Everything is divine...

Well hello from Austin!  I've been back from India for a little while now, and I'm excited to tell you about my experience this go 'round.  I have so many amazing things filling my heart and mind, so much creative energy, I feel like I'm on fire!  Instead of attempting some kind of linear exposition, I'm working on a little series of writings illustrated with photos and videos which will hopefully paint a good picture.  This trip to Mysore was beyond all my imaginings... very different from last year in so many ways, but also it feels like my experience this year only could have happened in light of how things unfolded last year.  No matter pain or ecstasy, India is sweet same-same, the motherland that cracks the heart open and pours in the light.  This year I feel like my lights were turned up to high beams, everything became illuminated in such a powerful way.  And coming back home to Austin has been a smooth transition.  Even the not so smooth parts have vibrated with a clarity that makes my response an effortless one.  I've been enjoying the process of bringing the sweet soulshine of my experience in India to bear on my life and relationships here.

One of the highlights of my recent time in Mysore was the philosophy/chanting/Sanskrit classes I took with James Boag.  James has been living about half the year in Mysore for the last seven years to work on a masters degree in Sanskrit.  I met him briefly on my first visit, and I am glad I reconnected with him this year to practice and study in a substantial way.  I dedicated a large chunk of my free time to study with him, and in the process, we collaborated on a series of short films that I think capture the beauty and power of his chanting and teaching - and a bit of the magic of India.  I'll be posting some of those videos here in upcoming blog posts, and you can always go to my yoga channel on vimeo to see them all.  

Today, I am pleased to share the first of these videos, one of my absolute favorites, Harireva Jagat (Everything is Divine).  We shot this one on location in the Devaraja market in Mysore after I had an image of Neitzsche's parable of the madman in the marketplace taking place in the beautiful madhouse that is India.  But instead of the madman proclaiming, "God is dead!  It is we who have killed him!!!" the madman would tell us how "God is alive!  Look!  Look inside, that is where you will find him!  When you see him there, you will see him everywhere!"  Because indeed, it is we who must tend to the holiest and mightiest within ourselves if we ever hope for something more.  Because there is so much more… And the whole universe opens itself up to the ones who dare to look at (to re-cognize, to re-member, to be at-one with) their indwelling, divine potential.  The whole universe conspires on behalf of those who set themselves aflame in that glory.

Harireva jagat (Everything is Divine) from Laura Lea Nalle on Vimeo.

I asked James to elaborate on the origin of this piece, as it has a very interesting story behind it.  Here is what he said:

This is a real favourite with me. I learnt it from fellow devotees of Swami Lakshmanjoo Maharāja at his Īshwar Ashram, in Ishber, Srinagar. Among devotees of Swami Lakshmanjoo in the lineage of Trika Shaiva Masters, this pair of verses are often added when we sing Bhairava Stava, this stava (hymn) which was given to us by the great Master who adorns the middle of the lineage, Śrī Abhinavagupta, one of the greatest personages in the whole history of Indian philosophy, Indian art, Indian aesthetics, Indian thought: one of the greatest intellects, one of the great masters, one of the greatest Beings of all time one might say!

As I understand it, these two ‘extra’ verses were given to us by Swami Vivekananda and Swami Rāma (Swami Lakshmanjoo’s great guru). And the composition of these verses is a wonderful story.  At a certain time on his spiritual journey, Swami Vivekananda was riled by doubts. His Master Swami Paramahansa Ramakrishna told him that he must go to Srinagar, to the ashram of Swami Rāma, this great master of Trika Shaivism. And you can imagine that just the journey itself afforded so much insight back then, from Bengal all the way over to Srinagar.

