The body doesn't lie

Saturday 8th March 2009

Walking
I do a lot of walking in nature to escape the city life. During the week I walk my dog along the Torrens Linear park and on most weekends I try to get out further from the city for an extended walk up hills and through bushland.
The image on teh left is a view of the city of Adelaide from the uphill climb on my favourite local walking trail at Horsnell Gully.

While googling for new bushwalking trails yesterday I stumbled across a blog written by another Adelaide walker. He takes beautiful photographs of local trails that I also love to walk along.
Have a look here.


The Wisdom of the Body

If someone wishes for good health, one must first ask oneself if he is ready to do away with the reasons for his illness. Only then is it possible to help him.—Hippocrates

Every physical problem, disease or injury has its cause deep in our psyche. Everything we think and every belief we hold ripples through our sea of e-motion (energy in motion) and then through our physical being, firstly through the subtle energetic layer, and if it is a strong recurring thought, belief pattern or emotion it will upset the energetic balance and manifest more prominently on the physical level. When in manifests in the physical body as an injury or a temporary affliction you know it wants to be noticed. It is showing us where we are out of balance.

Yoga and meditation practices are designed to gradually purify our senses so that we begin to notice and listen to these messages. We become more sensitive to and in tune with the interplay between mind, body and spirit.

Think about this: our entire belief system (the mental framework that governs every decision we make) is made up of a group of thoughts that we have constructed and then play over and over in our subconscious. They wear deep grooves in our psyche and all subsequent new thoughts get caught up in these grooves and are tarnished by them.

Ingrained patterns of thinking (such as “Im not a morning person” or “if I openly show my love I’ll be weakened” or “I'm too old to do that”) are actually neural pathways we've created which get strengthened and thickened each time they are reinforced by yet another thought along the same line.

So where am I heading with this?

To my lower back of course.

I am sure that some block in my thinking is causing my lower back and hip problems.

According to Lise Bourbeau, the psychological cause of lower back problems is a fear of losing our freedom if we help others. Apparently this fear prevents me from giving which in turn prevents me from receiving and I must acknkowledge that it is alright to need to feel supported and to seek that support instead of being so stubbornly independent.

Could my back problem be connected to my OBSESSION WITH SOLITUDE? Hmmmm….food for thought….

Lise lists 20 common problems and their metaphysical causes here:
http://www.ecoutetoncorps.com/ressources_en_ligne/definition_20_maladies_e.php
And some more are listed here:
http://www.lifepositive.com/Mind/Emotions/Metaphysical_causes_of_disease_and_how_to_deal_with_them32004.asp
I think Louise Hay was an early pioneer of this kind of mind/body connection work. I remember turning my nose up at her book ‘Heal Your Life” for years as it was such a wonder book for the lavender scented new-age movement. To this day I still haven't read it.

Penelope Quest has written a book called "Reiki For Life". This extract explains the interplay and connection between our various mind/body/spirit layers (or koshas as we call them in yoga: see http://www.swamij.com/koshas.htm ):

“Our physical body has its own conscious energy system, or body wisdom, which is always working for our greatest and highest good, and because of this it tries to tell us when something is going wrong, either with our thinking or in our lives generally. Its messages take the form of symptoms or illness or disease, so when we have a headache, catch a cold or flu, have toothache or become more seriously ill, our body is trying to tell us something, trying to get us to understand the signal and do something about it. But that is the difficulty, because we don’t always understand this kind of “body language”, and some people are completely unaware of it, so its significance is lost.

Most people react to illness or disease by trying to get rid of the symptoms as quickly as possible, usually by seeking medical advice or intervention.
A recent advertisement on television caught my attention, because it was extolling the virtues of a popular analgesic as something “for people who don’t have time to have headaches”. I found this quite alarming, because whilst there is nothing wrong in seeking relief for symptoms, if you want your body to be healed, you also need to understand the illness at the causative level, and if you have constant headaches, “masking” them with medication and carrying on as if nothing was wrong isn’t a long term solution. You’re not listening to what your body is trying to tell you, so although the symptoms might abate briefly they will return because you are not taking your body’s advice and acting upon it.

Your first priority is to ask yourself "WHY am I ill?". Because from this metaphysical perspective, illness or disease is created by the body – albeit as a helpful message - and as the body is simply a part of our consciousness, this means that we actually create our own ill health.

Again, this may be a very challenging concept, but as I pointed out earlier, the metaphysical viewpoint is really very empowering, because if we have the power to create ill-health, then we also have the power to create good health!

However this is definitely NOT a “blame theory”. Although you may ultimately be responsible at a deep spiritual level for having created an illness, this isn’t being done at a conscious level so there is no blame attached, and you therefore should not harshly judge yourself – or anyone else – for being ill. You don’t suddenly wake up one morning and say “Oh, I think I’ll break my leg/slip a disc/sprain my ankle today, that’ll stop me rushing around doing too much and I can have a good rest and some time to think about my direction in life”. Of course not. From a human perspective that would be utter madness! But from a Soul/Higher Self/Sub-conscious Self level the pain of the broken leg or slipped disc or sprained ankle is simply an experience on your journey through this physical life, and it does what it’s supposed to do. It stops you in your tracks, ie it stops you making further progress down the wrong path. If you heed the messages, all well and good, and you can heal and move on, but if you don’t then they will lead to different life experiences, but from the soul perspective even that is still OK.

All experience – good, bad or indifferent - is good experience for the growth and development of the soul, but not necessarily pleasant as a human being living through it!

