Reflections on Now, Vol. 4

My shadow beat me around the bend even though I’m walking as fast as I can. The sun is getting ready to retire, not too much higher than the mountain, maybe three inches if I had the skill to paint the scene. It’s that low sun that gives my shadow the advantage. Luckily, as the road straightens, my shadow and I are holding hands again and it feels more comfortable. No sense in getting ahead of myself. 

We stop in our tracks when we see the once familiar rolling hillside in the distance, scraped clean, cleared of mature, yet burnt grapevines, and covered in fresh, golden straw to minimize the erosion that could happen when it rains. Slightly stunned,  we attempt to capture the intense golden color with a photograph, but the sun lowers too quickly behind us, and both the photograph and my shadow disappear.  In addition to the unusually wide and high grapevine piles, I notice numerous mounds of harvested rock coveted for making picturesque fence-lines in the area. I imagine how long it took to clear the land and create the thin, rolling blanket of straw that looked as if it snowed yellow.   The surrounding trees’ blackened bark preserve the memory of how fire devastated the area, yet the newly tended acreage reminds me how both the land and its humans are resilient.  

I’m interested in resiliency, the inner strength and flexibility that is our birthright. However, it seems as life experiences accumulate, our ability to overcome and to bounce back starts to decline. Past experiences can create fear and doubt, and like an old-fashioned record, we can only hear what’s been recorded.  Sometimes we need tools to help us rebound. Yoga teaches us to trust our ability to be there for whatever comes our way.  In particular, meditation strengthens our capacity to be with what is difficult.  We  learn to acknowledge and  accept everything, the easy and the hard. Tuere Sala, a meditation teacher and a retired Prosecution Attorney, describes this as “our ability to be with the push and pull of pleasantness and unpleasantness.”  She goes on to say, “It all starts with learning to resist the urge to habitually pull away from what seems unpleasant and hold onto what is pleasant. Mindfulness helps us build trust in knowing the appropriate response rather than simply following the push of reactivity.” 

During times like these when there is no shortage of unpleasantness, it is helpful to seek ways to wade through the mud in search of some clear water. Yoga teaches us to be able to trust our ability to be resilient. Ancient teachings provide a framework for finding stillness in a time churning with uncertainty. Yoga helps us find an ease of mind.

My Ride With The Grateful Dead

It’s not fair to real Deadheads to call myself one. I didn’t know all the names of the songs, or follow them around the United States, or compile lists of songs played at each show. I simply enjoyed the music and the feelings evoked while listening.  It’s funny that today, if you say you listened to The Grateful Dead, it seems to say something about you. Perhaps it was the drugs. Perhaps it was the gray haired, Jerry Garcia who played the guitar with a missing finger.  Or perhaps it was the type of dancing famous at the shows, that slow moving, sway with the beat, trancey-kind-of-dance that could go on for a half an hour with just one song.  I loved it all. 

I’ve recently been reminded of that feeling while riding my Peloton bike. Jenn Sherman, an instructor who is close to my age, and is Peloton’s very first cycling instructor,  has two rides dedicated to The Grateful Dead.  Given the aforementioned trance-dance, it was impossible to imagine that the music could become a  85-95 cadence, 50-resistance ride, simulating pedaling up a hill with speed and power. My Grateful Dead never made me work that hard. My Grateful Dead was slower and easy-going.  

I realized while listening to Jenn’s enthusiasm and pedaling along with her well-choreographed ride, that The Grateful Dead unleashed my happy spirit. I could feel myself up and out of the seat, smiling and singing along remembering years ago these same feelings of joy and freedom.  It’s possible that this is why people spent years traveling to different concerts (no two ever the same),  often talking to fellow Deadheads comparing recent shows, waiting in long lines, content, eager, high on life (and other things that became legal years later.)

One summer, the year before my Junior year in college, I drove from Chagrin Falls, Ohio  to Jackson Hole, Wyoming to pick up a friend and continue a journey to the University of Denver. Both of us were transfers from a small school outside of Boston; both of us enrolled in the school sight unseen, a fact that we laugh about now.  Free spirits, together on the road heading towards our new lives. Before we pulled into our new dorm, we had one pitstop: The famed Red Rocks to see The Grateful Dead. 

