Dharma, A Vehicle to Know the World

Dharma is a path of action, one that is embedded in the cells of your body.  My dharma is writing.  I have other gifts, other talents.  I teach yoga.  I am life coach.  I use the tools of yoga, my intuition and my life experience to help others over come tough obstacles.  I’s pretty good at.  At least that is the feed back I get from my clients.  But the one thing I love more than any other is writing.  When I write I know I am connecting to a part of me that lives in the very morrow of my being.  I am writing.  It is me.

In his book, The Great Work of Your Life, Stephen Cope cites the Bhagavad Gita as the source of all teachings about Dharma, about or sacred duty.  He states that the Gita makes it clear that our biggest obstacle, the thing that separates most from ourselves and our dharma is self-doubt.  He tells us that the yoga tradition has called doubt, “the invisible affliction.”  He goes on to say, “We do not suspect the was in which doubt keeps us paralyzed.”

I spent 61 years of life doubting that I was a writer.  This is the face of every teacher I had telling me I had a gift for writing, for expression, for putting ideas together, and for understanding the human condition.  So what, I thought.  I need to make money.  Only famous writers make money and I will never be famous.  Oh, I wrote off and on throughout my life, usually at times when I felt most lost, most at risk, divorce, abortions, depression, child-bearing and rearing.  But I never sustained a steady practice.  I always gave up and got a job and boy did I have some awful jobs.  I was a clerk at Blockbuster.  I waited tables.  I worked for catering companies serving food at other people’s parties and taking home the left overs.  I worked as a clerk in a chauvinistic law firm.  I ran a cheese shop.  I sold kitchen equipment.  I worked for an orthodontist digging around in the grungy mouths of kids with braces who did not brush their teeth.  I worked in theatre as a props manager, a publicist, and a box office manager.

I did have one job I absolutely loved.  I worked for the man who is now my husband.  He opened and operated one of the first natural food stores in the mid-south, Squash Blossom Natural foods.  I was either his second or third employee and I worked for him pretty consistently for over 8 years.  People thought we were married and that we ran the store together, which we did, run the store, but we were not married, to each other.  Anyway, it was a great job.  I loved it until I could not do it any more.  Jimmy and I had an affair and as hard as we tried we could not keep our lives on track.  He remarried a woman who hated me and banned me from the store, and I went back to my husband and children.  For the longest time I believed I would never again have meaningful work.  Had I known then about Dharma, I would have told you that mine had been stolen from me.  I was wrong.

I opened a yoga studio in 2001.  All the great teachers came, Rodney Yee, Cyndi Lee, Richard Freeman, Shiva Rea, Doug Keller, Rod Stryker, and others less well-known.

Midtown Yoga was and still is a gathering place in the heart of midtown Memphis.  Great teachers, excellent classes, very successful.  I hated it. I was miserable the entire time I ran the studio.  I worked too hard, worried too much, struggled to be the very best leader I could be, but I was not cut out for the job.  I made money, the studio did extremely well, but I suffered and suffered and suffered until finally I was diagnosed with breast cancer.  A lumpectomy, radiation and recovery required that I give up some things, but I did not quit working.  Anyway, that was then, this is now.  I sold the business in January, 2013.  What a relief.  I tried for so long to make something that I was really good at my dharma.  The Bhagavad Gita talks about doing that.  Pretty much says it is better to fail at your own dharma than to succeed at the dharma of someone else.   Each of us is unique in that way.  We each have a destiny, gift to give.  Mine is writing.  I see that now.  How do I know?

I know writing is my dharma because 1. I embrace it fully without reservation.  No more doubt.  2. Writing consumes me. I am utterly committed to this work.  I will never give up.  I am passionate about writing therefore, for the first time, I am passionate about living.  3. I have given up being famous or even successful.  I write because I must.  I have no idea where writing will ultimately take me, but I am going regardless.  4.  Because writing, my words, my inspirations, the energy I have to write all come from my Soul.  When words and ideas present themselves to me, I sit down and write.  I never know where it will go.  I love that about writing.  It is always an adventure.

