Day 21 - Mirror Therapy

The studio where I practice has an enormous floor to ceiling mirror.  Subtract five points.

I’m not the only person who has experienced something in the range of displeasure to disgust looking into it.  I overheard a longtime student - an attractive woman in her 30s - say that she always chose her spot to avoid the mirror. The women around her commiserated.

If I was going to survive at this studio, something needed to change.

Jessica became my teacher. This beautiful yoga instructor wedged personal yoga practice between her classes. Looking through the window, one could watch her sitting inches away from the mirror, staring into her own eyes as she practiced. Long curly blond hair, always hanging free, large earrings adorning her dimpled cheeks. Jessica stared as though the very act had created the beauty - the act of not being afraid to love herself.

And so I began to practice in the front row.

At first I closed one eye and looked through the other. Then I opened both and stared mostly at my feet. And then I just pretended to be Jessica - began, for an hour or so during practice, to look into my own eyes.  I did this for three months.

I don’t practice by the mirror anymore. That’s headstand zone and I’m staying out of it. I moved to the back row, where I really belong.

But I’m no longer afraid to look in the mirror. Even if I don’t look like I’m 20 or whatever it is the media tells us we should look like. My belly isn’t concave. My yoga pants are not sexy hot. My arms look suspiciously like my grandmother’s.

But now, when I look in the mirror, I just see Diane practicing yoga.

Day 20 - Not Very Yogic

"That's not very yogic" is an expression tossed around in certain circles.  I'm not exactly sure what it means.  Inferring from context, I'd guess "not very nice." 

Being nice is something I ascribe to.  See ten rules for life on Day 18.

Maybe I need supplements to boost my niceness quotient.   A prophytlactic guard against situations like this morning's. 

I go into a crowded Starbucks, longing for a table, and just as my God-given good luck would have it, a man is packing up his table, putting away his laptop. 

"Excuse me, sir.  Are you leaving?" 

"Yes!"  He smiles. "Help yourself." 

And I also smile at my good fortune in finding the table and having such a pleasant life generally.  I place my blue coat on the table, reserving it, and order my coffee at the counter.

Tall skim latte in hand, I return and find my table is no longer there and my blue coat has been moved to a long laptop counter with no available seating. 

I am not in the mood for this.  I really want a table.  I announce loudly for God and everyone to hear,

"Who moved the blue coat I put on a table to reserve it while I picked up my coffee?"

A hush settles over the crowded Starbucks.  No one answers.  I am not giving up this easily.

I turn to the couple sitting at a table which might have been mine. 

"Did you move this blue coat?"

"No.  It wasn't us.  When we sat down the table was free.  We've been sitting here for a long time." 

But they probably know who the culprit is.

At this point there is only one likely suspect - a woman with laptop and earbuds who has been ignoring me.  I hate that she shuts me out with her electronic silencers and decide she is not getting away with this.  Interjecting myself into her presence I demand, "Did you move this coat?" 

She attempts innocence. 

"I thought it was left behind.  I thought the table was free."

Right.

"Bullshit you did!   Unplug that electronic crap and go drink your coffee at the bus stop.  I want my God-given table back."

The manager joins us at this point.  He stands beside me with his arms crossed over his chest, tapping his toes and staring grimly at the uber-wired table stealer. 

Ashamed, she rips the cord from the outlet, shoves her machine in her bag and leaves the coffee shop red-faced with cappucino spilling down her sleeve.

And so, kind readers.  Thank you for listening to all of the non-yogic things I really felt like saying this morning.

Day 19 - Om

Chanting Om can be uncomfortable the first time.

A friend from church relayed how much she enjoyed yoga until they started "humming" and then she was weirded-out and never went back.

A college pal from Texas says:

"If they start humming or doing any shit like that.....any vocalization of any kind......I just get to giggling. Maybe I need somebody to EXPLAIN all this to me.

 Today’s Blog Posting promises to make all things Om clear!

Om, for musicians, is a love-it or hate-it proposition. The aforementioned giggling and weirded-out friends are musicians. Heightened sound sensitivity is not always useful.

I, however, love Om.