Anyway, Vivekananda has been on this journey, and all along, these tremendous doubts about the nature of ultimate reality and the nature of God, have been his companions. He arrives in Srinagar, finds Swami Rāma’s ashram, and there’s satsang going on. He goes in, as satsang’s in progress, and during the discourse, these doubts start to be, as it were, acted upon, worked upon, and they start to dissolve. At the culmination of the satsang, Swami Rāma’s devotees start singing this glorious hymn that Abhinavagupta left us, the Bhairava Stava, which really communicates the essence of Trika Shaiva Śāstra, the essence of Kashmir Shaivism. As Vivekananda hears the devotees singing this hymn, it’s like his doubts just get obliterated, completely dissolved. Like raindrops becoming one with the ocean, there’s just no more of them!

Then, in rapture with his doubts cleared, when the devotees finish, Vivekananda, his creative genius set free and aflame, composes and utters forth, on the spot, this additional verse:

Harireva jagajjagadeva hariḥ harito jagato na hi bhinnamaṇu
Iti yasya matiḥ paramārthgatiḥ sa naro bhavasāgaram uttarati

Then, Swāmi Rāma, pleased with Vivekananda’s understanding and his summary of the preceding verses of Bhairava Stava, follows immediately, with a second half to this colophon to the great Bhairava Stava, and he says:

Ādāvante cidrasa rūpam madhye cidrasa budbuda rūpam
Bhātam bhātam bhārūpam syāt no bhātam cennitaram na syāt

So this pair of verses added to the glorious Bhairava Stava provide a glimpse of the wondrous rasa or flavour of the teachings of Kashmir Shaivism. Also, when we hear them sung, they give us an immediate taste of the richness and transportative power of the way that Kashmiri devotional songs are sung.

Jai Guru Deva!

What a remarkable story, thanks for sharing that with us, James!  For now, I'll leave you with one more video from the Devaraja market - James reciting the poem 'If' by Rudyard Kipling.  I included this poem in a post while I was in still Mysore, so if you want to read it after watching the video, you will find it here.... Enjoy! 

If (poem by Rudyard Kipling) from Laura Lea Nalle on Vimeo.


Stay tuned for more, coming very, very soon!
Laura Lea

ॐ भद्रं कर्णेभिः श्रुणुयाम देवाः ।
भद्रं पश्येमाक्षभिर्यजत्राः
स्थिरैरङ्गैस्तुष्टुवांसस्तनूभिः ।
व्यशेम देवहितम् यदायुः ।

ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः ॥ 

If you can...

My last two months in Mysore have been an exquisitely unfolding series of one potent experience after another, so rich and deep and infused with the sweetness of fresh mango.  Tomorrow is our last day of practice at the shala, and then there will be a mass exodus from Gokulum.  I will linger here another week or so, holding satsang with a few really remarkable human beings, continuing our studies in the yogic philosophies.  Chanting, listening, connecting.  Practicing.  I have so much to tell you about my time here, and yet, now is not quite the time... It would be like trying to talk with my mouth full.  I am relishing these last few bites in all their delicious sweetness and will give it all a moment to digest before I attempt to relay in words and images what really must be felt to be understood.  I will do my best when that time comes, for your sake, and for my own.  For now, I will leave you with a poem, one that has come up a couple of times recently - once just before I left for India, and again just recently in a course I've been taking on the Gita.  If you want to know what yoga is, and perhaps taste a bit of the sweetness I'm soaking up here in Mysore, then enjoy this as you would a fine wine, slowly, deliberately, lingering on the delicate, unfolding flavor of each sip as it rolls over your tongue...

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools: 

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

~Rudyard Kipling

The time of god...

The thing about practicing at Brahma muhurtham

the 'time of god' three hours before sunrise

is that by the time I am finished

I step outside to cool undisturbed air

stars still overhead in the pre-dawn twilight

distant chanting and prayers 

ringing in surround sound through the neighborhood

only the occasional tuktuk or far off train or dog barking

hint at a city on the verge of waking.  

