Interview with BlissChick

Have you chanced upon the BlissChick blog? If not, you are missing out!

When Christine Reed, the eponymous BlissChick, approached me to do an interview for her blog, I asked her to answer her own questions for mine. She is a fascintating woman, an inspiration for living right, a lyrical writer. Read on to find out more about her, and also, admire this magnificent portrait of her, painted by her partner Marcy Hall. I love Marcy's work, especially her animal portaits. If I was certain I wasn't infringing copyright, I would have posted those here too!

1. Describe the PrimaryBliss of your life. How did you come to know that this was your PrimaryBliss?

My PrimaryBliss is centered around story. Thinking back, it's been like this since I was a small child. We moved a lot, so books became my best friends. I ate them, one after another. And at night, to put myself to sleep, I would make up stories, imagine different lives, faraway places, all of that. So I've always found some of my greatest joys in reading. And now I write stories; I am rewriting a very long novel, actually. Which has been a surprise to me -- to be writing a novel. It has taken me a long time to realize that I'm not "just" an essay writer or a poet but a storyteller. It seems like that should have been obvious to me from the beginning but I've taken a long and circuitous route to my PrimaryBliss! I also collect stories. When I meet a new person, it's the first thing I do -- try to get their story, the overall narrative arc of their life. And I teach other people about finding their stories. Whatever I am teaching -- whether it's creative writing or communications -- and wherever -- in a traditional setting or a nontraditional setting -- I realize that I am essentially trying to teach people that their lives are comprised of stories and that this is important, that their stories are important.

2. What types of choices and sacrifices did you make to be able to craft this bliss-filled life?

My partner and I realized a long time ago that having bliss-filled lives, for us, meant having time. Time to read and write and for her, to paint and write, and time to garden and be at home and with each other and our animals. So we bought a smaller house than the bank thought we should. We gave up our car seven years ago -- for reasons that started out as personal and then after 9/11 became more political. We simplify every chance we get. We don't travel -- again, also for environmental reasons. Now, we live on basically one full-time salary. But this means, yes, that we have fewer things, but that's totally okay because we have time. We are on our paths and our hearts are fulfilled and we are stimulated and challenged and invigorated. Living bliss-filled life is about making choices, choices based on your purpose here, purpose beyond accumulating things and planning for a retirement that none of us are guaranteed to get.

3. How does your PrimaryBliss radiate out into the rest of your life?

My PrimaryBliss and the resulting choices touch every aspect of my life. Once you make choices, the next important step, I think, is always keeping them in mind. Not just reacting miscellaneously to life but acting from your center. So when a full time job opportunity came up that sounded momentarily interesting to me, I had to work through that and realize that it didn't fit. That it would just end up being a distraction from what I say is most important to me. Changing your mind is one thing, but it can't happen every other day. Commitment to your choices is vital. Otherwise, we are like little boats on wild oceans, not ever really navigating for ourselves.

4. What are some other activities that also give you this sense of bliss? Things that make you lose track of time?

Gardening. Even just weeding takes me out of my head. Which is good. I have to do things to get out of my head and into my body. So yoga is so necessary. I would say that yoga works in tandem with writing for me to keep me balanced. Kundalini yoga specifically. I love riding my bike and being at the water. Bird watching was one of the first activities that I encountered where I could totally just lose myself and be in sync with nature (I've been such a city girl for most of my life). Music is crucial and films and sitting with friends and trying new wines. And food -- I love to eat good food.

5. What is your daily or weekly spiritual practice?

I have a real eclectic approach to my spiritual life. I turn 40 later this year and I am finally accepting the fact that I have a need for a variety. (I come from a family that was very into specialization -- we'll put it that way.) Anyway, I would say that I am a Reluctant Catholic Yogi. I find a beauty in the mystical aspects of Catholicism and there's an emotional and visceral reaction to the Mass, when done well, that I can't get away from (as hard as I may try!). And I am very attracted to Mary -- the idea that she is really the last vestige of feminine divinity in any Western religion. The rosary beads helped me through some deaths. Of course, I do yoga almost every day. And I'm a big candle person -- and I try to make intentions with the lighting of any candle. And finally, I find it's important to me on every level, especially spiritual, to be outside every day. To walk. Especially in the winter, when we can get so cozy inside that we forget there is more outside our four walls.

6. What music is your bliss?

Music is one of my blisses overall. I love to listen to music, live and at home, all the time. And thanks to Kundalini yoga, in which there is a lot of chanting, I rediscovered my love of singing. Something I used to do spontaneously when I was little. I would just make up songs about whatever. My partner and I now do this, so our house can seem a bit like a musical sometimes. But I love everything, from Frank Sinatra to Azam Ali to Vampire Weekend to Yo-Yo Ma, everything. I am a child of the 80's so I have a particular soft spot for U2 and INXS and Duran Duran.

