Be Strong In Your Warrior
One is not supposed to think during Yoga. You know the bumper sticker slogan "Go with the flow"? I'm thinking some yogi coined it. Yoga is about flowing. I know this because I got to thinking today, during yoga, and when I opened my eyes at the end of practice, I was facing the back wall, while everyone else was facing forward.
But first, before beginning the practice, we take time to focus our intention.
I’ve had loads of practice thinking, mulling, musing, pondering, "daydreaming" as my grandmother used to call it which sounded so pleasant, positive even, in contrast to other terms letting your mind wander is called: "Procrastinating", "Wasting Time", and when it goes on too long it morphs into "Resisting" as Steven Pressfield discusses in War of Art.
In an interview about her writing process (which I searched for but couldn’t find, as I didn't want to waste any more time looking) Isabel Allende said she "dreams" her stories. She watches the scene play out in her head, then writes it down. (And I seem to recall she actually lies down while "dreaming"--as in on a bed. Maybe with a pillow and blankie . . .
What's the difference? Focused Intention.
I've tried "dreaming" my scenes, playing them, working through them in my mind. And it works--but only if I'm walk-dreaming or ironing dreaming or cooking dreaming. Flat out out on the bed or in a chair turns to "NAP TIME".
I have the same problem during yoga. At the end of each practice we lie in “corpse pose” (pretty self-explanatory: lay flat on your back on the ground like you’re dead.)
However, even with the instructor’s warning: “Tell yourself you are practicing deep meditation, you will not move, you will not fall asleep…” I’ll find myself jerking to attention or snorting awake. Maybe more than once, my friend Mimi had to give me a nudge.
"I am practicing deep relaxation. I will not move. I will not fall asleep zzzzzzzzz"
When I think "yoga", Love-not-War, Flower Power and "Peace, Dude" comes to mind, not battle. Which makes flowing through a series of warrior poses seems oximoronic (if that’s even a word). Today, when Catherine said, as she does every yoga session “Stand strong in your warrior", this oximoronosity--which self-corrected to monstrosity--came to mind.
As I stood, with my back leg stretched, front knee bent, staring past my quivering fingertips, pushing down through my aching legs in one of my mightiest Warrior 2 ever, I pondered the purpose of these Yoga Warrior poses.
Why would a peaceful practice such as yoga need warrior poses? What do flower power peace dudes have to do with battle?
I must share how, in spite of my pondering--or maybe because of it--2 out of 3 of my Warrior Poses were Stellar.
Okay, so my Warrior Three was wobbly. In my defense, I was thinking . . .
It was not my best yoga day. (“Thinking, mulling, pondering” and “listen and follow directions” are mutually exclusive.) It was not my best work day, either. This question of why peaceful yogi-types would spend so much time and energy posing as warriors won. I couldn't let it so. So instead of sticking to the tasks I'd set for myself, I searched the internet for answers.
Validation came when I came across an article in Yoga Journal which also challenged warrior pose's role in yoga:
“Given that the ideal of yoga isahimsa, or ‘nonharming,’ isn’t it strange that we would practice a pose celebrating a warrior who killed a bunch of people?”
Rosen's conclusion is that the yogi is doing battle against her own ignorance. . . trying to "rise up out of your own limitations." Which is not easy! Battling oneself never is.
Is this why we resist? Why we avoid? Procrastinate? (Which, I'm compelled to restate for the record, is so not the same thing as daydreaming. . . )
Fame is no insulator. Allende, author of 20 highly-acclaimed books, most recently Ripper, battles, too.
Each Jan. 7th, Isabel Allende prepares--focuses her intention. Jan 8th, she begins each new book.
Why Jan. 8th? Allende explains: "My daughter, Paula, died on December 6, 1992. On January 7, 1993, my mother said, ‘Tomorrow is January eighth. If you don’t write, you’re going to die.’"Her mother went to Macy's and when she returned Allende had taken up the gauntlet.
“ The only hard thing about writing is sitting down,” Isabel Allende noted. “The rest is so easy and so wonderful. ”
“If you attempt to stay in it [warrior pose] for any length of time, you’ll confront your own bodily, emotional, or mental weaknesses. Whatever limitations you have, the pose will reveal them so that they can be addressed....When viewed this way, practicing Warrior [pose] can be seen as fighting the good fight. ”
What tool does Allende take with her to battle. What reminder to keep her focused. To help her stay strong in her warrior? A candle.
In an interview with Bill Moyer she shared how she lights a candle when she begins writing. "It's a real candle, but it's also a metaphysical candle," she told him.
“And if I have a candle, for as long as the candle is burning, I write. And then, when it’s over, when it burns off, I can have dinner and get out, and do things.”
Imagine, each of these candles represents pages, chapters, novels . . .
Today has been a battle. A battle to stay the course in yoga. A battle to stop puttering and sit down to the work I had planned for the day (a battle I lost.) And most frustrating/time consuming of all, a battle to publish this posting. Three times I'd been clicking away and something went wrong. It would have been easy to quit and turn to those many things I had planned to accomplish today. Important things. But working through this notion of what Warrior meant, which had taken hold of me as I stared down the length of my outstretched arm. And so, I soldered.
How-to Focus Intention:
First: admit it. No matter what differences we are trying to make, what we are trying to create, to change, it is a war we are fighting. A war against taking the easy road, playing it safe.
Second: Arm yourself with whatever will help you focus your intention, be it yoga mat, walking desk, chocolate bar reward, candle. . .
Third: Attack!
If you're reading this, I won! And it feels darn good.
BE STRONG IN YOUR WARRIOR
It's Might Be Scary Out There . . .
I’m getting “in to” Yoga. I have all the paraphernalia. A groovy pair of yoga pants.
Not this kind . . .
This kind. . .
Nephew-in-law, Jake, gifted me with them last Christmas,
Black ankle-high yoga socks with tiny traction bumps on the bottom, a neon green constriction shirt which holds it all in while I bend.
and I’m thinking about growing my hair out into dreadlocks and cashing in air miles for a ticket to an ashram . . .
Eagle pose is like having to go to the bathroom really bad, and are trying to hold it while not getting your foot dirty. . . not pretty or easy.
One of Catherine’s recent ponder points was from “bestselling author, poet, philosopher” Mark Nepo’s book:
THE BOOK OF AWAKENING: HAVING THE LIFE YOU WANT BY BEING PRESENT TO THE LIFE YOU HAVE.
Nepo tells of a guy “Robert” who dumped his fish into a bathtub of water so he could clean their tank.
When Robert came back to retrieve the fish from the tub, “he was astonished to find that, though they had the entire tub to swim in, they were huddled in a small area the size of their tank. There was nothing containing them, nothing holding them back. Why wouldn’t they dart about freely?”
I AM JUST LIKE THOSE BATHTUB FISH?????!!
But why?
Do I follow the rules, stay inside the lines, rely on learned behavior, swim the same circles around and around and around and around and around—in life and in my work—because it’s best . . . Or because it’s easiest?
Because it’s smart . . . or because the alternative is unknown?
Because it’s safe. . .
. . . because I’m lazy?
. . . scared to make mistakes?
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
How many times, in how many copies of NOT NORMAN have I written “Think Outside the Bowl!”
"Think outside the bowll" . . . It’s high time I did.
As they say in the song: "Now that my life is so prearrange/I know it's time for a cool change."
Care to join me? Dare YOU! Dare ME!
Potato Chips, Penicillin, Post-It Notes, W-D 40 . . . 2014?
Potato Chips . . .
Penicillin . . .
Post-it Notes . . .
The Slinky . . .
Goodreads kick-started my 2014 with this quotation from author Neil Gaiman:
“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes...you're Doing Something.”
That quotation haunt-taunted me through these last days of holiday and first days of this new year.
We celebrated the start of 2014 at a New Year’s brunch at friends, Joy & Michael’s new Kentucky home. Curtis and I were newcomers to the group. Lots of “news” at the launch of this year promising much change and challenge. Finding myself alone with one of the guests, I resisted the urge to withdraw into a dice-and-slice frenzy and instead tried to strike up a conversation by asking her if she’d made a resolution. It’s usual to make resolutions on New Year’s, isn’t it?
Big mistake! She doesn’t make resolutions. Doesn’t believe in them. Think’s they are stupid. A waste of time. Did I want to know why? Because we always break them, of course. Resolutions are made-to-be-BROKEN Blah, blah, blah blah-baaaaa. . .
I was feeling sorry for having tried starting that conversation when she added something that made me think maybe my resolution conversation starter wasn’t a mistake.
Turns out that morning on one of the “Morning Shows” (she watches several) the featured guest was some author who’d written some book about this very topic and he said (or so I deduced):
Along with making resolutions we need to “sweep away crumbs in our way” by resolving to stop doing whatever it is that is taking up the time during which we will do what we resolve to do.
A crumb. A take-away that bonded with Gaiman’s salutation the way 2 Hs bond with an O. Refreshing!
Spray W-D 40 on any surface & wipe. It will clear away even rusty crumbs.
W-D 40 will clean mineral build-up off glass shower doors, too. And kill cockroaches, remove gum from hair, keep squirrels from raiding bird feeders (spray W-D 40 on the top of the feeder and “The pesky squirrels will slide right off.”
But, what do W-D 40, Potato Chips, Penicillin, Post-it Notes or The Slinky have to do with New Years? Resolutions? Or Neil Gaiman’s quote? Why should we even give a crumb?
All of these things along with The Pacemaker, Chocolate Chip Cookies, plastic and who know what other inventions were created by MISTAKE. Failed tries. Miss takes
Take One! Take Two!
"I'm Ready for my Close-up!" Take 40 . . .
In W-D 40’s case, 39 failed tries by chemist Norm Larsen to prevent corrosion by displacing water.
What sets W-D 40 apart from these others is that rather than the end invention being something different or unexpected or accidental, Norm Larsen did what he set out to do: prevent corrosion by displacing water. The name W-D 40 is a testament to his efforts; it stands for “Water-Displacement 40th Attempt.”
Maybe Norm and the folks at W-D 40 Company have mistake envy, because they can’t seem to stop trying to find more uses for their spray. Along the way they’ve made mistakes, and discoveries.
Some bad: W-D 40 is not edible.
Some questionable: Is a python coiled around the undercarriage of your bus?
SPRAY IT WITH W-D 40!
Is a naked burglar trapped in your air conditioning vent? Dislodge him with WD-40.
2000+ dang useful! W-D 40 Company maintains a list of remarkable things this “corrosion prevention” in a can can do.
I went back to see if the squirrel repellant tip included a video (call me “cruel”, but I kinda wanted to watch slip-sliding squirrels) and was sucked into the 2000+ vortex. It took some time but I finally pulled myself free—But not before finding a helpful hint I’m itching to try: Last Christmas Curtis was gifted with blue ice cubes to cool spirits without diluting them. Sometime, someone tried using one. I don’t know who. Or when. All I know of the experiment is that one of my adorable, favorite juice glasses now has a blue glass ice cube lodged inside it.
Glass ice cubes look like this, but they don't melt and this one is lodged in an adorable cherry juice glass--one of a matching set, now relegated to the back of the cupboard
I’ve tried to remove the cube. Yes, I've tried knives. Scotch. Running cold water on it, hoping to chill the cube enough to shrink it so it would slide free. No such luck.
According to a Reader’s Digest article, “Stuck glasses will separate with ease if you squirt some WD-40 on them, wait a few seconds for it to work its way between the glasses, and then gently pull the glasses apart.”
When next I’m in WHB, I could give it a try . . .
Uh oh. . . hang on. That’s how mistakes happen. Breakage. Damage. Possible injury.
Do I really want to try?
Try, doesn’t mean succeed. . .
Try could lead to fail. . . .
Try could turn out to be a MISTAKE. . .
Consider son Max, then college student’s, attempt to concoct a high-test frat bathroom cleaning product. He tried mixing bleach with ammonia. That experiment ended in a trip to the hospital emergency room and destruction of who knows how many brain cells. Max counts it as a “partial success” as his potentially fatal mistake did save him from more bathroom cleaning. . .
Mistakes. Misses. “F-2” “Missed my Battle Ship”
Frustrating, embarrassing, harmful, sometimes lethal “miss takes.”
Safer to stick with the known. If life is good, why rock the boat? Why tempt fate?
“ . . . if you’re making mistakes . . . you’re Doing Something.”
Gaiman went on to add a note to the quote:
"Happy New Year! What kind of mistakes are you looking forward to making in 2014?"
Gaiman’s writing is so varied: CORALINE, THE GRAVEYARD BOOK, CHU'S DAY, THE DANGEROUS ALPHABET, ANANSI WARS. . . It seems he’ll try anything.
Was Coraline a mistake? If it was a mistake, it’s one that went horribly right for readers and reviewers. Reading it certainly was one of mine. It creeped me right out, then held me spellbound until I finished…
Paul Fleischman is another writer who likes to try new literary forms. He's recently adapted SEEDFOLK for the stage.
SEEDFOLKS, a collection of linked short stories--one of my favorites for any age, read aloud to adults!
At an SCBWI conference Fleischman admitted to attendees how his “tries” don’t always work. Mistakes maybe, but never a waste of time. For him, trying new things is what keeps writing interesting.
. . . INTERESTING . . .
In words from one of my fav songwriters, Mary Chapin Carpenter, from I Take My Chances:
Now some people say that you shouldn't tempt fate/And for them I would not disagree/But I never learned nothing from playing it safe/I say fate should not tempt me.
Today, soon after I click “post”, I’ll play that song again, for inspiration. Make that my battle cry of 2014.
Then, I’ll get to work sweeping out some crumbs of my “play-safe days” to make room in this brand new shining year with New! New! New Attitude. (And give a shout to the Patti LaBelle while I'm at it.)
I take my chances, I don't mind working without a net/
I take my chances, I take my chances every chance I get . . .
Take one. Take Two. ACTION!
. . . YES, IT MIGHT BE A MISTAKE . . .
It's a New Year!
"What kind of mistakes are you looking forward to making in 2014?"
(I’ll let you know if the blue glass cube rescue operation works, AND MORE!)