In Memory of Maya

For my birthday in January 2012, Maya gave me a children's book called "Frederick", and told me, "This reminds me of you." Frederick is a field mouse who lives in an old stone wall with his family. The book begins in summer, and the field mice are gathering up provisions to sustain them during the long winter. Frederick, however, is sitting on the stone wall blinking in the sun. The other field mice ask him, "what are you gathering, Frederick?" He replies, "the warmth of the sun". Later, Frederick is sitting looking at the meadow. "What are you gathering, Frederick?" "The colors of the wildflowers." 

Autumn comes, then winter. The mice have eaten through their stores and they are feeling glum in their home in the old stone wall. They turn to Frederick. "What do you have to share with us?" they ask. Frederick sings of warm sun and wild flowers, of the turn of the seasons and how the spirit that animates the seasons is in the field mouse, too. "Why, Frederick!" they exclaim. "You're a poet!" Frederick blushes and says, "I know it." 

I always felt that Maya saw and valued my best qualities--she listened seriously when I taught, laughed at my jokes, was so very kind and complimentary of my teaching. After she died, I picked up "Frederick". I re-read her inscription, I looked at the pictures, I enjoyed the story all over again.

In reading it more closely, I realized that while Maya only knew me as her yoga teacher, she really had my number. She didn't know that I was a dreamy child, forever sitting around and blinking while others went about their business. I don't think she ever met any of my family, other than my husband who works at the studio. But I think those who know me best would totally agree with her insight into my character, my poetry and my bemusement.

What a gift to give someone! To see her nature, right down to the marrow, and tell her you value it, all of it.

Dear Maya, it was an honor to be your teacher. It was a blessing to be your student. I am so lucky to have been loved by you.

Turn, Turn, Turn

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: 
a time to be born, and a time to die; 
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; 
a time to kill, and a time to heal; 
a time to break down, and a time to build up; 
a time to weep, and a time to laugh; 
a time to mourn, and a time to dance; 
a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; 
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; 
a time to get, and a time to lose; 
a time to keep, and a time to cast away; 
a time to rend, and a time to sew; 
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; 
a time to love, and a time to hate; 
a time of war, and a time of peace.

I've always loved this passage from Ecclesiastes. I know by heart the obvious lines--"a time to be born, and a time to die"; "a time to weep, and a time to laugh"; "a time of war, and a time of peace". I recently looked up the full text and was struck by a couple of things.

First, while I've always known it as a study in contrasts, I didn't realize how truly merciless many of the seasons are. "A time to cast away stones" sounds lovely, right? I can get behind that. Who needs stones anyway? Death, killing, hate, and war, however, are terribly hard to countenance as legitimate purposes under heaven. 

The other thing I noticed is that while each line contains a duality, the verse does not uniformly put the "positive" seasons on one side and the "negative" seasons on the other. In certain cases, it's impossible to tell whether a season is positive or negative--surely speaking and silence, rending and sewing could go either way. The verse won't do the work for us. We're free to decide for ourselves what season we abide in, and lord knows that freedom can be delightful or tortuous. 

A year-long cycle comes to an end for me tomorrow. February 12th marks the one year anniversary of stepping out on my own, ending my affiliation with any particular yoga style or community. The transition was initially a painful one. I felt like a part of myself died. During this time I plucked up and killed what I had planted. I broke down, I wept, I mourned. I refrained from embracing. I lost many things, even cast them away. I rent the fabric of my life. I spoke, a lot. I hated, and I waged war. 

To every thing there is a season, and seasons turn. All along last year's path of destruction, there were signs of the coming spring. I adopted and fell in love with a rescue dog, and every day she makes me dance, laugh, and snuggle. I shifted my focus from maintaining an international network of yogins to planting, gathering stones, and building in my local community. It's a time of receiving, keeping, and yes, sewing--we need new curtains at the studio. There's a time for every purpose under heaven; how wondrous to enter a season of joy.

Here's a picture of my dog, Frances. Isn't she the sweetest? 

Rituals

Today I was cleaning the studio, as I do every Monday, and thinking about how excited I was two or three years ago to learn some rituals from the yoga tradition. I loved the powerful expressiveness of the mantras, the intricate play between sacred objects and sacred gestures, and the overall sense that I was doing something deeply meaningful and important.

Nowadays, I don't feel particularly excited by those rituals. As I vacuumed and scrubbed this morning, I realized that right now I'm interested in other rituals. These are regular sequences of actions that have a deep meaning for me. Here are some examples.

1. Every morning I get up, put a coat on over my pajamas, and take my dog out for a walk. We go out to the field behind our apartment building and I let her off the leash. We walk two times around the track and then I work on "Heel!" with her on the way back. We come home and I feed her. Then I make hot water with lemon for myself and we sit on the couch and look out the window together.