Now I understand that these metaphysical theories can be very difficult to come to terms with if you haven’t heard them before, and they may well challenge your belief system or your concept of how the world works, and of course you are free to take them on board or ignore them, the choice is yours. But if reading about them has sparked at least an interest in finding out more then there are some recommended books : "Your Body Speaks Your Mind" by Debbie Shapiro; "The Healing Power of Illness" by Thorwald Dethlefsen;.

Anyway, to summarise this metaphysical viewpoint:

Every illness or disease, accident or injury has a message for you, and the more serious the illness or injury, the more serious and urgent the message. Nothing is accidental or coincidental. Every experience is useful and valid and contains some valuable information for you, even some of the minor things – such as cutting your finger with a knife while chopping vegetables. Why were you distracted? What were you thinking about at the time? What are you feeling “sore” about?

Understanding Your Body’s “Language”

Your body sends you messages every day: to highlight that something isn't right in your life, or to nudge you into noticing that you are going in the wrong direction, or to bring to your attention that there are lessons to be learned which you are ignoring. The trouble is we’re not speaking the same language, especially if we think every “accident” is accidental, every pain is just something to be got rid of, and every illness is just an inconvenience and something to be suffered until it is over.If you are frequently unwell, could the underlying reason (or "dis-ease") be that you are unhappy or too stressed at work, but the only way you will give yourself permission to take time off is to be ill?

Is being sick perhaps a way of getting more attention or affectionate responses from your family or partner? Do you "need" an illness to slow you down because you have reached a stage in your spiritual life when you need lots of time by yourself for inner reflection?

These are just a few examples of the possible messages offered by the body for you to examine, learn from and then take action, making the necessary changes in your life to bring about harmony and good health. Of course there isn’t room in this book to give anything other than a very short outline of some suggested metaphysical causes of illness and disease, so I have recommended some books in the Resources section that deal with this issue if you want to explore it further.

However, the list below shows just a few of the possible relationships between parts of the body or specific illnesses and facets of our inner selves, as a very rough guide. Of course, this list is only a brief example of a complex issue, and is not meant to be regarded as the “truth” in every case. See if they “feel” right to you, because obviously they are generalisations and each case is individual, so you may need to explore the issue in more depth. In the meantime, however, it may sound simplistic to say that if you've got a sore throat you may be having problems expressing yourself, but just be prepared to look at that, honestly, to see if it has any relevance for you. If not, that’s fine, but please remember that most of us are very good at hiding our motivations from ourselves, so probing our deeper reasoning can be an uncomfortable and disturbing experience. Therefore even if at first you want to deny it outright, it could be worth having another look!”

Causative Issues Linked With Body Parts
LEFT SIDE OF BODY Represents our feminine side and our inner journey, as well as creativity, imagination, spiritual and psychic issues
RIGHT SIDE OF BODY Represents our masculine side and our outer journey, as well as money or job issues, or other practical, physical and material concerns
EYES Show how we "see" the world. What are you not prepared to see? Are you looking at things from an unhelpful perspective?
EARS What is it you are unwilling to hear? Are you avoiding listening to your inner guidance?
THROAT Communication issues. Have you swallowed your anger and hurt? Are you expressing your feelings? Are you telling the truth?
SHOULDERS Are you carrying too many burdens? Do you always put yourself last in your list of priorities? Is your life too stressful?
ARMS Who or what are you holding on to? Are you afraid to let go? Who or what would you like to embrace?
HANDS Associated with giving (right hand) and receiving (left hand), and the details of life. What issues or situation can't you handle?
BACK Associated with stored anger and resentment, feeling unsupported, and trying to be perfect, as well as money issues and indefinable fears
CHEST (Heart/Lungs) Relationship issues, self esteem and feelings of worthlessness, suppressed emotions, feeling smothered or controlled by others.
LEGS Associated with progress through life, fear of change, fear of the future, and family or parental issues. Who/what is holding you back?
KNEES Linked with stubbornness, inflexibility and indecision. What decision are you afraid to make? Are you being obstinate over something?
ANKLES Do you need to change direction? Is your life unbalanced?
FEET Associated with security and survival, reaching our goals or completing tasks, fear of taking the next step, being "grounded"

Reflecting
This particular question rung true as soon as I read it in the excerpt above:
"Do you "need" an illness to slow you down because you have reached a stage in your spiritual life when you need lots of time by yourself for inner reflection? "

Going back in time a couple of years, I was working six days a week plus teaching a few yoga classes and somehow maintaining a morning Mysore practice, on top of all the other commitments that go with having a family and a budding relationship.
Then during the two months of March/April 2007, I sprained my ankle three times and had an accident with a pressure cooker which burned my arms, the right one quite badly.

Within a few weeks of the accident I'd given up teaching yoga classes, and that marked the start of a gradual cut and burn in many areas of my life. Only in hindsight can I see that an internal phase of prolonged solitude was awaiting me; the injuries had to occur to initiate the withdrawal from society into a period of quieter reflection.

So listen to your body, dig around to find out the meaning behind its messages, and take notice of them.

nobody, nowhere, nothing

21 February 2009

"Busy life has a keen sense for the nothing that isn't there, but no sense for the nothing that is."

Looking back over the past decade of my life, I'm in awe of how much I managed to cram into the days....full time work (often 6 days a week), regular yoga practice, yoga teaching, cooking for and supporting my son, maintaining and nurturing fragile relationships with partners, children, family members, friends, getting away on weekends to surf or go bush. It's been an interesting experience to watch it all ever-so-slowly fall away...

Now I just work, and I walk the dog, and sometimes I practice yoga...and I spend all the extra time wondering why I do anything at all.

It's time to move on. Life has changed. It's time to begin the quieter and more serious work of contemplative meditation.

And develop a connection with the nothing that is there.