My dharma, your dharma. . . . .it all boils down to the same thing and here I must, once again quote Stephen Cope, who I consider to be one of the world’s best writers. Of dharma he says this:

“Dharma eventually takes on  a life of its own.  It does things spontaneously that you had no reason to expect. It begins to drill down into the deepest parts of your mind.  Soon you begin to see that this dharma is not just any old stick of bamboo.  It is a magic wand.  A wish-fulfilling wand.  It is a way to know – to interact with, to be in relationship with – the deepest parts of yourself.  It is a vehicle to know the world.”

Writing is the vehicle through which I know the world.  What is yours?  Do not squander you life.

March 6-One year, One day at a time – flavor

Have you ever noticed the flavor of day, you know like lime, a little fizzle, but to poured too long ago and now about to go flat.  Lime?  or maybe charcoal, a little bitter and on the peppery side, the kind of day that itches for something exciting to happen.  Thank kind of day.  Then there is the flavor of apple, juicy sweet with a tang that hits you right at the back of the throat, like the lie that lingers on the tip of the tongue , yet unspoken.

None of the latter describe the day I had today.  Gray, very gray to start. Oppressively gray, overcast as they say, heavy.  I did not want to get out of bed.  My body felt dense, lethargic, tamasic, immobilized by total inertia.  Really, I felt so incredibly grounded.  I never feel that connected to the earth.  Definitely an heretofore unknown experience.  So intently aware of each breath, each moment as it moved into the next.  I did not want to be disturbed.  Coffee helped, a little.  Writing definitely gave way to space and freedom from entombment.  Nothing like starting the day trying to get out of a sarcophagus.

Taught a private lesson at 8:30.  Good, I did a good job, felt satisfied by all elements of the class I taught.  On to the next private client.  It too went very well as did my 12:30 private lesson and the one I taught at 4:00 pm.  I am feeling deeply connected to my intuition, my knowledge and all the tools I have gathered along the way.  So much gratitude for all the  wonderful, giving, authentic teachers who have crossed my path.  Huh.  I just realized they all had one thing in common. Never really knew why or what it was that drew me to each one of my teachers, but now I do, integrity, self-knowledge, sacrifice and surrender.  Lou Hoyt, Felicity Green, Rodney Yee, Cyndi Lee, Rod Stryker and Roshi Joan Halifax all exemplify authenticity.

These are the men and women who taught me how to taste the flavor of my life.  Today’s flavor?  Dark chocolate whip with peppermint pieces and caramel chunks. blended into a creamy mocha frappe and topped with dried blueberries.  Oh Yeah.

Thank you too to my husband who out did himself making curried butternut squash soup and grilled steel head trout with New Orléans seasoning.  I am still savoring the bits that caught between my teeth, a delicious meal.

To bed or to read.   Not sure which.  Good night.

March 2-One Year, One Day at a Time – So Much

So much for which I have gratitude.  I taught a great workshop today.  Everything that I know came together and moved through me in a way I know helped the people who came.  Thank you Rod Stryker for all the knowledge you have shared with me and in particular for The Four Desires.  I was able to take 19 people through a mini version of the book helping them to find out their dharma code, vikalpa and sankalpa.  We did yoga nidra to plant the seeds of the sankalpa and I sent them on their way with the maha mritrynjaya mantras as another tool to put in their tool boxes.  What a rewarding experience.  I hope I helped my students learn more about themselves and their destiny.

Jimmy cooked a great pot of chili, roasted asparagus and I made gluten-free cornbread.

We had a wonderful meal.   So grateful because tomorrow I will be fasting in preparation for a colonoscopy at 8:00 am Tuesday morning.   Never had one of these before.   Cannot say that I am excited about not eating for 24 hours or about having to drink a gallon of whatever it is to clean me out or for being idle on Tuesday while I recover.  Hopefully there will be no surprises.

