Up and Over

I ran up the Sligo Creek Trail today.  A brown shape caught my attention.  Certain that it was a deer, I stopped to look, but I couldn't make complete sense of the shape.   Then the deer became conscious of me, and raised her head.  Then I realized I'd been looking almost straight on and her head had been down near the forest floor, in shadow.

A little further up the path, and I saw a black squirrel racing up the trunk of a tree that leaned slightly out over the creek.  The squirrels will often jump up onto a tree when someone comes by, but this one seemed less cautious about me and more intent on getting somewhere.  I stopped to watch as it continued to scamper up the trunk into the small branches at the top.  About then, I realized it was heading for the other side of the creek, using the trees as a sky-bridge.

The squirrel's movements became more cautious as the branches got smaller, until it reached the end of the smallest branch that would hold its weight.  It paused to weigh the gap over to the small branches reaching up from a tree on the other side of the creek, then gathered itself and launched. With true aim, it landed with the branch in its steady grasp and began its descent.

The Election of 2016

Waking up to the Washington Post headline, "Trump Triumphs," I felt a deep disquiet, a feeling that I truly do not comprehend my own country.  The opportunity lost, to elect the first woman president of the country, and a highly qualified and competent one at that, is a grievous one.  We are in for a rough, rough patch, and we could see generations of progress on environmental and social issues undone.  We will almost certainly slide toward a second rate status in world leadership, as other countries have to step up to lead on climate change, human rights, and economic issues.

This is a strong test to my resolve to be positive in all things.  That doesn't mean that I accept Trump's election as a positive outcome - far from it.  But it means that I must stay true to myself and not be defeated and despairing.  I must face the situation squarely and choose positive actions in response.

If Trump's election results in a strong opposition movement - as it should, particularly mobilizing the young - and we can survive the next four years with our economy, society and democracy intact even if injured - then there may be a light at the end of the dark tunnel we are entering.  In the meantime, each day will bring opportunities to make choices and take actions that bring light into the darkness.

Beating the Storm

This morning was bright and beautiful, with a little breeze and a steady stream of leaves tumbling down from the trees.  I was planning to ride my bike to Takoma - about 3 miles away - for a noontime yoga class.  When I checked my phone for the temperature, I noticed that rain was predicted starting as early as 1pm, but only a 60 percent chance by 2pm.  I decided to ride anyway, taking an umbrella and rain jacket in case I got caught out in a downpour.   By the time class ended, the sky in the west was getting dark.  I set out on the way back, down the hill to Sligo Creek and then up the creekside path.  The breeze had picked up and the temperature was noticeably cooler.  Each time I came out of the trees in sight of the sky, the cloud bank was thicker and darker.  I found a gear I could pedal against with just the right resistance, and came spinning up the trail, faster than I usually ride.  I slowed from time to time to make space for dog walkers and people pushing baby strollers, then brought the speed right back up.  I was working, putting my aerobic exercise training to good use, not sure if I would make it home before the storm, but giving it my best.  At the three main street crossings, I was fortunate and had to stop, just briefly, at one.  When I crossed Colesville Road, about a half mile from the house, the gusts grew stronger and more frequent, each one feeling a little cooler and showering leaves upon me.  As I reached the street a block from the house, I felt the first raindrop.  I shifted to a higher gear and stood to power up the hill to the drive, arriving right at 2 pm.  I took the bike inside and went upstairs to change.  I was standing in the closet, which has a large skylight, when it began to drum from the cloudburst that had just opened up.

Life All Around

Life is all around, in the nooks and crannies between the streets and buildings.  Sparrows and starlings are among the best urban adapted birds, along with pigeons in some areas and a few peregrine falcons that use the tallest buildings like mountain cliffs.  On warm days like today, where there are flowers, the bees will be out.  The sunflowers I've talked about before are spent and bedraggled, but just across the street is a landscaped area with some colorful little flowers.  I stopped for a bit on the walk home from yoga, and soon spotted a couple of large bees.

Wherever there are flowers, there seem to be bees, joined in this tight connection of plant and animal life, two parts of the larger system of energy collection and transfer, and propagation of life through time.

Posture and Walking

I lift my chin too much.  The back of the neck shortens and the abdominal core loses tone.  Walking over to teach yoga this morning, I found a way of aligning my body that seemed to address the issue.  The first action was to let my chin drop until I felt the back of the neck lengthen.  That brought my head level without any effort - I was actually relaxing from the habitual muscular effort of tightening neck muscles to lift the chin.  Then I focused on keeping my front relaxed and lengthened up from the top of the spine in back.  I noticed that as I walked, I felt my weight heavy in my heels with each step, and the lift at the base of my skull.  Between those points my body felt suspended - hips, legs, arms.  I focused on my heels moving down and occiput moving up and let my body move in a relaxed way - not trying to control my walking motion in any particular way - it knows what to do.  I noticed as well, as I turned my head from side to side, that the usual tension and creakiness or sticking in the neck movement was gone.  I think this can become a new and better pattern with just a little attention.

Swimming

I swim two or three times a week.  This is the most swimming I've done since the winter I was 18.  After about six weeks, I'm still getting more comfortable each time I go.  It's a challenge to calibrate my effort.  How much power can I put into swimming if I want to be able to sustain it for 100 yards?  At first, it was as if I was running without much control, and a length or two would leave me gasping. I realized that I needed to learn the equivalent of strolling, and began to slow down.  Eventually I found a pace that I could maintain, and then my distance rose quickly.  My program currently is to swim a mile or more one day a week.  On the other days, I work on shorter intervals at a higher effort level, with twenty breath rest breaks between them.

I did one of the interval sessions today before lunch.  After eating, I stretched out on the floor for a nap.  When I woke up, I could feel how tired my whole body was.  There isn't the localized stress in some joints or muscles that I often feel from running.  Instead, the sensation is broad and more subtle.

When I can, I swim in the outdoor pool.  It was cooler today - in the 60s - but the water is about 82.  An acquaintance said that her husband swam outdoors in the winter anytime it was above freezing.  I'll have to see if I have as much cold tolerance.  The walk out to the pool is when I notice it the most.  Of course, the colder it is, the warmer the water will seem.

Sunflowers and Bumblebees

A few blocks from the house, on the route I usually walk to downtown Silver Spring and the yoga studio, there are sunflowers planted in front of one of the buildings.  They're an unusual and somewhat unruly landscape plant, but they've been there year after year.  I'd like to thank the person responsible, as they're a popular attraction for bumblebees.  Almost every time I walk past, I see bees - morning, midday, or evening.  Today there were a lot of bees when I passed in early afternoon.  It's fall now, and the time for gathering pollen and getting ready for winter is growing short.  As I usually do, I stopped to watch the bees for a while.  Pollinators.  They rely on the plants for food, just as the plants rely on them for reproduction.  The co-evolution of plant and animal life is amazing.  In one sense, neither the bees or the sunflowers are separate - neither can exist without the other. They can exist only in intimate and dependent relationship - a meta-organism of bumblebee-sunflower.

Isosceles Exercise

The pool is a mile from the house.  Both the pool and the house are 3.7 miles from Willow Street Yoga in Takoma Park, making an isosceles triangle of sorts.  I left the house a little before 10:30 am and rode down through the park and up the hill on the other side to the YMCA.  After swimming my laps, I left at 11:20 for the ride to Takoma Park for a noon class.  After a short climb, a long downhill glide to the creek and then on downstream to Maple Avenue.  The last mile is all uphill, with the last part a steep climb.  After yoga, I reversed course, with a mile run down Maple Avenue and then I ride up the Sligo Creek bike trail and then home, about 2 pm.

Reprogramming

I crashed on my bike today.  Full over, onto my back, bike on top, feet still clipped into the pedals.

How did this happen?  I was nearly home from a 10.5 mile ride.  I had just turned off of the road to head over the bridge to the path that leads to our street.  Unexpectedly, I saw that two park employees had the bridge completely blocked - they were driving a 4 wheeler pulling a trailer across - they may have been blowing leaves off the trail.

The reactive part of my brain kicked in - can't go across the bridge - STOP - figure out what to do.  Unfortunately, my reaction didn't include successfully unclipping the pedals, and I toppled over.  Fortunately, the only damage was a scrape on my upper shin.

Thinking about the accident, after I got home and was washing out the wound and trying to get the bleeding stopped, I realized that the problem was in my head.  My instinct to stop when caught by surprise was not useful when I was firmly attached to the bike.  What I needed to do was to keep going, which I could easily have done in this situation.  I could have simply ridden on past the entrance to the bridge and come to a controlled stop, or continued on up the road for a ways.  But my instinct to stop in the face of danger was so strong that riding on didn't even occur to me.

