Summer Reading

I know it's late in the summer, but there's still time to do some reading. I've made it even easier by posting a link to the book that you could read! And it's free if you're reading it this way. It's a classic and has practically become a yoga textbook. It's one that any student of yoga should at least know about if not have read all the way through.

This book refers to a lot of the mystical, magical things that go on in other cultures, that our western culture doesn't always see or recognize. It's something to look into and refer to even if you don't get to it all right away.

It still feels a lot like summer here even though September started today :)

Holy Moly

Things got quite out of hand. I didn't have a stable internet connection for weeks and I didn't do anything about it because I was quite in the middle of teaching a yoga teacher training program and didn't care. That's all handled and I'm back to almost normal.

Teaching yoga to people who are really into it has got to be one of life's greatest gifts. It's so great to share the teachings of yoga to people who are eager to learn.

Some of the highlights from the last teacher training for me: that people felt safe in the big group. That people got a lot from practice teaching. That people had fun and laughed a lot while we were all cooped up together for days on end. It really was fun.

So now that it's over and the next one hasn't begun just yet, I'm back to my own meditation and self-learning. I'm always perusing www.swamij.com's site for nuggets and in fact, I even went to Expedia.ca to check on flights to go for another visit. I picked up Stephen Cope's book and even though I'd told him while I was at Kripalu that I hadn't read his book, I felt compelled to read more of it, especially after it practically threw itself off the shelf the other day. I especially liked the part about where Buddhism and Yoga intersect. (See page 275.)

Last night I watched this documentary on the Buddha Boy, which I found to be really interesting. There's so much we don't know...

Should I Blog or Talk to My Higher Self?

I'm running almost late here this morning as I prepare for the yoga teacher training. I have a bunch of things I want to do in the morning and I have to choose between them. I like to blog, I like to eat breakfast, I like to journal, and like that. Some of you know I have access to a voice I would call my higher self and I've even named her Gurubelle. During the teacher training last month I got into a practice of "talking" to that voice for a minimum of a couple of minutes everyday and writing down what it says.

You might think that if you had access to your higher self there'd be a halleleluja and that would be the end of it. It's not like that though. I don't let her blog, I don't do what she says and maybe someday I'll explain why. Just trust me when I say I don't always want to hear her voice. (It basically ruins my plans.)

So this morning I found myself wondering if I should blow dry my hair or talk to my higher self. As you can see from the picture, I got my hair done. And now that I've told you about it, I still have a few minutes before I have to leave and I'll check in with her and see what she has to say...

Back on Blog

I went away for a bit there. Something had happened and connecting at my computer was feeling not good while I was away so I just didn't do it. I noticed I wasn't blogging and I noticed that I wasn't checking my email and that felt okay. The good part was not having the yuck that seemed to be waiting for me whenever I sat down to write. But that was over a week ago and I'm home now.

I've been on vacation and working somewhere else for a change, which apparently is almost as good as a rest. All of that included much yoga. Now that I'm back, much yoga will continue to be included starting this morning when the yoga teacher training resumes.

Something happened last week that surprised me and made me value my skills and his helping me relax right now in light of the fact that I can't seem to find the document that I worked on a few weeks ago.

A famous teacher came unprepared to lead her workshop for 5 days. Like really unprepared. Not only was she unprepared, she was completely unable to wing it in any fashion that had her participants feel satisfied. I was called in as a yoga teacher to help beef up the content so the remaining participants would be cared for in a way they expected, so that helped a bit and people were grateful. But really, it was a disaster.

After having come from that experience so recently, I feel pretty confident that Kat and I are going to be just fine and that we probably will find the latest version someplace before we start and even if we don't, we know what we're doing.

Late Night Drama

Okay, it wasn't that late, but it was drama, and boy, was it hilarious. I've seen a lot of performances at Kripalu in my time, but the one I saw tonight knocked my socks off. Okay, I wasn't wearing socks, but you know what I mean.

It was the evening entertainment by someone who's leading a workshop here with her husband on creative writing and other things I suppose, and her performance was especially for the people in her retreat but the rest of us got to tag along.

