Life is Untidy

Life can be untidy

Sitting here I notice remains of a weekend.  There is a small child's tent pitched near my red chair, the place I drink tea and center myself.  There are dishes done that need to be put away and dishes undone next to the table - the space I write.  Yet what feels right to me is to sit here amongst the untidiness and write.  

Outside the wind is blowing and the sun is shining fiercly illuminating the burned grass, the green leaves and all of the fallen leaves and branches.  In this hemisphere, Nature is moving from a time of most light to a time of dominant darkness.  Saturday passed was the day of equal light and dark the Autumnal Equinox.  With so much transition outside and inside I am choosing to align with what feels best for myself.  I heard a teacher say last week - listen to the language of sensation.

I remind myself that I have a story, and my past has left me with many sensations about the present and the future.  While there are notable chapters (birth to school age, school age, adulthood, marriage, motherhood), it feels there are so many parts of my life that are untidy.  My relationship with my mother is the perfect example.  This weekend she came for a visit.  We had a lovely time talking, playing with August and making meals for one another.  It always feel good to see my mom in the fall, because it was a favorite time for us during my childhood.  We would create Halloween costumes and have fun outings to celebrate.  Yet my mother and I can be so close one moment and so far away another moment.  By the end of the weekend we had worked our way into a disagreement over her smoking.  I have zero tolerance for smoking or even for the remains of smoking (smelling it on a person's skin or clothing) on my property.  My mother and I go back and forth about what truly poses a health risk.  August's doctors say even third hand smoke, the smoke on someone's skin or clothes or furniture is dangerous to healthy lungs.  My mom argues that this can't be true.  Not that others should do as I do, but that I need to physically refuse to co-exist in smoking environments.  My distaste for smoke is heightened now that I have August's health to consider.  She left my home under the understanding that we were taking an extended period of space in our relationship.  I don't know what will happen in the future - sure feels untidy - messy even.

I do know that my story is that while growing up my Mom smoked in the house and I have memories of waking up often with a sore throat - sometimes unable to breath completely - feeling engulfed in the prison of this smoke.  I think my Mom has a difficult time accepting my truth.  And I am not willing to deny it anymore.  I am ferocious in my desire to change the patterns of my story that have blocked the illumination of Pure Consciousness.  I will not be deterred moving in the direction that feels best for me and my family.  I am sure it poses its caveats, perhaps the repurcussions yet to be seen of my self-righteousness.   But my tenacity comes from a deep desire to give my son the best chance at a happy, healthy life.  And that possibillity begins with me being as happy and healthy as I can be too.

The transition from Summer to Fall is challenging for many of us.  Our stories are speaking from the inside more loudly when there are seasonal shifts, because they don't just happen on the outside - changes are happening inside too.  My story is sacred.  It invites me to let go of old, broken ways of moving through life and to trust myself enough to move in the direction that feels best.  Maybe this makes me sensitive, but that is my gift and also my challenge.  Most importantly it is my truth.  

I am taking a que from Nature this week and moving more deeply inward.  I pray that my actions reflect a dedication to my truth in the hope to bring beautiful balance during a time of transition.  As I listen and accept myself I am cultivating the warmth of compassion and love and that is what I send outward.  

May you move in ways that feel good.

Life happens for us, not to us

Life Is Happening for Us, Not To Us

When life is challenging my old pattern is to try to wait out the storm. I  would nail down tightly the story lines and agendas in my head, crawling through life and waiting for the storm to pass.  Breathing easier when things seem more even again. But lately one event after another thickens the plot and creates twists and turns spinning my stories and agendas in many directions.  Plans, ideas and dreams seem to get challenged or demolished at every turn.  I try to choose to see challenge as an opportunity to get stronger - to beat my butterfly wings harder against the limitations of my cocoon.  It is not always my first instinct, but when I do choose to stare down challenge and unchosen change one thing is certain - the quality of my inner mind, heart and soul is better.  Most of the time something is born that I couldn't have plotted better myself.  The interesting part is the challenge of letting go and listening.   During a seasonal transition  letting go and listening are key to sanity and happiness. 

This week I spoke about change and how it is often our inner resistance to change that is our worst enemy against our sanity and happiness.  Sometimes I don't even know why I am so resistant.  My husband is always a good litmus test, as he seems to always be asking me, "Why is that so upsetting?"  I think to myself, "Who's the yoga teacher here???" 

One student this week expressed concerns that she feels a discharge notice from work is only a phone call away.

In another class, where I am a new and different teacher to the group, I notice a group of white women, all trim, all beautiful, all dressed in perfectly coordinating, expensive yoga attire, and all stone cold in their faces.  The intense energy of this group prompted me to invite everyone to feel themselves smile, to feel their skin soften.  I literally saw very little change.  

The human pulse of this week tells me challenge and change are Universal.  Maybe it is the election and the ramifications of the collective check marks at the polls.  Maybe it is fall.  Maybe we are all consumed with feeling the pain of the loss of summer weather that we can't see the beginning that fall offers.

