A Good Death

I don't know if it was a good death or not because I wasn't there, but it sounded like a very peaceful transition as described by a regular to one of my classes, who's also a yoga teacher.

She's been missing a lot of classes because she's been spending time with her father-in-law as he was passing away in a local hospice. So when she turned up yesterday to class, I knew something had probably happened. He died Saturday night.

What stood out for me in the few details she gave me about the passing was how she sat and meditated with him. "And instead of watching my breath, I started watching his breath." So I'm imagining her tuning in with him, really being with him in whatever state he was in at the time. And then she said, "and then he took his last breath and I was there." That's not exactly how she said it but I got it. Other people were there too, but she was really with him as he transitioned.

As she told me I teared up. I was really moved by how present she was with him and what a generous gift he gave her by allowing her to be so close and to share such an intimate moment of his life. And for her to be able to go right to the edge with him, and then let him go. It was clearly a special moment.

She's inspired by all of the people who work at the hospice and by how peaceful everything is and how they have to handle that sort of transition on a regular basis. Helping people to have good deaths, both the people transitioning and the families taking them as far as they can.

I'm inspired by her story of being so connected to her own breath that she could shift that and be with someone else's breath. That's a great yoga teacher.

Nostril Check

Here's a very simple nostril lesson via a large generalization. When your left nostril is more open than the right one, it's a good time to be relaxed. When your right nostril is more open than the left, it's a good time to be active.

For instance, if you're just getting out of bed in the morning, it would be handy if your right nostril were open so you could get out of bed and be on your way. Conversely, if you're going to bed at night, it would be handy if your left nostril were more open so you could settle down and go to sleep.

If it's time for you to get out of bed and you don't feel like it and you notice that your left nostril is dominant, you could do some things to easily switch so the right nostril were more open and then getting out of bed would be easier. You could lay on your left side and wait a bit or you could block your left nostril and make the right one do the work. Those tricks would help get the appropriate nostril in place so you can work with the flow rather than go against it.

Why this works is that the breath is connected to the brain. Duh. Any yoga practitioner knows this. However, we can use it to our advantage, making things go more smoothly. If it's mid-afternoon and you could really use a nap and notice that your left nostril is doing all the breathing but you're about to lead a class or do some driving, switching your nostrils up will help you to be in the right place at the right time.

Check it out. For more information you can find lots of details in Harish Johari's book on the subject. When I first read it some years ago it seemed like voodoo, but after some personal observation and other sources that shared the same idea, it started making more sense and being practical.