Three Weeks Non-Stop Yoga

Non-stop yoga...makes it sound as if I'm in some type of binge yoga challenge.  All I'm really saying is I've attended Yoga classes every day for three weeks (except Fridays - for those of us that are counting - and I am).
In the grand scheme of things I am only spending an hour a day - an hour and fifteen minutes a day - stretching and holding up my own weight.  Yoga is no sweat exercise.  Three weeks of consistent work is starting to pay off.  But I wonder, when is it going to get easier?

When I say paying off I mean that I have more energy throughout the day.  I mean that my clothes have a smoother line.  I mean that even though I haven't checked I know my back is getting all buff.  I can't wait to see my back and upper arms in a tank top or one of my summer dresses. But, it's not getting any easier.  Classes include difficult poses.  My arms and shoulders still aren't limber enough to have my hands meet in the middle of my back in prayer.  Not that that was my goal.  Somehow it seems to be now.  I still can't bring my one arm around my back, loop the other arm under my thigh and have the two clasp somewhere  under said thigh while I open my chest to the sky.  And Wednesday night the instructor wanted us to do that AND lift our leg into a balance pose.  I laughed out loud.  Every evening I come home with a new ache, a new tenderness somewhere on my body.

Are the poses getting harder?  Am I no longer getting more limber?  Have I reached a limit?

yogi-foodie-nudie.tumblr.com

I had thought week two was the most difficult.  I found it hard to go to classes.  I had to put myself on auto-pilot to go to the studio and suit up.  The work wasn't hard, it was the mental challenge of being there.  I didn't want to go.  Yoga had lost all it's "fun".  I wasn't impressed with any of the instructors.  The studio was boring.  I wasn't able to clear my head.  I was questioning if I really wanted to do this every day, e-v-e-r-y day for another four weeks, for gawd's sake.  And then....

And then Friday came, and I was sorry there was no class that evening.  My shoulders wanted attention.  Just knowing I had no class made me want to go to class.

Saturday I realized how much fun my sweetie and are having since I started this exercise kick.  Wink, wink, Nudge, nudge.  Exercise is good for everyone concerned.  My selfish challenge is making more than just me happy.  OH! and my sweetie has been in our home studio this week using the treadmill and the knock-off Bowflex weight machine.  My feeling good makes him want to feel good too.  "Lead by example" - it makes a difference.

It's been a tough week this third week into the challenge.  My legs don't seem to want to hold me up in any of the three warrior poses.  It used to be that my arms were on fire holding them at shoulder height.  Now it's my thighs that are burning up during a simple lunge. My ankles are quaking under every balance pose I attempt.  Oh yes, my ankles seem to be arguing over which tendons are in charge of balance.  The tendons are trading off  responsibility as fast as spokes turning on a bicycle wheel.   When I get home at night my core feels as if my whole rib cage - the whole barrel of a cage - is bruised,  Of course it's not.  I don't even know which poses are working my core this hard.


Yoga is deceptively difficult.  I breathe into these postures.  I only push myself as far as I feel good.  I only hold a posture, an asana, for a couple breathes.  But at the end of the hour...my muscles are jelly. The challenge is real.  We are in the middle of this one.

Finding my Child Pose

There is a time as yoga class starts when we each sit comfortably on our mats and the instructor talks us down from our day.  The goal and the hope is that we will be able to clear our minds and focus on the moment.  Our instructor on Tuesday wanted to remind us to show up for our practice.

Let me introduce Instructor Ann.  Instructor Ann is no more talkative than any other instructor.  What she does have though is keen insight and droll humor.  Ann makes many references during class to various life teachers and several references to Saturday Night Live skits.  Ann knows her pop culture, and she knows how to apply it for quality insight.  Ann understands her audience.

On Tuesday as Instructor Ann reminded us to be-here-now she adds, "let me refer you to Jon Kabat-Zinn and his book, Arriving at Your Own Door.  Let us each arrive here in class.  Come in to yourself.  Today let's not work ourselves into a posture, but let's allow ourselves to arrive into these postures today.  You may enjoy the book, Arriving at Your Own Door.  It is excerpts from Coming to Our Senses.  Or there's Jon's other book, Wherever You Go, There You Are.  Maybe you have heard of that one."

