My Blog

Coming Full Circle

Thu, 2 Feb 2012 19:36:34 -0600

From my windows I can see paths through the woods. Paths I have made and cared for over 22 years. The seasons circle the years, always returning to etch themselves ever deeper into the paths and surrounding woodlands. The paths circle and loop around the property but always return here, to the house, the center that holds me.

Walking the paths I am reminded that just as they move out in widening circles, so too do we as we engage with life, interacting with others, with our environment and reaching out in widening circles to the world outside ourselves. It is universally understood that what we sow we reap, that our actions have consequences, if not to us immediately, then to someone, sometime, somewhere. The Buddha is said to have taught, " We are the heirs of our own actions." This is the concept of karma, of coming full circle. Our thoughts our intentions our actions are not separate from each other or from the universe into which we release them. Their energy will connect, intersect and sometimes collide with that of others and with the natural world, and they will always return to us in some way to complete the circle.

Ensō (円相) is the Japanese word for 'circle' and it is one of the most common and easily recognized subjects of Japanese calligraphy. It symbolizes enlightenment, one moment when the mind is empty and completely free of concepts. This is the state of pure understanding, of experiencing the world just as it is. The Enso can be painted as a complete circle or as an incomplete circle. Seen as a broken circle the Enso represents the idea that imperfection is a fundamental part of life and that try as we might, we can never achieve perfection. To deny this is to struggle against what is inherent in life. When the circle completes itself it represents the idea of karma and the enlightened state of living with the consequences of our actions. Both the open and closed circles and what they represent compliment each other and together complete the concept of enlightenment. When we are free from our notions of how things aught to be and can accept the way things are, we end the struggle with reality and thus our own discontent, our suffering. Underlying all of life is harmony and an order that is entirely out of our control and understanding. As William Wordsworth wrote,

With an eye made quiet
by the power of harmony,
and the deep power of joy,
we see into the life of things.

Is There A Lesson In This?

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 20:20:36 -0600

Tuesday was one of those rare days when I was able to stay home all day. I planned to take care of lots of unfinished jobs and generally continue my first of the year intention to get organized. I had a great productive day and even decided to make a special dinner, which is a rare thing on a weeknight. Instead of beginning the dinner project at the 11th hour which guarantees that I will be totally disorganized, and frazzled by dinner time and also that the kitchen will look like a battle scene from the Ardennes, (yes I too have been watching Downton Abbey), I sailed happily through my day preparing dinner in small leisurely steps then cleaning up as I went along. I was amazed at how easy and enjoyable the preparation was when I did it carefully and took my time. I thought, what a sane way to live, why couldn't I do this all the time?

By the end of the day I had accomplished most of what I had set out to do, prepared dinner with great care and attention, I was ready to put the result in the oven. Glowing in the heat of my accomplishments as much as from the oven I opened the oven door to put my masterpiece in, when I had one of those out of body experiences in which you watch yourself from a distance, totally detached and composed and somewhat surprised that there are two of you. As my other self watched calmly, the large glass casserole dish cascaded to the floor and landed in an explosion of pasta and glass, not in one nice heap, but virtually everywhere.

My first thought came clear as a bell: is there a lesson in this? Next: glass of wine and a bubble bath, which is exactly what I did. My little break gave me the space I needed to tackle the clean up and realize that no matter how carefully we plan and try to execute those plans, life happens, and it is ultimately out of our hands. All we can do is practice cultivating the skillful means to deal with whatever lands in our life. And there is The Lesson which came to me clear as a bell.

