Reflections on becoming a yoga teacher....

What is the image of a heart cracking open?  Of a body being reclaimed?  Of a soul coming into the light?  Is it like a closed lotus flower, coming into bloom?  Or a crevice in the earth, widening.... revealing the dark soil and rocks and heat of her very centre?

What is the sound of a heart, yearning to open, to surrender, to deepen? Of a body, finding its true expression and movement? Is it a keening wail?  A low sigh?  Is it a bird song high in the trees?  Is it the sound of the wind in the trees, breathing power into the world?

What is taste of finding synchronicity?  Of connection?  Of the meeting of minds and bodies and hearts?  Is it sweet like a mango?  Or rich, like dark chocolate?  Or is it full bodied and complex, like good red wine?

What is the smell of unfurling?  Of the unwinding of a lifetime of trauma knotted through the nervous system, embedded in the flesh?  Of the peeling away of layers of shadow and illusion?  Is it like an onion?  Astringent and strong?  Or is it the smell of compost or fetid soil?  Or is it the smell of fresh spring coming through the wide open windows as the house is swept clean?

What is the feel of coming home?  Of reconnecting to a deeper truth?  To the core of my being?  Is it soft, like a down pillow?  Scratchy and yet comforting like a wool blanket?  Or is it spacious and hot and wild like a wind-storm under the hot sun of summer?

How do I put into words this journey? How do I even describe when and where it started?  Do I arbitrarily pick the first weekend of classes?  Or do I include the application process?  Or the thought process?  Or the knowing in my body, that has been with me for 4 years, that I would do this when the time was right?

What do I focus on to describe how I’ve experienced this?  The postures? The anatomy?  The teaching? The people?  And where does yoga teacher training end and the rest of my interconnected, open-system, bio-feedback loop of a life begin?  It’s a tapestry .... pulling one thread tugs them all.

This program, this experience, has opened up a world of possibilities – and shined a light on so much of what was already within me.  It has been a year of deep inner exploration, even as it has been a year of learning new skills .... Verb, Body Part, Direction. 

I feel both stronger, and softer.  I have met my edges, over and over.  I have felt into my vulnerability, and fallen in love with my teachers and my cohort.  I have learned to be present with my own experience – if only for moments at a time when it was most painful .... even as I learned that my primary coping strategy is to escape.  But I kept coming back.  And I keep coming back.

I have learned to move my body differently, hold space differently, breathe differently, and feel my way through differently.  I have learned to listen to my heart and my body in ways I never thought I would.  I have found meditation (finally) that feels resonant, and a path that I can see walking.  I have found my direction, that a year ago was so elusive.

I have rediscovered gratitude and possibility, having weathered my way through a dark night of the soul on the journey.  And the journey, of course, isn’t over ....it simply shifts and evolves into a new chapter. 

Solstice to Solstice - a journey of many transitions

It's been almost exactly a year since I posted a blog.  I'm tempted to wonder where that year went.... but as I pause and reflect, the answers are enough to fill many posts.  It has been a year of inward journey.  After 2 years of exploring the world .... Guatemala, India, Nepal ... I have spent the last one exploring my inner world, growing myself, building fertile soil for my next journey.

There is something powerful about the solstice to mark times of transition.  I left for Guatemala on Winter Solstice, 2009.  I returned to British Columbia exactly six months later, on Summer Solstice.   It is two summer solstices later, and I am again called to reflect on the transitions and what is unfolding before me.

This past year has been one of profound paradox for me.  Developing myself as a professional consultant while simultaneously developing myself as a somatically based yoga teacher.  Playing dressup in  'professional' heels and navigating corporate politics through the week; donning yoga pants, with my raw-vegan potluck contribution to the world of deep emotional connection on the weekends.  And through the process finding my voice of authenticity in both.  Finding the place where I can bring heart and connection into the corporate world, and where I can bring my professional skills into the powerful realm of yoga and connection.

As I move forward this year, I know that my work life will continue to shift into greater alignment - and with each step forward, I am able to see the incredible value of each step I've taken, perhaps most especially the difficult ones.  I am grateful for all the places where I have bumped against the questions of balance, alignment, integrity, and purpose.  Those questions have enabled me to be more present in those moments, and to grow from them.... and to make choices with ever greater clarity.

This week I got to play with another level of balance, as I brought my 'professional' skills into a community I care deeply about, and helped them move forward through an important piece of work - that for them is all about connection.  I see what is possible when I bring all of me together in service work, and I am excited about what is possible.

I don't know yet exactly what this year will look like, but I know it will be yet another layer of balance - of the inner and the outer.  Of bringing my voice to the work that I do, and sharing it.  You can count on more to come.

Home for the Holidays

First off, to all of my readers, I wish you the happiest of holiday seasons.  I've rewritten this next sentence six times, starting with "May you . . .  " but I can't quite find the words to describe what I wish for each of you beyond that first holiday greeting.  Perhaps that is because I believe that each of us has to choose what we wish for ourselves.

