The Landscape of the Heart

As our boat crosses the lake from Villa Sumaya to Panajachel carrying our teacher training group to the Art Meditation at Casa La Rosa, I realize, I’m in the middle of something very familiar.

In Janie’s art meditation series just months before I closed the Yoga studio, our group gathers in her apartment for the heart chakra class.  We are surrounded by acrylic paint, a spectrum of brushes, books of art to stimulate the process along with our additional stimulation of red wine and dark chocolate.  She leads us through a meditation into our heart center.  The previous weeks, we traveled into our lower chakras, making our way into the center gradually, like explorers  embarking on a new adventure into unchartered territory.

My heart chooses a palate of color and before me sits a blank canvas, a screen waiting for the image to show itself to me. I fumble for a moment, not comfortable with working with such a medium-bold, thick paint and a hearty blank slate. I stick with it and become absorbed in the process and become swept into a space beyond the veil of what my mind knows as its current reality.

By the end of the session, a vision of my heart’s inner landscape stares back at me from the colors and brush strokes that have come together forming an image of mountains parting.  The embrace of the earth forms the basin for deep calm, but powerful water that moves within the hands of the land.

We are almost to the shore in Panajachel when it hits me.

I am in the landscape of that image.

It feels like a full circle, or perhaps, an upward spiral revisiting my heart through a journey of paint on canvas with a group who safely supports one another through the process.

What it took to get here was the action of surrender…letting go of everything I thought was safe and comfortable.  That “safe and comfortable” life didn’t fit any longer, but I tried and tried to mend it in one way or another, to the point where I could no longer hold on and had to let go fully. In my many attempts to respin it, I couldn’t even acknowledge how uncomfortable it had become.

In the months and years since that meditation, my actions have been flavored by deep trust, faith and surrender to a bigger push.  Miraculously, in the past week, I am noticing the tightly wound knot of pain that had been trapped within my left shoulder for years is dissolving, as if unravelling from within.

I imagine the small canvas that once sat on my altar in front of my bed, now occupying space with all of my belongings in a dark storage unit in a town where I once called home.

A question arises constantly in my travels, “Where do you live?”

I answer, “here,” and point to my heart.  Right now, I live at the edge of a lake and surrounded by the mesmerizing volcanoes that the Mayans call the solar plexus of their land.  In the morning, I am greeted by the soft light silhouetted by the feminine earth.  At night, the calm waves lull me to sleep under a blanket of stars.

I live here, in the landscape of my heart. A picture that was in me all along.

Reflections of 2011…What a Ride!

I love this time of year!  I don’t love it for the fact that it is Christmas (I gave up celebrating this holiday years ago!)  My love for the end December is the turning of the calendar.  For me, it feels like a wiping clean of the white board after I have just spent the last 12 months creating a map that could not have been foreseen from this point in time last year.

The lessons in the span of a year:

1. Get out-of-the-way.  It may be my own way, or someone else’s.  Only then, can true healing take place.
2. Be silent more.  There is a receptivity in the silence that creates greater clarity.
3. Trust more.
4. Dance, Laugh, Play, Relax MORE!
5. Remember to say “Thank You” when things are not necessarily going my way…because a bigger way is working itself out.  (Thank you, landlord, for kicking me out of my house because I was away too much.  It gave me the chance to make the real move I needed to make!)
6. Never overstay a welcome…it’s the quickest way to decay (see #5 above).
7. It’s just hair, it grows back! It helps to lighten the load from time to time.        
8. Don’t get a bigger storage unit, just get rid of more stuff.
9. Accept help and more boxes when moving.  I will most likely need both.
10. Enjoy being alone, because it does not mean lonely.
11. Know that “work” does not always mean the same thing to everyone.
12. Showing up is sometimes the most challenging action of all.
13. Enjoy the unexpected moments of rockin out with the family, making music, singing and laughing together.  These moments don’t last forever, so cherish them while they are here!
14. Be in the company of people who want me to be with them. Let go of the “shoulds” and “have to’s”…
15. Remember that forgiveness is a process, not a one time thing to check off of my list.
16. Sometimes a 2 hour drive out-of-the-way is not a detour, it is actually exactly where I need to be and what I need to be doing!
17. Friends that span decades are worth their weight in gold!
18. I don’t need as many shoes as I think I do.
19. When you hike through a rainbow, stop and take a photo!  This is not an everyday occurrence.
20. Do not drive in California with out-of-state plates.  It’s like painting a bullseye on my tail lights!
21. When you see that sign that says, “Hot Springs” driving through the California desert, it doesn’t necessarily point you to an actual hot spring.  But, with the gift of modern technology and a little common sense, and a bigger intuitive listening, you just might be able to find the most perfect hot spring, and end up exactly where you need to be!
22. When someone comes into my thoughts, I should make every effort to let them know.  Most likely, they pop into my awareness for a bigger reason!
23. Letting go of material possessions is a freeing experience.
24. Speaking up for my own needs and expressing myself the best I can may not make the recipient of my words comfortable, but it’s not my duty to create a comfort zone for others.
25. My perspective is valid.  So is the perspective of the person sitting across from me.  The Truth dances somewhere in the middle, most likely.
26. Stepping out of my comfort zone has been the most amazing gift that I have given myself this year.  Remember to do this more in 2012!

