MYM (My Yoga Month)

April - My Yoga Month (MYM)…as I started calling it, a couple weeks before it actually began - almost as a joke - is not turning out quite as expected or as I had wanted it to.  (But, therein probably lies the lesson.)

It started with me teaching Chair Yoga at my work, which has been going beautifully!  It's only 15 minutes at a pop, but I think people are getting a lot from it, most noticeably some much-needed relaxation.

Seems like everyone in the U.S. (if not the world), is a stress-case these days (including me), even though for most of us folks working at Jackson Hewitt, the busiest time of year is now over (Tax Season).  Thank God!

Tax Season was actually.really.really.awful.  Worse than I would have thought, which is to say, in fact - BRUTAL.

That first Chair Yoga session was Tuesday April 2nd so I started MYM off well…I was reading The Science of Yoga every night, which is a great book.  http://www.amazon.com/Science-Yoga-Risks-Rewards/dp/1451641435/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1366162989&sr=1-1&keywords=the+science+of+yoga

In fact, it’s so informative and insightful I felt like it was making me become a better teacher with every paragraph and page I read.  I normally turn down a lot of pages as I read (even, regretfully do this on library books), to mark certain passages I want to return to, and this book - which I own so can beat up as much as I want, with no guilt - is massively dog-eared by now.

But I couldn’t get myself started on my own reinvigorated home-practice via the other yoga book I recently purchased, called Moving Toward Balance: 8 Weeks of Yoga With Rodney Yee - http://www.amazon.com/Moving-Toward-Balance-Weeks-Rodney/dp/0875969216/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1366159650&sr=8-1&keywords=moving+toward+balance+8+weeks+of+yoga+with+rodney+yee

My excuse was I didn’t have all the props I needed at home.  But really it was/is my own laziness, and how all the rest of life intervened, and that's ALSO no excuse but there it is.  More on that below.

MYM continued with a wonderful "Twist into Spring" workshop the first weekend of April, at MTS ("Moving Toward Stillness") yoga studio ~ http://www.movingtowardstillness.net/index.html

This is the studio where I started teaching last Fall, and shortly after I finished the 200 hours Yoga Teacher Training (YTT).  My wonderful *boss* and mentor Elaine led the workshop and I was able to just be a student, and enjoy all she had to teach, for a blissful 3 hours...I think I snored in svasana. :)

The following weekend - interspersed by more chair yoga sessions, I think they like the calming music & aromatherapy + 3 mins meditation at the end - it was a full one and 1/2 days of teacher training, down in Naples, FL at Bala Vinyasa Yoga Studio.

"The Mastery of Teaching Gentle and Basic Yoga."
http://www.bvyoga.com/Default.aspx

I had NO idea what I was getting into, having not been to this studio before, but took a chance based on the workshop description.  And it also turned out beautifully.  I had the Best.YogaWeekend.Ever. 

I learned SO much that I want to turn toward my classes, and take further....all of which will probably be side-lined for at least a little while, due to the impending change - reason why I've been so stressed out lately, and feel life has intervened with my plan to do more daily yoga - which is that...I've taken a new full-time job! 

Up in Tampa so involves an hour commute but pays A LOT better and no more crazy tax-season to endure.  Will probably have to endure lots of other crazy, but at least not that! :)  Cue the song by Meat Loaf ~ I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GNhdQRbXhc

New job starts 4/29 and here's hoping it's the right move...it FEELS right so far...

MYM will continue this coming weekend, with the first all-YTT social event since we all got together at Thanksgiving.  Hosted by yours truly, at my apartment complex pool for a cookout/pool party.  I am so looking forward to seeing all my fellow yogis, hearing about how life for them has also been great or hard, maybe wonderful, but maybe stressful or even awful, as much as or more than me.

How life has intervened with their daily yoga practice also (or not), and their future yoga plans.  And I look forward to telling them all about my upcoming job change.  Because some of them saw me miserable about job-stuff at Thanksgiving and challenged me to fix, change or accept it.  I feel I did all three.  I feel, in fact, triumphant!

