a photo backlog/embracing "maybe"

fall throwback photo of arielle and talal expecting at the arboretum (their sweet baby rafi is now rounding out his fourth month)

this month has taken me to costa rica and back (our third time, just as beautiful and transcendent as ever), through a passionate love affair with the cherry blossoms here in dc, and has further solidified my identity as a dog owner.  poncho is keeping his ever-vigilant watch on our back balcony as i write this and i am having a hard time imagining life before him.  my favorite moment of the day is when lift my head from my pillow to seeing him staring at me and wagging his tail to say he's happy the day is beginning.

the ponchster

of course there is so much lifeyness within it all.  people i love are struggling with their health, there's been some hard transition in a few of the places where i teach, and i may have cut my bangs way too short.  as always, i had a lot of fun and did a lot personal growth under a sunny sky while i was on retreat and coming back home for three more weeks of winter felt harder than i would have expected.  as i change, i have to let my life change around me.  one of those really interesting places is in the arena of commitments and self-care.

 twin baby girls that i've already had the privilege of photographing twice in these past six months

for a long time, i've realized that our best qualities as human beings can always be our worst. i love people and i love serving people (positive) and sometimes i so desperately want to please people that  i say "yes" to everything people ask me and then i make myself miserable trying to keep up with my unrealistic schedule.  whew, it feels so good just to type that all out.  it's not secret to those who are close to me.  they are used to be running around and juggling all the irons in my fire and have seen me break down from tiredness and frustration as a result.  they have all probably had to wait for me while i was late or been disappointed when i didn't show up at all.

last weekend, i saw this great documentary about krishna das's life.   he's a really powerful yoga kirtan singer who does not not sound like the guy from the crash test dummies.   so it turns out that he grew up depressed and didn't even start to break free from it until he met his indian guru when he was in his 20's and realized what true love felt like.  what i like most about his story was that it wasn't a straight line to spiritual enlightment.  his guru sends him home to hang out with ram dass and lead yoga movement in the states.  he finds some happiness.  then his guru dies and he thinks his happiness is gone forever so he sinks into another deep depression which involves a lot of cocaine.  he's really struggling with addiction until he gets a strong message from another teacher to get off the cocaine. sober, he starts singing again and starts gaining some popularity in the yoga movement doing what he loves.  then he feels those self-destructive impulses again and realizes he will just repeat the cycle over again unless he gets himself to india again.  he stays at his guru's ashram until during a sacred festival he finally gets a big hit of enlightenment and in his words "finally got out of my own way."

aviva and her brother at her bat mitzvah in february

that struck me as important.  i've always talked about how important it is to look within, but hearing this gave a name to what i was doing to block my own happiness.  being over-committed makes me feel like i am never quite present with what i am doing.  if i agree to something mostly to make someone else happy, i get resentful. when i am running late, i get anxious and don't show up as my best self.  also, i suspect that it makes people in my life feel like they can't quite trust me to do what i say. that's definitely not what i want.

i am willing to be truthful about this because i know that it will improve my life without harming anyone else.  my goal is to be someone who says "no" to most things so i can say "yes" to what i really care about.  but i know that forming new habits take time.  to carry me through i am embracing the power of the word "maybe."  i'm saying it to things and asking for more time to make decisions and being more specific about what i do want.  a major thing i do want is rest.  naps and restorative yoga and watching "parks and rec" and writing down little things in my journal.  this makes me remember that my life is good and that i deserve to enjoy it, even if that process needs some continual fine-tuning.

last year's watercolor of the view from the yoga deck at anamaya yoga resort in costa rica--the view continues to be incredible

the best of it

isn't sherrie such a beautiful lady?  we took these photographs on a gray winter morning down by the water in georgetown the other day.  sherrie writes a great blog about being an indian-american in washington, dc, loves all things french, and has a gorgeous dog named nikki.  she also looks so alive and glowy in red!

i'm about to head to costa rica with sarita for our third annual yoga retreat in montezuma.  this time we are adding surf into the mix and i am going to be falling and getting up a lot.  i'm really looking forward to a week of going deeper into teaching, deeper into the practice and to soak in the immense beauty of that country.  i'm also going to take photographs for fun and read a bunch and eat anamaya's delicious food!

this is amazing and of course, it's also hard to leave.  as i've gotten more grounded over these past years with my weekly yoga classes, dear adam, and now, poncho, it makes me feel how much i am leaving behind when i go away.  i continue to see how deep love also brings attachment and my mantra has been a lot about letting go and trusting.  but mostly, it feels like love all around me, sometimes a hard love albeit, and i keep saying 'thank you, this is good" as i ride my bike through these late winter mornings.

speaking of, i've never felt so acutely aware of needing spring so badly.  each day i look for signs of the first buds, dream about spring gardens, and rejoice at the feel of the warm sun on my back.  as the days get longer and warmer, it feels like i am emerging out of a transformative, internal winter and ready to open my arms a little wider to life--trust a little more, love harder, tell my story louder. 

my great aunt betty's letter also reminded me of this and she is such a good writer that i wanted to share with you all as well.

Dear Family,

Some days are memorable for some unexpected happening, and today was such a day here in Palm
Coast, Florida. Vic called to me to come outside quickly where he stood holding the binoculars. Down our street on the opposite side stood a very large white bird with some highly distinguishing character-istics – a long black bill, a grayish, much pleated neck, black legs, red feet. It was a North American wood stork, length 35”, wing span 66”. I saw a pair of them while we were living in our first house here in Palm Coast. As you can see, these sightings are rare events.

There is an old saying, “We never know what is just around the corner”. On that Friday afternoon
in March of last year, I was just about to learn that one’s life can be transformed in a split second. I
opened the passenger door of our car, leaned outward and fell heavily to the pavement, my feet
thoroughly entangled in the “rope” handles of my purse sitting on the floor of the car. In a “split
second”, I was in excruciating pain and something was very wrong with my right leg which felt para-
lyzed. Surgery could not be avoided; drugs and antibiotics could not be avoided; an extended period in a rehab could not be avoided.

The wonderful day finally arrived when Vic came to take me home from the rehab, and I began to make a very important discovery. After being confined for almost a month, I noticed the incredibly beautiful blue of the sky. It was like I had never really noticed much less appreciated this most natural “thing of beauty”. My attention moved to something else so beautiful – the clean whiteness of puffy clouds and then to the deep green of the jungle-like vegetation. It was a meaningful discovery because to this day seeing that special blue of the sky remains such a very special treat. Those puffy clouds may or may not be there, the deep green always a part of the beautiful picture.

And then as we drove along, I noticed people walking , and at first I felt so jealous – would I ever be able to walk without pain? If so, I determined right then and there that I would be so grateful every time I moved about on my own two feet.

And so, dear Family, I write to encourage you to enjoy and cherish what life has given you. The lesson is that it can be transformed or lost in a split second.

Love always,
Betty

thursday music

i really like this song by alt-j and also devendra banhardt's new album that you can catch for free on first listen for a least a bit longer.

strength and softness

this is how i roll with my new dog poncho.

oh my, it's been some time hasn't it?  as always, i am writing lots of blog post in my head, even when i don't have time to sit down and actually type one out.  one them goes a little like this...

i spent the past five days in an acroyoga immersion where i did lots of handstands and partner balance yoga and thai massage for 7 hours a day.   do you know what acroyoga is?  i find it so inspiring and courageous.  during this workshop, there were about 30 of us there, balancing and falling and giggling the whole time.  i did a lot of things that scared me--like cartwheeling out of a handstand!--and let a lot of people support me through that fear.   all of these exercises showed me that i am much stronger than i let myself believe because fear isn't so real once i face it.

