Nobodhis Yoga Journal

Yoga for a Stiff Neck

2012-01-23T04:58:00.000-08:00

Yoga practice tonight was specifically aimed at alleviating my stiff neck.

The cause of this current malady isn't obvious, and since it's been bothering me for over 2 months, I doubt that its a temporary muscular stiffness due to overstretching.

More likely the stiffness is from inflamed tissues that are protecting a fragile area, possibly cervical vertebrae that have gradually moved out of articulating alignment, maybe due to some joint deterioration.

Maybe due to poor computer posture.

Anyone's guess really.

I won't go to a medical practitioner of any kind (Western or Eastern) until I've done all I can to self-diagnose, self-medicate, self-administer, self-heal.

As yogis and those with self awareness know, most (if not all) physical problems, and accidents for that matter, are the final manifestation of internal imbalances, which have their roots in psychological imbalances. You can trace it all back to unhealthy thought patterns.

So when physical symptoms arise for no apparent reason my curiosity is ignited - it becomes a challenging quiz to find the cause and a cure.

I ask myself: what are the possible psychological causes of my stiff neck:

Am I only looking in one direction instead of taking a broader 360 view?

Am I only willing to see what's in front of me?

Have I become rigid in my thinking?

Is the tunnel vision that I affectionately observe in my dog's stubborn behaviour manifesting in mine?

Or is the stiff neck an associated symptom of my sacral/lumbar/hip problem?

Has the physiological trauma moved up my spine?

Moving my head from side to side isn't so much painful as severely restricted.

There's a dull, numb kind of ache in my neck, a bit more on the left than the right side.

I can't drop my head backwards (Ustrasana - Camel Pose, is hell) but the forward bend movement, chin to breastbone, feels nice.

So tonight's yoga practice was an investigation into this stiff place:

What movement or stretch feels good?

What aggravates it?

What areas are hot or cold?

At exactly what point is the movement blocked and what are the accompanying messages at that point?

Can I alleviate the symptoms and stiffness with yoga?

Can I locate any tender or trigger points?

Can I breathe into the stiff area to release energy blockages?

Here is tonight's practice:

3 Surya Namaskar A's done very slowly, mindfully, with long, calm, slowly drawn out Ujiyya breaths. Reaching arms up I control how I drop my head back, extending the cervical spine upwards first, creating space between the joints; diving to Uttanasana, I draw my chin in to stretch the back of my neck and let the weight of my head pull the joints open; inhaling to look up my neck is stretched in the opposite direction, etc etc.

3 Surya Namaskar B's - with the same quietly intense attention to details.

Padangusthasana and Pada Hastasana - both with special attention to the neck and shoulders. We often let the shoulders drop towards the ground when not paying attention to this pose. Here we must pull the shoulders away from the neck, against gravity, and extend the elbows away from centre to create space across the collarbones and breastbone while extending the spine towards the floor.

Trikonasana (left) is a dream pose for a stiff neck. The shoulders and arms are extended in opposite directions and the head twists upwards. I stay here for 10 long breaths on each side, working strongly into my legs, keeping the fingertips of my lower hand just lightly kissing the floor. If the lower hand is resting on the shin (as in the image) it bears some the weight of the torso preventing the maximum use of leg energy from activating the spinal channel. Better to keep it free from weight bearing and extend both hands away from the heart centre.

When my 10 breaths are finished, I stay in the full pose and turn my neck and head to look down, then I rise up out of the pose. This little head turn before rising is delightful.

Parivritta Trikonasana - another nice pose that twists the spine and neck.

Utthita Parsvakonasana - two different head positions are possible here: in the Iyengar system, the drishti (gaze) is straight up to the ceiling so the back of the neck is kept long; in the Ashtanga Vinyasa system, the drishti is towards the palm of the extended hand, so the front of the neck is stretched and twisted at the same time.

Take your pick.

Parivritta Parsvakonasana - my ongoing problem pose due to the torso to knee relationship, still it's better than it was a year ago. I do it once on each side using a block to support my lower hand.

Then I do it again as Glenn Ceresoli taught us in a workshop: starting in a lunge with the back knee on the ground and leaning and twisting forward to get the arms in place, then raising the back knee and fully straightening the back leg while keeping the side torso as low as possible and tightly pressed against the front thigh.

Both ways are still problematic and I can barely get a quarter of the way which is disappointing only when I compare it with the beautifully deep and fulfilling twisted pose it used be for me. No matter. Everything changes...

Prasaritta Padottanasana - all 4 variations. While in PP3 with hands interlocked over my head, I considered grabbing some little weights in my hands to help lower them down towards the ground - didn't do it though, too disruptive at that point, maybe try it out another time.

Parsvottanasana - no neck twists here but the forward bend is deep enough to help release my neck with the flowing weight of gravity. And I really noticed the benefit of the shoulder/arm position for stretching open the upper chest and collarbones which I can now attest is structurally related to my stiff neck.

Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana - strong and balanced.

Ardha Baddha Padottanasana - this pose yielded a new insight.

Reaching my arm behind my back and grabbing my toe in preparation for the forward bend, there was an audible stretch across the collarbones and in my neck vertebrae, crack, crack, crack, massive realignment. I'd never realised the collarbone area was opened up so much before you even enter the pose. The stretch felt liberating too, so perhaps the stiff neck problem has its origin in my upper chest/collarbone area...

I left the standing poses at that point and sat down for some twists - there's usually nothing better than twists to wring out a stiff neck:

Baddha Padmasana (seated in full Lotus, each arm reaches behind the back and the hand grab the toe of the opposite leg) then a long, slow extended twist to each side.

Bharadvajasana 1 and Bharadvajasana 2

But these classic twists weren't doing much to wring out the tension.

Setu Bandha Sarvangasana (Bridge Pose, left) was calling.

This pose turned out to be the most useful one tonight.

Although it's a backbend, I think it must be one of the few where the head isn't stretched or tipped backwards. Instead it's a backbend with the chin pressed into the sternum. While in the full pose with my hands deeply clasping my ankles I could feel precisely where the floor contact was producing a pressure point at the base of my neck. Whatever cervical vertebra this was, it was THE ONE that responded to the acupressure.

I stayed for over 10 breaths in Setu B until my legs started to give way, then I came down, had a rest then went up again. The pressure, the neck stretch, the magical combination was immediately stimulating and healing in the needed spot.

After a quick counterpose Urdhva Paschimottanasana, Shoulderstand was next.

Stayed for 20 breaths, moving my hands higher and higher with every 5 breaths to lift, lengthen and straighten my spine, then moved into Halasana and Karna Pindasana for 10 breaths each.

After that I indulged in Setu Bandha Sarvangasana again.

Matsyasana (Fish Pose, left) - the full pose with legs in Lotus. My neck wouldn't stretch back all the way at first, it had to be gently coaxed. But this is a pose that can be deepened incrementally by pressing the elbows into the floor to lift the chest, take weight off the head and draw it closer to the buttocks, deepening the back arch bit by bit. And so I did.

From Matsyasana I laid down, staying in Lotus but laying out in Supta Padmasana with arms overhead, pressing my lumbar gently into the floor and feeling an uncomfortable (but good) stretch opening up in my right hip.

Supta Balasana - laying on my back with knees drawn into the chest and head lifted towards the knees to curve the lumbar and engage the abdominals.

The final pose was a sort of Salabhasana. I remembered the relief I'd felt many times after doing Salabhasana then resting my head on the floor to the left or the right, so I laid on my stomach and just turned my head to the side, hoping for an unstiffening miracle in my neck. Didn't happen.

It did help to slightly raise my legs off the ground and stretch and lift my shoulders strongly away from my neck. The pose became active instead of passive though I kept my turned head on the floor.

Instead of Savasana, I just curled up into Balasana (Childs Pose) for a while. In this deceptively simple pose, the contact point where the head touches the floor is halfway between the forehead and the fontanelle, a very soothing spot.

All up it was a strong, mindful practice, very intimate and full.

I still have the stiff neck, so the yoga hasn't helped much except to loosen it and allow a little further range of movement temporarily.

Essence

2012-01-19T01:20:00.000-08:00

In a moment of nostalgia I flicked back over some posts from my old blog.

I came across this one (copied below) from 28th May 2007 and was astounded at my brilliant insights and fluidity of writing back then.

"Gee whizz", I thought, "in 5 years I've totally lost all ability to think deeply and articulate poetically about the inner spiritual journey."

Sinking sigh...

A few minutes later, I realised it was actually a quote from "Essence with The Elixir of Enlightenment” by A. H. Almaas.

Ha, I haven't lost it, I never had it!

But how inspiring to read this again...

“The desire for freedom, liberation, enlightenment, self-realization, inner development or whatever it is called is not a response to a call from outside you. It is not that you hear of enlightenment and then you want to be enlightened. It is not embarking on the journey because other people you know are on it. It is not a fad.
It is not a desire for self-improvement. It is not an attempt to be some kind of an ideal model you have in your mind, It is not doing something according to some beliefs and opinions you have picked up someplace, recently or in the far past.

The search is a very personal concern, an intimately personal interest in your situation. It is a response to a call deep within you. The call at the beginning is a vague, almost imperceptible and mysterious flame. It shows itself as a questioning of the disharmony you live in. It is your disharmony, as you experience it. It is your own questioning. And it is your personal yearning.
The stirring must come from you, from your depths. The questioning must be of your situation, your mind, not of some system that somebody else has set up. You can use the system to help you, but ultimately it is your life, your mind, your quest.

Enlightenment cannot be according to any system. It has to resolve and clarify your own situation. The realization must satisfy and fulfil your heart, not the standards of some system. The liberation must be of you, you personally.
The quest does not bring about improvement or perfection. It brings about a maturity, a humanity, and a wisdom.

The moment essence (God/The Divine/The Source) is recognized as one’s being and experienced as such, a radical transformation occurs.
One’s life will never be the same.
Although the transformation can be total, it is usually partial. Nevertheless it is a radical transformation: the person knows for the first time what being is and that it is his true nature. This discovery initiates the process of inner transforation. The mind and personality are clarified steadily, and objectivity becomes more and more complete. Essence transubstantiates into its various aspects and dimensions.
Life is no longer the exclusive domain of the personality. As essence unfolds and expands, it exposes deeper and more basic sectors of the personality, bringing about knowledge and objectivity. And these in turn allow essence to displace the personality on more and more dimensions.
Life stops being the life of strife and frustration, the wish for success and the fear of failure. More than anything else, life becomes a process of creative discovery and discovery itself becomes the heart of life.

The unfolding of essence becomes the process of living. As this unfolding proceeds, it affects the mind, the personality, and the external life. The identity starts shifting from personality to essence. The individual starts experiencing himself as essence instead of the experiencer of essence.

Commitment to the truth is sufficient for the process to unfold.

It is a matter of letting go of the ego identity and living from the essence that is already present. One’s life with all its situations, comes into focus. One’s style of life – how one leads one’s life in all its aspects – becomes understood and modified accordingly. The individual becomes aware of his environment and ascertains whether it supports or inhibits the life of essence. Everything, everypart of one’s life, inner or outer, becomes conscious, no longer under the sway of the unconscious. This is very deep and involved work. It leads to responsibility and maturity.

One must shift the identity from ego to the essence. This is the most difficult part of the process. Even after essence in its various aspects is uncovered and freed, the individual finds that he still believes in his personality. The essence is present, but the individual still thinks of himself and very often acts if he is not paying attention, as if her is the personality. That is why the death of this identity is so strongly stressed by all true teachings.
This does not mean, as some teachings have it, that the individual must experience the essential self all the time, that he must hold onto it as the most precious thing. What needs to happen is to free this aspect of essence for it to become a station, to become permanently available so that it is there when its mode of operation is needed.

Experiences of ego death occur here. Inner aloneness is accepted. Personal boundaries dissolve. One starts to understand and experience boundlessness, timelessness, not doing, innocence, and purity. Essence and mind start becoming one.
Living one’s life and the work on oneself become one thing. The shift of identity from personality to essence is nothing but the realization of the true self, the high self of essence. Realization then becomes more and more expressed in living, in action. Practical action becomes the action of the true being. There is efficiency, economy, simplicity, directness. One fully lives in the world but is constantly connected to the Beyond, the Supreme Reality."

Practice List

2012-01-17T03:20:00.000-08:00

This morning's half hour yoga practice:

5 Surya Namaskar A

3 Surya Namaskar B

Padangusthasana

Trikonasana

Parivritta Trikonasana

Janu Sirsasana

Ardha Baddha Padma Paschimottanasana (with an upright twist before bending forward)

Supta Virasana

Salabhasana

Dhanurasana

Passive Matsyasana on a block

Setu Bandha

One pathetic Urdhva Dhanurasana

Prasaritta Padottanasana

Samakonasana, with a forward bend supported on forearms (pictured)

Coffee instead of Savasana

Kosta's led practice resumes tomorrow morning.

I'll be throwing myself in the deep end (having barely practised any yoga for four weeks), and just doing whatever I can.

No fear.

No need to meet anyone's expectations - not even my own.

Just practice yoga.

As the sun rises.

In a beautiful studio.

Inside my own headspace.

JUST DO IT.

Caught up again

2012-01-17T03:12:00.000-08:00

My camping trip is a cherished but distant memory...I've been back at work for nearly two weeks and it's hell busy.

I'm spending 8 hours a day imprisoned inside a computer screen, organising timetables, workshops, events, lecturers and classes, problem solving crises, resolving complaints, entering data into complex systems and reporting endless enrolment statistics to government departments.

My mind is kidnapped, brainwashed, and forced to deal with all this for the greater part of each day. No time to come up for air.

Meanwhile, the spirit voice that calls me to the contemplative, mystical life is growing fainter and fainter; vitality, nobility and wonder are seeping out of me again, and I feel a numbing over of my soul's yearning.

Deep down we long for a time when we can once again live in rhythm with the heartbeat of the Earth, and fly upon the uplifting wind of our spirits.

Out in the bush, Cooper Creek and Parachilna Gorge, primordial energy infuses my soul. Surrounded by trees, birds, wind, raw elements, I'm able to breathe long and deep, and relax into the pure joy that is my wild and natural state.

Sunflowers and Buffy

2012-01-16T04:08:00.001-08:00

Arriving at my front door, I am greeted by sunflowers and Buffy...

Parachilna Gorge

2012-01-06T02:51:00.001-08:00

"The shape of a landscape is a silent and ancient form of consciousness."

This photo was taken at a very special place deep in Parachilna Gorge.

From our campsite we walked for over an hour to get there, following a branch of the creek upstream to this gorgeous bush oasis. Water seeps up from underground springs, feeding the creek so it flows all year round.

