Autumnal Awareness

Today I am unsure what to write. which seems like a waste of words really. I am sitting here on my porch in late October with only a down puffy vest on aware of how the sun slants in on the douglas fir floors, next to my dear friend Melissa who is also writing along with me, and keenly aware of the faint sounds of birds chirping as they fly overhead with the jet airplanes on their flight patterns elsewhere or returning home, and squirrels rustling in the fallen colored leaves, that make everything outside look like it is littered in bountiful colors of Christmas tree lights. I am more aware of the breath that exhales in that soft space beneath my nose and the whistle of it at the back of my throat as it rises out of my center, my belly, and wraps up my ribs underneath my underarms and into my throat and head. I am also observant of the excess tension I hold in my hip flexers, something I have done for some time now, maybe even my whole life, but as I sit fully supported without the full strength of my abdominal rectus muscle in tact I have transferred tension and function to my hip flexers and even sitting they are not aware to relax unless I tell them. Moving this automatic reflex from my subcortex to my cortex takes awareness and mindfulness that I float in and out of today as I meditated in silence watching my thoughts float in and out of my to do list for the day, and feeling my second cup of coffee move through my system with a hyper-ness I am unsure of needing, but grateful for its internal warmth.

Something that is floating through my consciousness is the role of a healer and educator. I heard people talk this weekend how a healer heals but an educator helps people heal themselves. Yes, this may be part of it however, a faint memory of this discussion in SP floats like dust particles through the sunlight and I make a note to myself to go back to my notes and look this up. For I do not think this is an either or situation. But truly a both. An and, and more...The invitation to become more aware internally so I can be more present to my life that is before me is huge! To feel the subtle lines of energy moving through me is something to nurture. To recognize my habits in posture, in this body, is something for me to grow awareness around, to become an experimenter around, an explorer of my body and how it lives in this daily world. To try to find that edge of internal and external presence and the dance between them.

This weekend, for the first time without fan fare, or much deliberation I wore a headband and went to yoga training, no wig. Not even a hat. A safe experiment. Thursday and Friday I wore my wig and hat and the itchiness of my scalp as it grows back wore on me. I was hot underneath it all and felt hidden in a sense. I realized the freedom that comes from wearing my wig was now not there in this situation. So while I almost did it Friday morning, I mustered the strength to do it on Saturday. I walked out with my wig in my green bag packed just in case along with my hat. I tried not to think too much about it. Molly, one of my yoga teachers, kissed me on the head as we made a stop at French Meadow bakery for coffee and pastries before training. We did not exchange words about it. I walked into Tula. I felt my nervousness grow a bit as I saw more and more people. I grabbed a moment with Marcee, a woman I love from my 200 hour training, to ask if it looked ok. She peaked, her dad having had alopecia for her whole life, and I knew she would answer me honestly, "Well, it is a little thin in back but not bad, way more than last year." She tucked a piece of my hair back. We walked back out from the upstairs kitchen to the studio and I sat on my mat. I decided I would take a deep breath and own it. Who cares! I chided myself. (I do I whispered back.) And I settled into myself with a breath. I knew some were wondering but I did not let it get to me. I just sunk into the gloriousness that it was growing back enough to do this moment. I decided people could approach and ask me if they wanted, but I would not announce or deflect it by wearing my hat. No one did. I know some wonder. I know some wanted to ask but did not know how, this is theirs I thought.  For now, I sit in gratitude of my bravery.

And I watched how this bravery continued on into Monday morning at Macalester while I dropped Seamus off, and wore only my kerchief. I debated on the stairs as I tied shoes before school. Peter said, "I never liked your wig any way." His comment took me by surprise. I hadn't known that. So for a few more days into the week I payed with not wearing the wig. Gaining freedom to wear it when I need or want it because it allows me to enter a situation more gracefully, and the invitation to not hide behind it. I felt proud. Excited even. The leaves continue to shimmer in the sun this morning, and I feel the warmth of the sun's rays move across the floor. As a few leaves let go of their branch, I feel my own beliefs and contractions let go too. I wonder what this winter has to bring.

Flashback

This weekend I started my 500 hour part 1 training of Yoga Therapy. I was hemming and hawing a bit on it because I was not sure I really could bite off this training and still have the downtime I needed to create, write, be present to myself and my family, and continue my deepening in SourcePoint Therapy. But then I flipped the logic on its head. I decided to go for it, and use the training for my own self care and deepening of being an educator that can support people healing themselves.