Ann's voice trailed off in my head.  I was considering the first half of what she had presented.The idea of arriving at my own door came alive, the vignette played out in my head instantaneously.  While Ann was chatting away about books and familiarity I was mentally looking from the inside of my own home (mental home) screen door because a little face had popped up from the outside of the door (mentally, it's all mental)  cheerily sing-song-ing, "I'm here!" How very interesting;  I had arrived.  From Ann's perspective I had my eyes closed, seated in contemplation like the rest of the class.  And if she had been watching she would have seen the sudden happy smile open across my face.  

In my head this cheery little face was still waiting outside my screen door.  "I'm here!"  I wanted to laugh out loud.  Because there I was, just outside my own screen door like a little girl come over to play on a summer day.  "I'm here!"  I said to myself a third time.  So I finally answered, "Get in here.  It's time to play!"  The screen door creaks open and flings shut.  Time for the opening stretch.

It was a play date yoga class on Tuesday.

Child's Pose 

Robert P. Hedden

(used without permission)

https://www.facebook.com/public/Robert-Hedden

My Yoga Challenge

A Yoga Instructor has been made available to the employees where I work. He shows up twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays, and holds class for an hour to stretch us out and get our blood pumping again. Then we float back to our respective departments and offices - disapearing in the catacombs of drudgery and repetitive deadlines.

This yoga is not a mandatory program. Only a few of us show up on any given Tuesday or Thursday. The most that have shown up is eight. Three to four participants is pretty regular. The gentleman gets paid the same regardless of the number of participants. He received a grant in fact - for one year - to come hold classes for the employees. It's a pretty sweet deal for a freelance yoga instructor/personal trainer. For a year he has had a full-on regular gig.

I like it, of course, because I get free yoga instruction. It has been great. There were several classes in a row in November and December that I was the only one to show up. Where else can one get one-on-one training, for free, like I did? I dunno. I am not complaining.

(This is not me...might as well be, but it's not. Wish I knew where I got this photo.)

I have been practising yoga on and off since my first year in college at San Fransisco State. To take care of Physical Education requirements for graduation (that they probably don't even require any longer) I took a semester of yoga and fell in love with being able to move in mysterious and wonderful ways that made me feel good for days, positively days, afterward.

Yoga still has that affect on me. It has been thirty-four years since I was introduced to yoga. I still love it. I can still touch my toes. I can balance on one leg - and I can pick which leg. Taking classes this last year I could feel my shoulders respond to the exertion. I still have muscles.

So here I am, some fifty something years old and I am feeling as good, if not better, than I did in my forties. I am getting exercise twice a week (gosh, that's all it takes?) and now I find myself signing on for more yoga instruction on the weekends, and on week nights. I thought about it a lot (but without the over think). The decision is made. I am signing up to be a yoga instructor. And from what I have seen, I will not be the oldest person getting certified to teach yoga.

My challenge this year is to find a yoga studio that I am willing to pay the $3000+ to to become certified. I've been to a couple studios this year. I need to put these experiences into words.

Coming soon** Review of Studio #1 and the Compelling Reasons I want to be an instructor**

Finding the Time

As I attempted to complete thirty minutes of writing this morning I was interrupted twice. I was interrupted to the point of having to get up from my desk and attend a meeting, and the second time to witness events in the office. Both interruptions were required of me. These were work interruptions. At home I don't even get thirty minutes in any one chunk of time to attempt to write in an unbroken segment of thought.

It's great to be wanted.

I came across an old blog about 30 minutes for 30 days. It refers to writing - almost speed writing - but just writing for 30 minutes straight every day for 30 days. It might be time to try it again.

In the Last Five Years

In the last five years I have had the opportunity to do some amazing things. I moved to Washington State 5 years ago this week and today is a great day to mark the anniversary of my arrival.

In the last 5 years I -

Ran a half-Marathon.

Went to Paradise (and had a snowball fight while I was there).

Wrote 2 novels - one 50,000+ words, the second 100,000+ words (edits are NOT complete yet).

Got a job.

Got a promotion.

Married off a daughter.

Launched another daughter.

