THANKFUL FRIDAY

Yesterday, I pulled up a Harry Styles playlist on Amazon and had a fun, joyful and a bit silly yoga practice. There were dance breaks between surya namaskars. There were a number of surya namaskars that flowed along with the music. I laughed at myself and I smiled a whole lot. When it was time for savasana, I opened a guided meditation from Sarah Blondin entitled “You are Allowed”. I set myself up in supported fish and settled in, feeling my heart thumping at the base of my ears. As per usual, whenever I listen to a guided meditation, the words being spoken flow in out of my consciousness. I kind of pay attention to them and then I don’t and then I do and then I don’t. I had stopped paying attention to this meditation but then Sarah said something that brought me back with a jolt.

Can you remember when you stopped allowing yourself to feel? Can you remember when you began coping instead of laughing, can you remember to your one? What caused you to leave the seat of your heart?

Coping instead of laughing.

I think those are the words that smashed down the hardest on a nerve, though all of those words hit something. I know that in the last ten years, I have spent more time coping and less time laughing, but sometimes I laugh in order to cope. I know in the last ten years, I have spent more time purposefully not feeling. I know what caused me to leave the seat of my heart. I know that the seat of my heart is forever changed and settling into that space is not as comfortable as it once was. It is like how I am still struggling to find my comfortable seated position after tearing my ACL. I just can’t seem to sit still and be comfortable for long periods of time. While I have been working and stretching within my yoga practice to get back to a comfortable seated position, I have done nothing to make the seat of my heart a more comfortable space or even an inviting space.

How can I rearrange to make the seat of my heart a more comfortable space?

Don't talk to me now, I'm molting
Don't tell me that it's revolting
Every inch of us
Every inch of us
Every inch of us, a walking miracle

-Andrew Bird, Inside Problems

Every inch of is a walking miracle. We can do more than just cope. I can do more than just cope. It might be time for some molting, shedding some things that no longer serve me or give me comfort. The seat of my heart does not have to be plush. It only has to be comfortable enough to spend some amount of time there.

Summer projects.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

There has been a lot of conversations this week that has centered around time, particularly the passage of time. I have heard parents lamenting on children graduating from kindergarten and those lamenting children graduating from high school. “How can our babies be old enough for this?!?” It is how we talked about Cati graduating. It was how a woman talked about her son graduating kindergarten as we stood in the coffee line together. At times, this whole aging and time passage thing seems unfathomable to us. For me, it is just the passage of time itself that bewilders me. I mean, I can’t keep up what is happening to the month of May and how there is only a week left of it.

This week I had the opportunity to teach a lesson on meditation, just a simple format for getting started. One of the things I like to do for this class is to start with everyone sitting quietly with their eyes closed. I tell them to open their eyes when they think five minutes has passed. There are those who last seconds before opening their eyes. Then there are those who almost make it, but not without lots of fidgeting. It is rare that someone makes it the whole five minutes without movement. I follow up this exercise with some tips on making a meditation practice easier. Things like committing to a time everyday and making a nest so that you can sit comfortably. I have them do five to ten rounds of alternate nostril breathing and then twelve to twenty four rounds of a mantra of their choosing, guiding them to count by pressing their thumb into each digit. That tactile sensation helps keep the focus on what you are doing and something you can always come back to during your practice.

During the moments of stillness, no alternate nostril breathing, no mantra, the part of the practice where you’re just sitting still, those are the moments where you can choose the speed for the passage of time. Albert Einstein showed that the speed of light in a vacuum is the same no matter the speed the observer is traveling. Time and how we perceive time is relative and today, I am choosing to slow down time. That means stopping to savor the moment before mindfully moving on to the next thing. I am doing this in practice today because I have a lot on the calendar for this summer. I have a lot of really good things on the calendar, things I want to marinate in.

I want to be ready for marinating.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

I heart you

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What is the current state of your heart?

This was a question posed to me earlier in the week at the beginning of yoga class. We were taking our focus to our hearts. Every time I am prompted to focus on my heart, to visualize the state of it, I always picture a living anatomical version. I never picture a cartoon or paper mache version. It is always the real deal, as if I have ripped it straight out of my own chest and I’m holding it in my hand, looking directly at it. I guess I imagine that my own heart is about the size of the palm of my hand. Except when I look at my hands, which are small, I think that my heart has to be bigger than that. Then I start to wonder about the weight of that muscle, what it would feel like to hold that weight in my hand. Yes, I realize that picturing myself holding my own beating heart in all its gory detail makes me sound a bit disturbed. Please remember that I have a very scientific brain. You should have seen how excited I got this week over tissue sections of cavefish ‘eyes’ (they don’t have have eyeballs, only fat cells where their eyes should be, fascinating).