I need to reprogram my brain.  When riding the road bike and clipped into the pedals, stopping is not an option.  Stopping only becomes an option after my foot is free.  So riding on must become the default, instinctive response, and I need to always be aware of the best alternative path if the one I want to take is blocked.

My Morning Walk

The morning called, and I left the house about 9 am into a cooler and less humid day.  The sun was shining through a thin layer of wavy clouds.  I stood where the brightest light was blocked by a tree and watched the play of light and shadow, and the movement of the clouds.   I turned to walk down the street and saw a hawk soaring overhead - I hadn't seen one for a while.  Then a slowly falling leaf caught my attention, and I watched as it floated down and was caught by the leaves of a smaller tree.  The journey on to earth will have to wait a while.  The breeze fluttered the poplar leaves high up, then danced the flowering shrubs before washing cool against my face.  On down into the park I walked, with calling crows overhead, squirrels rustling on the forest floor, then a shower of falling leaves, and then a single falling leaf.

I walked up a different access trail and out of the park to the neighborhood up on the hill.  A hawk - perhaps the same one I'd seen earlier - flew close by and then higher into a tree - sounding its shrill call.  Over the next few minutes it flew from one perch to another, calling.  Then I heard another hawk over to the east, returning the call.

I wandered around through the neighborhood and back down by the creek.  I paused to watch the water striders atop the calm pool and their shadows on the bottom, some small fish that occasionally rose to the surface and sent out rings of ripples, and the reflection of green leaves on the water.

Walking on through the smell of cut grass, the warmth of the sun and the coolness of the breeze were a delightful combination.  The world is rich.

Whatever Good I Can

The golden glow from the rising sun lights up patches of the tree canopy, signaling the start of a new day.  New energy coming in to power the life of the planet.  It seems so warm, generous, and peaceful.  But this is the same sun that dawns in Syria, Afghanistan, South Sudan, and so many other places where life is not generous and peaceful.  The sun rises on the evil and the good alike.  The sun doesn't judge.  It just shines, providing energy for our actions, whatever they may be.  What will I do with my day, the energy, the life that is given me?  I'll be kind, and generous, and do whatever good I can.

Summer Evening

Golden light streams in from the west.  The air is warm, but the heat of the day is off, and without the intensity of the midday sun it is quite pleasant.  Two squirrels ran out of the dogwood tree and back along the fence as I left the house.  Up the street a rabbit eschewed the thick grass of the lawn to munch on a weed poking up through the gravel drive.  Now a cardinal flies past, fast and direct toward some evening destination, as robins forage on the lawn.  Cicadas call from the trees.  A woman I know from yoga classes is walking a few houses up the street, coming home from a gathering of young families celebrating the last evening before the kids go back to school.

The very tops of the tulip poplars wave gently in a breeze that remains high above.  There's a feeling of settling, of winding down, as this part of Earth turns away from the Sun and prepares to rest for the night.  Another turn in the cycle of days.  I feel myself settling, winding down as well.  It feels good to flow with the pulse of the world, rather than fighting against it.

Movement is the Cure

Late August, and the heat wave has abated.  The mornings are cooler, but as it warms up the cicadas begin singing in the trees.  The past two days I've gone for short runs with some sprinting - I find I like sprinting as a change of pace from a long run.  This morning my legs feel the effects - tightness in the hamstrings and glutes.  I did some hamstring strengthening exercises, and I'm avoiding sitting - as that will exacerbate the tightness.

Movement is the cure.  Not big, aggressive movement or stretching, but gentle movement, and it doesn't take much to find the edges of sensation in the muscles.  I thought a bike ride would be nice, using the muscles in a very different way than running.  Rather than taking my all purpose bike out on the parkway trail, I decided to take my road bike and ride up Sligo Creek Parkway.  It was after rush hour, so I thought traffic would be light.  It was a good ride.  The road is in pretty good shape - just a few rough pavement sections on the way back.  Going west (upstream) is steadily up hill, giving nice resistance to pedal into.  Coming back is easier and faster.  I doubled up one stretch of almost a mile, for a total of 6.8 miles.  I'll be doing this more on the nice fall days coming up.

I find that getting outside for some activity in the morning improves my experience for the rest of the day.

Down With the Vines

In the hot, humid, "dog days" of summer, my morning routine has changed.  I've been going out for a short, but relatively fast run, and stopping at the parking area by the creek for some yoga to stretch out before coming back up the hill out of the park.  Sweating while practicing yoga in a studio doesn't appeal to me, but it's different outside under the morning sky, with a little bit of breeze.  There, it feels very natural - just how the human body works on a hot day.

Porcelainberry is rampant in the park, a non-native, invasive species.  The National Park Service describes it thusly:

"Porcelainberry is a vigorous invader of open and wooded habitats where it shades out native shrubs and young trees. As it spreads, it climbs over and blankets existing plants and weakens and kills them by blocking sunlight."

Whatever diseases or predators keep it in check in it's native habitat do not exist here.  This time of year it grows rapidly, often overgrowing small shrubs and trees, turning them into mounds of porcelainberry leaves until the underlying plant dies.

My morning runs are also scouting expeditions for porcelainberry problems, and several mornings I've headed back out, after eating and getting dressed in my woods clothes, to liberate some plants from their smothering green blanket.  I enjoy being out with the curious catbirds, the cardinals, robins, crows, moths and butterflies, and the singing cicadas out of sight high in the trees.

This morning I went to tackle a particularly bad area about a half mile upstream, and near the path.  The vines covered the ground in a broad area, all the smaller shrubs, and one larger tree.   I set to work pulling down the vines.  Little by little, the underlying plants emerged.  Most still had leaves, and I think they'll be fine, so long as the vines are kept off them.  Several people called out as they walked by, most saying "thank you."  It's very satisfying - wading into the mess and making it better.

Pollinators

It's the middle of summer, hot and humid. The Rose of Sharon bushes in the neighbor's yard are blooming, pink, purple and white.  These are large plants - probably 15 feet tall or more, and they are covered with blooms - some open, and some tightly furled.

One of my great pleasures is stopping to watch the bees working the flowers.  Bumblebees seem to predominate, but there are many types of smaller bees, wasps, and butterflies as well.  The bumblebees are my favorites - wings humming - flying from blossom to blossom with legs and bodies coated with pollen.  They land in a flower, look for pollen to collect, and then their wings move in a blur and they lift off to fly to the next blossom.  Busy with their life, performing their role of service to the plants even as they gather the food they need, they pay no attention to me.

Pollinators - just one example of the complex relationships among the different forms that life takes, that are essential to its continuation.  The flower is beautiful, the bee a marvelous creature - but one cannot exist without the other.  They depend on each other, as we depend on myriad forms of life for the air we breathe and the food we eat, and even the ability to digest our food.  It is a huge mistake to think of ourselves as separate from the rest of life - to not acknowledge and nurture our relationship with the rest of nature.

Reducing "Stuff"

We have a yard shed in the back corner of the lot.  It had been a while since I'd used it.  How long?  I don't know, but the evidence suggests several years.  First, both Pam and I had forgotten the combination to the lock.  Second, the paving stone path up the hill to the shed was hidden beneath a thick layer of leaves and soil, and the acubas had grown out to block the way.  I wanted to tidy up the garage some and move some little used gardening things to the shed, and I was looking for our lawn sprinkler, which also hadn't been used in several years.  I have a good pair of bolt cutters, so after trying several combinations that came to mind, I gave up and cut the lock.  The shed was empty except for a number of empty pots for plants.  No sprinkler.

I cleaned off the path, trimmed the shrubs, and began packing things from the garage.  The garage is quite a bit neater, the shed has been put to use, and I found the sprinkler on the garage floor, out of sight - partially beneath a weed eater that I had completely forgotten we had.  Yes, the last three years or so of working full time and being busy with yoga teacher training and then training, took my attention off a lot of things.  After a couple of hours, I have a neater garage and a refreshed mental map of the things we have there.

The sheer volume of "stuff" we have around the house is going to take a lot of effort to work through.  So far my efforts have been baby steps - like the stack of long unused clothing I'm going to drop off tonight on my way to teach yoga - but at least there is movement in the right direction.

How Things Work

Here's something I can't explain.  Why have Mindful Day blog posts dried up since I retired, even though I have a lot more time that I could write them?  I really don't have an answer, but I do have a post for today.

