Breath by Breath

Holiday Haiku ::: 11

Celebrate the Solstice

Let go of what's not needed

Welcome light and love.

Holiday Haiku ::: 6

This is the eighth year

Gathering for the Solstice

Tamales...love...light.

Holiday Haiku ::: 3

A little bit now.

A little more tomorrow.

Qualitative leaps.

A very big day ::: school's out & the space shuttle arrives via barge

The last day of Kindergarten ::: ever! (Here is the 1st day of school!)

How to amuse 12 kids while awaiting the Space Shuttle!

There it is!

The Shuttle Explorer

There it goes!  On to Space Center Houston, the official visitors' center for the NASA Johnson Space Center.

Spring scenes

Sometimes life is just so very full. I've written before about the notebook I keep of my "accomplishments", big and small. As I review my notes from time since I've last posted, these are some things that jump out at me.

::: Teaching yoga two, sometimes three times a week and growing in intimacy, caring and engagement with my friends/students.

::: Managing tons and tons of financial and personal matters (insurance, retirement, education savings, taxes, mortgage, wills). I take all this on so that I am completely in the know about our situation and have educated opinions, suggestions and advice to offer.

::: Decided to buy a used car and then decided to get energy efficient windows instead. They still aren't installed.

::: Knitted a kindle cover, a scarf for a gift, one sock, and finished knitting a shawl my mother started but couldn't finish due to her arthritis. Spool knit another rainbow garland for the party supply box.

::: Finished stripping and staining our old 15-drawer dresser and another piece of furniture.

::: Silas spontaneously switched from a "join us in bed every night" kind of kid, to a "sleep in his own bed most of the time" kind of kid. We are all sleeping better and I feel great about how we've evolved.

::: Read several books for pleasure (all on Kindle) -- The Paris Wife, Pride and Prejudice, Emma, The Sense of an Ending. I've now tackled The Brothers Karamozov.

::: Read The Science of Yoga, (also for pleasure, but of a different kind).

::: Cooked and cooked and cooked some more. Our CSA is abundantly supplying us with vegetables and we are trying our best to eat them.

::: Sewed some jammies for Silas. Repaired three skirts, hemmed pants. Finished and mailed the last of the Picnic Rolls I made for gifts. Cleaned out the closets and donated all the discards.

::: Started voice lessons and love my teacher. Hard to practice with discipline.

::: Play groups, play dates, volunteering at school for every party and event, hosting egg hunts, checking out and booking after school and summer activities, field trips, strawberry picking.

::: Rose tending, palm pruning, tree trimming supervising, front entry way courtyard tearing down, vegetable garden pot planting and maintenance, kishu orange tree learning.

::: Spring deep cleaning, rearranging furniture, aquired a lego table off craigslist, finally chose a kitchen paint color.

::: Coordinated a fantastic mini-reunion with 3 college friends in the D.C. area.

::: Lots of visits with local and semi local family and friends.

::: Got up close and personal with Alice Waters and Sir Ken Robinson.

::: Said goodbye to the Byzantine Fresco Chapel.

::: First visit to Galveston of this year. Trekked at Brazos Bend State Park, visited Shangri-La in Orange, TX, spent a weekend in New Orleans.

::: Booked our whole summer vacation.

::: Riding bicycles everywhere -- school, library, grocery store, for fun.

::: Flying kites out on the green space behind our house.

::: Lego, lego, lego.

::: Star wars, star wars, star wars (and he hasn't seen one movie yet!).

::: Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter (we are halfway through book 1).

All is well.

Exploring the art of happy

I recently read this translation of Anna Karenina, my first reading of this, Tolstoy's self-proclaimed first real novel.  I was enraptured by the characters and fell a little in love with Tolstoy, who was so deeply flawed and human and therefore able to capture the fullness of each of his characters.  He made it impossible not to identify with or at least understand the motives, thought processes, weaknesses, strengths and vulnerabilities of each person, seen in relief against a background of a particular time and place in history.  I can't say enough good things about it.  I was deeply moved by Levin's spiritual maturation and his discovery that he's happiest when he is engaged in the work that needs to be done (solving disputes among his farmers, tending to his wife and son, ensuring preparations for the harvest, etc.).  When he stops to contemplate the meaning and purpose of his life, he becomes paralyzed and overwhelmed by existential longings and questions.  Hmmm.  I can relate.  

