Texas forever.

Unsurprising reasons why FNL is satisfying to watch: 1. the people are pretty, real damn pretty 2. It’s a solid vehicle for indie/pop songs, although I can dodge the phenomenon from the graf above cause the show’s already been out long enough for most of the songs to be car ads by now…heck, I used the soundtrack for my Power II classes before I even knew the show existed 3. The writers have one really basic thing down: how to wrap up stories while still leaving you dying, simply dying to find out what happens next, and that’s a tough gig (think Heroes as a counterexample) 4. The cast is remarkable. I’m now inserting a superfluous shout out to Taylor Kitsch, whose gratuitous and locally-grown hawtness adorns this post 5. FOOTBALL.

But none of this is why I’m writing the post and thank God because srsly this is an old show now and therefore SPOILERS. Surprising reasons why FNL is satisfying to watch: 1. I’ve been told that I occasionally speak with an American accent and somebody once speculated that it (the accent) is from Georgia. I now flatter myself that it is from West Texas. 2. The intensity of the drama is anchored and reinforced by how the characters have to constantly return to their core beliefs and integrity in order to survive their challenges, and it’s made real damn obvious for us as audience members since the stories literally play out as teams…I’m thinking particularly of how we can effortlessly switch allegiances between the Panther and the Lions once Coach Taylor loses his job to the Joe McCoy Rethuglican juggernaut. The team colours change, our fave players are in school or in jail (or courageously disappeared entirely, a trick I used to think was simply poor story telling until Mad Men), and we’re nostalgic for the simpleminded enthusiastic chuckleheadery of being on the State Champion’s side. Except that it turns out that we weren’t looking for that at all: we were lusting after Coach’s pure love of sport and faith in his players, that can change forms without any tarnishing, and in fact becomes even more pure

Oh, you're never gonna give up your pride, hon

and rarefied as he suffers the slings and arrows of McCoy-era douchitude. I like how the Taylor parents’ couch is a nonsense-free zone, where all the pressures of their admittedly bizarre subculture and the expected pressures of maintaining familial, social and economic life are distilled into a couple key phrases, usually including the words “hon”, “gonna”, and “damn”.

I also like how there are sharp distinctions between identities that only adolescence, and maybe only rural adolescence, can create. You either go to West Dillon or East Dillon; you’re either in college or you’re not. Generally, barring the deus ex machina, when a character leaves Dillon they LEAVE, and everybody knows it, which is what gave Street’s eventual departure such pathos: sure you can fly from Jersey to Austin, but that’s not the point: he’s not coming back even if he physically visits. The goodbye between Riggins and Street acknowledges the fragility of the adolescent and briefly post-adolescent state. There’s a bright line between what grew you and where you have to go.

So this is particularly resonant with me cause I’m composing this post listening to two six-week-old humans snort, fart and flutter in their sleep. There was a bright line between when they were in and out, and no patient planning or graceful conceptual architecture can prepare for that change in state. I hope to write more about this once I get over this first phase of parenting which consists of WHAT IS THIS I DON’T EVEN WHAARGARRBL, but that’s the short version of the deal, if you’re curious. Matter and energy must move, they must change state, and trying to hold onto a structure or organization past the point of sustainability just isn’t going to work, no matter how nostalgically we bite our lip or cling to its hemlines. I’ll tell you now, good reader, I miss being pregnant. But it’s deeply cool that they[the twins]‘re here. And FNL’s depiction of a couple who can withstand some of the most venal behavior of small-town political shenanigans while dealing with profound family transitions of a more pedestrian sort is inspirational to me. The Taylors are characters who know how to weather change without a lot of ten-dollar words and high-falutin theoretical nonsense. They manage to stay close to the heart and close to each other without a word of Sanskrit. If you have to change jobs, lose a lover, get somebody born, say goodbye to anybody, or be born yourself, I recommend this show. Just set aside some serious blocks of time

*note:  the movie’s OK but not as good

**additional note:  I should probably read the book I’m sure it’s great OMG THERE GOES MORE TIME

***additional additional note:  MOAR LANDRY

Thanks, Al Gore

schizoid but I’m trying to catch up on both practical details, upcoming community events, and thought-nuggets of varying value.