We bathed in it, drank from it, followed it and blessed it for saving us from the scorching heat.

"A sacrament is a visible sign of invisible grace. The unseen world comes to expression in the visible world."

Close to the underground springs is this slender gum tree. She leans her head shyly against the shoulder of the rock.

Why didn't she grow straight and tall like the others around her?

Big rock attraction.

They make a lovely couple.

And this is Blinman, a tiny town about 20kms from Parachilna Gorge with a population of 22. It has the great honour of being the highest town in the Flinders Ranges (614m above sea level).

The main street in Blinman.

On our last morning we walked from our campsite to the start of the famous Heysen Trail. This magnificent walking trail meanders through 1200kms of rugged and mountainous country, ending up at the cliffs on the coast of Cape Jarvis.

Its the longest walking trail in Australia.

After an hour of walking the trail, the 38C midday sun was upon us and shade was getting sparse.

This is a view over the northern Flinders Ranges, from a hilltop just off the Heysen Trail, the point where we decided to turn and head back to our campsite.

Wild horses drinking from a waterhole in the desert just off the Birdsville Track.

Can you spot the camel?

One of our kayaks pointing toward the tent under the coolibah tree at Cooper Creek.

Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong

Under the shade of a coolibah tree,
And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled
"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me"

Waltzing Matilda is Australia's 'unofficial national anthem. It narrates the story of an itinerant worker making a crude cup of tea (in a billy can) at a bush camp and capturing a jumbuck (sheep) to eat. When the sheep's owner arrives with three policemen to arrest the worker, he drowns himself in a billabong (small lake) and goes on to haunt the site. The lyrics contain a lot of distinctively Australian slang words.

The entire song and its origins can be found here.

Imagine driving along an endlessly straight, dusty red dirt road through arid desert and coming across a sign pointing to a hot spa bath. Clayton Wetlands is a tiny spot in the middle of nowhere. Apart from the 'wetland' area which seemed pretty dry to me, there is a toilet, a shower and a tub fed by an artesian spring. You put a coin donation in the box, turn on the taps and watch the tub fill up with bubbling hot spring water.

There is nothing and nobody for miles.

Its bizarre.

My travelling friend, and my anam cara, who I must thank for sharing photos with me (and for wearing those gorgeous red shorts and matching socks).

He truly has "a reverent attention to landscape, an outdoor spirituality impassioned by the erotic charge of the earth."

"We reduce the wildness and mystery of a person and landscape to the external, familiar image.

Familiarity enables us to tame, control and ultimately forget the mystery.

Familiarity is a subtle and pervasive form of human alienation."

Paddling Cooper Creek, at home and at one with the river and the birds.

"The recognition of our clay nature can bring us a more ancient harmony, it can return us to the ancient rhythm that we inhabited before consciousness made us separate."

"Solitude can be a homecoming to your own deepest belonging."

All quotes in italics are from the book Anam Cara by John O'Donohue (except for Waltzing Matilda).

Cooper Creek

2012-01-05T03:34:00.001-08:00

Paddling towards the sunset in a kayak along Cooper Creek.

Cooper Creek is in the middle of the Australian desert.

Its normally a dry creekbed but late last year it filled with water after the Queensland floods and flowed down to fill the dry Lake Eyre salt bed once again.

We travelled over 700km north into the arid central Australian outback last week with a couple of kayaks on the roof of the spunky little Hyundai Getz to visit Cooper Creek.

Then made our camp under the shade of a coolibah tree on the banks of the flooded creek.

We were in a hauntingly desolate landscape.

Ancient, stark, beautiful in its harshness.

The ferry at Cooper Creek is operating again just near the floodway section of the Birdsville Track.

Unfortunately we couldn't board the ferry because the Getz didn't have a high enough clearance so we camped on the southern side of the creek.

Temperatures hovered around 40 degrees C during the day.

The wind was our constant companion and our saviour, keeping the stifling heat moving.

Desert sand covered just about everything inside the tent, but we just couldn't cover the tent with its canopy and lose the endless sky.

I lay at night looking up at the stars, a powder spray of sparkles.

An obstacle course to test my kayak steering skills.

Taking photos before leaving Cooper Creek.

From there we headed back down the Birdsville Track, veering off to the east to visit Arkaroola before travelling on to my favourite place - Parachilna Gorge in the Flinders Ranges.

Rivers in central Australia are unusual in that they all rise in the arid zone and end in the arid zone.

In most of the world, desert rivers enter from humid areas. There is no permanent flowing water in any waterways except springs.

Central Australia does not have a wet and a dry season. However, large storms tend to be more common in summer when the occasional remnants of tropical cyclones drift over central Australia.

Australian rivers are up to 1000 times more variable in mean annual discharge than most European and North American rivers (Gale & Bainbridge 1990). The only occasion that stream flow occurs is after rainfall events. In small catchments streamflows are relatively short, perhaps a few hours to a few days. At any one site on a larger river, flow typically lasts for a few days to a few weeks; flows lasting greater than one month are rare.

Streamflow tends to travel slowly along the length of the river; Cooper Creek for example has gradients as low as 1.9cm/km (1.3in/mi). Thus, it may take one or two months for the water in the upper reaches to get to the lower reaches.

When in flood, rivers such as Cooper Creek may spread as wide as 50km. Most rivers contain very little permanent water. All the water exists in a series of waterholes, most of which disappear after a year or two with no flow.

New Years Morning

2011-12-31T14:36:00.000-08:00

Bird chatter pulls me out of slumber.

I rise instantly, eager to bathe in the early morning sounds.

The sun is already heating the suburbs. It will be 41 degrees C today.

The new year.

The new day.

I arrived home last night after 5 days camping in the outback.

We spent two days in the arid desert, under a coolibah tree on Cooper Creek (pictured above from my tent) and three days in the beautiful Parachilna Gorge.

My soul is still out there, in those vast, natural, open spaces, in the endless arid landscapes, the bush campsites, under the giant redgum trees, in the creeks and the waterpools.

It's 6.15am. Opening my eyes on new years day, I look up to the ceiling, but my soul passes right through it reaching out into the blue morning sky.

I am still out there, silent and free, unhindered by walls or ceilings.

My next door neighbours had an all night new years eve party to christen their new swimming pool - loud music and even louder shrieking party voices kept me awake until 3.30am.

I've had less than 3 hours sleep.

Logical mind tells me to sleep in, but my soul is on fire and alive to the call of nature.

She leads me out into the early morning.

The streets are empty.

Already it's hot, day 3 of an Adelaide heatwave, yet it is early enough to feel the fading remnants of a dawn cool breeze over my skin.

Walking slowly with my dog I am immersed in a warm air bath.

Busy birds are preparing early for the searing day, so are the insects, the flowers, the bushes, the trees.

We turn the corner at the end of my street and wander along the deserted main road.

Trees lining the road have sun tipped canopies, yet their trunks are still in shadow.

Golden light illuminates tops of buildings and shops, their cool grey wall faces relishing a few more minutes in shadow.

As the sun climbs, all the morning shadows will retreat, sliding down and backwards over the natural and man made structures until sunlight reigns supreme.

I took these photos at Parachilna Gorge yesterday morning while watching the light slowly sliding down the rock face.

The rising sun was touching awake the tips of mountains, then cliff tops and treetops, her light sliding gracefully down the structures and across the landscape as she rose over the morning.

To sit silently and watch morning shadow recede and sunlight slowly creeping over the landscape is to observe an intimate yin-yang lovemaking ritual, the sun caressing and kissing the sleepy land and its inhabitants awake.

Every morning,

may I remember,

and honour,

the power of the sun,

to nourish my soul

and remove the darkness.

Aum Bhur Bhuvah Swah,

Tat Savitur Varenyam

Bhargo Devasya Dhimahi,

Dhiyo Yo Nah Prachodayat

We contemplate the glory of Light illuminating the three worlds: gross, subtle, and causal.  

I am that vivifying power, love, radiant illumination, and divine grace of universal intelligence.  

We pray for the divine light to illumine our minds.

I welcome the new day, and the new year.

Namaste.

Monday evening practice

2011-12-19T04:15:00.001-08:00

Elegant and intense: that was tonight's yoga practice.

Funny how we try to find words to describe the nuances and flavours of yoga practice: heavy, light, energetic, malleable, intense, laboured, flowing, distracted, painful, weak, superficial, intelligent, emotional, deep, connected etc...etc...

Each practice is so different - even the start, the middle and the end of practice can change like a sunny-rainy spring afternoon.

I make no excuses for summing up a practice in two or three concise words. The simple act of reflecting on the practice as a whole, brings it forward into my conscious awareness. By acknowledging and naming those differences I'm better able to understand the changing influences that impact on my body and mind, bringing greater awareness to the present moment and the internal subtle landscapes that I inhabit.

There have been times in the past when I'd finish a yoga practice, rise from Savasana and wander straight into the kitchen to make dinner without giving it a thought. Or go from the yoga class to the change room, have a conversation with another student or teacher while dressing, and forget about the last hour and a half.

Not tonight.

Even during the practice I took the time to check in after each pose, observing the effect on my mind and my body, the flow of energy through my system, areas of lightness, or heat, or stimulation, areas that felt neglected after a pose that screamed out for a counter pose or an acupressure knuckle.

Every pose was strong, balanced, intense and smooth. Smooth entry, smooth exit, elegance and simplicity. A slow dance uniting the breath and the body.

Tonight's sequence came from Mr Iyengar's Light On Yoga course.

Week 36 - 40:

Headstand cycle - total 10 minutes (I left out the Padmasana poses as my hips weren't quite warmed up or flexi enough for these)

Full Shoulderstand cycle - total 16 minutes

Jatara and Supta Padangusthasana

Standing poses:

Trikonasana and PV Trikonasana

Parsvakonasana and PV Parsvakonasana

Virabhadrasana 1 and 3 (after 3 years my internal muscles can at last hold support Virabhadrasana 3 again)

Ardha Chandrasana which was strong, balanced and expansive

Parsvottanasana

Padangusthasana, Pada Hastasana and Uttanasana - I do all these now with my thick mat double-folded underneath my left foot as this leg is shorter than the right. An extra half inch under this foot allows the pelvis to align correctly and reduces further damage to the worn facet joints in my lumbar spine.

UHP and Ardha Baddha Padmottanasana

Vatayanasana - which I did incorrectly because I'd forgotten what it looked like (correct pose pictured above)

Janu Sirasana and PV Janu Sirsasana

Ardha Baddha, Krounchasana, Marichy A

Paschimottanasana and Urdhva Paschimottanasana

Baddha Padmasana and Yoga Mudrasana

Savasana

That was it for tonight, which was only half the sequence. I'd been practising for 2 hours and it was getting late.

Rising from Savasana my body was itching for a backbend, or just something to compress my upper back and shoulderblades. The pose with the block end pressing into the inner shoulderblades did it - the acupressure points here needed urgent attention. I can't describe the relief this pose gave me - like finally scratching an itch.

Again I thank all my past yoga and meditation teachers, and their teachers as well.

I am eternally grateful for the sacred knowledge that has been handed down to me, that now allows me to intuitively navigate my own path into a deeper connection with the Mystery.

Tat tvam asi

2011-12-18T21:52:00.000-08:00

Tat tvam asi

तत् त्वम् असि

Tat tvam asi is usually translated as 'THOU ART THAT'.

Another way of saying this is "We are that which we seek."

To elaborate even further: our essential nature, our soul, our essence is the SAME as what we'd consider to be God, or the Divine, or the Source, or the Ground of Being, or the reality behind the entire cosmos.

This Truth can't be realised by simply reading about it or hearing about it.

We can perhaps understand it intellectually, the same way that we can understand the waves on the ocean ARE the ocean, but we can't fully realise it, assimilate it and be irrevocably changed by it.

The realisation can only come from EXPERIENCING it.

And that experience, which comes about by divine intervention, changes one's entire view of life forever because somehow the experience itself effects a permanent shift in the neural configuration of our brain.

In one massive metaphysical operation, the mechanical hard drive of our mind is completely replaced and reprogrammed with supersonic mind blowing software.

"I sought him but found him not."

The stubborn blindness (avidya) of my limited small ego-centred self is still causing me to look outwards.

But now and then, I catch a glimpse of the Truth, when I dissolve into a sunset, or into the mist covered landscape.

And for a moment I wake up and remember...

2011-12-18T03:00:00.000-08:00

Sunday...warm evening sunlight beams through my front windows.

My head is heavy from the weekend.

Too many people, too many conversations...

I long for a cool quiet empty mind, where the self is absent.

Out in the bush for a hike with my friend this morning, I captured this lovely image.

We were walking in clouds. Morning mist covered the landscape, teasing our eyes with the unknown, enveloping the trees in mystery. Looking ahead was pointless as we could only see what was immediately around us. No future ahead, no need to worry, just focus on this step, listen to the sound of the step.

High over the valley I heard the haunting shriek of a yellow tailed black cockatoo, the sound lingering on for miles.

I looked for him but found him not.

I found him not

2011-12-18T02:29:00.001-08:00

Upon my bed at night

I sought him who my soul loves;

I sought him but found him not,

I called him, but he gave no answer

"I will rise now and go about the city,

in the streets and in the squares;

I will seek him who my soul loves."

I sought him but found him not.

Song of Solomon 5-1-2

Old Testament

Another weekday... 8.10am.

I wait on the street.

The cyclist with the red bandana approaches.

His features, his movements, an easygoing creative wildness, so much like Mark.

He passes again, oblivious.

Driving to work, my eyes are alight.

He, whom my soul loves...

Sunset on a street corner

2011-12-15T04:37:00.000-08:00

Transfixed

I stand on the street corner

My eyes and my soul in the magnetic grip of the brillint sky

Spellbound

by the immensity and the beauty

of firelight orange and dappled pink scallops, illuminated in relief over bright azure blue

Immobilised

Against the downstream current of evening traffic

I stand watching the setting sun transforming the skyscape into a shimmering palette of colours

In these moments when the soul is illuminated with the mystery, we shimmer and sparkle in transcendence.

I must have stood there on that busy corner, looking out to the western sky for over 20 minutes, alive inside a glistening new dimension, overcome with reverence and silence.

I knew what was happening.

I've felt this before.

It's a highly charged mystical force that drenches and fills my cells.

Energy is instantly refined.

We are permanently reshaped and altered in these moments.

I stand on the street corner, my eyes filled with the glowing sunset

Until the skylights softly and slowly begin to fade.

Dusk...

Re-entering my body, feeling my feet, and moving towards home,

my heart bleeds for all those lost souls in the windows, addicted to television.

