Do You Do Yoga?

It seems like ages since I posted last. Things have been busy with visitors from out of town, apartment hunting, and, of course, the pregnancy, which seems to consume a lot of mental space. Growing a person takes a lot of attention!

I was reminded of my ‘magic bullet’ in my yoga practice today - ritual! It is the aspect of my practice that I feel I neglect the most. Yet, at the same time, I feel like life is one giant ritual. I have been getting caught up in some challenges lately, mostly related to finding a new apartment for our growing family. It has been a fascinating and sometimes frustrating process. We have found two places that we wanted, and somehow the deals fell threw both times. It seemed disappointing at the time, but both of us have since said that we are now glad that we didn’t get those place - it feels like the Universe has been watching out for us in spite of us.

In a seemingly unrelated way, in the past week, I have been burning sage. I don’t usually burn sage, but there was this big bundle sitting in the gift store of the retreat center during the final session of the yoga training, and I bought it to take home. It has been sitting, untouched until recently. I haven’t burned it for long periods of time, but when I finish, I have snuffed it out in my brass bowl that I often use to begin or end my practices on the mat. I have been letting the residue accumulate, and normally I don’t let my bowel get dirty.

Today, as I went for a short walk to the store, I had an epiphany:

• The sage represents everything I connect with the concept of ‘me.’
• The fire represents the gifts that life offers in the form of challenges.
• The smoke arising from the connection between the challenges of life and me creates the smoke, which represents the journey of my life. Notice that it is not linear; I cannot see where it goes, and I cannot contain or control it.
• The bowl represents my mind or my attention.

The process of snuffing out the sage in he bowl is the process of self-reflection. In this process, there is a residue left over, which was originally part of my self concept. The residue represents the seeds of suffering that arise as I go through the challenges. It is through self-reflection that I can identify and detach these seeds from my self concept. In the current moment, I see the residue as representing ‘desire.’ The desire to have life be a certain way, the desire to try to control my life’s journey (smoke is impossible to control of course), and it has also been a desire for a particular apartment that I want but did not get. All of these desires have caused me suffering lately.

I took my bowl, filled with the residue and held it outside of my window on a breezy day. I did not need to act but rather just be patient and let the Universe take the residue from my mind. Then, I rang the bowel - the mind resonates clearly when it is free of the residue of desire!

This ritual ran through my mind as I walked, and as soon as I got home, I asked my husband to witness an important ritual for me. He stopped what he was doing and sat next to me. I spoke the words written above and performed the ritual. The sage smoke blew into his face a few times (as life does), but he sat patiently even though he hates incense or strong fragrances. He has been going through everything with me, so he understood the importance of this.

It may seem like such a silly gesture, but I feel lighter as a result. I think this is a ritual meant for me in this moment in our lives. Only a ritual can lift my heart in such a way.

My friend Clare asked a simple question in an email today - “how’s yoga?” I wrote back a ’short’ response the ended up being much longer than I planned. As a result, I worked through some stuff that has been bubbling up. She is awesome that way - knowing the right questions to ask is the important thing.

I mentioned that I felt like I was ‘just maintaining’ at the moment with respect to my practice. She reminded me that maintaining is what we need to do during big transitions in our lives, and that is where I am at the moment.

It reminded me of phase transitions in thermodynamics. When water is melted to ice, for example, there is a period in the transition where you can add heat, but nothing seems to be happening. However, in order to make the transition to the next phase, you need to keep adding energy. That is how I feel at the moment. A lot of energy is going out, but it seems like nothing is happening. Like a phase transition in ice, there is a lot of internal work going on at the moment. I wonder what the next phase will look like for me. I suspect it has something to do with a big belly.

There have been some interesting physical changes. Most notable, my sacrum seems to have moved backward a bit. It feels different to do Dvi Pada Pitham (bridge pose) now. My sacrum presses more firmly into the ground. That’s kind of cool. The not so nice change is that my shoulders are very irritate from sleeping on my side. I am going to visit a doctor recommended by my OB as soon as I can get an appointment. I have been doing a half baby prep, half shoulder support practice to compensate, but I need some external help to get the alignment improved.

