Autumn is Nigh
Slept in until 8:30 this morning, which is pretty late for me. It was nice to sleep until I woke up, including waking up for a moment at a few minutes before 7AM and getting to go back to sleep. AM and I stumbled around, took showers, I got together all the stuff I'd be taking with me later, and then we made our way to the Hollywood Farmers Market so I could get more apples.
Oh, the hips…
Yesterday was a three hour hip opening, first chakra (Muladhara) workshop at Prananda. Last year during the Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy training workshop I ran into how intense getting into this chakra can be. I'd ended up in tears being assisted in holding a pose I feel is a true ally (supta padanguthasana). I was a little nervous about this but at least prepared.
In a couple of poses, holding them far longer than usual, I felt some tingling of the panic that shows up with IW works on the trigger points on my left sit bone. I was able to breath through these things. A few times it became so intense I would just lay down or do child's pose.
It was during savasana, resting with a flax seed bag over my eyes, that I felt the deep grief well up inside of me, mixed with some of the anxiety and fear. I felt very anxious and kept trying to just breath through it. When it got to be too much I turned my head to the side and let the bag fall off of my eyes. I stretched out my hand to touch CK's elbow as she lay in savasana next to me. She felt me and reached her hand out to hold mind.
I dislike crying to begin with, it awakens all kinds of fear in me that I'll be punished for it in some way. That's how I feel at home crying. In public it feels so much worse. After we sat up and offered three chants of Om I lay back down on my side, feeling the wetness on my face. I curled up in a tight ball, just feeling the grief and shame. CK stayed with me, helping me find my way back through.
JW came over for a moment, just to check in and be sure I was OK. After the workshop participants, including CK, left the teacher training students settled down to watch more of the DVD. I lay on my side, shawl over me, and just was present for the words of the DVD. Tried not to go back into the fear or grief.
After some DVD watching we went back to adho mukha svanasana. I think I may have done the pose 24 times in a couple of hours. Reviewed the respiratory system and assists for downward dog. CK came and picked me up. I had my bike but was so utterly exhausted I knew I couldn't make it to her flat.
We stopped at Dalo's on the way home, enjoying the usual vegetarian platter. Spent a lot of time talking that night and got to sleep a bit late. Both of us taking more ibuprofen before managing to get comfortable enough to sleep.
CK was yoga'd out after Saturday's workshop and stayed home while I taught my Sunday class. It was a good class, broke down downward dog further as well as some shoulder things. Another new student today, G, a man who seems to be in his late 40s/early 50s. Unsurprisingly his shoulders are very, very tight as well as his upper back. He left saying he'd be back next week.
CK had been busy cleaning and making yummy tempeh hash. We had that for lunch topped with tomatoes from the garden, it was just such lovely comfort food after teaching and the work on Saturday. We hung out for a while, resting and talking, then walked up to the library then on to Mio Gelato where we discovered vegan sorbetto. We each had a scoop of nectarine sorbetto which tasted just like late summer!
After getting back to the house, CK brought me and the bike home, AM and I talked for a bit before making wonderful pizza. Whole wheat crust, tomatoes from the garden, grilled eggplant & "cue ball" squash from the garden, and some Tofurky Italian sausage. We've hung out in the basement watching stuff on Discovery while I've done laundry and wrote.
Homework Again!
Although I'm taking notes in my notebook for yoga class I decided to keep a separate blog, Yoga Kuru Karmani (after a quote in the Bhagavad Gita), to track work there as well. I like being able to reference what I've written in an electronic fashion, especially being able to sort through all my entries about asanas by tag. I am able to read over what I've written even if I do not have my notebook with me. Besides, the multiple acts of writing help things stick for me.
September is for Apples
AM & I both slept quite late for us, it was past 8:30 when we woke up. I wrote a little about what I'd had in my mind when I went to sleep the night before; the chanting entry. A discussion about going to Seven Virtues for coffee expanded to include a foray to the farmers' market to see if apples were there yet.
Apples are one of my favorite types of fruit and when they start really coming into season it is wonderful enjoying them. Every year I look forward to a particular family orchard bringing apples to the market.
Riding over I5 at night
It was a great night for riding home after the first meeting of my yoga teacher training. Not a lot of traffic at all, not too cool or hot. It was nice riding through the neighborhood to the pedestrian bridge on Bryant. It struck me how much changed in the last 10 years. Here I was, 39, riding home at night from yoga teacher training, 150 pounds less. At 29 I'd pretty much given up on riding a bicycle a few years prior, had not notion of taking yoga (although I was still swimming then), and spent a lot of my time distracting myself from all the messy emotions I had inside, which is what I had been trained, forced to learn to do as a child.
