mindfulness

On Christmas day, I had planned to make a tray of stuffed green peppers to take to the party at a friend's house that afternoon. The problem was I had gone to sleep late after the party the previous night. Since he was living in Connecticut, we had to leave quite early to get there in time, which meant I had to wake up early enough to attempt my recipe which required multiple steps.How was I going to get through the whole process without tearing my hair and those of my loved ones? This is when the lesson on mindfulness came to the rescue. I focused on my breath as I handled the peppers, steamed them in batches, and got them ready on a tray. The breath flowed evenly as I prepared the curry, measuring and pouring, stirring and mixing, until the mixture emerged in the right consistency. Finally, the peppers came to life as they were filled to the brim with curry and stood like dignified princesses with crowns of mozzarella cheese. And when they came out of the oven in their green gowns perfect and unblemished, I thanked my mindfulness for being able to present myself as fine as my creation. The whole process had taken two hours. Which means I meditated for two hours in the activity of making stuffed green peppers!

I

The doctor as poet

I came across this article in the New York Times: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/01/the-doctor-as-poet/
If you scroll to the bottom and click on the link, you will see a set of poems. The first one is beautiful. It brought tears to my eyes.

Hanuman asana

How the monkey god
gets on one knee
and stretches his hands into the sky
fingers intertwined.

I imagine Hanuman
yearning skyward
his torso long

face beautifully benign
crimsoned
under a bright sun.

Further and further
I inch my upright knee
forward from my ankle

so my reach heavenward
feels fulfilling.

This is how Hanuman
knelt before Rama
before launching
his rescue mission,

his adventure of
flying across the sea
racing against time
to contain evil

by finding the jewel
of Rama's eye
make it his own--

reverence, his code.

fall walk

It was delicious to grab a few minutes this afternoon to go for a walk with my dog. We trudged through the fallen leaves piling up on the road. We went crunch, crunch, all the way down the path by the school and back up and around the path looping the neighborhood. I love looking up at the trees preening their red, ocher, green and yellow leaves. The sun fell warmly around my shoulders like a shawl and I felt cared for as I went up the road and back. Cared for by nature.  Nature cooled my eyes, warmed my skin, and woke a joy in my heart. My dog shared this feeling, I am sure, for she pranced down the road with me, not a bit deterred by the leash.

feeling connected

This morning I entered the yoga class, spread my mat, and sat down, cross-legged. We were waiting for the teacher to arrive. Since the room was unlighted, we could not see each other and we were each doing our own thing, stretching, relaxing on our bellies or backs, or simply meditating. As I tuned into the people around me, I heard their soft whispers. The whispered conversations and soft laughter sounded like the chirps and tweets of birds. I felt connected to everyone around me: we were all in tune with each other, whether silent or chatting, as we waited to practice yoga together.
As we began our practice, we inhaled and exhaled together, the rhythms of our movements harmonized with our breaths, and finally our resounding "oms" were as vibrant as bells.

I experienced an epiphany: our joined motions and sounds made us one energy; our bodies that separated us were mere illusions. If we did not have skin and bone and tissue, and if we were only sound and breath, we would be seen as one not separate!

how some asanas make us look as graceful as dancers

This morning we did a pigeon pose that was a variation from the typical pigeon asana. From a sitting posture, we went into pigeon: I held my left ankle in the crook of my left elbow and drew my right hand all the way over my head and met the fingers of my left hand. I wish I had a camera to capture my pose, but although I don't have a photograph to prove that I looked as graceful as a Bharanatyam dancer, I certainly felt beautiful.  What's more, I could have stayed in that pose for a full two minutes longer!
It is wonderful when we feel like we are actually gliding through an asana and the transitions from one asana into the next. As when I went with ease through a series of balance poses: from a tree pose to warrior 3 and then on to hugging my knee (what asana is this?), all without losing my balance, before releasing into mountain pose.
We should probably call our yoga practice yoganatya or yogadance.

the art of walking slowly

As my husband is recuperating from surgery, he has to maintain a minimum level of exercise and so he walks around the neighborhood. I walk with him around the block. As he is in pain, he walks very slowly and I walk slowly with him. Ever since we began our slow amble, we have begun noticing the variety of shades of fall leaves on the ground, on the trees, on the lawns and bushes: mostly ocher and the nuances of it from light to dark. The entire neighborhood is orange themed: pumpkins carved to their ghoulish perfection, orange leaves strung around mailboxes and fastened over doors and windows, orange fall bushes, orange bags filled with raked leaves standing guard by driveways, waiting to be picked up at some point after the trick or treaters have disappeared into the fall gloom on Halloween night. Yesterday I stuck my tongue out and tasted the fresh coolness of the air-, the dampness of the impending rain on my skin, the aroma of ammonia just beginning in the wet sod.  Slow walks are great for exhaling and inhaling very slowly. The air was delicious as it touched my nostrils and the inhalations and exhalations made my muscles relaxed, my skin sing. Our perambulation finally stopped at our burgundy front door and we entered our home more in tune with our spirits than we had been before our walk.

Appreciating our Senses and Nature

Several yoga sessions earlier, Linda had mentioned at the end of the class to take a moment in nature and be present with all our senses. So this morning, during a walking meditation at Westmeadow Beach and enjoying the coolness of the weather, I decided to pay close attention to the air, itself, around me and make that my inspirational and sensual focus.