The Infinite Chances that Converge

“Between Austria and Italy, there is a section of the Alps called the Semmering. It is an impossibly steep, very high part of the mountains. They built a train track over these Alps to connect Vienna and Venice. They built these tracks even before there was a train in existence that could make the trip. They built it because they knew some day, the train would come.”  from Under the Tuscan Sun.

I dropped my roommates off at the bus stop early in the morning, so the house is uncharacteristically quiet this evening.  My throat is still feeling the effects of the wind and rain that create the mid-season in Monteverde as we await the hot, dry summer months ahead in Costa Rica.

I scoop out the last bit of Nutella, and toast the remaining pieces of homemade bread to ease my throat, and add some cinnamon and cardamom to my coffee.  Not exactly an Ayurvedic remedy, by any means, but medicinal, just the same.

I find an extra blanket upstairs in the Yoga studio.  As I open it to lay over the bed, I realize it has arms.

This must be what they call a Snuggie! Perfecto!  I think to myself.  I need some snuggle.

The dogs quickly follow suit and find their spaces, sandwiching me in to the center of the bed.

I open my computer and scan Netflix, finding Under the Tuscan Sun, one of my all-time favorites!

The protagonist, Frances, played by Diane Lane, is prompted out of a post-divorce slump on a tour of Italy.  It is through a sequence of events and divine signs that lead her to purchase a run-down villa and olive orchard in the village of Cortona.

One of the first nights alone in her house, a terrible storm ensues and the sky alive with lightning. Her only company is a little barn owl keeping watch at the edge of her antique wrought-iron bed as she pulls the covers over her head and hunkers down for the night.

As the storm scene plays out, I can feel her fear.  The winds are strong and fierce outside of my bedroom windows.  I can feel the house almost creak and sway from the strong presence of nature.  I put the movie on pause and let the dogs out before it gets any later.

We jump back into the bed, and the movie continues.  I notice Asoka staring at something in the corner.  It is one of the larger scorpions I have seen in recent years in Costa Rica.

It feels somewhat of an omen, Frances, weathering the storm in Italy under the covers with the owl as her watchful totem.  Me, under the covers in the Costa Rican cloud forest winds with the scorpion in the corner as the walls rattle.

I have seen this movie time and time before, but tonight, it has a different effect.  Perhaps, the stirring it has in me is because I am in a different place as the observer.  I come back to her story, because it reflects something about my story.  Her night under the covers feels so primal as I watch from my place in the world.  I can feel her fear, because I feel my own.  Yet, at the same time, I am not scared.

I am curious as to what is to come, knowing that I am laying down the tracks.  There is no timeline, no need to be completed by a certain date, because the train has yet to be in existence.  But, when the train is ready, it has to have the tracks to lead its way.

“Like fanning through a deck of cards, my mind flashes on the thousand chances, trivial to profound, that converged to re-create this place. Any arbitrary turning along the way and I would be elsewhere; I would be different.  My rational thought process clings always to the idea of free will, random events; my blood, however, streams easily along a current of fate.”  Frances Mayes, Under the Tuscan Sun.

