Putting on the brakes

Every so often, I come across something I read and think, "I must share this with my peeps." This blog was written by my dear friend and yoga teacher, Kathleen Thompson. I first met Kathleen over 10 years ago at her yoga studio in Mansfield, a small town in rural Pennsylvania, just after the birth of my third child, when I was desperate to hold onto my identity as a woman outside the confines of motherhood. Her yoga classes were not just a welcome escape, they rejuvenated my body and soul, making me a better mother, woman, and healer in the process. I have since come to love and respect Kathleen not only as a yoga teacher but as a community builder, mentor, and friend. She never stops learning and appreciating, figuring out what works and what doesn't work, and then getting rid of the "doesn't work" that holds her back.  As such, she spreads joy and smiles wherever she goes, like a Glinda the Good Witch, and looks 20 years younger than her age. She is beautiful and radiant, inside and out.

I am honored to be able to share Kathleen's wise journey with you. Don't miss out on her manifesto (words for us all to live by), or her insightful metaphor at the end; we all need to know how to recharge.

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Winterlude

In the week between Christmas and New Years I rented a little apartment in Ithaca, NY. I needed a getaway: from Christmas, from busyness, from tired.

I needed a retreat. But instead of booking myself into a fancy place like Kripalu, I tried a “self-guided” retreat this time, in a nearby city where I know a few, but not many people, and where I could be happily alone.

I cooked up a a batch of kitchari in my home kitchen and brought that to eat, along with a few other staples.

Every day I cooked up the kitchari for lunch with greens I bought at Oasis.

The man at Oasis who checked me out told me this joke one really cold morning:

Q: What do you get when you cross a snowman and a vampire?

A: Frostbite!

I drank a lot of hot water which I heated up an electric kettle I found in the apartment kitchen. But the mugs there didn’t fit my hands so I wandered into Handwork and bought a beautiful handmade mug for my hot water.

The one I bought was made by hands, for hands.  It is beautiful and I treasure it. It is currently sitting on the the table beside me. It will forever remind me of this time of great regeneration.

I sat on a small brown couch all day and edited my manuscript.

I slept like shit. (The bed was very mushy.)

Most nights I stayed up very late. (For me.)

I sat on the windowseat and looked out.

I finished The Distraction Addiction.

I started Daring Greatly.

I went to yoga every day.

When you teach yoga every day like I do, it is such a thrill, such an utter indulgence to be led. I got to follow someone’s else’s path every day and it was lovely.

I went to Starbucks. (Not every day, but almost.)

I cruised through the bookstore a few times. I ran into people I know, and like, from home. I ran into people I know, and like, from Ithaca.

I sat and meditated with my dear friend Zee, and her friends, on New Year’s Day, and then had Indian food with them afterwards at Diamonds.

All day I worked.

I noticed the way I worked. I noticed that I like alternating between digital and analog; between computer and fountain pen. When I started to stagnate on the computer, I’d pick up the pen and a fresh world would appear. When I felt that world begin to fade, a return to the keypad ignited me again.

And in this way, back and forth, digital to analog, hour after hour, day after day, with breaks only for fresh hot water and to pee, I spent my interlude.

I worked on my manuscript, but I wrote other things, too.

I wrote deep reflections on all the yoga classes I took, for example, pondering what it really means to be a yoga teacher, and how I might become a more effective one.

I wrote my “manifesto” which was deeply inspired by the two books I was reading. My manifesto lists the qualities that I hope to cultivate and manifest in myself and my life from this time going forward. I love this list and feel so happy to have finally articulated it.

I wrote in OmWriter, which is a new writing platform for me. I was inspired to try it from the writer of Distraction Addiction. I really like it a lot. I found it allowed me to go deeper into reflective space than I have ever gone before, and stay in that depth longer.

I severely limited my connections to other people, and to distractions like email and internet. I only went online twice a day: morning and night, and would not have gone on at all if I didn’t have a business.

I thought about installing Freedom but my self-discipline was strong enough and I really didn’t need it. Still, I like knowing that it exists, because I can foresee a time in the future when I will need to utilize it.

I loved living in this small, walkable city. Everything I needed and wanted was less than a 5 minute walk away: yoga, health food store, bookstore, Starbucks, even an indie movie theater. I could walk to Indian food and Thai food, as well as Tapas and Mexican and vegetarian.

