Thoughts of Snakes & Heart Breaks

I've thought before about the way a broken heart feels as though it just isn't working properly anymore, as though the shell around the form has broken open and everything is tender and at risk. Oddly enough I began thinking about this in terms of growth rather than destruction or disrepair. This morning I had the deepest feeling about snakes and the way they literally lose their skins in order to allow for growth. They do not mourn the old skin, truly a sense of non-attachment! Nor do they worry about the size or shape of the new -- no grasping!  This happens several times in their lifespan, as it does, seemingly in our own human life span whether we see it that way or not.

It is amazing to see a snake swallow its nutrition in the form of whole animals. I think of the long slow sustaining absorption process that takes place along the enormous length of its digestive track.  Could it be helpful to think of ourselves in this way, that these huge inputs require a long slow digestive fire to take in the full meanings and sustain our growth? It seems we far too often think we ought to know in an instant, or learn over night, or get the message that first time. I know from my own teenage journals that I really did experience much that led to insights only to go on and repeat the lesson until I was able to actually absorb the insight.  What if we give ourselves the benefits of time without judgment, using  the kernels of understanding as they break free from the mass?

And then there's that wild way that snakes move, always with strength and grace, yet more often than not, resting quietly absorbing the heat of the day, or breathing slowly in the coolness of shade. They spend much more time just being than being busy. Wouldn't this help us too?

I'm not saying that we are snakes, or that snakes are we (at least I don't think that's what I'm saying), but I do think we suffer far too much heartache without associating that ache with the growth it so often makes possible. No matter what kind of day I'm having, if someone near me allows me to see they are struggling, I feel the ache. Years after a loss, or a painful scene, the heart can revisit its old shapes and replay the cracking of what felt like the safety of the shell.  We do this in our sleep through dreams, we do this in a split second when the air smells a certain way, or the light hits the edge of a leaf. You know what I'm talking about. Our hearts are very open to being broken, to feeling soft and exposed. Perhaps this belies a suppleness we have overlooked.

We go to a movie and weep for the characters. We hear a voice singing of heartache and ours responds. (I think of Leonard Cohen's song "Hallelujah.") If we are not grasping at the past, are we yearning for the future?  Can we re-visit our snake ancestry and allow the cracking to open us to the self that is already there growing into who we already are?

I come back again and again to this kernel that broke clear:  I am not waiting for anything. I am already right here. If that is so, then nothing is broken and I have what I need to make of this moment all it can be. I can allow myself to let go of the cracking shards and truly break open.  Is this a frightening idea? It is so only if being more fully oneself is frightening. Isn't that where life expands? Filling in the new skin, growing into the new shape, and going on until the next cracks let the light in to see the soft, supple and unfettered heart?

Seeing Your Inner Gesture: Asking, Offering, Accepting

Reaching an arm outward is a physical action. If feelings are allowed to arise, they will. It is a trick of the mind to attach meaning to everything, meaning that triggers feelings, and feelings that in their responsive nature give us the next wave of action and reaction.

Just sitting in a chair and gently reaching a hand outward, extending your arm in front of you ... to the side ... above your head ... You can turn on the switch of being present with how you feel in the action. Are you holding a soft handful of air? Are you striving to extend back muscles and lengthen finger joints? What are you doing?

Each time you open your awareness to this, you will find something new. You, in this moment, and how you feel, can become more familiar and visible in your conscious view of yourself. That outstretched arm can introduce you to yourself. This is how the physical practice of yoga opens into a deeper understanding of the self, a path to acceptance of the range of feelings that are already there in you, a way to tolerate and release even painful emotions stored from past events, or to acknowledge and adapt in spite of fears of future events.

That elegant arm reaching out, the incredible hand extended... are you asking? are you offering? are you accepting?

If you drop your wrist and relax your fingers, your arm will still express your deeper feelings. You can release your hand to be the simple extension of this, allowing the unfolding from your heart. With the eyes of a warrior, soft, open, and ready for anything that might appear, let your yoga practice allow you to begin cultivating your view, your drishti, to accept what is already before you.

Meditation: Hold the Railing in the Bottomless Pool

Right in the middle of dinner, a mood settles in, changing the textures of experience, tamping down on interactions and forming strange silences. There's a deep pool of possible feelings upon which to draw, yet like sipping through a straw, only one small part is sucked up, feeding the whole.  It wasn't like this just moments before, or perhaps yesterday was different. It feels as though a shift, like a tectonic plate, happened, and without knowing how it happened, or making up reasons why it happened, we feel as though standing in a place from which life looks different.  Right in the middle of life, someone we love  leaves us and we are lost in the bottomless pool.

