Astrology Zone

So...call me whatever you want, but I read my horoscope religiously each month. But this is no ordinary horoscope, this is Susan Miller's Monthy Forecast (http://www.astrologyzone.com/), which ususally consists of a three page outline of what your month will look like. Now, I don't read into it too much--at least I try to resist the temptation to use the horscope as a be-all-end-all guide, but sometimes I can't help but believe.

Last Friday, the day before my 24th birthday, I watched the full moon rise. It appeared to be the biggest moon the earth has seen in a long while. There's no doubt that the tides rose and fell accordingly during this full moon's phase--we have proven that the moon does influence such things. This "troublesome moon" has since past, and I'm glad I survived, Susan Miller had predicted that something tragic would happen.

I find it interesting that we have no problem understanding that the moon can push and pull the tides, but when it comes to our own lives, we dismiss the idea that the heavenly bodies have any influence over our own direction. Not to say that every horoscope is right and should be trusted, because it seems to be a science that no one could ever fully comprehend and predict, but if the moon can raise the tides with its proximity to our planet, and we are ultimately made of the same energetic material, there has to be some sort of correspondence.

Though nothing tragic happened during this full moon for me, I could not help but feel a dark gloom over my life during this time. Something was weighing on me differently. I hope it lifts as the moon shift further away, and mars and venus continue their huge strides accross the night sky. Perhaps it's all nonsense--an escape--an excuse to use when things are great or not so good. Perhaps. But I can't help but believe.


On another note, here's a poem:

The Whale

Open vessel,
A fleeting reflection
Of collected lifetimes
Accumulated in a moment,
Then gone.

But there is more.
A lens through which to see
What is arising inside.
A story to make sense of it all
Outside.

Further beyond
The seat and the story.
Truth, it is a breeching whale.
Watch it submerge in a reflection
Of you.

I’ve seen the stars
Appear through the darkness,
A full aching, heavy heart
Unfolds like a river over rocks
It moves.

The spirit waits
In all things to be seen.
Just when surrender sets in,
Reveals itself so we don’t forget
To shine.

We all have...stuff

Yes we do. And it's funny how we feel more self-conscious and try to cover up our stuff because everyone else is so busy covering up that we're made to feel like we're the only ones carrying around a 100 pound bag of guilt or sadness or fear or any kind of concoction of suffering. The truth is that we all have stuff, suffering, baggage. I've spent a good few years ignoring mine, thinking it's not valid because it's not severe. But sometimes it’s the subtle persistence of suffering that can be more destructive.

I've started my New Years resolution early this time: I will not lie to myself anymore about what I carry. I will not be responsible for everyone. I will not gauge my happiness on anything outside of myself. I will stop holding on to my emotion. I will not make excuses for other people hurting me. I will be free. I will be free. I will be free.

And it's not like this all came out of nowhere. I had some hands on me yesterday, getting bodywork--my first time, with a good friend and teacher. She knows me, but she knows me ever better no that she could actually feel where I hold on to my stuff, my guilt, in particular. It's right in the middle of my back where she kept running her fingers deep and I kept flinching away--not because of pain, but just because there was something there I had never quite put my finger on (pun intended).

Sometimes we shove ourselves off to the side. We shouldn't. Take time to take care of yourself and know that what you feel is real.

This is a poem about the stuff I hold on to:

Guilt equals
sadness plus Responsibility.
I am always
the Responsible one,
the care taker,
the constant.
I am happy when
everyone else is happy.
I want to have a long talk with you
about how I feel.
I conceal this hurt
and my big soul takes over.
But my body can't lie anymore.
I am sad for your loneliness.
I cannot be responsible one more day.
I am happy when I am happy.

Thank goodness...

Thank goodness for today. For the outcome. For it all being over. The past few days, it has been impossible to escape from the bombardment of media over the election. Watching Obama give his acceptance speech filled me up with -- for the first time in a long time -- a feeling of pride for our country. I'm not very politically inclined, but I would be ignoring a big part of our world if I left these comments out.

And thank goodness for the time change. Last week it was so hard to pull myself out of bed. I completely skipped my meditation practice in the morning because I never had enough time before heading off to work. My excuse every morning was that I would just take the whole week off, and tie it in a neat little bow and forgive myself. But getting back into my meditation practice now that the time change has come and the dust is settling, is more challenging than I thought it would be to get back into that pattern of sitting. The analogy of the mind as a puppy dog still fits: You want it to sit and stay, but it continually gets distracted and runs away to play. So you get up, sit it back down, tell it to stay. Over and over again. Until it finally stays. But just like a puppy dog, if you let up for a few days or a week, sometimes it forgets how to sit still.

Another big change this week: I put in my notice at my daytime job. Perhaps it wasn't the smartest thing to do with the financial melt-down that we are in. But for me, the money and security is not worth my time spent in an office with no windows and no contact except with my computer. I told my boss I'd give him six months to find and train someone new. Now I only wish I last that long. Part of me will miss the consistency of the job, but I know I need to shake things up. Getting too comfortable anywhere is not conducive to growth.

Everything's Okay

So here we are. The end of September feels more like the end of the world with the financial meltdown. Is it 2012 yet? There’s a constant buzz everywhere you go, analyzing, worrying, rationalizing what is going on. It is our responsibility as citizens of this country to educate ourselves—always—on the important issues that face our country. It is our responsibility to educate ourselves so that we can make informed decisions. But as citizens of this world, of this universe, and of the bigger picture as whole, it is also our responsibility to step back from these situations that seem to suck us in with all the media coverage, all the alarmist buzz, all of the hype.