She did this show called "100% Happy 88% of the Time." It was funny all by itself but it was made funnier by the diagrams she had projected during the show, a number of which I've made myself over the years so I could TOTALLY RELATE. I love it when that happens. Makes me feel so good in my world.

On the other hand I've had other late night drama, again not really that late, which comprised of emails with a friend over the past couple of days where we totally do NOT RELATE and it's been discouraging and draining and reminds me of how insufficient many of these communication media are, especially in the absence of actual human contact. They can of course, enhance live contact by being a substitute in the meantime or can even work to entertain us when the person we're chatting or texting (or facebooking as was the case with my daughter earlier this evening when she was sitting right next to me). But this isn't a blog post about that.

It's about how you should click on the link to this woman's site, Beth Lapides, and follow any of her links. She was brilliant and funny and yogic and irreverent and curious and hey, is she starting to sound like anybody else you know? Yea, but she was even better.

Yea, my hair's pretty oily

I had an amazing massage today with loads of oil. It was an ayurvedic massage that was supposed to be among other things, good for my brain. I'll let you know. I'm at Kripalu for a couple of days and my old roommate still works here and she gave me this amazing treatment.

We're heading into our first night this evening and I'm sitting in the cafe area reading my email when one of the students from the current Yoga Teacher Training program happening in Ottawa is sitting right across from me! The yoga world is so small.

It's nice being here in many ways. As a past resident I get to come and stay for a few days for nothing every year. I don't always take advantage of that, but this year I got lucky and the availability I had matched up with theirs.

Warms My Heart

Thanks to everyone who came out to the Yoga and Meditation class last night but especially to the gang from the current Yoga Teacher Training program. You guys have a special connection with each other, which could be felt in the room, and it made it such a different experience than usual, where people don't often know each other. Plus, you told me you read my blog so I thought I'd give you a shout out and say hi.

I have a good friend who's a teacher in the States at a high school. She teaches a lot of people who have to be at school, not who want to be at school. She's feeling drained and way less inspired than when she started. I lead mainly to groups who want to be there, but I regularly lead to small groups who are mixed - there are pockets of people who "have" to do yoga. It's a real treat to lead to anyone and I get that my job is a privilege, but I love it when the folks who are there are interested in the experience.

I was thinking last night about how in the past, some of the yoga and meditation teachings were only taught after the student was turned away at first. The teacher would not open the door or tell them to come back in a month or a year or some long time. I used to think that was for the student, so they would be really sure they wanted to learn and were willing to stick it out. But last night I was thinking about it from the other side and how that process would make it really satisfying for the teacher! Having students who really were ready and who wanted to learn would be a blast. (Which is why leading yoga teacher training is the so awesome.) Sharing stuff with people who want to hear makes the info come across easier and with more light.

I was thinking other things last night too, about how the yoga with meditation class tends to have more men in it than some of the other asana classes and some of us talked about that last night afterwards. I think a lot of guys are drawn to meditation and need a place to practice - poses too - but meditation is tougher in many ways. We all need it, or could use it, but that class has a good mix, telling me it's touched a chord or has a comfortable blend.

YTT PM Teaching Moment

I wanted to post this to Facebook but it wouldn't go so I'm putting it here.

The Most Powerful Alignment Details

I would have to say that by far, the most important details when it comes to alignment in yoga practice, are the yamas and niyamas. Hands down. Without a firm foundation in the yamas and niyamas, it's not going to matter if your leg is straight in Triangle or your sitz bones are even in Dandasana. Granted, you start where you are and if where you are is in a pose it may lead you back to your life and to the yamas and niyamas, however, our culture (and probably not just ours) loves to leave the yamas and niyamas behind like they're some archaic remnant of earlier teachings. Not so.

The yamas and niyamas are so current and so powerful that it's no wonder people shy away from them. When people start practising non-harming and telling the truth and simple things like that, their lives change. And nobody wants to go to a yoga class and have to start changing their lives. We don't want to start being considerate of others or stop stealing office supplies from work. Who wants to be responsible for their own pain and peace of mind? Nobody! We want the government to take care of it or other people or start a new business or find the right partner, maybe even in the next yoga class we go to.