I remember my purple, flowered gauze skirt and the matching  purple terrycloth tank top. I vaguely remember a cowboy hat (I loved that look) and who knows what was on my feet.   I remember people everywhere, like the boundaries were stretched wider than usual, amongst the smoked-filled evening air, backdropped by the Denver skyline creating the beauty that Red Rocks is known for. While I cannot remember individual songs, I have a clear memory of the riffs The Dead spontaneously played for long periods of time. The crowd would sway and dance, feeling connected by the honor to be hearing the never to be duplicated riff. I remember people were happy, peaceful and accepting of everyone.  

Thank you Jenn Sherman for having the idea to choreograph two Peloton rides  to this iconic band who traveled for thirty years dedicated to entertaining their many fans, the Deadheads. It was interesting to revisit the music in this way, on a stationary bike with earphones. We are lucky, as humans , that our memories can be reactivated by our senses.  The music from the Grateful Dead reignites memories of happiness, acceptance and connection. Experiences that make me want to keep on Truckin’. 

Begin Again, 2021

Thank goodness for the ability to begin again. We can make a big U-turn when we’ve taken the wrong road, or we can take stitches off the needle and unravel the mistake, or we can re-write the blog when we realize it’s no bueno. The ability to begin again provides the freedom to confidently venture forward knowing that we can make changes and start anew. We can strive for satisfaction.. Sorry, Mick.

Traditions at the start of  the New Year center around beginning again. We enthusiastically make New Year’s Resolutions, our lists of “to-do’s” and “not-to-do’s”.  I find it invigorating and hopeful, like looking into the sky during sunrise.  I start dreaming about it as the year ends, creating new lists of ideas, new podcasts to follow, new books to read, new classes to take … yada yada yada.  Like a big inhale, I fill up, energize and prepare to launch forward on a new path to the Land Of Joy. 

First we must make space for all the newness. As we embark on the next year’s calendar,  we can reflect on what hasn’t worked during the last year. What patterns have become stale? What routines could use a new direction?  We need to scrape the old paint off to prepare for a new layer of fresh color; tend to the soil before we plant the seeds. This process is not always easy. We often become attached to our ways and change seems uncomfortable, even when we know it’s needed.  The New Year helps us address the topic of change.

“Beginning again is a powerful form of resilience training”, says Sharon Salzberg, a meditation master and one of my teachers.. Meditation helps strengthen our minds to be able to continually start over. As we sit in meditation, we are undoubtedly confronted with our thoughts. Ultimately, we are interested in the space between the thoughts, but in order to experience that space, we must wade through the debris, like navigating the kelp in a kelp bed. Slowly, we clear the kelp and we can swim through the water with ease. The clearing is the process of meditation: seeing the thoughts, and slowly moving them aside to see things more clearly.

As we move our thoughts aside, we keep returning to a new breath. Meditation is the act of beginning again over and over.  Like reps with a hand weight, returning to the breath increases our awareness and strengthens the meditation. Sharon reminds us, “Each time we become distracted or lost in our judgments, assumptions, and other thoughts, we can return to the moment, the most portable and dependable resource at our disposal. We see that no matter what, we can always begin again.”  Happy Beginning of 2021. Let’s do this! 

The Three S's...Silence, Stillness & Spaciousness

Let us face it.  It’s December, the month that typically includes festivities full of family and friends, colors, lights, music, and a myriad of stimulations intended to bring Joy To The World.  This year feels different as we start our Shelter-in-Place for the second time. I feel some sadness. When I find myself heading in this direction, I often use the Three S’s during my yoga practice, Silence, Stillness and Spaciousness. The Buddhist Master, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche explains them as, a practice for finding “the refuge within” (Tricycle Magazine, The Light is Always Shining).  What does this actually mean? 

At the start of a yoga class, I ask students to begin the process of acknowledging their external circumstances by becoming aware of prominent thoughts and emotions as well as, sensations in the body, such as agitations and/or tensions. Slowly we can move from that place to a deeper place inside where ideally it’s quiet, but often it’s not. You could experience this by simply closing your eyes and noticing what happens.  How quickly does your mind start listing what needs to be done? This process of finding silence in the mind is like asking your mind to give you a break. Silence the chatter,  just for a bit, please. A yoga practice creates the time to allow for this to happen. 

We start to move the body slowly, moving the joints, awakening the muscles, stretching the soft tissue and feeling the affects of those actions. While this movement is seemingly the opposite of stillness, it provides a backdrop from which to feel stillness. For example, imagine flowing through a sequence of poses and then resting in Child’s Pose or Mountain Pose. It’s here where we can feel a shift towards stillness in the body. The practice builds and we can feel the body moving more freely. Perhaps we feel the kinks smooth out, tensions soften and our strength increase.  It is here where we can imagine (and feel) spaciousness in the body. Maybe we can feel the breath (energy) flowing more freely.

