Here's the gift, or one of them: I think I'm really starting to trust the stillness underneath the everything else. The stillness that's the space the hardy excitement grows from. More and more these days, excitement sprouts up like this in unlikely places--missed appointments, wrong turns, traffic jams even (Occasionally. Okay, once. It happened once that I felt a little curious and excited about what life was bumping me into or saving me from with its absurdly slow-moving traffic. You know. As opposed to the usual reaction, disproportionate tension and homicidal thoughts). Anyway, it's a sign, I think, the excitement--a sign that I'm seeing more clearly these days, that there's less fear obscuring reality, which is Divine.

The bonus gift in this case was an unscheduled ninety minutes that I didn't wake up with. Extra time! Time to FINALLY attend to my gmail inbox, which I've neglected now for weeks! Ninety glorious minutes of humming and sorting with N8's Adventure Mix, more hot coffee, and the leftover pumpkin dip and ginger cookies from last night's beautiful New Year's Eve celebration (Yum! Thanks, Kerianne!). What could be better? Well, I'll tell you what. Finding the photo below in an unopened email from my mom the first week of December (Yikes! Sorry, Mom!), and then finding the Ellen Grace O'Brian quote in today's daily inspiration email from the San Jose Center for Spiritual Enlightenment. Perfection. The stillness underneath the everything else. 'Nuff said. Happy 2015!

Awesome photo credit: my mom (who, in her email's subject line, gave nature credit for the art) :)

Most days lately, my life feels too full and too blessed to be lonely, and I stand pretty steady in this belief I have, which was summed up expertly by Mark Nepo once: When you clarify your priorities, you clarify your losses. I'm quoting him, by the way, from the notes I took during a workshop he led. I heard those words from the soothing, poetic mouth of Mark Nepo himself, 8,000 feet above sea level in a lodge in Estes Park, Colorado. That's the kind of blessed I've been this year. My priorities drove me and my yoga mat up the California coast from Venice Beach to Tiburon in May, then took me for hikes and sat me down to meditate, mile-high in the Colorado Rockies in August. Life has become so expansive that it's taking me to India this spring. More on that later.

The bottom line is that I absolutely believe I'm living the life I was made for. I'm single (and childless, and pretty broke, and not the CEO of anything, and probably lots of other things that could be perceived as negative) because I'm living the life of my dreams. I completely, absolutely believe that.

Most of the time. But sometimes, on days that are festively lonely for instance, I worry that I might just be fooling myself. I worry that my deep desire for God--as in Source, Meaning, Enlightenment, Buddha-Mind, call it what you will--might actually just be a distraction from some fundamental, intrinsic personal lack or flaw. Or I worry that my thirst for adventure and experience might actually be an overcompensation, just a symptom of a different, deeper dehydration. 

I was feeling a little that way last night. And I wasn't really into feeling it, so I curled into a ball under a blanket on my couch and ate brownies and binge-watched The West Wing until I was tired enough to go to bed. On the surface I felt grateful to finally have a break from the momentum of work and Christmas stuff and jewelry-making, to just sink into a tv-drama coma without anyone around who wanted something from me. But underneath that, I also felt really sad and scared--what if I follow my dreams unwittingly into menopause and regret not bearing children? What if I'm actually single because I'm awful and unloveable? Will my family still want me around if I don't pop out another generation for them to spoil? Who will take care of me when I'm old?? Will I one day die alone and be eaten by cats??? There was gratitude, and there was fear. Both were true; just one was a little more convenient and comfortable. I snuggled up with my gratitude, solitude, baked goods and President Michael Douglas, and I probably would've had a fine Christmas Eve on my own if a miracle hadn't dragged me awake, into the full experience of being alive at that moment.

The miracle: the sound of bagpipes. Not just the sound. The vibration of bagpipes. Around 10pm on Christmas Eve, Jesse The Bagpipe Guy walked in full garb, slowly, ceremoniously down the middle of my little hipster street, playing his gift to the neighborhood. From my porch, surrounded by garland and twinkle lights, I listened to his music with my whole body. It was kind of trippy! Some sort of Highland Kirtan led by a Scottish Santa-Yogi in a kilt. I waved to a similarly enraptured neighbor, and heard her say from her porch that he does this every Christmas. I wanted to know more, but as I watched Jesse stop at the end of our street, turn back and stand for a moment, playing a few farewell bars before moving on, I was completely overwhelmed. I went back into my cozy living room, sat on the couch that had been my cocoon, and had myself a good ol' Christmas Eve cry. It was one of those embodied, cathartic, snotty cries where thoughts don't get in the way of cleansing. My brain didn't jump in to tell me I was being bad or silly, and so I got to feel it all, the fullness of being alive at that moment, on my porch with mood lighting and the ommmm of the bagpipe--so much beauty and complexity! It was awesome. It left me feeling watered like a plant! 

