today's practice

In the Green. From Maia Earth Village, Palawan, Philippines.

On the mat this morning. I extend my opening prayer. There is no good or bad practice, I remind myself, as I try to navigate through a gaggle of emotions triggered by an email from one who once professed to love me so deeply. And thus I start the day's process of surrender, to the breath, to the divine, to the forces that keep things moving, flowing...

There is an element of struggle, some continued soreness and pain in neck--triggered a month ago by an emotional breakup--persists, thoughts cut into the scene, but they also go just as quickly. But practice is, as it always is: practice.

Later, as I lie resting at the end of a full-filling morning sadhana, I instinctively put my hand on my heart. Now, these are the very real moments that I love about yogasana practice, when the breath, the postures, the focus, the will to move whittles away at the physical, mental and emotional body.

This is when we are most honest, when the wisdom of the ages speaks through our own headspace, penetrating through so much associative garbage.

Hand to heart, this is what I said to myself, this is today's message from the universe:

"Karen, Kaz, whatever you call yourself at this moment, it doesn't matter because in your deepest heart you know your real name: I love you. I have always loved you. I will always love you. You may have experienced my love through J--- for some time. His was only an expression of my love. Without him, my love continues. My heart still beats for you..."

Yes, dear sage voice, thank you! I get that, I really do deep down in my bones get that. But since we are having a conversation, I need to say I am struggling today. Contact brings stuff up. I experienced a loss. Someone I loved, a relationship I cherished disappeared, died. In her book "On Death and Dying," Elizabeth Kubler-Ross identifies five stages of grief (denial, bargaining, anger, depression, and acceptance), which I feel like I've been through quite thoroughly over the last couple of months. But today, I seem to be cycling through each of them quite strongly.

I acknowledge that this too is practice, that the challenges, all these formidable emotions, are opportunities to go deeper into the rabbit hole, where true wonder awaits, that there is an opportunity to see and feel beyond what I have already experienced.

The love, I see, is still there. It changes but is never diminished. Love, itself, does not die. But I also have to acknowledge that there is a loss, that one of love's ambassadors has gone, his time passed. That along with celebrating the quiet and powerful discovery that love is, it feels right to mourn the loss of one who served loves purpose so well--at least for the time being.

And so navigating this grief, finding the joy beyond it, and being honest about it all is part of today's practice. There is no good or bad practice, I remind myself. It is what it is. And thank goodness! 

face fear and free fall

The photos above were taken towards the end of May. The girl in the photo jumping into the water is not me. I felt for her, though, felt her fear and her gumption when she took the flying leap off the plank and splashed rather haphazardly into the deep blue. And even though she was helped out of the water by the lifeguard below, I admired her.

May seems like another lifetime ago. I started writing this blog entry then but somehow could never quite finish it. Some things, I realize, take time to gestate. Certain concepts, ideas, feelings need time, space and opportunity to be tested by practice before coming into maturity.

May was a strange month of intense work. On top of that, at every turn, there seemed to be some old fear challenging me. I was telling my friend about how the place where I was staying in Boracay was draped in pitch black after sunset, and how I have this irrational fear of the dark. By then, she had heard of my fear of ghosts, of being underwater, and of heights. She replied casually that it seemed that I was afraid of quite a few things.

Now, I don't consider myself a fearful person. On the contrary, I think I can be quite brave. Admittedly, by being brave I mean that I acknowledge the fears I've accumulated and embrace, nay, even seek out opportunities to challenge and unhinge these deeply ingrained patterns. 

When said friend first talked about coming to work with me in the Philippines, she said that what she really wanted to do during her visit was to jump off some cliffs. Jump off cliffs?! Right, I knew then that I was in for it!

So towards the end of our time in Boracay, when our work commitment had ceased to take each and every waking hour and every bit of energy, we boarded a boat to Ariel's Point, a favorite cliff jumping spot on the mainland in Buruanga. With no hesitation, Zoë , who is pretty darn fearless, was one of the first people (along with the girl pictured above) to jump off the wood plank perched on the highest cliff, 20 meters above the cool water.

I, on the other hand, took my sweet time walking onto the 8 meter-high board. Each step was nerve-racking. I looked down, and the water seemed foreboding, especially the distance between me and it, which was amplified by the the lifeguard wadding in the water, managing the cliff jump traffic. He signaled me to get on with it. I could not. The crowd along the rails were egging me on to jump. I could not. Flustered and under pressure, I slowly edged back onto firm solid rock.

