Tag Archives: yoga retreat

Mar19

It’s Been A While.

Posted on March 19, 2014 by Grass Oil by Molly Field

I had to stop the oil pulling. I was starting to itch at night in my sleep, whenever I got into the hot tub, or in the sunlight. Basically: whenever I was near heat or warm. I suspected that I must’ve had an allergy to coconut or coconut oil. Once I stopped swishing, the itching went away. I’m a little bummed about it because I was hopeful that I would clear my body of all the toxins and sarcasm but then I realized that my liver’s been doing a pretty good job of that, the toxins anyway. But then I got norovirus, so maybe that was what caused the itching. It was bad here for a few days. First Thing 2 on a Tuesday, then me on Thursday, then Thing 3 last Friday. We were a mess. But I’m not really ready to start itching and swishing again, so… I’m out.

That conversation I had with myself about my liver reminded me about the lecture we heard on the yoga retreat by the lymphatic and myofascia massage consultant who spoke to us about the chakras and energy systems in our bodies. During that discussion, she all but said, “Don’t sweat bug sprays and environmental toxins and using real toothpaste with fluoride in it because your liver has been protecting your body all along and it’s doing a fine job already…” and while I agreed with that notion, largely, I also found myself shaking my head because … well: cancer. I mean… that’s where liver’s been beaten rather handily. It was sort of irresponsible. She said that the anxiety from worrying about all the exposures is more harmful than the exposure and the liver is doing just fine. She had a point: anxiety can kill.

Then that lecture got me thinking about my yoga certification and that I haven’t updated any of you about it.

I’m certified!! I’m done! I have paid my funds to the Yoga Alliance to have them put me in a registry and I’m already lined up to teach two separate classes near my home in a pretty coveted location. I’m taking over the slots from a beloved instructor, so while I’m excited for the opportunity, I’m also a little freaked out about it because … well: attrition. People love and become attached to their instructors. This is life and I’m no slouch; I’m just not this person, so we will have to see how it goes. I’m pretty pumped about it though.

I do plan to write a review / follow-up about my yoga retreat. People should know what they’re getting into when they register for a 16-day teacher training retreat. Looking back on it now, I’d still go on the retreat because it prepared me emotionally for losing my mother, but tactically: it did not prepare me entirely for teaching hatha yoga, especially from an anatomy standpoint. If it weren’t for my 15 years of practicing yoga, it would be hard to teach yoga based on that teacher training.

What it did do is prepared me for teaching children’s yoga, but … that’s not an RYT-200; children’s yoga is an entirely different kind of discipline and I suppose it’s probably harder, but it’s also easier too — they’re two different animals and well, I don’t think they should be combined. Shakta, the head trainer and creator of Radiant Child yoga is awesome; but she’s not hatha yoga inspired or educated. So… well… there is no governing body like the Yoga Alliance that discerns the training for teaching children yoga — but there should be, because kids are awesome and they need to be protected. I should stop talking. The last thing the world needs is more red tape. Nevermind.

Let’s see… our puppy Charlie is 33# now. He has lost about six teeth and he looks really goofy. His adult teeth are coming in though so I hope his incessant chewing will eventually slow down. Today, he chewed through the eco-friendly (paper) DVD case of a chakra and meditation DVD I just got to help me develop my yin practice both here and I hope at one of the classes I will be teaching. What’s yin yoga? Oh: awesome. Yin is really deep and slow yoga. It’s a practice of yoga that breaks down the poses inch by inch where you can build strength and really get into the pose and release and stretch. Ironically, you have warm up with some flow yoga to do it, but once you are warm, then you get to really slow down and hold the poses. I love yin practices and I believe the world is starving for some quieter, slower paced and more mindful work.

Spring begins today. Like right now. Like balance an egg on its end and see if it stays up. I can’t believe it. It’s finally here. Winter is officially unwelcome until December 20. I love snow. I’m totally good with it. I love how it tells us all to slow down and bundle up and read a book or cuddle with our pets and family. But … I’m over it. My kids have had only two full weeks of school since Christmas break. But I’ve had only one full week without them because we’ve all been sick in one fashion or another. I’m not going to add myself to the litany of ranting mothers who hate snow because I don’t hate snow. I just want my kids to get back to a program of learning. The snow days were totally disruptive.