If your yoga teacher doesn't know what the yamas and niyamas are or hasn't had a practice of them that they can tell you about, I'd say you might be in a stretching class. I'm just saying. Because lengthening your hamstrings and relaxing your shoulders really isn't going to make a bit of difference without them.

After being a part of the teacher training for years now, I can confidently say that the most transformational piece that people get is what they see about themselves through the practice of the yamas and niyamas. That's the part of yoga that will blow you away and make you so grateful you were led to the practice in the first place.

Attachment, refined

So in the conversation around attachment, it's bound to come up that we don't always know where we're attached. Yesterday's tidbit was to notice where you're attached and that's actually a way to let go of attachment, or the problems associated with attachment. And so the question is, "how do I know where I'm attached?"

A good way to notice where you're attached is to look at where you're unhappy. If you're not sure about that, consider what you complain about. What do you go on and on about or chronically complain about? If you're not sure, ask your friends or people you have spent time with. That complaint will be a site of attachment.

Then you notice you're attached there. That attachment is blocking your happiness. Knowing the attachment is there sometimes is enough to cause some space. "Wow, I just noticed I'm unhappy because I'm tired. I'm attached to being energetic. Good to know. I can drop this one right now and just be tired and do what I have to do and get more sleep later."

Other times knowing you're attached at that spot doesn't make a difference and the attachment stays there. "OMG. My relationships have sucked. I'm blah blah blah. He was blah blah blah. Will I ever blah blah blah? Will it ever go away?" Or maybe your friends are attached, "my business blah blah blah; my partner blah blah blah; my job blah blah blah; my health; my back; my money; blahdeeblahblah."

On the one hand, that's life. Too bad, that's where you're attached, relax, get over it, be attached, don't worry about it. On the other hand you may want to dig a little deeper if that attachment is the source of a lot of pain. It depends on what you're going for, what you're willing to do, what you want in the moment. And knowing that, is going to take some familiarity with yourself in places already examined in the previous Yamas (see side bar for quick references or come to Living your Yoga or the Yoga Teacher Training with me and Kat - we love dealing with this stuff).

Remember that areas where we go into pain and reaction are unconscious places. Finding those places while we're unconscious will be difficult. Our thoughts will wander, we'll get sleepy, we won't want to look anymore, we'll get distracted. It's normal. So keep going to the places you feel and breathe into them. Same thing. It keeps coming back to the same thing. Being present with what is. Read the beginning again for the instructions in finding out where you're attached, which will lead to this being present everybody's talking about.

Eventually, after you've done it for a while, breathing into the sensations, locating your attachments, you will be so bored with the process. The sensations will be familiar and you won't even want to go there anymore. Something else happens at that point but going straight to it won't work. Going through the attachment at its site, source, physical location, is important. Then you can use it as a jumping off place, but only once you've gotten to know it and what you do with yourself in that place a bit first.

Attachment, reviewed

Over the years on this blog, I've written a bit about attachment. And again, it's that time in the yoga teacher training where we've hit Aparigraha. And again, I want to read the class some passages from Anthony De Mello's book, Way to Love.

The way to really practise non-attachment is to notice where we're attached. That's sort of the only way. Just notice where we're attached. In yoga practise it's like breathing into the places we feel. In meditation it's like leaning into the sharp points. In Landmark Education language it's like being authentic about where we're inauthentic. And that's how to become non-attached. It's how to allow. It's how to be present. Go to the things you feel and let them be there. There's nothing to do afterwards. Things will either fall away or they'll still be there. You won't have to do anything.

Non-attachment is such a goal and people sometimes don't like to admit where they're attached. Your friends and family know what you're attached to. It's not something you can hide. And it's often annoying, especially if we're attached to people being a certain way for us. We might think the amount we're attached to someone is a gauge of how much we love them, but that's not it. It doesn't feel good to be loved when there's so much attachment around it. Going the other way, it isn't relaxing to love someone with lots of attachment.