I've relearned the lesson that I do best with a day when I get started early on and get a thing or two done - even little things.  That seems to created momentum that I can carry on.  Other days I may get bogged down, or have a hard time even starting a project, and those days it's a struggle to be motivated.  Energy is wasted, not doing things, but mulling over what I most should be doing, and at that moment, probably don't feel like doing.

Today I felt that I couldn't put off another round of reunion planning any longer.  This chore, which I'd been putting off for weeks, took some time and effort, but wasn't hard in any objective way.  It helped me to get away from the computer.  I copied down info I needed to sort out lodging arrangements, and went out on the back deck to work.  In that enjoyable setting, the work went smoothly.  I sent off a few emails and made a list of some other things that need attention, and am happy to have made good progress.

After getting that project done - probably the one I was carrying the most resistance to - I then felt the energy to tackle another languishing project - mowing the yard with a mower than has begun running poorly.  I needed to get gasoline, and then realized that I hadn't yet installed the new spark plug I bought.  I took the cover off to clean out some debris, thinking the problem might be poor airflow, installed the new plug, and started the mower.  It still isn't running well, but worked well enough for me to finish the yard.  I then took the blade off and sharpened it - the last thing that I know how to do that might help it work better.  I enjoyed the physicality of turning a wrench, and the shower of sparks that flew from the mower blade as it was sharpened.  Simply doing some work, without much concern about the outcome.  It would be nice to find some magic and have the mower work well again, but more likely we'll be getting a new one soon.

Graceful Transition

Almost five years ago, I started taking yoga classes, and one of the first classes I enrolled in was an early morning class on Wednesdays taught by Pat Blum.  I continued to go to the class, even as I completed teacher training and began to teach - with the added benefit that, as a teacher, I didn't have to pay to take the class.  Over time, the relationships with Pat, her husband Charlie, and several other students that were in the class for years, became more important than the yoga poses.  After class most weeks, we'd stop by Starbucks and spend some time socializing, sharing about work and family events.

This morning was the last class.  Pat and Charlie are moving to Arizona, and the class won't be on the schedule for the summer.  Perhaps fittingly, only the core group was at class today. The class itself was entirely normal, there was no reason for it not to be.  We all accepted the reality of the transition, and seemed ready to move on.  We gave Pat some parting gifts, went to Starbucks one last time, and arranged to get together for one last practice at Pat and Charlie's house in about a month, before they pack up and head west.

I'm glad that I continued to get up early on Wednesday morning and walk over to a 6:30 am yoga class, even when I was tired and, in superficial terms, had moved beyond the level of the class.  It was the sense of community, the shared experience and interest in each other as people, that became the real reason to go.

The Spring I was Hoping For

May has been very wet and rainy, including another round of light rain and then heavier thunderstorms yesterday.  I was out on a shopping expedition and hadn't expected the front that moved in, so I was lucky to be in the car when the thunder and lightning started and the rain was heaviest.

This morning is pretty - mostly clear skies and a light breeze.  Very springlike - the kind of weather I was looking forward to enjoying in my first month of retirement.  I went out to plant a couple of basil plants in the garden, and the morning was perfect.  The plants are installed now, and I'm hoping they'll do well.  The last ones that I put out, which were smaller, were attacked by some insect and didn't survive.  The strawberry plants are gigantic this year - I've been trying to figure out how the strange spring weather accounts for that.  They bloomed and bore fruit several weeks earlier than normal as well.

When I'm out running errands - or more accurately, walking errands - I've begun taking different routes home, walking streets that I've never been on before.  Often I'll end up down at Sligo Creek, and then take the trail back home.  It's a treat to have the time to do that, and not be in a hurry all the time.

Two Weeks Retired, Seems Like Forever!

My second week was less scattered than my first, and by the end of the week I was thinking it felt like longer than two weeks since I left work behind.  It is fading rapidly in the rear-view mirror.  I don't miss it, which seems like strong confirmation that it was time to go.

Today, I had nothing that I had to do.  Shopping is now during the week, I mowed the yard yesterday, and had no yoga classes to teach.  So I got to choose my day with more freedom than usual.  The morning was nice - sunny and in the 70s - the first really nice day in quite a while.  More rain was forecast for the afternoon, so I went down to the park a little before 10, cut down a patch of bamboo, and then went to sit by the creek for an hour.  Later, I did some yoga planning, some cooking, some music, and went through my closet, throwing a few things away and setting a few more aside for donation.  There's more ridding out to do - retirement wardrobe will be different than that for work.

Tomorrow, on the other hand, will be a busy day.  Four yoga classes, the first at 9:30 am, and the last ending at 8:30 pm.  In the early afternoon gap, Pam and I will be going to a birthday party for my 2nd cousin Susan Braden.  Then, I float into week 3 of retirement, figuring it out as I go.

Stressless Plumbing, Dripless Faucets

I didn't have a firm plan for this morning, but thought I'd read for a bit after breakfast - that seems to be a good time for me to study.  Then I went into the bathroom, and the dripping faucet seemed to say, "You have time, you could fix me."

The faucet has been dripping for months, and as these things to, has been gradually worsening.  There were some repair parts from a previous project, so I got those and set to work.  This could be a 15 minute project - so why wait months to do it?  Because it could also not be a 15 minute project.  What could go wrong?  It's plumbing - pretty much anything could go wrong - and then I'm out of time and have a mess on my hands.  So, the rational decision often seems to just let it drip.

Over-scheduling, over-busyness, creates stressful situations like that.   But this morning, I had time to fix the faucet.  15 minutes?  All morning?  Whatever.

I turned off the hot water supply line and the drip stopped.  Good - just one side to fix.  I took the faucet stem apart and realized my leftover parts were incomplete.  That's OK, I can make a quick trip to the hardware store.  Then Pam came in and said, "The faucet upstairs is dripping too, can you fix that?"  Sure.

I took advantage of the trip to also stop at the grocery store for the granola they had been out of yesterday, and picked up some basil and mozzarella, because a caprese salad seemed like a good idea today.

Back home, I set to work on the faucet, replaced the washers, and reassembled.  Oops, handle rotates backwards - but the drip is fixed.  A quick reassembly, and faucet one is done.  Upstairs, the drip was also on the hot water side.  The handle was corroded on, but eventually succumbed to my efforts, and the rest of the job went smoothly.  This time, I knew the right orientation for the reassembly.  There's still one moment of anxiety, when the faucet is put back together and I turn the water back on, worried that there will be a drip, or worse, water will be shooting out of the faucet.  But all is well.  Water is on, and the seals are working as they should.

Simply having the time to work, knowing that if something went awry I could take the time to deal with it and not feel pressured by other tasks or commitments, felt really good.

So Much To Do!

You might think that retirement would mean empty time and not much to do.  But my first few days have revealed how much there is to do - accumulated over the past several years of being too busy.  The house is full of unfinished business - and now I have time to finish it.  Each day I do at least a little - of course I'm doing the easy things first, like shredding a pile of paper that had sat by the shredder for months - or moving a few boxes into the back room.  But it's a start, helping me internalize the amount of time to do each thing, so my expectations are better calibrated.  

Also helpful are breaking the bigger tasks down into smaller pieces, and being committed to finish things once they're begun.  I may try focusing for a week just on one room, and see how that works.

Wish me luck!

Retired!

Today was the first "work day" after my retirement.  I still had to get up early to teach yoga at the NOAA gym, but then, instead of going upstairs to work, I walked home.  It feels a little odd to suddenly not have any of the work that has been part of my life for the past 25 years, and to wonder what emails have come into my work address that will never be read or answered.

But mostly, I enjoyed the day - feeling my way through it - dealing with having to make more decisions about what to do and when, now that the routine and structure of work is absent.

I went grocery shopping in the morning - a pleasant experience compared with the weekend shopping of the past.  In the afternoon, I recorded another meditation for my yoga website.  That took 2 hours to complete and post on the website, and print a copy to use in my classes this week.  When I finished, it was 4 pm and very nice out, so I went for a run.  After that I vacuumed part of the house, practiced some yoga, took a shower, and helped with dinner, before my evening yoga class.

So, a busy day, quite different from a pre-retirement Monday.   Tomorrow will be similar, I expect - with a couple of yoga classes and more shopping - this time the periodic Target/Petsmart trip.  I have a lot of things to get to - just less pressure on exactly when they get done.  I'm thinking I'll set goals for the week, for the major things, and then go with the flow.

 

What's Going On Outside?

This morning was chilly - the temperature today only made it to the high 40s.  Mixed rain and snow was in the forecast, with periods of gusty winds.  The blossoms of redbuds, dogwoods, tulips and forsythia looked a little out of sorts.