7. Name books or authors/poets or people who are your bliss, who influenced your bliss.

Obviously, books have been a significant part of my path. I have an MA in English so for a long time, I only read dead people. I return again and again to Virginia Woolf and have recently fallen in love with Proust. But I've been trying to branch out into the land of the living... I adore anything by Joanne Harris, Neil Gaiman, Barbara Kingsolver, Jonathan Carroll, Jennifer Egan. I read a lot in mythology/theology/philosophy. In poetry, I seem to have a thing for Latin men, like Neruda and Lorca.

8. What advice would you give to someone who feels they have not yet discovered their PrimaryBliss?

Journal. I think writing through all your "stuff" is really powerful, and if you don't know your bliss, I'm guessing you have "stuff" to unpack. Think back especially to your childhood and to what you spent your time doing -- when you had free choice in the matter -- and think about what your wildest dreams were, what you fantasized about, what you thought was out of reach. The journaling process can go on for a long time, but if you stick with it, I guarantee it will work. Also, I think people can take this all way too seriously sometimes, so remember to play and laugh and have fun. And look at this with, as some indigenous cultures would say, "soft eyes." When we look too hard, we can scare away the clues and the helpers.

9. Do you have a favorite quote you would like to share?

My current one is "all shall be well, all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well" by Julian of Norwich. I think that contains all the theology/philosophy any of us ever really need.

One step at a time

I like maps. And guidebooks. And, you know, books of instructions.
They make me feel like the world is a safer place because it has been documented.

We have a ridiculous number of photos of me consulting maps - in Paris, in London, in Melbourne. In the Melbourne Aquarium. I mean, really. A map? To navigate the aquarium? Yes. I did. And I made my poor, long-suffering husband do it too.

Another thing I keep reminding myself of right now: how many migrants have come to these shores before me. And survived. And prospered. There is even a flashy monument with the numbers of people who have come from Eritrea, Macedonia, everywhere. And a museum. I have visited the monument, but not the museum yet. Soon.

It's like Mr Desikachar says in his translation of the Yoga Sutra (yes, the one I almost always consult):

When we are confronted with problems, the counsel of someone who has mastered similar problems can be a great help.

YS 1.37

Such counsel can come directly from a living person or from the study of someone alive or dead.

It's all yoga. Even the difficult stuff. Especially the difficult stuff, actually.

A Yogini by any other name...

I was flipping through one of my old Vogues (yes, again!) and noticed for the first time a Saks Fifth Avenue advert, featuring 'actress and yogini' Fernanda Torres wearing this Carolina Herrera cropped jacket.



Now, I checked it out, and the cuffs on that? Fox fur. Not fake. Real.

As I understand the word yogi, or for women, yogini, it means 'one who has attained yoga'. That's why I have taken to saying yoga practitioner!

If you have attained yoga, you are by definition enlightened, and therefore have practiced and mastered all the limbs of yoga, including ahimsa - non-harming. Which precludes wearing fur. This actress is not a yogini. She is just some chick who does yoga poses to stay buff.

Democracy in Zimbabwe

I received this email from Avaaz.org today. Some action is better than none!

Dear friends,

Zimbabwe is on a knife's edge between democracy and chaos. Results still have not been released from the 29 March elections--and fears are rising that Mugabe will resort to violence and fraud to hold on to power. South African president Thabo Mbeki said today that "it's time to wait"--but time has run out.

Observers, NGOs, and the opposition have appealed for international support. To respond, we're launching a new campaign to all Avaaz members throughout Africa. Click below to add your name to a petition calling for the results to be released, verified, and peacefully honored. We will send the petition to Mugabe's government, and to leaders and media organizations throughout Southern Africa and the world:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/democracy_for_zimbabwe/1.php?cl=72031466

Every day brings new developments, and the more time passes, the greater the danger grows that the will of Zimbabwe's people will be ignored. The faster we can grow this petition, the more powerfully we can show that the people of Africa and the world are looking to Mugabe to honour the choice of Zimbabweans.

In a crisis like this, a petition is just a small step--but it's something all of us can do, to raise our voices and call for what's right. And as history shows, international solidarity can be a powerful thing.