An Update on Everything

13 February 2009 - An Update on Everything

Renate took these photos during a yoga practice that Kosta and I did in mid-December. It was a Wednesday evening, 2 days before I was due to leave for a 10 day Vipassana meditation retreat. (That's Kosta in Virabhadrasana ll and doing a jump-through and that's me moving into one of the seated Padmasana poses)

Kosta had arranged the evening yoga session so that two of his female friends, one a website designer and one a photographer, could photograph us during a practice for his new website. Renate sat on the sidelines with her own camera – she’s developing a series of abstracted paintings that combine a yoga theme with the feeling of motion – so she was trying to get the hang of taking photos while moving her camera. (Reminder to me – I must visit her studio and see how the paintings are coming along)

Anyway it was a strained practice, just me and Kosta in front of these onlookers and under bright lights, occasionally being directed to hold a pose or move the mat – you know how it goes – it wasn’t really a yoga practice, more like a yoga performance.

And that led to the disaster.

We’d been following the Ashtanga Primary series (our well-worn and favourite sequence), stopping and starting so the photographers could reposition lights and I’d jumped through to Paschimottanasana. I deepened into it, more for the shot than for myself, I extended my hands past my feet and gently took hold of a wrist while they adjusted lights and snapped from different angles.

Coming up from the pose I knew something was very wrong – my lumbar area and hips were paralysed by an indescribable ache that was physically shocking. It worsened over the next few forward bends, but I doggedly pressed on through to the end of the practice.

Sitting on the floor after practice I was in silent agony as we reviewed the images and chose a short list.

I left Kosta’s studio that night and drove to a friend’s house close by, gasping aloud in pain each time my leg had to press down on the clutch pedal. When I arrived I lay on the floor and went into shock.

The crippling pain episode lasted three days before it started to ease up a little. I couldn’t drive my car. I could hardly move without an agonising pain shooting through my lower back and hips. So this was it. This is what had to happen. And how many years have I been ignoring the signs?

Instead of starting the retreat on Friday evening, I had to leave it until Sunday. Just before I left for the retreat I reluctantly dragged myself to the Sports Med clinic and had xrays (I say reluctantly because since my son’s serious illness that no-one could diagnose I’ve developed great contempt for the western medical system).

The xrays showed up not an injury, but a degeneration of the discs between L4 and L5 and between L5 and the sacrum, plus some pars defects and a slight bony growth on L5. The sports doctor put me on painkillers and anti inflammatories and suggested I start a program of physiotherapy and Pilates when I returned from the retreat.
Well I went to the physio once and cancelled the follow-up appointments. My distrust of all western medical practices is pervasive. But admittedly I did borrow a couple of books on Pilates, and tried a few of the exercises – boring, boring, boring, too one dimensional for me to practice it with any conviction. But the principle of core abdominal strength that forms the basis of Pilates is one that I’ve now incorporated into my yoga practice and it has definitely helped in the healing of my back.

I've now accepted that my lumbar area probably won’t ever regain its youthful strength and flexibility so I have to care for it and manage the condition so that I never have to experience another of those acute pain episodes. When practicing yoga, I have to focus continually on engaging the three sets of muscles that support the lumbar: the pelvic floor muscles, the transverse abdominus and the lumbar multifidis. Since starting to do this I’ve felt a little more stable and therefore more safe, not only during yoga practice but also in the little daily moves: getting out of bed, tying my shoelaces, sitting at work etc.

Some cutting edge research done in Australia has resulted in a breakthrough realted to back problems. Researchers at The University of Queensland have discovered that when there is an acute pain episode in the lower back, the muscles that support the spine (the pelvic floor muscles, the transverse abdominus and the lumbar multifidis) turn off. They just stop working and play dead. This leaves the spine even more vulnerable to further injury. Rehabilitation involves specialised internal exercises to re-ignite the receptors that fire up these muscles. I’ve felt all this, I've experienced the dead internal numbness in this area and believe me, it’s really frustrating not to be able to activate a muscle because it has decided to ignore you. AAARGGHH.

If you want more info on this see the bible ‘Therapeutic Exercise for Lumbopelvic Stabilization: A Motor Control Approach for the Treatment and Prevention of Low Back Pain'
by Carolyn Richardson or just google her name for lots of related articles.

Surfing
Three weeks before the yoga session at Kosta’s that set off this episode, I tried to go surfing. I knew my lumbar was fragile so I took it pretty easy, staying close to shore, observing how my back responded to the undulating movements. After trying to jump up to standing three times and falling off my board, I had to give up. There was no support in my lumbar spine. After this my back ached for days - a precursor to the agonising episode at Kosta’s.

So now there’s no more surfing for a while, and my yoga practice has changed radically.
It had to happen.

23 December 2008 - The Vipassana Retreat

I had to start the 10 day retreat 2 days later than expected so this year it was an 8 day retreat for me.
The main difficulty I encountered in this retreat was getting to stage one (which I recognise as a single moment of concentration).
For six entire days, my mind remained obsessively and obstinately stuck in the fantasies that populate my inner world. I couldn’t summon the presence of mind to even focus on my breath for the first few days. What a mess my mind was in.

Now and then, on rare occasions, a little light would flicker on and I’d momentarily realise how deeply lost I’d been in runaway thoughts. It seems that I’m able to sit still for 11 hours a day, completely lost in my own fantasy world, much like a child. I can keep myself amused with a never ending stream of internal dialogue, it’s so entertaining, I am my own very best friend and companion because I talk to myself back and forth, I dream, I fantasize, I play, I analyse, I amuse myself with odd jokes and a rather funny view on life, I plan my day, I am never lonely.

Switching on that little light of awareness illuminates this captivating mental hyperactivity. Like coming up for a breath out of the swirling currents of the ocean.

