Using what you have

Often I find myself making meals with leftovers or the ingredients that I find in my fridge. This can push me into typical patterns, or can spur all manner of creativity. There are people who see a recipe and go shop for the ingredients. Many will measure these with some care and expect results that resemble the description in the instructions. I see that I am not naturally inclined in that direction in my cooking or my yoga practice.

My explorations start with seeing what's obviously there, deepen into digging for complementary or supplementary ingredients and building the design from these. An overarching concept develops, balancing the intuitive growth of the design with my actual experience. The results are always unknowable, though not entirely unpredictable.

In my cooking this results in portobello-red cabbage-poblano tacos or millet-teff-rosemary-garlic-pepper sticks. There are plenty of examples of this in my eat2thrive blog. In yoga this can evolve into a practice focused on Virabhadrasana 3, evolving lunge into its dancing, flying forms, and ending up in supine one-legged poses and a sequence of Anuloma Krama (breathing in stages with retention of breath). Unlikely that I would take someone else's formula and follow or teach it. I see now that I had trouble as a child in my violin lessons for just this reason! I wanted to follow the sound and feeling as I experienced it. This seemed to flower in chamber music and chafe in the orchestra. I learn a lot from both contexts- especially that the path to discovery and joy goes in all directions. Makes sense to me now.

Admiration for effective methodology attracts me. This is where I learn from others. I can see or experience their ways and experiment while absorbing this into my own inquiry. Since taking yoga classes, I have been deeply moved by the unfolding of this kind of personally proven processing by teachers of various yogic stripes. The offering of what a teacher has experienced has a genuine ring to it -- like the sound of a crystal ringing. I am humbled to be among them now, masquerading as one of them while still stirring around in my own cabinet for this or that to shore up the hip here or the fearful mind there... Making sweetness in the posture while adding a bit of hot sauce in the mix.

Teaching Yoga: Opening a Path for Everybody

There is a responsibility in teaching yoga that goes beyond my own practice. It all boils down to creating a space where seekers seek, athletes work out, the ill heal, the lost find company and a shape is given to that for all of them. People respond to different types of stimulation, are attracted to varying degrees of intensity, and definitely have vastly different amounts of time to give to a yoga practice. For some, it must fit into that one hour slot in a work day, or that open time on a weekend or evening, and for others everything shapes itself around practice. Some can commit to a weekly practice, others to daily and others barely commit, using yoga as an occasional activity. Some come looking for their physical limits, others bring their physically limited bodies in search of an ethereal self.

I've been to such a range of classes as a student that I cannot help but wonder about communicating the essentials, giving the raw ingredients that can be used in so many ways. Surely discipline and physical prowess were a part of the ancient practices when men of contortionist skill displayed their asana ability to spur a desire for the practice and a healthy dose of amazement at what that practice could make of a human body.  But there was reverence also for the aesthetes, who suffered in silent isolation in the mountains waiting for the divine insights, and the ecstatics who cried out for the beloved in all things. Through all these avenues, the ego was seen and the mind's grip loosened from the attachments that limit perception, allowing escape from the I-me-mine framework that ruins so much of life. Possibilities opened on all these paths, and the suffering of grasping and aversion could be understood and reduced.

It is no surprise that there are students who must be pushed to their physical limits in order to feel their deepest awareness of self judgment and attachment. I'm not sure that there is enough encouragement to cultivate that level of awareness in some of those classes where the body is used to create the endorphin high that takes one out on the trip of bliss in Savasana.  Certainly there are those who can use their bodies to build strength and skill, learn trust in the breath, and push their practice into the unknown through these challenging asana classes. There are also those whose seeking will not take their physical practice to that level, perhaps living in bodies that can improve in health and integration, but will not transform into that level of athleticism. The practice does not require an able body, nor even a brilliantly trained mind. The practice only demands willingness and at a certain point, commitment. Yoga is not a weight loss program nor a reversal of aging elixir. Yoga is not a cure-all, nor a religion. But my goodness yoga is definitely an opportunity to broaden perspectives and live a fuller life as the person you actually are, encouraging each person to more fully inhabit the body they have and develop the mind they brought with them.

So as a yoga teacher I feel it is my responsibility to offer from the heart of the principles as I have come to know them. My own practice being one of open inquiry, rather than a structured sequence of asana, within which the subtleties are explored, that is what I tend to teach. I started yoga in my late 40s, without an athlete's or dancer's training. My first experiences brought me to my knees (child's pose, actually) because of the insights that arose during those early practices, the profound support I felt for being myself that saturated the practice, and the absence of dictates that pushed me into corners from which I could not see or experience for myself. There was no authority other than my own intelligences: my mind, my heart, my sensations, the space between my inhale and my exhale.

In this way I think that the path remains open to everybody: those who must sweat it out with fast paced and demanding physical asana sequences, those for whom it is the ancient texts that beckon with pearls and stars of insight, those for whom the seeking of the quiet place on the cushion, the mat and in the mind are the glimmers of truth between the asana, and those for whom the sound of breath around them is the deepest comfort, having a place to go where someone will see them with compassionate care, and hold them equal to the task of being who they are.

