Green Bins

In Ottawa we have a green bin program about to start. I've been putting my scraps in the little bin on the counter and then into the big green one out on the porch in anticipation of the program starting up in a couple of weeks.

Just now I heard a noise as I was sitting here rendering my video again for yesterday's post. It sounded like someone was up to something on my porch. I opened my door (I have no fear) and there was someone digging through the big green bin. She had knocked it over and was pulling stuff out. And I'm thinking, "that's going to be a mess to clean up."

I told her that she couldn't be there and she had to leave it and she argued with me, saying she wanted the garbage. I told her she couldn't have the garbage. The shelter should be open in a few minutes for breakfast as far as I understand and she can get a proper meal.

It's something else living in this neighbourhood. I love the composting idea but I was aware that the reality of having food scraps in a bin next to my place would draw some kind of interaction with the neighbourhood. My daughter has already found beer cans and bottles left in the bin.

I hope the program works, but it's going to be a mess to clean up on a regular basis.

Right now we have such abundance. There are fountains everywhere. Fountains of food, fountains of stuff, fountains of homeless people. Seemingly endless supplies of anything we could ever wish for and many things we wouldn't if we stopped to think about it.

I Said Yes

I was thinking about how tough it is to be me sometimes and how I'm still in the same place I was just about three years ago when I started this blog and then it occurred to me that I have really said YES to life. I've said, "bring it on."

And Kat and I joke sometimes about this "path," and how really there's no choice. I know it's powerful to choose and I know that for me choosing is a super-important thing to do, but somehow I cannot imagine that I could have not chosen what I've chosen. The choiceless choice?

Torsten reminded me last night that I'm a writer and that I could probably write something people would want to read. I'm not sure. I think I'm normal and everyone's like me (read yesterday) and I don't have anything interesting to share. I forget that I've done interesting stuff and that some of what I've done may be entertaining or of value. And yet, I blog a lot.

I keep saying yes. I say yes to all kinds of experiences and responsibilities. I don't always do a good job just because I say yes. I'm open though.

Honestly

I started this blog almost three years ago to deal with my "mandate," and I've been reflecting lately about how much I am in the same place I was three years ago. I've travelled around, seen new sights, and circled back to where I started on more than one occasion.

I'm a bit older. I have learned a few new things. But essentially, I feel like I'm in the same place. So I'm probably not. I'm probably further along on my path. I know I've opened up and grown and I'm nicer and deeper and other things. But it feels the same. I know more. I can see bigger pictures. But it feels the same inside. And it's uncomfortable.

And I know now that it's more than normal to feel uncomfortable. And I'm more aware of my discomfort. And that doesn't make the discomfort more comfortable for the most part. I still want things to be different than they are a lot of the time. My own words ring in my ears about how it's important to allow myself to be as I am and that things are going to change. Some of the changes I'll like, some I won't like.

I know that being present with what is, is the way to go. I know that to allow the moment to be as it is, is the healthy, enlightened option. But often I don't feel that way. I want to manage things. I want to change stuff. I want to edit my life. I want to grow in areas I feel weak in. And that's just how I'm feeling.

Sometimes I don't feel that way and I feel grateful and lucky and happy and pleased with my choices. That happens for awhile everyday too. But just like it's that one negative comment on the feedback form that sticks with you, the "what's not working" seems to stay in my brain and repeat itself off and on through my day.

Similar and Different

I keep thinking that people are more the same than they are different. I've always thought that for as long as I can remember. I keep thinking we're a lot alike. And I think that's probably true. We want to feel good, we want to feel important, we want what we want when we want it. We deal with sadness and grief and loss and disappointment and pain and all of that.

So sometimes I get surprised when it occurs to me that we're different. We're quite different. We want different things. What turns us on is different. We like different foods. We behave differently. Our likes and dislikes are totally different. What leads us to where we want to go is really different. And I forget that obvious fact all the time.

I talk to people like they're like me. I treat people the way I'd treat myself. But of course, that's missing the big picture. The big picture is we're alike in that we have differences that make us special. We have ideas we hold dear, we have theories we're working on, we have stories we're writing that are unique to us. We have ways of doing things that make sense to us and don't make sense to the people around us.

What gives me pleasure is to be really curious and listen to the people I'm in front of, not taking for granted our similarities or our differences, finding out what I don't know about the situation or relationship. It's not always clear where we're going to be aligned and where we'll feel some dissonance. Lots of times I'll think I'm talking to someone just like me and it will turn out we're from different planets in an area, and other times I'll resonate with someone I think I have little in common with.

