Tag Archives: spirituality

Dancing in the Bamboo Forest

Posted on by
1

BambooForest_FrontCover

Excerpt from my travel memoir:

In some semblance of an awareness of reality, not present in my body,
I watched as it moved from place to place, from movement to movement.
I watched myself pack a suitcase and print my boarding pass.
I watched my mind think and react as I marked time. I saw my eyes
seeing but didn’t see through them. I heard my voice speaking as if it
were someone else’s. I taught my final yoga class. I heard myself say my
goodbyes. I disconnected from relationships.

I drove to the path overlooking the Pacific Ocean and stood in
the rain. The earth smelled sweet, the plants sang, the waves beat the
rocks. I watched the world in its tumultous rhythm, its wild conversation,
while I felt nothing but the cold of the drops of water against my
numb skin.

I floated. Time was only on a clock and important only for getting
my body to arrive in my seat on an airplane at the right time to arrive
somewhere else on the planet.

I managed to get some sleep on the flight to Hong Kong. The first
leg of the trip wasn’t too bad, although in the beginning I wrestled
with some claustrophobia issues because the seats were so narrow and
close together. It was the craziest feeling landing in Hong Kong and
knowing I was halfway around the world. Airplanes still truly amaze
me. I walked around the airport and stared out the giant glass walls at
the island. Ships and boats of all sizes and purposes floated along the
water in front of me, silhouetted against the setting sun. The view was
serene and still like a painting, an odd trick when reality was a bustling
motion of constant activity.

Getting back on the plane after those 15 hours (with only an hour
break) knowing I still had many hours ahead of me was not easy. Finally,
there was sun out the window–between cloud layers as we gained
altitude, the sun shot out in millions of light pink beams, which were
filtered through the clouds down to the sparkling water below like
diamonds on the waves.

We landed in Singapore and after over 20 hours of travel, I had to
get out of the airport. The airport offered a free shuttle to downtown,
a map, a ride back to the airport, and a complimentary shower at the
airport spa. I took them up on all of it.

I stepped out of the cool airport into a great hot, sticky, sweaty climate.
Unfortunately, I had to carry my yoga mat and a backpack full of
books, wearing sweatpants and heavy sneakers. Singapore is quite a bustling
city with interesting European colonial architecture mixed with
Chinese architecture. A metropolis, it is the definition of cosmopolitan. …

…Walking on a major boulevard in the heart of Singapore, I came
across old, cracked stone steps that led up into a shroud of trees. I followed.
The shady path led me farther and farther until I reached the
top of a small hill. I had stumbled upon Fort Canning Park. As I wandered
around old stone buildings, I was drawn to the spaces between
and the trees that inhabited them. I stood in awe under these amazing
ancient, royal trees that held the secrets of the past. The most magnificent
was the Rain Tree, named so because its leaves curl up when
it’s going to rain. A giant palm frond covered the entire side of a small
greenhouse; I imagined living in a house with walls made of leaves. It
was cooler in the park and quieter. I was alone. …

…Singapore reminded me how much I love to travel and experience
the vastness and interconnectedness of the world. To breathe in an air
filled with the breath of different people. To see the same smiles broaden
around the world. To hear the bustle of life in other languages. To
smell and taste plants and animals growing from a unique soil and sea.

I felt so free in a new land far from everyone I knew, far from my life, far from who and what reinforced a perception of me that didn’t feel true. The blur was replaced with clarity, the dream suddenly faded into sharp reality. The thread of my life had not been broken; it continued in its interweaving trajectory creating the web of my existence, a creation seemingly tangled but that I know in its entirety is beautiful.

Excerpt from my book launching this Thursday November 13th at the Integral Yoga Institute New York at 7pm.

http://iyiny.org/workshops-and-events/calendar/book-signing-5643/

Buy your copy of Dancing in the Bamboo Forest here!

