The Tenderest Shoot

Pastel by Ruth Waddell

In Upstate New York the earth is frozen hard until the sun's rays reach into that first few centimeters, softening, and warming even as the air temperature rises just above freezing. On the shady slope under the old maples the snow still holds its piles and drifts, though they've sunken and crystallized from thaw and freeze.

The tiny spikes, translucent yellow-green, flat and luminous, pierce this frozen layer and poke up above the earth into the bright sunlight. The garlic is coming up. The day lilies, too, have begun their journey from the dark to the light, just as the length of day equalizes with the length of night, here in the Northern Hemisphere -- and equally in the Southern Hemisphere. Equinox, "equal night," began with an enormous and unusual "perigee" moon, closer to earth due to its elliptical shape.

How can something so fragile make it through such a forbidding environment? Even once above ground the variations in temperature seem impossible to bear for my skin, and the wind when calm is fine but it kicks up into biting nose-running cold.

Living in this fragile human body I am in awe of the tiny garlic spike. My own strengths are also in my tenderest parts, those that open to awareness, draw my attention, expand my view beyond the frozen and hardened into the wildness of conditional fluctuations. The ability to see my self in all my reactive nature comes directly from this place of openness, where anything might pierce the luminous and let the darkness in, yet just as easily break through the darkness with light.

I cherish my understanding of how the roots dig in and suck in nutrients; the garlic bulbs swell and form cloves in heads just below the surface; the spike lifts and rises into elegant spears of leaves and stems sending up a globe of blooming flowers, the flavors and aromas of garlic in every bent stem, in every bloom.

Sensations as Sensations

This morning I slipped on the icy shoveled sidewalk. One foot began moving away and the other ankle folded to catch my balance. Pop, twang, and back on my feet. All in a moment, yet in that moment I had a flood of sensations that triggered a heightened awareness. Gratitude that I was standing on a sidewalk, fear that I was injured, amazement that so little had happened and so much had changed, fear that I could not trust my body to function normally, curiosity about the condition of my ankle, pain, hesitation, gratitude the foot took my weight. This all took just seconds. Each momentary feeling took hold and let go, took hold and let go. Then the investigation began.

I have been using a meditation of noting sensation and allowing sensation to be sensation, freeing the sensation itself from the tag lines of feelings, interpretations, anxieties, memories and projections. For me, this means actually choosing not to name the sensation that arises, simply sense it. Each sensation has the potential to reveal the way I operate, attaching thoughts and feelings, assigning meanings, planning etc. in response to the sensation, which has by that time passed into something else. What remains is the construction I've built around it.

So I tested my range of motion, began tentatively walking, using leg muscles and experimenting with how I put my foot down, when to transfer weight to the heel, how high to lift the leg to relax the ankle before its landing, etc. Very slowly and with attention to each step, I got where I was going. It was an amazing journey.

Sometimes I speak about the space in each breath when we remember to notice. I have often spoken about awareness of how we transfer our weight to the earth. Today every single step is an experiment in awareness, letting the fullness of the sensations be just that, and watching the moment unfold.

A friend posted a quote on FB "Every setback is a detour to my goal." -- NFL Colts Head Coach '09 This is a marvelously subtle way of letting go of the steering wheel and the judgmental mind and allowing experience to be just that. We cannot get anywhere from here, we can only be here. By being here, fully, we are just where we need most to be.

I have canceled or postponed all my teaching for today and tomorrow to tend my new project, to experience my body and allow rest and healing to be part of every step. What a blessing my practice has turned even pain into curiosity, even fear into openness. The saying attributed to The Buddha is "Pain is part of life, the suffering is optional." My twisted ankle is such a good teacher!

Responsibility & Fragility

We are such amazing structures of skin and bone, so strong and yet so transitory. Yesterday I was remarking to my husband that I feel responsible for shepherding my elderly relatives safely through the ends of their lives. It is almost as if my hand is gently on the oar of the ferry boat taking them through their final transitions to the other side of existence. This sounded so strange as I said it, yet felt so true. I feel the responsibility to outlive them, in order to keep paying their bills, organize celebrations for their birthdays, keep them supplied with their favorite treats or experiences, sort out their catastrophes and health care debacles, and problem solve when their minds can no longer rationally cope. This is not a passive situation, as I am administratively responsible for two nearly 90's and in the heart responsible for two more of equal age.

In some ways, I approach this weight much the way I do in my asana practice when my knee feels fragile giving those warning twinges. All of this requires first and foremost the ability to see what is really there, be open to what might be so without judging, and not get swept away by conjectures, emotions, and the distortions that past experience might overlay. Clarity, compassion and action are at the core, allowing me to fully support the expression of fragile qualities.

Last night I got a call from my aunt that her name tag had been removed from the door of her assisted living apartment. She wanted to know if there was a change in her status, if she was being removed, if she should move out tomorrow morning. What did I know about it, and why would they do such a thing? She was hurt, furious, scared. To a stranger, this might seem obviously irrational, yet I know that her sense of self is fragile, her place on earth tenuous, her fear and anger justified by her deep family experience. The child of refugees, she hung on correct protocol to protect her, fashioning a professional career that was all about precedent and protocol, legalities and legislation.

I hold the oar lightly, but firmly, and ply it in the strange dark waters as I sense that boat below me, with this dear frightened person in it. Of course I reassure her that it is not personal, and I take the responsibility for facts, explanations and replacement. Just as I practice yoga with my complaining knee, I gently bend it, position the foot directly below it to transfer the weight, bring my awareness to the way my thigh lifts and my hip rotates, my pelvis carries the weight, my spine rises... in other words, the body in its entirety helps support the knee, not the other way around.

So often I think that fragility is frightening because I have forgotten to take responsibility for the support structure. Fear arises when I think something or someone dear to me is suffering or being taken from me, and yet as I grow older I find that although I may never be physically able to do certain poses, my abilities grow constantly in new ways I never imagined. Open to fragility, and responsible for supporting that, I am more and more available to myself and to others. Ah, once again, releasing judgment, letting emotion wash through with the understanding that the wave will come again, but the water goes way beyond the wave.

Dipping my oar, I continue to scan the waters around me, peering into the dark even as the light bounces on the crests of the waves.