Scroll back to the summer of 1986. The first time I experienced Om, the yoga class was held in a Sunday School room at St. Mark’s Church. We practiced Hot Yoga in the make-shift studio. Pre-yoga paraphernalia marketing, nobody had mats. We just practiced on the carpeted floor. I wore a t-shirt and khaki shorts. We didn’t know we needed straps, blocks, bolsters, blankets and special music. We had little idea where we were headed, but we were enthusiastic.

Six searching students handed over their trust to the yoga teacher. Per her instruction, we sat up straight. We counted our breaths. We felt the sweat drip down our temples. And then it happened.

As I sat in silence, I heard wind pass over the vocal folds of a corpse. The hairs on the back of my neck rose.

Our teacher chanted Om.

It was the Real McCoy. No fako wanna-be Om. This woman had swallowed the universe. She had swallowed God whole.

Or maybe it was just a cool parlor trick. Either way, I was in and set out to learn chanting.

Wikipedia wasn’t around then. If it had been, I would have known that Om means "Yes" or "Will be" or "To become". That Om has different pronunciations and can be written in different kinds of script. I would have known that it’s interpreted differently in various kinds of Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikkism. I would have known that the Mandukya Upanishd is entirely devoted to the explanation of the syllable, Om.

But I still wouldn’t have known anything.

A pet peeve is teachers who have the class chant Om while recorded music is playing, which begs the question, should we chant on the tonic or the dominant? What if the background music modulates part way through the Om? What about the relationship of sound to silence. They’re creating noise upon noise. Eating a snack when they’re already full.

A certain teacher, Erin, didn’t explain Om, but she said that it could be translated according to one’s inclination - Allah, Alleluia, Amen or Mom. (Actually I just made that last one up, but it’s nice, don’t you think?)

Erin used to have the class chant a continuous Om for one minute. Students breathed when needed and filled the room with resounding vibration. I’d like to try that for five minutes.

Or longer.

How about Sunday night I’ll invite 40 close friends for an evening of Olives and Om. Starting at 7:00 pm we’ll whet our whistles, clear our throats and begin to chant Om. We’ll sing the sacred sound into the plaster and the woodwork. We’ll only stop sporadically as we get thirsty, and then continue on when we're fortified.  Pedestrians passing the house will say "What the f#!*!?" Especially the ones walking through the neighborhood with real estate agents.

House-hunting couples enjoying Washington, DC cherry blossoms will wake up and hear the music. "Honey" he will say. "Did you hear that?  The robins are chirping, the wind is rustling through the redbuds, and the neighbors chant Om when the sun sets.  Wouldn't you like to move to Veazey Street?""

Day 18 - 10 Rules for Life and Yoga

1.     be on time
2.     practice today so I can practice tomorrow
3.     remember the difference between pleasure and pain
4.     don’t buy anything new except shoes and underwear
5.     don’t drive when I can walk
6.     don’t get fat
7      be kind
8      even at home
9.     if at all possible
10.   the teacher is not always right.
　

Day 17 - Smiling

After 17 days of yoga, I find that I’m smiling more. I’m not doing this on purpose. Yoga is rearranging my facial structure.

By nature, I am not a smiling kind of person. It might be a very happy day, but friends and relations ask, "What’s wrong?"  When I attend weddings or smiling kinds of events, I come home with my face aching from unusual muscular effort.  My 10-year-old-son used to tell me to turn up the corners of my mouth when I picked him up at school so I wouldn't look so mean.  He poked his finger at my lips to show me how. 

Elizabeth Gilbert’s smiling meditation interests me. In "Eat, Pray, Love" her Balinese medicine man prescribes sustained smiling meditation every day. He tells her that not only her lips, but her entire body and especially her liver must smile. This was after meditating daily on her death in the ashram.  Death meditation I understand. Smiling meditation sounds too hard.

That seems to be changing.

The new positive energy reminds me of a certain high I experienced while practicing for an organ concert at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. Each day, I spent long hours playing an enormous and beautiful organ that was situated in the loft of the basilica. The building’s soaring height, flooded with stained glass light, intoxicated me with pleasure. One afternoon, in the middle of this intensive concert preparation, I ran into a priest friend - a fairly ancient man who was a bit slow moving and stooped. "How are you?", the old priest asked. I obviously had radiance bursting out of my body. "Fantastic!" I replied. Then the old priest asked, with a twinkle in his eye, "How is your husband?"

