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yoga blog

Storytelling from on and off the mat

Closeout 2016

12/31/2016

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Tethered to normalcy. Those are the words that came to me over the Christmas holiday at my family’s home in Upstate NY.  Rochester and Bill.  My life.  Helped by the semblance of order in a pre-defined way.  Maybe this is what God (and I) wanted for my unruly, wild, Spirit.   
 
I was plunked down in a town that is so normal in ‘middle’ America and to a man who is solid and stable.  With a creative heart and the guile to put that creativity to use in Corporate America there he stands with me at the midpoint of my life.  Heart centered with a head that can lead just about anything or anyone.  
 
He who found me in a group of preppy girls standing out like a wayward one with my “freak hat” on at the homogenous Catholic university that we attended and which had previously hosted Thomas Merton meditating on the ‘heart’ mountain.  Back then Bill and I were 35 years ago in school, him telling me to take it off (the hat) as he nervously smiled at me in the cafeteria line. 
 
I do fit in (assimilate) so well back home in Asheville with their tag line to keep it weird but wonder if it’s my dharma/karma or samara to stay there or to move on.  We’ll see.  That’s it for today.  The Universe pushing me with big changes hovering this way or that.  In what direction I am not sure.  We are deciding together on what’s next.  Mercury is Retrograde so I have a reprieve as we work together and try to sort it out, my highest Self with One.
 
Thy Will, I repeat this again as I did many decades before.  ‘I surrender as I look with a watchful and hopeful eye to the coming days, months and year in 2017.’
 
Post Note:  I read this to Bill and he tells me that he has always accepted the person that I am and that I am more normal than I let on and this is probably true.  For the most part, my behavior quite staid and stable, my work as a nurse and my role as friend, daughter, wife, mother and grandmother.... And too maybe it is what we find most intriguing that we  resist the most. 

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Faith, Miracles & Maharajji

12/22/2016

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I am reading Love Everyone by Parvati Markus.  It is a compilation of people’s stories of their experience with Neem Karoli Baba (Marharajji).  He is revered as a saint in India and for many Westerns in the late 60’s he was their guru (and still is).  Krishna Das, Ram Das and many more.  In reading the stories of so many people’s extraordinary, light filled experience with Marharajji in Parvati’s book you may question, really? Was he really that incredible?  I know I did. I don’t doubt Mother Teresa. I grew up Catholic and there is familiarity and honestly, she didn’t have the same LSD stoner-followers that he had.
 
And in general I have serious doubts today. I am at this crossroad.  I got yet another email about this ‘situation’ and I am just really tired of struggling and am also feeling incredibly stuck right now.  I feel that things aren’t in my control and that there is a crumbling of sorts. The tower card.  The face of Kali.  Pluto in my chart.  I am jaded and cynical and sick of fighting things I shouldn’t have to fight. Not my fault.
 
I ask the otherside, Why?  I actually talk to them like it is the most normal thing in the world and I have no doubt that I am being listened to. I walk into my den and pull two cards both the Positive Expectation and Miracle Healing ones and still I am not appeased.  I say “Enough!  I am done.  I am done with you throwing things at me.  Done.  Do you hear me?!” And they are listening.
 
And then I see Marharajji and he say something sweet to me, he says "now do you believe in me?"  And I giggle as there is no doubting this sweet presence or is there? Is that really he?  When you are feeling disillusioned it is hard to be pulled out of it sometimes. You just want to wallow and feel out-of-sorts and dark.  And we question things anyway when they are extra-ordinary.
 
Then I tune in to my computer and music is playing and the song switched to one of Krishna Das’s.  ‘Ok.  This is a funny coincidence.  Sure, listening to one of Krishna Das’s podcast a few weeks ago was what prompted me to get this book on Marharajji but I have a ton of KD music on my playlists.  I tell myself that it is just random that he came on and Marharajji is his guru. 

But then his song finishes and a podcast of Wayne Dyer starts to play and he is saying “if you want to make God laugh then tell him your plans.” That everything that happens to us leads us to our purpose of why we are here.  That he was in an orphanage and this experience taught him how to be self-reliant.  “Do kids bemoan waking up each day and saying ‘why do I have to be in this orphanage??’  No they go about their business of taking care of themselves and living their life.”  He tells us that this is what he did and this experience has led him to being the inspirational teacher that he is. That all things that happen to us have significance for why we are here and what we are supposed to do. Everything leads up to the next thing.

Ok, I get it.  I am with you but for today this doesn’t help me much. 

These are my thoughts as I half tune in and in that exact moment the music switches mid talk and then I am awed.

Wow. Ok. I look out  and see his smiling face and he is saying 'it’s ok to be dark today' and in that moment I am not dark, I am grateful and at peace. 

(These are the lyrics to the song that cut in...)