Around 10 o'clock I was in the middle of a yoga class.  The studio has a wall of windows that the students face but are at my back.  I gave an instruction for tree pose, and a student pointed out the window and said something that I didn't catch to her neighbor.  Then other students' attention was pulled out the window as well.  "What's out there?" I asked.  "Snow, blowing sideways," was the response.

Ahh, Spring!

What's Going On Inside?

Yesterday I had a lunchtime meeting, so it was about one o'clock when I went downstairs (well, down-elevator) to get a sandwich.  When I got back to my office, I sat down to eat and scan through some old documents (from 1990) that I'd found in my files.  I found it difficult to read - the page seemed bright and a bit disorienting, like those patterns that make you dizzy to look at.  After struggling a bit, I realized it wasn't the document, it was something in my head - creating a region of blurred vision.  When I closed my eyes I saw the same shape - very bright - and very not normal for me.  After 30-45 minutes, my vision gradually returned to normal, but I felt a little dizzy, or lightheaded.

An afternoon of tests and monitoring failed to reveal any problem.  Today I've felt tired and just a bit 'off,' but nothing specific.  I hope another good night's sleep will continue the improvement.

Spring Progress

The cherry blossoms and magnolias are nearly gone now.  In their place, the redbuds are in full bloom - more fuschia than red - and the dogwoods have, all of a sudden, begun to flower.

This post, from April 14, 2014, shows that the spring blooming is perhaps two weeks earlier this year.  In 2015, my post about dogwood and redbud was from April 20, though things were farther along than they are now.

Life has to deal with lots of variability this time of year.  Temperatures were in the 70s today, but it will freeze tonight and then top out in the high 40s tomorrow.  I noticed this evening that the rhubarb has just begun to come up.

Sometimes, we know, the variability is too much.  It's too cold for too long, and the fig trees die back.  It's warm too early, coaxing the trees to bud and then get nipped by a bitter cold snap.  In the end, there's a certain pattern to spring, but a lot of difference in the details that makes each year unique.

Taking it Easy

My top priority for today was finishing the data entry for our income tax return.  I had intended to work more on it last Saturday, but let myself be pulled into recording a meditation for my yoga website and figuring out how to modify my site and load the audio file.  I'm glad I did that, as it moves me along with my yoga teaching goals, but it also made it even more important to finish the taxes this weekend, as I'll be busier for the next two, and then the taxes are due.

This year I had additional complexity with my yoga income and expenses,  I also had some investment information to enter, and that often leads to some frustration as I hunt for some piece of information that isn't available on the statements, or face a question from the tax software that I don't fully understand.

Overlaying all this detail is the fact that I never know how long it will take, or whether I'll get part way through and get stuck.  These uncertainties are often the root of my not wanting to sit down and start.  Doing the taxes seems hard.

Sitting at the table after breakfast, finishing my coffee, the thought occurred to me that there's nothing about the taxes that is hard.  It only seems hard because I'm looking at it as a single thing.  But it's really a lot of small things, and none of them are particularly hard.  Looking something up, creating a little spreadsheet to total some numbers, entering data into the forms.  Broken down into small enough steps, each step is easy.

And so, a few hours later, I was done.  I had to take a few detours and work on some pieces before I could enter them, but it wasn't hard.  I chose to let it be easy.

Stuff

Cleaning out my office at work - so much stuff that I kept, thinking it might be important, that I needed it, that it was valuable.  Not right at the moment, of course, that's why it got put on a shelf, or filed in a folder, but someday I'd need it.  In the end, the vast majority had never been looked at again, and very had been important to keep.

What does this tell me about myself?  Filing something away is not putting it to use - it's setting aside - creating a latent store of stuff that only will require more time and energy in the future.  It's creating an obligation for my future self, do deal with things that I'm not prepared to deal with, or let go of, right now.

Keeping stuff creates a little sense of security - maybe I'll need it someday and then I'll have it - perhaps it's the same instinct that compels us to store food in times of plenty.  But keeping too much stuff begins to become a weight dragging me back.  Every minute spent sorting through old stuff, making another decision about whether to keep it or not, is a minute I'm not spending on meeting my current goals, or simply enjoying life in the present.

Before I keep the next item of stuff, I should ask a couple of questions - "Is this thing useful to moving ahead with my life right now?"  "Is there a reason to think it may be vital in the future, and is irreplaceable?"  If not, I'm better off to let it go right now.

Cardinals

Cardinals, or more properly, cardinal grosbeaks, are common birds in our neighborhood.  They are year-round residents, sticking around after the robins and other migrants have gone south to warmer climes.  This time of year they are establishing their territories and nests.  We had a nest in the shrubs at the front of the house last year, and I've seen a pair flitting around there again this year.  Yesterday, as I walked to work on a bright, sunny morning, a male sat on a wire above the street, trying mightily to impress a nearby female.  Resplendent in his bold red feathers and yellow beak, he flared out his tail feathers in a fan, strutting his stuff.

A Little Time Outside

It's a lovely day - 55 degrees this afternoon - but it feels warmer in the sun.  I did the first project of the year preparing to garden - rotating a bin of compost into another composter to finish it off.  It felt good to be outside, working, moving, feeling the warm sun and cool air.  The forsythia is in full bloom, and a female cardinal perched in the still bare tree and sang while I worked.

The fig tree is budding - I'm hoping for a good year from it after a hard winter a year ago that killed it back.  Across the street, one oak still holds onto brown leaves from last year, even as the canopy of tulip poplars above is beginning to green up.  There's still a lot of spring to go, but it's off to a good start.

Transition

Another Friday, another week checked off.  Three more weeks to go until I leave for a week in Colorado.  When I return, the last week of April, I'll have four work days before my retirement.  To some degree, these past few weeks have felt like biding time, as my work began to dwindle and my focus shifted to the next phase of my life.

I'm ready.  My career in fisheries feels complete, and I am much more energized about my yoga life.  I've described yoga as my retirement off-ramp.  When I decided to do yoga teacher training - it was the summer of 2013 - retirement seemed quite a ways off.  Now I've been teaching for a year and a half, and thoroughly enjoying it.  I expect it will be even better when the time I'm currently spending at work opens up.

I'm not planning to increase my teaching load much, but will be looking for the best quality opportunities and working on producing some yoga and meditation videos for my website.

Twenty more work days to go!

The Power of a Pause

I enjoy my walks to and from work, though my habit is to treat them as a commute, not a stroll.  Head out at a good pace, see how well I can time the traffic lights, and get to the destination in about 25 minutes.  One Friday afternoon in Spring a few years ago, I was walking home from work.  It was a pretty day - the sun was out, the sky the deepening blue of early evening.  The early flowering trees had been out for a few weeks, and were beginning to leaf out, pushing the pink and white petals off to fall to the ground.

As I walked toward a couple of large ornamental cherry trees, seeing the blanket of petals on the ground, I realized that the flowers would be gone by the next time I passed.  I stopped under the arcing branches, heavy with flowers and new leaves, and looked up through the thousands of blossoms backlit against the blue sky.  Deeply aware of my own presence, feeling my breath move in and out, I stood and soaked in the beauty for a while, then turned for the walk home with an indelible impression in my mind, and an appreciation for the power of a pause.

Today I walked under these trees again, stepping on some of the early petals that had already fallen.  Another year gone by, another cycle of flowers bursting forth for a few weeks after the dormancy of winter.  Another pause, to look up through the clusters of white flowers to the blue sky beyond.

Watching the World Turn

Sitting at my desk today, taking notes during a conference call, I noticed a pattern of ovals - light spots in a line on my paper from light passing past the curved ends of the partially closed blinds on my windows.

Grabbed by a spirit of doodling, I quickly traced the outline of each oval.   My attention was diverted for some time - but not long - tens of seconds, not minutes.  When I glanced down again I was surprised at how far the light spots had moved from the tracing.

Then I watched.  There was a tiny bit of motion in the blinds, so a tiny wiggle of the spots on the paper back and forth, but a discernible directional movement as well.  I've noticed this before, watching shadows.  The movement of the Earth, rotating 360 degrees in 24 hours, is right at the limit of what I can discern.  If I'm really focused I can perceive the movement, but at a more casual glance things seem to be still.  It's easier to be aware of the motion glancing back at longer intervals, because the accumulated movement appears as a significant jump.  In real-time, the motion seems incredibly slow.

Breathing

Feel your next breath come in, filling your lungs with air.  In the few seconds before you finish exhaling that breath, your body has exchanged millions of oxygen molecules for carbon dioxide that flows out into the atmosphere.