Day 16 - Intentions

At the beginning of yoga class, teachers often say "close your eyes and set an intention for your practice."  Again at the end of class they will ask the class to recall their intentions.

My intentions vary.  Originally they were along the lines of, "Intention?  What the hell's an Intention?"  After a few months of that I began setting the intention, "To Survive the Class". 

Now my most common intention has been "Healing for Myself."  Some days I practice at a higher level and intend, "Healing for Others" or "Being a Good and Holy Person All Day Long" or the simplified version of that, "Not Being a Snot to My Family". 

Today the intention that came to me was "Strength".  To be strong in class and after class.  I'm not the strongest practitioner.  I'm a back row weenie.  I do chaturangas on my knees and side plank with one knee down.  Headstands are science fiction.  

But today was my Strong Day.  Even so, there came a point when I substituted a "Fuck That Asana" and just lay on my back while the rest of the class did ab work.  It was still a great practice - one of my best.  I like working out next to Josh who also modifies all of his poses. 

I'm going to start keeping a list of my yoga intentions in the word processing document where I keep a daily weight log.  Today will read:

March 24, 2011 STRENGTH  142 pounds

Which is not really my fault.  It must have been last night's salty Gruyere and Sausage Stratta that did it, or maybe it was the third serving.  So much for good intentions.

Day 15 - Yoga Riddle

How are advanced yoga poses like love affairs?
  (scroll down for answer)














They're easier to get into than to get out of.

Day 14 - Resistance

I don’t have time to attend a class everyday.  It looks like I have to create a home yoga practice.

And I am so RESISTANT.

When it’s time for yoga at home, the chores start shouting at me.  Urgent email, cooking, laundry, and ironing needs. Surely I should take those T-shirts out of the drawer and refold them neatly. When I’m really desperate I consider washing the kitchen floor.  It's about time I cleaned the attic.

Having spent years as a professional musician, engaging in the solitary self-discipline of practicing my instrument, I should be a natural at home yoga practice. I understand the daily commitment, loneliness and boredom required to prepare recitals. Now that I’m facing this yoga resistance, I am becoming very sympathetic to my young students who resist their assignments. But these lucky students have parents to sit them down with a 20 minute timer.

That’s what I need. A yoga mom to lovingly roll out my mat and set my timer. She will sit in the room with me so that I will not be lonely. She’ll tell me what a good job I did. This will make me so happy that I’ll look forward to the next time. I’ll carry the timer over and plop it in her lap, asking eagerly, "Can we practice now?"

Day 13 - Subtitle Contest

Calling all readers! 

40 Days of Yoga 2011 needs a subtitle.  Something pithy to let readers know its true nature right up front.  Something that will catapult it into international fame, spurring book contracts, stand-up comedy gigs, and full professorships at Universities in the U.S. and abroad.

Our first prize winner will have the thrill of seeing his or her subtitle ACTUALLY PUBLISHED ON THE INTERNET.

The contest begins today!  Don't delay!
 

Day 12 - Calling All Entrepreneurs

I have the greatest business idea and I am just putting it out there for industrious individuals and companies to snap up.

Anyone who practices yoga and travels by air will want this service.

Drop-In Yoga Centers at Airports

It has been projected that by the year 2030, 90% of Americans will practice yoga.* Not only travelers, but also airport employees will eagerly patronize terminal drop-in yoga centers. Conveniently located next to kiddie playgrounds, the yoga centers will, for a small fee, be a place where world-weary yogis can borrow a mat, stretch their aching limbs, and burn off fast food calories.

This being the U.S.A., drop in yoga centers will also sell sexy pants, DVDs, jewelry, sunglasses, magazines, energy drinks, tea, snacks, electronics, mugs, stuffed animals, eye pillows, aromotherapy oils, greeting cards, and healthy yoga fruit baskets that can be shipped anywhere in the world. These items will sport franchise names, such as Flying Eagle Yoga, Air Asanas, Skyway Sun Salutations or Half Way to the Moon.

Note to the business that scores big from this idea: I don’t need a cut, but how about a free hat?


* statistical projection from Heath Future Life Progression Services

Day 11 - On Zen Time

Even though yoga comes from India, this retreat has very loud Zen Buddhist overtones. Which is great by me. I love silence, simplicity, oneness. I’m very cool with Zen Buddhism. I read Alan Watts. I read Haiku. I even studied Japanese for about ten minutes. I think of Buddhists as being very y’all-come.

