It's here...

As the sun sets,
so must another summer
(Mexico '10)

Well, dear readers, the first day of school is here.  I was up at a very unreasonable hour, and decided to open my day with some sun salutations that turned into some chest-openers that eventually wound up being a challenging Vasisthasana.  I feel great, and figured I'd take a quick moment to blog before the kids wake up and I have to start yelling at them to get clothes on and out the door.

This is a transitional day for most people I know - the day you send your children back to school, or the day you, yourself, head back to work.  You see, most people I know are parents of young children and/or teachers.  This is a time of parinama, or change.  Various people look forward to it for various reasons.  Some parents count down the hours because their kids have been driving them nuts (especially when the day before school starts is overcast and not exactly ripe for playing outside of the house!): summer is over, and it's time to get back to a routine.  But when you think about it, perhaps the frustration everyone is feeling at the end of summer is a manifestation of the anticipation of change.

Parinama can be stressful for a lot of people.  You're switching gears, you don't know what to expect as the change happens, you're a little unsure, even fearful.  It may take some people longer than others to adjust to this change, and depending on how negatively you and your system are affected by the changes taking place, you may feel like you're suffering.

By quieting your mind and trying to look at things more clearly, you may be able to ease that suffering, and that's where yoga comes in.  My few moments on the mat this morning (hardwood floor, actually - my mat was downstairs and I wasn't coordinated enough to stumble downstairs in the dark to get it) really helped to not only set my intention for the day, but helped me to connect with the inner "me".  Perhaps this will help me feel centered and grounded at I approach this day of Parinama, perhaps it will only last long enough for me to get my kids off to school.  That is what yoga practice is all about.  You keep returning to it, practicing, until you get it right.  You may never get it right - in fact, you will always face parinama, sure as the seasons change, so there is always a need to practice.

September is National Yoga Month, so what better time to start your practice - even if only to help ready you for all that change that's fast approaching!  See you on the mat! (oh, and ps - it's exactly ONE WEEK before I start my teacher training program.  soexcited!)

"Prevent the suffering that is yet to come" - Patanjali's Yoga Sutra II.16

Balancing in the dark...

An interesting thing happened on the mat yesterday.  Now that school is out and I have a short respite from shuffling my children around after school, I have more time to take yoga classes at the gym (where there's childcare for said children). I was taking Josh's Thursday afternoon session, which started off boringly similar to his Wednesday morning session: lying flat on the mat, breathing in and out for the first 5 minutes of class.  As he usually does, Josh redeemed himself by mixing it up a bit, although it did take a while to get to the stuff that usually gets your heart rate up.  (This is what happened on Wednesday - after a long, slow warm up, we were doing plank to chaturanga to plank again, which is basically a hard-core military push up.  Trust me, it is  h-a-r-d.).  Thursday's class transitioned into some abdominal work - not as hard as the Wednesday arm work, but enough to make you feel it where it counts.  By the time we transitioned into the standing postures, I guessed that this would be a more introspective practice, and that's just where Josh went with it.
Sometimes, all you're meant to do in a yoga practice is "notice" things.  Notice the way your body responds to certain postures;  notice which postures force your mind to wander, and which bring attention back to your center.  When the flow of the class moved on to Tree pose, I knew that's what this practice was about, and I was determined to "notice" how my body responded to Tree.  The class was guided to stand firmly on the left leg, and bring the heel of the right foot to touch the left ankle.  This is called a "grounded tree", and with your right foot acting like a little kickstand, it isn't generally that challenging to balance.  BUT, Josh asked us to flutter our eyes closed - and I lost it (balance, that is!).
This simple action of removing visual cues really challenged my sense of balance.  I was surprised at how much I wobbled around, how much I was forced to engage my core to stand still, how I was so tempted to peek an eye open.  Following this, we opened our eyes and put ourselves into regular tree, with the right foot coming up the left leg as far as is comfortable.  We kept our eyes open this time, and I found this usually very challenging posture to be quite a bit easier compared to the eyes-closed-kickstand tree!
We repeated the pose on the other side, but this time I knew what to expect.  I changed my drishti (focus of gaze), just to see if I would notice any differences.  Wouldn't you know it, I did!  The first time around, my focus was on a spot on the horizon (well, the place where the wall meets the ceiling, as we were indoors) - I was looking out into the future.  I didn't know what was coming, figuratively and literally, so when our eyes fluttered closed, I was unstable, unsteady, wobbly.  The second time around, I purposely focused instead on the tip of my nose.  This time, I was looking at the present - where I stood at that moment in time.  I knew where I was, I knew what I was doing, and I wasn't nearly as imbalanced.
How did this speak to me?  It brought awareness that whenever I feel imbalanced, it may be better to shift focus - instead of worrying about what's coming next, think instead about the here and now.  Focus on where I am and what my purpose is, and I'll have a much better foundation (in practice AND in life).

