more practice

It is always amazing to me that as soon as the seasons shift into the great wind down of fall into winter that the great cultural ramp up begins. Activities pick back up and schedules fill in, even as the days get shorter, darker, cooler. It is that way over here for sure. While I effort to get my soccer(swimming/music lesson) mom legs under me and live in to the fullness of this season of our lives, I feel at the same time my immune system as well as my mind reaching for the call to slow down and turn inside. It’s kind of like a conflict of interest but I think I can manage it.

For the last month or so I have felt myself being pulled in the direction not so much of the seasonal great slowing down- for which I have often thought this time in years past- but a bit more as the great letting go. I have been in the process of peeling back some layers, shaving away some of the superfluous behaviors that fog up my perspective of myself. Those behaviors are generally the things that mitigate the discomfort of being alive but I am attempting to manage with less of them for the time being.

It is a good season for letting go in my life. My kids are stretching their wings more and more and are exploring further from the nest. Yesterday, I dropped my mom and Maple at the Milwaukee airport to begin their journey to London and then later up into the Highlands of Scotland. Eider and I will meet them there next week. But even still I have never let my umbilical cord out this far before and the lead up for me was tender and the tears that came after she was gone stretched well into the night. And as much as I delight in their growth and independence it is of course not free of grief and the eternal longing for their smaller more dependent selves. I know that I need to let go. But it’s fucking hard, so I talk kindly to myself and endeavor to loosen the clenched claw of my mama grip.

What I’m learning though is that I cannot just practice there in the realm of me and my people. I must also turn toward the dark shadowland of the deep inner gears and cogs, twists and narrow traverses of my inner landscape. The terrain in which I am busy with old stories of loss, of regret, of self flagellation and abuse. I am mostly waking up to it now, because for the last few years it has been a room inside of me cloaked in an attractive veneer, a hopeful, optimistic, promise land that underneath was feeding the ugly beast of guilt, self-loathing, and a particularly insidious form of body-shaming.

I’m ready to be done with that now. I am ready to be through with being oriented around all of the ways that my body once again let me down this month. I want to move past the stories of all the ways that my actions and behaviors in my body are still not good enough or are counter my aim or simply just fall short. The too little too late sob story that I feed myself over and over and over that hangs right on the heels of accusation and assault. I am all done beating myself up over what my body cannot do. Life is too fucking short and my time is way to precious for this shit any more. I want my minds energy toward my body to be oriented around tenderness and love and appreciation and gratitude. Even if that means the chapter of me growing, birthing, and nursing babes is really and truly from a story in the past. I want to let go. Even if all of my parts aren’t exactly ready yet. Most are.

So I’m slowing down. I’m watching myself. I’m relaxing the mental death grip on the loop of the story that I have been feeding myself. I’m washing the dust from my eyeballs so I can see more clearly what is instead of what is not and celebrate the accomplishments and the joy rather than the lack and the sorrow. But friends, I have to remind myself to do this shit every day. Many times throughout the day. The pit of this negative path of self-talk is deeply rutted in me and if I stop paying attention I fall straight into it’s dark middle. But I choose myself. I choose today. I choose my family. I choose to smile at the sunshine instead of lament it’s setting.

And while all of this practice is happening between my ears, I also pack up my boy and I so that we may head across the sea in a few short days to find our girl and our gran. What an adventure awaits! I am lucky and grateful and thrilled and aware as ever that life is a complicated paradox of contradiction and wonder and grace.

new terms

I have written in this space before, more than once, on the value and importance in the role of teachers, mentors, and guides in not just my life but in the growing lives of my children. I place big emphasis on this. Chris and I have made many decisions as parents that revolve around our kids access and relationships to particular teachers. I have made many choices for myself that are also in direct relationship to my need for proximity and contact to certain teachers. This is perhaps, much of why I cannot stop thinking about a term I heard for the first time on a yoga themed podcast that I must have happened across sometime in the last month. The term was: Post-Lineage. The context being that we are moving from a lineage oriented system to this new, modern, post-lineage yoga world. This has landed heavily for me. And not because I had not already been considering it- I think rather because something along these lines has been rattling around upstairs for awhile.

The term is succinct, direct, and with potentially large implications for the trajectory of yoga in the west. I am neither for it or against it, but rather mesmerized by it and interested in exploring the why the how and the where. I have definitely been around, either internally or peripherally, the yoga world for long enough now to have seen quite a few iterations of how the status quo is expressed. For the better part of the first decade of my experience it appeared that we were still very much in a student-teacher dynamic that was well rooted in lineage and tradition. And now, one of the biggest differences I see is that while most students care, for the most part, who their teacher is, they care a whole lot less about who their teacher’s teacher is and what tradition, or, lack of one, their teacher is connected to. Over the last decade, the larger yoga community has witnessed the dissolution of many of the major players. It almost appears that no sooner do schools of yoga take rise in the west then they begin to crumble under the faltering credibility of their figure heads. Something is seriously lost in translation as yoga makes its way from East to West. And while some of that loss in concerning- and I’ll attempt to get into that in a moment- the majority of it I find really liberating and honestly a bit of a thrill.

I love how unconcerned the majority of my students are with the protocols and customs of tradition. I see so much less transference and projection in the yoga rooms now than when I was coming up. SO much less. Students in general seem more whole. More aware of themselves and engaged around the conversation of agency and accountability. Which, isn’t that the point? And their freedom is allowing me to look more closely at my own obsessive inclination toward the role of the teacher. In what ways have I gotten too enmeshed? How have I blurred the boundary between my concepts of the teacher and my own sense of worth? I honestly really love this “take what you love and leave the rest behind” era. I have always cringed at most anything I have perceived as dogmatic (refer to pretty much the entire library of posts on this very site) while at the same time being like a moth to the guru flame. So I feel some relief and some space in this current time.

The concern, of course, is what is it that gets left behind? What is it that does not translate in the journey across the sea? Because if it is the reverence or the sacred or the art or any of that grace that is lost, then we may be in trouble. But I do think there is a trend toward that. At least, not largely. I still trust people to seek out depth and context beyond the casual exposure to daily content. I also think that as we mature as modern and complex human beings, we are capable of simultaneously elevating the seat of the teacher and seeing the individual with clear eyes. This pleases me. We do better when we learn from those who walked the path before us. We are served by the Grace of the countless practitioners who paved the way. And yet, it continues to be a living tradition. One that we are each a part. We contribute to this conversation. And if today that means that I am less concerned with lineage and more with integrity, efficacy, and meaning, then I’ll take it.

Spiritual Foraging

The official title of my major at Prescott College was Community-Based Environmental Conservation.  As much as I at times wish that I had chosen a different course of study, I still really love how I see myself in that description.  Community-based reminds me of the whole.  Of the importance, and really in my opinion, the necessity of gathering up the diverse perspectives, variability, and needs of the whole.  I see in that name an emerging preference and tendency in myself to be concerned with a broader range of perspective as well as suspect of too specified a group or organization.  One story is never the whole story.  I think I was just beginning to learn that lesson as a young enthusiastic college kid and I have continued to explore it in the years since. 

I have never had great success in becoming part of a group.  And not so much because I feel that I don't belong- even if that was more the story of my earlier years- but rather, I am wary of what I may loose sight of by claiming one style/organization/approach/school as my own.  Even so, I have attempted it many times over the years.  I have courted and actively pursued specificity and sense of place within several different yoga systems.  Some with more gusto than others.  And even in the moments where I have been about to lay claim to them in relationship to me, I am never quite able to get rid of the needling little voice in the back of my mind that cautions me against becoming too defined and too rigid in opinion and approach to the teachings and the practice.  Generally, at that point, I have backed off and returned again to the broader perspective. Where I welcome in more light and fresh insight. 

I have learned so much from so many different systems: Anusara, Iyengar, Ashtanga, Bikram at the heart of it.  But you can see, even looking at those names listed here, why one might be a little apprehensive about sidling too close up into the center of any one in particular. And the great news is, that more and more this amalgam reality that I live within, where I learn and benefit from the whole, is becoming more and more of the norm for the yoga world today.  People are less concerned about style and more focused on what they love about their teacher's teaching.  They could kinda care less about their teacher's teacher.  It was not that way when I was starting. Or even ten years ago.  You had better know what group you were a part of if your message was to have any merit at all.