Which reminds me of this song I'm sharing by The Oh Hellos--an anthem, if you ask me. It is the rain that will strengthen your soul, it will make you whole. I love these healing, tear-duct rains. And I really love this song. But I'd like to add a word to its refrain because I disagree just a little--I think it's not the rain or the sun that causes us to grow, it's both forces working together.  The sun alone does not cause us to grow, but it does show us where to stretch. Joy is a very wise guide. Reaching for the light is the only way out of darkness; feeling its warmth is the best indicator we have that we're heading in the right direction! 

So it makes sense that after the vibration of bagpipes loosed a nourishing downpour of tears, I would sleep deeply and then find myself at a Christmas morning vinyasa in a bright dining room full of natural light. I'm referring here to the light that came in through all the tall windows, as well as the kind that radiated from each yogi on his or her mat. What a gift! Thanks to Ashley and Mali, former funky buddhas, perpetual yoga rockstars, there was time and space for a community practice on a day when even Meijer is closed. And what a beautiful space it was--a couple rooms in Ashley's home, emptied of the furniture and family that usually fill them, occupied instead by mats and sweat and breath. The perfect place for all the gifts the rain brought to find a way to stretch toward the sky.

The theme I keep coming back to, when I think about this past year and even just the past 24 hours, is simple. It's so simple, in fact, that it's challenging to find a way to say it that's not already a cliche. It's just this: be yourself. Give the world that gift.

When Mark Nepo spoke (ten feet away from me!), it resonated because his words were his essence, crafted into a gift. When Seane Corn walked barefoot between mats, cueing a simple sequence of asanas (ten inches from me!), it resonated because her instruction and her movements were her essence, offered as a gift. When Snatam Kaur spoke barely above a whisper between songs and then filled an auditorium with the pure notes of her chanting (I was in that room!), it resonated because her voice was her essence, poured out as a gift. Last night, Jesse gave his gift to all of Eastown. This morning, Ashley and Mali gave their gift to every person who showed up.

This is what it's all about. This is what every human being has to do, this is all they have to do to make a difference: Be you. Let the rain be nourishing, even when it hurts, even if it takes a while. Then, when you feel the warmth of the sun, or you can see it a little through all the clouds or dirt, say yes. Be fed and be pulled. You don't have to know right away if you're a redwood or a rose bush. Just keep using what you're given, and keep moving toward what brings you joy. Don't worry. Stay open. Be pruned and fertilized into your essence and then, like a bagpipe under twinkle lights, or the Om to close a Christmas morning flow, you will resonate: you will give the gift of your truest self, in full bloom.

Yesterday my homie (aka housemate) Tammy told me a story. For the past few months, Tammy's been pouring her heart and her energy into designing and screen printing clothing for her start-up line of Xplore Michigan Tees. During a seemingly unrelated morning trip to the grocery store, she picked up a couple bags of canned goods and donated them to Access of West Michigan, who were collecting food for the Country Wide Food Drive outside the store. Her next stop was our neighborhood running store, Striders. While she was there, staff noticed and complimented the sweatshirt Tammy was wearing, one of her own designs. True to form, Tammy responded by pulling a few t-shirts from her trunk and handing them out to the folks in the store, which led to a connection, which led to a conversation, which ultimately led to Tammy landing a space for her shirts in the Striders booth at next weekend's  Grand  Rapids  Marathon!   Win-win-win!  I  love  this story because, in such an obvious and immediate way, it illustrates the idea that when you give, that generous energy comes back to you. 

In words as eloquent and embodied as Tammy's story, today's final thought on the subject comes from the great poet and sage Mary Oliver:

Looking back, this has been an incredible summer. A beyond-my-wildest-dreams amazing summer full of adventure, challenge, growth, serendipity and the most beautiful stretches of coastline and mountain range imaginable. If it hadn't been so wonderful, I wouldn't be as sad to see it go.

Looking ahead, I've heard rumors we're headed for another long, brutal winter. People keep saying it's going to be worse than the last one, which I can only imagine means we'll soon all be living in igloos and traveling by dogsled. I'm not 100% certain I'll be able to stay sane, come February or so, if that's the case.

But none of that matters, really; none of it exists. There's only this moment. 

The good stuff doesn't last, the bad stuff doesn't last, and there's no guarantee the future's even gonna get here. We've all heard this before and we know it with our brains and also feel it somewhere deep down in our bones. In the autumn, this knowing is rheumatoid arthritis, and at the same time it's the hollowness that allows birds to fly. This is the season where change is so obviously atrophy and loss, and it's also the time it's most vibrant, most saturated and colorfully alive. Us humans often turn our deepest shades in autumn too, like plants, shifting our energy to let what's extra die and fall away so that what's necessary can thrive, even through a season covered in snow.

