Map of the World

When I was in college, we had a tradition of senior will night, a time close to the end of the year when all the seniors in the house would will their belongings to underclasswomen. As a sophomore, I was willed a map of Europe by one senior who had spent her junior year abroad in Switzerland. She knew that I was headed for Scotland the following year for my junior year abroad so she left me her map. She had had her map up on her wall all year with stick pins in it for all the places she had been on her year abroad, so when I received it, it still had her pinholes in it marking her journeys. I was tremendously touched by her gift and reassured by it; it was a tangible symbol of the possibility of making this venture for myself, and returning from it with new stories and new experiences, and maybe some pinholes of my own to add to her map.

I had a soft spot for maps anyway, being a bear with very little directional sense (see blog title). Maps for me were a secret weapon and I believed there was magic in all the little blue river lines, crinkly mountains, different-sized dots for different-sized cities. Whenever I had to drive anywhere, I would listen politely to the directions given me, then go directly to my map and plan out my own route in great detail. When I did make my journey to Scotland for the year, and from there out into the rest of western Europe, I tried to get a map of every place I went. Those became my tokens of success.

Recently a much younger friend was moaning about how she wished she could just stop everything and just figure things out. If she could only have some time to figure things out. I had been listening, I confess, with some irritation, hearing a lot of "oh, poor me", but when she said that I had a little flash of compassion that trailed along with my own memories of feeling exactly that way, oh about 20 years ago. Having that sense that somehow, if I could just stop long enough to plan things out, I could create my own map to make my life clear from this point forward. There would be no more confusion, or feeling like events were somehow overtaking me, or that I had only limited control over my direction. No, I would have a map! Something I could actually hold and refer to that would have little lines and labels on it helping me find my way. I would never feel lost again.

It was only as time went on, and I just kept living my life and finding my way without the map, making pinholes for new experiences and labels for places I didn't want to visit again, and somehow, without ever actually being able to stop everything to figure it all out, figuring most of it out anyway, that I realized that that's how it actually works for everyone. Now all these years later I wouldn't want to stop my life and get off for a while. Even when things are hard I know I carry my own map to get me through. And mostly, I know I have found the place I want to call home, and the places I want to keep exploring, the people to share it with, and I don't really need to stop everything because I know I have what I need. I also know now that I have the resources available to me to cope with whatever comes, even if it turns everything upside down.

Listening to my friend though, I wished I could somehow will her my old map with all my pinholes, to show her that she will find her way and that everything will be all right even if she can't find a way to stop the world. She will find her way like we all do, creating her own map and her own set of directions.

copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles

After Long Silence

Lots of times I sat down to write in the last 2 months and found I had nothing really to say at the moment. Good thing I'm not writing on deadline! I'm still not sure what I have to say right now as this year ends. Actually as I sit here and think about it, silence seems appropriate as we come to the end of this year's deep dark and begin the climb into the light of the sun.

We're heading into what our country names the new year, and yet other people give that honor to other times. For myself, I've always found the descent into darkness at Samhain (Halloween) to be a more appropriate time to shed the old and prepare for the new. But one thing that has always struck me about pagan reckonings of time (and frustrated my Scorpio desire for something with borders) is that every season and every celebration is not so much about itself captured in a moment, but about the transition happening at that time. Always moving from something to something else. Even as you grasp at something to celebrate and honor, it's already gone, moving to the next thing.

Tis the season of shoulds. Yes, at this time of year we move directly from the shoulds of Christmas into the shoulds of New Year. Now is when we set our compass (and our course) for the future and yet it strikes me as a particularly bad time to do this. Swept up in a storm of everything we ought to do, everything we have to do, everything we really should do, how can we possibly get our bearings and find true North? Maybe using the guilt of everything we didn't do? I don't think so.

So maybe it really is time for silence. A walk in the cold to listen. What gift does this particular shift of season have for you? What gift do you need to bring into the light of the new sun? Where will this year take you? Let it speak to you.

copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles

FREE Summer Yoga in the Park for Everyone

That's what my little sandwich board sign says and three days a week during the summer I pick up my sign at a little store and carry it across the street and into a little public park overlooking the water. The park is at the north end of a very famous public market and many tourists make their way through the market then into the park to take in the view and take a few pictures of the water and Mount Rainier if they're lucky. Local people spend time there, too, although typically they are local people that the city would prefer that tourists not have to encounter: men sleeping on benches, people making quick exchanges while glancing furtively around, a woman singing to herself while she staggers around the park in too large pants kicking garbage cans.

This is where I brought my yoga for 2 months this summer. I love teaching yoga and I have to admit that part of what I love is the part where I get to stand up in the front of the class and be the teacher. I don't think this is a bad thing, but I do think it's possibly a dangerous thing. The possibility exists of loving the role to the exclusion of what's being taught and who is there to learn. Teaching in the park stripped me right back down to basics.

I brought my little sign with me and set it up. Then I'd fuss a little with the tape and the business cards and my belongings, the placement of the sign. Eventually I'd run out of little distracting things to do and there it would be, the requirement that I just begin. And so I would begin, grounding through my feet, connecting through the top of my head with the sky, forming a circle of energy around myself. But not too tight a circle! "Come Join Me!" says my sign and "Come join me!" must be the message I send out into the park. This can't be my turtle self doing my yoga practice safely in my shell; no, this has to be my soft and fragile human self at play, broadcasting my message out into the world, "I'm all alone and I am vulnerable out here but it's so beautiful and so good to be alive here. You will be safe if you join me. I will be safe if you join me. Together we will no longer be alone."

Then I breathe: Breathing in I raise my arms up, breathing out I bring palms together and draw them down my center. As I breathe, my mental chatter of fear, fear, fear clatters itself to a close and I begin to feel the air around me, hear the laughing and the seagulls, see the water responding to whatever the weather is today. I think I could just breathe for an hour here in this park and I would be the better for it.

Some days I do my whole practice, people come and they go, some talk to me, some take my picture, but mostly I remain alone. I am sad that I've been left alone for the hour and my energy slows but I am still safe and I am okay. Nothing bad has happened. Most days though the miracle happens. Someone stops and wants to join me. The woman on a short trip to Seattle who extends her visit and misses her plane and joins me twice in the park. The man who has been on a fishing boat for many months, but the boat has broken down and he might not have a job and he might not get paid and he doesn't have a place to live but he'd like to do some Sun Salutations with me. The Latino worker who spends his mornings standing on a corner waiting for some construction firm to pick him up and give him work and doesn't really know anything about yoga but it looks like it would be helpful. He comes again and says not only did the yoga make him feel better but it must have brought him luck–he got a job! The Black homeless woman who joins in behind me, so quietly that I don't realize she's there until I turn around. The big guy from Philly who's heard about this yoga stuff and wants to get a little more flexible...could I just lead him through a little? The man who brings me a green peach and sings for an hour to me and my student; he even takes requests for our background music. The little man from Iran in his suit and his dress shoes with the most radiant smile I've ever seen. Still smiling, he tells me how very very sad he is, that his wife is ill and he just wanders the city with no one to talk with because he doesn't speak much English. The floaty woman who drifted into Seattle for a month and the current she caught happened to bring her to this park this morning, and isn't it an interesting coincidence that she's been looking for outdoor meditative movement opportunities? The couple from Pennsylvania who don't join me, but who come over at the end of my session to thank me for my work and tell me that they wish they had something similar back home. I can hope that what they felt was my desire to offer this practice and this teaching as a gift to the city I love and the people who populate it.

Little connections, brief encounters, and every one of them so very important. Not allowed to hide under the title of teacher, my being cries out, "Is anyone out there? Am I alone here? I don't want to be lost and falling into nothing!" These moments call back to me, "We are all alone and we are all falling into nothing but we are here together and together we are large and spacious and there is nowhere for us to fall and no way to get lost. Be calm. You are safe." We are safe together.

copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles

Mind/Body Battle

I had a good chat this morning with a guy down in the park where I teach an outdoor yoga class. I had noticed him–note to anyone doing an outdoor practice: it's always good to stay aware of your surroundings!–with his coffee and cigarette, standing at the overlook watching the water. He approached me when I sat on a bench, told me he did yoga for about 4 months and it had really made a change in him for the better, then he went overseas with the military for several years, and when he returned, he just kind of went crazy wanting all the stuff he hadn't had for so long–beer and cigarettes and tv. He talked with regret about how unhappy his body is now with the choices he's making and how he's trying to figure out how to change.