The pursuit of "happiness" being a tantalizing subject for me right now, I turned my attention to The Geography of Bliss, which a friend gave me about 2 years ago (sorry!).  But, it's one of those books that requires a certain mindset.  In my case, Anna Karenina strongly rooted me in a grand, sweeping view of human nature as essentially changeless, but expressed in a nuanced way depending on the social, political and historical circumstances in which a human lives.  The Geography of Bliss is the travel journal of a western worrier and grump who attempts to gain insight about himself by sifting through academic research about happiness and traveling to some of the "happiest" and "unhappiest" places on the planet. His goal?  To get a first hand view of happiness in practice from both cultural and personal perspectives.  As I was reading, I documented the keys to happiness that he identifies.  Here's a smattering directly from my notes:

•  Trust (personal, social, political)
• Lack of envy and either upward or downward comparison
• Embracing trying (and failing)
• Relationships (individual initiative, coupled with social responsibility)
• Creativity (at all levels and abilities.  To paraphrase:  You need a lot of crap to grow something great.)
• A culture of selfish altruism
• Belief in...something
• Being useful, helpful
• A social safety net
• Flow...the pure joy of being
• Hardworking and loving others
• Cold and dark yield coziness and interdependence
• Gratitude
• Happiness is 100% relational
• Not thinking too much
• Tolerance
• Modest expectations but 100% effort (let go of attachment to results)
• If it isn't fun it's not worth doing
• Let go of what you can't control (and all you can control is yourself and your attitude)
• The quality of a society is more important than your place in that society
• Everything you do and every memory of you will likely be gone in 3-4 generations, so don't take it too seriously
• Connection to place/nature

I'm now turning my attention from the theoretical to the practical.  I've resisted reading this book for a while.  The genre of "be like me" middleclass self-disclosure memoirs is a bit tiresome.  I read two earlier this year (Poser and Project Happily Ever After).  I frankly did not like either person as they presented themselves and I found myself full of judgments (I'm suspecting a little projection here...as well as internalized classism).  Nevertheless  I ended up identifying more than I thought with their feelings and experiences.  So, here I am reading, The Happiness Project, another middle class memoir/instruction manual.  I thought it would be  interesting to see a practical journey toward happiness and this is what was out there.  I'm 5/6 of the way through her year-long "project."  Frankly, I can't wait to be done.  I'm not sure I've gained anything useful for my own experience, but I'm reserving judgment.  Actually, I can think of a couple useful things...

• Be a keeper of happy memories.  I come from a family that doesn't talk about the past at all- the good, the bad, or the otherwise.  I didn't realize how much it matters to me to keep memories on behalf of my current family.  I don't scrapbook.  I don't record things faithfully.  But, I take tons of pictures, I keep notes about significant events, I blog.   I will take this role more seriously in the future.
• Do what you do.  Essentially this is a way of saying, "Be yourself."  She says this another way, "You can choose what you do, but you can't choose what you like to do."  If you are looking for more happy in your day, embrace the things you already find yourself doing (in my case, yoga, reading, cooking, bringing people together, writing, making things), and mine your childhood for the things that made your heart sing (acting, singing, building spaces, making up stories and characters).
• Your body matters.  Exercise, food, play and rest yield energy, vitality, stress management, feeling sexy, better sleep, increased patience, elevated mood.....need I say more?
• One of the best ways to get happy is to make others happy.  Conversely, one of the best ways to make others happy is to be happy yourself.  Small, daily happiness is actually really difficult to sustain.  At least one person was sainted for her almost invisible efforts at small happiness (Saint Therese, "I take care to appear happy and especially to be so").

(I guess I am getting more out of it than I thought!)

I think I'll turn to the Dalai Lama's The Art of Happiness next.  I can't help but be inspired by a person who exudes such positive energy and broad perspective in the face of cruelty to his own people and throughout the planet.  I had the privilege of hearing him speak in person once and I will never forget it.  If I ever doubted the power of one person's energy to ripple through and influence the energy of multitudes, I didn't doubt it after being in his presence. 

Here's to actually being happy. 

Nourishment ::: Women, weight, body image and a food and exercise journal

[Throughout this series of posts I sam going to discuss my specific body weight and weights over time.  I firmly believe that how one feels in one's body is what counts most.  Do I feel alive and enthusiastic?  Can I do the things I want to do? Do I have good energy?  Am I sleeping well? 

Women and weight is such a loaded topic.  So many celebrities operate in the 100 pound weight class and set unrealistic models for how we should eat, look and be.  I once had a major television actress tell me at a party that if you weighed above 125 and a size 6, you could never be the lead in a show (unless it was about a fat girl)--you have to be the best friend, the sidekick, whatever.  

