April Come She Will

I've been traveling strange terrain these past few weeks. From barely melted snows in upstate New York, to full blown cherry blossoms in Washington, DC, to palm trees and azaleas in New Orleans, to uncurling greens on the bushes in Brooklyn, and again the brilliant yellow of daffodil slopes in Maryland. My heart is traveling strange terrain and the world around me seems to reflect the vastness, fragility, beauty, starkness, and unpredictable but inexorable movements of life and death.

For the first time I missed a class at my neighborhood studio where I've taught since Inauguration Day 2009. By missed, I mean simply couldn't show up and had no substitute available to replace me. My father's urgent medical situation required my full presence. There was much sweetness in teaching last week and hearing that a few of my beginning students stayed to practice together.

I've sat with my mother, who is floating on a gentle sea of pain medications and freedom from the constraints of conventions. The tenderness with which she touches her own hands, strokes her own cheek as though forming the shapes in clay; she opens her eyes with clarity and space so enormous that my feet feel lighter as I meet her gaze. She has drifted quite a way in this nearly a month in hospice care. Her room at the group home feels like a soft safe nest. What an act of grace that after a life of such turmoil she is finding her way with such an openness of heart.

I've held my father's hand as he went through procedures, humming the violin part to his humming the viola part of duets we have played, keeping his attention aloft of the changing chest tubes and with the breath itself. His clarity of mind and good humor more endearing than my heart can bear, and his suffering finding a place within my own ribs. He stood by me through all my childhood surgeries, fainting as the anesthesia took me out to sea. I can still feel his two large hands holding my one right hand. So I gaze at the delicate fuzz of spring tree branches against the sky as I walk around the assisted living facility to which I am hoping he can move when, in his words, "the white cells win."

What is a yoga practice? I find my center, my core self, sitting on the Amtrak train speeding from New York to Washington to New York to Washington. I breathe into that three-dimensional space where all three of his chest tubes are draining away the mess that ought not be there. I walk up the stairs to my 4th floor apartment, grateful that my sprained ankle is recovered enough, knowing that each step I take is a practice in letting go of expectations and outcomes; that each breath is truly the gift of presence, in this moment is the fullness and freedom of my life.

There are so many of us on the path. The footprints fit my feet perfectly no matter which way I turn. I feel graced by each and every one of you. I will return your gaze even when I have no eyes with which to see.

Gunshots on Memorial Day

Standing in my country garden, the perfume of blooming iris in my nostrils, I methodically water the asparagus bed while listening to booming gunshots from the neighbors’ back deck as they reverberate off the hills around me. Breathing in, I am grateful that they have brought the violent and irrepressible nature of man into this moment reminding me that it is “Memorial Day.” Breathing out, I am filled with wonder that my species has survived so many hundreds of years.

I cannot pretend that I enjoy the shooting-for-entertainment going on next door. I feel my startle reflex with every boom. The home-made canon shot brings a reflexive gasp. I watch myself become accustomed to the sounds ricocheting off the hills, and I feel something akin to closeness to those who have been subjected to similar experiences though in places without the blooming iris and beautiful asparagus beside them for reassurance.

My Memorial Day, acceptance and care for those who served our country in the military, was formed when I was very young and felt the resultant fear and anger destroying a man I loved. He had returned from Vietnam, where he was a medic, to a country who reviled the war in which he fought so desperately to save lives. He was looked upon with suspicion and contempt by fellow students, as he tried to finish his education at the local state university. He worked in construction, using his extraordinary physical energy to build tall structures that were later burned down as training for the fire department. This cycle of work and destruction was hard on him, but familiar. He dropped to the ground at the sound of gunshot, or the backfire of a car. And when he rose up, his anger and humiliation looked for a target. He was a kind and loving man, who tended to his disabled sister with a depth of love I had never seen from a man towards a child, and he experienced joy with a roaring passion as exuberant as the fireworks whose cracking booms he could barely tolerate by clenching his jaw and wrapping his arms tightly around me. He knew we were safe, but not that safe.

And so I thank the young men down the way, up country where people use the word “freedom” to mean so many facets of “I want what I want and I deserve the right to have it,” for bringing Memorial Day deep into my heart. My dear friend survived the war in Vietnam, but was walking wounded from the war in human nature. For this, I hold myself responsible, and seek out the peace in my own nature when my anger rises against those who tear away at the possibilities for peace among humans on earth.

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.

Sending Metta to Haiti

The earth cannot help the way it shudders. The people cannot help the way they suffer. Yet we hope for the possible, do what we can, open our hearts to peace. May they who no longer breathe be at peace. May those who breathe in fear be at peace. May brothers and sisters around the world share their hearts with Haiti. This is a form of Metta meditation.

The practice of sending compassion (Metta) to others is a powerful way to open your heart and share your energy even from a distance. Begin with acknowledging that suffering is the human condition, and that the recognition of the causes of suffering (the fear caused by grasping and attachment... even to life itself but certainly to outcomes and conditions) is the fundamental path towards the cessation of suffering. In this way you can begin to approach the pain of the situation.

Sitting in stillness, walking with single-pointed focus, laying down with deeply alert consciousness are all ways in which you can allow your focus to open out and send compassion beyond your physical self. Start with yourself. Then open to others, beginning with those you love, then a neutral person about whom you have neither strong positive nor negative feelings, then someone about whom you have negative feelings. At this point in your practice the depth of your compassion and awareness will open to include all other beings. You can use words similar to the ones at the beginning of this blog, or a more traditional sequence such as the one here.

May I (you, all beings, people) be free from pain
May I (....) be free from fear
May I (....) be free from suffering
May I (....) be at peace
May I (you, all beings, people) be free