Changed cell phone plans (harder than it sounds.)

Changed cell phone plans again (I got it down this time. I have no FEAR)

Dealt with and defeated the Wicked Witch of Stupid Office Politics and Power Mongering (and I got a better job out of defeating that witch...damn I'm good)

Furnished an apartment exactly as I wanted.

Bought a car for $100 - and I've been driving it for 2+ years now.

Sold my truck for good money while it was still a working vehicle.

I have visited my family every year that I have been here. Sometimes they come to me. And sometimes I go to them.

I was named Women's Division Leader at my "house of worship". That was cool.

Broke my ankle.

Took up skiing again (in that order).

I caught a HUGE salmon!

I pulled clams out of the sand.

I held a starfish and tiptoed through Sand Dollar beds.

I went to a parade of Naked Bicylists (three years in a row - I have photos to prove it).

Went to a professional baseball game.

Went to a professional Football game.

I've let Green Frogs sing me to sleep and wake me up in the morning.

I sang to Calliope music.

I rode a Ferry across the Sound.

I drove over the pass in late winter.

I'm going to keep thinking on this. Maybe add to the list. I've done a lot in the last five years. And in remembering all that has occurred lies a happiness that I cannot deny.

Life is good.

The Sound and the Mountain

I've moved lately. In one friend's point of view, I've moved finally. It may have taken a long time from the decision to the execution but I was in no particular hurry to change up the scenery. I liked my apartment. Some of you may remember the day I posted a photo of doing cartwheels in my own new apartment back in 2009. I was happy. For goodness sake, I was thrilled.

I am still thrilled for myself for that move. Thrilled for that WHOLE move - from Wisconsin to Washington - without benefit of a job - with a truck and a 4x8 trailer. That, my friends, was thrilling.

This newest move is thrilling for a whole new and opposite set of reasons. I have traded the wide, fulfilling expanse of the waters of the Puget Sound for the majestic, humbling and empowering force of Mt Rainier. And I have moved in with someone.

I have traded the thrill of knowing for myself, knowing my self, the thrill of proving that I can do it, that I am capable, that I am not a nitwit. I have traded the empowering self-ness that I gained in living by myself with the thrill of bringing my self to this table, the thrill of sharing my self with another person who is fully capable of self-ness as well. I have two feet now, and I know how to use them.

I am living with someone. (Note to self: Cartwheel pictures?).

When will there ever be time for my collection?

I miss writing here. There was a time in my life when I felt there was never enough money. Somehow I just couldn't come up with the funds to do the things I thought I really wanted to do. Now I am finding money has no place in the equation. Now I am finding that I'm just not able to carve out the time to do all the things I think I really want to do. It's not that I make more or less money than before. It seems that the days fly by so much faster and I have collected far too many interests to be able to fully enjoy any of them. I love my collection of interests. I hoard them close to my heart and spend small moments each day saddened that I cannot spend any time with any particular one. These small moments of regret invariably occur as I am racing along to the next new and shiny interest. And the days fly by...

In Consideration of World Peace

I am not and never have been an entrant to any known or unknown beauty pagent. So it is not in my area of expertise to express my supreme wish that we achieve world peace. However, I am not going to let this stop me from expressing this wish.

Today's post comes about as I've been thinking about the joys of "guided meditation". I mean really, it is so cool to have someone speaking gently modulated into your ear. They say wonderful things such as, "Relax" and "Go high above yourself, leave yourself behind". Now I'm sure the last one can be a little unnerving if you have any kind separation anxieties. Regardless, I had a particularly inspiring guided meditation this month that I want to remember. It was a Sharing Your Personal World Peace Meditation (my title, not theirs).

Thing is, that is what the meditation was. It was a guided, imaginative, walk-through of what sharing world peace can feel like.

This is an Oprah and Chopra Meditation. I'm sure you can find it at

In any case - the meditation requests that as you relax with your eyes closed imagine a light eminating from yourself, a brilliant gleaming white light just pushing its clear radiancy from you. Then take this light, hold it in your hands. Know with the depths of your true self that this light, that you now hold in your hands, is world peace. Know that it is truly world peace. Now turn to the soul that is to your left and give to this soul next to you, give them world peace. And as you give them this light, this world peace feel them accept this gift from you. Feel their acceptance and joy in receiving your gift. Enjoy these feelings.