We did an interesting exercise back at my yoga teacher training. Yoga works with the idea that each of us incorporates 5 koshas, or bodies. There's the physical body, the mental/emotional body, the breath/energy body, the witness body and the bliss body. They're all present all the time, and because of that we are all already living in bliss, but a lot of times we don't realize it. Thus, the yoga practice to help us become aware of it. In this exercise we split into groups of 4; in each group one person became the physical body, one the mind, one the prana or energy, and one the witness.

So often in our culture some part of ourselves becomes the enemy, the bad one. So, we have the bad body–too fat, too flabby, too weak, too wobbly, too pale, too wimpy, too skinny, too misshapen, too hairy, too....well, you get it, you probably have your own litany. Or we have the bad mind–too up and down, too all over the place, too unfocused, too obsessive, too emotional, too stupid, too...yeah, okay, you get that one, too. Worst case, we've got both: bad body bad mind. Both of them have to be overcome, whipped into shape. Often our workouts are punishments, the critical trainer in our heads on patrol for any mistake. Our meals are overlaid with do's and don't's that have nothing to do with pleasure. Our minds have to be constantly monitored or they just drift off into la-la land. Every emotional reaction has to be rated. (One of my personal alter egos is someone I've named "Stop That!" because that's all she ever says in my head. She tries to censor not words and actions but every thought.)

Back to the exercise... In my group I was the body so I showed up first, quickly followed by Prana. Prana and I had a great time together, just roaming, exploring, no thinking, no judgment, no analysis, no real direction or purpose, just the physical acts of moving, breathing, sensing, resting. Then mind showed up. Now I have to admit, despite enjoying the use of my mind in my life, I tend to think of it as something that has to be overcome, that's in the way. I'm not sure I even realized I had this belief until we did the exercise. Oh, I knew I had lots of body issues, but my beliefs about the mind were buried a little deeper. But you know, when Mind showed up things certainly got more complicated and more tiring, but Mind was also fun! He was curious and witty and interesting to talk to and intriguingly complicated. Who knew? In our little exercise, things weren't so great when the 3 of us worked at cross purposes, but when we were all in tune with each other, it was fantastic!

Back to guy in the park... Seems to me that this is really how it's supposed to work for us. Here's this guy, and his body isn't happy, it doesn't feel good with what he's doing to it, and in his mind he's recognized it and has a sense of the direction he needs to go. As far as I can see, he's in great shape! His body and his mind are in agreement; if he can witness that, and really see it for what it is, and allow his energy to follow that line he will transform himself by being present for this moment. If he drops into bad body (I'm too fat, my ribs hurt, I'm out of shape) or bad mind (I can't believe how stupid I was to allow this to happen, I know smoking's bad for me, what's wrong with me?) he'll be delayed in his desire. Body and mind just are what they are; it's our beliefs and our stories about our bodies and our minds that delay us.

copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles

Opportunities

I had a wonderful geometry teacher in high school. He would dress up in crazy costumes, and sing little math ditties for us, and though I loved math already, I loved it more that year. We were tested or quizzed every Thursday but they were never called tests. No, Mr. Rhoades always called them opportunities.

Earlier this week I was thinking that I needed to write another entry, and probably this time on getting lost, rather than yoga or meditation. I took myself back to a couple of times that I was lost and walked myself back through the experience.

The first memory was of being in Venice. I was in Venice kind of by mistake, having gotten on the wrong train car; the train split sometime in the night and here I was in Venice. I had intended to get there sometime but had planned to spend a little time. Instead, I now had to make the choice to either spend only one day in Venice, then board another train, or do something different and watch my later travel plans unravel. Since I was planning to meet up with another traveller in a particular place at a particular time one week from now, with no way to contact her and change our plans (these were the days before cell phones), I decided to make a short visit to Venice.

I wandered happily through the little streets and alleys, over bridges and around corners, map in hand. I found everything I wanted to see and then needed to make my way back to the station as the fog rolled in and dusk came over the city. As I began to pick my way back to the train, I realized that the map was of no use; many street names and bridges were missing and soon I was hopelessly lost. Finally, as I started to panic, I found the station–almost 3 hours early for my train but too afraid to venture back out again and risk losing myself in the mist.

My second memory is from much later in life. I had taken a bus to an area somewhat familiar to me for a meeting. I found the building and the meeting, we met, we finished, and I strode out the door into the night with my head full of what we had talked about and eager to catch the bus and get home. Unfortunately, it was a different door from the one I had walked in, and on a different side of the building. When I strode out into the night, I strode out in the wrong direction. A few blocks later, I began to wonder what was going on because the area wasn't looking familiar to me. I wasn't exactly sure what had gone wrong, so instead of immediately going back in the direction I had come from, I turned a corner and walked a little in that direction. That wasn't right either and, now worried because it was dark and I didn't want to miss my bus and there was no one to ask because it was a residential neighborhood, I finally managed to work my way back to the building, figure out what had happened, and retrace my steps along the correct route and find the bus stop.

In both cases, what I was really struck by as I ruefully relived the experiences, was the tremendous flow and sequence of emotions that ran through me each time in quick succession. In Venice I was annoyed at myself for being on the wrong train, then accepting, good-humored and decisive, then pleased and relaxed, curious and engrossed, then complacent followed quickly by anxious, confused and worried, a little frightened, then thrilled and relieved when I found the station, but then kind of irked that I had to wait so long and discouraged, and finally just plain bored. After my meeting, I was feeling competent and absorbed, then anxious and confused, a little frightened again and annoyed with myself, relieved when I found the building again and ashamed this time of my incompetence, and finally just very happy to be on the bus on the way home.

And now I'm right back to yoga again. Well, you knew it had to happen. Part of yoga practice is self-study, and I realized that getting lost had provided me with many opportunities for that practice. Because in each case, nothing was really happening, nothing was really changing, but my mental and emotional state was in constant, chaotic flux based on how I was perceiving my experience. I can't even really look back at those memories and label them as "good" or "bad" because I can see that they are just experiences, value-neutral, just stuff that happened, stuff I did, choices I made, and not even terribly interesting as story material. Except that the memories are strong. Probably because I remember them for what they were: opportunities.

copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles

Stretching your Legs

The other day in one of my classes I got that inevitable question: "So, what exactly is the purpose of Downward-Facing Dog? What does it do?" Probably the best answer to the question is, beats me...what's it do for you? Not many students appreciate a teacher being smart ass, even when that answer is perfectly true.

I knew that wasn't the desired response though so I gave it my best, describing how Dog was at once a power pose, requiring strength throughout the body, that it focused attention on both arms and legs bearing weight, that it was an inversion, with the head lower than the heart, and a forward bend, and in a way a back bend as well, and that it worked to stretch the whole back of the body, and that it could serve as a point of reference during practice by returning to it again and again to observe any changes.

Mostly what she gathered from that is that it's good for stretching out the backs of the legs. Which it is. But actually if what you want to do is stretch your legs there are better, easier ways to do it. Dog gives you too much at once to think about for it to be the most effective leg stretcher out there.

What I actually think about Dog, and any other pose for that matter, is that it provides a context within which to view your own death. You can stretch your legs at any gym or any street corner before you begin your jog. But the secret of Dog is that stretching your legs doesn't really matter at all because we're all going to die. With or without tight hamstrings it's going to happen. Stretching your legs at a gym obscures the reality of your death. You can tell yourself that you're making healthier choices by stretching and therefore will live longer and therefore don't really need to think about death at all. Death is something that happens to other people.

Stretching your legs in a yoga class or practice though eventually will lead you to observe the reality of your own death. Because it draws you in to observe the reality of your physical existence with all of its possibilities and all its limitations; observing the tidal movement of the breath and recognizing that eventually the tide flows out for good. Why else would we practice Corpse Pose at the end of class except to practice for our future? We die at the end of every class, only to return again to breathing and movement, return to life and the opportunity to live the life we choose to live. We get to practice dying so that we can live fresh, because we don't get the opportunity to practice life. We choose and we move and we breathe...and we live. Maybe with loose hamstrings this time.

copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles

Summer Reading

I know summer's almost gone, but I don't have a lot to say at the moment. On the other hand, this year I've read many books which have had a great deal to say, and which have been both informative and transformative. So, I thought I'd share. Here are a few of my favorite, most recent, and most unforgettable reads:

Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness by Sharon Salzberg
Meditations from the Mat: Daily Reflections on the Path of Yoga by Rolf Gates and Katrina Kenison
How to Want What You Have: Discovering the Magic and Grandeur of Ordinary Existence by Timothy Miller
Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder
Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally by Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon
The Wisdom of Yoga: A Seeker's Guide to Extraordinary Living by Stephen Cope
Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life by Marshall Rosenberg

Other than maybe too much of a fondness for long subtitles (a trend?), these books are gems and well worth a read. This is absolutely NOT a comprehensive list; only a list of books I've read very recently that have struck my fancy and found their way into my permanent library-quite a rare distinction. Are other lists forthcoming? Maybe. In the meantime check these out.