The motion of the molecules and the currents of the wind mix your exhale with that of all the other people and animals on the planet into the swirling layer of gas that covers the Earth.

Light from the Sun streams out into space.  A tiny bit of it reaches the surface of Earth, and a tiny bit of that is captured by chlorophyll molecules in plants and used to build sugars from carbon dioxide captured from the air, releasing oxygen back into the atmosphere.

A blade of grass in someone's yard; an ancient tree in a tropical rainforest; a phytoplankton cell floating in the ocean - any of these - perhaps all of these - have produced the oxygen in the breath that is entering your lungs right now.  Your exhale disperses molecules of carbon dioxide that drift and ride the currents of the wind to the ends of the Earth until they are captured once more by a plant, completing the cycle.

The Earth spins, ever turning toward and turning away from the energy streaming in from the Sun.  At any time, half the world is producing more oxygen than it is using, and the other half consuming more than it produces.

There is no way to isolate yourself from this process.  We take for granted that the air we breathe will sustain us,  but when we understand that the oxygen we need with each breath has been produced by another life form somewhere on the planet, and that our exhale will someday become part of a tree or a rice plant, a rose or a strand of moss on the forest floor, we realize our life is intimately connected with all life on Earth, through the process of breathing.

Morning Wildlife

My short run along Sligo Creek this morning turned into a wildlife viewing trek.  First up was a fox that crossed the trail, moving up from the creek, across Sligo Creek Parkway, and up onto the wooded hillside.  Foxes are very alert, and wary. I paused and jogged in place to watch it, and it paused on the hillside to watch me.  After a bit, it must have felt a little insecure, turned and moved a few feet farther up the hill, then turned to watch me again.

Next was a squirrel with a mouthful of leaves, scampering up a very small tree.  I knew it must be headed up to pad its nest in a taller tree, and stopped to watch.  It worked its way from one small tree to another, then out to the end of a branch for a leap through the air onto the side of the trunk of a tall tree.  I wonder how many trips it will take to get enough leaves for the nest.  Meanwhile, in the creek behind me, a pair of mallards swam downstream.

I ran on up the trail about a quarter mile, where there is a larger field as the trail and creek move apart.  There, three deer browsed and I stopped to watch.  They weren't close to the trail, but one in particular was nervous about my presence, and soon flipped its white tail up and trotted a few yards closer to the creek.  When I returned back down the trail a few minutes later, they had crossed the creek to a grassy field between the creek and the parkway.  I guess cars are less scary than runners.

Even More Signs of Spring

In the past week or so, cherry trees have bloomed, the magnolias are beginning to blossom, crocus and daffodils are up, and the forsythia tips are turning bright yellow.  I even saw a dandelion blooming on Friday when I walked to work.

At yoga class this morning, a dove was sitting on the window sill peering in at the people moving around.

I looked back at last year's blog, and it seems that spring is coming 2-3 weeks earlier this year, after a pretty mild winter.  Every day now will bring more color back to the landscape, as winter fades into spring.

More Signs of Spring

The daytime temperature rose into the 70s today.  It was cooler, but still nice at 9:30 pm as I walked home from teaching yoga.  There seemed to be two currents of air, doing a dance,  one cool, the other warmer.  As I walked along, I'd feel a swirl of warmth followed by a much cooler breeze, and this continued for the whole walk home.  As I turned onto Highland Drive, I spied Orion overhead at about the same instant that I began to hear the honking of a migrating flock of geese high overhead.  Perhaps they were navigating by the stars as well.  To the north, Ursa Major turned upside down as it pointed toward the North Star.

With even higher temperatures forecast for the next few days, there will be rapid changes all around us.

Territory

A crow cawed from the top of a large maple tree as I walked home yesterday.   Its call was answered from another tree several yards over.  What a different world it must look like from the crow's point of view.  Buildings spread out across the hills underneath all the places to perch.  Nothing in the layout of blocks, streets, building lots, houses, or title deeds matters - just that there are trees to roost in, and food and water.  I don't know what these neighborhood crows eat - they may travel for sustenance and just use these trees for nesting.  At any rate, they have no sense of, or respect for, the ownership that we claim to the squares of land.  They sort out their territories in their own way, singing from the tree tops.

Energy Fluctuations

Today oscillated between bursts of energy and wanting to take a nap.  The main event of the day was my first yoga photo shoot - getting some new photos for my studio bios and for use on my own website, which is under development.  The photographer is a professional, and also a friend of mine and a yoga teacher, all of which made it an an enjoyable and productive session.  (... all that optimism, and I haven't seen the photos yet...)

We also had a hunter-gathering (shopping) trip to three stores for household supplies, pet supplies, and groceries.  Saturday afternoon isn't the ideal time to be out.  I suspect most of the many, many other people who are out feel that way too.  But we survived the traffic and the long lines at the store, and made it home with everything we need.  We only have to go for the non-grocery items once every 2-3 months, so it's just an occasional ordeal.

In between the activities, I'd find myself sitting with a cup of tea, and perhaps a cat on my lap, thinking I should be doing something else, but not feeling the energy to get up and do it.  Eventually, after I had nursed the tea for a while, I'd gather myself and focus on another task from the to-do list.

Late Season Snow

Snow fell overnight, and I woke this morning to find everything covered with a layer of white.   The dogwood tree outside the kitchen window was like a postcard picture - every branch, every twig, frosted perfectly.

As sometimes happens late in winter, the snow came on falling temperatures after several relatively warm days.  When the snow came, it was a little wet and sticky.  Paved surfaces had enough heat that the snow melted on contact, but it coated the lawns, bushes and trees.

Beautiful to look at, while not causing any transportation problems.  That's about perfect.

Balancing Preparation and Spontaneity

Tonight was my last class of a busy yoga teaching week.  From last Friday through today, I taught 14 classes.  Until I counted them up, I hadn't realized how many there were.  I'm surprised I don't feel more exhausted, but now I'll have a break for a couple of days before Sunday, which is my busiest day most weeks, with three classes.

While teaching so much has taken up a lot of time, it also has made me a much better teacher more quickly.  Some new teachers barely manage to find one regular class a week to teach, so I have been very fortunate.  I also work hard at it, continually looking for new things to teach and trying new things in my own practice.  I keep detailed notes about every class I teach.  Perhaps one day I'll feel that is no longer useful, but I find it helpful to refer back to what I did previously for a class, or I'll use the notes for a particularly successful class as the starting point for the next class I teach.  But I've never taught two classes using exactly the same poses in the same order.

Teaching a class has a strong improvisational component - reacting to what I'm seeing and sensing from the students.  Of course, improvisation without sound preparation and structure is just chaos.  There has to be a balance of preparation and spontaneity in each class, and each class I'm trying to find it.

Late Winter

This time of year, one day can be warm and spring-like, and the next can be icy cold.  Today was clear, but with decreasing temperature and a biting, gusty wind.  Beautiful to look at, but a shock to be out in.  On the walk home tonight, I saw the first pink buds atop a magnolia tree.

In just a few days, though, it will be in the 70s.  Then, as each week passes, the chances of wintry weather diminish.  The cherry blossoms and daffodils will splash color across the bare landscape, and then the trees will begin to green.

Late winter will slide into early spring - there's no way to tell exactly when that happens.  But one day, I'll walk outside and know that winter is gone - until next year.

Crocus

March 1.  Blue sky morning, not a cloud in sight, and the sun is streaming down, stirring a cool, light breeze and lighting up the crocus that have emerged.  It seems too soon to call these early flowers of spring.  They are, rather, flowers of late winter.  We'll have plenty of cold weather, perhaps even more snow before spring arrives.  But along with the lengthening days, the crocus emphatically declare that winter's time is short now.

Quiet Running

I did another run/walk on Saturday - three miles with two walk breaks.  I recently read about a study of runners and injuries that found a group of runners with little history of injuries, and the difference was their low-impact technique.

It's good to be light on your feet, but how to do that?  I've learned that keeping my core engaged and running with a sense of lift seems to reduce impact, and the walking breaks I've been taking have helped keep my fresh - it's when I get tired that I lose tone and feel more pounding.

Saturday as I was running along and hearing the sound of my own running and that of others, I had that thought that running as quietly as possible could be a good way to find efficiency and a low impact stride.  At first I wasn't sure I could do it, but before long I was running along with almost no sound - and noticing more the slaps and clomps of other runners.  Everyone seemed to have a unique sound.