The reason we practise the yama of non-attachment isn't because it's the right thing to do. It's because it frees us up energetically. To stay attached takes energy and drains us. Practising all of the yamas and niyamas is to let things go, open the energy channels, increase our health, things like that. That's what the yoga's for. It's not to burden ourselves with rules and things we should do. It's about freedom, union, balance, and what that takes is looking at where we're not free, where we're out of balance, and not making ourselves wrong or feeling rotten about that, but using those as cues to move us in the direction we want to go.

Yoga Teacher Training is a Good Way to Look at Your Life

The title just about says all that I mean to ramble on about here. The yoga teacher training is a good way to look at your life. It's a time to reflect on the yamas and niyamas (see sidebar for quick explanations) and to see what our life alignment is like. At least, that's how I see it. If your internal alignment is off and you don't even know how to find it, your external poses won't be of much value.

So our group is starting to heat up. Kat and I are helping keep the structure together, to support the container that people are doing their work in. It's hot for us too.

Co-teaching is a pose as well. Many yoga teachers rarely get a chance to co-lead a class or a workshop for a variety of reasons including that working with someone else mean you're working with another person and people have stuff! In my co-leader, Kat, I've found someone I can be totally myself around and I can let her be as she is and we share our knowledge and our space and I think if I had to be in space ship with anyone where I'd have to spend years with someone, she'd be in it. Oh wait, I am on a space ship called Earth and she is in it and so are you and all of the other people...I'm hearing a voice from Kids in the Hall or some show say this :)

Anyhow, the teacher training is in full-swing. If you ever want to take a look at your life and you don't even want to be a yoga teacher, I think a yoga teacher training would be a good way to do it.

We're Back

The Mother Daughter Yoga workshop at Omega went really well. I think. The feedback I've received has also only been good (if there are other kinds I haven't received it) and we enjoyed it. We'll do it again next year. Or maybe even earlier. The stuff that happened was amazing.

One of the best things for me about the workshop was what happened for me and Remi and how we got to spend time together and be with each other. I'm sure it was like that for other mother-daughter pairs as well. The yoga was interesting, but the real value was in the opportunity to do something physical, that connected us to each other, as well as spiritual, which got us into our real feeling bodies, and the appreciation that we got during an exercise designed to give good acknowledgement. I think it worked.

On the way home she let me hold her hand a bit. Any parent of an older child may relate to how it feels to have your once-affectionate kid get affectionate with others and not with us anymore and to have that return, even in the context of a workshop where it's an exercise to do an assisted relaxation or just a moment in the car - it's totally worth it.

So much has happened. So much new insight. Old insight. Old friends. New people.

And then there was getting home. I made wicked-time on the drive home only to get to my landline's voicemail and see that my doctor's office had called. The message was for me to call them back because they wanted to set up an appointment with me. With me? They never do that. I recently had a baseline mammogram and a pap smear, plus some blood work the other day. The blood work was so recent, it couldn't be about that. It had to be about the cancer that I had. So I had all night to not sleep about that before my teacher training started this morning. Not to mention just some of the last-minute arrangements, let's call them, for the yoga teacher training, which kept me on the phone for much longer than I was expecting.

I'll have you rest at ease with me tonight knowing that it's not cancer or AIDS or anything like that. There's something about my iron they want to talk to me about. It's not urgent. Phew. Remi's gone to my mom's to wait for the new puppies to be born. I think I'm going to sleep much better tonight.

Integration

Things happen so fast here at Omega. Zoom zoom. It's a time to slow down but at the same time things speed up so fast - it's hard to explain. It's a cooker, that's for sure.

The details would be juicy and interesting but I don't care to write it all down. Just trust me when I say I've been through a few interesting awkward moments over the past two days - I'd call them asanas - and just like asanas are designed to do, I feel that some things have been integrated.

The Mother-Daughter Yoga Workshop has gone better in some ways than I expected and not as well in others. The space we're teaching in isn't really a first choice for a mother daughter yoga workshop, but we're making it work. Leading some teachings on the philosophy of yoga has been really fun. Just being with mothers and daughters has been fun, too.

