Day 238 March 30, 2011

Frank Gehry building      Bard College, New York

A few thoughts on Iyengar yoga classes.


Iyengar yoga is humbling, all the time.  If you can embrace a childlike humility and realize that you always have a lot to learn, then you'll accept that steep learning curve that Iyengar yoga presents to you with grace.  It is all about the journey.  Every class I attend I am humbled by what I do not know or by how my body responds to some demand the teacher suggests.


The good news is that on a day when you are really exhausted or coming down with a cold there is still a practice for you.  Iyengar yoga is for all bodies.  


The biggest learning curve for my personal health was moving through Graves disease, a hyperactive thyroid.  Yes I did all that Western medicine wanted me to do until they wanted to remove my thyroid, or part of it. I knew that meant I'd be on medication for the rest of my life.  I decided to not do that.  I stayed on medication for six and a half years and then my my thyroid stabilized.  For the first one and half years I only was allowed to do one yoga practice, a combination of supported inversions and forward bends with a head wrap to keep my eyes closed.  To limit input.  That practice was a key part of my recovery.  It taught me how far away I'd come from feeling quiet inside my body.  I credit that restorative practice as being an instrumental part of my recovery from Graves disease.  


Did you know that there are yoga hospitals in India?  Here in the west we sometimes take medication several times a day.  B.K.S. Iyengar will say, 'here, do this three or four times a day.'  A different approach than the Western approach, but can you see how it can help?

Day 237 March 29, 2011

Soon the garden will need constant attention.  For now, I walk along the rows of garlic and glance at their tiny tips poking through the hay.  I am grateful to not have to pull any weeds yet.  That time will come later.

In yoga class today we did pranayama.  It is a quiet kind of work.  After what felt like an hour I finally was able to feel what David was talking about.  Lifting the side ribs on the inhalation and then watching the diaphragm drop on the exhalation.  When you first start pranayama it is so subtle it is hard to catch an awareness of the movements.

Onward to savasana which is the final pose you do at the end of a yoga class.  It's other name is the corpse pose and it's a different kind of pose.  It's a time to rest, let go, and observe the body as it unwinds from the demands of the class.  Me time.  Savasana and pranayama both bring quiet inside your body.  In today's hectic, fast paced world, a little quiet can go a long way.  If you are interested in yoga and you haven't tried pranayama or savasana yet, no worries, perhaps that time will come later for you.

namaste.

Day 236 March 28, 2011

Sunrise.  How that simple event helps us.  A day filled with sunshine is a day worth rejoicing.  I am so much happier on sunny days.  Well, okay, talk to me in late August when I am nearly all sweated out and grumpy from too much heat, and then maybe I'll change my tune.

But after a long winter of grayness and bitter cold, just one day of sunshine makes me ridiculously happy.  Like today.

May the sun shine on you today too :)

Day 235 March 27, 2011

There is something timeless about floral designs, whether they are imagined as loosely drawn peonies on treasured Asian vases,  or as pictured here on finely made lace that one could find on a bridal gown from the 1930's in New York city.  My mother's bridal gown.

Flowers make us rejoice.  There is much to be happy about on a day with flowers.

Day 234 March 26, 2011

Day 234 Atlantic ocean

All of us experience rough weather in our lives, whether that weather is actual torrential wind and rain, or perhaps it is just a really bad day where things didn't go so well for us.  My hope for you today is that at some point in this one day of your life you can say, Ah! ...... this patch, this time, right now, this is smooth sailing. 

Day 233 March 25, 2011

Ms. Windy slipping in for her swim in the river

Today David helped me with my yoga asana practice and I now feel like I'm getting my old body back.  An injury has prevented me from my normal routine this week, but the good news is I really appreciated the rest I was forced to accept if I wanted to get better.

I read three books this week.  Sinking into the sofa with my book was delicious, even though I felt some pain here and there throughout the day and especially at night.  I did some very quiet therapeutic yoga practices and just listened to my body so that it could lead me back to a state of ease.

If you are a really busy person do you find it hard to rest?  Just laze about and not do much?  I used to be way too busy to rest and any interruption to that overly busy life made me drive myself even more furiously forward to finish the agenda at hand.  Now I'm learning to move at a much slower pace and I think I'm ready for that now.  I saw what that frantic way of life was like and I'm ready to move towards a much more balanced approach to my life.  I'm ready to slip into the river instead of crashing in cannon ball style.

Day 232 March 24, 2011

mimosa tree in flower      New Jersey, USA

Did I mention that it's spring?  Perhaps if you already live in a year round warm climate the fact that spring is now happening here in Nova Scotia doesn't really register as something worth celebrating?  Just try to imagine living with freezing temperatures, so bone deep cold and damp that everyone you know gets sick at least once or twice during the long winter, weather so hostile that there are days your dogs turn back shrinking from the suggestion that they go outdoors, and these dogs are bred in Labrador, an even colder spot than Nova Scotia!

Then there are the beautiful days and nights of diamond like snow falls.  White flakes of snow create deep drifts in front of your doors.  The time may come where you need to climb out of a window because your doors are frozen shut with these icy piles of snow against them to ensure that they stay closed.  It happens.  It gets dark at 4:30pm in the depth of winter here so you lose 5 hours of sunlight every day which makes everyone a little depressed.

Now do you see why a few more hours of daylight each day and being surrounded by frozen mud and one half inch of a flower stalk breaking ground in your garden is cause for celebration?  Spring is here!  Hurrah!

Day 231 March 23, 2011

on the way to Cuban elementary school to drop off art supplies

One of my friends asked me how I’d managed to strain my neck, which is getting better slowly.  This is a good question.  For me it all started when I fell out of a tall tree as a young girl and was knocked unconscious.  An osteopath later suggested to me that I’d landed on my left hip.  I also remember falling in ice skating and the exact moment when I quit skating because falling on my skinny hips hurt so much.

As the years went by I dislocated my left shoulder, left knee and my left foot arch remains chronically, partially dislocated.  Add years of being bow legged, being right handed, and years of working on a potter’s wheel leaning constantly to the right as I worked on the clay forms.  Lots of small imbalances added up. 

Now that I’m getting older, add some osteo arthritis in my neck, upper back, hands and feet and voila, I injured my neck.  Not in headstand, not in shoulder stand, no, just by living my life with all these little imbalances built into my daily posture.  Almost forgot to mention the large heavy purse I carried on my left shoulder.  I have a tendency to overwork and overdue a lot too, but part of that is my inherited tendency for an over active thyroid, the thyroid that sets the metabolic rate of your body.  I zoom around a lot.

So there, that’s how I injured my neck.  Make sense?  Do you think in those terms about how you injure yourself?  Do you see the whole picture of your health?  Things do add up.  

Day 230 March 22, 2011

Five Islands Park

Soon I will go to the beach again.  I miss the water, the sound of the waves as they hit the shore.  The warm air, the smell of salt.

Now that it's spring lots of changes are on the way.  Even though there are times when nature threatens us it can also console us and inspire us.  And those times when we're ill or hurt, those times give us a chance to stop and rest, to heal and repair ourselves, so that we can rejoin the stream of active life and rejoice to be there.

What time of year makes you want to rejoice?

Day 229 March 21, 2011

'Ahhh  magnolias'  photo by Jen Z

Happy First Day of Spring everyone!