I knew that I needed to hold onto those moments of awareness when I wasn’t being kidnapped by my thoughts, hold onto them and consciously lengthen them before being whisked away by the force of the current and falling back into unconsciousness.

Problem was that the little light wasn’t coming on very often so I spent most the retreat completely lost in the swirling haze of my never ending thoughts!

Some of the mental mess naturally began to settle around my 6th day, and a deeper, more conscious mindstate arose. I can’t even call it clarity, just quietness, a welcome rest from the ad nauseum.
Perhaps once or twice I was able to scan and gently sweep my mind through my body in the true Vipassana way…that was nice…my body tingled then sparkled then almost dissolved into its billion particle components.

So I’m trying now to weigh up the benefit I’ve gained from 8 days of continual sitting where I was barely able to even follow the instructions, at times even blatantly ignoring them, and at other times admitting defeat before even sitting down on my cushion.

Perhaps starting the retreat at the end of Day 2 put me at a disadvantage. I missed the carefully constructed introduction to the Anapana technique in those first crucial days. Or perhaps I no longer have the mental application, the will, the devotion, to commit to the Vipassana technique. Or perhaps this is just how it is after eight retreats, this is why it never gets easier no matterhow many retreats you sit – you just have other issues to deal with and this is mine.

I picked up a chest infection on my third day on retreat and started to cough during the 1 hour Addhitana (strong determination) sittings. The only way to neutralise the coughing when it was happening was to infuse and flood my mind with equanimity which immediately increased and raised the vibrational frequency of my body – it was literally lifted out of the lower frequency and suffused with a light and peaceful energy which neutralised the cough.
It was quite interesting to watch and feel the internal processes of my body as this infection took hold over the course of three days. It moved around my chest and I could actually feel the sticky mucous substance forming in the top part of my lung, then feel the slight blockage of the air passage around it, then feel the chest creating a sort of windiness in this air passage. The wind blowing through the tunnel resulted in a cough to expulse the mucous out of the air passage.

Mobile phones are not allowed on retreat – but I think a lot of people sneak them in – including me. I keep it turned off during the day and just check text messages at night in case of family emergencies.

This was the first retreat where I had a family emergency.

There was a text message from my daughter Ebony on Friday evening (my 5th day on retreat) that my mum had collapsed and been admitted to hospital. She’d had two blood transfusions. After reading this I had to go and sit the one hour meditation from 6-7pm with an exploding head…non stop firecrackers exploded in my brain for one whole hour – the neurons were being electrocuted by the news of my mum. After the one hour sitting, the back of my eyes were burnt out.
The experience shocked me into realising how delicate the mind is on retreat. A Vipassana retreat really is like a 10 day open surgical operation. This is the reason we must not take mobile phones on retreat. For days after this, my eyes felt badly bruised and the muscles behind my eyes ached, as if they had been punched black and blue.
(Note to this – my mum had an operation on Christmas Eve for a ruptured bowel – she spent 5 weeks in hospital with a few complications but is going OK now)


26 January 2009 - Sadness

Is it depression, or just a deep sadness for what is impermanent?
I’ve been gradually cutting myself off from society and friends over the past two years. I avoid phone calls, I hide away, I avoid all challenges and anything new.
Why am I doing this?
Perhaps the pain in my body that has partially crippled me has also crippled my self-confidence. I don’t know who I am anymore so I don’t’ know how to relate to anyone.

But I suspect it has something more to do with my son and deep pain we both continue to experience and express in and around our lives together.

I feel safe hiding away in my cave as if I need to be immersed in solitude to find my essence before re-emerging one day. Is it a shedding of dead skin, an old personality?

I often feel this deep sadness. It isn’t personal, it isn’t because of any one thing and what I perceive as my personal sadness has no logical basis. Somehow my heart taps into the global, universal sadness of all humanity and it takes root inside my heart and blossoms exponentially.

Then everything I see and feel becomes coloured with the sadness of blue.

My sadness seems to have a deep core that originates in the core suffering of all human beings – that everything we have now will be lost, our body is slowly decaying, our youth is fleeting, our closest friends and loved ones will suffer, we will all suffer illness, one day we will all die, and our life is meaningless unless we find the key that unlocks the secret of living joyfully and permanently in the glorious present.
This is why we take up spiritual practise – to escape what Buddha described in this first Noble Truth – that life is suffering.
I wonder whether the intense Vipassana retreats serve to peel away the superficial layers of life to reveal this core of sadness.

Is it a good thing to touch this tender core? It doesn’t make me a better person to feel this all pervading sadness. Life just hurts. I know I should use it to develop compassion for all beings but I’d rather just hide away and cry.

2nd February 2009 - Benjamin Buttons

I went to see 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons' on the weekend and was very surprised. It is a brilliant film. It has captured the innocence of times past when life wasn’t so complicated but it is a multi-layered commentary on the suffering of our human condition – aging, loss, wasted time, missed opportunities. It uprooted the tender, budding seed deep in my heart that knows and feels the ephemeral nature of our existence. I could barely talk after the film. Words fail me when my heart dissolves into the profound journey that is our life. I cried on and off for a few hours after the film.

Tears

Tears are a fascinating physiological phenomenon.

They provide a physical release of pent up emotional energy.
I remember feeling them well up at one point during the Vipassana retreat. I was reflecting on my son and the pain he lives with, having lost his three best friends to suicide in his late teens and suffering from depression ever since.
My son is my teacher – he is brutally honest - our relationship goes way beyond this lifetime and we have an eternal bond that emotionally grips us both.
I think the sensitive mindstate induced during an intense Vipassana retreat brings up all the deep feelings and thoughts that haunt me so the tears are really not a surprise.
I remember watching the emotional response in my body increase as I let myself succumb to the thoughts about my son. It really was like a well filling up, and when it reached fullness, there was a sensation somewhere beneath the sides of my nose – I can’t recall or pinpoint it exactly anymore, but I remember watching the physiological process that led up the formation of a couple of soft tears.
It starts with a thought, which causes a feeling reaction in the body, which sets off a physiological process to finally release the energy of the emotion from the body.
How extraordinary is this body/heart/mind.