One of the things I practiced the most over the past 48 hours is being in my body and witnessing sensations. Going right back to the basics. BRFWA. (That's breathe, relax, feel, watch, allow if you don't already know!) In our session this morning on Santosha (contentment) we came up with that as a practice as well. So there's been a theme. When we practice BRFWA (pronounced "bur-fwa") integration can happen. Integration strengthens and aligns us. It's like digesting our experiences. If we don't digest our food, we get backed up and things get super uncomfortable and we assume all sorts of crazy positions to try and find relief. Same thing with emotions that get backed up. We can be doubled over in pain, with relief just around the corner if we let the stuff out.

Anyway, we've got one session left in the morning, we eat lunch, and then we're headed back to Ottawa. The yoga teacher training intensive starts on Monday morning at 8 am!

The Fire - I'm in it

Our workshop is going to start tonight. We're looking forward to it even though it's totally hot here at Omega and I feel like I'm melting.

In the meantime, some of my personal stuff from the past has come up for some healing! So I'm uncomfortable and I'm noticing patterns that don't serve me and I'm tired from not sleeping and I feel pretty rough. Luc reminded me it's not personal and not to make myself wrong. "Self-observance without judgement," he kept reminding me was one of Swami Kripalu's first teachings.

So I've been pulling out my tool kit as the uncomfortable feelings have surfaced. I'll be more comfortable once I start teaching - there's a refuge for you - and I've been grateful for the encouraging words from friends. I'd so rather be unconscious or take a pill or have a drink or do something that might make this discomfort go away. Alas, the teachings are all to breathe, and feel and stop thinking about it.

Big Breath

I'm up really early. I'm excited. Today I'm driving to Omega and tomorrow I'm leading a weekend workshop there for participants for the first time (I've been teaching yoga to staff there for a few years). It's Mother Daughter Yoga and I've been a bit nervous about it.

My daughter came up with the guidelines for who should be in the workshop over a year ago. She's 11 now. She wanted to be with like people. We made the age suggestion between 8 and 16 years old. That's a really big range. We'll be doing some partner work and if there's a big size difference, the poses will work differently, and this we know because we've led the workshop many times in town. But just for an afternoon, not a whole weekend.

I imagine there'll be younger girls who will still hold hands with their moms and cuddle up and there will be older girls who will be sitting with folded arms and would rather be somewhere else (I'm thinking of my own kid - my co-leader!) I imagine there will be moms who are hoping they'll get to cuddle with their early-teen and will be disappointed when they won't get to touch their kid outside of the class (that's how I'm feeling!).

By building the workshop the way I have, there are natural ways for the moms and daughters to connect with touch as well has have time on their own. I'm really hoping it goes close or better than planned but I'm nervous that it won't and I'll be struggling to keep the workshop on course rather than just gently nudging the outline, the way a pilot keeps redirecting a plane in flight.

When I get to Omega today I will be among my friends. After working there for years a long time ago and in more recent years coming down for shorter stays, I've got a number of people I'm connected to who are there on staff. So I'd be excited to go down to Rhinebeck even if I weren't leading a workshop. But to go down as Faculty, that's something else. It's a Big Deal in my Little World.

I wrote to one of my friends down there yesterday and mentioned that I was a bit nervous. He said he gets nervous beforehand and that even last week, Elizabeth Lesser was nervous before leading her workshop. So I'm in good company. I know it's normal to feel excited and/or anxious.

Vasudhaiv Kutumbikam (Happy Canada Day)

When people start getting all "my country's the best," "this is the best country to live in," "God save *this country,*" I get bit uncomfortable.

Today is Canada Day. It's awfully close to the 4th of July, which as everybody knows is "America Day." And it's the day that Canada celebrates its birthday, which happened only 143 years ago.

I subscribe to the belief that the world is one family. In sanskrit, that's "Vasudhaiv Kutumbikam." I'm not sure how I got that - maybe because my parents adopted a child, they took in people for holidays that didn't have other places to go; maybe it's that I lived in an ashram where that was the motto; maybe because I travelled a lot when I was younger and made lots of friends from other countries? I don't know.

But what it means for me is I don't like to say this is the best place. It's the place. It's the place I live, this space we've agreed to call Canada. I'm grateful for a lot of things I have here in my little life in Canada. Today something kind of cool happened. I actually saw the Queen of Canada. She's also the Queen of England and some other places, but for the first time in my life, I saw the Queen in person. Up close even. It was just for a few seconds, but it was pretty moving.