My morning meditation is that of the spiral that has led me here, the littlest promptings that I have followed, to the larger ones; the certain steps to the not so certain tumblings.  Through the suggestions of my fellow travelers, the teachers in the form of people and animals who continue to walk with me as my impressions are uncovered, I experience each as an important guide to my unfolding story.  It becomes clearer as the wind blows through my hair and the scorpion reminds me of the power of transformation that is really just the dance of dissolution and creation. I am once again reminded that the unseen imprints can be even more powerful than the world of the seen.

“Any arbitrary turning along the way and I would be elsewhere; I would be different.”

And, to the seeker following spirit as the tracks before her, the arbitrary steps become laden with the essence of the unfolding story that was already there, like the mustard seed. These grooves lead us to the most amazing vista that we can never solely contrive through our individual effort of hard, personal will.  Our heart’s desires become seen as we listen, respond in earnest and show up to do the work that divine has in its ultimate plan…as confusing and difficult as it may feel along the way.

And, often times, the best gifts comes when we step back a bit, enjoy the moment and actually see the effects of our previous steps.  As we widen our lens, we just might see the many blessings that are right before us that may not have been acknowledged by being too close to the picture itself.

May we remember to see, feel and honor the many gifts of this holiday season, even beyond the ones hidden in boxes under the trees.

All this Failing, Take a Nap.

Did I mention that I am surrounded by a community of strong women here in Monteverde?  One of the concepts in Yoga Teacher Training that continues to spiral around and through our practice is the balance of action and surrender. Our group would often get stuck on the idea of 100%.

“If I let go, is this still 100%?”

“What does balanced action look like?  Or, more importantly, what does it feel like?”

Often, the practice of Yoga (and, more specifically, Yoga Teacher Training certifications) attract the overachiever.  We arrive to the mat stressed out from attempting to be perfect and measure up to an unattainable ideal and bar that we have set for ourselves, sometimes unconsciously.

That was my story.

It wasn’t enough that I was a full-time occupational therapist, I agreed to manage our OT staff, teach about 10 aerobics classes a week, and felt the need to commute 2 hours one way to graduate school, because I still didn’t know “enough” to be the BEST practitioner.

I knew that I needed another approach, so I crawled onto the Yoga mat at the gym, hearing that Yoga would help me manage my stress and relax.  Half-way through the class, I was wondering when this magical moment would happen when I would feel better.  Happily, I was given permission at the end of the hour to lie down on my mat and do NOTHING.

Wow, what an amazing concept.  Doing nothing feels so good.  I had not even realized that I can feel so good just lying here.  Who knew???

Not long after I began my practice, I was approached to teach, which started my cycle of madness again.

I’ll just add this one more thing into my schedule.  I feel so good, and if I do this Yoga Teacher Training, I can teach more classes that won’t be so hard on my body.  It’s a no-brainer, sign me up!

It took me years to understand my perfectionistic tendencies and push my will into manifestation.  I still have to keep a close inner eye on my need to get my desire to existence in the way that I want to see it.

As I have become more skillful in recognizing this little monster, she now shows up in more subtle ways:  attempting to overgive to someone who may not want to receive what I have to offer, trying to exert my ideals on the person standing in front of me who has a very different perspective of his or her personal truth. And now, my practice is to recognize this form of over-effort in the subtler realms.

I learned a new word in Spanish that relates to this practice:  Entregarse.  It was offered to me by a colleague during a divinely orchestrated healing session yesterday.  I wrote the word down in my journal, remembering to google it when I returned home.

Entregarse…

verbo reflexivo

1 to give oneself up, surrender

2 to abandon oneself, give oneself over

3 to devote oneself

My friend also added the following:

Entregarse . . . .also the idea of letting go of outcome, surrendering to process, trusting that one is being held  by the divine in and for the highest good.

The balance point is the stillness between the action and surrender.  This idea of letting go doesn’t mean that we do nothing.  It means that we show up fully, recognizing that fullness may look and feel different, depending on the forces of the moment.  Perfection is just that, the balance of giving and receiving; action and surrender.  Perfection is not some checklist that has to be met in order to go to sleep at the end of the day.  That checklist is judgement.

Just to remind me of this practice of finding that delicate balance, I kept a framed card on my altar for years.  It read:

Persevere.

Plan.

Strategize.

Focus.

Breathe.

Write.

Let go.

Relax.

Forgive.

All this failing:  Take a nap.

This is why I continue to return to my mat time and time again.  I love that little nap at the end!