• Living downtown has so far proved magnificent, although I’m still kind of intimidated by living somewhere that’s so nice and keep expecting somebody to either turf me out for being a hippie or slide a Holiday Inn Express check-out form under the door.  As we near the end of our first month here I am starting to dig in a little more and get comfy.  The concrete and the building security soothes the low-level autistic tendencies in a very happy way.  And you never know how much you miss abundant electrical outlets until you live somewhere with an appropriately modern amount of them [there's nothing like the A-Christmas-Story-like nest of frothing, sparking plugs, sealed with cat-hair, all piled into a Black and Decker power bar from 1996].
• My last class before “mat leave” will be Big Rock Friday on April 1 at 4.  Play hooky, call in sick, if you have a pass at another studio don’t worry about the $$$, just come and visit please.  It’s a nice big space so it’ll be a bit roomier than the Yaletown sweat lodge.  As much as I’m looking forward to focussing more time and energy on these little beans I’m going to miss grownups like crazy, especially since almost all of you are continent and can speak in complete sentences.  So let’s party.  And I’m sorry about the outdated schedule that’s been up here on the blog…that’s pretty irritating…for what it’s worth [not much with a week to go] it’s fixed now.
• Don’t forget to keep checking our Vanusara community site for upcoming events.  Sianna Sherman is this weekend and Martin Kirk’s therapeutics on April 1-3…not to mention a years’ worth of Immersions, Teacher Trainings, Philosophy Weekends, Advanced Practices and other abundant opportunities for study.

He looks a bit like my brother at that age

“Tuesday’s Gone”, Lynyrd Skynyrd

“Free Ride”, The Edgar Winter Group

“Rock And Roll All Night”, Kiss

“Space Truckin’”, Deep Purple

“Paranoid”, Sabbath

“Slow Ride”, Foghat

“Sweet Emotion”, Aerosmith

“Balinese”, ZZ Top

“Take The Money And Run”, Steve Miller Band

“Dazed And Confused”, Led Zeppelin

“Nassau/Baby I Love Your Way”, Peter Frampton

“Summer Breeze”, Seals and Crofts

“Lights”, Journey

Like getting a hug, except all the time

2.  If you’ve been delighted by the preponderance of crocheted items showing up on necks and heads of students and staff at Yaletown lately, look no further than another gifted yoga buddy, LBG.  Buy her stuff.  Then give some of it away to people you like.  Then buy more.

3.  In the “Scary Brilliant” file goes this magnificent essay by Gail Hochachka, another stealth genius on the mat.  There’s so much in here I feel a bit slow and feeble unpacking it, but am honoured and humbled to have helped inspire it.   Stay tuned for a more fleshed-out post in response, complete sentences pending.

4.  Another year, another redonkulously talented group of Chris Chavez teacher training grads.  I just can’t say enough good things about these guys, nor about Chris’ dedication and diligence in helping us all become better teachers.  The word “all” is key here, because as you know, I’m not particularly interested in technologies that just reinforce existing awesomeness, since I figure that’ll take care of itself.  I’m interested in real transformation for everyone who participates, and that’s what happens when I assist these trainings.  Next one starts March 2011, giddy up!

picturesque verdure

Following one of John’s many edicts I spent the last week of August running around in the forest. Well, he didn’t say that exactly, but he does often encourage those of us who wish to align with nature to spend some time with nature, so we know what the heck we’re doing. Here are some things that I’ve heard about Nature and why we should align with it:

- it’s beautiful
- it’s beneficent
- it has a pattern

which I don’t disagree with per se, except that almost every conventional definition of those words is challenged by actually hanging out in uncultivated Nature for any length of time. Breaking it down further, it seems clear that Nature, while unquestionably “beautiful” for values of “beautiful” that include “wild” and “filthy” and “beneficent” insofar as it is “ruthlessly fair”, is not arranged for OUR benefit as humans. Nature is not always picturesque. It is far from kind. It doesn’t exist for our pleasure alone, although you can frequently get pleasure out of it. It utterly fails to exist according to our organized rules and dogma, and trying to get it to fit in there somewhere is high-maintenance.

Okay, so. The last point is the one I want to focus on here, since the pattern ostensibly in nature is the one by which the human body comes to be aligned through yoga asana and kind of the point of this whole game. I’ve spent a lot of time wondering what exactly is the line between authoritatively guiding somebody in physical alignment and overrunning their instinct to the point that they retract their energy. Hemming and hawing does no good; subjectivity reinforces patterns that are already there ["if it feels right", "if it's in your practice"] So I watched what happened to the patterns in the little patch of Nature I was privileged to occupy, and I focussed my attention primarily on what happened when the patterns *broke down*.

Examples:

- when a seagull eats 3 prongs off of a starfish
- when a branch pokes a hole in a spiderweb
- when a falling dead tree splits a neighbouring tree in half

Note that none of these instances have anything to do with human intervention. These are just little breakddowns in the picturesque patterns we reference when we’re talking about Nature’s Majesty. The traditional vertical tree has a spiral pattern of branches that is pleasing to the eye as they ascend around the arboreal vertical, and the veins in the leaves are self-similar to the leaves themselves in a fractal. The spiderweb is deeply organized for something created by a little pin-sized insect brain. Starfish are super resilient and if the seagull eats a prong or two, they’ll usually just grow back at some point. In each of these picturesque instances the classic easily interpretable pattern repeats: spiderweb symetry, tree spiral, five-pointed star. Ah, beautiful nature.