And then, still relaxed and in meditation, turn to your right and accept the brilliant beautiful gift that the soul next to you is giving you. Accept the world peace that is being gifted, given, handed to you. Feel the beauty of this gift. Send your own acceptance and joy in receiving this gift to the soul on your right that has gifted you.

I noticed that as I was in meditation I found myself 'looking up' at the throng of individual souls - as far as I could 'see' - passing glimmering, sparkling beneficient white light among themselves. It was astounding that so many souls were sending out and accepting in this stunning display of world peace.

I love guided meditation. Maybe that is why I like books so much.

The Challenge Winds Down

The Miraculous Relationships Mediation Challenge is winding down. Tomorrow is the last day. I'll be sorry to hear it end. I may not have blogged about each day, as I had intended. But I certainly participated. It was a nice challenge. I love meditations, prayers, quiet/stillness each day. It still has the feel of luxury. I imagine tomorrow's guided meditation will tell each of us what a great job we've done, how miraculous it is to have taken these steps to better our lives, yadd, yadda, yadda. And yes to all that, and thank you. the guided mediation will also touch on keeping up this new habit, now that we've been at it for 21 days. Let's see, what else...if it were smart it would tell us to review the journal entries that we each wrote describing what we wanted from this challenge. From here I remember wanting to feel the freedom and the motivation to write. To me that IS a relationship, an healthy one. I may have to meditate on this yet some more. hahaha

Let your light shine in - day 9

I've made it to day 9 of the great meditation challenge. Today's word of the day was to let your light shine on. It was a nice meditation. I wasn't able to get to the guided meditation until after work. I tell you it all loses a bit of punch when the day is practically done. The meditating itself is getting difficult to get around to. Interesting how I can't seem to find fifteen minutes in the morning to sit quiet. Well, I can but only in spurts. Twenty-one days in a row is proving more difficult than I would have thought. And I like meditating and prayer in general. So, yes I meditated. And yes, I feel the internal light pulsing away just fine. But, I really liked when the meditations struck a chord and then stuck with me all day. It's like carrying fireflies around inside me all day. Hoping tomorrow contains fireflies.

Day 6 - Meditations update - Reminders are good

Today has been an eye opener.  I mistakenly deleted the usual Mediation e-mails that I receive each day.  this lead me to sign in to the website to retrieve the information.  I find I am looking forward to these e-mails.  Hey, hey...on the webiste there is a  bunch of great information.  There is a soundtrack of guided meditation that lasts the entire 15 minutes.  There is a journal area as well.  Today I used the journal and it was such a confirmition of how I feel.  I can only reinterate that things happen for a reason.  It was a great time to find out all the tools available for signing in to a website.

The meditations themselves are still focusing on self and on self-esteem.  The focus is still on the self and feeling well enough to put this good feeling out there to the ones that matter in our lives.  Today I was struck by rememberences of things I have let slide for myself.  I feel I'm getting my mojo back.  I didn't know I had lost it.  I still have dreams to make come true.  I still put those things on the back burner.  I still feel amazingly well when I bring these goals back up to the forefront.  I can tell here that I love reminders.  These last 6 days of mediation have been a great reminder.

Miraculous Challenge Day 5

I think we are at Day 5 of the wonderous Miraculous Relationships Meditation Challenge.  I get e-mails each day that let me know how far along we are.  As I suspected it is difficult to take any block amount of time to meditate, but I do find myself ruminating and contemplating the day's focus several times throughout the day.