13th December - Death Anniversary

2011-12-13T04:34:00.000-08:00

The anniversary day dawned.

What a luxury to not go to work today, but it could be no other way, the 13th December is now sacred. I have declared it a holiday for the rest of my life.

Early morning is spent getting small things out the way, breakfast, walking Buffy, some shopping and paying bills. Then I drive up to Mylor.

The day is barely warm, and slightly overcast.

I pass through Stirling and Aldgate, two leafy picturesque towns, stopping at the Stirling library on my way. I've only been here once before, with Mark, just over a year ago. Funny how I almost expect to see him as I wander into the library foyer. He is standing at the library computer again, trying to remember his access password.

He is with me.

I borrow some interesting books, then drive on, winding my way along the bush forest road that leads to the tiny town of Mylor.

I feel easy about today, no fear, no pressure, I'm expecting nothing in particular to come about, nor wanting any outcome or resolution. I'm looking forward to seeing Mark's cottage, and Silverlake Road, and the creek again. It's been a while.

I park opposite the cottage, not too close. The new owner, a stocky man, is in the front garden. Gathering my bag with the shawl, the heart, my camera, and a blanket to sit on, I walk past him, eyes down. The thought is there but I don't make contact with him.

Across the road, I enter the bushland and wander through tall grass down to the creek. This is where Mark took the photo of me last year. There are no white flowers today.

How could I have forgotten the magical beauty of this special little place?

The creek meanders through the wooded bushland, running over pebbles in some parts, quietly stagnant in others. The sound of bubbling running water soothes my soul.

There are elves in this little spot, I'm sure. A thick canopy of green leaves and arching boughs covers the creek protectively. The earthy banks are spongy beneath my feet. It is playful. I walk along the edges, taking in every detail, the dappled light, the star studded leafy ground, the colour of the water, the smells, the playful, serene energy.

I sit.

And Mark is beside me.

We connect through our hearts and we remember together, sharing in the sorrow of what we lost, taking comfort in knowing that our hearts are forever together.

I can feel his hands caressing mine and quiver at the fine touch of his fingers, it is an artists touch. I remember this now as his fingers draw circles over my hand. For a moment I wonder if I'm imagining it. If I am it is divinely felt imagining.

I caress the terracotta heart between my palms and allow it to embody the symbology of Mark's heart. The object takes on meaning, the heart becomes precious. It feels alive, fleshy, and has warmed from my hands. I am holding his heart, right here, next to the creek that he loved so dearly.

To honour the ritual devised in the art therapy session, I take out the pale green shawl and wrap it around me. I never finished sewing on the words but that doesn't matter at all.

I say the words out loud, 'the love inside, you take it with you'.

I say them silently over and over again...the meaning swells and ripples outwards to other dimensions.

'you take it with you', after you die, but where do you go?

Wherever you are Mark, you are still loving me.

And here I am still loving you.

I sit for another hour by the creek, under the thick green canopy, feeling his presence come and go. I love this creek, these slender trees and wildflowers, this spongy soft earth, the alive sound of water, birds, and the soft, rippling wind in the grass.

I sit, and feel, and shed a few tears...

Then sadly I feel its time to say goodbye, though this is softened by knowing that I can return anytime.

I won't wait another year.

Later in the afternoon, I drive up to the foothills and take a hike through Gandy's Gully, my special place for walking meditation and for immersing my soul in nature. On the side of a ridgetop there's a cairn (mound of rocks) with a 'memorial' book in a plastic box, where walkers write their names and occasional messages.

I mark my presence here on this special day in the book:

'In memory of my soul mate Mark Abbott (Wandering Aengus) who died on 13th December 2010.

I'm still walking with you Mark

and still loving you...'

And now I have done what I set out to do today. I have put out the fire in my head.

I head off down the hill, wandering through hollow lands and hilly lands and tracks covered in wildflowers and butterflies and return home.

For the rest of this lifetime my soul will tenderly cherish and honour 13th December, and I will carry the memory and the joy and the love with me on this journey, and into the next lifetime...

"There are a hundred places where I fear

to go, - so with his memory they brim!

And entering with relief some quiet place

where never fell his foot or shone his face

I say, 'There is no memory of him here!'

And stand so stricken, so remembering him."

Edna St Vincent Millary

My heart extends to all those people who feel the loss of Mark as much as I do: to Meredith, Kelvin, Anthea, Ishan, Francis, Mark's mother and brother, Roger, James and so many others...

Art Therapy session 5 - the shawl

2011-12-13T04:24:00.000-08:00

Sunday 9th December 2011

Rebekah is only meant to do 5 art therapy sessions with each of her three 'case studies'.

Today was my fifth session but Rebekah suggested doing one more next week, after the 13th December, as a closure.

When she arrived today, I couldn't wait to show her the amazing shawl I'd

found in the op shop. By Friday afternoon, time was running out to find something but I was led straight to it by an invisible hand late in the afternoon as I walked from work to the post office.

As soon as I saw it, I fell in love.

The shawl is light cotton, with a tie dye effect, the palest of green in the centre flooding to a mid green at the ends. Tiny white spots dot the fabric in beautiful patterns, some tear shaped, some spiral. I'm fascinated by the technique used to get this effect. It looks like each little white spot was tied up when the shawl was dipped in dye, so all the little white spots are left undyed. They have been left raised by their tying so there is a lovely textural effect too.

The overall effect looks like tiny white wildflowers in a field of green.

It didn't dawn on me until the next day that in the photo that Mark took of me by the creek last year, the field is dotted with white wildflowers.

Rebekah and I had a short talk about the ritual, the sewing of the words onto the shawl, and the wrapping around to symbolise Mark's embrace.

She asked me how I would incorporate the terracotta heart that I'd moulded in our session the week before. I'd forgotten about the heart.

She had asked me to take a small lump of quick drying terracotta clay, and to think of my love for Mark while working the clay between my hands. The clay was earthy, muscular, fleshy, so warm and real between my hands. I fashioned a plump heart. It was Mark's heart.

It felt too much like a heart.

I gently rolled it around between my palms, caressing it as if I were caressing Mark. His heart was in my hands. I cried. Incredible emotional power is embodied in these symbolic motifs that we attach meaning to.

I may take the heart with me to the creek.

The rest of the session was spent exploring something I'd mentioned last week. It was about the rawness of grief, how I loved being in that state earlier this year. There was great authenticity, no excuses, no compromises. Life was intense and absolute.

How can I retain that as the grief recedes?

To help with this, Rebekah asked me to draw with some natural charcoal. How gritty and real that felt as I pulled it across the textured paper. Charcoal has been burnt, it is the remains of a process that speaks of intensity, and as it glides across the paper, it gradually wears away.

Thinking of the rawness of grief, at first I drew lots of spikey undulating shapes, but soon indulged completely in covering the paper with darkness. Side to side, stroke by stroke, blacker and blacker. When the charcoal broke, Rebekah suggested rubbing the black with my fingers.

I closed my eyes and took fingers to the blackened paper and from somewhere deep within they automatically began to motion the figure 8 on its side - the symbol for eternity. My fingers moved over this shape hypnotically, soothingly, therapeutically, rolling around the corners, back and over, side to side.

When I stopped we looked at the drawing and she asked me what did I see, then whether I'd like to add anything. I saw two eyes, in the centre of each oval. I reinforced them and added an orange flame, then flames up the edges.

It turned out to be an accurate drawing of the burning eyes I look out from when I am consumed with the raw intensity of grief and life.

The ritual emerges

2011-12-13T04:21:00.000-08:00

Friday 7th December 2011

For some time in the month of November the darkness lifted and gentle promptings moved me to re-engage with the external world. There was the slightest tinge of optimism in my state of being.

Mornings were easier to face, getting up for Kosta's led yoga class wasn't difficult.

I made contact with Renate and joined her for yoga practice on a couple of Saturday mornings.

I began feeling stronger, lighter, more willing to connect.

As 13th December approached - one year since Mark died - I began to sink slowly back down beneath the surface again. Waves of sadness are now washing softly over me.

Its quieter down here.

The idea for a ritual to commemorate 13th December every year is coming together in my art therapy sessions with Rebekah (although yesterday I changed my mind and had scrapped the entire idea).

It will take the form of a soft light piece of fabric, a pashmina perhaps or a shawl.

It will be embroidered with the words from the final scene of Ghost:

"the love inside, you take it with you".

The sewing of the words will be a sacred undertaking, an intimate pact with eternity.

I'll embroider 13 December 2010 somewhere on the fabric.

Then I'll embroider on this year's date (2011).

Then each year I'll embroider the new year onto the shawl with great care and love, and take it with me to the creek by Silverlake Road.

With each passing year, the distance between then and now, will be one year wider. My existence is ephemeral. Inherent in the sewing of each year onto the shawl is a marking of time, a countdown - it is a stark reminder that I have no control over the passage of earthly time, the aging of my body, and the count down to my inevitable death.

Wrapped in the shawl, I'll sit next to the hidden creek where Mark had his yabby net, where he took me on that first day I visited his cottage, the day that he snapped the photo of me in the long, green dappled grass, just two months before he died. We were both so filled with our love that day.

The love inside, you take it with you...

Enveloped in the shawl and in Mark's love, I'll sit, and allow the words to permeate, to flavour the surrounding space, to ripple outwards and echo through dimensions, to reach all those souls who have departed, and who still hold great love in their hearts.

Life, death and love will be interwoven into this fabric, and indelibly stamped on 13th December.

Art Therapy session 4 - the ritual

2011-12-13T04:19:00.000-08:00

Rebekah started the session last Monday by saying that during the week she'd had strong messages that I wasn't connecting with the art processes.

Too right.

Some people do, some don't. Different processes work for different people.

The metaphorical forest dweller was not an issue I needed to explore - the ritual was.

We fleshed out some ideas. She picked up on a comment of mine about being wrapped in love. This came from the experience of Mark visiting me after his death, and merging into my body in a warm embrace.

A shawl - a literal wrapping of the body.

I could write out the Wandering Aengus poem on it with a fabric pen, and wrap myself in it when I visited the creek by Mark's house on 13th December.

After the idea had simmered gently for a couple of days, I decided that the whole poem was too much, it wasn't necessary, a couple of lines would suffice. Then, after some more simmering, a line from my favourite movie surfaced as perfect to embroider onto the shawl. Lovely how the creative process works through the psyche.

In the final scene of 'Ghost', as Patrick Swayze (recently departed) lets go of his attachment to earth and his loved ones, he is bathed in an angelic, shimmering shaft of light that will take him to the afterlife, and before leaving he says to his girlfirend (Demi Moore):

"It's amazing Molly, the love inside, you take it with you."

I start to worry about the piece of fabric, where will I find something suitable, should it be heavy or light, Pashmina sounds nice...what colour fabric will jump out at me, lemon yellow? pale orange? what if the colour I choose seems gross next year? Will I be able to embroider - I'll have to get a book from the library on the different stitches....not much time...I've got 4 days...

Why am I doing this?

Pleasure in the Woods and in special friends

2011-12-08T19:34:00.000-08:00

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,

 There is a rapture on the lonely shore,  

There is society, where none intrudes,  

By the deep sea, and music in its roar:  

I love not man the less, but Nature more,

 From these our interviews, in which I steal

 From all I may be, or have been before,  

To mingle with the Universe, and feel

What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

George Gordon Byron

Thank you to my special friend for this poem. We share a love for nature and for wandering in the wilderness and the poem speaks to us both. I am truly blessed to have a special spiritual friend in this lifetime, someone who has unending patience and compassion, who has stood strongly and silently next to me for many years, and who has cried so many tears, with me and for me, during the turbulent and emotional events of the past 12 months.

Bless you dear friend.

Images: special place and special friend - deep in Parachilna Gorge, Flinders Ranges

Yoga practice in the tent

2011-12-06T22:16:00.000-08:00

50 breaths in Dog Pose - 7 minutes.

An unusual way to start my yoga practice, but to get me started I told myself 'just one dog pose', and of course once you've done a Dog Pose, you have to do Uttanasana, and then its hard to stop.

It's Day 2 of my 3 day monthly retreat.

The tent's already filled with mid morning summer heat;, outside strong, gusty, south easterly winds whip the heat around, fighting the sun to prove who is stronger.

An extended stay in Dog Pose is an interesting exercise - as the outer body and gross muscles supporting the pose begin to tire, I am forced to draw on other support: internal muscles, mula bandha, my mental dialogue, and my will - the only ally I have against the primal urge to escape discomfort.

My will arises like a backup rear battalion - very strong and powerful, coming in to save the weary troops at the front line. It forges into battle against the negative diatribe that threatens to weaken my resolve.

After Dog Pose, Childs Pose: not a resting pose for me because of the painful resistance in my lower back and hips. I keep it passive for 10 breaths, allowing my lumbar and hip joints to gently ease open, before moving into an internally active Childs Pose for the next 10 breaths, pressing my knees down into the earth and inwards to open the sacral area, engaging mula bandha, drawing in teh pubic abdomen and actively curling in the tip of my tailbone.

Instead of Upward Dog to counter the forward bend, I do Salabhasana for 10 breaths. the back arch is less severe, but the muscles supporting the lumbar spine are more active. Resting afterwards with my head turned to one side my neck is so grateful that I want to take it further. I do Salabhasana again, this time with my head turned, firstly with my ear pressed to the floor, then I lift and twist my head looking up as far as I can, holding for 5 breaths on each side. Pressing the shoulders away from the ears is essential here to keep the neck long during the twist. Its a new variation that I just invented.

I don't like Vashisthasana much - which is an excellent reason to do it. Kosta seems to do A and B at the start of his led class every week, so I'd like to make friends with it. Vashisthasana A is easy today, my top fingertips press the tent canopy upwards stabilising the balance. I look down along the line of my body and notice my hips are twisted a little upwards so correct this by rolling my top hip forward a little. I've been too cowardly to try Vashisthasana B in Kosta's class opting to repeat A instead. Today, alone in my tent, I give it a go. Moving into the pose requires extraordinary moment-by-moment presence and full attention to maintain the precarious balance while reaching for the big toe and raising the leg up. Once I get into the full pose, it's more stable and surprisingly not as difficult as I thought.

Some standing poses next - practising in a tent I have to choose these carefully:

Trikonasana - 10 breaths. The longer stay allows me to watch how my body absorbs the pose, how it reacts and changes, what tires first, what subtle ways I find to pick up the slack and internally reenergise. As in the first long dog Pose, when the gross outer muscles start to tire, the internal core muscles must become more active.