Perhaps also, because I know this time of year can be as challenging and sorrowful for some as it is joyous and celebratory for others.  Perhaps because I know that gratitude is such a huge part of my experience - and I can't mandate that for anyone else.

I am home for the holidays.  Completely unexpectedly.  I realized, on the morning of the 24th, alone in my guest-house bedroom in Delhi, that I couldn't stay there, so far away from the people I love over the holidays.  And I am grateful that I listened to the voice inside that said, "go home".  Especially when my mind concocted a dozen reasons why I should 'tough it out', 'stay the course' or whatever . . . . stories that started with the four-letter-word "should" and were designed to punish me for wanting to be where my heart was guiding me to be.

It was the right decision to come home for the holidays; to connect with my beloveds.  To touch hearts with those that I love, and to reground in what is important to me, to what guides me, to all the intangible things that make this place home, and these beautiful people my family.  It is also the right decision to return to Delhi in the new year.  I am not giving up on India, nor am I running away.  I simply needed to go to my source.

It has been one of the most challenging months of my life on many levels.  Culture shock comes in many shapes, forms and layers.  Moving to a place, even temporarily, to live and work is very different from traveling to / through a place.  Even though I ended up 'living' in Guatemala for almost 5 months - I went there as a traveler, as an explorer, and I stayed because I was content.  I had no one's agenda but my own.  Moving to India for 5+ months to work has a very different flavour, and a very different impact on the psyche.  And for all the surface similarities between these two developing nations . . . the differences are both subtle and immense.

It has also been a very challenging month for some of the people closest to me, and I treasure this opportunity to come home, and even as I seek and accept support and comfort, I am able to provide them.  This is the way of love, of family, of community.  And as I sit typing in the middle of the night, my body profoundly confused by time-zones and jet-lag, I am immensely and profoundly grateful for all that I have.  And truly, for me, that is what this season is about.

Christmas has never been a religious holiday for me.  As a child we celebrated Channukah in our home, and went to my maternal grandparents' for the Christmas tree, presents and santa. As I found my spiritual path, the solstice has become the most spiritual meaningful for me.  As an adult, I celebrate all three: all of them to me about a returning, nurturing, sustaining of the light - around us, within us, and between us. 

So, over this holiday season, I celebrate the vibrant light within me, and within each of the beings who touch my life.  I celebrate all that I have been blessed with - the joys and the sorrows, the challenges, the successes and the failures.  I celebrate the ecstasy and the laundry. And I am grateful for all of it.

I've decided what I want to wish for you.  I am wishing you all a celebration of the light - may you feel its warmth within, and see it reflected in the eyes of all those around you.

Namaste

Getting ready to travel

I was told to journal my pre-trip process, as well as the journey itself. Most of that happened in a little book - but it is worth reflecting some on it here.

I left packing until the last minute. I panicked about what to pack. I left flight-bookings pretty late too, and they cost me a pretty penny. I did, however, get everything done that needed to be done and then some perhaps. I shopped until I dropped - and marveled at how much it cost me just to leave the country - never mind what I might spend once I was gone. I agonized over what to take - and whether I was taking too much, and what I might find I'd forgotten.

I have been laughingly assured by many that, yes - I would pack too much . . . and that was part of the journey. Next time I go traveling I will pack lighter and laugh at how heavy I made the first trip - literally and figuratively speaking.

For those who don´t know - this is my first time ´traveling´. I´ve moved across the country, and then again up to a small island . . . and Goddess knows I flew regularly while studying at Concordia . . . but I´ve never really traveled. . . .with a back-pack, in a foreign country, where I don´t speak the language. So I decided to start small. I booked a one-way ticket to Guatemala, with no plan. I think it´s safe to say my parents, while remarkably supportive, are horrified.

I attempted to reassure them by getting immunizations and travel medical - but I don´t think that quite did it.

Despite the doubts and concerns, mind you, I have received a ton of support - some from very unexpected sources. I have received help moving, help booking my tickets, short and long term places to crash over the last two months, a ton of wisdom, guidance, advice and a lot of love. I have been blessed with support and friendships that I am immensely grateful for. I have been both wished blessings on my journey and had angels sent with me to ensure I return.

Many times I was asked why I was going - at least half of those times, the question was posed by me. I still don´t fully know the answer, though I hope to soon. Or not. I do know that this journey is as much about letting go and trusting the process as it is anything else. I also know that that is the hardest combination in the world, and what has made this such a terrifying journey to embark upon - and what will potentially make it so rewarding. I do know that even as I wondered why I was going, and even as I experienced the longing for home, and the pain of missing my friends before I even left . . . I knew that I had to go. I knew that this was my journey to be on, and that it was time.

And so the journey begins . . . .