Day 4 was actually pretty interesting and amazed me again how true it is that our thoughts become things.  Day 4 the focus was on the usual loving oneself (how can one have caring, loving relationships if one is not caring and loving to oneself?  The answer is - one can't.).  To be fair the focus phrase read, " As I love and honor myself, my relationships blossom."  Well, duh.  I hope you can all see how seriously I am taking all this mumbo-jumbo.  For me it is all so incredibly basic and pitiful that we are still trying to talk ourselves into loving ourselves, and being kind and gentle and keeping the spirit within us always, yadda, yadda, yadda.  AND YET - and yet, I was sitting on the bus thinking my guided thoughts about honoring myself and how this will strengthen my relationships in general (Yes, I tend to stray from every guided path) and pretty much just smiling through it.  The bus reached downtown and I opened my eyes to enjoy the city, as I do every day that I ride the bus.  As I checked my phone for e-mails and texts I found myself, as if I do this every day (because I most certainly do not) sending texts to my son and my daughter and my other daughter just wishing them a good day.  Just sending hugs and signing, Mommy. 

But, it didn't stop there.  As if hypnotized I pulled up my son's girlfriend's number and I wished her a magnificent day and just to let her know I was thinking about her.  And it kept going.  I texted my sister in law, who I haven't spoken to in months, positively months - only because I am a generally thoughtless individual, and I wished her a positively wonderous day.  All the exchanges took the entire ride through downtown to my destination.  Each one felt great, and random and spontaneous.  So me, the one who thinks so very little of guided meditations (but still loves 'em) and feel good phrases - well, this one felt good.

And darn good timing too.  Football pre-season game was last night and my sister in law was at the game.  I got the inside track. 

I Shoulda Put Money On It

I knew it.  I absolutely knew it.  Any grand ideation for wonderful relationships has to start with oneself.  So Yep, here we are at day 2 of the 21 day Meditation Challenge and the focus today is (drum roll)..."Miraculous You". 

Now I'm not going to argue with the wonders of treating yourself well, being kind to yourself, giving yourself permission to be happy.  These are truly wonderful things.  In fact I have no qualms with today's meditation focus at all.  The more I breathe and relax into now the quieter my internal head gets and it is just easier to smile - for no good reason.

But I shoulda put money on it that the "Miraculous relationship" expounded would be the relationship with you.

Miraculous Journey

Today is to start a 21 Day Meditation Challenge.  I don't find it particularly challenging to meditate.  It comes pretty naturally.  The theme of this grand 21 Day Meditation is "Miraculous Relationships".

I've been MIA as a blogger now for at least a year and a half.  And I can confidently state it is because of miraculous relationships that I have been missing from the blogosphere.  When there is life to be experienced, there is very little time to sit and write about it.  Besides, the server on these work computers is so old most of the Blogger features do not work any longer and it makes for a rather messy posting.

Nonetheless, I've been fishing and making sausage, pickling cucumbers and crabbing.  I've been meeting a vast plethora of people and attending graduation parties and visitng casinos.  I've been out for dinner and in for football games.  I've attended baseball games and dug for oysters.  I'm riding motorcycles and towing boats. 

It's all been pretty miraculous considering that I spent my last 8 years blogging and writing and staring out windows of various apartments and back doors.  It's as if life has invited me to join it.  I have no time to write.  I barely have time to DO all the things that have been offered up for me in this life. This is my miracle.

A 21 Day Meditation Journey/Challenge may actually be a challenge.   As far as relationships go, I know I would like to foster the relationships I have already in place; my friends in the mountains (that is a vehicular challenge), my family in New York, the people that have gathered for my daughter's wedding, etc.  Relationships are never perfect, that's why we work at them.  And this is certainly one of those times that the words "work" and "play" may be interchanged at will.

Today's assignment for the challenge is to "Set one intention for your journey toward miraculous relationships."  I am considering spending the meditation time today exploring what that intention will be.  The posibility exists that my intention is simply to continue, to extend the miraculous relationships I already have.  To continue to watch the roots of friendships grow.  I'll be considering this.

Marauders

They will take the gas that is left over from this summer that sits in the shed for the lawnmower.  They will take the roll-over minutes and the upgrade meant for the pay-or, not the use-or.  They will take the car keys. They take the last donut.  They will take up a whole afternoon and a whole paycheck if you let them.

Damn kids.

The Before Photos

The challenge begins today. I promised myself I would start on August 15, and that within 30 days I would have Katie's Quilt finished. Yesterday I took the table cloth off the dining table. I cleared the area of the other half-baked projects, old mail, expired coupons, and last weeks wilting flowers. Last night I replaced two lightbulbs in the ceiling fixture. (we go through a lot of lightbulbs around here). This morning I opened the banker's box that holds all of The Project that is Katie's Quilt and laid out the parts and pieces. I think...we are ready for a thirty day push to the finish line. In real-time I should be posting finished quilt photos on September 13.