Jimmy is watching the Oscars.

For some reason I am not interested.  We have been watching House of Cards, the Netflix original series with Kevin Spacey.  What a remarkable show.  I would watch another episode of that but think I will pass on the Oscars.  Who cares?

Hopefully the rain which is now falling will not, as predicted, turn into sleet, ice and then snow.  I really want to have my day with Amelia tomorrow.  Time will tell.  So much for today.  Life is good.

March 1, One Year, One Day at a Time – Courage to Change

What a great day.  Spent the morning writing haiku and preparing for the workshop I am teaching at Midtown Yoga on Sunday, March 2 – Weight Control (control is not really the right word) thru yoga and diet.  I am so excited about gather a group of people who want to talk openly about food, weight, body image, societal norms and pressures and all the other things that go into separating us from ourselves and our bodies.  Food is not the enemy.  It is simply the fuel our bodies need to function at an optimum level of efficiency.
We are not defective.  Mary Oliver puts it so beautifully in her poem, Wild Geese.

Wild Geese

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 your 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.

I wish there was a magic spell I could cast over all those who will attend the workshop, one that would give them the courage they need to change.  I saw this quote on Facebook today.  Joe Somodi posted it.  Perfect for the workshop.

So true.  In his book The Four Desires, my teacher, Rod Stryker says, “the single hardest yoga practice is the same for everyone.  It is called change.  It is challenging to create and maintain a new trajectory.  Courage is almost always a necessary ingredient of change.  Fulfilling your potential and achieving your destiny demand that at some point you stand on your own and become your own leader.”  So true.  I have learned that the hard way, by trying for years to be what I thought I should be, what I believed others wanted me to be.  Never worked.  I was miserable, bulimic, alcoholic, depressed, suicidal, mean, anxious, angry, paranoid and unskillful.  NO more.

I know who I am.  I am charisma and I bring healing light to the world.  I am an incredible mother and grand mother.  I am a loving and sexy wife.  I am a damned good writer and I am getting better every day.  I am not here on this earth to please others, I am here to live out my dharma and by doing so I contribute to the well-being of the planet and everyone on it.  I am light.  I am love.  I am joy.  So are you.

Eat, Sleep, Poop – Motivation?

Miss my morning latte.  My sweet husbands gets up and says, “I’ll let you know when the coffee is ready.”  He leans over to kiss me and leaves the room.  I roll over and catch a few more minutes of sleep.  Sometimes I get up.  Just like that.  I rise up, put on my robe and slippers and head to the bathroom.  Rod Stryker said, “Life is the movement from the bedroom, to the bathroom, to the kitchen, to the bathroom and back to the bed.” Pretty much sums it up.  We eat, poop and sleep, something like that.

So what motivates us to fill the time in between sleeping, eating and defecating? Even our ancestors, the cave men, had time on their hands otherwise we would not have seen the evolution of technology over the centuries.  They created tools that moved us from the Stone Age into Bronze Age and forward to the Iron each of which is distinguished by the development of technology.  What motivated them to sit down and play with the materials they had at hand, to create something from seemingly nothing?  Isn’t that what we as writers do every time we sit down at our computers or our notebooks?

As a yoga teacher, I have prepared for classes in a multitude of ways.  I have written out class plans some based on the anatomy of the practice, others on philosophical themes, sutras, ancient teachings, mantras, still others on a what we in the yoga world call a “peak” poses, sequencing the class specifically to help the students successfully do a more challenging pose like ashtavakrasana.

What I have found is that I do my best teaching with no plan at all.  If I do my personal asana practice, if I meditate, and empty my cup coming to the studio with an open mind and open heart, the teachings flow through me.  I sit with the students as class begins, eyes closed, breathing and I silently say, “Please let what I teach tonight be what these students need at this time.”  And it works.  I am a channel, a portal, I disseminate and create from what I know, what I have learned and what lies beyond understanding.