Parivritta Trkonasana - 10 breaths each side

Virahbadrasana B - 10 breaths each side

Prasaritta Padottanasana - 20 breaths. After the first 10 breaths (holding ankles) my head is on the floor so I step my feet a little closer - that way my head is slightly off the floor aallowing me to extend the cervical spine and create more space between the joints. I intensify the pose for the additional 10 breaths.

Urdhva Prasarita Eka Padasana (standing splits) would have been my next pose but the tent canopy prevented my top leg from fully extending - had to abandon that one.

Today's backbend turned out to be the preparation for Eka Pada Raja Kapotasana, fingertips to floor back arched, chest lifted up, face looking skyward. This prep is often used as a passive front thigh stretch, often with the forehead to the floor. I tend to do it as a fully active and intense backarch, keeping my lower abdominals drawn in, mula bandha engaged, and the knee of my back extended leg lifted and rolling inward.

Upavista Konasana - centred and upright for 10 breaths. Going forward more than a few inches wasn't a safe option so I quickly let go of that objective and settled contentedly into the semi upright stretch. Twisting to the left and going forward over the leg was an entirely different experience. Descending into the depths of the twisted forward bend changed my state of mind. There's a deep place we can access inside of these poses. When I find myself suddenly there, it feels like I've accidentally slipped through a portal into a mysterious other world. It's a place deep beneath the surface of all fluctuations...it transcends body, breath, mind, emotion and spirit. They are all united down here. This is where we truly experience 'yoga' - the union of these individual platforms from which we operate. The whole self is breathing in unison with a primordial energy down here. All parts melt into one integrated holistic operating system - individual parts are working as one team.

Deep in this state of asana there is real transformation happening. It's not easy to stay there for long. The fire of tapas is burning the impurities. Coming out of the pose you realise something subtle has changed deep in the psyche.

After that an inversion is the only sensible choice to cool down the smouldering.

I move into Shoulderstand with the intention of staying 50 breaths.

After 20 breaths I get tired and want to come down, but decide to lower my right leg into Eka Pada Sarvangasana. I do 10 breaths on both sides then lift back up to Shoulderstand for another 10 breaths - 50 in all.

In the last 10 breaths, my focus instantly sharpened; I had woken up and was hyper sensitive, super aware, eyes bright...

"to wake up alive in the world" ...Jackson Browne

Halasana for 10 breaths

Karna Pindasana for 10 breaths

Back up to Sarvangasana then Ardha Sarvangasana (hands under pelvis and legs at a slight angle) - a nice pressure release after the 90 degree bent neck bandha.

I roll out from Halasana slowly, the weight of my thighs dropping through to my spine; each vertebrae in turn gratefully accepting the acupressure massage. Just before touch down I pause, my tailbone still curved upwards, I work my abdominals relishing the internal stimulation.

Matsyasana would be the next pose, but I haven't done any Padmasana work during the practice so my hips and knees aren't quite ready for Lotus. Ardha Baddha Padma Paschimottanasana (half lotus forward bend) helps. So does focussing more on the internal dynamics than getting deeper into the forward bend. I pull up energetically throught the inner seam of my extended leg and press the bent knee down drawing it inwards at the same time. I extend fully up through my spine and out through my crown making a long line.

After the second side I just pull the other leg into full lotus and lay back for Matsyasana. It's the opposite leg position to what is done in Ashtanga (on one side only) - I have right over left which is the harder side for me. Good to do this pose regularly on the 'wrong' side to create more balance in the body anyway so when I come out of the Matsyasana back arch I rest in Supta Padmasana for a while (on one side only).

Savasana...

I close my eyes and instantly notice the sun heat beaming through the tent down onto my yoga body.

The wind is still relentless, beating and whipping the tent.

Savasana darkens as the clouds momentarily cover the sun and the light filtering through my eyelids dims.

My body is literally humming with energy.

Padmasana to finish.

I am eternally grateful to have learned yoga, to focus my mind in Now, to cleanse and energsie me, to bring me in touch with my physical body, my energetic body, my divine body, into balance and union.

Later I do a few passive poses: a backbend over a rolled up blanket pulls open internal muscles that stubbornly want to stay clenched to protect my spine. I am gently persuasive. I stay for a few minutes with the blanket in one spot then roll a centimeter down and stay a few minutes there, roll another centimeter down etc...etc... So much unconscious tension stored in my lower back, and I'm sure this affects my psychological state. Or perhaps its vice versa: psychological blockages are manifesting in my lumbar...

Solitude but no Silence

2011-12-06T21:53:00.000-08:00

Monday 5 December 2011

Wind has whipped and beaten my tent for 3 days non-stop. The constant wild flapping and noise has whipped up my mind state, or mirrored it perhaps. It has made this a different retreat, not calm and quiet, not conducive of meditation.

The elements have won.

The beach at Pondilowie Bay is windy but quieter.

The track over the sand dunes towards the beach is fresh with little animal prints this morning. I love trying to decipher the foot symbols in the sand: there are lots of different bird tracks, small lizard tracks, one that is probably a big stumpy lizard - a long slithery track with little footprints either side.

Halfway to the beach I notice giant emu footprints along the sandy track, they weren't there yesterday.Looking intently down,

I follow them a short way, curious to see where the emu may have roamed during the night. I jump in fright when the startled giant bird flaps and bounds haphazardly across the path right in front of me. I stop and collect myself. He settles a short distance away and begins munching on a bush.

Emus are like dinosaur birds. They're uniquely Australian, gigantic in size (for a bird), georgeously ungamely, awkwardly graceful, and very shy. It must be frustrating to be a bird with wings, unable to fly.

They're shy creatures, but aggressive when they want food.

I was chased by an emu a couple of years ago. I was in a campsite in the Flinders Ranges, walking to the toilets, the emu thought I had food and it poked at me. Emus have intense wild eyes and big beaks, it scared me so I ran, then it chased me, bounding after me down the path, all the way to the toilets. How funny that must have looked.

On the other side of the sand dunes, the beach is deserted and pristine clean today, the water clear pure aqua near the shore, mysteriously changing to a deep dark blue not far in.

I wander along the tide line. There are bird prints and a set of human footprints...female. How do I know that...perhaps it's the elegant shape. A woman has walked here in the early hours, probably from the big campsite further south.

Its on this walk that I find a little treasure - an unusual shell, shaped like a ball with a small hole at top and bottom, coloured with gray and purple stripes. It looks like a giant berry. It comes home with me.

"I tied a berry to a thread..." (Wandering Aengus)

Back inside my tent late morning, the wind is still beating the tent to death but the tent base is steadfast.

The battle betwen the wind and the tent has worn me out. Massive sudden flaps woke me out of deep sleep too often last night. The continual noise is just plain annoying now.

My mind is agitated.

I've had 2 days of solitude, but not silence.

I pack up and head for home a few hours early, looking forwad to the quiet 4 hour drive and respite from the thrashing, pulling, pushing, shoving, flapping of the wind on the tent.

Every retreat is different.

Some excerpts I read today from 'The Grace in Dying' (for a second time)
by Kathleen Dowling Singh :

We are, all of us, ordinary people. Liberation begins when we know that.

There is a deep wisdom in the practie of ordinariness. We are not speaking here of false or unhealthy humility; we are not speaking of low self-esteem. We are speaking of humility of a most profound and healthy order; the humility inherent in the recognition of our ordinariness.

The stance of humility, the full and deliberate living of the life of an ordinary human being, engenders a spirit of true renunciation.

The renunciation is of the inessential. The joy is in the essential.

Powerful transformation can be engendered by the stance of humility. With the dismantling of the need for self-importance, with the acceptance of our ordinariness, we can see, in the words of Robert Ornstein taken from another context:

"the emergence of the stars brought about by the setting of the sun".

Nobody

2011-11-28T03:45:00.000-08:00

I am nobody.

And my story is insignificant.

It weighs less than a grain of sand upon a sandy beach,

yet it weighs me down.

What I do and say, today or tomorrow, does it really matter?

Even these words are meaningless, the vacuous expression of an illusory self.

Even my actions evaporate straight after the deed.

I exist within an empty space.

When I let go of the story I am light and free.

Hermit, recluse, ascetic, mystic...nobody.

So it doesn't matter if I do Ashtanga vinyasa, Iyengar yoga, or any yoga at all.

It doesn't matter if I meditate or pray or chant

or rise at 5am

or eat organic

or make art or money

or travel or teach or work or aspire to lofty spiritual goals

or leave a trail of good deeds behind me for posterity.

Humble is the little grain of sand upon a sandy beach without a story.

Yoga

2011-11-28T03:39:00.000-08:00

Back to a regular Ashtanga Vinyasa primary practice again.

Or so I thought.

My lumbar injury has been steadily improving over the last year and I've been gradually introducing my body back into the practice for the past few months. It seemed to have repaired enough for me to start doing the full practice with Renate again.

I have abundant energy and I love this practice.

I really missed doing it from start to finish, and felt great joy practicing again.

But now I'm convinced - it hurts me.

It is definitely aggravating my worn facet joints.

I did a careful practice alongside Renate on Saturday - no jumping, just gently stepping through the vinyasas, modifying some of the poses like Parivritta Parsvakonasana and all the Marichys, skipping Bhuja and Supta Kurmasana, no rolling in Garbha Pindasana etc...etc...

but still I ended up in pain and feeling crippled for two days. The inflamed tissues around my lumbar spine, sacrum and hips stiffened up, immobilising my joints.

Upon reflection, I realise that there are no particular poses that are aggravating the condition.

Its the repeated movement from forward bend to back bend that is characteristic of, and integral to the Ashtanga practice that's causing the tissue inflammation and the shooting nerve pains.

I noticed during the forward bend sequence how resistant my body was to Upward Dog in the vinyasas. I had to take an extra breath every time I moved into this pose to stretch open the front of my body after the forward bend. There is no elasticity in the tissues around my lumbar and hips. If I stretch them strongly one way, they don't bounce back in time to stretch the other way.

And the post-practice condition is excruciating.

Sadly I think I might have to stop practicing with Renate and her friends on Saturday mornings. It wouldn't feel right to be doing a completely different practice in the same room as 4 people who are all following each other through the choreographed Ashtanga steps.

Tonight I came home from work and spent over an hour on my mat:

7 minutes in Headstand

15 minutes in Shoulderstand and most of the variations

Jatara Parvatasana

Supta Padangusthasana

Navasana

Ustrasana

Virasana, Pryankasana, Supta Virasana

Janu Sirsasana for 10 breaths

Ardha Baddha Padma Paschimottanasana for 10 breaths

A passive backbend over a bolster

A passive inversion with a block in my shoulderblades (pictured)

Padmasana twists

Baddha Padmasana

Yoga Mudra

Baddha Konasana

Uttanasana

It was quite simply rich, sweet and indulgent.

So I'm finally letting go of the Ashtanga dream...and doing what feels best for my body.

Tears and Gratitude

2011-11-26T02:56:00.000-08:00

I walked up in the hills today, and cried.

Some days it all comes flooding back,

and tears are what come out when your heart is cracked open.

Yet

in that tender, raw, open state

I am fully in love with life.

This human heart that can feel pain, love, grief, joy, sorrow, sadness, ecstasy, compassion...

can also feel the intimate presence of God.

So I walk, and I think about Mark,

and Wandering Aengus

and I cry,

and I bless this moment

and every moment I get to live,

and breathe,

and feel.

Words cannot describe the love I now have for this life I am in...

cherish...

Image: The view from the ridgetop looking out over Gandy's Gully.

Ritual

2011-11-26T02:24:00.000-08:00

My next art therapy session (number 3) is tomorrow. Rebekka mentioned last week that we would be working with the 5 symbol cards we created in our last session.

In our final two sessions (5 and 6), we'll be working on composing a ritual to commemorate Mark's death, nearly one year ago, on 13th December.

I could never perform a flimsy, superficial ritual to indulge in sentimentality or blind devotion.

It must be a ritual that has great personal meaning.

Whatever form it takes, this ritual on 13th December will come from the raw depths of my heart and be both evocative and emotional. It will be the first real ritual I have ever performed, and from this day forward I will honour the 13th December with the ritual...for the rest of my life.

The 13th December is the day my Wandering Aengus soulmate died.

Some ideas and images for the ritual have already started emerging:

It will be near Mark's cottage.

The first time I ever visited Mark's little cottage on the outskirts of Mylor he took me down Silverlake Road, through the overgrown bushland then down to the creek where he had a yabby net tied up. Buffy and I followed a little way behind him through the tall grass, and at one point he turned around and snapped a photo of me.

After he died I found the photo on his computer and he'd named it "Sally, My Love".

On 13th December I'll visit the little creek near Mark's cottage.

I'll sit next to the creek and that is where my ritual will be held.

Mark was very organically connected to his surrounding bush environment and for me, the area around his cottage will always contains his energy and invoke powerful memories of him.

Already my heart palpitates at the thought of being there again.

Image: Encaustic painting featuring yabbies, by Mark Abbott, November 2010.

Art Therapy session 2

2011-11-22T02:38:00.000-08:00

After some initial discussions around thoughts and feelings that had arisen after our first art therapy session, Rebekah decided we wouldn't pursue the direction of involving Mark in the sessions, nor would we work with grief as I was clearly over it and starting to move forward with life.

Rebekah is highly intelligent and sensitive - I am amazed at how intuitively she can pick up on a word or a phrase and identify it as important, then take it somewhere using the most appropriate therapeutic tool. She sensed that her initial suggestion of revisiting the past events wouldn't be helpful for me and would pull me backwards into sorrow against my will.

So she suggested creating a set of symbol cards, to lighten the therapeutic process, create some art, and have some fun with it. Symbol cards are made by drawing or painting a simple shape or symbol onto rectangles of coloured paper (approx 12 x 8cm), then sticking them onto cardboard.

She gave me the subjects of: body, mind, heart and soul/spirit.

I could choose whether to create one symbol to represent my idea of soul and spirit, or I could create two separate symbols. For this exercise, I was happy with soul/spirit being embodied in one symbol.

I sat for about 5 minutes with the blank sheets of coloured paper in front of me.

I waited for symbols to magically appear in my consciousness for each of the subjects.

Nothing happened.

I asked Rebekah if I could have more time - we would be using these cards in future sessions so I felt it was important to get them right, to have symbols that were personally meaningful and spoke directly to me. Very graciously she said I could use the entire 90 minute session to contemplate and manifest a symbol if I needed that time.

My mind relaxed into the extension of time and although my mental processes seem to be more lingual than visual, it didn't take long for symbols to arise.

And when they arose, their insistance to be recognised as 'the chosen one' was astounding!

I realised then the potency of symbols to influence our subconscious.