And then, almost in one fell swoop

the darkness gives way 

to the tangerine and violet rising of the sun

pushing back that impenetrable stillness

that only moments before rang out 

from the center of my chest like church bells,

now an echo of a dream I dare to remember

as a deep sapphire sky fades to bluish white

ushering in the chaos and cacophony 

of another crazy beautiful (extra)ordinary day

in the madhouse that is India,

the motherland that cracks hearts open

and pours in the light...

ॐ असतो मा सद्गमय ।
तमसो मा ज्योतिर्गमय ।
मृत्योर्माऽमृतं गमय ।
ॐ शान्ति: शान्ति: शान्ति: ॥

What satisfies our spirit...

Happy winter solstice!  I'm amused at all the end of the world banter on ye ole social networks.  Why such a literal interpretation?  Why not an infinitely more subtle one, one that involves the transformation of things unseen?  Here is one of my very most favorite quotes from Hegel which illustrates that internal turning away from the light, and perhaps portending a turning back... 

Formerly they had a heaven adorned with a vast wealth of thoughts and imagery. The meaning of all that is, hung on the thread of light by which it was linked to that heaven. Instead of dwelling in this world's presence, men looked beyond it, following this thread to an other-worldly presence, so to speak. The eye of the Spirit had to be forcibly turned and held fast to the things of this world; and it has taken a long time before the lucidity which only heavenly things used to have could penetrate the dullness and confusion in which the sense of worldly things was enveloped, and so make attention to the here and now as such, attention to what has been called 'experience', an interesting and valid enterprise. Now we seem to need just the opposite; sense is so fast rooted in earthly things that it requires just as much force to raise it. The Spirit shows itself as so impoverished that, like a wanderer in the desert craving for a mere mouthful of water, it seems to crave for its refreshment only the bare feeling of the divine in general. By the little which now satisfies Spirit, we can measure the extent of its loss.  ~GWF Hegel

And because I can't talk about a satisfied spirit without thinking of the good Reverend Al Green... and because with all the apocalypse talk, the irony of 'Jesus is Waiting' is just too good... I offer this little gem of heavenly soulshine goodness to you... Turn it up!  May it satisfy our spirit and turn us back toward the light...

Forget your perfect offering...

A month just flew by in the blink of an eye.  Time is strange here.  The days are impossibly long, and yet the accumulative passing of them goes by in a flash.  I still have another week in Mysore, and many people have already left or are in the process of leaving this weekend.  There is much to catch up on since my last post, but mostly, if there's anything to know, it's that practice is practice is practice, whether you're at home or halfway around the world in Mysore, whether you're strong and rockin it or injured and crawling your way through the vinyasas.

In the last few weeks practice has taken an interesting plot twist for me.  I caught the bind in supta kurmasana just a day or two after my last blog, got moved on to the next bit of primary, the garbha pindasana to kukkutasana bit, then the following week got to go ahead with full primary.  Doing full primary means I'd get to work on dropping back.  But then a week and a half ago, I felt something pop in the right side of my chest as I was doing backbends from the ground.  I wasn't pushing myself to my edge, I was very much working within the realm of what's possible and even comfortable for me.  As I came back down to the ground, I was in serious pain.  If the pain had been on my left side, I would have seriously thought I was a having heart attack.  I couldn't finish the rest of the closing sequence, so I sat up, did the closing mantra, rolled up my mat and went home to lay down.  Next day I was in serious pain, literally crawling through the vinyasas.  I rested for a few days, since we had a moon day, then led class which I skipped, then Saturday off.  Sunday I practiced at home and it was so painful all I could do was cry.  Later that morning, I went to an ayurvedic bodyworker to see if I could get some relief.  He told me, "Pain is good sign, noooo problem.  Only in mind is there problem.  Your heart is opening, madame.  Happiness coming soon.  Yes, love coming too... coming very soon, maybe three or four days only.  No worry, pain good sign..." *head wobble*  The second opinion I received was a little more sobering.  It looked like I may have separated the rib from the cartilage that attaches to the sternum, and that I was looking at a six week minimum recovery, and perhaps as long as six months.