Don’t get me wrong: we are on the cusp of a very important time. Well, actually, forget that cusp. We are in the midst of history making with what is going on right now, and there are actions that need to be taken and talking that needs to take place and it is of utmost importance that we educate ourselves about this situation so that we can be well-informed citizens. But do me (and yourself) this one favor: step back, close your eyes, go inside and smile.

There is an unshakable place within all of us. Yoga has been my avenue there. When I am on my red sticky mat, breathing, moving, feeling my body on the inside, articulating small movements that build one upon the other, opening my heart, the whirlwind of life and its worries dissipate. As my practice has developed I’ve found that even when I’m off my mat I can return to this place of stillness, this place of stability and hope. I am my own best friend. I am okay. I am alive and breathing. I am here, feeling. The outside world may collapse at any moment, but there is something so solid inside.

Call it God, a soul, spirit, the universe. It is not dependent upon the condition of the outside world. So close your eyes, connect to that place that is always okay because you are here living, feeling, breathing, knowing there is something that lives on despite the suffering of the world. Now, more than ever, we need to connect inside to the deepest part of ourselves. We must not ignore what is going on in the outside world, but we must approach these very difficult times with a grounded, open, believing heart, that knows everything will be okay. We owe ourselves this space.

A (Semi) True Story...

There once was a young lady with the whole world open before her, but she did not know how to choose which path would suit her best.

She went to her mother and asked, “Where should I go?”
And her mother said, “come back home where I can feed you, and you will find a man who you can start a family with.”
But the young girl was not sure that this was her path.

So the next day she went to her professor and asked, “Where should I go?”
And the professor said, “You should go to graduate school and advance your degree so that someday you will have a rewarding job and lots of money.”
But the young girl was not sure that this was her path.

So the next day she went to the library. She found the travel section with all the books on all the beautiful places in the world. The librarian saw the girl and asked if she could help. The girl said, “Yes. I am wondering where I should go.”
“Ohh!” the librarian exclaimed, “You should go to the Caribbean where it is summer all year long and all the buildings are painted in bright colors.”
But the young girl was still not sure if this was her path.

The next day the girl went to her yoga teacher and said, “I am so confused. There are so many places I could go in the world, too many options to choose from. I am a very versatile and happy person and I would be glad to go anywhere, but it is so hard to know which one is right.”
The yoga teacher nodded and said, “Yes, the world is big indeed and there are many places one could go.”
“Where do you think I should go?” the young girl asked.
"The only place that truly matters," the yoga teacher smiled, "In".

Form is Emptiness, Emptiness is Form...

Form, Emptiness & Schrödinger's Cat

Many times I have heard the Buddhist phrase: Form is emptiness and emptiness is form. Many times this phrase has been explained, each time, touching upon my interest, holding it there for a moment while I understand, but then the second I think I’ve got it, the paradox seems to win and I relapse into my former confused state of mind. It’s the same thing with math for me. An equation has to be drilled into me countless times before the reasoning sinks in deep enough to stick.

Yesterday I was reading a book, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, and came to the chapter on “Shunyata” which is the Sanskrit word for nothingness. Apparently, when the Buddha first gave his talk on shunyata, several arhats attending the talk died of heart attacks from the impact of the teaching. I braced myself.

But it was old, familiar waters I was swimming in. The phrase I had heard many times, was repeated on the page: Form is emptiness; emptiness is form. Perhaps it is because I have more life experience now, or maybe the author, Chögyam Trungpa, laid out the truth differently, or it could simply be that it was probably the twentieth time this phrase has been explained to me, but somehow, its meaning finally began to solidify for me.

Trungpa gives the example of a maple leaf falling from a tree onto a mountain stream. This is form. Without labeling the leaf, the tree, the stream, the action still happens, objectively. Were someone not there to witness the leaf falling, it would still happen, and it would still be exactly what it is. Form is simple: it is what is. When we withdraw our labels, our identification with, our subjectivity, then that is when we are left with emptiness. So, all things, when we take away the observer, completely remove our self and our rationalizing mind, then we are left with nothingness, emptiness. It’s simple…once you get it.

The second part of the phrase, emptiness is form, though, challenges this simplicity. It is stating that though the maple leaf, the tree and the mountain stream are empty, they are also form. It is our very attempt to view these things as empty that “clothes them in concept”. The first part of the phrase simply states what is, but the second part of the phrase introduces a broader sense of what is, feeling; feeling the rawness of what is there, recognizing the isness in all forms. So form is emptiness and emptiness is form. After untangling the web around this idea, we can conclude, similarly, that form is form and emptiness is emptiness, because when it comes down to it, things are how they are.

My boyfriend, Will and I were discussing this, and being more scientifically inclined and rational, he mentioned that this is very similar to a popular quantum physics thought experiment, Schrödinger's Cat. Similar to the lesson of shunyata in Buddhism, Schrödinger's experiment fundamentally challenges our subjectivity with regards to how we view reality. It is also a paradox that could give you a heart attack.

Because I am not well-versed in physics like Will, I pulled this explanation of the experiment from http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci341236,00.html

Here's Schrödinger's (theoretical) experiment: We place a living cat into a steel chamber, along with a device containing a vial of hydrocyanic acid. There is, in the chamber, a very small amount of a radioactive substance. If even a single atom of the substance decays during the test period, a relay mechanism will trip a hammer, which will, in turn, break the vial and kill the cat. The observer cannot know whether or not an atom of the substance has decayed, and consequently, cannot know whether the vial has been broken, the hydrocyanic acid released, and the cat killed. Since we cannot know, the cat is both dead and alive according to quantum law, in a superposition of states. It is only when we break open the box and learn the condition of the cat that the superposition is lost, and the cat becomes one or the other (dead or alive). This situation is sometimes called quantum indeterminacy or the observer's paradox : the observation or measurement itself affects an outcome, so that the outcome as such does not exist unless the measurement is made. (That is, there is no single outcome unless it is observed.)