Master Dogan says, "When cold, be a cold Buddha. When hot, be a hot Buddha." Walking out of the studio tonight, I'm a Buddha not ready to let go. That is, until I look up and remember this moment, the only one that exists. It's perfect. In this case, it's solemn grey clouds lolling along, faintly backlit against a slate sky. Amazing clouds, artwork clouds, clouds like the kind I took dozens--hundreds?-- of photos of as a tourist this summer, when paying attention was part of the job description. This fall moment has my tourist-attention. 

Winter will come with its hardships and its unexpected delights too, I'm sure--boots and scarves are pretty fun, for instance, and maybe I'll sit still long enough to do some more writing.  I don't know.  Doesn't matter. I'll have to be there to catch it. For now, there's just this moment: the gift of autumn's pretty clouds, disappearing. It's watching them darken while I'm pumping gas in flip flops on my way home.

Presence, present moment awareness, mindfulness--it has a bunch of names--this is not a new concept for me. In fact, I've been thinking about it, reading about it, writing heartsick poems and journaling about it for years. Despite that, it arrives to me again today as an epiphany. Maybe this time it will stick--I'll internalize it and live it more routinely. Or maybe not. Like I said: I don't know and it doesn't really matter. It's just this moment that matters: the gift of looking up and walking more slowly from class to the parking garage, then facing west while I pump my gas. It's simply being here, no matter where, even when it feels sad or scary, flexing gratitude and tourist-attention like two strong cosmic hands, wringing every last drop of daylight out of autumn's pretty, disappearing clouds.

journey and convey my yoga message, I ruminated and obsessed and also thoroughly enjoyed creating the 20 slides shown below. The effort. Finally, hesitantly, at the very last minute, I sent them out of my hands and off to the PK GR powers that be. 

Last night, three hours before the big event, I realized I'd muscled myself into an impossible position, and the only way out was to fall. So that became plan b: let it happen. The ease. Release. I wrote a new script for myself and knew it was what I'd meant to say all along. It was even better than what I'd so studiously prepared. It's not what ended up coming out of my mouth last night--I'll get to that--but here it is, what I would've said if my words were working:

Hi. My name's Jenny. As of today, I've been doing yoga for 194 days in a row and I've been blogging about it. I spent a lot of time and sacrificed a lot of sleep creating this visually pleasing slideshow full of lovely quotes and clever bits of wisdom.

Somewhere around 5pm this evening, I realized I'd seriously overshot. Each one of these slides is a six-minute forty-second presentation by itself and brevity, conciseness is not my strong suit. I love adjectives and modifiers and metaphors. And I digress.

So please allow these slides to serve as pretty backgrounds for the real story, which is this:

Last year, I turned thirty and my best friend, aka my social life and support system, was diagnosed with breast cancer. Life changed. It got unsteady and limbo-y and confusing. I turned first to various vices to cope--alcohol, bad TV, junk food, all that-- and then I learned to mountain bike. Mountain biking was actually my introduction to finding fearlessness through fear, and it worked pretty well until it started snowing.

Enter day one, 11/23/2013. Enter serendipitous yoga groupon. I had six classes left of a 10 class package and six days left to use them up. So I started with that--six classes in six days--and then committed to thirty days, because that seemed like a thing, and I started blogging about it because that did too. 

Now here we are at day 194 and I've yoga-ed all over West and Northern Michigan. Last month I took my yoga mat to California and yoga-ed up the coast, LA to San Francisco. A trip of a lifetime.  I'm hooked.

Over the past 6 months, yoga has changed me. My body has changed in ways that I like--I'm stronger, slimmer and more bendy--but the real changes have been internal. I was planning on telling you all about those internal, less visible transformations but I screwed up and made an impossible presentation. Which is perfect. Because that means I get to show you instead.

At 5:00 today, I was practicing and panicking because I knew I couldn't summarize enough or talk fast enough to deliver the presentation I created. That's when the real yoga started. If you can't keep breathing, if you can't catch your breath, it's time to back out of the pose. So from Hyperverbal Manic Asana, I moved into I Have No Effing Clue what I'm Doing Asana. In that pose, I could feel the stretch and the fatigue and I wanted to give up and run away and hide but I could breathe still, and so instead I stayed there like my slides said to do, just breathing and feeling and paying attention. I reminded myself that "I can't" is just a story.

I opened my heart instead of closing it. This is one of my all-time favorite yoga lessons. The instinct is to close emotionally and physically when we feel fear. I wanted to cancel. Seriously. I wondered if it would really be lying if I called in sick, considering all the nervous-peeing I was doing. But that's not yoga. That's just fear. We think that closing will protect us when we feel exposed, but the truth is that closing just guards the unhelpful, dysfunctional ideas that got us all worked up in the first place. We close around the old scared stories, keep them, feed them with our avoidance and belief, and we don't give life a chance to rewrite them or add nuance.

