THANKFUL FRIDAY

Holding on

8 Likes, 1 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram: "Holding on"

I did some research and decided that I needed to change up my exercise routine. All that research kept pointing me to articles on ‘women of a particular age’ and strength training. So, instead of getting on a stationary bike and riding six miles on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I’m attending a ‘strength and sweat’ class at the gym. I hate it, but I’m committed. The teacher, Colleen, makes it easier for me to be committed to attending the class. She sees me in the gym every day, doing my yoga practice and commented that she was in awe of that practice. When I walked in to her class that first Tuesday, Colleen exclaimed “You’re coming to my class?! Yay!” Later on she asked me why I was switching things up. We had a conversation about our age group and exercise and Colleen knew exactly what I was feeling. She knows I hate doing all of the things we do in her class and she sympathizes. She’s really good at encouraging without being overly cheerleader like and she’s always checking in with me (and pretty much everyone else in the class) to see how I’m doing or if I’m overdoing it.

This makes all the difference.

That doesn’t mean I like the class any better today than when I started last week. But having an instructor who gets you, makes it a whole lot easier to be there. The class has also been a bit of wake up call and quite humbling. We partnered up on Tuesday and while one of the duo performed a round of five pushups, ten sit-ups and twenty squats, the other person had to jump rope. I wasn’t good at jumping rope when I was in elementary school let alone at age forty three. I finally hit a good jumping rhythm without tripping up in the last minute of our ten minute routine. All this time, I thought I was in shape, but it turns out I was just a shape and that shape was not prepared for jumping around while punching ten pound dumbbells into the air. This realization was a bit humbling. At the end of week two, though, I have to say that I do feel better. On Thursday, I glanced over at my reflection in the floor to ceiling mirrors while we were doing squats and I did a double take. I was all “wha...is that my butt?!?” My butt looks less like the-party’s-over-deflated balloons and more like this-might-be-a-party balloons. My butt has a new shape!

Take a moment to have gratitude in yourself for your practice today

This is something I tell my students at the end of my classes. This is something I say to myself at the end of my own time on the mat. This is something I never say to myself off the mat. Today I am going to take a moment to have gratitude in myself for starting this new practice and for staying consistent with this new practice. I am going to take a moment to be grateful for this body’s ability to keep up even when things got difficult, even though I was often ungraceful and often outside of my comfort zone. I think maybe I need to be outside of my comfort zone some times.

LOVE THURSDAY

Dad's old cigars

elephant_soap's photo on Instagram

A few weeks ago I got a facebook invite for an event from Terry and with Terry you never really know what you're getting into. This event happened to be for a Voodoo Ceremony honoring Ogue Sen Jak Maja. I only hesitated slightly before clicking to accept the invitation. I know some of you are slapping your foreheads and shaking your heads at why in the world I'd want to go to a Voodoo ceremony of any kind. I think under normal circumstances I would agree with you. Voodoo is some dark a scary juju. I accidentally stumbled into a Voodoo shop in New Orleans once. It was on one of the trips Chris and I took with Todd. We may have been on one end of Bourbon street, but I don't think that's right, more like a street over. There was a record shop that Todd wanted to go into and so we all went in and browsed through the records. At the very back of the shop was a doorway that I thought led to another room of records, but when I passed through the doorway, I realized quickly that this was not a room of more records. It was dark and there was someone sitting behind a counter in one corner. The person just stared at me without ever saying a word or nodding his head. There were bowls of dried alligator feet and chicken feet, a shelf of dolls made from burlap, and walls of candles. That room didn't feel right and I sure as heck didn't feel safe. I turned on my heel and walked straight out of that room, on through the aisles of records and out the front door to gulp some fresh air. 

I saw this voodoo ceremony invite as more of a something spooky to do for Halloween. Most people go to spook-houses for a Halloween thrill. I thought I'd mix it up this year and go to a Voodoo Ceremony instead. Also I have to admit that I was a bit curious and I can tell you that Kansas City voodoo is very tame to that back store voodoo of New Orleans. Our voodoo priestess of the evening is a lively Italian American woman with a thick New Jersey or Pittsburgh accent. She flew in her friend from New Orleans to be the head voodoo priest of the night's ceremony and he was the type of guy that you would never in a million years look at on the street and think "Oh...voodoo priest", more like "oh...choir boy." The venue was in the KC Conjure shop that is far from dark and scary with it's bright yellow walls. The chicken feet are decorated with rhinestones and mardi gras colored feathers. This is not your sacrificing chickens kind of voodoo.

Really...I'm not sure what was going on or why they were performing this ceremony in particular. There were lots of Haitian songs and there was a drum circle. Rum and cigars were placed in the circle as an offering and at one point we were all led to dance around the circle. No one became possessed even though there was a disclaimer about possible possession at the beginning of the ceremony and Terry's dance around the circle was very zombie. Was it all a little bit silly? Well...of course it was. But it was fun. Part of that fun was just spending the evening with Terry and Heather and part of that fun was just being open to experiencing something new. Participation in the ceremony isn't mandated. There were plenty of people watching from the edges of the circle. I knew that I could easily fall into being a watcher from the edge and so I pushed myself a little bit to actively participate. My "ayibobo" ("amen" or "hallelujah") reply to the voodoo priest's "ayibobo" was clear and strong. I swayed with the beat of the drums and I left a handful of old cigars that I'd found in Dad's desk drawer as an offering. I had a beaded shaker shook around me to shake up energy and rum spit at me to ward off bad stuff. When it was all said and done, we headed over to the 303 for drink.

And we laughed and talked and laughed some more. 

Ayibobo