Three or four days later, I was still suffering, and I was coming to terms with the more grim prognosis of a long recovery.  Things were rough, and I was doing my best to handle it with grace and surrender.  To add insult to the injury, I came down with some awful upper respiratory infection, coughing, sneezing, sinus pressure hell.  It already hurt to breathe, and then with every cough and sneeze it was like a knife in my ribs.  It was so painful.  I mean, what the fuck, Universe?  I come to Mysore, prepared for whatever is in store for me, ready and willing to suffer if need be, and yet, my predicament seemed beyond ridiculous (and somehow entirely appropriate).  Of all the sicknesses I could get in India, I get the one that hits me right in the chest where I was already injured?  (And as far as being sick in India goes, I think I prefer the coughing and sneezing over the alternatives... but still).  I was suffering so badly, and yet the irony was not at all lost on me.  I started laughing about it, which was also very painful, but I think that's when something shifted...

I found a little book called The Yoga of Beauty.  It talks of beauty as one part of the holy trinity of the Good, the True, the Beautiful.  The trick is finding beauty in things that are not pretty and perhaps downright ugly.  There is plenty of art that is aesthetically and/or emotionally challenging that I find beautiful.  Some of the most beautiful moments of my life were ones marked by hardship.  The thing that makes something beautiful is not a set of some formal characteristics which are pretty, but it is a whole accumulation and unfolding of moments that lead to an aesthetic experience.  The Japanese concept of wabi-sabi is a good example of how we can celebrate imperfection.  If a vase is broken, it is put back together in a way that adorns and embellishes the cracks instead of attempting to hide the imperfection.  And as the very wise Leonard Cohen says, there's a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in...

I went to talk to Sharath about modifying my practice and to get any advice he may have about my situation.  He told me to breathe into the pain, stabilize my mind on my breath, and to only do half primary and skip the vinyasas in between right side and left side.  And so I put my full trust in him and did just that.  Sharath said something in one of the conferences (I'll post full notes on those when I get a chance) that despite the ups and downs of life, Guruji always had an evenness about him.  He said life is like the streets of San Francisco, up down up down, you never know what is coming, but to find a steadiness and ease regardless of the terrain, that is one of the gifts and rewards of yoga.  And so I wondered, is it possible to have a great practice when I'm this down and out?  Can I find the beauty in this pain no matter how ugly things feel?  Whenever I've been in pain in the past, I always pick little projects for myself to focus on.  Like with my shoulder injury, since I couldn't work on building strength in the vinyasas, I decided to work on bandhas and lengthening in the forward bends.  With this current injury and sickness, I decided that I would find a steadiness and ease in my breath and mind and have a good practice the next day.  And I did.  To a casual observer, I'm sure I looked hobbled and suffering, but I would say the energetic quality of my practice was as sweet and focused as the days I feel strong and totally rockin.  Each day of practice this past week, I felt marginally better, just enough to renew my faith and not lose hope.  The measure of progress in the practice is not if I can get my legs behind my head or jump back with grace and ease, but it is if I am becoming a better person, more clear, more open, more loving... and I think that I am...

Last night it rained in Mysore.  First rain in many months.  The sun was setting, and I went for a walk to enjoy the thunder and rain.  I realized that the last few days the pain in my ribs shifted.  It feels less like suffering and more like opening.  Big opening, filled with much joy and gratitude.  And I realized that happiness is not coming, it is already here...

Every heart, 

every heart to love will come, 

like a refugee... 

Ring the bell that still can ring, 

forget your perfect offering. 

There's a crack, 

a crack in everything... 

that's how the light gets in,

that's how the light gets in...

~Leonard Cohen

Come home, it's time...