This is all pretty obvious and simple, but as I take a closer look at some of the relationships that are important to me, I notice that I've taken for granted some of the similarities and have disregarded or underestimated some of our differences. I'm reminded to be open and curious and don't think I know before I go into a conversation. And know that my angle will be to think we're alike and to be aware of that bias I have when I'm dealing with people. I'm learning...

Living at the Thin Edge

Someone recently described to me something that happens in biology where things get moved to the middle and the edges are taken off and how sometimes things get taken away at the middle and the edges get bigger. He said that being creative and forward thinking gets you out in the edge and it can be lonely there sometimes. I think it's probably lonely to some degree everyplace on the curve, but out at the edge you're aware that you're alone.

It seems to me that when you want transformation or change, you are open to yoga and meditation and the Landmark Forum, which I would put in the realm of jnana yoga, and things like that. When you are not aware that you want transformation and you aren't aware of your suffering or the obstacles in front of you, you won't want to do those things. Or you'll think those things are stupid or perhaps just doubt their benefits and judge the people who do take on those practices.

When I was in India studying yoga a long time ago, I'd meet people in town and they'd ask me what I was doing in India. When I told them I was studying yoga they asked me, "are you sick?" Because for them, they only did yoga when they were sick, or they did it in school as punishment, like my math teacher used to throw chalk at us and make us do laps around the classroom or push-ups, and these guys had to do sun salutations.

And when people tell me the Landmark Forum is a cult or scheme or that meditation is stupid, or my favourite, "I can't do yoga," it makes me bristle a bit inside. Sometimes it makes me bristle a lot. But what I have learned to do with that conversation is look at who's saying it. Where is it coming from? Usually it's first of all coming from someone who hasn't tried yoga or meditation or spent the weekend at the Landmark Forum. It's commentary from other people who also haven't tried those things. Where it's really coming from though is from fear. Fear of change. Fear of growth. Fear of responsibility.

When we're in a place of fearlessness things don't occur as threatening. And when we're on a path of fearlessness, we're also on the look out for other things that can help us maintain or grow our fearlessness. We resonate with things that bring on transformation and strengthen us rather than take us back to the middle. We may turn off our tvs, we may stop listening to so much news, take a closer look at our children, maybe meditate and listen to what's happening inside, perhaps have live conversations and spend time with people. We are invariably faced with criticism and judgement from people whose opinions we care about and may even begin to doubt our own path. But that's just another one of the obstacles on the path of yoga...

And if we are into transformation and we aren't into meditation, yoga - hatha, jnana or otherwise - and we've got another path (there are many, many) - we still recognize their value and that they are paths and we can appreciate them without having taken those particular paths because they resonate with our own inner wisdom. But that would mean we're living at the thin edge, sometimes remembering what life in the middle was like...

Stepping to the Right of the Left Side

Without going into too many wah-wah details of why I feel like I'm in a difficult position at the moment, just know I have been feeling a bit put on by the universe (so victim-like of me) and I even had my Facebook status read this morning, "Jamine has been enrolled in a mandatory training program in non-attachment," or something like that. I'm having to practise non-attachment in an area of my life that's important to me. Practising non-attachment in areas that are not important to me is easy - it's the areas that matter to me that make it challenging.

And because I've been enrolled by the universe in this training program, I'm currently interested in methods of letting go. I remember the "trying to let go" of a pen exercise in the Landmark Forum. To get it, pick up a pen and try to let it go. The only way to let it go is to just let go of it. Duh. Not so easy though in other areas. So I'm trying to let go. It's embarrassing, to be honest. Watch yourself try to let go of a pen and you'll get the idea. It's awkward and silly. It's much more graceful to just let go. However, that's not how I'm doing it at the moment.

This morning during my meditation I got some insight into another method that may already be obvious to many of you and again, forgive me if I'm slow in places you'd expect a yoga teacher to have mastery in. So yesterday I was at the TEDxOttawa talks, which are basically mainly live presentations a la TED. They are "ideas worth spreading." One of the non-live presentations was a repeat of something I'd seen more than once before, and that's Jill Bolte Taylor's story of watching herself have a stroke. I'll post the video here so you can see the whole thing, but one piece of her message is that the left side of the brain handles worry and memories and the right side of the brain puts us in the moment. There's loads more, so watch the video.

The part that got me really interested this morning was the idea of stepping to the right of the left side of the brain. Just step out of the left and into the right. So I tried that. And this morning, for me, at this time, it worked. I don't know how it will go later. Things just let go automatically. And it's not even that they let go, there was no action or anything really.