With hope,

Ben, Graziela, Ricken, Galit, Paul, Iain, Pascal, Milena, and Esra'a--the Avaaz.org team

PS: Here are some updates on the situation in Zimbabwe:

• Court to hear Zimbabwe poll case - http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/C2F5E1E4-82BC-4EFA-BA75-A62BC34454AF.htm
• Mbeki calls for patience in Zim poll crisis - http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=68&art_id=vn20080407060010671C262713
• Mugabe Urges Zimbabweans to Defend Land - http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jaGkiD_oeuNCWUEr7YyXikc7dKZQD8VSUQBG0

PPS: A year ago, in one of the first Avaaz campaigns, we called together for Mugabe and his government to end their brutal attacks on opposition leaders. More than 45,000 people around the world took part. Now, there's a hope for much more substantial change--a new hope for the 12 million Zimbabweans struggling with hyperinflation, starvation, and HIV/AIDS. Please do sign the petition, and forward this email to friends and family--they can sign at http://www.avaaz.org/en/democracy_for_zimbabwe/1.php?cl=72031466.


ABOUT AVAAZ
Avaaz.org is an independent, not-for-profit global campaigning organization that works to ensure that the views and values of the world's people inform global decision-making. (Avaaz means "voice" in many languages.) Avaaz receives no money from governments or corporations, and is staffed by a global team based in London, Rio de Janeiro, New York, Paris, Washington DC, and Geneva.

Don't forget to check out our Facebook and Myspace pages!

The Good Necklace

I am tired of posting about my ailments! We may come back to them, we may not (and won't everyone be relieved if we don't?)

To enliven things around here, I have an interesting post originally published at Textiles and Bicycles, by the lovely Monica Bansal. She is a knitter, sewer, Iyengar yoga practitioner, and really passionate about doing what's right in the world. At some point, don't we as the yoga community (and indeed as humans) all need to think more about our influence on the world?

This is what Monica says in the intro to her blog:

Here I share my projects, thoughts, and rants on two of my greatest interests: art & craft and urbanism. Both are intertwined by underlying principles of environmentalism and respect for life–in all forms.

I knit and sew because it’s amazing. It’s fulfilling. It makes me a part of the group of people I respect the most: the artisan, the maker of the necessary.

I ride my bicycle everywhere because it’s fast, healthy, and it hurts no one (except possible me) by doing so.

I feel really strongly about these two aspects of my life because they carry with them ideas that have the potential to transform our culture with a real ethical shift: buy less and make more, drive less and bike (or walk) more, waste less and share more, sit less and move more, and this could go on (and will)….

I enjoy the rigour of her thinking and she gave me permission to share this with you:

I like the idea of seeing something in a catalogue and figuring out how to make it instead of buying the thing, which in this case is almost definitely made in China. The China thing is even more important to me these days as the Chinese government trashes the Dalai Lama. It seems shocking that this would be an advisable political move for them considering the worldwide, deserved adoration for him, but apparently invoking the strong nationalist identity of the Chinese is working among the domestic populace and they do in fact seem to agree with the government. That a group of people can be condemned for peaceful protest in the face of persistent human rights abuses against them is something I simply cannot understand.

Unfortunately as a normal American without much political power my identity is little more than consumer, so the power of the purse will be my vehicle for expressing myself.

I have never really made a “nice” necklace so this kind of proves it’s more possible for most (if not all) of us to substitute our ready-made purchases with home- and handmade stuff (not to mention I saved more than $50). And I learned from a coworker the other day that fabrics sold in the US are almost always made in the US because of tariff laws, which do not apply to ready-made clothing. I haven’t checked this statement out, but it sounds like I’ll be sewing a lot more than I have been.

The necklace in question? See it here.

Edited: The China/Dalai Lama issue? IF you feel strongly, add your name to the growing list of objectors here.

Baking as Yoga

Since we are well into the holidays, and probably all the eating that goes with them, here is a guest post from my friend Anja Zander, who bakes like the proverbial domestic goddess! She is also a dedicated Ashtangi, maintaining a regular practice and even squeezing in a bit of teaching, despite regularly (always) working 14-hour days. She tells me the New Year will hold more balance on that front...

My favorite memories of my childhood are eating freshly baked bread (which was rather super healthy with loads of seeds and not an ounce of white flour in) smothered in butter or eating Apfelstrudel with heaps of fresh cream. Birthdays were most important because then I could have either a Malakoff cake or Profiteroles filled with cream and peaches. My love for baked goods never subsided. Yet years would pass were I would not eat cake never mind attempting to bake. Shop bought cakes or biscuits never had any appeal to me. They tasted all of sugar and bland flour to me. Some have said growing up in a Austrian/German household spoilt me a little bit in my tastes for baked goods......

When I had the chance to go to Europe, I would make sure I had my croissant and bol au chocolat in Paris, my cream smothered Sachertorte in Vienna or the Apfelstrudel with (once again) cream. The smells of their good quality sugar, grounds hazelnuts, flour and butter made me feel calm, comfortable and for a few blissful moments, all was good in the world.

