Waiting for the Salmon to Return

What a relief it is when you finally figure out how to live in abhyasa and vairagya! Vairagya is equanimity and abhyasa (to remember the ideal of pure consciousness) is why you bother with it at all.

I just love the zen teaching story of the guy whose horse ran away. His neighbors commiserated saying “too bad!” But he only said “maybe”. The next day his horse returned with 4 wild horses in tow. The neighbors all said it was a stroke of luck but the man only responded with “maybe”. His son, when trying to ride one of the wild horses, broke a leg and, you guessed it, everyone said “aww, too bad, you have some bad luck today”. And the response? “Maybe” Well the story ends with the military coming around for the draft and passing over the son with the broken leg. Everybody says “what luck!” and the man replies “maybe”. And so it goes.

Here on the Ayakulik River, Kodiak Island, Alaska, the rain has been relentless and the enormous numbers of pink salmon expected this year have yet to arrive. That may have seemed like some bad luck because we only had 12 days to film and about 10 of them were rainy. But as it turns out, we were “awarded” an extra three weeks because of the weather and the late salmon run. Good luck? We’ll see… maybe. I’ve also been watching the commercial fishing boats out on the water, with their huge nets and again, I realize it may not be such a bad thing, that the salmon are late. I guess it depends on whether or not you rely on commercial fishing for a living or for that salmon on your plate tonight.

Salmon, by the way, is one of the best foods for lowering inflammation in the body. I found that out when my neurologist suggested an anti-inflammation cookbook to me. Hopefully it will keep the grizzlies from getting inflamed too! New bears enter the area daily. Apparently they’ve been through this routine before. Somehow they know it’s time, and they sniff the air and wade through the river, watching, waiting for the salmon to return.

Yoga to go

A body needs to be maintained, and the older the model, the higher the maintenance required. Same as cars and many other items. So, as a body ages and gets achy and weak, the value of a physical yoga practice only increases. It doesn't matter if you have arthritis or Lyme Disease or any number of other disorders, discomforts and physical limitations. The important thing is to keep moving, twisting, bending, squeezing and releasing, strengthening and relaxing the muscles and joints.

The huge thing about yoga is the state of mind that is cultivated during the movement. It's not just doing a certain number of reps while focusing on a certain type of breathing and watching TV. It is refining a highly conscious state of acceptance and equanimity while moving or holding in a posture. That way, the very cells of the body are infused with and re-wired for consciousness, so that your body, your mind and your spirit all support your awakening.

While on the road, I carry an old shower curtain which I put on the dirt ground. Then I put my yoga mat on that (so as to keep it cleaner). Most of the time we are in remote areas so I can enjoy my practice without an audience. Other times, I practice inside the camper. Here on the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska, even the starfish practice. The picture here is of a starfish in janushirsasana at low tide. I swear, I did not do this in photo shop! I honestly found him this way. He is under a bit of water. See the anemone? Name that posture!

Fun with Food

As a yogi, I’ve always been interested in the alchemy of eating. I’ve fasted, tried a variety of diets from carnivorous to vegetarian to raw. I’ve used food as medicine and, more recently have explored a few different approaches to what’s called an anti-inflammation diet.

For Lyme Disease, one of the few proactive actions anyone can take is to eat a diet that promotes healing and won’t aggravate the condition. But the anti-inflammation diet is touted to be good for many more things including weight loss, arthritis, allergies, joint pain and any of a plethora of inflammation disorders.

At a recent visit to a neurologist, I was given the name of a book with yet another take on the diet. The book is The Inflammation Free Diet Plan, by Monica Reinagel. The doctor told me that while he tries to be as unbiased as possible, he is completely biased about this diet. So I went out, got myself a copy and started to read.

At first it seemed daunting. It seemed there was so much to learn, so much to keep track of, and all these new values and figures to add up. As it turns out, there are actually only about 40 pages to read (an easy and interesting read) and the rest is reference charts. It’s not difficult at all. To make it even easier, I made a spreadsheet on my computer to keep track of my intake. I rather enjoy trying to keep my scores in range of my goals. It’s become sort of a game for me to see how great a rating I can come up with while still enjoying my meals and feeling full.