Beauty resonates inside

Posted on by
1

sculpture

Walking along the Hudson River with a dear and beautiful person, I looked out at the choppy water and remembered I live on an island. It’s so easy to forget in NYC that we are actually surrounded by nature and its beauty. My friend stopped and pointed, “What’s that?” We left the path for the deep green grass to puzzle over a large silver sphere with wire mesh on one side and revolving reflective discs inside.

“Hm,” I said eloquently. “Interesting.”

We continued our walk until we spied another large reflective silver piece hidden amongst the greenery. This one was a tall pole with twisting spirals elevated above us dancing in the wind, glinting in the bright sun, flashing like stars.

Our walk became a gallery visit with pieces of art jumping out at us here and there. We stopped to visit each one embracing this unexpected display.

One reminded me of a school of shiny silver sardines flitting in unison through the blue of the sky. Changing direction on a dime at the whim of the wind. Another seemed to fly this way and that – haphazard bats playing, chasing, and chirping as they appeared to swoop through the air while fixed in one spot. My favorite was of two tall lanky dancers – curved long bars moving, turning, waving. They bent in toward each other in an embrace and then revolved away into dissonance to only move again into harmony of shape. Each gust of wind formed a new interaction.

I realized how little space there was in my life for art – something that used to be more prominent – one of the reason that I moved to NYC. Art, to me, is something that moves you, emotionally. It is hugely subjective.

Those dancers moved me.

There is something in art that enlivens a beauty inside us.

The renowned yogi BKS Iyengar explored art and its connection to the spiritual:

“Art uses nature’s beauty and transcends it. It is a communication of the feelings of the artist, an expression of inner awakenings and experiences. Its development depends on the need it fulfils and on the vision of the artist. Its purpose is to be aesthetic, uplifting, beautiful, outstanding, educative and clear. Its ultimate goal is divinity, which the artist seeks to transmit to each individual and to society.”[i]

That beauty that resonates inside us is connected to something deeper – our inner self.  Art can be a path to experiencing our true selves or resonating with that energy bringing a sense of peace or joy or that feeling of being outside of ourselves for a moment.

Thank you NYC for reminding me why I live here and providing a moment of beauty, wonder, and joy.

Thank you to the artist George Sherwood and his work: Waves and Particles

Hudson River Park – Kinetic sculpture – http://www.hudsonriverpark.org/news-and-updates/waves-and-particles-an-installation-of-six-kinetic-sculptures-by-george-she

[i] Iyengar, BKS, The Art of Yoga, Harper Collins Publishers, New Delhi, 1993, p6.

Then I can breathe

Posted on by
3

giant-redwood-trees-in-california

“Meditation is the art of using one kind of energy to transform another. The instant the mother holds her child, the child feels the energy of love and comfort and begins to feel relief. Even if the cause of discomfort is still present, being held in mindfulness is enough to provide some relief.” Thich Nhat Hanh*

This is what yoga gives me. Whatever is troubling me, however difficult life seems – I can take some breaths, still my mind even just for a moment, and feel a small sense of relief. This allows me to open again to the world and the hurdles that must be jumped.

When I feel lost, I realize I haven’t prioritized time for this practice that at times is my life line. It’s too easy to be too busy.

Stress takes mindfulness and throws it out the window.

Out the window is where I stare longing to be in nature. I long to stand among ancient redwoods and hear nothing but the sound of growth. Smell nothing but the earth. Feel nothing but peace.

The slowness of the forest calms my frenetic mind, my sense of time passing too quickly, and the idea that my little life is somehow significant when in the grand scheme of things I am just a tiny sapling amongst a forest of giants.

My relief is being held in the embrace of nature. Then I can breathe.

*Thich Nhat Hanh, Teachings on Love, p43.

Photo: http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=71804&picture=giant-redwood-trees-in-california

Loopy Love

Posted on by
3

BMMiami2013B&W2

As my son squealed with excitement and wriggled in a happy dance/hopping session shouting, “I’m three years old! I’m three years old!” I smiled the biggest smile at how much pure, sweet joy a little person can feel. That feeling is a distant memory, but having a child reminds me it exists and a little spark of it flashed in my own eyes.