I haven’t been writing at all much. Clearly not here on the blog and not personally or privately. I think I’m suffering a little emotionally because of it, too.

I’m battling a fair amount of external energy which is a remnant of old energies I picked up as a child. Lots of shame and fear: I feel like I shouldn’t at all be writing about my life and my challenges and triumphs and so even writing right now, about what I’m going through and the yoga and the dogs and the abundance of snow is even something I shouldn’t do. I’m not sure where that’s coming from. I know that it’s irrational and that it’s not mine. It’s a vestige of my youth, when I could be controlled by external influences and so I’m trying to let it all go.

It’s like I have an angel on one shoulder saying, “go for it! you can help people! you can tell your story in a true and authentic and giving way which will spread hope and light…” And then there’s a devil on the other shoulder saying, “dish it out. dish all the dirt. smear everyone. tell all the stories because that’s only the stuff that people want to hear about. they want the dirt. smear sells…” And then there’s me saying, “it doesn’t have to be like that: it doesn’t have to be smear and it doesn’t have to be saintly. i’ve read so many memoirs — i’m fascinated by them… but maybe people don’t care anymore. maybe they’re blasé now? and then what about the memoirs i’ve read by the adult kids of writers? crap! i don’t want my kids writing that or feeling that way about me… saul bellow’s kid’s memoir was PATHETIC!” so here we are.

Ennui.

I don’t know what to do. Maybe I’ll do another challenge. Maybe I’ll write some fiction based on some cool quotes by great writers. Maybe I’ll do a fiction challenge based on quotes I get from Gratefulness.org. I need to do something. I started to write some fiction the other day, but then my son took my computer and I don’t know what happened to it. That’s another part about all this: GET OFF MY COMPUTER. But I can’t say that because he used it for school.

School. It’s not good. We will be in school here until June 24. I said I wasn’t going to talk about this. Now I am. I’m talking about it.

Lalalalaaaa. Maybe I will do one of those WordPress prompts. Prompts for the promptless. I need to do something. I hope you all are doing well.

Well, this post reads more like a letter home from a homesick camper. I suppose that’s what I will consider it and move on. I’ll be back. I really miss this place. 🙂

Thank you.

Feb2

Grief: Body Memory, E-mail as Archivist

Posted on February 2, 2014 by Grass Oil by Molly Field

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The body knows. It knows the angle of the sun, the fullness of the trees, the scent of the air, the sharpness of the light, and the grace of the wind. Even if the events are different, if a person is missing and another is on the way, the body knows. And when the body senses these things, again, it knows what to do even if your mind and your heart fight savagely, like a feral dog, to stay in the present, to stay busy, to stay distracted, to do anything but go back into that cave of grief and face the reality of your absent loved one.

I wasn’t sure, but I suspected it; I knew it was either the first weekend or the second weekend in February last year. I knew it was coming in a sensuous way, but I had no clue, absolutely as though a fact, intellectually. I just had that sense of awareness, of knowing and the unrelenting waves of nostalgia, heaviness and “cling” (it’s the best word I can muster) that came and went at me like echoes in a canyon.

Last year, February 2 and 3, 2013, was the last time my entire family of origin and their families gathered in my house. I remember it as if it happened last night. I remember waking that morning, eager for the arrival of my brothers, their wives and their children. I remember making sure the sheets were on the beds, the towels in the rooms and that we had enough mac and cheese and strawberries for the kids.

Each year, our families do different things on actual Christmas, so we’ve made a tradition, over the last couple decades to celebrate “second Christmas” which I now recognize as my third favorite holiday ever. It’s usually in late January or February. We like to push it out a little later into the year because we all see each other for Thanksgiving.

I’d like to think it’s the big holidays that would do me in regarding my mother’s absence. Thanksgiving, Easter, Bastille Day. That was sort of a joke, Bastille Day. I threw it in there for comic relief, but then I realized after I typed it that it was actually the last time I saw her alive last year. We got together that day last year to celebrate my nephew’s and brother’s birthday at my house even though they were still in NY. It was the dinner that I planned the Wednesday before with an odd sense of urgency and deliberation. I never “had” to have my parents over for dinner like I had to that night. Then scant six weeks later, after my yoga retreat and a final summer vacation, she was gone.

