I Lowered My Mask to Smell the Lilacs
After first looking
In all directions to see
No one was in sight.
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Awake in the Middle of the Night (Recollection of an Invitation to Remember)
Last night at around 2:30, I found myself very aware and wide awake for no apparent reason. I got myself readjusted for going back to bed and then sat in my bed in the dark, wrapped in my favorite shawl for meditation. I got myself sweetly settled into a practice intended to invite in the sweet support of the satguru (see my previous post on variations of what that might mean for you), which serves well to help a return to sleep on a wakeful night.
After I had been practicing for about five minutes, a slew of emergency vehicles wailed down the street. The emergency was not on my block, but based on the timing of the sirens, it sounded like it was not far away.
I marveled that I was already awake and meditating in a delicious place when the sirens sounded rather than having been jolted awake out of some dreaming. There were enough vehicles that I am sure many if not most people other than the soundest of sleepers for blocks around were woken by them.
In thinking about the auspiciousness of my state, a memory came to mind. Friends Meeting of Washington. Where I often attend Quaker unprogrammed worship, is just west of Connecticut and Florida Aves., NW. Being on such a busy street, even on Sunday morning there can be a lot of traffic noise and having an emergency vehicle drive past with its siren blasting during meeting for worship happens from time to time.
It is, of course, somewhat jarring to be deep in meditation and silence and have a siren start wailing and not pleasant to be woken from deep sleep. One time several years ago when a series of siren-sounding vehicles sped down the street outside the meeting house, a friend stood in meeting after the sirens were gone and said that for him, whenever a siren interrupted his worship, he used it as a reminder to hold those in need in the light. In sharing this reminder, he took us all back from however we reacted to having been loudly interrupted to a grace-full place. I remember having moved back into the depths of silence, offering its healing light-filled energy to whomever had needed the emergency vehicle, those driving the vehicle and attending it, devoting their lives to serving those in need, and to others in my life who were struggling or in pain.
In recalling that beautiful teaching last night, as I also wondered whether at some level I had woken and started practicing to be ready for the event, I thought that what had been so special about the message was that the reminder was not a criticism of whatever reaction might have spontaneously arisen to such a disturbance, but rather an invitation to respond in the best light. The speaker clearly had been reminding himself of his own teaching and sharing with the rest of us how much it helped him.
- Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Community and Family | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc)
Please Stay on the Path
Leaving aside the issue of “the” path as opposed to “a” path and who defines it, this is to point out that this should not just be a message from teacher to student. Sometimes it is important for the student to remind the teacher to stay on a shared path.
Subscriber Service Revived
I hope this reaches those who had been subscribing to my blog by email. I have been desultory in my efforts to address technical glitches with the website in recent months, the last of which is offering the ability to get posts by email or otherwise in a feed.
I hope if this does reach you by email that you will want to continue to subscribe and also perhaps sometimes reply or comment directly on the website. I am always interested in reactions.
I expect to be posting a couple times a week. May what I offer be of value in these intense times and with so many calls for our attention.
Wishing you peace, health, and joy. And if you have not yet voted, please make a plan for Election Day.
Putting the Garden to Bed Sun Salute
Yesterday (latest in the season ever — see interesting articles in the New York Times last month about Thoreau as a climatologist) I spent the morning bringing all my tropical plants inside. Part of the reason it was later is that I have learned that the orchids and night-blooming cyrius like nights in the low 40s and can tolerate the occasional single night in the high 30s, but most of it is that it is a warmer season than any in the decade I’ve had a significant number of tropical plants. I also bring inside the lemongrass and lemon verbena (annuals here; perennials where they are native). I also like to bring in rosemary in a container. Also, what were once small plants in growers pots are now a huge jasmine and a bay tree. When I bring all of this inside in the winter, I transform the house into a retreat. When I bring it all outside in the early spring, my tiny yard is full and lush before the annuals start flourishing.
Once the tropicals were all inside, I cleaned up, tended the beds and containers, and strew some more winter kale and baby spinach seeds (no frost in the forecast for the next 15 days — so I could have new kale and spinach through December; also, some of the seeds will wait and be the early ones that come up during that warm week we always have in February).
Putting the garden to bed has a sweetness to it. I prepare for next year, but also engage in tending what will flourish best when the days are coldest and shortest. It is a going inside, knowing that there is a need to go inside and let some things be dormant in order to flourish fully when the sun is bright and hot and calls me outside.
This type of gardening is stressful for the lower back, hips, and shoulders. Throughout the hours I am gardening, I like to engage my alignment by intermittently doing some poses, strongly integrating my shoulders, hips, and core: working strong “shins in/thighs out” I practice uttanasana (standing forward fold), utkatasana (chair pose), and adho mukha svanasana (downward facing dog), and maybe even handstand. It is critical to make sure not just to bend from the knees, but also to make sure you have a good lumbar curve and your tailbone is tucked, when picking up containers or other heavy objects.
At the end of several hours of gardening (bringing the tropicals inside also entails vaccuuming), I need to realign, stretch, and reintegrate, but I’m tired. I also want to practice in a way that honors and celebrates the sweet inward nature of the work I have just done. This is what works well for me:
1. Seated foot massage.
2. Balasana (child’s posture) with arms stretched out, palms, forearms, and armpits lifted. Inhaling lift underside of arms to strenthen, exhaling soften between shoulder blades to integrate.
2. Chakra vakrasana (cat/cow breathing).
3. (putting the garden to bed sun salute): Table pose (if you make sure you have good lumbar curve, table is one of the best postures for making sure hips, back, and shoulders are aligned well); Downward facing dog (play in the pose to integrate and stretch the legs and arms and strengthen your core); Palakasana (plank);Table pose; Balasana;Table.
Repeat the series several times. Add in lunges (coming into the lunges from table). Add in twists from table, threading one arm through and coming down onto that shoulder). Add in pigeon pose (with a forward bend).
4. End with legs up the wall, a supported or seated forward bend or two, and savasana.
Enjoy how this practice nourishes and realigns, but generally draws the attention inside, getting you ready to enjoy the inside while waiting for the next growing season.
E
ps While I was practicing, I had a big vat of tomato sauce cooking from the last (perhaps second to last) harvest of cooking tomatoes.