I want to discuss a real woman with a real body.  I am 5' 6" tall with medium-large bones.  I build muscle easily.  When I visited a kinesiology lab back in 2002, I had multiple biometrics done. I was told that peak fitness for me would probably be around 145 pounds with 18-19% body fat, but that would require a professional athlete level of commitment to maintain.  This info was helpful to me in forming a realistic sense of my body type and fitness potential.  I will never be a size 2, or 4 or 6 for that matter.  

I hope the specificity is useful...not as a tool for comparing yourself to me or anyone else, but to document the realistic scale (no pun intended) of my journey.  I also want to break any denial I might have about my current physical condition.  I know how I feel physically, I know what my internal body image is, and I have information about what ideal fitness would look like for me. All of that said, let me proceed.]

Fortunately all of my "fat" pictures were taken before the age of digital photography.  Alas, a few were scanned and saved, so I am taking a deep breath and sharing one here.

Once upon a time I weighed in at close to 240 pounds. I lost over 85 pounds in about 18 months starting back in late 1998. I reached my lowest weight of 152 in March of 2000 after my yoga teacher training course.   

[1998]

I am one of the "biggest losers" I know personally. (Kudos to my dear friend Judy who made a similar passage several years before me.) I did it the old fashioned way--I dealt with a lot of emotions for many years to prepare, I exercised my fanny off, and I changed my diet gradually as I felt better and better about myself. I never counted calories and never tried to restrict food.

It took me a very long time to let go of a "fat" identity and really inhabit my smaller, fitter, healthier frame. I suffered quite a bit of disappointment that my formerly fat body would never be a perfect thinner body.  I never remembered feeling anything but fat from about the third grade on, although this picture from college shows I was pretty normal my freshman year. I was moderately active growing up, played tennis recreationally and was a varsity high school basketball and volleyball player.  I also played VB my first year in college.

[Costume Party (me on right), October 1980.  Weight:  165]

[In Baltimore after completing the Marine Corps Marathon, October 2001.  Weight: 156]

I actually didn't know I had let go of the fat identity entirely until recently when I realized that my internal view of myself is smaller, healthier and fitter than I actually am.

[40th birthday party, August 2002.  Weight: 154, 21.5% body fat.]

With accumulated years, becoming a full-time mom (i.e., caring more for others than for myself), and no longer "forcing" myself to exercise, I've allowed myself to keep on my body about 25 of the 45 pounds I added when I was pregnant with Silas. My digestion, energy, sleep, self-esteem, biometrics and health status have all taken a hit.

[May 3, 2006.  Due date May 17, 2006.  Gave birth May 27, 2006. Weight:  200]

I have not been exercising with any intensity.  I do yoga at home fairly often.  I experimented with a beginner's running program this spring (but didn't finish the eight weeks).  

[August 2010, Weight:  180]

My recent 30-day experiment with veganism was the first time I've actually tried to implement any kind of food program and that was only restrictive in content, not volume.  I have avoided restrictive dieting because I know I have more emotional and spiritual work to do to change my eating habits to be truly wholesome and healthy for me.  The chronic anxiety I noticed while on the vegan diet was incredible!

I know a ton about food, nutrition, how to prepare whole and nutritious foods, and how to eat well.  Most of the time I eat very good quality food.  But, it's becoming clear to me that many days I eat too well (meaning too much of the good stuff).  Also, my few food/beverage vices are not doing me any favors in the effort to be fit, stay a big loser, drop these stubborn pounds, and increase my energy (I'm sure I'll discuss these in detail in future posts).

[June 24, 2011.  Weight:  178.5]

So, (drum roll please) I am beginning a food and exercise journal.  My goal is to set measurable goals around food and exercise and actually document what I am doing.  I got away with not paying attention to food when I was younger and exercising like a fiend.  Now that I am perimenopausal, approaching 50, and not wanting to dedicate as much time to exercise, some new strategies are in order.  

I want this to be a combined scientific and spiritual journey.  I want to put into practice the best information I have about optimal health and wellness and marry that with kinder and gentler strategies for nourishing the malnourished parts of my soul, and loving my body through aware eating, movement, touch and rest.

The whole stay-at-home mom lifestyle is awesome in some ways.  I was a person who took my professional responsibilities very seriously and had difficulty drawing boundaries around my job that allowed me to have a life.  The spontaneity, openness, receptivity, etc., required as a SAHM have made me realize how lovely and easy in some ways life can be and how to take joy in the many small moments.   (We all know I think being a SAHM also can be terribly difficult, exhausing, isolating, and unrewarding.)