I have felt this same pull/push- maybe this is what is meant by "healthy skepticism"- as a parent and a home educator as well.  When Maple was born, we were living in a vibrant Waldorf community.  And it was lovely for her and I (and later on Eider) in terms of really exposing us to their early childhood philosophy and approach to nurturing and teaching the whole child. I look back at that experience and my education within that community as the primary foundation of my parenting.  And yet, it was very clear to me after awhile that I didn't not want my kids at a Waldorf school. Even though we explored the option on several occasions. I felt there was greater risk in the exclusivity of perspective of the group than I felt there was by staying on the fringes. And that has carried over into my approach as a homeschool parent. I am suspicious of all-inclusive curriculum, and choose instead to forage for the bits and pieces that best comprise the whole. The only place with my kids where I have been able to embrace a pedagogy is in the Suzuki school of music. And perhaps that is because when you make your way in that world for awhile you see that many segments of the community are represented with great variety region to region and state to state.  There doesn't appear to be a real homogenized whole- or maybe it is just easy for Eider to navigate.

So I have become a generalist of sorts I suppose. I forage for what I can find connection and meaning in and let go of what doesn't click. In yoga, in homeschool but also to a great degree in religion and politics.  And that is not to say that I do not have clear beliefs and opinions.  If anything, I think it is the reverse.  I know what I believe in and I am also aware of the contradictions and hypocrisy within formal systems and it is of greater importance to me to keep a strong sense of the checks and balances, than it is to be a part of the group. (Please don't read this and think that I am not a registered voter within a particular party. I am. Good grief, I am.)

I am going to leave it at that today.  And with a little sense of what my practice looks like right now. It is an amalgam of styles. A little hybrid sequence.  You can see of a variety of systems in the selection of postures.  I think it feels good.  It feels honest.  Maybe it will to you too.

x,m

Amv, Ams, SPG cycle

Virasana, Supta Virasana

Sirsasana, Handstand, Pinchamayurasana

Crescent, Sba, Uttanasana

Trikonasana, Parivritta Trikonasana, Parsvakonasana, Parivritta Parsvakonasana

Utthita Hasta Padangustasana cycle, Ardha Baddha Padmottanasana, Parsvottanasana

Surya Namaskar A- 3x

Janu Sirsasana, Ardha Baddha Padma Paschimottanasana, Triangamuhkaikapada, Marichy 1

Paschimottanasana, Purvottanasana

Ustrasana, Parighasana var, Hanumanasana/Samakonasana

Urdhva D 3x, Dwi Pada Viparitta Dandasana 3x

Sarvangasana

Savasana

Being Responsive: A Homeschool Update

The Universe always seems to conspire, doesn't it?  No sooner do I put the words out there and claim this space to be neither one geared specifically toward yoga nor homeschooling, do I proceed to have nothing to say that is not about either yoga or homeschooling.  Go figure.

I have had this particular post rattling around for the last week or so, as we ease back into our homeschool year, however, it has been derailed a bit by an epically difficult day over the long weekend which has given me cause to doubt any sense of confidence in anything definitive I have to say on the topic. But such is life really, and home education, and for that matter yoga as well. And as the topic is really about change, about flux, about paying attention and about adapting, I find my self holding the course and saying what I have had to say in spite of knowing that it is never the whole story and is always open to modification, contradiction or even a complete retraction.  Please know that nothing shared here is ever a final understanding or definitive opinion but rather a moment to moment brainstorming and imperfect revelation.

So, here is a little bit about where my thoughts were moving before the weekend... My current learning curve as a home school mama is centered more than ever around paying attention.  I have learned over and over again that my agenda and the reality of my kids are seldom ever a match and that many of my plans are more often let go in the face of their needs, or preferences or general lack of interest. It has been an exercise in mitigating my own agenda. As soon as I begin to feel as though I am pushing something on one of them or the other I almost immediately have to drop it entirely and plot a much different course. Pushing or forcing is never going to get us anywhere except straight into an often loud and stubborn revolt. So I work on being adaptive and at the very least modifying my agenda if not scraping it entirely.  But it is the same as it is for me in any teaching environment: things are always going to go better if I teach to what is in front of me as opposed to the arbitrary plan- even if that plan was built based on what was in front of me a year, a season, a week, a month ago.  I have learned this lesson many times over in the yoga room and it is really no different at home with my kids.

What is new right now though, and giving me a much better sense of what child-led learning really means (hint: not just I pile of no, i don't want to but a lovely dose of yes more of that please) has been staying awake to when their capacity and interest are greater than I anticipated them to be.  They are getting older and more and more capable all of the time as well as more and more themselves all of the time.  And in our homeschool this is translating into keener interests in particular topics, more independence and ownership, as well as a desire to achieve that has more focus attached to it.  What this asks of me is that I continue to pay attention, stay awake and yes continue to be adaptive, but not just that so much anymore.  Now I am practicing being not just adaptive but being responsive as well. On my end, it is an exercise in availability.  When they ask for more, am I ready and able to provide it? Am I prepared with what may be relevant and timely to their course of interest? And perhaps more importantly, can I be ready without an attachment? Can my plan be strong and yet soft enough that it doesn't tip over into pushing or forcing or, dear god no, coercion? 

The "blinding flash of the obvious" here (ala Christina Sell) is that I cannot force it.  And I think I really get that in terms of wanting them to continue with something that they have clearly run out of either steam or interest on.  But can I also not push them into doing less when they clearly have more that they want to put toward something?  Can I give them more when that is what they are longing for, even in a culture where we keep wanting everything to be so neat and compartmentalized and self-contained in tidy little 45 minute segments? I want to hold the course for the long haul of whatever rabbit hole they have set their sights on exploring because the truth is, I have no clue where it could lead them and I do not want to hold them back from their continued discovery of who they are. 

In practical terms, what does that look like? Well, obviously it is different for each kid.  Eider this year is needing more organized and scheduled activities outside of the house as well more substance in his academics this year.  That means some additional music opportunities as well as some more time with his tutor, and of course lots of physical time with friends and in sports. For Maple, who is really showing much more interest in some academic rigor, it means some on-line classes and a clear and regular schedule with a lot more home time balanced with some really focused athletic output.  Go figure that Chris and I have kids that really need to work their bodies hard in order to relax their minds. It's a shock.

So, this gets us to the difficulty of this last week and while this might be a longer post of its own at some point in the future, it bears mentioning here.  Everything I have said so far is really good in theory.  You get the idea.  Be responsive to the reality of what is happening.  Meet your kids where they are at. What is not so clear perhaps in that equation are the unique idiosyncrasies of each kid and what those uniquenesses may trigger in us.  I said that Maple is ready and able for some more academic rigor this year and I am trying to support her in finding that.  What I didn't say is that Maple is a kid who at times deals with acute and debilitating anxiety.  She always has. And as she gets older, there is a lot more clarity around it, which is great. However, that hasn't really changed the fact that it can destabilize, derail, and at times paralyze our entire household infrastructure. Having a big list of work to do, even if she is psyched about all of it, can overwhelm her to the point of explosive panic and collapse.  And Chris and I are not great at responding to these episodes.  I think in part we are both triggered, each in our own way, and we certainly both feel helpless and lost when she is in the throes of it. 

I'm not sharing this to ask for advice or guidance.  It is something we have been working with for years. She and we all have support, in the form of community, wellness, remedies, strategies and so-on. I am mentioning it more just in favor of telling more of the whole truth and that no story is ever without its difficulty and nuance. I'm looking for equilibrium.  In all things.  As much as I want to share where I am at and what is inspiring or working well for me right now in our home school life, I never want that to paint a fantasy that in any way negates the simple truth that life is hard and that we are each more often than not just doing the best we can to be ok on any given day.

Yesterday was shit.  All four of us had all time lows relationally which we internalized in our own individual ways. None of which were pretty.  But I'm back up and at em today.  Ready to try again. To connect. To gently challenge. To gives hugs and praise and kisses. Every day I wake up and I have to remind myself to pay attention.  I think that is just how it goes. 

The Difficulty of the New

It takes immense courage to try new things. To learn something new from someone new. To form a new agreement with someone or a group of someones, often a new language is required. And to even define the terms that creates the language, there has to be a common understanding. Finding that is difficult. We are awkward and clumsy. Unsure and shy. And yet, most likely there is a longing that is propelling us forward into the new and if we do not act on the desire, we sell ourselves short. We miss out. We perhaps even severe a part of ourselves. The vulnerable part. The brave part. The part of us that calls out: I want to try! I want to see! I too, want to do! Or at the very least, know if I can. 