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/shaniatwain/up.html

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Vegan Protein Powder Smoothie w/Maca & Cacao

12/17/2016

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Vegan Power Shake
 
1 ½ cups of Almond Milk
1 T (no whey) Protein Powder
½ T Maca Powder
½ T Cacao Powder
1 Frozen Banana
 
Approx. 200 calories
Protein 12 grams protein







What is maca good for….
http://www.globalhealingcenter.com/natural-health/7-benefits-of-maca-root-for-women/?gclid=CjwKEAiA4dPCBRCM4dqhlv2R1R8SJABom9pHeXi7y7f1YImrUw4qhT3WphV8U5MtrMjFIG_uBMpeqRoCAZ7w_wcB
 
What is cacao good for….
http://begoodorganics.com/blogs/subscriber-only-recipes/7991527-cacao-5-little-known-benefits-of-this-amazonian-superfood

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Swimming Again...

12/13/2016

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Last week
 
Saving myself from drowning
12/6/16 I wish I could say that I am dealing with this ‘situation’ well.  I would have to say though that I am not.  I am crying, sad, having feelings of despair and pulling away from life.  I might even have made a spectacle of myself in yoga last night.  Crying almost to a sob during kirtan at the end of class.  It actually felt kind of good though even though I was embarrassed.  It was like this floodgate that couldn’t be stopped.  Like the rain that is flowing today.  Rain that we are dearly in need of.  Flowing and flowing and flowing.  Being released from the skies.
 
Yes, I am all of that mess, but in some ways I am doing fine.  I am going about my life, working, accepting new referrals, setting up ‘play dates’ with friends, talking to my family, laughing, going to yoga and exercising.  Running and doing spin classes.  I am ‘functional’.  This is an important word we use in psych—‘are you functional?” Are you eating and sleeping, yes and yes.  Are you finding joy—well, yes.  Are you interesting in things. Yes….well then you are having an adjustment problem.  And to that I would answer, F---, yes!
 
Ok.  So maybe an adjustment problem is a spiritual crisis of sorts.  A questioning.  A questioning of that which I was previously secure with.  Faith and the way things were supposed to go.  A faulty line in my core is starting to shake things up a little too much and I am freaking out. …whooo!  Stop.  Enough!!
 
I told my therapist…let’s call him Fred.  That I need to garner the lesson here because I am not a victim and he gently listened and said.  You know there are victims in life.  Children are sometimes victims…oh, of course I couldn’t argue with Fred.  Our work has taught us all too well that there are victims.  We have seen them and the aftermath is sad and not pretty and in no way was it their fault what happened to them and I agree.  Victims do exist.  But not me.   I don’t want to be a victim (an aftermath).  I want to have a say or control or grace or some protection.  This is all that I will accept.  That is all that I can accept.
 
I told the story of saving one of my brother’s from drowning on the homepage of this blog.  I not only saved my brother Pat from drowning (but also my brother Doug) and myself.  The story of Doug’s near drowning happened the year after Pat’s.  I think I was about eight or nine.  We were at my Uncle’s guest house in the Bristol mountains.  He owned it with a friend (his lover).  They had a pond out front and the adults were laughing and joking.  Doug went out too far and went under.  I had "swimmer’s ear" that day and was told not to submerge myself.  I knew in that moment that I either had to get my ears wet or see him struggle.  An obvious choice for an adult.  For a kid who’s more concrete it took a moment of thought.  Fortunately I opted for saving him.  I dragged him to safety and the adults missed the show.  Doug still talks about it.  No one else but he (and I) seem to remember. 

The day I saved myself was before I was officially a swimmer taking lessons at Perkins pool near our home. It actually is one of my earliest memories.  My fellow peers and I were told to sit on the side of the pool with our feet in the water not to get in, just wait for our teacher. The other little chicks just sat there like they were told to do with their feet draped in the water patiently waiting for the next instruction.
 
Not me.  I wanted to get in.  I don’t remember if I jumped in or slide in but I must presume that I just slipped in because no one seemed to notice. There was no splash, no one was paying attention. The memory photos starts with an, oh no.  I am going to get into trouble if someone notices.  The second.  I am having trouble getting out and I will die if I don’t.  The third kicking and kicking and kicking which seemed to take a lot of effort as I stared at the side of the pool slowly kicking my way up to the surface and then finally of pulling myself out (did one of the other kids help me get out??)  Lastly, being surprised that not one of the adults noticed.  Both a happy feeling, phew but a scary one.  I could have drowned that day and no one was there to save me, but me.
 
Today
 12/13/16 Back on sturdy ground and swimming again.
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  • Home
  • Oprah John Friend & Desi, Brene Brown and more
  • 2014, 2016, 2015 and 2012
  • A Day in the Life & Pay Attention
  • Reflections from the Past
  • Guatemala Trips
  • Springtime & Falltime
  • Yamas and Niyamas--the eastern Way of the Commandments
  • ClairVision Meditation Group
  • Interviews
  • New
  • Amy's Story
  • Juice Cleanse