I have to admit that in some ways I've become a bit lazy. I have used my role as a way of excusing undisciplined and unfocused behavior, and for abandoning myself as a woman and mother in both crucial and costly ways. So, I intend to have this journal keep me honest with myself in the best, non-punative sense.  If I'm not acting on my goal, then the goal isn't real.

Why share the journey in public?  I need to track myself and be tracked by others. When I was hugely fat, no one talked about it.  It wasn't polite.  Thus, I stayed isolated and suffered quiet humiliation, knowing I had a very visible external reflection of my internal struggles.  

Sharing this journey openly is a step toward claiming visibility and denouncing that there is anything shameful in this.  We all struggle in this life.  Some struggles are easy to hide because they are socially condoned (obsessive cleaning, workaholism, perfectionism).  Others remain hidden for months, years or lifetimes because they can be (hoarding, domestic abuse, gambling, overspending).  Some struggles are worn externally (smoking, cutting, anorexia nervosa, obesity).  

So, no more silent struggle!  Here we go.  

I plan to report weekly on Saturdays.

Practice notes ::: invoking the great mother Durga Maa

 

I've written some before about my "collection" of "mothers"--women friends/mentors/bosses whom I admire and appreciate for their grace, wisdom, intelligence, timeless beauty, strength and courage in the face of life's harshest business, and ultimately, their zest for life.  These real women are of immeasurable value to me on my journey.  I also have many sisters, but today I'm talking about mothers.  

I completed my yoga teacher training course at the Sivananda Yoga Ashram in the Bahamas in early 2000.  Near the end of the training we were offered the opportunity to be initated into a mantra.  Four mantras were offered, explained and demonstrated and we were advised to select the one that appealed to us most based on both sound and meaning.  The choice of mantra was said to be extremely important because one would use that particular face of God as the object of worship for the rest of our lives.  [In the Hindu tradition, various qualities of God are represented by different dieties, but it's a very all for one and one for all kind of god group.] 

Mantra initation was not a requirement for certification, so I opted not to be initiated since I was uncomfortable with choosing and committing to worship a face of God outside of my own religious tradition.  I felt good about waiting...refusing.  I felt a greater sense of integrity about that than I ever would have about choosing even a universal-type mantra like Soham.

In early 2001, my husband and I went downhill skiing in Utah with another couple.  This was my first time on skis as an adult (and I'd only skiied once as a young person, with very mixed results).  B, the guy in the other couple, spent an entire day with me teaching me how to ski.  He was amazing and I learned a lot--I also got really scared, so much so I stayed in bed with a fever for a whole day. 

When I returned to the slopes the next day, I was completely sure I couldn't do it, but I knew I had to try because it was what I came for.  As we climbed on the chair lift for a very long ride up the mountain, one of the mantras that I'd  heard at my training course popped into my mind and I recited it internally the entire way up the lift, and then throughout the day.  This mantra was the Durga mantra (as we learned it, Om Sri Durga Namaha). 

This was my least favorite of the mantras to which we had been introduced, but I received the mantra as a gift of grace.  I went on to have two glorious, exhilarating and blissful days of skiing.  I loved it all-- the lifts, the wind, the gently falling snow, the speed, the scary moments getting stuck on a black diamond mogul run by mistake. 

Durga, in the Hindu tradition, is the universal mother goddess.  She is the one who is always there when one is weak, suffering, scared, in need of support and nuturance.  She is both invincible and compassionate.  Through her grace, she grants strength, courage and peace in times of utmost distress. 

I adopted the Durga mantra that day and have invoked her presence many times since.  Initially I would chant at times when I was in extreme anguish or strife (times of family upset, during labor with my son, feeling deep loneliness, etc.), and now it is a regular part of my meditation practice.  I find that I become Durga when I invoke her--I am more generous, kind, compassionate, brave and fierce (in a good way).   By calling her name, I join and access that particular divine energy (vibration) which is so valuable to me as a woman, mother, wife and human.

Putting a female face on God is extremely helpful to me.  It causes me no conflict now (as it once did).  This divine mother, Durga Maa, rejoices when I am strong and independent, and is always there when I need space to collapse a little, be held in divine arms, and admit I need help to carry on.  Learning to accept the grace that is available to me on a daily basis, and humble myself enough to ask for divine mothering, has been my greatest challenge.   