Yet, I was a lousy baker! I could not cook nor bake. Not being able to cook never bothered me, I love throwing salads and pasta together which requires very little cooking. But baking, there was a whole world out I wanted to discover there yet every attempt to bake ended up in total failure. Burnt, stodgy, boring, too sweet.

Until the day I got hold of the book by Nigella Lawson, How to Be A Domestic Goddess. I liked the title. A book written by a modern woman with a good sense of irony and self depreciation, someone who unapologetically loved food and as she said herself, was not someone who liked fancy pretentious food. A woman after my heart! I enjoyed the little introduction to each recipe (scoffing dark chocolate cake at midnight is always a good thing according to Nigella) and decided to try bake. I cannot even remember what is the 1st thing I baked but I know it worked! I could create something so tasty out of flour, sugar, butter and some good dark chocolate. Around the same time I realized I could bake, I started to take yoga up again. Like baking, yoga had been part of my life early but I abandoned it because I lacked good guidance. I found a wonderful yoga teacher (Nadine...yes you!) who re-inspired me to do yoga, who taught me how to be more gentle, calmer and be in the moment.

There have been many a tear and panic moment when some cake did not turn out the way I had in my head - from a cake bursting into flames in the oven to plastic melting around a cake to just me having way too high expectations of what the cake should look like. I do apologies to everyone around me who had to put up with the angst that I managed to artificially create! As the years passed, I did more and more yoga and stopped punishing myself in yoga if I could not pretzel myself as the teacher could or as the pretty picture in the yoga book. I learnt, without really consciously thinking about it, to be in the moment, enjoy the poses I could to in yoga and realize we all have different limitations and to work within those. And what seemed to be quite sudden, the yoga poses came more easily to me, I managed to do poses I never thought I could. And one should not measure oneself according to what one can do but it is so fun when one can do something one never thought one could!

And this brings me back to baking, now I bake and bring a whole lot less angst into it and the cakes turn out so much better. Oh yes, occasionally there is the still the moment of angst and I am sure everyone around me scuttles off then (as much as in yoga I have moments of annoyance with myself). In general, I talk to my baked goods while they are rising, mixing, melting or resting. Seems perfectly sane to me :) I lovingly melt the 70 % dark chocolate into the smooth butter, I coax the egg whites to be all firm and well behaved, I have a rather good relationship with yeast, which produces yummy cinnamon buns with a maple pecan topping (they are I must admit one of my favorite recipes and I think most of my friends agree). Nigella and her humorous descriptions and reassurances helped me become a Domestic Goddess, but yoga taught me to be in the moment, to focus only on what I do now and baking needs that, as does yoga. The ingredients need your full attention and to really be there and then they do happily as you want it. Every now and then the baking faeries get a bit sneaky and mess it a little bit up;I laugh and try again. Or maybe try something different. As I do when I get stuck on a yoga pose.

To yoga and baking - both bring benefits of good friends (and not just because I feed them occasionally) and a certain peace of mind and fulfillment!

* Sorry about the poor-quality photo of Anja - it was the only one I had to hand, and I had to fiddle with the color/contrast a bit.

Oh wow, more yogi knitters!

Aha, turns out I have loads of great company on the knitting front - many of you will have seen this article from the September Yoga Journal. I didn't because:

1. I was traveling
2. I have been a little off YJ of late - too many unfeasibly beautiful people, not enough substance. It's back in favour right this second, though.

If you want more mindful knit-spiration, check out Tara Jon Manning's blog, Earth-Sky-Knitter. Lovely!

And, just so you know, knitting really is therapeutic. Except when you mess up in a lace pattern and can't figure out where things went wrong, so you are forced to live with the glitch. Grrr. Well, it makes the items handmade I guess.

Lastly, I simply MUST have this book:

Greetings from Knit Cafe. I think I might want to knit everything in it. Now. Right after I finish this slightly dodgy, very simple-lace scarf (yes, scarf! Leopards can change their spots, it seems.)

Real Yoga for Real People

The trailer for Mark Whitwell's DVD by the same name. I think we all need to hear what he has to say, over and over again.

Yoga Anyhow

My last post was about how I have managed to do asana in odd places - and thank you guys for reading and commenting!

I ran across this post at Daily Cup of Yoga, about how any exercise can get you to the same place as yoga. Read it. I don't need to add anything!

Whistle-stop touring

I am not given to coach touring: I tried it in my twenties, and I think I am neither young nor old enough to find it enjoyable. I found that all the destinations, in-between places and toilet stops merged into a homogeneous mass. Nonetheless, I have just spent the last week on a frantically-paced road tour of Ireland, in particular Dublin, Cork and Kerry and the Wicklow Mountains. The trip was arranged by our very kind London-based friends, who came with, of course!