Right now, I am watching Maple have her first private trapeze lesson. I am nervous for her. I feel a discomfort that maybe she feels, maybe she doesn’t, as she and this new teacher feel things out with each other. But I also feel her heart. She has a big desire here and she is pushing into it. A moment ago she came over for a drink of water, her brow covered in sweat. I told her how proud I am and acknowledged the awkwardness of getting to know this new thing. And she shot back, with all sincerity: my whole life is awkward. This could sound sad or strange or pessimistic to someone who doesn’t know this girl as I do. What I heard instead was her awareness of the necessary discomfort contained in these beginnings. This swells my heart for sure. I think she knows what is required of her to reach into dreams. At least on an energetic level. And as much as the beginning of something may unnerve her a bit, she is no stranger to the discomfort. 

She’s on a trapeze. She is so strong. She is so creative. She is so very much herself and that, to me, is all my desire made manifest. 
 

theme/no theme

I've been considering, as of late, exactly what kind of blog this is anyhow?  Is it a yoga blog? Hardly. Homeschooling? Not quite. Lifestyle? That doesn't really feel right either. So what then? There doesn't really appear to be any discernible theme connecting posts or any one particular tone. To me they feel mutable. Variable like the day, like the weather, like the seasons. Pretty temporal really which rules out any sense that I may have of writing to any particular audience. Which I have never really had anyway and rather always just get the sense that I am pitching each post forward into the dark void of the inter-ethers to either be consumed or ignored for no reason in particular other than that I may have begged you to read them.  

All I know, is I enjoy the activity and every time that I lean into it and take the time for it, I am fulfilled in some way. And if I were to eek out a tone or theme for the writing in this space I would probably best describe it as "things that have my attention as of late" or "truth telling as I understand truth(or probably more accurately opinion) telling at this moment in time". Perhaps not quite right, but near right.

So, today, what has my attention? Well, the biggest focus for the last few months or so has been reading and writing. Not just for my kids and our homeschool, but a lot for me and also for all of us relationally. I have been sharing bits and pieces of that on the gram and have more than perhaps ever before been enjoying the literary life of our family. I have read some truly wonderful books with my kids this summer, as well as with Chris, who has always been a big part of our read aloud family lifestyle. Also, I have recently been exposed to more reading and writing homeschool influences and as ever am finding ways in which what I am learning there is applicable to my own practices as well as to the way in which I teach and train yoga students. The resources that have been inspiring me the most are The Brave Writer and Read-Aloud Revival. I also have been drawing on the wisdom and guidance of a friend and scholar and the recommendations that she shared with me this summer regarding rite of passage for young boys in particular and sense of self for secular spiritualists. She led us in the direction of the author Ursula Le Guin and in particular her YA fantasy series EarthSea as well as her translation of the Tao Te Ching.

I have also been thinking considerably about my movement practices as of late (this could really become an entire post in itself but for now just a few notes...) and have been experiencing a lot of curiosity and joy in my own studentship within the realms of Crossfit and Natural Movement. I have been loving Kellen Milad's Free Mover Mobility Project and have happily shared those explorations with Maple which adds an entirely different element in terms of shared experience. I have also loved being coached in a gym setting and enjoy the focus, camaraderie and support of that environment. While asana practice is still my primary practice, what I have been missing, perhaps more than ever, is a regular and on-going relationship with an experienced teacher. Having not connected with anyone in this way in quite some time, I am considering shifting my perspective in terms of the framework and am exploring the pursuit of a formal student/teacher relationship in a more contemplative practice of yoga. I have always been a student first and foremost, in part I think that is why I love being a home educator so much, because I get to always be learning, and I will happily be lots of teacher's student, but I would love something more committed, regular, and sincere. 

All of this is an exploration. This writing space included. I am trying to understand myself more fully.  My family. Our places in the micro and macro. And hopefully something that I stumble upon holds a spark of truth for you as well. For us, written narrative has always been a big help toward understanding ourselves and our world. And right there with narrative, breath and movement. 

Origin Story, Inverted.

The summer before my mom met my dad, as amazingly or as ill-fated as that event may have been, she was all set to pull up her Midwestern roots and head east for the Maine coast.  Maybe it was the call of my pre-conception potential or desire that made her stay and wait for my dad. Maybe.  But I think that it was perhaps even deeper than that and that maybe she heard the call of her potential grandkids, my kids. 

Before I fell for Chris, when I was 25, I was in relationship with a young man from Southern Maine.  I would travel with him every summer for 3 years to visit his family and the tidal rivers and coastlines of Maine. The summer after I stopped going with him, I went with Chris.  And just about every summer since. Chris' Maine roots are deep. Multi-generational.  When we first visited his family's summer cottage on a small island off of Mount Desert, his grandmother was still summering there.  She has since passed, but the echo of her spirit lives on in the place as does her mother's and sisters' and husband's and daughter's, Chris' mother.  There is lineage there and it is deep.  And Maple and Eider are a part of that.  They are in and of that place in a way that is just pain magic to me.  But not exactly me. I am different from that.  I love that place and it is profound and there is a drive to be there in me that is well beyond my understanding of connection to place. But I have come to believe that that intensity of feeling in me is what guided me to fulfill my role as carrier or conduit for our kids. They were calling me there. So that they could be there. For so long. Forever. 

Years ago, a yoga friend of mine who grew up summering on MDI, used a hashtag in an IG post that made so much sense to me that I lifted it.  I think that bummed her out and not understanding social media etiquette as well then as I do now, I probably really shouldn't have snagged it.  Sorry about that.  It was #myheartshome.  And that is it exactly. Beyond time, beyond space. It is a deep love. And only ever deepening.  This year in the weeks before our annual departure I could see my kids re-orienting toward their time in Maine.  As though the season was letting them know that the time had come for them to fly (drive) east.  Talking with other parents this summer on the island, it turns out this is the way of it for many island children.  Or the adults remember feeling that way when they were growing up.  And feeling it still now. 

I think it is becoming cumulative for me as well.  I feel an ever deeper sense of authentic belonging on our island home. And this year more than ever the contrast in our return to the Upper Midwest. Like everything feels a little flipped on its head.  A little off.  A bit out of place.

As ever, there is the learning edge for me.  I am learning about who I am.  Past, Present, Future.  Learning who I am in the continuum of family. By birth and by choice.

spring yoga.

The transition to spring is one of the most difficult times of the year for me as a yogi.  And therefore, one of the more difficult times for me in general.  I think that mostly this is the result of living in a northern climate where winter is something to go out and play in in between the long stretches spent indoors doing indoor things.  Practicing yoga, for me, is a mostly indoor thing. So, as the days get longer and lighter, the choices become more difficult.  And I am mostly ready.  Reluctant but ready.  I need light.  Fresh air.  I need to shed my skin (and layers of wool) and expose my summer self.  So, on bright early spring days when I have the option to go on a long walk with my boys, I compartmentalize my practice time.  I compress it.  Minimize it.  Orient it more toward maintenance than toward growth and discovery. Because I am so over being stuck in my dry, forced air, chilly, and often dark practice space.  And somewhere, in the shadow of my memory, I can recall that my favorite time of the year to practice follows this season.  Soon, the doors and windows will all be wide open and my skin will be warm and stay warm and the air will be fresh with plant energy, bird song and my favorite thing of all, humidity.  

It is time for me to get outside.  To turn my face to the light and soak it in.  Instead of skipping my time on my mat- which I used to do: "if I don't have 90 minutes, well, then I don't have crap!", I now simply compress it.  I look to effect my state more than my flexibility.  I choose a short list of shapes that are reliable feel good way marks for me and a few that I have learned I need to swallow with regularity.  The other day, I had 45 minutes to practice before Bear and I left for the Tuesday run of violin, but the sun was shining and pouring in the windows and we were rereading Wildwood and snuggling in the sun and so well I started shaving time off.   45 became 30 became 25 and then 20 and then I made it for 18 minutes with the time to the wire and us dashing to the car with our fists full of snacks and instruments.  Those 18 minutes worked though.   I merged for a moment with my breath and my body in a way that helped me carry peace through the rest of the day.  Old Meg would have most likely been pissed at the brevity, but new Meg is just thankful. 

Same thing yesterday- I had a nice chunk in the afternoon to write and to practice, but the day called me outside and I walked and talked and enjoyed the emerging season with my fellas while Maple cared for her Wednesday afternoon charge.  I got to hold hands with Eider and listen to him explain to me the scat of a Prairie Cat and well, let me tell you it doesn't get any better than that.  30 minutes on my mat will do.  It will do.

Here is how it goes:  I set the timer, say, for 20 minutes.  With short repeating intervals.  40 seconds.  And then I make child's pose and take a long deep exhale.  And begin.  