There’s a plot of uncultivated untended land next to where we stay when we get out of Dodge and while it’s terribly impressive, it is far from Beautiful in the Truth and Beauty of Man’s Glory sense. Bear scat, fallen logs, dense dead leaf brush/scrub miscellany and similar. It’s a good test of your true sense of what you think Nature is supposed to look like. It doesn’t really edify in the sense that I think we usually refer to Beauty and Beneficence. It was a good laboratory for my pattern breakdown observations. Here’s what I noticed:

- the amputee starfish remains dual-pronged and uncomfortably prevails

Still way prettier than what I saw

- the spider DOES NOT return to the original web pattern. it sews up the whole in whatever most expeditious and effective way needed to save its home, like scar tissue
- the tree DOES NOT attempt to go back to the original vertical. it gnarsomely splits and burls and makes incredibly creative attempts to move around and even THROUGH its attacker. it looks like another tree entirely.

This was a trip. I came to see that the pattern existing in human perception of what constitutes “nature’s pattern” really only exists at certain scales and relative levels e.g. from a helicopter the wild plot would look quite verdant and picturesque, or one leaf under a microscope, but at ground level it’s a bit of a mess. I also came to see that life’s desire to prevail would, under trauma, BREAK THE PATTERN and do whatever was necessary to continue its existence.

Human imagination and vision sees symetry, pattern, balance…sometimes, even when it doesn’t actually exist. The ear will actively blur tiny differences in tuning so that very close notes will come to sound correctly attuned. The dark side of this pattern-seeking can turn to prejudice, and the light side gives us methodology, cosmology, imagination and dreaming. The force that brings more order and coherence is Shiva: organizing, vertical, arboreal thought. Father Sky and his gang of sons: organized religion, patriarchy, hierarchy, feudalism, capitalism &c. And yes, yoga.

But the Great Mother is much much MUCH wilder and dirtier and more inventive than we give her credit for. Sure, there are patterns in there but it’s so complicated and intense that most human endeavour just throws up their hands and says “screw it”. I’m serious, we tried to find some species of birds and jellyfish on the iPhone for classification purposes and almost every pdf article we read was like “there are a bunch of different kinds of birds and jellyfish, we know about 6 of them, go knock yourself out”. And as somebody who feels like a) I’m not part of the traditional pretty pattern and b) we collectively as modern humans are no longer part of the traditional pretty pattern, I wanted to see what the Mother teaches when the wheels come off the cart.

I figure a broken heart or spirit is like a broken spiderweb. Don’t go back to the original template, it won’t work. Don’t pretend that the scar isn’t there. Don’t purify: LIVE. The passionate zeal of nature to heal you will work in all manner of wild ways. Constantly trying to force the old template on this kind of vivid lushness is just anthropocentrism run amok. That first step, of seeing the creative possibilities in your own healing, can certainly lead to all kinds of rigor and imposition, but at that point it’s freely chosen. This should shatter the necessity of an intercessor between human and the Divine. The trouble usually seems to be that the paradisal sky land promised by the Father is so damned enticing that you get all this “liberation” rhetoric, the implication being that life is so repulsive nobody would ever want to stay in this messy chaotic dogpile if they could dodge it. Weirdly, these same cats create paeons to the Beauty of Nature, meaning the parts of nature that *they* like.

Now, maybe in the physical body it works better. Like that dude who helps people with phantom pain in amputated limbs by creating a mirrored box for their proprioceptive sense to communicate with the lost body part, maybe it’s better to just imply wholeness and hope for the best. You line up your body AS IF your energy body was already whole and then wait for the pattern to kick in again. But my observations have very clearly revealed to me that there is another, darker, way more powerful, less pretty and more Beautiful force that just keeps breaking these false idols. I think the Father is well represented on this planet; I think we hear more than enough of structure, discipline and pyramid schemes. I know intellectually, and from having my ass kicked again and again, that balanced action is key…but I still hunger for more of the Mother’s dark truth. I just get Angry Dad every day all day.

M is inspired by the naturally occurring versions of bonsai trees, that live just at the edge of the treeline and are buffetted by so much violent elemental force that their patterns are constantly run ragged, yielded a wild beauty that pruning shears can only approximate. Maybe we need just enough alignment to live at the wild edge.

Here’s the problem.

I first noticed it around..2000-ish or so. It might have been before that, or whatever. The local chain grocery store (I was living in a rural area where there was like one largish grocery store in about a 30-minute drive radius. It was insane.) put up a big public display applauding their cashiers for making a new scans per minute metric. I think it was 80 or so. In a few months, there was another display, showing a few who made a metric of 120. There was only a few.

There was also less lanes open.

Back up in your ass with the resurrection

Those two things are entirely related.

For much of the actual working class, it’s all about meeting specified and trackable goals. And everything else goes out the window. This stampede towards absolute productivity and eliminating waste is at the core of the great recession. What we’re seeing for the most part, is companies using this as an excuse to cash in on productivity gains. That’s why profits are up even as sales are so low.