We left our outdoor lights on the bushes out front because it was still Christmas to us. It snowed that night. I couldn’t believe it.

from my Facebook page last year.

Second Christmas of 2013 was special to me, I didn’t know why, but I did my best at one moment to announce to the family — despite my brothers’ imminent mockery and my own self-consciousness at the sappiness of it all — that I couldn’t have imagined my heart fuller than at that moment: all my loved ones were, as John Mayer sings in “Stop this Train”, “safe and sound”:

Oh well now once in a while,

When it’s good and it feels like it should

And they’re all still around

And you’re still safe and sound

And you don’t miss a thing

And so you cry when you’re driving away in the dark,

Singing, ‘stop this train, I want to get off and go back home again…

Which is a song I hadn’t ever heard, despite my affection for John Mayer, until Second Christmas this year at my brother’s house and of course when I heard it, I pretty much fell to my knees emotionally. So naturally, to help me usher and attend to all these feelings I’m feeling these days, I listen to it, nod my head, sniffle and it soothes me.

It began last week, the nostalgia. I wrote to my son on his 13th birthday, again citing the Mayer song. I thought writing to him would soothe this beast, ease my pain, but it didn’t.

So then I wrote to an eFriend I met last fall after her mother died, telling her about how I was doing and closed that note, “Good thoughts are headed toward you from me.” That didn’t do it. Then I heard from a beloved cousin with whom I’ve grown amazingly and naturally close since summer, she’s like a combo sister auntie mom to me. I told her what I’d been up to: the new puppy, that I’m teaching yoga to the high school rowers now and working on my certification and all that and she asked me, in the most simple, clear and loving way, “how are you doing with your bereavement?” and I realized (even though I knew it all along) that she’s no dummy: I’m throwing all these things in my path to distract me from my pain.

But the thing is: this stuff comes at you, as your body knows, out of nowhere and if you’re not ready for it (and who is ready for an emotional sucker punch, you tell me) you fall to your soft places, curl up and cry unfettered sobs wishing that things weren’t the way they are. That they were somehow different — all along different in fact — but that your Now is unreconcilable; it’s as unreconcilable as the Then you wish were different, kinder, gentler.

Then you realize with a full heart, heavy lungs and wet eyes, that if your past were different then your now would be too. You can’t have it all: a functional mother and attendant father and a path of self-destruction which led you to the life you’ve attained now… that your children would not be here because your mate wouldn’t have stepped into your life when he did because you would’ve gone to a different college entirely if your life were somehow different, kinder, gentler, more orderly and rational.

Dovetailing. It’s all this fate stuff that happens to us when we allow ourselves to see it all with the glorious acumen and vision of a Monday morning quarterback.

Doesn’t matter. Would you trade it all? Would you trade it for just maybe one less crisis in your youth? Maybe one less heartache? One less battle with your parent that would’ve gotten you into the shower earlier? Are these the George Bailey (“It’s a Wonderful Life”) moments of our lives: that the one moment earlier in the shower before leaving for English 348 affected what parking spot we got at college, which determined the length of the walk to the car which had affected who’d we see in passing through the doorway at work who’d invited us to a party where we met our mate? I look back now and say, “No. I guess I wouldn’t trade it all.”

. . . . .

The amount of flotsam in my email inbox was absurd last week. I had close to 3,500 messages in it; something like 850 of them unread. Most of the missives are subscriptions and retailer content. Just before I went on the yoga retreat in July, I emptied it to somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 messages.

I culled the inbox on Friday, to a manageable level, 1100 messages. I know that’s still high, it was an all-day affair requiring numerous bathroom and stretch breaks. I have now the same emails in the box that I had a hard time reconciling in July: notes from my family about my mother’s health and the conversations we had with my father a year ago today about his goals and ideas for the next 18 months, 12 of which have slipped through our hands like flaming kerosene, and the conversations going forward about how to best attend to her and his goals. I don’t know what to do with those notes.

The Chinese use the same symbol for “crisis” as they do for “opportunity.”

That email traffic created a new crisis (on one hand) and opportunity (in the other hand) for me. It was at that point that my father stopped speaking with me because I had drawn a line: After I gave him all the same information he’d requested three years prior and did nothing with, I told him to perform just one task and then I would help. This pattern of his, looking like he was doing Task A while really doing Task K was a long-held tactic of his — who can blame him? It’s human nature to completely avoid what you don’t want to do. The short version is this: it took a while.

The opportunity was that my mother and I started speaking more, as we used to, conspiratorially about my father and how curmudgeonly and obstinate he would be. He would be almost petulant like a child at times. If he’s reading this, he can close his laptop. I have suppressed a lot of this for at least one year and it’s just going to spill out of me somewhere even though I’m tempering a lot of it, so …

Then I began EMDR therapy to deal with the jolts and aftershocks of heavy emotional baggage, torpedoing through the abyss as though finally freed from the cargo holds of the Titanic.

While feeling all the feelings last week, I said to my husband, “The last time I remember feeling any sense of peace and purpose and composure in this house was immediately after my return from the yoga retreat. I did some sadhana, and then I went into the hot tub all by myself and chanted for half an hour. That was the last time I felt stable. Since then, it’s as though my life has literally turned upside down.”

This upside-downedness is ok; it’s how life is away from the Tibetan mountain top.

This next year, all the way through until the anniversary of my mother’s death on Labor Day, is going to be extremely tender for me; I can feel it already. My body knows; it is preparing me, and I best listen, to undergo and re-experience the final six months of my mother’s life and how I managed it; to honor it as it affected me while also reinventing it for myself without her. It’s right there: a pool of real, a puddle of authenticity that I am afraid to drown in.

If one thing’s super clear to me now: it’s the necessity to write about it. I haven’t touched my grief, actively, in months.

Stop this train.

Thank you.

Aug22

Missives from the Mat 6 — Meh-tough-is-icks. Re-entry and Resuming #numerology #kundalini #yoga #chakras #nabhi #kriya #bacon #metaphysics

Posted on August 22, 2013 by Grass Oil by Molly Field

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Metaphysics. Argh.

So, coming back from the retreat, I’ve got lots of woo-woo on the brain. It’s normal and the week at the beach helped me to distill it with my logistical reality.

At the retreat I ate this:

caprese salads and vegetarian polenta lasagne. lots of amazing food like this for 16 days prepared by a professional chef. i was spoiled.

At the beach I ate this:

bacon. tons of it. prepared by another and wholly separate (former) professional chef who also spoiled us.

My re-entry has been relatively smooth. There are bumps here and there. I’m trying very hard to get back into the yoga practice I enjoyed while on the retreat. It’s hard. I did a couple days’ worth before the beach trip but then I had to put the brakes on that completely while there because I didn’t want to draw too much contrast to what I experienced in the mountains versus what I was experiencing at the beach. Plus, if I’m paying any attention at all to the lessons learned or at least taught on the retreat, it’s two things: 1) to live in the moment and enjoy where you are; and 2) that there is no difference, per se between the experiences and no judgement of either. We are all existing together, not separately. It’s just the venues and the players that have changed, but in the essence of life: we are all doing the best we can every day to do the best we can.

So this morning, I was ready. I set my alarm last night and I woke at 6:30 (got out of bed at 6:45) to go to my office with my books and resume the mediation and the kriya assignment I’ve been encouraged to continue (start) to address my “path” number, 3, which also represents the 3rd chakra, which as the fates would have it, has really been my lifelong challenge/opportunity. So, yoga being what it is, it’s all tied together: the meditation and kriya is called the “nabhi kriya” and it also addresses the 3rd chakra. The 3rd chakra is the Nike chakra, the “just do it” chakra. It is represented by the color yellow (which is often a significant part of my dreams). Threes are sort of the middle child of the numerology world (from http://www.numerology.com/numerology-numbers/3) …

The number 3 is like a gifted teenager who is still under the protection of its parents: a bit spoiled, certainly scattered and perpetually in need of guidance. However, the most obvious traits of the 3 are in the creative field. A powerful need to express feelings, ideas and visions of the imagination, coupled with an extroverted personality, makes it likely that a person with 3s in key points of their Numerology chart will seek a career in art, especially the verbal arts. His or her social skills are also excellent. Charm, wit and a sense of humor help a 3 individual along his or her path, and if that weren’t enough, good looks and compelling charisma make this “kid” particularly attractive.

Blah blah blah. Tell me something I didn’t ~~deny~~ know. Look! There’s Elvis!

I have known for years, nay, decades, that I’ve had a special on-off relationship with my 3rd chakra. I love the guts it gives me to do some things and I bemoan the guts it requires of me to do other things. I’m great as a first-responder: I’m there with a lasagna, a joke and a shoulder when someone needs it. But when it comes to me… erm… Elvis? Anyone?

No wonder so many are drawn to those with 3s in their charts. Followers are even willing to forgive less favorable traits exhibited by 3s, like a lack of focus and direction, a tendency to procrastinate, an inability to finish projects and an unwillingness to take responsibility. On the other hand, there is a superficial side to the 3 that can be harder to look past: a narcissistic streak, a vanity, a need to be the center of attention. It is easy for the optimistic 3 to enjoy day-to-day life as long as all is well, but when challenging issues arise, it can become quickly apparent that most of the 3’s focus has been on that sunny exterior, leaving its internal fortitude lacking. Without much moral strength or spiritual depth, a 3 can easily succumb to difficulties unless friends and family move in to support it.

‘Internal fortitude lacking.’ OUCH. It explains some of my stomach issues, some of my food “sensitivities” and the fact that my lower back hurts because I perceive my lower abdominals as weak (I refer to the zone affectionately as “Midge”) and I honestly can say that I feel it “talking” to me from time to time.

For the 3 to become a well-rounded, balanced and happy person, it must learn discipline. Some lucky 3s who exhibit talent early in life (such as gifted dancers or musical prodigies) are placed in an environment with just the sort of discipline that a 3 needs to protect these talents. Another unique quality of the 3 is its tendency to be “lucky,” or rather, to be in the right place at the right time. This may be connected to its innate sense of rhythm; timing can be measured in seconds or in years, by the beating of a heart or by the movement of the stars. It is all only a matter of scale, either way, the 3 seems to be in tune with the cyclical nature of our surroundings.

Yes, I am keenly aware of timing, both internally and externally. I can sometimes feel my heartbeat in my forearms and ears if am still. I can hear it when I sleep, which I reeeeeeally like to do, so yep: guilty as charged on that whole ‘discipline’ thing. I used to be really disciplined… that’s the bad side of a 3: we can be obSESSive… (as I sing the “sess!” part).

So, my 3 needs work. My spiritual and effective weakness in this area was made crystal clear to me during the retreat. We were on the deck one day and were going over the chakras as manifested in the physical sense. I volunteered to demonstrate my 3rd chakra’s ~~solidity and grounding~~ anemic condition for all my soul sisters to see. It was humbling. I knew I was “weak” in the Nike department, I put up a good front and I do lots of physical and personal growth things that other people don’t or won’t do, but the thing I really want to do, the thing I was bred, raised, educated and groomed (and apparently numerologically destined) to do: write a book and get it out there, is my kryptonite.

Yet despite all my “YOU CAN DO IT!” memes, I’m still hiding in the corner under a threadbare blankie, looking for Elvis.

The way this yogini went after my 3rd chakra intention was with loving and supportive compassion, but with the precision and aggressiveness of an excimer laser. She was amazing. Why did I subject myself to this? Because I paid almost $4,200 for the entire thing and by God, I was going to get all I could out of it.

I knew it then and I know it now: It’s no surprise to me that my 3rd chakra is out of balance. I even knew it was really out of balance. What blew my mind was that it was part of my numerology. But of course! Why wouldn’t it be part of my numerology? Fine… but my PATH? The very thing … the essence of what will bring me to myself?! Phuuuuuch.

So I’m in. I commit to at least 40 days of the nabhi kriya.

This morning I’m all alone; and that aloneness makes me very self-conscious. For the first time in a while, I understand what “strength in numbers” means (all references to numerology notwithstanding here).

What I learned this morning is that I’m rusty. I forgot to rub my hands together to create a connection between the left and right hemispheres of my brain. I forgot to put on some sort of music to keep me from wondering if anyone was walking outside the room.

Once I figured that out, I tuned in: I chanted “Ong Namo Guru Dev Namo” and totally forgot to breathe correctly. I ran out of breath. So I had to start again. I rolled my eyes at myself, which I can’t believe I did, so I immediately apologized to myself and said “Self, get over it, you’re rusty. It’s OK. You’re trying. Start again. Remember the hands this time.” So I did. I found the music, I rubbed my hands together, I inhaled deeply and I chanted.

Felt.

~~Like.~~

~~Dork.~~

So.

Vulnerable.

I immediately missed my friends from the retreat. I opened my eyes and looked around to see if anyone was laughing and pointing at me. Of course no one was, I was alone, desperately alone in fact, but I was still terribly self conscious.

But I realized I had an ally: my beautiful wool and silk light blue shawl that I bought at the retreat. I had a new blankie. A power blankie. No! A cape! My kundalini cape! I could not only hide under her, but she could bring me some focus too, and some strength, and identification with growth.

She would remind me of those days when I wore her on the deck in the chilly morning fogs. She kept me warm. She allowed me to feel a part of the tribe there, she also helped to feel safe doing what I am earnestly committed to doing: creating a solid 3rd chakra point in my body and my spirit to push me to get things done.

that’s me in the background. just seeing this picture transports me to that awesome deck and all those wonderful souls. the woman in the foreground was my roommate. aren’t the shawls gorge?

So I got her out and smelled her gentle woolen scent and I unfurled her and got started.

I warmed up. I closed my eyes again and mustered my courage. I did the sufi rolls and the “washing machine” torso twists (elbows up, hands on shoulders and twist from side to side inhaling on the left, exhaling on the right) and some other arm thingies and …

Then I determined it was time to do the kriya to address my 3 life path and my 3rd chakra.

Find the book that has the kriya. Find the book. Where is the book? Where is the freakin’ Kundalini Yoga book? Did I leave it at the retreat? No. I’ve had it since coming home.

Fine. Do the other kriya, the Adi Shakti.

No. I’m here to start the nabhi.

On and on it went. I consumed about 30 minutes looking for the book. Then I found it. Then I looked at the kriya.

Ooofda. Leg lifts. A freakin’ ton of leg lifts. Well, doing 40 or 90 or 180 or 1,000 days of this on a daily basis should definitely resolve any “Midge” issues…

It reminded me of the calisthenics we used to do at day camp. I still haven’t done any comparative analysis on the matter, but the timing of Yogi Bhajan’s arrival to the United States to share the technology of kundalini yoga dovetails suspiciously close to the fitness trend of calisthenics that I remember my mother doing three times.

Irony in the irony: today’s experience directly showed me how out of balance my 3 is: I was logistically unprepared. I started at 7:00am, but I didn’t have my stuff. I went online to find the kriya and meandered the yoga sites. I found it, several times, but I talked myself out of using the online ones because they weren’t >insert Veruca Salt< The One In The Book!

I wasted time, being self-indulgent. Trust me… I see it all now, I’m paying attention and I was paying some attention then too, but I told mySelf to shut up. By 10:30, I was finished, I was committed. It might’ve been the world’s longest nabhi kriya ever, but I did it.

I did almost all of it for the recommended times too. I am pleased to announce that my core is strong, but my low back needs some support, so I allowed the support, no judging. I can tell you this: when I’m done, my abs are going to be insane. I read online that someone said this kriya saved her life. I am just hopeful it will give me mine back.

I feel like all I’m doing is barking at you guys… please chime in and say hello. Ask me questions! I’ll be happy to answer them!

Thank you.

Aug21

Missives from the Mat 5 — Start and the Pressure Will Be Off #Yoga #Bhajan #Writing #Numerology

Posted on August 21, 2013 by Grass Oil by Molly Field

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It has been a long time since I’ve written.

I have actually wondered if I would be able to start up again; on the blog, I mean. I went from writing every day for 31 days about Carl Jung and how I interpreted him to stopping almost completely for almost a month. That’s a hard transition. I went from mindfulness on paper and sharing it to mindfulness in the ether and installing it.

Y’see, the yoga retreat was a profound personal experience. I remember driving away from my home, that Thursday afternoon almost three weeks ago when I began my journey looking in my rearview mirror at the three sons and husband I would be separated from for more than a fortnight. That rearview mirror moment was the last time I was the person I was before I changed.

That sounds weird. Let me rephrase: I am more the person I was meant to be now. I have less pretense, less interest in what other people think. I’ve always been pretty confident seeming, but that was because I wanted everyone to get along. Now, it’s not so much that I’m less interested in people getting along, it’s that I’m less interested in having to make people get along. They will figure out their way. I have my life to figure out and I have three boys to mother and a husband to partner. It’s just clearer now. There’s something to the power of being with complete strangers for 15 overnights (about 350 hours) for a yoga retreat. The moment some people say yoga, others envision pretzels or insane postures.

The yoga we practiced every morning at 6:00 am, one time at 4:30 am, is totally different. We would sit on a massive wraparound deck to watch the sun rise when we managed to peek out from under our shawls during a meditation. That 4:30 am practice is something that created a cosmic shift in my consciousness and it will forever be revered as one of The Most Inspired Moments of My Life. Each morning we were to be in a meditative state 10 minutes before the practice began. That meant for yours truly who loves her blankets and her bed that I had to be awake at least 40 minutes before the start. So on this 4:30 am day, I set the alarm for 3:50 am and I woke with little resistance; even with a sense of childlike glee. I’ll explain in a later post why this timing is so special. But it was as if my spirit knew I was going on a trip. And I did go on a trip even though my body never left the planet.

sun up. 6:01am due east.

The sun never rose the same way every day; it never does and it never will. But it was always majestic the way the earth bows to the sun.

still glorious, no? this was shot at 5:53am i’m pointing west.

We were treated to some of the most wonderful weather ever for those 16 days. I kept on saying to people who were not from this area of the world that the Heavens must be smiling upon us because it has almost never been 59˚ on any morning in July or August in the Virginia Blue Ridge.

The yoga I talk about now transcends the poses. It goes right to the spirit and it means Guts, Determination, Growth, Strength and Self.

Strength and Self

The poses come later. The work, it’s a pleasure, most of it. There were some kriyas (sets of yoga exercises) that set my shoulders on fire. I miss them. I miss that wonderful, bearded wiseman, Kartar Khalsa, who would state to us, “I can show you how to get there, I can show you, but you have to do the work, you have to get there.” He wasn’t talking about stronger deltoids or trapesius muscles. He was talking about stronger Selves, with a capital S.

Kartar Khalsa Singh. Yogi. Badass. Compassionate.

Kartar Khalsa. Yogi. Badass. Genius.

This Self ~~is part of the genius of kundalini yoga.~~ Rephrase: the pursuit of the Self is the heart of kundalini yoga. One of our yoginis at the retreat, the owner and author of the program, Shakta Khalsa (and Kartar’s wife) has a phrase, “Yoga is the science of the self, and kundalini is the awakening of the self. It is that simple.”

This retreat was more healing than it was learning. Ok, that sounds bad. That’s not what I meant. I did a ton of learning. I can tell you all about how babies have this life stuff all figured out and if we’d just do with our bodies what they do with their bodies from time to time then we’d be totally happy. I can tell you about the eight limbs of yoga (I just can’t find the sheet in my binder) and the 3rd chakra and the lymphatic system and why cold water on the thigh is a bad idea (because it leaches calcium from the femur). I can tell you about acidic foods and the energetic transfers and releases of certain chants and kundalini exercises. I can. And intermingled in all of those discussions and lectures and yoga sessions and kriyas and asanas were life-affirming, life-changing lessons. It’s metaphysically impossible to attend a training retreat of this caliber without changing on the inside. Impossible. The bottom line is that it’s impossible also, for me to explain it all to both of you in one post. So natch, I’m considering a book.

These women, the 13 of us and then 1 extra and 2 of our originals left and then that 1 extra did too and then 4 more came in… (it was a little revolvy-doory there for a bit) are in each others’ DNA. We just are now. I will never forget them and seeing the pictures they are posting as well as the ones I will share in a photoblog post about the retreat (to come soon) bring back all sorts of warm fuzzies.