I had to change my tactic. I needed to ease myself into this process, I needed to find my own pace, one that I was comfortable with. So I started with the smallest jump, three meters, a kiddie leap into the water, hoping to work my way up.

I managed to jump off the 8-meter board. The 10 and 15 meter cliff as well. It helped to have the support of Zoë  and a couple of new friends who jumped along with me, who waited for me as they waded in the water as I deliberated over each jump, as I negotiated with my fearful self-limiting ego.

And then, finally, time had come to take the 20 meter-cliff jump. Just stepping on the wood board filled me with anxiety. I looked below and the drop was intensely intimidating, I looked out onto the infinite watery horizon and that too was incredibly frightening, I looked back at the rock and saw expecting faces. I just stood there, at the edge, for some time. Breathing, then panicking, then collecting myself, then hyperventilating, then relocating that inner strength...an internal struggle of who was boss raging within me as I teetered at the edge, with 20 meters of air between me and water.

At some point, Zoë calls to me from below. "You can do this! Remember engage banda!" And I started to think of practice, of my yogasana teacher Sharath Jois in India, his playfully stern voice in my head: "Why you fearing?"

It was then that I talked myself into breathing, deep, full breaths. I can do this, I CAN DO THIS, and took that small step into air, while pulling into my center as the world of fear closed in on me. I gasped, closed my eyes, and held my breath as I dove feet first into the water, where there was no fear, but instead: joy and excitement and gratitude. I stepped out of the blue shaken but jubilant.

Later, I returned to that top spot to go a second time. I decided that I wanted to take that leap with my eyes open. As I worked up the courage to go again, I started to talk to an older friendly Australian, who'd been watching the day unfold. "Good job," he said, "You know, when I saw you at that 8-meter board when we first arrived, I thought to myself this girl isn't going to be able to do it, that's how scared you looked. You proved me wrong." I felt like I had proven myself--the unconfident, disbelieving self--wrong too.

I did take that 20-meter jump a second time before we left Ariel's Point. And I did keep my eyes open as I excitedly leaped into the air before free falling. Fear was still there, but so was courage.

I've had more lessons in fear and in courage since then. Moments filled with the anxiety and excitement of the uncertain. Moments of vulnerability and of surrender. Moments of heart break and whole-heartedness.

When I think now of that hot summer May day in the Philippines I am amazed at how many times I've had to repeat that process of taking breath, finding center, and asking myself what am I really afraid of? before leaping into the unknown. What got me to jump off that cliff was the same mettle that made me to fly to England for the love of someone, and when that didn't work, gave me strength to leave Spain and to fly to Osaka for the love of myself.

My fear of heights seems less powerful these days. But more importantly, I feel less moved by fear itself. No doubt fear and all its surly little friends will surely persist. Still, I am comforted that built into my nature (and this is true for all of us) is the antidote of fear: courage. And in the heart of courage, which is from the Latin "cor" (meaning, heart), is love. Thus my heart story continues: face fear with love, feel free with love, fall into grace with love.


This article is also greatly inspired by Brené Brown (http://www.brenebrown.com) and Neale Donald Walsh (Conversation with God) and the many many brave hearts who I have met recently and it seems always--with gratitude to them all! 

  

a room of one's own

Creating space in the great Spanish Pyranees.

My belief is that if we live another century or so — I am talking of the common life which is the real life and not of the little separate lives which we live as individuals — and have five hundred a year each of us and rooms of our own; if we have the habit of freedom and the courage to write exactly what we think; if we escape a little from the common sitting-room and see human beings not always in their relation to each other but in relation to reality; and the sky, too, and the trees or whatever it may be in themselves...if we face the fact, for it is a fact, that there is no arm to cling to, but that we go alone and that our relation is to the world of reality and not only to the world of men and women, then the opportunity will come and the dead poet who was Shakespeare's sister will put on the body which she has so often laid down. Drawing her life from the lives of the unknown who were her forerunners, as her brother did before her, she will be born. As for her coming without that preparation, without that effort on our part, without that determination that when she is born again she shall find it possible to live and write her poetry, that we cannot expect, for that would be impossible. But I maintain that she would come if we worked for her, and that so to work, even in poverty and obscurity, is worth while.  --Virginia Woolf, "A Room of One's Own"

Finally, grounding. After nearly two months of living out of a backpack, I have unpacked properly: emptied my luggage and put my things away in a closet. A real closet. A spacious closet. In a real room. All my own. 

Most of you all might be thinking, what kind of world do I live in? Rooms and closets are, after all, common place. But over the last two months, I've been on the road, playing houseguest as I made my way to and fro a 5-week stint teaching and volunteering at a retreat center in the Spanish Pyranees. In the dormitories there was not much privacy and modest personal space, little room to spread out, not for my things anyway. To add to the mix, I was also inhabiting a vacuum in which two people at the end of a relationship collide, where much sense of space, air, freedom is sucked into into vortex of distance, sadness and trying to make sense of things. 

And while there was a lack of personal space, I also recognize how comfortable I could be under such circumstances. How my heart found latitude in the expansive landscape. How I found warm, comfortable, and large halls in the human connections I made in Vió and in Barcelona. How when there's a shortage of anything, a certain resourcefulness kicks in, and bliss is found in those small solitary moments, diving into a task, taking coffee at the neighboring village, going for a walk in the greatly inspiring out doors, or even singing with every fiber of my being in a close circle of people. How the body, the mind and the heart finds room in every possible nook and cranny.

Even settling in Osaka has not been so swift. The first 5 days has been a series of shuffling myself and my luggage between the yoga studio and two different hotels before moving into my shared house in Miyakojima. And now, with mysore classes already going well at the studio, I have unpacked, positioned my futon, set up a makeshift altar, found a corner for my ukulele and a spot against the wall to lean the few books I travel with. It's sparse, but it's home--for now anyway.

There are many things to be said for having a room of one's own, for having space for your person to stretch out, to hang loose, to be naked (not necessarily literally, but this is ok also!), to understand truly who we are without the context of any other. I recognize that I want this also, that the relationship that I should be cultivating is the one with myself. And that to continue to grow a loving and healthy relationship with my beloved self, I must spend time with myself, I must listen to my body, my heart and my mind, I must give myself space and opportunity to work, to love and to create. And in a new city, a new country even, I've been given plenty of room to do just that. So, slowly, slowly another kind of unpacking can now take place...

universe provides

Gara saves the day!

Two Fridays ago, I was in a daze as I wondered the streets of Barcelona. I had just left the Pyrenean mountain yoga center, Casa Cuadrau, after 5 weeks of intensely beautiful retreat and teaching whilst processing the end of a relationship within close proximity of the other.

I was allowing my friends to lead me. Tashi suggested taking the Metro to Paral'lel, on a hunch that it was close to the beach. Helen was trying to contact Pablo another friend who she planned to stay with. The idea was to find a cafe with wifi, have food, land somehow. 

Emotionally vacuous, I decided to just follow and wait until we were settled down somewhere before contacting my Spanish friend Gara who I planned to stay with till Wednesday.

Hauling luggage in the hot summer sun on some street near the Paral'lel metro station, there was no beach--as far as we could see--and no suitable cafes with vegetarian options. We turned on a random street, hoping to head more into the older part of the city. My heart was sinking, I started to despair. I'd traded the pristine though painful mountain landscape for urban chaos. What was I doing? How did I get here? Had I made the right decision leaving the mountains? The feelings of being lost and aimless started to permeate my emotional numbness. The gravity of the change was once again weighing on me. 

Then, just at that moment, as I trailed behind my friends, weighed down by my personal baggage, I saw quite to my own disbelief a familiar face, blond curls a top an angel on a bicycle. Stunned I called out, "Gara!?"

The very friend who I was going to stay with was at that very moment cycling past us! She stopped and sweetly smiled, welcoming us to Barcelona. She said how she was just at that moment thinking about me and wondering how we were going to get in touch, how she was herself taking an unusual route to the market as she thought about what she might cook for me. And would we like to come to her house now, take showers, rest up and eat a nice home cooked lunch? The three of us, stunned at the turn of events, nodded with enthusiasm and gratefulness!

Coincidence? Good luck? A divine act of co-creation? The Universe giving us a break or imparting an important message?

For me, moments such as these are pregnant with purpose. How such a sequence of events can lead 4 people down one obscure little street just at that exact moment? How amazing and yet absolutely perfect?

As we walked to Gara's flat, quite close to where we met, Tashi and I marveled at the might of manifestation. How we drew each other into that moment, with our thoughts and intentions, wild guesses and intuitions, creating together this moment of saving grace. The law of attraction at play. 

With one accidental meeting, I was pulled away from the cliff edge that I was tottering over. I was rescued. And all of us saved from wandering an unfamiliar city. 

We mused at how there were innumerable happy and unhappy coincidences which had brought us to this point. Should we be surprised? Awed? Or simply grateful that we live in a wondrous and mysterious world that provides exactly what we need at any given moment. Sometimes we don't recognize this. Other times we reject it so vehemently because we don't like what it gives. Then there are moments when the signs, the blessings are just so clear.

Amazing lunchtime spread that Gara put
together for us that afternoon.

Moments like these remind us that the world works in our favor. That it supports the right decisions, that it gives us feedback when we are on the wrong road or the right track. 

I had asked a question. I was doubting myself and feeling lost. And the universe answered. I was not alone. I was exactly where I needed to be. Even with the torment within, the trauma of loss, the world was telling me I wasn't lost but rather moving in the right direction.

These are the moments we are asked to surrender, to take that leap into the unknown, to trust that everything is really perfect. 

return to the source

There is no fanfare. No drama. No tearful goodbyes. No last kiss or lingering look to latch onto. There are no cliffhangers in this airport scene. I seem to have drained my well of sadness during the previous weeks of grieving. And the other? The one who I traveled across half the globe to be with (again!)? Long gone too, gone before I even embarked to meet him, gone before I really took notice.

Instead, I take a taxi on my own from Barcelona's Poble Sec, after sharing some potent healing days with my new women folk/guardian angels from Spain and South America, dancing with energy, hugging trees, eating with simplicity and love.

At the airport, I check in through to Osaka. I board another plane, this time taking me eastward, even further east then where I originally set off from less than two months ago.

East: the beginning place, where the sun rises. This is a start, not an end, I remind myself...

Today, after a seemingly endless journey, I walk the city streets of Osaka, in awe of the change of scenery before me, Japanese aesthetics, the sweetness in the people, a whole world translated in a another culture, another lens. I, too, feel different here.

I marvel at the mystery of living. I recall the image of the flower of life, but one that pulsates and transforms, a kaleidoscope of infinite patterns and possibility, whose mathematics is incalculable yet infallible. Every inhale, has an exhale. Every contraction has a corresponding expansion. And at every given moment, we are pulsating, this beautiful creative mess of a living thing, opening and closing, closing and opening, guided by some unseen force to go further beyond the beyond and at the same time delve deeper and deeper within. 

sisterhood of the traveling mala

I was surprised at the feel of them, how substantial each bead felt, how warm each round stone would get as I rolled it in between my thumb and side edge of my middle finger. How much energy this garland of prayers shared with me as it hung around my neck? I wondered what it would help me learn, what guidance it would bring in the months that the mala would be in my safe-keeping?

...

A year ago now, three girlfriends and I were enjoying coffee after self-practice. (Often, the starting point of many many great things). Having converged on the island of Boracay in the Philippines for a month-long yoga program, we were about to go our separate ways. After living on the island for years, Clara and I had already accepted that it was time to leave. Clara was moving to Bali. And I was already living out of a backpack, knowing that the rest of the year would be split between the Philippines, Europe and India. Choc, the youngest among us continuously had itchy feet, she could end up anywhere, at any time. Chit, a longtime island resident, would keep the home fire burning. Heading in various directions, we wondered how we would keep up with each other, how would we support each other over long distance, how would we keep the connection of friendship alive as we each sailed off into a vast sea of change?

And then I remembered the Ann Brashares book that became a popular movie called "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants." Four young women share a pair of special denim pants, which magically fit all of them perfectly despite having distinctly different body types, Through the summer, each girl has her "time" with the vintage jeans, during which much happens: love, heart-break, closings and openings. Yada, yaga...

We laughed at the possibility of having one object passed around between us as we went off to experience the world. It wouldn't be a pair of pants. Instead, it would be a mala, a string of 108 beads meant for prayer and meditation--being yoga practitioners, that made sense. Chit, who makes beautiful malas from semi-precious stones and crystals, would pick one from her collection. Our collective journey would start with her.

Since then, the deep, dark red garnet mala that Chit selected has been all over: with Chit in Boracay and Thailand, with Clara across South East Asia, India and Europe, with me as I traveled from Palawan in the Philippines to India and back to the Philippines. Each of us infusing our own energy, programming it with experience and wisdom. Instead of sending it by post (very unreliable in Asia) we decided it would exchange hands when two of us meet. And it's worked out so far. For at least two of us at a time, paths cross here and there. Two days ago, I left the string of hopes and prayers with Chit in Boracay. With Chit the beads will continue it's journey. Sometime soon, Choc will receive it. So on and so forth.

Over the last week, I've been thinking a lot about our traveling mala. And about the sisterhood. What it has meant to have this string of beads in my care and what it means to pass it onwards.

In the 6 months the mala has been in my keeping, it has seen me through some very sweet and intense times. It came to me after an incredible time of dismantling. I was on a cleanse in every sense of the word as I spent nearly three weeks at Maia Eco Village in Palawan where there was no electricity, no media, no cooked food even. I was grounding. Meditating to the rising sun. Gardening. Peeing into compost heaps. Inner dancing/exorcising old energies. Reaching into the dark corners and pulling out garbage. Getting my new and like-minded friends, also on similar healing journeys, to help me.

It was a time of allowing old ideas to drop away. And as I returned to the world, it saw me shine with new confidence and it also saw me stumble on old habits. It accompanied me on this journey of self-recovery. Over the 6 months, these friends of mine would also pop up, over email, skype or facebook, each of us somehow understanding that we had a supporting role to play in each others' lives. Over long-distance we gave each other cheers of support, virtual shoulders to cry on, and encouragement.

With our intentions, my three friends and I have put a little bit of magic into these already auspicious beads. Now this necklace of 108 drops of deep red binds us together as a tribe of women explorer-seekers, it reminds us of our commitment to our yoga practice and our commitment to serving each other. Our journeys, though separate and distinct, feel connected. This mala reminds me of the love between women, of a community that knows no boundaries. A sisterhood, yes. But a motherhood and a daughterhood too. A loving council of women. All of which reinforce the preciousness of our divinely feminine energy.

I know this sisterhood exists beyond our small circle, that it is not bound in one talisman or the other, but the mala has certainly helped to make it all the more tangible. Now, as I continue on my own journey without it, I feel the garland of prayers and good intentions, of support and of love so subtly in my own heart, in my veins: a deep fluid red, alive, a sweet and steady river nourishing my body, my mind and my spirit.


Chit is a master mala maker. And I'm not just saying that because she's my friend! If you would like to own a mala made by this very special person, you can contact her via facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chitsmala?ref=ts&fref=ts. She also makes malas made to order.

birth, death, and everything in between

It's been an interesting time here on the island. It's been a time of both renewal and of mourning. Of saying goodbye and of starting over.

Yesterday was my birthday. Today, I attended the second, more public memorial for a dear friend's husband, a reclusive but leading community member here in Boracay and an-all-around legend. And through out the month of May, I've been assisting in a month-long yoga program, which I see as a platform for transformation.

Birth. Death. And Life at it's fullest. Not just one or the other. All of it. All at once. The distinctions between each couldn't be more clear and at the same time couldn't be less so as this current of sameness weaves in and out of each state of being. The cycle of birth and death encompasses everything.

The memorial today, for example. On the altar: Boss Dieter (that's what I liked to call him because he was the Boss!), well, his ashes and his dashing and intelligent Rogue magazine photo. Many of us cry, directing our energy at his remains. Yet, at that moment, he couldn't be more alive, as his loving wife Mo-ching led us in song; as his household helper Dorothy recollected how this man, known for his fieriness, never once raised his voice at her; as his manager Abey recalled the quiet generosity of this man-behind-the scenes to his beloved employees who joined the gathering. Death, a reflection of life. And what a life Dieter Schrottmann lived!

As his friend Bhairavi stoked the ceremonial fire puja (offering)--a process which Dieter loved--we said our goodbyes in The Vessel, Dieter's last project, a stylish and uniquely beautiful events center which was a gift to the island and it's residents and also heralded a new phase of life for his baby Mandala Spa and Villas. Like a phoenix rising up from the ashes, this vessel in keeping with the simplicity and inherent beauty of the island is going to hold space and give birth to a myriad of new possibilities. Yes, there is death here. But new life also.

The spirit of this man does not die with his body. I think this is true for all of us. So with death, we celebrate life. And with life? If we live in full acceptance that our end will come, how can we not live fully? How can we not engage in the cycle of birth, death and everything in between with our whole hearts, whole mind, whole body?!

And, of course:

Thank you, Boss D. Thank you for this lesson. Thank you for creating a space for us bliss bunnies (a loving but slight-of-hand term Mr. Schrottmann used for his wife's yoga practicing friends). Yes, yes, I know, it's not just for us! But I thank you anyway. I see you! I feel your brilliance! I feel your love!