in fact, i feel like i have always been afraid of being so strong.  in my life, i usually feel bigger than most people.  always the tallest girl in my classes until high school, now i'm 5'10 and wear size 11 shoes and have muscular legs.  i have worked many years on accepting my body and have done so much healing.  yet still, deep down, maybe i still felt like being big made me stand out in a way i didn't like.  ladies are supposed to be smallish, right?

so during the retreat, they divided us up into bigger people who act as more of base and smaller people who do the flying.  of course, i was picked as a base and felt a twinge of being ashamed about that.  but as we moved through the exercises, i realized that my body is really well suited to be a good base.  i have long, strong legs with open hamstrings that help me to steer another person's body.  also, in acroyoga big feet are awesome for balancing a flyer. i love flying with people with big comfy feet and felt proud to be able to offer that to my flyers.  basically, the base is the support of the whole flying apparatus.  as the week went on, i dug that role more and more and my body that helped me to do it so well.

in the yoga sutras, it's explained that to do yoga we need to be strong and soft at the same time.  in my hopes of hiding in some way, i think i have avoided seeing myself as strong and tried instead to be kind.  but now real life experience has shown me that i can do some pretty amazing things and that this strength only increases my ability to nurture those around me.  in such a tough world, i see that it takes so much strength to be truly kind.

the coolest part of everything, is that i got to see everyone go through their own transformations and to feel like i was a part of that.  even the teaching team shared openly what they were going through and it truly felt like a community of support that heals through having fun.  i feel really grateful to have shared in that kind of collective transformation and energized to teach these upcoming retreats in west virginia in may, bali in july and costa rica in just two weeks. 

in other news, as the above photograph has given away, adam and i got a dog!  his name is poncho, he's about 1 year old and we adopted him after he was found wandering back roads in southern virginia.  as a terrier/shepherd mix, he is endlessly curious, guards the house and wants to smell everything and chase each squirrel he sees.  luckily, he's also relaxed enough for a good nap and cuddle when the moment calls for it now.   perhaps he's a little, furry representation of that strength/softness i've been searching for myself.  perhaps this is why i love him so much.

some online findings that gave me pause

wow, i can't even say how inspired i am by this video.  it's a true testament to the healing powers of the practice and will help me to never create excuses of why i can't do something.

also...

check out this incredible story about a family living alone in siberia for 40 years

this could be my spirit animal

watch this video if you love food and/or india

thanks andrea

i found this lovely story corps interview on andrea scher's superhero life blog.  isn't this mother/son honesty so refreshing?  it's fitting that i found that through andrea, because it's why i admire her writing so much.  i don't remember exactly how i've found her blog, but i do know that i've read it for over 10 years and learned a lot about myself in the process.  she writes about important stuff-- creativity, vulnerability, and connection--and shares on topics that most people shy away from like anti-depressants and infertility. from her, i learned that it's more than ok to be a little messy and human when i write here because we all go through the same hard parts in life, just as we all share in it's beauty.  so thanks andrea!  also, check out her great interview with the ever-amazing artist danny gregory, who is another great teacher about being creative no matter what. (ps excuse the strange formatting on the text here--blogger is being a little silly with it's auto-formatting)

things i haven't told you, yet

 

happiest of new years to you!  i hope this new year has a freshness for you and that you are inspired by something these days.  it's been so long since i have written because so much has happened in my family in this last month and it's taken me a while to figure out how to map that out with words.  

in short, my grandmother passed away just before christmas.  her name was ida mary--but i called her nana, she was the mother of my mother and she passed away on the day after the solstice, on the second shortest night of the year.  she was 91 years old and had lived a very full, very human life.  during her memorial last weekend, everyone spoke of her as the perfect, cultured hostess and the person you'd call if you wanted to enjoy an afternoon at the ballet. she also struggled with that common insecurity of never quite feeling like she was good enough and sometimes took that out on the people she loved. 