I am getting on a plane to India tomorrow to go study and practice at the Shri K Pattabhi Jois Ashtanga Yoga Institute in Mysore.  I have been having a lot of dreams leading up to this trip, dreamland visitations by people I will soon meet.  Mostly they are anonymous dream characters who give me an information download, but one night Sharath came to me as I was wrestling with the decision to go and the timing of my trip.  He had a very light, joyful, playful energy, at the same time commanding my unwavering respect and trust.  He told me very clearly, "Come home, it's time."  Well ok, then!  

When I originally started planning this journey, my intent was to go to deepen my practice.  Something has shifted though in my practice to allow me to see the depth of the work there, and now I feel like I'm going to heal something within myself, first and foremost.  The practice has become such a deeply devotional activity for me, that I have no attachment to what asanas I may be given, or whether or not I'll get the bind in supta kurmasana once and for all, or if I'll start second series.  I only care about any of that insofar as it supports the spiritual dimension of the practice.  The asanas create gateways to the inner work.  They show me where to look, where my fears and suffering hide, where my weaknesses and vulnerability are, where I need to pay attention more closely, where I need to push myself harder, and where I need to let go.

I want to practice in that room with people from the world over, where the roots of the lineage have grown deep through the generations, where the spirit and history is palpable with every ekam inhale.  I want to go deep into my own work, to push my edges, to sweat and burn through the things that no longer serve me, to heal old wounds and discover things I don't yet know about myself.  I want to taste my capacity for joy and sorrow and suffering and courage.  I want to confront my fears and pain and know the source of my own strength.  I want to walk to that edge, to see my limitations, and then go a little further to see what I'm made of just beyond the present horizon.  I feel like my whole life has led up to this.  In many ways, it feels like I'm preparing for battle, like I'm about to step right into the fire.  And I'm ready for whatever is in store for me.  I am, afterall, about to be practicing under the sway of Durga who slayed the demon Mahishasura in the Chamundi hills on the outskirts of Mysore.  My recent experiences in backbending (which Kino mentions at the end of her recent article) have given me a look into the depths of what is there and how much work there is to be done.  After a couple of weeks of almost daily full body sobbing after practice, I've had several days of respite from the emotional purging.  A lot of joy and laughter have been bubbling to the surface, even in the midst of the somewhat stressful hustle to get ready to leave the country.  I feel like I'm peering over the edge of a rabbit hole, about to dive in.  I am ready to surrender to the current, wherever it takes me, whatever painful or blissful or beautiful or ugly places it has to show me within myself.  I'm willing to do the work required of me, to confront whatever demons need slaying and to bow down at the feet of gods, trusting completely in the unfolding.  I feel held and supported and blessed by my amazingly awesome friends, my teachers, the community, and something so much bigger than me, something beyond my wildest dreams.  I am filled to the brim with gratitude and a deep sense of trust as I venture forth on my journey...

Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers
but to be fearless in facing them.

Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain
but for the heart to conquer it.

Let me not look for allies in life's battlefield
but to my own strength.

Let me not crave in anxious fear to be saved
 but hope for the patience to win my freedom.

~Tagore 

Samskaras, tapas, & burning through...

The only way out is through.  Last weekend I took a workshop with Ashtanga badass Kino MacGregor.  One of the main points of focus was about developing agni, or the karmic fire which burns through obstacles we encounter along our path.  Kino talked about tapas, the significance of pleasure & pain, and the importance of burning through samskaras.  She said that if things are uncomfortable enough to make you want to skip practice some days, then you're onto something important, and if things are so uncomfortable that you think about giving up the practice altogether, then you're really onto something important.  It's those times that are absolutely crucial to show up on the mat, to stoke the inner fire and burn through whatever is in the way, be it pain or fear or old emotion or unhealthy habits.  If your practice is comfortable and pleasurable, you may not be doing it correctly, or at least not maximizing its potential for your own transformation.  It's that burning sensation, whether burning muscles or burning emotions, that let's you know you're on the right path.  Kino recently wrote a great article, Let Her Fall.  The entire article is worth a read, but for those short on time, here is one part that particularly resonated with me as it relates to the things I'm confronting in my own practice. 