MYM will conclude with an Ashtanga Yoga workshop the last weekend in April, which I am - purely - dreading.  It's at ReFlex Arts, where I got all Yoga-Teacher-Trained so that helps me be more comfortable, but we didn't do Ashtanga in our training and I've never done it before. 

This type of yoga is as strenuous as Bikram (which I have done), but maybe more so (see video hyperlink below).  Yikes!  How the HELL do they DO those crazy poses?!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUgtMaAZzW0

God help me but I'm trying it, and the day after is first day at my new job, Monday April 29th, the official end of MYM (even though the calendar DOES contain a day beyond that, obvs). :)

So, if I hobble into my new place of employment all sore & aching from Ashtanga - and I present badly because of it - at least I'll have a good excuse!  And I'll blame it all on Yoga - and MYM.

It Keeps Me Warm (My Love - My Love - My Love)

"Same Love"
MACKLEMORE & RYAN LEWIS - feat. MARY LAMBERT 
When I was in the third grade I thought that I was gay
'Cause I could draw, my uncle was, and I kept my room straight
I told my mom tears rushing down my face
She's like "Ben you've loved girls since before pre-k tripping"
Yeah, I guess she had a point, didn't she?
Bunch of stereotypes all in my head.
I remember doing the math like, "Yeah, I'm good at little league"
A preconceived idea of what it all meant
For those that liked the same sex
Had the characteristics
The right wing conservatives think it's a decision
And you can be cured with some treatment and religion
Man-made rewiring of a predisposition
Playing God, aw nah here we go
America the brave still fears what we don't know
And God loves all his children, is somehow forgotten
But we paraphrase a book written thirty-five-hundred years ago
I don't know

And I can't change
Even if I tried
Even if I wanted to
I can't change
Even if I try
Even if I wanted to
My love
My love
My love
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm

If I was gay, I would think hip-hop hates me
Have you read the YouTube comments lately?
"Man, that's gay" gets dropped on the daily
We become so numb to what we're saying
A culture founded from oppression
Yet we don't have acceptance for 'em
Call each other faggots behind the keys of a message board
A word rooted in hate, yet our genre still ignores it
Gay is synonymous with the lesser
It's the same hate that's caused wars from religion
Gender to skin color, the complexion of your pigment
The same fight that led people to walk outs and sit ins
It's human rights for everybody, there is no difference!
Live on and be yourself
When I was at church they taught me something else
If you preach hate at the service those words aren't anointed
That holy water that you soak in has been poisoned
When everyone else is more comfortable remaining voiceless
Rather than fighting for humans that have had their rights stolen
I might not be the same, but that's not important
No freedom till we're equal, damn right I support it

(I don't know)

And I can't change
Even if I tried
Even if I wanted to
My love
My love
My love
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm

We press play, don't press pause
Progress, march on
With the veil over our eyes
We turn our back on the cause
Till the day that my uncles can be united by law
When kids are walking 'round the hallway plagued by pain in their heart
A world so hateful some would rather die than be who they are
And a certificate on paper isn't gonna solve it all
But it's a damn good place to start
No law is gonna change us
We have to change us
Whatever God you believe in
We come from the same one
Strip away the fear
Underneath it's all the same love
About time that we raised up

And I can't change
Even if I tried
Even if I wanted to
I can't change
Even if I try
Even if I wanted to
My love
My love
My love
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm
Love is patient
Love is kind
Love is patient
Love is kind
(I'm not crying on Sundays)
Love is patient
(I'm not crying on Sundays)
Love is kind
(I'm not crying on Sundays)
Love is patient
(I'm not crying on Sundays)
Love is kind
(I'm not crying on Sundays)
Love is patient
(I'm not crying on Sundays)
Love is kind
(I'm not crying on Sundays)
Love is patient
Love is kind
Lyrics:
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/macklemore/samelove.html

