Succumbing June 29, 2005

My altar has three statues of Ganesha on it, sitting on an old cloth that has been faded from the sun. In front of the statues is an incense holder, covered in ash from previous burns. There is a necklace of jade and one with a sandalwood OM symbol. On either side of the incense holder are tealight candle holders. There is a tall glass encased candle with a gaudy Jesus print on the front in the back left corner. Behind the statues lies the verbooti of Swami Shirdi Sai Baba and Swami Kalishwar. Underneath the main surface is a shelf with sacred texts, and a framed picture of me kneeling beside Guruji. Above the altar hangs three pieces. At the top, a plaster head of Ganesha, below that a framed picture of Paramahansa Yogananada, and below that, a framing of six gurus in his line.

I have been sick the last three days, and either sleeping in or practicing at home. I have found the power of this altar incredible to practice in front of, and will probably be doing that more. Prior to it’s construction, all the pieces on it were scattered throughout my place, but now bringing them together has inducted a part of my home into a sacred offering. I find a tremendous peace in front of the altar, and now keep candles lit there most of the time I’m home. As the stress of my life has finally brought me to rest more, to be slow more, to stop pushing for a moment (in the form of disease), I find great solace simply in devotion. My practice exists for the connection with God.

Smashing June 25, 2005

My body was fine on Thursday, even without using two of The Three Wise Men. My shoulder didn’t even hurt. Imagine that. Kick my own ass up and down the block and voila, all problems solved.

Friday was speedy and fun.

Today was weak. I slept more hours last night than the two previous nights combined. For some reason, practice on 3-4hrs of sleep was actually quite wonderful, but practice on 10 sucked. Half-primary Saturday. I’m going to a wedding tonight and that pretty much guarantees I’ll be out of commission in the morning.

Speaking of being out of commission, since I’ve been back from my ridiculous party week in Atlanta, I’ve really cut back on the sauce. I joined some grad students for drinks yesterday after I left the lab AT SEVEN pm on a Friday (read: goddamn it), and I with a full meal, I was extremely buzzed after two ciders. Un-real. This will certainly save me money.

I discovered yesterday that my computer hates me. How do I know? Well, because it has decided it can’t find it’s operating system, and the fine folks at Apple Care think my harddrive is busted. Lovely. This will be the second time having to send it to Cupertino in less than a year. Oh, and I don’t have anything backed up. Hehehe.

Guilt trip June 22, 2005

I surrendered my Sunday and Monday practices to my desire for affection.

Today I worked my guilt over missing four days in a row out on my body. I suppose the fact that it was the day after the full moon didn’t help matters either. My motto for today has been “take it easy.” As in “slow the fuck down you’re going to break something.”

Tonight will require castor oil, traumeel, and ibuprofen. The Three Wise Men. My friends.

But I did get my ankle grab in kapotasana. The back is never the problem, only the hips being tight, which then means the knees get beat up on.

My left shoulder is still acting up. It feels like someone is sticking a knife in my deltoid when I rotate from lolasana to chaturunga in the vinyasas. Other than that it doesn’t bother me. Much.

I had a conversation with someone last night I haven’t spoken to in over 4 years. Until yesterday I was convinced that was the last time I would ever speak with her. The saga continues.

My research is showing promise, and my lab just got two more grants funded, waiting to hear on a third that directly affects me. This is good news in an environment where many labs are losing money.

Frizzlehiday June 17, 2005

I took yesterday off. Today I was strong, but held back in pick ups and such by my left shoulder, which has been hurting all week. Deltoid area. It looks like it’s from pushing my left arm through my lotus in garbhapindasana. I’ve managed to get my arms through all week, even without shaving my arms and legs (HA!), and today I realized I’m having to strain the shoulder to get it through. Bummer.

How badass is the Prana factory sale? Way. Yep. It’s one of the things I dearly miss about San Diego. But alas, Julie allowed me to go this year. Or at least benefit from it. Thanks darlin’- you rock!

It rained yesterday for the first time in a really long time. Skip-stops work just as well in the rain. I got pulled over by a really angry motorcycle cop for running a stop sign on my bike. The conversation was hilarious, and I managed to hold my tounge and not get a ticket, though the temptation to tear his frightfully-uneducated-logic-based arguments for why I’m reckless apart like a lion ripping through pig flesh was almost unbearable. }:-P Yeah, I have animosity toward law-enforcement. And if you had almost gotten arrested for saving someone’s life in a car accident, you might also. Oh, and that’s just one on the list of offenses toward me by the po-po. Rounded off nicely by getting yelled at yesterday. But hey, the yoga is working. I didn’t argue. I was respectful. I didn’t get to the kindness part, but I held my tounge. But God he was stupid. Y’all should’ve heard him.

Rockin it June 14, 2005

Day four of my seven day practice week. Feelin better. Having some chocolate after a way-too-gourmet (read: expensive) dinner with my realtor. No I’m not selling again, just catching up. It’s always great when people you do business with are the type of people you also like to be friends with. It’s also amazing to get the perspective of a slightly older gay man who’s in a permanent relationship about growing up, being single, and just generally dealing with the dating scene. Considering I’m different (younger, not gay, single) in many ways, it was refreshing to hear more about this period of life from someone in a position I’ve never consulted.