The classes that I teach are not all things to all students. I've been subbing classes lately and I know that I am offering a practice, but that it is not the same tempo or temperament as those of the absent teacher. For the students, I believe this is a good thing. The experience of yoga comes in so many forms and running into a substitute teacher can offer a glimmer of that. It is also a beautiful mirror to use to see their own practice, get a sense of the expectations they may have brought with them, find a new view of their self judgment, and cultivate awareness in myriad parts of their life experience.  It is exactly the same opportunity for me, as the teacher. Seeing my offering in new ways, sensing my own constraints and expectations, observing the view of my teaching from a new perspective, and growing my own practice as their teacher.

The range of people I teach, from young athletes to centenarians, is my sharpest tool for keeping the path open for everybody. I see my task is just that, stretching my own mental structures, asana practices, and understandings in order to assist others to find the opening to their own path.

No Goal + Open Outcome = Experience

I set myself tasks, getting groceries, showing up for practice or for teaching. It is easy to put objects on the calendar and begin investing in how all that comes to pass, whether it does, and with what efficiency. The checking off of the list becomes another layer of goal. It is strange that I can so easily rely upon all of this to define myself. I can identify with having the capacity or not to do these things. But using this to define myself is as though assigning myself a meditation practice and putting my body on the cushion is the same as meditating. Looking at that straight on, it is so clearly not so. The setting of a goal may well influence the formation of an intention, but is not the act itself of doing and being.

The action of being present is not the same as aligning the spine. Aligning the spine can help with many layers of awareness, to be sure, and that’s where some confusion might enter the picture about yoga and the practice of yoga. A recent article in the NY Times about yoga and injury brought up questions among students and teachers these past few weeks. The article clearly describes the negative physiological effects in specific cases of repetitive overdoing or predisposition to injury in asana practice. It can happen even in meditation if a person insists on sitting motionless for many hours a day, disregarding physical best practices. These are distortions of what the practices demand, in my opinion, since yoga and meditation actually do make demands but more squarely in the areas of commitment, cultivating attention, and willingness to see patterns of behavior and reactivity and bring intelligent awareness to these patterns.

I have no intention of mimicking the life and practice of spiritual renunciates from previous centuries or even current times. Neither is yoga a weight loss program or a new age form of aerobic workout. Teachers who teach this way are grossly misrepresenting the depth and range of the practices in order to serve a client base who want this from them. So everyone takes some risks along with that approach.

Any body can benefit from connecting to their physical body, and from initiating a conscious practice of cultivating awareness, deepen the understanding of the interactions of breath and energy and apply some yogic principles and philosophy to their way of being and doing. Students of yoga can be young or old, able bodied or disabled. There is no requirement to achieve specific asana or lengths of meditative sessions. Asana practice certainly can develop strength, flexibility and stamina, body awareness and cultivation of energy use without participating in a sport. Meditation practice does enable the loosening of constraints of habitual ego patterns developed over years of responding and reacting, and gives insight into seeing conditions that continuously change with more clarity.

Perhaps seeing one’s own drive and emotional baggage when doing yoga is one of the first and greatest benefits of the practice. Learning to step back from the pressure we put on ourselves can help us see that there can be a less encumbered flow of energy for us to use. This is truly a saving grace. Good teachers are on this path, and can help students discover their own feet there too.

Asana is not sport, yet leads to the dance of life

I really don't know what it is like to be an athlete who has a routine of training in order to ever more confidently master the ways and means of the body. I came to the physical practice of yoga at a stage of life when, truth be told, I thought my physical prime was clearly or at least obviously behind me. It was an emotional and foundational search that brought me to the mat in the first place, looking for the well upon which I could draw to assuage my deep thirst to be worthy of well being.

What happened was simple in a way, as I almost immediately came to understand that I was already whole and the sustenance I needed was within my own grasp, if I could pay attention to the patterns I already had, and learn to release my grip on giving meanings and stories to everything. Meanwhile, I tackled the athletic aspect of asana practice without really knowing what this was, or that I was entering an entirely new way of living in the body I had thought I knew.

My first experiences with yoga asana were inexplicable. I felt as though I was trying to follow instructions while someone spoke in languages I could never hope to understand. I was unfamiliar with my body as a mechanical entity, and knew nothing about sanskrit or prana, as such. It didn't take long for the practice to have its way with me, though, and before long I was taking classes with teachers of various "types" if the class fit into my schedule. So I experienced a little Kundalini yoga, and some Hatha, some Kripalu style yoga, Iyengar and vinyasa. There was a little meditation and a little chanting. And pranayama was taught as it fit into the mood or plan of the teacher, with little explanation of effects or properties. And so I grew in my own curiosities and explorations.

Years went by in which I practiced on my own, even gave up practicing, and then returned to classes in various studios. This is so far from the tradition of a student seeker finding a guru who nurtures and guides a practitioner to trust fully and surrender to the practice! And yet, my own research and experience led me to deepen my practice, take trainings and begin teaching. In this aspect my course has definitely been part of the tradition of inquiry at the source of experience, cultivating awareness and leading to study what other practitioners have also discovered.