Video & Song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlVBg7_08n0&feature=youtu.be

All You Need is (there can never be too much) I and Love and You

I and Love and You
by The Avett Brothers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrsgIEBwIZM

Load the car and write the note
Grab your bag and grab your coat
Tell the ones that need to know
We are headed north

One foot in and one foot back
But it don't pay, to live like that
So i cut the ties and i jumped the tracks
For never to return

Ah Brooklyn Brooklyn take me in
Are you aware the shape I'm in
My hands they shake my head it spins
Ah Brooklyn Brooklyn take me in

When at first I learned to speak
I used all my words to fight
With him and her and you and me
Oh but its just a waste of time
Yeah its such a waste of time

That woman shes got eyes that shine
Like a pair of stolen polished dimes
She asked to dance I said it's fine
I'll see you in the morning time

Ah Brooklyn Brooklyn take me in
Are you aware the shape im in
My hands they shake my head it spins
Ah Brooklyn Brooklyn take me in

Three words that became hard to say
I and love and you
What you were then, I am today
Look at the things I do

Ah Brooklyn Brooklyn take me in
Are you aware the shape I'm in
My hands they shake my head it spins
Ah Brooklyn Brooklyn take me in

Dumbed down and numbed by time and age
Your dreams to catch the world, the cage
The highway sets the travelers stage
All exits look the same

Three words that became hard to say
I and love and you
I and love and you
I and love and you

http://www.lyricsreg.com/lyrics/the+avett+brothers/I+and+Love+and+You/

A Lost Wallet and a (Yogic) Lesson

I was trying to tell my husband something about yoga philosophy tonight, when he was looking for his wallet (and he never loses anything, least of all something as important as that), and was this close to finding it, as we drove back to his office where he was SURE he had left it, as he had rushed out the door earlier in the evening....

I said that I suspected he would be SO happy (and relieved) to find his wallet and then be so UNhappy about something else, before we knew it.

I talked about this transitory happiness, this "being made happy" by external things and how we don't have to be slaves to that (there is a higher happiness and peacefulness), don't have to fall into that patterned way of thinking and being.

And how this is a yogic lesson, if he/we would only take it...

We came home (wallet in full possession) and I persisted with these thoughts...how the un/happy meter changes and what made us happy a moment ago - almost in an instant - no longer makes us happy because circumstances have changed, and something else takes its place.  I'm not sure he *got* it but still, it was fun (for me) to try out an *application* (let's say), for some of what I am learning with yoga philosophy! 

And so I quote the Yoga Sutras ~
"If we are sad over a minor discomfort and all of a sudden receive a telegram saying our business has suffered a tremendous loss, we immediately forget the small problem.  The attention is instantly transferred.  So everything is relative.  Every experience in the world is mental.  We might put our minds onto something and think, "This is really great," but once our attention goes somewhere else, that thing becomes nothing to us.  That is the reason for the Sanskrit expression, "Mana eva manushyanam." "A man is according to his mind." pg. 117 The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoga_Sutras_of_Patanjali

It's Not Up To You - It Never Really Was

"It's Not Up To You"
by Bjork
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdSiYa6hX1w

I wake up
And the day feels
Broken
I tilt my head
I'm trying to get an angle
'Cause the evening
I've always longed for
It could still happen

How do I master
The perfect day
Six glasses of water
Seven phonecalls

If you leave it alone
It might just happen
Anyway

It's not up to you
Oh it never really was
It's not up to you
Oh it never really was
It's not up to you
Well it never really was
It's not up to you

If you wake up
And the day feels
Ah broken
Just lean into the crack
(Just lean into the crack)
And it will tremble
Ever so nicely
Notice
How it sparkles
Down there

I can decide
What I give
But it's not up to me
What I get given
Unthinkable surprises
About to happen
But what they are