AMV, AMS, Uttanasana, Lunge variation, Prasaritta Padottanasana

Handstand, backbend over the block or wheel, Pichamayurasana

Trikonasana, Parsvakonasana, Ardha Chandrasana, Crescent variation, Parivritta Trikonasana, Anjaneyasana with a quad stretch.

Ustrasana, Janu Sirsasana, Ardha Baddha Padma Paschimottanasana, Parighasana variation

Urdhva Dhanurasana, Urdhva Muhka Paschimottanasana, Ardha Matseyandrasana

Stay if you can for 2-5 minutes Ujayi Pranayama or legs up the wall.

xxo, m

Having a body. Inhabiting that Body.

I cannot remember being in my body until I was in my early-mid 20s.  I think I had been with my body up until that point, but certainly had not been in.  I had looked at my body in much the way that many young girls and women view their physical self: as something upon which to apply ones will, or something, in turn, that fell short of my expectations and strivings and was thereby a disappointment.  The notion of being connected to ones body was never raised- not at home, not at school, not in sports or dance.  The body was not something to listen to or receive wisdom from, it was simply something else to apply directive to. 

There are moments throughout my childhood and my early adulthood that when I look back upon all I see is a young girl and woman isolated within the terrain of a critical mind without any connection to the bridge of a body that could connect her into the world around her.  I feel so sad when I remember that feeling of isolation, of such a deep separateness.  The initiation into the body, for me, did come in the form of the physical practice of yoga and then later on through breathing practices, meditation, mantra.  Yoga was a huge access point for me then and continues to be one that I am well entrained to today.  But I am no longer naive enough to think that yoga is the only way or even a feasible way for everyone.  I think it is rather that I was fortunate enough to come in to contact with skilled teachers and guides along the way, that I was able by some grace to identify them as such and then, thankfully, let them support me in finding my way home to my body.  Early on, these guides were yoga teachers.  Sure.  But once you develop skill in identifying teachers, guides, and mentors, you can pretty much find them everywhere.  

A few years back I started to consider the ways in which asana practice is really not a complete movement system and the ways in which there were a variety of functional movements missing from my skill set.  I began to explore different modalities including Crossfit and Movnat. Round about the same time, a Crossfit gym opened not far from my house in small town Wisconsin.  I put my big girl panties on and made myself a beginner in a foreign land.  And it didn't take long for me to reap some real and quantifiable benefits.  Sure, it made me stronger in lots of ways.  It brought in some much needed movement to my practice including pulling, hanging, and swinging, just to name a few.  But it has revealed a few unexpected gems as well.   It has given me an additional language with which to endeavor and strive in my body and my mind and it has also asked me to be humble and easy, forgiving and compassionate with myself. 

But most importantly, perhaps, it has allowed me hold space for my children, via the kids groups that they attend at the gym, as they come into deeper knowing and integration with their own bodies. My girl Maple turned 12 this year folks.  Not the easiest time in life to be a kid and have a body! I look at her everyday- the way she moves and breathes and rests and works in her body and I remember not just what it was like for me as a 12 year old, but also what it was like for her just last year before she began Crossfit.  Sure, she has been exposed to yoga forever, and we are for sure an active family and she is no exception- but her body was beginning to change and she was getting so tall and lanky like an awkward overgrown puppy.  And I could see her separating.  I could see her lurking within the corners of herself, unsure of how to inhabit her full terrain. And while she is the kind, compassionate, generous, sensitive ,understanding Maple that she has always been-  the tentative and meek part that was hiding her within herself- is now overshadowed by the rising up of this strong, self-assured, and able youth. 

So, as I watch who she is becoming, and I give thanks for the timing of her coaches in her life, I also have become much softer in my consideration of the roll of my time at the gym in my own life.  And while at times I think that it is about becoming strong and able, I am beginning to understand that it is really about becoming more whole.  In my body, for sure.  In my heart and my mind as well.  In all of the ways that bring all of the parts of myself together.  So that when a part of me rises up and asks to be seen, I am ever more able to hear the call.

Holding Space

The flu arrived at our house the night before last.  It found its way through Maple, of course.  Our little bridge between the world and the private landscape of our family. I've washed my hands so many times in the last day and a half that the skin is raw and cracking and my knuckles are close to bleeding. It is no exaggeration to say that staying up all night with a sick child is immense work. To care so completely for someone else's physical self when they are unable to do so for themselves is to show up and be present like nothing else. 

It is at once self-less and self-full presence. Helping another being through something that they have no option but to travel through-  you do your best to face it with them, and in any way that you can, carry some of their burden. Because we all take our turn in the seat of profound physical surrender.  Whether we choose the path to our own calamity or the path chooses us, we all arrive their sooner or later, and for most of us, many times over.

I know that I am going to need space held for me so I do my best to put myself aside and hold space for others when called.  That's not to say that I'm not kicking and screaming when the call first lands in the room down the hall just as I'm about to lay down my head and settle in for the cold night. It doesn't mean that I bypass navigating through much of my own resistance when the call shows up and it's a fucking gnarly mess.  

But I pull myself there.  Sometimes it comes easier than others and every time I am always thankful for the grace that rises up in helping me to show up.  I think that is what I mean by self-full.  I have to embody myself so fully in those threshold moments, whether they are mine or someone else's, that there is no room for my own doubt or resistance or separation. I must be fully present in those moments.  Anything less is a disservice in my experience.  And mostly a disservice to myself and my knowledge of my capacity and intention to be a good and supportive and loving and brave human. 

The first time that I can remember ever being called to hold space was utterly random.  I was living in a sublet in a house with a bunch of other young women in Prescott Arizona the summer before my last semester at Prescott College.  The three other women in the house had lived there for several years together and I was a bit of an interloper.  I didn't fit in with the house dynamic and I didn't really care.  It was a place for me to land between river trips on the Colorado through Grand Canyon and well, I was very much wrapped up in myself as one mostly should be in their early 20's.  One of the women in the house was pregnant and due right around the time that my sublet was up and I was moving in to another place with my boyfriend at the time.  She was single and incredibly bold, albeit somewhat remote.  The other 2 women in the house were her birth support and well, I figured that they had the whole thing under wraps and I literally never even thought about it.  

Until, on my last night in the house I woke up in the night, as one does, to the sounds of a woman walking through the gates of labor. So I got up.  Planning to sneak out the back door and get the heck out of there.  But it was not to be.  When I walked out of my room and through the hall past this woman's room, I could see that the other women in the house were holding themselves separate.  They were not inhabiting themselves in the way that I intuitively saw was necessary.  So I stayed.  I ushered my boyfriend out to his car and he slept there until the sun rose when he headed down into down.  I stayed with her for the day.  Past when the midwives arrived.  Past her transition into active labor. Through her doubt and through her struggle, I stayed.  Moving closer and closer until the sound of my support drowned out the snickers and commentary on the horrors of childbirth from her friends.  I stayed til her babe was snug and clean and her breast.

It was spectacular and life changing and entirely unexpected.  I just answered the call I guess.  And I learned a lot in the process.  About showing up.  About being myself.  About not worrying about what things look like from the outside and that self- reflection is not the same as self-criticism. The craziest thing about that day was that later that night when we were sitting around unpacking boxes with some friends- one of them shared with me his day and how he had been called as well.  But in quite the opposite way.  He had been a bystander to a catastrophic car accident on the road out of town.  Right up by the mall and the movie theater.  He had stood by and spoke softly to the woman trapped in the car as they waited for the paramedics to arrive and as the life slipped out of her and her small son.  Not his plan. Not his hope. But he showed up when called and with all of his grace and heart held space in their dark hour.  Even with a shit ending.  Showed up and held space and tried as best he could to be a source of peace and comfort.  

This took a sad turn.  Which was not my intention.  But I guess as much as I am scared about every single thing that could go wrong in life- that on some level is bound to go wrong in life- it is a comfort to me that I know how to stand on the threshold when called.  And as much as I rather not have sickness and sorrow living within my walls, I am thankful for these opportunities to practice.  

And fingers crossed that there is only one flu in our house this week and not 4....

Longevity in Practice

The other day I attempted a pose that I haven't approached in a long time and wasn't in the least bit surprised to find that it was completely inaccessible.  My hips felt tight and my knees felt perilous and I was disappointed for a moment or so before shrugging it off and moving along.  That type of pose in particular has always been earned and never given for me and quite frankly I have not been doing much to earn it.  And while I still have some lust and ambition for some of the bigger postures in yoga, my drive has lessened and my sights feel as though they have shifted.

