tonight tonight

i learned a lot this week... a lot about my body, about healing it and nurturing it. a lot about patience as i work with an injury that has dramatically altered my yoga practice as i know it... temporarily, i hope. i marvel as it is already strengthening other parts of me, physical and beyond. perhaps sometimes the limitation does become the strength. my perceived physical & emotional injuries are surely blessings because the doorways opening up are taking me even deeper. i learned a lot about the ways i hold myself back, the excuses i make, and the stories i tell myself. i rid myself of the lies ive been feeding myself for quite some time and finally, truly tuned into my heart. rediscovering what it's like to live from this place of joy, intensity, beauty, and synchronicity that i had lost has truly brought me back home to myself. i was reminded of the important lesson that our experience is defined by what we choose to see. the past is now, the pain is now, the beauty is now, the great big love is now, it's all right here, right now. being present.

mom was right (again). there is nothing like a man that can dance. tonight i danced the night away with the best partner ive had since my father. he danced me all across the floor, he twirled me, he spun me, he moved me, he made me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world, he bowed to my curtsy after every song... and as my hair spun out behind me during the last song of the night, i tuned in to hear frank singing... "if i can, make it there, i'll make it, anywhere.... it's up to you New York, New Yoooooork..." tears leaking, heart open, i realized that im done analyzing it. this scorecard i've been carrying around doesn't matter. i don't care if i made it there. because i'm here. and i wouldn't be where i am, right here, right now, without all of the very necessary, very painful experiences of this previous year. between songs, my dance partner with Down's Syndrome shared with me his dream to be on Dancing with the Stars. i learned so much from his lead. god in oh so many forms.

i knew i would arrive at this place of understanding eventually, but it took a while for me to get here on my own & i doubted frequently along the way. all of it had to happen exactly as it happened. much gratitude for all of it. just in time for a gleaming bright 2010... out with the old...

hey god, i'm ready.
c.

(don't) take your seat

as i struggle with not reacting to the latest non-funny bit of lila in my life & turn another corner on the path, the first piece of yoga advice i stumble upon is this - twice in 1 day from different sources:

"The obstacles in our path are the path. Every time we stretch beyond our resistance and our fear, we make a choice for life. And every time we choose life, fear loses its grip on us. We all know more than we think we do and we are stronger than we believe ourselves to be. We come to our mats, and to our lives, to learn by going where we have to go." - Rolf Gates

changin' habits

Autobiography in Five Short Chapters
by Portia Nelson

I walk, down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in
I am lost... I am helpless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I am in the same place.
But, it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it there.
I still fall in... it's a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

I walk down another street.

3:59am

"to wear out one's intellect in an obstinate adherence to the individuality of things, not recognizing the fact that all things are one - this is called Three in the Morning." - Taoist philosopher Chuang Tzu (275 B.C.)

4am: realizing things are not separate, but One...

it is said to be the ability to face the time between 3 and 4am in the middle of the night that holds the seed, the purpose, the illumination, in our human journey.

Three in the Morning

the pursuit of truth
is the loneliest path
i have ever known.

Mahasamadhi Day

today marks the 7th anniversary (12/3/2002) of Hariharananda's, my Teacher's guru, mahasamadi. mahasamadhi is when an enlightened one consciously & intentionally leaves his body for the final time. i don't know how else to convey that this is different than death...

here is a video of him discussing the benefits of Kriya Yoga, filmed just a few years before he died at the Kriya Yoga ashram in Homestead:

you know what this means...

act I
full moon light
shining in the skylight
lights up the bed

act II
i think of the things you said
you could not allow to happen
every time those things happen pleasantly to me

intermission
soup is being served
in the lobby
for a free donation

act III
as though i could ever forget
your birthday
happy birthday!!!