We know that superposition actually occurs at the subatomic level, because there are observable effects of interference, in which a single particle is demonstrated to be in multiple locations simultaneously. What that fact implies about the nature of reality on the observable level (cats, for example, as opposed to electrons) is one of the stickiest areas of quantum physics. Schrödinger himself is rumored to have said, later in life, that he wished he had never met that cat.

In this experiment, when we take away the observer of the cat, then it is easier to conceptualize that the cat is both dead and alive. That metal box in which they put the cat, is the way we see the world: we think we’ve figured it out because we have a name for everything and we have an opinion about everything, but the truth is that we really don’t know what’s in this metal box of a world we’re living in. Our frame of reference, everything we are basing what we “know” on, is a small fraction of the truth. We do not know what is on the opposite sides of the spectrum of this life, and so we base our knowing on what is apparent. This is form. I am here right now. I am drinking tea. It is form. But the fact that I really don’t know where here is in the great grand scheme of things…that’s emptiness.

Changing Seasons

If there was no calendar to mark the days, I would have noticed sooner that fall was creeping in. A tinge of color appears sporadically in the trees, framing the face of summer with the reminder that this too shall pass. It reminds me of the way a smoker’s hair will turn yellow, or the way the ocean slowly pulls away to reveal its foundation. We can feel it in our bones, like the sap leaking out of the trees; a slow settling into the moment that must come, when the garden withers and dies.

For most of my life, summer was my favorite season. Until I moved away from Maine, I didn’t understand how anyone could favor another season above this one. That’s because I never had a hard time sleeping at night or needed to pay for air conditioning. It’s not that this summer has been awful, but there have been enough uncomfortable days to change my mind. Not to mention, I spent most of my time inside an office building with no windows, so the bitterness has turned sour, and the sour has solidified into surrender.

If summer is life in full bloom and autumn is dying, then what does that say about my changing preference? I love the continual warmth, the freckles, the lusciousness of summer, but I’m anxious for cool, crisp air to breathe, smelling of wood smoke, visiting the apple orchard, sleeping better at night. Fall reminds me of horseback riding when I was younger. Every Saturday my mom would drive me out to Gray where I would take lessons. It was our designated time and it was cherished like the last leaves clinging onto the trees. It reminds me of hiking and the cold feeling of labored breath sitting heavy in the lungs.

It is this time especially—the cusp of summer transitioning into autumn— that has my heart full and anxious. My calendar is busy with commitments, but all I want to do each weekend is run away to a cool, shorter day on a mountain path winding up between reds, oranges, and yellows. And I can’t believe myself—how I used to dread this change.

There was a time, too, when I was an idealist, always positive, always optimistic. This is when I loved summer best. Is there a direct correlation here? Who knows. But it’s been strange that the tide of my life, as it changes, my attitudes my idealism, cools. My heart is still alive and well, but it is seasoned a bit more, and so, perhaps, it longs for a season to correspond to the rich colors that are there now. Perhaps not so perfectly alive and well, a bit more weathered. We’re all dying and I guess that’s not such a bad thing.

Nature dies so easily it seems, just gradually letting go; cutting off one leaf, one branch at a time. The sap, the life energy that rose in the spring, gradually settles down the trunk and then into the ground, underground where the roots hang on tight through the winter. The garden yellows, wilts, dries out; it is picked clean or left to seed. I am having a harder time letting go of my ideals, but I am learning to let go the way the world does, because it doesn’t take the harsh winds and the frosts and the disappearing sun so personally.

We do this, tend to take life and its insults so personally. How can life be so hard, we ask. Why did this happen to me? Why must I suffer and die? I don’t know. But I’m learning that this truth can’t easily be brushed aside and covered up with a positive attitude and sunny outlook. But it’s not something to take too seriously or too personally either.

Though it symbolizes dying in many ways, autumn has its own merits, of course. It is part of the cycle and therefore part of the birthing process just as much as the letting go. In the words of my grandmother, “Life goes on”, and it’s true, no matter which season you prefer or detest, it changes again and again. Sometimes we take this change too lightly, but each stage is pregnant with symbolism and opportunity to embrace the cycle of life.

Ode to the YTT...

Tied together by a golden string
We are a web of smiles
Dancing in a dim-lit room,
Tired from emotional upheaval
All for this moment of joy
Where we can lay down the past
For now, and catch the lightness
In our web, cast it into a darker world.

We came unhinged from the eves
Of an old, unsettled house,
Crawled slowly from the shadows
To this unassuming place
That made us remember our truth.

These threads that bind us
Are stronger than
The holes between.
Through this journey
We've learned to show,
And what it means to be seen.

Empty Space & Yoga Modeling

It's funny. Sitting in the dark morning, half asleep, dreaming, mind wandering and then reeling it back in. Forgiving yourself over and over again for being human and having thoughts rise again and again. I often try to feel my skin--that outermost layer of myself that is the most tangible contact with the outside world. Sometimes, I can actually feel the air on my exposed skin, and I sit there contemplating what it is I'm touching. What I've come to realize, though, is that what I'm touching is not so much outside of myself. Instead, it is holding me together in a solid form; I am only this way because of the space outside--it is not so disconnected. And if I can touch and feel this space, I can touch and feel everything that is not my concrete body. I am connected to the world then, as I sit feeling the air on my skin. I am connected to everything outside of me--which, I suppose, is not really outside, it is just all the same whole.

