Everything and Nothing

 

 

And so we come to this point in the year. Just beyond the turning point, the autumnal equinox. This is one of two annual junctures at which the day and the night hold equal sway. And, it is also a threshold time. After this point, we begin an inward spiral which has the potential to bring us on a deep, quite descent into sacred space: a place in which we prepare ourselves to gestate. This quarter of the year from the autumnal equinox through the winter solstice signifies a reaping on the one hand, a dying on the other.

 

Enter the harried mother.

 

There is often talk of spring cleaning and the impulse to clear away what is stored and messy in preparation for freshness and new birth of all sorts. But, the autumnal sweep is spring cleaning’s shadow. Now, we take time to cleanse internally. We do this to release the heat of summer (in Ayurveda, the sister science of Yoga, we call this “Pitta.” Pitta is characterized not only by physical heat, but also by symptoms such as inflammation, excess acid, heart burn, or mental states such as anger or being hypercritical.) as well as to step into a deep, contemplative silence. The release can happen through a nutritional fall detox http://www.yogajournal.com/detox/?utm_source=MyYogaMentor&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=MyYogaMentor, time spent preserving the harvest http://www.himalayaninstitute.org/yoga-international-magazine/lifestyle-articles/saving-summer/, or through individual or communal celebrations of gratitude. For the harried mother, the work of cleaning is energetic.

 

Now is a time when we can begin to ponder bringing solitude into our lives. I know, I know. I can hear you all out there crying out that “There IS no time for solitude! I don’t even go to the bathroom alone!” The beginning of finding the time is 1. deciding if you truly need it and 2. allowing a deep feeling of worthiness to support that need. For this, we need breath.

 

Settle into a comfortable seated position in which the spine is straight and supported. Closing the eyes lightly, loosen the shoulders down away from the ears and begin to focus on the breath.

 

Deepen your interaction with the breath by drawing the inhale fully into the whole torso – to the front, the sides, the back and all the way down to the tailbone. Let the exhale release its way up the spine. Feel the crown of the head draw up and the spine lengthen. Continuing this way as each breath lengthens the spine, creating space between the vertebra. It’s as if you are growing taller with each breath.

 

Keeping the breath nice and smooth, let it become natural and turn your awareness even deeper by centering on the feeling at your heart center (anahata chakra). It is good to imagine this space as fully 360 degrees, a disc of energy around the center of the chest, including but not limited to the actual physical heart.

 

Now, allow your mind to savor the words of Sri Nasargadatta:

 

As you exhale: “I realize I am nothing”

As you inhale: “I realize I am everything”

 

As you exhale: “I realize I am nothing, and that is wisdom”

As you inhale: “I realize I am everything, and that is compassion”

 

As you exhale: “I realize I am nothing, and that is wisdom”

Feel spacious and open….

As you inhale: “I realize I am everything, and that is compassion”

Feel filled and vibrant…

 

Release the breath work and move back into the steady inhale and smooth exhale. Notice the change in the quality of your breath and your energy (prana). Return gently to your body, your environment, your life.

 

xoxoxom,

Amy

Solitude

“If one sets aside time for a business appointment, a trip to the hairdresser, a social engagement, or a shopping expedition, that time is accepted as inviolable. But if one says: I cannot come because that it my hour to be alone, one is considered rude, egotistical or strange.” – Anne Morrow Lindbergh

 

 

For all the gifts of motherhood, one of its greatest poverties is the lack of solitude. Originally, in an ancient text called the Hatha Yoga Pradapika, there were just a handful of yoga postures, all of which were either seated postures or other ways in which to prepare the body to sit in meditation. These were created to assist a life of solitude, a life in which the journey inward far exceeded in time and commitment to external demands, a life in meditation.

 

The conversation on meditation can be divisive. From some camps, there is the dogmatic insistence on taking your seat on a cushion once daily or more. Contrast this to our fearful plea “I can’t meditate!” usually after attempting to jump fully from the chaos of a fully lived life right into the thimble of Samadhi and wondering why we didn’t land right.

 

Most of the mothers I know are tired. They are tired because they have nursing babies that need them in the night. They are tired because they are working outside the home and then coming home to put dinner on the table, clean up afterwards, assist with homework, pay bills and faint into bed each night, while to-do lists continue to gallop through synapses and muscle tissue. They are tired because they want to be alone or exercise or pray or sing or draw or work their knitting needles or read that good book but they have passed another day not able to fit it in. I have to yawn and sigh just to write about it.

 

So, we can imagine a spectrum in our minds. On one end, we see the ascetic yogi of yore, sinewy and folded in lotus in a cave in the Himalayas – most every moment devoted to solitude. On the other end is the harried mother, as the ancient Hindu goddesses are portrayed with millions of arms and heads, each serving another cause in our lives as women, mothers, partners, professionals.

 

More in the next post…

An Exercise in Balance

Perhaps one of the biggest challenges along the road of deepening into the sacredness of our mothering path is finding balance. Balance is a term that comes up a lot in our yoga circles. Often, the one asking for it desires physical, mental, emotional and/ or spiritual balance within an atmosphere of turbulence. As we peel through these layers, we may find that external turbulence has nothing on how we draw that turbulence inwards and create a continual drama within our minds. How do we find balance within these raging winds of the mind?

What do we take in and what do we let out? Physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually?

Let’s begin an exploration of giving (output) and receiving (input) by working with the breath.

 

Find your way into a comfortable seated position, closing the eyes lightly, loosening the shoulders down away from the ears, and settling in to focus on the breath.

  

 Deepen your interaction with the breath by drawing the inhale fully into the whole torso – to the front, the sides, the back and all the way down to the tailbone. Let the exhale release its way up the spine. Feel the crown of the head draw up and the spine lengthen. Continue this way as each breath lengthens the spine, creating space between the vertebra. It’s as if you are growing taller with each breath.

   

Now, begin to open up to the full capacity of the breath, the fullness of life energy (prana) circulating through you. Take a full inhale. Pause and take in an extra sip of breath. Now release the breath, letting go completely. At the end, pause, and, using the strength of your navel chakra, pump the last bit of stale breath out of the body. Repeat this process, and, as you inhale, imagine bringing in everything that’s available to you – breath, and also support, ease, joy: more than you could have imagined. As you exhale, visualize releasing all that doesn’t serve your body, heart and soul: discomfort, toxins, self-limiting beliefs. Actually feel these things leaving your mind, your heart, your body – releasing down into the earth.  Repeat this cycle 10-15 times.

 

 

Release the breath work and move back into a steady, easy inhale and smooth exhale. Notice the change in the quality of your breath and your energy (prana). Use this technique whenever you feel a call to balance. Take the practice into your life and notice the connection between your breath and your experience of balance. Know that all of us are entitled to a free feeling of giving and receiving.

 

xoxoxom

Amy

"The love of the Mother"

I have been writing about motherhood as a spiritual path in many iterations over the years, beginning with my first pregnancy twelve years ago. This work has been submitted to graduate school faculty, to my journal, to my computer, but never to my sister-mothers. It's not my intention to move back and chronicle all of those feelings, events, moments.  But, there are some memories that surface again and again as I consider this path. Here's one of my favorites.

 

I was blessed, I tell you, blessed to have one week of teaching with His Holiness, The Dalai Lama, several years back. His Holiness is delightful to experience and I never walk away from a teaching unmoved. And, although I have been in His presence on many occasions, there is always, for me, something a bit untouchable about his instruction. In some instances, one can feel as if all that enlightenment might just be reserved for men in saffron robes, ones that live in compounds or monasteries or caves, for that matter. The enlightened ones, well, they definitely don’t unload the dishwasher or use the bulb syringe to squeeze snot out of a wee nose. Nevertheless, His Holiness has been notably open to the inclusiveness of women.

 

Personally, I still have trouble shaking the stigma.

 

Until this day, when His Holiness took a question from the audience. This event happened not long after a mass shooting occurred on an American college campus. The audience member used the event to query His Holiness, yet again, with this perennial, heart-rending, wonder: “What’s up with all the bad stuff? And what can change this?” Part of the delight of His Holiness is his wandering and robust answers, hopping to and fro from English to Tibetan with his translator (a world-renowned scholar himself) scampering behind him in the glow of rainbows. His Holiness breaks all of this up with the most joyful, in-spite-of-himself, peals of laughter you could imagine. It’s no wonder his moniker, Kundun, translates as “the Presence.”

 

However, to this deeper, desperate question, his response was just five words:

 

“The love of the Mother."

 

I can’t remember whether he had more to say after that. I was kind of anchored right there. The ship had been sailing about in the night, going for an adventure cruise and skittering over the depths.  But “The love of the Mother” – well, the anchor sunk through all that deep, dark morass and just got me and my little boat real, real still. Real still.

 

So, here we are. 2012. Two things are probably true: there is probably a really good argument for an inverse relationship between the bad stuff of the world and the love of the mother. And, the mothers that I know are generally feeling a bit (or a lot) overwhelmed, under-energized, and tragically underappreciated. By both others and ourselves, sadly.

 

Basically, then, what we need is a really good way to soothe some nerves, clear some hearts, and juice these mamas up! And then, maybe then, we can start to save the world: one mother, one family, one child at a time.

 

xoxoxom

Amy