As we know, yoga is about the yoking of mind and body. The quality of the relationship between the two, mind and body, directly effects the quality of our health. As we employ the Three S’s, the intent is to benefit both the mind and the body resulting in equanimity. When we live in a balanced state, it is easier to imagine a greater realm of possibilities, void of hindrances and distractions. We can make decisions with openness and clarity.

By the end of a yoga class, ideally we are better prepared to experience our inner refuge. The body is relaxed and the mind is clear having had a respite from its normal duties. If I’ve done my job well, my students experience a connection with this feeling during Savasana or The Corpse Pose, the traditional pose signifying the end of the formal practice. Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche says, “When you connect with the inner refuge, you can rest in that space just as a child rests in his or her mother’s loving arms, feeling protected, safe, secure, complete.”  That sounds nice right about now, don’t you think? 

Giving-Thanks to Meditation

Many people think that meditation is the process of thinking nothing or just thinking happy thoughts in an effort to realize a blissful mental state. Thankfully, this is not the case. If it was, meditators would frequently be left feeling frustration and failure.  As a person becomes more familiar with meditation, they realize the mind is a formidable force and meditation can be difficult, like learning to read.  So, with a degree of vulnerability,  I will share my process with you in hopes that it is  helpful. 

Once I establish a “comfortable seat” or position either sitting or lying down,  I start to bring attention to my breath, or the sounds around me, or what my body feels like;  something that I can attach my focus on other than the busy thinking-mind.  After awhile,  I can feel my mind slowing down as if I am entering a quieter place that is vast in size, like the view of an open sky or the ocean’s horizon. I can feel my body begin to relax and my breathing regulate. Once I feel settled, I start to watch.

Watch what, you ask? Thoughts and emotions. It’s important to realize that meditation is not about not thinking, it is about noticing what you are thinking. You may agree, that the mind is a masterful storyteller. It works hard to keep you dutifully engaged in the plots, many of which you are the main character and often things aren’t going so well.  If we pay attention, we can see our desires, our aversions and our patterns. We are “collecting data” as Robin Duran describes in her Ten Percent Happier Podcast. After some practice, you may notice that there are little spaces, like rest periods between thoughts. While these moments may be fleeting, they are powerful. I believe it’s the accumulation of these rest periods and their sensations that guide us towards a peaceful mental state, and it is why people practice meditation daily.  Continual practice strengthens the mind’s ability to loosen the reigns and rest with more frequency.  Some call the restful mind, the “intuitive mind”, the place where creativity and inspiration reside.

Today, I noticed thoughts about 20 Park Lane, the address of my childhood. As I was walking down the long driveway to the bus stop, my winter boots crunched the unplowed snow making it difficult to walk fast enough to meet the bus on time.  It was a feeling I remembered experiencing when I left the house late. The dread of everyone on the bus having to wait for me to get on. This childhood story lasted for probably less than a minute. I then noticed thoughts changing to questions. I wondered why that particular scene surfaced and I remembered that a friend recently told me about someone she knew moving to Chagrin Falls, Ohio, my birthplace. Perhaps that text perpetuated my school bus scene? And where did her friend move to anyway? And, is it snowing in Chagrin Falls right now?  Alas, the pondering and the problem-solving arise! It was time to come back to the breath, re-focus and begin again. This is how it goes in meditation. It’s a constant back- and forth-ness.  

As we know, there is plenty to be worried and fearful about right now. It would be unfair to expect that meditations wouldn’t include despairing thoughts. So,  what do we do?  We can watch and inquire, “Are these thoughts useful? Are they really true? How do they make me feel? Would it be better to let these thoughts go right now ?” We may see patterns that need further exploration, thoughts and emotions that surface with frequency because their importance has been neglected over time. During meditation, we are in a constant process of learning more about ourselves.  

I am grateful for my meditation teachers, the people who devote their lives to sharing how to practice. I am grateful that I have learned how to be aware of my thoughts as they arrive in their random ways, often uninvited and unexpected, sometimes useful and sometimes not. I am grateful knowing that I can use my meditation practice to be fully engaged in life and hopefully, spread some happiness and peace along the way. If this helps you in any way, well then, I am so grateful for your interest.

