Short Meditation on Awareness

I feel a shedding of skin. A molting process like a snake goes through when it outgrows its old skin and transforms into newer skin, or a skin that can handle his being and patterning. This meditation on the Gita, one of Yoga's sacred texts describes the process well. The more awareness we can grow into our soma's, a Greek term for body, mind and spirit, the better able we are to navigate life here impacting our life's purpose and choices in the moment; moment by moment.

"The Gita describes spiritual growth as an evolution from darkness to light – from ignorance to full awareness of our unity with the rest of life. Darkness is self-will, ignorance of the needs of others, preoccupation with our own private concerns and prejudices. Being angry, being greedy, being afraid is living in darkness. In this state we cannot see those around us, cannot see life as it is.

"Yet, the Gita says, we don’t have to stay where we are. We don’t have to say, 'Well, I am just what my cells and chromosomes are, what my conditioning is, what my parents or my school made me to be.' We can emerge out of this darkness, through our own endeavor, by drawing upon our deepest resources within.

"Through the practice of meditation and allied disciplines, we can slowly push ourselves from darkness into light. This brings certain on going challenges, and no matter how long a person has been meditating, everyone can benefit from keeping some simple guidelines in mind every day."

– Eknath Easwaran

Here's the little ditty on oil pulling...

Others may be able to write this up more scientifically than myself, but you asked me to give you the down and dirty on oil pulling today and so here it goes....

Oil pulling is quite simple. 
1. Choose an oil (olive oil, sesame oil, coconut oil, grape seed oil--preferably organic and definitely not canola oil). Different oils have different benefits.
2. Take a tablespoon of it into your mouth.
3. Set a timer for 20 minutes.
4. Swish and pull it throughout your mouth, between your teeth, from cheek to cheek while you unstack the morning dishes, make breakfast, take a shower, get dressed etc.
5. Spit it out in the trash (not the sink as it will have loads of unwanted bacteria in it.).
6. Swish and rinse with water into the trash if you like.
7. Brush those bucks.
8. Feel better and better. Rid yourself of toxins, whiten your teeth, feel clearer. To name a few benefits.

You asked is it gross? 
The first time I did it I lasted two minutes before almost gagging. Today I lasted the whole twenty minutes it took me to make popovers for breakfast.

Is it hard not to talk? 
My kids have gotten used to me doing it and they join me some days...but usually for five or ten minutes.

Has it helped?
I think it has helped my health. I feel brighter and calmer and have noticed things shifting...but I think things are shifting for many reasons, eating more whole foods, sleep, exercise, meditation, writing, yoga, energy work, apple cider vinegar drinks, smoothies, being more present, clear, grateful the list could go on. It definitely helps with bad breath and sore throats and sinus stuff...but it also helps with a whole host of other conditions.

Why did I begin?
I had a hunch that some of our illness start and frankly stay with us because they are camping out in our gums. I haven't confirmed this. Just a small voice inside said take note. Not very scientific I know. And while I try to be a good flosser I am not and oil pulling seems easier to me and more enjoyable. Plus a friend of mine who is a enthusiast for health also encouraged me.

Want to read more about it?
http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-7857/why-you-should-start-oil-pulling-today.html

Want to fall into a rabbit hole of info on it?
Go to http://www.earthclinic.com/

And search "oil pulling"

Creatures of Habit

Every Tuesday morning I go hiking with my writer friend Natalie. We have been doing this for nearly a year now, and we have our system down to a science, or our routine down to an art. Whatever—we do the same thing each week we are both in town, which this summer hasn’t been very often. Natalie teaches and travels a lot, and I guess I’ve been gone my fair share of Tuesdays, too. 

[not this trail, but one like it]

But this morning is a hiking morning, so I pick up Natalie like I always do on the corner by her house, and she peers in the backseat window at Maisy and cooes hello, just like she always does. Then I rive us three-quarters of a mile or so up the road to the trailhead. We always hike the same trail. Every now and then we discuss hiking a different trail, but it has yet to happen. The one we like is close to both of houses, so we don’t have to waste precious walking time driving. There is a granite outcropping about halfway up where Natalie likes to stop and meditate while Maisy and I keep hiking toward the top. The trail to Picacho Peak passes through a shady canyon, then switchbacks through stubby pinon and juniper and offers plenty of distractions from the ascent in the way of western views to the city below and the Jemez Mountains on the far horizon. There is nothing not to like about this hike. It is hard to imagine improving on it. 