So there I was in yoga class, holding my beating heart in my hand and really studying it and I have to admit that it is not a pretty heart. There are wounds that have been partially sealed up with Frankenstein’s monster like sutures. Some of those sutures have seen better days and are worn thin and frayed, straining to hold together some wound that just doesn’t seem to ever want to heal. There are places between sutures where those wounds sort of gape open, irritably. I mentally give my heart a little shake, tap it with a finger and put my ear to it. I am surprised to discover that my heart sounds better than it looks. I have a Timex heart; it takes a licking and keeps on ticking. The next thing I do, only because I don’t know what else to do, is to mentally re-stitch those frayed sutures and tighten things up as best I can. I mentally clean things up a little before setting that heart back into place. Then I laugh at myself because it’s only during yoga or meditation where I mentally pull out an organ to study. And it always seems to be the heart. It probably wouldn’t hurt to repeat this process with some of my other internal organs. What is the current state of my spleen, for instance.

Sometimes, when I am meditating, I imagine thoroughly sweeping my brain with a broom.

After putting my heart back into place, I can tell you that my heart is holding together just fine. Michael says that I am not allowed to use the word ‘fine’, but it is suitable for now. Despite those unhealed wounds, the muscle is beating strong with a steady rhythm. I only feel a slight ache when I’m still enough to really pay attention and even in my morning meditation practice, my thoughts do not settle into that ache. My thoughts move about randomly as thoughts do. In a sense, I am never really still enough to pay that much attention to it. So I’m going to use the word ‘fine’ describe the state of my heart because it’s not a pretty one, but it is functioning properly. There is maybe even a little flicker of joy tucked inside of it. It seems almost monumental for this to be true for me in these winter months that I tend to hate so dang much. I am grateful for every wound on my heart. I am grateful for every suture holding those wounds together.

I am thankful for the strength and the determination of my heart to continue to beat strongly day in and day out.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Thursday

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I sat down on the couch in Dr. Mary’s office. It had been weeks since my last appointment. Maybe not weeks, but definitely before the start of the New Year. Dr Mary looked at me, tilted her head to the side while squinting her eyes and said “You look really good. You look rested. Are you rested?” I’m not so sure I am well rested but I do feel more relaxed than usual. This is an unusual feeling for this time of year because January is the month where I feel like crawling into a cocoon of blankets and not coming out until sometime in March. And this year kicked itself off with a big whammy. On New Year’s Eve, my mom was in a car accident.

She’s okay.

But I have concerns that I am not talking about here.

I started making some mental health changes back in October like thinking about where I am wasting my energy and taking a different approach with the things that trigger my anxiety. My new morning routine is getting really good to me. The alarm goes off at 5:00 AM, I roll out of bed and put on my robe. Then I head to the kitchen to turn the kettle on to boil water. I go to the bathroom and then back to the kitchen where I slice up a lemon. I place two lemon slices in a mug with a dollop of honey and once the water comes to a boil, I fill up the mug. Then I go and take a seat for twenty minutes of meditation that includes ten rounds of alternate nostril breathing and twenty four rounds of a mantra. The rest of the time is spent sitting still with my thoughts. When the timer goes off, I sip on my hot lemon water while writing it all down in a journal. Then I get up and get going with my day. The changes that I started implementing in October coupled with my renewed meditation practice is making a world of a difference. That first week of meditation did not include the lemon water and I really believe it is the act of making this hot lemon water that has really grounded this practice into place. I am not saying that every morning is easy. There are still some mornings when I really want to hit that snooze button, but I don’t. I don’t because I know that I will feel better if I just get up. I wrote in my journal yesterday about being tired and feeling sluggish that morning. I wrote about the animals trying to get my attention, Josephine pawing at me to scratch her head, the cat meowing loudly outside my door. I even forgot to start my meditation timer, which I corrected after my mantra rounds. I finished my meditation practice while gently scratching behind Josephine’s ears, but I showed up. I did the practice and I don’t feel like crawling into that blanket cocoon. In fact, the other morning when I went on my coffee loop, I felt almost…dare I even say…happy?

Thursday morning, when Michael stepped outside to decide if the cars needed to be defrosted, he realized that the temperatures were unusually warm for a January. He came in looking suspicious and then went to see if his scooter would start. It started right up and he came back into the house declaring it to be fake Spring and everybody needs to ride a scooter to work day. My scooter did not start right up. There was a far amount of engine coughing before I finally got it going, but when it finally came to life, I zipped to work at light speed. The ride in made me positively giddy. I mean, scooter rides never happen in January and it probably won’t happen again until real Spring shows up. It’s supposed to start sleeting today with snow predicted for all day Saturday.

I am ending this week with some profound gratitude for unusually warm days in January that allow for a scooter ride, but also for this practice that is serving me so well.