During the training we learned more ways to heighten our interior awareness of our bodies and how they function in the world. We began to peak into our patterns and habits and see others patterns and habits with deep love and reverence and support one another on the way toward freedom by inhabiting our bodies. More fully, more readily, and with more function and freedom, a steady ease. As I worked through the various sessions in somayoga I had a moment where I recalled driving on Cretin Ave. in St. Paul, the sun was shining, the clouds fluffy and perfectly floating in the deep blueness of the sky, and I realized with such reverence and awe how lucky I was to be alive, in this body at this time with this life. I was freaking in love with my life, with my body in all its glory and with all its imperfections, they were part of my beauty instead of something I needed to fix or heal or get rid of in order to be happy....it was blissful. I was blissed out. And I caught myself being blissed out sitting at one of the red lights on Cretin Ave and Hwy 94. And people I was wildly happy, and no major event was happening I was driving from here to there. That was it. I was on my way. I gratefully was able to witness this moment about myself. Take a snapshot of it, tuck it away. And I remember feeling like this is a glimpse of how some live all the time and bravely wondering could I? Today I recalled that moment and was blissed out knowing it existed.

Photo by Elizabeth Sullivan

As I was having this remembering...I had this beautifully written piece What the dying really regret... sent to me, and then came home from training to this piece in my newsfeed from Momastery...

For so many years, while I lost my hair, I kept telling myself, you will be happy again when you have hair. Or imagine myself and how happy I would be when I did have hair. And a faint whisper would say, but maybe you need to be happy now even without hair. And a fainter whisper said, maybe you need to love your body as it is, and let it bloom again. And a fainter whisper yet, said maybe you need to stop ignoring your body, as it calls out to you, screams at you to listen, to pause, to pay attention, to be in it. Really in this body, not a spirit floating above it, not a mind revving its engine, running it, but a full body experiencing this world, this life as it is now. One of the beliefs I was raised with was that we get one life, and that brings us to the afterlife, which is either Heaven or Hell or purgatory. This thought filled me with fear. With the belief that I had to get it right or else...and the or else was frightening. Thank God, I no longer believe this! Right now is heaven. Right now is what there is, and there is love and abundance if we chose it, and we are energy and energy changes but it does not go away. Isn't that a possibility? That we transform, and what we do now informs what we will do if we come around again, but the next time we come around might look similar or vastly different, but it will never be the same beauty as now in this moment in this life in this body. This is a curiosity I am playing with and an invitation I am exploring as I become more embodied and more in love with this amazing physical tool I have to experience this stunning world! Love wins. Always.

"It would be something like 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.' Also, stay open to whatever life presents you with, because it will teach you something if you'll let it. It's about keeping an unbiased heart and mind. A lot of it is forming an unconditional friendship with yourself as you begin to see all the stuff you've been running away from."    -Pema Chodron

Differences

You caught yourself musing over lines, strokes, differences on a predawn run the other day. The difference in three strokes. Three markings. Their directions can make a difference between a capitol A and a capitol Z. Each have three strokes. Yet the letters vary in placement, meaning, and usage greatly.You sit here at night as you write still considering this as you hear the West Seventh cross-country train sound its horn warning the city of its impending approach. A soundtrack that plays in the backdrop of your life. So many sounds that go unnoticed. This train zooms through here with urgency over tracks that are a mile away from your home in Saint Paul, and yet the train's whistle can instantaneously place you in the backyard of the rail yard at the Santa Fe Hotel where this train first came into your awareness. This train is one of the same trains that sits there, where you used to live. The pale yellow box car with the words Santa Fe painted on it in fading red letters. Yes, that box car you noted from your hotel window has passed you at the tracks in Saint Paul and you have sat in your car and watched, as your boys in the back seat delighted at the sight of so many cars, such a long train, passing before their eyes.

Today you swam in the Highland Pool for the first time without a swim cap, without a hair covering, in front of others. You battled and played with the sound track that floated through your mind with each stroke as you did lap after lap of 100's. I wonder what my spotty hair growth looks like to others. Should I have worn the swim cap? You extend your arm scooping water that is in front of you back as you swim. These thoughts like that faint whistle sounding off, a whistle that many nights goes unnoticed. You begin to sense and feel your body from the inside out. Letting the outside judgements float away. Let yourself know yourself from within. You watch. You play being the witness of your thoughts that the practice of yoga, of meditation, of running invite you to be with your life. You watch as your little self shrinks. The thoughts that can pull you down, thoughts that can make you sink without enough ability to catch your next inhale get pushed behind you with your next arm stroke and your feet flutter kick them away.

In between your training plan's laps you rest standing in the shallow end, head above water, playing with the plunge between watching others watch you and the self consciousness that comes from that, and you watching yourself as you moved through water, now standing tall to rest, letting the thoughts move through you. Pulling yourself back toward thoughts of love. Thoughts of  I am enough as I am.  This leads you into playful territory. Into playing with breathing on your left side of your freestyle and alternating your breath between arm cycles. Extending your exhale to naturally lengthen your inhale. Hair, no hair. Three strokes. Covering up. Not covering up. A. Z. Caring. Not caring. Playing with "both and ands" and shedding the "either or" mentality. Letting go of right and wrong thinking and allowing yourself to experiment, to play with cause and effects. Tomorrow you will run the annual trail race at Afton Alps, a 25k, and you've been there before, but this time it is different. And as you conclude this post, the whistle of the passing train sounds in the distance and you become aware again.