This is THE problem. This is the reason why Obama didn’t push for single payer/public option..the economy simply couldn’t withstand the massive productivity and efficiency gains in the health sector. And fixing it isn’t just a political problem…

All the solutions…there’s a lot of people..average, regular people who are going to be very upset with them. You could do massive direct government hiring…but you need to give those people breaks, or pay them if it’s storming or whatever. Or you make a stronger maximum workweek and lower it. Again, the idea that those lazy kids/whatever racial group won’t have to work as hard…it just pisses people off.

This isn’t some fake, Fox News trumped scandal. These are real, common, very popular tropes among the general population. And that’s the problem.

Nothing short of a complete change of the nature of work, why we work, what we get for work, is going to get the job done. And yes, the change is as much cultural as it is political. And that’s what makes it so tough to change.

Or, I ruminated as I had the morning coffee-and-video-game-wakeup [Madden NFL '11] perhaps we have simply exploded; grown so fast that, like a Big Bang, what once was close and nestly is now at the wild periphery. Either we pay lip service to the idea that more people should do yoga or we actually believe it: either way, our dharma as teachers is to continually grow and expand, and that will necessarily mean abandoning that closeness.

And students notice it too, and nobody seems to know why it happens: where is the Old Group, they say? Why all the politics, why the camps and militant splinter factions? Why is that every person I used to see weekly without fail at our favourite teachers’ class is now off doing Core Bootcamp on the Northshore?

Okay, so after chewing on this for a while I have a bunch of different answers and they are as follows:

• Your friend practices on the Northshore now because she CAN. Simply by virtue of opening new studios all over the place, both YYoga and otherwise, people can fit classes more easily into their schedule and they don’t need to travel to the downtown meccas to do it.
• Your friend practices on the Northshore because now that her two kids are of school age, she has to, or she doesn’t practice at all [related to #1 but more to do with time passing and demographic priorities shifting, dig?]
• 30% of the Old Group, as the Old Group is wont to do, is getting really good at yoga asana and study, and they have their voice to share…meaning, they’re teachers now, and to get the gigs they need to live they have to take on classes that conflict with The Class You Used To Take Together. Or,
• heck, they’re SUBBING T.C.Y.U.T.T.T, which is fine except you are used to them being *beside* you, not *in front* of you, and something’s different and you don’t know what it is…you support them doing what they love, but their message is not The Old message
• Your old teachers keep learning, growing and changing, too. Their messages change. They go through stuff in their personal life that is either buried beneath the performative surface or expounded upon at length, depending on what kind of cat they are…and depending on what kind of cat YOU are, you can either feel it percolating or hear it tendentiously explained, which will either alarm or bore you, or both. After all, if THIS person can’t even keep their act together, you wonder, what am I doing here? Why is it not simply fun and new like it was back in the Old Days?
• Because you’re also in The Old Group, you’re getting really good at yoga asana and study, too. You hear stuff you didn’t hear before. Part of what was just the trombone noise of teachers’ dharma talks, when most of your head was populated by worry and static, is getting more clear, and you either don’t agree with some of what they say, or don’t find yourself moving forward the way you used to back in the day.

Communities don't grow by themselves, people.

These last two are related to the rate at which humans learn. Your learning curve in yoga asana is at first quite steep and you’ll get adept quite fast if your teachers are any good at all [at this stage of the game in 2010, almost all of them are]. However, at a certain point that huge rate of change slows, and you’re never going to have that huge drama from when you started, when EVERY DAY had a “first” of some kind in it. Sorry, there are just not that many new yoga poses. They’re also connected to what I suspect is a universal human need to see The Teacher as “other”: radiating confidence and perfection from some sort of Elysian yoga-teacher-base-camp, where we all sit around tending our organic orchids and drinking soma and meditating, instead of answering text messages and changing diapers and having the same argument with our parents that we did back in 1994. When you first meet your teacher, the vibration they hold is indescribably bright and inspiring, because they’ve done that work. What they’re talking about in class has NO relationship to your day-to-day of limiting beliefs, anxieties, control and conflict. It’s disheartening to hear or see that they have the same conflicts and anxieties, either camouflaged better, or repressed. As soon as that comes out, the romance ends and you’re left with the aftermath…do I go hunting for that “hit” of romantic radiance again? So a useful contemplation might be: Is it important to me that my yoga teacher be perfect, and in what ways? There are schools of spiritual discipline where perfection is a priority, and you may find yourself moving more in the desired direction studying them. Caveat: They may also expect YOU to be perfect.