I have long emphasized progress on the path of practice, and I still do, but the measure for that has tipped in the direction of the internal and more self-reflective aspects.  While there was a phase in which I was more reckless in practice- hello 20-something Meg- and cavalier with my nervous system, I have always been on the more conservative end of the spectrum.  I will take risks and I will push myself but not without the underlying confidence in my skill and ability.  If that is not there, then I wait until I have developed it or if I do not choose to work on it then I clearly must not care enough to ever get it and well, I simply must be ok with that.   For me, the risk of injury to the point of limiting my ability to practice at all,  often outweighs my desire for a posture or movement, and I simply depend on my practice for my psychological health too much to risk it.  Of course, there are unforeseen injuries and illnesses that have necessitated breaks in regular practice and that to me has always seemed like plenty.  I have lived through several pregnancies and postpartum stretches of time that have dictated the needs of my body far more that the agenda of my will and, well, that is it's own particular challenge and surrender.  I would like to be healthy and well in my body for as long as I can so that I may practice as well as I can with as little harm as I can for as long as possible.  

Which is really where my sight is set now.  Longevity in practice.  The clock is only moving in one direction and while I know that I am still in the window of time as a practitioner to really explore the physical depths of my practice, I am beginning to think that the risk is too great and the amount of attention and time to cultivate and sustain that degree of opening and strength is more than I want to give.  Perhaps this is tricky, but for me my kids are still young and at home and it is a delight for me to spend time with them exploring their developing interests and passions rather than diving down the worm hole of mine.  And because my practice is regular and well developed, it also isn't going anywhere so I do not feel any risk of loss in that way.  

None of this is to say that I am throwing in the towel.  I am still working on opening my hips and deepening the curl in my upper spine.  I still believe yogi dandasana and kapotasana are in reach if I spend a little more time working toward them.  But I am also able to shrug it off and move along during the stretches of time where I cannot really touch those shapes.  I am also not willing to mess with my nervous system or walk too far out on the end of the live wire in a way that may lead to physical harm.  I am interested in the full and healthy function of my whole system.  

This has been on my mind so much lately in a variety of different ways.  I have been watching my teachers begin to back away from the deeper postures in their practices and their teachings.  I have also been discussing and witnessing the shifts in the practices of my peers.  I have been trying to pay attention to the injuries that are happening in the yoga world and how they are handled.  I have also been feeling some concern for the ways in which yogis are served or not served once they do seek professional help for chronic or developing physical issues.  This is something that I am just beginning to chew on, but it seems to me that the average PT is not so familiar with the range of motion more standard for a yogi and the risk seems higher when conventional exercises are applied to that sort of patient.  I don't know, I am not a PT.  But the PT's that I do know that are familiar with what goes on in practices such as mine have a different protocol that they adhere to than for someone with average range of motion.   But I digress...

In my teaching right now I am loving decoding the basics in ways that unfold understanding in more progressive shapes.  Fluency in a posture like Virabhadrasana One makes the approach into a shape such as Natrajasana so much more accessible.  Perhaps, even more importantly, the way in which we begin to inhabit our physical self can be so profoundly developed in the basic asanas that we begin to carry that connection along with us: into the other shapes, sure, but more importantly, into the quality of our being-ness across the board.  When we penetrate our understanding to such deep levels, we sustain the state of yoga for longer.  I believe that to be true and I believe that there is a particular elegance in the teaching and studying of the basic shapes.

And sure, we are getting into more psychic and intuitive terrain here, but anybody that knows me and my teaching, knows that this is what I am most into and well, quite honestly, what it is all about for me at the core.  The other day I taught my big Monday night class and Chris came to it which was amazing for me because he hasn't taken a class with me in years and I don't think has ever seen me teach to such a big group.  Afterwards, of course, I drilled him for as much feedback as possible because he has seen my teaching from way back when I was a baby yoga teacher and holds that understanding of my growth and development- plus we are brutally honest with each other and both love constructive feedback, so there's that.  Anyhow, I don't know how we got there but I really began to chew on this awareness I am uncovering in how the language of the practice effects me on a physical level.  I am just talking people through the practice in the class.  I very seldom do any of the postures and yet I feel the poses unfolding in my body as I am talking them through.  As though I were teaching from and yet to my own cellular memory of the shapes.  I think that this must be the resonant field of yoga and that the clarity of the alignment creates an energetic effect in the field, not just in ones own body but into the surrounding space and even into one another.  Ha ha ha, um, Shakti?  

Wow.  If you are still reading I am so sorry for this wackado ramble.  But maybe we have circled back around?  To me life of practice means Life Of Practice.  I want to spend my life touching the practice as regularly as I can and living life from the field of that awareness.  If that means less depth is certain areas as time goes on, so be it.  But I am still going to breathe and love myself into as much depth as I can maintaining as much peace and connection as possible. 

details.

Several weeks ago I was emailing back and forth with a woman that I connect with regarding transitioning her kids from compulsory school to home.  This particular correspondence was a little bit more detailed with the nuts and bolts of our content.  There is more to say, of course, especially regarding context, and perhaps I will say it soon here as well.  This is shared here with my friend's permission.

First off, I want to begin by saying that I really do not believe that any one approach to educating kids is in any way superior or inferior to any other.  From what I can tell, kids can thrive or completely languish in any setting, be it public or private school, homeschool or unschooling.  I also think, in many ways, that choosing what works best for the parents is often what works best for the kids. That is not the same as what is easiest for the parents- just best.  Often I think that I live right on the edge of that.  There are times when I very much wish that I could free up some of my time for some other personal pursuit, but at this point in time, that is outweighed by the benefit that I perceive in our homeschooling lifestyle. 

One thing that it is very important to be aware of when moving kids from school to home is the de-conditioning that they need from their lives at school.  I've read and heard a number of folks say that they needed to give their kid quite a bit of unstructured and open time just to make the transition.  Even if a kid didn't particularly like school, they are going to be really quick to say things such as: but at school we did it this (other) way! They really just might fight it.  Even if they were in full agreement with the move home.  So, I think allowing for a period of adjustment is important.  I have heard some folks say that they gave their kids as much as 6 months to settle before beginning any official schooling at home.  That seems like a lot to me, but maybe if you count the summer?  We began in the fall of Maple's 3rd grade year and she had only gone to 1st and 2nd grade- she was home before that- and it took a full year for me to feel like we had settled into anything.  

Like the rest of parenting, support is really key.  Even if it is minimal.  It is epically hard to find secular home schoolers in rural environments, so when you find them- hold on for dear life.  Plus, they need you and your kids as much as you need them and theirs. I have always found that my kids want relationships with kids in which their parents are my friends as well and we can therein create webs of familial community.  

Another piece is that both of my kids are significantly dyslexic.  Maple took a long time learning to read and still has great difficulty with spelling.  Eider is still struggling to learn to read at almost 9.  They have both been seeing an Orton Gillingham tutor for the last 2.5 years and I rely on her immensely in terms of academic support and encouragement.  Often, the bulk of what I work on with the kids for reading, writing, spelling, grammar- all literacy really- comes from her.  

So, we do not use a specific curriculum perse, especially because each of my kids is at such different level in terms of grade and norms and averages and the dread "on track".  I choose to focus mainly on literacy and math because that is what I feel is the most important and that their fluency in those subjects is what will launch them into everything else.  For example, this year Maple expressed a keen interest in history, so I helped her to pick out a bunch of books, some of which we read together and most of which she read on her own.  She also really enjoys listening to podcasts and has a few history ones that she listens to every few days.  

Before I get too far in the direction of particulars, here are a few specific resources that work for us: 

Reading and Writing: Explode the Code- these are great, especially for the younger set.

Kumon Writing books have been great for Maple as have some of the Wordly Wise books for reading comprehension and vocabulary.  

Math: I have liked the Singapore math books up until about 4th grade- at which point I find I need some help explaining things to my kids.  I just bought a year of Math Help- an online curriculum that seems to be going well.  There are lessons and quizzes which my kids really weirdly enjoy.

We haven't done much for science save earth science.  We have a subscription to Tinker Crate thanks to my mom and those are amazing and fun. Our homeschool group does a science fair once a year and as of yet my kids have not expressed a ton of enthusiasm there.  This year the group also put together a geography fair this fall which was fun.

While I'm on the topic of homeschool groups- I have to say this is clutch.  We are a part of a group that has been around a long time and while it isn't necessarily secular- it sees the most involvement from those of us who are.  During the school year we have monthly book clubs for 2 or 3 different levels of reader.  Each facilitated by a parent.  These are amazing ways to connect. We also put together classes with local artisans for the kids.  Most frequently they do fiber arts classes at the local yarn shop because we have a group of very enthusiastic knitters.  We have also done clay classes with the local potter as well as circus classes with the local Circus folks.  A few times a year our group coordinators will organize field trips to different places in the area.  Some unusual places, but mostly very everyday places where the kids get to see behind the scenes.  They love that the most I think.