It's not up to you
Well it never really was
It's not up to you
Oh it never really was
It's not up to you
Oh it never really was
It's not up to you
Oh, me, share
It's not up to you
It's not up to you
Oh, it never really was
It's not up to you
Well, it never really was
It's not up to you
It's not up to you
It's not up to you
It's not up to you

There's too much
Clinging
To peak
There's too much
Pressure

Lyrics:  http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/bjork/itsnotuptoyou.html

My Visit

Hello Dallas - Fort Worth
hi my margaritas - frozen, with salt
hopefully in a splendid glass

Here it's
hello horizon
really good Mexican
food, the talk-talk-talk
we do together and

so much laughter
while we drive around
on copious Dallas freeways
where I hope we won't crash

We were both - growing up -
too much     too young    too fast

Now she has a nice apartment
with sweet boyfriend
Anatomy & Physiology
class and a doctor's appointment
while I have quiet
sitting at Starbucks
with a good novel to finish

The Space Between Us about
India, about loyalty and love
about gender and class

The things that bind me
to my sister are much too
vast to be captured
in a poem, about my visit
to a state even
as large as Texas

I Hate My Sister

I am really excited to see my sister, when I go to visit her a week from this Friday!  And, obvs I don't really hate her, but it's still a great song... :)

An old blog post w/video comes to mind and just has to be shared, again!
http://www.yousurecantalkbaby.blogspot.com/2011_07_01_archive.html

Juliana Hatfield "My Sister"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cer5n10rXAg
My sister... My sister... My sister.

I hate my sister, she's such a bitch.
She acts as if she doesn't even know that I exist.
But I would do anything to let her know I care.
But I am only talking to myself 'cos she isn't there.

My sister...
I love my sister, she's the best.
She's cooler than any other girl that I have ever met.
She had the greatest band, she had the greatest guy.
She's good at everything and doesn't even try.

(Chorus)
She's got a wall around her nobody can climb.
She lets her ladder down for those who really shine.
I tried to scale it, but to me she's blind.
So I lit a firecracker, went off in my eye.

I miss my sister, why'd she go?
She's the one who would have taken me
To my first all-ages show.
It was the Violent Femmes and the Del Fuegos,
Before they had a record out. Before they went gold,
And started to grow.

I miss my sister. I miss my sister.
I miss my sister. I really miss her.
http://www.lyricsfreak.com/j/juliana+hatfield/my+sister_20076531.html

Thank you, thank you, thank you

Not to be TOO bipolar here but this is how I truly feel, when things are going well between me and David.  It does sometimes *happen* ~

Let Me Count The Ways
by Yoko Ono  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA2CTqWkmmo

Let me count the ways how I love you

It's like that gentle wind you feel at dawn

It's like that first sun that hits the dew

It's like that cloud with a gold lining telling us softly

That it'll be a good day, a good day for us

Thank you, thank you, thank you

Let me count the ways how I miss you

It's like that oak tree in my childhood garden

It's like that first summer I spent in Egypt

It's like that warm evening you read to me

Both knowing deeply

That it's a good time, a good time for us

Thank you, thank you, thank you

Let me count the ways how I see you

It's like that lake in the mountain you heard about

It's like that autumn sky that stays so blue

It's like that air around me that holds me gently

Whispering strongly that you're always there, always for me

Thank you, thank you, thank you
http://www.oldielyrics.com/lyrics/john_lennon_yoko_ono/let_me_count_the_ways.html

Like I'm Made of Glass/Like I'm Made of Paper

Does it make me extra-damaged or just pathetic (or more interesting maybe), that I sometimes feel this way about my own marriage/husband?

Just the tearing down part and only sometimes, let's be clear...when we fight, which can be brutal...and happened tonight so I'm really just venting!  Not really wanting to be more interesting....

But I truthfully FEEL like this sometimes - "like I'm made of glass/like I'm made of paper" - like I can't defend myself and I need to stand up - like a Skyscraper, a la Demi Levato. :)

"Skyscraper"
by Demi Levato
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_8ydghbGSg

Skies are crying, I am watching
Catching tear drops in my hands
Only silence as it's ending
Like we never had a chance
Do you have to make me feel like
There's nothing left of me?