The mind symbol emerged first - an EYE. As I drew the eye, I spontaneously placed a star in the centre of the pupil transforming it from an opaque black sphere into an entrance (en-TRANCE) or perhaps more accurately a portal. A star within an eye - a symbol within a symbol, it doubled the meaning. I'm not entirely sure where it emerged from, or how. The starry eye I had drawn stared back at me. It was looking into me. What was it thinking?

The soul/spirit symbol emerged next - I drew a pointy ended yellow STAR on white card. The metaphor was obviously of a bright, sparkling light, illumination, also a symbol for me of ascension, looking down from a higher perspective, a direction finder in the dark of night, I felt the incredible atomic and nuclear density contained within a star's composition...

These first two symbols had connected metaphorically...I had stars in my eyes....

Next the heart. It was too cliche for me to draw a heart shaped symbol to represent the heart, but it wasn't easy to get past this universally recognised symbol. What came to me in a micro moment of inspiration was a TEAR shape. Deep heart felt feelings are often expressed in tears, not just tears of sadness, but also tears of great joy. Overflowing emotion is let out through tears. I drew a yellow tear on blue paper.

And tears come from eyes...yet another symbol connecting to a symbol.

Finding a symbol for the body that I could intuitively connect with took a painfully long time. At first I drew a WAVE - for me a wave represents continuous flowing movement; it also portrays our separate sense of self because we perceive our self as contained within a separate body. But the more I looked at the wave the more uneasy I felt about it. It wasn't providing a direct link or connection for me with the concept of a human body.

I got a bit stuck...I tried some word associations: earth element, substance, ground, physicality, action, vehicle for mind/spirit....

Then I noticed the bunch of sunflowers in the corner of the room that my dear friend had bought for me on the weekend. Their huge happy faces were smiling at me, they were saying 'Notice Me, Notice Me'. There it was - the SUNFLOWER would be my symbol for body. I drew a lovely sunflower with two little leaf arms...perfect. And suddenly my physical body 'embodied' the essence of a smiling sunflower. Considering I eat a huge bowl of sunflower sprouts in my salad every night, its about time I started to manifest their metaphysical sunny properties. My whole body smiled as I drew the happy sunflower, I blossomed.

Rebekah suggested we keep the card with the wave symbol as it contained potent imagery for me - the individual wave rising up out of the ocean believing itself to be separate from the ocean. We don't recognise our oceanness, or that we ARE the ocean.

We don't recognise our sunflowerness either.

So there was my set of 5 symbol cards - creating them was such an interesting and fascinating (and fun) process.

Rebekah explained how we will use them in the coming sessions, but I'm hesitant to repeat this as I didn't quite grasp the implications of the implementation. Apparently the symbol cards provide a powerful tool to identify what areas we are ignoring or not accessing when making decisions or dealing with issues. Listening on all levels (body, mind, heart and spirit) leads to integration and a wholesome, full engagement with self and life. I'm curious to explore how they might work and will hopefully find out in our third session next Sunday.

"Jung believed that symbols are created spontaneously by the psyche. Our dreams are constituted entirely of symbols, which Jung differentiated from signs. Signs include names, emblems or images that point to something known. For instance, the name ‘wife’ is a sign that points to a known person, to this man’s marriage partner. But symbols operate on a different plane, and point to something as yet unknown. The ‘wife’ in a dream points to an interior, psychic reality that does not correspond with outer reality. For Jung, the same word can function as a sign or a symbol, depending on whether or not it is being used by the unconscious to point to internal realities.

A sign is obvious, manifest and can be understood by reason. A symbol, however, is mysterious and can only be discerned by intuition or poetic understanding. It is symbolic knowledge that Jung is concerned with, and he is attracted to what is deep, profound and obscure. The study of signs leads to semiotics, linguistics and discourse analysis. The study of symbols leads to mythology, religion and philosophy. For Jung, the unconscious is not speaking about the external social world, but about the internal psychic plane, which cannot be known directly. It is real in its own right, though not in the sense that we usually designate as real, and symbols are the nearest we can get to approaching this unknown realm."

From http://impossiblekisses.blogspot.com/2007/07/signs-and-symbols-of-jung.html

Another 3 day retreat

2011-11-20T03:13:00.000-08:00

I got off to a late start for my three day retreat this month, arriving at Pondilowie Bay around lunchtime on Saturday. So it was really only two full days, not long enough.

For next month's 3 day retreat, I'll face up to my two fears (driving long distances at night and putting up my tent in the dark) and do the 4 and a half hour trip on Friday night.

Driving slowly into the Casuarina campsite at midday on Saturday I am welcomed by my favourite sight - its EMPTY (except for a few kangaroos)!

Its also HOT!

I put up the tent, unpack my bags, make my camp bed and climb in.

I sleep for most of the afternoon.

That's often how it is on the first day...I need that sleep. Exhaustion accumulates undetected and waits in all the dark corners of my body and mind, waiting until I stop to take rest tso it can rise up and ambush me.

Saturday passes in a haze of dreams, interspersed with a haze of reading.

Dinner is easy, I leave the dishes for the morning, and I return to bed.

Moonlight filters through the tent canopy; the deep rhythmic humming of the ocean lulls me back into a soft hazy sleep.

Sunday is more productive.

My morning yoga session in the tent stretches out to 2 hours. Its hotter than yesterday.

I do the full suite of standing poses starting with Trikonasana of course. How I love this pose.

I do it today without holding the lower leg. Instead the back of my hand presses the inner ankle, my middle finger barely touches the floor. I make sure the weight of my upper body is being fully supported by my legs and pelvis, not by my hand. Deep strong energetic roots forge up through my body.

It sets the flavour for a strong stable practice of standing poses, backbends, then a couple of long quiet seated poses to finish.

The rest of the day is spent reading, meditating and domestic camping duties such as preparing food and washing up last nights dishes in a tiny plastic tub.

Late afternoon, and the heat is everywhere. There's no escape or relief from it, no air conditioners or fans, no big trees or shady spots, no cool interiors or icy cold drinks. I love marinating in the heat. I take a walk over the bright white sand dunes, and along the beach to the Pondi surf break. The sets are rolling in clean and big. I watch for a while. There are 6 people out on the water catching waves.

Evening - another yoga practice: Inversions: headstand, shoulderstand, halasana, karna pindasana, supta padangusthasana, jatara, then the usual sequence of seated poses and padmasana poses.

Monday, my last day, so soon.

I wander out for a long walk early in the morning before the sun heat intensifies. Returning around 10am, I settle into half lotus, and sit in meditation on and off for 5 hours. It is fruitful. My meditation is clearly being influenced by the book on Advaita Vedanta (non-dualism) that I'm reading.

Years ago I experienced non-dualism in a very profound way, my egoself dissolving into the omipotent loving source. Re-union. Union. No-Self.

It is something that just happens by the grace of God.

The 'I' that experiences a non-dual state, doesn't exist - that is the Catch 22!

(which begs the question - to whom did it occur, and did it even occur?)

The non-dual state of consciousness is beyond all words.

"Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent."

hushhhhh.......

Sitting in meditation in the hot tent today I focus on the heart centre. Strange - it feels hard, like there's scar tissue. I breathe deeply to try and stretch it. I can feel the resistance. Am I feeling the metaphysical wound caused by Mark's death?

Meditation becomes a process of staying fully aware of and 'in' this heart area, focussing on it through the magnifying apparatus of my curiosity, opening it softly into love, expanding the seed of love held in the tight kernel.

I KNOW that the love I felt for Mark came from a source that is waiting to be tapped again, longing to be tapped again. We all hold in our hearts the seed energy of extraordinary love - it longs for expression, for release from its nuclear prison. Love wants to spread wings and fly.

For a short time, Mark was the very lucky recipient of this love.

And all that I gave to him, he returned to me.

The energy exchange was powerful and intense.

My lesson is to understand the fullest and highest potential of this love.

My practice is to keep the raw wound open so the heart remains vulnerable, receptive, a channel for the flow of love. I am peeling away the protective layers, allowing the raw wound to stay exposed...this is the wound of my existential aloneness, my separation from the loving Source.

Our hearts hold the most extraordinary potential for awakening into a loving universe.

Yoga with friends

2011-11-20T03:03:00.000-08:00

Renate and three of her friends get together every Saturday morning for an Ashtanga Primary practice - I joined them recently for two practices and now have made a silent commitment to this new Saturday morning routine.

Renate and I practiced Ashtanga together religiously every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 6am for about 8 years. It started as a commitment and support for our Ashtanga practice, and became a sacred and special ritual for us both.

I was the one who ended it when my lower back injury made every yoga practice excruciatingly painful. I had to stop practising to give my back a rest so it could begin to heal.

The injury was 3 years ago. Our last practice together was possibly 2 years ago. The years are passing by in a blur...

Anyway, its been a while since we practiced together. And it's been 6 months since I've seen her.

Renate's new yoga buddies (three of them are my ex-students) practice together at 7.30am on Saturday mornings. Renate leads the group in silence, simply making her way through the Ashtanga Primary sequence, missing out a few of the difficult poses. The others follow, doing what they can, modifying poses, taking short rests when they need to etc.

The women are strong individuals, but the group energy is relaxed.

Renate is still an amazing powerhouse of energy, her practice pace is a lot faster than mine, so its an energising start the weekend.

Last Wednesday I went to my second early morning (6.30am) led class at Kosta's studio.

I can go straight to work from the studio.

Kosta gave me a free card for 10 classes last week, to repay me for the bolsters and yoga blankets I lent (gave) to him all those years ago when he was starting up his own studio.

Funny - he used to come to my classes back then!

I'm loving Kosta's class...and I'm loving doing yoga with my old friends again.

A big block has shifted, there is an open space, wheels are creaking and rolling again, I am moving forward.

Transpersonal Art Therapy Session 1

2011-11-09T17:18:00.001-08:00

Sunday 6th November

The session started - Bek asked me to identify any outcomes I wanted or expected by the end of our 5 sessions. There were none really, just journeying, exploration, and perhaps uncovering any issues that are so deeply buried that I am oblivious to them.

I told her that my partner had died last December.

She was incredibly sensitive and intuitive and selected chalk pastels as the medium for me to start with as she felt me to be a very soft, fluid person and the pastels can be blended (oil pastels are better for people with anger, resistance, and hard core emotional issues).

She asked me to use my non-dominant (left) hand and draw the journey from Mark's death to now.

It started as a fuzzy mess out of which came a loopy line that twisted and turned a few times before heading diagonally upwards.

We briefly discussed the journey of grief. It wasn't unfamiliar to her - she had lost her dearly beloved dog a year ago (he was 15 years old) and had experienced wave upon wave of tumultuous emotion over the loss.

In art therapy there is some talking to discuss the issues, the expressive process, the analysis of the art, but it's not intended to be a fully verbal counselling session.

We shifted to gouache paint.

"Where do you want to go from here? Reflect on this for a minute then allow whatever images that arise to find expression through the hand and the paint." (These were not her words, but my poor interpretation of whatever it was she said)

All I could think of was towards the light.

I chose yellow, orange, mauve and a sky blue.

Thinning the yellow with a bucket load of water, I created a pale yellow wash over the entire page, allowing the brush to flow gracefully back and forth rhythmically over the paper in wavy lines. The process of washing the colour over the page was therapeutic in itself - Bek noticed my smile as I let go into the flow of the process.

After covering the page, I added a darker (less diluted) yellow band of 'sky' across the top of the paper. While blending it into the pale yellow wash, it took on a different life and I found myself spreading it down the sides and around the lower corners into a semi circular border.

That was all I wanted to do, any other colours would have polluted it.

When Bek held the little yellow on yellow painting up from a few metres away, I was awestruck.

It was a golden yellow cave - I (the seer of the view) was looking out from a golden cave into a vast and luminous space.

That was all I could see in the painting at the time.

(Three days later I would look at the little painting and quite clearly perceive a glowing orb or sun in the centre of the page. It was no longer a negative shape in relief where the shape of the central area was defined by the surrounding 'cave' shape - my perception was now of a positive spherical shape 'a sun' defined by its own formalist properties.

I'm suddenly experiencing the Rubin vase/profile illusion!

The painting had taken only a few minutes, and when I put down that first wash I had no idea what I was painting or where it would go. It had almost painted itself!

Letting go into the creative process allowed my subconscious desire to move into the light of awareness to manifest symbolically onto the paper.

The painting prompted some discussion about light and love.

I spoke a little more about Mark, and Bek suggested bringing him into the process, using the paint to describe Mark and me together and his presence in my life right now.

This didn't work for me. I ended up painting a heart shape (which mirrored two souls joined together) but didn't feel it was working as a manifestation of my feelings, or my truth.

It was there that I got stuck. I'd run out of steam.

Luckily the session had gone overtime so Bek wound it up.

I can understand how art therapy can facilitate insight so I'm curious to see what will evolve.

As the anniversary of Mark's death is coming up on 13th December, Bek suggested we create a ritual for this over our next couple of sessions.

Talking about myself and my feelings was both challenging and exhausting. It draws upon the Ego, and I'm not at ease with that. I got tired very quickly of listening to my 'self' talk about my 'self'.

But I'll do the rest of the sessions with Bek.

Our next art therapy Sunday session is in a fortnight because I'm heading off for my 3 day retreat to Yorke Peninsula this weekend - which (for me) is much more beneficial to the healing process than art therapy.

The Grace in Dying

2011-11-09T17:08:00.000-08:00

I am not obsessed with death.

I am just profoundly in touch with the ephemerality of life.

There is a big difference.

The ephemerality of life (which death makes us notice) has come starkly to the forefront of my life for three reasons...

In my early-mid twenties, I visited a psychic for a reading. She very accurately described my situation at that time, the characteristics of my husband and children, as well as the future disintegration of my marriage at the age of 34.

She also predicted that I would die by drowing at the age of 54.

I am now 51.

Whether her prediction is accurate or not doesn't matter.

Whether my fate at the time of the reading, is still on the same track now doesn't matter.

Whether I have the power to alter that destiny or not doesn't matter.

What matters is how I live my life, in every moment.

When I was 35 years old, I began to seriously study and practice in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. We were taught that death is close, it is our shadow.

We meditated on the meaning of death, the feeling of death, the experienced of death.

I vividly remember being led through a death meditation, experiencing the gradual dissolution of the body, the senses, the eyes becoming dim, observing the voices at my death bed fading into silence as my hearing withdrew, my mouth becoming dry as bodily fluids began to dry up, the circulation slowing then stopping, the exhalations becoming longer and longer until that poignent moment when no inhalation followed... It was the most powerful meditation I had ever done.

Needless to say, one rises from this meditation with great relief that one is still alive.

And a renewed desire to live fully.