Public speaking scares the crap out of me. The only panic attack I've ever had happened when I was giving a presentation in college, and I've kept that memory protected more times than I've given it room to grow. Standing here now in front of you is akin to some specialized surgical tool cracking open my rib cage. This is open heart surgery. It's sort of severe, but it's necessary and it's working and it may be lifesaving. Life energy at least. Prana.

And here's maybe the most awesome thing: my failure, it turns out, IS perfection. Face Plant Asana was precisely the posture that I needed to practice tonight. Falling down and then standing here now, telling this story, THIS is the yoga. THIS is the gift: living the poses, or in this case the visually pleasing slides full of useful tidbits, instead of just perfecting their form. This is the vital yoga.

And I mean that literally. This is the yoga that lives. Last week I learned that a former patient of mine committed suicide. She was young and smart and capable and pretty, and she was in so much pain that she chose death over one more minute of it. No one expected it, not then. And I think that has something to do with her fear of falling. She believed that face plants made her unloveable instead of what's true, the opposite: that face plants are what we all do, they're the thread. They're the real opportunity for connection. We're all just peering up from the ground sometimes, stunned, speechless, feeling like morons. No. Feeling like the only moron.

She couldn't ask for help because she didn't think she deserved it, and because she thought she was unique in her pain and fear and messiness. She said that the last time we met, in a very rare moment of vulnerability, about a month before she took her own life. She said, "I know what I need to do, what I'm supposed to do. I've been in therapy most of my life. But I hate myself so much sometimes that I just don't see the point. Everyone else seems to just be able to do what they have to and live a normal life but I can't. There's something wrong with me."

That's why I'm standing here tonight instead of claiming a weird nervous bladder illness: because I'm smart and young and capable and I fall down and I want everyone to know it. Because it's not my success that makes me fit for or worthy of life, it's just my humanity, and that's true for you too. I don't get another shot at convincing my patient she's precious and worthy, and I missed my opportunity to tell her that I feel like the last living fuck-up some days too. But I've got the stage tonight for 400 seconds and I've got the spectacle of my own imperfection to share, so like Brene Brown says, I'm gonna lean in and feel it all. This is the human shape of being. If you lean in too, we might meet in the middle. THIS truly is the yoga.

With an open heart and with gratitude, the light where yoga resides in me bows to and honors the light where yoga resides in you. Namaste.

Not too shabby, right? A phoenix of a speech, rising out of the ashes of a failed first attempt. Once I wrote it, I felt peace. I knew that I was finally saying what I really meant. And I assumed that since I wrote it from my heart, I would remember it by heart and deliver it with heart, to a tidal wave of applause and the flash of paparazzi cameras. Okay. Not really that. But I did sincerely anticipate taking the stage with a clear focus and a steady voice. I was completely sure that this was the story Life wanted me to tell--and when I have that feeling of flow, I know I can relax and let something bigger than me take it from there. I was right about that part, but quite wrong about how it would play out.

I can't pinpoint the exact moment when my confidence evaporated into thin air, but it did. My dear friend David Kempston said afterward, You rode your vulnerability like a surf board, and I completely agree. Only minus the surf board, on a very windy day. There were moments when I felt myself surface and gasp and sputter some words I wanted to say, and then there were moments I felt sucked out to sea by the undertow of my fear. My voice was so shaky, my brain completely water-logged. I unlearned how to read. I literally could not decipher the notes I'd written, in plain English, just a few short hours before. Thinking about it now, I can't help but cringe at the distance between the graceful words I wanted to say and the clumsy ones I said instead. 

But that's perfect too, I know it. It's even better. The words were just the pose, the asana, and it's never the asana that matters. The body is just a container for the yoga. This is not about perfecting the form, it's yoga beyond the mat. And on that stage, falling out of the pose onto my face, I got to live the yoga. I'd hoped to say clearly that it's completely okay to be imperfectly human, to show up even when you feel afraid, to love yourself through it no matter the outcome and to be present enough to discover the perfect gift you've been given: whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. I think I may have managed to spit some of that out. Maybe. I can't really remember because I was suffering some sort of temporary anoxic brain injury or something. But I can tell you this: When it comes to being fearfully and imperfectly human in public, I freaking nailed it. And, miraculously--one of the many gifts buried in this mess--instead of feeling embarrassed, I feel pretty proud of myself. 

My step-dad Bill said afterward, That was so punk rock, and I completely agree.  Only minus the CBGBs mosh pit and plus two tables full of the most accepting and supportive kindred-spirit friends and family a girl could ever ask for. Thank you guys so much for showing up for me, and for Getting It. Mwah all over your face!