This is the reason I come to my yoga mat. When my practice seems to lose it's spark or if I'm feeling lazy and uninspired, life sends me a wake up nudge. Suddenly I see and viscerally feel where yoga has been leading me. The path to self understanding isn't easy and it never has an end. Discovery takes a lifetime of going deeper and deeper into the unknown. But as the poet Wendell Berry writes,

To go in the dark with a light it to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

Still it could have been worse, I could have burned down the house or we might have been overtaken by a 100 ft. wave. I am thankful that I don't live in the same house with O'Brien and Thomas, but I do wish that Mrs. Patmore had made dinner on Tuesday night.
Namaste, Penny

looking into the ‘depth of now’

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 21:06:51 -0600

Have you ever noticed the speed at which the sun rises over the horizon or how quickly it sets? There is something enormous in that unstoppable trajectory that feels humbling and, at the same time, urgent to me. We don't usually think about how fast time is passing as we go about our daily lives. Nevertheless it is a fact, one that we would be wise to acknowledge so that we don't waste a moment of the precious time we are given.

Much of our daily living just seems to happen. We go along from one event to another more or less on autopilot. It's usually only the big events that grasp our attention or our intention. The rest of the busyness of life keeps our minds so preoccupied that we have little sense of our bodies. When we live with a low level of continual distraction we can find ourselves saying, "how did this happen", or I can't believe I let that happen." How often have I heard myself saying, "why am I standing in the basement ?"

Baron Wormser, former poet laureate of Maine, wrote in his memoir, The Road Washes Out In Spring, "I remember coming across moss on a rotted, fallen hemlock. It knew where it wanted to be, and it was thriving, a clean yet deep green that was lush to the touch. Did I know were I wanted to be? …….. The moss could not speak - but existence is always speaking.. …. I lived now and I could sense the depth of now."

There is a wonderful teaching in the Zen tradition that speaks to just this thought. No snowflake ever falls in the wrong place. And so it is with us. Each moment we are somewhere doing something. It is our challenge to accept that and work with our reality in a wise way.

It is essential to be in touch with the urgency of the moment so that we're not just floating along on life's surface, swept away by moments passing without our attention or direction. When we don't acknowledge that immediate connection to life as it passes, we feel a hunger or longing for something we know is missing.

This is what is meant by wise attention. Yoga is one of the meditative practices that help us cultivate this kind of attention. I often hear yoga students say how profoundly their practice has changed their lives and I have experienced the same thing. It is a subtle and gradual shift in one's perception as the life of the moment begins to come into clear focus. We are very often drawn to examine aspects of our lives that we have ignored or buried. Maybe it's our relationship to the earth, to the food we eat, to social issues, or perhaps more personal matters. Our attention requires honesty, that we confront the truth, and in doing so we call upon our strength and courage to face whatever we see, then to act according to that truth. The path of yoga is a very gradual and gentle awakening that leaves us feeling strong, grounded and peaceful both physically and spiritually. It is the path of true freedom that begins with us as individuals and spreads out into the wider world, one awakened being to another. May it be so for you.

Namaste, Penny

Dancing with the ego

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 20:37:22 -0600

Did you see the full moon Monday night? It was glorious! It's hard to believe the silver glow of the full moon in a cloudless sky has a dark side. Even though we don't see it or even acknowledge it, nonetheless it is so. When you think about it there is a dark side to just about everything in life, even yoga.

You may have read the rather alarming article in the New York Times on Jan. 5th entitled “How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body”. As of yesterday there were 737 email responses to the article and I would guess millions more thought and talked about it as the story circulated among yogis in the US & abroad. After reading the article - twice, I thought, yes, there is a dark or dangerous side to yoga - even yoga, a practice that has claimed to be the cure for everything from back pain to old age.

But the danger lies not in the practice itself but in our own and our teacher's approach. In our fast-paced and overly competitive culture many people feel they must push themselves in order to get ahead whether it's at work, in social situations or paradoxically when it comes to their health and well-being.

Yoga class is no exception, in fact it seems that yoga classes are often what some consider the perfect venue to display their competitive mettle, competing not only with others but also with their own progress. Trendy and expensive yoga studios and health clubs are filled with devotees, dressed in the latest designer yoga clothes, who often hope to connect socially in much the same, but healthier, way they do when frequenting bars after work. People who are fitness instructors and personal trainers often teach these classes and may have completed only a weekend course in teaching yoga.