Can you feel the outside world against your skin? Can you feel yourself be a part of the whole. Can your melt into that indifference and change your mind about what you have come to believe is so solid and unchanging. The intangible becomes tangible when we stop and feel what exists. It's funny because it's always there, our connection to the whole, but we seldom recognize it.


On a completely different note...This is a picture of a postcard for my friend's organic yoga t-shit business in Northern California..I got to do the modeling :)

Yoga in the Woods...

Only after did I realize there was broken glass all over this rock...

No moral to this post. Just avoid broken glass.

This is the first posting in a while, I know. I gave up writing for a bit, and kept thinking that blogging was not for me. But perhaps it was just that life wasn’t giving me the material I needed to be inspired, or maybe I was just too wrapped up with other things to notice.

So far August has been ugly and has thus given me something to grab hold of...though, instead of all the hardship, I wish I had won the lottery or something along those lines. But no. Here I am feeling like one of those cat-hair-sticky-rollers, picking up all this crap, rolling on and on until the shiny, clean, pearly surface has been covered with lint and cat hair and human hair and crumbles and whatever other stuff has been lying around, accumulating on your clothes. Yeah. I’m that roller thingy.

I’m not going to get into the details about why things have been hard lately—I’ve been sworn to secrecy to not say a word about some things—and for those of you who know me well, or even for those of you how just know me—you probably know that I don’t hold stuff in well. I am who I am and I have no secrets. When I have to hold on to something and not tell a soul, I feel like a brick is sitting on my heart. But just to give you an idea of things lately starting with the least serious... my job (my daytime job, which entails sitting at a desk, project managing) has been incredibly busy; we were going to buy a house (we both had fallen in love with), but withdrew our offer because it was taking too long and was a complete headache, which then turned into slight heartache; my aunt is in the hospital with liver failure because she’s an alcoholic and abuses drugs and some people in my family don’t really seem to care because “she brought this upon herself”. There’s more, but that’s the sworn the secrecy stuff... and the hardest.

It’s a funny thing. A friend texted me this morning and said, “It’s kinda awesome how even just teaching yoga makes you feel better!”. She’s completely right. When you’re practicing yoga, you are creating space for yourself. You are quieting your mind about the outside world, and going inside to align things in order for you to function wholeheartedly and compassionately towards the outside. When you are teaching yoga, you drop all your shit and have to be there supporting other people as they deal with their shit. This is why it’s hard to be a yoga teacher. It’s hard to put your stuff aside; it’s hard to touch and assist other people when you don’t feel like there’s anyone there for you; it’s hard to speak from your heart when you feel like yours is sinking. But a good teacher uses the opportunity of teaching to lift themselves up.

Teaching yoga, like taking yoga, is therapeutic. Sometimes we just have to bite our tongue—it just doesn’t matter what you feel or what you think, you have to be there for someone else because without your support that person will fall. I’m usually the kind of person that can’t hold anything in. I always feel entitled to my opinions and my emotions and I feel entitled to expressing them whenever and however I want. Most of the time this works, and this is why I don’t usually carry around a lot of emotional baggage—I’m open. But this is not always the way things need to be done.

This is what my trying past few weeks have shown me. And in a way, it feels good to put my stuff aside, know that though I may feel a certain way—I might feel like I’m going to break if I hang on to this secret or if one more thing hits me—I get my strength from helping support the people that need it. And from this terrible month, I feel I’ve grown as a person.

Sometimes we have to be there for ourselves in order to truly be there for others; and sometimes we must really support other people simply because we can. It doesn’t always feel good, but that's life. It's hard. But it's an honor to live it, still.

*****
I wrote the above before leaving for the weekend. Now I'm back and things seem to have settled, like I knew they would...eventually. Life is constantly cluttered with to-do lists and schedules, and work and worry. Once we're able to cross one thing off the list, another task takes its place. I always used to look ahead, thinking that life would one day simplify itself for me. But as I progress through life, I learn over and over again that this is not the case. The bottom line: life is complicated. It takes a certain finess to juggle everything...but with a steady mind and open heart, though it may not always make life easier, the things that come to be, come to pass. And the world goes on. These little every day stuggles are the means to wake up to the good days or all the extraordinary things that happen on Earth every day...things we consistantly fail to notice, like the moon rising every night, reliably changing shape.

The Good and The Bad

There are some people who only see the good in themselves. We call these people arrogant, self-centered, confident. There are others who only see the bad. These people are the depressed, pessimistic type. How often do we look at the whole?

It’s often hard—almost impossible—to see ourselves objectively, the good and the bad. It’s often hard to see our whole self and accept it for what it is—all that it is. But the truth of the matter is that everyone has good and bad stirring around inside of them. But what is “good” and what is “bad”? Well, actually, they don’t exist. Good and Bad are labels we came up with to identify things. It’s the nature of our mind to try and figure everything out and therefore label everything using binary oppositions: good, bad, up, down, black, white. But there is no duality in the universe. Things simple are as they are.

A notion I have carried with me for some time is this: that we don’t know what this life is. We have no idea what comes before this life and what happens to us when we die, all we are left with is this small fragment of time, cut off from everything else that holds it together. Our frame of reference is so disengaged from the whole, how could we possibly conclude what is truth when we can’t see the whole picture? All we have to rely on is this moment and our inner guidance.