Effort and Surrender

Yeah, I know...I'm obsessing a little over this topic. ENOUGH ALREADY!!! But...I think it's worth a little obsession. I keep thinking I'm going to create a yoga class with this title. That's really what happens in a class after all, the effort of doing the poses followed by the surrender of Savasana. I'm not sure though that the lines are that clear cut.

I was thinking about this topic for this particular entry and already thinking about how it relates to willpower, and some misconceptions I think most of us share about what that means. And then I got lost.

No big surprise, given the name of this blog, but I haven't actually written much lately about getting lost because it hasn't happened to me for a while. Apparently, if you live some place for 17 years and spend lots of that time walking and taking the bus all over, eventually you're simply guaranteed to acquire some sense of direction. But if you're like me, you are still quite capable, thank you very much, of getting hopelessly lost.

Here's the story: I went to teach a lesson in a part of town where I've a)lived for many years, b)worked for many years, c)wandered and socialized and hung out and gone to events for many years, and (here's the best part) at a home where I've been three (3!!!) different times recently. I couldn't find it. And what was interesting about it was that I was in complete denial that this was even possible, so in my head I was having a little conversation that went like this, "This can't be happening. But it is. But it can't be. But it is. But it can't be..." and so on. And then as I realized that it was indeed happening and that I was now late for my lesson I added in a little refrain, "I'm an idiot," to the rest of my litany. (Isn't that interesting? I now have a hate mantra, as in the Peril of Pigeon Pose, and an idiot mantra.) Eventually though I had to realize that the chatter going on in my head was not even vaguely useful, tune it out, surrender to the ridiculous situation and call the woman I was going to meet.

And I think that's exactly what happens with what we call willpower. Often people use the term "mind over matter", but I think the truth of it is body over mind. It's that initial umph to dive down deeper underneath the mind's chatter to access the body wisdom of a situation. So I think about days when swimming was part of my after work routine. I would leave work feeling tired and just wanting to get home and park myself in front of the tv with a nice cup of tea. In my head, this is what was playing, "I'm really tired, really REALLY tired, I don't want to swim, my suit is wet already and I don't want to put it on, it takes too long, I'll get home too late, I don't want to swim, if I go home I can exercise in front of the tv, that would be just as good..." and on and on. In my body what was happening was this: I leave work and turn my body in the direction of the pool, I walk down the street until I get to the pool, I walk inside and pay the fee, I go in the locker room and change clothes, I shower, I get in the pool...and suddenly my mind has shut off its litany because I'm here already, I'm swimming in the clean cool water, slicing up and down the lanes, enjoying the pleasure of moving my body. My body knows that this is what I need and my mind doesn't get a vote.

I've read that discipline in yoga equals feet on mat or butt on meditation cushion and I think there's a wisdom there for any venture. All you need is that tiny push of effort to dive under the mind and the body's momentum will carry you if you're willing to surrender to it. Doing the poses themselves isn't the effort; that tiny little push to arrive is.

I had a yoga teacher who taught us how to do what he called "whine-asana". It's a very important yoga pose and it goes something like this: Plant your feet hip's width apart. Turn your palms out and inhale your arms up to reach up overhead. Then recite, "I don't want to do yoga! It's too hard! I'm too tired. I don't like this!" Tone of voice is very important–make sure you draw out the syllables and get them nice and whiny! You can bend your knees and bounce a little to really emphasize the whine. Try it sometime when you hear some negative self-talk going on in your head. Put it out there out loud on the breath with the body engaged. Give yourself some love and empathy but don't take yourself too seriously. Life is ridiculous and grand and aren't we lucky to be here?

copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles

Don't Abandon Ship

I've been pondering those darn yoga sutras again lately. Oh, and what might those be, you ask? Good question! Written long, long ago and commonly attributed to Patanjali, they are some pithy Sanskrit phrases that basically lay it all out there: What is that yoga stuff anyway? (Sounds better in Sanskrit.)

The tiny, tiny bit that's written about the physical part of yoga says, in a nutshell, that the posture should be steady and comfortable. Huh. Not something people often attribute to yoga pretzel poses. Another way to interpret it is to abide with what is.

I've been thinking about that in connection with my obsession with surrender. Surrender is one of those big trigger concepts for me, something that feels really juicy and important, so I work with the concept a lot. One of the ways I like to work with it is to try and tease it away from other concepts that can feel similar sometimes but which take me to a whole different, and not so helpful, landscape. Abandon is one of those other concepts.

There are times when the two feel quite similar. When you throw yourself into something with abandon, isn't that the same as surrendering? I think there's a little edge there, a tiny separation, because I think that releasing yourself into whatever may come for me denotes that there's a part of me that has remained behind. Abandoned ship, so to speak. And, it has finally occurred to me, that I have BIG abandonment issues, so how can it possibly be a good thing for me to stand on the brink, hurl myself over the edge and wave goodbye? This is way bigger than wandering off in the wrong direction with all parts accounted for; this is getting really LOST.

For myself, I see this most clearly in relationships (of course). You know that feeling...you're crazy about someone, and there's something that feels good, maybe a little risky, but what the heck, what's life all about anyway? So you release yourself to go there (yesyesyes...ABANDON!), and then, oops! Bad idea and now you're hurting, so now there's yet ANOTHER part of yourself beating up on the first part. Now, you're telling yourself you're an idiot. And the big YOU (please refer back to prior discussions on the inner witness!) says oh boy, I'm out of here and walks away. Arrrgh!!! Abandonment!!!

Here's the tough part; this is where surrender comes in. What happens if the inner witness hangs around and does what it does best–witness without judgment and with curiosity and compassion? In other words, you now surrender to the whole experience and ride it out with all hands on deck. No one gets left behind or thrown to the wolves and we ride through the storm together. Abide with what is, and find a way to be steady and comfortable on the way.

copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles

What do you want?

When I was a kid we went to a local shoe store that had a real retired fire truck inside. The shoe store was only kids' shoes and the fire truck was for our entertainment while we waited for our siblings to finish fitting or for our mothers to finish paying. We all coveted that fire truck and we all believed that the best possible place to play was in the driver's seat holding the wheel.

In all of our trips to that store over the years I don't ever remember sitting in that seat. Oh, I loved that fire engine, but I'm not sure if I ever really touched it. I remember being up close and looking at it and longing for it–it was BIG, it was RED, it was BEAUTIFUL– but I don't know if I ever actually played on it.

I haven't thought about that truck in years, but I have been thinking recently about desire and poof! the truck appeared in my memory, still BIG and RED and BEAUTIFUL. Sigh. I also remember doing a photo shoot in high school with some firefighters and their truck. Honestly, I don't think I cared one way or the other about the firefighters, but their truck!! Well... I think for me doing that photo shoot fulfilled a long held desire for the truck of my childhood and for the opportunity I lost back then.

My last post was about keeping a promise to myself; this one is about desire denied. Not denied by outside forces: no, that truck was there in that store specifically to be played on by children. I denied myself. And when I consider the reasons I can come up with all kinds of things: there were too many other kids, I didn't really want to anyway, I was too old and mature for that, we didn't really have time, I'd do it another time. But I think the truth was, I was scared of the unknown and, even at that age, I had developed the belief that desire was bad and that having it was wrong and speaking it was even worse.

What do you want? What is your desire? Speak it at least to yourself, climb up on that truck and ride off in the direction of the blaze.

copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles

Rewards

I had one of those great ideas the other day. You know the kind, where in the cool of the evening hours when you're winding down for the day, you suddenly have this trickle of a thought of something that would be a really excellent thing to do on a daily basis involving early mornings and a lot of discipline. And the best part about it from your perspective in the evening is that it wouldn't start until tomorrow. So you have this great opportunity to feel all glowing with health and noble intentions but you don't have to actually do anything about it yet.

The tricky part comes the next morning when you just can't quite make it out of bed so now you feel bad about yourself. But that's not what this post is about. This post is about what happens when you DO get out of bed the next morning and follow through with your great idea.

