Falling Down Forever

My excellent massage therapist has been wanting to return to yoga after a shoulder injury he sustained two years ago finally healed.  Not a single yoga class in the interim.  I recommended Thrive Austin, and when Paul decided to actually go to a specific class, I reconnected with a friend who checks people in and told him to be sure and give Paul an especially warm welcome.  It was all very sweet, and to reconnect with Fred after so many months of being out of touch made me feel both happy and sad.  It was through that conversation, last night, that I learned that a mutual friend of ours had been suffering from severe depression and had succumbed to the suicidal impulse.  After being released from a psychiatric care facility he went home and shot himself dead.  I have known many people who have taken this route.  Depression is an illness that can swoop down on any of us and put us in a place of such intense pain and darkness that we can see no alternative but to push ourselves down forever.  There is a sadness and finality in doing this, but it is something I understand.  There is no blame or guilt.  We all fall down forever at least once, for certain, and that fall can manifest itself in countless forms.  So I remember all my conversations and all the classes I took with Paolo and lament his tragic and abrupt end but with an understanding that such things are indeed part of the journey.  At the same time I celebrate the birthday of my partner who turned 81 today, and I look at him with deep affection and admiration and yes, a touch of envy, at his extraordinary life and the profound influence he has had on me.  He is healthy, alive, and each day is a celebration of the dance of life, in a calm, smooth and seemingly effortless flow of one moment to another.  I will begin baking Chocolate Decadence this morning.


As it sit here in the quiet time of dawn, the sounds of hooting owls and cooing doves and chirping birds reminds me of the cycle of life.  One lone white wing dove was presented to me with bloody injuries that should have killed him, but his will to live was strong and I could feel that and saw no other alternative but to do whatever I could to help him survive.  Dove season will be coming along soon and countless birds will be brought down to death by countless shotguns.  There will be birthdays today as well as memorial services.  I will get my deep tissue massage again next week and connect with my therapist on a level for which I can find no words to describe other than simply delicious.  I will have lunch and ponder the complexities of life with my therapist an hour or so later.  I will smile and laugh as often as possible and let myself cry and feel deep sadness when that's what I need to do.  In the back of mind I will always wonder when will I fall down forever. 

Fire, Earth, Water

Thanks to Leah at Austin Yoga for all her film and book recommendations!.  I recently finished watching the third film in the trilogy directed by Deepa Mehta--Fire, Earth, Water. Absolutely beautiful, educational, touching.   I'm just now beginning to read The Inheritance of Loss and was so engrossed in it yesterday that I failed to hear my psychiatrist call my name.  When I showed him the book I was reading, he told me his wife had read it twice she liked it so much (she is also a psychiatrist).  Why do I see a psychiatrist?  Well, it all began when I was 16 years old, and I've never been without one.  An early diagnosis of manic-depressive illness, now called bipolar disorder, has been with me all these years although it has been quite a few years now since it has shown manifestation.  There are aspects of Western medicine and psychology that have so much to offer in the way of healing (be proactive!), and when combined with spirituality and the holistic science of yoga, the benefits can be profound. 