So for me, the new distinction is rather than letting something go, just move into a new space and different things will occur as important. I'm still working on it. But I thought I'd share it as it is :)

Meaning Making Machines

On some level we're all meaning making machines. We all take things that have happened and we make them mean something. This is all in the Landmark Forum, by the way. Something happens (or we think it's going to happen) and then we make it mean something. That's just what we do. Sometimes we make it mean the same thing as a whole bunch of other people and then we have a "culture." But really, there's no meaning in anything. We put it there. It's just what we do.

And when something happens that we like and we make it mean something good, there's not usually a problem. It's when we take something that happened in the past (or something that's going to happen) and we give it a meaning that doesn't work for us that is where it gets interesting. Often the thing that happens and the meaning we give it have no relationship at all. So we can get all bent out of shape because of how our parents treated us or our bosses or life, and then we go on and think we're not enough or we're not capable, or we're not going to get what we want, and feel bad and go unconscious. Then we're not really present to what's happening at all, but we're stuck in our pattern of making meaning that's not true or good, and we're not being with who's in front of us.

We're not going to stop doing it. But if we can notice when we are doing it, we can snap out of it, come back to being present and then get on with things until it happens again.

Practising Non-Attachment

One of the things that has stood out for me that Anthony De Mello said is that you can't really practise non-attachment until you've experienced attachment. It's easy to practise being non-attached to something you're not really attached to in the first place. It becomes much more of a practice if you let go or begin to let go of something that's actually quite dear to you without knowing if you'll get to have or see it again or not.

In the case of a death, you know that you won't get to have it again and in some ways that makes it easier. It's so final. In the case of something else, it can be difficult because you don't know if you'll have it again. So letting go in the face of uncertainty becomes that much more challenging. It could be letting go of a habit, like drinking coffee, or something small. Or it could be bigger, like letting go of a child who's going to go off and experience the world. It could be even bigger and more attachment-like if it's someone you don't want to let go but they're going anyhow, like a good friend or lover you don't want to say good-bye to.

I'm currently in the middle of practising some serious non-attachment. I'm trying to keep my arms by my sides while my whole being is screaming to grab on and hold tight.

I Know I've Been Quiet

I know I've been a bit quiet lately. And it's not that I don't have anything to say. I'm pretty busy and I'm also busy with stuff that's having me be a bit internal. Looking back in my life, I think November tends to be a time to go inside, sleep more, eat more, go slower, and this one is shaping up like that too.

In the meantime, here's a video clip that I worked on this week that is still in draft form but is at least postable.

Lead Me from the Unreal to the Real

That's one of the mantras I've been chanting over the past couple of weeks. It's a common mantra, often used in yoga, but lately I've been chanting it a lot because someone's staying with me for a few weeks and it's one that he chants. So I chant it too. It is not a "feel-good" mantra though. Going from what's unreal to what's real isn't necessarily a comfortable ride.

Going from darkness to light - shining the light on the situation can be a relief, like finally getting to the bottom of things, to the heart of the matter, acknowledging what's so. And on the other hand, it can also be shocking to see what we've been thinking is real turns out to not be that way, or how we've been living thinking certain things will bring happiness, knowing they probably won't, but then confirming that. Sometimes it makes living in this culture a bit disorienting. Our culture places emphasis on acquiring, on going faster, on physical fitness over mental fitness. However, all of that passes and what is sustaining is something deep inside that you can't put a price on.

So chanting Asatoma Sadgamaya can be something that fries you, laying your life in front of you in a way that demands reconsideration. There's lots more to say but I'm off to CHEO to lead some fine yoga to some fine young ladies at the hospital.

18 Million Yogis

Rod Stryker - "18 Million Yogis" from Omega Institute on Vimeo.

Living from a Broken Heart

One of the things that Pema Chodron said on the last day of the retreat I was at just over a week ago is to stay tender and open in life. In fact, she said, "live your life from the place of a broken heart." It's not depressing or sad even really. But it's about being open to your life - to what you like and don't like, to what's there and what not's there. It's a really tender place to be.

Letting my heart be broken means seeing what's really there. Seeing the humanness in people. In myself. It means I make mistakes.

When I took the clown workshop a couple of months ago one of the things Nick said was, "we love you when you're confused." The clown can be confused and people love him/her. Sometimes being tender and open means being confused, not sure where to turn, not knowing if it's going to work out. Resting in that place takes a lot of strength. It takes something to sit while you're tender and open and uncertain.

But something happens in that space. Some kind of softening and connection to other people emerges. Compassion, even friendliness towards others and ourselves. Pema writes a lot about that, about cultivating friendliness towards ourselves.