That woman's face is on all of my money. She just may have the most published face of all people in the world, and she's a woman. I was moved when she went by.

In any case, while we're celebrating Canada's birthday, I'm reminded that I'm connected to a whole planet, not just this country. It's not the best. It's one of many. Like loving one's children, there's no better kid, they're all loveable. Canada is a loveable country for sure.

Yoga App Poem

I want to tell you about the new app that was released last week by my brainchild, Capital Yoga Publishing, but I'm also feeling a bit poetic so I'll see if I can use my words differently. If you feel moved, snap your fingers. (I think this might be the first poem about an app...)

A new yoga app was released last night
pictures, sound, stretches will delight
your arms, legs, torso, organs
spine, skin, what rhymes with organs?

A portable, mobile, current invention
to take with you to your next convention
in Toronto, or Russia, or even online
these poses will go with you every time
on your floor, your carpet, your hallway, your lawn
plug in your speakers and press play to go on.

The app is not free it is something that costs
just the price of one class or less it is thought.
Please "Like" your yoga teacher by buying her app
even if you only play the end to take a nap.

----Jamine Ackert Tuesday, 10:05

This was inspired by the new release of Louise's Hot Yoga late last week and I hope you like it.

Friday Fringe Review

Friday's here and I was confirming with Remi before she headed off for her last day of Grade 6 which plays we saw when over the past week of the Ottawa Fringe Festival. With her help, I was able to retrace my steps and come up with what I think is what happened because the past week has become a blur of days. She hasn't seen as much of the Fringe as she wanted to because her Grade 6 Social Schedule had many conflicts with the Fringe this year and well, Grade 6 Rules.

Here's what I've seen so far (in the order I saw them):
Mixing Boal
Billy Stutter: An Irish Play
It's Just a Stage
Every Job I Ever Had
The Peter n' Chris Show
Wild Abandon
Shadows
ACTIONABLE
Seeking...
Misadventures of a Massage Therapist
MAL
Capital Poetry Rocks the Fringe
Phone Whore
The Sputniks
The Last Straight Man in Theatre
Heart-Strings
The Duck Wife

Each play has been reviewed at Fully Fringed in case you want to see what people are saying. There's a whole weekend left to see plays so please go out and experience some of the Fringe Festival!

Movers and Shakers

My daughter's Grade 6 graduation ceremony was held yesterday at Rockcliffe Park Public School in the Big Gym. It was a lovely ceremony complete with awards to the best athletes, and scholars. Right in the middle of the ceremony there was a big commotion. It sounded and felt like a plane was taking off underneath the building. It might have been the subway except for the fact that we were in Ottawa and there's no subway here. Given that the school is attended by many important people's kids, it might have been a bomb. It was a "something" for sure and people started getting upset.

During the shaking I actually ducked for a moment, in case something was going to come from the ceiling. It lasted about ten seconds and then it stopped. People started yelling and those near the doors ran out. I was with my sister, my brother, my mom and my ex-husband. We were all pretty calm wondering which exit we'd go out. It turned out Remi went running with her friends. Nice one! Once outside I checked my Blackberry and sure enough, the twitterverse was abuzz with the earthquake news.

We'd just been in an earthquake that measured about 5 on the Richter scale.

People were pretty shaken but the kids were great. The whole school has a system and they lined up in their classes and the parents milled about and then we went back in. We finished the ceremony, declared the Class of 2010 to be real Movers and Shakers, had some cake, and packed up and went home.

Just the other day I tweeted, "look up. you're on a planet. let go for a minute," or something like that. We get so caught up in our lives and our games and our situations and we forget that we're on a planet. This planet it spinning and moving so fast but it does it in a way that doesn't make us feel sick. We can't slide off - I've tried - we can't fall off - gravity is like this and this is how it feels to be on this planet at this time.

As the shaking was going on I considered for a moment that "something bad" might happen and that things would change. I'm really glad that something bad didn't happen yesterday. I'm happy to go back to the games I was playing and the stuff I was working on. But I'm doing it today with a fresh reminder that I'm on a planet and things can and will change at any minute.