It doesn't seem like a choice, since it is something we feel. Feelings surround us, like an immersion, and we cannot feel the bottom of the pool with our toes any more. Seems like either we drift with it, paddle in it, or drown in it. Is feeling really a matter of mind? a reaction to a condition? Does it help to know that the condition is impermanent, or is this feeling of the impermanence of everything like being in a bottomless pool, hopeless of finding our feet? Forever without the comfort of grounding? This is the wash of grief, the depth of loss, the fear of looking forward or letting go of what is past, unable to see the continuum of events as a constantly shifting mirage without feeling despair and agonizing incompleteness.

How do we live with equanimity if there is no bottom to the pool? Think of the shallow end of a swimming pool. There are stairs to give a gradual way into the water, where one can stay until more at ease with the depth and the shift from dry to wet. Even in the deepest end of the pool there are ladders for one to climb out, or to hold onto for a moment of rest. Understanding that the pool is bottomless does not mean giving up these supports, in fact it helps to see them as exactly that. There is little hope of understanding the sea simply from standing on the shore, we begin by wading in. We cannot know the deepest parts on our own, nor traverse the breadth of the sea as a fish might. Yet we can hold the concept of the mountain ridges beneath the surface, the universe of life and energy cycles playing out throughout. These are like the steps into the pool that we can use in approaching the ocean of our feelings and reactions, the seemingly boundary-less and overwhelming reactions we can have in a moment of loss, disappointment or fear.

Setting aside time from the viewing platform of meditation or a yoga practice can allow us to visualize the stairs, and the vastness of the bottomless pool, without reactivity. We can watch the whole scene play out without immersing ourselves in it. Notice the fear or grief arising, the avoidance or the urge to plunge beyond our depth. This moment of observation can be seen and even felt without being lost in it. We can learn to train our attention to hold the railing of the ladder while we let the mind follow the waves outward into the deep end. Let the breath itself be your railing.

Seeking the Nature of Reactivity: Can I See My Self?

Relationships are complex and intangible. I can stand next to someone and some sort of a relationship forms. We arrange ourselves spatially, use eye contact cues and follow rules of engagement that change constantly.

In one recent class I was teaching, I suddenly proposed: “What if you simply stopped judging the people you love? What if a person who loves you could look you in the eye and say, I completely accept you? What if that person was a co-worker, or a person next to you on the subway, or in this class?” It was shocking to imagine anyone, even a person who loves me, gazing at anyone else, even me, without judgment. In that moment my students’ eyes were fixed on me and their minds were full of reactions to me and my words. Maybe they picked up on the fact that even I, “the teacher,” was shaken awake to imagine this.

Our very nature is a reactive one. Stilling the waves of the mind, as Patanjali states in the second verse of his yoga sutras, means watching that reactive nature with awareness but not being subjected to its every wave. Can we actually function among others, doing our daily tasks without falling victim to our own stories and in essence blinding ourselves to reality? Reality is, in this case, the understanding that we are connected rather than separate in the realm of all living beings. Of course as long as we continue to think of ourselves as separate entities, our functioning will remain judgmental and attached.

I find it very hard not to drop into various definitions, or characters, or roles and react again and again from there. The process seems to form layers of story, and each has its point at the time, but they get heavy to carry around after a while. It is a long-term project to put them down, or perhaps it is very quick but has to happen again and again – maybe for each layer. If I have trouble giving this habit up when living in my own body as my own self, imagine how much harder it is for me to give it up when I have just a moment to consider someone else? The tendency to name, buttonhole, identify, define, attach meanings and judge is a very strong tendency!

I begin with the concept of patterns in my mental attitudes, behaviors, and judgments. Pausing to pay attention is my first line of inquiry; I can start with noticing whether I am inhaling or exhaling and that slows me down before my thoughts get hijacked by their attachment to a pattern. It is only with a pause long enough in which I can see the pattern that I can recognize it and make choices. In conversation I might literally press the tip of my tongue on the roof of my mouth before I speak in order to give myself time to notice what’s going on in my judgmental mind. The action doesn’t stop, but I can stop my reaction, and that makes it possible to imagine/see/choose a different course.

Buddhist teacher and author Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche speaks to seeing authentic emotions in a June 4, 2010 essay in the Huffington Post (www.huffingtonpost.com/dzogchen-ponlop-rinpoche/emotional-awareness-buddhism_b_598417.html) “If we're going to understand ourselves, much less another person, we have to look beneath our patterns and face our emotions in their natural, undisguised state. When we're stuck at the level of our habitual dramas, it's like going through the day half awake, barely conscious of the world's brilliance. Some part of us may like this half-asleep state, where nothing is too bright, too energetic, or too unknown. But another part of us can hardly wait to be free, to take a chance, to see what's on the other side of the mountain.”