After work today I set out for a three mile run and thought I might make it without any walk breaks.  I quickly found the quiet form and focused on keeping that.  My plan was to keep going unless I couldn't maintain the form.  As I ran, I felt good.  A couple of times I began to land a bit harder, but was able to adjust and keep going.  When I started to feel the effects, it was fatigue in my quadriceps, not soreness, stiffness or pain in my ankles or knees.  Running quietly helped me keep a springy feeling, without plodding or jarring.  I felt better at the end of the run that I have in a long time.

Excavation

Confession - I keep too much stuff, I leave it lying around, then I pile more on.  Before long I've forgotten what is there, and I let it sit.

Today, I wanted to get size information about a pair of jeans I had bought and I thought the receipt was on top of my dresser, a few layers down.  So, I excavated, pulling everything off and sorting through it.  A few things I wanted to keep, but most was passé.

The excavation was a success, although I didn't find the receipt.  I got the top of my dresser back, and it's nice to have a little less clutter.

 

First Flowers

The wind was biting when I left work.  The office buildings funnel and accelerate it.  I hurried a few blocks, warming up from the inside as the wind subsided on the outside.  The second half of my walk was down the gradual slope from Georgia Avenue to Sligo Creek, under almost clear blue skies.

A little color in one of the yards caught my attention.  Could the crocus be coming up already?  Indeed - poking light purple blooms an inch or two above the grass.  Across the street, a little farther down, yellow blossoms of Eranthis covered the ground and when I reached the wooded area near the house, I saw clusters of white flowers from another plant that I've seen in the park but don't know the name of.

It must have been a few days since I walked that way, or all these flowers popped out at once. It was nice to see them, another reminder, like the lengthening days and the singing cardinals, that even though it still feels like winter, spring is on the way.

Swirling

A front moved through this evening bringing strong winds.  As I walked up the stairs and across the plaza from the Metro station, leaves and litter were swirling around in little vortices of wind.

I stopped to watch one for a while, swirling in a partly protected entrance area.  It moved around, but always circled back, and seemed quite persistent.  I walked over to it, expecting to feel some strong wind, but there was little power to it, just enough to blow the leaves.  I thought my presence might disrupt it, but I seemed wrong about that too.  As I left, the wind continued to swirl its captured objects.

Pale Crows

I walked home mid-afternoon, hoping to beat the forecasted thunderstorms.  The air has been thick with moisture today.  The level of my office, about 15 stories up, was well up in the cloud.

There was a light mist, and then a little heavier rain, for the first part of my walk.  After I reached the neighborhood, I walked about a block before passing under a huge maple tree.  Then I heard the crows, calling with the complex vocalizations of spring breeding season.  I looked up and saw the flock flying toward me, heading, as it turned out, for the tall tree.  The sound and the shape said "crow," but the color was flat, light gray.  The cloud was so low that even at treetop level the crows were masked by the foggy grayness.

Fog gray.  It's a nice hue for crows.  More ephemeral than their usual jet black, a bit ghost-like.

Where is the Energy?

As my retirement date approaches - now just over two months away - I feel my energy and interest shifting away from work.  I suppose that's to be expected, though it's interesting to experience.  I'm not making any effort to disengage, it just seems to be happening on its own.

At the same time, I'm spending more time thinking about things I'd like to do after I retire.  Outdoor activities seem to rise to the top, and I continue to find a lot of energy related to teaching yoga.  Even on a day like today, when I was tired and the weather was gray, wet and cold, I was energized by my two yoga classes this evening.

Monday's Run

I woke up early this morning (Tuesday) realizing that I hadn't written a post last night.  I had intended to, but a power outage earlier in the day had shut the computer down, and when it came back on, trying to reload all the programs that had been opened, it was bogged down.  By the time I worked through all the issues, closing out windows I didn't need and then restarting again because it still wasn't responding well, the intention to post had slipped out of my consciousness.

The singular memory of Monday was from my morning walk to work.  I had just a brief glimpse of the moon, large, bright and full, about to set in the west.

I left work in time to get in another short run before dark.  This would be the third day in a row, and I wouldn't have another chance to get a run in until Thursday.  I did another round of alternating jogging and walking - this time jogging for 60 breaths before walking for about 20.  One breath cycle is eight steps, and while 60 doesn't seem a very big number, I went almost a mile in 3 segments - 2 running and one walking.

I focused on being light on my feet, keeping my core engaged, and running with good form.  I also noticed the difference between the end of a running segment and the start of the next one, after the walking break.  My conclusion is that my endurance with good form is a lot less then my endurance just slogging along, and this approach of very slowly working into running shape is a good idea.  My hope is that I'll keep myself from a running injury this season.

After the run, I stretched out with some yoga.  Following where my body leads is a good way to find new combinations of movements and poses that I wouldn't have thought of.  My post-run stretch turned into a plan for my classes on Tuesday, advancing both my own practice and my teaching.  I like when things flow and connect up like that.

Making Some Space

In the 12 years we've lived in Maryland, the house has gradually filled with stuff.  When I moved Dad to Oklahoma in 2012, I came back with a van load of things that filled spaces downstairs.

As I looked around the house for someplace with space and light to make some simple yoga videos, the best candidate was the room downstairs, which has the most windows of any room in the house.  But it was a mess, and there was no space.

Saturday, I spent a couple of hours with one goal - to rid out and consolidate enough stuff to take down one folding table, that had things on top and boxes underneath.  Once that was done, there was a nice opening in the clutter but I didn't think it was quite enough.

What next?  I decided to tear down the drum set and pack it away in the closet, which made room to move some sound system components farther down the wall.  Now there was enough space along the wall for my immediate purposes, but there's still much to do.  The way my mind works, space feels good and calls for more space.  Clutter makes me feel stuck and I tend to ignore it for too long.

One of my retirement goals was to clean up and rid out, and it feels good to get a start at it.

A Little Run

Warm air pushed into the D.C. area today.  It's making a short visit, and tomorrow will be ten degrees cooler.   To take advantage of it, I went for an easy jog/walk in the park.  It was my first running in several months, and felt so awful at first that I wondered if it was too much.  After a bit, I slowed to a walk, then stopped to read an updated sign about the coming of spring, with a couple of excerpts from Robert Frost.

The park was full of people walking, running, cycling, playing at the playgrounds.  It was as if the houses had emptied out.  Any really nice weekend day of early spring draws people to the park, and today was extraordinary - mid 60's at least a month before one could hope to have a day so warm.

As I alternated jogging and walking, the jogging became more fluid, and turned into running, for short bursts at least.  By taking frequent breaks, I was able to stay fresh and light on my feet, avoiding the pounding that can come when I get tired.

This seems like a good way to easy back into the exercise - leaving the watch at home - and simply doing as much as it feels good to do.  

Sounds of Spring

I was meditating upstairs this morning, and heard a dove cooing.  Only in the hearing, was I aware that the sound of birds had been missing from the mornings of winter.  The sound brought to mind other mornings, when the soundtrack for my sitting was an orchestra of birdsong.  A little later I heard a cardinal singing.

So the birds have noticed the increasing daylight as well!  Even though nights are still cold, it's the season for them to begin staking out their territories for the spring.  Welcome back.  I look forward to hearing the sounds of spring.

Critter

It's winter, and people are getting sick - even yoga teachers - and so I have an abundance of opportunities to teach.  Last night, late, an email request to sub an 8pm class in Silver Spring.  Well maybe, but I have a class in Takoma that ends at 7:30.  Could I make it?  Check the Metro schedule - yes, just barely.  OK.  Reply yes.  Then email the studio to let them know what's going on and not to panic if I'm not there until right before 8.  All seems well.

Just before class in Takoma, Natalie sticks her head in the room - not looking well.  "Could you teach my Level 1 class later this evening?"  "Sorry, I can't.  I'm going over to Silver Spring to teach Morgan's class.  But I can teach the 10 am class tomorrow that you were subbing for another teacher who is out of town."

Then the hurry after class to the Metro - great, the train is 3 minutes early.  (a little way down the tracks).  OK, not great, the train is stopped.   Then goes.  Then stops.  Then goes.  Then stops.  Finally it pulls into Silver Spring, now 4 minutes late.  I hustle up the street to the studio, arriving at 7:58.  Quick change and a restroom visit, and I'm ready to go - almost on time.

So now it's after class, about 9:30, and I'm walking home.  It's cold, but not unpleasant.  I'm tired - exhausted really - and so I almost miss the dark furry shape hurrying across the street into some shadows.  Cat?  Really fat, furry cat?  No.  Oh.... raccoon.  Really, they waddle that much?  It has been a few years since I saw a raccoon in the neighborhood - but they must always be here - hiding away - and often I suspect - out where they could be seen, but they aren't, because we're distracted, not paying attention, or simply really tired.