I recently heard R. Sharath Jois say to his assistants in Mysore, India, to let certain students work on challenging arm balances or backbends for awhile before going over to help them. His actual words were “let him suffer” or “let her fall.”  These two experiences tie directly into the discussion of pain and suffering within the context of our yoga practice, and as such they also offer the most potential for growth and development in the student.  When you learn a new posture you often need the teacher present to go to places inside of the body and mind that bring up fear and pain. After awhile, you will need to strengthen your nervous system and face these places with your own inner resolution. Sometimes, asking for the teacher to help you every day is a kind of escape that prevents you from experiencing exactly what you would need to experience in order to learn the tough lessons contained within some of the most difficult postures in the Ashtanga Yoga method. If you always either go to the wall or ask a teacher to spot you, then you will never develop the kind of self-confidence that it takes to master the posture on your own. You have to learn to…let yourself fall... Learning how to fall is about understanding what suffering is, how to face it, accept it and ultimately make it your friend. This is at the core of yoga’s deepest teaching (Kino MacGregor, Let Her Fall). 

In my last blog, I talked about fear in backbending.  Last weekend in morning mysore practice, I dropped back and stood back up by myself for the first time ever.  Kino was standing there in case I needed help, and I rather shamelessly pleaded with her to spot me, as I'm used to my regular teacher really holding onto me so I know he's there.  But Kino does things differently, and I have to trust her and surrender to whatever it is she is trying to show me.  Honestly, I wanted to run away.  I wanted to tell her to hold my hips so I could feel she was there and feel safe and not be so fucking terrified that I'd fall.  But she stood there, a few feet away, smiling and sweet and a little scary like a stern but tough loving parent all at the same time, and said, "It's ok, I'm here.  Just your fear in the way.  Body, no problem.  Now go."  She was throwing me in the deep end.  I felt like I was about to sink straight to the bottom.  And despite wanting to run and hide, I dropped back anyways.  And I actually did it.  And then I came back up.  Kino was there smiling at me, "Good.  See, you did all by yourself, both ways."

Insofar as I imagined this day would come at some distant point in the future, I imagined I would be ecstatic with joy of the accomplishment.  Like jump for joy happy.  Like feeling as if I could do anything I set my heart and mind to.  Instead, I finished the closing sequence, laid down in savasana, covered my face with my hand towel, and cried.  Sad tears, not happy tears.  After practice, I got in my jeep and cried some more as I drove home.  So much sadness.  When I got home, I drew a super hot salt bath and cried even more.  Bawled, actually.  Big whole body sobbing.  I let it all go into the salt water, got it all out, and then crawled into bed and took a nap until it was time to go to the afternoon workshop.  It felt like some kind of spontaneous combustion happening on an emotional level, like I'd set aflame old things that no longer serve me.  It's the burning through of old emotions, the emotional detritus that accumulates over a lifetime, or even over many lifetimes, and roots itself into the body and heart and mind. 

During my post-practice, post-cry nap, I had a dream.  I was tending a vegetable garden, with big, almost ripe veggies I knew I would be enjoying for dinner in a day or two.  Plump, juicy, sweet, and brightly colored veggies.  Down in the dirt, I see a little thorny weed sprouting up, just barely three inches tall.  I pinch it just below the surface and pull, but it barely moves.  I dig a little further in and start to tug.  It feels like it is starting to move a little but is clear it has roots down deep.  I pull and dig some more, my fingers are covered in thick, dark, sticky mud.  As I dig and pull, I discover a massive, gnarled root, so imbedded in the earth it takes all my strength and focus to get it out.  I don't want to pull too hard too soon because I know I could make the root break and leave part for it to grow up again.  With what seemed like a lot of time, a lot patience, and a heroic effort, I pull the entire root system out in tact and examine it.  The little tiny thorny sprout was growing from a massive, hardened, and mostly dead root clump.  I throw it in the fire pit in the center of the yard and watch it burn.  It hisses and smokes and burns brightly, quickly to ash.  Then I wake up.  

