It seems like everyone I’m working with at the moment is really going through it. I’m not talking about small hiccups in daily life or little bumps in the road. I’m talking about those life-changing, course-correcting, new-trajectory-seeking moments when we shed our well-worn skin, and have to figure out how to move forward: exposed, raw and disoriented. And even if your personal life is not undergoing a major overhaul, just one mindful glimpse out into the world can/should elicit a temper flare or wave of anxiety (or nausea). We have entered yet another season of reckoning: walking through the fire, and getting clear on how we are creating the life— and world— in which we live.… Read the rest
transition
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One day last week (we will call it “one day” for the sake of conversation) I was feeling unproductive, weary and heavy, and while I continued to press through the day, it was with the near constant question/mantra “Why am I so tired?” I wandered from task to task, unable to muster much energy or enthusiasm all the way into the early evening- when I was simply waiting for it to be late enough that I could call it bedtime.
The amount of energy I put into the self-interrogation about my tiredness, combined with the effort of pushing against what was with full resistance could likely have been better directed.… Read the rest
If this were a year like all the ones before, I would open the February blog post with, “This month we celebrate fourteen years of community at 401 N. West Street.” I would proceed to go on and on about how the blue came to be, and what we have collectively created and accomplished in the past year. Full of emotion and gratitude, I would talk about the goodness and greatness experienced in those four walls and the enormous contributions made by all involved to create a yoga home for thousands of students since we opened back in 2007. But this was not a year like all the ones before.… Read the rest
It was the longest, strangest and most drawn-out goodbye I’ve ever had. It was also the most beautiful. If you missed it, picture this: beloved friends with masked faces- some community members we’d not seen in years- standing in line along the sidewalk at blue to go in one last time and light a candle, pause in the space, touch bare feet to her floor, send a prayer to the heavens and drop a message into the fire. The hawk, the wild wind, the sudden storm. Beautiful souls, getting soaked in the pouring rain, singing. Where does this happen? Who does this?… Read the rest
A couple of weeks ago, a longtime student, fellow teacher and dear friend sent a note to see how I was doing. This is, of course, a bizarre and difficult question for any of us to answer these days. I fumbled through a reply, trying to be as transparent as possible, while acknowledging the wild roller coaster of emotions that I move through in an hour’s time makes a clear answer unwieldy at best. Her response to me was, “you’ll get through this with your usual grit and grace.” Yes, I thought. This is the answer to this most impossible quandary I’ve been faced with since March 16: How will I ever get through this?… Read the rest
I was in a group conversation recently when someone piped in “I didn’t sign up for this!” While I know it was partly said with tongue in cheek, there was also a grain of truth in the statement, as the suppressed grief, fear and disappointment of a life upended welled up and spilled out. We didn’t, any of us, sign up for this. Or did we? Makes me think of dharma.
Dharma means “to support” or “right path of life” and at its essence speaks to the unity and interconnectedness of all things. It refers to that which is consistently in alignment with our highest and best, both collectively and personally and points to a way of being that honors that connectivity.… Read the rest
Whether it came from my family of origin or was part of my soul’s original blueprint, I’ve spent most of my life grappling with being okay with not knowing. The fact that there is so much we don’t know, can’t possibly know, can’t plan or prepare for was just unacceptable to me for a long, long time. In my twenties, I really believed that I did, in fact, know. In my thirties, I found out that there was a whole lot missing from my field of view. By the time I got to my forties, I’d come to terms with the flow of life and her wise, yet unpredictable ways- or so I thought.… Read the rest
Waiting is the hardest part
by Jill Sockman
The waiting is the hardest part. Or so the lyrics go. And oddly enough, even though I have more song lyrics than just about anything else stored in this brain of mine, those are the only words I know.
I’m in a hallway of sorts. It’s not a hall full of doors where I need to pick one and walk through it. It’s more like a transition area of some kind. It’s not unpleasant, and not terribly uncomfortable.
I feel clear on where I am.
But understanding this waiting time theoretically is not at all the same as abiding peacefully with the open space on a daily basis.… Read the rest