yoga

Both Hands


my android apps menu #5

Image by laihiu via Flickr

My boss called today. Yes, I have a boss. I know it seems like I’m living this Life of Reilly up on the prairie, but I am employed. I am hired in a manner of speaking though it is so different from my previous existence as a public school teacher that when I come up for air, now and again, I blink a lot. That spotlight I try to hide from is bright.

Cee conducts these random phone updates with the bloggers at Care2 to take our enthusiasm temperatures, I think. Mine’s been flagging a bit. Partly because I know that in order to be a success as a pseudo commentator on current events and life in general I need to lay fingers on the keyboard more often and far more furiously than I do now. And, I need to check my scruples at my office door. Blogging for the masses – the hordes that feed the advertisers – means inciting them to comment.

You might have noted that I closed comments on my Jennifer Petkov piece due to a persistent commenter. I don’t feel the need to engage in that way and this is a personal blog at any rate, but it’s highly reminiscent of the type of response I’ve inspired at Care2 from time to time. My karma prefers to be less sullied but my ego is entirely game. Let the tug of war begin.

So, on the one hand there is the very real possibility of making my mark in the world of op-ed and on the other hand there is coming back in my next life as an invertebrate.

Okay, it’s not that black and white. Probably.

Mostly this is coming down to time. Which is precious even if it’s nothing more than sitting in the office with Rob in the evening sharing thoughts about items on our Google Readers.

However, I don’t have as much time as I did.

My other boss emailed me today. Yes, two bosses though Jade’s in a gray area. She’s my teacher. I like to think of her as a friend. And she lets me teach at her studio.

Jade’s off on a yoga cruise soon. The studio was supposed to close because Rob and I had planned a vacation for that week, but we’ve decided to demolish the wall between our living and dining rooms and reno instead – seriously, and I will explain that another day – so I am suddenly around and she asked if I will cover classes for those who have memberships.

Teaching yoga is feast or famine. I am busy beyond comprehension until Christmas and then …? I don’t know.

Here’s the thing. My old life was scripted from the outside. Order was imposed on me by a schedule not of my making. Not a bad thing because being a Sagittarius, I tend towards free flow and formless when left to my own devices.

Now, life needs order.

Why?

Because I am not – never have been – okay with just being good. At anything. I need to be awesome. Ego. Yes, I am well aware.

But, I can be awesome. I know this.

I am ruined though by twenty years of being scheduled. I wish I had shunned teaching for writing earlier. Maybe I would have a better handle on scheduling myself?

Both hands are required. Cee gave me license to write at will for any channel I want at Care2. Go nuts. There’s a career in there somewhere.

Jade is trusting me an awful lot to find my yoga feet, take root and bloom. There’s a future there too.

Are they compatible? I think so, but it’s a matter of blocking time and not losing sight of Rob, the girls and the other people who are far more important than anything else.

Life was easier when I didn’t have to think about where I should be at a given time. When it was all decided for me.

But I recall, vaguely, wishing for this freedom. Must. Control. Blind. Wishing. And possibly break down and get a Blackberry or an Android.

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Yoga Makes Flexible Demons for Satan


Heard of Mark Driscoll? He’s got himself a mega-church somewhere down south (of me). Among his other charming interpretations of the bible, he believes that women shouldn’t be allowed to hold leadership roles in any church. He probably likes the idea of banishing us to red rooms during our periods too – but I digress.

Mark recently explained the whole Satan/demonic training/hell connection of yoga to his flock during the Q&A part of their Sunday service.

Q&A, the Catholic in me giggles, consists of the flock submitting queries via their cellphones or iPads, no doubt, and Mark reading them off a screen on stage.

A stage? I’ve attended an evangelical worship thingy here and there and still can’t wrap my mind around the theatre aspect of it.

Someone asked if it was okay for Christians to do yoga.

Christianity’s apparent incompatibility with an asana practice has been much in the news lately. Personally, I believe that if yoga’s spiritual center bothers a person, he/she should do Pilates or something, but knowing that most people bring so little of themselves to their personal religions anyway – I don’t think many people are in danger of being seduced away by yoga.

Mark, like most uber-religious, totally over-estimates the average yoga student’s interest in anything other than having a yoga butt and being able to touch their toes. My students tolerate the “namaste” at the end simply out of respect for me.  I am not converting anyone to my way of thinking about the “oneness” of the universe as he puts it.

It’s interesting that he can explain the purpose of yoga and still not get it at all.

No one’s head spins round in yoga though I have witnessed some painful looking displays of near freakish flexibility and if getting in touch with yourself and by extension – everything and everyone – is evil, more of us should choose the “path of darkness”. The world would be a better place if we focused more on it and the people around us rather than wasting our energy chasing a capricious God and his conditional love.

Yoga is good for the body and one’s emotional well-being. Research backs me on both counts.

What people like Driscoll worry about is that the exposure to other ways of interpreting the world will lessen their power as people begin to question and think for themselves.

If Christianity is the be-all/end-all than people will come to that conclusion without the Driscoll’s guidance. No one leaves a faith based on their fitness choices. People who have faith aren’t swayed by a little inward reflection and perhaps are even strengthened by the opportunity.

Ultimately what we call “religion” arose from a need to explain and impose a sense of order on life. What actually guides the universe is not so simplistic which is evidenced by the fact that there are so many creeds competing for dominance.

Yoga is the last thing Driscoll should be worrying about or wasting his words on. Real life in America, riddled with real problems, would be a better focus, but what’s a dogma without tangible demons, eh?

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The “ease” in Easy


Kevala Jnana of Mahavira

Image via Wikipedia

The business of yoga enveloped me the past couple of days. In many ways, teaching yoga and teaching public school has much in common. Paperwork. Association dues. Insurance, though I have to admit I never once carried a liability policy in my twenty years of teaching and coaching children.

And there is the money side.

Yes, yoga isn’t all asana and heavy breathing. Perhaps the yogis of Patanjali‘s time wandering like minstrels or jongleurs, spreading enlightenment for table scraps and a night’s lodging, but yoga teachers today would have a difficult time getting anyone to take them seriously if they wandered the streets of Edmonton pushing shopping carts and setting up their mats on the sidewalks of Whyte Ave.

It’s interesting (my catchall phrase for when I don’t have all my opinions in a row on something) how the yoga teaching has fallen into place. I’d anticipated filling in here and there and maybe having a class at the studio in town to call my very own. Not what has happened.

I have three classes at the studio and two more to start at the community hall across the street in October. I’ve turned down other offers for work since yesterday afternoon. Stuff I would have taken if not for the fact that I have other stuff already that conflicts.

Another graduate of the training who I keep in touch with remarked on how lucky I am to not have to run work down and I am reminded of something related to the practice of asana/poses – that we are to find “ease” in each posture.

If that is the goal of yoga than it is also the goal of life because I have learned that yoga and life have nearly everything in common.

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