Lost Buddha and Paschimottanasana

Saturday 8th November 2008

The Lost Buddhas
A colleague of mine was lucky enough to be in Sydney recently and visited The Lost Buddhas exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. She lent me the exhibition catalogue last week which I’ve been reading over the last few days.

Although the images in the catalogue are beautifully photographed and presented, they of course don’t compare to seeing the real thing. And yet, gazing deeply at some of the stone images, I’ve been overcome by an extraordinary sense of deep peace. In the deepest moments of gazing at a figure I seem to merge with it, taking on it’s qualities of poise, serenity, fortitude…all personality drops out of my face and it softens into Buddha-like radiance.

Divinely sweet moments imbued with grace.

"Stone is the visible history of time feeding us through a calm and radiant presence" Isamo Noguchi

From Charlotte Joko Beck (occasionally paraphrased):
"All good (spiritual) practice aims to make our false dreams conscious. Let us notice that our efforts (spiritual practice) are to perfect ourselves: we want to be enlightened, we want to be clear, we want to be calm, we want to be wise.

But as our practice leads us more and more to just being fully present, up comes resistance…"Forget reality, I’m here to be enlightened!”
In good practice we are always transforming from being personally centred to being more and more a channel for universal energy.

A major obstacle is our unawareness that all practice has a strong element of resistance. It is bound to have this unwillingness until our personal self is completely dead, and until we die, we always have some personal resistance that has to be acknowledged.

A second major obstacle is a lack of honesty about who we are at each moment. It’s very hard to admit, “I’m being vengeful”, or “I’m being self-righteous”. That kind of honesty is hard.

A third obstacle is being impressed and sidetracked by our little openings as they occur. They’re just the fruit; they have no importance unless we use them in our lives.

A fourth obstacle is having little understanding of the magnitude of the task that we have embarked upon. The task is not impossible, it’s not too difficult; but it is unending.

A fifth obstacle is substituting talk and discussion and reading for persistent practice itself. The less we say about our spiritual practice, the better. Why talk about it? Your job is to notice how you violate it."

On The Mat - foundations
Tuesday, Friday and Saturday: three early morning yoga sessions this week – over 2 hours each - all of them deeply challenging, INternal and Eternal.

I’ve been making quite an effort in all the seated poses to consciously ground the thighbone of the extended leg and draw the inner legs up towards the inner groin. These two actions increase the internal dynamic of the pose immediately. Grounding the foundation of any pose is where it all begins - you can’t build anything substantial without a strong foundation. The base is the key.

In all the standing poses, it starts with pressing the feet down into the floor; it continues with the drawing up of all the leg muscles to activate the gross energy, the legs are the engine room of the standing poses. By drawing up the inner legs, a more subtle energy is activated in the perineum and then mula bandha and uddiyana bandha will take over and direct the energy upwards to stimulate the opening of the upper chakras and facilitate a natural lengthening of the spine (to create an open pathway for the upward flow of prana).

The same principal applies to the seated poses. For example Paschimottanasana:
the feet must be flexed and the leg muscles fully engaged so the heels are actually off the floor (if they don’t you know your base energy is weak).

Both legs must be rolling inwards so the inner ankles are slightly apart. Once that is established, apply the two key actions: pressing the back of the thighbones to the ground and subtly drawing up the inner legs.

It’s not easy to maintain all these actions to keep the base of the pose steady and strong so the earth energy is drawn up, especially when the mind is scatty, but by applying the intention and noticing when the leg actions fall away, you can catch the mind’s tendency to wander and then reactivate the focus. That is how we train and strengthen and transform the mind from within a pose.

In meditation the anchor is often the breath – that is what we come back to when the mind wanders. In a yoga pose, it’s the sensations of body, breath and energy. As the mind wanders away from its engagement in a pose, the pose becomes weak; we lose focus and miss all the subtle nuances and adjustments happening in the body. That’s when asana becomes a boring repetition of making shapes.
The purpose of both yoga and meditation is to develop mindfulness and to become fully present.

Do not bother chasing enlightenment, just be completely and utterly present with whatever is happening in your life right now and all is coming.

Coming Home

Saturday 25th October 2008

Practice just isn’t quite the right word for what I do on the yoga mat in those early hours.

The word practice to me implies either:

1) something we do in preparation for something else (like practising a speech for the big event), or

2) something we do in order to get better at it (like piano or tennis practice).

For so many years I’d approached morning yoga practice as a time that was separate from the rest of my life, a time to return to centre, a time to reconnect with my inner world and fertilize my little plot of spiritual soil in the hope that something beautiful would grow out of it.
After practice I’d go off into the outer world – work, family, commitments, friends relationships – and try to retain at least a little of that calm, clear and vast mindstate throughout the day.

But lately the boundaries between my inner and outer life have been shrivelling up as they amalgamate into one totally amazing Life.

The sacred is a permanent presence – not confined to my morning yoga practice but permeating every waking moment. Mundane activities, 9-5 work, cooking and caring for family and dog, all these are now lovingly performed and seen through the eyes of a softly awakened and reverent heart.

So once we have awakened to the mystical dimensions of life, what happens to our practices of prayer, contemplation, devotion and the daily rituals of yoga, chanting or meditation, the vehicles we chose to help us get there?