My outdoor cat Misty brought me a white wing dove.  She always has this contented, unmistakable look of gratification when she brings me her trophies, and bring them to me she does.  Of course I don't like it but she is doing what her instincts are telling her to do.  So, I am ever so often rescuing animals and releasing them back to the wild whenever possible.  I must admit that she does manage to eat many of her catches but I accept that as part of her nature and although I don't praise her, I certainly do not chastise her either.  She is trying to win my acceptance, and because of the abuse she apparently has suffered, I've worked hard to win her trust.  So this beautiful white wing dove was lying in the grass a few feet from Misty, and when I walked over to him I was surprised to find him alive.  He walked away and headed for cover, begging for a safe place to hide.  He could not fly.  So, I brought him inside, put him in a large, ventilated box lined with cotton tee shirts and put him in a warm, quiet place, and covered the box with towels to create darkness and calm for him.  Several hours later I attempted to release him but he would have nothing to do with it.  He stayed put.  We repeated this several times but apparently he wanted me to continue helping him (a juvenile male).  Surprisingly he drank some water and appeared to eat a little so within 24 hours I presented him to a Wildlife Rescue bird rehabilitator who immediately examined him, gave him an antibiotic injection and sprayed his bloody wounds with a painkiller (of course she kissed him, called him darling and other endearments, as animal lovers are wont to do).  "With a few stitches and time, he will be completely healed.  Nothing is broken and the muscles used for flight will heal."  The bacteria from the mouth of cats is deadly to birds and they must have antibiotic treatment within a prescribed amount of time or they will likely die.  One of my other cats, Ralph, has been suffering from kidney issues for years now.  A prescription diet worked well, then we added medication, then doubled it, now we are hydrating him three times a week subcutaneously.  I don't think he has much longer to live.  He has a sad, pleading look on his face that in many ways reminds me of myself.  Along with his sisters and mother, he was rescued from the Humane Society and certain euthanasia, only to watch his mother and three sisters get adopted out while he stayed in the shelter for five more years.  I've had him now for about 6 years and he is a sweetheart. 

I witnessed a near fatal collision today.  A car was driving on the far right lane of a four lane highway, probably going 55 or 60, when another car pulled out right in front of her.  She slammed on her brakes and swerved, causing her car to slide sideways along the middle of the highway.  She was so lucky there were no cars in the opposite lane, and she and the other driver are so lucky that she did indeed swerve and avoid a collision there too.  I pulled over and stayed as a witness.  All was okay, but this sweet woman gave me a very warm hug.  It was unfortunate that this incident happened, but the warm hug and tenderness she showed to me was ever so sweet and will stay with me throughout the day.
******
Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi  

Sketchy Writings of Summers Past and Present

Journaling is therapeutic, whether we sit and write our thoughts on a blog or keep a notebook hidden away for no one to see. It's a way of processing our thoughts and emotions and allowing them to flow through us. When writing, we can use our non-dominant hand, let the words flow out in a stream of consciousness style, we can even make squiggles while we wait for thoughts to form themselves into words (which they may not do). In a way, our nightly dreams are our personal journals of our daily journey. While we rest our bodies, our minds stay very busy, exploding with chemical reactions and the electrical firing of countless neurons. We seek to understand the complexities of everyday life on many levels. It is in our nature to know our ourselves and our world.

I was sitting at the local AT and T franchise store awaiting my turn in line when an elderly lady came rushing into the store in a state of great frustration and breathlessness. "I hate this phone," she said, with a deep Southern accent, looking directly at me. "It's given me nothing but problems. I don't want all this high tech stuff, I just want a phone to be a phone, and I want it to work." I told her I understood. "You know Obama is not Black," she said to me, out of the blue. "People who voted for him just because he was Black, with the thought that he would end racism, were misguided," she said. I immediately retorted that I disagreed with her, and asked if she was of the idea that he wasn't a USA citizen. "Of course he's a citizen," she replied, "he was born in Hawaii. But his father was from Kenya, and was a Muslim, not a Black. His father was an Arab." She apparently had this fixed idea that all Muslims were Arabs, and Arabs were not Black. I explained to her that many peoples in Africa, who were Black, were Muslims, just as many white people were also Muslims. And so began a long discussion on a variety of topics ranging from cell phones to her childhood in Mississippi, her black nanny who wasn't allowed to eat at the table with the family to her own maid that helped raise her children. "It was all wrong," she said, "the way we treated them. But, it was all we knew." Sometimes what we learn to be right is very wrong. It's helps to ask ourselves: do our actions harms others? I had recently finishing reading The Help, a great book that I recommended she read. I understand a movie based on the book will be released in a few days.