So do you suppose the cave man sat down one day at the fire and said to himself, “I need to  figure out a better way to get wood for my fire.  I have learned how to make fire by placing a leaf in the sun, by rubbing two sticks together, but now I need more wood to make a bigger, longer lasting fire.”  He had to be curious.  He had to recognize a need and believe that there was a solution.  He trusted his instincts.  He was observant.  In searching for materials to make a tool for wood cutting, this man or woman had to understand what a sharp object was and how it could be used.  Perhaps he started with a rough edged rock binding it to a sturdy stick with a vine.  “Looks pretty good,” he thinks.  He walks to the nearest tree and tries to chop off a limb.  The tree is alive so the branch is fibrous.  He cannot easily cut through it.   When he does manage to get it down,he throws it into his fire only to discover that a green limb does not burn well.  It smokes and smolders and gives off little heat.  Now what?  He remembers the wood he has used he collected off the ground.  It is dead wood.  Light bulb!  “I need to find a dead tree and chop branches off of it.”  And so it goes.  Bigger tools for bigger jobs, using fire to make more durable materials out of what he finds.  Bonding one thing to another, melting, crafting, making molds, until one day there is bronze and now this man who started with nothing can break rock and build specific structures shaped for his particular needs.  When his needs are met, he becomes more creative, making things of beauty, embellishing what he makes with other found objects, pieces of shiny rock…. Now he has jewelry to wear and to offer in trade for things others have learned to make.

Whole communities are established out of the need for shelter and food and as men and women come together they share ideas.  The ability to create and build is enhanced by common interests, needs and the innate desire to be creative, to ornament, decorate and beautify everyday objects.  Out of nothing comes a work of art, an expression of the soul’s desire to expand beyond its limits.  This is the basic principle of Tantric Yoga.  All of life longs to thrive, has the potential to overcome obstacles, to stretch beyond limitations, to pulse energetically with the wave of creation referred to in Tantra as Spanda.  In the ancient language of Sanskrit, the definition of Spanda is the vibration, the creative pulsation of the universe; the sacred vibration that exists within us.  Spanda is a quivering, a palpitation, a throbbing, a quickening that moves us from one place to a better place, to a place where we understand more, where we innovate, we are more capable of using our innate gifts to create something out of seemingly nothing.

Words on a page, the discovery of quarks, telescopes to see beyond the stars, satellites that float in space able to track our every move, cell phones, and computers, all created in the space between the time we eat, sleep and poop. It all started with a stick and a rock or maybe a leaf and two sticks.  Pretty cool.

The Waiting Game

Sitting in a white arm-chair facing the windows, computer in lap, my PJ bottoms on, waiting for Kathy and Kelly to arrive.  Wonderful morning except for the young man who is painting the porch listening to really loud Mexican music.  In the wise words of Amelia Cook, “No like it.” Jimmy made an outstanding pot of coffee. I wrote a morning post. We walked to and ate breakfast at Surrey, scrambled eggs with jalapenos, tomatoes, onions, cilantro and chorizo, a side of hash browns and homemade oatmeal cooked in whole milk.  Yummy.

We walked back along Magazine Street where I made a small purchase at the Aveda Store.  Finished up with a bike ride to the French Quarter and a light lunch at Whole Foods.

Waiting.  We are awaiting their arrival.  I had to finally ask the workman to turn down his music.  I think he turned it completely off.  Sun pouring in through the plantation shudders.  Not a bad place to sit and wait.  We are waiting.  When they arrive we will head out again to cycle the New Orleans Levee Top Trail.  It originates at Audubon Park and runs 22 miles along the east bank of the Mississippi.  Sounds like fun.  I may have to come back and nap before dinner.  Feeling a little fatigued already.

