It is also time for a renewed commitment to my yoga practice.  I drift, sometimes, and although I teach regularly, I neglect my personal practice and fall off the spiritual wagon, if there is such a thing.  But so many things in my life have been pointing in that direction over the past few weeks that I am heeding the call and getting back at it. 

Advice for Difficult Times

(1) Allow yourself to feel the difficulty fully. Sense how it feels for someone to undergo that. (2) Then, right within the feeling, think, “This is what so many feel!” Feel it as if you were sensing, right through your own feeling, the difficulty of many others. (3) Take that feeling deep into your heart, as if taking it from the others, where the force of it cracks the shell of self-protection, releasing light from within, representing the radiance of deepest well-being, freedom, and compassion. It radiates through all the pores of your body, offering up all your well-being to others who undergo similar difficulties. (4) Finally, relax deeply through the radiance, dropping all concepts, even distinctions of “self” or “other.”

John Makransky, “On Parenting: Cartoon As Path” 

I am contemplating these words, and my thoughts are wandering.  Yesterday morning, my uncle ended up in the ICU.  He is, most likely, going to die in the next 24-48 hours.  Complications.  Of alcoholism.  There are so many mixed emotions running through me, at this moment.  He certainly did it to himself.  It was a self-induced destruction.  Was it calculated, and purposeful?  I’m not sure.  Perhaps.  Did he know what he was doing?  Yes.  He must have.  He was highly educated, and I need to at least give him credit for that.  It would be too easy to generalize and stereotype.  He knew.  He just didn’t care.  Or maybe he did, and that’s why he drank.  Because he cared, but couldn’t stop, and couldn’t bear his life.  In reality, I know he was a person just like any other, who made a conscious decision, and went with it.  Despite the people he was hurting, and despite the knowledge that there were other options available to him.

His was a life of mediocrity and disappointments, strung together one after the other, haphazardly.  He had no ambitions; if he did, he never spoke of them.  He had achieved success, at one time, but that was long ago, in another life, on a different continent.  Here, he was nobody.  Someone to whom you would not offer more than a cursory glance.  He was nothing special.  You didn’t know him, and you never will.  I didn’t really know him either.

He enjoyed simple things:  fishing, camping, spending time outdoors, gardening, grilling steaks on the barbecue, arguing about everything imagineable with anyone who would listen, offering unsolicited advice, and of course, his greatest passion of all:  alcohol.  Would you know it, if you saw him?  Maybe.  But he did not drink for the enjoyment of it.  He drank with anger, hostility and determination.  He poured the liquor down his throat viciously, draining glass after glass.  And with every drink, he became belligerent and angry.  He was a deeply unhappy man.  I don’t know what he thought of.  What he dreamed of, if anything.  I often wondered if he drank to escape despair.  But in his later years, I’m not even sure he could experience despair anymore.

Sometimes, I liked to think that the man I knew 20 years ago still existed somewhere.  In another life, in another world, he is happy.  I would catch glimpses of him, but these glimpses were so rare and so few, that they were quickly forgotten and replaced by a sense of disappointment, and dread.  I dreaded hugging him; I dreaded sitting next to him; I dreaded talking to him.  The man I remember growing up was a different man entirely from the man who has plagued all of our family get-togethers and special occasions in the past 15 years.

I don’t know for sure, but I hope that, in some small way, he was happy… or that he experienced glimpses of it, here and there.  Maybe it happened when he was surrounded by all of us, and he was re-telling the same story for the hundredth time.  His eyes would light up and he would smile and sometimes even laugh.  He would come alive with the memory of it.  The last time we were all together was two weekends ago for a belated birthday celebration, and it was business as usual.  The same stories, the same jokes.  He was drunk, of course, and insufferable.  But who cares that the only stories he had to tell were 20 years old?  Who cares that we all know them by heart?  I like to think that it brought him some sense of contentment, however fleeting, for those brief moments in time.  And I’m thinking of those moments now, as the ventilator moves air in and out of his lungs, and as his guts are hanging open, post-surgery, waiting for the final verdict.  In his medically-induced coma, I hope he’s dreaming of a better time, and maybe he’s happy.  Everyone deserves to be happy.

May all beings enjoy happiness and the root of happiness.

May we be free from suffering and the root of suffering.

May we never be separated from the great happiness devoid of suffering.

May we dwell in the great equanimity, free from passion, aggression and prejudice.

-The Four Immeasurables (Love, Compassion, Joy and Equanimity)

If nothing else, 2010 has taught me that there is nothing in this world that I cannot handle.  I have the tools, and the strength to deal with whatever setbacks may arise.  And that in itself is empowering and uplifting and smile-creating.

As far as goals, things to do, that sort of thing?  Here are a few:

• Run a 5K
• Eat more raw foods
• Say no more often
• Respond to emails/phone calls within a few days of receiving them
• Blog more
• Go back to Plum Village for the 21-day retreat this June, and go back to Spain
• Clear more clutter

There are others, of course; my list will never be complete, because I am evolving and changing, and so my goals and aspirations evolve and change.  But this is it, for now.  I have enough to work with.  And I am so very, very happy that I can start fresh right NOW in 2011.

Right.