One of the results of my yoga is that I can no longer see myself as a finite object. It is as though I have been transformed into something much more fluid. I can find old patterns, like the marks left by floods on the walls. There is plenty of evidence there of my past behaviors and reactions. Sometimes I repeat the same knee-jerk behavior, but much more often I see it like that faint stain mark and can let the waters out before they rise to that point again. Every now and then I totally surprise myself with something so wide open that I can hardly find any self there at all, just a sense of space and being. Staying in that essential state takes practice. Usually as soon as I notice it, I am out of it. In fact the separation it takes to see it happening, requires that I return to the witness chair. Asana and meditation, slow walks, silences, all help me with that work of staying comfortable while unattached.

So in starting out to think about seeing myself in order to catch my patterns and see others without judgment, I’ve practiced seeing the patterns and begin to understand that they are not me. Sure there are strings of attachment to the stories I’ve created about my life and the memories and the dreams and the forms of others who were around me, but they are my stories, and not me either. It may be that consciousness is even more vast than self-consciousness. This inquiry absorbs my intense, focused attention and helps me to get out of the picture at the same time.

Words, Meaning & Mind

Words represent the conventions of mind.
We can agree on this.
I give you a word, and you and I will both fill in meanings,
Perhaps similar, perhaps not at all alike.
Sitting quietly, words lapping like waves at low tide.

I watch myself resting.

Look out the window.
I fill my mind with sunlight on the far trees.
This is a familiar scene,
organized against the backdrop of sky.
Shifting my eyes, it becomes a movie.

The hawk that flew in the cold invisible air
 between here and the hillside a month ago
 drifts through my head,
a moment of remembered attention.

The sound of paws on the floor wakes me: here I am.
Wordless, I pat my thigh to inform and invite my blind cat.
He reacts to the hidden actions and possibilities in sounds,
and knows what happens to my lap when I stand up.

Fear of the Compassionate Heart

my brother, as sketched by my father 1992

I woke up this morning flooded with softness, like the soft rainy day itself, holding thoughts of my cousin and her daughter in my heart. Before I even opened my eyes, my heart had melted. It felt as though waves of love could be sent to surround their eyes, their arms and hands, their words,  the spaces in which they moved their bodies. There was no reason why these two women should be in my mind at all, and in fact I haven't seen my cousin  in more than a year and a half, and have never met her 20+ year old daughter. They have been locked in a struggle for many years with debilitating psychological and emotional issues that have trapped them, literally, in the house, isolating them from social and emotional lives. Though my cousin goes to work, she can do nothing else; her daughter so fearful at all times that she forbids her mother from even allowing anyone to come to the house.  For more than 10 years this situation has been kept close to the vest, and I had no inkling of it. I saw my cousin so rarely, and she seemed to be connected to her work and always warm and kind towards me. My older sister maintained contact with this cousin since childhood as they were closer in age. A few months ago, my sister described this situation to me, detailing her observations and all the suggestions she had made, positing therapeutic strategies, all with a sense of hopelessness and sorrow.

Suffering.  There it is in a neighbor, a friend, a relative, in ourself. The urge rises to help, do something, fix something, give advice. A feeling of helplessness and sorrow washes in, an ocean of uselessness. Anger and frustration take hold, driven by a desire that conditions be changed, people behave differently, understandings shift, problems be solved.  Judgments and assessments abound. So imperfect, the situation or the self; so unsatisfactory, the conditions or the choices.

We all know how it is to stand in one place, take in the view and begin defining everything by what we see there. So it is with suffering.  We take a look at it, perhaps even a long look, and that view begins to settle into all the shapes of our feelings and reactions, our ideas and our behavior.  In any relationship, we can see the patterns of response and the collaborative nature of our view and our actions and feelings.

What if there is no action to take? How do we open ourselves to simply acknowledge without judging and hold the depth of the hurt, sorrow, anger, frustration or pain of the situation? What would happen if we could actually just allow the entirety of it (that pattern or story or set of conditions) to open up in our awareness, to be truly seen - the sheer pain of it might be unbearable, debilitate us or drive us over the cliff! It might show us how powerless we are, or ignorant or just hurt too much.  It can be very frightening to let the truth in, precisely because there might not be anything we can do about it.

This is fear of our own compassionate heart. As in a sitting meditation when for a split second there are no boundaries to the self, it can be so liberating that we react by grasping for our defined self to reassure ourself that "we exist" as we have always thought. What if it is truly so that our existence is a series of structures that we have built with conditions and reactions and once seen as separate from our basic being we are free? It can take a while to see that grasping at our definitions is something we can let go, and allow the feeling of grasping to be seen but not be in charge of defining us. This is a practice of learning to abide, to hold that vast open sense of being.

