Yoga Again for the First Time

Yesterday morning, in the second session of my new (to me) Hatha yoga class, I found myself considering becoming a Hindu (is there a feminine form of that? a Hindini?). Well, maybe not really a practicing Hindu, since basically all I know about Hinduism is that there are lots and lots of gods and goddesses, and lots and lots of rituals to go with them. And that it started in India and has been around a long long time.

So I found myself feeling deeply grateful for the spiritual and religious tradition from which yoga springs. At least as interpreted gracefully by this particular teacher of the Kripalu "school" of yoga.

I felt myself falling in love on the spot--with yoga's bringing together of masculine and feminine, of body and mind and spirit, of simple yet powerful observations, such as that the "yoga mudra" pose puts one's head lower than one's heart, as if befitting of spiritual wisdom.

Even though I have taken yoga classes off and on (more off than on) over the past ten or fifteen years, something feels different this time. I have a feeling it's not only that I have a different teacher but also that I am a different student. Meaning, I have changed. Something is different about me that makes me much more open to coming to yoga "again for the first time".

The difference between me-and-yoga-now and me-and-yoga-past is a little hard to pin down, nor would it necessarily be in the spirit of yoga or of my present way of being in the world to try too hard to do so, though my analytical mind would like nothing better.

If I had to say, the primary difference is that in the past I have largely approached yoga as a form of "exercise" and with a mindset of disconnect or compartmentalization. That my body might somehow be largely disconnected from other dimensions of my being--mind, spirit, soul. I think the sense of being divided in myself and having "compartments" in my life was much more prominent in former years.

And in approaching yoga as physical exercise, I have, despite knowing that it's not really in the spirit of yoga to compete or compare, been way more concerned with keeping up with the class, with "looking competent" at yoga, with wishing I were more flexible, more adept at remembering one pose from another, at getting things right, at impressing the teacher, at being as good at or secretly even better than my colleagues. And being hard on myself for not being those things.

I don't sense that happening this time. (At least not yet. Now that I've made this claim, we'll see how it goes from here!) What a relief!

Maybe a key factor is that the head of the yoga studio recommended that I start in a Level I class, because it has been a while since my last yoga class and the teacher would be new to me. And something about starting as a beginner really appealed to me! Maybe I felt a slight, teeny weeny bit of offended ego, but not much. That's something new. I don't have to prove myself here. Wow, what an amazing idea.

Much more than that I noticed I felt curious and even excited that I would get to experience allowing myself to be a beginner. To take things gently and slowly and (one can always hope!) mindfully. Not to judge myself for having to start small.

And you know what? I really feel right at home! As if I "belong" in this group. I'm not struggling to keep up (even though most of my peers have worked with this teacher for a while and know the moves better than me). I'm not overly worried about how I look or whether I'm doing it right. Well, most of the time.

Which means I'm there. I'm present, more often than not. Grateful for a practice that is physical as well as attentive to mind and spirit, spiritual as well as physical. That aims to hold body, mind, and spirit together, just as they really are; and that aims to link what you do on your yoga mat with what you do in the rest of your day.

Integration. Union. I think that's what the word "yoga" means.

Seven Inches Before Breakfast

"Trees in Snow" c. Sukie Curtis, 2/3/09, graphite pencil

We woke to seven inches of snow--more than the predicted overnight fall--and it's still snowing thickly. I have to say I'm delighted. Just when everyone (store clerks, bank tellers, neighbors, and so on) was beginning to mumble and to speculate about a nearly snowless winter, or about whether we'd be slammed in February and March, we've got a real "snow event" on our hands.

And it's quite beautiful. I say that of course from a position of shelter, warmth, and not needing anything beyond my own house today. And for that I'm grateful.

I wasn't so totally grateful when the plow woke me up around 2:30 a.m. with its engine roaring, plow scraping on roadway, lights flashing through our meager curtains, and back-up alert beeping away as it backed at the nearby corner. And I wasn't so totally grateful when I stayed awake until close to 5 a.m. mulling over the events of the previous day and various other topics.

But images I have seen of bulldozers removing dead bodies from the streets of Port au Prince, Haiti have a way of putting things in perspective. I can even feel grateful for the loud plow in the wee hours, part of a well-oiled infrastructure that most Haitians have surely never experienced even in the best of times. I sent my best thoughts Haiti-ward when that came to my mind.

I rather enjoyed shoveling snow this morning before breakfast--not in any hurry, enjoying the relative lightness of even all that snow, just kind of getting into the rhythm of shoveling and shoving, remembering Haiti now and then, and savoring all the space that I had cleared before it seemed time to quit. I even cleared Digory a small loop of a path in the backyard, since seven inches is a few inches longer than the length of his legs.

A lovely way to start the day.

Razzle Dazzle: Eat Your Raspberries NOW

If ever there were a food that wants to be enjoyed immediately, it's the raspberry. Practice delayed gratification with this fruit, and you may end up disappointed with nothing worth eating!

I don't know much about fruits from the tropics or other parts of the world, but in my New England world, raspberries are the most perishable and most precious of treats. Perishable like the "manna" that was given to the Hebrews as they wandered in the wilderness: if I remember correctly, what they didn't eat on the day it appeared went rotten. It was not to be hoarded or saved for the next day's provisions; this was a one-day-at-a-time gift.

But unlike manna, which I picture (rightly or wrongly) as being fairly bland in color and not exactly dazzling in flavor--like dough or paste!--raspberries are wildly, lusciously colorful, going through several different hues of red to end up where they do. And that intense burst of flavor, a perfect match for the color of the "flesh" and juice--there's nothing quite like it!

Last week the first substantial wave of raspberries were ripening in our small, untidy backyard patch. (The realtor who showed us our property on a February day eighteen+ years ago told us the raspberry patch was a rose garden. What a treat to discover otherwise when summer rolled around!)

It also rained last week; sometimes it rained a lot. And it rained something like every other day. I tried to stay mindful of the rain, picking ripe berries when I knew rain was coming, and then picking again a day later after the sun had come out and the newest berries had had a chance to dry out.

At the time I was the only one at home who even likes raspberries, and I couldn't possibly eat them all myself (when that first wave ripens, it's a lot! like a quart!). Besides, I had promised Anna I'd try to make one of my trademark pies for us to enjoy when she was home again.

But all the moisture in the air, the house, and the berries made them even more perishable and more susceptible to mold and mildew. And just to complicate things, fruits flies had made their seasonal debut at our house, and they were quite interested in the raspberries, too. Keeping the razzies covered to keep out the flies only made them more vulnerable to spoiling. I hate to confess that I ended up tossing quite a few rotten raspberries that went bad before I could eat them or cook with them.

I also hate to confess that eating and enjoying them NOW, really allowing myself to pick and eat them right away rather than try to gather and save them, challenges me (in a good way), goes against the grain of various old tapes and programming. Maybe it's partly being geared toward maternal providing, partly old tapes about the vices associated with instant gratification. Maybe it's some very very old hunter-gatherer instinct gone awry in a "gather-then-hoard" direction.

Whatever it might be, I'm open to letting raspberries teach me differently! To accept their invitation to savor them when they are ripe and ready, and not a moment later. To learn to relax, lighten up, and let myself indulge a little! To receive them as a beautiful, luscious, delightfully colorful and tasty gift--gratefully!

Thank you, Natasha.

I know, it's not exactly the most sophisticated of movies, but I have to confess that I really did enjoy watching the remake of  "The Parent Trap" with Bekah and Anna when they were younger. Except maybe in those stages when they seemed to want to watch it all the time, I usually ended up watching with them, at least the scenes with Natasha Richardson. She made the movie for me.

She also did a truly wonderful job reading and recording Roald Dahl's The BFG which Anna purchased for herself years ago. I am glad we still have that around to listen every now and then to her narration and her portraying all the characters--the little girl, the queen of England, and the B(ig) F(riendly) G(iant) among them. 

While I've never seen her in the kinds of raw and gutsy roles for which she is best known (I can imagine her power in them), I am grateful for the loveliness she added to my children's childhood days and to my part in them. And I'm sorry for her way too sudden death of a skiing accident, and a seemingly benign one at that (wear helmets, please, skier friends). 

Piles of Money: part one

"The universe provides," my friend Mary said as she handed me a bag of food to take to Anna, who had left a message on my cell phone hoping for some food when I picked her up to go to the bus station, headed for New York City. 

"That's for sure," I said, noticing as I did so that the wad of money I'd found just a few hours ago was still sitting on Mary's table. If Anna hadn't forgotten to bring lunch money and hadn't called me, if I hadn't found the message at the right time and asked Mary for some bars and fruit, I'd have left "my money" behind. 

As it was, I had only found the money--two twenties and a ten--because the car was running out of gas and I happened to notice the dashboard indicator blinking at me just before reaching the one highway rest stop with gas before I would get to New Hampshire. I admit that I did grumble a little at the empty gas tank, yet I also registered some grateful amazement at the timing of it, being so near to the rest stop. So I had called Mary by cell phone to tell her I'd be a little late, and just as I started to speak, I looked down at my feet and saw the wad of bills. "Hey! I just found $40," I said into the phone as I picked it up. "No...make that $50!"

Now just a few hours later, it was as if I more or less found the money again, just before heading out the door to return to Maine. Somehow I think that wad of money must have wanted to spend some time with me or something. 

So I honored it with the loving portrait you see above.

Stay tuned for "Piles of Money: part two."

Exhausted Elation

Kind of tired, today...can't imagine why. Up past midnight for the best of reasons. Yet elation and exhaustion are not a bad mix. A light, joyful, grateful, relieved heart gives strength to a weary body. One of Anna's friends said this morning: "It was as if the air seemed cleaner this morning!" Lighter, too.

Bekah reports that the District of Columbia was whooping it up, singing it up, dancing it up, honking it up all through the night. Serenading the White House, and Lincoln, who sits calmly as always, smiling wisely, from his lofty seat looking toward the Capitol. Thinking of Lincoln there's a deep sense of the circling of time, the mantle passed from one Illinois senator to another, by and through so many along the way. Emancipation!

We (that would be millions of us) did it! And now there's lots to be done and lots to look forward to.