Finished (adjective); completed or perfected in all details. Quilted, bound and delivered.

A quick recap here - I started this quilt the spring Katie (otherwise known as Thing One) graduated high school. I take that back, I start this quilt that previous fall making the pattern. Kate chose a quilt that did not include a pattern with the photo in the book.

Let's see that was...2007(?). The quilt was supposed to be done and presented to her upon her high school graduation in 2008. She upheld her end and graduated. Me, well, I must be on the short bus. I'm a little slow.

The pattern is rather involved, maybe even confusing at times. As my defense to keep things straight I constructed the quilt in miniature using paper. I came up with this paper model to keep me on track. The style of quilt block is a Twisted Log Cabin. Kate chose the Equilateral Triangle. Under the kitchen counter, here, is the pattern (you see it as it is today, after several years of referring to it.)

I think we should consider these the "Before" photos. Even if they are really the "Mid-Way" photos. When I'm done posting here on the computer I will be sewing. As I type this right now, I have a marked feeling of procrastination.

I expect to be posting updates daily. There's only 29 to go.

Maybe just a list today

I've started a couple entries now and somehow nothing is of any particular interest; to me at any rate.

An overview of all I've written and deleted would read:

*Quit smoking, again. Thank you goes to a good friend that blew through town in July. Face and complexion are clearing. Smile is genuine.
*Mom's surgery went well. She is wondering why I get so worked up. I'm wondering why parents don't behave.
*Work is going well. I truly have no complaints. None. I think I should have complaints. That is my only complaint.
*Financially I'm still on track. (I am surprised to be spending so much on food & groceries. I mean, like, twice what I think I "should" spend on keeping myself fed. Will work to bring that down.) Still, I spent less than I made and I sent that off to pay down my loan from May. It is now a source of pride to be taking care of that.
*Football season is back on.
*Life is good.

* Oh and - I really like Gore Vidal's Lincoln. Chatty, opinionated characters, gossipy. It's a delightful read (so far). Did it have to be such a fat book? It lifts like a doorstop.

No problems

Funny, I have no problems to speak of. This makes it difficult to speak at all, really. Even changing my frustrations into fairytales has peetered out. I'm not all that frustrated.

Moments of note: I have found that my fingernails grow rather quickly. I have to clip my nails every other day or so to play my guitar. My fingers are finally getting strong enough to hold the strings firm against the frets, but I still haven't played any tune I used to play all the way through. It's just not holding my attention.

Moments of note: I have found that I do make enough money to pay everyone back. And put away a couple bucks a month to save my own hide later. I really like that free sofware program from Intuit, Mint.com. Two months after I started using it the information is priceless. I may not be stellar at money management, but at least I can find averages and high months versus low months and all that helps me figure how to be better at managing things through next payday. Every payday gets easier.

Moments of note: Boy, I like my job! This is keeping me busy. I didn't know it was time to go home today. My boss stopped in to say goodnight and told me to wrap it up. I know what I'm doing is helping someone that needs it. These someone's are wonderful good at saying thank you. I get thanked for doing my job. Amazing stuff.

I have no complaints. I have no frustrations. Nothing. Wow. I hope I remember days like these later. I hope I remember how boring it is. And hey, hallelujah for boring...for this evening.

So, are we gonna get Football this August, or what?

A little workout

A little workout fills my soul. Tennis lessons started this evening. I feel so much better for having batted around a ball for an hour. This is about as good as meditation gets. No need to focus on breathing, or calming the "monkey mind". Oh, hell no. Concentrate on getting that fuzzy yellow speeding ball back over the net.

For clarity and focus, there is no zen master that can clear one's mind as fast as a speeding yellow ball coming right at you. There is no mantra that would dare to compete with the focus necessary to smack that speeding ball back over the net. Everything else in the day falls away without willing it away. I should have been a professional athlete so I can live on the spiritual plane of non-thought. If I could just get the ball over the net I may just reconsider that.