Holding my cousin and her daughter in my heart with compassion, I go through the same sequence -- feeling myself grasping at what action to take, how to convey my thoughts or advice, even simply figuring out how to show my cousin that I care about her -- and allow myself to let all that go. It takes practice to open the compassionate heart without attachment to outcomes, or assigning responsibilities. For me, perhaps especially as one who has been responsible for taking care of other people, there are knee-jerk reactions in that direction and fears of what taking on those responsibilities could be for me. I watch myself worry over what might happen if I showed my open heart -- how much more pain might flood in! It is at that point when the boundaries vanish, and all my thoughts, reactions, judgments and fears can be seen for the conditioned patterns that they are, not rooted in this moment and not attached to compassion itself.  It cannot hurt me to open my heart, the source of the pain is not my compassion.

Perhaps I truly do wish that the situation was different for my cousin and her daughter. I surely wish they could escape from the trap that cages them away from what looks like happiness and a full life. My discomfort with the pain of others' suffering stems from my own ideas about suffering and my definitions of who I am and what I ought to do to alleviate that suffering. It is by overcoming the fear of my own compassionate heart that I can offer a truthful place for my own feelings, and a healing space for the suffering of others.

Sentimental, Objects Gripping the Heart

My shelves are full of books I haven't read in years, yet as I consider them, they seem to represent my life, my experiences, my hopes, and so many stages of my growth. Less personal than diaries perhaps but in some ways just as revealing, my bookshelves really carry weight. Literally. How many have I given away, or traded in at second hand bookstores?  Like the changing seasons, I change the flavor of my reading-in-progress pile, but for the most part the shelves stay the same. I am attached to them even though the vast majority of these books simply collect dust.

A dear friend gave me this book. I read this one in the middle of a hard winter in my sophomore year at college. These were my introductions to the existence of Japanese writings; these to the deep currents in Russian literature; these to the lyrical qualities in English poetry; these to the myths and stories that form  gender awareness, this was important in my pursuit of yogic practices. These were my grandfather's. This, from my uncle's shelf. These were my children's favorites once they began reading. Here is that poet whose name I never remember, and then this one that my husband gave me ... on and on.

I stare at the bindings and allow whatever is evoked to arise. Not quite ready to clear these shelves though I've traveled and lived elsewhere without them. I can conjure up the same feelings simply by thinking about them. How much weight must I carry to hold moments of memory,  feelings about people, ideas of myself in times past? This tiny tee shirt that my son outgrew 23 years ago is still folded in the back of a drawer in a room where he no longer lives. Four delicately cut glasses, that once belonged to my husband's grandmother, stand in the back row of my kitchen shelf. They are designed for some specific drink that I can't identify and yet I feel the tug of his childhood memories. There's that little dish tucked into a top drawer of my own dresser, the small shallow ceramic where my mother once deposited tiny sea shells and beach stones.

This poignant remembering does have such a richness, like a special caramelized sauce, heated by the heart, and sweetened by memory.  I can pour it liberally over anything, anywhere. The senses respond, the emotions rise. On the one hand my experience seems deeper, but in truth, it is a repeat of a pattern of responses. And yet all of this is fantasy, just my mind making a story for me. These objects, books, even ideas, can trigger memories that are pleasant or unpleasant. Essentially I can use them or not in this way, making choices about how I remember something or use my feelings to influence this moment in my life. Do I want to spend my time in a web of reaction, replaying feelings and a story line that might change or harden with time, or can I free myself from this layer of attachment and be present now?

It seems the sentimental object is a small trap.  Once I see it, I can step around the quicksand or jump in with both feet. Having this choice definitely loosens the grip of reactivity on my feelings and behavior, and frees me to see more than that one story, understand beyond the repeated pattern, and be present. I love reading a book more than once, discovering it anew,  not measuring how much I missed or forgot, and yet savoring the familiar. I do not try to relive my earlier experience of reading that book, but allow myself a fuller, layered experience of it. It is not a sentimental journey but a new adventure.

Watering the seeds: suffering or equanimity?

The magnolia tree does not consider its fallen petals, and the tulip does not anticipate its moment of perfect bloom. We humans seem to live so much in just those moments -- stuck in our sorrows and waiting and reaching for that something that may or may not bring all we want. I saw the litter of magnolia petals carpeting the sidewalk and was struck with their beauty, knowing full well that they were on the road to decomposition and disappearance. It felt similar to the last stages of my mother's life, when she was on hospice and functioning at the most concentrated and essential level of her character. How beautiful she seemed to me, no longer controlling or grasping, no longer measuring or despairing! There was a complete quality in her pleasure in holding a cup of tea, in her sensation of the texture of her own throat with her wandering fingers.