I found (again) that sitting in a car all day leads to all manner of discomforts for me, not least of which are seized-up hip flexors and, unfortunately, a bladder infection. Not great to need toilet stops every ten minutes when there is A Schedule! So again, I was reminded that it is good to know what manner of beast you are (a non coach-touring kind), and also to be reminded that sometimes it is good to get out of your comfort zone. Just as we do with our asana and pranayama practice, we slip into life ruts too, and having someone else in charge of the travel plans (or the yoga practice) can shake things ups a bit, remind you that you can in fact be flexible, if you just allow yourself to be! Note to self: you can be flexible, you can be flexible...

Ireland is a pretty place, even more prosperous and tourist-ridden than when I was last there eight years ago. The cities are teeming with foreigners working there, foreigners visiting, and a few actual Irish folk. The outskirts of most cities and towns are turning into McHouse paradise - a sign again of the economy's prosperity.

The countryside is for the most part still quite pastoral, cows and sheep everywhere and cute little villages, especially in the Ring of Kerry, which we completed in one day, whistle-stop style. It is weird, though, in Ireland and the UK, how as the population becomes more varied, with people from every corner of the globe moving there, the shops become ever more homogeneous. It was really quite unnerving to see the same window display (exact to every detail) at four branches of a chain store in four different cities, as we whipped past. The portion sizes, for example of coffee, are also insanely large. What happened to a small, or for that matter a medium cup? Who needs a tankard of coffee? This kind of consumerism, which must be mindless, since people are buying the over-sized coffee, worries me. I have been eating starter portions because the main meals are, as a rule, too large, even for someone with as healthy an appetite as me!

We are back in London now, for a few days, and hoping to catch up with friends and family and see a few sights before we head to Paris and then home.

Hope you are all well!

Mahabalipuram

Tomorrow, we leave South India for Mumbai, where we will spend our last few days in India, before we fly to London. We are in Mammalapuram, aka Mahabalipuram (this renaming business makes for great confusion). It is most famous for its beach resorts, impressive examples of Dravidian architecture, and the Shore Temple, which was in fact part of a complex, but the rest is now under water. I am told this discovery was made by the common man in the wake of the Tsunami, when the waters receded dramatically.

It seems to be a poorer town than Pondy or Chennai, with many, many people using the beach for all their ablutions (yes, everything.) It is sad, because on the whole South Indians look quite prosperous, and most seem to have their basic needs for sanitation and clean water met to some extent. I think perhaps the government is concentrating its infrastructure efforts in the larger towns and cities.

Seeing the poverty and filth in this little town, like so much else about travelling, especially in India, shows up all the habits I have in thinking, seeing, judging (see the Auroville post!). I notice again and again how I dislike change, and fight against it, even if I instigated it - case in point: the way I was disappointed that our current hotel is not as nice or homely as the wonderful Le Dupleix in Pondy. I also notice that if I feel my needs, for example in terms of cleanliness, are not met, I get uptight. Then there is the spending. India's beautiful goodies erode my self-control and I always buy more than I need to or should! Watching my husband do the same, but on a larger scale, with art pieces, has been educational too. I am not as flexible as I should be, but again, travelling forces the issue, because sometimes, if you are not flexible, you will be without transport or accommodation! How lucky I am to have such a mirror: the yoga of travel.

Yoga in Paris

Yoga in Paris, originally uploaded by kajo55.

Oh wow!

Look at this amazing photo I found on Flickr. I am going to be in Paris in September! So I can now drool over that gorgeous backbend in that gorgeous city.
(Note to self: Remember, Nadine, that backbend is because of her bones...)

For those of you whom I still haven't told, this is how the next few months look for me:

• August 6 - 17 - KYM's Yoga For Women 2 course in Chennai
• August 17 - September 1 - assorted travel around Tamil Nadu and South India, with a possible side trip to the Taj Mahal and Agra
• September 2 - 19 - London! Yoga in London. Definitely more than vist to Jivamukti London
• September 20 - 28 - Paris! All the sights but probably no yoga to speak of. This is assuming our visa goes through fine, we still don't know. But we bought suitcases anyway.

Home on the 3rd October.
Lucky us, life is definitely looking up!

The Borrower

Before I post this (borrowed) piece, I need to tell you all that Anton (the hit and run victim) is on the road to recovery, no serious injuries, and will be back at work next week. Thank you all for your thoughts!

This lovely piece comes from the Moksha newsletter, written by one of their recently graduated teacher trainees:

The Oxford Dictionary defines 'faith' as a 'strong belief or trust'.

I believe that when we practise Yoga we begin to have that strong belief, we begin to have that trust: we begin to have faith in ourselves.