The first part of the trail hopscotches over the Santa Fe River (a couple feet wide, usually dry), climbs steeply to a road crossing, and then clambers over a series of rough, railroad-tie steps that are crowded by weeds and sometimes badly eroded, depending on the recent rains. Then it veers left and becomes more gradual, and prettier. Natalie and I always chitchat until we get to this point, catching up on whatever’s happened since we last saw each other. But at the place where the trail bends left, we stop talking and start walking in silence. That is the rule. This is how we’ve always done it. Most days, I feel like I could keep talking the whole way up, but it’s our ritual instead to say, “OK, see you at the ledge,” and then the only sound is the crunch of our sneakers on dirt and the breeze rustling pine needles and we fall into our own rhythms and paces. Before long, the distance between us has widened, so that Maisy and I are hiking on our own and Natalie is on her own; every now and then the trail swings wide one direction or the other, and I can see downhill through a few turns to where Natalie is, walking silently uphill, her face obscured by her nylon sun hat and her hands clasped resolutely behind her back. 

When I get to the granite ledge, I keep climbing through half a dozen or more switchbacks to my favorite tree, a regal ponderosa that shoots up out of a precipitous slope with great confidence, as though it has always been there and always will and is not phased by the thousand-foot drop below. The summit is not far, but this is where I turn around, in part because I don’t want to keep Natalie waiting too long and in part because I am excited to talk to her. When Maisy was only three weeks old, before I started hiking with Natalie, I used to turn around here, too, so that I could make it back to the car before I’d need to nurse her again. Maisy has always been a very tolerant, undemanding baby and until recently would sleep the whole way up and down, but her sister before her would, without fail, reach her limit by the time we got to our tree. So it has become tradition to turn around there. I am always pleasantly torn between wanting to keep hiking and wanting to head back, and I like that either choice is a good one. There is no bad decision. 

It’s 15 minutes back down to where Natalie is sitting, with her back arrow-straight against a ponderosa pine and she always says “Katie?” swiveling her head just a little, even though she says she can tell it’s me by my footsteps. Then we launch into all the thoughts and ideas we’ve both had in our own minds, brewing, the whole way up—food, fried eggs, writing, eating, motherhood, meditation, allergies, yoga, North Dakota—it’s all alive and fair game to us on the way down. 

This is how we hike.  We are creatures of habit, but of course things change: It was fall when we started, then winter—the driest we’ve had in years—now summer. Sometimes it is grey, but mostly it is sunny and bright. The baby is what has changed the most in the past year—she is the thing that is most different from week to week. She was 9 pounds when we started. Now she is nearly 20. That is a difference you can feel, in your hips and shoulders and the soles of your feet.

But this morning, something radical happens. Just as we get to the turn off, Natalie says, more to herself than to me, “I’m walking to write.” “What do you mean?” I ask over my shoulder, and she says, “I’m walking to prepare myself for writing.” It’s time to be silent, so I pipe down and don’t ask, though I want to, what she means, or how she will do that, or what it might feel like.  

I think about it the whole way up, this declaration of intention, and though it’s not my intention, it changes the way I walk. I am more here, less scattered, feet scuffing pine needles, eyes casting about to the view, my mind a narrow tightrope instead of its usual freeway of chaos and sprawl. I think about what I’m walking for today, and the sensation that comes to mind—it’s more a feeling than a word—is clarity. Like how I felt when I cleaned out my office threw out entire piles of junk mail and filed and tidied and made it my own again. I’m walking to prepare myself for all the mental clutter still to be cleaned, the tasks I’ve been procrastinating for no good reason, the chores I dread, the tasks I need to attend to.  

A few days ago, I picked up the September issue of Shambhala Sun on a whim at the grocery store checkout. The whole issue is devoted to love, and I thought it might give me some tips on how to stay compassionate and sane and loving in the face of our recent sleep crisis. In a short article about meditation, Pema Chödrön writes: “Each time you dare to remain where you are and do something completely fresh, unconventional, and nonhabitual, you open up new pathways in the brain. You experience that as strength and it builds your capacity to be open the next time around.” 

For the past year, Natalie and I have done the same hike twice, six times, two dozen times and have been inspired and comforted by the ritual. Natalie’s casual remark this morning cracked open the day and superimposed on our well-worn path—with its familiar landmarks, ledges, and trees—a new way of walking and thinking about walking. It was the same hike, but completely fresh. 

When I meet up with her back on the ledge, Natalie tells me that she hiked in her hips, felt her body rooted in those twin joints and felt herself settle into the walk and the day, so that when she settled at her desk later, she would ready to be there, in her bones. But you will have to hear from her how the rest turned out. Until then, I highly recommend doing your favorite thing backwards or in reverse or upside down, or in mismatched clothes like orange and purple, or simply with a purpose you say out loud. I guarantee it will crack your day open, too. 

Everyday Meditation

order out of chaos: barrel cactus @ the Getty 

This is going to be a short post because I’m experimenting with something new: finding focus and presence in the little moments that life presents us. I have been scattered and anxious lately, fallout from my father’s death and life on the hamster wheel with two small children, one of whom is a newly mobile nine-month-old. I know I’m too busy when I don’t have time for writing practice or learning to cook, both of which tether me in a reassuring way to the present moment, where I can slow down and breathe and find a stillness that grounds and exhilarates me.

A few days ago, a wise person offered me some advice: Stop depending on peace and quiet to meditate and write and breathe Sure, it’s nice to sit in the deep stillness of the house while two girls sleep and listen to the refrigerator hum and know that the dishes are washed and the surfaces of my brain are neat, wiped clean and open to whatever arises. But, let’s face it, those moments are fleeting and increasingly rare. So instead of wallowing in resentment, wishing for something that no longer is, he suggested in all seriousness that I find stillness in the chaos and meditate in the madness.

I had to laugh, picturing Pippa in the bathtub and me sitting in lotus on the floor, zoned out in a mama trance while she flings her duckies and squeals with laughter and flaps her little legs, splashing water all over me and the floor. Even as I was laughing at the lunacy of it, though, I knew he had a point. It’s easy to write and be mindful when small children aren’t underfoot, but it’s essential to do it when they are. This is the practice of parenting, and if I had to guess, I’d say it will be the biggest challenge of my life.

I tried it the other day. I didn't really have a clue what to do, so I improvised. We were going out on an errand. Maisy was already strapped into her car seat, while Pippa insisted on climbing in on her own. (“I do it!” is her mantra these days.) I was impatient, hurrying her along, when it hit me: This is what he means. I could rush the moment with my own maternal heavy hand, blowing dragon-mama steam out my nose, or just breathe in and out and let her be. So I thought, Who cares? and stood there gazing out at the fattening buds on the elm tree as she went through her little routine, retrieving her pacifier from its net, peering in at Maisy, and then finally swinging her legs in under her and plunking down in her seat. I got in two or three deep breaths. It was shockingly restful—a microscopic oasis in my day. I didn’t write a single word or have a single creative idea or sit cross-legged repeating my mantra with a drowsy half-smile on my face. I just stood there, looking out at the world and letting her be who she was at that moment.

I liked it so much I think I might try it again. And in the meantime, I will shove the Sunday newspaper off the dining room table and prop open my laptop in this brief 20-minute window before doing the dishes and going to bed and write a few words and breathe….

Ripped from the Nest(s)

A few days ago, I rode a snowmobile out of the mountains. It was just after 7 AM and across the valley, the Valhalla Range glowed orange in the new day. After two switchbacks, we left the sun behind and buzzed beneath Western red cedars that smelled moist and alive, like spring. The sky was scraped clear of clouds and a brilliant, unapologetic blue, and as we hurtled through the forest, I felt both fantastically grateful and a little bit sad. 

The ski season was officially over, and so was my stay at Snowwater, a ridiculously gorgeous wilderness lodge at 5,400 feet in the Bonnington Range nine miles outside of Nelson, British Columbia. For the past four days, I’d been holed up in the mountains with some of the raddest adventure women in Canada, skiing untracked powder, doing yoga, practicing silent meditation, and learning the basics of holistic nutrition. This was all part of the inaugural Cat Sass, a women’s-only “empowderment” retreat run by local ski guide and adventure entrepreneur Galena Pal. 

Galena is 27 and has worked at some of the best backcountry ski lodges in British Columbia, where 99.9 percent of the guests are men. Desperate to change that, she invented Cat Sass and enlisted the help of her friends to teach yoga and nutrition, pamper us with spa treatments and massages, and guide us down some of the sickest lines we’d ski all winter (well, in my case, some of the only lines I’d ski all winter). 

loading up Snocat, leaving spring behind 

Crazily enough, I’d been on the fence about going. Driving out of Santa Fe before dawn last Friday, my two girls at home sleeping in their cribs, I’d chanted to myself “You can do this, You can do this.” For 9 months I’d felt trapped and antsy in the baby bubble, desperate for some room to roam. Now that I was finally breaking out—just me and my breast pump!—I felt like I was being torn from my baby, and she from me. I wasn't sure I wanted to go.  

But then I boarded the plane to Salt Lake City and there were no tiny children clinging to me and I could actually read a magazine—two!—and the fog lifted from my brain and I had six or so creative thoughts in a row, one of which was This is pretty great. And then I got on the next flight to Spokane and I might have actually dozed off, and no one was yammering at me, and I was officially GONE! Outta there. All the anxiety and pointless fretting and gloomy what-ifs had vanished, and in their place: sweet freedom!

freshies

Many hours later I was on a SnoCat rumbling up the road to Snowwater, with a bunch of Canadian women. We were still strangers to each other, so I didn’t know that one of them was a former expert downhill mountain biker who’d crashed so many times, and so hard, she now suffered from constant migraines, or one had helped invent a sport called noboarding (that’s snowboarding without bindings) or that one was an avid sport climber and artist and another was a former champion swimmer-turned-holistic nutritionist. All I knew is that they had the exotic look of inveterate mountain women, with their beat-up fur-trimmed Sorels, thick Peruvian sweaters, scuffed Hunter wellies, Quebecois accents, and dark, wild-woman hair that hadn’t seen sun for months. I idolized them immediately. 

The only other time I’d done a women’s only trip was an avalanche course seven years ago. One whole element—men—had been removed from the equation, and in its place bloomed a nurturing sense of girl-power, completely void of competitive machismo. Cat Sass felt the same, right off the bat: uncomplicated, easy. We were here, with each other, and could be exactly who we were, with no pretense or posturing. 

we wore avy beacons to keep us safe

First and foremost, we were skiers, and we dropped steep lines, stacking our tracks in curvy figure 8s next to Maria’s, our lead guide and co-owner of Snowwater. To keep from triggering avalanches, we skied one at a time, so there was no frenzied rushing or trying to be the first to the bottom. Is there anything more annoying than trying to keep up with someone the backcountry, especially when that someone is your husband or boyfriend? Didn’t think so. Hurrying takes you out of your body and into your head, where mental static interrupts the flow and nothing feels quite right. 

We spent one morning in silence, sitting in meditation, eating breakfast, and then snowshoeing to the top of meadow where we gathered in a circle. Earlier, we’d written on small scraps of paper our wishes or intentions, fears and desires, anything that had come to us during sitting meditation that we wanted to send off into the universe. Galena carried a small metal tin, and we lit our papers one at a time and watched them smolder and released them with the smoke into the mountain air. It felt good to let go and say a small prayer to the fearless writer and mother and adventurer I want to be. 

 

The night before we left, we put on silly wigs and danced like crazy around the dining room. We were celebrating the ahi tuna we'd had for dinner, April's 32nd birthday and the baby boy in her belly, and four perfect days cocooned in the mountains, the deafening racket of real life muted, if only for a little while. That morning in yoga, I'd done a headstand for the first time. I'd forgotten what it feels like to focus so intently on learning something new, undistracted by tiny clinging babies and screeching toddlers and deadlines like thunderheads on the horizon, and just be present. Here and now. 

Snowwater had become my new nest, and I didn’t want to leave, but if I had to go, surely I could figure out ways to bring Cat Sass home with me. I climbed onto the snowmobile and held on for the ride.