We are still waiting.  Waiting for Kathy and Kelly.  I am going to keep writing until they arrive.  What shall I talk about next?  Is that their car I hear?  We wait.  I wait.  Playing the waiting game.  Waiting for Godot.  Waiting for Godot is a play by Samuel Beckett in which two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait endlessly and in vain for the arrival of someone named Godot. The play is hilarious, tedious and absurd.  A tragicomedy.   I have never seen that word before, tragicomedy, but I get it.  All of life is comedic and tragic at the same time.  

Jimmy is listening to Rod Stryker give a dharma talk.  I am waiting.  Waiting for Kathy and Kelly.  The sun still streams though the plantation shudders.  I still have on my PJ bottoms,  Cycling tights in the dryer due to a water spill at Whole Foods.  We wait.  I wait. Wait is defined as: stay where one is or delay action until a particular time or until something else happens.  Yes until Kathy and Kelly come.

PLease do not take this the wrong way.  I love sitting here because it gives me more time to write and I know that every time I write I am making my literary muscle stronger.   I am cultivating a style, a way of using words that will eventually be unique to me.  No one else will write as I do.  I cannot imitate the style of another writer.  I would not want to do that.  I will be authentic, true to the moment, this moment no matter how long it lasts.  Waiting.

Maybe writing is a form of pacing for me.  I can run my hands across this keyboard and while away the hours as I sit here and wait.  Playing the waiting game.  Jimmy just waved at me from across the room.  He is plugged into his computer, ear phone protruding, two finger resting on his brow.  Now he has interlaced his hands just below his chin as he gazes intently at the screen on his lap.  Here was are, together with our computers both immersed in a virtual world.

We all live in a Yellow Submarine, a Yellow Submarine, a Yellow submarine.  Submersibles.  A submersible is not a submarine because it is not a fully autonomous craft.  It must be supported by a surface vessel.  So if I submerge myself with a support team, I am not likely to survive, because I cannot breath under water.  More of the absurd.  Perhaps I should write the sequel to Waiting for Godot.  Waiting for Kathy and Kelly.   But sir I tire of this writing on and on about nothing in particular.  Okay stop.  They are here.

Teaching Yoga

I have just made a big change in my teaching style.  More like a 180 degree turn.  Merging all I learned from Rod Stryker and Cyndi Lee, both of whom have taught me so much into Sarla Yoga.  Of course there is a lot of me mixed in with it.  My own down home revival speak, constantly reminding people that change is inevitable and that, over time, with practice each and everyone of us can cultivate the tools necessary to thrive and be relatively happy.  Maybe I should brand it.  Just kidding.  Oh yes, and I am using music in my classes.

Expired – Going for the Gusto

There are multiple levels of clarity and  well-being.  I realized today that I have been operating on the lowest of the low, slogging through my days, trying to be motivated, but really having a sense of drowning.   I can put on a happy face with the best of them,  even teach a great asana class, but underneath the façade lurks a murky bog waiting to suck me down.  I have been chronically depressed most of my adult life.  It was not until I turned forty that a doctor finally diagnosed my depression and prescribed Prozac.  I immediately felt better.  Endless days of malaise turned toward sunnier times.  I wanted to be with my children.  I wanted to leave the house.  I was no longer afraid to go to the grocery store where I might see someone, god forbid, who would want to talk to me.  I felt more energetic and more engaging.  That was 1991.

Fast forward to   2005.  I am still taking Prozac not knowing that after years of being on serotonin uptake drugs the effects tend to flatten out.  I figured, “Well I am getting older.  I am probably going to have a shift in energy.”  Then I started studying with Rod Stryker who I heard claim, “If you practice yoga, pranayama and meditation correctly, you should not have to take antidepressants.”  That may not be what he said, but it is what I took away from the teachings.  So I got a mantra, started doing more pranayama, designed my private and public yoga classes, including my personal practice, according to the energetic principles of Para Yoga.  I let go of my vigorous vinyasa practice which included lots of surya namaskars with chaturangas, arm balances, head and shoulder stands and overall steady, but constant movement.  Rod suggested slowing down the momentum, giving the unconscious mind a chance to reveal its dark secrets.  That part worked.  I did heal many old wounds, but the effort to stop taking meds failed over and over again.  I felt like such a failure.  My therapist at the time tried to convince me that my long-term depression was chemical and not likely to be remedied by meditation. In fact, she recommended aerobic exercise.

