In Tune

The singing up and down my spine is a merry cricket chirping energy into my morning walk.

A Poem

I came across this poem in a novel that I read recently which was okay but not excellent. This poem however spoke to me instantly. I like Oliver's work. I hope you will as well.




Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.



from Dream Work by Mary Oliver
published by Atlantic Monthly Press
© Mary Oliver

An Anecdote about Ego

My Yoga Teacher Trainer S. spent a bit of time this weekend trying to convince our group of aspiring yoga teachers that ego is not a bad thing. It simply is a part of who we are and something to be aware of.

At one point, he told this story.

S. was in India training in a crowded shala with a well-known teacher. Because he had done so well in his Ashtanga series to that point, the teacher wrongly assessed that S would have no trouble dropping back into Urdhva-Dhanurasana (backbend). S worried that he couldn't do it, but the teacher was insistent.

So S thought, What the heck? What's the worst that can happen?

He folded his arms across his chest and dropped back. The slight 78 year old teacher quickly realized his mistake and also that he could not catch S. So he stepped back and let S crash to the concrete floor.

S lay there wincing. The teacher bent over to make sure he was still conscious. Then he used one of his few English phrases.

"Bad man!" the teacher declared, pointing his finger in S's face. "Bad man!"

S could only laugh. Ego doesn't always have to be offended by life.

Re-Vision

When I was younger, I had no patience for revision. In my college years, I wanted to write a paper one time and be done with it. I didn’t understand the craftsmanship implicit in the process of going over and over my work, slowly improving it.

But there are times in life when a fresh approach is just what is called for, a change, a new way of seeing. Take this blog, for example. Initially, I wasn’t sure I wanted to re-begin. I was just settling in with my first attempt. But this is a better URL and, in the long run, I think I’ll be happier here at Begin.

In customizing this blog, I surprised myself by creating a look, a color scheme, and a focus that I actually like better than my first. Improvement through revision.

As an increasingly devoted writer, revision is my salvation. When faced with that daunting blank paper, I don’t have to produce perfection. I just have to produce something. Then the revision process will let me slowly sculpt it into a finished piece that works.

The more I work through something, the more practice and experience I get with it. The more experienced I am, the better products I ultimately produce. That applies to writing, blogs, baking… and, of course, yoga.

Take standing poses. I approach them with the prejudice of not liking them. Particularly Triangle. Because they tend to be difficult for me to do as well as I’d like, I have pre-decided that I don’t enjoy them. I’m all set to falter before I even begin.

But the truth is, if I push my preconceptions aside, sometimes I really like Triangle. I’ve had practices lately where the standing felt effortless and fun. I enjoy the focused attention required to rotate my femurs, while also opening and twisting in my pelvis, aligning my hips and revolving my spine. An incredible amount of motion dances through this pose that appears so still. I love that paradox.

By approaching the pose again and again, I grant my body the chance to do it differently, to learn. I practice; I play. I revise.

Robert Cormier says, “The beautiful part of writing is that you don’t have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon. You can always do it better, find the exact word, the apt phrase, the leaping simile.”

In writing and in yoga, I start from where I am. I am inspired and reassured by the knowledge that I can always do it just a bit better – through revision.

Yoga at the Edge of the World

For like the fourth Sunday in a row, my family goes to the beach for the late afternoon and dusk. I cannot help myself. I have become the kind of person who sits on the shore, right at the water’s edge, and does yoga.

I worry somewhat about this. I don’t want to look pretentious, laughable, or more likely, crazy. I even ask my husband, Do I look okay? I reassure myself that I must look passably socially acceptable because I have the perceptible normalcy of spouse and lovely children going for me.

In any case, my ego worries are not as strong as my irrepressible urge to celebrate the glory of the beach. What better than with my favorite and most heartfelt kind of prayer?

There is no yoga surface as intriguing as sand. You haven’t done standing poses until you’ve done them on shifting sand in the moving sea. (Yeah, technically, I haven’t done them either because I always fall. But that’s so not the point.)

Also irresistible to me is doing poses atop the rough rocks that dot the shoreline. I did some kick-ass tree poses, made all the more awesome by the rugged uneven rock below my feet, the constant churning of the water, and the danger that if I lose my balance and fall, I am not only going to be completely embarrassed as onlookers rush to my aid, but I am also going to seriously injure myself on a lower rock. Nothing makes you focus on balance in the present moment like the awareness that both your body and your pride are in peril.