2. On Sunday afternoons I clean out the refrigerator. Then on Monday morning before work, I sit down and make a meal plan for the week and a grocery list. After I teach my Monday class, I clean the studio, then go to the grocery store, then go home for lunch. That way, during the week, my husband and I are able to eat all our meals at home.

3. Here's how I clean the studio: first I use the little round attachment on the vacuum to clean all the baseboards (people have their faces down there in forearm stand), the windowsills, and the puja (including the murtis). Then I vacuum the middle of the floor and the sheepskin that is the teacher's seat.  While I vacuum, my hubby sweeps out the cubbies, washes the windows, and empties the trash. I swiffer the floor and stack the props neatly. We clean the bathrooms and then we're done.

Pretty dull, and yet these rituals give my life shape and meaning. When I walk my dog I feel full of love and delight. I love seeing that white dog running across the green field! When I plan and create meals for my family I feel grateful that I have the means to eat whatever I want, and the discipline to support my health with the choices I make. When I clean the studio I feel satisfied and contented that my staff and our students are going to have a beautiful space in which to practice our passion. I literally whistle while I work! (Just so you don't confuse me with a Disney character--I spend plenty of time cursing, gnashing my teeth, and acting like an asshole in other situations.)

It's really true...the mundane is sublime.

Being Where I Am

A couple of years ago I read an article in the New York Times that said that the value of a house is mostly the time spent living in it. The article suggested that instead of seeing your home as an investment in your portfolio, you see it as an investment in your contentment. 

Today I am thinking that how life in general is like that. It's not so much about getting something out of it. It's about being in it as fully as possible. The more passionately, thoughtfully, and skillfully you're in life, the more satisfaction you experience in it and from it. 

This is part of why I don't consider myself to be on a "spiritual path". Of course life is a journey, through time and often through space. But in matters of the spirit, I'm not trying to get somewhere or something. Rather, I want to be where I am with my whole heart.

A Lever and a Place to Stand

"Give me a lever, and a place to stand, and I can move the earth." ~ Archimedes

A teacher once explained to me that there's great value in going deeply into a particular topic. There comes a time when seeking must stop, when we must maintain focus on a particular thing in order to truly advance. I’m a little ADD and this has always been hard for me. But I’m proud to say that I deeply, exclusively maintained my focus on Anusara yoga for twelve years.

That phase of my life is finished now. I’ve completed my education in Anusara yoga. I took a devastating final exam. The questions didn’t concern Inner Spiral or Thigh Loop, or any technical or anatomical jargon. My final exam in Anusara yoga was whether or not I would be able to act in accordance with my conscience, whether I would be able to truly step into my own authority, rather than deferring to someone else. Whether I would be able to tolerate strong negative opinions about my actions, even from colleagues and teachers I considered senior to me, even from dear, beloved friends. Whether I could leave behind something that had defined me for over a decade, and whether I could allow a part of myself to die in order to be reborn.

While Anusara yoga was John Friend's creation, the Anusara I loved was a woman. She and I loved each other passionately. I like to think that the part of her that nurtured me, that reared me with great tenderness and ferocity, knows that I passed my final exam. She set that exam for us. She set it for John. I like to think that when I passed it, she was fiercely proud of me. In her final hour, she stood in the doorway of her crumbling house, opened her hands and bade us to fly free, to find our own wings.

Sorting through the rubble of the Anusara disaster, I’m questioning everything. Did I waste the last ten years of my life? Is my training worth anything? Do I even have anything to offer as a yoga teacher? What was it that worked about Anusara yoga? How do other styles do it? What works for me about those styles? What doesn’t work for me about those styles? Do I, a kool-aid-saturated refugee from an upstart method, have anything to contribute to the conversation of modern yoga?

I’m no BKS Iyengar, but I have taught well over 6000 yoga classes. That must count for something. I’ve looked at a lot of bodies in yoga poses. Here are some of my present thoughts about yoga, and teaching yoga. Are these opinions correct? Who cares—they’re mine.

What works FOR ME, at this particular moment, in the context of a 75-90 minute public yoga class full of householders:

• Having a theme, or at least setting a context for the students at the beginning of class. It just works better for me. I’m more than a technician. I have things to say to the students about the nature of what we’re really doing. I think it’s valuable, for this one hour a week, to deeply consider why the heck we’re doing whatever it is we’re doing. 
• Then, taking that concept, and somatizing it. Manifesting it in the flesh. 
• Then, taking the embodied knowledge and manifesting it in the outside world. 
• Getting the students up and moving. 
• Getting the students’ breath flowing. Reminding them frequently of the breath. 
• Getting the students warmed up, having their yoga increase their cardiovascular fitness. 
• Steady, methodical, intelligent sequencing. Apex poses. Generally, sequencing that builds to something and retreats from something. 
• Technical instructions that are presented in a clear, coherent fashion, so that the students have a prayer of actually embodying them outside of the classroom. 
• Instruction in energetic and physical anatomy so that the students have a cognitive understanding of the instruments used in the practice of hatha yoga. Particularly, more emphasis on energetic anatomy and bandhas.
• An emphasis on philosophical ideas that might be labeled “Tantric”. 
• Regular inclusion of pranayama and meditation. 
• Use of props: they are useful and they WORK. My studio is not a large gymnasium or conference room where there are 200 students and not enough props.  