I’m not sure where I got that idea from.

Silent meditation is from 7:30 - 8:00 am. That’s too long for me to sit with my mouth shut, but I really love to sit silently for a few minutes. The first day of retreat I slipped ever so quietly in to morning meditation for the last five minutes and enjoyed a heady communion in the room’s intense energy. Later it was announced that people who miss opening bell can only do their meditation out on the cold porch.

At the church where I work, if people weren’t allowed in after the bell we would have a mighty intimate gathering. Opening procession is cross, choir and clergy with hearty numbers from the congregation following behind.

I knew a Lutheran pastor who wouldn’t let parishioners have communion if they missed the gospel reading.

Even that gives a person 20 minutes of wiggle room.

Day 10 - Retreat Essentials

What happens at a yoga and writing retreat on the one free afternoon?

My roommate, a sophisticated and well-traveled woman, took me on a trip to downtown Taos. We visited both upscale clothing stores and thrift stores, as well as a few art galleries. The cosmopolitan woman, who is well-versed in pacing this kind of exploration, explains that one hour and a half is enough. The body cannot really absorb or appreciate more at one time. She guides us to the patio of The Taos Inn where we settle into the more serious work of Margaritas and Harp Ale.

Yoga-like, we push our limits while taking care not to exceed them. I have been taught:

"Practice today in a way that will allow you to practice again tomorrow."

Day 9 - Veazey Street Ashram

Here's the short version of how it's going:

I stand taller, breathe better, smile more, and feel more confident. There is less need for sleep, my pimples are going away and my energy is almost manic.

So much for the common conception that yoga is for relaxation (although for you, it may be.)

All of this yoga makes me want to run track! Do jumping jacks, compose music, bake cakes, paint, and write books (or at least blog). What will happen at 40 days? What will happen at 41 days?

I think I’ll open an Ashram on Veazey Street. Every morning at 6:00 the chanting yogis will arrive, sleepy-eyed, mats tucked under their arms. I’ll hold court and chant to them, having learned all the ragas. The chants are very long. Maybe we’ll begin at 4:00. Pure sound resonating in our bodies and through the house, my teenaged son will press the pillow hard over his ears.

The altar will be adorned with figurines, stones, shells, and photographs of our teachers. I will not light the candles, neither will I extinguish them. Acolytes will do that. They will also clean the floor with sweet lemon and beeswax. Yogis will bring offerings of fresh fruit, cakes, tea and rice. No need to make breakfast!  They dust the piano every morning.

Then my day of music teaching will unfold.

The young piano students arrive, also bringing apples for their teacher.  We slice these and add them to the altar offering.  The students are filled with pride, accomplishment and joy because all week long they have practiced well and faithfully. They have tackled the tricky parts in their pieces, have practiced slowly and carefully, and never missed a single day.

Day 8 - Morning and Evening Rites

We have yoga TWICE daily. Do you think it’s fair to keep a tally and count the extra sessions toward the 40 days?

Morning yoga faces the Taos Pueblo, the Pueblo people's native land.

Afternoons offer gentle restorative yoga. Serious horizontal work.

Our famous writing teacher, whose identify cannot be revealed, brought the group, one evening, on a breathtaking sunset walk to the Morada, a traditional adobe church. We followed a path through sagebrush in sight of Taos Mountain, the Pueblo people’s sacred mountain where white people are not allowed. At the path’s end stands a large, simple cross - the first one Georgia O’Keefe painted. Behind we saw the Pedernal, a flat-topped mountain that was O’Keefe’s perennial favorite. The painter made a pact with God, our teacher tells us. If ever she got the painting right, the mountain would be hers. O’Keefe’s ashes are now a part of it’s soil.

At day's end our classroom serves as zendo, and we sit for a period of silence. Before the final bell, our surrogate priest/famous teacher frightened me with a low, growl of chanting. She dismissed us with the words, "Awake!  Awake!  Deeeath and Life are both the saaaame. This is your oooooonly life. Dooo nooot waste it!"

I ask her for a personal favor.   I want the teacher/surrogate priest to write down the haunting benediction. She refused. She said that she had stolen it.

I have also stolen it.