Home crafts ::: Hestia at work, Part 2 ::: Cubby love & pillow talk

rug 

Although built in 1980, our new house has a distinctively 70's groovy vibe if you subtract the bamboo floors in the living areas. It cries out for mid-century modern furniture (we have mostly antiques). 

 

When I walked in for the first time, I said, "It's a Brady Bunch house!"  One of the major features that gives it the Brady vibe is the open risered  staircase and open rails to the lofty game room above.  The Bradys had a straight staircase, while ours turns at a landing halfway up.

  

(These are views of the stairs when we first looked at the house.)

This turning creates a space under the landing that immediately lures small people as they enter the house.  The space is just inconvenient enough for adults that it is primarily a child's domain, although I've spent many an hour reading science books and racing cars now that we've made it a little cozier (not to mention vacuuming up the dust bunnies and spider webs/egg sacs I find there every two weeks).

 

In order to cozy up the place Silas calls, "My cubby," it needed some focus so it wouldn't be a catch-all for clutter.  

After watching Silas and his friends use the space, I decided to make it an all purpose nook from which he can shoot bad guys between the stairs with tinker toy guns, build legos, race cars, or lay back and read a book or day dream. 

Our library has grown so large that I decided to make the downstairs nook the science center. 

I thrifted a bookshelf that with a little dust up now displays early reader board books, non-fiction books about the natural world and how things and the human body work.  His space, dinosaur, and multi-layer human body and pregnant body puzzles also live here, along with a few other selected quiet time activities.  A basket next to the bookshelf holds the thin, Scholastic-type non-fiction books.  His lego sorter bins on casters mark the entrance to the cubby.

I repurposed the nap mat and mama-made cover from his first mother's day out program and made two envelop-style 22x22-inch pillow covers for plump feather pillow forms.  The covers are sewn from the same awesome dinosaur fabric shown here.  The road rug is from Ikea for about $14.

Here's what our beloved cubby looks like now (except the "deep blue sea" paint is more like in the straight-on stairway picture below if you click on it..

 

 

 

 

Topic change...Pillow Talk

Now for pillow talk.  For better or worse, we are working our living room color scheme (at least temporarily) around this rug from Silas' old room.  I've been experimenting with pillows to spice it up a little...but I'd really love a new rug and to use hues of teal, aquamarine, and glacier blue.  Maybe someday.  In the meantime here are two sets of pillows currently in use.  All are in envelope style from ultra cheap home decor cotton, an old skirt, an old table cover, and various napkins, etc. 

With the rug and...without it (below).

 
 

Following up on yesterday...

And finally, the missing dresser runner in the guest room:


...and in context...(The picture is of me as a newborn, if you're curious.)

 

Tomorrow...Birthday goodies.

Practice Notes ::: The body remembers

 

Back in graduate school and in my early professional days as a counselor, I spent a lot of time learning about psychological and physical trauma and its impact on body, mind and spirit. One important truth about how we experience trauma is that the body remembers it even when the mind is overwhelmed and blocks it out. This explains hypersensitivity to facial cues, hypervigilence, triggering of flashbacks by odd sensory stimuli, a host of physical disorders, hyperarousal of the sympathetic nervous system (reactivity), etc.

But I discovered a parallel truth today as I returned to my yoga mat after a few days away. The body also remembers habits of breathing, body position, rest, quietness of mind, peace. I am amazed at how easily and effortlessly (seemingly anyway) I slide back into even the most awkward of postures, as if my hips only needed fire log pose to say, "Ah, yes, I remember how to let that go." A knot in my neck/shoulder melted in bow and arrow--releasing as if remembering just where things belonged.

A funny thing happened at the end of my practice. About a year ago I made a mala for myself, intending to add japa meditation to my practice. I never actually did it until today. As I touched the 108th bead and recited my mantra, the stringing material simply broke, sending a cascade of beads in all directions onto our bamboo floors.

Something simple like this, an unplanned, unwanted event, often triggers (let's put this nicely) a reactive response in me consisting of a loud gutteral utterance at minimum to tears of frustration and global generalizations about my culpability and self-worth (on a bad day). [Witness yesterday's spillage of a bowl of oil, eggs and water as I began to bake a birthday cake.]

Yet, after an hour's asana practice, followed by loving kindness meditation and japa meditation, my reaction? Quiet amusement. Irony. Not a shred of physical or emotional arousal, and no dramatic projections about the significance of the event. It was funny. I cleaned it up, put the beads in a zip loc to fix later, and rolled up my mat.

Ah....practice.