Vinyasa berries: Going with the flow.

This song has been in my head for at least 24 hours: Happiness, by The Weepies.  Youtube, you are on Super Fail Mode, because there is not a video of this song to link to, so these lyrics (the ones that in my head) I'll share instead:

Got a charger, no cell phone, I can't call out,
unless it's to cry your name out the open window
to a sky that looks right back
and says it's never seen rain.
Sometimes you gotta start clean;
you gotta begin, not begin again.


Lovely, eh?  And appropriate.


I came home wanting cold cereal: toasted yummy Joe's Oh's with berries, and realized I'd left the milk out this morning, which = no cold cereal late night snack after working all night.  Frustrating?  A tad YES.

Among other things. 

I have been riding the wave of awesome yoga energy the last couple of days; my kundalini energy is even going all kinds of crazy, and I have been loving it.  Even (dare I say) grasping at it.  Example: yesterday morning doing solo home yoga to this amazing lady's class, I could start to feel my mind clench around how badly I want to go to Ojai and study with this woman.  (You know the feeling; it feels remarkably like you will die or live a less important life if you can't have what you want for absolutely certain.)  Whenever this happens (the mind-clenching thing), I remember a conversation with my lovely friend Laura one year shortly after college, where she held her sweet hands out and demonstrated how she was focusing on not clenching *clenches hands*, but just.... opening.  *And she opened her hands.*

I see her hands and think of this so often, and as I was telling one of my yoga teachers this morning, whenever I can start to feel my mind clenching around something, someone or an idea (that is, when I'm aware of it), I try to practice open-hands-mind.  And, because I am in a state of near rejection at the possibility that I may not, for example, get the time off I would need to be able to start yoga teacher training (YTT), I know how imperative it is that I really flex my mental clench muscles in preparation for release.

Which, as I write this now, occurs to me as a very good way to describe one aspect of asana practice: a holding and strengthening of the body, in preparation for release, and for the clearing of blockages/expectations.

But, as we all inevitably find, the bliss of morning meditation can get interrupted by the leaf-blowers, and one senseless act by another person can elicit near-rage in us.  Then we I forget the spaciousness of mind that was created in practice, and oh-so-quickly trade it out for harsh words and thoughts, which I was reminded recently: however private those thoughts seem, they are not; the energetic drainage that results in those tiny mental lightening bolts has so much more energetic mass than the thought itself, and so this is something else I've been thinking a lot about: How do I want to throw out my energy?  How aware am I when I'm doing it?

Some knee-jerk (negative) energetic outpourings I've noticed (but have refrained from judging) the last couple days:

• Mumbling/yelling/snarking humorously to myself at/about other drivers while driving.  Favorites include name-calling and lots and lots of swearing.
• Irrational irritation at my dog, whom I love to crazy tiny pieces, for simply being a dog, who happens to still be a puppy.  

If I'm honest with myself about that last one, I actually really love how dumb Bodhi (my dog) acts sometimes.  He's like the secretly smart best guy friend you love the poo out of, but who acts like he had battery-acid-laced Pepsi in his bottle when he was a baby.  Bodhi is a really smart boy, although a little misguided in his actions, which is obviously a reflection on my dog training skills.  Although I act frustrated, I am not surprised by this behavior.

Which leads me to: delight.  What of it?  Lovely Kira Ryder said in her class (above) that when we have predicted something (which might sound like, "I just knew that was gonna happen..."), we are rarely referencing something positive and joyful. 

Not only does this take the surprise and delight out of life, but it's a sucky way to live.

So, my practice today was: be delighted.  Relish in my movie plot life.  See what it feels like to be engrossed and engaged in the next steps, the next action or inaction, which will (and have already) set all other things in motion.

All with kind eyes.  Open throat.  Kissable lips.  Light mind.