My Buddhist training hammered into my psyche the cold hard fact that death is our birthright. As soon as we are born we are one day closer to our death, and the countdown is on.

And finally, Mark's death last December, which has led me into the deeply transpersonal inner realms of life, love and death.

It is a heady mixture of tragedy and joy that I am now living with.

I was beginning to worry about my morbidly obsessed psychological state...

That is, until I came across a book in the library a couple of weeks ago.

Funny how that happens...

The book has been a revelation, and perhaps the most profoundly important and life changing book I've read since Halfway Up the Mountain.

The book is called: The Grace in Dying by Kathleen Dowling Singh.

It is a masterpiece on the spiritual transformation experienced by those who are dying.

The process can occur over a period of months, or days, or in the last few seconds of life.

Kathleen sits with people who are dying, mostly people who have a terminal illness, and she observes intuitively their gradual transformation from the massive shock of their prognosis through to an all consuming luminous peace.

And she clearly points out that we can effect this shift during our lifetime.

We don't have to wait until death is upon us to ascend the ladder and re-merge with the Ground of Being (a Shambala Buddhist term describing that from which we came and that to which we will return upon death - it can be translated as the Divine, the Source of Life, God, Allah, Brahman...).

I have been profoundly moved by this book, and continue to wander around in awe of the simple truth that it reveals.

I urge anyone reading this blog entry to get your hands on a copy.

Here are some excerpts:

"As we deepen our understanding of the entire human journey, from conception through death, we deepen our capacity to live more fully and freely, awed by the fact that we ARE alive. We become different beings through the transformative power of our insight into the dying process. We become larger, more integrated, and somehow more real with this expasion of our horizons and remapping of our boundries. We enter levels that allow our now deeper being to open to WHAT IS - giving and taking, in living and in dying, with fewer gimmicks and simpler truth, with less frivolity and more joy, with less suffering and more gratitude."

Page 6

She describes the majestic psychospiritual process of dying as a vast evolutionary process of the return of a particular human being to the Absolute Ground of Being, of increasingly higher or deeper levels of consciousness, each more enveloping than the next, through which each of us will pass as we complete our experience in the human body.

The Nearing Death experience is characterised by certain subtle signals or qualities:The quality of relaxation - the end of struggle, a letting go, where a boundary is crossed.

The quality of withdrawal - a detachment from all worldly concerns and previously held identifications, a turning inward of all one's psychic energies, back to the centre of being. It is positive, purposeful and transforming.

The quality of radiance - the skin becomes opalescent, facial muscles relax, an inner illumination

The quality of interiority - a threshold, a liminal experience, that facilitates the path into within and on to beyond.

The quality of silence - communicaiton is only what is essential and deep, often symbolic or metaphoric pointing toward the ineffable, it is the language of love and poetry. No human language or concept can express this experience.

The quality of the sacred begins to emerge - the heart fully opens and it can be felt like a shift in the air, an intensification of energy.

The quality of transcendence - the development of a transpersonal consciousness beyond the identity of the personal self

The quality of knowing - a recognition of an inner momentum of deeper unfolding, an immediate knowing that one is a passenger in the body.

The quality of intensity - the energy field itself can often be perceived to 'open' to enlare, and intensify.

The quality of merging - an end to separation and duality, suggesting they are finally coming face to face with the Source of all Being, a melting into God.

The quality of experienced perfecton - of absolute safety, of finally allowing themselves to say good-bye, and letting go into that perfection.

"These qualities ... characterise the Nearing Death Experience. They are qualities not ordinarily known to or experienced by our separate sense of self. They are the qualities of grace. The very presence of these qualities suggests that Spirit is their source."

"The process of dying has been emulated for millennia by contemplative and meditative practices precisely because of the liberation it offers. Plutarch states: "At the moment of death, the soul experiences the same impressions and passes through the same processes as are experienced by those who are initiated into the Great Mysteries."

"Meditation goes far beyond the contemplation of death.

Meditation attempts to imitate the process of dying.

Meditation works to loosen identification with the personal self and with the current level of consciousness.

Meditation slowly and progressively purifies the ordinary mind, unmasking and exhausting its habits and illusions. With the purification comes insight into the self and the beginning of the healing of boundaries.... the healing occurs in the experience of the pain of the boundary."

"When meditation clears the ordinary mind, Original Mind shines through."

"The direct experience of truth comes from the radiant absorbtion in Spirit."

and how beautifully inspiring is this...

"We take ourselves to be so much less than we are. We know best the confined and anxious spaces of the mental ego but each of us has experienced each level of conscousness at some point in our lives, if only for a fraction of a second. Because we are multidimensional, because we have access - if just for moments - to greater dimensions of depth that arise when we move inward toward the Centre, we witness the humblingly beautiful human qualities of joy and wonder and loving-kindness and mercy and playfulness. The qualities of grace, of Being, arise in moments of self-forgetfulness. The Light reveals itself when we take off the blinders."

Untitled

2011-11-08T22:35:00.000-08:00

Fading daylight…

My front verandah is still warm, my garden is glowing,

summer rain trickles slowly, consistently,

gently patting the leaves

and cooling the earth.

The sun has just slipped down behind the ocean curve again

a quiet, stealthy exit

no flashy colours tonight.

I bathe in,

and breathe in,

the pink air of dusk.

Evening is darkening

and the noise of distant traffic fills every audible molecule.

People are going home, or going somewhere,

mostly they are going in circles,

mostly going nowhere.

Me…I sit on my verandah

listening to the soft, summer rain in the diminishing remnants of twilight,

my Self gently fading,

going nowhere,

and everywhere...

(was that prose, or have I just written my very first pooem?)

2011-11-03T15:25:00.000-07:00

"Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there"

Will Rogers

"Don't just do something, sit there!"

Inspiration for meditation practice

Sitting in the centre of my vast universe, calm, quiet, and brilliantly aware of my own existence, I can see the track, unfolding inwards.

We are moving forwards all the time, even when we are just sitting there, even when it seems we are going backwards.

Transpersonal Art Therapy

2011-11-02T15:58:00.000-07:00

What is transpersonal art therapy?

I'm going to find out this weekend.

I've volunteered to be a case study for a student at the college where I'm now working. Rebecca is nearing the end of her 2 year Transpersonal Art Therapy course and has to conduct three case studies as part of the course.

We will do 5 sessions, the first one is this Sunday afternoon.

I'm just a bit excited...

Pooetry

2011-11-02T15:54:00.000-07:00

To mould thoughts into words and then write them down is like capturing a bird and putting it into a cage.

Silence is vast space in which thoughts wander freely.

Writing, journalling, blogging - the urge comes and goes.

The desire to write, communicate, crystallise thoughts, analyse, to make concrete the fleeting ephemeral particles of mind matter - it hardens the illusion that I am a person with thoughts, feelings, personality, beliefs, and experiences that matter, that need to be externalised.

Poo.

Suddenly I like the word poo.

Perhaps I should write pooetry.

Some Yoga Practices

2011-11-02T15:35:00.000-07:00

Kosta's Wednesday morning led practice

2 November 2011

Kosta and I went hiking a few weeks ago. We walked, we talked.

He moved into a new yoga studio recently and his classes are doing really well in the beautiful big space.

So when he mentioned that he'd just introduced a Wednesday morning 6.30am led practice, my ears pricked up. I have such fond memories of early morning Mysore practices...there's something very special about doing a full practice as the day is dawning.

A seed was planted and I've been thinking about going to the led practice for a couple of weeks. Thinking but not doing. Sometimes it takes a little while for these seeds to sprout.

Now, three weeks later, the conditions were ripe for me to go.

It does take some organising - the night before I must shower, water my vegetables, pack work clothes, take Buffy for an extra long walk because she won't get one on Wednesday morning...

Anyway, it was no drama.

It was, in fact...easy!

Even getting up at 5.30am and leaving home at 6am was remarkably easy!

And it has revived in me a longing for the sacred early morning yoga ritual.

Led practice was sublime. Kosta quietly calls the poses in Sanskrit, no instructions. His manner is calm, strong, empowering, non-invasive. It allows me to enter my own sacred yoga space, yet remain connected to the small group.

The sequence was elegant. The progression of poses had logic.

I've watched Kosta mature into a strong, intelligent yoga teacher over the 12 years we've been practicing together.

We've had similar training and been influenced by the same teachers, so our personal practice is similar: Ashtanga flow, often based on the primary series, vinyasas connecting poses, a strong focus on breath and bandhas, but with an Iyengar precision and steadiness and some occasional restorative work. Kosta's had exceptional training, he's now Iyengar certified, but his partner is Ashtanga certified by Sri Patthabi Jois. The blending of styles makes for a nicely balanced teacher.

So I LOVED every moment of this morning's led practice.

As I get over the hump of Mark's death and enter the third phase of life, my yoga practice is slowly returning. I have started practising daily again and plan to attend Kosta's Wednesday morning led practice every week.

There's also the opportunity to join Renate's Saturday morning little-group-of-friends practice. No cost, just friends practising yoga together in Renate's art studio. Sounds nice...

Here's what I remember from Kosta's led practice this morning:

Warm up gentle forward bends

Sun salutes

Dog pose and Uttanasana a few times

Vashisthasana A and B (I didn't attempt B)

Trikonasana and Ardha Chandrasana

Parsvakonasana and Parivritta Parsvakonasana

Prasaritta Padottanasana

Lunges

Parsvottanasana

Parivritta Trikonasana

Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana

Ardha Baddha Padmottanasana

Prasaritta Padottanasana

Samakonasana and Hanumanasana

Bakasana to 3 point Headstand (which I fell out of quite elegantly)

A vinyasa rolling from Halasana to Malasana, then up into Bakasana

Janu Sirsasana

Bharadvajasana

Handstands (timed holds for 1 minute)

Pincha Mayurasana

Setu Bandha Sarvangasana

Urdhva Dhanurasana (x 3)

Viparitta Dandasana

Uttanasana

Viparitta Karani

Savasana

After which I went straight to work, very hungry.

Two evening practices after work

31 October and 1 November 2011

Either a shift is happening in my psyche, or I'm having a good yoga week.

Two nights in a row, I've come home from work looking forward to immersing myself in yoga.

And I've loved these after-work practices.

I start at 7.15pm with slow sun salutes.

Then slowly, gently, I make my way through some standing poses, relishing every turn of the head. My neck has been unusually stiff for a few weeks, as if some of the stiffness from my lumbar has broken off and travelled up my spine.

The simple turn of the head upwards in Trikonasana, against gravity...I never gave it a second thought until it became difficult to do. I look up, rotating to the sticking point, wondering if it is calcium that has deposited in the cervical joints and tissues.

These things come and go.

I love the standing poses - they are not just about legs and grounding. They provide us with an opportunity to plug into a primal earthy power source. The body becomes a transformer: energy is drawn upwards filling up crevices, smoothing out creases, flowing though and enlivening the body's barren, forgotten wastelands and tissues that are lame from lack of use or overuse.

Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana - bending forward over to the front lifted leg, the abdominal contraction builds core muscular support for the lumbar. I get there, I work at it.

Virabhadrasana 1 - micro adjustments to the pelvis, tilting it slightly forwards then backwards, dropping one side a little to level the iliac crests, micro nutation of the sacral bone.

Virasana, Paryankasana, Janu Sirsasana, Shoulderstand.

Short, sweet, practice, ultimately satisfying.

Thursday 13th October 2011

An evening yoga practice, one hour, nothing special, just like my day.

Life is both ordinary and extraordinary.

To warm up, stretch out, unwind before starting practice proper:

Uttanasana, Downward Dog and Ardha Baddha Padma Paschimottanasana.

I start my 'practice proper' with Headstand and throw in a couple of variations, then move on to Shoulderstand with a few variations.

I stay on my back for Jatara and Supta Padangusthasana, kneel for Ustrasana and Virasana, then lay back into Paryankasana and Supta Virasana.

Although not driven by any one sequence tonight, Iyengar's Light on Yoga course seems to be steering my opening choices.

Janu Sirsasana - 20 breaths on each side.

This is an exercise not in stretching, not in willpower, not in opening beyond my physical limitations, but rather the challenge of simply staying and being.

After 10 breaths I really want to move out of the pose. I have to adust, back off on the urge to stretch my joints open before they are ready. I just stay with the discomfort of wanting to get out of the pose and I breathe. It's not a physical discomfort, its a mental one. I don't like staying this long in a pose, it's like being locked in a cage, I am prowling around, devising a way to escape.

Yet here I am imposing this 20 breath directive on myself while at the same time rebelling against it. Mind training.

At some point after 15 breaths, I accept that I will stay for the full 20 breaths in this pose. I will observe the mental and physical reactions, and make peace with the process.

My first real yoga teacher always held me in poses for an eternity, especially the seated poses. I got used to this and enjoyed sliding down into the dark depths of my mind, becoming immensely quiet. Quite often, my state of mind would change dramatically in those poses and I would emerge transformed, I still didn't know how or why.

Tonight , one long stay is enough.

I continue on - only 5 breaths in Ardha Baddha Padma Paschimottanasana before a heavily modified version of Marichyasana A and Marichyasana C.

After the foward bends, I can't do a backbend, tissues and joints have lost their youthful elasticity and take a while to recover - Upward Dog looks like a Plank for a few seconds until my body yields unwillingly into the pose.

The phone rings, its my daughter, practice is over for tonight.

No Savasana.

Rituals and Objects of the Dead

2011-09-15T16:24:00.000-07:00

Blinking my eyes open, I slowly wake to the sound of birds outside.

The sun is setting, it's just after 6pm.

I'm lost.

A moment passes before I locate myself in time and space...I gaze up at the earth colours of the tent canopy, soft twilight filtering through the material; I open my ears now to the sounds of the birds, the warbling, whistling, twittering of a hundred little species flurrying about, nesting in for the night. Whoosh...a crow swoops dangerously low above my tent, looking for food.

Image: My tent is almost hidden amongst the bushes.

It was raining when I arrived at Deep Creek this morning - I put up my tent in the rain, then cocooned myself in it for the rest of the day.

I'mon another 3 day retreat, but in a different setting this time.

Deep Creek is a beautiful wild and mountainous bush setting at the tip of the Fleurieu Peninsula, and Cobblers Hill is the smallest and most obscure of the five campgrounds within the vast conservation area. The coastline is a 3km walk away so the landscape here varies enormously - from sparse scrub to subtropical creeks and gullies, from stringybark forest to rugged clifftops overlooking the coast. It's very different to the flat, coastal landscape of Yorke Peninsula where I've retreated monthly since Mark died. Deep Creek is much closer, only an hour and a half drive south, instead of the almost 4 hour trip to Pondilowie Bay on Yorke Peninsula.