Last week I had the great idea of getting up early, walking the mile down a bluff close to my house to the beach, and doing my yoga practice there to start my day. So I did and you know it really is a great way to start the day. On my second day of practice as I was walking to the beach I heard a big thump next to me, like something big had fallen out of a tree nearby. I started to walk over to investigate and suddenly only a couple of feet away from me an eagle swooped down out of the sky to scoop up the fish he had dropped (thus, the thump) and then flew away, pursued by a flock of hungry crows. I walked further down the beach to a nice sandy spot where 3 great blue herons kept me company during my practice. In honor of my bird companions for the day I practiced Heron and Eagle poses. I would have done Crow but wasn't sure I could balance on my hands in sand.

I don't go down there every single morning. For one thing, I can't do a really complete yoga practice in sand. And for another, I don't really want to always get up that early. But the times that I go I am rewarded greatly by a feeling of physical well-being, by a connection with the larger world, by the peacefulness of sand and sea, by the company of great beings who share the world with us. And most of all, by the knowledge that I have kept my promise to myself, made in my intention in the cool of evening.

Reward yourself. Keep a promise to yourself.

copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles

You are a Superhero...Yes you are!

One of the most helpful exercises I've ever done for a class was to write a story about myself as a superhero. Once you get over giggling about what color tights you might wear, or blushing over your superhero name, you can find a sense of expansion and play in this exercise. And no cheating! You have to actually write the story, not just sort of think about it!

What is interesting about it is that you take characteristics you already have, or characteristics you almost have and would like to make more of, and then make them larger than life–heroic, in fact. Here's a tiny excerpt from my story, as I walk the streets of the city as the Queen of Calm:

In the station, she quiets herself and unfolds a piece of her, opening out into a quiet grotto, dark with moss and dappled light. She allows the people around her to come in, bring their anxieties and release them into the quiet dark before moving on into the day. And everywhere she goes she tells people the stories of their beauty. A story of weakness becomes a story of strength in her eyes, a story of fear in her becomes a story of courage. A story of loss becomes a story of spaciousness, a story of pain becomes a story of comfort. She walks in beauty and beauty is what she sees.

So what exactly does this accomplish? I know that my story allowed me to be tender towards myself, and to see myself in a different light as a noble figure in my own story. It became part of the dream I have of how I want to live my life and how I want people to experience me. It has become part of my work ethic and of how I like to teach. And it gives me inspiration and shows me what my life can be, how I can be satisfied at the end of the day and feel renewed in my purpose.

So...what's your story?

copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles

In the Beginning

Beginner's mind is a term that is often thrown around yoga/meditation/Buddhist circles and I've been thinking about it a lot lately in relation to what I've been writing here. For all the years that I've taken yoga classes, and despite the fact that I now teach it, I always took beginning yoga classes. I never really had a goal around yoga; I just liked how it made me feel. One year my teacher asked me why I wasn't signing up for the more advanced classes. She said she thought I'd fit in fine with them and encouraged me to move up. I signed up for two sessions and hated them. All of a sudden yoga wasn't giving me that special feeling I associated with it; it was making me feel yucky. Handstand without support? No thank you...it just made me feel bad that I couldn't do it. I went right back to beginning classes after that. I had realized that I didn't want to do my yoga practice to work my way through levels, or to please or impress anyone else. The levels, I saw, were an illusion and a distraction. I was happy to be a beginner forever.

My teacher's training actually carried me into a different level of ability just because of the sheer volume of hours spent doing it. This time, my beginner's mind manifested as an ability to play and have fun with the poses. The ability to do them wasn't the point; the point was the sheer joy in trying. However, I did notice that my emotional state went up and down, up and down, just like always. My improved ability really didn't substantially change my feeling about myself or my body. My self was still there, just as it had been in the beginning.

If that's the case, then why bother? Now I think that beginner's mind is something that you can learn to carry with you into any situation, and doing yoga helps me learn how to do that. Traveling alone helped me do that, too. In both cases I have the opportunity to watch my thoughts and emotions rise and fall, every time it's new, each ecstatic rise, each depressing drop–it always feels important! If I ride that wave too completely I can lose my sense of direction. But if I hold the waves in my beginner's mind, I can feel that my true being, filled with curiosity and wonder, is a still point. Every wave is new, but it has echoes of past waves, and I know there will be more waves in the future. I can be really interested in the waves but my real self is re-created whole and complete in every moment, full of every possibility, safe from any storm. I know that I'm not actually going anywhere at all: I AM everywhere.

copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles

Letting go, Starting over

This weekend I was putting the finishing touches on a gift for the young son of a close friend who died about a year and a half ago. I thought my grieving for her was pretty much done, but, as I worked, I found myself weeping. And since I was hormonal and thus prone to excess, I allowed my grief to extend out and encompass EVERYONE I've ever lost. At first, I was focused on those I've lost to death, then I realized I was also grieving for people I've lost in other ways but who are still around, still breathing and living their lives, some of them in fairly close proximity to me. Letting go is clearly something I need to work on right now.

In recent months Buddha's Five Remembrances have been popping up in various ways for me, and after this weekend I thought, well, maybe I need to take a look at those. The Five Remembrances are basically: 1)Getting old is my nature and can't be escaped, 2)Getting sick is my nature and can't be escaped, 3)Dying is my nature and can't be escaped, 4)Change and loss in those I love and care for is the nature of things and can't be escaped, and 5)I have only my actions to stand on. So this morning I meditated on that for a while before moving on to my lovingkindness meditation. And the words of a teacher came to me in meditation, "If you find your mind wandering, bring it back lovingly and know that this is the heart of meditation–the practice of letting go and starting over."

I've heard that a hundred times (maybe more but my mind was wandering at the time so I don't remember) but this was the first time I really heard it, and realized that yoga and meditation are actually a way of consciously practicing being alive. Of course, we ARE being alive in every moment, but by rehearsing for it, we can get better at doing it in real life. In every breath we let go of the old air and start over with a new breath. With every step we let go of the earth beneath us and reach through the unknown to find it again.

It's almost impossible to stay that focused for very long on such tiny endings and beginnings, but we have them on a grander scale as well. From pre-school to my last year of high school, I attended 8 different schools and learned a lot about letting go and starting over, and got pretty good at it. My track record isn't so great when it comes to letting go of people and relationships; once you're in my life I want you there FOREVER. Sort of like the Hotel California... In running my own business, I've discovered that I have to be very nimble on my feet to be ready to let go of something that isn't working and start over with something else. My partner and I had one summer when we got to experience lots of letting go when raw sewage spewed over everything in our basement; suddenly, the question of whether to let something go became a lot clearer. Practice, practice, practice...

The other thing that I realized is that you can't have much of a gap between letting go and starting over in meditation. When your mind wanders, you bring it back. If you spend time beating yourself up over wandering, guess what? You're wandering again and you have to bring it back and start over. If you start thinking about why your mind wandered in the first place, you're wandering again and you have to bring it back and start over. If you start thinking about how much better you're going to be at this tomorrow, you're wandering again and you have to bring it back and start over. Now this can sound like some kind of crazy-making version of hell, but the miracle part of this process is realizing that you actually have an infinite number of chances to start over. Nothing you've done before and nothing you're going to do later takes that away from you. Those opportunities are always there and they never go away. In life as in meditation. You know how to let go and start over; you've done it already so many times, if you're breathing, you're an expert. Every moment is your opportunity to do it again.

So, when I think of my dead friend, I breathe in, I breathe out, I miss her, I remember her, I let her go and I start over with my living in the next moment.

copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles

Where is the Edge of Possibility?

I have a little card I got from a co-worker years ago. It says, "It is not the easy or convenient life for which I seek, but the life lived to the edge of all my possibility." Not sure who wrote it but the card is up on my mantle now. It makes me kind of nervous.

I remember when I first got it I thought, wow, what a great thought...and yet, do I really want to live life to the edge of all my possibility? That sounds kinda hard. And maybe like a lot of work. And an easy and convenient life sounds really...well, nice.

I've kept the card for all these years, and, for all these years, it's always made me nervous. Sort of like it's looking at me, expectantly. And I always look back at it and say, no way, not yet anyway. I find it kind of interesting that I've actually kept the thing, given how uncomfortable I am with it.

I remember when I graduated from college I basically spent all my time when I wasn't working holed up in my apartment reading voraciously. All those books that I craved during school but didn't have time for because I was too busy reading the required books and writing papers and doing projects and angsting with my friends. I felt a little guilty but frankly that's all I wanted to do. I felt resentful when something from outside intruded into my little nest and took me away from my reading. It took me a while (umm, years really) to feel like I had read my fill and was willing to give up some of my reading time for other pleasures. Honestly, at the time, given a choice between reading and sex, reading would win hands down.