In the mean time, I’ll keep putting in the energy I need to complete this phase transition successfully. I must remember that my practice is a source of energy for me - the more I put into it, the more I get out of it.

I am reading a wonderful book called Birthing from Within, and it has a lot of useful information for women who want a natural delivery. I found a particular interesting concept in it that reminded me of experiences in my meditation practice.

It speaks of the Old and New brain. The old is the part of the brain is the intuitive brain that has been with humanity since th beginning. The new is the part of the brain that we have trained and the part we use to learn new information. I remember once in a class with my teacher Gary when he used the word ‘Infinity’ in leading a meditation. As soon as the word hit my ears, my state of mind changed. Being trained in astronomy, that word has less of a mystical meaning and more of a specific, mathematical meaning. It felt like Gary flipped a switch when he put that word out there - it was like he switched on my ‘new’ brain and it over wrote my ‘old’ brain that had been taking me to the meditative state.

I will have to remember this when approaching the time for labor and delivery. It will not be my intellect that will take me through, but I have extreme faith in my intuitive mind. I feel like my yoga practice has been a constant activity in support the knowledge of the ‘old’ brain.

In a survey I took yesterday, I was asked what the goal of my yoga practice is. I had to stop and think. I remember when I first started, I used to have goals of doing certain strong postures. I would go to classes and do some things at home to make my body stronger, and I would eventually get there and perform the posture, sometimes at the expense of my shoulder joints.

I think that started changing after a car accident 7 years ago, just three years into practicing yoga. The first thought as I sat on the side of the road with a completely shattered wrist was that it would change my yoga practice. I was a pedestrian against an SUV, so I came out pretty well considering. For the hour or so following the accident, I used my breath to stay calm and manage the pain - I had never done that with my breath before and I was surprised at my own clarity.

After the survey question, I realized that my “yoga goals” are something very different than they used to be. As my teacher always says ‘It depends,’ and I think that is a good description of how I see my practice these days. Now, my goals or intentions for my practice depends on what is happening in my life. The long and short term goals follow the need rather than looking for a particular externally motivated goal.

I sometimes still have the goal of getting generally stronger - that usually kicks in around spring time. But, at the moment, for example, my practices are designed to help me support and cope with pregnancy and prepare me for impending motherhood. Thanks to the guidance of my incredible prenatal yoga consultant, Clare, I am able to utilize the tools of my practice to serve this purpose.

I had a private with Clare over the phone last week, and she worked her Viniyoga magic. In the time we talked about meditation, pranayama and ritual in the service of pregnancy, she took practices that I have developed on my own and helped me see how to use them now. It brought tears to my eyes to see my own inner work laid at my feet to serve!

This new approach to my practice has made me a strong yogi, both physically and spiritually. I swear that my postures became stronger when I changed strategies. Something about letting go of the goal of ‘performing’ postures and instead, experiencing them made them deeper and stronger. During my last training, I was honestly surprised by some the strength I had when asked to demonstrate postures. I never considered myself one of the people who could do very strong postures. In much the same way, my desire to explore my breath and spirit have deepened the other aspects of my practice. It is almost as if giving up the desire to progress in exchange for learning to appreciate the experience is what truly helps me move forward in my practice.

Maybe I should list that as my new ‘yoga goal.’ - I achieve to practice for the experience itself rather than for an external goal. The external goals are so hard to let go of if you have lived in my life.

My practice has changed dramatically in the past three months. What I haven’t mentioned yet on this site is that I am 12 weeks pregnant!

As a result, my approach to my yoga practice has changed dramatically. Actually, with the fatigue in the first trimester, I backed off of any strong asana and did a lot of exploration closer to the Earth. As I enter the second trimester, I am hoping to regain energy so I can focus on building strength and stability.

I am consulting with a friend and amazing teacher, Clare, who has worked with pregnant women for years. She has helped me consider some of the physiological issues that I’ll be facing throughout and how to best adapt asana to serve them. Shortly, we will meet again to discuss how best to develop meditation and pranayama to serve my needs and prepare me for impending motherhood.

I am so grateful to have the tools of my yoga practice at my disposal right now. I feel like I am much more in tune with my body than I would have been 10 years ago. I think I even felt the little life in my belly fluttering the other day!

