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- 5:25 am. Leave apartment for practice, get to car, notice back passenger side window smashed in. File police report.
No practice.
- 6:47 am. Go to file claim on-line. IBM Thinkpad suffers "fatal error." Go to restart computer. Computer will not start after "restarting."
- 8:03 am. Begin walk down Connecticut Ave to metro. At the corner of Albermarle and Connecticut, metro pass slips from iPod case and a gust of wind blows it and it's $97 down the storm drain. Literally and figuratively a sunk cost.
Yes, it's Tuesday.
This morning, D pointed out to me that I *might* be trying too hard.
After a bit of a hiatus from writing due to life in general, (asana practice, work, social life) I'm back. I had so many plans for this weekend thwarted by the warmth of the sun and recovery from some evil stomach bug that knocked me on my butt for the better portion of last week.
When I have made it to practice, averaging 4 days per week, things keep on opening up - save for one part. My left shoulder - man it has felt stiff. But binds really haven't been that much of a problem, if anything they' generally felt pretty sweet. I emailed K on Friday asking him about this and if he had any suggestions or thoughts. It's not injured, just feels disproportionately stiff to my right.
So this morning K took some time with me and my shoulder during down dog, parvritta trikonasana, and urdhva dhanurasana. The "problem" with my body, is that I can be too bendy and really need to engage much more so that my upper back and shoulders collapse into themselves. In DD K gave some very precise Iyengar style tricks. Which means for me, really rotating my arms in a manner that feels somewhat like the rotation in urdhva dhanurasana. (Fwiw, my triceps are currently on fire.) For me that shoulder rotation really resulted in broadening my upper back and I was able to really engage my legs, and might have found a bit of that elusive mula bhanda.
In parvritta trikonasana, as he pressed against the extended arm to align my hand arm and shoulder (apparently I'm hyper-extending my shoulder), he used the word integration. A concept I've been thinking about a lot recently.
Anyone who knows me knows that I talk a lot about trying to find balance and oft comment that I'm just trying to find balance. Flippantly stating or offering that it's just trying to find balance. But I'm starting to wonder if it's more of a process of integration. When I "integrated" the muscles of my arm, shoulder and back, the energy of the pose completely shifted. It was much more work, but the way it felt made the work all worthwhile.
I brought the concept of this to the rest of my practice and there was little stiffness apparent in my shoulder. Save for pasasana on my left where I couldn't get the proper rotation of my shoulder to reach the bind.
But back to integration. I'm almost tempted to say where balance can ultimately be stagnant, integration provides and promotes strength, growth, and forward movement. It's really like a relationship, friend or lover - there are many who come and go overtime, but there are a select few who become so deeply integrated and entwined with your existence that they grow and (promote) change with you. These are true friends - when they are not present there is a void, when they are around life becomes that much more full.
* * *
My blogging here might become a bit more sporadic as I have started a little project for myself - journaling about each practice, each class I attend. Something I've intended to do for awhile now and finally getting around to it.I'm sure some thoughts will migrate from here to there and quite possibly from there to here. I've come to see this a bit more like a composite of my life - from yoga to art to food to life in general and the things that make it blissful. For me, this really isn't the place for the nitty gritty detailed analysis of each and every asana practice.
Drop backs this morning felt wonderful, spacious, light and the most free since that workshop with SD out in Charlottesville. There was so much space in my upper and lower back.
D came over for dips.
After the third dip, down and into a complete and total freak out / panic attack as D attempted to assist me into chakra bhandasana. After a little over 5 minutes in paschimottasnasana, I recovered enough to complete my finishing postures.
It's really true what others have said about heart-opening and how change manifests in this practice.
Thursday night.One class.
75 Minutes.
Six poses.
Pure. Heaven.
If I'm going to be stuck on hold with D.C. Superior Court for over 25 minutes now, why can't they play at least a palatable or vaguely tolerable version of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik - II Romance (Andante)?
When Aristophanes proclaimed himself a "Tawny-Headed-DemiGod" after completing his final push to sort and clear out the remnants of clutter from his place, I started thinking. There was a subtle change in our conversations and a lightness that surfaced which was not previously apparent.Then I started noticing.
All the stuff that has accumulated over the last 5 + years here in DC.
I was just going to start with a box. One box.
It was that box (that probably everyone has or had at one point), filled with extraneous / superfluous cables and wires that go to nameless electronics delicately bundled like a rat's nest. My rationalization, if I needed a cable I could always go to RadioShack.
To get to the box, I had to pull* everything out of my hallway closet.That was the closet full of crap that broke the camel's back, armed with a healthy dose of pop music and kitted out in shorts, tank-top and bandanna in my hair - I was a woman on a mission. A whirling tornado of a dervish. One and a half days, 8 garbage bags, 2 packing boxes of trash, 3 loads of laundry, and 13 cups of tea later:I can see the floor in all of my closets.
My apartment feels fresher.I feel much less encumbered.
I feel drained. I feel rapturous.I'm not going to deny it, going though some stuff was hard. It never ceases to amaze me at how much emotional stock a piece of paper or a dried flower from 10 years ago or an empty chocolate tin can carry. All this stuff that we and others put weight on, place emotion and value on, really do become a burden.
Really, it's all just stuff. Nothing more. Nothing less.On the phone with Aristophanes last night, he asked me: How does a designer know their piece is completed?Me: Um...after...How?
Aristophanes: A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. It was Saint-Exupery who said that.
Me: (pause) Yes. I can see that now...
There's still a lot left to be done, but this all happens slowly and in it's own time - opening the way for more experiences.
This, my friends, is only the beginning.
*pull is loosely defined as topple here.
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