When I think about that time now, it seems to me that it was a reasonable reaction to the transition from childhood to adulthood. The childhood had its own fairly large set of pressures and stresses and really seemed to involve a lot of effort. And I think that I just wanted to take a little vacation from working so hard for so long. I don't think it was such a terrible thing; after all, I managed to work 2 jobs, pay the rent, cook food, clean up after myself and all that stuff.

Once past that stage, I led a very active and rewarding and interesting adult life. To many people I know it has looked adventurous. But I've always had this awareness that I still wasn't really filling up all the space available to me; I wasn't living to the edge of all my possibility. It's been a very happy life and I have no complaints, but I do think there's more there to be squeezed out. And in a way I've been living an extension of that earlier time.

I turned 40 last fall, and just lately as we've approached, and then passed, Beltaine I keep looking at that damn card, and it's like there's a voice in my head saying, "now". Of course, I'm freaking out a little bit but I also finally feel ready. And I think yes, that's right; everything has to be in its own proper time and that is different for everyone. It's beginning to make sense to me that finding your way into your full self really is a journey, complete with struggle and beautiful sights and surprises and meeting people and little vacations from the work of finding the next place to go until you're ready to go on.

I often use the concept with my students of arriving for practice, acknowledging that there may be aspects of yourself that simply can't arrive at the beginning, but leaving a door open for them when they do show up. When they show up, there's no shame or blame in the late arrival. I think similarly different parts of us are always showing up for our lives and then leaving again. So maybe the edge of possibility is the space that happens within when our whole self really does arrive.

copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles

Power Yoga

"Can you add some more challenging poses into the class?" This was a request from one of my private classes, a mixed level group that met for an hour weekly, with a primary goal of stretching and restoration after a busy work day.

Now, this is always an interesting question for me for many reasons, but what I've been focused on this week is, what makes a challenging pose? Obviously (or maybe not?) we're talking about yoga poses here. And I guess what I find so interesting about the question is that we all think we know what that means–after all, how else do you determine if you're in yoga level 1, 2, or 3? And how else would I know what they were asking for?–but is it really possible to answer that question in a general way?

On a purely physical level, most people are predisposed, either by body type and natural talents or by other activities they do, to ease in some poses and challenge in others in a way that can't be generalized. On a different level, many people find savasana, corpse pose, challenging because they find it hard to be still, relax and let go of their thoughts.

But there's also something else going on here. Nowhere is it more true than in a yoga class that you are creating your own experience and then observing yourself in that experience. It can be argued that that's really the whole point of yoga. You are giving yourself something to do which engages you completely–body, mind, emotions, breath and energy–in order to allow your inner witness to observe the truth of your being. So, if a class isn't challenging, what does that actually mean? Are you engaging everything you can in each pose? Do you want something physically difficult given to you so that the work of the pose quiets your mind? What would you need to give yourself permission to challenge yourself? Does the challenge need to come from outside yourself?

There's also a question of how you approach the pose. If Tadasana, the mountain, is just like standing at the bus stop thinking about what you'll have for lunch then it won't engage you. However, there are thousands of potential focal points in Tadasana if you look for them. This is true for every pose...including standing at the bus stop!

Some poses will awaken an emotional response unrelated to the physical difficulty of the pose. A pose which feels restful and soothing to one person, will feel stressful and difficult to another. A challenging pose can feel frustrating or hilarious depending on what it awakens in you. For me, Pigeon used to be a horribly stressful pose even though I knew many people who found it deeply relaxing. On the other hand, I can't even come close to Tortoise, but I've often used it as a focus pose for my practice because it's entertaining for me to struggle with it. In one situation, the struggle is stressful; in the other, the struggle is funny–the only real difference is how I'm perceiving it.

Maybe a challenging practice would be to do only easy poses, but do them fully. Or maybe it would be to do only difficult poses, but release attachment to outcome. Maybe it would be to dare to come into class and do only Savasana for the whole class, while everyone around you is bending and twisting. Maybe it would be to just breathe.

In my dream, this is what Power Yoga would be. Not a fast-paced aerobic workout, but a place to claim and explore your own power, and your own experience to create exactly as you need it to be.

copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles

Are we there yet?

Something the other day sent me down memory road, visiting times I've been badly lost, and thinking about what it means to define myself in those terms. It's hard to pick just one time when I felt lost, alone and frightened. It's happened so many times...

There was the time when I had just moved to Edinburgh as a new University student. I took a tour of the college campus, chatted on the tour with a couple of new buddies, and, when they decided to bow out of the tour to stop at a pub, I went with them. We had a quick bite together, they went off their way and I went mine. Only, which way was mine? I had no idea and no map.

Or the time I wandered happily in Venice, finding my way easily through the little alleys and canals until it was time to head back to the train station. Now it was dark, the fog settled in, and the map that had seemed quaint because it was so badly wrong now led me completely astray.

Or the time I took a tai chi class in the depths of winter in Massachusetts. The class was a bus ride away and it was easy enough to get there coming from in town. But class ended in the darkness of night, I wasn't yet a savvy bus rider and didn't really know the schedule or where I had to stand to catch the bus. I had a few nights of either watching my bus glide right past me (because I stood in the wrong place) or missing it entirely and being faced with the decision of either standing out in the snow for an hour or so and hoping for the best or trying to find my way home in the dark and cold.

Or the many, many times I've walked into a building from one direction, walked out in another without realizing it, and have strode off confidently in completely the wrong direction, realizing it only when I'm hopelessly lost, or so off track as to be almost the same thing.

Sometimes I wasn't alone, like the time a friend's father was driving me home from her house and I just blanked on what street we were supposed to take. After half an hour of driving around, he took me back to my friend's house to call my parents and ask directions. Then I didn't feel so much frightened as stupid.

But still frightened a little because I knew even as a child this failing of mine didn't seem to bode well for my ability to survive. For a while, out of fear, I tried to reclaim my weakness as a strength. I boasted of being able to be lost within a block of my house, and challenged anyone to get a solid set of directions out of me. I actually worked at having less of a sense of direction.

Over time, I've learned two things: One, getting lost has never killed me, and it has always felt worse than it actually is. The thing is, whether you're lost or not the only thing to do is the next thing...and then the next thing...and then the next thing, and unless you're dead there's always a next thing to do. If you're lost, you just tend to have bad feelings about it. And two, everyone gets lost. And if you've been lost, truly or metaphorically, you now have the experience which allows you compassion towards all those who are lost.

I recently read a description of what it's like to walk a labyrinth (a labyrinth being a maze with only one path in and out, so there's no getting lost). The author described the feeling of seeing the center in sight as she walked along, then suddenly feeling the path turn under her and send her back out away from the center. In order to keep her equanimity she had to drop her focus on getting to the center and just walk the path as it was laid out. And, of course, she eventually found herself in the center anyway. Alive, in ourselves, in our bodies, present in the moment and walking the path–how can we ever be lost?

copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles

Does the Inner Witness Ever Take a Vacation?

I've been wondering about this lately, mostly in sort of half-joking, half-desperate emails to friends. Here's the deal: During my time in Costa Rica for my yoga teacher training, I focused really strongly on awakening the inner witness consciousness, that part of the self which simply observes with benevolent curiosity and who brings attentiveness and awareness to every activity. Do you see what I'm getting at here? Read that line again:"...brings attentiveness and awareness to every activity."

Here's a little example from my day. I know that sugar is bad for me, and not bad for me in that sense that everyone says, oh yes, sugar's so bad for me but doesn't really mean it, but bad for me in the sense that my body really struggles with it in a truly bad for me way. And I mostly steer clear of it for that reason. But today I took a long walk with not enough food in me, got home and thought, wow, I'd really like some cookies. Not only did my inner witness attend to the issue, but she had actually FORESEEN this very dilemma. So, here's my inner witness observing me objectively, with compassion, wondering how I'm going to respond.

I responded by eating the cookies. And the funny part is that when I do something idiotic like that (oh...I'm sorry! No judgment...) I can feel the "so there!" inherent in the action, like I'm thumbing my nose at the inner witness. Which is truly idiotic because I also know beyond any shadow of a doubt that my inner witness is only my deepest, truest self speaking to me of my real desires, which exist down under all the needy "I want I want I want" kind of desires.