The media fosters this unfortunate concept with images of perfect young bodies in seemingly effortless yoga postures most mortals could never accomplish in a lifetime of practice. Though it is true that with practice we can become more flexible, stronger and more comfortable in the body we were given; yoga practice will not magically transform us physically. It will however, transform us in a much more profound way.

For thousands of years yoga was considered to be a transformative practice and it still is, when we relinquish our grasp on wanting to accomplish a goal and instead allow awareness to guide our practice. Yoga instructs first through sensing the body, which leads to absorption in the moment where insight arises spontaneously. Yoga is not about learning to stand on your head. It is about learning to stand on your own two feet. When we study and teach yoga from this perspective our world expands, paradoxically, from focusing on our very subjective experience to a deeply felt sense of compassion that extends to all beings and to the very ground beneath our feet which supports us and all life in this very fragile world.

May you stand firmly grounded in who you are when you come to your yoga mat and when you step off it into the rest of your life.
Namaste, Penny

Starting Over

Sat, 7 Jan 2012 13:40:09 -0600

It's 2012 a New Year, the perfect chance to start over. That's just what I set out to do last week when I finally confronted the piles of stuff (books, letters, ironing, unfinished projects) that lay about the house, silent monuments to my procrastination for an entire year.

I'm sure I'm not alone in wanting to unclutter my life. The New Year seems like a fine time to tidy up and start over with a clean slate or desk or closet. You can fill in your own untidy space if you too share the need to purge your disordered life. As James Baldwin said, "Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced."

The will to unclutter is an act of fearlessness because the task demands that we confront the truth. In the moment we decide to take charge the path is clear, we must deal with all of the things we shoved aside, couldn't find a place for or were too busy, tired or distracted to put away in their proper places. Maybe those places have been taken over by other seemingly more interesting or important things. When you are ready to roll up your sleeves and get down to the business of sorting things out, the path ahead suddenly feels airy and open, full of possibilities.

Often when I begin to clear away the clutter in my life I become aware of the dusty piles in the corners of my mind as well. All of the stuff I swept out of my consciousness, didn't want to deal with, think about or encounter, begins to surface.

This is not unlike my experience on the yoga mat. When I overcome my resistance to practice and step onto my mat, often the underlying conflict that was standing in my way becomes apparent. When I remember to breathe, and to stay with the thoughts and feelings without judgment, I begin to see clearly and insight often arises.

When we live a disorderly, messy life, we feel less positive, less poised. We lack confidence. Not the boastful, self-important kind of confidence, but rather we live from a center of quiet strength, much like the sense of being grounded and at ease in asana practice. When we look closely at what we are doing and focus our full attention on our experience whether practicing yoga or when making a decision about what to keep and what to discard, we embody the idea of the Warrior; fearlessly facing the obstacles that prevent us from living with ease and wisdom.

This is the premise that Andrew Mellen, author and lecturer on organizational skills bases his work on, " Organization is about recognizing what ‘enough’ looks like and feels like; about holding things loosely while learning deep appreciation for the comfort, convenience, beauty and functionality that objects offer. When I clutch, grab, or hold something too closely or tightly, instead of creating a feeling of safety and security, what grows is a sense of anxiety and fear—that the object will break, be lost or assert its impermanence in some other way. Possession often hastens the outcome I hoped to prevent. The things I intended/expected to increase the quality of my life begin distracting me from that quality."

I've made a good start and in keeping with last week's intention to make intentions not resolutions, I plan to go slowly one step at a time, perhaps rest, but not stop until I clear away all the piles in my life and in my head. May you too enjoy a clear path into the New Year.
Namaste, Penny

No more resolutions!

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 17:28:33 -0600

This year I have finally thrown in the towel on even an attempt to make New Year's resolutions. As a friend pointed out last week when we were discussing all the delicious holiday temptations everywhere you turn, we make great and tough sounding intentions to ourselves when we get up in the morning, "I'm not even going to taste a morsel of a gingerbread cookie or eat the frosting from a corner of a brownie", only to go to bed at night to a chorus of regrets and recriminations over the eating binge we succumbed to all day. Sometimes I feel like aliens have taken over my will, forcing me to do exactly the opposite of what I intended to do.