I planted onions a year after her death, scattering the fertilizer four inches below where the roots would grow, as I pushed the tips of the slightly thickened grass-like seedlings just under the surface of the warm earth. A cold wind was blowing, and the sun sparkled literally on the new green in the field grass. In that moment I could be complete, doing this action in this moment, knowing that some of these little onions will thrive and others may not, that there are responsibilities of watering and weeding, harvesting, and curing, eating, and savoring -- yet with no thinking about that. Each of those aspects will follow in their time if I nurture the seed of the moment. In my planting I chose to experience growth and possibility rather than loss and sorrow.

So oddly enough in grieving my mother's death, I found myself watering the seeds of being. This was one of her dearest gifts to me, showing me that the blooms do not grieve their petals as they fall to the earth.

Here Today, Here Now

I am puzzling over the odd illusion that I get things done, that there is an endpoint, that I do something until it is finished. There is great resistance in me over giving this idea up, yet I clearly see it as "an idea." Even in the setting of a goal there is really only the doing. I might finish a meal and wash the dishes but I am not done with eating. I may weed the garden but I am not done with gardening. I may hold headstand for a specific number of breaths but I am not done with headstand.

The lessons of the summer continue with every poppy and daylily bloom.

Living fully within the constraints of this very moment, not reaching into the future, nor grasping at the past, seems to require releasing this idea of "being done." It is not the same as leaving things unfinished, nor does it mean not accomplishing anything, but rather truly letting go of results. I think humans quite naturally construct beginnings and ends for emotional and psychological convenience and to feed the illusion of certainty that we find so comforting. It is a huge shift to loosen my grip on this way of understanding. Once I see it clearly, it seems to have pervaded everything.

Moments of being offer me great freedom from this clutching. In those moments when I can fully be in-the-being mode rather than in the doing-to-get-done mode, there is even greater happiness than from the illusory constructs. But my oh my how I do fight against this! That is where practice makes all the difference. Plodding along, moment by moment in meditation or a yoga session or in the garden, or the kitchen, or with a list, or in conversation, or contemplating my calendar, I can actively see my tendencies and practice loosening the grip.

Wild Raspberries

This deal we make to take human form does not exempt us from the cycle. Just as with the wild raspberries, some dry on the twig, some half eaten by a bird or slug, some flower and never bear fruit, some ripen and fall, some ripen and rot, some get plucked for jam, and as the canes die and the summer storms rage, there are those not yet ripe, those pink and hard, those purple and dropping, those red to perfection.

I do not care which I am, but understand these raspberries: bushes thick, brittle and thorny; berries fragrant from a good distance in the hot sun.

Just as I understand these raspberries, I find myself to be that oriole waiting in a nearby thicket for a safe moment to swoop in and feast.

Some Words of Rabindranath Tagore

Sent (on April 29) by Ruth Waddell (my aunt) to Josh Holland (my father) in condolence for the death (on April 27)of Anabel Holland (my mother), read when received by Josh (in hospital) on May 5th by Sarah Meredith (me).

Read at his graveside by me on May 8, 2011


Peace, my heart, let the time for the parting be sweet,
Let it not be a death but completeness.
Let love melt into a memory and pain into songs.
Let the flight through the sky end in the folding of the wings over the nest.
Let the last touch of your hands be gentle like the flower of the night.
Stand still, O Beautiful End, for a moment, and say your last words in silence.
I bow to you and hold up my lamp to light you on your way.


I know that this life, missing its ripeness in love, is not altogether lost.
I know that the flowers that fade in the dawn,
the streams that strayed in the desert, are not altogether lost.
I know that whatever lags behind in this life laden with slowness is not altogether lost.
I know that my dreams that are still unfulfilled, and my melodies still unstruck,
are clinging to some lute strings of thine, and they are not altogether lost.

Seeing the Whole

The body defines us like a fence. We imagine it keeps us intact and we judge ourselves, often incredibly so, based on what we see as the self in the body.

I've been spending much time with my dad in the hospital and separately with my mom in hospice care. It seems clear to me that the person we are exists both as a kind of saturation in the body and at the same time without any physical attachment to that body. Obviously the state of the physical self influences a great deal in the way of our conditional experiences and prompts the reactions we have. Mental attitude or positioning, awareness and the habitual level of gripping have an even more dramatic influence on our reactive nature or our responses or even our comprehension or perception of conditions in the moment or in the mind.

It is remarkable to me that I can be intimately connected to a quality of being whether or not there is active physical presence or interaction. Even hundreds of miles can separate me from these individuals and I remain open and alert to the quality of their being. I understand when I am with them, that the physical body is of paramount importance to them, defining their physical existence in the conditional world of cause and effect, reaction and response. And yet the entirety of who they are actively separates from this physical entity even as I sit with them, even as we talk or hold hands. The touch, the word, the sound, these are fleeting conditions. The quality of being stretches beyond that in a direction-less way, without physical attribute, not subject to time or space, or conditional nature.