You can take everything I have
You can break everything I am
Like I'm made of glass
Like I'm made of paper
Go on and try to tear me down
I will be rising from the ground
Like a skyscraper
Like a skyscraper
 
As the smoke clears, I awaken
And untangle you from me
Would it make you feel better
To watch me while I bleed?
All my windows still are broken
But I'm standing on my feet
 
You can take everything I have
You can break everything I am
Like I'm made of glass
Like I'm made of paper
Go on and try to tear me down
I will be rising from the ground
Like a skyscraper
Like a skyscraper

Go run, run, run
I'm gonna stay right here,
Watch you disappear
Yeah, oh
Go run, run, run
Yeah, it's a long way down
But I am closer to the clouds up here
 
You can take everything I have
You can break everything I am
Like I'm made of glass
Like I'm made of paper
Oh Oh
Go on and try to tear me down
I will be rising from the ground
Like a skyscraper
Like a skyscraper

(Like a skyscraper)

Like a skyscraper
Like a skyscraper
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/demilovato/skyscraper.html

YogaStrange

I had the best YogaDay today. 

There was a woman making sex noises in my 10am Hot Power Yoga class, which kinda cracked me up.

But also got me to thinking: could yoga be *better than sex*?  I've been reading the Yoga Sutras lately and so I wonder...

I know the immediate answer: depends what yoga, depends what sex. :) 

She was really enjoying her poses though, let me tell you and I had to admire (on some level), her enjoyment and lack of inhibitions.

But there was a guy there for his very first yoga class...I also wonder what the hell HE thought?!  Fortunately, he was there with his girlfriend who is going through a new session of the same Yoga Teacher Training (YTT) I did last summer.  So, I assume she explained it to him later.  I would like to have heard that conversation though.  

Then I stuck around after class to talk to the teacher who also assists in the YTT program and has become my friend.  I love this woman, she is my hero largely because she makes a full-time living teaching yoga and working at the studio.  She was a literature major in college, and I love talking to her because I feel we have so much in common.

Not just yoga and books but also some life experiences and strengths/weaknesses.  And, maybe because she loves to read, she also tells great stories! 

Today she told me about how this past week she had a disgruntled student in one of her yoga classes.  This man was large in size (think tall, not necessarily rotund), and walked in with an attitude, asking for - or rather demanding - free yoga classes because he had shown up for class earlier in the week and the doors to the studio were locked, for some reason.

He was very sure something was owed to him for some affront, and so he came into the class with a certain energy, let's say, that didn't really work for anyone around him. 

It went from there...she told me about how she tried to handle the situation, talking reasonably to this gentleman, and when it spiraled out of control & he wouldn't leave the safe space of the yoga sanctuary that he was threatening, she finally had to call the cops. 

The cops at a yoga studio!

God, that's strange.  And kinda funny, unless you were in the midst of the altercation as my yoga-teacher-friend was.  I think (from what I heard, second-hand), that she handled it beautifully.  I can't imagine what I would have done.

I can barely handle just figuring out how to teach with confidence when I have sweet students who tell me afterwards what a great class it was!  (This happened just yesterday, and bless that one student, for I am still so uncertain and want very badly to be a good yoga teacher but have so little time and energy to give to it...)

She and I talked about what it must be like to be a yoga teacher in a real city (which Sarasota just, isn't), where you never know what problems can walk off the street and plop down onto a mat in your class and you have to handle it.  It made me think that YTT might need to include some sessions on how to handle *the general public* who can show up in your classes, which can include the one-off strange person who doesn't seem to get it.

That we are all there to experience some peace & calm & stillness...not have a bizarre fight about free classes.  All I have to say to someone like that is ~ with incredible loving-kindness and sympathy ~ get some help, and Namaste MotherFucker, but stay out of my yoga classes!  :)