Instead of making resolutions my plan is to meet what arises with awareness and skillful means. In order to do that only one thing is necessary, simply one thing, authenticity, but it's not as simple as it sounds.

In order to be truly ourselves we must truly know ourselves. We must acknowledge our vulnerabilities and defenses as well as our gifts and accomplishments. We have to be aware of our thoughts and feelings as well as the physical sensations arising in our bodies all at once. It sounds daunting but when we align the life outside ourselves with our inner life then we become truly authentic. Our authentic self is not 'out there' waiting for us to find it, it is always who we are when we wake up.

This year I am setting my intention instead of making resolutions. I hope to be able to make friends with my authentic self. The one who poet Juan Ramon Jimenez describes as,

I am not I
I am this one
Walking beside me whom I do not see,
Whom at times I manage to visit,
And whom at other times I forget;
The one who remains silent when I talk,
The one who forgives, sweet , when I hate…..

I think when we meet life wide awake, when we don't set ourselves up to win or lose, succeed or fail, there is a joyful presence in everything that we accept just as it is. And this is why we come to our yoga mats. It may not be what drew us here at first, but as our practice deepens insight arises and that is the gift of yoga. We wake up to ourselves and to the joy in everything.

Happy New Year and may all your resolutions and non-resolutions come to pass in 2012.

Namaste, Penny

The path of transformation

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 18:18:52 -0600

I began my week feeling a little more like Scrooge than I would like to admit. But there it is, I had succumbed to the excess of the season. Too much stuff, too many obligations, too little time and definitely too little tranquility and peace!

I know I'm not alone in feeling this way, in fact even our adult children asked us to limit our gifts to the grandchildren to one apiece - each of them feels that the holidays are getting out of hand and they want their children to have a few meaningful and special gifts, not an avalanche of over stimulation.

I was mulling all of this over on my way to teach a yoga class to a group of women whom I have come to know over the past few years. I don't know anything about these women other than their first names. Their stories are private and closely guarded and they ask little about me. Yet we know one another on a much deeper, more meaningful level. When we come together in class we are all equals even though they are prisoners and I am an outsider. Our personal histories are beside the point. Our paths are joined for one hour each week and our intention is clear, to find the courage to be fiercely honest and open with each other and ourselves.

Without fail I leave wrapped in wonder at the fragile beauty and vulnerability these women embody and are willing to share with me. And without fail they tell me how much it means to them that someone is willing to be with them in their pain and their shame.

So today, 4 days before Christmas I went to jail with the only gift I could bring them, the possibility of transformation through honesty, commitment and discipline; the path of yoga.

And I realized that in return they had given me a priceless gift. One that transformed my cynical feelings about this holiday season to thankfulness for the opportunity see the growing sense of peace and confidence reflected in each of their faces. As we hugged good-bye, I felt the room fill with what must be the real spirit of the holidays, goodwill and heartfelt happiness. May you too find what you need to fill you with joy this holiday season.

Namaste, Penny

Stay Home !

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 18:31:29 -0600

I still exchange emails with yoga teachers I met in my training at the Kripalu Center over 12 years ago. Our emails are full of questions, answers, wisdom and interesting links to fantastic places in cyber space that I would never have found on my own. One of those places is the web home of a Canadian yoga and meditation teacher whose Blog I read occasionally. Someone asked for advice on how best to honor the holidays in a mindful way, the reply was "stay home!" nothing more. I was surprised at what I took to be a glib and insensitive reply from someone who always seemed thoughtful and wise.

I kept coming back to this unsettling idea for a few days when suddenly I saw that the answer, stay home, was like a Zen koan. A small nugget of truth about something much deeper and more profound than that short direct assertion implied. So I looked deeper, beneath the apparently harsh surface of the words. What a gift I stumbled upon one I could easily have missed!