I was quiet, just my breath and the appreciation of change, the late summer night. I enjoyed the noise over the freeway. Even at 9:45 or so the traffic was still rushing both north and south so there was a constant hum. The loud, present roar that is the buzzing hum in the background of my bedroom. I peddled up over the rise of the bridge then coasted down the other side, mindful of the changes, the feel of the night air on my face and the drone of I5 in my ears.
After that it is an easy, pleasant coast to my house. I quickly rode across Albina then turned to coast down the hill on Commercial. Standing up on my peddles, leaning up into that feeling of flying, and coasting along until I braked at the house.
There were frogs singing as I stopped. I stood on the lawn for a moment just listening to them; so beautiful.
AM had pumpkin curry waiting for me when I got inside. Spicy and sweet, it is warming after the ride home (my legs get cold quickly). I'm tired, but feel more grounded in this commitment than I did earlier today.
Yoga Teacher Training Begins
The day did not start well. At 12:47 one of the suction cups holding the thingy which holds the family tooth brushes and toothpaste gave loose and the two tubes of paste crashed into the tub. AM & I both sat up in bed with a start and he got up to investigate.
At the top of the stairs Zonker hissed at AM as if to say, "Did you hear that, I'm not going down there!"
AM came up told me what it was and we tried to get back to sleep. I'd been barely sleeping, uncomfortable and my mind just awake. Not lots happening, just awake and achy. Should have taken a melatoninin, perhaps if my mind was settled with that help I wouldn't have been as mindful of pain.
So I decided to work from home. Good day for it, had my monthly one-on-one call with my boss. Nice to be home for those because I don't feel like I need to walk off to talk privately somewhere. I had a good kick-off meeting for a project I'll be doing most of the code for. I tried to get PHP to work with the MySQL test database I set up but I'm still stuck on errors about the connection not working.
Then off to Prananda for my first teacher training class to start! As usual for me I felt anxious about it. The ride over there helped with some of the nervous energy as did the asana practice for 90 minutes. By the time we were doing two hours of sitting down and talking about the next seven months I felt much calmer.
I knew I wouldn't be the youngest, but I'm not the oldest either. There is quite a age difference between all of us, which is really cool. One solitary guy and 9 women, plus Joy. Again in a group I'm interested to hear how many people move to Portland. I'm one of a few with a meditation practice. There's several of us with back and hip problems, chronic pain, and muscle spasms.
We watched Yoga Unveiled for about 30 minutes. I was really enjoying the deep history of yoga. There were seals from Harappa discussed and shown which show people in early yoga poses. Tracing yoga back closer to 5000 years! Not sure if anyone else was as into this bit as I was, I know a few people were finding it a bit deep to follow. I'm looking forward to the rest of this DVD.
One of my fellow students has just moved here from Hood River and had rode to the class. She lives on the way I take home from the studio and hadn't put her light on her bike yet. She also hadn't known the best way to take back to her neighborhood so she followed me to her street. It was interesting to be the person who know something about bicycling in Portland!
Recognizing Anxiety
Woke up with a bit of a start when CK's alarm went off. Not being used to her setting one, much less one that made intermittent buzzing noise, I was disoriented at first. Then fell back asleep for a while longer. Yes, of course I know I should have leaped from the bed and gotten on with my day, but I felt so tired.
Mornings are like that. I really like the idea of getting up an hour earlier to do zazen and yoga practice before showing and heading into the office. It is rare that I have enough resources to get up some mornings, much less earlier. This is where my therapist would point out that I need to, once again, cut myself some slack since most people don't do all the things I do and manage chronic pain as well.
I have to admit that I am nervous about the teacher training starting tomorrow. I'm also feeling the hard work I've been putting in around my own intimacy issues, which is just draining and at times leaves me feeling emotionally raw and exposed. I can tell I've been anxious these past few weeks, my hands look a little bit up here and here. My dentist was also reminding me yesterday that that unless I'm chewing or talking my teeth shouldn't be touching.
On the positive side I made some progress at work today. Got MySQL up and running in my dev/test environment. Tomorrow I may even get to play at setting up a database and tables. I'll have a quick Denver trip next month -- they're getting together a team I was part of to celebrate our completing a project. Dinner out, the whole things. I feel a little small saying this, but I kind of wish we'd get recognized without a trip to Denver needed!