I’ve romanticized, and then been disappointed in, every peer group I’ve had since I was in Grade 9. I was so excited to move to Toronto after hearing about all the indie-rock venues there on CFNY back in high school. When I moved there and actually *played* at the Horseshoe, or the El Mocambo, I had that Groucho-Marx moment of wondering if I really wanted to be a part of any club that would have me as a member. I mean, if I could do it, how amazing were these places anyway? So a healthy dose of low-self-esteem, combined with some unexplored post-adolescent hero-worship: nothing extraordinary here, but I’ve certainly transferred that to my yoga communities along the way. As I grow inexorably older I realize: any judgements I have of my teachers must necessarily fall on me, too. This helps me stay spacious, although it’s not always easy, especially when I hear some gossip or other come down the pipe…it always hurts my heart at first, but then I realize: we are humans in this, first and foremost, and I have never wished to have my practice eclipse that human-ness.

Okay, so, if you’re ever feeling disenchanted with your space, your teachers, your yoga buddies, here are a couple of tricks you can use, and I’m just making these names and concepts up on the spot as I go, heh heh:

1. Open to Grace and Set Your Foundation. You’ve probably done so many Down Dogs that you forget what it was like to do one for the first time. You’ve probably done so many Virabhadrasana IIs that you know very well where your feet should be placed. Knowledge is powerful and you’ve went to a lot of trouble to accumulate it…and it also removes space for more learning and a richer experience. When you come to any class, listen to the teaching. Even if it goes against something you’ve already heard before, or even something that you are very sure of, be open to the fresh experience being offered. If you hear a new cue, try it. If this seems boring and tedious to you, check yourself before you wreck yourself…this is what your teachers told you back when you started out, so the exhilaration of the steep learning curve is a DIRECT FUNCTION of being open. If you simply cannot execute what is being offered because of physical pain or a fundamental ethical rift, rest, or simply sit in meditation. Please do not be the douchecornet who insists on doing it their way in spite of instruction, that’s as rude as bringing a Big Mac to a dinner party. When you’re done the class and you are sure that you never want to return, then don’t [although I recommend not basing an entire path on one class, but I know we're very busy and you gotta work with the information you have].

2. Muscular Energy. If you want your friends to come to a yoga class with you, text them and let them know. Hug in. Be a centre for your community. Sure, there was a time when you knew you’d see everybody on Sundays at 4 or whatever…but that was because there was only 1 or 2 yoga classes in the whole city at that time. Those days are now over, which is sort of sad but mostly iNcReDiBle. How many more people enjoy the fruits of practice now than when you started? Do you know that your presence as a continuing student is part of why they love what they do? That’s a privilege and also a responsibility. And it’s fun to make sure your yoga remains social and enthusiastic…a lot of that energy takes more precedence than the teacher, the poses, the music or the philosophical material.

3. Inner Spiral. Expand. Bring your siblings, coworkers, parents, children, people who are legendary yoga hataz, people who you notice gazing sidelong and wistfully at your mat bag when you’re at work. Let your vision be refreshed by their experience of doing stuff for the first time. Let their admiration of your efforts encourage you to stay on your path, whatever that might be. Go with your pregnant buddy to a pre-natal class. Hell, go with your fratboy sales staff to a CrossFit workout. Get a membership at Harbour Dance.

4. Outer Spiral. Seal in your energy and recommit. While I rarely regret taking any type of class, from the most hallucination-inducing Bikram’s class to a narcoleptic gentle Hatha, you are not going to have your mind blown every single time. Grow up and get used to it, and give yourself an opportunity to contemplate or journal what styles and methods have really worked for you, why it might be time for a change, why you started practicing and why you practice now…and if they’re any different. Teachers, you have an opinion about why you’re teaching what you’re teaching…if you don’t have an opinion about any particular action or sequence, let the students have that space, but if you DO, stand in that strongly and encourage all the energy of the classroom to coalesce around that. Hold the students accountable to reflect the way that they hold you accountable.

5. Organic Energy. When you feel like you have more in you than any of your teachers are giving you, guess what: you’re full: time for an upload. Time to teach.

A.  My first quinoa.  It will likely only yield a teaspoon of actual grains which I will forget to harvest but I was pleased to see that the stuff you buy at Choices is not irradiated, and the first sprouted crop was shorn by Evelyn before it reached puberty [that snouty little beast]

IT'S NOT BEER. For the last time.

B.  Saving a buncha money not buying probiotics since I started brewing my own kombucha.  This is of the lineage of Clara Roberts-Oss, who left me the “mother” in the fridge at Flow, and since I didn’t know what I was looking for I almost took somebody’s leftovers home by mistake.  I haven’t been counting batches but I think this is close to #10.

C.  I can’t claim any credit for this other than Photoshop:  This is the beauty shot of the outhouse M built for their family woodland plot.  Alls I did was stand on boards that needed to be ripcut with dull handsaws, and I finishing-nailed the side cedar lattice.  Oh, and I pulled the rowboat out to the dock and loaded the lumber into it.  I was very proud of myself.