It probably is a good idea to travel less these days, use less fossil fuel, consume less, spend our time and money locally, but I don't think that is what was meant by the terse reply, stay home.

Our true and enduring home is, after all, the authentic self. No matter what is going on around us, how much distraction, how many interruptions, temptations; there is at our center a still, grounded place of quiet knowing and deep satisfaction with things as they are. This is the place to come home to, a place to stay.

"When we stay Home in our true nature, no matter what the external circumstances may be, we are peace itself. And the recognition of our home-ground as wholeness renders each day, each moment…… a holiday, and we are happy." Joan Ruvinsky, Pathless Yoga. com

My yoga mat is a piece of my home ground. A place to let all the distractions and confusion fall away so that practice becomes a path home to wholeness, to myself. May this holiday season find you contentedly at home, no matter where you travel.
Namaste, Penny

life as it is, the presence of everything

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 20:35:22 -0600

We don't often dare to try to live deliberately, to front things as they are without the overlay of our concepts, our ideas about them. Much of the time we try to avoid silence by being constantly busy, tuned in to the steady stream of thoughts that we mistake for living.

Many people avoid silence because it makes them feel uncomfortable. Perhaps they're afraid of the feelings their thoughts bring up and want to avoid the discomfort. This avoidance becomes a habit, a way of being that we hide behind, refusing to see that our individual stories, our dramas are just that, and not life itself.

And what is life itself? Life by itself? It is a just as it is; one moment the wind moves a leaf, then rain, then sunlight. A bird soaring in the sky, perching on a branch, singing; the wind, the sky reflected in the surface of a pond; just each vital moment in its fullness, arising and passing on.

And what is silence? When we are able to be in stillness, to still the movements of the body and the mind especially, we see that silence is not the absence of anything, but the presence of everything. Life moving, shifting, changing, everything all at once.

On the yoga mat and in sitting meditation we practice simple abiding, just being as a way to see through the veil of our concepts. To abide with things just as they are and to feel ourselves merge with the essence things, with life itself .

This is not doing nothing but rather emptying ourselves so that out of the stillness comes insight and an understanding of skillful ways to meet the challenges life presents.

This holiday season give yourself the gift of stillness, either on your yoga mat or wherever you are moved to practice. In the silence let yourself open. You will not find emptiness but the fullness of life itself.

Namaste, Penny

Spread the light

Thu, 1 Dec 2011 21:25:07 -0600

On Monday evening I noticed the beautiful shape of the moon in a perfectly clear night sky, it was big and bright and though it was just a sliver it seemed to light up the whole sky. This, I discovered was a new moon.

On Monday night the new moon was 4.3 days old and only 19% of the moon's surface was visible from the earth. Yet how extraordinary that mere 19 per cent was! The silvery light from this small slice of the moon seemed to fill the night, infusing the cold November air with a feeling of something ancient and magical.

I have been thinking about that amazing night sky and feeling how as the days get darker and darker we all cling to the light, trying to illuminate the long dark days with holiday lights and decorations, candles and bonfires.

This year it seems that many people's lives are getting more and more difficult and it must seem to them that their lives are growing increasingly dark. I wondered what I could possibly do to bring the kind of light into someone's life that the new moon brought to the sky on Monday night. What kind of gift could be so simple yet so powerful?

When we offer another person our complete and genuine attention it’s a very precious thing, it is an offering, a gift. It's an unspoken message that says I see you, you matter and I care about you - even if the other person is a complete stranger. Sometimes it may seem easier to give money or a gift to someone rather than to make the effort to reach out from a deep heart-felt place. If you think about it the gifts that are most meaningful and satisfying are the things we do for others out of kindness with no thought of recognition or reward for ourselves.

We can spread a little of that beautiful light, it's also a practice. We only have to bring our attention and our intention to the center of our awareness to see clearly when we have an opportunity to do something for someone else. It all flows from our practice on the yoga mat. Turning inward we reach deep inside in order to reach out and spread a little of that much needed light. May you find many ways to offer your light to others as the days grow shorter and may your practice light the way.

Namaste, Penny