Sycamore

Mid February, and the evenings are noticeably lighter now.  As I walked home, the air was clear and brisk, and the late afternoon sun lit up the light gray branches of the large sycamore tree that stands near Alton Parkway a couple of blocks from my house.  The smooth, gray and white patchwork branches that twist at random ankles and spread broadly make the sycamore one of my favorite trees.

Just Another Evening

I had an all day meeting in downtown Silver Spring followed by teaching two yoga classes.  The meeting location was just a block away from the yoga studio, so I had planned to stay downtown, teach, and then walk home.   Thinking about it a bit more, I decided to walk home after the meeting ended at 5pm, eat a little, and then drive back for the yoga classes, as the last one ended after 9 pm.

It took a few blocks of walking to settle into the feel of the evening, and then I began to notice the clouds in the sky lit by the setting sun.  I stopped to watch them for just a bit, then turned to walk on home.  Then I spied the moon - just a little more than half lit - high in the deep blue evening sky, and three vultures soaring in a circle, wings lit by the sunlight.

Just another evening, but so much to take in.  Another block of walking, and the birds were gone off to the east, and the light on the clouds had dramatically changed.  That's life.  Always changing, always full, there to be appreciated, or ignored.  The richness of our life experience is really up to us, and whether we are able to be present for it.

The Meaning of a Chant

The atmosphere changes from day to day.  Most days you can see well, but may notice some haziness of distant objects.  Some days the air is thick, and obvious.  Now and then there will be a day with crystal clarity - the air so pure that everything seems brighter, sharper, with more vibrant colors and deeper contrasts.

I wrote a while back about my observation that chanting Om was effective at clearing my mind:
http://mindfulday.blogspot.com/2013/10/om-and-etch-sketch-principle.html

Lately, I've been using four resonant syllables in my practice and some classes, which sound like "om - ma - ah - hum" - all in a single breath.  I enjoy singing it because it makes a powerful vibrating, resonating sound I can feel in my body, and it calms my mind.

After one class, a student asked - "what does it mean?"  I replied that it just is what it is.  Of course, people attach meaning to things.  Om itself has a long list of meanings, and I understand that Om ah hum is a mantra in the Buddhist tradition.  I don't care.  I'm only interested in that I enjoy making the sound, and in observing its effects on me.  That's what "direct experience" means to me.

Yesterday, at a class, I asked the students to notice how it felt to sit in stillness.  Then we sang om - ma - ah - hum three times, and sat for a bit after the sound had died away.  My experience was of distinct contrast and clarity in the stillness - not silence, because there was sound - the background sounds of the furnace and the world outside and our bodies.  But the stillness was deeper, and the remaining sounds were brighter, sharper, more vibrant.

What does it mean?  The stillness was deeper, and the remaining sounds were brighter, sharper, more vibrant.  That's what it means.

Visualization

I wanted to jump off the tower, but high places can freak me out.  I didn't want to climb up and then become afraid and not be able to jump.  To prepare myself for the jump, I used visualization.  I looked out at the tower from the balcony of our room and imagined myself walking calmly along the path over to the ladder, then up the 11 rungs to the deck, then across the deck and, with no hesitation, stepping out into the air above the ocean.  Imagining what it would feel like, seeing myself falling down, then disappearing with a splash before popping back up to swim to shore.

I couldn't imagine the full experience, but I could visualize all the actions I needed to take for the jump, and, to be calm and without fear, I needed simply to stay focused on those actions, one step at a time.

On Thursday, the wind was calm, and the water perfect.  I went down and dove in to get the feel of the water.  I looked up at the tower - "yes, it looks pretty high up.  OK, here we go."

I climbed out of the water and started walking steadily up the stairs and onto the path, then up the ladder and across the deck, and stepped off the edge, bringing legs together and arms by my side. Whoosh!

I was surprised at how utterly calm I was - no anxious "pit of the stomach" feeling - and how great it felt to experience the jump just as I had visualized it.

Relax and Let Go

I taught a class today for people working on hand stand.  This was week 3 or 4 of a 9 week course, and I was subbing for the regular teacher.

Hand stand is a difficult proposition for many, and teaching it is an excellent opportunity to teach some of the key concepts of yoga.  At one point, while the class was holding a forearm plank to build core strength, I encouraged them to relax any excess tension.  We always use more effort than is required, and then we hold it and it stays in our bodies for a while as tension that affects our subsequent practice.  Later, while they practiced pushing up toward a hand stand, I encouraged them to forget about the goal (getting all the way up) and just be with the experience - pushing up and feeling what it was like to have both feet off the ground and weight moving up over hands and shoulders.

After class two students came up to me with specific comments.  One said that my entreaty to relax while doing a strenuous pose was particularly helpful.  The other said that when I suggested they give up the goal of achieving a full hand stand, that he found he was actually getting more float time from his efforts.

It's gratifying, and an acknowledgment of the truth of the ideas, when instructions connect with the students so directly.

Ad-libbing Life

Yesterday I had to make quick plans to fly to Rock Island, Illinois to be with Pam and her family after the death of her father.  One of those things that pushes all normalcy aside.  Get on Expedia, find the best flights, buy the tickets - doesn't really matter what the price is.

Then get on email and text and start lining up subs for the yoga classes I'll miss - just trusting that people will be available - and they are.

Up this morning, and there's a text from another teacher asking if I could sub two of her daytime classes today as she wasn't feeling well.  Normally, I'd have thought I couldn't do it on such short notice due to work - but this isn't normal.  A light snowstorm, and a larger amount of fear about it, was disrupting commuting schedules, so I decided to work from home a couple of hours, then go teach the classes, then go on to work.  It was a good decision.

After work - back to the studio to teach two more classes - one a pre-arranged sub - and then my own late class.

Then home to pack, as I'll go to work tomorrow, then walk home, load the car, drive off to teach my Wednesday evening class, then go directly to the airport for the flight to Illinois.

I'm tired, but just taking things as they come.

Swimming in the Sea

Mindful Day had a week-long break while I was in Jamaica at a yoga retreat.  It was a very worthwhile experience, and I'm back with some new ideas and perspectives.  Space allows change to happen, and having a week away from all the normal activities, with time to practice yoga, swim, lay in the sun (shade mostly), read, and make new friends, provided lots of opportunity for new things to arise.  Swimming in the ocean was the top experience, aside from the yoga and conversations with people.  On the calmer days, I could simply float on my back, relaxing completely into the support and motion of the ocean and look up at the sky, which was wonderful.

Even at its calmest, the ocean is moving.  The power is so completely beyond me that there's nothing to do but relax into it. Then, for a little while, I felt like I was just a part of the ocean itself.

Breathe, Extend, Soften

Breathe.  Extend. Soften.  Three words that have become my yoga practice mantra of late.  

Much of yoga practice is about finding length in the body.  Extending the spine to decompress it and make more room for movement.  Increasing range of motion - becoming more 'flexible,' usually means training muscles to lengthen.

Every movement requires muscle engagement - some degree of effort - and it's nearly certain that the effort will be more than it needs to be.  Sometimes a lot more, sometimes just a little, but always, there is too much effort.  Additionally, as I explore the limits of my movement, there's always one place - one muscle, or a layer of fascia - that has the most sensation.

Breath, of course, is central to yoga practice as a guide to the right amount of effort and as a point of awareness.  Breath, by which I mean all the muscular actions of the body involved in breathing, is also used to help move the body into the shapes of yoga.  For instance, exhaling for a forward bend, or inhaling for a backbend - the movement of the breath supports the shape we are moving into.  We can also use breathing to initiate and contain movement - begin the breath, then move, then finish the breath.  Because the breath operates from our center, our core, this practice helps all movement to begin in the center and extend outward.

When I put this all together, I initiate movement with the breath, and feel the movement as an extension of the breath.  With the energy of movement, I extend - spine, muscles, fascia.  Then I soften - first finding release for that part of me that is working harder than all the rest - and then softening overall effort in an attempt to find that point where there is no extra effort, no unneeded tension, and even a challenging pose can feel effortless.

Breath, extend, soften.  Repeat, and repeat, and repeat.

Winter Walks

The past couple of days I've had some enjoyable winter walks.  Our thick blanket of snow is settling, day by day, compacting, growing denser.  Too deep to comfortably walk through, it has stayed undisturbed for the most part, with cars and people confined to the plowed, shoveled and snow-blown paths.

