Seattle Yogini

How was Hawaii?

Here I've been back home in Seattle for two whole weeks, with nary a posting about my Hawaii trip.  It was, as you may imagine, wonderful.  For those of you who don't know, I attended a 10-day Esoteric Yoga Retreat on the Big Island with my teachers, Aadil Palkhivala and Mirra.  Esoteric refers to the "hidden" or more subtle aspects of yoga.  Our work was to open the body with asana and pranayama so that meditation would be not only more comfortable, but more effective, as well.  This helps put the eight limbs of yoga into perspective, as asana's purpose is to care for and strengthen the body so that one can practice pranayama and meditate.

Mornings were dedicated to 2 - 3 hours of asana and/or pranayama practice with Aadil.  Every day was different, and delightful.  Sometimes I didn't participate in all of the things the class did, choosing alternative poses instead (because I didn't know if I was pregnant or not, and some of the stuff was too warming for early pregnancy).  Aadil is a master at including everyone in the class, even those of us who (for any number of reasons) need alternative poses.  It was really fun to experience Aadil's teaching outside of the college, to be an asana student rather than a teacher training student, and to get so much time with him!

The retreat center served us local, organic, vegetarian lunches and dinners (which, even as a dedicated "foodie", I would recommend to the hungriest of carnivores).  After the first day, we began to take our meals in silence.  This was done so that we could truly experience the meal, rather than being distracted by talk.  Eating should be done with the whole person (mind, body, and spirit), but often we get into the habit of doing other things while we eat, such as watch TV, listen to the radio, read, or talk nonstop.  Of course, I enjoy conversation at the dinner table, but I learned that balancing it with true attention to what and how I was eating creates a very different experience.  Meals became an opportunity to explore eating in a new way, and for that I am very grateful.

After lunch we had a break of a couple of hours.  There was a (reportedly) beautiful waterfall on the property, but I kept putting off hiking down to it, and each day I thought I might go - it rained.  That was okay, though, because we had a waterfall on the property I rented, so I was pretty satisfied.  My housemates and I often took the break time to go back home and have a nap, or to go to the Hilo farmers' market.

Break time was followed by afternoon meditation with Mirra.  This meditation is all about opening the heart center and living from its wisdom, love and peace.  While anyone can learn to do it, I won't kid you by saying it's easy.  Many of us (myself included) have spent a number of years building up defenses and walls around our hearts.  We operate under the mistaken understanding that the heart is tender, and needs to be protected.  In reality, what often hurts is our pride and ego, not our heart.  In yoga, we consider the heart - or heart center (the 4th chakra) - the home of the soul in the physical body.  Learning to transition from a very mentally-focused existence, or a very ego-driven one, to a heart-centered life can be challenging, but it is always rewarding.  So, meditation was a very powerful, and for me transformational, aspect of the retreat.

We dined after meditation and then a couple of nights had community time, Yoga Nidra, and at the end of the retreat a wonderful Hawaiian cultural presentation of hula.  It was a beautiful experience, and one that I would recommend to anyone.  There were a couple of people who had almost no yoga experience, but they, too, had very satisfying, perspective-changing experiences while on retreat.

Tomorrow I'll try to post some photos of the retreat center, and I'll tell you about the fun I had with my housemates!

Busy, busy!

Tuesdays are my busy day (please be kind and remember that it's all relative - I'll post on busy-ness later), which usually means that I don't post.  Today, however, I thought I'd just drop a line letting you know why it is that you shouldn't expect a post on Tuesdays.  :-)

I teach back-to-back morning classes, get home around 1:45 (from Bellevue), eat some lunch, figure out how to wear out entertain the dog, then try to catch up on any number of things:  studio stuff, other business stuff, household stuff, rest (haven't slept well the last couple of nights), knitting, reading (business or pleasure), correspondence.  You get the picture.  Oh, and I save up some energy for teaching my evening class.

Today I'm hoping to clean the bathrooms and vacuum before I go pick Rob up from school (too late!  He just called...).  That's after I take the buddy for a walk (maybe the whole family will get to go!). 

What do you do on Tuesdays?

My Body, My Friend

Today the second hour of Weekday was about body image.  Occasionally, I call in to make a comment on this show, as well as The Conversation.  This morning was one of those times (click on the Weekday link to hear me - it's in the last ten minutes or so of the show).