January 22, 2014. I continue to use my mantra, to meditate and practice asana in a slow, steady way.  But something is shifting.  Yesterday I added Wellbutrin to my antidepressant cocktail.  I am ready to move beyond flat.   I am not giving up meditation or mantra.  I am, however, going to up the ante in my physical practice.  I am 62 years old and I want to be strong physically as well as mentally.  I am bringing back head stand, hand stand, shoulder stand and arm balances.  I am going to play music in my classes.  One of my friends and a wonderful yoga teacher, Jennifer Brilliant, whom I have not seen in years, said, “Everything a yoga teacher tells you eventually has an expiration date.”  Time for slow and steady has expired.  Going for the gusto.

I want to be her, the lady pictured below, in twenty years.

January 4 One Year, One Day at A Time – Grumpy

I have not felt my best over the past few days.  Had some chills and then moved right into hot flashes, which I never have anymore.  Thought maybe I was coming down with something, but so far so good.  Just feel good enough to keep going and bad enough to be a little grumpy.  Okay.  All right.  More than a “little” grumpy.

Poor Jimmy.   I am afraid I have been ragging on him today.  Just read one of the definitions of ragging.   Ugh! –  a practice similar to hazing in educational institutions.  I bet that is what it felt like to him.like he could not do anything right.  I do not make it a practice to pick on him or anyone else, but today he became the target of my discomfort.  Poor baby.  He did not deserve it.

The morning started off okay.  Coffee. Meditation, slightly challenging to sit still.  Work on my book, less time spent on it than usual, again a little edgy.   Yoga (restorative poses), 

I thought it would center me and relieve some of my body aches.  Walk, nice out with bright sunshine.  Private student, good session – he is really making progress.  Home, said something kind of nasty the minute I walked in the door.  I hate it when I can see myself doing that and just keep right on with it.  YouTube video, my teacher Rod Stryker talking about the valley of the void which we inevitably encounter after making a New Year’s resolution, when things feel awkward, when we are pushing the pebble up the hill instead of just letting it slide down.  Is that what this grumpiness is all about?

Having an impromptu dinner party.  Not too psyched about it, but they are coming so I might as well enjoy it.  Then off to a concert at GPAC.  Should be fun, world-renowned mandolin player, David Grisman. I will update this posting when we get home from the concert.  “May all my words and thought between now and then be mantra.” Amen  From the Divine Mother Prayer

Teetotaller, Loner, Blonde?

Now that I’m Free To Be Myself, Who Am I?

Mary Oliver

Now that I am free to be me, who will I be?  Will I be the girl who shaves her head or the one with long gray hair?

Wait, maybe I will grow my hair out long and then bleach it blond.  Will I be the girl who has a glass of wine at lunch or the one who is a teetotaller,  a writer or an actress,  a loner or the one who works to build strong, long-lasting relationships,  a yoga teacher or not?  Free to be me.  Hot/cold, angry/calm, happy/sad, good/bad or the end of duality.  Yoga teaches the union of opposites, but I like the opposing forces to be separate in and around me.  I want to have an edge.  I like a little confusion, keeps me on my toes.  My most recent yoga teacher, Rod Stryker told me I should quit drinking coffee because caffeine makes me a little edgy.  So what?  Edgy is good.  The same thing applies to being politically correct.  I am of the George Carlin school in that regard.  “You can’t fight City Hall, but you can goddamn sure blow it up.”  Right on.  Fuck em.  Hit me with your best stuff!

 

Free to be me whomever that might be.