A Lifetime of Easters

I grew up Catholic. I attended Catholic School for 16 years, all the way through college. I faithfully attended Mass on Sundays and Holy Days. My mother was a former Catholic Nun. My father was a lector, a choir member and a leader on the parish council, my brother was an altar boy. My Grandparents belonged to an elite Catholic society called the Order of the Holy Sepulchre. I practiced piano in a convent, held my first job in a rectory, and had my first kiss in the choir loft of the church. My entire childhood revolved around the church, and most of my friends' lives did too, especially during Holy Week.

Beginning with Palm Sunday, the Catholic Church shifts into high ceremonial gear. Over the course of one week, the devout Catholic will experience and often participate personally in processions, the waving of palm fronds, foot washing ceremonies, veneration of inanimate objects, candlelight incantations, public baptisms and confirmations, elaborate hymns, multicolored vestments and altar cloths, incense, trumpets and exuberant exhortations in an unrivaled ritualistic feast.

As a young girl with a devout heart and a flair for pageantry and drama, I loved most of the Holy Week ceremony. It offered a change from the usual Sunday routine, and the many hours sitting in the pew were generally offset by free time to romp with friends afterwards while our parents talked or readied the Church for the next event. The only exception, for me, was Good Friday. After the Holy Thursday Mass commemorating Jesus' Last Supper, the altar was stripped bare, the instruments were silenced, and the candles were snuffed. The Friday service was solemn and devoid of all of the trappings that spoke to my soul. It was a cold and lifeless routine in which I was asked, along with the rest of the congregation to play a role in the reading of the passion, reciting, on cue, "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" as we shouldered our responsibility for the death of our God. I cringed every time I uttered those words. I believed that had I lived at that time, I would not have been one of the crowd calling for death, that I would have gone against the grain and defended goodness and Truth.

Would I ever have "Crucified Him?"

All these years later, things have changed for me.  I don't participate in the Catholic Holy Week ritual anymore, but it is never far from my mind as these days come each year, and I have given a lot of thought to what it all means and to how I feel the stories of Jesus' Glorification, Death and Resurrection relate to me. What I have learned through my yoga is that we don't need to seek God in any Church or authority because the light of divinity resides in each one of us. It is the part of us that remains unaffected by outside circumstance, that is constant, whole and infinite, unchanged even when our smaller self, the one that holds tight to our constructs of ourselves as individuals with unique and important identities convinces us otherwise. Through the practices of yoga, and specifically meditation, we learn to empower that Higher Consciousness in ourselves, and by doing so, we learn to embody it in our lives and relationships. Even further, we learn to recognize it in all other beings.

Nonetheless, we can never escape the endless cycle of oscillation between the ego self and the Divine Self. This is the human experience, and it shows up in much the same way as Easter Week. When we choose a path of spirituality, we are like Jesus' entering the city of Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, prepared to lead, greeted as wise, in control of the moment and radiating goodness. We cultivate meaningful friendships. We choose our sangha, or spiritual community, carefully and surrender to our intuition and spirit as he did at the Last Supper. We claim our place in the community of Higher Consciousness.

But Good Friday comes for us all, and even when we have identified that "still, small voice within" that guides us to Truth and uplifts our spirit, the fact is, that, for the most part, we all CHOOSE to crucify it. We numb ourselves with unhealthy relationships, with substances, with media, or with any one of dozens of other degrading options. We kill the "Christ," the anointed or highest part of ourselves again and again. Sometimes we fall short of our ideal and do this on a daily basis, sometimes just now and then, but it is part of the experience of being human. And because it is, we need not label it as bad, or evil, or shameful, because the real "Good News" is that no matter how far we bury the light within, no matter how heavy the stone we roll over the tomb, it still shines. When we have faith in the truth of our own light, when we find our way back again and again to its source in our heart, Easter comes, and our highest self triumphs, at least until the cycle begins again: We find the light, we crucify it, it is reborn brighter than before. Many who espouse Eastern philosophies like Buddhism and Hinduism would say that the cycle continues not just in this lifetime but into the next and the next and the next.

And so this year, though I will miss the rituals of my youth, I will still choose to celebrate Easter...the triumph of light over dark, of goodness over evil. I will create my own pageantry as I light candles, do yoga, and meditate. I will offer my gratitude for the fully human aspect of Jesus who showed us the path to our own divinity through his enlightenment, and I will resolve, once again, to roll back the stone and free the light in my own soul.