Everybody asks about the moon, there it is

D.  I can’t claim any credit for this either except those are my hands.  I have always wanted a way to grow delicate herbs and baby lettuces indoors and M hooked a sister up with a big long tray of awesome:  here’s some red leaf and a bit of Asian mesclun hiding in the background.  Out of frame is some really

and it just keeps on comin'

appallingly abundant basil.  It may kill and eat us.

E.  This is not colour-manipulated in any way and has been just one of about a zillion strawberries we got out of our planter box.  Consider:  We have only the deck garden to work with and really anything we get more than one of is dubbed a “bumper crop”.  They go well in Greek yogurt w/honey, and I save a lot of benjamins not buying those steroidic California berries.

like a big juicy heart

F.  Random cherry tomatoes, another huge haul this summer.  Some of them even successfully came from seed, sprouted in the lettuce box, which I didn’t think we had the

I like the colours as they ripen

gardening chops for.

Other things that I’m stoked about:  harem pants, the NFL preseason, our exciting 2011 season of visiting Certified Anusara teachers [watch vanusara.wordpress.com for details] and some sweet blogs by my friends.  I hope we help remind each other to write about what we honestly love and keep ourselves smiling.

The site explains the circumstances of these retreats clearly enough, so I won’t belabour that; nothing in the bare-bones font and design of the site prepares the human nervous system for 12 daily hours of meditation and what basically amounts to a daily 19-hour fast, as no food other than fruit and tea can be taken after noon…for not being able to even expose your upper arms to the sun or nod and smile encouragingly at a fellow victim, I mean participant, when they are so visibly shaken and miserable that every cell in you is alive with compassion. What’s a soft, decadent little pup like myself doing in this rigorous situation, you ask? Haven’t I structured both my practice and my teaching to avoid the tedious drudgery of “life is suffering”? Well, yeah, sort of, except that this is a vast and rich continent of practice and knowledge and if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em for a 10 day psychic evisceration.

I’ve ranted against my half-witted definition of pop-Buddhism here and there; John’s language is more graceful and more accurate when he says that “some forms of discipline will amplify spirit, and other forms will diminish spirit”. I’ve had my spirit diminished by language like “suffering”, “craving”, “aversion”, “ignorance”, “misery” and even “equanimity”, borderline stoicism that can so easily jump the shark to apathy and inner death. Then naturally, since balance is apparently a foreign concept to me, I went wide in the other direction, joyfully embracing Tantra’s affirmation of life’s intrinsic divine unity as an excuse to marginalize/avoid/oversimplify other paths. UR DOIN IT RONG. Tantra means “to weave”, meaning in this instance that no methodology or path is excluded from its purview, from euphoric bhakti-fun, to grim Spartan rectitude. I figured I’d be a pretty sad excuse for a teacher if I couldn’t suck it up for 10 days, and I had various philosophical and pedagogical theories that needed experiential testing for validity. So your intrepid field reporter handed her iPhone to the wardens, put on M’s old T-shirts [the dowdiest items I could find] and went into the trenches.

Start again.

If you really want to know what the method and practice are all about you should probably just sit a course, since SN Goenka, the teacher and primary living exponent of this method is emphatic that its fruits will arise only from experience. Any description I could offer regarding the technique would be inaccurate and amateurish. I will say it is exquisite in its simplicity and admirably effective at addressing the nature of the mind. Nothing like it. Non-sectarian, resolutely intellectual, clean crisp lines that made me yearn for a splattery Sanskrit yarn, people with 500 heads, jewelled saris and blueskinned demi-immortals…alas, no such drama here…it’s all like a big food processor for your head.

And of course I’m not just here with my own special mess to clean up; I’m also here as a little baby teacher trying to see how the big dogs do it, and how to connect with students who might be more familiar with this type of technique…or how to bring it to those who really need to do it, and don’t wanna. So I’m running a couple of different subprogams throughout the process, usually resulting in me pacing around our little enclosure, chewing on the inside of my cheek and muttering to myself like a…really, really stable and well-balanced person, heh. So much of what was instructed was in the language described above, and as the vast chunks of the day spent in meditation chewed up the cognitive grist, you’re already pretty much as bummed as you can be, so it really seems like piling on. I missed what I perceive as the heart of practice. I felt very hollow when I wasn’t pissed off or bored. It seemed like we were in a time capsule, bodies hidden, eyes down, trapped in this energetic dead zone where animals and birds even steered clear while we did our work. I had promised that I would do my very best not to pollute this method with the more familiar, though, so unless I really needed to call my lifeline in moments of psychospiritual duress I avoided mantra or emotional narrative.

Due to the misunderstanding of the nature of Tantra mentioned above my stance was usually skeptical and combative, especially ironic as Goenka accurately describes the daily experience of the new meditators with chilling accuracy, particularly weird considering the instruction is given via video, recorded in 1991…how does he know about my special snowflake experience IN THE FUTURE? What a guy. I’d gird my mental loins every day at 4:20 am when I shuffled down the hall for the dawn session, ready to sneer at anything that seemed dated, irrelevant, body-negative, patriarchal, or inaccurate. I found plenty of material to inwardly bitch and mutter about, which naturally made my practice even more awkward and graceless. I spent a lot of energy trying to SEPARATE this grim experience from my familiar practice, forgetting over and over again that Tantra creates CONNECTION. So, what’s the hook? Should you, as an Anusara-curious student, live in the mountains for 10 days? Is there a relationship there, and if so, what the heck is it when the two techniques seem so radically dissimilar?