So two weeks ago, I joined the Running Room with J.   Because  she decided that she must do something, and I decided that on my own, the Podrunner Intervals would only get me to Week 4.  Something won’t push me past that mark on my own, so maybe a group will do it.  Two weeks and a pair of $175 Asics later, I’m looking for inspiration, motivation, and reasons to keep going when all I want to do is sleep.  I have yet to wake up early enough to run at 6:00 a.m., but maybe this will help: http://www.starling-fitness.com/wp-content/uploads/busyrunner.jpg 

and this:

“I am addicted. I’ve collected footsteps before dawn. Seen places I never knew existed. Run to the moon and back. Been a rabbit for the neighborhood dogs. Obeyed the voice in my head. Let music carry me when I couldn’t. Raced against yesterday. Let the world be my witness. Measured myself in meters, kilometers, and finally character. I’ve plugged into a higher purpose. Left this world and come back changed. I am addicted. “

So maybe I haven’t been running for that long: only a few months.  And I’m certainly not yet addicted.  But so what?  I believe that, whatever you want to be, you can be.  Just call yourself by that name, and the rest will follow.  So, I am a runner. 

I am also a writer; a yoga teacher; a zen buddhist; a lover; a visionary; an idealist; a creator; an innovator; a dreamer; a mentor; a student; a creative cook; a vegetarian; a girlfriend; a best friend; a sister; a spiritual being; a child.  I am all of those things, and I will be more.

Enjoy

I keep going back, over and over again and being reminded what our yoga teachers said last October on the first night of our teacher training course: 

You are all here for a reason.  This is not an accident.  This group of people came together now, for a purpose.  Trust in the process.  It will all unfold as it needs to.   

… and so it has.  And more and more pieces are falling into place each day, in the most magical way.    I get goosebumps just thinking about it all.  And I wonder where the next piece will come from, and where it will fall, and where it will lead me, and how it will all come together.  The possibilities are endless, but perhaps it’s not all as random as it appears.  Or maybe it’s that it is random, but not senseless. 

And how wonderful that I can share this journey with so many beautiful others.

For some reason, eating my lunch and smelling the curry spices blended with the fragrance of basmati rice has got me feeling soft, and mellow.  I am conscious of every single bite of food, and of feeling the flavours blend deliciously in my mouth.  This is because I am awaiting the results of a Food Sensitivity test that I had done recently (among other unpleasantries) and I am therefore keenly aware of the possibility of soy coming back as a sensitivity.  Which would mean cutting all soy products from my diet, at least temporarily.  This would be fine, except that it eliminates about half of my diet: soymilk, tofu burgers, soy ice cream, veggie dogs, scrambled tofu, tempeh, soy pudding and a host of other things.  In which case, I will be forced to come up with creative sources of protein. 

Which should be interesting, since virtually the only things I’ve been able to eat for the past 2 months have been Indian curry, tofu and Kefir.  And bread products.  In no particular order. 

On the bright side, however, if I appreciated good food in the past, I can now appreciate being able to tolerate said food.  Big difference, there.  Funny how that distinction begins to matter more and more when your body rejects everything you put into it.

It’s true. It’s not that I need a hug. It’s that I so desperately want a hug from Amma, that lovely, radiant being who takes you with all your flaws and neuroses and offers you unconditional love and acceptance. And I feel such a sense of urgency, to meet her. But for whatever reason, maybe I’m ‘supposed’ to meet her in her native India, and not here.

And there I go again, attributing mystical explanations to simple events in an effort to make those events more bearable/ acceptable.

The never ending battle, n’est ce pas?

Oh, Amma, how I love thee.

….all very good questions for this morning, brought to you by my tired brains.

First, it’s my last week at my current job, AND I have Tuesday off because I’m going to MTL tomorrow night, to see the lovely Rufus Wainwright in concert.  So, I get to work a short week.  YES!

Second, when I finished my Yoga Teacher Training in April, I had set a goal: to find a regular teaching job by September, even if it was just private classes.  Well, I’ve gone a step further, without even meaning to.  One of my fellow graduates from the program is opening a yoga and massage studio.  And I’m going to be teaching there regularly starting two weeks from now, when the studio actually opens.  I am constantly being reminded of something that kept coming up during our training, and that is this:  Yoga is bigger than yourself.  You can make all your silly (and serious) plans, but when it comes down to it, it’s really not about you.  It’s about the spirit of sharing, of community, and of aparigraha, or non-grasping.  And the more open you are, the more good things come.  The more you let go, the more you are showered with amazing things.

I feel so humbled, and I can’t help but feel grateful, for the opportunity to embark on this new and wondrous journey.  And to be able to share something I love with so many people.  Wow!  This is it.  I know that I’ve been feeling pretty negative about the way 2010 has started, but I feel as though I now need to make a gratitude list for all the GOOD things that 2010 has brought me.  Seriously.

Good Things About 2010:

• my grandmother surviving her 3-month stint in the hospital, and still being alive today, giving me more time with her.  I love this woman more than anyone
• having completed my 200-hr Hatha Yoga Teacher Training program (with flying colours!)
• all the wonderful new friends I have made: N., R., M., E., D., A., N. and K.
• having the opportunity to attend two Buddhist retreats and have some amazing experiences
• the chance to be a regular teacher ‘on staff’ at a real yoga studio!
• my lovely Dharma sister, S. offering to make me a yoga website.  She lives in Seattle, but she feels so much closer.
• finally getting to leave my stagnant job and my overbearing new boss, and the chance to go back to the great gov department for which I worked last year.
• learning, growing, and always moving forward

Thank you, 2010, for these great first 6 months!!

OM Shanti, life is good…