With deep gratitude I am catching glimpses of the non-dual nature of being.

The Beginning and End of Meaning

Every moment hangs like a water droplet from the edge of the leaf.
Luminous, tenuous, distorting and beautiful beyond all words.
Why rush through the living and the dying?
Why push the moments into cubicles of attachment?

This is pain.
That pulling, wrenching feeling of wanting something other than what is.
That darkening tenderest of reaching for that which is not so.
That sharp claustrophobic grasping to get beyond the already piled and defined.

Oh it is an odd and disorienting feeling to let this droplet be.
Letting the droplet be detailed -- only as an illusion that it is separate from the air, the water and the elements that define it in the mind as a droplet.

Imagine you are the surface of the sea.
Experience this.
The rain. The air.
The spray. The currents.
The waves, the deepest fault lines.
Non beginning, non end.
Experience being.

What if all we could ever hope to be is exactly what we are in this moment?

This is joy.
Feeling open to the gentle movements of breath.
Sitting in silent vast spaces where mothers birth and mothers die.
The sounds are the echo of inhales and exhales.

Month of March.
This transitional instant,
when I can feel the beginning and end in the mountain mist.
The swelling buds, the frozen mud.
The hot fire and hustling wind.

Taking down the wall between joy and pain,
the droplet becomes the sea.
And I am but the interstice
between air and earth for a moment.

Winds of March

Walking on two feet, my sprained ankle gently seeping deep gratitude with each movement. I was able to return to teaching at the Shelter this week, adding in this piece I had cut away to make space for my healing. Now the students bring their joy and sorrow to me, quizzically and laughing out loud, eyes closing, sighing and silently.

I pass through the seasons as I walk from shade and wind into sun and warmth, remembering the tornado that ripped through the neighborhood and took down big old trees. One huge sycamore trunk stands truncated with one large limb reaching out askew - a remnant still enormous. The piles of snow, gone.

I've been substitute teaching for a fellow teacher who went to India for 6 weeks, and her delicate aged student has offered me an open well from which to draw, dipping the bucket, winding and unwinding the rope. These days I feel the energy pulse from my palms when I am near her, and can feel her breath moving towards me.

My mother is dying. She is saturated with happiness to know that the path is now clear and no one is pretending anything about what kind of living she will do. Criticized all her life for not carrying a tune, she now hums to herself. When asked what she is humming she grins, yes, grins, and says "Why, I don't know!" Delightful. No need, no need to know, to hang on, to grip and clench, to explain, to ask, to argue or deny. No need, no need to put up with, or put down, to reach in or pull away.

This is a most remarkable time. I revel in it even as I careen a bit wildly on the road, as though a powerful wind is blowing and I'm giving in, just a little.

Nothing is Wrong, It's just Fear

It wasn't hard for me to tell my mother that she could let go if that's what was right for her. It slipped out as though it was always there, our eyes smiling at each other. She was fingering the scarf I made for her that only a month ago she said had reminded her of the taste of strawberries. Somehow, I was completely calm and relaxed telling her that I will miss her but that it was okay. Maybe it was because I could feel that the stream was already flowing in that direction. Perhaps it was because she seemed so happy to be floating on the water headed towards the falls. I can hear the falls, I just don't know exactly how far away they are.

Attachment. I suppose it is the big attachment, that we hold on to the idea of being alive, of other people staying alive, that life is what we hold dear and hold on tight. The practice of seeing my own attachment to anything, an opinion, an outcome, a schedule, a relationship, has been so revealing of how I make meaning where there are really just constantly shifting conditions whose visibility depends on the light.

So I sit in one place, open to the deep contentment I saw on her face, feeling the fear of the work I will have to do once she is gone, knowing that her presence is not some thing nor does it belong to anyone, not even to her. Her presence is the surface of the water that is everything in the sea: wave, froth, air bubbles, sand, beach, conch shells, sand crabs, sky, wind, the sound of the falls in the distance.

I don't know the way, but all paths lead there.

This Asana is Contraindicated for ...

me, and yet I practice. Listening to my own arguments, I hear fear and I hear determination. There is goal setting and there is wishful thinking. There is regret and self-doubt, and there is hopefulness and curiosity.

When I began practicing yoga I took any class that fit in my schedule. I was approaching 50 years old and I knew less than nothing about the lineage, names of luminaries, history, even potential health benefits. I didn't even know what shape I was aiming for in the Asana of the moment. I listened deeply, worried on the surface about mixing up my right from my left, and began breathing into a new space of awareness inside.