Why did I choose a different location in the opposite direction?
Perhaps to herald the relinquishment of grief, of no longer dwelling in the place where my deepest sorrow was felt. No longer dwelling there, but often visiting...

I am so lucky to have three days a month set aside for solitude. My retreats began in January, back then providing solitary time away from work and family where I could immerse myself in the cathartic process of intense grief. More recently, as my feelings around Mark's death soften, the trips away to Yorke Peninsuala had became more of a pilgrimage, a sacred act of traveling to a place of worship.

This time, travelling to a different place, the trips have acquired a new flavour.

They have become a ritual.

Ritual that is repeated without a heartfelt connection can easily become a mindless habit (though it can be effectively used to re-establish a lost connection).

I have to be vigilant...three days away could easily become a lazy holiday.

I arrive at Cobblers Hill, set up tent, dry myself off, then I sleep, all day. Its a necessary period of unconsciousness, a ritual transition to help switch my mind from worldly concerns to a quieter, receptive state.

After waking up at sunset I warm up some vegetables, eat, listen to the pitter patter of rain on the tent, then snuggle back into bed and sleep again, until morning.

Day 2 and rain falls on and off. I don't venture out. Instead I meditate, do some yoga, and read a timely book called "Objects of the Dead" by Margaret Gibson. This turns out to be a sensitive reflection on grieving and our relationship with the objects we are left with after a loved one dies (more about that below).

Day 3 is clear, occasionally overcast and windy. Finally I am ready to venture out of the tent and into the lush and beautiful bushland.

Arum Lillies

A short 45 minute walk takes me down into a tropical gully through Aaron's Creek. Arum lilies are everywhere; vast choirs of them spring forth from the bottom and sides of the running creek, beautiful lily blankets cover the gully edges. They are in full voice, singing like angels. I fall in love with lilies, am swept off my feet by their joy (and take way too many photos).

The process of taking photos makes me hone in on their unique beauty. I sense the subtle energy of the lily. It is there in the shape, the colour, the size, the properties.

Have you ever really looked at an arum lily with your natural intuitive sense...to gain understanding of its esoteric properties?

Have you noticed that the gently curled white flower and the leaf are a similar shape, it is a beautiful shape, not quite a love heart, not quite a tear, but a little of both...what does that tell us?

And the way the lily unfolds, from a shy introverted adolescent to a fully open praise-to-the-world joyful expression of a flower. The lily in full bloom resembles a trumpet, an instrument designed to herald ...... And what of the unashamed erect yellow stamen emerging from the female orifice, a phallic symbol of great beauty and elegance, parading its offerings in full view to attract bees who will help it reproduce.

I gaze upon the sea of singing heart shaped lilies and am uplifted by an angelic wave of joy.

(My granddaughter's name is Lily. I must bring her here so she can swim in this lily ocean).

After lunch I hike 6kms to Blowhole Beach and back, up and down some steep hills and over some cliffs. The view is expansive, Kangaroo Island looks surprising close on the horizon, the sound of waves crashing on rocks is hypnotically alluring.

Death is always so close.

Images: Crossing a little ravine on the way to Blowhole Beach; Approaching Blowhole Beach

Objects of the Dead

Weary from the hike, I return to the tent and read a bit more, morbidly fascinated by the stories of people who have lost loved ones and who must deal with the belongings they've left behind.

In the turbulent weeks after Mark died, I was wearing his clothing; it enveloped me in his being, embodied him around me, I felt his gentle touch, his smell, his presence. Somehow it momentarily lessened the irreversible absence of his death.

Now his clothes are packed away in a bag in the corner of my bedroom.

I would not dare to look upon them now lest they prick open my tender heart and unleash my emotional response to the transitory fact of human mortality:

as Mark died so shall I...

and so shall my children...

and so shall all my

other loved ones.

As each day passes, we are all one day closer to death.

Mark's clothing also holds the painfully physical memory of his personal suffering, his failures, his hidden demons. And layered through the same fabric are memories of my massive shock and trauma, raw feelings now confined and imprinted into a bag of clothes that sit in the corner and haunt me.

Mark's clothes, and especially his shoes, are potent reminders of his absence, of a genuine love that is lost forever; they retain his energy and my memories of him, but also memories of the intensity of my grief.

"During the grieving process the dead take up residence in the psyche of the grieving - their irreversible absence converts into an intense mental presence. On account of the very fact that we have lost him or her, the dead person is more totally present to us than he or she ever was in life.

"The people and things in our lives leave deep residues and impressions. Even without the presence of grief, objects can create an atmosphere of vague solicitation such that we become aware of living in and amidst things that have histories beyond present knowledge and the powers of recollection."

All memory is a form of haunting.

"The deceased love one becomes omnipresent to the grieving. ...the loved subject becomes the object of thought, invading the very operation of thought itself. This psychic reality of enduring love is the impossibility of forgetting."

"We never let go of those we love - our ghosts - who, in our consciousness, traverse the exclusions and divisions of past, present and future."

"OBJECTS MATTER, because they are part of us - we imprint objects and they imprint us materially, emotionally and memorially."

"Cathexis refers to the psychic charge or emotional stimulus attached to objects and figures of identification."

"Objects contain memories and, like photograph negatives, they are just waiting to be printed out."

"Objects of the dead don't inhabit only the literal space of a house, garage, shed or shop; they also occupy emotional space, forming the imprints and prompts of memory and story.

But think about it, when we die, what happens to our possessions? They move to the homes of family, friends and strangers or they are destroyed.

Death makes ALL material possessions nomadic."

"For those who believe in an after life, death never reduces a person to nothing; nor is the dead person subject to the fragmentation and dwindling of their traces in earthly existence: on the contrary, the dead are never more whole, because they return to the source of their existence - God."

Photographs

In "Objects of the Dead", the author explores the power of photographic images to capture a moment in time, not just of the deceased but also of the living:

"In taking and displaying photographs we actively invite haunting as an orientation towards being and dwelling with the ghosts of former selves, those lost and departed others."

"Images of the past can become confronting, even oppressive, as people age and experience the weight of mortality and grief."

My son Nik finds it distressing to look at photos of his youth - he is reminded of the 'golden years', the joy of childhood innocence before the burden of adulthood weighed him down.

"In looking at photographic images of ourselves and others we recognise the mortality of what was and will ever be again."

Photographs of Mark hang around my house: on walls, mantelpieces, shelves, tables...I don't know how long they will stay there but they seem to be now an integral part of my private surroundings.

I suddenly realise the different energetic resonance of Mark's clothing and shoes compared to these photographs. His clothes and shoes still hold the physical and energetic traces of his fully alive body, and in their unfilled shape they are stark reminders of the human being I loved who once filled them with life. But the photographs capture only a contrived image of Mark - one fleeting moment in time - printed onto a flat, lifeless sheet of paper. The images represent, remind me of, and replace the real person in a less provocative way than the physical items so imbued with his essence.

The author ends the chapter on photographs with the following:
"The more we record our lives - obviously, deliberately and excessively - the less we live them with a sense and acceptance of the past as mortal and irretrievable. Recording technologies make time lived as a quiet, unpunctuated flow rare and unimaginable. Does it really matter if this event or this moment is not recorded for playback? No matter how much we record ourselves, we cannot overcome our mortality. The fear of complete oblivion and the unimaginable absence of our existence are both recorded and protected against in videos, photographs, personal websites and so on.

Photographs and other recording technologies record our resistance to and failure to accept oblivion."

"Human beings are bound to each other psychically and materially and the binding extends beyond the separation of death. To experience the spectrality of places and things is to be open to apprehending the ghostliness of material existence - where presence and absence partake of each other. Such an orientation towards the world is at the same time a sensuous knowledge that is ethically bound to seeing, feeling and responding to traces of others - stranger, friend, mother, sister or lover."

I am both blessed and cursed, to have a sensuous knowledge of the ghostliness of material existence.

Pilgrimage

2011-08-07T16:26:00.000-07:00

Pilgrimage

Wiping away the occasional tears that blur my vision, I drive north out of the city following the road up to Port Wakefield then down the other side of the Gulf of St Vincent and out into the flat plains of Yorke Peninsula. Some are tears of joy, some tears of confusion, some tears of relief. They're all mixed together.

Why am I doing this trip? I haven't worked it out yet, but there's a reason for it. I know it.

I've taken time out to travel over to this wild and beautiful coastline, to set up camp, to listen to the ocean swell, the sounds of nature, the whispering voice of the wind; to disengage from city stimulation and let the cooling balm of silence and simplicity dampen the fire in my head.

It's Saturday morning. By 11am, I've set up my tent and what I need for the next two days. I lay on my camp mattress and fall into a blind sleep for an hour, waking to the realisation that the sleep provided a passage, a transition from unconscious wakefulness into alive stillness.

Contemplation, quietude and peace.

After one hour of sitting meditation the rubbish pile - my mind - begins to loosen.

The rubbish pile is made up of accumulated thoughts, millions of them that have been used, reused and recycled - they're stuck together with clag, unable to move freely through and out of my mind. There is blockage. Build up. Stagnation.

Alone in my tent, surrounded by coastal bushland, I feel a freedom that I can't explain - there is space and ease, lightness of being, no commitments, no eyes upon me. I relax and the mental glue begins to soften, the thoughts begin to separate and dissolve away one by one.

Tight sticky mind becomes the soft mind.

It is a homecoming - to my natural state of being.

I did this trip to Yorke Peninsula three times earlier this year, but then it was to be alone with my grief and my thoughts of Mark, to create a haven away from my normal life where I could sit still with the intense emotions.

Each trip a different mindstate has emerged. This fourth trip feels like a transition. I realise the grief is gone - no longer am I trapped in the roller coaster trauma of Mark's death. My mind is much more stable and in a sort of holding bay ready for a new phase.

These trips to Yorke Peninsula are more than just a getaway. They've become a pilgrimage.

I leave home, close the door on what is familiar, and journey to a place that is now a sacred haven for me, where I am immersed in nature, distilled and refined, receptive to whatever arises, and where I can listen inwardly and feel the presence of spirit.

Acknowledging this trip as a pilgrimage gives it context and meaning. I'm not fleeing my responsibilities, or escaping society. I am honoring and nourishing what is sacred to me, my inner spiritual life.

The outer physical journey gives symbolic weight to the interior journey. It is sacred traveling, moving away from the noise and complexity of modern life towards the quiet, numinous centre, the intuitive realm.

The purpose of all journey is to arrive home.

Yoga Practice

Sunday morning it is warm in the tent - I do a four and a half hour yoga practice. When there are no time restraints, yoga can be practiced with complete freedom.

Poses are set up carefully, entered into gently and mindfully, explored fully and deepened only as the body naturally allows. Listening to the body, I feel all the gross and subtle sensations, layers upon layers of them, I feel the structural, anatomical and physiological changes taking place as stuck areas release their grip just a little, sometimes complaining as they yield to the compelling force of internal balance and purification.

And I watch the mental activity, the desire to move, the desire to stay, the occasional hint of boredom in a pose, the aversion to uncomfortable openings. I stay in the poses with full and quiet attention, watching and listening...fascinated with the process.

After each pose I sit with the effect. I imagine this is how the ancient yogis identified and recorded the benefits of each pose. When time permits it is an extraordinary exercise to sit for at least a few minutes after each pose and observe minutely the subtle effects on one's physiology, one's emotions, one's state of mind.

I wrote copious notes about this practice but now I can't be bothered writing them up.

I did the entire practice inside my tent, following the Ashtanga Primary sequence of poses. There wasn't enough room to fully raise my arms up so I modified the initial sun salutes to accommodate my tiny studio. Apart from the sun salutes I was surprised to find that all the standing poses were do-able under a low ceiling as they were either forward bending or were low to the ground because of a lunging position.

My toes didn't quite touch the top of the tent in the Shoulderstand but I couldn't hold the Headstand for long because my feet were pushing the tent top up which created a downward force on my head, not a safe feeling.

The long slow practice went surgically very deep. Psychologically it was intense too as I made myself stay in those pain-held places that I don't normally reach in a 5 breath pose.

Some poses present us with pain places as soon as we enter them and staying for 5 breaths is confronting, but nearly all the poses will present pain places if held for a longer time - the blockages are deeper and more subtle and not visible or accessible in a 5 breath visit.

Excavation takes time, courage and patience.

Corpse Pose

After the four and a half hour marathon yoga practice, I lay out in Savasana.

I am exhausted and peaceful.

Releasing my body and soul completely into the earth, I let myself drop down further and imagine the ultimate release: Death...In Savasana I am on the threshold.

What would it feel like to pass over to the other side right now, to look back at my inert body, to realise I have to let it all go now, to accept that it's suddenly all too late: the plans I made, the things I put off, the people I loved, my unlived life...it's all too late.

That moment of passing over into death is shocking, the remorse is painful, there are no second chances to make amends. Death doesn't ever wait til you've finished your business. It cuts your life short no matter how young or old you are.

We are never ready.

If I were to die tomorrow is my life in order?

What business would have been left unfinished?

If I were to die tomorrow would I be embarrassed at what they'd find stashed away in the dusty corners of my bedroom, my bathroom cupboard, my shed?

If I were to die tomorrow would I have regrets...for what I could have done, but didn't?

...for allowing comfort to smother my enthusiasm for life?

...for allowing ignorance to fog my spiritual vision?

...for allowing fear to choke me and inhibit living a full life?

...for allowing laziness and inertia to drag me backwards?

...for believing I had more time while death was at my heels and stepping into my footsteps?

When I get home, I'll be cleaning up the messy corners of my room...just in case....

I'll clean out my house, and I'll clean up my mind.

I'll make a list of all those things I want to get done in this life time - and I'll do them.

I rise from Savasana, it has been a trip into my personal mortality.

I rise with a new resolve - DEATH IS A BREATH AWAY - CLEAN UP YOUR LIFE AND LIVE IT NOW - PROCRASTINATION IS YOUR ENEMY.

Revisiting

2011-07-24T16:17:00.000-07:00

It was 1971. I was eleven years old when I spent a week in that tiny, old cottage at Mylor with my older sister. Suzie had gone to Singapore and had asked my sister to house-sit.

Who was I then?

Why is is the memory of that cottage so alive in me after all other memories have faded into a distant haze?

The feeling of the cottage has haunted me to this day, as if it holds an important secret.

The cottage was surrounded by thick bushland and the back yard edge fell away to a creek; windchimes tinkled on the front porch, and inside it was pure hippyland: unpolished floorboards, indian rugs and cushions on the floor, books, lots of wooden things, exotic incense smells... it was dark but it felt rich in texture. I remember my sister saying that Suzie did yoga - it may have been the first time I'd heard the word.