Now I physically experience my every day, contemplating the meanings of muscles, the powers of the mind and the intricacies of support in the breath. There are definitely asana that physically elude me, and I admit that athleticism is not my goal in practice, yet I am curious about the mechanisms that enable and disable at each point along the way. I am investigating will and fear, ease and dis-ease, judgment and joy. I seek to help my students find a fuller experience of themselves, without needing to pre-judge or pre-qualify themselves. I ponder the drives within the physical practice, seeing in some students the addictive qualities of exertion and attainment, while others rely upon pattern and repetition to reduce their fear of the unknown. Seeing or experiencing what is true in the moment, and just letting that be so, is a transformative practice.

It's Magical

Gently lifting arms with an inhale, wrists flacid, and on the exhale allowing the hands to drift back down to the thighs like seaweed softly undulating in the waves. A genuine effort for most of the 80+ year olds in the room, but their faces glow with peace and relaxation. Letting go of the tension in their fingers, of the clenching in the shoulders, they begin to sit taller, and settle their feet under their knees.

Eyes glowing after class, smiles readily spreading on faces, even with the very serious business of standing up and taking hold of their walkers, these students do not care if they are "practicing yoga" or "doing Tai Chi." We are sharing a morning of breath and presence, letting go of judging ourselves and each other. Sometimes I cannot help but exclaim, "Who would have thought we could be working so hard and feel so relaxed!?"

We do hard things. Sometimes the hard thing is communicating with toes, or attempting to lift one leg. Sometimes the hard thing is trying to inhale just a little more in a three-sip breath, or perhaps hold on the chair seat and lean to one side. Each body has its struggles, each mind has its resistance and predisposition.

Yet what happens is magical. Gratitude that we can inhale an arm upwards and release it on the exhale, that we can sigh an out-breath together to relish our effort and relieve more tension, that we feel lightness in our legs as we align the bones and let the earth carry us. It is this sharing, sweet and complex for every person in the room, that heals and encourages, that carries us through the dark times and hard losses. Again and again I bow to my students with reverence and gratitude.

Inhabit the body, Focus the Mind & Find This Moment

Within a few breaths, the room full of office workers feel their shoulders melt, let their attention rest lightly on the breath drawing into their bodies and begin to let go. We had lifted each leg and felt its weight, then released that weight into the floor, into the structure, into the earth itself. Lightness had already begun to seep into the faces in the room. I cannot imagine they had ever sat together in a room with their eyes closed, breathing gently and feeling so complete.

The purpose of my time with them, all the countable minutes of one hour, was simple: to offer a release from stress. Basically help them relax into a genuine experience beyond analysis and words, goals and priorities, to live in their bodies without criticism and learn a little more about who they really are. Just get them out of the dualities of thinking. Just offer them a view of their own personal roller coaster. Just let them be free. That's all. Oh, and do it sitting in standard issue office armchairs, under fluorescent lights, surrounded by tables and chairs.

That evening, I gently tucked a blanket under the head of a 60-something year old woman in Savasana who was experiencing her first yoga practice. She had her knees propped on blocks, and her shoulders open beneath her ribcage. Her palms were softly open, her mind focused on the glow of her energy pooling there. Her breath was so light, her body weightless. If I had the right kind of camera, I bet I could have captured an image of her energy body along with the other 15 glowing beings on the floor around her at the medical center. Practice began with them spreading mats and distributing blankets to each other, commenting and taking care of each other while waiting for everyone to arrive. Just settling on the mats took time, tending to the truth in their bodies, accepting those findings, and encouraging the breath to discover them too.

This morning, as the sun rose, I watched seven beautiful young faces, eyes closed, breathing in and breathing out, each envisioning a pool of luminous energy in their pelvis as they sat on the mat. With every breath I could feel the energy radiating from them, deeply concentrating as they lifted a blind face towards the ceiling on the inhale, then releasing the chin towards their heart with the exhale. It took a few minutes to get them here, inhabiting the body using the mechanism of the breath, cultivating a focus of attention in the mind on this inhale, this exhale. For just a few minutes, they could let go of the outside shapes of the asana and gave up on competing with themselves, not needing to be more than this, accepting right now.

It only lasts a moment. But that is all we ever have, isn't it? This is why I practice and teach yoga. So far beyond the rush of exercise, so deeply moving in the cells, so full of open space and endless possibilities, regardless of time, place, props, age, body weight or condition. I mean what I say: the only pre-requisite is if you are breathing.

The Most Important Thing

It struck me recently that as soon as I assign a most important thing, my opportunity for freedom from attachment begins to seep away.

Sometimes while teaching I will say, "just notice what you notice, then let it go." So I am trying to encourage awareness without elevating any particular sensory data or any of the meanings we like to attach to that information to "most important thing" status.

When taking classes I am curious about the ways in which teachers draw attention to a wide variety of possibilities for the mind, directing and encouraging, hoping to bring focus and awareness where there was blur and oblivion. Some speak of alignment points, I know I sometimes do (knees over ankles). Sometimes its energy flow patterns, as in "allow your spine to rise with the inhale," or maybe "radiate from your heart through your fingertips." Then there are the emotional/psychological instructions "open your throat chakra and allow your true voice to sound," or spiritual encouragements like "feel the universal self in your back body."

