shivaratri

happiest friday!  it's a cold one here in dc but i feel like the sunshine brings some promise of a less-bundled life soon.  i was thinking this morning of how particularly hard these cold months have felt to me and made a little map of all the things that have kept me warm in the midst.  my mvp of the season is the rice-filled bean bag my dear julie gave me for my birthday.  i put it in the microwave for two minutes each night, fall asleep with warm feet and praise its miraculous simplicity.   also important are the l.l. bean shearling slippers my brother gave me for xmas.  it was the first present he gave me in 5 years--because they are that good, he said.  another is the faux-fur lined winter coat i bought for 50% off last month, after many of the coldest days were already behind me.  it was a chilly evening in georgetown and with the encouragement of sweet friend, i bought this coat that is both incredibly warm and feels 100% luxurious.  an extra bonus is that the fur-lining is the same color as poncho so i am able to more fully live out my dream of being dog and owner look-alikes.

i think about all of this and it makes me feel more festive and connected.  despite being cold down to my bones often, i made the best of the polar winds and the deep inward drive of winter.  it's right for nature to wind down another cycle and i'm learning that it's also ok for me to take a deep pause.  today is shivaratri, the hindu festival of honoring lord shiva.  he the holder of both stillness and movement and the keeper of consciousness itself.  i think of him each dark morning when i sit to meditate.  it always begins the same way. i light incense and say a prayer for my personal evolution and that it might help those who are suffering. i feel my body and breath--so terribly, consistently present--and then my mind wanders and then i notice it's wandering and then i'm conscious of body and breath again and then i forget and then i can remember.  i see now that it's all the dance of shiva.  i forget so that i can have the joy of remembering.  it's held in the container of the present moment, which i often cannot see because of the plans i am making, all that i want to fix about myself and the world.  when i pause though--usually out of a desperate need to see past some suffering--the moment is there and it's full and i'm dazzled by it.

in honesty, i have a crush on shiva.  he is powerful, the river ganges dripping from his dreadlocks and a the snake--representing the unconscious sphere--wrapped around his neck.  to me he represents the ability to hold whatever arises with absolute strength.  he is the transformer, the one who breaks down who we think we are so that our true nature can arise.  his super power is alchemy.  instead of destroying the poison of the world, he transforms it to nectar and sends it back out to those who need it.  what was dangerous becomes useful, what is dead is reborn, and the cycle of consciousness goes on unbroken.

maybe i have some dreams of living in warmer climates and maybe they will some day come true.  for now though, i am feeling strong enough to wrestle everything i want to resist--the cold, the inward pull,  the loneliness knocking and the poison that arises from just being a human being.  the more i practice, the more i see that the path of practice is so very challenging.  it's hard to see so many things about myself that i want develop and habitual patterns that i want to cast away and yet still be gentle and grateful for all that i am.  i have things to help--warm things, meditation practice, people i care about and even sexy deities that i get to celebrate once a year.  most importantly though, i have this moment, right here, and when i get really still, i feel a truth that nothing is really wrong within it.

links for a friday

the bonsais at the arboretum are stunning.
i love this house.
ann friedman is hilarious and so on it.
sarita moore inspires me on a daily basis.
come on retreat this november!
i'm reading this book and learning a lot.

(this is a little throwback to my adventurous summer.  i'm dreaming of bali on this blustery winter day)

and i wanted to share this quote that i love...

People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what 

we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, 

so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with 

our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.

- Joseph Campbell 

i'm rrrrrrrrich

wildly wealthy on the billy goat trail this weekend

one of my favorite prosperity practices comes from the awesome coach and writer anna kunnecke.  it's called "i'm rrrrrrich!" and all you do is list all the little every day things that make you feel fabulous and wealthy, yet are easy to overlook when that little voice in your head tells you you need more.  i use it when i want to buy way more than i can afford or i have a weird feeling in my stomach after checking my bank account balance.  it's so easy, lets do it together.

today i am rrrrrich because...

...i had the time to chat with my girlfriend julia about her recent trip to india while scratching poncho's sweet, furry belly on my comfy bed

...driving downtown to teach, i found an amazing parking spot and used my smart phone to pay for a two-hour session.  and i have a car and a smart phone! whoa i'm so rrrrrich. 

...while avoiding the cold rain by drinking chai at teaism, i was gifted a salty-sweet cookie from one of the sweet people who serves me there several times a week with great energy.  this makes my heart feel very big. 

...i taught someone his very first yoga class today and helped someone else understand an arm balance that had been troubling them.  they both looked proud and strong afterward. there aren't words for this amazing wealth. 

...right now the sun is setting and i am writing this on a borrowed computer (mine is in shop right now) and listening to new music (check out rhye for some great soft jams) and smelling the garlic i'm roasting in the oven and planning my 8pm flow class at yoga district.  nice people come to take this class and the room gets filled up with a unified goodness and i get to bathe in it for a while.  

...i was taught to read and to enjoy it and i do so much when i read beautiful poems like the one below

Winter 

And the waves
gush pearls
from their snowy throats
as they come
leaping
over the moss-green,
black-green,
glass-green roughage —
as they crumble
on the incline
scattering
whatever they carry
in their invisible
and motherly
hands:
stones,
seaweed,
mussels
icy and plump
with waled shells,
waiting
for the gatherers
who come flying
on their long white wings—
who comes walking,
who comes muttering:
thank you,
old dainties,
dark wreckage,
coins of the sea
in my pockets
and plenty for the gulls
and the wind still pounding
and the sea still streaming in like a mother wild with gifts—
in this world I am as rich
as I need to be.

--Mary Oliver

hello 2014

acroyoga beauty at playa hermosa, costa rica

the second half of 2013 was a big one for me.  after a few tough months of contemplation, adam and i broke up in early october.  we had been together so long that making the decision felt as a surreal as it did sad.  i just couldn't believe that the person--this best-friend person, this everyday-in-my-life person, this stability person, this co-dog parent person, this person who i had thought i'd be with in my life for a good long while--just wasn't there anymore.  still as strange and sad as it was, it also felt right.  we had a good relationship but there were divisive differences in the way we envisioned life and i could see things getting harder instead of easier.  we saw a therapist which was helpful but not enough to fix things.

in the months of indecision prior to the break-up, i was so afraid of how hard it would be to separate out our lives.  i wondered who would live where and how we would share poncho and what our families would say.  in my most private moments, i also worried that the grounding and stability i had found in myself through our relationship would melt away when he packed up his things.  i pretty much knew that wasn't true, but there was a little nasty voice in my head that told me i would fall apart and it would take a good long while to recover.

of course, the reality of things was much softer than my fear.  we made the decision, i called friends to cry the immediate tears, and then, feeling a bit numb, went with my brother to see "gravity" in 3d imax.  my mom was in town so she took me to the korean spa and spent the day reassuring me that everything would be ok and i would get through it.  we maturely divided our things in less than a hour, found a reasonable way to share poncho, and the timing worked out so i was in mexico when he moved out.  i felt every emotion that i expected but also a bedrock of ok-in-myself beneath it all.  my heart was sad but my self-esteem was intact.

now fall is officially over and 2014 is here and i guess i am ready to write about it (i sat down to write something else and then this came up). i'm doing pretty well and i think what helped me the most through it all was the thought that it wasn't supposed to be easy. if it was hard i let it be hard and watched as it passed.  it's still hard a lot, but thank everything for my yoga practice which teaches me on a daily basis how to breath through lots of sensation and then watch as it changes into something else.  everything ends, and everything changes and the only thing that remains the same is that i can observe it all. yoga teaches me to identify more with the observer of my experience.  this helps me to really think about how i want to respond to a situation instead of flying crazy with my first emotional impulses.

once the truth of adam and i ending our relationship came to the front, i felt a lot of relief. i could let it fall apart and trust that this would bring us both to better places.  we ended up relationship with gratitude and very little bitterness. it was a shift for me to understand that all good relationships won't last forever and that all break-ups don't have to be bad.  as we divided everything up and said our goodbyes, i kept thinking about those tibetan monks who go around the world making sand mandalas.  they work so hard for days to make these beautiful, intricate sand designs.  and after all that work, they end their demonstration by blowing the design away.  it's a reminder of the beauty and impermanence of all things in this life and that despite that, the building is still worth it.

so 2013 was hard and it was also amazing.  i have to take both of those at once.  i ended my year on a beach in costa rica and welcomed 2014 with a showering of bright white fireworks and a swim through the luminescent ocean. it felt good to be there, just as myself, soaking in what i could of my life.  i am surrounded by so many true people these days and still i feel a deep loneliness at times that i can't change but only breath into.  the work i do feels vital and important to me and i get anxious sometimes that it should be more than it is.  in my still, honest moments i feel so content with the up and down of my development and i know i couldn't have gotten here without my time with adam.  still, i don't need him to continue my trajectory. who knows what comes next?  i'm sure some wonderful things mixed with harder emotions.  life will keep moving me and my dedication to going with the flow of things has never felt stronger.  

off the mat

for the past week i've been waiting for the magic pocket of time to post this flier and write a bit about the yoga benefit i'm leading tomorrow, december 15th to bring attention to saving historic mcmillan park.  as always, the pocket of time has not come because life can often get in the way of good intentions.  or rather, i find that life causes me to simplify again and again again and i find that lists can really help that process. so here goes:

1.  i'm holding this benefit because i would enjoy life more if there were a large, non-fenced-in green space around my house.  also, i don't enjoy traffic and the proposed development plans would bring A LOT extra into my world. in addition, i think the open green space would make everyone happier and more relaxed and promote a better life for families around me and help DC grow in ways that are aligned with my values.

2.  a group of my friends have been working tirelessly for years to bring attention to this and i only recently started listening.  once i did, i wanted more people to listen and talk to each other about it.  i think the best way to help a situation is to practice what you are already good at.  i teach yoga for a living and i thought yoga might be a good way to get more people educated and interested.  if more people get interested, then maybe dc would have to listen to other proposals that would be kinder to our community.

3.  to me, it feels really good exercise leadership. as i heal and heal and heal through theses amazing yogic practices that i've been lucky enough to find in my life, i feel a certain responsibility to translate that out into action in our world, especially when it's action that feels aligned with what feels important to me (beautiful spaces, healthy lifestyle, community building).

i'll be talking about these ideas of conscious activism in the community in class tomorrow and we'll have a couple of great speakers and time for Q&A.  it's also my birthday and i can't think of a better way to celebrate...