Kate Mullane Robertson says it so much more beautifully.....treat yourself to a full read of this poem. It is well worth it:

“I am a 
nestling,
a Phoenix,
a sweet 
something 
emerging, 
emerging,
emerging... 
never born 
and never dying 

only self-immolation 
and resurrection 

self-immolation 
and resurrection 

self-immolation and 
resurrection, 
resurrection, 
resurrection... 

over, and over,
and over
again... 
and again.. 

but, I am ready. 

Sometimes it is the 
heart that burns, 
white hot and 
fervent... 
smiling, 
eager for the resurrection 

and sometimes 
it is the body... 

the body of selfish desires,
the body of spectred dreams,
the body of wants and woes, 
sorrows and imaginings 

I am not afraid 
of the 
immolation
bring it on...

but 
I 
refuse to 
live in the vestibule of
in between, 
the space 
where the ego 
still stands 
pained 
by the 
letting go 

I welcome the 
Phoenix fire,
let it burn 
thoroughly,
fervently,
hot and 
scrupulously --
an 
all-consuming 
incineration of 
whatever would 
keep me from 
loving without reason, 
unconditionally, 
and with abandon 


Let its flames engulf 
the me, 
the my, 
the mine 
of 
success...
and failure, 


of what I think I've earned... 
and what I'll 
never be... 


let the veneer, 
the scarred paint,
the flash of self 
blister and 
peel 
in the 
heat of unselfed 
loving... 

I am weary of 
carrying around 
the 
not quite
incinerated ashes 
of resistance, 
the almost immolated shards
of sharpness and arrogance,
the pulverized
still peppered 
with bits of bone 
and broken incisors,
the bitter fragments of 
all 
that once 
gnashed and gnawed 
at the details of 
who's to blame,
of he said/she said,
of human choices made, 
and what went wrong... 

a limboed 
state of 
regret and pride, 
of what we wanted, 
or 
what could have been... 

I want

no, more! 

I long for, 
I ache to know 
the 
complete 
dissolution of 
the veiled ego, 
the clouded past, 
the "what never was" 
and is 
no 
longer, 
and really 
shouldn't be... 

I can do this,
I know I can

I can walk so fully into the 
fire 
that there is nothing 
left 
to carry back out 
but the gold, 
the silver, 
the whatever is essential, 
eternal, 
what lives beyond and 
never dies

no rust... 
no dross... 
no smell of fire... 
just a sweet nestling me
as pure 
as the 
"form of the fourth"* 

There is no flickering ember of 
the past's tinseled 
moments of selfish 
indulgence and accomplishment, 
the genetic grime 
of dark alleys 
filled with ghosts 
and 
sorrows waiting 
to pull me down,
down,
down,
and yet
still further 
down.... 

no bits and pieces of 
another time, 
a former me, 
a maybe him,
or "what if her" 
left to cling 
to new 
downy feathers,
soft and wet 
as we 
emerge from the 
clean, white 
ash of 
this 
God-stoked 
Phoenix 
pyre. 

Just dust and 
ash... 
fine as silt 
to soften the journey 
like a powdery 
Colorado 
snowfall... 
just a dusting, 
quickly blown away by 
Spirit --
Pneuma's 
fresh winds of 
I am --
now,
always 
now. 

yes, 
I am! 

I am 
innocent,
pure,
good,
willing,
open,
eager,
unsullied,
sweet,
gentle,
kind,
new 


I am 
the I AM 
that never was a 
"was" 
and seeks no promise 
of 
who 
she 
will be. 
But sings the 
sweet silver 
song of 
I am,
I am,
I am,
I am 
all that 
the 
I AM
that
is 
today, 
right now, 
in this moment 
of grace... 

"here am I, 
send me...” 
― Kate Mullane Robertson

Mesquites and Mangroves...More on the Instagram Challenge

In my last post, "No Pictures for this Yogi," I addressed MY OWN reluctance to engage in the kinds of Instagram and Facebook Yoga Pose challenges that have been circulating online. I did so because I had been wrestling with my own demons, ego and temptation, and I wanted to clarify for myself why I felt the way that I did.  As a writer, I often find that the only way for me to make sense of things is to give them words, and my last blog was my exploration of a topic that was unsettled for me. When I went on to publish, it also became public, and since it did, it has sparked a mountain of reaction.

Some of the feedback has been very positive. Many people sent me notes to let me know that they felt the same, but much of it has been negative. Some people who I love, admire and respect felt judged for posting pictures, and they felt like the blog was aimed at them. Today's post is meant to clarify anything that may have been misunderstood.