Some things I plan to continue to steer clear of:

• Long demos. 
• Long themes. 
• Elaborate partner work. 
• Over-emphasis on backbending. 
• Emphasis on “the next level”, achievement, pushing through, manipulation or coercion of ourselves, whether spiritual or physical. 
• “Circus-type” atmosphere that takes people out of their bodies. 
• Huge classes. 
• Hybrid yoga: yoga and chocolate. Yogilates. (Nothing wrong with these. I just am not interested in them. I'm more interested in exploring yoga in its own context than in comparison to another discipline or topic.)
• Sexualization of the teacher-student relationship. 

Some values I simply do not have:

• I don’t really value extreme yoga poses.
• I don’t really value “Classical” yoga philosophy. I’m only interested in the Yoga Sutras to the extent that they clearly impact or have something to say about my life, or to clarify the historical evolution of yoga philosophy. 
• I don’t value Indian or Hindu sources of information (teachers, texts) over my own experience. 
• I don’t value having a guru. 
• I’m not interested in practicing or teaching a kind of yoga that is good for ascetics. I don’t practice yoga or anything else for several hours a day, neither do my students. I don't believe that doing so makes you a better yogin or human being. 
• I don’t believe that yoga therapy is better than any other type of therapy. I don’t consider myself a yoga therapist. I’m not a physician, physical therapist, or mental health professional. 

Some values I do have:

• I value having many teachers, some of whom are highly specialized experts in a particular field, and some of whom are people like my mother, my students, my friends, and my colleagues. 
• I practice the yoga of the householder.  I live in a house. I pay bills. I cultivate relationships. I love to eat. I engage this reality. I am a householder, my students are householders, and in fact, unless s/he is living in a cave and begging or foraging for food, every yogin is.
• I value the transformative, alchemical power of the teachings and technology of yoga to illuminate our ordinary human lives, to open our eyes to the marvelous that is just another aspect of the real. 
• I believe that the technology of yoga not only transforms our vision, but also clears away obstacles. The power of that technology to amplify clarity and clear away ignorance. 
• I value rigor in teaching the lineage of yogic thought and practice. Presenting it clearly. Demystifying it. Using rigorous science and historical scholarship when appropriate. 
• I value rigor in studying. Education on Anatomy. Clear awareness of the historical context for yoga texts and ideas. Generally, an emphasis on scholarship. 
• Encouragement for people to have their own relationships to texts. 
• I value the practice of refining poses. I believe that the forms of the poses themselves create powerful energetic currents that have the capacity to magnify health. 
• I value spaciousness in creating opportunities for people to experience the more subtle aspects of their nature. 
• Continuing education. For myself, now, a diversity of education. I’m not going to be spending 10 years in any particular method. 
• Empowerment of our personal experiences in yoga. An emphasis on the personal. 
• Open-mindedness. Part of my job as a yoga teacher is to seriously, continuously investigate many different types of yoga traditions and try to bring you the ones that I feel are most effective. 
• Self-love regardless of your personal appearance. 
• Space and honor for all levels of ability. I’ve taught yoga to people who are bedridden. 
• I value the seat of the student. I demonstrate to my students that I, too, am a student by taking my colleague's classes, deferring in arenas where I have no expertise, and acknowledging my flaws. 
• I believe our greatest yoga is practiced in community, where the stakes are highest, the irritations are many, and the flood of grace is overwhelming.

For the Ex-Patriates

I’ve been thinking of myself as an Anusara ex-patriate these days. It feels good to me. I did this before when I lived abroad—I left my original home, by choice, and had to find my way in a new place. During the last few days, I’ve heard a lot of voices in this new ex-pat community. I wrote this because I want you to know that in my opinion, what we are feeling and experiencing is normal and valid.

1. You may have left because of JF’s financial misconduct. You may have left because of his sexual misconduct. You may have left for some other reason pertaining to JF. You may have left for some other reason NOT pertaining to JF. Some people will assume they know why you left. Some people will ask you questions. Some people will not be able to look at you. Some people will love you up.

2. Most people, in or out, understand that this is a HELL of a situation. Few of us saw this coming. Most people understand that we all have a responsibility to live according to our own lights and in response to our own experiences. As my old friend and sadhana sister Jackie Prete says, it takes courage to stay. It takes courage to go.