MY SPIRITUAL SELF

View from a swing

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I used to have a fairly regular meditation practice. I would even attend a Buddhist meditation service once a week. This was way back when we still lived with Chris’s mom, before I flipped our lives into moving chaos. The meditation practice came to a screeching halt when Chris got sick and it never recovered. Sitting still with my thoughts is very very difficult. There was a long time when I couldn’t even be in savasana. As long as I kept moving in my yoga practice, everything was A-okay. Stopping for a final relaxation moment was torture. I got over that. Kind of. I will admit that more often than not, I end up dozing off in savasana. If I was one of my students, we would be having a discussion about sleep management and bedtimes. I’d have to explain to myself that I have a very reasonable bedtime. I just don’t always stay asleep.

There have been attempts to regain my meditation practice, but it just never sticks. I’ve made excuses and declared that mindfully chopping vegetables for dinner is my meditation act of the day. So I decided that if I was going to resolve to do anything in 2020, it would be to re-establish my meditation practice. Chris will be gone seven years in February. It’s time I learned to sit still with those thoughts and other thoughts not necessarily related to Chris. So I set my alarm clock for 5 AM (my usual wake up time is 5:50) and placed the new journal my Mom bought me for Christmas on the nightstand. Monday morning, when that alarm went off, I rolled over and hit the snooze button on the alarm. Fifteen minutes later, when the alarm sounded again, I moved to hit the snooze button again, but just turned the alarm off instead. I laid there for a minute deciding what to do next. Going back to sleep was a bad idea because it would just make getting up on time more difficult. So I propped up my pillows and sat up in my bed and set my meditation timer for twenty minutes.

Here’s what went down in those twenty minutes:

Should I rearrange my bedroom? What if I moved my bed over to that wall? Would it even fit there? If I moved the bed there would I still be able to open my closet door? If I move the bed to that wall, then I would have to move the giant elephant brass band poster to that wall over there. How many holes would I have to patch in the wall? Can I move this furniture on my own? I should probably measure the bed and space before I try to move it. Is this room square or rectangular? It looks rectangular, but that could be an optical illusion from the way I’m sitting. I really need a tape measure. If I move my bed, I have to come up with a new night stand option. Would moving the furniture around in this way give me more floor space or would it pretty much just be the same? I’d like to get new curtains. If I get new curtains, I might as well repaint the room. I like the color of this room, but I could go with a darker shade of blue. Oh wait…I’m supposed to be focusing on my breath right now. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. I’m going to peek at the timer. Okay, one minute left.

Then I wrote about all of this in my journal. I have my Mamaw’s bible and in the notes section she wrote down the dates for when she moved the living room rug and the refrigerator. So writing about moving furniture runs in the family. Also, I had zero expectations about this. I knew that I would not just be able to sit down into meditation and find peace and enlightenment after so many years away from this practice. Creating a habit like this happens in steps. The first step is getting my body used to getting up at this time in the morning. It is making the conscious effort to sit and be present in the early morning hours. The next morning, I got up when the alarm went off. I wrapped myself in my robe and created a comfortable space to sit. Then I chose one of the guided meditations in my meditation timer. It was the kind of guided meditation that made my cynical brain roll it’s eyes, but I listened to it any way. Just when I thought I had had enough, the speaker said “Energy flows into the thing you are focusing on.”

Alright. Those are words I could use.

Where do I want to be sending my energy? More importantly, where am I wasting my energy?

Those are some really good questions to ponder as I get this meditation practice re-established.

Now excuse me. I need to go find the tape measure.

MY LEFT FOOT

Foot Saga continues. Every thing is fine. Doc said to just keep it wrapped for a bit.

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Years and years ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I thought I wanted to be a doctor of medicine. I specify ‘of medicine’ here because you can be a doctor in just about anything. My friend Jeff has his PhD in Chemistry. When his dad was in the hospital, he introduced Jeff to his doctor as “his son Jeff. He’s a doctor.” This is something my dad would have totally done to me if I had continued my education. As it was, Dad treated me like a nurse practitioner, asking me all kinds of “what do you think this is on my arm?” kind of questions. The word ‘science’ is a very giant umbrella term that is confusing to some people. Any way…at one point I did think that I might end up in the medical field. That’s because this what all of my teachers and adults told me to do.

“Oh! You like science!?! You should be a physician.”

“You’ll make loads of money!”

I almost fell for it. I scored well on the MCAT.