Sitting in lotus on the unforgiving yet so comforting surface of a broad sun-warmed rock, my breath and the rhythm of the ocean are one. The horizon …and me… and you… are everything.

Away From Body

Maybe because I am so tired, during final relaxation I achieve a state of body-lessness. I feel myself floating around and that just-before-sleep feeling washes gently over me as my body’s heaviness relaxes down into my mat.

I don’t fall asleep. I remain aware and conscious, but with almost zero sensation from my body. Just pure energy of me.

It reminds me of the deep relaxation and detachment from physical senses that I’ve experienced through hypnosis. It’s very relaxing to feel myself as a disembodied consciousness.

Also very paradoxical, because usually in yoga I work to be less in my mind and more in my body. I love yoga. I never know ahead of time what I will experience.

Man, I can’t wait to start my teacher training and go even deeper.

Broken Beer Bottles

(Note- I actually wrote this on January 23, 2008. It's been hanging around waiting for me to get this blog up and running.)

I treated myself to a trip to the park today. I love the park. I go there for a double reason – to be immersed in nature and to be immersed in my Self. Walking the trails through this particular park soothes me and helps me think. My exploration becomes a walking meditation, a large-scale labyrinth that I am unfurling with my motions as my heart unfurls its emotions.

Trees grow, wind blows. Birds chirp, call, and circle in the sky. Squirrels hop from tree to tree. Various nooks hold benches that invite me to sit and reflect.

One spot I adore is a concrete hexagon terrace overlooking an orange grove. This morning, I notice that someone has been partying here again. That tends to happen. Apparently, I am not the only one who finds this spot the perfect place to hang out.

I can tell partiers visited because they have shattered their discarded beer bottles. The broken shards of glass trouble me. They contrast with the atmosphere of peace and growth. One time I threw away two dozen bottles that thoughtless rowdies had hurled down among the orange trees. The soft earth kept them from breaking.

These couple of bottles had no such luck. They have fragmented into hundreds of pieces against the hard stone. I am about to walk on when I realize that there is something I can do. I can pick the fragments up.

I have a little internal debate, listing all the reasons that I don’t have to take on this chore. Yes, it will be hard, Yes, it will take a while. Yes, I should be careful. No, I don’t HAVE to take the responsibility.

But I choose to.

I kneel and begin to tidy up. Slowly I bring my attention to the task. I begin to practice being mindful. The first challenge I notice is that I am impatient. I try to get away with only picking up the biggest pieces. I am skipping on to the next one before I have even finished with the one in my hand.

I access gentle compassion and tell myself to slow down. Take your time. You have nowhere else to be, I say. I pick up each piece slowly. I notice their shapes, their textures. Some are brown squares; others splintered into knife-like shards, miniature amber icicles. Truly, they are beautiful. I consider that people from the long-ago past would have viewed these crumbles with awe. What I conceive of as annoying trash would have been a miraculous substance.

I watch my hands. They are amazing. I feel my cupped left hand, patiently receiving each new chunk. I watch my fingers move on my right hand. I am so grateful to have full use of both of them. If I move slowly and with attention, there is very little danger of cutting myself.

I shift my awareness to my posture. I am in a crouch, knees bent. Because I am right-handed, I have a good placement with my right leg. My foot is directly under my knee and I can lean, reach, or swivel. But when I notice my left leg, it is not so happy. My knee is well ahead of my foot and it feels cramped and overworked. I would never adopt this pose in Yoga. Why should I do it here as I work?

I plant my feet firmly and straighten my legs into a hanging forward bend. This is much better. Now my body is symmetrical and I have good range of motion for my hands to work.

It takes some time, but I gather three handfuls of broken glass. When I am done, the damaged bottles are gone.

Later, someone will come back here and drink again. And they will smash their bottles. I know this.

That’s not the point. The point is that for this little while, I paid attention. The point is that I made a positive difference in the external world and myself.

The point is that I said Thank You to the park that I love, and I got gifts in return.

The Truth Is...