In a recent dramatization of an Agatha Christie story set in a Middle Eastern country, a Englishwoman waiting to board a boat was traumatized when she suddenly found herself watching a local woman being stoned to death by a mob composed of community and family members, mostly male.  "It is best to not interfere with local customs," Hercule told her. In other words, look away and ignore. I practice regularly with a young Iranian woman. She fussed at me for mentioning a movie I'd recently seen that was a docudrama  about the stoning to death of a woman in Iran. It doesn't happen, she informed me, and they made that movie many years after the documented event. The next day there was news of a stoning in an Iranian village.   Atrocities abound in our world. 

Much of the world's cardamom comes from Guatemala. I like to grind the pods to flavor my coffee--it enhances the taste very nicely and has health benefits to boot. Yesterday when I lifted the top of the Rubbermaid box by the gate to retrieve a much awaited package of soaps, teas, and cardamom pods, a big red wasp glared back at me menacingly from his nest as he hung upside down and sideways from the bottom of the lid I held in my hand. I could tell he was ready to attack if necessary. Gingerly, I lowered the lid and warned my partner of the nest; like so many others, he's highly allergic to wasp and bee stings and can go into anaphylactic shock.

One morning I went to Devon's 7:30 a.m. Iyengar class at Clear Spring Studio, which I thoroughly enjoyed--I love hip and groin openers and hamstring stretching which we found in variations of supta padangustasana, which was also taught that same morning by Anne (subbing for Christina) and Clayton. Funny how often that happens. I love early morning. Anyway, before leaving the studio I reached into a wall mounted mail box of printed schedules and instantly felt an intense burning pain in my middle finger. I quickly pulled away and caught sight of a big red wasp staring back at me as she stood guard of her nest that hung from the metal lid. Deja vu but this time I realized the power such seemingly small insects can yield. In an airing of Life, narrated by Oprah, the world of insects (and mammals and reptiles) informs us that there are more insects on the planet than mammals, birds, reptiles and fish combined. They have evolved and adapted unique survival attributes. Pretty amazing stuff. They can quickly put us in our place. They can easily command respect. Scorpions suddenly appear walking across our tile floors at home, often attracting the attention of the cats, who seem to know instinctively to protect their tender noses. I stepped on a scorpion the other day and cannot recall ever having felt such intense pain from an insect. My tongue was numb the rest of the day. My partner had a scorpion on his pillow the other night and it stung him on his hand. Carpenter ants march in and out of the ac copper coil outside my bedroom, and the movement in the nest in the wall can be heard as I sit at my desk. Cicadas sing so loudly at night it's almost deafening. Long lines of ants form along the rafters as they take their share of sugar water from the hummingbird feeder.

I have truly been disappointed in myself at the way I have handled my reactions to events surrounding a current project, as well as my reactions to some of the people I've had to work with. Instead of being understanding and compassionate at the errors of others, I've been angry and judgmental. I find my mind caught up in the drama, making the drama, living the drama, lost to detachment and empathy. My emotional reactions beg to be processed and dealt with before I can move forward. I know in my heart that these are doors of opportunity knocking, and I can ignore them or walk through and learn about truth. My mind says, but I've had enough knocks for a while!

I chatted briefly with Mandy last summer about injuries, and how they help open us up to so many things, and how they can help us deepen within ourselves, deepen our practice.  No wonder I keep injuring myself! Christina Sell wrote in her blog today:

"...staying close to our own goodness, radically affirming the presence of Grace no matter what is happening and living our authentic truth in a community of others who are doing the same."...

This really struck a chord with me as does so much of what she writes. It resonates loud and clear like a hammer hitting the sky, permeating the heavens and ringing like John Henry's hammer on cold steel. Is it going to be the death of me or will I rise up and be transformed, even in some minuscule way? Will I walk on in self-pity or genuine humbleness at the astonishing forces at work in our lives? Many of us have to both live and work outside the "community of others who are doing the same," and this can be quite a challenge. Along comes struggle and it feels like drowning, when in reality if we just breathe in the sweet, cool water, relax into the moment, we are offered the blessing of death to old ways and birth to new ways. It is in this that time and time again, I drown.

Gioconda writes:
"In daily life we see people who are happier than we are, people who are less happy. Some might be doing praiseworthy things and others causing problems. Whatever may be our usual attitude toward such people and their actions, if we can be pleased with others who are happier than ourselves, compassionate toward those who are unhappy, joyful with those doing praiseworthy things, and remain undisturbed by the errors of others, our mind will be very tranquil." TKV Desikachar's interpretation of Yoga Sutra 1:33

This too rings with truth. My mind has not been tranquil because I have not remained undisturbed by the errors of others. So I need to do a lot of work, and be grateful for all the time I'm afforded to be around people in the yoga community, and learn to also be grateful for the lessons to be learned from others who challenge us to seek that inner tranquility that comes when we practice a sense of empathetic detachment.

This is the hottest and driest summer on record, but I do prefer the heat to the cold. Dale and I have been taking long walks down the road in the early evenings. I pulled my gracilis muscle a couple of months ago and just finished several weeks of physical therapy. It was suggested that I needed some strength training to avoid future injuries in my yoga practice, so I joined a local gym and am working with a personal trainer. I need to balance strength with flexibility.   Jeff W. recommended a massage therapist to me, Paul F., and I've been seeing him now for a little while, and he is one of the best I've ever worked with. 

Again this summer I find myself involved in a project, this time with my partner and his family, and suddenly finding myself dealing with a person who challenges me on so many levels. It really hurts to have false accusations thrown our way, and I have had to simply give up explaining the details of how a particular contract works to someone who's emotional issues come to the forefront of all objectivity and throws a wrench into the whole business. There is a certain blindness going on, an attachment to something that keeps one totally in one's comfort zone, a choice is made to reside out of the realm of facts and reality, but to stay in that place of unreality for fear that the admission of a mistake will cause all the walls of self worth to come crumbling down--the crumbling of such walls of delusion can be very difficult, but it is a rich experience that can bring one deeper into an understanding of oneself. And so I recall how we--especially me--must learn to find a balance within ourselves when we are confronted with the errors of others, when we are confronted with false accusations and attacks on our intentions and integrity. It's important to stay open to the feelings so they can move through us and not get stuck within us by our own repression of them. I find myself extremely angry, and subsequent to that, a tenderness arises in which I see that the errors we all make are often the result of a life unexamined, emotions that remain repressed and unprocessed. Stephen Cope writes in his book Yoga and the Quest for the True Self about the suffering that comes about as we reside in our false self. We are asked to move from the unreal into the real, which can be quite a difficult task. He refers to this as the reality project, in which we move out of the false, delusional self into the real, authentic self. The twin pillars of this reality project is clear seeing and calm abiding. I highly recommend this book.

We watched as a baby raccoon was abandoned (hopefully temporarily) by his mother. He could barely walk. I made sure he had plenty of water. It is sad to see how the heat and drought will cause so many animals to not survive. There is a famine going on in Africa right now that I believe is the worst in recorded history with tens of thousands of children dying from starvation.  

Green Doors

I was browsing the Internet when I came across a blog titled Toning the Om:
http://toningtheom.com/, and as I read on there was an mp3 download to a talk given recently by Marianne Williamson.  I downloaded it and have listened to it at least 4 times now.  I find it quite inspiring and although I've heard of Marianne Williamson (click on her name for a download of her talk) I am not familiar with her work, but hope to be soon.  I went back to this blog and noticed that the author had recently returned from a trip to Egypt, and she began thanking her fellow travelers on this trip that was so special to her.  It all sounded vaguely familiar, so I contacted her and sure enough, she had traveled with Spirit Journeys, a unique and spiritually-orientated travel "agency" that puts together trips and workshops relating to yoga, shamanism, spirituality, self-discovery, and so on, and they have many workshops and travel leaders who range from psychologists to shamans to social workers and more.  I have a link to this wonderful group on my blog.  I went with them to Bali as well as their men's retreat at Bodhi Zen Center in New Mexico a few years back.  Highly recommended.