If you ask me, one too many children were told to be medical doctors when they grew up because they would make a lot of money. I am so glad I recognized that I wanted nothing to do with potentially causing harm to another human before I waisted all of that time and money on medical school. I mean…I sometimes struggle with teaching yoga because I’m afraid I’m going to break a student. Despite my extensive knowledge in basic anatomy and molecular biology, I cannot read an X-ray of my own body. Case in point, when my GP called me on Monday to tell me my ankle was fractured, I saw that line across my medial malleolus and assumed that was the fracture she was talking about. The good news is that line is not a fracture. Which makes sense because that is not where my ankle hurts at all. The fracture is actually on the lateral malleolus and by fracture, we’re talking about a teeny tiny sliver of bone that was pulled off the tibia by ligaments when I injured my foot. The orthopedic doctor said that if I had come in two days after falling in the hole, he would have put me in a boot. Since it has been almost a month, it doesn’t really matter. He said to just keep it wrapped for a while. Take some Ibuprofen (fun fact: I say “I B profen” when I talk about Ibuprofen because I’m pretty sure that is how I heard it being pronounced for my entire life. My parents are from the south).

Any time I started talking about any part of this story to any one, I became filled with rage. Not the part where the orthopedic doctor told me to keep on keeping on. That’s great. But the part leading up to my orthopedics visit made me want to explode. My appointment with the GP was for 3:00 PM on Friday. I arrived fifteen minutes early. I waited in line at the reception desk for fifteen minutes. After checking in, I waited in the waiting room for an hour. Then I sat in the exam room for another thirty minutes before being sent to X-Ray. X-rays took another hour and I was the only person sitting in the waiting room. It all felt like a bit too much for an ankle that didn’t really hurt all that bad, an ankle I was still walking around on without a limp. Also, the referred orthopedic doctor couldn’t see me until at least sometime next week. The very idea of being hobbled with a boot sent me over the edge. I already feel like a fat cow. I’ve gotten on a doctor’s scale twice in the last three days and every time has been unpleasant. Now I was about to be put into a position where being active was going to be very difficult.

And I think that reason right there was the main source of my rage and frustration.

I listened to a meditation app focused on releasing frustration and anger while finishing up my yoga practice on Monday. The first thing the voice leading the meditation said was to not punish or shame yourself for your frustrations and anger, but look for the source of it. The source of my anger and frustration was not from the hours I sat around waiting to see a doctor or the inadequate healthcare. Though all of that is well worth some wrath. The source of my frustration and anger was from a loss of activity. More accurately, a loss of choice to be active. And you know what? I really like that part about not punishing or shaming myself for being frustrated over a loss of choice because anger and frustration are valid feelings and I allowed myself to be angry over all of it. I yelled and I vented and I declared it all to be so stupid. Then I took some deep breaths and started thinking of ways to move around with a boot on my foot. I started to plan out how to teach a yoga class with a boot on my foot. I mentally practiced what it was going to be like to ride a scooter with a boot on my foot. I thought about solutions for the actual source of my anger.

And in the end, everything turned out to be just fine.

Just for the record, this means that I did 108 Sun Salutations with a fractured ankle. Like a Boss!

A FEW DAYS EARLY

Casualty

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 The open road calls, for a number of reasons, but in this case it’s for a graduation. I’m disappearing for a few days, so I thought I’d post something on gratitude a little earlier than usual. The other day I ended my yoga practice with a guided meditation. I had never used this feature of my meditation bells app before and I chose something based on the length of time I had. The title was “Practicing Gentle Kindness Toward Ourself” by Sarah Blondin. She starts off by telling us “I know the dark calls to you sometimes, that you turn your face from the light.” and with that first sentence, I knew I was going to hear somethings that would create great emotion within. 

“I know it hurts to live in the disconnect between what you are currently experiencing and what you wish you could be.” 

”I know you work so hard to control the outcome of your life, that you forget to breathe sometimes. That you live in the shallow end, t you forget to go deep, breathe deep.” 

”I know you live there in the tear between these two worlds, between the dark and the light, between trust and distrust, between love and hatred, between acceptance and resistance, between control and faith, between sun soaked mornings and dark forests.” 

I heard these words and thought “Fuck...how does she know?!?”  Well, she knows because so many of us live in the space between. I might as well set up a hammock in that space, I spend so much time there. I am also struck by the balance required to live between worlds. I can accept my body as it is now, but I can still be resistant to it and want for improvement. I can be in complete control of my actions, but I still have to have a little faith that those actions will have good consequences. The thing I am constantly working on is not falling over into the side that is all dark. I don’t want to get stuck there. I don’t want to be trapped there. I fear that if I even allow myself to be present on that side for any amount of time, I will remain there forever in the dark. I have convinced myself that this would be catastrophic.

”You are human my dear one, my dearest love, you are human. You are allowed to be in both ways.” 

The truth is, I enjoy dark forests just as much as I do sun soaked mornings. I am grateful for the reminder that I am human. Flawed, imperfect, beautifully human. 

