not to seek

I have been trying to restart my yoga practice and think I've finally found a studio that gives me the spiritual and physical work-out I need, with more emphasis on the former than I realized I needed.  I talk often with friends and family about the search for a spiritual community in our highly-educated, agnostic and scientific lives.  Especially as I get closer to establishing my own new family and going through the rites of marriage (most of which we are adapting and blending from all the spiritual and community traditions we like), I find myself thinking more about how to cultivate this part of my life - both within myself and as a more public acknowledgement of spirituality as an important part of my life.  

so for you, a public acknowlegement of this with a quote from Rumi and my favorite chant we have done in yoga class lately, the Gayatri Mantra.

"your task is not to seek for love, 

but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself 

that you have built against it"

-Rumi

the literal translation of this repetitive chant is:

"May we attain that excellent glory of Savitar the god:

so that he may stimulate our prayers"

shake

Last night, my friend Krista and I finally went to a Jivamukti yoga class.  If you've never heard of this kind of yoga, you're not alone. The instructor at our class described it as the "wild child" of yoga - focused on using readings, meditation, chanting, and flow poses to help you let go of your tight grip on yourself.  Apparently there's a theme every month created by the couple who started Jivamukti yoga, and this months theme is SHAKE.  

as in, shake it off and shake it out.  

which actually is pretty much exactly what I need right now.

we chanted, we flowed, and oh man did we shake.  by the end of the class, my body was humming with gentle energy and my mind felt clearer than its felt in a long time.

which brings me to February - usually one of my least favorite months, this year it is the month I've been waiting for because my whole schedule in the hospital calms down, the manfriend and I make some plans - big and small, and my whole crew comes back into town for our last few months in medical school.  So plans for February include:

1. Jivamukti yoga - and letting my inner wild child out

2. Cooking new and delicious things (just cooked delicious Indian food over the weekend, recipe to come soon!) 

3. Rock Climbing (indoors for now, it's WINTER still, people)

4. Increasing my running mileage - goals for now are anywhere between 35-40 miles/week, we'll see how that goes.

5. Making Valentines because even though this month is usually the most gray, making Valentines for my friends and family (and the manfriend) has always been something I love doing.

6. Enjoying being home!

~~~~~~

How're you doing? I said & he said we're undefeated in our appreciation of the game. That's against incredible odds, he added.

- Story People

yoga breakdown

This past week I've had a "reading week" for my genetics elective because a) there's apparently a whole lot I don't know about genetics and b) my attending went out of town on vacation with his kids.  I have definitely read a whole lot about genetics, but I have also tried to use this week as a restorative week.  A week I could have traveled to visit friends or family (I did a little of this), a week I could have spent doing all the life errands I had to do (I did do a little of this), I chose to instead take my focus inward and try to reset my own internal balance, which has shifted drastically over the past year of clerkships with travelling, starting a new thing every 6 weeks, and not having a community to root into.  Plus, I start a month of night float this Monday night so I won't have too much of a life outside of the hospital for a little while - making me nervous that I'll be unbalanced even more.

So my skeletal structure of the week included a goal of coming to my mat and doing yoga every day for a whole week, starting last Saturday (my first day "off").  I'm not sure what I expected - a few days of feeling like I was getting more flexible, stronger maybe?  But instead I've been feeling more peaceful - well, up until yesterday's practice when I think I had a yoga breakdown.  About 40 minutes into one of my favorite podcasts, in the middle of a heart opener half-moon pose, I just started crying.  Not because I was sad or in pain, but I think (still processing) because I really opened something up.  Not just my ribcage, but like an emotional drawer that I had locked and barricaded over the course of this year, as I spent more time alone driving than ever before, as I witnessed people dying, futile attempts to try to prevent the inevitable, families grieving, babies being born, intimate never before asked questions - had opened.  I continued my practice for a few more poses, then I turned the podcast off and just flowed by myself through poses that I realized I had been craving, and by the time I got to the final pose, I was entirely spent.  Not renewed or refreshed or regenerated, just totally spent.  But I'm going for it again today and tomorrow - because now I'm curious.  What else might come up?  Here's a poem that was read at a yoga class I went to this week that just felt.so.right.  

Some thoughts to consider: 

What have you done lately that has been outside of your comfort zone?  

How do you reset your own internal balance?

Allow by Danna Faulds

There is no controlling life.

Try corralling a lightening bolt

containing a tornado.

Dam a stream and it will create

a new channel. Resist, and

the tide will sweep you off your

feet.  Allow, and grace will carry

you to higher ground.

The only safety lies in 

letting it all in -

the wild and the weak,

fear, fantasies, failures, and

success.  When loss rips off hte 

doors of the heart, or sadness veils

your vision with despair, practice

becomes simply bearing the truth.

In the choice to let go of your known 

way of being, the whole world is revealed

to your new eyes.