When I first realized that I wanted to be a writer, completely lacking any self-confidence, I learned quite a bit about how to approach writing from Natalie Goldberg’s excellent books – three about writing – Writing Down the Bones, Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life, and Thunder and Lightning- and one book – Long, Quiet Highway – about her spiritual work in the Zen Buddhist Tradition.

I learned a lot about writing. What I didn’t realize is that I also learned a lot about Zen Buddhism. Later, when suffering poured upon me, it was this foundation that helped me to accept it without submerging. I had gleaned a sense of how to sit in the emptiness, and how to hold the silence. I still fight, of course, but I continue learning.

Anyway, from time to time, I’ll post an excerpt from Goldberg’s books. I think you’ll like them:

“Loneliness

My great teacher, Katagiri Roshi, is sick now and I am very sad. I think about the six years I was with him in Minnesota. I want him to be well again for himself. I realize he has already given me everything. I do not need to be greedy and think I can get more from him. My job is to penetrate what I already know so that I live it day by day. So I am not separate from it.
When I finished writing Writing Down the Bones in Santa Fe in 1984, I went to visit Roshi in Minneapolis. I showed him the book. I said, ‘Roshi, I need a teacher again. The people in Santa Fe are crazy. They drift from one thing to another.’
He shook his head. ‘Don’t be so greedy. Writing is taking you very deep. Continue to write.’
‘But, Roshi,’ I said to him, ‘it is so lonely.’
He lifted his eyebrows. ‘Is there anything wrong with loneliness?’ he asked.
‘No, I guess not,’ I said.
Then we talked of other things. Suddenly, I interrupted him. ‘But, Roshi, you have sentenced me to such loneliness. Writing is very lonely,’ I stressed again.
‘Anything you do deeply is very lonely. There are many Zen students here, but the ones that are going deep are very lonely.’
‘Are you lonely?’ I asked him.
‘Of course,’ he answered. ‘But I do not let it toss me away. It is just loneliness.’
So there you have it. There are days I think, how did I get into this writing? But here I am. And the truth is I wanted it.”

Locked Out

(Written in January 2008)

This weekend I was planning to attend a workshop taught by my yoga teacher. The topic: Finding Out What You Really, Really Want for the New Year. It promised to be a soul-searching session of self-discovery and deep reflection where we would set intentions to achieve desired goals.

Yep, I was planning to attend. I was planning it all the way through reserving a spot, paying in advance, and waking up early on Saturday morning. Even though I had developed one of those heavy, congestion-rich colds the day before, I dragged my tired, sluggish body out of bed, dressed, and drove to the yoga studio.

To find the door – gasp – locked!

I was six minutes late. I peered inside at the empty front room; I tried the knob again. I was locked out.

Locked out of finding out what it is that I really want to do. This year. And in my life.

I tried knocking – no response. I tried calling the studio phone as I peeked through the plate glass window. The ringer must have been silenced.

I had to face the fact that I just wasn’t getting in. I stood there next to the jaunty red door, lost and forlorn on the cold, grey sidewalk and almost cried. I had been so excited. I had so eagerly hoped for my true self to be revealed under the clever guidance of my teacher. Now I was just on my own.

The thought crossed my mind that perhaps I was supposed to figure out by myself what it is that I want.

Or perhaps I am simply not yet ready to know.

I took a deep cleansing breath and weighed my options. The increasing morning sunlight warmed and comforted me. Returning to my car, I decided to use my unexpected free time to explore a meditation labyrinth at a nearby church. A big fan of a different labyrinth, I’d recently heard of this one and wanted to compare them. I found it smaller but charming. The rough stone circle nestled peacefully into a well tended garden.

I entered with quiet breath, my hands placed reverently in Namaste. Picking my way carefully along the uneven slate path, I enjoyed the brilliant green of the moss borders, the fresh kiss of the breeze. Tiny birds like clockwork toys flitted about in the low-hanging trees.

On reaching the center, I raised my face to the golden light and did round after round of Sun Salutation. Peace and calm settled over me as I moved with breath. No rushing, nowhere else I had to be. Flush with calm gratitude, I uncurled my way out of the maze.

I still don’t know what I want out of my life. But at least I wrote this.

Again

And here I am. Slightly different look, slightly different name.

More writing and yoga fun!