Maya Angelou used her creativity and that once-stifled, self-empowered voice to plant seeds and harvest change throughout the Civil Rights Era, harmonizing with other strong voices like Rosa Parks, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King.  Her voice, her art, her creativity and consciousness were bolstered and infused by the challenges she encountered and the losses she endured. Her experience, and her willingness to share the human truth of it, leaves a legacy now that has literally traveled the globe and will continue to do so for generations to come. 

While thinking about Angelou and about legacy today, I perused some of her writing, leafing through books of poetry I've treasured for decades now, spines so bent and handled that the titles are difficult to discern. Turning pages, savoring favorite stanzas, I feel grateful for creativity's gentleness and its force, the way it can slip in an aesthetic side door and take a whole set of disfunctions and complacencies by storm. I'm thankful for learning the word "invectives" in fifth grade from Angelou's poem "The Lie," at just the moment I needed it, when family disruption could've turned more sinister than an expanding vocabulary and some sad but inspired poems scribbled in angsty journals. I'm grateful for "The Telephone" and its perfect company through the wilderness of unrequited adolescent romance. I'm grateful, everyone in their right mind is grateful, for Angelou's ability to still rise, up from a past that's rooted in pain, the dream and the hope of the slave, to rise, to rise, to rise. And I'm grateful too for a blurb from a chapter in Angelou's Letter to my Daughter called "Mrs. Coretta Scott King," where Angelou guides us generously down the grief path toward growing a good life:

I am besieged with painful awe at the vacuum left by the dead. Where did she go? Where is he now? Are they, as poet James Weldon Johnson said, 'resting in the bosom of Jesus'? If so, what about my Jewish loves, my Japanese dears, my Muslim darlings. Into whose bosom are they cuddled?

I find relief from the questions only when I concede that I am not obliged to know everything. I remind myself it is sufficient to know what I know, and that what I know, may not always be true.

When I find myself filling with rage over the loss of a beloved, I try as soon as possible to remember that my concerns and questions should be focused on what I learned or what I have yet to learn from my departed love. What legacy was left which can help me in the art of living a good life...

P.S. I highly suggest you listen to Maya Angelou read her poem "Phenomenal Woman."

as a kid. Then I attempted the beginner’s course at Cannon Township and discovered the thrill of hopping over log piles and skidding through unexpected curves. Then Luton’s easy loops, then its hard ones and then finally, with trepidation, Merrell. 

It was not a graceful introduction nor a courtship without its challenges, but it was love at first ride. Although Luton and I remained close friends, by August I only had eyes for one trail.  After the exhilaration of Merrell’s downhills and the heart palpitations of its climbs, nothing else really compared for the rest of the season. My step-dad Bill, my friend Keri and I, or some combination of us, tried to make it there whenever the sun was shining and the workday didn't interfere. I’ve been anxiously awaiting our reunion for 155 cold, grey days. Today was chilly and windy but dry, with some blue sky even, and Bill and Keri and I decided to get reacquainted with the trail. 

I felt nervous and shy riding in, wobbling between boulders and tipping between trees. A beginner again, all shoshin, with just the memory of having known once what was coming, but without any of the actual knowing. The terrain was practically brand new, and the exhilaration too. The heart attack after the biggest hill was absolutely brand new, a testament more to my lack of winter cardio perhaps than to my eager beginner’s mind. But you get the drift. Butterflies. Giddy first date stuff. Sweaty-palmed anticipation and eagerness.

And my beginner’s mind, my sweet shiny shoshin, brought me back to basics, back to the yoga-goes-biking fundamentals waiting around every turn. Here are a three of the lessons that returned to me as I road the trails and tried not to die:

1. My body is wise. While my mind told me stories about how unlikely it was I'd make it up the next hill, my body pushed on and amazed me. While my mind couldn't move fast enough to plan for the obstacles that appeared quickly and frequently, my body responded intuitively, navigating with skill beyond thought.  This is so often the case--on the trail, on the mat, at the desk, on the date. My body is wise, it informs me if I listen. Yoga and biking both teach me how listen by eliminating the obstacle that my thoughts can sometimes become. There's no time to think about how to fit through a gap between trees that's as narrow as my handle bars. It just happens. Or it doesn't. Sometimes it definitely doesn't. But the lesson stays. And it remains on the mat where there's no space for critical thought when I'm flowing from asana to asana, matching the rhythm of breath.  

My body knows when it's time to stop eating or drinking, when it's time to go to sleep or wake up. My body knows that the guy's a creep far before my mind gives up it's chatty negotiations and hopeful delusions in order to end the bad date. My body knows when I shouldn't answer the phone or respond to the email before taking some deep breaths or doing some cathartic swearing at the ceiling. It's shoshin beginner stuff, this body wisdom. Which is maybe why my spoiled, learned little brain so often feels superior and tends to get really loud and bossy when my body tries to speak up. 