As a Gender Studies major at Indiana University in the late nineties, body image was a big topic of paper-writing and discussion in my classes.  We weren't only interested in female body image (it was gender studies, after all, not women's studies), though it did occupy the larger percentage of our thoughts - perhaps because most of us were women.  Helping women improve their body image and relationship to their bodies is a big factor in how and why I teach Purna Yoga.

One of the things I love about this yoga tradition is that it recognizes the importance of the body as a vehicle for the soul.  We have a responsibility to care for it and ensure its health to the best of our abilities so that it may better perform this function.  The "whole person" approach of Purna Yoga also helps us remember that while the body is important, it does not define who we are, nor our value.  In addition, our asana practice focuses on how poses feel (after ensuring proper alignment and, therefore, safety), not just "getting the pose".  Getting the pose will not help you grow, but learning to recognize and integrate the emotions & thoughts that come up during asana practice can.

It is not unusual to have a student (usually female) who has an antagonistic relationship with her body.  Perhaps her body has let her down in some way (such as fertility difficulties), or maybe she lives with chronic pain (such as chronic fatigue).  Maybe she has low self-esteem and how her body looks, rather than how it works or feels, has always been of paramount importance to her.  This student may have the most to gain from a yoga practice.  As she patiently learns to move her body in new ways, and quietly listens and processes all that comes up during the practice, she learns to care for her body in a new, supportive, and compassionate way.  As she begins to focus on personally feeling her body, rather than presenting it for public consumption, what other people think about her becomes less important than what she thinks about her.  She learns the language of her body - what sensations are signs of growth (such as the occasional discomfort of stretching) and what might be a sign to stop (such as pain).  As she gains confidence in the parts of her body that work well and that support her growth & offer new opportunities for change, that confidence cannot help but spread into other aspects of her life.

Now, at thirty, I have a great body image, but that was not always the case.  In my early twenties I struggled with an eating disorder after leaving my first husband, who was abusive.  My self-esteem was practically non-existent, but thankfully, when I hit rock bottom I realized that even though I couldn't put my finger on it...there was something that needed to change.  There was room to grow, even if I didn't know what I would grow into!  I sought counseling and was taught to meditate.  That single act of compassion, teaching a fragmented, pained young woman to sit quietly and non-judgementally with herself, saved my life.

I know that we can completely turn our lives around.  I have had the opportunity to do so not once, but many times.  A first step is to examine your relationship with your body.  Do you treat is as a treasured asset to your existence, or is it something that must be tamed, tucked, and squashed into a mold?  Are you following the cultural concept of beauty or finding your own definition and letting it shine from within?  Do you treat your body as a friend or a nemisis?  As Mahatma Gandhi said, "We must be the change we want to see in the world".  I suggest that if you want to see more kindness and compassion in the world, your start with your body, and see where that practice leads you.

It's been a lovely Seattle winter weekend:  cold and gently raining.  It's just the kind of weather that makes me want to curl up near a fire and knit or read.  Last night we went over to K & H's house and made pizza.  Then we tasted a bunch of different chocolate bars - comparing dark chocolates of different origins and percentages (one was 91%!) - very yummy, indeed.  H descriped the 10 dimensions to us, we compared notes on the chocolate, talked about "The Secret" (which none of us has seen yet) and Harry Potter.  We always have great conversations, as each of us has an area of particular interest/research that the others find interesting.  After dinner we played video games.

As you may imagine, I am generally not a big fan of video games.  I don't like it if the whole point of the game is to go around killing things/people.  I don't want it to be centered on violence and I find it very unnerving when people are "sucked in" to a game world.  K & H have a Wii, so we played bowling, batting practice, tennis, and boxing.  It was VERY fun.  Afterwards, H brought out Guitar Hero.  What a great game!  We had loads of fun "rocking out" to everything from Joan Jett to David Bowie, Incubus to Megadeth.  The best part is that you can set it for easy, so even if you don't have great rythm or you don't already know the song, chances are pretty good you'll be able to hit the notes.

The only downside of an evening with K & H is that we have so much fun that we end up staying up WAAAAAY past our usual bed time.  We slept until 9:30 this morning, which kind of feels like half the day is already gone.  Oh, well.  That's a small price to pay for a wonderful evening with great friends!

A Good Day

NOTE:  This was yesterday's night-time post.  When I was ready to post, though, our internet was down.  Here it is...better late than never!

After teaching this morning, my friend Kerrie and I decided to go to Fiber Gallery.  Kerrie had a couple of projects for which she needed yarn, and she'd never been to this LYS (local yarn store).  I have two projects under way, but love Fiber Gallery and knew for a fact that they had the yarn I wanted for Clapotis.  I'm using the yarn called for in the pattern, because I know for a fact that it is soft and I adore the colorway.  I had fun checking out some great books and even saw a family member modeling in the VOGUE Knitting Winter '07 (which I promptly decided to buy, as if somehow my purchase would further her career).  Afterwards we met up with my husband for lunch.  It was a really fun late morning/noontime treat.  I love spending time with Kerrie, and I'm so glad that we have knitting in common.

I'm having a good break from the sweater - working on a pair of socks.  I'm turning the heel of sock #1 and enjoying the self-striping yarn.  I'm just using the Yarn Harlot's pattern from her book, Knitting Rules!  It's very straight-forward and easy to follow if you have some experience with socks.  If you don't have experience, don't worry...she explains it all quite well in the preceding chapter.

I've been playing phone tag with my brother, B.  He recently moved to L.A. to pursue screen acting.  He's been in theater for a long time and was living in NYC for years.  Anyway, he's working with a friend on a project about veterans' stories of the war in Iraq.  He asked to pick my brain about my own experiences in the war, especially as I have a rather unique perspective - having served as an officer at Prince Sultan Air Base, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia during OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM.  Women are still a very small percentage of service members and represent an even smaller percentage in the officer corps.

It's interesting, trying to catch each other so that we can talk about something so BIG (over the phone, no less).  I have no problem sharing my experiences, but there's a part of me that's wondering what to tell.  When I was in the thick of it, even though I had a perpetual air of disbelief, my job was no more or less out of the ordinary than any of my comrades-in-arms.  Looking back through my memories and feelings, I wonder what will be most interesting and helpful.  Does he want to know what my daily life was like at that time?  How it felt to be constantly worried about my safety (and NOT because of any interactions with the enemy)?  What it was like to send aircrews up and just praying that I had given them enough information to keep them from being shot down?  Or maybe the laundry list of vaccinations (including small pox) we had to get?  How sick I became upon returning home?  How long it took me to regain my footing and some semblance of "normalcy"?  How I counted the days until I could go home, even though I knew that my orders had been changed to "indefinite"?  The heartache of being away from my family and the intolerable knowledge that I wouldn't see my husband for at least a year - or "indefinitely" (that ended up changing drastically, but not until the last minute).  The ache in my guts as I tried my damnedest to help the young guys who were under my command stay sane, in spite of the pace we were keeping and the BS we were constantly wading through?  The knowledge that whether I believed in the cause or not, I would forever be linked to the events taking place?

What do people want to know about such experiences, and why?  Considering that most Americans do not serve in the armed forces, why are we so fascinated with the military?  As my grandpa told my younger sister recently:  when you're there, all you can think about is coming home and having the house/family/picket fence/quiet life.  WWII vets didn't talk about it much because people who haven't been have a really hard time understanding, and it's so very hard to explain in adequate detail.  Nowadays we see the wisdom of not bottling things up inside, but that doesn't make it any easier to explain.  Just because we vets are talking, doesn't necessarily mean that people will "get it".  But then, it would be a sad day if everyone got something so heavy.

Then again, perhaps just hearing more stories will teach people what is, and what isn't, worth fighting for.  Maybe it will help people understand the deep responsibility and sacrifice of a military stint - even a short one - so that they can really think twice (or thrice or more) before signing up.  Maybe it will help people understand that not all military members are war-monger, and that the experience of going to war can change even the the most bullish of people.  What I hope most, however, is that by sharing my experiences people will see our deep capacity for change.  They'll see that a woman can look around herself and decide that no matter what, she has to make some serious changes.  They'll see that even though she's already had a second chance at life, she can turn it into a new and improved third version.  And if that woman can do it, maybe someone reading/watching will understand that they can, too.

Oh What a Beautiful Morning...

The forecast called for cold and rainy today, but we awoke to chilly and SUNNY!!!  I love it when the weather guy is wrong in our favor!  It's even better because I have the morning off.  That's right, no classes to teach or attend, no appointments, just stuff to take care of around the house.  The Buddy (a.k.a. Sirius) and I dropped Rob off at school, then went to the post office to mail off this lovely piece of hand knitting.  I can't show you the whole thing, lest it spoil the surprise for the birthday girl.  Once she's received it I'll post pictures of the whole thing.  For now, just admire the lovely stitch pattern and edging.  It is made out of Rowan Polar (sadly discontinued) and because of the stitch pattern it is double-thickness.  Super cozy AND soft!  Happy Birthday, C!

I might have started a sock last night.  In fact, I'm pretty sure that I did because my hands actually got a bit cramped from the US2 needles.  That's what happens when I work with big needle projects for awhile - the re-entry into itty bitty things is a bit rough.

In yoga-related news, I feel it is my duty to warn all interested parties to resist the perverse urge to thumb through a certain new yoga magazine.  Because I don't want to be sued for defamation, I will not put its name on the blog, but it's new enough that some places offer "free" issues.  Note that just because you don't pay for it with $$, doesn't actually make it free.  No, this particular magazine exacts a toll on your self-esteem (among other things).  Article topics include such things as pranayama for weight loss and ways to increase your "sexual prana" (as if the majority of the American population needs any more sexual energy/frustration...we hardly know what to do with what we already have).  In and of themselves, these are not meritless topics.  In the context of this particular publication, however, it's really just a way to get shoppers' attention so that you'll buy the magazine.  I had to put it down when I realized that the emaciated woman in one of the photos was meant to be "losing weight through Pranayama".  I mean, really.  The poor thing needed a good helping of ghee.  What is it with women's magazines showing skinny people trying to lose weight?  Why is this genre mucking up the yoga magazine genre?  Even Yoga Journal has become something more along the lines of Shape than a magazine dedicated to exploring the path of Yoga.

This is one of the sad by-products of Yoga's surge in popularity.  As people see the potential market, they start morphing the practice to meet their (financial) needs.  So now we have magazine articles about "getting that yoga butt" or "flatten your stomach with these yoga moves" or some other silliness.  Ooooh!  This one's rich, now Nike has gotten on the bandwagon by signing on a woman to be their face of yoga.  One of her "selling" points is:  "No chanting.  No granola.  No Sanskrit."  Well, ignoring the granola reference, chanting and Sanskrit are integral aspects of the practice of yoga.  If you want to create a yoga-based fitness genre, that's fine.  But don't strip Yoga of its esoteric principles, leaving just the asana, and continue to call it Yoga.  In my opinion, if the focus is solely the body, then it's no longer Yoga.  I'm really getting juiced up here, so I'm going to write more on this tomorrow.  Otherwise today's posting will be just too much for one day.  Stay tuned!

On Second Thought...

So, I've been back from Hawaii for almost a whole week, and am just now starting to feel over the post-retreat hangover.  You know the symptoms, they're just like the post-vacation blues:  slow to re-enter "regular" schedule, difficulty forming coherent sentences (goes with the "slow" thing), refusal to adapt to weather at home, etc., etc., etc.  I should have given myself a day or two to "process" upon my return.  Sometimes such things are necessary after a retreat or a yoga intensive.  There's a lot of yuck that (hopefully) gets released and it can take a few days to integrate the new perspectives gained.

So, taking extra time is off is what I should have done.  What I did, however, was arrive home a little past midnight on Monday (after waiting almost an hour for luggage - what is the deal with the SeaTac Airport & it's luggage delays?!?!) and get up at 8 (6 Hawaiian time) to teach my back-to-back morning classes.  Tuesdays and Wednesdays are my busy days, and by Wednesday night I was d-o-n-e done.  Anyway, that's why I haven't blogged except for the technology rant...too tired to string words together in a coherent manner, and my clever quotient was waaaaay below average.

This weekend we accepted the weather-gods' double-dog dare and took the down comforter off of our bed, exchanging it for two layers of regular blankets.  This was a mistake.  February has been mild up until yesterday, with Spring-like temps and sunny days.  Now we're back to low forties and rainy.  My basal body temp this morning was 96.3 (it's usually around 97.1 at this point in my cycle); no wonder I had trouble sleeping.  Even the dog getting up on the foot of the bed this morning didn't help.  We'll try a third blanket tonight and see how it goes.