And then, I told him he had a birthday present to open. When the box was revealed his eyes grew big, his lips pursed, and he became serious about his excitement. Whenever something awesome happens (like eating chocolate fudge for the first time) he gets very focused.

“Open the box.” He instructs.
I do as I’m told.

“Take out the pieces. Let’s do it together.” His voice starts to tremble.

I assembled the hot wheels launcher, track, and loop, showed him how it worked, and stood back. The first time the little car shot out, looped upside down, and flew across the room he laughed, ran after the car, and shouted, “Again!” There is nothing like hearing your child laugh.

The first year with my son was unimaginably hard. As I described the level of sacrifice that left me barely standing and a shadow of myself to a wonderful spiritual guide, he said, “sounds like this is your karma yoga.” Selfless service. I was losing my self and certainly my whole life had become about serving another – my son. He opened my eyes to seeing the sacrifice as a beautiful thing.

It’s been a challenge, trying to continue to see the hardship as joy, but a very important practice as the years go by and hardships mount one on top of the other. I continue to struggle to see the giving as selfless as my ego wants to engage in the world and be “me” again. I give and I give because I am incapable of doing anything else. I love, therefore I give.

I thank motherhood for giving me the experience of feeling the deepest, most powerful, even overwhelming love on the planet – a love unlike any other. A love that holds great responsibility and never ends.

I thank motherhood for what it has taught me about my own mother and the deep sacrifices she has made for her children, the suffering she endured, and the ability she has to be joyful in it and embrace reality, moving forward as positively as she can.

I thank my mother for mothering me forever, through it all, and still on my own son’s third birthday.

I thank my son for inspiring me and for loving me with the purest, sweetest, cuddly wuddly love.

Muddling peace

Posted on by
7

pondybeach

Over the past few weeks I have been profoundly affected by quotes that have come to me that speak so perfectly to what I am going through. Deep reminders . One came to my email, one was in a newsletter, and one was a quote I used in my own writing that I came across as I was editing. They brought me to tears.

It is so hard to stay strong. Each day is a struggle. Even through the tears, it is so comforting to feel some guidance, however difficult that guidance is to actually follow it provides a clearer path.

Swami Satchidananda has always come to me in times of uncertainty. When I returned to New York from India, I was bouncing around between different yoga studios, looking up different teachers and schools of yoga. I was reading books from many different gurus and thinking I wanted to find someone in New York. I sat on the subway one day, having just been turned away from a particular yoga center that didn’t want to honor a free class card a friend had given me and didn’t seem interested in me attending their programs, disappointed and wondering where to turn, when I happened to glance down at the magazine the person sitting next to me was reading. Looking up at me was Swami Satchidananda with a big smile. I laughed at myself. Of course.

A quote by Swami Satchidananda arrived in my email about allowing ourselves to be supported by sangha–a spiritual community. We can’t get through life’s difficulties alone. We shouldn’t even try. Family, friends, and community are there to help, to guide, to support, to be a shoulder to cry on, to offer a smile and comforting voice. Allowing others to give is giving them a gift. Giving is joy. I am so thankful for the help those around me have offered, in every tiny way. Just having someone say they are thinking about me while I navigate stormy waters, helps steer me into a calm harbor.

A man on the sidewalk greeted me as I walked by and said, “It’s nice to see you out today.” And I thought–it’s nice to be out in the world today, it’s nice to be seen, to get outside of the jumbled mess of existence in my head.

A recent newsletter from Integral Yoga reminded me to “clean up my mind”–to stop allowing negative thoughts, blaming, anger to dirty my mind. When I can clean my mind then I will have a clean heart and be at peace.