But what's the most important thing? Attentiveness? Non-judgment? Focus? Alignment? Dedication? Perseverance? Faith? Putting in the time? I really think that as soon as I allow a "most important thing" to take hold, I close off possibilities and become attached to outcome. It's that simple.

In almost any context, if I ask myself "what is the most important thing?" what I really mean is, "Can I focus in on this a little better?" or it might mean "Can I get this situation under control?" The first is cultivating awareness and drawing my attention more to whatever it is, the second is grasping and attaching and hanging on more tightly to what I think. The first definitely makes it easier to maintain my equilibrium, the second tends to lead to willfulness and letting reactivity run the show. Either way, my practice at this point goes back to "noticing what I notice, and letting it go."

Being is such an interesting way to live a life! I am deeply grateful to spend less and less time in that state where I am a puppet and my reactive nature holds the controls.

Time to Absorb - "BRFWA"

Every practice has its rhythms, and for me, part of every practice is taking time to allow the body to absorb its experiences, for the mind to discover and recognize itself, and for the breath to carry awareness throughout my being. This is a continuous process, and sometimes I can practice within a rhythm where this is ongoing. Sometimes, though, my attention is drawn to an aspect of the practice, and I need to pause periodically to allow this process to become the foreground, rather than the background.

When I teach, I rely upon my own understandings of this while I watch my students carefully to absorb the layers of their experiences. Some of my students will break ranks with the flow of yoga asana to give themselves this time when they feel they need it, but the vast majority of students will only take time when they are physically overwhelmed. This is not the same thing, and I make every effort to provide a spacing of opportunities for students to integrate and internalize this pattern of allowing their awareness to catch up with them. Just like remaining in Adho Mukha Svanasana (downward facing dog) a few breaths after a flowing series of warrior postures, in order to allow the breath to catch up with the whole body, or practicing pranayama (breathing techniques) to bring awareness deeper into the breath itself, these moments of focusing upon integration can be quite intense and at the same time offer a profound release. For me these moments are often the gems of my yoga practice.

My students guide me with their breath, with their body attitudes, with their facial expressions. I try to give them the time they need to awaken the prana (life force), absorb the sensations and let go of the attachments of meanings and judgments that clutter the surface of their experience. Without these pauses, I believe the body stores stress and confusion along with the movement of the breath and the energy. In some classes I've taken there is no conscious integration until Savasana (corpse pose, relaxation) which is left to the student as an escape hatch from the exertion of the practice. This is not my interpretation of Savasana either. I feel Savasana is truly a practice of release, that death itself will feel familiar in its qualities of transformation when I arrive at that part of the path.

I suppose this explains why I feel consonance with the Kripalu yogic concept known as "BRFWA" signifying breath, relaxation, feeling, watching and awareness. This has really always been deeply embedded in my practice and my teaching practice and I feel honored to offer this experience to others.

Just a note: This weekend I led an intimate yoga retreat, hosting 4 remarkable students in my house in upstate New York, and sharing practice in a small former granary building. I gratefully acknowledge the courage, joy, open hearts, and depth of inquiry these four women brought to every moment of our shared experience. May the sweetness and peace of these moments rise in them whenever their hearts call them to it.

Namaste: Gratitude to My Students for Everything

The plan is to be everything you need me to be, offering tender care for your joints, your breath, your energy, your critical mind, your hidden sorrows, your deepest yearnings. The plan is to lay bare the floor below you and the air moving through you. The plan is to give you everything, even those aspects about which you know nothing and those aspects which evaporate when you touch them.

This is the plan. It happens whether you are with me or not.

As I wake on a very rainy, misty gray morning, I find my heart beating, my eyes softly focus on the rain blurred world. It seems there is only my own body to inform today with a yoga practice, and yet every breath I take turns out to be for you. Does it matter if I am cutting melon for the fruit salad or responding to facebook posts? Does it matter if I am sitting in Padme (lotus) or curled in a soft chair? Turns out none of this cuts me off from you.

When I was at Kripalu for my teaching certification, one of my team leaders said quite matter-of-factly that once you become a yoga teacher you are a yoga student for life. It is true in a circle of experience that enfolds the yoga student in me forever into the yoga teacher in me. Of course my own experiences are in my own hip joint or my own meditational spaces, but what happens there belongs to you.

The only way I can thank you for all you have done for me is to continue my practice in all directions, to offer that which I am now, have always been, will ever be, and continue to let go of any fears or mind chatter that keeps me from you.

In Sanskrit we say "Namaste" and as the words leave my lips at the end of my classes, I explain, "acknowledging the grace, the beauty, the wisdom, the compassion in you, and honoring that in all living beings." These words escape from my heart, effortlessly giving everything. Thank you.