Either that, or I just have better balance on my right leg!

"It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see." - Henry David Thoreau

Are you afraid?

My children are deathly afraid of the dark.  This fear makes it very hard to "take care of business" during winter months, when the sun sets earliler than during other times of the year.  Neither of my kids will venture into a room where the lights are not turned on.  If we're out and return after 5pm to a dark home, they won't leave the foyer until the lights to the next room are turned on.  If I commence with cooking dinner, getting busy in the kitchen, and one of them needs to use the bathroom (which is on the second floor), they need me to stop what I'm doing, wash my hands of whatever food I'm preparing, and walk them upstairs.  They won't even agree to walking upstairs, turning on lights as they go.  I must escort them, lest a "Death Eater" (my older son is WAY into Harry Potter) or "Ghost" come and spirit them away.  In the modern age of energy conservation and environmental conscientiousness, it's pretty much ingrained in me that we can't leave lights on unless we are in that room, so I'm pretty much stuck with this station in life.  To be fair, this fear of the dark *does* work itself to my advantage.  If there is a room where I don't want my children to enter and make a mess, I just leave the lights off.  But overall, my life is inconvenienced by my children's fear.
Is fear justified?  As far as my children and the dark are concerned, yes.  This is despite the fact that my husband and I are vigilant about what these boys are exposed to.  Knowing that the 4th Harry Potter novel is far scarier than the first 3, I've been reticent about letting my older son delve in, despite protests that all his friends are reading it.  The boys haven't even seen Finding Nemo, we've sheltered them so much from "scary things".  Can it be conquered?  Ask the 7-and-under set - the answer is No Way.  Mom's help is needed.  But what about us grown ups - you know, those of us for whom "Mom" is no longer at beck-and-call?
When it comes to your yoga practice, what is it that you fear?  Is it something simple, like a challenging posture?  Are you afraid of flying in crow?  Are you fearful that your Ardho Chandrasana is going to land you on your face? 
Maybe you have no idea of what I'm talking about - let's address you neophytes:  are you afraid of trying yoga?  What is holding you back?  The beauty of yoga is that you take away from it what you want (unless what you want is a hard-driving sweaty workout.  Then again, we've got you covered with Bikram!).  There really is nothing to be afraid of.  It's not too girly (in fact, I'd venture to say that there were more men than women in the class I took with Heidy this morning...and the Tuesday night class I've been aiming to catch with Eileen always has at least 3 men who are regulars).  It's not too intense (there are modifications for every single posture).  Remember that it even took God 6 days to make Earth.  You're not going to fly in crow on the first day - you work up to every posture, honoring your body and respecting your intentions with each practice.  You'll get there.  And when you feel like you've "arrived", you realize that there's somewhere else to go with the posture.  Your practice is never finished. 
So maybe that's what you're afraid of - the fact that there is no "end" to yoga.  There's always somewhere else to take your practice.  When you think about it, that's nothing to be afraid of.  It's exciting that your relationship with Yoga is not going to reach a "dead end".  There's room for improvement, room for growth.  The longer you spend growing your practice, the more you appreciate it, and not that other's opinions should matter, you'll have more respect. 
In a practice last month, towards the end of the hour, the teacher guided us into crow.  I was game to try, knowing that I wasn't strong enough to hold the posture (which is a rather intense arm balance that also incorporates abdominal strength).  There were two women on mats behind me that scoffed at the thought: "Oh, there's no way...", but as I attempted the balance: "Oh, look, she might have it...oh, she doesn't...wait, maybe she's got it...ooops, nah".  Why weren't these women focused on their own practice?  Why weren't they attempting to conquer the pose?  The answers don't matter.  They were fearful of something, and they let their fears get in the way of trying.  And this, in turn, got them nowhere. 
So, the lesson to be learned here is to put things into perspective.  My kids need to put it into perspective that the dark is simply the absence of light.  The same things that are there in the light are there in the dark.  Conquering this (hopefully) will come with age.  Right now, they haven't much life experience, so the fear of the dark is understandable.  As we gain more experiences, we realize that certain aspects of life are left in the proverbial "dark" - there are things we can't see or understand.  Maybe we're not meant to understand them, maybe we need patience to deal with them.  Either way, give them time and patience, and the light may be turned on, hopefully conquering our fear.  Treat your yoga practice with the same perspective, and one by one, each posture will come to you.  It will be like turning on each light as you go upstairs to the second floor.