From Jack Kornfield:
“In one way, nothing happens. We continue the same practices, often with even more care and dedication; they remain important ingredients in a sacred life. However we do them in a radically different way.
With spiritual maturity the basis for these practices shifts away from ambition, idealism and desire for self-transformation. It is as if the wind has changed, and a weather vane – still cantered in the same spot – now points in a different direction: back to this moment. We are no longer striving after a spiritual destination, grasping for another world different from the one we have. We are home. And being home we sweep the floor, make nourishing meals, and care for our guests. When we have realised the everlasting truths of life, what else is there to do but continue our practice?

Of course we also need our continuing practice. We can still become lost, entangled, caught up in the difficulties of modern life. Our continuing practices cleanse us, steady us, remind us of what is true. Our daily practices help us stay balanced, attend to our body, keep our heart open, strengthen our ability to offer clear love. Our practice becomes like cleaning house. We do not just clean the house once and forget it. It is a regular task and a pleasure to live in a clean house, to honour all who enter. But the house is not who we are, and no amount of ambitious cleaning will change the nature of our life.
We practice to express our awakening, not to attain it.”

On The Mat – notes from Tuesday 21st October 6am practice:

A 2 hour practice. My body felt quite naturally strong and richly organic – a very nice feeling. Getting out of the city and spending time in nature does this to me - I’ve been climbing up and down mountains and soaking up the pure prana from the trees and wildlife, filling up my reservoir of vital energy.

Daily Ashtanga yoga practice is a very accurate barometer with which to measure our vital energy, not only on a macro level (generally feeling strong, weak, tired, energised etc) but also on a micro level, in the individual poses, where we can notice those places in the body where the flow of energy is blocked or stuck.

Ashtanga is not only a barometer of vital energy but a tool to increase it.

I’m always surprised at the little energetic openings I get during yoga practice, how each tiny adjustment in a pose can release or redirect the flow of energy. My inner ear picks up on all the little crackles and pops that mark an energy spurt through a blocked nadi. It’s the sweetest feeling – nothing like it - can't explain it. For some reason I get a lot of little energy pops around the bridge of my nose, which is just under the spot where the Ida and Pingala nadis meet in the Ajna Chakra. Very interesting…

An excerpt about nadis taken from here:

Nadis are not nerves but rather channels for the flow of consciousness. The literal meaning of nadi is’flow’. Just as the negative and positive forces of electricity flow through complex circuits, in the same way, pram shako (vital force) and manas shako (mental force) flow through every part of our body via these nadis. According to the tantras there are 72,000 or more such channels or networks through which the stimuli flow like an electric current from one point to another.

These 72,000 nadis cover the whole body and through them the inherent rhythms of activity in the different organs of the body are maintained. Within this network of nadis, there are ten main channels, and of these ten, three are most important for they control the flow of prana and consciousness within all the other nadis of the body.
These three nadis are called ida, pingala and sushumna.
Ida nadi controls all the mental processes while pingala nadi controls all the vital processes. Ida is known as the moon, and pingala as the sun. A third nadi, sushumna, is the channel for the awakening of spiritual consciousness. Now the picture is coming clear; prana shakti- sushumna.
You may consider them as pranic force, mental force and spiritual force.
As sushumna flows inside the central canal of the spinal cord, ida and pingala simultaneously flow on the outer surface of the spinal cord, still within the bony vertebral column. Ida, pingala and sushumna nadis begin in mooladhara in the pelvic floor. From there, sushumna flows directly upwards within the central canal, while ida passes to the left and pingala to the right. At swadhisthana chakra, or the sacral plexus, the three nadis come together again and ida and pingala cross over one another. Ida passes up to the right, pingala to the left, and sushumna continues to flow directly upwards in the central canal. The three nadis come together again at manipura chakra, the solar plexus, and so on. Finally, ida, pingala and sushumna meet in the ajna chakra.



On the Mat – notes from Thursday 23rd October 2008 6am practice:

This morning’s challenge was to overcome the incessant mental chatter as I steadily made my way through Primary sequence. Years of analysing every yoga session have taught me that practising with a distracted mind (one that keeps obsessively returning to the same sticky thoughts over and over - usually something to do with work) will quickly drain all energy away til I’m left with none.

The Surya Namaskars today were an exercise in bringing my mind back to my breath, my body and the present, over and over.

It's slightly annoying when I lose count of how many I’ve done – was it only 4 or have I done 5, maybe it was only 3 – STOP GUESSING you have NO IDEA how many you’ve done! Indisputable evidence of a faraway mind.

But thanks to the wise sages of ancient times, yoga and meditation have been devised and passed down through generations to help us bring our minds fully into the present.

And so I skilfully used the tool of yoga to tame my wild monkey mind this morning.
A hundred times I had to bring it back to the present before it finally decided to stay.
Thankfully, by the time I got to the Marichyasanas I was rewarded with a clear and curious mind and was able to watch the effect of every small movement and adjustment as if it were on a huge wide-screen TV.

Enduring a sacroiliac injury for over a year while still practising yoga has shown me just how potent the Marichyasanas are for opening up this area of the body. All the preceding seated poses stretch the hamstrings and spine but they also gently prepare the sacrum for a total reconfiguration that is systematically developed in the Marichyasanas. With an injured sacroiliac joint, the Marichys are impossible, so are Bhuja, Kurmasana and Supta-K-No-Way! – these poses are all about increasing movement in the sacroiliac joint and each pose in this group (from marichy A to Supta K) builds on the one before, with Supta K requiring the ultimate curvature through the sacroiliac and lumbar spine.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been slowly rebuilding these poses only as much as my lower back is allowing me to...pixel by pixel.
In reality I’ve been rebuilding my entire practice from the very beginning. The Primary sequence I'd been working on for years has been totally destroyed and now I have a second chance to learn EVERY pose again in a very different way, with an awakened heart and different eyes that can see in a new and beautiful way.