Beginning, Middle & End - All Part of Practice

Lately I've taught a classes with a different shape to them. One was part of a menopause group's activities. One was part of a teen health awareness program. One was an early afternoon chair yoga class. As strikingly different as these groups might seem on the surface, they are beginning in the same place, the present moment, this inhale. Throughout the practice attention wanders and returns to the breath, students sometimes watching me, sometimes turning totally inward, sometimes gazing at each other. And by the end, all in the same place, releasing the grip on the body and the mind, finding that the breath can take them into a place of peace, acceptance, ease.

As the teacher I lead them, I join them, I follow them. This is my practice. My practice carries me into and out of each day with an awareness of the way the heart moves the breath and the breath moves the heart and investigates all the spaces in which that might happen. I ask my students what they are doing here, and admit that we don't have the answer to that question except to say, "being present." I urge my students to accept that this is the body in which they will be living their life and that the exploration, celebration and joy of that unfolding experience can continue as long as there is breath.

Sometimes when I teach mat-based classes my students fall asleep in Savasana. How could I love them any more than I already do? Feeling the gentle breathing all around in my crowded chair sessions, I keep my eyes closed and lean my own breath across the room to hold all the sweet drifting hearts above the water level, until awareness returns to the fingers and toes and they can swim on their own.

Inner Wisdom: Trust Me It's In There!

When I began taking yoga classes, I was craning my neck to see what the teacher was doing and tried to put myself in that shape. It felt like it took all my attention just to follow directions for breathing and half the time I was exhaling when she was saying to inhale. I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing, and I was using muscles to push and pull myself into and out of each posture. Every time the teacher would say to relax a body part, it seemed that part of me was tense as could be. How did she know? I felt as though the teacher must have had some incredibly deep knowledge about everything going on, that she had some mystical understanding to guide us into a land of the unknown and that somehow she could even see right through my body to sense all the places between my ribs and each part of my leg muscles! The vast majority of my schooling had been what I now see as top down teaching, in other words the teachers knows and the students just absorb what the teacher says and then they will know too. There was nothing in there about what I might have already discovered, or that there was an innate and essential interest in inquiry embedded in me.

Inner wisdom, what inner wisdom? In the beginning, nearly every aspect of the practice feels externalized. The directions translate into the physical efforts of moving arms and legs, turning one's head this way or that, trying to locate oneself while listening for the next direction to step here or release that part. Yet very quickly the body begins adapting to parts of this. Perhaps it is lifting the heart, or releasing the shoulders that still require a reminder, but the ball of the foot starts to seek the fullness of the floor, and the hip begins to relish that opening and closing and opening feeling as one moves through Virabhadrasana I (warrior I) into Virabhadrasana II (warrior II). Oh sure, the hamstrings stay tight for a while, and the legs shake, and the body gulps for air or holds its breath in Utkatasana (chair pose), but even that relationship gradually shifts to an internal communication that can be self absorbed and eventually self directed, or should I say self-encouraged?

It is through this process that we learn to listen to that inner understanding. Yes, there it is, that inner wisdom. We can come to discern the difference between fear of the unknown or of injury, and tightness in the muscles. When I am exploring asana that challenge the structure in its present condition, I fully understand that I am about to ask my body to do things it probably hasn't done before. I rely on what I do know and the breath is the first support. Breathing I do all the time, though often unconsciously, my yoga practice has me more accustomed to bringing using breath to help me focus. A small change in breath can facilitate so much.

Today I experimented with my Sirsasana (headstand). You can take any pose and find out more about it through simple shifts of awareness, changes in breathing, or taking alternate variations. Maybe you have loose hamstrings and forward bends are easy for you, so you can use a twist to help you extend your spine and your awareness. There are many possibilities that will build on what is natural in you. Then there are the places that fear and unfamiliarity will block off from you, unless you take the time to listen deeply to what is in you. Working towards openness in the tight places, allowing time to breathe into the extension or the twist or the silence, and following what the body begins to ask. What happens if I ...? Could I actually try to ...? Once the body is open, or stretched, or strengthened, it may say "Follow me, follow this energy, follow this breath..." and take you somewhere else.

So, as a teacher, I explore these possibilities to better understand what my students are up against. Oh, yes, I feel fear too about falling on my head or overdoing what my shoulder can take painfree. I doubt and question, I fear and hesitate. If I didn't, I wouldn't be myself. What may be quite different is that I watch that response, that feeling, and breathe into it. What do I mean? That fear and clenching that can grab at me in Urdva Dhanurasana (Wheel - Upward Facing Bow) is best dealt with by breathing up my back body, releasing my heart and shoulders with the breath, and relaxing my spine on the exhales. Sometimes I can even relax my feet and get a playful feeling as I breathe this way. Or even walk my hands around as my shoulders let go of the clench.

When I learned to invert into Sirsasana (headstand), I started against the wall. I do not teach this to beginners. I think the wall is better later on in the experience, otherwise all there is to it is to throw one's body up against the wall and wobble on the shoulders-neck-wrists-head. There was no way I was learning to rise in the middle of the room when I was next to the wall. I was too scared, and thought I was too weak. "Thought" was the real block. I remember a teacher telling me that I had more than enough core strength for something, and I was terrified to try it. Fear was stopping me from discovering something that was already mine. So now I try rising into Sirsana with my knees quite bent, letting my heels dangle behind me, and I try rising into Sirsana with my legs straight. What I am discovering is that core and breath are, not surprisingly, the source of the lift -- not the legs, nor the arms. I gaze at a photograph of Dharma Mitra standing on his head without his arms at all, and I begin to understand, from inside me, how that could happen.