Let me be clear:  I did not in any way mean to imply that there is anything intrinsically negative, demeaning, shallow or superficial about taking or posting pictures in beautiful yoga poses. I know that many of you have used these challenges as tools to help you grow your practice physically, emotionally and spiritually. I know that for many of you it has been more of a lesson in humility than ego as you post pictures of yourselves in less than perfect alignment. I know that for many of you it has helped you reclaim a sense of place, a feeling of belonging to a community, a visibility that you may have shied away from for years. Those are all beautiful and amazing benefits, and I honor your willingness to engage in that exploration. In some ways I even envy your ability to do so in a way that is uplifting.

FOR ME, engaging with yoga through pictures like this would not have been healthy. I say this with the utmost humility and recognition that I have much inner work left to do. For many years, I bought into the myth of superficiality that is pervasive in our culture. I believed that if I was thin enough and pretty enough, if I wore the right shoes and the right brand names, that I would be happy. When I began to practice yoga, I became less concerned with how my body looked and more concerned with what it could do. But even then, I felt like if I could stretch far enough, balance well enough, flow freely enough, assume inversions, bend backwards, and bind, I would be satisfied. I spent hours working towards a "perfection" that I know is completely unattainable.  I am not proud of those attitudes. It has taken a lot of effort and self inquiry to overcome them and embrace the truth that spirit and consciousness resist form and tangible expression. Nevertheless, I remain profoundly aware that the demon is not vanquished but merely subdued, and I know that for me a challenge that requires me to post pictures of myself everyday would feed the worst of me, not the best.

Just like plants and trees, human beings derive nourishment and find what they need to grow in various ways. Some trees, like the Mesquite, throw down a tap root 60 feet deep. They gather what they need to fulfill their potential from dark and unseen places. Some trees are more like the Mangrove. They spread their roots along the surface above the ground and can nourish themselves in the open air visible to all. Both trees are beautiful, both are growing, both are gathering what they need to thrive and develop.  It seems that yogis are like this too. I am more of a Mesquite, but that doesn't make me value the Mangroves any less.

I think this is an important discussion. If there is one thing we ought to have gained from our yoga practice, it is the awareness that nothing should be beyond examination. One of my teachers talks frequently of the necessity for "ruthless" self-observation. If after engaging in that kind of inquiry you find that an Instagram challenge is useful to you, I applaud you, and I will be the first one to "like" your post. But I hope that as a community, we can also bring some awareness to why these poses are valuable. Perhaps a sentence or two about what it means to you, about what you hope the observer will "see" in it, about your journey. Let's give it a context and help people understand what this practice is all about.

No Pictures for this Yogi

“True yoga is not about the shape of your body, but the shape of your life. Yoga is not to be performed; yoga is to be lived. Yoga doesn’t care about what you have been; yoga cares about the person you are becoming. Yoga is designed for a vast and profound purpose, and for it to be truly called yoga, its essence must be embodied.” — Aadil Palkhivala

If you are on Facebook or Instagram, you have no doubt seen images everyday of beautiful yogis doing amazing and seemingly impossible poses. Many of my dearest friends are doing this, and they are exquisite, their pictures artistically staged, perfectly executed examples of some of the most challenging yoga asana.

Everyday, sometimes several times a day, I see these pictures, and I am tempted to jump into the game, to grab a friend and make her a photographer and strike my own poses. I have spent many years learning and often teaching the nuances of alignment to get there, so why not show it off? 

Let me be clear that I am not judging anyone who is posting these pictures. I know that you are having a great deal of fun, and I know the discipline, focus and inner exploration it takes to create these shapes in the body, but FOR ME, this would be an unhealthy game.

For me, yoga is much more than asana or poses. Patanjali's Yoga Sutras lays out an eight limbed path to "Yoga" which he defines as "Chitta Vritti Nirodhah" or the stilling of the fluctuations of the mind. This means far more than simply quieting the thoughts that appear unbidden. It means learning to connect with that still, silent, peaceful aspect of one's Self that is eternal, infinite and whole, and in doing so, uniting the finite self with Infinite Consciousness.  This seemingly intangible, esoteric ideal, according to the Sutras, is achievable through rigorous adherence to the eight limbs: Yamas (restraints), Niyamas ( observances), Pranayama (control of the energy body through breath), Asana, Pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses), Dharana (disciplined focus of the mind),  Dhyana (the flow of meditation) and Samadhi (a state of undifferentiated, non-dualistic "being"). 

One of the side effects of rigorous practice of all eight limbs is that we can gain incredible control over the body and mold it into the kinds of poses that are appearing in these pictures. It is tempting for me to allow the ego to run amok with the desire to achieve perfection in them and to glory in the attainment of them, and I have fallen into this pattern at various times throughout my practice. It is a subtle and powerful attraction that can turn our efforts into simple showmanship, our deep inner work into surface display, and I am wary of falling into that trap. 