I know I've carried a lot of sadness throughout my life.  Not just my own, we inherit our parents' (and countless generations passed) sadnesses, too.  I have some deeply rooted traumas from my childhood and early adult life.  I grew up in a physically and emotionally abusive family to parents wholly incapable of loving me in the ways I want and need and desire.  Thank god I had a natural capacity for love and empathy, and a proclivity for independent and creative thinking combined with a fierce stubborn streak that served me well enough to keep my head above water during some dark times.  I've dug through and healed much of those traumas over the years, and yet it's an ongoing process and one that continually reveals new and more profound lessons and layers of healing.  The old traumas no longer guide or control my relationships.  If anything, now, they help me hold myself and my relationships to the highest levels of integrity.  And yet, it now feels important to talk about it even more openly as part of burning through those remaining dark spaces.  There are more layers there needing the light, even deeper roots sunk into that thick black earth that need burning, like that big mass of mostly dead root from my dream that needed to be thrown on the fire.

The things that have been coming up in my practice in general, and backbending in particular, feel very much like they're tugging on and uprooting those traumas, whatever remains of them.  All the fear, issues of trust, vulnerability, sadness, anger, pain.  There are also profound moments of joy, love, hope, strength, and glimpses into the depth of my own courage and the opening up of new possibilities.   It's like when we discover a nuance in our asana practice, and then suddenly there is a whole new space that opens up in postures that once were impossible or uncomfortably constricted.  To find courage and hope where there seemed to be absolutely none at all, that's where the work begins.  It is only by confronting the struggle and burning through samskaras that we open up new landscapes within ourselves.

"Think of the yogi as a brave warrior going on a long and epic journey to the center of the soul. Just as in every heroic epic there are fearsome, painful and worrying battles that test the limits of the hero’s ability, so too in yoga are there challenging, difficult and nearly impossible postures that test the limits of your body and mind. But if you are the hero who is committed to the whole journey, then you also have the heart to see the experience all the way through to the end and win your final freedom."

~Kino MacGregor

Check out Kino's website & youtube channel.

A prelude, all the places you'll go...

As a little prelude to my forthcoming post about the places you fear to go, I present you with this awesome video of my favorite Dr. Seuss story of all time which was shot at Burning Man last year.  It's surprisingly relevant to the whole discussion to come on fear and trust, not to mention, I find it magical and inspiring.

Life, happiness, and the pursuit of liberty...

One of the interesting paradoxes of ashtanga practice is that the more regimented and disciplined I am, the freer I become.  Somehow, keeping a strict schedule around the times I eat, practice, sleep, etc, frees up a lot of energy.  Maybe it's the virgo in me, or maybe it's a promise, a gift of making the commitment.  As the legend goes, many great philosophers, artists, scientists, inventors, athletes, etc. throughout history kept very regimented schedules and thereby eliminated as many mundane choices as possible for themselves in order to free up their energy to focus on the more substantial work at hand.  Having spent many years of my life sleeping and eating at irregular times, exercising irregularly, working at odd times, I can look back and see how enslaved I was by this 'freedom' to do what I wanted whenever I wanted.  Now that I'm disciplined and consistent in how I conduct and apply my focus throughout the day and where I spend my energy and mindspace, I feel legitimately at ease and joyful and approaching something resembling freedom.  I think part of this freedom is the result of making an internal shift in my intention for the practice from being a physical exercise to a devotional one.  I also think this freedom is in the quality of experience itself, allowing for much greater depth and opening a whole wide range of possibilities within the consistency of the framework I have created for my life. 