It seems that all I do is continue to take away the blockages to that which is already there, I've just been learning to listen with a little more attention! Wonderful how my body took me into such a place of inversion and balance on this day of the summer solstice, when light outweighs the dark.

Two Strands - Two Sources

There are some things I can only understand if I get there myself. When I look back at my life I can see that in so many moments when I wish I had chosen differently, I chose the way I did because that is where I had to go to learn who I am. Usually pain was the result. I see that now as something that I also chose because I was still learning all about what being might involve. My personal yoga practice comes largely from this same source of choices and inner direction. That is what takes me into shoulder stand without my hands, a core body discovering herself no matter which way gravity is going. The results of this inner inquiry are much more joyful nowadays.

Then there are some things I would never discover at all unless I learn to see or feel what someone else is sharing with me. This could be the way the tree limbs move in the wind, the way a young man gently holds his girlfriend's hand as she removes a stone from her sandal, or the way a yoga teacher encourages me to breathe into a forward bend over a one-sided lotus foot as my ankle bone digs into my thigh muscle and my hip begins speaking to me in our own private language. My personal practice grows from this source of understandings too. In fact, each of these examples has saturated my practice lately and brought me joy.

It is not unusual for me to be surprised by what is actually happening in my yoga practice, and in the classes I teach, for that matter. There was a time in my life when I thought I was supposed to know everything before it happened or at least have a plan that would have fixed outcomes. Wow, has that ever changed! The surprise is part of the open space where the two strands meet: what I have discovered from within my own experience and that which I can absorb from outside my own little operating system. It is where my best teaching comes from, and my most expansive sessions on my own mat, or in the kitchen or anywhere else for that matter. I accept surprise with gratitude. I am learning that even when I don't "think" I am prepared for the outcomes that actually appear, really being present is enough. In fact that is all there is.

The larger operating system is so vast and inclusive that I can only pick up little bits at a time, except for those moments when I can no longer find a separate self and seem to be using that vast operating system as my own. An example of this might be losing the separation between bodies when sharing my breath with a student, or those moments in playing quartets when there is no need to think at all about the making of the music, our breathing and heartbeats seem to take care of it. It can happen even when hanging the laundry out on the line.

Yoga is helping me; allowing me to integrate these two strands, or ways of exploring the world of my own experience. Letting others bring their ideas into my explorations is a little like taking the shades out of the windows. The windows are there, but of little use to me until I clear away the blinds, the blockages (resistance, fear, craving, attachment, anger, story, fill-in-the-blank!). Sometimes I will pull those shades and cover a particular window, choosing to imagine the wall without it. Pain is usually the result of that kind of choice, and I suppose I will continue to make those choices until I learn enough to either open the shade myself, or make the space for some other energy to pull that shade. So my yoga practice develops both strands, and makes each of them more accessible to me. It sure has made it easier to look back at those painful choices and stop judging so.

I'm reading (slowly) a book called The Love Of Impermanent Things: A Threshold Ecology by Mary Rose O'Reilley, an author I savor. I recommend her earlier book, The Barn at the End of the World too. Early on in the first chapter she writes, "To grow in compassion for one's own life is the great task of the middle years, and it requires that, first, one must embrace with love and pity a whole reception line of relatives, then move on to the politicians. It helps to have a comic vision." Maybe that helps explain why it is so much easier for me to laugh these days.

Words & Wordless

In Savasana today there was a pool of light in the back of my ribcage, at least those are the words that might describe what felt like a shape shifting coagulation of energy and peace, pooling below my floating heart. My shoulder blades finally melted away and allowed my breath to soften my brain. There were no words. None.

Funny that when I teach yoga I seem to embody my language and words come out for my students to use. These words often drift out of my own muscles or from deep behind someplace where they rise up in my breath. Sometimes when I take class as a student, the words are nearly inaudible to me, as though they represent an energy transfer that is taking place through the sequence of events and my own breath in the space with the breath of others. When my teacher mind is present, I might think “oh that was a lovely word,” but by the time I release into the asana, that mind is gone and so is that word.

And then there are times when my mind is full of language. Words are not objects, not the thoughts themselves, not the feelings. Symbols, icons, scratchings on the stones, my words sometimes are drool, sometimes are the momentary fragrance of a ripe strawberry, sometimes just mud on my shovel.

I suppose I will live my whole life in a tug-of-war between words and wordlessness. I am grateful that I continue to find myself on all sides of that. Each part of the tug has its possibilities.

Three Ideas+One: Let Go, Observe, Breathe -- Then Soften

I think we often work too hard at the things we are focused on, enough so that we are unproductive and our senses dulled. When I begin teaching, I start with awareness. Even with the first breaths I can feel how some of my students zoom into this muscling and posturing all around even the inhale, for example, making it into something rather than experiencing what it is. Big, serious, straining, forced inhales get stuck in people's throats and under their ribs. Even the exhales can choke off the ability to notice the subtleties of the moment, or observe what the breath is in the body.