Good and Bad do not stem from our past, our actions, our thoughts. There are things that are indeed good and bad, but they are not the root of it all. Good and Bad, these labels, stem from our mind trying to make sense of this small fragment of time. Why? Because that is the way our mind works, because we are simply terrified by the infinite universe and the finite body we live in, because it makes us feel better to categorize and conceptualize things that we understand, it keeps the mind from wondering.

Each of us contains the entire universe. Though we attempt to label and understand everything, it is impossible to be sure of anything because we do not know the ultimate truths of what this life is, what happens before and what happens after. These labels we devise help us to navigate through life, but they must not be taken as truths. In the end, the Good and the Bad are all the same; it is our trust and our faith in this bigger picture, and the acceptance of ourselves as a whole that our mind and spirit truly yearns for.

Putting It Out There

I have a hard time saying what I want, let alone putting myself out there. Though I don't mind being seen, I often get overwhelmed by my competition, the vast variety that is, life itself. But I'm finding more and more that all that anxiety is not outside of me pushing in, it's from a place of insecurity inside. Recently I started submitting my poems to writing contests and also landed two yoga teaching gigs. Often times, I fall in love with my ideas so fast, yet they never materialize. I'm learning, the good stuff takes time, consistancy, patience. The more I put myself out there for the world to see, the more I follow my heart with what I want to do with this life, the more at ease I will be with exposing myself, and the more people will in turn start to see me. It's a beautiful cycle, like most things. I've included some more poems of mine below.

Grape Pie

Hard to believe
I peeled off all of the skins
On those grapes
For that pie
That you said was your favorite.
I did not know then, as I do now,
The perfect crust is made
With chilled butter
And iced water, mixed sparingly;
Too much flour and touch
Makes the dough
Shapeless and untrue.

A pie that never gets finished
Must be a bad pie.
But it took me nearly an hour
To peel off each inscrutable skin.
Now you say
You regret me most,
And all I can remember
Are translucent grapes
Slowly accumulating
In the yellow colander.



Our Neighbors

Our neighbors have a halogen construction light
Around which they sit
In the late summer evenings
Misunderstanding why there are so many bugs.

They find it fitting
To weed whack into night.
The heavyset woman,
Who never changes out of pajamas
Sits on the steps
Leading from the dank basement
To the grassless lawn.
The dog doing its business at the end of the leash,
Which she holds in one hand,
Her cigarette in the other.

These people have big bon fires.
They burn all the scrap wood
That has accumulated around the yard.
I’m sure they haven’t gotten a permit,
Perhaps they don’t know one’s required.
Though, if the flames got out of control
They could always use the water
From their inflatable pool.



The Mountain Path

This dim lit place
Held together by invisible threads
That have been strung across
The divide, then broken
Like a ribbon at the finish line.

So we walk with outstretched arms
Or sticks, or nothing at all
And listen to the bell buoy call
From its bitter rocking cradle
Its ring is hollow as the ground

Below barefooted children
The moss is most welcome
To toughened soles
Leading to delicate chanterelles
That have remained a secret.

There are not so many places
Where the sunlight reaches
Through the spruce and pine
Intertwined like fingers lacing,
Holding in a prayer.



Turning Twenty-Three

Next week, I’ll turn twenty-three
Years that jam between
What I do not know came before,
So I set my reference on today.

How the years, they have unfolded,
Like one long dream of memories,
One long, littered shoreline,
Brushing up against a changing tide.

One continuous telephone wire
I watch from a moving train,
Bowing and peaking at each pole.
I separate the days,

But sleep does not disengage them
Or myself from the dreams I have,
The dreams I some how hold on to,
Though the days keep tugging them away.

Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind

"Just continue in your calm, ordinary practice and your character will be built up."

I recently started reading (for the second or third time), Shunryu Suzuki's Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. It's one of those books that is so rich with little gems, it's impossible to absorb all in one read. I remember struggling with many of the paradoxical stories and statements the first time I read it, trying to underline what struck me as true. I soon realized that no amount of underlining could capture the essence of the book-- it would simply have to be read again and again.

I've included a few of my favorite excerpts from this book below.

On Breathing:
When we become truly ourselves, we just become a swinging door, and we are purly independent of, and at the same time, dependent upon everything. Without air, we cannot breathe. Each one of us is in the midst of myriads of worlds. We are in the center of the world always, moment after moment. So we are completely dependent and independent. If you have this kind of experience, this kind of existence, you have absolute independence; you will not be bothered by anything. So when you practice zazen, your mind should be concentrated on your breathing. This kind of activity is the fundemental activity of the universal being. Without this experience, this practice, it is impossible to attain absolute freedom.

On God Giving:
...And we should forget, day by day, what we have done; this is true non-attachment.

On Studying Ourselves:
The purpose of studying Buddhism is not to study Buddhism, but to study ourselves...To study ourselves is to forget ourselves...When we forget ourselves, we actually are the true activity of the big existance, or reality itself. When we realize this fact there is no problem whatsoever in this world, and we can enjoy our life without feeling any difficulties. The purpose of our practice is to be aware of this fact.

The Best Way to Love

Yesterday I finally made it to a yoga class. I had been planning to go on Tuesday, but prior commitments that I thought I had gotten out of, came up and there was nothing I could do. Surprisingly, though I hadn't made it to the studio in the past week and a half, I had been practicing regularly on my own at home (though, in front of the TV, which isn't really the same, but nevertheless...). I was so relieved to finally make it to a class, not only because my body needed it badly, but because I feel the past few weeks have taken their toll, and I needed to open my heart. I was yearning for something that I could not put my finger on, but I knew exactly where I would find it.