 

 

In the Span of a Night

Last night was the social event of the season in Monteverde.  So, I pull out my special sparkly dress, a Katharine Story design (from my Laguna Beach days), and my high-heeled black boots (I was wondering if I was going to have a chance to wear them in the jungle), and we hopped on down to Sophia’s Restaurant to celebrate the birthday and jewelery art exhibit of Marie-Chantal.  It appears as though I was not alone in pulling out my black party boots, because many other Monteverdians had the same idea.

Monteverde is an eclectic town that attracts artists, ecologists, nature lovers, Quakers, students and ex-Pats who want to raise their families in a place with cultural and biological diversity.  Because Monteverde was settled in the 50s by the Quakers, there is a strong presence of that culture here, along with a Friends school, a Quaker Meeting House (I have yet to go, but it’s on my list), and many local cheese and chocolate artisans.  The  Cloud Forest School (known locally in Spanish as the Centro de  Educación Creativa) is a private, non-profit, nondenominational  educational  and environmental organization that offers students a creative, bilingual education with focus on environmental education.

Last night was an opportunity to hang with the community and get to know them a bit better.  All of the students from Teacher Training made it out to celebrate and enjoy the time together outside of our Yoga practice.  I ran into Christina, who lives in the art gallery at the bottom of my road. Everyone says that she’s the best Spanish teacher in town.  I commit to studying with her for the next two weeks, and figure that by the new year, with 2 hours a day of serious practice, I should be able to do more than confidently order my meals and say “sorry” when I totally slaughter their native tongue.  I also planned jewelry making lessons with Marie-Chantal, and an evening with Janine, who I met at Rio Shanti a week ago.

Janine is a soul sister, who at one point lived in Charlotte.  I immediately loved her when we met. She was rockin out some awesome rain boots and dancing around the studio lobby to Amy Winehouse.  Every time I have seen her since then, she has been dancing.  Definitely, a kindred spirit.

Janine spots me from across the restaurant and comes over to make an observation.

“I saw your boots and I just want to take a deep breath!”

Nothing like two girls bonding over shoes.  The last time I saw Janine, she was talking about heading to Indonesia.  I ask her about her plans, and try to get a take on what she does on her travels.

“I travel around and speak to women about pleasure.  I have spoken with over 1500 women about the experience of the joy of living.”

A woman after my own heart.

“You should come up to my spot some time next week.”

Of course, I will.  By the end of the conversation, I have put my bid in to take over her house when she leaves Monteverde in January.

“It’s a perfect retreat for a writer.  It’s fully stocked with everything you would need.  It’s only a 20 minute walk from town, and at the same time, you feel completely hidden away from civilization if you want to be.”

The closest neighbors are the owners of Rio Shanti, and Mary, the 80-year-old Quaker who makes peanut butter.

I am in!

As I prepare to leave for the night, and scoop up my purchase of a double Kyanite ring (that matches my kyanite pendant from last year’s show…still hidden somewhere in my storage unit with my special jewelry), I run into Pedro.

Pedro is one of the owners of the Bel Mar Hotel, where I am leading a week of Teacher Training and Adventure Retreat in the summer.  The Bel Mar is a beautiful hotel, situated at the top of a hill, overlooking amazing sunsets and the Gulf of Nicoya and the Cloud Forest. I have had some of the best meals that I have experienced in Costa Rica at their restaurant.

“Please, come and enjoy the jacuzzi any time you want,” Pedro offers.

OK…I think I can make this home for a bit!

My Newest Vision…With a Little Help from my Friends.

When I feel stuck in my life, and am challenged to understand the next step or direction to take, I go to my subconscious mind through the blank slate of a new vision map.  If you have never tried making a vision board, I would highly suggest it!  It’s a way for the deepest dreams and desires might start to dislodge from some of the interior corners of the spirit so that they might begin to take manifested form in the physical world.

On day #3 of the Monteverde Yoga Teacher Training and Community Building, we collectively sit on the floor at Rio Shanti, surrounded by magazines and images that wait for our heart to place them on our blank slate.  The light of the sun had already passed for the day, creating a womb-like feel for our creation.  It was a sight:  8 grown women on our knees, pouring over pictures, sharing scissors, glue sticks and modge podge while creating a bigger picture that might somehow give us the insight of what the mind may have the challenge of sharing with the heart.