It struck me recently that leading students in each aspect of something is like leaving them abandoned in a boat where they would be floating helplessly the next day. I asked a few of my beginning students how they would start their own practice on the mat, and found them frightened and puzzled -- "I don't know what to do!!" I remember feeling this way too. Of course I can direct them, but that is not my way of teaching beginners. How to help them take on that internal communication - the dialogue of inquiry, with directions that come from outside of them? Sometimes, I rely on my own integrated experiences to lead my "languaging" as it is called in the yoga training. (I scoffed and laughed out loud when I first saw that word, but I really get it now.) I scan my breath sensors under my own ribs to see where the catch might be, suggesting to my students "notice what you notice, perhaps the back of your rib cage, perhaps a texture in your throat..." etc. Not trying to tell them what to feel or what to notice... but aren't I really doing just that by leading with suggestive language?

So I isolated three primary questions my students can ask themselves at any time in a practice: What can I let go -- or where can I release; What do I notice; and Where is my breath? This worked well for beginning students, and I've tried it now with my more intermediate group and my more mature students too. I can remind them of variants of these questions throughout the course of events in our practice, and I feel them beginning to internalize it, discovering a path of their own no matter what is going on.

The next stage I ask is for softness. Taking on the working-too-hard-at-this, I have begun exaggerating fierceness of energy flow in a movement and then say, "Now softly" or "Soften" and repeat whatever it is ... it is so much easier for students to find a sense of relaxing into the breath, asana or effort, rather than pushing further and further. This is remarkable in utkatasana, especially for beginners to discover that they can continuously find more to release even as they are making such an effort.

"Finding one's edge," or "practicing at one's edge" seems misleading terminology for my students. I don't use it. I would rather speak of finding more space, exploring with the breath, softening within the form, and observing. We can witness the deep desire we have to go farther, as if there was a way to measure where we are, and realize that we can release that judgmental attitude, that attachment to the external.

After a deep forward bend at the pinnacle of my chair session this afternoon, I quietly asked, "Shall we do that again?" and a soft chorus of voices said, "yes, yes." The exploration had begun, though this asana was complex and challenging for each individual in the room, they had found the breath in it, had discovered freedoms in themselves, had softened into the support of the earth and were ready to release into the uniqueness of their own body experiences. At the end of our session, we turned our radiant open hearts towards each other. There is no energy more fierce, nor faces any softer, than that.

No promises -just tackle resistance

Every week I find myself walking around the Woman's Shelter, in essence recruiting residents to join me for a yoga practice. I may find myself teaching a chair session with 6 participants, or a mat-based class with 3, or even offering a one-on-one depending on the week and who is present that week at that time. This teaching is at the core of a compassionate practice. When I ask, "Why do I come here every week?" my own answer comes immediately: "To be here and breathe with you." When the ladies present are droopy, disinterested in using energy to any purpose, disheartened about their situation, emotionally stirred up over something, or suffering physically from any number of troubles, I continue to seduce them with humor and encouragement. Why? What is all this really? What's in it for them after all?

Actually, there is nothing in the practice beyond integrating awareness of being with an acceptance of being present. This might mean literally accepting the pain in a left shoulder and simply allowing the breath to invisibly open the ribs gently without lifting the arm. This compassion towards oneself without self-pity or blame, without attachment to goal or judgment of self in comparison to others, this is the path of healing and joy, of being fully. "It's too hot," says one slumping figure. "Are you breathing?" I ask with a laugh. She laughs too, "yes, I am," and sits up a little more fully, watching with interest what might come next. This bit of self awareness has already lightened her load.

I set up chairs in the middle of the huge recreation room, the periphery of chairs and tables occupied by nearly a dozen women. "Don't give up on that hip!" I exclaim, as I lift my right thigh with my hands and gently explore the range of motion in the hip. Setting the foot down, I exclaim, "Wow that's heavy, I think I'll let the earth carry that weight." I hear a soft "amen" from one side of the room and a "that's right" from nearby. Ankle circles provoke my loud public comment, "Keeping circulation in the whole leg, and helping with balance." Gradually a couple of the women begin imitating my movements from right where they are. I begin breathing through my arm movements, speaking "Inhaling open, Exhaling release," rotating my shoulders, taking gentle rib twists, explaining as I go. I hear the soft sound of coordinated inhaling and exhaling from a table behind me. "Beautiful breathing," I say, turning and grinning at the now smiling woman who pushes her chair away from the table so she can continue with the leg movements I've begun to introduce.

And so it goes on this particular day, I am sitting in the middle of an empty circle of chairs with 4 participants who, in spite of their lethargy, fear, pain, sense of displacement, have begun to breath and feel enlivened by that breath, while in all parts of the room attention is riveted on me. Nothing else need be promised, yet all can be gained. After my hour session is over, I approach two women who seem sorry that they were not fully active. "I'll be back next week," I say. "Oh my back hurts so," says one. I hold her gaze steadily and say, "Do I know what you are feeling? No, I don't, but you do. You are the one living in this body and you are the one who can be kind and attentive to what your body needs. You can gently stretch that even before you get out of bed, staying out of the range of pain, and gently encouraging openness and relief just with your breath." Then I lay down on the floor and gently show her some suggested movements. Both women are nodding and attentive, sitting quite beautifully balanced and breathing steadily along with me. I put my shoes on and wish them all well. May your body be safe; May your heart be strong; May your mind find peace; May you be free. I will see whoever may be present next week. I know that I can do nothing more than be present to breathe with them.