With minimal effort, I took in deep breaths and smelled the crispness in the autumn air. There was the faint scent of last night's rain mixed with the plants lining the road. The wind was mild this morning, yet I felt its cool presence caressing my skin. It felt delicious and it made me take even deeper and longer breaths. I tried tasting the salty air carried in from the ocean at the back of my throat, but I knew that was a bit of a reach.

The dangling tree limbs and branches would dance gently in the wind and I could almost visualize the twirling air movement flowing through them. The sounds of nature traveling in the air were a mixture of the waves peacefully thrashing against the shore, the cacophony of the seagulls above me, and the leaves rustling softly against each other. In the distance I could make out an animated conversation by fellow nature lovers approaching me.

My walk this morning had turned out to be more than just an exercise, it was a deeply sensual experience that connected me with nature.

"Wild Thing"

Linda does a pose that she calls "Wild Thing." I have a little laugh in my head when I do this pose.  It involves going from a downward dog pose to flinging your left leg and arm over to one side, sort of like a wild bird.  And you repeat it on the other side.  This pose gives me the feeling of utter freedom.  I feel I could actually lift off from my anchored arm and leg, my chest, open and lifted, ready to be borne up into the air.

Thoughts on Thinking

Today, for some reason, I found myself restless in mind and spirit. I did not have a sense of satisfaction nor ease with myself. My world outside was unchanged and calm, but inside there was a lot of mindless chatter and loss of focus in the activities of the day. Perhaps it was because I had missed this morning's yoga session and was not in the mood to go for a walk. Or because I had eaten an extra bowl of cereal and felt sluggish all morning that precipitated these feelings. It did not matter. I had set myself up in a cycle of negative egoic thinking and I felt the need to break it. I realized that having this awareness was a step in the right direction. How often do we set ourselves up for failure in our day, our work, or relationships by allowing a seed of negativity to plant itself inside our minds only to grow into a mammoth weed by the end of the day.

I decided to do some meditation and breathing exercises to help me focus better. By becoming more aware of each inhalation and exhalation as I experienced them, I could quiet down the extraneous thinking. I have found these exercises very helpful in the past. Focusing on the breathing and thinking are often difficult to achieve simultaneously. Perhaps we were designed that way intentionally to remind us of our truer spiritual nature and to get out of our egoic thinking.

So while I have the rest of the day ahead of me, I decided I'm not going to dwell on how my day started and what I have not accomplished. Instead, I will listen to my inner voice and pat myself on the back for being able to finish this blog. Namaste : )

Yoga and the birds and the bees

No, we did not do yoga in the nude today.

However, we practiced a breathing exercise called Bhramari Pranayama which describes a humming sound while exhaling. While sitting in lotus pose , we covered our ears with our thumbs, placed our index fingers on our forehead and closed our eyes with the remaining three fingers. Keeping our mouths closed, we slowly exhaled and made a humming sound like a bee. Linda mentioned how such a breathing practice helps clear our nasal passages, particularly during this high season of allergies and other respiratory conditions. Bhramari has also been commented to be the best breathing exercise for meditation and " It has immediate relaxing effects on the brain. If it is practiced regularly, mental stress, fatigue and high blood pressure reduces." I don't think the pharmaceutical companies are fans of yoga.

In the spirit of spring and the rejoicing of nature, Linda also guided our various poses with graceful arm movements resembling the actions of birds and butterflies in flight. I find all these yoga variations fascinating. Not only are they lovely to observe, but the exercises pay tribute to our natural world . So, while simulating the buzzing of bees and the flapping wings of birds, we escaped our terrestrial domains and freed our spirits to be one with nature . I don't think I was the only one today that felt lighter walking out of class. Thank you, Linda.

Yoga and body awareness

So today after a relaxing yet stimulating yoga session with Linda, I was challenged to write about this class. Linda wanted to focus on the upper body, particularly the shoulders and arms and she prepared the class with various guided movements that worked on upper body strengthening and balance. As a very inspiring yogi, Linda complemented the spirit of the class with John Denver melodies "Sunshine on my shoulders ..." and Jewel's " These hands..." as well as various other artists' works. At the end of the class she discussed how yoga helps us to become more aware of our body. That through various poses and movements, we allow energy to flow . And through this combination of poses, movements and energy we become so much more aware of our body and its abilities. We no longer see our limbs and hands as just body parts but view them with reverence and give homage to them. We see them as instruments of beauty and creativity . They are connectors of the energy within to our outside world. We see energy that flows through our arms, hands, and ultimately fingers in works of art, music, poetry, healing, saving lives. In all the work that we do and who we are.

Death is ok

This morning during my asana practice, I experienced the liberating feeling that it would be ok to die, that the line between my being and my non being was so blurred to be quite non-existent. This death-as-liberation feeling was so overpowering and wonderful, people outside of yogic experience may hear this as crazy-talk by a desperate or psychotic person. But my experience was at my most tranquil and balanced states of mind and body.
The other day I was having a conversation with one of my poetry buddies. We were talking about how the other dimension is always there right before our eyes, right beside us, and in the act of writing poetry we often enter this other dimension.
So in yoga...the other is always present.
I can simply disappear into it as vapor.
Transform into a dew drop on a god's eyelash.