Editing my book, I read a passage I had written about dealing with hardship:

The life of a yogi is to prepare the self in times of stability to pass through times of disquiet with peace. It’s a preventative care strategy. It’s a long-term plan of dedicated, continuous work. The waves of life move and break unceasingly–whether we tumble under, get pummeled, get swept into unknown regions, or ride them with a smile is up to us. Staying afloat on the surface, not engaging, not fighting against the current, remaining only a witness to the tide is the practice of yoga. Swami Satchidananda says:

If you want to be peaceful always, identify yourself as the ever-peaceful witness within. “I am that eternal witness. I am watching everything that’s happening in the body and mind.” That is the supreme way of maintaining your peace. If you can’t get to the state of identifying yourself as that eternal witness, simply say, “I am not all these things. I’m not the mind, not the ego, not the senses, not the intelligence. I simply watch them. I am the seer, I just see.”

These are some of my recent muddled thoughts as I search for balance and peace.

We will be free

Posted on by
2

ImageImageImage

“According to the Yogic system, the entire body changes in a period of twelve years; in other words, you do not have even one cell that was there twelve years ago.”1 (Satchidananda)

That statement kind of blew my mind and I started thinking about the stages of my life in twelve year increments. Was I the same person in each stage?

It does seem like I went through major changes at 12, 24, and 36. I could see each age as the beginning of a new era in my life. At 12 I quit ballet and piano, joined a children’s theatre group, and changed schools to change who I was, who my friends were, and start fresh in a new environment. At 24 I got my first permanent job in NYC, was in my first long term relationship, and felt, to my dismay, that I had really entered the adult world. At 36 I had my son – enough said.

But I still feel essentially like the same person. My core personality hasn’t changed although other aspects have come and gone depending on my life situation, location, job, relationship, or chronic illness and how I worked through them. Yoga helped re-form parts of myself. Travel helped open my eyes to seeing the world and people in new ways.

But that’s all my self – not my Self.

Image

Swami Satchidananda was talking about understanding the difference between what is permanent (Self) and what is impermanent (self). Who we really are – our soul – is permanent. Our impermanent self is generally how we define ourselves – by our body, job, clothes, names, home, desires, the list goes on endlessly. If we can understand and truly know the difference through vigilant discernment then we will no longer feel unhappiness. Change won’t affect us. There will be no disappointments, no fears, no heartache.

We will be free.

This freedom is the result of yoga practice. Lots and lots and lots of practice. Buckle up, it might take lifetimes…

 

 

1 Satchidanada, Swami, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali/translation and commentary by Swami Satchidananda, Integral Yoga Publications, Yogaville, 1990, p 118 (Book 2 Sutra 26)

Happy times

Posted on by
2

bee-on-yellow-flower2

“I feel happy and they all feel happy being there, so they make me happy and I make them happy. We just spend a little happy time together, that’s all.”1 That’s how Swami Satchidananda describes giving a dharma talk, sharing yoga, and essentially – what yoga is. Happy times.

Last week I subbed a Restorative Yoga class. Teaching restored my own energy, my sense of self, my connection with the Divine. The most beautiful thing about teaching for me is feeling peace and joy resonating from the students. That’s the whole point to me. And in turn I receive and emit that energy as well.

While teaching may seem like giving (and it is) I get so much in return that I’m thankful for the opportunity to serve even when it feels like I have nothing more to give. Teaching nourishes me, lets me practice, and reconnects me to what is important.

As a mom my priority is always my son but lately I’ve been running on empty. The years of sacrifice and giving have drained me and even my son recognizes that I’m not the same person. “I have two mommies, is the other one coming tomorrow?” He may mean something completely different in his 2 ¾ year old mind – but it breaks my heart anyway.

I took the time this weekend to be alone, to be quiet, to be slow. I smelled the newly sprung flowers, lay in the sunshine and stared up at puffy clouds forming and reforming in the bright blue sky above. Those moments, while short in the big picture, melted away long held tension. I felt like me for a moment again.

