interested in the game, but I like the National Holiday aspect.

I’ve been lucky to have the most delightful string of practices lately. Instant theta state. Just enough focus to be conscious of how good asana feels. Thought, one morning as I drank my pre-practice coffee, “I am so lucky to be able to do this.” Meaning the practice. And not meaning “able to do it well” or anything like that. Just to be incarnate. Muscle, nerve, bone: really, what more could you ask for?

So it’s been pretty rosy. I’ve been particularly enjoying stretching out the hip flexors — which suddenly became especially possible after Thumbs of Steel Candice undid some ancient knots in my left quadratus lumborum. Suddenly the samakonasana/hanumanasana part of standing feels UNbelievably good. Luckily, I was taught by VBG to include the samakonasana/hanumanasana crim bit in my practice. Otherwise I’d feel guilty about it.

Over the years I’ve left it out for long periods of time, because it really irritated my hamstrings — to the point that it was entirely useless for my hip flexors. But apparently it’s now time to enjoy hanumansana. It’s the most good-hurt part of my practice, by far, and I look forward to it every morning.

Oh, right, this is about gratitude. Well, this morning I am particularly thankful to the practice and its powers of transformation. I wrapped up and sat there for a moment on my mat, and noticed something was missing. Something I was vaguely, intellectually aware of possessing, but which I never *really* knew about because it was so much a part of the fabric of my psyche. Today it was notable because it wasn’t there.

I didn’t wonder, “Did I do enough?”

Nope. The new question, apparently, is whether I can feel practice all the way through.

I am a head person, which explains my penchant for fundamentalism in Ashtanga. When I was just doing primary, that was easy — I was heading for setu bandhasana, and once that was done, it was urdhva dhanurasana and closing.

Now, though, I am on my own and swimming out past the raft. There are intermediate poses, and extra urdhva dhanurasanas, and hangbacks, and passive bending. So it’s easy for me to feel like I am not “doing enough,” and that I should make a set curriculum for every morning of so many repetitions of each element. That way, I can assess whether I did enough.

But this morning, I was simply grateful that I’d had another feelingful practice in theta state.

What would it mean if I were to one day just sit on my mat and just stay there, theta-state, for hours? Would the world screech to a halt? Would I be “bad”? Would I be “good”?

Good, bad, yes, no, enough, not enough.

It’s getting practiced away.

***

In case this entry’s sounding too ethereal, let’s also make note of a couple of mundane things.

1. Clothes shopping

I know, I always complain. But seriously, I am hating buying clothes because there is no standardization of sizes. I went to a shop in a chi-chi part of town and grabbed a 00, 0, 2P, 2, 4P, and 4 of a couple of skirts I wanted to try on. The woman who helped me was hovering, eager to ferry whatever I was selecting to the dressing room, and when I finally headed into the dressing room, both she and one of her colleagues (who were already in the dressing room area) looked up at me rather guiltily. I imagined they were talking about me before I came in, trying to figure out why I don’t know what size clothing I wear.

Some of this I blame on Ashtanga. Back in the old days, when I was into weightlifting, I wore a size 4 suit. Now I have size 6 shoulders, size 4 waist, and size 2 hips. Um, yeah. Like a tiny man.

2. My newest entertainment

The Vapor Clean II. Yes, I’m a dork. I know. My Gift calls me “Monica” (if you ever watched “Friends,” you’ll get the joke).

Do I feel goofy admitting that I am thrilled by a tool that shoots out steam and cleans things without chemicals? A little. But then I think of the ozoney smell of the rooms I’ve cleaned so far… LOL!

I still feel a little leery of the thing, considering it’s boiling and pressurizing water in a small metal container that I’m pulling around behind me. I finally got comfortable with my pressure cooker after a couple of years of it not exploding — hopefully I can learn to trust the Vapor Clean II a little more quickly.

As I knelt beside it this morning, and started to clean, I had a quick flashback to climbing. That moment when your feet leave the ground in the morning and you wonder how the day’s going to go, and if you’ll be touching back down safely at the end of the day. I guess using the Vapor Clean II could be considered an extreme sport for housewives.

Needless to say, Tyler is magically attracted to the hissing, moving red metal animal. The Cop, on the other hand, is totally disinterested. Even though I showed him it SHOOTS steam.

Blog slacking, but no time for any other kind of slacking. Work and real life have been super busy.

Just got back from the Learning 2008 conference in Orlando. I love these learning technology conferences, and always come back with a million new ideas. This year, I am dying to design a really solid needs assessment instrument (enthralling notion, yes?). LOL! I know, it’s geeky. I attended a session on current thinking in qualitative research design and it’s got me all hyped up.

One deeeeeelightful surprise in Orlando was practice. Yes, plain old hotel room practice. It was marvelous. It was incredibly physically pleasant (very unusual after air travel), and even more surprisingly, it was effortlessly mindful and cheery. Quite honestly, 99.8% of my hotel practices have been studies in just-doing-it. But this time, they were actually exceptionally pleasing.