Day 7 - Too Much Too Little

The food at Mabel Dodge Luhan House is UNBELIEVABLE. Breakfast yesterday: scrambled eggs with Gruyere, asparagus, bacon, sausage, au gratin potatoes, croissants, bran muffins, yogurt, cottage cheese, hand-cut Irish oatmeal, fruit compote, fresh fruit. Lunch and dinner are similar. Shiitake mushroom soup, salmon, sweet potatoes with spinach and cheese, fancy whole grain rice, roasted cauliflower, rolls, orange cake. All of it homemade and fabulous. In the afternoon there are scones and homemade macaroons. I’m aching to be hungry again.

Confession Time

Yesterday’s yoga session was of the sitting in the New Mexico sun variety. Today my body is hungry for yoga and thrilled to be practicing again. I’m rosy cheeked, energized and happy.

Community retreats also carry a challenge of too much and too little. At home I long for people and ideas to bump up against. At the retreat I bump up against too many people and long for solitude.

Wisely, we observe silence from sunrise to 10 am. I sit silently at the breakfast table, facing the eastern window. I appreciate the heather plants in the window sill. I breathe a silent prayer of gratitude over my beautiful food. I am more circumspect this morning in my choices. plain yogurt. raspberries, strawberries, a nectarine. I breathe a silent prayer of gratitude for the life force of the woman sitting next to me. My eyes caress the fork in her hand. I notice the sausages on her plate and how many of them she has. I wonder how she eats them all and stays so thin.

I could have just one little sausage.

Day 6 - New Mexico Sunrise

Our bedroom window frames the Taos Mountain foothills, so this morning I watched a quick-moving and mesmerizing shift of colors as the sun came up. They moved in fast succession from midnight to iris, pink, cornflower and smoky cloud white. If you’ve ever seen the changing light facade at Frienship Heights, that’s a little what this amazing light show looked like.

New Mexico Sunrise would make a terrific screen saver. It also sounds like a good name for a fancy cocktail.

Today my only yoga option is solo practice. I am so RESISTING this. I’ll keep it very low key.

Mat/Breathe/Gratitude/Stretch/Gratitude/Breathe

Or maybe I’ll practice in a sunny armchair instead.

Just for Today.

Day 5 - Taos, New Mexico

Sundays are not in Lent, but I think it’s fair enough to have a substitution system. Sort of like having cole slaw (which I never do) instead of french fries or having someone else direct your choir (which I’m currently doing) while on retreat in Taos, New Mexico.

Yes, I’m a spoiled brat, writing from Taos, New Mexico where I’m attending a yoga and writing workshop with a famous writing teacher whose name cannot be mentioned and visiting an old friend who now lives in out west.

The retreat is at Mabel Dodge Luhan House, which has offered hospitality to the likes of Georgia O’Keefe, D. H. Lawrence, Ansel Adams, and Carl Jung. I’m sleeping in Willa Cather’s room.

When I arrived this afternoon, the welcoming woman at reception asked where I had come from. I told her that I’d come from Washington, DC and she said, "Oh, you’re from sea level. Taos is at 7,000 feet. You may have shortness of breath, fatigue or a headache. Tylenol should take care of it, and hydration. Be sure to stay hydrated."

I am carefully following her advice at the moment by beginning the writing and yoga retreat in New Mexico’s beautiful sunshine with a pint of Albuquerque Marble IPA.

In the words of Ben Franklin, "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."

Day 4 - Peer Pressure

40 Days of Yoga started in response to the Facebook status question.   

My friends were giving up meat, ice cream and going car-free.  One friend actually gave up Facebook (which mortifies the flesh a bit too much in my opinion). 

It's been years since I've observed the 40 days in a meaningful way.  Many Lents ago I quit smoking (permanently).  One year I gave up alcohol (impermanently). 

I was feeling left out. 

Now I'm calculating how many more days of yoga to go until Easter and for sure not counting Sundays.  And all because I answered a simple question.

"What's on your mind?"

Day 3 - How Long Does It Take To Make A Friend?

Six Months.

Since September, Max I and have been saying how-do-you-do at the yoga studio, where he is manager and occasional teacher.

Max is a tie-dye wearing, earring sporting, sometimes long-haired gentleman.  The kind of guy that surely inspired the very word, "gentleman".  I love these gentlemen. 