This is a fairly tiny, unimportant example but it is really interesting in my every day life to see how often what I want–because it's fun, because I just don't want to think, because I want people to like me, because I want to fit in, because I want to feel free, because I think it's what I ought to do, because I'm scared, because fill in the blank–runs up against what this deepest, truest voice is telling me. What I want runs up against what my SELF wants for me. And what my SELF wants for me is for me to be true to my nature, surrender to the sacred being within me.

And the irony is that it's not hard to surrender because the right choices for me feel right. What's hard is to struggle against that voice and make the choice that isn't in alignment with my true self. So why on earth do I struggle?

And meanwhile my inner witness just keeps watching and waiting and loving me....Isn't that interesting?

copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles

Meditation Revisited

I thought I'd use the space this time around, not to tell a story, but to talk a little more about meditation. My meditation practice continues to be a really interesting exploration for me. If you remember my last post about it (Watch the Monkeys), you know it was hugely challenging to add meditation to my regular practice. Since I know it is also a difficult practice for many other folks, I thought I'd give some ideas of what has helped me keep it going.

Watching your breath or using the "So-Hum" mantra are common ways suggested to start practicing. However, I actually found watching my breath gave me way too much time to sit and think between breaths, and then I would find myself changing my breathing rhythm to give me more time to think. Bad news for meditation. And for some reason, "so-hum" just doesn't work for me. I did find that the mantra "om namah shivaya" worked better for me, or just saying to myself, "breathe in....breathe out".

So far though my favorite methods don't use mantra or breathing. One old stand-by for me was to clearly visualize a particular scene–for me it is a red flag against a blue sky. I allow myself to see it really clearly, and I can usually even hear the metal connectors clanking against the flagpole, feel the wind on my face, and smell the dry dusty air. If I wandered, I would say to myself the words "red flag, blue sky" and pop back to my scene. When I use this method, I can feel myself instantly drop and relax.

Another method that works well for me is to listen very carefully, just open to any sounds around me, not labeling them, but just allowing them to move through me. For some reason, opening my hearing shuts down my thinking.

And last is a method that I thought sounded odd when I read about it. In this method, I simply smile from my whole physical being. When I use this method, I literally imagine the skin on my body smiling, all my organs smiling, everything smiling out at the world. Strangely enough, I easily drop into a meditative state and this particular method brings me a great deal of happiness. Go figure.

If you struggle with meditation, don't give up on it. It is profoundly rewarding.

Being a C Student

The very first day of my yoga teacher training, our lead instructor explained to us how the course was set up: how many hours of each type of class were required to meet National Yoga Alliance guidelines and how many hours of each type of class our training actually had. The course was designed with extra hours in it so that if we got sick or if something else came up, we had a little wiggle room and could still meet the requirements. Additionally, though, he suggested that maybe we should consider as our goal for the course being C students, that maybe we didn't really need to give 100% to the course but scale it down a bit and see what that looked like to study yoga seriously but still have a balanced life and enjoy the beach a little. Basically, he said, we should see what it's like to play hooky just a little and learn about yoga that way, too.

I was intrigued by the suggestion and my brain was spinning as I left class. How many classes exactly would I need to miss to be a C student? Did skipping a class count if I didn't go to the beach? What if I stayed home and worked on my sample lesson plan? Could I still be a C student in that case? And were some classes weighted heavier than others, so should I be careful about which ones I missed? It took me a while but I eventually realized that I was trying to get an A in being a C student.

The other night I was having a conversation with a friend about making changes in our lives, about what it takes to change. We both agreed that one of the odd requirements for change seems to be a softening and an acceptance, an ease, with our current condition. So, trying really hard often works against the change, while relaxing into the present moment allows us to move.

In one of my previous jobs, I worked with a child with a particular behavior we were trying to squelch. I tried everything, the parents tried everything, his therapists tried everything and nothing worked. So I started taking data on his behavior, its antecedents, my responses and the results. As I watched myself from this more objective vantage point, I realized that actually I wasn't trying everything. I had a very small list of responses that I would run through with ever greater levels of frustration before giving up in despair. Once I just stopped and looked at the situation I could immediately see new options that had never occurred to me. The behavior was gone within 2 weeks.

We put such high value on working for results, on trying. I think sometimes all of our trying is focused all in the wrong direction and we can't quite understand why we're not getting anywhere. Have you heard the analogy of life being like a river and we work so hard to cling to a rock in the middle? We think we're making progress, we think we're staying afloat. After all, we're working so damn hard, we MUST be getting somewhere, right? But if we just let go, the river will take us anywhere we need to go.

copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles

Not Getting Lost

I think of myself as someone who's absolutely hopeless with direction and orientation when left to my own devices. And yet I've been thinking back lately to a different sort of person than I remember being. This is a story I've often told for its comic effect, and I tell it well, but it's a story with deep roots and wide branches.

When I was in first grade I left class to go to the bathroom. Now this in itself was HUGE. I was horribly shy and humiliated by having to admit to bodily functions. My solution to this problem was to just hold it all day. However, on this particular day I left class and went to the bathroom. When I returned, the class was gone–the teacher, the students–everyone! Just gone. As an adult I can think of many ways to approach this problem: go looking for them, ask the principal, sit down and cry...all very reasonable choices. However, another aspect to my personality as a child was an inability to admit to not knowing something. This was not ego; this was fear. I believed that I inhabited a world of people who all somehow knew everything about everything. And everyone had this amazing knowledge except me. Now, I knew I was smart. Don't get me wrong. But it seemed to me that everyone somehow mysteriously held all this information that was required to get by in the world and I was missing something. I was defective. I thought I needed to hide this truth about myself so that I would look like everyone else. And eventually I figured that since I was a smart girl I'd learn everything I was missing by observation and deduction and in the meantime I just needed to fake it and look the part. No one would ever have to know my secret.

Given my beliefs and my rules for living, my choice was crystal clear. I left school and walked home.

Home was about 5 blocks away from school and both my parents worked. I really didn't have a clear picture of the magnitude of this decision until much later in life when I worked with first graders and saw how tiny they were. At the time, my only concerns were getting in trouble and having people find out my secret. I was absolutely sick with worry over this. I had no idea that it was actually the teacher and the school administration who could get in trouble for this. I found out later that the class had just gone next door to another classroom to watch a film and the teacher had forgotten about me.

Like I said I usually tell this as a funny anecdote about my childhood. But when I think about it, I'm filled with sorrow for the little girl who was so frightened, who allowed her fear to determine everything about her, and yet whose inner strength and courage shone through despite that and who, by succumbing to one fear, overcame another and found her way home.

copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles

But I love you dammit!

I thought it was appropriate on Valentine's Day to talk about love. When I was growing up I was very suspicious of those 3 little words: I love you. I knew even as a child that there was something else going on there. The words almost never seemed to be a spontaneous outpouring of love and affection and I never used them myself. I didn't want to have anything to do with them until I had some sense of what they actually meant. Because what I heard was "I love you...(expectant pause...don't you understand what that MEANS?? You're supposed to love me back.)" or "(I really can't believe how stupid and selfish you're being but) I love you (anyway I guess because it's what I'm supposed to do.)" or "I love you (but I'm going to sigh now and be a martyr because you're not turning out to be who I wanted you to be.)" It rarely sounded like, "I love you (because you are such a fabulous over the top incredible person that really who wouldn't love you just for being you?)"

Even as I got older and got some experience at falling in love, I didn't feel like it was a terribly practical emotion. And I had to empathize with the folks who sent me the mixed messages of my youth once I had a few of my own under my belt. Here are some of my own personal favorites that I trot out periodically: "I love you (you asshole! You can't do this to me!)" and "I love you. (Don't you dare leave!)" and "I love you (and I need reassurance that you're still here.)" oh and here's a good one "I love you (even though you're being really shitty, because I am a better person than you are.)"

Even with all that craziness, I still do have a sense of a deep and abiding love that I am connected to, and that connects me to all of these other people, somewhere deeper than these frantic emotional blips on the screen. But how to find that part and express it clearly? You know how Air Supply (oh, come on, admit it...you LOVE these guys too!!) sings about being Lost in Love? Well, sometimes I feel like it's more like the love gets lost underneath all these other things that seem to come along for the ride.

But recently my journey has taken me to some interesting stops along this particular ride. I had begun taking meditative walks at the turning of the seasons, opening to the energy of the earth and sun and sky at the times of solar holidays. On one of my walks on Samhain, I had a sense of something saying to me, "Nothing is required of you." And I kept waiting for the "except....", as in "except to be loving", "except to be nice to people", "except to go organize your basement", or something along those lines. But nothing else came except my own thought...does that mean that I am enough? Exactly as I am?