What rang cherries for me was on the morning of day 5, we heard a long and exuberant chant that Goenka has recorded, in Pali [e.g. not Sanskrit] that nevertheless mentioned terms and structures that those of you who have studied Anusara Yoga seriously will find familiar: the bottom 25 tattvas, from the elements of the material world, through the senses and their objects, through the mind and cognitive processes, all the way up to the mutually exclusive categories of Spirit and Matter [their exclusivity is why these philosophies are described as "dual"]. Tantra arrived subsequent to these tattvas or “principles of existence” and, *without modifying or removing any of them*, ADDED another 11 on top to create a non-dual system, that is, no more exclusivity: the substance of all experience, in their view, was the same single, vast, indivisible consciousness. Sounds pretty good, right? We

This is not endorsed by any authority or governing body, I've gone maverick

little pups often conflate this indivisibility with an abandonment of the exclusivity that preceded it, but in a very real way the world is of course quite dualistic: fraught with paradox, irreconcilable difference, wild diversity, and of course the animating spirit does appear to leave the physical body at death, a hard process to reconcile no matter how enthusiastic your non-dual practice might be.

I realized I was living in a little lab, a test-tube where the subject is your own head, and the raw materials of the experiment are described so elegantly through these tattvas of the mind and senses, particularly the part that uses the senses and APPROPRIATES them as being “mine”: my aching leg, my osteopath-hungry sacrum, my twitchy left eyeball. There was no need to argue* with Goenka’s videotaped image [as if!]; in spite of the surface differences in the practice I was simply focussing on this one little “chunk” of the principles of existence, and about time, too. We don’t spend very much time on them, for the simple reason that it’s really uncomfortable and difficult. It’s also dangerous, which is why you are necessarily cloistered for 10 days, so you don’t wander down the mountain road towards the gravel pit with your medulla oblongata hanging out [of course, each course can have its own attrition, because, well, it sucks a lot of the time]. Vipassana is a safe and well-supervised way to develop rudimentary psychonautical skills: you learn how to swim in this deep sea in a very clear and rigorous way. And then those discoveries and skills can naturally be recontextualized in light of your core values, whether they reflect life’s duality or non-duality; you can choose.

Oh, my body. Holy moses. Lest we come to think that we are the doers, the sole agent of change in this embodiment [anava mala], watch what happens to your body when you have to sit still for hours at a time. What a trip, man, I have a whole new spine in addition to my brain’s new firmware download. [Upload?] You could also think of this level of sensitivity and awareness as a new depth of understanding Anusara Yoga’s first principle, including “softening and feeling”: nothing in my experience of those two words prepared me for the lessons of Vipassana. You can’t use all your 90-minute mixed-level class tricks and hope to hold Sukhasana [crossed legs] for an hour straight. You have to get more efficient or you’ll blow up. I practiced for the first time this morning [you're not allowed to do yoga while you're there, I know right?] and was as wobbly as a colt, panting and baffled.

The transformation was effective and global; there was not a single co-meditator of mine whose body did not visibly shift in its energy and posture over the course. This of course came about due to the gruelling rigor with which they all did their work, so lest you think I’m implying a quick or easy fix here, nothing could be further from the truth. I’m just saying. The only other transformation I’ve seen like that was 2009′s Immersion with Chavez and where that took a year, this was 10 days. I would think that without maintenance the previous patterns would likely return, also, so we’ll have to see how it plays out.

So what’s the punchline? Nothing makes you appreciate a smile like not seeing one; nothing makes the radiance of the summer sky shine like having your eyes closed for hours at a time while you scour out your cranium. Goenka relates the Buddha’s experience of enlightenment as “pulsating”, “true, deep happiness and peace”…sound familiar? Om namah Shivaya. On the last day you can start talking to each other with your new voice and your new head, and what you want to say may surprise you in its affection and grace after almost two weeks of sturm und drang. So while this method has different texts, different language and languaging, and a fierce determination, it’s all one love…at least if that’s your bag, and if you’re reading this blog then it probably is.

*One beef that I still have that I think we could collectively attempt to describe more consciously is insisting that the mind is some sort of incontinent infant or wild animal. Sure, it can seem like that as you Roy-Rogers your way through lassoing the sucker, but the mind is gorgeous and potent, and I’m getting a bit honked off at the paradigm of treating it as though it has soiled itself. I feel so strongly after this experience that the mind is not a dog or bull in the soul’s china shop: the mind is a wizard. The body is a warrior. The Heart is Lord.