No idea why. But I’ll take it.

***

Practicing meant getting up at 4:30 AM in Florida, which is (and I was careful not to think about it too much) 1:30 AM Phoenix time. Ouch.

On the day I flew home, I got up at 1:30 AM (AZ time) practiced, attended the last day of conference, made my way to the airport, and got myself home. The Cop picked me up at the airport, which was lovely. Particularly since he was in uniform (I love the uniform!). Not in his squad car, though, even though I requested it (also requested he have the lights and siren going, but he nixed that). Anyhow, by the time I walked into the house, it was 8:30 PM. In other words, I’d been awake for 19 hours. Anyone who knows me knows that I am not good at staying up past my bed time. I can stay awake for 17 hours, but push me a minute past that, and I am very unhappy.

All I wanted was to fall into bed.

But then I opened the door to the house, thinking about poor Tyler, who was being transitioned to a new food and suffering a bit, according to The Cop, in terms of… um, loose outputs.

Oh my God. The stink when I opened the door to the house!

I knew whatever had happened was bad. Thank goodness Ty was confined to his crate. I walked into the bedroom, to be greated by a poo-covered (and I mean covered), excitedly wiggling puppy.

There was no option but to open the door of the crate.

Of course, he jumped all over me.

Hmmmm, I wondered for a moment. Is there any way I can just ignore all of this ’til tomorrow and just go to sleep? Uh, no.

So it was poo dog bath time, followed by more projectile pooping (in the back yard, thank goodness), and a night of disturbed sleep as the little fellow rolled around in his crate and made occasional requests to go outside again.

***

Yesterday at work, I tried to keep up with what was going on, catch up on things that’d fallen behind while I was away, and refine some of my notes from conference. All while feeling like a zombie.

Today will be more work madness.

At least Tyler is feeling better. Poor guy.

Bring on the weekend!

Got to the shala this morning at 7, only to find a locked door.

Hmmmm.

Indication that the Mysore program will be phased out (again)? I’m hoping it’s just that Muscle Man couldn’t make it, and they had to cancel since there are no other Mysore teachers…

***

Is the web evolving us?

Ah ha! Just as I figured!

To see how the Internet might be rewiring us, Small and colleagues monitored the brains of 24 adults as they performed a simulated Web search, and again as they read a page of text. During the Web search, those who reported using the Internet regularly in their everyday lives showed twice as much signaling in brain regions responsible for decision-making and complex reasoning, compared with those who had limited Internet exposure. The findings, to be published in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, suggest that Internet use enhances the brain’s capacity to be stimulated, and that Internet reading activates more brain regions than printed words. The research adds to previous studies that have shown that the tech-savvy among us possess greater working memory (meaning they can store and retrieve more bits of information in the short term), are more adept at perceptual learning (that is, adjusting their perception of the world in response to changing information), and have better motor skills.

***

I love the mesquite tree in the back yard. Since it was planted, several months ago, it has flourished beautifully under The Cop’s care.

Well, it flourished beautifully until Tyler started gnawing at its trunk. And then he ripped off a nice strip of bark, denuding the poor tree right to its core.

So The Cop put chicken wire around the trunk.

Cut to this morning, when Tyler returned from the back yard with a dirty snout.

When I went out to investigate, I discovered he’d dug a hole next to the chicken wire and managed to unearth some of the tree’s roots.

I wonder if these two knew each other in a past life. There appears to be some unfinished business.

***

A picture of a quieter moment with Maxine and Ty.

Marco… … … Polo…

…reality is originally devoid of ontological properties and it is only via an incessant and largely unconscious habit of emotional self-reference and categorization that a conceptual structure is created and ultimately reified; a process necessary for daily life, but that also tends to condition the individual into predefined patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Meditation is believed to counteract this tendency in favor of a condition of equanimity where the provisional nature of one’s own conceptual structure is realized, bringing about a greater freedom of thought and action as well as a decreased sense of self-attachment.

…the attempt at mental regulation through meditation involves developing a progressive familiarity with the interplay of voluntary attention (often directed to the breath and/or the posture) and the spontaneous conceptual processing that appears in its fractures…

***

…we tested the hypothesis that the habitual practice of being heedful to distraction from spontaneous thoughts during meditation renders regular meditators, as compared to control subjects, more able to voluntarily contain the automatic cascade of conceptual associations triggered by semantic stimuli.

***

I’m not sold on the word/nonword task — why not just use real words at intervals and MRI the brains to “look” for indications of conceptual thinking? Still, between this and LHC and the ongoing research of yogis, we’re getting closer. And, funnily enough, further away.

It’s not often that I get really excited about web technology. But now is one of those times. Check out searchme.com — go ahead, type in something like “ashtanga” or “wrestling singlet” or… well, anything you’re interested in.

Cool, huh???

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes.

Click on the two below to see the word clouds made when I entered the URL for this blog.