Be Quiet, Hear the Roar

I've been thinking of family, which began with a rare phone call from my Uncle James, my mother's only sibling, now 85, wondering what to do, where to live now that his wife's advanced Alzheimer's has permanently separated them both mentally and geographically. Struggling with health and financial issues, struggling with not knowing, yet facing life with an incredible sense of humor and independence. As a kid I remember him as tall and lean, thick light red hair, an outdoorsy kind of guy like an adult boy scout. For 7 consecutive years he drove from New Orleans and took all of us on extended camping trips to Camp Riverview on the Frio River, not too far from Garner State Park. It was always magical for me, sleeping on cots under an open sky, snorkeling and swimming every day, tirelessly riding the water on our air filled plastic rafts, nursing sunburns, listening to the constant flow of the river and the wind in the sycamores, late evening hunts in the shallows for crayfish. Always my uncle could built a campfire using only one match. I am guilty of all too often dwelling on childhood memories that were wounding--hence needing attention and processing--and forgetting the safe, nurturing, and peaceful moments that are also important collections of one's personal history. Is it me, or is it human nature to want to feel good, happy, joyful, contented, safe...most, if not all the time? My uncle reminds me, yet again, of the importance of learning to find peace with our troubles when they arise. Remembering to ride the breath, like all those countless moments of floating down the Frio, the fast moving shallow rapids, the slow moving calm of the deeper water, the step by step feel of earth and rocks beneath toughened feet.

Yoga training is nearing an end, and I'm glad for that, although I know I will miss the structured learning and growing process I sought, and found, and I'll miss my classmates (two are with child), and most of all, my teacher. It's been an enriching experience on all fronts--deepening my practice, meeting and interacting with new people, paying attention to that which resonates, moving into zones of discomfort, and much more, but in summary, feeling more awakened and alive to life and growing into that, growing into yoga. What I missed is staying home with my partner, and our pets, working in the yard. The accumulated projects will provide for a busy spring spent outdoors, getting my hands dirty, working with plants, painting the unfinished part of the gate and courtyard wall, digging up the bamboo and separating and replanting the lilies. Feeling the sun. Hearing the chimes. Hearing the quiet. Yes, the quiet.

We baked an Angel Food cake yesterday, and will serve it up today covered with sweetened, sliced strawberries and whipped cream in celebration of several birthdays. Little nieces running around the house just being kids, being very noisy, coloring one moment, crying the next. I look forward to it, and then I'll look forward to it being over. Yes, the quiet, but not too much quiet, not for me, not for too long.

I had a brief but wow moment yesterday when I ran into Mary K R, and she wanted to know why I didn't return to the immersion a year or so ago. So in response to her gentle probing I was totally honest and told her I found her to be cold, unloving, detached, and not very friendly! And in saying the words out loud, to her, the truth revealed itself so clearly. I just wasn't ready at that time. I had projected my hypersensitivity on to her, and made up a story which I bought into and acted on by leaving, by not returning. At the time, I think it's what I needed to do as I just wasn't up to that particular struggle and learning process. It was a moment of synchronicity. I hope to learn more from her in the future, if it's in the cards.

The Prevalence of Fear

Lately, as I'm preparing for bed, I hear the haunting call of the owl. In the darkness of predawn I hear the owl again, but this time I hear two owls, engaged in their song of call and response.

Something deep within me stirs, something sacred, mysterious, and slightly foreboding. I wonder if I'm dreaming--each time I fetch my roommate to come and listen, there is only silence. Doubt arises. The sound I hear is deep and guttural, a string of connected multi-syllable vibrations, legato, that float like notes on the wind. It's very much like a chant, a mantra, coming from the darkness of night when the earth has spun us away from the light of the sun.





It's hard to read of the devastation the Australian wildfires have brought to thousands of animals--burnt, scorched, seared, wounded, dehydrated, frantic, panicked, and dying; for most there is nowhere to go. These kinds of disasters make me wonder about the realities of life that are baffling, both in their beauty and in their incomprehensible horror. My two cats have been acting particularly needy of late, vying for a spot on my lap, curling up against me so close that I wonder if something has triggered feelings of insecurity. Both are rescued and adopted from shelters with "no-kill" policies, while thousands of others are euthanized. Is it any wonder that most of us, who strive for some kind of awareness, are often visited by the many faces of fear?