By the end of the 2 hour block of time, the images had assembled themselves on our individual pages.  Eight unique stories waiting to be told.  The next day, we meet again and look into each others pictures to unfold the stories into words.  As we approach each picture, we add to the story of our friend, until a full rotation around the circle creates a story that we may not have been aware of on our own.

I share my story with you.

Sitting in the pool, staring off into the distance, she dreams of the life that is yet to come.  Her beginnings humble, and through hard work and learning to surrender, she achieves extraordinary results in her 38 years, but she still yearns for more.  This is her chance to begin anew.

She decides to pack up all of her material possessions and travel to a place that will allow her to do just that.  Finding a place to be closer to nature and move at peace with herself and the great divine.  The place is a forest that is full of potential and opens doors to a whole new world. 

Could she really be that brave?  What would come her way? Could she trust the powers of the universe to show her the path? Had she chosen this place wisely? Thus, she began.

And…it was so.  Already, forces were at work beyond her knowing.  Life’s web was spinning its cycles and this one would be one she would never forget.  The wind whirls around her but she feels strong, as if she is already rooted in the perfect space…that she is growing into this windy forest. She grasps the earth with her fingers and curls her toes around branches above and becomes the trees wild energy, moving but steady, permanent.  She feels the power in her knuckles to stop the world’s spin and the strength in the curve of her feet to push the sun out of the solar system.

She stays this way for what could be minutes, hours, days or years.  All is pure energy. Neither time nor thought have any meaning. And then, suddenly, she was everywhere and nowhere.

Everywhere and nowhere with no sleeping bag.  Creature comforts became a thing of the past.  Could she REALLY do this??  These forest people are a little crazy! The might be dangerous.  What if they began to suck her life force from her? Could she stay centered, hold her handstand or would they make her feel too rootless?

Only time will tell and the universe will beckon once again…

And she lives happily ever after. 

The beginning…

Strong Women of Monteverde!

Day 2:  Yoga Teacher Training and Community Building in Monteverde, Costa Rica.

Our group was joined by the community at Rio Shanti for the Saturday morning Yoga practice.  I’m impressed by the strength of the women here, and I guess it is something that I take for granted until it was brought to my attention by a visiting teacher of Yoga teachers, who commented after our session of Yoga Sutra philosophy and Pincha Mayurasana.

“Wow, you have a lot of personalities in this group,” she observed.

“Yes, definitely a creative, inquisitive bunch.”

“Strong women,” she adds.

I suppose you must have strength and resolve to live in a community where the average pay is equivalent to $2 an hour and a typical mode of transportation is foot or mountain bike.  With challenges such as these, it is important to find creative ways of living in harmony with nature and one another.  What impresses me the most is the way the individuals in this community come together to support one another.  That’s one way to make  it through the elements and intricacies of life here.

Strong women…I would have it no other way!

To celebrate this strength, we practiced Diana-Ross-Ana (Dhanurasana) on Saturday.  Glad you could join us.

Love and strength from Monteverde!

PS…if you can’t see the video on this blog…I’m not surprised!  My technical mojo is a little tenuous still.  You can possibly see the link here.

Winds of Change

I arrive in Monteverde, Costa Rica and direct the shuttle driver to the casa that I will be sharing with a couple of students, their children and a couple of cute Tico dogs.  The road is marked by a psychadelic sign directing seekers to the art gallery that sits at the bottom of the road.  Our house is just a short walk up the stone path to the round house that holds a sweet little community yoga spot on the middle floor.

The Monteverde vibe is unique, perhaps due to its history.  It is a town that sits at over 4000 feet above sea level, and you immediately notice the strong winds and crisp mist this time of year.  In the 1950s, Monteverde was settled by a group of American Quakers that left the US, searching for a place to live that supported their vision of peace, tranquility and land sustainability.  They found it here in the cloud forest where they live in community with a unique and diverse bio-culture.

I was immediately enthralled with this quaint community when I traveled here a couple of years ago.  Then, I was a tourist, sitting at the Treehouse Restaurant in Santa Elena (Monteverde’s neighbor community) overlooking a spectacular Quinceanera. I wandered around town a little bit, passing spots like the insect museum, chocolate shops, European bakeries, and too many art galleries to visit in a single day.  That first trip I made it to the base of the natural reserve that houses a Hummingbird sanctuary, and I still feel the buzz in my memory from the activity of the birds that day.