Bethany, a fellow yoga teacher trainee, found me before class and said hello. I got up from my mat, and I think when I hugged her, I actually lifted her off the floor. All I wanted was to hug someone-- and lucky Bethany, she was it. Class was about to start, but all I wanted to do was talk to her, see how she was, let her know how I was...give her another hug.

Barbara, my instructor, owner of the studio, and teacher for my 200-hr training, came over just before starting as well. It wouldn't surprise me if she instinctively knew what I needed: someone to look into my eyes deeply, and let me know they're there. And that's exactly what she did. Her eyes are so bright and kind, and always when I see her, I know she sees me--right through me I feel. Sometimes it's uncomfortable, but tonight, it was exactly what I came for.

The asana practice was hard, but it didn't really matter. My body went through the motions, I breathed, I felt, I connected with myself, but it was nothing special. Sometimes all the asana is, is moving my body, and I remember where to go and how to open intuitively. I am graceful and at ease and calm.. I am home, but it is nothing spectacular. I did not feel a rise of emotion, I did not feel like crying or laughing. I just went through the motions, and it felt familiar and nice, but it was nothing special.

After class, Barbara and Bethany and I talked some more. We reminisced about the training, about how we missed it, about how the week after our last weekend together there was a physical ache in our hearts. Actual heartache. We talked around this heartache, but we did not identify it until Barbara, in her matter-of-fact, straightforward, lovely way said this:

"This spiritual awakening that people are looking for," she touches her heart, and then opens her palm to us, "it's just a yearning to truly connect with others."

And it's so true. The reason I went to yoga class last night, and the reason I missed it so much is because of this connection. I go to work, I go home, I go to the grocery store, and I try to be present and I try to connect. But how often do you get the chance--or people give you to chance--to really look into their eyes and make a connection. It feels uncomfortable most of the time because we don't do it often--or ever. But when Bethany and Barb took the moments before and after class to see me and connect with me, I felt more connected to them and to all people, to the world as a whole.

I can do yoga on my own, and I can go to classes all day and all night, and I will probably feel great. And going inside is important, making that personal connection with yourself, knowing what your body is, opening your heart, it is all imperative in order to be open to connecting with others. When we see other people as conscious beings, though, it's different than going inside. Looking outside of ourselves we are presented with the opportunity to understand and physically see how we are all connected. Sometimes I feel like there is no where else to go inside-- either I've put barriers up around the things that hurt, or I'm empty of things. But connecting with others gives me somewhere to go, somewhere to grow and reach out, a way to remember that we're all holding the whole together somehow.

Look into someones eyes today and see them, and in doing this you let them know that you're here too, you suffer too, you don't have all the answers either, and it's alright. It may be uncomfortable, but it is simply the best way to love.

Entropy...The Story of our Life

Woke up late today...My alarm must have gone off, but I don't remember it ringing. I got out of bed at about the time I usually leave for work. Didn't shower. Didn't do my meditation. Didn't eat breakfast or drink coffee. I got to the office later than usual, but no one was here to really notice. I was going to go to the gym during lunch because Will and I are planning on going to see a movie tonight, but Will's car is in the shop and he needed to take my car to run errands. Work is crazy, and my co-worker is out on vacation for the week, so I'm picking up some of the slack. Will and I still haven't heard about the house that we put a bid on 2 months ago. I turned down a potentially wonderful yoga teaching position because it was too far away. Sometimes it feels like life is disintegrating beneath me. This web that I have carefully crafted with all my planning and routines and consistency fails to hold me up sometimes. And this is called entropy.

Entropy is the natural chaos of the world. There are times that are more chaotic than others, but it always exists. Entropy is when--no matter how clean you get your house--it always regresses into its cluttered and disassembled state. Dust always accumulates. Those little "dust bunnies" of cat fur entangle themselves in countless balls in countless corners and in places you would never imagine. Even if you sweep every day, there's always something to sweep.

I am a very tidy person. I like everything to be in its place. I've always been this way. And I am this way about my life as well. I compartmentalize, organize, write out schedules, map out days by the hour. I am this way emotionally, too. If I get in an argument with a loved one, I will drill that problem down into the ground until it's dead. I know it's annoying for them...I keep bringing up the same problem over and over again, but it's because I have to. I can't sleep at night unless everything is settled.

Sometimes, though, because of the entropic nature of life, no matter how much planning, or cleaning or emotional digestion takes place, there's just no way to conquer it all, let alone conquer it gracefully.

What to do on these days? In these weeks? In the years that never seem to settle? Well, there's nothing to do. It helps to remember sometimes that we are not human-doings, we are human beings. We don't need to do. We need to be, and it is the way that we are that really matters. Walking into the office this morning my mind wondered off and started ticking off all the crappy things going on. "I haven't even gotten to yoga class in 2 weeks" I said to myself. And then I took a deep breathe, decided to be in a good mood and be grateful anyway, and reminded myself: "let this be my yoga".

We can always pick ourselves up from dark places, but it takes an uncanny sense of humor to do so. You must look at the web you've created, and instead of seeing all the holes, look at the light shining through.

The Bird Incident

Yesterday, on our way to the garden, I hit a bird. I was driving a leisurly 40 mph down Charter Oak Street, and the bird came flying out from the left. The last thing I saw was the flaling of a wing, and then we heard a thunk as we made contact. Will and I looked at eachother and decided I'd better pull over at the Highland Park Market and get the bird out from where it was likely stuck in the grill of our car. I pulled into the parking lot inconspicuously. Will jumped out to inspect the damage, and when he asked me to pop the hood, grey feathers went flying-- it was almost cartoon-like, and it broke the grimness of the incident.

