kicking off my 2013 practice

i had every intention of using my recent time on the beach in california for asana practice.  i rolled up my travel mat, stuffed it in the overhead bin, propped it up in the corner of my room for 3 days, then toted it (still rolled-up) back to the airport and another overhead bin for the flight back home.  as it turned out, my inaugural 2013 practice was a return to a habit i acquired in late 2011 and had fallen away from this past fall -- friday evening hatha flow with Andreas at yogalife queen anne.

something nudged me to the studio tonight, rather than practicing on my own.  i'm glad i listened.  it felt good to build up some heat on a dark, january night.  i needed to stretch my aching calf muscles from morning runs on the sand.  most importantly, i got to be part of a community, to join my voice with others in a song for peace.  i'd forgotten how much i appreciate the simplicity of his class -- a steady focus on breath and body with the occasional, yet perfectly intentioned reminder of something more.  as if he's casually tossing out a comment about alignment, Andreas will speak to a sutra or remind us that being an advanced yogi is about being able to find ease, to back off even, in a physically challenging pose.  tonight he offered one word to guide our focus for the new year in place of resolutions - santosha.  one of the niyamas (ethics) in yoga, santosha means contentment.  what a lovely reminder as i begin 2013.  are there things i want, dreams i chase, regrets from the past?  absolutely.  but i can set those aside and dwell on my contentment.  i have a good and full life and if most of it stayed just about as it is today for the rest of my days, i would be happy.  i am happy.  santosha.

nostalgia

i suppose most people take the opportunity on New Year's Eve to reflect back on the year. tonight i find myself flooded with memories reaching way back to when i was a little girl and at the same time i'm drawing inspiration from two amazing ladies in my life - my grandmothers. last winter i welcomed 2012 surrounded by family in the Bay Area as we celebrated my mother's mother's 80th birthday. my Gram is quite dear to me, more so the older i get and appreciate her love and wisdom. how does she inspire me? a few years back i discovered the secret of her vitality. every winter she goes into a determined hybernation. she slows down, drops some of her regular activities for a few months, sleeps more...in a word, she rests. what a novel idea in our culture today! ever since she told me about this annual ritual, i have given myself permission to try and do the same, sans guilt.  it takes a special kind of strength to embrace stillness and i deeply admire Gram for modeling this way of life.

i'm welcoming 2013 on the beach of my childhood in la jolla. when i was young, my grandparents had all 10 of my cousins and 3 of my siblings and i for a few weeks in the summer to "Camp La Jolla." It was full of swimming, sun, sand and seaworld outings. i usually think fondly of my grandfather when i'm back here, but tonight i'm letting myself sit with a sense of admiration for my Baba. she was quietly behind the scenes those many years, making sure everything ran like clockwork - not an easy feat with 14 kids underfoot i'd imagine! she coordinated our much loved beach dinner parties, and so much more. i walked into our room this afternoon and there it was - the unmistakeable scent of La Jolla. i have just a drop of it at home, in the leather playing-card box my grandmother gave me a few years ago to remember this place by. when i'm feeling a bit blue, that earthy smell fills my body with sunshine and grand-love. my Baba has lived a full life. she inspires me to see the world, to live near the sea and to take care of myself.

tonight i'm raising my glass of champagne to my grandmothers -- to these strong women who guide me.  for inspiring me to live, as appropriate to seasons of life and of the year, both a bold and quiet life of love.

holiday reading - life of pi

just before winter break, a fellow grad student in my cohort recommended Life of Pi to me.  i picked up a copy at Lamplight Books while looking for Christmas gifts (it's now an annual tradition for me to visit the market for Christmas shopping and I always stop in at Lamplight). this book caught me up in its story in a way i don't often experience anymore.  when i was a child, i spent the better part of many days with my nose buried in a book.  in high school i'd often stay up well past midnight with my bed lamp on, devouring a good tale.  Life of Pi brought out that kid in me and any moment of the last week that wasn't spent baking, cooking, sharing a meal with family or wrapping gifts was a opportunity to crack open my book.  what a story!  too many wonderful ideas to share all my favorite passages, but one particularly stayed with me:

Words of divine consciousness: moral exultation; lasting feelings of elevation, elation, joy; a quickening of the moral sense, which strikes one as more important than an intellectual understanding of things; an alignment of the universe along moral lines, not intellectual ones; a realization that the founding principle of existence is what we call love, which works itself out sometimes not clearly, not immediately, nonetheless ineluctably (p. 63).

hello darkness

today is the winter solstice, and in honor of the darkest day of our year i taught my lovely 4:30pm class yesterday by candlelight.  since the summer solstice 6 months ago, i've been inspired by this blog: http://yogaseasonal.weebly.com/the-yoga-wheel-of-the-year.html AND the maitri meditation.  yesterday we used this loving-kindness meditation to explore hope and pain in our lives and relationships and release it all into the fire, practicing non-attachment.

may we have happiness, may we be free from suffering, may we know love, may we live with ease

we can so easily cling to hope and then be disappointed when life is not what we want, and at the same time we can convince ourselves that the pain we feel will never end.  the reality is that life changes, it cycles.  by letting go, we symbolically let the fire burn the stuff of our lives to ash, then blow out the candles to let it all rest in darkness, much as a seed in the soil lies dormant for the winter months.  as the light returns, we wait for something new to grow out of what is.  "healing then becomes a process of re-creation...in other words, the simple act of becoming truly aware of reality can cause miracles.  maybe we do need to take more time out and allow the shit to compost into rich soil from which new life can emerge" (from Soil and Soul, A. McIntosh).

Happy Solstice.