yogalila

Yoga Outdoors

Recently I had the experience of teaching a 4 part yoga/mindfulness workshop series on our back patio. I was to provide this series within a large organization, and of course, the budget was cut. My svadyaya project for Prajna Yoga (Tias Littles' teacher training) depended on me writing, journaling, and facilitating this training. My dear hubby, bless his soul, suggested I do it in our backyard. I have to say the man is brilliant. For 21 years we’ve lived on an acre in the Sonoran Desert. We recently extended the patio, put in a few wonderful herb and flower planters, and a fountain. Of course!

You have to assume that asana and meditation practice was not developed in a bamboo-floored studio in India, right? Standing in tadasana and gazing at the Tucson Mountains, forming Vrksasana mimicking the limbs of the majestic Sahauro cactus, and resting in savasana while listening to the wind in the leaves of the eucalyptus tree, we truly felt the connection of yoga to the natural world.

And of course, the vast blue sky of the Arizona desert was the perfect likeness of big blue mind.

The flowers were meditative objects; the path of the yard was for silent walking. It all came together beautifully.  And now, I practice outdoors quite often. How about you?

 

I Can't Breathe

These past two years have taken a toll on my body. It's stiff. It aches. It is significantly heavier than it ought to be and than I would like. I've done my share of whining and fretting about all of that. Yet, at the same time, I clearly wasn't ready to do anything about it. I cop to never having had a healthy body image. Never. But really, even by my standards, things have been pretty dim around here. It sounds facile -and maybe it is- but I wonder if I just figured I WAS unlovable so I might as well look that way.

The thing is, I've watched myself start to heal from other aspects of the demise of my marriage. What I've learned through that is that my path is the only one I can walk. Things happen -even become easy- when the time is right. That path has been slower and quirkier than I would have predicted and has taken longer than I could EVER have imagined. But I've learned that the next-right-thing is all I can do. It doesn't matter if I go slowly or stay longer at one point or if my recovery looks very different from someone else's. After all, I have to grow my own life, not someone else's.

And in that spirit and for whatever reason, it now seems possible that I will start exercising again. Why now and not two months ago? I really couldn't say. I figure, though, that it might make some sense to chronicle my return to fitness in general, and yoga in particular. I know it will happen. My muscle cells aren't any different from anyone else's. They will get stronger when they are repeatedly asked to work hard. My connective tissue works just like other people's; it will eventually give way when invited to and will allow for the return of some lost yoga postures. It will all take longer than I like, because I'm that kind of girl. But it will happen.

So here's the baseline. I can't breathe. I did the easiest of the easy yoga videos last night: Barbara Benagh's Power Yoga for Every Body. There is no reason for it to be called power yoga, so let's just dispense with that right away. Rather, it is slow and precise and very gentle. In the old days, I used this DVD on rest days or when recuperating from an injury. Last night I couldn't even get the breath right. My breath would literally get stuck in my chest and then I would start little non-scary gasps. I was lying on my back at the time, so exhaustion is probably not the explanation ;)

So, forget the fact that I can no longer -for now- tangle myself up in fun pretzel-y knots. I can't even breathe. But I'm starting from here, and walking my path.

Drawing and yoga: shaky shoulder .

The shoulder is always caught between range-of-motion and stability.  It's hard to manage a balance between the two -- but it's so worth it to try.

For me, the hip carraige and the shoulder carriage have to work together and that's tricky.

Connecting the limbs to the torso is a feat of engineering.  Keeping the possibilities fluid is a matter of attention.

From DayBooks.