Every table was taken at Starbucks, so we walked to my house where I made him bagels with cream cheese, mineola oranges, and camomile tea. 

He noticed our things.   The big black piano.  The funky kitchen.  My reiki binder.  The halloween photo of Melvin dressed like a cat. 

We talked about out families.  We talked about yoga, teaching, Christianity, Reiki, and healing. 

Lift your tea cups everyone.  I'd like to propose a toast.

To Max.  To all of our friendships.

Day 2 - A Yoga Hissy Fit

I like to think of myself as a very even tempered person.  A go-with-the-flow person.  A yoga kind of person. 

There isn't much in a yoga class that upsets me.  The temperature is 95.  No problem.  The temperature is 65.  No problem.  The room has just been mopped and smells like strong toilet bowl cleaner.  No problem.  The room is so crowded that not only is Joe's butt is in my face, but his puddle of sweat is sliding onto my mat.  No problem. 

However, we all have our buttons.  Mine have to do with the teacher or the music.  Because I'm so resilient, it takes both to push them. 

Pam taught today's lunch-time class.  She is the niiiicest teacher (maybe second nicest.  Simone was VERY nice, but she isn't there anymore.)  Nice will get you a long way in yoga teaching.  But Pam is scattered.  She sometimes forgets if she's on the right side or the left.  She forgets halves of sequences, leaving me feeling stretched out on one side and stiff on the other.  Because she doesn't calibrate moves for both beginners and advanced students, new students become confused, frustrated and a little bent out of shape (literally). 

But, did I mention that Pam is reeeeeealy nice?  This is her money in the bank.  At the beginning of class she puts eucalypus oil on our wrists.  At the end she spritzes us with rose water.  She has a beautiful voice, is pretty with a nice figure and smiles all the time. 

She does not budget time very well either.  When today's class was due to end in 10 minutes - that would the point when my arms are trembling and I'm having trouble standing upright  Pam says, "I thought we'd do a little work at the wall."  This means we have to pick up our mats, pick up our bodies, and find a new place to park them beside the window.  I TRIED to do this.  Really I did.  I dragged my mat to the only spot left.  Far in the corner.  And then I heard it.  VERY LOUDLY.  Blaring into the room from the stereo speaker, was Very Bad Music. 

Like many teachers in this studio, Pam plays music during class to amuse herself while soothing and inspiring the students.  This makes no sense to me.  The point of yoga practice is to focus on the breath and the body - to go within one's self and mine for gold.  Somehow I am the only person there that finds music to be an affliction. 

Being the even tempered person that I am, I decided that it would be alright if the second of my 40 days of yoga concluded 10 minutes early.  Not a big deal.  I understand that my music issues are unique.  I pick up my mat (again), and head for the door.  I try to avoid eye contact with Pam, who catches me anyway.  "Are you alright?"  I wave her away.  I'm fine.  She apologizes for the smell of cleaning solution in the room.  She asks me to make sure the management hears what a problem it was.  "Oh, I can deal with the smell.  That's not a problem."  Pam presses to know why I'm leaving early.  I don't want to tell her.  How can I explain about the noise and how hard it was to pick up my mat?  By now I feel upset.  I didn't want to move my mat to the corner where devils with pitch forks were coming out the the black box on the wall.  I don't like her demanding, in front of the class, that I explain why my spiritual practice has been cut short.  I was trying to just slink out the door, even if it meant missing the relaxing savasana.  She presses hard enough that it bursts out, "I can't stand your music.  It's just.....it's just.....YUCK!" 

Hopefully tomorrow will be better....

Day 1 - Ash Wednesday

The clerk behind the desk at the yoga studio has ashes on her forehead.  This is unexpected.  Yoga studios have kind of eastern leanings.  The ashes look out of place and make me uncomfortable.  It's so public. 

The kind-of-eastern-yoga-students ask, "Aren't those marks only for Catholics?"  "No", the clerk replies, "Protestants can also receive ashes."  The kind-of-eastern inquirer asks, "Why do you wear them in public?" 

The yoga clerk explained about witness to Christian community.  I am even more uncomfortable. 

What is it about this public display that makes me squirm?  Isn't our personal spirituality supposed to be kept private in the bedroom?  Certainly it doesn't need to show up on our skin or in other public forums.