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Blanket and snuggle weather

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Every morning this week, my alarm has gone off at 4:50 AM and I have crawled out from under my heated blankets. I have pulled on my thermal leggings and long-sleeved T. I have unrolled my yoga mat and I have spent an hour in practice. I do not adjust the thermostat and the house is chilly, but I move my body through rounds of sun salutations to warm myself up. Often, Josephine comes back in from doing her thing outside and climbs back under the covers of my bed. She has a new haircut and she probably needs a sweater. She rolls herself up in my comforter like a burrito. It is only near the end of my practice, when I am settling down into a ten minute meditation, when I hear her jump from the bed and run into the living room to find me. Then she climbs into my lap and curls up like a ball. Instead of counting through a mantra, I scratch the dog.

I call it puppy meditation and I think I’m on to something. Like, move over goat yoga. Puppy meditation is taking a seat.

There have been plenty of scientific studies describing the health benefits of caring for and owning a pet. One study gave a group of people a rabbit or a turtle or a stuffed toy that matched one of those two things and then measured anxiety levels. Anxiety levels were lower for people who were petting the live animal. Even if it was a turtle. A review paper submitted to BMC Psychiatry found the current pile of scientific papers out there regarding pet ownership and mental health to be accurate in showing that:

‘pets provide benefits to those with mental health conditions through the intensity of connectivity with their owners and the contribution they make to emotional support in times of crises together with their ability to help manage symptoms when they arise.’

Even if it is a turtle.

There are lots of meditation techniques. Walking. Candle gazing. Chanting. Mindfully petting a dog fits right in. It’s a really nice way to start out the day. Every one is happier. Me. Josephine. Albus not so much. He curls up on the bathroom floor and gives us the side eye. But I bet if you had a nicer cat, you could have kitty meditation. Even turtle meditation.

I am thankful for puppy meditation. I am thankful for my puppy.

P.S. I bought Josephine an advent calendar. Michael incredulously said “You bought the dog an advent calendar?!” Then I told him why I bought the dog an advent calendar. Every time I get us one, the candy is terrible and there’s lots of complaining about who has to open it and eat it. Josephine’s little nubby tail is going to wag so hard that it’s going to make her whole body wiggle with excitement every time we open a day on the advent. We could be opening garbage and she would do all of her tricks. If anybody is going to gain joy out of a daily advent calendar, it’s going to be Josephine.

CHATTER

Camping

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My head space has been really crowded with chatter lately. There are fifty different thoughts and conversation happening loudly all at once in there. The other day it was so bad that I almost stepped off my yoga mat five minutes into my practice, but I stayed put and did my best to make the yoga teacher voice the loudest. There have been moments during my practice while holding a pose for an extended period of time, it has felt as if my brain would explode from the vibration of noise in there. There is a screaming voice yelling at me to get up, move, stop being still. 

Buddha said that the human mind is full of drunken monkeys. What an amazingly accurate description and such a visual one. I can easily see a wild pack of monkeys in various states of drunkenness with all the drunk personalities represented. It's like the party scene from Breakfast at Tiffany's except all the actors are played by monkeys. There's even one laughing hysterically one minute at it's reflection and then sobbing the next minute. Buddha taught that you should not try to fight these monkeys (because monkeys can bite), but instead learn to tame them by sitting quietly in daily meditation. The Yoga Sutras refer to these monkeys as chitta vritti. Sutra 1.2, "yoga chitta vritti nirodha" translates to "yoga is the silencing of the modifications of the mind." For years and years and years, yoga has been taught as a way to prepare the body for meditation and can even be a moving meditation in of itself. 

There are loads of scientific papers that validate the importance of meditation. It reduces anxiety. It lowers blood pressure. It down regulates inflammatory genes and up regulates immune system genes. Researchers even believe that meditation could aid in the prevention of Alzheimer's disease. So I really should be meditating. My meditation practice fell apart years ago though and every attempt I've made to revive that practice has failed. I have settled into the idea that my meditation practice is a moving meditation practice. It happens when I am flowing through rounds of sun salutations and when I take my walks. Yet, I recognize that I really need to practice the art of stillness. Those evenings around the campfire when I sat and journaled our day and then drew cartoons in the margins were the closest to stillness that I have come in a long time. That is why I have signed up for a meditation and journaling workshop on Sunday at Sunshine Studio. We all need a little nudge and I am hoping to gain some momentum from this workshop rebuild my meditation practice.

Because those drunk monkeys are starting to look like an out of control Frat party. 

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Resting

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This week, I walked into my therapist's office and immediately flopped down onto her chase lounge just like you see people do in the movies. She looked down at me and asked "are we laying down today?". I nodded my head yes and she went to her chair and sat down with an "okay!". I usually sit. Sometimes I kick my shoes off and tuck my feet into a lotus position, but I never lay down. Usually because I'm pretty sure I'm going to fall asleep. For some reason though, I decided that maybe the possibility of accidentally falling asleep through a session wasn't on the top of my list of some of the worst things I could do. I laid there for a few minutes, not saying anything, just being still. Finally, I took a deep breath and said "sometimes, it is nice to just be still." and my therapist agreed with me and then we sat in stillness for a few minutes before beginning our session. 