2. Full expression is reached through a combination of effort and ease. My legs will be sore tomorrow from the shaking, quaking effort they offered today, carrying me over hill and across vale. That’s the good news. The bad news is that my shoulders will probably also be sore, and my neck might join the party as well. I haven’t found those moments of ease on my bike that have become natural in my yoga practice. In yoga, I’ve discovered trust in my body’s agility and stability. On my bike, not so much. Not yet. For the most part, I hold on so tight that my arms become shock absorbers zinging with hit after hit, or I brace myself into weird shapes and lower back spasms.

But I’ll get there. And in life, too. I’ve found yoga-balance for my social work self—the mostly competent professional who senses when to push and when to hold, who can usually lead an escalating patient gently back down to earth or talk a terrified parent into some sense of relief, and who has generally realistic expectations and good boundaries. Then there’s my dating self, still holding mountain-bike tight to extremes—that ungraceful version of me who’s pretty much entirely ambivalent, awkwardly vacillating between fiercely independent and secretly needy, grandiose and insecure. A recipe for muscle pain--whether from holding on too tight or bailing out too early, either way.
 
3.  If there are people around, and especially if they look like experts or cute single men in my age bracket, I will almost certainly fall down so I may as well get used to it. Even from standing still on completely flat land, it’s really likely that I'll manage to tip over or generally make an idiot of myself in some fashion. If I’m approaching an obstacle and simultaneously aware that someone, especially someone very capable or attractive, is watching, I may as well shoot for the most spectacular failure I can muster and then see what I can learn from it.

There’s no need to extrapolate this lesson. It’s self-explanatory and it’s a hill I’ve not dared climb to the top until this point in my life, thirty years into the ordeal and just completely, utterly exhausted from trying to pretend I’m not a silly spectacle half the time.  Or two-thirds of the time when I really care who’s watching. So there it is. Here I am, stunning and graceful sometimes, even in difficult poses. Wide open heart, a glutton for adjustment. And here I also am, holding on too tight while I’m jerking around and racking up a chiropractor bill, or laid out on my ass in the springy spring dirt, maybe fractured and hopefully having a good laugh.

After the shoshin trek into Merrell, in Dean’s Sweet Vinyasa class, he rearranged the placement of mats so that we were all facing center, forward folding toward our classmates' faces rather than their perhaps more familiar booties. Ah, Dean. You must’ve known it was a day for unfamiliar terrain. Embrace the awkward, he said. Embrace the discomfort and offer the person across from you a good intention. With eye contact. Thank goodness I had already learned my public humiliation lesson for the day, back on my bike in my shoshin. It left my beginner's heart wide open to give and receive good intentions, with eye contact, and then to move on to doing something well or not well, smiling and growing either way.

Zen teacher Shunryu Szuki says, In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities. In the expert’s mind there are few. That seems pretty true to me; I can see it on the mat and on the trail.  And when I'm feeling really brave I can watch new possibilities unfold in my relationships as I approach them with shoshin. Life has given me the opportunity lately to bring a beginner's mind to some of my most established relationships--the ones I've studied and experienced deep and wide enough that I might consider myself an expert--and thus, of course, effectively put them into neat little limited boxes in my mind. Mostly my attempts at shoshin in my relationships have felt really uncomfortable--very exposed, vulnerable and scary. But authentic. Accepting, defenseless, honest and somehow, deep down, still safe. And I've felt surprised, over and over, by the spectacular ways my oldest friends and closest relatives have busted out of the boxes I stuffed them into, revealing sparkly and shiny and injured and aching parts of themselves that my expert eyes may never have noticed. It's a gift no matter what comes out when the box breaks open, I think.

I’m grateful for the beginner’s mind that accompanied me into all sorts of new terrain today, and for the reminder that I’m on the pursuit of more than just mastery. There's gratifying progress that happens with practice--be it 156 days on a yoga mat, a season full of more and more skillful rides, or an active commitment to maintaining connection. I love the expansion and the intimacy I've worked for--I'm not about to trade that in. But expertise will never really satisfy if it also limits--if knowing replaces wondering. While I'd like to someday do a hand stand for more than two seconds, and I hope to one day ride the whole Wynalda loop without stopping to catch my breath, I'd also really like to practice beginning again each day, each moment even--to soar and to crash both, and to come back to stillness in shoshin once in a while at every elevation. I imagine I'd find at any height a perfect view of the horizon, stretching far beyond what I could have predicted, maybe even beyond my wildest dreams. But I'm just guessing here, I can't know for sure. I'm no expert.

myself from the fact that it's been over a month since I've posted something original. I wander around for a while with a "should" monkey on my back and end up saving an incomplete and unexciting half-draft to a growing collection of false starts. Ugh. Stuck. Annoying. Unnerving. 

