The Day Turned Upside Down
Got up into half handstand more easily tonight. I didn't think I would because the front of my psoas was very tight it many of the other poses, but I was able to get up and my hips didn't spasm at all. Still hard -- whenever I try to roll my shoulders into place my feet slide down the wall! It is very surprising to find that it is easier since it isn't a pose I practice a lot.
Rain and Progess
I woke up feeling so tired today, still not rested from the weekend. This evening I still feel fatigued, although the yoga class tonight was fun. Due to questions from the students we ended up really looking at utthita trikonasana and ardha chandrasana. I don't often spend a lot of time on just two poses, but afterward everyone said they understood the poses better.
I also made some progress on my configuration of php5 at work! I've been fighting to get this right since may, finally figuring out how to do some of the Red Hat package installation myself and just loading a missing piece I needed. I need to add a pear package and I should actually be somewhat working again.
AM is lying next to me on the new, big sofa downstairs. We had leftover soup after I rode home from yoga. Walked over to CK's once class was done since my bike was still there. AM offered to come get me and the bicycle, but I really had wanted to try riding in the rain.
CK came downtown this afternoon and we went to Habibi again. We talked about her day yesterday, the frustration at the unprofessional behavior and how it is personal. Other than that tension and general career stress it felt for a little while like other tension was a little less. We sat in O'Bryant Square spending a little more time before I had to head in to join a meeting.
I'm still recognizing that Saturday was scary, neither of us felt supported by the other when we really needed it. Neither of us was capable of offering support beyond what was holding us up. We've never had something like that happen before and it felt very overwhelming.
I'm glad I went over there Sunday and we were able to just lay together and have it feel safe. Just the intimacy of holding each other and feeling safe is so important. I know I can only practice with the times I wake up in a panic there, anticipating punishment, and have to force myself to look around the room, listen to her breathing, and return to the present, knowing I'm safe there.
Mere Moments
My co-workers pleasantly surprised me today. I'd been asked for input on a team appreciation lunch that some of them were working on. I said the vegan items sounded tasty, but very low in protein. When I eat that way at team events I'm often famished by the end of the day, which is bad since a few nights a week I'm going to a yoga class pretty soon after leaving work. Lunch was set up and I found that the organizers had changed the salads to include a three bean type salad as well as a chick pea & couscous salad! Lots of healthy protein and I felt really touched that they made that effort for me.
Injustice feels like tar
I haven't felt as much of the anger-buzz today. Tonight the discussion group at the Dharma center was on anger, the many types of it. As much as it sounded like a good evening to go since I've had this connection around it, recognizing the different ways it shows up, what I have mostly felt today is tired. It hasn't seemed to matter how much I might sleep, I'm still tired.
Tried to have my yoga class do a challenging pose tonight to end class, half handstand, but discovered that my hips and psoas were so tight I couldn't do the pose well. I think I'm feeling the lift-ups I was doing last night on the inversion table. I hadn't felt the affects of the exertion in the body until I was doing yoga this evening.
It was a good lesson regardless. the pose was difficult for everyone, as I knew it would be. Each person in the classroom discovered a different challenge to the pose. We each tried, came down, rested. I'm not sure if it helped that I had a difficult time, maybe it did. Maybe sometimes it is good to see the teacher struggle too.
I am still working out how to write about my hopes for a new home for my Zen community. I am trying to write about my views for having a space that becomes even more inclusive of people. Our sangha growing not only because of a physical space to contain us, but because we open further to see how the Dharma is lived through other ways.
I feel uncomfortable about the idea of writing about why this is so important to me. I feel the discomfort of opening up to so many people in my community about being queer and being in a state of transition from one relationship to a new one. Of course it is bigger than just that, it includes how our community grows to support several Burmese refugees regardless of of a lack of commonality over tradition, language, or religion (they are Christian). The excitement over it has included talk of Montessori classes for children, space for other groups to meet, maybe yoga classes. I just haven't felt my way with writing about it, beyond a few sentences.
There is a sticky, psychic sensation I have. When I consider the past I mostly find myself feeling the injustice of it which gives rise to the irritation buzzing in my mental space. I try to look at it and the emotions are thick, like tar -- hot, sticky, the stuff that dragged dinosaurs to their death. It seems impossible to do much with them. I don't know if there is anything that can be done with them, everything I think was unfair really was. I'm not exaggerating, my childhood was not just or right. Nothing actually changes that or fixes it. Maybe that's why it seems so tar-like. It isn't something that can be wiped away.
It is mixed in there in the terrible, wonderful rush of emotion that seems to come up at times during intimacy. I tried to put words to it -- how in the midst of pleasure I am just overwhelmed with all the grief, the injustice, the anger, and fear. At the same time I was equally feel an absolute outpouring of joy, truth, connection, and love. I feel blessed and amazed that she sees the burst of sobbing that results as just an indicator of the depth of the release.
Why Practice Yoga
I began a Hatha yoga practice before my Zen practice and feel it is an invaluable contribution; the two work together perfectly. In many ways Buddhism is a yoga practice, one of my yoga books notes that the best know yoga practitioner the world over is the historical Buddha. Siddhartha was practicing yoga on his path on the Way.
One of my Zen teachers asked me one day what was the benefit of my yoga practice and here's what I came up with: Yoga teaches me to be patient and present in discomfort, staying with my breath. It teaches me to stay with the moment and in my body even when I'd rather just curl up under a blanket and hide.