In the Spring 2009 issue of tricycle magazine, Ezra Bayda tells us that by truly getting to know our fears, we begin to break the spell they hold on us. He describes three basic fears: fear of losing safety, fear of aloneness and disconnection, and the fear of feeling unworthy. Within each of these categories he includes just about every fear known to mankind. Bayda tells us that these multitude of fears are not just mental, but are written into the cellular memory of the our bodies, particularly in a small part of the brain called the amygdala. Therefore, he writes, simply knowing our fears on an intellectual level will not free us from the dominion they hold over us. So how do we deal with these fears? We face them head on, we do not run away from them or deny them, we sit with them and see them for what they are. And what are they? Illusions? Most of our fears are not rooted in reality. They are imagined and created. They are stories that our minds spin out like long threads of cotton candy, with thousands of sticky strings that melt away once we touch them. There really is not much substance there, but there's little comfort in knowing that. The recent issue of the Shambhala Sun has a series of articles on fear: Anxiety Soup by Alice Walker, The Fearless Lineage by Carolyn Gimian, Beyond Fear and Hope by Margaret Wheatley. The cover of the magazine invites us to "Smile at Fear".





I'm struggling much more than I'd like with an injured shoulder. I'm learning that I don't know how to align my shoulder properly, and despite all the attention given to this matter, I still don't have it down right--it's all counter-intuitive. The needed muscles are undeveloped. I'm still learning. I've been doing it incorrectly for so long. The physical therapist fusses at me and I tell him to be nicer. Fear creeps in and want to find another therapist, I fear I won't be able to do yoga again, I fear the pain won't go away. I make up all sorts of stories. But I do show up and I do the exercises, and I know my imaginative fears are like a runaway horse on the wind that I try to rein in. It's particularly comforting when I realize I'm not alone. That's only one reason why community is such a potent antidote to fear. Fear is with all of us, and learning to rest in that, to smile at that, is a task we are called on to tackle regularly. I guess that as long as we strive to be steadfast warriors on our paths to find truth we are doing all that we can do. And so that is that.

This most resembles the sound I hear. Click on this only if you have an updated version of Quick Time, otherwise one's computer gets "stuck".

http://www.naturesongs.com/ghow1.wav
Great Horned Owl

The Nonsensical Expressing of Pineapples with a Hoot

We watched a whacked out comedy last night--Pineapple Express--filled with shoot em up pot smoking drug dealing bloody murder and mayhem with car chases and explosions and I was totally laughing my ass off. I really needed that--just crazy, nutty entertainment to let go off all seriousness and be goofy and silly. Comedy makes us laugh at life, at ourselves, at others, at our condition, and I think that holds high healing value. Hasn't it been proven in some scientific lab somewhere that laughter releases some chemical that is healing? At any rate, common sense says laughter is very good for us. I wouldn't necessarily recommend the movie, but it was certainly just what I needed after a weekend long yoga intensive that was both energizing and tiring. I am SO grateful for learning from Mark F how to position my shoulders (Anusara) during asana practice to prevent injury. The head of my right humerus bone has come both up and forward out of its stable position and therefore certain muscles need to be trained and strengthened to bring it all back into proper alignment. This has been bothering me for over 6 months, and gotten progressively worse, so I'm now working with a physical therapist 3x a week. After the long weekend of study and lots of asana practice incorporating the proper alignment of the shoulders, I noticed yesterday morning when I got up that I could feel no pain at all, as if some profound healing had taken place, which is pretty amazing. Recently I've been feeling slight discomfort in my left shoulder as well, which probably means the same thing is going on over there. Last night in bed I could hear the hooting of an owl, not that unusual out here, but very unusual to hear it from inside the house, so I knew the owl was perched nearby, probably doing a call and response with another owl. As I sit here writing, I can still hear the hooting. In most cultures the owl is ambivalent as the symbol of wisdom and darkness/death. Over the years more than just a few yoga teachers have told me to not be so serious; many more have corrected my shoulder position. Obviously there was wisdom and knowing in those words of advice, but I'm not sure I knew how to heed their cautions. Now nature is telling me to be wise with my body or I'm going to injure it, and perhaps I need to lighten up and come out of staying too long in the "darkness" of seriousness and step more often into the light of laughter. Hoot hoot.