We live in a small town about 30 minutes outside of Madison and so there a quite a few programs designed for homeschool kids- which, when you think about it, really makes a lot of sense for businesses in terms of filling their school day hours a bit.  

My kids are also a part of a program called Wild Harvest Nature Connection.  They are each in a group with other kids and a couple of mentors and they meet at a local county park for 6 hours once a week.  Rain, snow, sleet or shine they are outside learning outdoor skills as well as managing group dynamics.  This has been big for both of my kids in both amazing and difficult ways.  It gives them a lot of time to navigate social situations and group dynamics in supportive environments.  

Oh god this is long.  And looks like a lot.  But a lot is really not the thing.  If anything, less is the thing.  Don't do everything.  Take your time.  Listen to your gut.  I know I said that kids need to go through a period of de-conditioning, but parents really do too.  We have all been brought up in this culture of compulsory education and it is hard to shed that skin, or even be able to look at it with any objectivity.  Maybe homeschooling will be the right next step for you.  Maybe not.  One thing that always helps me along as a homeschooling mom is to remember that no matter where my kids are in school or by whom they are being taught, at the end of the day it is me and my husband who are accountable to their education.  No one else.

I hope this is helpful!  If you even managed to read this far....  If you have any questions or whatever, please feel free to ask!  I look forward to hearing what unfolds for you.

xxx,m

What's up

For the better part of last October and November I was so weirdly sick that best way I could describe how I was feeling was that my blood felt poisoned. I had felt it coming on for quite some time but hadn't wanted to deal and was just pushing through til the inevitable system failure.  Which I got to.  The depth of it lasted a little over a week, but I couldn't get out of bed for a bit and felt as though I was pinned down by the weight of the universe.  I was getting some help and support from some folks in the healthcare field that I trust and we were weeding some things out and for a while I was functional solely because of a fairly straight forward yet intense lemon and olive oil concoction.  Anyway, I am almost embarrassed to admit what the fix turned out to be.  As a Wisconsinite I should really know better.  But somehow, a little over a year ago or so, I had unconsciously stopped taking the daily Vitamin D that I know is crucial for my mood and wellbeing.  Well, turns out it is an important helpmate for much more than that.  Vitamin D helps our bodies process so much input, from other vitamins and minerals to hormones.  It took only a few weeks of taking a high dose again before I started to feel systemically better than I had in ages with a return to my natural energy levels.  Needless to say, I have been having a somewhat transcendental spiritual experience with Vitamin D.  A rebirth of sorts.  My mind had been very much spinning into a wormhole of chronic and pathological illness.  And now I say: NOT TODAY.

This was the lead up to my 40th, which was for sure not how I had been hoping to pass into the next decade.  But the upswing was great and so far 40 seems cool....  Moving past feeling like shit has been great.  I had time and space to enjoy a pretty leisurely Holiday season with my family.  We kept it super mellow and had a very cozy time with one another and family and friends. 

Maple turned 12 last week and launched us all smack dab into life with a pre-teen.  As ever, she continues to amaze, inspire and challenge me and I just feel so lucky that I get to be close to her and watch her grow.  Eider has a few more weeks as a 9 year old and the combination of the 2 of them and the radical clip that childhood seems to move at does not ever seem to let up.  

So, this is what I am in right now.  A whole lot of gratitude for my life and my people right now.  And right now it is active gratitude which feels so good.  Like thank god really.  Some times it is so fucking hard to connect to the grace and the good fortune of it all, even when you know you should, but right now I got it and I figure I should probably sing it while I do.  

While I'm just singing the love for a minute I really have to say what a beautiful time I have been having teaching.  I have been teaching at The Studio in Madison for 5 years this month and it is really good for me to reflect on how much growth my time there has afforded me as a teacher.  I have met so many folks that have come to mean so much to me and who I have also had the distinct pleasure to watch grow and mature in their endeavors as well.   Anyway, I have been so well supported there and have had so many exciting teaching opportunities provided for me.  I am enjoying it all thoroughly and feel inspired to continue to cultivate a community of practice and wholeness.  

There are a few more update-y type things and gratitude appreciation pieces that I would like to share in this space,  but that will have to wait a little bit.  More soon.

x,m

Rattling around.

....from Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

You are not surprised by the force of the storm-

you have seen it growing.

The trees flee. Their flight

set the boulevards streaming. And you know:

he whom they flee is the one

you move toward. All your senses

sing him, as you stand at the window.

The weeks stood still in summer.

The trees' blood rose. Now you feel

it wants to sink back

into the source of everything.  You thought

you could trust that power

when you plucked the fruit;

now it becomes a riddle again,

and you again a stranger.

Summer was like your house: you knew

where each thing stood.

Now you must go out into your heart

as onto a vast plain. Now

the immense loneliness begins.

The days go numb, the wind

sucks the world from your senses like withered leaves.

Through the empty branches the sky remains.

It is what you have.

Be earth now, and evensong.

Be the ground lying under that sky. 

Be modest now, like a thing

ripened until it is real, 

so that he who began it all

can feel you when he reaches for you.

Bits of this poem- or rather the tone of this poem- have been rattling around in my head for the past week or so.  I have been trying to take it as slow and easy as I can and really soak up these warm and brilliant fall days.  The long falls that we have been having in the upper midwest the past few years have really allowed for a chance to linger in the light and the brightness of the season before retreating more and more indoors once winter hits.  I have been basking as best I can, drinking in all of the golden light through my eyes, through my skin.

There have been a few things that I have wanted to share as of late.  Some thoughts, ideas explorations.  But all of that was somewhat suddenly put on hold earlier this month when Chris and I lost our health insurance.  We knew that it was coming, so it wasn't a shock per se, I mean it has been shocking but not because it was a surprise...  Chris was promoted earlier in the year so it was only a matter of time before we were bumped off of Medicaid (thankfully not promoted to such a degree that our kids were bumped- they are, thankfully, still covered by the state), and as he is employed by a Canadian company, they are not particularly quick on the uptake in regard to health insurance.  So, it is a godforsaken shit show out there in the health insurance world.  Which I have known, hopefully we have all known, it's just that right now I really know, ya know?  Anyhow, we are insured on a relatively decent plan.  For the small fee of what an airline ticket to someplace amazing would cost.  Every. Single. Month. And good luck getting a 20% coinsurance after deductible to make sense to any rationally minded sane human being.

This is most definitely NOT what I have wanted to talk about.  But, it occupied the very forefront of my attention for every waking and non-waking moment (I mean I dreamt that Chris and the kids and I were being hunted- on foot, sleeping in abandoned houses and scavenging food and destroying all trace of everywhere we had been) until I finally clicked enroll and sealed the deal and like 10 round trip tickets to Bali later.... 

What I wanted to talk about, and really spend more time absorbing and processing in general, was the MovNat weekend workshop that I participated in in Milwaukee at the beginning of this month.  I have been tentatively exploring the world of natural movement for about the last year or so- really since I decided it wouldn't be the end of days for me to explore any type of movement that happened off of my mat.  I met Kellen Milad, a MovNat trainer and coach, last spring and knew right away that I would very much like to learn from him.  He is certainly a beautiful mover, but he also very smart and centered and connected in a way that appeals to the yogi in me- both student and teacher.  And I just really love to be the student of a good teacher, blah blah blah I've said it a million times before.  On this very blog.

So, the weekend was challenging.  Like, very physically difficult.  And then difficult in the ways that come along with that.  My assumptions were checked a bit.  I wasn't as indifferent as I had perhaps hoped to the skills that are out of my range.  But, it was also a blissful weekend.  Which caught me particularly off guard.  In retrospect, I guess it's not really surprising at all that spending large spans of timeand energy engaging play with awareness and attentiveness- while primarily outside- would result in the experience of internal unity, or bliss states.  What I mean by internal unity is an equal engagement of different aspects of self.  Identity parts, as it were.  But also unity between aspects: physical, mental, emotional, spiritual.  

I was exhausted at the end of the weekend.  Physically spent.  And perhaps more than ever before in my life as a person who lives in her body has it ever been so clear to me that my entry point is the body.  That the way for me to connect to my soul has always been primarily through the connection to my physical self piggy-backed right on top of my connection to the physical/natural world.  My body is the earth and the earth is my body and the connected of the two is for me the very gateway to my heart.  And I know that I have always known it but maybe know the thing I feel myself coming to know is that natural movement helps me connect to the animal that is me in the very real world that I live in today.  