The changes are coming exponentially, and it makes a wonderful challenge to keep balance when the changes from one day to the next are so apparent. I swear that my belly just seemed to have popped out of my pants yesterday. It wasn’t so obvious before that. I’m sure this will be a continuing theme of this blog for the next six months, at least. I am looking forward to observing this incredible journey.

Mantra Japa is a practice where one recites a mantra repeatedly as a tool to help focus the mind. I have been using it lately in my meditation practice, and have found that it’s a useful way to keep the mind from wandering.

This past week, I have been having sleeping problems. I sleep lightly, and I am having a lot of vivid dreams. When a dream wakes me, my mind also wakes up and starts thinking a bit too much and keeps me up! I am a bit Vata deranged, to say the least!

I decided to start incorporating the mantra japa practice into my crazy nights. When I woke up, for the past few days, I would start to silently recite the mantra over and over again. At some point, the mantra would get all mixed up, and shortly there after, I would be asleep again. It worked really well! I was pretty happy that I found an application for my mantra that took care of an immediate need. Studying yoga can be so cool that way - it’s so practical!

Yesterday, I went back to my seated meditation practice after some asana and pranayama. I prepared to start mentally reciting the mantra as I always had, but this time, something changed! (this sound odd, even to me, but it is what it is). It felt as though the mantra entered me rather than me consciously calling the mantra to mind. Previously, I recited it as I would if it were being spoken. This time, the pace of the mantra was much faster. It moved with my breath, with my heart beat! I had a hard time to stay focused because my mind desperately wanted to analyze this new experience. I just kept trying to come back to the mantra even though it was a totally different way of experiencing he phrase I have so often recited. My analytical mind is sometimes my nemesis when it comes to meditation - once it gets turned on, it is hard to turn off. A bit too much science training in my life, perhaps.

The meditation was a positive experience and interesting. My teachers have always encouraged me to experience sensations that arise in mediation and then return to the practice. So I don’t plan on expecting this same experience to happen again - I couldn’t make it occur if I tried. It was something beyond my conscious effort. I wonder if the half-conscious, sleepless nights of mantra japa stimulated the experience. I will patiently await what happens in future meditation - and try really hard to have no expectations!

One of the eight limbs of yoga, according to the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, is Yama or how you treat your environment. One of the Yamas is Staya or truth. The sutra describing this quality (II-36) says that one who speaks the truth will have the correct/desired results from their actions or words. One interpretation of this sutra is that when you speak, speak only of the Truth (with a capital ‘T’ - not necessarily the facts). Or, as Krishnamachaya used to say, “When you speak, speak only of God.” This would imply, for instance, that gossip is an action that works against this practice of Yama.

I received a great lesson on gossip last week. I received an email from my boss in the middle of the week asking how I was doing and if my work load was too much. Since this email was a bit out of the blue, I was curious about it origins. So in my response, I asked if there was any particular reason she asked. She explained that two of my coworkers had been raising concerns about my well-being lately. I remind you that I work from home, and neither of these coworkers have seen me in person in a while. My boss is aware of some medical issues I have been dealing with lately which are affecting my energy level, so I assured her that aside from that, nothing more profound was going on with my well-being.

After a long talk with one of my coworkers and friend, I discovered that the lack of energy I have had in the past few weeks was being interpreted as depression and a sense of isolation by my concerned peers. Rather than inquiring with me directly about why my energy level was low, an entire drama about me had developed! This story made its way to my boss who had the sense to contact me directly. Once I confided in my coworker the real cause of my low energy he seemed relieved. I was touched that there was concern for my well-being but also a little shocked that it had ballooned into an issue in the office.

I’ll have to remember this the next time I start speculating about what is happening in someone else’s life. That kind of gossip is not conducive to a clear mind and actions taken based on gossip could have unexpected consequences. For example, I felt compelled to share personal information that I had not intended to share at this time, and I don’t believe that was the intention of my coworkers.

I tried a new kind of fasting this weekend - a computer fast. I work remotely from home, which means I am tied into my work through my computer. I spend most of my day sitting in front of it (with occasional breaks for my back and my sanity). In the evening, I am usually catching up on personal emails, researching some things, paying bills, etc. All of that usually happens on my computer as well. By the end of last week, I was feeling totally over stimulated by my little laptop. In fact, one of the few activities I do not do on the computer is my yoga practice, but even with that I have developed a yoga project (as part of my training) that will require me to write, and I write on the computer.