Around that same time, I had an assignment to write some sort of affirmation. I was very focused on human limitation at that time because a friend of mine was dying so I was trying to find something endless and infinitely large to hold on to. And this is what I wrote: I am created of divine love and my capacity for joy is endless. And you know I actually believe the damn thing.

I just read a book called Lovingkindness by Sharon Salzberg and began adding meditation on this Buddhist principle to my other thoughts on love. And I realized two things (well, three if you count the fact that my basement really DOES need to be organized): One was that I believe that the universe wants me here, that it has organized all its energy and its molecules to make space for me, and that it rejoices in my presence, and two was that almost always when we say "I love you" it's bound to be more about the "I" than the "you", simply from the construction of the sentence (subject/verb/object). But when I thought about the people whom I love, but with whom I have these very human difficulties, I realized that I also believe the universe rejoices in their presence, too, and that the world is better off with them here, and that regardless of what happens between us, I'm really glad they're here, on this earth, in this life. It doesn't get rid of the difficulties of "I love you" but it's good to know.

copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles

Gem City

Gem City is the beautiful name of the third chakra, located in the region of the solar plexus. This is the seat of personal power, where the self comes into its own. I am particularly attached to the name of this chakra because it brings up an image for me of many facets, polished and gleaming, turning to reveal its different aspects at different times, and all of them shining out like my own personal sun.

When I was younger it used to confuse me that people would form very strong impressions of me that all seemed quite true and yet were conflicting. My grandmother would say, "You are just so stubborn. Even when you were a baby, people would come up to you and smile and baby talk at you and you would just fix them with a glare. You were always very definite about what you liked and didn't like." A friend would say, "You're so easygoing. Everything that comes up you just say okay and follow along." In high school I was a bookish stressed out workaholic, while my college buddies couldn't believe how mellow I was about exams. To a co-worker at one point in my life I was the "Queen of Calm". I particularly enjoyed that one because I never really FELT all that calm, and especially in that particular work context, so it was a revelation to me that I came across that way. At that same workplace, another co-worker made me a pin that says "Gentle Spirit" because to her that's what I was. A lover later saw the pin and couldn't stop laughing; she thought the pin should say "fiery vortex of passion and fury". I didn't think it was that funny myself.


I've always thought of myself as a patient person, having spent a huge amount of time in my life waiting for buses, trains, and subways, and coping with plans and schedules gone astray, but when I described myself as patient to my partner, she thought I was out of my mind. "Patient? Really???," she said.

And maybe she's right. But so am I, and so is everyone else. What I finally understood is that I contain all of that within me and there is no contradiction. Contradiction is what we see when we look through human eyes. But I am formed of the universe and there is star stuff in me. I contain both chaos and order and all the possibilities. The more I look within the more facets I can find and polish and show to the world. It's all just more evidence that we don't actually live in a binary either/or world but in a we've got it all both/and world, where contradiction lives and is held sweetly by continuity. You can never get lost in Gem City.

copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles

Get on the bus

I've never really trusted buses. Not in comparison to other forms of mass transit. Some history: I've never actually owned a car so I probably have a little more experience than most with various forms of transportation. And since Seattle is a bus town, that's been my favored mode of getting around for 17 years.

But back to my trust issue. My theory is that trains and trolleys and subways are on tracks or lines or in tunnels and therefore can be trusted to get from point A to point B as anticipated. But buses? They have no such restrictions and are subject to the call of the open road. I know they have signs on the front and schedules and such, but the point is they have the POTENTIAL to go astray. You never really know. You can't be sure. And that makes me a little nuts.

And the thing is, you could really just put this all down to paranoia except that it's happened to me. Bus drivers do get lost or re-routed occasionally, or maybe they forgot to put the express sign up. I've even had the experience of being absolutely certain that I saw a particular route number on the front of a bus, and then looked up from a 20-minute absorption in my book to find that I'm nowhere recognizable to me. And the little printed maps aren't always meaningful. Once in Edinburgh, my flatmate and I studied a particular bus route to get out to the airport to reclaim our luggage that had gone astray a couple of days earlier. The map seemed clear enough, but, once on the bus, we spent an hour doing a scenic tour of Edinburgh without ever getting anywhere near the airport and finally landed right back where we started in front of our flat. There was nothing to be done but disembark, eat a tuna sandwich and re-group.

But over the years I've made a kind of peace with buses and their vagaries. I figure I never really quite know where I'm going either so we've got something in common. We can work together on this. And I've developed a certain amount of skill in accommodating all of the different possibilities inherent in riding buses. It's like we've both got this idea of where we might be going and when we'll get there but we're flexible about it. And in an odd way after spending so much time on them, they have become a second home for me. Something that fits me and is comfortable and feels safe.

One very early morning I caught a bus on a very foggy day. The fog sat all around us down to the ground, enclosing us in a bus-shaped space, and I had this sense of a sequence of bus-shaped spaces opening and closing as we moved through them in the fog. Each one existing as a clear place for us to be and yet not clearly seen from the space before. And I thought about how each of us exists as a long, flesh-colored worm through time, from birth to death. And I had the sense of all the me's who came before the me right in this moment, and of all the me's who come in the moments after the me right now. And I have this sense of all of us together, all of us me's, holding the space open for the me right now, holding it in the very shape of me, cheering me on to BE me right now, having had my place in the line of the future and on my way to the line in my past. And the thing is, despite this sense of a line of self extending out before and after, I don't have the feeling of being on tracks. I'm more like a bus, with a sign on the front and a schedule, but with the POTENTIAL to go astray. You just never know. But right now, here I am.

copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles

True Story

What I realize as I write these posts is that I am really telling the same story over and over again. It's me trying to remind myself of something, something important. Here is the story again.

I have a memory of being in Austria. I approached my travel abroad in very characteristic fashion. I read, I researched, I packed carefully, and I knew before I went what my experience would be because I had it planned. I used Let's Go Europe (1987) as my bible for travel. I would tear out the sections on the countries I would visit and figure out what to see. I took my Austria section with me to Salzburg.

Now, if I think very carefully back to that time and work at it, I can remember visiting lots of beautiful old buildings with my Austria section in hand and a map. I would follow the directions in my guide put together with the map and find myself at some building somewhere. I was never quite sure that I was really and truly where I thought I was, because all of the buildings were old and beautiful and they all kind of looked the same. I didn't speak the language and I couldn't afford to take a tour in English and I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to get IN to the buildings. Were they closed for the day? Was I at the wrong place? I kept feeling like something was supposed to be happening. I was supposed to be having a revelatory experience and instead I was wandering aimlessly looking at pretty buildings and wondering what on earth they were for. I even splurged on a piece of torte that the city was famous for and it was dry and nasty.

This is what I remember if I work at it: aimlessness, frustration, confusion, self-criticism, disappointment.

This is what I remember if I don't work at it: magic, beauty, wonder, belonging.

When I let my memory drift back to that time, here is the story that comes to me: I walked one day down a street. I can't remember what I was trying to find, but what I saw was an old beautiful building with several big trees in front. The trees had something in them, something shining and colorful, so I went closer to have a look. The trees were filled with chimes and bells and streamers tied into the branches, and, when the wind blew, the trees would ring out and the streamers would flutter. The building was open and people were going in and out so I went in, too. I walked in and it was some sort of children's fair/fundraiser for something. I wandered through and saw craft booths for kids to make masks or crowns, cardboard mazes to go through, bake sales. I went to a bake sale table and bought a bag of what I thought were shortbread cookies. It turned out that they were lemon and I hate lemon. But I munched on them anyway and wandered and listened to people talking in a language I didn't know. And then I walked out into a beautiful day, eating my lemon cookies and listening to the trees chime and ring out into the air.

I always smile when I think of Salzburg. Which story is true?

copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles

The Perils of Pigeon Pose

I had a defining moment during my yoga teacher training. Well, really I had a few. But one stands out because it was a moment that began at the beginning of my training and extended out to the end of the month. I went to our very first early morning yoga class at the very beginning of training. We swept through a multitude of poses in a very vigorous vinyasa, or flow, sequence over the course of 2 hours. At one point we landed in Pigeon pose.

I had done Pigeon before, but only when forced to in class. I never practiced it at home. Why? I absolutely despised the pose. And now here I am, the first day of my new life as a yoga teacher, and we're doing Pigeon. Hate it, hate it, hate it. I'm on my mat. I'm really hot and sweaty. I have no props. And I'm doing Pigeon. Only that's really overstating the matter because what's actually happening is that my body is clenched up, quivering and shaking and sweating, hovering OUT of Pigeon pose, because I have very tight, inflexible hips and I can't actually DO Pigeon pose.

That day I began what I came to call my hate mantra. It went something like this, "I hate this pose. I hate this pose. I hate this class. I hate this teacher. I hate everyone here. I hate this pose. I especially hate YOU, girly in the cute little top who just drops right into Pigeon. I hate this pose." And so on. Whew! It was always such a relief to get out of it and move on to balance poses, which I CAN do.

The whole first week we did Pigeon in class and every day I did my hate mantra and I shook and sweated and cursed and hovered OUT of the pose. My hate mantra became more complex as the training continued. We were taught to allow our inner witness to watch our practice, with curiosity and benevolence and no judgment. So I added a few lines to my mantra. Now it sounded like this, "I hate this pose. I hate this pose. Isn't that interesting how much I hate this pose? I hate this pose. Why do I hate this pose? Because I can't do this pose, because my hips are too tight, and I can't do this pose. Isn't that interesting that I can't do this pose? I still hate little girly in the cute top. Isn't that interesting? I hate this pose." And like that.

One day, my hate mantra took an interesting turn. "I hate this pose. I hate this pose. Isn't that interesting? I hate this pose. I'm scared of this pose." Well. Isn't THAT interesting? Now I've got fear in there with the hate. And I'm actually really curious-why am I scared of this pose? It's a pose on the floor so I'm not going to fall. There's very little risk of injury with this pose, especially when I'm holding myself up so far out of it. I'm hooked because I really want to know the answer.

The next day in class we didn't do Pigeon. We were always allowed time at the end of class to do our own series of poses and I felt a little nudge. I actually wanted to do Pigeon. But I held firm; I didn't allow myself to do it. This was a pose that I hated and couldn't want to do, so I didn't do it. But the next day we still didn't do Pigeon in class. The nudge happened again. My curiosity won out and I did it myself at the end of class. And I continued my hate mantra, and I shook, and I sweated, and I cursed. And I watched myself and listened. "I hate this pose. I can't do this pose, because my hips are tight, and that's why I don't do this pose and maybe if I did this pose, I'd be able to do this pose."

That was it, the source of the fear. I realized that I had a certain picture of myself, a belief about myself, and part of that belief was that I was not a flexible person. That, in fact, I was a person with very tight hips. I had been doing yoga and dance for many, many years and yet I was not a flexible person despite all that. And I didn't want to let go of that because it was part of my identity, it was part of my belief system. If I became a person able to do Pigeon, I would have to let go of that piece of my identity and be a new person. A person I didn't know.

The next day in class when I did Pigeon something changed. My mind had opened and my body could no longer hold itself out of the pose, and phffft! I collapsed into Pigeon pose. And I lay on the mat in Pigeon pose and I cried and cried.

And now I'm learning how to be a flexible person with wide open hips.

copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles

Surrender Dorothy!

I've been thinking a lot about surrender lately. Surrender seems to be a recurring theme in my life. And, after all, getting lost does involve surrendering to the unknown and I've had lots of experience at that.

But lately what's been popping up for me in my life is the idea of creating your own reality through intention and positive thinking. It's showing up everywhere, and frankly I'm getting a little tired of it. I do believe in it to a certain extent and I'll probably even write a little on that possibility at a later date. But what about the possibility of surrendering to the reality that's already out there? What would it be like to just ride that wave?

In yoga there exists the idea of flowing evenly back and forth between will and surrender. You approach each moment intentionally, then you surrender to what the moment brings. And part of that philosophy is that will and intention are not actually goal-oriented which is a challenging idea for a lot of us.

A new friend was recently talking about how she feels when she reaches a certain state of bliss on her mountain bike. She talked about getting into that groove where she no longer thinks or calculates, she has no connection to past or future; she is simply riding in the moment, responding perfectly to each event which appears in her moment simply by being present with it.

I've had experience with that feeling she's describing. It's almost a feeling of the personality submerging into a larger field. I've often described myself as a chameleon because there are times that I feel like a field of potential energy shifting to take the form that is required of me. I have been asked if this makes me somehow less myself, or if it makes me a fake or a liar somehow. But what I feel when this happens is that it is the most perfect expression of what I truly am. You've heard the saying "We are spiritual beings having a human experience"? Well, I think maybe what we are is an energy field having a physical experience. And that, as in physics, our own observation of ourselves is creating the physical experience that we have; in other words, the moment we observe ourselves we drop from a state of potential, of possibility, of probability into a state of actuality.

Oh crap. There we are right back at creating our own reality. But...are we willful or are we willing in our approach? If we observe with attachment or judgment we've already limited our possibilities. But if we surrender as we observe, what might we be allowed to see without the limits of human thought?

copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles

Watch the monkeys

I teach yoga and you'd think that as a yoga teacher winding my legs up in lotus and sitting in silent meditation would come easily by now. I've been doing yoga for 28 years as well as doing lots of other things that require discipline, focus and a quiet mind. But....that's always the worst part of a yoga class for me. You know that part. You get to class, roll out your mat, do a couple of quiet stretches on your own while everyone else is arriving. Then the teacher begins. "Just sit quietly and bring your awareness to your breath. Notice how your breathing is, naturally, without trying to change anything. And now, turn your awareness to the rest of your body. If you notice any areas of tension, send your breath there and just sit quietly with it. Maybe an intention for your practice today comes into your mind." YEARGH!!!! By this time I'm trying to climb out of my skin. I would do anything to get out of just sitting and being quiet. And my intention for practice right at this very moment is simple: ESCAPE!

Even at my yoga teacher training the silent seated meditation didn't get any easier. The first day that we focused on meditation in class, we were sent off to the edges of the room to sit silently away from each other. I use the word "room" loosely because my training happened in Costa Rica and our yoga studio was a thatched roof held up with posts and no walls. I went off to the edge of the room facing out into the jungle. I sat cross-legged, closed my eyes, and began my mantra, "So" with the inhale, "Hum" with the exhale. And it goes something like this, "So....Hum....So....my back really hurts....Hum....okay, inhale....exhale....I'm bored....So...my back hurts...does it count as meditation if I wiggle a little....God, I hate this...okay, picture the mantra...So....ugh, this is awful....So....Hum...don't get on the train....So....my thoughts are like little boats floating by...Hum...what do I need to do today...I wonder what the beach is like right now..." and so on.

We saw monkeys every day we were in Costa Rica and often up in the very trees nearby. That day I could hear the sounds of a troop of monkeys coming towards us, until finally it seemed that they were in the trees right next to us. A dilemma! Do I continue my seated meditation and be disciplined about my intention, or do I watch the monkeys? Hoo boy, that's a tough one. Finally I thought, I'm in Costa Rica for heaven's sake....I'm going to watch the fucking monkeys! I opened my eyes and spent the rest of my time in that class sitting quietly with quiet thoughts focusing all of my attention on the monkeys and enjoying their show.

The next time we had a meditation class I skipped it and went to the beach.

Fast forward to just a couple of months ago. I'm feeling stagnant in my own practice and disappointed and tired in my efforts to get set up as a full time yoga teacher. I decide that the best way to approach my difficult feelings is to face one of my challenges head on; I decide to spend at least 10 minutes daily in seated meditation. No cheating either. My rules for myself are: sitting, not lying down; sitting, not moving; and sitting first, not after a really nice yoga workout to calm me.

At first, I could think only of escape and I would keep sneaking peeks at the clock to see if I was done yet. With practice, I began to see glimpses of where a continued intentional practice could take me. I would drop down out of myself and find myself floating and gently held by light and love. Or I would have a sense of sitting with thousands of other people, including another version of myself, all of us sitting quietly with each other. Or I would truly see the words from my thoughts forming droplets and falling into the sea and disappearing, and I could watch all of this with interest and curiosity.

And, I found myself pulling out of my rut and finding fresh energy. I had lunch during that time with a fellow yoga teacher, one with many more years of experience teaching, and we talked about our experiences with meditation. She laughed when I told her the monkey story, but was also surprised and moved by it. She talked about how she will often, with her students and with herself in practice, talk about being a curious mammal, a curious monkey. That we often judge ourselves for our quick and curious minds that are constantly moving, but that this is our very nature and part of our beauty.

When we meditate, we ARE watching the monkeys; watching them with interest and curiosity and benevolence; watching them in deep quiet so we won't scare them away, and not trying to make them be anything but what they are, not lizards or trees, but monkeys. Raucous miraculous monkeys.

copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles