Little Voice, Big Yoga: A slight interruption.

After a lazy morning sleeping in, coffee and snuggles with Bodhi (my dog), I found myself with some time to kill.

Which is weird. On normal mornings I never feel like I have time to kill. Maybe being away in Ojai this past weekend reset my internal prana-give-away-er, because I think I'd usually wake up, have a short morning meditation and immediately start browsing Facebook mindlessly until it's time to get in the shower, and mutter obscenities that I didn't do anything productive.

But I didn't get on Facebook this morning. Instead, I went outside with Bodhi to sit on a rock and take in the warm(ish) mountain morning, and kept my eye on a robin that woke me up with its incessant flying toward/into my large living room window.

This life isn't so bad; three days in Ojai and I come home to my forest dwelling, birds and my pup. And sitting on my rock this morning with the sun on my face and spider webs sparkling in the morning light, I found myself drawn toward a dialogue with myself wherein I was guiding a meditation.

This is, I've realized, part of finding my voice as a teacher. I don't have a class to teach, and although Josh is always interested in learning what I have to teach about yoga, the intimacy of a private lesson between lovers is far different than a class setting. But when I hear myself speak out these ideas and messages of yoga -- even if it's just to myself on a rock behind my house -- I start to feel like I am getting to know myself as a teacher.

And then I get really excited.

So this morning after coffee, although I hadn't planned on practicing today (I thought I'd just relax and let the weekend seep into me), I found myself rolling out my crappy mat (the one I keep at home) to do a practice. This, as it turns out, would prove really difficult as it so happened that the robin from earlier in the morning was back and beating itself against my window again.

A wee note about me: when I am trying to sleep/relax/do yoga/meditate I can become nearly irate if my sweet silence is interrupted. It's gotten better over the years, and it's probably a little dramatic to use the word "irate," but I definitely noted the dark clouds of anger forming over my head when, over the weekend, I was in restorative yoga and there was a dog barking and an obnoxiously loud motorcycle just outside the studio.

P.S. Ojai: what the eff is up with your biker population??!

Anyway, I'm not proud of this. I know that part of the challenge of the journey inward is finding ways to be okay when the world does not cooperate with things like your wish for silence.

But this robin dive bombing my window thing was different. It was a precious little birdy! Trying to attack its reflection in my window! Surely death was near! I could just not handle having robin's blood on my hands/window. Eventually (per a suggestion from a friend that I should tape paper to the outside of the window) the bird's self-mutilation seemed to stop.

All this was happening, though, in the middle of what was supposed to be an uninterrupted hour of home practice. Clearly, the Universe had other things in mind.

All the same, I practiced using my own voice to guide myself into poses, feeling them out myself, remembering what I learned in Ojai, and messages I've held onto over the last few years. Things I wished teachers would say to me during class, things I say to myself.

I started with reading a guided/body scan meditation in The Art and Science of Mindfulness, and practiced reading/speaking the way I would to a class. I started to see the weaknesses in my phrasing, and where my strengths are. Weaknesses: anatomy. Strengths: communicating the spirit of the teachings.

All this, of course, according to myself. (Teaching an actual class and getting feedback would be optimal.)

Then I led myself into asana practice.

Seated virasana (hero pose) to identify intention/find alignment from the hips up, blooming through the heart, opening the throat/vocal cords to vulnerability, finding a position that the head feels fully supported in. Fluffy lips.

Cat/cow pose (marjaryasana/bitilasana) to warm up the spine/shoulders.
Plank.
Downward dog.

High lunge hip flexor stretch, right and left.
Downward dog, bring knees down.
Cat/cow with a slither. (I forget what one of my teachers called this once. It opens the side ribs and allows for some playfulness/movement of the side body before beginning surya namaskara.)

Surya Namaskara B
*Here I realized this might not be great sequencing, and it just feels wrong to put B before A, but the truth is that I get them mixed up. I also feel a bit indebted to the traditionalist in me and feel like I should start with A and then go to B if the spirit moves me. But I love sura namaskara B, which is probably why I felt inclined to go there. The question of moving spontaneously in the poses gets raised for me here, and I'm wondering if Patanjali would roll over in his grave if he knew that there is a part of me that doesn't really give a shit if A is supposed to come before B*

Right around here I got distracted with the birdy suicide happening outside my living room window and had to tend to things to ensure no birds died while I was doing yoga. When I came back I realized I was running out of time and still needed to allow time for Savasana, so I began to wrap things up.

Pigeon pose (Eka Pada Kapotasana [seriously? this is the sanskrit for this pose? holy shit!])
*Here I realized that this pose truly is becoming less and less uncomfortable for me, I think in part due to the fact that I've been putting my attention into this pose precisely because I panic when going into it. I made a special point to forgive myself for being so hard on myself with this pose in times past, as well as thanking my gorgeous hips for easing me into it all those times.*

Savasana/body scan meditation

Oh, and I found a pretty great series of photos for Surya Namaskara B, which came in handy when I was trying to figure out exactly what I was doing this morning: