Retreat

"to be lost is to be fully present, and to be fully present is to be capable of being in uncertainty and mystery. And one does not get lost but loses oneself, with the implication that it is a conscious choice, a chosen surrender, a psychic state through geography." -Rebecca Solnit

This weekend I made time for retreat.  A day to go inward.  When I think of the word retreat, what immediately comes to mind are Mirriam-Webster's main definitions:  

• "the act of withdrawing from what is difficult"
• "the process of receding from a position"

Given the past few weeks, I one might assume this is the form of retreat I was taking.  Battles at work have been taking my time and there is nothing I have wanted to do more than withdrawal.  

But that was not the retreat I had endeavored to take. This retreat was closer to Mirriam-Webster's other definitions. "A place of privacy and safety." "A period of withdrawal for meditation."  

It is interesting to think that the same word that means privacy and safety also means withdrawing, giving in, surrendering.  Because another way I think about retreat is that it gives me a chance to reconnect with myself.  And that is usually some of the most difficult work that I can do.  But it does require surrender.  It is one thing to stand up to a bully at work; it is entirely different to take a good hard look at your own self and sit with all the aches and discomforts that arise once all the distractions are gone.  That chosen surrender is anything but easy. Withdrawal can take you on some pretty deep journeys.

"The problem is not the amount of things you have in your life, it's the attitude. It's your fear of space. Busy-ness in the Tibetan tradition is considered the most extreme form of laziness. Because when you are busy you can turn your brain off."  -Reginald Ray 

Retreat becomes a way to turn your brain back on. It is is turning away from the things that alienate me and moving into the life I want to live.  But it requires getting lost in those deeper spaces within.

When it's a conscious choice, getting lost, in Solnit's assertion, is its own form of retreat. It is a surrender. 

 

Practice Imperfectly into Deep Winter

This is the last day of the juncture into deep winter.   The juncture has taken me into some unexpected places and helped me see that depth is not always what I think it's going to be.  

What do I mean by this? In my mind I had envisioned this juncture to be one in which I would meditate more, journal in solitude, stick to mindful cooking and eating, and revel in the quiet of the coming deep winter. It was anything but that.  I did increase my meditation practice.  And I have been consistently journaling.  I have also included some additional meditative practices, like walking each day.  I had some great days of mindful cooking and eating.  Wonderful days of making curries and soups and kitchari.  But it has been anything but a peaceful journey into deep winter. And I have had to fight for these practices.

Having done this work with clear dedication for about 3 and 1/2 years, I think that some of this work had turned into habit. And this juncture was hell-bent on getting me to feel that. And I mean feel it. 

[Honestly, I was starting to reach the point of boredom in these practices.]

Things were no longer feeling new and exciting and, although my attention span is pretty good, when I hit a repetitive wall, I usually am ready to jump into the next thing. During this juncture I have been presented with a number of intrusions and challenges that reminded me that cyclical processes are not boring if you approach them with fresh eyes.

[A week ago, when I lamented that my journaling was feeling repetitious and boring, a fellow practitioner said to me, "when things start to feel boring and you grow tired of your internal dialogues, that is when you know a true transformation is about to happen."]

In particular, I have had numerous work and personal challenges that have taken my time and challenged me to find new ways to keep my practices alive. I have had to work hard to keep my personal time for my juncture practices, and oftentimes, it has limited how much time I can spend in meditation, cook dinner, and do my journaling.  In all that time, I felt like I was not staying true to my practices, but as I reflect back over the past couple of weeks, I see how frequently I have been bringing the practices into the challenging spaces of work. How frequently I have been creatively making time to do the work that means so much to me.  Sometimes it means I take five minutes after a terrible meeting to listen to an intentionality recording. Or it means I leave for my class 20 minutes early and sneak in a walk before class.  Or it means that I journal and read with Matt watching television. 

How I understand this work as I look back, is that I am learning to understand what following ayurvedic tenets feels like in real time.  I cannot practice perfect in real time.  In the reality of a semester and in the constant deluge of drama that keeps on emerging around me, the practice is imperfect. That is the practice. Practicing imperfection.  What has become clear to me is that practice does not make perfect. And that is exactly what it means to live a whole holistic life. Practice is always imperfect.  As imperfect as a human being like me. 

In my moments of frustration, I return to a practice that requires me to look at my shadow self. It requires me to take those darker parts of my being that I fear and learn how they help produce the complicated and complex and complete human life I live. Practicing everyday to be imperfect.  Practicing imperfectly into deep winter.  

[A transformation has started to happen. I am seeing those dark spaces with a degree of compassion that I have never felt before.  I can see how I'm ready to delve into something new in myself.  I have my work cut out for me in this deep winter season.]

Vein of Gold

"All actors have a certain territory, a certain range, they are born to play. I call that range their 'vein of gold.' If you cast an actor within that vein, he will always give you a brilliant performance." -Martin Ritt

I think of it as the creative flow. The space where you feel yourself moving with the ocean in harmony and equilibrium.  Effortlessly, yet doing the real work of the heart. 

But the mountain that bleeds gold in its veins also carries something that required breakage.  Breaking to open the flow. To find the flow.  This reminds me of a form of pottery I attached to nearly a year ago: kintsukuroi.  

The veins of gold are not unlike the fusion between broken parts of pottery.  The place where several things came back together to form something newer, stronger, and perhaps in my own assumptions, closer to its true form. Perhaps finding my vein of gold will help me embrace a deeper relationship with my real self.

More to the point, it is in those broken spaces that I will find my vein of gold flowing, alive, ready to be seen.

"I feel that Art is a way for each of us to discover your intuitive power and source of inspiration. It can provide a basis for understanding our own humanity and that responsible role we have as caretakers of the natural world." -Richard Newman

Synchronicity

Gnome Home-Pier One-Procrastination
I'll start with the most recent and most tangible synchronicity I've had this month.  This came with my new gnome home that Matt had made for me.  I was looking for a way to display this beautiful work of art.  I wanted it to be seen, but I wanted it to be safe.  So Matt and I decided to get a shelf for it. We both kept procrastinating, though. We finally went to Menards and found a board that I would stain and we would brace it to the wall so the gnome home could sit safely.  I stained the wood and then Matt began to second guess if this was the best way to display the gnome home. When we went to hang it up, we couldn't find a stud to hang it securely.  This solidified Matt's assertion that hanging was not the best idea. We needed a stand.  I was growing frustrated. I wanted it displayed. I was feeling hurried and impatient.

So I procrastinated more.  I couldn't really find a stand that worked.  Finally I decided we just needed to go to Pier One--just for a quick look. To get some ideas.

There is was. The perfect stand.  I walked around and suddenly I saw it.  The stand is metal with a glass top.  It has three thin metal legs. The legs were fashioned into tree branches with metal leaves and a metal bird perched on one of the branches.  It was perfect.  Matt was not sure it would be secure enough with the three-legged set up.  But I knew I wanted it.  Then he thought about it and realized that the round wood I had stained would be a perfect platform for the stand. He could place braces on it and secure the stand to the wood, so it would sit securely.  I found this a synchronistic moment in which patience payed off in the form of a beautiful and perfect moment of collaboration.



Defiance-Veiled Prophet-Family
My family research has been heavily concentrated on my maternal side.  For good reason.  My mother's side has been the one with the greatest support and influence.  My maternal grandparents were almost like a second set of parents. I lived with them off and on over the time I was growing up.  They were there when I really needed them.  They came to my graduations and would visit me often when I moved away from California.  As I often call them, they were the grounding posts of what I considered my family.  This isn't to say that my paternal family is unimportant.  They are very important.  And synchronicity reminded me of that.

About a month ago I stopped by Matt's house and he was watching a television show called Defiance.  A futuristic show on the SyFy network.  When he told me the title, I paused and said, "that's the name of the town where I lived.  It's where the farmhouse of my childhood was located."  He went on to tell me it was a post-apocalypse show that's set in St. Louis. I started watching and the Arch factored into many scenes. All I kept saying as I watched was, "whoever created this show has to be familiar with the area to know the town of Defiance." Missouri was not done with me yet, though.

My dad's family are largely from Missouri. St. Louis to be precise.  I remember one summer in particular, my maternal grandparents took my sister and I to Knoxville, Tennessee for the World's Fair.  I was pretty young, but it was the first time I remember going on a summer vacation.  Most of our vacations were moves from the west to the midwest.  Back and forth between Missouri and California.  This time was different. I'd get to stay in a hotel for the first time I could remember.  No camping or sleeping in the back of the truck. An actual hotel. It felt luxurious.

While we were gone, my parents went to the Veiled Prophet Fair. At the time, I knew it as the VP Fair.  It was that summer, while we were all gone from the old farmhouse, that somebody attempted to steal my beautiful doberman, Ussay.  When we returned from Tennessee, we heard the story of my parents partying at the St. Louis waterfront. Ussay soon returned with a tar scraped face from what I can only guess was him jumping out of a truck to return home.   To me, the VP Fair was a crazy Fourth of July party that nearly ended with the loss of my dog.

Then a few weeks ago, Matt and I were watching the show, Masters of Sex.  This is a show about Masters and Johnson, early sex researchers.  I've been intrigued by the show because it touches on many taboo topics from sexuality to race to gender in the 1950s. Also, it references parts of the St. Louis area that were familiar to my childhood. Forrest Park.  University of Missouri.  Everything that seemed so big and overwhelming to me as a child.  It brought St. Louis back to me.  Anyway, this particular episode focused on the Veiled Prophet Fair. Something I hadn't heard referenced since I was a child. A lost memory that started to reemerge as I watched the show and started to understand the deeper history behind this event I only knew as a Fourth of July party that nearly ended with the loss of my dog.  From the show, I realized the fair was something altogether different than I knew.  So I Googled the fair to see if I could find out more about its history.

I stumbled upon this article in The Atlantic Monthly:  http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/09/fair-st-louis-and-the-veiled-prophet/379460/

Talk about a wellspring of material.  There were so many linkages to the history of Victor, Colorado, that I could finally see how Missouri and Colorado are a tangled history-beyond just the history of me.  This could only be called synchronicity. Inspiring further thought.  Deeper thought.  Opening my eyes to new and exciting journeys.

Meditating-Veins of Gold-Mountains-Creativity
Entering into my reading of Julia Cameron's Veins of Gold, I have been hit over and over again with the metaphor of mountains and mining.  The symbolic meaning of mining for gold is more about tapping into the creative spirit in Cameron's book. My creative spirit. Yet, the reality of my journey into creativity is through the literal mountains of my grandmother's childhood.  It is interesting to think about how important mountains are to me when I'm currently living in the flattest of flatland.  But what that means to me at this moment is that it requires a deeper symbolic journey into the mountains of my life. The mountains holding fire, heat, and incredible resources.  Why do people strip mine?  To exploit all those beautiful resources.  I don't want to exploit.  I want to mine to revel in those resources. What became clear is that this deep winter season is very much about diving in.  Going deep into those veins, finding the larger source of energy and creative fire.  Golden fire.

My recent meditation reminded me of that.  I was meditating on Kali.  And she didn't hold back. She dragged me deeper into my inner landscape.  Pulling me down, down, down.  After 20 minutes of meditation, she was still dragging me down.  The next day in meditation, my visualization went right back to the downward sailing until I landed on a strange beach.  The beach had an organic structure that looked like a large furnace that funneled upward--from where I came.  She was building the fire and I walked to be beach and saw an infinite ocean.  Water and fire together in this place.  And as I stood there taking it all in, I realized how it was the place I have been, but have been too afraid to allow myself to consciously address. I was no longer afraid and I knew this place was exactly where I needed to be. No longer afraid.  I know it sounds a bit trippy, but meditation is often a waking dream for me.  More vivid than most of my dreams.

And it is in this space that I begin the juncture into deep winter.

Ancestral Memories; Total Abandon

The new year is supposed to bring in reflection, but I had an early start on that reflection.  I finally read through the ancestral journal practice that Maya Tiwari outlines in her book, The Path of Practice (see December 15th entry). I was met with a variety of emotions: anger, desolation, exhaustion, sadness, boredom, furiousness, and a smattering of hope.

Anger was dominant because my childhood memories are filled with loss.  My anger was pointed at my mother and father, but it was most severely pointed at myself.  I was angry at how little I really knew my parents back then. But then I started to realize how deep that sadness trailed, because I know even less about them now.  I thought about how much I miss out.  I miss out on not knowing my parents.  Honestly, what emerged was the growing realization that I don't really have parents anymore.  Anger turned to desolation.  Bleak and barren.  That is exactly what I feared would happen when I entered back into those ancestral journals.  The reality that there was nothing alive about my relationship with my parents.  All I had were memories and the memories I have are so filled with torment that left me dry, like a desert.

Soon the desolation turned to exhaustion.  I was just tired of reading the same things over and over again in my journal.  Just plain tired of the same stories to tell and the stories didn't really open up a door to something alive or new.  It all just left me with incredible sadness. The reality that my parents are strangers to me. The reality that my strong emotions toward them were no more.  They were more like dried leaves in the fall--just blowing, blowing, blowing away. I couldn't figure out where to go with what I was feeling. I kept sitting and drifting with the feelings, however faint, yet relentless they were.  And then the boredom came.  I was so tired of the words.  Reading the same narrative over and over again.  The victim narrative. The disempowered narrative.  I became so furious at myself. I could see how the memories of my parents are drenched with the shame I hold for them and the desire to be something, anything, other than them.  I didn't learn any deep life lesson from my parents, except how to survive.  Perhaps that is not such a little thing.  I have learned to survive.  I am a survivor.  But I never learned what it meant to thrive.  I never learned what it meant to experience unbridled joy. I never knew what it meant to be totally loved and totally safe in the world. I never learned what it was like to embrace an empowered sense of myself.  I must do that now. But to do that, much to my horror,  I need to let go of anything and everything I think I know about my parents.

I'd like to say that I learned something from the ancestral practice that left me alive and full of love for my parents, but I did not. I had growing anger toward Tiwari.  I kept thinking to myself, "I don't have your wonderful father, who held so many rich traditions and practices to pass on to you, his daughter. I have emotionally bankrupt parents, who can barely take care of themselves. I have to fashion my own practices and traditions.  I have to find something meaningful out of the rubble my parents handed off to me."  I was honestly pissed off at her as much as I was my parents, because she exposed another level of rememory in my life that I thought was resolved.

Not resolved.

"The pain of unresolved memories causes part of our psyche to engage in constantly blocking out the ancestral secret, even as another part is trying to unmask it. This doesn't make things easy for us.  But try to think of this paradox as similar to the opposing forces at work when we try to break a bad habit or go on a diet: part of us still wants the forbidden food or behavior while the other part wants to be free. With an ancestral memory, it's good for you to break through to the forbidden memory." -Tiwari, p. 197

What is the forbidden memory?  What is the ancestral secret? I have yet to figure these things out.  I want to be free of my parents and the incredible sadness that is enmeshed with them.  The idea of being free of what I know of them scares me.  It feels so finite. It feels cruel. What surfaced, though, is that I hold on to the hope that something grandiose and meaningful will emerge out of that shitty past.  I hold out hope for that beautiful pearl in the mud.  And the more I keep writing here, but more I start to wonder if the secret is that there isn't a pearl to be found there, in that relationship. In that past. Similar to Sethe in Toni Morrison's Beloved, there is a time when a person must let go of that memory before it totally consumes.  Sethe started to see how much life she gave that past and how little life she gave her present existence. Perhaps it's time to find the pearl of the present instead of grasping to refashion a faux pearl that blinds me from who I am here. Now.


I just finished the book Wild and at the end Cheryl Strayed writes,

"To believe that I didn't need to reach with my bare hands anymore. To know that seeing the fish beneath the surface was enough. That it was everything. It was my life--like all lives, mysterious and irrevocable and sacred. So very close, so very present, so very belonging to me." (p. 311)

I think for me, I'm holding on to whatever that was in the past, because I want to write about it. I want to touch it, rewrite it, make it more beautiful than it really was. Refashion that faux pearl. But I realize now that to write about that past, I need to fully let it go, so I can see it as it emerges, not as I want it be seen. I need to see it as the past imperfect. Imperfectly passed, but imperfectly present and so very close, so very present, so very belonging to me.

The very last line of Wild knocked me out: "How wild it was, to let it be." 

Lessons in Receiving

To take into one's possession; to have something bestowed, conferred upon you; to have delivered or brought to you; to be burdened with; sustain; to hold, bear, or contain.

My Gnome Home

These are definitions of receiving. I have been thinking about receiving a lot over the past couple of weeks.  The holidays heighten gift-giving and gift-receiving rituals.  I love exchanging gifts. I love giving in all ways. But I find a particular tension with receiving. Receiving, from one vantage point and level of intentionality, leaves me feeling loved, thought about, considered, a part of the world.  From other vantage points and levels of intentionality,  receiving leaves me feeling at a disadvantage, indebted to others, unable to live up to expectations, separated from the world.  It is a terrible feeling, because it exposes all my insecurities.  A beautiful and loving gift triggers shame for me. This beautiful and thoughtful gift from Matt made me realize how hard it is for me to receive something so loving.  What did I do to deserve this beautiful gift? Did I give/do/be enough to earn such a gift?  What do I need to do to level the playing field? 

My Gift

In my typical fashion, I needed to deconstruct, pull apart the meaning to create a new line of entry. A rhizomatic line of entry that enables me to find joy where most of my life I have learned shame, guilt, conditionality.

To take into one's possession. To have something given to me out of kindness and thought. The idea that this gnome home is now mine. The idea that somebody would think of me enough to give me something so meaningful.  But I didn't earn it, did I?  Did I earn it because I gave something to him or did I earn it for some future expectation of my allegiance?  This is so cynical of me. But I honestly struggle to feel deserving. Yet, what in this definition says anything about having to be deserving? Or to have earned it? Nothing. 

To have something bestowed, conferred upon you. To be given something as an honor.  My doctoral degree was conferred upon me. I earned this.  I worked hard for six years to receive my degree. How does one earn honors?  Through hard work, right?  How else would I have something bestowed upon me?

To have delivered or brought to you. I have things I bought delivered to me: books, furniture, teas.  I earn them (so to speak) because I could afford to purchase these items. 

To be burdened with. This one I understand.  I often feel burdened when I receive. Burdened because I wonder what I did to earn this gift. I wonder what I'll have to do to make sure he knows how much I appreciate it.  I wonder what I can get them that is as meaningful and caring.  Of course, worrying about all of that strips me of any ability to act out of love and grace and to give back in an organic and meaningful way.  I'm so worried about relieving the burden, in other words, equalizing and quantifying the relationship, that the quality dissipates. 

I think back to when I was in about the 2nd or 3rd grade.  Our class had a secret Santa gift exchange for Christmas and so each of us had to buy a gift for some unknown other student. My family had such little money that I was immediately rapt in fear over asking my parents to buy a gift. That fear shifted to whether or not my gift would be nice enough to bring to class.  

I found a stocking with a mix of things--coloring book, puzzle book and a few trinkets--that my mom said we could afford.  It was one of those plastic mesh stockings that you can buy with an assortment of cheap toys and items.  I chose that particular one because it seemed the most interesting.  But I worried it was too cheap for anybody to really enjoy and I felt guilty bringing it to school. I secretly hoped I would draw my own gift to spare myself any embarrassment.  But I went to school with it all wrapped up. 

Sustain. This definition, at first, did not make sense to me.  What does receiving have to do with sustaining?  But I can't help but think about how receiving is sustenance.  It is what sustains us as humans in relation to ourselves and one another. I am sure this is not the intended definition, but it is what touches me deeply in my struggle to receive and it is something I know I need to learn to do gracefully, lovingly, and with humility. 

When we traded, I ended up with a fun toy from a friend in class, but I watched the look on the face of the boy who received my gift.  I could see he was underwhelmed.  The kids in class started to compare and trade gifts to get the things they wanted, so I decided to trade what I received for the gift I wrapped so carefully.  I went to him and asked if he wanted to trade. Puzzled, he looked at what I had and asked if I was sure and I said confidently, "Yes. I really like all that stuff." 

We traded, but when my friend came over to ask how I liked her gift, I vainly tried to hide the fact that I traded her gift away.  I could see her crestfallen face when she saw I had traded it.  I felt so guilty and I didn't know what to say.  I had disappointed my friend out of my own shame.  I couldn't receive even in the 3rd grade.  Where did I learn this? 

To hold, bear, or contain. This definition gets deeper into the core of my struggles with receiving.  To hold space for the relationship, the space to nourish, foster, develop something filled with joy and life. It scares me. Receiving shouldn't be a burden. It should be a responsibility born out of love and respect.  Not a burden born out of fear and expectation. Receiving is part of the larger practice of friendship, love, intimacy.  Much of my life receiving has been a burden.  It usually came with expectations, unquestioned loyalty, forgiveness for unforgivable actions, amelioration of guilt.  It was almost always conditional.  I have been trying to feel, really feel, unconditional love. But it scares me. It feels like a responsibility that I can't live up to. I worry that if I don't return in kind I will fail to live up to whatever it was that initiated the giving.  I don't know how to contain. I get so scared of failing to meet expectations that those beautiful thoughtful gifts sit like hot potatoes burning through my hands and so I must quickly pass it back in kind or everything will fall apart in the relationship--the love, respect, all of it.  And as I reflect, I feel sad that this is how I think about receiving.  I get angry that I have not learned the skill of receiving by this stage of my life. Resentful. 

When I got home with my own gift, my mom asked me how that happened.  I told her I wanted this gift and that it was by chance that I ended up with it.  I never told her that I traded to get my own gift back. Until now, I never fully understood why I had traded to get my own gift.  But in light of my exploration of receiving, it is clear how deeply this rhizomatic shame runs within me.  The funny thing about a rhizome, though, is that I can dig in the dirt a bit more and find a new direction.  I so much want to find the thread to joyful receiving. 

I am a lucky person.  Full of wonderful people.  I have a life that is meaningful and awake.  And this is reflected in the beautiful gifts I receive day in and day out not only from those wonderful people in my life, but also myself and the universe. I look at this gnome home and I see it as an exploration in receiving. It is a practice in seeing myself as something more than my childhood self.  This gnome home feels like the conglomeration of all the missteps and victories in my life. The intricate little pieces, each thoughtfully placed with incredible detail. Thought and intention. That somebody would do something for me so rich in thought and cost is beyond my comprehension.  It was the trigger I needed to delve into. Matt has given me a gnome home that is filled with hidden treasures to explore.  Our relationship always provides the space to grow and reflect and now there is a tangible reflection of our relationship. Receive, Christina. Joyfully receive. 

Gnome Home Full View

Resistance Revisited

It is a curious thing.  I have been intermittent with my entries to the blog over the past month or so and I know it is resistance.  More than a month ago, I gave myself the assignment that Maya Tiwari calls "Ancestral Journal-Keeping."   I journaled on my parents for over a month and it was a trying time throughout. Intense sadness and anger kept rising to the surface. Part of the assignment is to return to what I wrote and read and reflect on it.  I know I have been avoiding reading those entries.  I have been creating busyness for myself, focusing on the drama of my work life and allowing things to get in the way.  This is such a pattern for me.  I could have been writing about other things, but since I was avoiding the reflection, all writing ground to a halt. 

"If anger or any other emotion prevents you from being able to write, put down your journal and practice a food, breath, or sound sadhana...." --Maya Tiwari

I know I need to reflect. I can feel it all the way down to my bones. But I also feel the fear of doing that reflection exercise all the way down to my bones.  Competing feelings—one of fear and one of trust--leave me frozen and agitated.  Hence, the focus of the last blog post (November 29th).  Fear and trust are so deeply intertwined their entanglement clog my creative fire.  Sitting here writing this I am overpowered by the fear.  Yet I am still writing.  I’m staying. 

"...When you engage in the practice you move energy and breath through your body, which allows the rhythms of your thought processes to become more fluid...." --Maya Tiwari

Malasana. That is why I took the challenge of doing malasana each day (see November 8th entry). And I did it. I sat in malasana for five minutes each day for a week—and it felt amazing. Energy was moving. I could feel the pose grounding me—bringing me to earth gently and with love.  My hips are often the place I hold intense emotions and I could feel the muscles simultaneously fighting and succumbing.  But I allowed curiosity to settle into those spaces.   I found a way into the dense and complex musculature of that region of my body.  No, I have not mastered malasana.  Each day with the pose is different.  Some days it’s easy to sit there; other days it feels like I’m going to freak out.  But I realized how much I love the pose and how much my vata nature needs the pose.  I haven’t been doing it everyday, but I do it often. 

"...You may find positive solutions to problems or emotional issues that seem insurmountable and have made you feel stuck." --Maya Tiwari

Although I'm less stuck as a result of the malasana practice, I'm still struggling to write and reflect. One thing that arose for me today is how much I am struggling with vata. Usually kapha is a wonderful place to lay blame during this time of year for my general lack of energy.  I have felt tired and creatively drained over the past month or more, but this morning I realized it's not out of the lethargy and the heaviness of kapha.  I had a deep sleep last night and awoke refreshed and alive.  It was glorious. Reflecting in meditation, I realized I was drained because I have not been sleeping well.  My mind has been busy at night, waking me up, spinning around my thoughts. Vata-mind.  Often, I am afraid that if I indulge vata too much, I will push kapha into imbalance. It's as though I prefer to be in vata-excess out of fear that kapha will stomp her way into my life.  She will dominate me with her wet, heavy, earthiness, leaving me lost in her darkness. Yet sometimes we need that darkness.  Seeds must grow in the wet, heavy, earthiness. Yet we need light air and space to keep energy moving. But as my yoga teacher reminds me, winter is the time of opposites. That means our work is to find balance, and since I am a vata-kapha, that is a big task.  I’ve struggled with kapha imbalances in the past. It is a difficult energy to get moving when it gets too heavy.

Although vata and kapha are largely opposites, there are things about these two doshas that make them complementary. And not always in the greatest ways.  They both lean to the cold side of things.  They both thrive on fear.  And they both can be tremendous roadblocks to creativity: kapha for its pull to stasis and lethargy; vata for its pull to frantic lack of focus. Sitting in meditation this morning with my mind jumping from one thing to the next, I realized that vata has been frantically unraveling my creative focus.

I found this picture online and I couldn't stop looking at it. It mirrors my internal state.  The frenetic flight of the bird's wings on a crumbling facade.  There is part of me that knows some of the facade does need to break down and crumble. I sense the reflection process will lead to crumbling.  Hence, the resistance. The frantic bird shuttering to hold onto that facade.  I look at the picture and keep thinking, "Why can't I just let go?"