Then I discovered Stephen Cope.  Peggy Kelly (see her new blog Physical Poetry: Ayurveda and Iyengar Yoga) told me I would really like him and she was right, I am so inspired listening to him speak. I downloaded one of his talks from iTunes titled Yoga for Emotional Flow, Free Your Emotions through Yoga Breathing, Body Awareness and Energetic Release.  Absolutely fantastic.   He has a book that is highly recommended:  Yoga and the Quest for the True Self.  It is on order.  On the day that Peggy told me about this author, a friend of mine whom I hadn't seen in quite a while showed up to class, which was unusual as he lives out of town.  He had studied with Stephen Cope years ago at Kripalu.  Anyway, we got together for lunch as he wanted to share a recent event in his life that he described as traumatic.  So I listened.  I was shocked.  I don't want to go into details, but he was arrested and thrown in jail for 36 hours before being released on bail.  What happened to him should not happen in this day and age.  It has had a profoundly negative effect on his life, and I hope justice prevails for him.  We never know what life is suddenly going to throw at us, and it can all happen in a split second and our world as we know it has been dramatically changed. 

I joined Angie's list to find a local plumber to help find an elusive leak associated with the outdoor shower.  In this process, I got an email for whole house window cleaning, inside and out, at a discounted price.  I've never had this done before, so I got an estimate and they are due to arrive at 7:30 a.m. this morning.  Which brings to mind a dream I had last night.  A green door belonging to someone had been removed from its hinges.  First of all let me say that green is the color of the heart chakra, and doors represent openings (as well as closings).  The door had a small window located at eye level.  For some reason the window was covered with plastic, so it was our task to remove all this plastic, and then put the door back on its hinges--rehang it.  To me the door represents the heart, and the importance of allowing our hearts to be open, but perhaps not open in such a way that we can be easily abused or taken advantage of.  But we need to be able to see clearly through our hearts, and not have a film over it that totally blurs our view, or clouds our judgment, as we look out at the landscape of life through the window of the heart.    We need to be able to choose when to open our hearts to love and when to close our hearts to those who mean to harm us, as opposed to having our doors off their hinges completely.  I think this addresses the issues of boundaries and unmindful vulnerability.  Stephen Cope tells us that we must never deny or repress our feelings, but we must let them flow through us.  When we exile a powerful emotion that may be too painful to experience, it will eventually come back at us in one way or another.  It may manifest itself in our body, reappear as a dark shadow/demon, or seek expression through drugs or alcohol.  Until we truly feel the emotion and let it move through us, it will not leave us alone.  This resonates with me. 

I have been having intense pain in the tissue on the left side of my right knee which I feel when doing ardha chandrasana or trikonasana.  It burns and stings intensely and is quite scary.  Peggy tells me that when we have such pain, we should look both above and below the area, in other words the hip area and the ankle/foot area.  Devon confirms this.  Bekir tells me to focus the outward spiral through the femur bone, and not through the knee.  During sitting mediation I noticed (not for the first time) a tightness, a blockage, a particular spot in my right hip crease that stands out loudly in the forefront of all physical sensations.  Focusing on that spot, breathing into to, listening to it, naming it was my task at hand.  After staying with this for maybe ten minutes, I suddenly felt my leg "let go" and the tightness disappeared completely.  I don't think, of course, that this is the end of it, but rather the beginning.  But finding the beginning of something is essential in moving forward in it.