3. Some people will resent you for leaving. Some people feel will feel betrayed and won’t like you. Some people will think you made your decision haphazardly. For me, this last one feels ill-informed at best and insulting at worst. My advice: don’t worry about this too much. You’ve made your decision, chances are good you did not make it haphazardly, and everyone has to live with it. No need to go on a mission explaining yourself. There are plenty of other people who honor the work that you did to come to your decision.

4. Some people will offer support and sweetly wish you well. This feels fantastic. As I enjoy the support of my loving students, friends, family, and colleagues, it has also been important for me to remind myself that I did not make my decision based on anybody else’s opinion, regardless of whether it is approval or disapproval.

5. You may totally forgive JF. You may feel that you never will. You may forgive JF and desire to see him held accountable for his behavior. You may feel he HAS been held accountable for his behavior. You may mourn the change of your relationship with an important teacher. You may feel that it was never about JF for you.

6. You might feel hopeful that Anusara yoga will continue. You might feel hopeful that Anusara yoga will be wiped off the face of the earth. I mostly feel the former—many of my friends remain committed to Anusara yoga and I personally worked my ass off for her for eleven years. Sometimes I feel the latter. Perhaps this makes me a bad person. Perhaps this just makes me a person.

7. Anusara may end sooner, with a bang. Anusara may end later, with a whimper. Anusara may immediately regroup, reorganize, and turn this thing around. Anusara may take months, even years, to come to terms with these events and with JF. We will all have complex feelings about whatever the outcome is.

8. You may find yourself wishing the people remaining in Anusara yoga well. You may not. In my opinion, it is well within the range of “normal” to want others to see the situation exactly how we see it. However, as we well know, such a wish is not only pointless, but foolish. Variety is the spice of life. Even if you hate cilantro, you must admit it exists and that some people like it.

9. If Anusara yoga endures, you might take up your license again. You might not. Perhaps you already know in your viscera that you will never go back. Perhaps you’re just waiting for things to settle down, for certain personal criteria to be met, so that you can return. Regardless of your decisions on these matters, again, some will agree with your decision, and some will not. Again, either way takes courage.

10. You may feel lost in your teaching without the anchor of self-identifying as an Anusara yoga teacher. You may feel that your teaching has never been better. You may alternate depending on the day. As my college roommate used to say, the important thing is not to panic. I think we can expect to feel the texture of this transition in our teaching. As you well know, making and adapting to changes in your teaching takes time.

11. You may feel like starting up something new with your buddies. You may feel like watching and waiting what Anusara yoga does. You may feel like delving more deeply into your own activities. You may feel like doing nothing but sitting catatonically staring at the wall. Guess what—all valid responses!

Do any of these resonate with you?

Love to all.

Nobody Puts Baby in a Corner

Last week, after a bunch of us had resigned our Anusara yoga licenses, one of my staff called me. “Emma, what I am going to do about all the times I say ‘we’ in my classes? All the times I say, ‘this is how we do it in Anusara yoga’, or ‘my teacher John Friend teaches that…’?"

I have only just begun to figure that stuff out myself. My teaching is peppered with self-referential comments about Anusara yoga’s founder, method, and community. Now that I’m re-examining these phrases, I realize why I used them so much: I never felt that my personal authority was enough to support what I was teaching.

As I told my friend, these events make me question: on whose authority do I speak? For eleven years I have rested on the authority granted me by John Friend and Anusara yoga. Now that I’ve resigned my license, what gives me the right to tell the 30 people in my class this morning what to do with their bodies?

I’ve concluded that it comes from this:

• my deep personal study of and inquiry into the matters under consideration
• my long experience of observing human bodies doing hatha yoga
• my community of STUDENTS who choose to come to class and listen

I wish I could say that my authority is derived from my teachers (one of whom was John Friend) and my community of colleagues (Anusara yoga teachers and otherwise). But frankly, it doesn’t. Nobody’s listening to me because I have the John Friend seal of approval or because I have a good relationship with my colleagues. They’re listening to me because they perceive that I know what I’m doing. The people who don’t think I know what I’m doing, or don’t like what I’m doing, don’t come back! But enough of them DO come back that I know my offerings are striking a chord.

Any one of my regular students could have told me this, and in fact they have been telling me so over and over this week. I am so grateful. I feel that I’ve suddenly awakened to the fact that I have practiced hatha yoga for 13 years, I’ve taught it for eleven years, I have a degree in acupuncture, I am a well-educated, intelligent, creative, funny, mostly kind person. It’s time to claim my authority as my own.

Phrases I’m using now:

“In my experience…”
“The first time I tried this I…”
“Many of my students have told me that…”
“I’ve found that…”
“One of my teachers once told me that…”

Watch out world.