It's a bit like embarking on a train journey: the moment you step from the platform onto the train you take your first step of faith. You may stop along the way, but by just beginning, by just embarking on the journey, by allowing yourself the opportunity, you move your soul towards faith.

Asana is the movement, breath is the progression and in your back pack you have the codes of conduct, yamas, nyamas, and you have sense control, pratyhara. Your interpretation of these as well the diligence with which you practise them, will determine just how much that back pack weighs. Subsequently though, the more you pack in the more you have to draw upon during the ride.

You may break up the journey or take the express. You may change trains along the way or choose to take the non-stop train allowing nothing to detract from your journey. Either way you choose to progress, faith will climb aboard with you.

Of course if you stay on the train, instead of jumping on and off or changing trains all the time, the journey is smoother, the progress more steady and faith holds a lot stronger.

You may find the ride uncomfortable at times but if you sit by the window you will feel the sun warming your face. At times the scenery may be dull but if you stay on board you will see the bright field of sunflowers around the next hilltop. And when the noisy engine overwhelms you, you will sing louder than you ever have and no one on board will mind. So it is that you begin to know the ebb and flow of life and so it is with each experience that faith holds your hand a little tighter.

When we have faith in ourselves we are able to move through life with equanimity. We accept life's fluctuations and are able to make conscious choices within everything we choose to do and say and think and feel. We trust that everything is as it should be.

Yoga takes us to that faith in ourselves. Although the journey requires faith, it gives us the faith we need. As with yoga, discipline is required but yoga gives us that discipline, we need strength for yoga, but yoga gives us that strength.

And so, it is the practise of yoga that gives you the faith to moves towards and keep moving towards your true self and if we then embrace the challenge and surrender to the infinite possibilities that it offers, yoga is like a train ride that never has to stop and it takes you closer to your true self with each passing mile. 

Connecting

Thank you all for your comments and emails in response to my last post: they were scary, and I have spent most of this week in an existential fug, convinced that the end of the world is nigh. I am still convinced of that, or at least that some awful environmental disaster is looming unless we change our ways, but I just read a quote on Elizabeth Gilbert's site that made me feel much better - I adored Eat Pray Love, and I love what she says here:

The first question you can begin to ask yourself, though, is: “Where can I find a small corner of stillness?” Because that’s where it all begins and ends. God resides in these pockets of silence. So where in your day, where in your home, where in your mind, is there some opportunity for a moment of silence? Or maybe even a few moments, during which you can start asking the questions you need to ask in order to find what you need to learn. Can you find the time to get out of your own way and try to step into your own light? As a dear friend of mine put it: “To change your life, the important thing is not necessarily to travel; the important thing is to SHIFT.”

All we can do is shift our awareness to the people, creatures and plants who are affected by our actions, and those whose actions affect us. Connect to them, even just in our imaginations, and if we all pull together we will probably be OK, even if a disaster happens. Perhaps we will find a way to retain our humanity and not sink into wars over resources, which is what my over-active imagination tells me would happen.

And what really cheered me up was Elizabeth's link to Where the Hell is Matt? and his crazy dancing the world over! Making people laugh across the globe, that's gotta be a spiritual practice.

PS: If you have been wondering about my knitting, there is a post about that coming soon! It's all yoga, you know, just not the asana sort.

Hot hot heat

It is just over a month until the southern hemisphere's Winter Solstice, and I sit typing in a short sleeved t-shirt, no shoes. It is too hot for this time of year, way too hot. If I ever needed reminding that global warming is real, this 'autumn' weather should do it.

I think it may be happening faster than even Al Gore tells us, and that freaks me out. We are literally manufacturing, shopping, driving and eating ourselves out of the only home we have. I am starting to think all those apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic films are not so very far-fetched after all, especially The Day After Tomorrow. That could actually happen. In fact, scary stuff a bit like it (but on a small scale) does keep happening.

Do you all find the weather weird? Have you noticed the changes since you were kids? Am I going crazy?

Plus ca change, plus c'est meme

I know, the French punctuation is missing from the title, but I am sure you get the drift! The more things change, the more they stay the same.

I have recently undergone a giant metamorphosis in my practice, and am still in the throes of change, as many of you already know. The original impetus for this was the pain and exhaustion my practice was causing, and the change crystallised during my trip to India last September (I hope to return to KYM this August, woo hoo!) Funny thing is, although my practice feels very different, it looks much the same. In fact, it looks like I have copped out of half the 'difficult' and 'challenging' poses I used to do.