I'm so grateful. Practice is imbued with a fresh curiosity, a beginner’s mind, a child like wonder.
To get on the mat now and enter the practice is an extraordinary journey into deep inner space, and so, so different this time around.

And through the process of osmosis, my entire life seems to have taken on this very same quality. Practice and Life have become One.

“The end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time”
- T. S. Eliot

Camping

Monday 13th October 2008


“All of life is nothing other than the story of a love affair: a romance between the universe and the human soul that liberates us to love one another.”


Camping at Deep Creek
Camping out bush, wide open spaces, campfires at night, birdsong at dawn. The two days I spent out there with my three beautiful companions will haunt me forever.
I cannot begin to describe the glowing aura that surrounds and encapsulates the memory of those days. The entire experience had a timeless quality, a depth and richness of experience and communion that is only possible when that mystical synergy is present between people; soul speaks to soul, gentle openings occur and a natural energy circulates between and through multidimensions of our personal space.

There we were, two yogis and two artists. For two days the four of us walked together in a lucid dream, through bushland and deep lush gullies, exploring the terrain around us and between us. Only occasionally did conversation softly give way to silent walking. The changing pattern of our walking dynamics fascinated me – we moved so seamlessly from walking and talking four-astride, to pairing off in a new combination where more personal one-on-one relationships developed. What beautiful and meaningful conversations evolved with each of my fellow travellers, intimate, warm, soul stirring.

On Friday afternoon we packed up camp and drove to the ridge above Blowhole Beach, hiking down and collecting a couple of large, dead branches on the way to erect a makeshift sun shelter at our destination. The cold, energising surf washed our skins clean of whoever we once had been, as only the ocean can.
I wandered over the rocks that encircled the tiny beach flanked by cliffs that Kosta scaled with wine-induced bravado (here is the view from the rocks). The half hour steep climb back up to the car culminated in a sunset viewed from the ridge through languid silhouetted kangaroos.

We talked about taking a couple of Canadian canoes along the Glenelg River for a week next year. Or maybe the right circumstances will never occur to rekindle our special communion.

These mysterious links we form with other souls are rich with meaning and should not be dismissed, no matter how brief the encounters. Alex especially shifted something in me and me in him. Our conversations brought to life our spirits, our creativity, our beauty, our struggles and our humanness. Never have I been touched open by simply being in someone’s presence. We parted with an unspoken acknowledgement that some special chemistry had affected subtle and personal changes in our lives.
It feels as if my love has grown larger.


“Some people come into our lives and quietly go. Others stay for a while and leave footprints on our hearts and we are never the same”


Is it possible for someone to come into our life for two days and change us forever?

Nothing is random. Everything has great meaning if we adjust our inner vision to focus on the hidden workings of this gracious universe.

If Kosta manages to download his photos, I’ll choose a couple to post here.

On The Mat
So I fell into bed, slightly sunburned and exhausted at 12.30am Friday night and got up at 6.15 to practice with Kosta at 7am. My muscles were tighter than usual – lactic acid overload from all the climbing yesterday, but the sun’s warmth was still in my body and gave it some malleability.
Sun Salutes and Primary up to Marichy C, spending extra time in the seated poses to disperse the lactic tension. It was a quieter, reflective practice with a vinyasa only between each pose. From Navasana I skipped to the Baddha Konasanas and Upavista/Supta Konasanas – just not physically or emotionally up to challenging my lower back today. Supta Padangusthasana, then my usual trio of preparatory backbends: Salabhasana, Dhanurasana (which is finally beginning to develop serenity and reveal its more subtle dimensions), and Ustrasana, another pose that just keeps surprising me, then two Urdhva Dhanuarasanas before the finishing inversions.

“When is the ego sufficiently healthy that we can stop using the practice to build it up... and instead use the practice to break it down? Maybe finding that tipping point--moving from building up to breaking down--is when people become their own teachers, if they're ever capable of that.”
(Who said this? Which one of the ten books by my bed did I copy this from?)

After practice and coffee I went to work in the gallery and arrived to find a message from Fleur. She’s leaving Adelaide next week so I can move back into the mansion permanently next weekend – 6 weeks earlier than expected.
My heart sinks a little as I prepare yet again to separate from my son, but he knows my love for him is eternal.

Even after all this time
The sun never says to the earth,
"You owe Me."
Look what happens
with a love like that,
It lights the Whole Sky.
- Hafiz

My sister Trudy

11th October 2008

I've just returned from two profound days out hiking/camping in the bush (which I'll have to write about soon in order to process the experience).
Waiting in my in-box was an email from my younger sister, Trudy who struggles daily to overcome annihalation by the deadly grim reaper of depression and loneliness.
Her email was in response to that last blog entry about my son which I sent to her last week.