What's the cure for stuckness? Well apparently it's not effort or guidelines or any practical, left-brained strategies. Believe me--I tried. Lists and freewrites and textbook prompts in this case felt fear-based and outcome driven, when what I really wanted was to get back to that place of absorption and flow--to enjoy each morsel of language, narrative, reflection--just for the beauty of it, just for the moment of it. Somewhere along the way, something in me had started worrying about getting it "right"--whatever that means. Future and past entered in, along with my need to control and predict--Where is this headed? Where does it end? Am I being redundant? Somebody somewhere has already said all of this better--who am I to think my experience is important enough for cyberspace?

Oh sweet, neurotic little brain. In the midst of so much fun and beauty, what a mess you can dream up. And what predictable solutions: as penance for my recent lack of productivity, I told myself, I should obviously hole up in my apartment for the weekend and get down to business. Which is why I felt especially frivolous and irresponsible when I met Courtney at the bar mid-day on Saturday instead.

So okay. Experts and responsible adults and, er, mental health professionals would not necessarily recommend the consumptions of alcohol as a method for moving forward. It's not an empirically valid or reliable intervention--we can all agree on that. But in the case of Saturday, day drinking was the hospitable environment for the breakthrough, the enjoyable journey from stuck to unstuck, from funky blues to gratitude.

As is often the case with soul mates, I know when I've gone too long without a Courtney fix. It's something like the way all of us Michiganders feel these days, with April around the corner and snow still on the ground. So a little Courtney rendezvous at The Elbow Room was the impetus for some blocked-spot-thawing--deep dark places inside me lit up just seeing her face. The winter in me started to feel a little springy. 

Over veggie burgers and Labatt draughts, we meandered through chit chat and found ourselves settling in and beginning to till some spiritual soil, readying ourselves for springtime despite the scene outside: cold wind, grey sky, piles and piles of dirty snow. Something about drinking beer in the daytime made faith both a little bit easier and a little less necessary--this moment of being slightly tipsy and very talkative and getting our metaphorical hands in the dirt would not shrink or expand with the whim of weather--let spring come or not; we'll cultivate beauty and pleasure right here. And maybe we'll also have an extra side of fries.

It's just like in yoga.

Before the afternoon buzz, in Saturday morning vinyasa at Seva, the instructor Melissa said something I'd heard before, but which struck a different chord in me, an assertive pay-attention! chord this time: Don't worry about what comes next, she said to the class full of yogis bent into chair pose. This is it. Be here. Don't predict, just breathe, feel. Don't miss this!

Because this is when healing happens: now. This is where creativity happens: here. This is what we have for sure: Just this moment, just this breath. Just two friends in a green vinyl booth doing drinking beers and tilling soil, simply for the feeling of getting a little dirt on our hands, just for the springtime smell of turned earth and the good company.

It's been a hard winter. It was hard from the get-go, watching summer fade so fast and knowing the allegory of autumn might never feel as poignant or as true: seasons change. Everything will always change. This is the flow. Biopsy, uncertainty, surgery, uncertainty, recovery, uncertainty, chemo, uncertainty, radiation, uncertainty--the poses that Courtney learned by heart the hard way. I won't pretend to know how that felt--that part's her story to tell. Meanwhile, the rest of us bent our bodies into shapes like Helpless and Powerless, Guilty, Lost, Inadequate. Some days were frenzied, flurried. Some days were very, very still.

It was a hard winter, all those times we were waiting to breathe. 

But this is absolutely just as true: it was a beautiful gift, learning to breathe through the waiting. Learning to be right there in each difficult pose without knowing what came next. And how inspiring, what an incredible blessing to stand next to Courtney as she settled in, leaned in to each pose with amazing grace and stamina. This is it. Don't miss this!

So on a Saturday afternoon, when the moment comes in the shape of a bartender saying, the first one was on the house, you don't remind yourself of the blank page waiting at home for your creative attention or lecture yourself on the virtues of staying sober until at least after lunchtime. You order another round and keep playing in the dirt. This is all there is. 

And like so much of what I learn these days, this is also a paradox. Because the more presence we bring to the booth and the moment, the more sense we make out of what has already happened, and the more space we make for what comes next.  Stories are unearthed, artifacts that belong above ground, and this loosens up the places where future roots will grow deeper. We clear all sorts of brush out of the way--questions and confusion, fear and regret--and in this way we make space for the sun to reach the hardier sprouts, the stuff worth keeping like bravery and gratitude. 

And then there's grief in some moments, too. Grief like some sort of jet-fueled farming combine, combing through layers of dirt and debris--the remains of old harvests, the spent husks of past lives. Not to weed out these losses. To integrate them. Yup. Even the dead stuff stays in a way--it's fertilizer. 