There is a saying, "Chance favors the prepared mind."  It is through consistently applied effort that we become open to chance, or grace, or any of the infinite possibilities to touch the awesomeness of the world.  And this reminds me of the Tibetan Buddhist and Bön view of Dzogchen, where a person is capable of achieving spontaneous realization, or enlightenment.  Some may make a cursory interpretation of that and reply that they'll just keep living any way they damn well please because if enlightenment comes spontaneously, what's the point of putting forth effort.  But dig a little deeper into the Dzogchen literature, and there's a huge emphasis on ripening ourselves through consistent practice, so that spontaneous realization is even possible.  This ripening and spontaneity are both deeply rooted and grow from our consistently applied effort.

The concept of ripening really resonates with me and is something I've thought a lot about in terms of my artistic/creative process and in terms of my experiences in life in general.  John Dewey's philosophical work on aesthetic experience is particularly relevant in this context (every context, really).  While Dewey talks in terms of art, he is really painting a picture of the possibilities for human beings in every area of our lives.  He argues that art is not some thing separate from us, that we put in special places like museums or galleries, but that it can be found in every moment of our lives, in the sunset and rainstorm and even in the act of cleaning our house.  For Dewey, we are capable of engaging our world in such a way as to cultivate very rich, some would say even mystical or transcendent, experiences.  There is a continual doing and undergoing which characterizes our interaction with our environment.  The more consciously we engage that process, the more those moments build up to a consummatory moment, or an experience.  According to Dewey, an exerperience is the sign, the result, and the reward of our active and alert commerce with the world.  He goes on to explain that what artists do when they make a work of art is express this consummatory moment onto canvas or page or whatever the medium.  He uses the term express as in squeezing forth the juice of a grape in order to make wine.  Think about that in terms of our experiences.  We gather up experiences over time in a continual process of doing and undergoing until those moments reach a crescendo and are expressed - squeezed forth - by us into some new form.  There is very much an emphasis on conscious cultivation of our way of being in the world so as to ripen ourselves and our experiences.  The process of ripening naturally entails a distillation of our experiences down to the most relevant and essential parts.  While art is a convenient and clear way to talk about this process, Dewey's view, I think, is ultimately a deeply spiritual task and one that, when applied consistently, can free us from many of the burdens and sorrows of the human condition.

So what do Dzogchen and Dewey have to do with keeping a disciplined, consistent schedule?  Consistency in our daily routines allows all those ten thousand little mundane things to fall away into the background static.  We don't have to concern ourselves with making those choices anew every single day, freeing an immense amount of energy and mindspace to focus on more substantial endeavors.  This sort of cconsistency paradoxically allows for greater spontaneity, because we become more tuned into the ever-increasing subtleties and nuance of our experiences where infinitely greater possibilities present themselves.  We see this benefit in the ashtanga practice itself because as we do the same sequence of asanas every day over a period of time, we become very tuned into the subtle shifts from day to day.  As our awareness of increasing levels of nuance is heightened, our experiences become even richer and more substantial, distilled down to the most essential parts.  The continuity of our sustained efforts, over time, nurtures the sort of ripening of experience that is central to both Dzogchen and Dewey.  Every moment becomes replete with a fullness that alternately emerges and falls away, like the breath's inhale and exhale.  Our engagement with this process is able to be sustained indefinitely over time, allowing the consummation of our efforts to bear even greater fruit and varied forms of expression.  And these experiences have a quality of freedom which was previously inaccessible to us.  Like experience itself is the sign, the result, and the reward for our active engagement with the world, this freedom is the promise and the gift of our commitment.

Sunset over the canyonlands near Moab. photo by Laura Lea Nalle

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, 

the chance to draw back-- 

Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), 

there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which 

kills countless ideas and splendid plans: 

that the moment one definitely commits oneself, 

then Providence moves too. 

All sorts of things occur to help one 

that would never otherwise have occurred. 

A whole stream of events issues from the decision, 

raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents 

and meetings and material assistance, 

which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. 

Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. 

Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.  

                                         ~Goethe