I struggle with stillness. While we were on our camping trip a couple of weekends ago, I was constantly up and fiddling about, straightening this, cleaning up that. Michael and Ted had gone to the store, leaving me and Jennifer alone at camp with the girls. They had been gone long enough for Jennifer and I to realize that we had made a terrible mistake in letting the two of them go to the store by themselves. I sat down in my camp chair and said "Okay...I'm going to not move from this chair for fifteen minutes." A second later I was up and doing something around the camp site. This is normal behavior. When Talaura was visiting, I kept us busy running us around the city all day. We would get home and I would still be up and about, messing with laundry or cleaning the kitchen. At one point Talaura even said "Cindy...why don't you sit down and rest?" She knew that I had to be running on fumes and she knew that I probably needed permission from someone else that it was okay to relax.

I know it must sound kind of surprising to hear that someone who practices yoga and writes about mindfulness has a hard time being still. Savasana, or final relaxation pose, still remains the most challenging, yet most important pose in my practice. Some days are better than others of course. This is true of anything, but there are times when I surrender easily into savasana. I get up from my mat after those easy savasanas feeling slightly loopy and then take forever getting my mat folded up and my shoes back on. I know it is possible for me to be still. I just have to work at it. This week, I have been practicing moments of stillness. I've been looking into going back to temple to get my meditation practice under control. I've sat with the dog draped across my lap while reading a book. I have surrendered completely to savasanas.

I am thankful for this practice in stillness.  

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Not a cloud

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Wednesday morning, I got to my desk and then plopped down onto a cushion for fifteen minutes of meditation. It is a habit I had tried to form last year, but with all the traveling and office move the habit didn't stick. I set it aside and didn't think about it, but Wednesday I looked at my desk and said "I am going to meditate before starting anything." I didn't do it because it was the first day of Lent. I didn't do it as part of anything other than I just wanted to do it. I repeated the act on Thursday, which was probably the worst meditation practice I have ever practiced, but I sat there for fifteen minutes trying really hard. I repeated the practice on Friday morning with a slightly better meditation moment than Thursday's. I do not know if this is the beginning of a good habit or just a momentary thing. I have started and stopped a routinely meditation practice so many times before. Stuff bubbles up when you are still and quiet and I don't really like dealing with that stuff that makes me feel human emotions. Maybe it is time to feel human emotions. I am thankful for the meditation this week as well as the time well spent on my yoga mat. 

There was a meeting this week for people volunteering with the AIDS Walk Open. One woman there is a woman I have worked with in the Memorial Booth every year. She said hello to me and then asked me if I thought about doing photography professionally. She said she loved looking at my pictures and reading the blog. She is not the first person this week to say something kind to me about the photos that I take. I am thankful for those compliments and encouragement because they come to me at a time when I am struggling to get the camera out to take a picture. I am uninspired by my current view. I have a sticky note on my desk that reads "Shoot with a mindful eye." I scribbled those words down a while back when I was watching a photography class on shooting in black and white. I feel like my mindful eye is broken or tired. I see things. I'm just not sure those things are worthy of shooting. So, not only is it surprising to hear praise about my work, it is also encouraging. 

This is a busy weekend. I will be subbing the Saturday morning yoga class at Sunshine Yoga tomorrow morning from 9:00-10:30 AM. I feel like I'm slowly being dragged (kicking and screaming) out of this teaching hiatus I've been in over the last five years. I am equal parts thankful and nervous. Saturday afternoon, Michael and I will be volunteering for the AIDS Walk Open where we will be Hole Patrol over the mini golf hole at the Ragazza. The AIDS Walk Open is a big fundraising event for the AIDS Walk. We are both prepared to sell as many mulligans and raffle tickets for the cause as we can. I am really excited about volunteering at this event this year. I can't wait to see the teams that come through and judge their costumes. (I'm still mad we didn't win the best costume award for last year. We were robbed!) They are predicting to have about 130 teams this year. That's a lot of money raised for the AIDS Walk Foundation. This is something to easily be thankful for. Don't forget! You can always make a donation to my AIDS Walk Fundraising page!

There's a lot to be thankful for on this Friday. I hope your weekend is filled with joy and that you have a truly Thankful Friday. 

NOTES ON MEDITATION

About a month ago, I started meditating for fifteen minutes in the morning before starting work. I walk into my office, put away my lunch and my bag and then plop down on my zafu pillow. I start with ten rounds of alternate nostril breathing and follow this up with twenty four rounds of a mantra. It has been an a easy forming habit for Monday through Friday. Meditation comes in other forms on weekends. I don't sit down for a traditional round of meditation, but I don't take my vitamins or floss on weekends either. There are some Sundays when I don't brush my teeth until well after noon. That is not the point. The point is that I have formed a new weekday habit and instead of starting my day by reading all the emails and checking in to all the online places, I start my day by mentally cleaning up my brain. The best analogy I can come up with is that it's like starting an intense baking project with a clean kitchen as opposed to working around dirty countertops, cake batter encrusted bowls and sticky floors. 