Many yoga poses are not comfortable and my practice has one hold in poses, sometimes for many breaths, minutes. Holding and staying in an intense pose puts the mind no where else but the present moment. Oh it might take a moment to think about how it doesn't want to be there, that it wants to be elsewhere, however the sensations in the body will help keep the mind present. It is a part of the purpose of doing it, to empty the mind and be present. The poses teach us to do that while challenging ourselves. From that, we learn to quiet the mind when just sitting. We learn to do it in everyday moments too.
The sage Patanjali who is credited with writing the Yoga Sutras wrote in the second sutra that "The purpose of yoga is to calm the fluctuations of the mind" .
I remind my yoga students of this a lot. That the purpose is not to have a buff body or touch your toes, it is to settle the mind into silence. The poses do improve health over all and you learn deep practice with the breath, but they are also a very powerful tool in teaching one how to be quiet and present mentally. If as a side benefit you end up with a great backside, can touch your toes, or stand on your head, then be grateful your practice is so physically beneficial!
Calamity Dreams
This morning I first work up around 5AM when Phoebe, the youngest cat, decided it was time for her snuggle. I dozed off again once she settled down against my chest. When my alarm went off an hour later I had drifted into a nightmare of sorts.
I was at a team meeting for work, however, there was imminent flooding happening. People had been evacuated, however, there was not enough room to take everyone and I was one of the ones still remaining. I could see waters rushing though the street outside, rising rapidly. As I was frantically gathering together what items I felt would best prepare me to survive outside and opening a window to climb out. That's when the alarm went off and I awoke with a start. Hours later I find I can still distinctly recall feeling somewhat frantic, that I did not want to die, however I was also very calm, efficient and methodical about preparing to escape on my own. I also had a sense of acceptance if I was going to die, I just sure was going to try and prevent it if at all possible.
Work has been filled with upheaval, so the bit of work thrown in there makes sense. In Portland we've had 6 people retire due to downsizing. They all got very good retirement incentive packages, but two of the 6 were people I genuinely felt like were my friends at work. I've felt a little lost without them, especially in team meetings where sometimes the other part of our team in Denver ride roughshod over the Portland folks. That the dream was a face-to-face team meeting too doesn't surprise me as those often leave me feeling uncomfortable and hits into all those ways in which I feel awkward and uncomfortable being a part of a group.
I shared the dream with my boss, who gave me a concerned look. She's the one person I've always felt was my friend at work, it helps that she's only recently been my "boss". In the past two years I also started to open up to her a little bit about my PTSD. Moving in 2006 really set off a lot of things and I needed the space to work from home a bit more often, finding being in the office too much to handle sometimes. Especially after having had some flashbacks trigger during a team meeting; I figured she really needed to know what was going on since it was starting to affect my work to some degree.
When I told CK about it later she asked if I thought it was related to all the stuff about Mom churning around. I thought it could be -- when I look up a little online about dream interpretations I find that having a flood in a dream may represent emotional issues and tension or possibly feeling as though circumstances are out of my control. Dreams of escaping might signify good health and prosperity -- not sure if I was going to escape, but I certainly was making my plans for it and was fiercely driven to survive. I also find reference to dreams of escape being about feeling the need to discover new potential in myself, drop old habits, or that I've encountered some self-imposed limitations and feel the need to overcome them.
I suppose all of those things fit pretty well. I absolutely have a huge amount of tension around my relationship with my Mom; how to maintain as healthy and positive relationship as possible given the history there. This is tough practice. A few years ago I saw how heavy the aspect of a "hungry ghost" that hangs over my Mother and most of my family. Sometimes it gives some reason to, but never an excuse for some of the ways she behaved. Other days I really despair at how willingly, desperately she clings to delusion, resentment, and dissatisfaction. On those days I try and stick with what my teacher reminded me of, that my practice on her behalf helps her even if she refuses to help herself.
That I need to discover my own potential... If I were to say otherwise AM and CK, not to mention my Zen teacher and therapists (psychotherapy, massage therapy, physical/craniosacaral therapy), would be quick to point out this out to me. Not necessarily discover, so much as feel grounded in, believe in my own potential. Last ango my teacher suggested I work on developing pride in what I've accomplished. Months later I still struggle with it.
Sometimes I get a glimmer of it. Tonight I convinced my yoga students to try shoulderstand. They gave me dubious looks after I showed them pose, but I walked them through it carefully. After a few minutes I looked around and saw several wavering pairs of legs up in the air around the room. All of them attempted the full pose and did very well, most of them doing the pose for the first time, after I'd given them options to do only part of the pose if they felt that would be more comfortable.
That's big and obvious, it easy to take pride in that. I have confidence in my ability to teach a challenging pose to beginners while encouraging them that they could do it. I do recognize pride in the rush of positive feelings upon seeing them all trying and succeeding.
The trick is recognizing and cultivating that positive side of it elsewhere. That's what seems so much more difficult at times. I spend such amount of time not even thinking about myself. Not in a mindful denial of self or an endless litany from the inner critic. Not even that much attention to self. To learn how to have pride takes being more mindful of myself and that is challenging to learn. When I maintained a persona it was easy to be mindful of the self I thought I was, I spent a great deal of time on being caught up in the idea of self. With the persona gone, with finding the path to who I really am -- maybe who I was as a child or who I was before this lifetime -- there is a disconnect from a sense of self that makes pride or recognizing potential challenging for me.