Reflections on Now, Vol. 3

The trunk of a Palm is fascinating  when the wind whirls in double digits. I got out of bed several times to marvel. It bends like a Reed Pose on 2.5X speed. On a typical day, the Palm appears as if it would snap like a dried spaghetti noodle when confronted with powerful winds, but last night it was fully prepared.  From nature we learn.  This morning the trees sway gently while the lower plants are still a bit frantic. The sway is  calming. I imagine the trees are being playful, yet careful, muttering “don’t worry owl box, I’ve got ya”.  I’m reading Richard Power’s, The Overstory, so I’m particularly tapped into the possible emotions of trees after a long night of  intense exercise and fierce responsibility.  They exhibit a resilience, a strength and a determination that I admire.  I wonder if they have muscle memory? I wonder if their muscles are sore today, especially the roots? They worked extra hard last night literally holding ground.  From nature we learn. 

Last night was an analogy to life right now as it whirls from all directions, sometimes fiercely, sometimes gently, but often with little pauses in between to gain perspective. It’s these moments, these pauses that sustain me. We are part of a larger story and I understand that, but the wind does still swirl and we do still grapple with anchoring. We can’t run away. We need to hold ground, like the trees. 

So perhaps it’s back to the present, taking one moment, one hour, one day, one year at a time and finding the joy within.  No small task these days, I know.  I try to identify with it when it happens:  that feeling when I hear my friend has become a grandparent,  or the relief I feel when my friend’s parent is recovering from a serious illness,  or the pride I feel when my friend’s book gets published after ten years of commitment, or the warmth I feel when I hear the voices of my children on the phone, or the connection I feel when we embrace to commemorate 31 years of marriage.

Mudita or Sympathetic Joy,  makes a short list of qualities used to rest in a balanced, tranquil, joyful mind. In Buddhism, this list is called The Bramaviharas. Sympathetic Joy is when one can authentically feel someone else’s joy. This provides me comfort. It makes me feel that when my joy is running low, I can tap into someone else’s to refuel. “Throw me a lifeline won’t you please?”  sings Seal.  More importantly,  is the realization that my joy can refuel others. We can share joy and refuel each other’s joy tanks.  Does that make you as happy as it does me? 

When I look out the window now, the big Oak Tree, the one with the owl box, and many of its neighbors: the Japanese Maples, the Locust, the Redwood, the Bays, the Plums and the Palm are all nearly still. They look rested, yet boastful like they’ve succeeded yet again.  I imagine they are feeling joyful. That makes me joyful.  

Self-Care, The New Remedy

I am not sure if it’s our culture or the way that I was raised, but self-care wasn’t in-style when I was growing up. The most self-care I saw my mother do was a bubble bath and even that was often invaded by my younger sisters. I can still see her stretching her well-muscled leg up in the air shaving with her gold metal razor back when plastic ones weren’t mainstream. Occasionally, she would swipe red lipstick across her lips, but never did I see her use moisturizer or special hair products, and the idea of a massage or a manicure was as foreign as rain in California.  Her mission was managing the life she built, with animals that could fill a small zoo, three children and mostly, on her own.  Somehow she managed, until she didn’t.  As if on cue, when her three children left home and life wasn’t filled with duty, she became overcome with crippling anxiety and few practices to help her. 

I’ve noticed that it can go like this. We have skills to manage while we have to, like while the storm is whirling around us, but not yet living in us. We know how to take care of others, and fulfill our obligations amidst the chaos, but when the wind dies down and the dust settles, we begin to feel the effects. The whirling storm seeped into our cells when we weren’t paying attention.  Fortunately, we are designed to “weather the storm”.  Our autonomic nervous system can kick into a higher gear, called our sympathetic nervous system (think “fight or flight”) which  provides us the resources needed in stressful situations. However, if we stay in this gear for too long, it can negatively affect our overall health. This is when self-care comes into play. 

Two weeks ago, when we were evacuated from our home because of a nearby fire, this entire scenario played-out. I was relatively okay during the week, but when the evacuation was lifted and normal life resumed, my body started showing signs of stress. I wasn’t rebounding from my normal exercise and activity, my body ached, my sleep suffered, I had headaches, and I just didn’t mentally feel “myself”. Recognizing it for what it was, I employed self-care that I’ve learned to trust: yoga. meditation, good food, rest, massage, water, more rest, and being honest about how I felt... crappy.  It’s okay to feel crappy! You just need to eventually do something about it. 

If we can see self-care as a tool to re-regulate ourselves, then we can handle the stresses in our lives and ease back into daily life with minimal damage done. It’s repetitive, unacknowledged stress that unravels the system for longer periods of time and inhibits the quality of our lives.