I love a wide variety of food. That makes any diet a lot easier because I only have to choose between something I love and something else I love. This diet is basically the opposite of the Standard American Diet. If you’re serious about your health, you’ll want to stay away from fast foods, highly processed foods and deep fried foods. That said, in all fairness I must add that there is hardly anything you can’t have on this diet - it’s just that you will want to choose with discretion and eat foods to create the anti-inflammation balance you’re after.

As I write this, I am on the road, traveling to Alaska for the summer. I am in Northeastern Montana right now and so far I have had no difficulty staying on the diet while traveling, including an occasional restaurant meal.

Like ayurveda, and yoga, it’s about living a life in balance. The more you practice it, the better you feel, and the easier it gets.

It Beat Me Up

A couple years ago I contracted Lyme Disease. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t know it until many months later. So despite several antibiotic treatments, I’ve been told I’ll just have to live with it. Lyme disease has an abundance of varied symptoms; one of many reasons it is so difficult to diagnose. One of the most sinister of them is the distinct brand of depression it bestows on its victims. It can come on quickly without warning with it’s devouring self-hatred. I’ve been told the leading cause of death from Lyme Disease is suicide.

Lyme cycles. I feel better for a while, then symptoms increase and intensify: pain, aching, heart palpitations, shortness of breath and depression. Last week, while in the throes of another bout of Lyme symptoms, I asked myself the question; what about depression? How do I navigate these dark corridors of hell?

I remembered another brilliant teaching story. This one, as far as I know, is a true story. Vipassana is a form of meditation involving concentration on the body or its sensations, and the insight that this provides. A beloved vipassana meditation teacher was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. There was a large conference for vipassana meditators at his center. Realizing the uncertainty of the situation, his followers nonetheless asked him to be the keynote speaker for the event. They knew it may well be the last time he spoke publicly. When he approached the podium on that day, with the room filled with hundreds, maybe even thousands of earnest listeners, his mind went blank. He stood there quietly as the audience waited, attentive. Time ticked on and still, no words. After what must have seemed an eternity, he leaned into the mic and said quietly: “feeling ashamed” ... silence... “feeling embarrassed”... “breathing”... “steady”... “just this breath”... and on it went. Basically what he was doing was demonstrating how the meditation carries through into every moment. He was not getting caught up in emotional or mental knots. Instead he was staying fully present and letting his heart be touched by whatever came up from moment to moment, without judgment or criticism.

It was, perhaps the best speech he could have given to that group on that day. The response of that one man, already in the throes of Alzheimer's, remaining lucid and calm in the most stressful of situations, continues to ripple outward, touching the lives of people he will never meet. He helped me through a tough night and I've never met him and don't even know his name.

It's All Grace

The more I explore it the more clearly I recognize that the ordinary and the extraordinary in my life are not separate threads intersecting at magical points but rather that everything is at once both ordinary and extraordinary. My perception of my experiences and the world around me seems to be determined by my state of awareness/consciousness/openness at any given moment.

I used to think Grace Happens. It now seems to me that when all the obstructions and false notions of my sense of “I” and of who “I” am are suspended, I am Presence itself and from that vantage, it’s all Grace.

I love how Ramana Maharshi, the beloved Indian sage explained Grace:
“God’s Grace is the beginning, the middle and the end. When you pray for God’s Grace, you are like someone standing neck-deep in water and yet crying for water. It is like saying that someone neck-deep in water feels thirsty, or that a fish in water feels thirsty, or that water feels thirsty.”

I am in my head a lot. I’m wired that way. On the enneagram, I am an intellectual type. That makes sense to me. (I write, therefore I am...) I think one reason yoga has always felt like such a life raft to me is that it saves me from myself.

Returning to the mat, I let the asanas take the lead. Without a program or plan, I simply nudge my body into this or that gentle stretch. Conscious of my breath’s response to increased sensation, I patiently watch, listen, wait for my next shift to present itself. I let all parts of me be heard, felt, acknowledged.