Will recovered the ordinary robin from it's not so ordinary deathbed (the grill, as we suspected).
"Do you think it's still alive?" he asked.
"No."
Will put his hand on its tiny chest. "You sure?"
"Yes."

How could the bird have possibly survived? I heard that thunk. Not good. Needless to say, I felt awful. So we brought the bird to the garden and laid it to rest on the outskirts of Will's parent's yard.

There's no real story here...other than that this stuff happens sometimes. We try the best we can to be and do good everywhere, but life throws strange things in our path that we are unable to avoid. I guess I've run into a few things on this road lately...the turtle, and now the bird...I suppose it has been a rough few weeks.

In honor of the robin I killed with my car...

Rainbows, Sunshine and Butterfly Bags...

Life truly is magical.

This past weekend my mom asked me to clean out the crawl space of my old room. It's strange the things we hold on to...old photos, old letters and cards, old projects and workbooks, report cards, and all my gymnastics ribbons...but it's even more surprising how we hang on to things emotionally and spiritually throughout our lives. Looking through all my old journals and art projects, there's an essence that's still with me. I know I have changed over the years, but I know I am also the same in many ways.

Something that became apparent to me this weekend was that I have a hard time saying what I want. I'm always the one to say "I don't care" and go along with whatever the other person wants to do. I figure, I can be happy doing anything anywhere, so why should I need to do what I want to do? I think it's good that I can be content in any situation, however, there's something not right about holding in my truth and always allowing others to take charge. Not to suggest that I have no backbone or that I let others lead...in fact, I have a very strong backbone and I am a natural leader, but it's in the small details of life that I often let go of my desires and let other people take over. I've always been a people pleaser, but somehow, this is more than that. This is about not speaking the truth, not thinking that I have a right to be heard, not hearing myself.

There's something so strong and certain within me that I have tended to shy away from. Perhaps it's because this person that knows exactly what she wants is not so likable and I'm afraid that I will push people away if I don't go along with what they want. Maybe I don't listen to this voice because it will lead me in a different direction than I am heading. It could be that I am so accustom to ignoring what I want that I no longer recognize the voice inside.

I was once told that happiness is simple, all you have to do is lead with your heart. But listening to your heart is not always easy, and it's rarely supported by the people and circumstances around you. However, it is imperative that we lead with our hearts. I may be a happy person, but until I start listening more closely to this voice that knows what she wants, I will not be complete.

Looking through all my old things, I see more clearly that a voice has always been there. She is wise, she is my best friend, and she can be quiet. I read through a journal I wrote when I was about 7 years old...I can't count the number of times I apologised to my journal because I didn't write the day before or didn't have time to write out everything that happened. I read and remembered a time when I was told to sit in time-out by my 2nd grade teacher because I was laughing too hard. I read about all my frustrations, confusions, yet an underlying sense that everything was alright, always remained. This is the voice that's always been there.

Life is magical because it reveals these truths to us just when we need them. Life is magical because just when you feel lost, your best friend shows up (maybe at Blockbuster...true story!!!), and the past comes flooding into the present. I thought I knew my inner voice...but it was just the beginning, and she spoke up just in time.

Something Yoga

I was challenged to write about yoga... and for whatever reason, I've always resisted writing about this huge piece of my life. Perhaps because I have such a hard time segregating my asana practice from the rest of my life and the rest of my writing. But here are a few poems that stem from this very sacred practice...


The Pulsing Heart

I forget
Where I’ve been.
Laying on my back,
Limbs spreading out,
Jaw relaxed, heart mended.
Pulsing out into the static world
I am warm and mind wanders,
Then draw it back to pace
Just like you might
Make a puppy
Sit again
And again,
Until it stays.
Innocent mind,
I forgive you over
And over again until you
Obey and purify, stop leaning
Grow upright, become transparent.
We argued about the fate of life,
This human race going on,
And you made the point
That we are most vile
Comparatively.
But, I said
That feeling of
A genuinely good
Seed, perhaps compassion,
The capacity to feel makes us truly
The blessed ones, and to deny this truth,
That we experience these peak moments in time,
This feeling that we may just get once
In the hundred years we might live,
This is the meaning of life for us.
We are not vile because
There is that seed
Of light shining.
Pulsing.
This is why
We must go on so
Others might understand,
Their worth in a brief bolt of lightning
Hitting the soul’s soil, turning the humus
Into a solid gem that can never be destroyed.
This is the lesson you’ve taught me, mind
Sitting quietly, continually reaching
For the reigns to bring you back
To touch my heart once more.
Just before I cave inwards
You come running,
Filling me up
With purest
Joy.


Falling Open

Falling open can hurt
Initially, it can
Bruise the skin a
Deep blue-purple pool
Of blood under the surface
That sits, stagnant
For an undefined time.
Uncertain of
The forces that heal,
That they will find
This dark bruise amidst
Countless others.
Go ahead and sing
That sad melody,
But don’t drown out
The heart’s healing.
For it will rebuild
What’s been hurt,
And falling open will
Feel like freedom
Pinched your skin
Just so you could
Heal again.


Pigeon Pose

Pain sleeps in the hip,
Wraps a thick blanket
Of muscle tissue
And memory, tightly
Around the synovial joint.

Where the body must
Always seek support.
Where the mind, it must
Reserve its worries.
Accumulating the world

Of suffering life
This place is home,
The door jammed shut
With rusting hinges,
Awkwardly hanging on.

Cannot retrace steps,
Walk backwards through time
To undo the mess
That has unfolded
In a sad, entropic fate.