I watched bees discover blossoms and nestle inside. Bees take nectar for themselves and in turn give pollen and help create more flowers, more nectar, and more life. Taking enough to keep yourself going is necessary when it prepares you to have more to give. Sometimes we forget that we need to take sometimes, we need to take care of ourselves in order to take care of others, we need some nectar to sweeten our lives in order to create more sweetness in the world.

Yoga gives me a little happy time to remember that sweetness.

1 Satchidananda, Swami, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali/translation and commentary by Swami Satchidananda, Integral Yoga Publications, Yogaville, 1990. Book 1 Sutra 15

Overwhelming love

Posted on by
4

I waited in a long snaking line in a cavernous Starbucks deciding which caffeinated elixir to shock my body with when I noticed how amazingly different each person in line looked from each other. Sure, it’s New York City – I expect diversity, I’m used to diversity. But what really struck me was feeling in an instant the vastness of each person as an individual with deep and complicated lives that fill up massive amounts of space and time in the world.

And that we all exist in that massiveness at the same time.  I imagined standing amongst dense brush, the city of insects, covered in spider webs as thick as cotton, each web with one little spider in the center. The webs overlapped but were created and existed separately. We are all the centers of our own webs of contacts, connections, conversations, a greater network.

Nearly everyone in line had their head bent down, eyes glued to their hand held device, tapping or scrolling. Only the one family, the one couple, and one older gentleman were not mentally in another place.

As I looked at everyone not connecting to those around them I suddenly felt connected to all of them and a sudden swelling of love, a great acceptance and empathy, overwhelmed me. All these beautiful souls walking, or texting, or surfing through the world. My heart went out to all of them and everyone around us.

Tears came to my eyes at the strength of the love, my heart pounded, I felt shaky.

It didn’t matter that not one person looked up at me or noticed me in any way. We were all there together and in the world together. We are all just little bits of the same big mass, the same big network of humans in a larger network of energy that embraces us all.

We are all the same. If only we could feel that all the time. I knew being tapped into that love would be a fleeting experience so I let myself swim around in it while it was there. I looked at each person and loved them.

The love was an inner vibration, a humming, an echo of the feeling produced by chanting “Om.” Om is the infinite vibration that is always around us and within us; it is the sound of the Divine; it is the energy of love. Chanting Om brings us into harmony with the infinite. Beyond the sounds of Om is the unstruck sound – anahata – a sound that exists without anything producing it. (Book 1 Sutra 27)* In the chakra system anahata is the heart chakra. Its inner state is compassion and love. This love is the kind of love felt without attachment or self.

Sometimes we are lucky enough to feel love’s immensity for a moment, maybe longer. It’s important to nurture the glimpses we get of the greater reality – of the Divine – and remember the experience when we feel lost or disconnected. Love is always there.

 

*Swami Satchidananda discusses the four stages of Om in this sutra in his translation and commentary of the Yoga Sutras.

Replace the negative with the positive

Posted on by
3

Image

Pratipaksha bhavana (Book 2 Sutra 33) is the practice of replacing negative thoughts with positive ones. Negative thoughts are a kind of blame game – we can use them as an excuse, a justification, a defense against letting in anything unknown, challenging, or scary. “This happened because she is a terrible person. I can’t do this because the system is evil. It’s not my fault, this culture is too unfair.”

Feeding negative thoughts feeds hatred and builds a wall against interaction and exchange. We do this with ourselves as well, focusing on what’s wrong with us and feeding those insecurities and fears.

If we feed the positive, we feed openness. By feeding our own wonderful qualities we help them grow.

It sounds so simple to stop a thought and either just let it go or replace it with an opposite thought. But in practice it’s very difficult. I don’t even realize where my mind has gone when I am in the middle of an internal rant until I am well invested in the negative emotion. If I’m lucky I realize what I’m doing and then can try to change what’s going on in my head. Then I have to be vigilant about not watering the negative seeds I planted (they will still try to survive) and try to plant positive seeds instead.