Not because of any physical or educational endeavour, although it is that. I recently realized that I get most of my energy from

WHAT TIME IS IT?

responding to the status quo with what I think is a balancing force, in most cases rebellion. That’s how I started teaching, actually. I would rumble around in my head with reasons why such-and-such instruction or demeanour was ineffective and think of ways that I could improve upon it. That’s why I started Big Rock Fridays: to puncture the dirigible of piety and passivity that seemed to cloak yoga, and I’ve actually been afraid that somebody would come along and think it was a terrible idea and that I was a jerk and that I was wrong in my passionate instinct.

And finally, they have. I recently got a double-barrelled attack of both anti-Anusara polemic and anti-Sjanie polemic. A more fierce spirit than I would probably respond to such playa-hataz with some serious game but I curled up and died inside because working on “balanced action” as I’ve been asked to do in my training has sapped the zeal and fire out of what started me on this path in the first place.

It’s this way. The world is not optimally aligned. Patriarchy and capitalism keep us from being ourselves. During today’s superlative lecture on this history of yoga with M. Chavez on Day 1 of Immersion II 2010 Planet Earth, he mentioned that all spiritual philosophy strives to seek liberation, and their different tenors will derive from what they perceive to be preventing liberation. Well, for myself personally, I came to Anusara because it was the only place I saw a healthy body image…not just paid lip service but literally embodied in the philosophy and alignment. And I stand by that. And I stand by it with a particular gusto given how UNFREE patriarchal concepts of female body image has made me and my friends. Until this changes worldwide [LOL] my teaching will always have a political element…it will always be “unbalanced” in bringing balance to an extant, unhealthy extreme.

I have ranted about this until friends have backed away slowly from the inferno of verbiage with their hands in the air. Watching the worlds’ climate drift forever towards mo money and mo problems makes me convulse with fury, and that fury gives me a lot of power. If you’ve ever been around me when I’m ranting you know how much power that is. It’s actually kind of scary, even for me. Kali Ma takes out her political ginsu knife and just starts slicing and dicing and that’s part of who I am. A really crappy situation takes a lot of power to address. That’s balanced action, Goddamnit: A LOT of power going against the prevailing dark current.

Thanks to Tobyn Ross and Yoga For The People

On a smaller scale I guess I’ll always be a jnana yogi, forever examining myself/systems/methods/techniques/words/metaphors and saying “Neti, neti [not this, not this]” because [and I'm really only just realizing this now] I get a lot of power from that inquiry. I get a lot of juice from the dark; I get a lot of good answers from my doubt. When I see my role as a teacher in an iconic sense I see myself living in the dark, in like a little hut like the witch in Hansel and Gretel, and when YOU are ever in the dark you can come see me because that’s where I live and frankly I’m more comfortable there. My darkness is my light, if that makes sense. So when I see too much faux-enthusiasm, phrases that make no sense, teachings that are psychically harmful, I can pretend to not care, and maybe you’ll never even hear me say anything about them [LOL again], but inside I am redefining what is needed in MY self-expression to make sure I balance that action of fear/emotional dishonesty/self-hatred/hardness/smallness with something courageous, authentic, loving and grand, even if its grandiosity is derived from excess and folly. I don’t do it on purpose. Sometimes I wish I didn’t do it. But I do and it’s my gift.

Yes, I’ve seen some of these eyebrow- and hair-raising actions in Anusara Yoga teachers. So naturally my nature is to say, “NOT THIS O HELLZ NO” and figure out how I can never make anybody else feel as bad as they made me feel, as lonely as they made me feel, as rejected at my essential level as that: like I’m broken, like they should send me in for repairs because I don’t like kirtan or I don’t “look for the good” or I don’t weigh 80 pounds and eat peanuts and weeds. What’s interesting is that a lot of this psychic abuse comes in the guise of the most ostensible brightness….that the most luminous and radiant words cloak a judgemental soul, picking and choosing where God can be found.

When my friend Steve Merkley saw whatever it was he saw in me and gave me my first teaching gig, with very little fanfare or preparation, not even a training, all I did was say what I thought would help address the lies that I’d been told were a part of this practice. Yes, I know they’re not lies for everybody, but I suffered so long at their hands I can’t pretend my soul isn’t still hurt. My pain is my power, and I REFUSE to believe I’m the only person like me out in the world, the only person who feels MORE lonely in the fake light. In that way I suppose I’m a feeble sort of activist; there are so many who do so much more than I, but this is how it starts: Opening to Grace is also opening to the reality that there’s some stuff out there that’s gotta change. The process has been hard because we first look to our teachers for our voice and our techniques and then you have to dig deep to find your own. Mine is kind of awkward and a bit of a flail at this point, I’m afraid, but I will leave no dogma unquestioned and no piety unpunctured, because that’s who I am. In the rebellion of one against the other, we find the true one.