The week begins with a class I had been building for over a year is no longer mine to teach.  I am given a different time slot and one student shows up.  What a great opportunity I tell myself.  I have no idea what comes after that - but I simply decide that Nature has its plans.  Then I get home from class and the city is spray painting my Ash Tree to be removed.  Ambiguity and change seem ubiquitous.

In the greater yoga world we continue to see diverse thinking about what yoga means.  For some people it is a time to sweat away their tension and the class isn't good enough unless they sweat hard.  Other practitioners want to feel an energetic shift from within all aspects of themselves and they are open to any invitation - as long as the guide is clear and authentic.  

Seeing the homogenous (mostly white women) yet diverse (practitioners with different visions invites me to re-evaluate my voice.  It doesn't feel good to pander to perceptions of what people want.  When I leave a classroom after teaching -  I need to feel like I made an authentic offering.  That a teaching of the Universal flows through me and I share it in the most honest, clear,  yet sensitive way I can in that moment.  That is when I feel like teaching yoga has its most potent impact.  When we can truly align with our Big Self - not just sweat hard to look good in expensive workout clothes.

In a world where we often need to think about keeping our jobs to survive this question becomes very interesting for me.  It seems the way I survive is by not holding back, or pandering, but by being more bold.  Letting my own voice be heard truthfully to myself.  When we hear something true it sounds different than any other sound.

In a time when things are changing we get more opportunity to choose how we will align with change.  I am going to be drawing some lines in my own life and in my teaching.  I will not allow fear to guide my story lines and agendas.  It is time for me to decide what to follow and not waver on the big truths, the heart wishes, the things that make me feel whole.   To love who I am in all the dark corners as well as the strong, bright places. 

I think the pavers that outline my ash tree out front will become my unruly, yet charming English-style garden I am always dreaming about.    One tree is gone and I shall plant the new green life that is to sprout next.  Life happens for me - not to me.  I get to choose what I create and I choose to listen and align with the Universal Flow. 

From the truest place in myself to the truest place in you.

Namaste

Change is Life

Beginner's Mind

I am awakening to a new beginning that is also an end.  When I feel attached to something, as I do considering Summer's End, it is always comforting to remind myself that an end is also a beginning.  This weekend while visiting the "big lake," Lake Superior, I notice the leaves turning golden yellow and orange-red.  Soon the fresh autumn air will share space with us and we will hear those leaves, once golden yellow, now brown, crunching below our feet.  The space around us will be the same landscape we always see, but many changes visible.  The blooms and fruits of summer's fullness now beneath us preparing to become fertilizer for next year's bounty.  Our Mother, nature, is showing us her need to turn inward, to rest so she may wonder, dream and sew what is to come.

Today it hit me that change is life.  If I am not embracing what is in front of me then I am missing the point of living.  If I am trying to change myself, or someone else or life then I am not present, I am not trusting where I come from.

Over the weekend I was priviledged to go to Bayfield, Wisconsin to soak up the remaining hours of summer.  I set my intention to be present and breathe every breath of summer remaining.  I think I did a pretty good job overall.  One comedic situation comes to mind.  We arrive late Friday night and awaken Saturday some what early for vacation standards - 8 AM.  We set out to Bayfield from Washburn and I bless our day with 20 minutes of chanting a mantra to release fear and to bow to the eternal wisdom in all things.  August falls asleep in the car, so I now have that card to play when he is acting like a maniac.  

One caveat for me while on vacation is to surrender to the food situation.  Since I have a sensitive digestive system it is always a challenge.  Surely as aspect of my sensitivity is my brain.  So if I am to become overly concerned or analytical, I am sure to trigger an unfavorable chain reaction in my bowels.  I stop at a grocery to pick up some snacks to stave off hunger in the event that there is only cheese to eat - hey, we are in Wisconsin.  I find bananas, trail mix, granola bars and organic snap peas.  A fine balance of protein, carbs, veggies and fruit.  At some point I lose track of where I placed the trail mix.

As the trip goes on I continue to return to the memory of the trail mix that certainly couldn't have been fully consumed.  And my catch phrase ensues, " I wonder what happened to that trail mix?"   

At first the catch phrase is used to determine if any others in my party actually know where the trail mix has gone.  Then when no one does - I start repeating it every once in a while out of humor - because the repetition seems to be garnering a smile from my father and husband.  So that evening we look everywhere for the trail mix.  No luck.  It is almost as though the trail mix has vanished.  I continue the catch phrase for the next couple days.  Each time it excites some ambition to consider and search.

Then after a long day in the car we are finally home.  Each of us is feeling a little edgy after a few tantrums in the car and some miscellaneous adrenaline hikes.  As I unpack I remember to open the hidden pocket on my shoulder bag, recalling I had placed something there during the trip.  Sure enough, it is the trail mix!!!!  This elicits deep satisfaction and laughter within.

Hindsight shows me that the truth is that our proverbial trail mix is in every moment.  Trail mix being that elusive sparkle and safety that we are seeking in every moment.  So just when I think trail mix is what I needed - what was I missing that was actually in front of me?  Forever trail mix will be my reminder to surrender and see the trail and its mixture of sparkle and safety each step, each breath, each journey and even at journey's end.