On my last day, G came and we went to see the movie Wild. For my final dinner, we chose the tapas restaurant right below my apartment. We drove home in two cars, following each other.

(my apartment was on the 2nd floor, the 2 windows on the left with the white blinds.)

As I drove home I thought about the Prius, and how the battery of that car recharges every time you apply the brakes.

It recharges when it brakes.

What do you know? Me, too.

Go figure.

Home, sweet home

Finally, some warm weather. No, scratch that. Perfect weather. I just about froze my tootsies off this morning in SF... the fog was still rolling in at 10am, and that wind! It goes right through me, right to my bones, no matter what I am wearing (and admittedly, I wasn't wearing very many layers today, and I didn't even have socks on, because I'm ready for spring!).

It's amazing how many different climates there are in the Bay Area, let alone SF. I stopped at a friend's house on the way back home this afternoon, and it was already ten degrees warmer there on the SE side of the City, not too many miles away as the crow flies. By the time I made it home, it was 70 degrees. Finally.

For those of you following Yogamama's Virtual Yogarians blog, you know that I've been writing over there this month as part of her annual April Challenge. I can really feel it in my arms today! I guess I spent a little too much time in downward dog yesterday.

Instead, the warm weather called me outside this afternoon, and I headed over to hike the Stanford Dish around 4:30pm.

OMG.

It was so beautiful. The hills are finally green from the late spring rains, and the views today? To die for. To the north, even though the fog was creeping over the hills, I could see all the way to the silhouettes of the skyscrapers in downtown SF and everything in between. To the east, I could see Mt. Diablo, all the bridges, and even, in the distance, the outline of the windmills on Altamont Pass. To the south, the buildings on top of Mt. Hamilton and Mt. Umunhum reflected in the sunlight, with no smog to speak of, and to the west, as I said, the fog extended over the tree-filled hills like little ghostly fingertips. Hard to believe that Mt. Hamilton was covered in snow not too many days ago.

I was overwhelmed with the feeling of being home. This is my home. This has always been my home.

Days like today make me so grateful to be back in northern California, in all its glory. I know, I know, I complain about sitting for hours at red lights that are out of sync, or the ridiculously inflated housing prices thanks to the inexperienced 20-something homebuyers from Facebook and Google who are cashing in on their stock options, or the fact that I do have to wear a scarf and a parka in the middle of June when the fog comes rolling in like a tsunami. But there is something magical about "hiking the Dish" (as we call it) on a day like today, when a thousand different worlds come dancing together.

You look down in all directions and see the huge Stanford campus... I feel a pride when I look at the hospital, thinking about my work as a student there... not to mention Hoover Tower, the most phallic building on the West Coast! You see the buildings of companies like VMWare, biotech firms with huge solar panels on top, the VA Hospital, NASA, etc., and in the other direction, this huge satellite dish looming over you, with Interstate 280 not too far beyond it. [Incidentally, I have no idea what the Dish does... a friend told me that they use it to search for contact from alien life forms. (I think she's pulling the old, "Did you know that the word 'gullible' isn't in the dictionary?" trick on me.)] You have the bridges and the skyscrapers, so tiny in the distance, but still so powerful. And then you have the nature... the green hills with the grazing cows, the already thigh-high prickly milk thistle and mustard growing off the path, the orange poppies and calendula dotting the hillside, those fat little squirrels scampering around, and the deer keeping their distance.

If home is where the heart is, then mine is scattered in various places across the world. Today my heart grew a thousand-fold, as I tapped into the roots that had been planted years ago, when I wasn't paying attention.

In my gratitude, I am paying attention.

*****

By the way, fellow bloggers, Wordpress isn't allowing me to link any websites to my posts. (The link button is deactivated.) Any suggestions?

Bloggin' again

This month I'm blogging over on the Virtual Yogarians page as part of Yogamama's Yoga Challenge. Here's the link to my first post. Check it out, and enjoy! (Note: for some reason Wordpress is not letting me add this as a link, so you'll just have to cut and paste it into your browser tab. Sorry about that!)

http://virtualyogarians.com/2012/04/01/