Also!  I am feeling so curious and inspired about the way that natural movement can help bridge the gap between the boundless creative playful exploration of childhood and the early adult loss of play and curbing of movements that I certainly know I underwent as a teen.  During that entire dreadful stage of trying to dis-embody.  Did you do that?  I sure did.  And watching Maple in her beautiful, growing, not quite and child's not yet an adult's body grow out of some of her childhood play and the movements that that asked of her- wanting to hang on to that type of freedom and ease and power in her body even as the impulse of that sort of play dissolves.  I think that natural movement has this amazing role to fill here.  Staying in the full range of our physical while transforming our purposeful play of childhood into the purposeful movement of adulthood.

And, hello, I still love yoga.  And I am re-inspired regularly. By friends.  By teachers. By students.  I have cracked into the programs in the back on LOY again for the first time in about 3 years.  Working my way through the intermediate series over the next 6 weeks or so.  Does anyone remember when D had us do the advanced series?  We worked through it over 6 consecutive days at YO....  In like 2004?  He was the only one who could do all of the postures, or maybe even like half of the postures.  I'm sticking with the introductory and intermediate, because hello- 40 in a month and a half and the intermediate course is hard!!! 

Mentor

There is something for me that feels so wholly cleansing about really fessing up to the things that I have fucked up.  Saying it out loud over and over, singing it from the rooftop a bit, helps me to feel somewhat cleansed of my mistake and affords me a sense of beginning anew.

I was a shit homeschool mom last year.  It's ok.  I can claim it.  In fact, claiming it is really the only way that I am able to leave it in the past and move on.  Plus, I'm far enough away from it now that it has become easy to look at.

Every year, our time on Islesford serves as a bit of a mid point pause.  I get a chance to hold still for awhile, breathe deeply, and take a long hard look at where I've come from and a more inspired and visionary look at where I'm headed.  

It wasn't any one thing in particular that set me up to fail.  Rather, it was the perfect storm of many different factors.  All in all, our family has grown and evolved and requires new and different structures from the antiquated ones of the last few years.  We, each of us, need a little bit more space and time to allow for our learning to unfold and develop.  We need to accommodate our curiosity with greater ease and less rigidity.  

Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a classic over scheduler.  I have a shit ton of fomo, especially when it comes to my kids childhoods.  And I am a pro at stuffing more activities and commitments into any given day than is either healthy or appropriate.  

I can no longer get by with 2 or 3 hours set aside several days a week to accomplish our homeschooling objectives.  We need large and lengthy swaths of time.  We need to be able to inhabit our learning.  We need to be able to take breaks and then return- without having entirely lost the thread.  We need to have time to recover and reintegrate from our other daily responsibilities and pursuits so that we can approach our learning with inspiration and readiness. 

So we have been restructuring our learning lifestyle.  We have been scaling back on our obligations that take us very far from home and saying yes to staying much more local.  And it feels so good.  The main thing that I generally find myself doing when I am out in the world is simply trying to get back home.  So we have been refining the learning environment that our home space is evolving into.  And, ya'll!  It's just creating more and more clarity and creativity around who we are as learners.  And as teachers.  And as mentors.  

I have always sought out mentors.  In mothering, in making, in being a good partner, and a good teacher and a good student.  I need them.  I want information about where I am headed.  I want to see what has worked for others as well as what has not.  I want, more than anything, guidance and support on the path.

I have tried to instill that value in my kids as well.  I encourage and support them in finding appropriate mentors.  And we have been seriously fortunate in this regard.  When I think about the teachers and mentors that Maple and Eider have in their lives I get more than a little teary.  So very fortunate.  As they say, It takes a village, and I have always been clear that I cannot go it alone.  Not as a parent, not as a learner, not as a teacher.  And that is what mentorship has always seemed to me: the gathering up of the community toward a common aim, a common purpose, a common intention. 

The folks that study with me privately, or really, are in mentorship with me, in turn become mentors of a sort for the folks in public classes.  They are elevated in some senses by the commitment they have made in deepening their relationship to practice and study.  This process thrills me.  The awareness that students bring to the path of practice is endlessly inspiring.  My primary aim as a mentor and teacher is to help people inhabit themselves as authentically as possible and in turn engage the world from that place of connection.  It is not dissimilar to my aim as my children's primary educator...

The page Influences, on this site, is essentially just a compilation of folks that have been mentor to me, and continue to mentor me one way or another.  Learning and teaching.  To me it is fluid, never really a one way relationship, but one that benefits the whole.

Here's to refining approaches.  Reassessing and growing.  As ever, it's a practice.

x,m

In the process.

The very first Iyengar yoga teacher that I ever heard of was Manouso Manos.  I learned his name and began to hear very peripheral anecdotes about him and his teaching from Christina Sell soon after I met her.  She had studied with him for a number of years at that point- ahem, that point being sometime in 2000- and to the best of my knowledge has made a regular effort to study with him on and off since then.  So, we are talking a relatively long span of time.

This weekend, in Milwaukee, I took my first ever workshop with Manouso and I am just gonna say, that waiting almost 20 years to learn from one of my teacher's teachers is one of the stupidest things I have ever done.  Sure, I had a bunch of reasons why- all stupid- but in the end it either boils down to fear or laziness, both rather pathetic excuses.  

Anyhow, I am not sure what to say about the weekend at this point other than that the very first thing that he said when he began on Friday night was, in a loud and rather barky voice: You think you're scared!?! You can't begin to imagine how terrified I am!  

And, well, what can I say?  He is familiar to me.  In the sense that I am more deeply connected, through Christina, to his lineage of teaching than I had any idea of(refer above). Also, and increasingly more profound to me as the years move along, familiar to me in that way of someone who is speaking and acting from such a strong foundation of connection to self that they become simultaneously so fundamentally human and at once other worldly.  

Over the weekend, just about half of our time was spent in the fundamentals of Pranayama. Some of the little gems from that time are offered here:

~ Asana is about health.  Pranayama is about longevity.

~ When we come to Asana practice, all of our strengths are revealed and over time our weaknesses reveal themselves.  In Pranayama, it is the opposite.

~ We can take a still, or make an image of a Posture.  Pranayama cannot be caged like that.

~ In the beginning of a marriage, you hold onto each others hand tightly out of fear of loosing the other; after many years, it has become only the subtlest touch or influence that is needed to indicate direction or draw the other back in.  So light.  Gentle.  Clear.  That is the energy of the seasoned practitioner in pranayama practice. 

There is so much more to say.  And I am eager to explore what I have begun to learn over the weekend. My body is tired, my mind is calm, and my heart is soft.

Other parts of the weekend were equally delightful.  Maple swam in her second meet of the season and did wonderfully.  Both kids spent quality time with their gran while Chris was on the road and I was in Milwaukee.  I was fortunate enough to spend quite a bit of leisure time with my sister in her home city.  Last night we cozied up on her couch and watched Moonlight,  which I have wanted to see ever since I listened to an interview with the director Barry Jenkins on Code Switch several months back.  It was so much more than I had hoped and it feels just right to have watched it with my sis over the Pride weekend.  

I am feeling the love this weekend for sure.  As Teresa from the movie said with such authority and grace: In this house, it's all Love, all Pride.

other way round

I literally never thought about parenting before I had kids.  I never gave a single thought to how I wanted to do things, what my values were, what type of mother I wanted to be.  I never really thought about kids.  It was weird.  It is the one thing that I have always known for my entire life beyond a shadow of a doubt that I wanted to do, to have kids, but I never really thought about it in detail and I certainly never particularly liked kids.  I was a crap babysitter.  I had to watch my younger brother and sister a lot when we were growing up and it is an actual miracle that they made it out unscathed.  I certainly don't think that I ever fed them anything.  Or read to them.  Or played with them.  In fact I am pretty sure that I mostly just did my best to corrupt them.  

I always knew that I would have kids though.  In part, I was raised in that way where that was just the assumption of the natural progression of things.  College, marriage, kids.  It seems so odd to me now in a way, but it really never occurred to me that I would do things any differently when I was growing up.  I was the kid who played with dolls well into puberty to the point of it being a sort of guilty pleasure that lasted through middle school.  A secret pastime.  