The soil gets richer, the story evolves, and it all happens right here & now--in this case in a booth with some beers. I was wrong when I thought I should be someplace else--sitting at my laptop or doing some diligent brainstorming. Guilt and shoulds and reprimands only served to carry me further away from being present--and presence is always the access point, the only place where hand or plough connect with earth. This one breath, this one pose contains exactly what's needed, exactly the right amount of nutrients, water and sunlight to support growth--limitless growth! Fruit the size of your face growth! This one moment can yield blossoms as huge as a whole life! Pay attention. Lean in. This is it! Don't miss it!

Yoga has been for me an intuitive path deeper into my authentic Self, my spiritual Self--the me who is steadily brave and honest, equally reverent and lighthearted, and perpetually, easily grateful--even when my surface self is temporarily all frenzied or complaining. Breath and movement have taken me further and deeper into that still center of myself than my mind ever could, try as it may, through its neurotic back-and-forth striving. 

There's no less dramatic way to say it. Even on a day when I didn't feel slightly like Oprah, I would say it just like this: yoga has changed my life. 

I could write for ages about the gifts and transformations which have arrived for me through yoga's conduit. Err, well, I guess I sort of already have! But today I'm particularly grateful for connection and community. I'm so happy to learn this lesson over and over--to look back over the past several months and notice a thread of inspiring, encouraging encounters.  If my lessons in imperfection and self-acceptance often come sternly suited up and ready to get down to business, my lessons in opening up to new friends are absolutely kicking up their heels and letting loose. This is gleeful growth.

Call it the law of attraction; I think that fits. Or call it new interests and environments; it's that too. It's also this new lens I'm developing, of self-love and self-acceptance, which allows me to see opportunities for connection in places that would've been hidden when I was peering through a thicker haze of self-doubt and insecurity. Any way about it, it seems I'm bumping into brilliant, beautiful yogis every time I turn around! 

I'm so excited to introduce some of the inspirational yogis I've met along this path and to share some of their stories on the Community page. I use the term "yogi" loosely here--I just mean people like you and me who are students of Guru Life. Yoga is the doorway into full, meaningful living that makes the most sense to me personally right now, but there are all sorts of entry points, all sorts of ways to, as Mark Nepo says, stay close to what is sacred.

Speaking of which. What is sacred? What's teacher for you? What do you fear? What do you want? What drives you?

I was inspired by Oprah's Super Soul Sunday series to come up with a list of questions that maybe will illuminate parts of all these different paths we take toward what we consider to be sacred. I stole some of the questions outright and came up with some myself.

Feel free to send me feedback about the questions, and also consider adding your responses to the Community Page by contacting me! Several community guests have already been kind enough to indulge my curiosity--you can find their stories here.  Also, check out these Soul to Soul questions Oprah-style in a clip from her interview with Maya Angelou. And then be sure to put that little inner voice in check when it starts comparing your answers to Maya Angelou's. She's Maya Angelou. She writes poems for the president. She's published like a hundred books. When you're 85 and you've lived as an African American female through the Civil Rights movement, you can compare yourself to Maya Angelou. For now, just have a little fun being curious about your own interesting self. (That's the speech I just gave my own inner voice as I filled in the blanks below after watching the interview. You're welcome.)

Name: Jenny Hall
Age: 30
Website: This one!
Email/Contact: custompeace@gmail.com or contact me
Day Job: Inpatient case manager at a psychiatric hospital
Dream Job: Writing, traveling yogi, collecting stories
If I Had a Million Dollars: I’d hit the road with my yoga mat and my laptop.
What I Wish Everyone Knew: We all feel that way. What way? Whatever way you’re feeling that makes you think you’re crazier, weirder, less lovable or separate in any way from everyone else. Also, it’s okay. What’s okay? Everything. Including you. You’re okay just the way you are.
What I Want: For everyone to know what I wish they knew.
What Holds Me Back: Tired, old, unhelpful, fear-based thoughts.
What I'd Like to Let Go: Fear
What I'd Like to Keep: Love
Biggest Fear: Failure, rejection.
God Is: LOVE
Prayer Is: Listening. It’s the still space where Oh, crap! becomes Oh, now I get it! Thanks!
What is Sacred: Connection. Those moments when I connect to a deep place of stillness or knowing or creativity in myself, and the moments when I connect to the invigorating or energizing or reassuring or inspiring spirit of someone else. Both are really connections to God, I think. Little spigots tapped into God for love to pour out of.
Teacher: Everything. Like the Charlotte Joko Beck quote says, every moment is the guru.
Quote of the Day: “Don’t move the way fear makes you move. Move the way love makes you move. Move the way joy makes you move.” Osho
Current Book Obsession: A Return to Love by Marianne Williamson.