Furthermore, it sends a message to our non-yogi friends that yoga IS about the poses. As a teacher and studio owner, the most common fear that I encounter from those who are coming to class for the first time is that they will be unable to do various things: that they can't touch their toes, that they are inflexible, that they can't sit in a cross-legged position. These insecurities may have kept them from trying yoga for many years, thereby preventing them from enjoying the rich benefits of the more subtle aspects of the practice. This is not the perception of yoga that I want to promote. I want people to know that Yoga is for everyone, and that the ability to shift into any particular position or pose is unimportant. As long as safe alignment is practiced, as long as breath and movement are united, as long as the mind is focused, anyone can do yoga and experience the same transformative results as those who can do the most difficult poses. 

For me, yoga is a journey that can't possibly be captured in a picture, or even in 30 pictures. To truly see my yoga practice, you would need to crawl into my mind for my 90 minute sadhana everyday. You would have to wrestle my demons and insecurities with me, observe the nuances of sensation in the most subtle energetic experiences, know the bliss when I achieve equanimity even for a moment on the mat, sense the shifts from pose to pose, breath to breath. For me, Yoga is about what I can become, not what I can do. It is about who I am, not what I look like. It is about practice, not perfection. 

These are the things I want you to know about yoga. I haven't figured out how to film any of that on camera, but when I do, I'll be sure to launch my own 30 Day Instagram Challenge. 

Another Take on Christmas Cheer

This is a blog that has been swirling in my mind since the beginning of December, and I have hesitated to write it for reasons that will become apparent as you read on. It is an exercise in humility for me. I am a "stiff upper lip" New England girl, a "sunshine and rainbows" yogini, a steady and grounded meditator. I am not often one to share the struggles until they are resolved, to air the discontent until it has been transmuted into equanimity.  But I have concluded that there may be as much value in exposing my vulnerability as there is in demonstrating my strength. I hope that in doing so, we can all begin to shed the masks that we put on for one another and embrace the fullness of our emotional experience even when it is raw and unsettled.


As I write this, I am sitting in a coffee shop. Acoustic Christmas music is playing overhead, a mother with three children dressed in look-alike holiday outfits is in line, and a group of ladies in sweaters that should have been retired in the early 90s is exchanging gifts. I am quite literally surrounded by holiday cheer, and the more I see of it, the more I want to crawl under the covers until it is over.

Don't get me wrong, I used to love Christmas. It was my absolute favorite time of year. As a child, I lived in awe of the magic. I believed wholeheartedly in Santa Clause, looked for elves behind my bedroom curtains, and dreamed of reindeer hoofs on my roof. When I was in college, I dragged my roommates out to buy a tree for our apartment and took the bus to downtown Baltimore to see the decorations and choose gifts for my family. At 20, I got engaged after a performance of the Nutcracker, and at 22, I got married 3 days after Christmas surrounded by Poinsettias and Evergreen. As a young mother, I spent days baking cookies and decorating my house, hosting parties and writing cards. My heart would fill to overflowing when I sat on the couch in the light of the tree with my kids snuggled up at my side, and when I woke up on Christmas morning, I would literally weep with gratitude at the abundance in my life.

That was then.

Two years ago in the first week of December, on the very day that we put the tree up, my marriage of almost 20 years ended. My life fell into complete disarray, and the curtain closed forever on Christmas magic. I still go through the motions. I send gifts to everyone I know, and I decorate. I even manage to bake a couple of batches of cookies, but my heart is heavy, and I know I am not alone.

My ache is painful, and my longing for Christmas Past is palpable, but there are others like me. In fact, there are those who suffer from much deeper heart ache. There are parents who have lost children, widows and widowers spending the season alone for the first time. There are those who don't have money to buy a gift for their loved ones, and those who live far away from family members. There are people who have just been diagnosed with life threatening diseases, who have lost their homes or their jobs, who live in places in the world where there is no security or freedom. The list of things that could compromise Christmas Cheer is long, and the number of people on that list is beyond measure.

I am not writing this to elicit sympathy. The truth is that despite the sadness I feel around this time of year, I am very blessed. I have two beautiful teenagers, a business that I love passionately, a comfortable home, extended family support and wonderful friends.  I am writing to shed light on those for whom this time is dark. I hope to offer a reminder that as we move through the season it might be worthwhile to be a little more tender right now. The busy-ness factor picks up in these last few days before the 25th, the amount of stress increases in direct proportion and the amount of patience decreases. Take the time to pause, take a breath, open your heart, and consider what some of the people around you might be experiencing. Offer a smile instead of a scowl, a kind word instead of a rebuke, a prayer instead of a curse. Let that be your gift to the world, and you may just notice that it is a gift to yourself as well.

And if, like me, you are one of the ones who struggles through this month, know that you are not alone. I offer my own heavy heart to you. May our joining together in spirit bring us the joy we cannot find apart.

A Very Merry Christmas to each of you.

"To the destructive element, submit"

"The way is to the destructive element submit yourself, and with the exertions of your hands and feet in the water make the deep, deep sea keep you up."  Joseph Conrad

When I was a child, my family spent part of every summer in Cape Cod where we languished all day on the beaches of the National Seashore and bundled up for nights watching baseball games or sitting on the cliff overlooking the moonlit bay. We synched our rhythms to the tides and the sun, and we sought out the beaches with the biggest surf to satisfy our thirst for adventure. 

At many of the ocean beaches on the Cape, the waves are unpredictable, coming in short intervals and rising quickly to huge heights before crashing powerfully onto the rocks below at high tide and rolling gracefully over sandbars in long whirlpools of crested spray at low tide. Lovers of the water, like my family and me, needed to know how to navigate these fluctiations to avoid being bashed into the rocky shoreline or dragged into the vast ocean. I learned as a small girl that there were only three possible choices for staying safe in the tumult. You could face the horizon and dive into the belly of the wave, emerging in the tranquil waters on the other side. You could get beyond the crest and float above as it rolled beneath you, or you could turn to face the shore, lift your feet off of the ground and take your chances with a ride all the way in to the beach. This third option was always my preference. I loved being carried along by the rolling energy beneath me, stretching my body over the top, connecting my breath to the flow of the water, and taking my chances with the landing. Most of the time, I would arrive safely onshore in a swirl of receding ocean, but every so often, if I miscalculated, or resisted, I would get tossed about underneath, swirling and scraping, bumping and bouncing between the rocks and the surf. I would find my way out bruised and disoriented, often just in time for the next wave to knock me down again, and until I could steady and soften myself to reconnect to the rhythm of the sea, I would continue to fall.

It turns out, these early forays into the water have served me well as an adult. For the past 18 months, I have been caught in an incredibly powerful series of potentially devastating waves.  Since December 2011, I have had a cancer scare and 2 surgeries (all is well, thankfully). I have gotten separated and divorced.  I have fallen in love and had my heart broken. I have opened a yoga studio. I have begun an advanced yoga teacher training and completed half of it. I have traveled to Costa Rica, the Bahamas (twice), Jamaica, the Berkshires of Massachusetts (twice), Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, St. Petersburg, Paris, London and Africa.  I have adopted a puppy, and I have been steadily and mostly independently raising two teenagers and three dogs while maintaining a home. All of it has been much like riding that surf of my childhood. Each wave presented a choice to either resist, dive in, float over, or go for a ride, and, for the most part, true to my girlhood self, I have chosen to embrace the ride, but I have also made mistakes along the way. I have miscalculated and fallen out of synch with my own rhythms and the rhythms of the Infinite energy surrounding me, and I have learned my lessons the hard way by getting bashed into the rocks, emerging disoriented and afraid, and finding other waves looming ominously above me. 

I suspect that I am not alone in this experience.  Many of us are stumbling through rocky ground trying to find our way out of difficult currents.  

The good news is that this is an inquiry we get to explore every day that we come to the mat in yoga.  Every pose offers an opportunity to ride the wave, to surrender to sensation and find a way to deeply connect to the flow of the Prana Body. It is not always blissful…a miscalculation, a failure to attune to the subtleties of the alignment or energy, a choice to stiffen when we should surrender or to pull back when we should dive more deeply can render us exhausted and disoriented, leaving us flattened on the metaphorical beach ready to give up instead of moving back towards the infinite sea.  But we must remember again and again that crashing and getting tossed about is just as integral to the process of self discovery as floating effortlessly over the top.  Each experience deepens the next and recalibrates the natural inclinations of the body to find their way back to the rhythms of Nature.  

It seems that in the tumult of life experience both on and off the mat, whether we know it or not, the only way to gain safe passage in the end is to focus, flow, and finally... let go and ride the wave, and if you find yourself lost and rolling helplessly in the middle, take some advice from Rilke: 

In this immeasurable darkness, be the power
that rounds your senses in their magic ring,
the sense of their mysterious encounter.

And if the earthly no longer knows your name,
whisper to the silent earth: I'm flowing.
To the flashing water say: I am.
-Rainer Maria Rilke