When Yogananda was a young man, he would sit in meditation and see visions of his Guru, Sri Yukteswar Giri. Elizabeth Gilbert, in her book Eat Pray Love, describes having visions of her guru while in meditation. I have heard other stories as well. People see their guru or Buddha or even a vision of what they can only describe as God. I see nothing. Well...not nothing exactly. I see colors that range from deep blue and violet to something in the far red. I say far red because I know those wavelengths penetrate deep tissue. So I assume my eyelids are filtering out most all of the other wavelengths since white light (regular light bulb) contains all of the wavelengths. The blue and violet are probably due to synapses firing because they are confused by the absence of light. I am a scientist with a Spock like brain. The thing is I don't see a guru (probably because I don't have a guru) and I don't see anything God-like. Though, the other day I saw a silhouette of a deer and thought "Oh! That's must be my patronus!" Then I slapped myself on the forehead and snorted. That must be my patronus. Really? That must be ridiculous. Everyone knows my patronus is an elephant. 

At one point I had a fleeting thought that I don't see anything because I don't believe in anything. I'm lying. It wasn't really a fleeting thought. It's a thought that has stuck around for awhile. At first I thought "Wow! I really don't believe in anything." It was suddenly easy to fathom endless nothing. I can see a little me sitting in the middle of nothing and it's true that I don't believe in gurus and gods. That's simplifying things. When it comes to God, I don't believe in the religious texts' description and interpretation of "God". Sure there's got to be something greater than us out there, but I think that something greater is that force that makes us all work together for the greater good. It's being a part of this great ant colony as opposed to being a lone wolf. That something greater is too big for word descriptions. In the case of gurus, I don't believe anyone should have that kind of powerful influence over your spirituality. I feel this way towards any religious affiliation. Priests, Rabbis, Imams. Even Buddhist monks. I am my own guru. Which sounds fucking arrogant right? Maybe so. Arrogant or not, it's true. I am the one responsible for my spiritual or lack of spiritual growth. 

I don't believe in nothing. I believe in me. Sure there's some arrogance in that, but shouldn't you believe in yourself just a little bit? I'm not so sure it is arrogance as much as it is self worth. 

THANKFUL FRIDAY

I've been trying to figure out a way to incorporate a meditation practice into my mornings or anywhere really. My morning is already so full and has to be well choreographed and timed that I can't see where to wedge in at least fifteen minutes of meditation. This is what a typical morning tends to look like for me. I sit up in bed, drink the lemon water I sat on my nightstand the night before, and scratch the dog behind her ears. While I'm drinking the lemon water and scratching the dog's head, I'll watch a white paw reach under the door and slide back and forth. The paw belongs the meowing Albus who is waiting for me and Josephine to open the door so he can talk to us. About his almost empty food bowl. I get up and open the door. Josephine and I say "good morning!" to the cat and then I go make sure they all have food in their bowls. Then I hop in the shower. After I shower, I use my Neti pot, brush my teeth, put on a little mascara and fix my hair. Next thing I do is get dressed, which may or may not require me to retrieve my bra from the backyard (Josephine). 

Now it's time to make breakfast. While I'm cooking breakfast, I put away the clean dishes that are in the drainboard. I also run outside to start the cars so we don't have to scrape windows. I put my lunch in my lunch bag. I boil water for Michael's tea and fill his travel mug and I make sure the things he will need for the day is sitting together in one place on the table. I eat breakfast while reading my daily Skimm, kiss Michael goodbye and then (if time permits) wash my dishes. Then I put on my coat, block the dog door into the kitchen and kick the animals out into the garage. I set the alarm to the house, walk out the door and jump into my car. 

Well, I think maybe this is the week I've figured it out where to squeeze in fifteen minutes. Every morning this week when I've gotten to work, the first thing I have done after putting my lunch in the fridge and taking off my coat is to throw my meditation pillow on the floor and sit down for fifteen minutes of meditation. I am the first one to work in the mornings and have the whole office to myself for almost an hour. So it's quiet and there are no interruptions. I just stay at work a little later than usual to make up for the meditation time. So far this is totally working. I mean, it's still very much a practice because my mind chatter lately has been off the charts with all kinds of random crap. But the point is that I am working on quieting that mind chatter. As a result, my days have been more focused and clear. 

I am thankful for those fifteen minutes this week. I could look at fifteen minutes and see a large block of time. I spend about the same amount of time cooking and eating my breakfast each morning. In fact, I probably spend less time performing those tasks. It's more likely that I spend that amount of time cooking, eating and washing up. That's three tasks that can be accomplished in that block of time. Here I am waisting fifteen minutes by being still. Except I know that this moment of stillness is not a waste. It is valuable time where my brain can form new neuron paths and I can mentally prepare for the day. 