This fall my practice will be much the same as it was 10 years ago... I will be discovering that I can change the angle of my lower spine by remembering my big toe, and I will use the wall to prepare for Ustrasana (camel pose) just to see how much energy I can raise from my Tadasana (mountain pose) knees. There are many Asana I can explore in my practice, and of course, my practice does now include teaching which is a magnitude of exploration I could not have imagined in those first few experiences.

Every Asana has benefits that reach into the basic functioning of the body -- circulation, nervous system, muscular strength and flexibility; and the mind -- judgment, intention, challenge, determination, curiosity, resilience and focus; and the organs -- etc. Every asana has contraindicated conditions, for example shoulder or ankle injury, stages of pregnancy, frailty of bone, uncontrolled high blood pressure, etc.

As a teacher I may mention a few of the "if you have this, modify in this way" instructions, but I find it hard to say, "just don't do this." I find it especially hard to say it to myself. At the moment, I have two physical variables that would contraindicate nearly everything I do in my yoga Asana practice -- including what might seem simple like sitting in a cross-legged position.

So here is the secret: Do not hurt yourself. Follow the path of the breath and prepare your physical body for practice with an open mental attitude of exploration rather than goals and end results. Use props and find out what is actually happening in as full a way as you can in that moment. It is not getting into the full pose of Ustrasana that will help you if you have low back issues or rotator cuff problems. Yet many of the steps along the way will be exactly what your body can best use to mobilize, stabilize and strengthen, stretch and explore.

It is the mind that wants to take the full expression of Urdhva Dhanurasana (Wheel). Deepening and exploring a supported heart opener over a bolster or block, or using blocks to support your sacrum and your upper back in Setu Bhandhasana (Bridge pose) will give you more possibilities to experience your life than you could imagine.

So it can really help to find a teacher who can help guide your practice into the deepest places you can explore, and slow things down, rather than attending classes that continually show you what you can do to hurt yourself. It helps when you don't believe that everything rests in the final pose, and keep an open mind about what might open your practice.

Let Go of That To Do List!

I resist the whirling vortex of the list of what must be done and relax into this moment, fully free. You could say that I am taking refuge in the completeness of acceptance, or just that idea of "being here now." There really is nothing that must be done, (I am breathing in and breathing out), though there are many many ways I could use my energy, (I need to call the hospital and take that package to the post), and I do turn my energy. Every where I turn, my energy turns. Where I turn my drishte (my focus), so my attention turns.

This is a direct learning from my yoga practice. It is the focus of the attention that draws the energy to that point. We are breathing all the time we are alive here in this body, and yet when we sit still and focus on our breathing suddenly we hardly know how to breathe in and breathe out. We watch ourselves struggle to simply hold our own attention in one place. So it is a worthy practice to let go of the judging and the constant review of the items on the list, and practice simply being present.

Just when I start thinking, "oh my life is so complicated, I don't have time to do this, no one would imagine all the things I am juggling," someone else says these same things to me about them! I smile, maybe even laugh, fully accepting this is human nature. Celebrating that we are alive, we have nearly infinite (did I say "nearly?") ways of using the moment-to-moment life we have. Yet so often the focus is far away on something projected or remembered. That way is the path of anxiety, stress, insufficiency, and sorrow, in a word "suffering."

Resisting that whirling vortex of "must do this" and "should have done that" and "how will I ever get all this done!" I can quietly wash the beets, enjoy the red stain on my cutting board, hear the happy clicking of the oven lighting, and feel the firmness of my hand gripping the knife. Later, after I teach a few sessions of yoga, I will share these delicious roasted beets with someone I love. I do not have to put that on the list, nor resist it.

Learning the Lyrics by Singing Along

Repetition and patterns are powerful ways of teaching ourselves, so it is no surprise that when we have the same reaction again and again, we learn to cement that response. Perhaps it is laughing at jokes that are not funny, perhaps it is swatting the fly that buzzes nearby, perhaps it is resenting another day on the job.

Think of how much easier it is to sing along with the song on the radio, or the ipod, then it is to remember the lyrics on your own. We sing along and sing along and with the support of the music we begin to remember those lyrics, hum-humming where we don't quite remember the words.

It may sound like a plan of positive thinking, but allowing yourself to experience the possibilities of reacting differently, and practicing that, can have the same impact as humming along until you get most of the words. You can learn a new song and enjoy even humming along til you know it better. Maybe stuffing envelopes feels demeaning or is boring or obviously doesn't use so many of your other positive attributes and skills. You can try stuffing envelopes with an awareness of this attitude, and open yourself to enjoying even this job more. Perhaps you will come up with ways to improve the work itself, offering to translate the mailing into a series of pre-printed postcards or emails, making those envelopes unnecessary. Perhaps you will come to appreciate the reaching out that each envelope represents.