Ofttimes it happens instantaneously; that sense of wholeness, completeness and balance returns and I am fully alive again. Once that happens, it is easy to stay in the flow of the practice for... well, since I’ve just stepped out of time, there’s no telling how long I’ll be there. Whatever the actual time-measurement, it’ll be “just right”.

With a regular practice it gets easier to tell when there is an imbalance. Like a delicate scale that tips with the slightest addition or subtraction, distraction or neglect, my body, mind, and spirit all want to be balanced for optimum life experience. When they are out of sync, it feels like I’m in a cloud, or like life is racing by and I’m missing it, or like there is something wrong with the life around and in me.

Returning to the mat, is returning to the heart, to the spirit, to the beauty and truth and wholeness of life. Returning to my practices is merely a stepping across the threshold, back to my Self.

I write, therefore I am

When I was a Junior in high school, my English Teacher, Duane Clark, had us keep a journal. I am forever indebted to him for that. We used our journals for exploring our lives, our thoughts and feelings, and for trying different styles of writing and self-expression. Can you think of a more beautiful gift to give a teenager?

I’ve written countless volumes of journals since. I’ve written my way through difficult situations, laying my thoughts and feelings out on the page so I could sort them out. I’ve used my journaling as a way to understand yoga, the teachings and my direct experiences in asana and meditations. I’ve shared entries over the years in many of my classes.

I write to understand - myself and my world. Writing gives voice to the whole gamut of being human: thoughts, feelings, perceptions, ideas, experience and spirit itself. For me, writing is prayer, contemplation, meditation and celebration. It is a gift that is at once, given and received.

I made a little video to go with this but blogger is having trouble uploading and processing it so you'll just have to hop on over to my website blog here and see it there. Sorry! :(

What is Yoga?

Yoga is to settle the patternings of the mind so that we can see ourselves and others as we really are. The main cause of our suffering is due to considering ourselves as separate from one another; a separate being to whom things happen. Our main suffering comes from believing we can do something to someone else and not have it affect us, or that we can do something to the earth and not have it affect us. The Yoga Sutras say the main source of suffering is ignorance of our true nature.

The mind patterns obscuring Self-realization consist of everything that makes up your ego: defenses, opinions, preferences, interests, beliefs and desires. Those patterns are what cause us to take an event and overlay it with our own meaning - “if he did that, it means he doesn’t care, or it means he thinks this or that and then something else will happen” and ya da ya da, you can fill in the blanks with your own unique brand of mind patterns.

The whole gamut of yoga practices and teachings is all for Self-realization - to settle our current ongoing, internal banter long enough for us to realize the truth of who we are. It’s a coming home to our dearest, nearest, truest selves. Like waking up from a dream.

Gifts From Solitude

In Gift From the Sea, Anne Morrow Lindbergh says that our alone times are among the most important times in our lives. She says that certain springs are tapped only when we are alone and that we need solitude in order to find again, the true essence of ourselves; “that firm strand which will be the indispensable center of a whole web of human relationships.” And I just love that she adds, later in the chapter, that if we don’t take care of this one, basic and essential need, we will have less to give to our families, to our work, and to our communities. Don’t we know it!?!

See your yoga practice as a small, daily pocket of solitude; an opportunity to tap into the wellspring of your being. In my last post, I spoke of how to get back into a yoga practice you’ve lost touch with. I suggested picking a few asanas you know and like and working with them. Once you have a simple, sweet, entirely doable sequence to work with in your asana practice, then all you have to do is show up for it. The level of acceptance, awareness, openness and presence you bring to the practice is far more significant than your level of physical strength, flexibility, stamina or performance in any given asana.

“Welcome the totality of your experience.”
-Francis Lucille

New website, new blog!

I am moving! Well, my blog is moving... you'll find this blog on my newly designed website. Same address as before... www.smilingyogi.com. Please visit me there, and if you are subscribed here, change it to there.

Jai! Jai! Jai!