This has been a pretty good first week of the year. I have been on my mat every day. We have eggs. The snow is finally melting. I heard a song from David Bowie's new album on the radio yesterday (it made me swoon). I am grateful for all of this.

Here's to a lovely chilly weekend and a super Thankful Friday!

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Stormy weather, the new normal weather.

"Stormy weather, the new normal weather."

Every morning, after I've gone around to all of my microscopes and have made sure they're working properly, I go and get my cup of coffee for the day. Usually, I get my coffee and then head back up to my desk, but lately I've started taking what I call "the long way" around to my desk. It's really not so much a long way around as much as it is a completely out of the way loop around to my desk. My completely out of the way loop takes me up a flight of stairs, out a secret door and onto a path that leads to the fountains on the west end of the building. The sidewalk winds around the fountains in a large circle and then meets up with original path, which then leads to a different secret door near my office. This is one of the ways I add steps to my day. I do a little here, get on the treadmill there and then do a little more over there. By the end of the day it all adds up. This completely out of the way loop has also become a really nice morning meditation. It's still very early, so there's not many people out. It's usually just me and the birds and the occasional snail. It's a moment of peace before the clamor of the day sets in. 

Thursday morning, as I made my breakfast and watched Josephine in the backyard, I noticed the sky growing darker and darker. Finally I called Josephine in just before the sky opened to dump more buckets of rain. Michael was saying goodbye as I was zipping up my rain jacket. He looked me oddly and asked if I was riding my scooter. I laughed and said "no way". We both ran to our vehicles getting completely drenched on the way. I set aside the thought of missing my morning meditation walk. I could just walk inside, but when it came time to get my coffee, the skies lightened and it stopped raining. I walked with my coffee mug out onto my out of the way path. I am thankful for these morning moments of solitude. It gives me time to make lists in my head for daily tasks. I don't need it to be outside, but I'm not going to lie that it helps. As I'm walking I notice how the sidewalk curves here and bends there. I hear the different sounds of the water fountain from the roar of the spraying jets to the trickle of drips that fall over the edge of one pool into the other. I see all sorts of little birds. It is in these moments where I am telling myself to pay attention and be aware. See the details. This practice makes it easier to see the details in the day's tasks and problems.

I am thankful for the two whole days without rain this week. I am thankful for rice noodles. I am thankful for the salad greens, spinach and kale that we ate on this week because it came straight out of our garden. Everyone knows that those things taste sweeter when they come from your own garden. I am thankful for bicycle rides and scooter rides. I am thankful that Mom is coming in for a visit this weekend. Saturday starts the Corporate Challenge softball tournament at 6:30 AM. There's no dragging Michael out that early on a Saturday. So I'm really thankful Mom will be here to come with me to the games. I am thankful for the small details and I'm thankful for you.

Here's to a fabulous weekend and wonderful Thankful Friday!

LOVE THURSDAY

Monday evening, I sat down for meditation. You would think that it sounds perfectly reasonable for me to sit down for a meditation practice, that in fact this is a common every day occurrence. You would be wrong. My meditation practice never really recovered from my move to Kansas City. There have been times when I think I've gotten it back on track. I will have weeks of consistency to 20 minutes, but eventually that road block would show up. I'd get sick or go out of town. There would be one late night or one full day where the only effort I could make physically was to press a button on the remote control. So for me to even announce on Monday "hey, I'm going to sit down for meditation right now" is kind of a big deal. 

And let me tell you it was awful. I made it through ten rounds of alternate nostril breathing and twenty four rounds of mantra, but spent the rest of my time wiggling around on my meditation pillow, moving my legs this way and that, and peaking at the timer. Instead of focusing on the breath, I noticed every twinge and ache, every prickle of a limb falling to sleep. The fan was too loud. There were people outside talking. That one dog never stops barking. I felt it all. I heard it all. But somewhere in the middle of that there was a moment of peace and almost clarity. It may have only lasted for a brief minute, but it was there.

There's nothing like a bad meditation practice. It showed me how out of practice I have become and it is a reminder of imperfection. I did not assume for a minute that I would sit down after over a year of not meditating and find instant enlightenment. I knew it would be a struggle. Just as much as I knew the next night would also be tough. I'll tell you a not so secret. Part of the practice of sitting down for meditation is making the choice to set a time to actually sit down for meditation. 

We live in a world where we are constantly striving for perfection. We beat ourselves up over and over again for not being enough. Yet, I think we all know by now that's there is no such thing as perfection. It is enough that I set the intention for my practice. I am enough.

Don't forget that you are enough. Happy Love Thursday!