I have the zeal of the newly converted. Confession: until last September, I was really just working on the physical level in my yoga practice. Not so now, and it is more than a little scary. Now I catch myself thinking that everyone should come along on this ride with me, whether they want to or not. Probably because I will be less scared if I have company! I bet anything that once I start to feel a little more settled in the new patterns, my conversionary zeal will fade somewhat. I have just finished reading Yoga and the Quest for the True Self by Stephen Cope.* It would have meant almost nothing to me a few years ago, but now I found myself nodding vigorously through almost the entire book - it is so comforting to find that someone else has mapped the territory I am only now discovering. A Western someone, who comes from the same cultural mores as me.

And yet, it is still just my yoga practice. Same ole me, basically.



* This was a gift from a student, to whom I say: Thank you! As always you are as much teacher as student. May you, like the Velveteen Rabbit, be loved well and truly, until you become real.

Attainment Yoga

After reading Regina Clare Jane's posts about her awful workshop experiences (with an instructor who has actually been to South Africa and is returning soon, I believe), I feel I need to have another vent about attainment yoga. Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while may have noticed this theme already: Yoga is not about being the best, buffest, baddest yogi ever. Not in the physical sense, not in the emotional sense, not in the spiritual sense.

I also (briefly) got caught up in the scary yoga trend . Handstands (although we now all know what a very bad idea that was for me with those wrists!), flashy backbends that caused me pain...you get the idea. What worries me is this: if we are saying yoga is union of mind, body and soul through the breath, why would we need strong adjustments to take us into poses our breath didn't lead us to? That is to say, if today you go into a split and can't maintain a comfortable breath, why not come out and do the pose another day when you are looser, more relaxed? Or maybe you don't need to do it at all.

If yoga is bad, or makes you feel like you are not good enough right now, then it is no longer yoga, it is an offshoot of physical or gym culture that looks a bit like yoga. Just because a computer-generated apple looks like the real thing, doesn't mean it is!

I am puzzled and quite worried that yoga in our society has become nothing more than a set of exercises to keep you in shape, and maybe allow you to contort in ways you couldn't before. I remember reading somewhere that before the resurgence of yoga in the last century, it was mostly practiced by Hindu holy men, and since they were practicing it only for spiritual purposes, they practiced about 40 poses. In total. Imagine that.

I know one yogini who has a personal trainer at the gym to keep her in shape. Now I have no problem with that, as long as she doesn't feel she has to do it in order to look a certain way because she is a yoga teacher. I have felt this pressure and suspect many of us do. This, also, is not yoga - it is just another layer of avidya, wrong knowledge, keeping us tied to our dukha (suffering). So if it doesn't make you feel better, or at least not worse, chances are it is gym culture in yoga's clothing.

Enviro-yoga

It strikes me, as I read my way through other yoga blogs, that most yogis and yoginis are the kind of people who care about environmental issues. I think the natural side effect of feeling more 'in yoga' with the world is a keen desire to protect and preserve what we have.

I am about to take a week-long media fast: no cellphones (yippeee!!), no email (gulp) and no internet (gasp), so I thought I would kick it off with two posts - first, a roundup of my recent enviro-yoga experiences.

Areas I am pleased about:

• My husband and I live in an apartment - less resource-heavy than a house
• We drive a Smart car and a Vespa, rather than two gas-guzzlers
• We are both strict vegetarians
• Most of our food is local, organic and fresh (almost no processed food at all)
• We recycle all paper, plastic and glass. No need to do tin/aluminum since we don't consume things that come in those packages
• We use energy-saving bulbs everywhere we can
• We switch all appliances off at the plug when not in use (well, mostly we do...)
• I wear no leather, and my husband wears only those leather items he already owns
• Most of our household cleaning and personal toiletry items are free of harmful chemicals, and none are tested on animals
• We try buy clothing and gifts from small local producers, rather than 'The Man'
  
• We have a water-saving flush on our toilet
• We mostly buy second-hand books, or go to the library. Mostly...
• We get our music from the incomparable emusic
• We take our own bags to the grocery store
  

Areas that need improvement:

• I would like to drive less - but hey, this is South Africa - as I have mentioned before, the public transport is kinda fatal, accounting for a large proportion of our very very high road death statistics, and walking...let's just say I don't even walk the three blocks to my local mall. My husband would kill me himself if e found out I had! Save the criminals the effort
• I would like less packaging on my food - do apples really need plastic wrapping?
• We should both spend less time online. Ahem
• I would like to buy more things second-hand or vintage. But I am lazy. And it takes a whole lotta scratching to find the good stuff

Things I have learnt along the way:

• Just because it is organic/chemical free doesn't mean it is of decent quality. The worst were these:

• Wensleydale Farms - great idea to send a box of organic produce to your door every week. If it gets there. And if you don't expect the client to keep a tally of what they owe you, never sending them a bill. And if you actually send what you said you would, or at least some of it.
• Esse Organic Skin Care - thank you so much for the lasting legacy of allergic reactions and previously unseen on this face pigmentation. Obviously not properly tested.
• Enchantrix - great for dirty, smelly laundry. Even after it's been washed. Also good shampoo for the worst scalp inflammation I have ever seen. On me and my husband. In fact, the quality of this stuff is so poor, I am astounded that they are still in business.
• There are some good options out there - let me save you the trouble of going through all the nasties above:
• Mary-Ann's household cleaners and food products. All do what they say, and our bedlinen is still white.
• All of the Savvy Kids products. God bless them, I say. We use their shower gel, conditioner, and peanut butter. Best peanut butter I have ever tasted.

The biggest lesson I have learnt is that the changes you make need to fit comfortably into your life. Do the best you can, but don't go so far that you feel deprived or depressed. You can't sustain that kind of change. At least, I can't.

RSI Wrists

I have RSI. It all started ten years ago with my first job, and my first stints of sitting for long hours in front of a computer. Before long, I was wearing wrist guards on both wrists, and sometimes the pain would make it hard to sleep. According to Deborah Quilter, these are bad signs.

When I started practicing yoga, things improved dramatically, but when I started practicing Ashtanga, it all went downhill again. In fact, during my (Ashtanga) teacher training, I constantly had tennis elbow in my left arm. A few months later, on my honeymoon, I would ask my husband to hold my wrist instead of my hand because the pressure made the aching feel a bit better. Now I don't think the problem was with the practice, but with how I was going about it. To me, it wasn't a 'proper' practice unless I did every vinyasa, every asana, injury or illness be damned. I am not quite sure where I got this silly idea, but I think some of it was from that teacher training course, where another girl, who didn't follow the rules with quite as much ardour as me (yes, I did practice on a sprained ankle every day for two weeks), was cold-shouldered. She wasn't up to standard. Eventually I looked for a gentler, more intuitive way to practice.

But the thing is, after a decade of wrist abuse, I still experience pain. If I drive a lot, and I do, the pain gets worse. Most days I drive for about 4 hours, and then spend a few more in front of the computer (blog, anyone?). And I demonstrate far more yogasanas than I should. Poses like caturanga get me the most; I have tried to correct my alignment so my wrists are directly under my elbows, but the thing is, my wrists don't extend to that angle. Never have. Looks like they never will. They are a little broken. Poses like peacock have never been in my realm of possibility because, although I am muscularly strong enough, my wrists just cave when I try to bend them that way. Embarrassingly enough, I have tried, quite a few times!

I am really struggling at the moment - I have got my shoulder girdle, arms and wrists to a healthier state than they have been for years, but I am beginning to realise that maybe, just maybe, caturanga is never going to be a good idea for me. I really like caturanga, I really like the kind of sun salutes that involve caturanga. But they hurt. If not during the practice, then (usually) afterwards. So I now have to face that my ego is the problem here, and that hurts! I mean, me, not do super flashy sun salutes any more? Puh-lease. Isn't it awful when you catch yourself not practicing what you preach?

A little lunch, a lot of learning

I had a very informative lunch time chat with someone yesterday, and came away with some grist for my mental mill.

Firstly consider this:

The people who are best on the mat are not always the best yogis.

This is a great reminder of what we all know: being able to do splits/ back-bends/ fancy arm balances is great, and has a lot to recommend it, but if you are still grumpy and mean, the yoga is not working. You know your yoga practice is doing what it should when you are a nicer person, happier, calmer, kinder than you used to be.

This came up for me a couple of weeks ago when I was trying to illustrate to a class what 'advanced' yoga is. I was trying to show them that a fancy pose, done without paying attention, is less advanced than a simple pose done with full attention to the breath, body and mind. Only I couldn't come up with a fancy pose to demonstrate! It was an interesting moment; I guess there are a few poses I can do that count as 'advanced'- splits, some interesting shoulderstand and headstand variations, the odd arm balance. But the poses I experience yoga most intensely in are the simple ones - forward bend, child's pose, tree pose. So it was a real 'aha' moment.

Secondly, this:

There is more than one kind of yoga teacher.

I should really know this, but, bless me, I forget. I always think that for someone to be my teacher, I need to be studying yoga postures with them. My teacher Ann is one of those people whose yoga is clearly working in their lives. I go to her with student issues, life issues, issues in general, but I hardly ever go to her asana classes. She is still my teacher. It seems for me right now, I need a spiritual teacher - the asana side of things is to some extent under control or maybe (gasp!) not as important to me as it once was.

Has anyone else had the experience of their yoga changing before their very eyes?