i remember her as being beautifully dressed--usually in her favorite color purple, working diligently to stay up on current events, and never saying "no" to a gin and tonic.  from my nana, i learned table manners, because as she said "you never knew when the queen would stop by." i also learned the social graces of following up a nice visit with a thank you note and keeping the conversation going at a dinner table.  throughout my life she was caring to me, in a formal kind of way, but during her last two years of life she really softened. her face would light up when i came over and she would tell me openly that she loved me. of course, those last years were also her decline. the first year was hard and this last year was really uncomfortable.  as her life until then had been so full, my nana knew that her limited state was not real living.  toward the end, she desperately wanted to go and talked about it constantly. because of this, her death was a relief as much as it was a sadness.

i feel lucky to have lived so close to her in these last years.  it became our pattern to visit together once every couple weeks.  at first we would lunch out at her fancy dining club and then the lunches moved into the dining room of her retirement home and then to her apartment.  after a while, i would eat a sandwich while she had cocktail of ensure + ice cream.  for the last couple of months, she rarely left her bed. i would sit beside her, helping her sort through catalogues and eating ice cream from fancy parfait glasses.  our talks would range from deep explorations of where one goes after death to her sudden distress that i wouldn't know how to polish the beautiful wood furniture she had gifted me.

the women of my family--my mom, aunt and i--were with her the night of her death.  after a long outing that involved fighting pre-christmas crowds at the mall, i dropped my mom off at my nana's home.  i was exhausted and crabby and almost decided not to stop in to see her before heading home.  she hadn't been conscious for the past few days, but the doctors thought she would make it until christmas.  my plan was to spend the next morning with her when i was rested.  yet something told me i should go in. as soon as i saw her face, i knew it was the right decision.  she looked shrunken and gray and was breathing with great difficulty.  her nurse told us that it would probably be soon. 

i felt ready to be there.  so much of my spiritual process has been so tied up with my grandmother over these past years.  when met my teacher one strange night in nyc--the shaman who took me to the amazon this fall--my nana was just starting to show signs of decline.  that night, the first words out of his mouth were "we are all going to die." he proceeded to explain that our culture is afraid of examining death and accepting that it will be our final reality.  the problem is that if we avoid death, then we will never live fully.  we will be afraid of our hair graying and memory weakening and we will not die with dignity and grace.  it's in owning our aging, our decline that we realize what magnificent, temporal beings we are. 

this wasn't the first time i had heard about this.  in autobiography of a yogi, yoganada writes about how our whole practice of yoga should be to die without fear, with full knowledge of our spirits. yet from the perspective of my healthy, young body, these lessons didn't feel like much.  it was in meeting my teacher that i started to really consider just how earth shattering it must feel to face that with lucidity, and from there a well of compassion opened up inside me.  i dedicated all of my yoga practices too her and thought of her discomfort often, trying to feel it as if it were my own.

i left for the amazon just as my nana was starting her serious decline.  when i said goodbye to her, i wasn't sure if i would see her again yet i knew that my taking this deep retreat into myself could help her in some ways.  although i don't think i can ever fully write about those 10 days of personal struggle and liberation in the deepest jungle,  i can tell you that i felt the presence of my grandmother so strongly throughout my whole time.  one night in ceremony, she came to me in a vision and i knew with clarity that my job was to help to her go to the other side.  i lifted her up and told her she could do it and she climbed higher and higher, past what i knew. i told her that i loved her and still she went higher and until she burst into the form of a giant bird with purple feathers.  she overwhelmed me in that moment with her beauty.  i saw that in death, she was everything she had always wanted to be.   i also knew that she would be with me always, that death doesn't take that away.

so the night of her death i was ready to sit with her and witness the passing.  we sang her old hymns from the christian science church and i read her a poem by margaret atwood and when it got late, i went home and lit a candle.  adam was already in cincinnati and our apartment felt still and holy even. a few minutes later my mom called and said she was gone and that in death her face looked so much more peaceful.  i sat on my bed and cried and felt the supreme liberation of this lesson that does not have boundaries.  in that moment i let myself fall apart over the gift of life, the reality of death and that what does not change within it all.