If making a 180 isn’t possible, especially in the moment, then change what you are doing or where you are. Look at or listen to something that makes you happy, peaceful, at ease. Remove yourself from the situation or person over which you are filling yourself with negativity.

Try to think of the hurt you are causing, not just in yourself, but in the energy you are putting out into the world, into the situation you are in, or toward the person you are with. These thoughts lead to actions that take the negativity from energy to something tangible. How much hurt are you causing now?

I sometimes have days where I stew in negativity.

I’m taking the subway with my son in a stroller and no one makes room on the train so we can get on, so we have to wait for the next one, or the next one. “Jerks.” Or – my son loves to watch the trains come and go so now we get to watch more than one. Or – instead of rushing, now I have a few extra minutes to breathe and chat with my son and lower my anxiety level.

I’m carrying my son up the subway stairs in a stroller because there is no elevator in the station. “Jerks.” Or – what a great opportunity to use my strength and show my son what fortitude is. Or – the New York city subway system is a monster and the MTA is doing their best to address all the issues, it is a near impossible task with the infrastructure they are working with.

I’m pushing a stroller awkwardly into a building and someone closes the door right into us. “Jerk.” Or – maybe he was just blissfully unaware and had no idea what just happened, it was an accident. Or – maybe he was overwhelmed with something difficult in his life and he didn’t have one ounce of energy left to give and I should feel compassion rather than antipathy for him.

And then my son has an irrational but completely normal toddler melt down. If I had stuck with the “jerks” all day I wouldn’t have any patience or softness left to give my son what he needs. I know this from experience. But when I really try and practice pratipaksha bhavana I feed my inner strength that allows me to keep going with a steady gaze, a calm breath, and a smile. And then I can project that positivity back into the world.

Gently down the stream

Posted on by
6

GangaIn The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Swami Satchidananda says, “The entire world is your own projection.”  What a powerful idea. What does he mean? We choose to give meaning to things, to people, to places and we choose what particular meaning to give them. We then react in response to those meanings. I lost an inexpensive ring I had bought for myself – I had given the ring the power of being a reminder to me of the spiritual path. I loved to look at the ring and remember where I was and how I felt when I bought it. Then I lost it. I was upset, it was meaningful to me and irreplaceable.

But, did I lose the spiritual path? Was that reminder in a physical object more powerful than the practice itself? No. I had given that little piece of metal power but it in itself was just a little piece of metal. I let it go and the upset followed.

Being able to control how the world affects you is the key to peace.  Knowing the difference between your true self and your affected self is yoga.

“Yogas chitta vritti nirodhah – The restraint of the modifications of the mind-stuff is Yoga.” Practicing yoga is practicing letting go. Our minds jump around and react constantly – stilling, restraining the mind, letting go of the reactions, the attachments, and just being brings peace.

How we react to the world around us is what creates the world around us. But it is such a difficult practice to become aware of our reactions, to control them, and to let them go. Peace is not easy to achieve.

My two-year old son seems to have mastered letting go in mid cry and turning his frown upside down and laughing at it all. He sang to me: “Row, row, row your boat gently on the lake. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life’s a piece of cake.” Life’s a piece of cake mommy, why are you making it so hard?

Then he changed it up to: “Row, row, row your boat on a on a mouth. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily life’s a piece of mouth.” He thought that was supremely hilarious and laughed heartily. I have to give it to him for being creative and trying to make a joke – but mostly I admire his ability to laugh. He reminds me every day to laugh. Life really can be laughable if you let yourself see it that way.

Row gently and know none of it is real. It’s amazing how hard it can be to laugh, to let go of attachments, to believe it is all just a dream. It’s all a creation of our minds. Everything we hold onto is ultimately unimportant. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have people or things in our lives but we should try to be in control of how our mind reacts, how we attach, how we project meaning and expectations onto them. It must be easier if you become a monk…

But I will row on and practice.

Quotes from Satchidananda, Swami, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali/translation and commentary by Swami Satchidananda, Integral Yoga Publications, Yogaville, 1990.