Warding Off Flu Viruses

The Yoga Sutras lists 9 hindrances or obstacles to yoga. These are hindrances to the deep, internal stillness that sets the stage for awakening. The top one on the list is illness. I saw on the news this morning, that hundreds of people are lining up for their flu shots - lining up at one in the morning to stand in the cold drizzly rain hoping to not get the flu! How crazy is that? One of the simplest, most inexpensive and practical practices I know of for preventing illness, and this one goes right along with washing your hands, is salt water.

Use it in your neti pot and gargle with it, morning and evening. If you don't have a neti pot yet, go out today and get one. I know here in Point, you can get them at the SPA Coop, and I believe they are available at Walgreens and Walmart. Since Oprah featured them on one of her shows, they've become mainstream. Neti is pouring salt water through the sinuses - in one nostril, out the other. Think of it. Illnesses like colds, flu, even bronchitis and sinusitis, begin in your nose and throat and it takes a day or two for them to incubate. Your sinuses are designed to get rid of foreign invaders. Slime (salty boogers) forms to remove the evil particle before it is absorbed into the system. In your throat, it'll be phlegm (same basic stuff). When your immune system is working overtime to beat off the assault entering your body through your face, you will feel tired. Don't you want to help it along?

In my experience, salt water is more effective than any supplements I've taken to boost my immune system. Why boost it? Why not just help it out? Give it a break. Salt water breaks up your slime balls and gets them out. Then your immune system can work on other issues - the things you can't reach. If you have a cold or sinus infection you just can't seem to get rid of, you very well may be reinfecting yourself. Salt water helps your immune system by preventing that. My neighbor lady was stuck in a sinus infection that wouldn't leave her body. I had this conversation with her and lent her one of our extra neti pots. The next day when she saw her doctor, he told her to get a neti pot! Once you get over those first two or three tries, it gets easier and you'll be adding it to your daily repertoire, right along with brushing your teeth and washing your hands. With illness being a top obstacle to yoga, its no wonder that purity is the first of the niyamas - part of a basic foundation for a rock solid yoga practice. Salt purifies.

Happy New Year

Moving into a new decade, Sally asked me to comment on how my practice has evolved in the last ten years. Ten years ago I was just beginning to realize the effect scoliosis was having on my body and it was particularly noticeable while practicing yoga postures. At the same time people were coming to me at the yoga studio with complicated physical issues. I felt compelled to dig deeper into the study of anatomy and physiology, particularly with regards to alignment in asanas. I took a week long Iyengar teacher training in Minneapolis, a weekend yoga therapy training with Tom Stiles (Mukunda) in Ohio, and a one day scoliosis intensive with Elise Browning Miller (Iyengar Yoga). I also met up with John Friend in Chicago. I loved John's Anusara yoga because to me it seemed to be a blend that included the precision of alignment found in Iyengar Yoga, and the heart of Kripalu style yoga. I thought his universal principles of alignment were brilliant and accessible.

Ten years ago my yoga studio in Park Ridge was bursting at the seams. Every few years we broke another wall down to expand and it seemed we were taking over the building. It was difficult for me to tell where my practice left off and teaching began. It was all one - union - yoga!

Well, since then, the studio moved twice, and now I teach not on a daily basis, but only a couple of times each year. My practices have turned more inward. Back then, my focus was on the physical practice, and my meditation followed. Today, meditation takes the front seat, infusing everything I do in my physical practices and in my life.

Contracting Lyme Disease last year really shifted my practices to a restorative level, but slowly I am regaining strength and stamina for a more vibrant physical practice. I like to start my day reading some inspired works. Right now it is the Upanishads - a gift from Sally. It rings, like our sharing bell in my heart, to read the words, and carries me effortlessly into a morning stillness, awareness, peace. Then I begin my asana practice. Right now my emphasis is on inversions - hoping to help my immune system with its continual effort to maintain balance, and to help purify my body on a regular basis. (Lyme has a way of building up toxins in the body.) Savasana, the conscious letting go and receiving posture that ends all asana practices has taught me so much about the subtle energies in my body, and how I can cooperate with prana to energize and revitalize on a daily basis.

If you have been in the practice for a decade, take a look and see how yours has evolved over that time. If not a decade, then since you began. Let me know what you find. I'd love to hear from you. Or post your comment here for all to read. Happy New Year!