Speaking of friends…I had a talk with Neti today that began as a question to him about how I was already destroying my lockring on Penelope due to my new fetish with skip stops, and wound up being a yoga discussion (big fucking surprise there) in which he asked me where I feel the bend in kapotasana. It was good that he asked me because I’d never really thought about it, in terms of trying to tell somone anatomically where I feel it. Once I’m down, I don’t even feel it in my back. I told him that it’s not even in my physical body anymore- it’s all in the prana kosha. At the beginning I can feel it in all the usual spots, and when I’m down there’s a definite shoulder issue as I’ve written about before, but all in all, it’s an experience that I’m hard-pressed to describe. My teacher pulled me into my ankle-grabbing pigeon yesterday after I’ve not done the pose with an adjustment for a month. It was the easiest that pose has ever felt. No, it’s a pose that takes me right out of my normal body. My level of experience is far different than in any other pose. Even chakra bandhasana doesn’t pull me out like that.

I love that I have a teacher that I trust. I love that I can believe in what he says. I love that I don’t have any issues with the way things are being done at my shala. I love that the other students are so dedicated. I love that we have a small community of people that get breakfast together on the weekends, and have each other over for dinner. I love that I feel at home as much when I’m at my shala as when I’m at my house. I love all of us knowing each others’ practice, and checking in to see how things are going. I love the support that we all have together. I can hardly imagine a better situation for me.

Nurse shark June 12, 2005

I always wondered why you don’t actually see these sharks dressed with little white caps on, blazing red cross figure on the front, gracefully sliding through the sea to give assistance to those sharks in need.

I’ve needed a nurse recently. My first practice in a week came yesterday morning and saw me gritting my teeth to get through a half-primary series. A week in Atlanta for a science conference left me with little sleep, poor nutrition (the South is no place for a gluten-intolerant strict vegetarian- I’ve never eaten so much salad and french fries in my life), the ill effects of a constant transfer from humidity to air-conditioning and back, two eight-hour plane journeys accross the country with layovers, and no practice as I voluntarily opted to socialize with the other conference-goers and network as much as I could rather than go to bed early and get up and practice, which would have made me the black sheep of my new lab. No, yoga would have to wait for my one-week career booster. Not a perfect world we live in is it? Damn. I must’ve got off at the wrong stop.

I mustered myself through a full primary today, and plan to get seven consecutive practices in this week, regardless of how I feel, which was not great this morning, but significantly better than yesterday. The acheyness is no longer in my hips- it’s now in my shoulders, but only doing vinyasas between sides as my teacher suggested makes primary quite nice actually. Alcohol is poison, just in case any of you had any doubts. I’ve managed to detox most of it with careful attention to sleep, diet, and fluid intake. Iced-tea is a perfectly acceptable confection at outdoor patios where they serve ethanol, as long as you can get enough sugar into it (which is poorly soluble at iced-tea temperatures), and unless you neglect the fact that you never drink caffein and find yourself tapping your feet and bouncing your hands off your bopping knees and talking at a mile a minute whilst your beer-drinking friends look at you in dismay, wondering how you snuck the meth hit right in front of them without them seeing. Ah, I think this is what lemonade is for….

Back to the routine. No more travels. No more madness. Tomorrow: experiments, 5:30am wakeups, and 10pm tobeds begin again. Healthy food and practice continues. I’m glad to be home.

Dragonfly June 2, 2005

As I grabbed my left toe with my left hand, he pulled my arm tighter around my back. “Grab in between your big toe and the second toe with your finger” he said, and my grasp closed. “Now lean forward and on the exhale swing your right arm around your back.” I did this, and he firmly grabbed my right hand and pulled it toward my right foot. The motion was firm and steady, and I did something I’ve not done in a while- I grunted. My left hand ejected itself from its grasp on my left foot from the pressure of the adjustment on the right arm, and I was left with nothing close to grasp on either foot. “Just leave it there” he said, and so I did. “Strong man,” he said. “Stiff man,” I replied.

My shoulders have come into focus as of late. After supta vajrasana, my teacher suggested now that it’s summer and I’m having no problems keeping my heat up to eliminate the vinyasas between sides in my first series poses. He wants to help loosen my shoulders up. When I first began practicing with him, he eliminated the handstands I was working on for the same reason. My response to him this morning was that I was worried about losing strength. “Just try it for one day,” he replied, “you’ve got enough strength.” I have a lot of my identity tied up in considering myself physically strong, I reflected in savasnana. Time for more surrender.

After getting into garbhapindasana Monday, I had to lay off today, since I bruised my right calf badly by trying to jam my forearm through my lotus yesterday. The pressure of the calf getting smashed against the tibia was so painful that I physically couldn’t push my forearm further through. This was Tuesday. Wednesday it was already sore from the day before, but I thought I’d just suck it up. I almost gasped it hurt so badly. Try again. Nope. Again. Ok, now it hurts without an arm in there. The hair on my arm has grown out enough that I can’t just slip it through there anymore. Time for a shave. It’ll look better on the tat anyway.