Familiar Questions

As I was meditating this morning I was struck (okay maybe striking wasn't involved, noticing perhaps), that there's a quality to the discomfort I feel that is always the same, it doesn't seem to change. It's like when I peel back all the other dynamic stuff, there's this base of softness and it's the same. Am I doing the right thing? Will I be loved the way I want to be loved? Will I ever get it together? Am I fulfilling my life's purpose?

And for awhile, and probably for a really long time, I thought there would be answers to those questions, like I'd finally do enough internal research and the answers would appear, guidance would be given, and I would be confidently on my way. The fact that the answers weren't popping out at me just meant I had to work harder, purify more, do more practice, and THEN maybe the answers would show up. Like somehow I just haven't been doing things right and that when I do start behaving properly like a good yoga teacher should, the answers will just be there. The suffering will stop. The pain won't be there anymore.

After allowing the teachings of the past weekend at Omega to sink in and through taking a new peek at this stuff, this morning I'm left with a feeling like those questions are just there. That fear is just there. It's part of my internal landscape, it's part of my being human. There's nothing wrong with me that they're there. I'm not deficient in practice or in internal inquiry. I can allow those questions to be there knowing some days they'll be answered, most days they won't. Having those questions and that underlying discomfort smacks of being human.

One of the topics covered this weekend was about how to overcome that doubt and move into a place of doubtlessness. How to pick ourselves up and trust that the ground of fearlessness is fear itself. The fact that fear or that underlying discomfort is present makes it possible to stand on it and rise up out of it. It's good that it's there. It's useful.

Pemaaaah

I spent the weekend in the presence of Pema Chodron and it was a really special time. Pema Chodron is an American Buddhist nun, who spends a lot of time in Canada, I've written about a lot this year since I read her book, When Things Fall Apart. She was so real and accessible and the teachings were so practical and down to earth, just like they are in her writings.

I learned a new meditation technique that I hadn't tried before and this one includes having the eyes open. I had the experience during the weekend of it being really easy and effective. I tried it this morning and it was harder! It was hard to do it on my own, to get that same clarity and I was reminded that company is stronger than will power sometimes. It was doable, but yesterday, when she or her assistant, Carolyn Rose Gimian, led the meditation practice it occurred as super-simple. Remembering that it had been simple was useful and encouraged me to stick with the practice this morning even though it wasn't simple at all today.

Smile at Fear is the name of the new book of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche teachings compiled by Carolyn. It is also the theme of the talks Pema gave all weekend. Pema said they considered calling the book "Conquering Fear," or other things, but that "Smiling at Fear," seemed to just get it right. It worked for me!

Meditation Retreat over Hallowe'en

I get to go on a meditation retreat this weekend and I'm getting excited. Having been to meditation retreats in the past I think it's funny that I'm excited about going to sit for hours at a time and be uncomfortable and faced with my mind and body for a couple of days. Normally, I wouldn't describe meditation retreats as fun but to me they really are. This one is going to be a little different because I'm going back down to Omega where I get to take advantage of my friends and get in for nothing but as I was informed yesterday, I need to sit in the back and keep the good seats for the paying customers. Ha!

This retreat also falls over Hallowe'en and that leaves me to wonder how the retreat is going to handle that! When Halloween falls on a night that I'm teaching yoga, I wear my costume to teach. I figure this shouldn't be any different so I'm bringing my princess costume. I'll sit in the back, alright. I'll sit in the back dressed as a vampire princess.


One year I had glue-on nails as part of my costume and I had to lead a regular class as well as Partner Yoga. Other people came in costumes too and it was fun, however, part of my costume was these nails. And the glue had dried and there was so much pressure on each fingernail like they were each being pulled off. The only way to get them off was to soak my hands for 15 minutes in warm water, which was clearly going to happen only when the class was finished. So I led the class in major discomfort and as soon as it was over I put my hands in a sink of warm water. Those memories are so clear that years later I can recall the sensations in my hands.

Ancient Teachings

I just listened to Spark podcast 89 here and I'm impressed. I've always loved the show, and I think Nora Young is amazing, but it turns out she's a yoga teacher too! Did not know! So listen to the podcast to hear her lead a little pranayama and have a conversation about how the west has taken ancient teachings and tried to patent them and how India and other ancient cultures are correcting the situation.

Begin Again

And so it goes. We begin again. Tonight the yoga teacher training program at Rama Lotus begins again, well this one is beginning for the first time really. The yoga teacher training has become such a big part of my life and involves all aspects of it, even my daughter's schedule is impacted as approximately every other weekend there's some YTT going on.

I welcome the YTT in my life and love being a part of the team that delivers it. I maintain that it doesn't really matter who your teacher is, if you're put in front of the teachings of yoga and there's space for you to explore, you'll get it. And every year, people get it.