Trudy's words will cut deep but I post them here to illustrate how words from a person speaking their deepest Truth can pierce into your heart like an arrow:

Wow! What an email Sal. I think I get where you're coming from. I mean, you're so far advanced in the 'enlightenment' area (which I do truly believe (intellectually, that is) is the only real path to true happiness, despite being about as far away from it as its possible to be!).
But when your daily life is an actual living nightmare, when every ounce of your energy goes towards just getting through the day without slitting your wrists (literally!!), all that enlightenment stuff seems so irrelevent (and out of reach). My energy levels are so non-existent that I can no longer even have a basic everyday conversation with anyone coz it takes too much effort to make small talk. It's all 'acting'. And I've also noticed that I'm incapable of being in the presence of ANYONE who is not 'real' or 'honest', because if they're not relating to me from an honest place deep down in their soul, I can tell by how much energy it takes for me to converse with (relate to) them. It means I have to pretend and act along with them, that I give a damn shit about the crap they're talking about, and I just don't have the energy left to pretend at all anymore.
Can't pretend I'm feeling fine when I'm not, can't pretend all is well when it's not, can't pretend I give a shit about the weather, the economy, mum's knee. No energy for anything that is not immediately related to my very survival as a human being - all else has now been stripped away.
This is why I find it hard to be in Jenny's (our older sister's) presence - as much as I love her to death for her lifelong quest to look after me, 'rescue' me; her generous heart and soul, and a thousand other wonderful things about her... she is unable to be who she really is deep down inside and she seems to me to be working her butt off to create this bullshit facade. She's done an awful lot of training in how to handle people, communicate in a 'non-judgemental way', etc., etc., which may serve her just fine in her job, but it's a facade she can't drop and it drains the very fucking life out of me to talk to her. I have the same problem with mum. But I know this is my struggle and I know everyone in the family does "love and care about me" and no-one deserves the hostility and poison that seems to be filling me right now.

Like Nik, I can no longer 'act' and so have no choice but to avoid everyone. But that leaves an unbearable isolation and lonliness and a lifelong search for just where I fit in this world. I know in my heart/soul/guts that you are the real thing, Sal - I don't feel at all drained in your company - that's all I know right now. Everything else I thought I knew no longer applies. I know I'm facing a life and death struggle now. I wonder if Nik feels this same struggle? I feel like I kinda know his soul, but I wish I knew him as a fellow human traveller. One of the worst feelings is the isolation and lonliness - bravo Nik for being able to take you to where he is. Fuck 'social skill's'!! The skill for him to communicate his inner turmoil in a way that you could truly understand and relate to shits on a lifetime of practised fucking shit social skills.

I hope he makes it. And I hope he realises the gift he has in having you as his mother. I wish I could relate to Sam on that level but there's so much fucking crap in the way! Where did it all come from? Plus I'm wrestling with that protective need as his mother to not burden him with what is my struggle - I see he has his own struggles ("don't confront me with my failures, I have not forgotten them" - Jackson Browne - 'These Days'. That's how I feel when I think of Sam and my failings as his parent.) And there's nothing he can do to help me anyway. It doesn't feel like there's anything anyone can do, except for me, and I've lost the will now - whatever that 'lifeforce' used to be in me before has now gone so I'm not really a willing participant in my own life anymore.
I sense Nik is still in there fighting? Where in a world full of facades, illusions, fake images, greed, and general crap does someone so real go to not feel that crushing loneliness and isolation? Is this what he's essentially struggling with?

I used to think I was attracted to drugs and alcohol from a young age coz I wanted to 'escape reality', but lately I'm wondering if I've really just been on a lifelong search for what's actually real and instead wanted to escape from all the bullshit. Hence my sensitivity right now to growing up with a mother whose whole life seemed to me to revolve around maintaining a facade of 'we're all just a big happy close family and I'm the beloved wonderful matriarch'. Fuck!! The woman hasn't been sober for 30 years!! In a way, Mico (my ex-husband and father of my children) was similar - when there was an audience it seemed to me as if he tried to put on an act about 'his pride and joy family', but the reality when no-one was around to see was that he fucking terrorised you and his children. If Nik has really forgiven him for that then he deserves a medal. I'm still haunted by what I saw Mico do to Nik emotionally when he was just an innocent, defenceless, sensitive little boy. My personal belief is that Nik just having an intellectual and adult understanding and perspective now about Mico's faults/failings/illnesses, doesn't automatically void the emotional damage done to that precious little boy who's still buried deep inside there. I can't ever forgive Mico, no matter how much empathy and understanding I have as an adult for his own life struggles. But that's just my perspective and I could be miles away from the real truth of the matter. Don't know. Too much to try and work out.

Anyway, this is probably all just a big ramble now, but I was so touched by your email. Thank you so much for sharing it with me. Sorry you got a lot of drivel in return!! I wish I had the fortitude and strength to just BE and experience whatever this is I'm going through (as in the quote in your email). But I'm just too fucking tired now - 45 years old and I can't even feed myself or keep myself clean.

Lots of love to you and Nik and Ebs..

Trudy

PS: Am picking up another CD from the library tomorrow which I hope will have that mystery Jackson Browne song on it. Will burn a copy and send it to you if so.




And another email, 2 days later:


Hi Again, Sal,

Tried to ring you yesterday but couldn't find you. Work said you were having a couple of days off. Where are you hiding? Hope you're in a special place wherever it may be.

Anyway, I just wanted to contact you to apologise for the first email response I sent in reply to yours. I was in my usual very bad head space and shouldn't have thrown all that yucky poison your way. Sorry. Especially now that I've re-read your email at least 10 times over and am gradually allowing the true message behind it to sink in (I think! Each time I read it there's another deeper layer to understand).
What an amazing human being you are to be able to truly travel into and experience Nik's life and pain. Perhaps that's all that many of us lost souls really need... not advice, not doctors or 'experts' or activity to keep us distracted and busy - just simply a real and true connection with another human being. It really is the only way to lessen those feelings of isolation, lonliness and disconnection. And what a brave and compassionate soul you are to be so willing to spend your time and energy exploring the experience of feeling someone else's pain. But therein lies the great power our children have to force us to plumb the depths of our hearts for them.

And there I shall leave off, before I go off on another 'stream of senseless and confused consciousness' tangent!!


My heart bleeds for her.
I've scrapped tomorrow's plans...I'll be spending some time with my sister.