So, in an attempt to simplify, I didn’t turn on the computer for the entire weekend. This may not be much of a feat for some people, but for me, it’s been a while since I was computer-free for two whole days. I had a lot more free time, and I even got bored! I made a model out of cardboard - it’s a moon lander that I picked up at an astronomy conference recently. I bugged my husband more and did a few more chores around the house.

I think I’ll be doing a version of this fast more often. I hadn’t realized how much different it is to be in front of the machine all day as opposed to how I worked when I was at the office. When I worked in the office, there were meetings and a lot of face time. This in itself can be distracting, but it does give you a break from computer fatigue.

If anyone out there has found great ways to unplug, please share. I need it! I have so litle practice of being totally unplugged at home.

On Thursday, I finally received a copy of “Natamuni’s Yoga Rahasya!” It is a book, translated by TKV Desikachar, that was mentioned by my inspiration, Clare, during the last session of the yoga training. It arrived at my door exactly at the moment I needed it! I opened it up, literally, to a section that was completely relevant to my life at this moment.

It is written in sutras, and it has extensive sections on details of concepts mentioned in the Yoga Sutras, which I found helpful. I was having some insomnia last night, so I ended up reading the entire text and am left with so many questions and inspiration. What I loved most is that there are many ideas introduced which were also introduced by Gary, and that helps to reinforce my learning. The concept of appropriate adaptation of the yoga principles to an individual practitioner is seen throughout the pages of the book. It even speaks of the importance of yoga for women in general, and specifically during pregnancy. It has some not so nice things to say about women and yoga as well, such as “Kriya Yoga has been lost on them,” which my husband found funny

I am working with some of the prescribed practices in the book (it has that much detail), and they have been earth shattering thus far. I must admit that I am amazed. Maybe it is a placebo effect (the source of instruction coming from something ancient/traditional may influence me), but there is definitely an effect. I am looking forward to exploring more with this book and incorporating some of its lessons into my practice.

During the last session of my 500 hour and two years of training with Gary and AVI, we delved into meditation. I have never really had a meditation practice in all of my years of asana and pranayama (breathing practices). The closest I came were moments of inner silence brought on by the rest of my practice. I was curious what this while meditation thing was about before this training. Honestly, I had heard so much talk of meditation, but I didn’t understand what it really was.

The meditation practices were not what I thought. As with many other practices we did during the training, some people would have profound experiences leading to tears sometimes. After some meditation practices, some would talk of seeing colors or visions, etc. My experience was a little less dramatic. Gary would say, “Focus on X” - X being some word, image, etc. I would focus on X,and eventually, Gary would call our attention back. That’s it! No epiphanies, no visions, just X - how boring! I did feel still afterwards though.

Since I got home from the training, I have noticed the focus of my practice moving int he direction of meditation. All of the asana and pranayama are, traditionally, just preparation for meditation. I feel like my practice has awakened me a few times in the past month. I am normally not a morning person and am too sleepy to even try meditation in the early morning, but I have had great practices before 7:00 AM lately. I haven’t needed an alarm ay of those mornings.

I started reading “Meditation and Its Practice” by Swami Rama since I got back. His methods are rooted in the Yoga Sutras, like Gary, so it resonates with me. He teaches that meditation is about holding a mantra in your mind and letting all other thoughts cease. If I am good at anything, it is focusing on something while the rest of the world fades away (my loved ones have learned that when tying to talk to me while I am reading - I don’t ignore, I simply do not hear them). Gary initiated us into a mantra on the last day of training, and so I have been using that one. I hadn’t realized it until recently, but I had been using a mantra repeatedly in the past couple of years. It was a phrase that kept sticking in my head since the first week of the yoga training, and it means “Not me.” It seems to have helped prepare my mind for this meditation stuff.

I am not expecting dramatic visions or thoughts anymore. From what I am understanding, that’s not what it’s about. It is the ability to keep the mind focused that helps the inner self appear. Since I am good at focusing, I should stick with that for a few years and see where it takes me.