YOGA WHERE YOU FIND IT

Well!  Here we are on June 30.  I thought if I waited all through the month of June, I'd be able to announce the End of Covid!  HaHa  Just kidding.  But I did anticipate that the numbers of new cases would be much better -- not getting worse.  (PLEASE wear a mask!  PLEASE keep your distance!  PLEASE stay home most of the time.  PLEASE wash those hands and don't touch your face and say some prayer or incantation to the health gods to take this scourge away!)

Hmmmm....so given that we are still in this, how are you doing?    I have my ups and downs.  But one sustaining constant is my yoga and meditation practice....it just looks a little different.

I know there are a jillion online yoga options.  I know of a group of friends who are doing "backyard yoga" together while keeping their distance.  I know many of us have found our way back to Yoga Circle, either with the library of videos or the live stream classes.  It feels good to hear our teachers and see the studio. 

I also try to throw in a pose here and there during the day just randomly.  I am in Tree Pose while I wait for my tea water to boil; I stand in Mountain Pose and reach high arms overhead, on tiptoes, when trimming branches on our Japanese maple;  I kneel in Hero's pose while weeding until my knees scream at me, then I switch to a squat, or just plop down on my bottom and twist and reach.  One day my back called out for Child's Pose right in the middle of a planting session.  Boom!  Down I went, nose to grass, recalling how many childhood hours I spent crawling around my yard, playing in the dirt, making daisy chains, watching ants busy at their anthills. 

My meditation practice is centered around the app, The Daily Calm, that I have downloaded on my phone.  Every day there is a pre-chosen 10 minute meditation that I do right away.  It's a wonderful centered practice to start the day.  Other times I can run through the extensive menu and choose just what I need -- meditation for anxiety, meditation for peace and calm, meditation to help me sleep, and on and on. 

I have had so many good intentions to use this enforced down time to be productive and tackle projects long on the back burner.  I've done some, but not with gusto and not with unlimited attention and energy.  This time has also been one of just quiet.  Just "vegging".  Just contemplation.

I think we are living through a national trauma, a time of intense transition, that takes an emotional, psychological, and even physical toll.  But we have a secret weapon at our disposal: Yoga.  Remember....the entire purpose of yoga is to calm the fluctuations of the mind.  If you are like me, there are some days when all there is is fluctuation!  We all need our yoga practice to come back to center, to the seat of the True Self. 

We are in this together.  We can do hard things.  Lean in to kindness -- toward others and to yourself.  One day we will look back and remember this time.  One day it will be over.  Just not yet.

Namaste,  donnajurene
Photo Credit: www. pixabay.com

ONLINE YOGA CHALLENGES: DOES MY BUTT LOOK TOO BIG?

As I have said in previous posts, I am very grateful for my beloved Yoga Circle Studio going "Live" with online classes.  As this Covid-19 lockdown goes on, we are indeed creating a "new normal" for ourselves and that includes getting back some of what we lost when life as we knew it abruptly shut down.

That said, it has not all been smooth sailing.  The studio spent some time beta testing the software that makes online live feed available to us.  There was (for me anyway) a complicated sign in process and once signed in we encountered some audio challenges.  We all persevered and with continuous feedback and tweaking, it now seems to work well.

On MY end, however, I'm still working out the kinks.  I still have a hard time logging in and inevitably end up in a "redirect" loop that takes me back to where I started until by some quirk of magic I click on a right link and Voila! I'm in.  I wish just once I'd figure out how I did it so I could duplicate the process every time.  I'm sure this is no fault of the process, but rather my brain.  I run into these glitches on other sites as well.  I'm not super terrible at navigating Computer Land, but hey, I still remember black & white TV and recall my mom listening to soap operas on the kitchen radio.  Tech is not my native language.

Once connected to class it's great to see the studio, and our terrific teachers,  and familiar faces of yogi friends.  As students sign in we mostly we can see each other in little boxes across the bottom of the screen rather like on Zoom.  But for me to see well, I have to get really close and when I glimpse my gigantic head peering into the camera I scare even myself.  Not a good look!

Class often starts with us sitting and letting the instructor know what we'd like to work on so my computer screen is placed appropriately to make my head appear in the middle of the screen for that. But the moment we are asked to lie down I, of course, disappear.  So I try to adjust my screen to capture at least some of my body, but who knows?  Because the little box where I appear is hard for me to see without my glasses, which by this time I've ditched.

I go ahead with the class wondering at various points how big my butt must look to the teacher seeing me on her computer as I roll around in Happy Baby pose.  I wonder if, in Mountain Pose, all she can see is my torso with my pants heading south and my shirt heading north.  I keep trying to catch a glimpse and make appropriate adjustments to ensure some decorum, but it's a daunting task.

At some point I notice most other students have turned off their video and I begin to understand why.  All that self-monitoring is distracting.  But I also feel that if the instructor can't see us, she can't know if we are doing something truly dangerous that she should correct....or whether we've grown distracted and started to scroll Facebook.

I also need to move more furniture, but I try to keep the coffee table close for my computer to rest on so I can see the screen, which means much of the time when I'm lying down my legs are extended under the table.  To move them I have to move me again, skootching up and then often whacking my head or my arms on chairs surrounding me. This is just laziness on my part; I try to squeeze into too small a space for being able to effortlessly achieve full range of motion.

In spite of these personal failings and "yoga at home" challenges, I'm still grateful.  I'm grateful for the calming cadences of my teachers' instructions, for a glimpse of the most beautiful yoga studio in the world, for moving my body, and and for eventually finding moments of stillness of mind.  I can laugh at my clumsiness and know with a sense of peace and acceptance: "this is real"; "this is now"; "this is life"; this is yoga!

Namaste, donnajurene

FROM CHAOS TO CALM

Yesterday morning a thunderstorm rolled through our area.  This is not usual.  We get drizzle, mist, showers, even steady rain sometimes.  But yesterday morning the skies darkened, the temperature dropped, and winds picked up.  Soon, there was distant rumbling.  And a pelting non-stop big drop rain.  By the time I signed on to my weekly Zoom visit with my Sutra Sisters yoga group we all heard the loud cracks of thunder and flinched a bit at the flashes of lightening outside the windows in our respective homes, although some of us lived 20 miles apart.

This deluge, replete with sound effects seemed fitting.  Our world has been storming lately.  We have been living in a whirl of chaos it seems -- where nothing is as it was.  In the Ayruvedic tradition, one would call the energy around us "Vata" -- a swirling chaos of unpredictable movement.

The Covid-19 virus is still amongst us.  We here in Washington are still in a Phase One of a four phase plan for returning to "normal".  It will take awhile at the rate we are going, no thanks to those who want to hurry us along refusing to comply with "Stay Home/Stay Healthy" orders along with not physical distancing, nor wearing masks.  The "mask" debate has become politicized with some wearing them as a statement of compassion and solidarity -- doing what we can to slow the virus.  Others vehemently refuse to wear a mask seeing it as unnecessary and an assault on their rights as citizens to live as they want.  Chaos.

We are experiencing an increased level of civil unrest in response to last week's killing of a suspect in Minneapolis at the hands of a police officer who continued to subdue the handcuffed victim with a knee to his neck until he stopped breathing.  For days, protests have turned to riots and looting in major cities across the U.S. and a few in Britain and Europe.  Chaos.

Some believe there is a lack of leadership from the White House, with their ever shifting directives on the Covid crisis, their downplaying the severity of it, their eagerness to get the economy moving again in spite of rising rates of virus in certain hot spots.  Others stand with the current president, protesting and storming state houses (some with weapons) to protest being told to stay home and demanding businesses reopen.  Chaos. 

What's a yogi to do?  In some people's minds we yoga practitioners take a neutral stand on such issues.  We sit in lotus position, hands at rest, eyes closed, Zenning out and shutting out all the troubles of the world.  I guess it can look like that from the outside.  But there is grit amongst us, and compassion, and a call to action in our practice as well.  

We give ATTENTION to what needs to be done, then act with INTENTION to effect change.  We go inward to find our core being, our oneness with all that is, and come out with greater certainty that all is connected.  Every individual action we take (or fail to take) has impact on the whole.

Just as we link the in breath and the out breath with our asana movement, the in breath and out breath of our lives also moves us along the path of doing what must be done.  For some that may mean marching, writing letters, registering voters.  For others it might mean sewing masks, baking cookies for lonely neighbors, writing letters of gratitude to essential workers.  

Yoga practice is not apart from this world, but a part of it.  Yes, go inside.  Get quiet.  Find Source.  Then return in strength, balance, and breath to join in creating a place where all are welcome, where health and vitality are celebrated, where our individual lives become a model for our elected officials as we show them the way to lead us to a vision of a calmer, more peaceful world for all.

Namaste,  donnajurene

NEW YOGA CIRCLE VIRTUAL CLASSES!

Oh my!  I sure do hope you are signing in to Yoga Circle's online classes.  As I wrote in my previous post, I was so excited to hear that the online option would be available to us.

I don't know about you, but being away from the places and people I love is a bit on the stressful side. It feels like such a relief to see the studio, even online, and to hear familiar voices leading classes and meditations.

Yesterday I settled in for Karen's Goddess Moon Salutation class.  It was just what I needed to calm my frazzled nerves.  Moving my body, breathing with movement, stilling the mind...ahhh....yoga.  (You can find this offering and others in the video library tab on the Yoga Circle website.)

And NOW, even more! Karen has announced regular full-length online CLASSES which she and Elizabeth Gray will lead starting May 18 -- almost like being there!  Karen will lead on Tuesday/Thursday at 10 a.m. and Elizabeth will lead on Wednesday/Friday at 2 p.m.  This is such a welcome respite from the long Yoga Circle drought!

I know yoga is about so much more than asana -- so much so that I thought my meditation practice would suffice during the these days of Stay Home/Stay Healthy during the Covid 19 pandemic we are all experiencing.  But I miss asana practice more than I thought I might.  It's part of the yoga package.  I notice more aches, more being out of alignment, less strength.  I want to get back to a fully integrated practice of asana, pranayama, and meditation.

I know...I could access any number of other online yoga classes and I have; just not regularly.  Besides, there's no place like home....and Yoga Circle is like coming home for me.

Hope you'll tune in to a virtual class soon.  I know I will!

Namaste,   donnajurene

https://www.yogacirclestudio.com/