Experience - Here we are

If we don't experience this moment right now, when will we? What we remember, or how something looked or felt in retrospect is a way of using this moment, a way of using this moment to push away being fully present now. Memory is wonderful in its capacity to tell a story, like a good director formulating and highlighting the point of view for the viewer. Memory and understanding are closely linked I think, yet there is room for separation given different circumstances. What we remember and how we understand are changing conditions of mind. There is stability and freedom in knowing that whatever came before and whatever comes after, we are here now. The now is continuous. It is just this. This. This. The moment we turn our attention internally to tell ourselves a story we are not quite here now, a bit like sleeping.

Yoga is a practice of tuning. I encouraged my students yesterday to allow their motion to be dominated by their breath. Move as the breath moves, stretching the palm as the inhale fills the body, release the effort as the exhale releases the breath. Pause when the breath pauses. Explore the continuous nature of the breath in the motion if it is seamless. Tuning the instrument of our own awareness. What do we notice? Watch the feelings come and go. Note any sensations. If not this moment, then when? If we are not here now, where are we? We are always here now, but so very often allow conditions of the mind to blunt our awareness, to absorb our energy in repetitive patterns and closed circuits.

When I teach, in some ways I have no idea what is going to happen next. My attention is alert to my being, alert to the energy and the physical and emotional signals among my students. I have trained my attention to be explorative and curious within the bounds of my own experience and from studying the experiences of others. I see anatomy drawings in a text book of body parts I cannot look at in myself, and can visualize them in action. My body can open to the understanding of its own mechanics, my teaching sequence can absorb this and integrate this exploration into the experiences my students are having. The energy and momentum of years of practice and study feeds the moment, but does not direct it. The moment has its own conditions and my students experience that in themselves.

Practicing yoga we are intensely present, experiencing ourselves as individuals and in a universal way. The conditions are different than doing push ups, even though I might use the same muscles as I draw my shoulders over my wrists. Entering in and out of plank, I have rotated my shoulders back, stretched my ribs to the breath, balanced on the balls of my feet, lifted the bones in my thighs, drawn up my deep abdominal core energy and made space in my spine and neck. So much of myself is in use in that moment, that the experience itself is rich in possibility. Of course I am using my muscles, but that is the least of it. I am being myself. This is what I offer to my students as an exploration: to experience this moment. This moment. This.

A Shape Around the Breath

Last night I was teaching yoga in my sleep. My dream self said that yoga is simply understanding that I am a shape to contain the breath. It seemed so clear and simple! My sleeping mind explained, for example, how moving from the breath I won't hurt my shoulder, as opposed to muscling my arms out towards some external goal. I watched and felt myself stretch my arms out using my breath (ahhh), and then push my arms out into an extension (ouch!).

I love this way of learning about myself. Not only am I teaching yoga in my sleep, but I'm teaching myself yoga in my sleep!

The idea of moving from the breath is not new, but every time I remember this and keep it at the core of my awareness, everything changes. It isn't the words that change awareness, but they can help draw attention in such a way that experience does change. That is what I hope my words do for my students. Sometimes I feel like too many words can clog awareness, and at other times there is such a visible response to my words, that I know it has drawn attention just as I hoped. I also use my own body, just as I did in my dream, to share what I'm experiencing. Every time I suggest to my students that they can release their shoulders, I release my own. I think this example is useful in showing that teaching yoga doesn't put me or my practice on a pedestal where everything I do is perfect. I like sharing my imperfections and make space for everyone to be whole and empowered.

This ongoing exploration celebrates everything it reveals, and keeps me in that state of discovery where I really am teaching myself about being. I learn bits and pieces about teaching, about frustration, about appetite, about love, about hip joints, about imbalances and balances, and about incorporating all the defined things in to the undefined open spaces of consciousness. What is a hesitation made out of? What can joy illuminate in the dark? Where does sorrow inform action?

Living in the breath itself, I feel myself expand and contract all the time. All the time, when I remember that is. Moving with that, exploring within that range of undulation, I am unifying the layers of my physical, breath, energy, and witnessing self. That is where bliss seems to be, in that unified self. That is a self unbound by the constraints of definitions, inhabiting a body that is just a shape around the breath. That shape is my home, and one that I tend and nurture, encourage and decorate, but understand in some deep way that it is transitory, truly changing with every breath. This acceptance of impermanence has a profound effect, not releasing me from responsibility in this moment since everything is always changing, rather it highlights the moment as the ultimate responsibility. My breath sustains me no matter what else is going on in my head, or even my awareness. I am very grateful for that and to my inner teacher who keeps tenderly and enthusiastically drawing this to my attention even in my sleep.