It is trapped within,
Seemingly passive
In a cold, clenched bed
Where tears fall from closed eyelids.
Breath there,

Forgiveness, if that too
Is sleeping somewhere forgotten,
Slowly peel the fingers from the fist.
Everything slowly fades away,
If you let the tide come in.


Going In

Old ways
Have found me here,
Fighting wind on the shore.
Used to be so sure of myself
And life.

This ocean
Has another name,
But its salt taste the same
As all of the other oceans
I’ve known.

I go
Far, far away
From everything I know,
Only to return home again,
Grateful.

Searching
Outside myself,
I’ve found so much beauty
But the greatest journey travels
Inward.

Most things
Worthwhile are hard
Like standing in wind,
Upright and at ease, gazing out
To sea.

This is a picture of me in one-legged king pigeon pose (Eka Pada Rajakapotasana) when I was doing my SEVA volunteering at Kripalu. In my opinion, this is one of the most beautiful asanas, not just because of the way it looks, but because your hips must be open in order to get there. We tend to store a lot of life in our hips...all the stuff we don't deal with often accumulates there. It took me a lot of tears and falling open in order to come to this place. So be gentle with yourself as you go in. Take it slow and feel every fiber of your body come undone. Only when you've been through it and felt it all, can you journey into an asana like this one.

Turtle in the Road

On my way home from work last night, I saw a turtle cross the road. He was just reaching the other side when I passed him. For whatever reason, this amazing feat -- that the turtle had actually lived after crossing such a busy street -- made me want to cry. I cry a lot, so that's not all that impressive...but there was something so touching about his success.

As a creative writing student at Goucher, I was trained to look very carefully at the details in life. Too often we are in our own head and rushing from one place to another, that we forget to witness the details of our own lives. There are metaphors everywhere. And perhaps they don't mean anything...but I prefer to believe that they do.

As a Buddhist student, I have been trained to contemplate the conditioned circumstance of every detail. I have learned to see how every instance, thought, feeling, event arises somewhere so far back that it's true origin becomes untraceable. It's better known as the Butterfly Effect. Google it.

These two ways of training my mind have become intertwined, and so I notice the details of life and I see how they are no coincidence. Everything is relevant, and this is why I choose to believe that the metaphors that lay themselves out so honestly in our lives are not to be ignored, but honored.

There is a story about a raft in Buddhism. The teachers, books, koans, lessons of Buddhism are represented by this raft that carries you across the river. They are necessary in order to understand and fully realize enlightenment. Often times, people will be inclined to hold on to their raft, strap it to their back, and carry the burden of it for the rest of their lives. But the truth and lesson in the story is this: the teachings of Buddhism, the books, the sayings, the stories, are all just material to help you get to the other side. These material things are not enlightenment themselves. Striving to get to the other side of the river, I have listened to the teachings, I have built my raft, and I am still using it. But when reaching the other side, I must remember to let go.

I witnessed this turtle make it to the other side yesterday, with nothing but its will and a hard shell on its back. Many days I wish I had the perseverance and hard shell of this turtle, because we are all just trying to make it to the other side. More often than not, life comes at us, barrelling down the road, distracted, rushed, thoughtless, it hits us hard, and we suffer. Sometimes life creates such high waves in the water that it laps at our raft, shakes us from side to side, we struggle to stay on the raft. Sometimes it is lost to the ocean.

Yesterday was one of those days where life came at me, and all I wanted to do was lie there in the road and give up and jump off my raft. But a good nights rest does wonders for the spirit, and today I feel like putting the hard shell on my back and crossing the road.

I will start at the beginning...

I've been trying to bring people together my entire life. My earliest memory is from when I was almost three. My mom was sitting on the couch reading a story to my older sister, and my dad was in the kitchen washing dishes. I grabbed my mom by the hand, and as she reluctantly stood up , I remember my gaze falling just at her knees. I led her into the kitchen where my dad's back was turned to us, and then I announced, grabbing his hand: "Mommy, love Daddy. Daddy, love Mommy." It was just that simple to me, but my plea could not undo the damage, and my parents divorced soon after.

The second memory I have is my mom spreading a big map of the United States across our kitchen table and pointing to Maine. "We're going here," she said to us, and I don't know that we objected. The drive was long, and we had to pull over on the highway at some point because we thought we lost our hamster, Fluffy. But he was only hiding among the blond flakes of filling in his cage. We moved on, passing the granite towers lining I-95 that I thought would topple on us at any moment. We arrived in Yarmouth, Maine, and the three of us stayed through the long, miserable winters, making light of this uncertain life.

It wasn't until a few years ago that these memories came back to me. I had to call my mom to confirm, and it made me cry when she said yes. It's these abrupt things that we block out, and the subtleties of life that filter in, shaping our path, touching us so slightly, shifting our view, that make up the consistency of our lives. Though I never remembered these things, the memories were ingrained in my life all along. It's going deeper and understanding these things that make us conscious of our subjectivity, and open us up to the subjectivity of others.

In my heart, life and love are still simple to me; as simple as they were when I was three years old, telling my mom and dad that they just need to love each other and then everything would be okay. In my mind, I understand how things are not this simple, how life takes strange twists, things change, love shifts. It's hard making sense of the two, and I'm finding it's our great plight as conscious beings to reconcile the connection between our hearts and our minds. I'm not going to attempt to conciliate the accord one should strike between these two powerful entities, because it's different for everyone, but it's something worth exploring, and we must go inside to find out.

This is Maine...where, thanks to the twists and turns of life and love, I ended up.

I could not have asked for a more nurturing and pristine childhood.