A community is born tonight that will be together until next spring. It's probably the program that has the biggest "community" feel of any I've had outside of a retreat centre setting. It's a whole new group and yet there will be similarities to other groups in the past. There will be varying degrees of wanting to be in the room, there will be different backgrounds and intentions for taking the course. There will be people who will feel at home, others who will be triggered, and those people will likely trade places during the weeks of the course.

The people who tend to come to a yoga teacher training are a special sort. They are in a place of readiness and commitment. They don't accidentally walk into a teacher training. There's some purpose behind it - they're usually up to something. And that's inspiring to be in. We get to start with the first yoga sutra of Patanjali by experiencing it - "now is the time for yoga."

Back from Vacation

Hey! I made it. I'm back from the vacation. And no blogging or tweeting as you can see. It was actually really nice to not have email and internet access until I really wanted it yesterday when we landed in Montreal.

Let's see...there's so much I could say. Yogawise, I didn't see any signs of yoga in Switzerland where I was. No rolled up mats in bags going along the street, no signs for yoga classes. There were a few "yoga-ish" pictures in some ads for tissues and things like that, but no real yoga presence. The birthday party I went to requested some yoga moves so the 75+ year olds did some gentle stretches after the main course and before coffee and dessert. And that's about all the yoga there was except for my own thing in my room.

I went up a big, old church steeple walk on the first day. I'll show you what I mean with this little clip. It was neat and I was reminded of how cool it is to be in such old buildings. This one was built in the 1500's I think.



And there are so many old things. The house I was staying in is over 250 years old. Here's a video of the key and lock for the house. I wanted to show my daughter what I meant.



Switzerland is quite "farmy." I don't really know how else to put it. Every little bit of extra space is used up with farming and a lot of animal farming at that. Even in Interlaken, which is a touristy town, in the middle of the old city there's a grassy area and in many cities there may be kids doing sports or a band playing or people just lounging in the grass (okay it was a bit cold for that), but in Switzerland, there are cows there. Right in the middle. In another little town I was in, there were sheep just cutting the lawn on the side. I'll see if I can post my little video of that.



What else about Switzerland? I think it would be tough being a non-Swiss person living there in a small town. I'm just guessing. I'll post a questionable image I saw and you can tell me what you think.




The people I met were awesome and friendly and the food was great and the Swiss are great decorators. Especially of gardens and windows and home decor things. Quite lovely to walk around the little villages as people really go all out to spruce up their space.



The coolest thing I think I did the whole time I was there was go to the mountains for breakfast. We got up a bit early, left the house around 7 and went up this old funicular train to the top of a mountain in Niesen. There were hardly any other people there and it was an amazing view. Then we went down the hill and off on our way. Amazing.

Vacation

I'm leaving today for a vacation. Yep, a vacation. I'm not teaching yoga while I'm gone on this one. It's a pure, planned-in-advance, vacation with a modest itinerary. What that means if you know me at all, is that obviously I'm tagging along with someone else because that is not my style. And that is part of what I'm looking forward to - letting someone else lead and I just get to show up. Love that.

Hans' dad died the night that John left. I remember it because my sister had come over to keep me company and safe from myself and had the phone with her. I was not to take any calls in the middle of the night if they came. And one did come. At about 4 am. And I figured it must be John calling but it turns out, it was Hans calling to let me know his father had passed away and he just needed to tell someone. I felt badly that I had not answered the phone but that's what happened. I did talk to him a few hours later as the news was starting to sink in but I was hardly in a position to be comforting anybody.

Hans has been back to Switzerland twice since his father died, once for the funeral, and once for his already planned spring trip. This time it's his mother's 75th birthday and he didn't want to go by himself. His girlfriend was asked but for a variety of reasons couldn't go, and then my name rose to the top of the list and would I like to go to Switzerland in October, and sure, I'm going!

So the plan is to visit and be there and eat and nap and do some shopping and visit with family and practice my rusty German and read. That's the kind of trip this one is and it feels like it's going to be a good one.

Thanksgiving

It's Thanksgiving Weekend. Just a couple of things I'm thankful for this morning...

Having a great kid who is making me Play-Doh sundaes for breakfast.

Friends who pop in and can sleep over and then be on their way with big hugs and see you laters.

Other friends who drive all the way up from old places and spend breakfast times after yoga.

The promise of Spa Day this afternoon with my kid and her buddy.

A gentle peace that has wafted in over the past little while and has stayed.

Super-health and a chance to use it.

Being a yoga teacher with a place to share the joy of yoga and being in a body.