In knitting news, I am bored to tears with my snappy little hourglass sweater.  Sleeves are dull, dull, dull until I get to the attaching part (they're raglan, which I've never done).  For now, it's just rows and rows of stupid stockinette stitch with the occasional decrease or increase.  Blah.  Only the beautiful purple color and lovely texture of the yarn keep me going.  That and the fact that I'd like to actually wear the sweater sometime this season (which may last longer than the groundhog predicted)!

I am trying not to succumb to the siren calls of socks, Anouk, and various stash projects.  If I start something else right now I will end up with another sweater that I don't finish until two years after I began.  Sort of like this fun number:

which I started as a brand new knitter two years ago.  It's from the "Cowl and Howl" pattern in Stitch 'n Bitch and it's done in garter stitch.  It took just a few bus trips to Bellevue and back to knit up the pieces, but my other projects quickly taught me that I love knitting, not sewing up.  Therefore, it should come as no suprise that the pieces ended up neatly folded in my stash, mocking me for two years.  Now it's done and I may actually wear it from time to time.  It's great if I'm going to be in a crowd and my husband needs to be able to quickly locate me.  That, or as a costume for the next pink Gorilla ball.  New knitters, beware:  this is what you get when you go against your better judgement and get the yarn that catches your eye ("Oooooo, PINK!  Ooooooo, SOFT!  Oooooo, PRETTY!") before considering what it will actually look like all knit up into a sweater.  In spite of being the pink Gorilla in the room that no one will talk about, I do actually like the sweater.  It's my kind of "outrageous" and, frankly, I doubt that I will ever see another one quite like it on anybody else (at least in Seattle).

Technologically Challenged

Thanks to our handy-dandy digital camera, I was able to take photos throughout my Hawaii trip.  A little snap here, a little snap there, over forty photos taken in a total of about ten minutes.  I have spent the last forty-five minutes, however, trying to figure out how to get the darned things out of the camera and into my laptop.  Add that to the half hour or so spent downloading the software, and you get a lot of time and, for me at least, frustration getting this admittedly helpful technology to work!

In general, I think that technology is a great asset to daily life.  I love my washing machine, for example.  My life would be very different indeed if I had to handwash everything and stuff it through some contraption to wring out the excess water and then wait (forever if I lived in Seattle) for the clothes to dry.  Aside from the obvious advantages, a great plus to my machine is that even though I have not read the owner's manual in its entirety...I am able to use it without difficulty.

What I do not like about technology is that some new things take so long to learn that I begin to wonder where the advantage lies.  If, for example, I don't own a phone that text messages, and therefore do not miss this service at all, and it would take me forever and a day to figure out how to do it (including learning the abreviations that seem to have sprung up from texting) then why should I bother spending the time and energy to do it?  Is text messaging essential to the comings and goings of my life?  Will learning how to do it make my communications any easier?  Heck, does anyone I know text message or would I be the only one of my friends with a phone that even has the capability?

Occasionally Rob and I get the feeling that technology is ganging up on us and passing us by.  At what point do we become like the baby boomers (not all of them, but some, for sure) who can't figure out how to use an answering machine and who insist that even though you can't rent VHS tapes anymore, their "video machine" suits them just fine.  When will there be so many advances that we can no longer catch up with them all?  We look around us and see younger folks doing things with various forms of gadgetry and realize that we have no idea what they're up to.  Are we out of touch?  If so, does it really matter?

Okay, on to more pressing issues, such as the status of my HI knitting projects.  As predicted, I did not get around to balling up the yarn for Anouk, so instead I took about eight balls of yarn and started work on a sweater.  It's knit in the round from the hem up, which makes me a bit nervous because of the hourglass shape.  If it doesn't fit my hourglass shape, I'm doomed.  I'll either have to figure out a way to fix it or frog all the way down miles and miles of stockinette stitch.  Here it is so far:

I am very sorry to say that it has taken me the better part of an hour to get this picture posted.  Our camera (and its software) is about six years old, so it is not very user-friendly.  I had to compress the file in order to get it into the post, but now the image quality is poor.  I think that if you want a better look, you can click on the photo and see it in a separate window.  BTW, those burly man hands are Rob's, not mine.  I'm the one taking the photo.  :-)

I also worked on the razor shell scarf, but not a lot.  So far I have about a foot and a half of it done.  Yup.  It's one of "those" projects - it goes on and on and on and on and....

Okay, I'm done.  Time for bed and a technology-free sleep.