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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.
Signs Around Town
It is times like these where the importance of one’s personal home practices is emphasized.
Blossoms Around Town
A glimpse of an inner world.
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Meditate Lovingly
I started out tonight’s group yoga practice saying that I’d been listening again to the recorded conference calls in Claudia Welch and Cate Stillman’s “Healthier Hormones” course, which while presenting very simple aspects of much more complex systems of thought and practice, I think gives valuable perspective on living with awareness and self care. In the first call, Dr. Claudia tells a story of teacher who told her that she should meditate lovingly. Dr. Claudia suggested that practicing just out of a sense of obligation wouldn’t have the same benefits as if you went to it and did it lovingly; and, as a physical matter, you wouldn’t get the same positive hormonal benefits.
During my intense workday trying to meet a major deadline, I thought both of the intention to make everything one does a meditation and this exhortation to meditate lovingly and decided to have combining the two be my practice for the day. I’d draft an email or get on the phone or edit documents and say to myself, “lovingly, lovingly.” I thought, as I contemplated what needed to be said and done, “lovingly” doesn’t mean never tough love. Doesn’t mean passive acceptance or false praise. Doesn’t mean anything crossing appropriate work place boundaries. But the action always done lovingly. With spacious awareness. Illuminated consciousness. However you might describe that lovingly place. Saying the word periodically during the day as if it were japa or mantra made this day better. More loving for me; probably better for all the people with whom I had to engage on a fairly unpleasant and monstrously complicated task.
I sent the big email to my boss at 6:30 and got off the phone with him at 6:58, when the yogis arrived. As I ended the call with my boss, I said I’d be done with yoga at 8:30 and would leave my computer on, and I would be available then. Practice was sweet–standing poses and hip openers to get ready for more snow. We’d were shifting into our first restorative and the phone rang.
8:04pm. The answering machine picked up and my boss began leaving a message. I’m leading yoga practice. Boss calling while leading yoga practice not good.
Lovingly.
I decided that it would be better overall not to wait until practice was over to return the call. I asked one of my fellow yogis to lead the others in the next pose (the delicious and simple restorative of lying with a rolled up blanket cross-wise under the back right under the shoulder blades to give the heart a lift and to provide a counter balance to the shape of sitting at a computer).
I reminded myself what we’d been talking about as the focus of practice; “lovingly,” I said to myself, the lovingly being about how to complete the task at hand, not specific to the individual. I called back my boss. He just couldn’t wait to call until 8:30; he was anxious about the impending snow storm and its impact on our being able to get things done and he wanted to be done and home, too. I’d left my glasses in the studio and couldn’t see the computer well enough to work, so I went looking for them. When I went in, expressing my chagrin, the yogis said they were enjoying listening to the conversation (while they were happily in their poses). I decided to believe them. When my boss apologized, I replied, “it’s ok; my students assured me that they enjoyed listening.” I am grateful and delighted to practice with such gracious friends, that I could say it truly.
Then we wound up the practice with supported half shoulder stand, followed by a twist and savasana.
Lovingly.
Hard work that lovingly thing sometimes, but I think it might be an efficacious conscious practice for a while for me.
Feel free to remind me if it seems like I’m forgetting. But lovingly.