I wonder about the numerological significance of choosing 16 days for the retreat. Numerologically, the 16 converts into a “7.” A 7 represents the seeker, the thinker, the searcher of Truth (notice the capital “T”). The 7 doesn’t take anything at face value — it is always trying to understand the underlying, hidden truths. The 7 knows that nothing is exactly as it seems and that reality is often hidden behind illusions (I got this from http://www.numerology.com/numerology-numbers/7). I have a seven in my soul position, which is sort of a big deal, and it explains a lot of things which I will go into in a later post on numerology and how learning about it and myself has ~~vexed~~ liberated me in a lot of ways. Go to www.3ho.org to learn about your numbers.

When the 7 is in balance, we are elevated, happy, curious, philosophical, sensitive, a “solitary spiritualist” and we lean a lot (or we should) on our inner voice, our inner knowing. When the 7 is out of balance, we can feel lonely, reclusive, aloof, hypersensitive (I AM NOT!), fear scarcity, confused, find fault and demonstrate a lack of boundaries both emotional and physical. The bottom line is that we need a lot of alone time. This was something I wasn’t sure I was allowed to express as a need for myself because I’m a fairly gregarious and social person, but man, when I saw that I was WAHOOO! All you suckas git lawst! I need some alone time! Holla!!

I’ve just recently taken out my books from training. I went to the beach for five days after I returned from the retreat and so I’m just getting back into “normal” here at the house. Just having this time alone to do some writing has been nice. I really haven’t had much alone time at all, actually.

Yogi Bhajan, who to me looks like a movie star in the photo below had five sutras (statements / aphorisms) for the Aquarian Age. One of them is applying right now: “When the time is on you, start and the pressure will be off.”

Omar Sharif, anyone? Sheesh this dude was intense. Never met him. He “died” in 2004; I say “died” in quotes because in the tantric yoga and metaphysical tradition, there is no death. I dig that.

So here I am, starting and deciding to write.

Ok, ok, here are the other four:

Recognize that the other person is you. (Reminds me of that phrase, “when you point the finger at someone else, you’ve got three other fingers (yours) pointing back at you.”)

There is a way through every block. (Notice he didn’t say around every block… yuk yuk a*hem.)

Understand through compassion or you will misunderstand the times. (I got nothing.)

Vibrate the Cosmos, Cosmos shall clear the path.

Woo-woo?

Heck yeah. Ask me about the Soul Retrieval. No, wait, don’t ask. Just ask me where $100 went in less than five minutes. I’ll tell you, it went on a ride on a train through the desert. (I told you not to ask… I’ll explain in a later post. I promise, Marn.)

So no, I haven’t changed in a cellular way; my yoga retreat sisters would likely agree that none of us has changed cellularly; but we have changed in an energetic way and my manner of thinking and old patterns of reactivity and blame and fear are almost things of the past. Now it seems it’s like logistics are the stepping stones.

But embracing the woo-woo isn’t new to me.

Y’see, I was already On That Bus before I left. I was someone who believed in the things that were unseen more than the things that are seen. I learned on the retreat that it’s likely because I’m left-handed that I’ve already got some of that thinking in the bag. We right-brainers tend to be more creative and as long as we’re not suppressing it, we can easily relate to other people on an energetic level. We can let things slide because we know: it’s not real. Whether it’s an intuitive realization or simply because we are geniuses, we left-handed people have a different sense of the world.

As I said earlier, there were 13 original students on the retreat. I’m not taking away from the four awesome peeps who joined us later because they are cool too, but the 13 of us altered each others’ menstrual cycles (someone foolishly suggested that it takes a month to do that, well we yoginis can get that shit done in two weeks, holla!), we shed tears with and for one another, we held hands, we held hugs for more than six seconds, we chanted, we punched the air, we pounded our fists, we asked a ton of questions, we disagreed, we snarled a little, and we grew a lot. We drank and showered in fart water — that has to count for something, right?! — and we really miss each other. I never belonged to a sorority in college. I commuted to college. So this is my first sorority and I can tell you this without a doubt: I’m glad I waited to join this one.

Some of us are having an easier time than others re-entering the Earth you inhabit. I can tell you that going to the beach for a week with my cousin and kids helped a lot. I miss the mountains though. I’ll post again soon, mostly pictures about the days there. I would go back in a heart beat… but only with those soul sisters. It wouldn’t be the same without them.

Thank you.