My return trip was the following year, when I was invited back to teach at the local Yoga studio, Rio Shanti.  I immediately felt at home, surrounded by walls of every different color. Río Shanti is housed in the oldest structure in Monteverde, a Quaker home known locally as the Boehm house. Since its construction in 1949, it has been a residence, a tea room, the offices of the Monteverde Institute and the Community Art Center before opening in 2007 as Río Shanti.

Just like the year before, I arrive before the Christmas holiday, where the season is marked by winds that quite possibly equal the verocity of movement before and after the eye of the hurricane.  I sit in my bedroom, surveying the scene, watching out the walls of windows as the trees dance in the fierce winds.

I have always been enamored by such natural movement.  Many moments in my life have been surrounded by such winds that could almost blow me away if I had not anchored myself in my own roots.  In those moment, I understood a palpable spiritual awakening.  Today is like no other.  I watch what I believe to be the wind, but in actuality, it is the effect of this force of nature that is unseen, but felt in the core of being.

This force of nature reminds me of that unseen prompt that drew me back to this place.  There was a calling that could not been seen by the eye, but was so strong that things just seemed to work out so that I can now call Monteverde “home” (for a few months, anyway).

Tomorrow, we begin the 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training and Community Building Program.  Change is in the air.  As we move forward into the new year and new spiritual cycle that was foreseen by the Mayan culture at the inception of the calendar, I feel the call of the forces, both seen and unseen, to step into a new reality.  I am grateful for the opportunity to share, serve, grow and learn in such a deeply rich and diverse new home.

Carrying it All With Me

I survey the scene in disbelief.  My belongings seem to multiply before my eyes.  Perhaps it’s because I keep going back into my storage unit looking for something.  Then, I see 10 other things I think I need.  I attempt to whittle my bathroom utensils and accoutrements to 2 small bags, and realize the extra weight I have been carrying around with me, thinking that one day I may anxiously need that little tube of eye goop that is hidden in the bottom corner of the wicker basket that I have been lugging from car to storage to car to friend’s house.

In the house that my friend has graciously opened to me, I find myself walking around in circles, most often realizing that I have forgotten what I was searching for, give up on the search and return to the couch to stare off into the creek watching the Great Blue Heron skim the water’s surface to land on the pier’s exposed piling. I find many other tasks to keep me busy and away from the pile that seems to have a life of its own in the room between the office and therapy room.  The therapy room has been labeled as such because of the glass walls that separate at the same time involve the spectator from the movement of the creek just yards from the therapy room couch.  It is here on this couch on the other side of the creek that I awaken to the day and begin my contemplations, the flights of the birds in the early morning giving me insight into the day’s beginnings.

Today, in Yoga, I realize how completely exhausted my body is from all that I have been carrying with me.  I can trace every single back muscle with my mind’s eye, but somehow can’t seem to melt away the tension with the typical methods, so I just call it my turtle shell, and live with it, knowing that one day, it will be different.

I first met the turtle animal totem a decade ago while visiting Sedona, Arizona on a spiritual retreat.  We worked with a teacher on an animal medicine journey, and by the end of the meditation, I discovered that the turtle was my newest (and first) animal guide. I observed him, and studied his movements.  I contemplated the essence of his purposeful ways. I loved to think that the turtle is journeying through the world, his home on his back, low to the ground, surveying the scene.  When the surroundings are sketchy, he pulls inside his shell and pauses inside of himself, deeply, primitively at home.  I get him.

And now, a decade later, the turtle revisits me.  It feels similar, but different.  Ten years ago, the dust was still settling and the world was attempting to make sense and shift in relationship to everything around us and within us. I was on the verge of changing everything about my own life, still walking low to the ground, feeling my way, pulling back inside myself as I needed.  I wasn’t necessarily aware of it being that way at the time, but I can now look backwards into time past and see that is what I was doing as I approached the birth of a new phase in my story.

So similar, but so different.  Ten years ago, I never would have predicted that I would be the one happily surrendering significant material items in my life:  my house, my car, my cell phone, most of my worldly physical possessions.  Ten years ago, I was just beginning to practice living without television, and felt that was significant.

As I sit, watching in deep amazement the morning flight of the Great Blue Heron, I realize that that’s what I want.  The regal bird and his flying partner play in the morning breeze, wings open, catching the coastal winds that brush through the marsh. I decide I am ready to take off the turtle shell, spread my wings and fly south for the winter.

But, first, I have some packing to do!

Or, maybe, I have some unpacking to do?  I just don’t know anymore!!!

It’s complicated…

It’s cleanse time.  I always know when it’s time for a cleanse when my head gets foggy and I can no longer convince myself that every single pair of my jeans have been shrunk by the dryer.  It’s time to come clean and make some changes.

“What kind of cleanse are you doing?” a student asks in class the other night.

“A complicated one,” I respond.

Even just following the directions on this thing requires one to dust off the cobwebs of the attic.  I had to read the instructions a few times and calculate out the 7 supplements 3 times per day.

Are they for real?  I guess so.  7X3X7=147  which is the number of pills in this little jar, so I guess I do take 7 three times a day, not 7 throughout the day.  Wow…

I do much better on a cleanse when I have to stick to a structure and check the items off my to do list through the day.

Pre-cleanse…

• A session with my teacher, Susan.

“What are you feeling that you need to work on today?” Susan asks.

“I trust you.  Whatever comes up I’m sure will be fine.”  I respond.

We’ve been working together since 2003, Susan and I.  A friend gave me a gift certificate that year to have a session of “polarity therapy”, although, now, I am sure that we are doing so much more than can even be contained by a definition of one thing or another.  My work with Susan pulls the pieces together where traditional talk therapy just left me feeling like I was healthier than those I was paying to talk it out with.  Each time with Susan, we speak about the main themes in my life, then I climb up on her table and she works her magic. At times between sessions, she would send me notes of encouragement when I was going through rough times and needed a reminder that I would make it through. It never surprises me anymore when at the perfect time, I hear from her.

So, I stay present especially when she comments in session, “This came through three times, so I feel that I need to share this information with you.”

Susan no longer filters her comments with me.  She knows I can take what she is throwing at me.

I should add this to cleanse item #1 on my list.  This may take some rearranging of my life.  Great.  The food thing will be so simple compared to this.

Pre-cleanse I-Ching reading…

• In regards to above information, I need more guidance on the matter at hand.
• The reading reminds me that when I plant from a solid foundation, the seeds that are planted will flourish and thrive.  Well, there’s the answer to my question.  More preparation of the soil.

Day #1…

• Cut down coffee consumption to a cup of black coffee.  Not bad.  I can get used to this.
• 2 smoothies with some cleansing powder..actually pretty good.
• I swallow 30 pills through the day that supposedly will bring my cells into balance and my mind to clarity.  I BELIEVE!
• Completely clean out my car.  Unfortunately, now everything that I own has exploded into my friend’s house.  Luckily, he’s not returning home until day #3.
• Kick ass Yoga.  Deep everything.
• Dinner of Brussel sprouts, shiitake mushroom, onions and garlic.  My Ashtangi friends would cringe.

Day #2…

• Start with a good house cleaning, which means that I have to move all of my piles from one place to another to vacuum the dog hair that has intertwined itself with all of my black clothing.
• I love the new Dyson vacuum.  I am a total floor meditation person.  In the yoga studio, I would prepare for a teacher training with a in-depth floor cleaning.  I guess it’s the same thing as preparing the soil.
• I empty out 2 canisters of white dog hair and black cat fluff.  I feel clearer already!
• Kick ass Yoga class.  Backbends…Scorpion Forearm Balances.  I will feel this for days.
• 30 pills, down and out!
• 2 smoothies
• spinach salad

Day #3…

• Continue the cleaning spree at my temporary digs.  I am grateful the house is less than 1000 square feet.
• Restorative Yoga
• cappuccino with coconut milk…yum!  I don’t consider it cheating at all!
• More cleaning.  I love the Dyson vacuum more and more everyday.

I pick up my friend at the airport who has graciously allowed me to crash at his place.

“I’m on a cleanse.” I announce.

“You’re always on a cleanse,” he replies.

We arrive back to the house, and Erik surveys the damage.

“My car is cleaned out.” I attempt to redirect the attention.

“Are you taking all of that to Costa with you?”

“I need to make some trips to the storage unit.”

I realize how easily those emotions of fear and overwhelm come rushing back.  I wish I could vacuum them up and empty the canister.  Maybe I should just down another protein-infused smoothie.