Give yourself the freedom to choose, separating from a repeated negative pattern.

There are so many more songs that you can sing.

A Sense of Humor

When in doubt, smile. Did I just miss my stop?

Let the laughter come. What made me think that I could do more than this today? Funny hopeful me. How lovely this day has been, taking me all day instead of 3 hours! This just opens the possibilities for tomorrow.

Taking out those stitches for the third time... grinning ... amazed at how thoroughly I can explore ALL the possible ways to do this incorrectly! And nodding at my bravery to try it one more time, not knowing if I will recognize the correct pattern I seek to knit, having discovered so many others ...

No, its not embarrassing to fall on my ass in a yoga class! It is my human nature expressing itself and making me laugh! It is my heart that reaches up towards the ceiling through my feet. Maybe by the time I'm 60 I'll be able to move away from the wall... or not.

Checking the level of personal investment, in the opinion, in the judgment, in the appearance or the action, by the self or an other. Can there be humor towards the effort, in the process of being present? It's a trap too easy to catch one's self in. Is there something good about feeling bad about one's self? Learning to see truth, we can separate from the judgment and live more fully.

I can think of so many times my children got something done to their own satisfaction, having left out important elements, or mistaken one thing for another. The effort was still good, the effect sweet if incomplete or "incorrect." Let the compassionate heart smile, even if perhaps we watch a heart break apart; we can know that it is love and kindness that will find the way back to wholeness, not judgment or emotional dissection.

Meditation: Find a comfortable seat and center physically, or can be done walking or laying down. Allow the space behind your eyes to soften. Fill that space with warmth and gently smile in just the corners of your eyes (yes, even closed). Feel your cheeks begin to lighten. Allow the warmth of this smile to find the corners of your mouth (loosen your jaw). Breathing, softening, feel this smile seep around your lungs, your heart, your hips, your knees. Smile softly at your toes. (Even just the idea of toes!) Staying here in the warmth of your own compassionate acceptance, friendly, kind and open to whatever you find. When your mind wanders, return to the softness behind your eyes and once again slip into a smile.

Smiling at our own attachments to sorrow or pain, we can see our path and find freedom.

Seeing the Inside Space

Today as the sun rose something dawned in me too. I heard an echo of myself saying that I was disappointed in someone and suddenly knew what that really was. It felt as if literally the walls had blown out and the truth was left standing in an open space. This disappointment, standing in that space, was a state of my own mind, an attachment of mine, built out of patterns in me, and had nothing to do with that other person. In fact, as I looked back on times in my own life, I could blow the walls out there too, seeing my individual self doing exactly what I needed to do in that moment, as I experienced it, based on conditions and patterns. Do I really need to hold on so tightly to the judgments and conditions of those moments? Can I truly let go of that and simply see the shifting sands for what they are?

Why do we situate ourselves this way? Putting the emphasis on hardening into the judgment as to what someone else (or our self) should-would-could be or do, rather than allowing the present conditions to be visible, and the choices clear as choices?

We can build inner support for this -- with enough practice! It is not that difficult once there is understanding. I don't mean the kind of intellectual understanding of "oh, yes, I see how this works..." but the deeply embedded understanding that no longer requires building all the walls to hold up the ceiling of attachment, judgment and isolation in the moment.

In it together, without separating self and other from compassionate acceptance, it is much more natural to see how we, as human beings, live and act within the boundaries of our reactive nature. We don't judge a bird for landing on a particular branch rather than another. Can we tolerate the notion that the whole process of our living on earth is a miracle of unforeseen consequences and that we can remain open in each moment to the possibilities without attaching to one particular outcome?

As the people of the Middle East experience the earthquake of their own making, I hope that they can individually and collectively let go of the idea that only one set of conditions is acceptable. With so many competing interests, there are bound to be many possible strands in the weaving of the new rope with which to make the basket they want to carry their hopes. It is by turning this compassionate acceptance towards ourselves that we can learn to let go more deeply. Finding that we do not need to turn off connections, we practice breathing around and through the harder moments and the confusion of reactions, allowing the straightforward view of the structures we build to hold our feelings of disappointment, approval, etc. more clearly.

Then we can look openly into each others' eyes and see. The emergence of a beautiful new human being gives rise to the vastness of possibilities, constrained only by our vision of choices and attachments to reactions. It is no coincidence that the form of that beautiful new human was once the inside shape of another beautiful human being.

Just a note in the moment: Farewell to dear Beati who transitioned onward (age 90), and welcome to new darling Rylen, just getting the hang of the breathing air thing.