That was exactly 40 years ago.

I can't remember the last time I saw Suzie - it was probably twenty years ago and it was probably by accident.

Today I drove up into the hills and, found myself passing the cottage. I recognised the wooden sign hanging out the front which has the word Orana burnt into it (the aboriginal word for welcome).

I turned the car around, stopped out front and, knowing Suzie still lived there with her female partner, summoned all my courage to knock on their door.

The cottage is lighter now - they've extended and renovated the tiny bedroom, and the kitchen/living area is much bigger now too. The walls are a happy lemon yellow, and there are more windows, but it still has the same bush hippy feeling that I remember as an impressionable adolescent.

Suzie is over 60 now, but she hasn't changed, she is impish and cheeky, just as I remember her.

She made tea and we talked, surpisingly not about the past, but about now: her trip to Singapore, her neighours, walking trails around Mylor.

Back in the car I am filled with a heady mixture of felt memories - they brew like a magic potion...into the mix goes some deja vu, some time travel, disorientation, loss of self...it begins to heat up, to bubble and simmer...I slip back through time, I am eleven again....am I really that shy dreamy young girl sitting on the indian cushion in 1971? Was that the same me?

Who am I today?

And why do these places and people and things left behind cause me such a sweet, sweet sorrow?

Driving up to Mylor through the mist and the rain this morning, I had no intention of visiting Suzie's cottage on River Road...

I was driving to Mylor to visit Mark's cottage on Silver Lake Road. It was the first time I've been back there since retuning from the retreat with the news of his death.

Driving there, feelings of both joy and sadness washed through me, for all the things and people that are have passed through my life but live on in my heart forever.

Funny that the greater our capacity for joy, the greater our capacity for sorrow. Once the heart is broken open it feels the divine heights and the heartbreaking depths of the human condition.

Mark's delapidated little cottage was sold from his estate about a month or so ago.

I wanted to visit it once more, to walk along the country road where we once walked together, to wander over to the creek where he took me on that first summer's day together when he checked his yabbie net hidden in the gently flowing stream, and where he took my photograph in the tall grass - he saved that photo onto his laptop and called it 'Sally my love'.

Mylor is especially wild and beautiful on misty, rainy Sunday mornings.

Buffy and I walked a little way down Silver Lake Road. Approaching Mark's cottage, Buffy recognised the territory and wanted to go in the gate.

The yard had been tidied, the bushes had been pruned.

There was a car in the drive.

I wondered if the new occupants knew that the former owner had died there, had drunk himself to death because he'd been separated so abruptly from the love of his life. I wonder if they knew his body had been found badly decomposed after four days in a hot bed, the electric blanket left on high.

How can they sleep in a room where someone has desperately drowned in sorrow?

Buffy and I walked quickly past the cottage, the rain was beginning to drop faster.

I deliberately drank the memory potion and crossed through the mist of time - I walked, sensing the impressions of Mark's footsteps along the road, his spirit and his being coming alive in the present. The imprint of his life is etched into this landscape that he loved, its in the creek, in the trees, along the paths, and in the memories and lives of his neighbours and friends.

Why do these places and people and things left behind cause such a sweet, sweet sorrow?

People enter our lives and hearts then move on; each precious day comes and goes, every single moment arises and passes away, then it's lost forever - it will never return.

Suzie's cottage on River Road...Mark's cottage on Silver Lake Road...I revisit and remember, and feel not only deep sorrow for what has passed, but also immaculate joy for being immersed in the ephemeral dance of life.

How precious and how unique is every fleeting moment of our lives.

Take great care to live continually with this awareness...

Mark's cottage at Mylor

Week 36 - 40 sequence

2011-07-18T06:42:00.002-07:00

I moved on to the next sequence in Iyengar's course tonight, week 36 - 40.

It's very different to the last sequence (Week 31 - 35) and much, much longer.

It starts with the same Headstand and Shoulderstand sequences as in Week 31 - 35:

My Headstand balance wasn't so solid tonight - I wasn't wobbly but there was something blurry going on behind my eyes which disorientated me. I fell out of Parivrittaikapada Sirsasana but went immediately back up in to the Headstand again and continued on. Although I got closer than ever to getting both my legs into Padmasana in Sirsasana on the first side, my head and eyes were starting to complain by this time, so I came down and rested in Childs Pose.

Still, that was 8 minutes in Headstand.

The Shoulderstand sequence felt reliable and solid - all the poses are accessible now, perhaps my weakest pose in the Shoulderstand sequence is Parsva Pindasana, where the legs are in Padmasana with the knees folded down towards the armpits and the legs and pelvis twisted around to the side. My difficulty comes in any pose where the knees are bent towards the armpits, so this pose is one that requires care and full attention.

The entire Shoulderstand sequence was 17 minutes tonight.

All up - 25 minutes of inversions to start the practice...

From there the sequence moves on to Jatara Parivartanasana and Supta Padangusthasana, the same as in the week 31-35 sequence. I followed these with Chakrasana, not realising this pose isn't in the new sequence. I think I'll keep doing it here anyway - I have to fully relax my neck to safely roll over and the imperative to release the tension in this area is really beneficial (especially after spending the day in front of a computer).

The sequence then boldly moves on into standing poses and although I don't always feel up to doing standing poses at the end of the day they were strong, quiet poses tonight, vehicles into a deeply grounded practice:

Trikonasana and Parivritta Trikonasana

Parsvakonasana and Privritta Parsvakonasana

Virabhadrasana 1 and 111

Ardha Chandrasana

Parsvottanasana

Then a series of poses that took hamstring stretches from the maximum to the extreme: Padangusthasana, Pada Hastasana, Uttanasana (after which I inserted Urdhva Prasarita Ekapadasana, because it seemed to follow on so naturally and it topped off this mini sequence of standing forward bends perfectly).

Then balances: firstly Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana - I looked up the image of this pose in Light On Yoga as I wasn't sure if, in this sequence, it included both A (leg raised to the front) and B (leg raised to the side) variations. I was surprised at what I found: in the image Mr Iyengar has his chin to his raised knee, but he has both hands clasped around his raised foot with a Krounchasana grip (it doesn't include UHP B). So I did his version of the grip....NOT easy, the hamstring is stretched more and the top of the thigh bone is drawn quite deeply into the hip joint.

After this came Ardha Baddha Padmottanasana and Vatayanasana (Horse pose)

Vatayanasana was a pose I hadn't tried for a long time. I fell out of it backwards on the first side, but got into it and held it easily on the second side. For a moment I thought about doing the first side again to see if it came easier second time around, but decided to move on and leave it until next time. This new sequence of poses is foreign to my system and my body will take some time to adjust and begin to assimilate it.

To the floor next for Janu Sirsasana (always a joy to meet up with this lovely gentle nourishing friend), Parivritta Janu Sirsasana and Ardha Baddha Paschimottanasana.

I looked at my watch, it was 8.15pm - an hour and a quarter had passed since I started, and I was only one third of the way through the sequence!

No way was I going to do it all tonight.

At that point I decided to skip the rest of the seated poses and go straight to the finishing backbends: Salabhasana, Dhanurasana, Parsva Dhanurasana and Urdhva Dhanurasana (though I added in Ustrasana before Urdhva Dhanurasana).

I think for the next practice I'll do the usual sequence of inversions to start, the standing poses that follow, and then jump to the seated poses that I didn't get to tonight.

Doing the entire sequence would probably take me two and a half hours, but it looks like a great sequence so I'm keen to take on the challenge to build up to it.

Crying Meditation

2011-07-18T06:04:00.000-07:00

"The spiritual teacher Mata Amritanandamayi, the Divine Mother Ammadhi, has said that 'crying to God for five minutes is worth an hour of meditation.'

Now when I do not have time to meditate, when I feel too tightly wound to relax, I find that five minutes of crying has the same effects. It is a shortcut to the calm that comes after a good, long hour of quiet meditation.

Not long ago, on a still Saturday night, I cried for six hours in a lover's arms. I realise this behaviour could be seen as a certifiable acute depressive episode. And maybe it was.

I prefer to think of it as a three-day meditation retreat for those of us who don't have the three days - a meditation retreat for the girl on the go.

I highly recommend it."

Ariel Gore

The Mother Trip

Three day retreats

2011-07-18T00:56:00.000-07:00

It's official - I can have one Monday off each month by working an extra half hour each day.

What a blessing.

Once a month I'll be setting aside a 3 day weekend, either to go away camping, or to spend at home, but in both cases it will be a time dedicated to retreat and spiritual practice, and immersion in solitude and silence.

Yoga party

2011-07-17T06:15:00.000-07:00

I shower, put on my favourite dark clothes and carefully trace a line of kohl around the circumference of my eyes.

Tonight I'll go to Kosta's yoga studio/house warming party. I promised him I'd go.

I look in the mirror and wonder how people see me from the outside.

Mark and I could only see each other through the eyes of love, he was in his 50's but he was no more than 17 to me, young, energetic, creative, wild...

Sadness wells up in my eyes - this is not a good time to break down in tears. Can't have red eyes at a yoga party.

But my broken heart is still bleeding.

I let a few tears escape but I don't give in to them.

Three deep breaths to control mind and emotions...I promised Kosta I'd go.

Black suede boots on and I'm ready.

Why am I going I ask myself.

Why stand in a crowded room and chit chat with acquaintences and strangers?

How much nicer it would be to curl up in bed with my book of poetry.

It's cold outside...and the thought of chit chat chills me to the core, even with yoga people.

I arrive and find a spot standing next to the heater. Everyone else seems to have found a comfy place seated with their partners and yoga friends on the floor or on bolsters around the very very low tables. A couple are improvising on a sitar and soft drums, swaying trancelike in the corner. The music is beautiful. The lighting is perfect. The food is Indian. It's all very yoga...

Simi and Kosta are lovely sociable yogis, and tonight they've brought together all their friends and followers, both Ashtanga and Iyengar yogis.

I see vaguely familiar faces that I can't quite place but assume they're from distant yoga classes...I see some of my former yoga students, one who makes a point of telling me how the 6 week intro course he did with me 5 years ago changed his life, he is absolutely beaming...I recognise some yoga teachers, past and present....

At last after half an hour Darrin arrives. I was hoping he'd come. His genuine smile immediately warms up my desolate corner of the studio party. We talk about love and death, about his long distance relationship with Brian, about art, astrology and poetry. He asks me how I am going with Mark's death (a question genuinely asked from his heart, but not one I can answer while surrounded by 50 people). We smile secretly to each other when his yoga students come over one by one to steal his attention and talk about their lives.

Another hour goes by, the music seems to be louder now, it's hard to hear the conversations. My ears don't want to. Drifting away from the conversation happening in front of me, I suddenly realise I need silence and peace URGENTLY - not music, chattering and an apple orchard of brightly beaming happy smiles. I wink and say goodbye to Darrin, we make quick plans to go walking together in a few weeks, and I slip away into the full moon night.

A tidal wave of relief washes over me instantly. I wish it could wash away the entire night.

I vow never to come out of my cave again.

Hip opening class

2011-07-17T05:52:00.000-07:00

It was my first Ashtanga class at the shala in nearly 3 years.

What possessed me to go to a class?

80% redemption - I hadn't done any yoga practice this week

10% curiosity - the shala has moved to a new building, and Simi's son (who I've never met) teaches classes there now

10% entertainment - just to have a bit of fun

I've driven past Simi's new Ashtanga studio, its in a lovely old character building on the city fringe, my side of the city too. It's close to my house, but a 40 minute drive from work. I left work on the dot of 5pm and got to the 6pm class just on time.

I'd expected Simi's son to be taking the full Led Primary class tonight. I'd heard he takes the half Primary on Tuesdays, the class which would have suited me better as I my lumber doesn't permit me to do Bhujangasana through to Garbha Pindasana, but I just haven't been able to get to that one.

I thought I might sneak in to this class, take up a spot at the back, remain inconspicuous and anonymous, and bumble my way through the Primary practice.

Not likely.

Turns out that Simi takes this class - we embrace and she welcomes me back like a long lost friend, making me feel like a celebrity.

Instead of full Primary, she led the class through some clever hip-opening sequences.

There were a lot of Dog Poses with one leg lifted high and held for a few breaths before stepping forward to the lunge. Along with the usual Primary standing poses, she included some more advanced poses in the sequence: Vashisthasana, Bakasana to tripod Headstand with legs split into an upside down Hanumanasana, Urdhva Prasarita Ekapadasana (great, I'd been working on this one), a killer lunge with the torso bent over the forward leg and the hands interlocked and raised up to the ceiling, and towards the end of the class, a move that took me by surprise (though I do remember trying this one years ago in an Iyengar class): Dog Pose into Urdhva Dhanurasana - you get there by lifting one leg up in Dog Pose, twisting it backwards, and flipping your body over into Urdhva Dhanurasana - after recovering from the shock of trying this on the first side I was able to do it on the second side. I flipped over from Dog Pose and found myself in Urdhva Dhanurasana on my neighbour's mat, with one hand pointing forward and one hand pointing backwards, wondering how I was going to awkwardly negotiate my way out of it.

The class wasn't particularly easy, and Simi kept it tight, moving us through vinyasas between the poses and making it light hearted and fun - there was no pressure or striving, just a playful, we-can-do-anything-if we-try mood.

For me it was an evening's entertainment - a big night out, like going out to a concert or a football match. The yoga class felt familiar but new, it was challenging but fun.

I didn't learn anything that will add to my practice, I didn't gain any new inspiration.

But I had fun.

I adore Simi and respect her enormously as a teacher and mentor, but will I go again?

Probably not...simply because, compared to the deep sea explorations of my own practice, a homogenised yoga class feels like a playful but shallow skim along the surface.

Fun and entertainment? Yes.

Soul stirring? No.

The Sigh That Breathes Fire

2011-07-17T05:46:00.000-07:00

Today, the sun was puzzled,

opened a window of light,

closed a window of clouds

and descended the stairs of darkness.

There was a sheen of perspiration

on the eyebrows of the sky,

I don't know why.

Shedding his moon-shirt,

be undid the stars.

Now I sit here in a corner of my being

A memory of you came

like the thick and bitter smoke

that rises from damp wood.

With it came so many thoughts -

the way parched wood breaths out

its crimson sighs of flame.

I have put out both those fires.

The years of my life are like scattered coals.

Some have gone out, some smoulder still.

The hand of Time began to sweep them aside

and he blistered his fingertips.

From the hands of your love

I this earthen vessel fell, and was broken.

History came to my kitchen today,

but went away hungry.

Amrita Pritam

(translated from Punjabi by Arlene Zide)