a seed of something larger

"Disappointment is defined by whether what happens is close or not to what we expect. We hear ourselves uttering, "That was disappointing" as opposed to "That was a surprise." The obstacle is really our endless dowry of expectations, which we create & then feel entitled to. Expecting life to confirm to our image... often prevents us from seeing what life freshly brings us.
Failure, it seems, is disappointment allowed to root within one's self-esteem. Yet after falling down enough, after having things pass through our hands repeatedly, after having so many of life's blessings arrive from beyond the range of all our schemes and plans, it seems odd to define success or failure by whether we get what we want or by how close we land to where we aim. Quite the contrary, failure would seem to be the limitations that cap our possibilities if we get only what we want and if we touch only what we aim for." - from my new favorite book Facing the Lion, Being the Lion by Mark Nepo

less, but still, i get caught up in notions of failure. these past few months, many a time, i've tried unsuccessfully to establish some kind of final score. one day i asked for a scoreboard to clarify the relationship between my own perceptions of failed attempts & others' unsolicited proclamations of my successes. (silly girl, the game is not over... and the score doesnt matter anyways) the emotional reactions are less than they used to be but oh yes, they definitely still stop by for a spot of tea. yet lately, when i felt the negative draw down starting to happen, this idea kept recurring in front of me... different sources... much too frequently for me to not pay attention... this idea that darkness is nec'y to see the stars (generating a One Day idea for my very first interactive performance art exhibit but that's another post for another day...) perhaps pain happens to reveal the heart, to create the joy. so this last time, ive tried my hardest yet to hold space, to witness, but not to hurry or try to perceive before its time, where it all was taking me.

"Eventually the art of being awake thins our protections until we are close to having nothing left between inner and outer. It leads us into the pain-joy of being alive with nothing in the way. There is less and less between heart and world. In the morning, I am sure this is a deep blessing. By night, it seems a curse... I notice everything now, and more, I am everything I notice... we live like burn survivors screaming at the air. This too is part of being awake, this being on fire always looking for a sea. Carrying the weight of feeling and perception and having nowhere to go with it is the burden of being a watcher." - Nepo

"why am i the only one crying?" and yet, it's not sorrow... solely...

answers to questions i never before dared ask.

i have read that we write & read books for the experience of having another describe & thus validate our experiences & the associated emotions. i am so grateful for the words that have been given to me lately & cannot recall feeling the amount of passion, gratitude, and force that these words have evoked in me ever before in my life. someone has put into words and explained what i have been trying to understand/explain for most of my life. in these words, i know i am not alone in this experience. for this, i have intense gratitude.

today, once again, fleetingly, for just a moment, it all makes sense & i see. laughter bubbles. i stop looking & again it lights on my shoulder. mini enlightenment #1201. so much greater than me, im left simply grateful for my part in any of it. a tear drips to know that i helped. the witness finds no solace in the glee either. stay tuned for the next act... b'c the game is not yet over.

when the heart starts to open, aliveness and woundedness reveal themselves to be the same thing...

"It's as if what is unbreakable - the very pulse of life - waits for everything else to be torn away, and then in the bareness that only silence and suffering and great love can expose, it dares to speak through us and to us. It seems to say, if you want to last, hold on to nothing. If you want to know love, let in everything. If you want to feel the presence of everything, stop counting the things that break along the way." - Nepo

so again, i remind myself: it's about showing up, living through, letting it unfold, and doing best to stay outta the way.

"There are circumstances that must shatter you; and if you are not shattered, then you have not understood your circumstances. In such circumstances, it is a failure for your heart NOT to break. And it is pointless to put up a fight, for a fight will blind the opportunity that has been presented by your misfortune. Do you wish to persevere pridefully in the old life? Of course you do: the old life was a good life. But it is no longer available to you. It has been carried away, irreversibly. So there is only one thing to be done. Transformation must be met with transformation. Where there was the old life, let there be the new life. Do not persevere. Dignify the shock. Sink, so as to rise." - Leon Wieseltier

today as i sit & watch the sun set over the city, im resolute in knowing that the (perceived) waiting is well worth it - in fact, it's the only way.

may you know deep peace,
c.