Civic Duty, Family Duty, Silent Witness, a Baby Opossum

I was summoned to jury duty yesterday afternoon.  I was actually hoping to be picked as I've always enjoyed serving on a jury.  The room was packed with prospective jurors, only six to be chosen from the lot.  It was going to be a short civil suit having to do with credit card debt collection.  The lawyer had thick gray hair and reminded me of Raymond Burr in his later productions of Perry Mason--a nice looking man but carrying around an enormous amount of excessive weight.  He asked each prospective juror, one by one, a series of questions relating to credit card use, trying to ascertain one's position regarding the collection of such debt.  So, I was really taken aback when my turn came and his first question was, "Mr. Hicks, is that a purse you are carrying?"  "No," I replied, "it's a backpack."  "Oh, I see," he said, "please forgive me if I insulted you."  I immediately responded by saying "I do find that remark to be quite offensive."  Again, he apologised.  He moved on to his next question, "Mr. Hicks, are you an athlete?"  "I am an avid yoga practitioner," I said, noticing that several people turned around in their chairs to have a look at me.  My palms were beginning to sweat, but I sat up straight and turned on my assertive self.  "My wife does yoga" he said, "well, she used to.  Always trying to get me to join her, but I never did."  "Well," I said, "I think you would benefit tremendously from it."  Okay, here I was jabbing back at him, doing the same thing he had just done to me, something I do not believe in doing.  Impulsive retaliation.  Take me to that place of non-reactive calm, I said to my Silent Witness.  I need your help at this moment.  The rest of the conversation was pleasant, and he said I would be an excellent juror for this case.  (I did not get chosen).

I made my first trip to Europe when I was 23 years old.  I was fascinated at how many men carried these neat hand held, zippered "wallets".  Many have loops that you can put your hand into and let them dangle from your wrist.  I bought one and have carried one ever since, replacing them every few years.  In recent years I've thrown it all into an ergonomic shoulder bag sold at Relax the Back and other places, but I often just pull out my hand held man-purse and just carry it alone (wallet, checkbook, cell phone, pen, comb, fingernail file, iPod touch).  I have only had one person make a negative remark about this in 36 years and it was a friend of a friend struggling with accepting his own homosexuality.  There are studies that show that some men who suffer from lower back pain can alleviate the pain dramatically by not carrying their wallets in their back pockets.  Definitely not a skillful way to sit.

I watched the tiniest baby opossum moving toward the fountain in the backyard yesterday.  Somehow he barely managed to climb up the side, but when it came to drinking the water, it was so far below the ledge he was on that he spent several minutes exploring his options.  He finally decided to go for it, and eased himself down towards the water, finally able to drink by clinging to the top ledge with his hind legs, and drink he did.  It is so hot and dry and I cannot remember having so many dry windy days.  Then he fell into the water, way too deep for him to stand up in, and I watched as he helplessly tried to climb out, his paws slipping on the Mexican tiles.  I knew he would never make it out so I rushed out and scooped him out and placed him on the ground.  He was so tiny and skinny, I wonder if he will survive.  Where is his mother?  It has been a busy week for me, and I've spent very little time staring out the window on to the landscape of the backyard, and I marvel at the fact that I was watching at that very moment.  I do think nature talks to us.  We have a hummingbird feeder hanging from the eaves in front of the kitchen window.  It has to be refilled every 3 days, at least.  Earlier this morning as I was sitting here at my desk,  a hummingbird came to my bedroom window, hovered for more than a few moments, then left.  I checked the hummingbird feeder and it was empty. 

I had my third colonoscopy in 15 years this week and will find out the results of the four polyps the doctor removed.  This is an extremely important procedure for anyone who has any family history of colon cancer. 

It has been several years since I've worked with an Oil and Gas Company representative, negotiated the terms of a lease, and gone through that whole process of proofreading a detailed 50 page legal document at least twice.  There have been a flurry of emails and phone calls and dealing with family members.  I always end up with hurt feelings, but that's just me.  Things went smoother and faster than they ever have in past years--from beginning to end it all happened within the span of about 3 weeks, and not the many months of protracted engagement of pitting one company against the other in an effort to secure the largest possible bonus lease consideration.  I am happy the process is over, and now it's just wait and see if they drill, and if so will it be the usual dry hole, a marginal producer, or maybe something different.  Perhaps a little bird will tell me.