Toward the end of college I lived with a guy who really wasn't sure if he wanted to EVER have kids and despite all of the other things that made the two of us not compatible for the long haul, that piece was above and beyond the most crushing.  So when it came to dating Chris, it was clear before we ever even touched that kids were the trajectory.  More for me than any other projected path: career, marriage, all of that was some peripheral vapor that lived outside of my desire to be a mother.  Getting married was Chris' part of the baby-making bargain... he's a smart man.  Or he just knows me really well.  Ok, prolly both. 

So even though I never thought much about it, when we got pregnant I just knew home birth was right for me.  And when Maple was born I just knew that she was going to sleep with us and I knew that I was going to breastfeed on demand.  Forever.  And ever.  Just kidding. But we did co-sleep for like 7 years and I nursed pretty much straight for 6.5 years.  Seemed like forever when it was happening- our bedroom was like an asylum- wall to wall mattresses, on the floor of course. 

I also knew, that being available to my kids was going to be the most important part of parenting for me.  I knew that whatever work that I did separate from them was going to need to take form around that central aspect.  I wasn't waiting for them to get bigger so that they could go back to school and I could go back to work.  I was never under any illusion that parenting was going to get easier as they got older but instead have acted within the belief that as they grow and develop and become things only become more complicated and nuanced and my ability to be present, physically sure, but emotionally and psychically in particular was going to need to increase in accordance.  It is complicated.  And there is no one way.  And the choices that we have made as a family are in no way the appropriate choices for everyone to make.  I know that much of our path has been born out of not just our own sacrifice and compromise, but perhaps most importantly out of our privilege.  

The other morning I was catching up with my longtime teacher and friend.  She has been quite successful in her career and has recently been making the tremendous transition into shifting the shape of her work to support caring for her aging parents.  Her focus and priorities have been changing and the result of that is the unfolding of so much love and the magic of bearing witness to the beauty and grace of holding space with our loved ones.  It is the desire to be with my family these many years that has held my own career aspirations at bay.  There is ebb and flow for sure, times when I can turn more attention outside of the home and then times when I am called back .  My work is in being able to perceive what is being asked of me when....

But here is the big truth for me, the one I have been scratching at for a good long while now: Yoga has not made me a better mom.  It is the other way round.  Being a mother has made me a better yogi.  Mama is the lense through which all other aspects of myself have been transformed.  And while it is not all of who I am, it is the part of me that has been the catalyst for most of my growth as a person.  Not because it has taught me patience- which it has- or because I have learned to sit with discomfort- which is true.  Being a mama has made me a better yogi because it is teaching me to love while letting go.  It has been the daily lessons of unconditional love in the face of imperfection and clumsiness, of shortcomings and foibles.  Of mine and my kids own human awkwardness.  There is that saying that once you become a parent, you transition to having your heart move around outside of your body.  That is true in a whole lot of ways, and especially in the sense that your heart has to grow to accommodate that.  A lot more than just your own kids get contained in that kind of compassion and love. 

While writing this, I have gotten up a dozen times to make breakfast, snuggle, work on math and reading, help feed the bunny, drive to violin lessons, take a walk with my kids, throw frisbee for the dog....  It is how it is.  And in the choice to put family before the other stuff a path has been set.  For me and my work in particular that translates into this: The experience of my students is not worth the price of my absence.  So, if it comes down to that choice, for me it is always clear.  I will get my favorite class subbed in order to pick my kid up from her last Wild Harvest group of the season.  I will teach less classes a week in order to spend mornings one on one with my boy. I rather be at my kids swim meets and soccer games than doing my other work in the world.  Like that.  And while these are always more difficult decisions to make than I would hope, they are always clear.

greening up

After a late winter that languished on for far too long, it finally feels like spring out.  I spent most of the weekend cleaning up in my shed and around my yard and prepping my raised beds for planting.  I love my beds.  And they also make me sad.  Together they take up the same amount of space that I would have planted green beans in my former garden.  I have spent a lot of time here, with this new more limited space having to dig through a lot of "what's the point" sort of feelings and battled some indecision and inertia as a result.  But over the last few years I have shifted to more perennial planting around the yard.  Lots of medicinal flowers and herbs.  Food trees and shrubs.  It is beginning to take on a bit of a permaculture feel and for that I am both thrilled and grateful.  I also signed up for a CSA this year.  For the first time since before I grew enough food for a whole season.  It was a surrender of sorts.  An acquiescence of sorts.  So, this year I will grow greens and herbs in these beds.  And some short season veggies..... maybe.   

The most important piece though, is that I am growing things.  That will become food, that will become medicine, that will become joy for the four of us and some neighborhood kids as well.  The important thing is that my hands are deep in the dirt and that the very ground is becoming a part of who I am.  My breath changes.  My body relaxes.  Even after digging and hauling for several hours.  For really and truly I know of no better way to connect deeply to myself and my sense of place and my sense of purpose than by being in the dirt and life and potential of a piece of land.  Even if it is this small little space I find myself in these days.  The work continues to help me connect to the past, feel into the present, and vision into the future.  

dentist day

I spent some time today driving around in Chris' giant Rocky Mountain Bicycles van and listening to an Indigo Girls album that came out in 1989, when I was the very same age as Maple. I belted the entire thing at the top of my lungs with the windows down and I got out all of the feels.  So many of them are so different now on this side of love with a big mama heart.  My throat is raw and scratchy and it was worth it.  

I was on my own for a patch of the day which is entirely atypical on a Tuesday but the kids had to go to the dentist and I am NOT the parent for that.   Chris holds space for me with this by being the one that holds space for the kids while I retreat into being with myself and working hard to not enter the worm hole in which Eider comes home with 13 cavities and the need for some other oral surgery.  (He came home fine of course, with nary a cavity to be found).  I am ok with not being the parent for that.  Most of the time.  I am not the parent for everything.  Neither is Chris.  And fortunately, we overlap where it matters and compliment each other, also, where it matters.  Not a day goes by that I am not grateful for that.  We have both managed without it at different times, and while doable, it still completely sucked. 

So, I took the rare spot of midday Tuesday time to get a few things done for meg.  I generally practice during that part of this particular day, but had already spent some lovely time on my mat in the Mazomanie circus space while my kids wrapped up their last homeschool circus class of the spring.  It was light filled and lovely and loud with kids being clowns and practicing in silks a floor below me.  It comes as no surprise that we are a family of movers.  That moving through the world inhabiting our physical selves helps us each more fully inhabit our interior terrain.   And in turn helps us show up with a little bit more ease and grace with one another.   Embodied practices give me a leg up when it comes to chilling out a little bit about the dentist and asking for help when I need it....  Anyhow, I was afforded the time to put some attention into a few projects and then take my little guy to violin lessons.  

unravel

Most change happens so slowly that it is hard to notice.  Until, one day, you realize that you are somewhere different from where you were.  Someplace new that you arrived at so slowly that it hardly seems new at all.  Rather it just feels like you, but not the you you knew yourself to be.  For better, and for worse.  Over the past many months, my mind and my body have been unravelling from one another in ways that have been so foreign that they have been hard to perceive.  While my mind has been very busy for the better part of the last couple of years, my body has been quietly calling out for something else. 

A couple of weekends ago, I had a mostly typical for me weekend.  I taught both days, attended a meeting for local activists, took Maple to an art event that she was wanting to attend and parented mostly on my own while Chris was on the road as bike season ramps up.  My mom took the kids on Sunday so that they wouldn't have to be at loose ends while I taught a workshop that day. Her help afforded me a little bit of down time in between events in which I was hoping to catch up on herb study.  However, once I had a moment, I noticed that the live wire feeling that I had been feeling in my body for several days had developed into some hand tremors.  My body has finally over-riden my agenda.  The call has to be heard.  Now.

So I have been trying to adjust.  To modify.  To adapt to this new place I find myself in.  It appears to be a place in which I need more sleep.  A shorter list.  More alone time.  Less car.  I have been considering for a long time the ways in which my practice is in service to my nervous system.  And I have been unlocking a lot of joy and a lot of peace there.  And it is still not enough.  Right now, and maybe always, I want to be considering the ways in which my life needs to be in service to my nervous system.  I need this bundle of loose nerves to come weave itself back into my body in ways that make me feel whole and not frayed.  

Less.  Less.  Less.  I am endeavoring to back off.  And restructure.  So that the places in my life that have my time and have my attention are nourishing.  For the most part.... More than they have been.

This last Sunday was the first Sunday that I had off in a month.  The only thing I had to do was drive my kids and a neighbor to swim practice and then sit and knit and watch them.  It was beautiful all day and I sat outside and read about nervous system herbs California Poppy, Rose and Vervain.  I spent the whole day being a mom and being meg.  It was just right.