Temperatures have dropped into the teens at night and risen well above freezing during the day.  Even the cold mornings have been nice to be out in, because the wind has been calm.  Tonight I walked home from the Metro station about 8 pm.  I was dressed to be warm, and the night was quiet and light from the reflecting snow and clouds.

The first few cold spells of winter always seem harsh, but then I grow to enjoy the fresh, brisk air on my skin, the crunch of ice and squeak of cold snow under my feet, the patterns of light and shadow on the smooth white snow.

Breath

Breath, and breathing.  Inseparable from our life itself.

I ended my yoga class tonight with a reminder that awareness of breath is the core practice of yoga. This is so because breath is always with us - in the present moment there is always breath.  We have only to pay attention to breath and it brings the mind into the present with it.  Breath is the most tangible expression of our vitality, our life force - it is with us from the moment we are born until the moment we die.

And so, no matter where we are or what we are doing, we always have access to this practice - awareness of breath - that can bring our mind to centered stillness and allow the state of yoga to arise. For yoga is not something we can do.  Yoga is a condition of deep immersion and intimacy with our present experience, that comes, like a gift, in the right conditions.  

We can practice the postures of yoga, which give us the direct, concrete experience of the body as a point of focus for our mind, and the breathing practices called pranayama, which similarly help us focus more completely and deeply on our breath.  When these practices bring the mind into calm clarity, we experience yoga.

Writing the Mind

When I get ideas that seem worth keeping, I write them down.  When I read, I take notes on what seems most important and interesting.  Sometimes, I just like a particular way of stating an idea, that seems especially clear, or clever.  I write that down, too.

I have lots of papers around with things written on them.  I try to organize them, to group them by topic.  When I have more time, as I did with the recent storm, I will go through the papers.  Often I've written a similar idea more than once.  I'll rewrite the ideas, consolidate them in a better organized way, and then throw away the original notes.

Sometimes I do this on the computer, but I most like this process of rewriting when I do it by hand.  I watch the words flow off the tip of the pen onto paper - writing the idea from the mind, and immediately taking it back into mind.

Writing seems to be a primary way that I process information and ideas - capturing them, then refining them, rewriting until the organization and expression seem just right.

Sending Snacking Packing!

I snack too much.  While my most common snacks aren't processed food, they're calories I don't need.  One good snack leads to another, as I condition myself to snack at the first sign of hunger.

This weekend, being stuck at home due to the big snowfall, and things to snack on readily at hand, I decided to get serious about breaking the snack habit.

The best way to stop a habit, I think, is to replace it with something else.  There's a trigger - in this case a little hunger - that leads to reaching for a snack.  The trigger will still be there, for a while at least, but I can replace my response to it with something better.  I know a number of simple posture alignment things that take just a few seconds to do, and a nice conscious breath in and out, so when I feel the snacking urge, I stop and give myself a little alignment.

There's a little willpower needed to stick with the choice not to snack, but the most important thing is to disrupt the automatic habit, that has the snack in hand (or mouth) before I'm thinking about it.

After the Storm

Sunday morning brought sunshine and clear skies.  Four more inches of show remained to be shoveled, but that went quickly.  I'm very pleased with how my body has responded to the work.  I remember the aches that accompanied our last really big snowfall in 2010.  That was a year and a half before I started yoga.

I should be older and creakier now, but while I'm six years older, I'm in much better shape.  My body has learned how to twist, my core is strong and more importantly, well integrated with the rest of me.  My shoulders are stronger and have more range of motion.  I lifted and threw a lot of snow, but I did it like I would practice yoga - coordinating movement with breath - and being conscious of my whole body participating in the movement, from the bottoms of my feet up through my arms on the snow shovel.

I feel the effects just a little up in my upper back and neck - trapezius is stiff from all the lifting.  But I have no discomfort in my low back, which is usually the place that repetitive lifting and twisting shows up for me.

I'll have some more shoveling to do.  Tomorrow or the next day when they plow the street, I'm sure they'll leave a big berm blocking the driveway.  That will be heavy, dense, maybe even a bit icy.  It should be a good workout.

This afternoon I shoveled a path out into the street, where there was a bit of a path from cross country skiers, walkers and sledders.  I walked down the street and into the park.  It was not easy going - the snow is deep and, even walking in the footsteps of others, my boots would sink in.  One stretch in the park had only a ski trail, so I was post-holing the original footprints for a while.  The park was pretty with all the snow in the afternoon light.  I walked down by the creek and took a picture of the spot where I like to sit - just a white mound today.  The creek was mostly frozen over, with one open channel in the most active current.



We won't be able to get out until they plow the street - perhaps Monday, more likely Tuesday.

Denned Up

Friday night didn't bring high winds, but it did bring steady snow.   When I ventured out to shovel the driveway in the morning there was over 16 inches down, and it was still snowing.  The flakes had been small, fine-grained, so it wasn't the most difficult to shovel, but not the lightest either.  I threw all the snow over to the west side of the drive so that the lawn on the east side, most in front of the house, would be undisturbed and beautiful.

Mid-afternoon, I went out again, and shoveled off another 3 inches.  A few gusts of wind blew through, but we've missed the blizzardy conditions that were forecast, at least so far.  The snow should be finished by the morning, and I can shovel one last time and get a final tally.  So far it looks like we'll have a few inches less than the big February storm in 2010, when we had over two feet.

It has been very quiet.  Snow absorbs sound, and there's little if any traffic moving.  We had one truck go up the street, and then down, all day.  A few people ventured out to walk, and one family was out trying to sled down the street, but the snow was too deep for good sledding, and they trekked back down to their house.

Other than the two trips out to shovel the drive, I stayed denned up inside the warm house.

Silent Snowfall

I walked to downtown Silver Spring in early afternoon, with light snow starting to fall.  There were a lot of people out, walking dogs, children playing, neighbors chatting.  The streets were busy with people going home from work, or out for some late storm preparation shopping.  I stopped at the bank, then walked to Chipotle to pick up a couple of burritos for our evening meal.

I walked a different way home, and stopped for a few minutes in a wooded area to watch the snow falling in the forest.  My toes got a little cold.  The flakes were small and the ground just beginning to turn white.

Light but steady snow continued all afternoon, slowly piling up.  Much heavier snow, and high winds, are expected later tonight and into Saturday, but for now, it has just been a pleasant, silent, snowfall.  

Big Storm Coming

There's a big storm coming.  We'll see.  Sometimes the weather gets over-promised and under-delivers.  But whatever happens in terms of precipitation, it's certain we'll be holed up for the weekend, because businesses and even the entire DC area public transit system have announced they're shutting down for the entire weekend - even though the first flake of snow is 24 hours away.  We'll be fine unless the expected high winds knock the power out.  Then it will be hard to keep the house warm.

We've managed to make ourselves so comfortable - with heating, air conditioning, and personal transport devices that have heating and air conditioning too - that we can go a long time not feeling much effect from the vagaries of nature.  But now and then nature roars back to show who is really boss and how easy it is to mix up a potion of cool air, lots of moisture, and steep pressure gradient, that, even without any eye of newt, is far more than we can handle.

Traffic Mind

Once a week I trek about 13 miles north to teach a 6 pm yoga class.  That means I'm moving with the early part of the evening rush hour.  The route has several spots where, if traffic is bad, I could get stuck with no way to get to an alternate route.  Because of that, I always check the traffic before I start, as one of the alternate routes requires a very early decision.

Tonight I knew the main route was a no-go, even before I got to the car.  Traffic in downtown Silver Spring was backing up onto side roads like I'd never seen.  The main problem, if Google maps was right, was within the first mile, so I headed east to a road that would take me around.  That was backed up too, so I went further east to the next route.  Also heavy, but I was out of options, so I took it and began following Waze instructions.   Everywhere I went traffic was heavy, and the app rerouted me several times.  Eventually I realized it was backtracking me a couple of miles to the west, and finally, after almost half an hour, I reached the beltway, about a mile from where I first started.  From there traffic was heavy but moving well, and I made it to the studio with some time to spare. 

An hour and a half later, the trip home was even more adventuresome.  It had begun to snow, and the untreated roads iced up.  They were slicker than I've seen in a long long time.  Traffic was slowed by numerous accidents, and even touching the brakes lightly would set off the anti-lock mechanism.  There are a couple of long hills on the route - not super steep - but steady gradients climbing up out of stream valleys.  On one, where I had to stop right at the bottom, I was barely able to get the car moving again up hill. At one point Waze routed me off the main road to go around an accident.  I'm not sure it was worth it, as the app brought me back to the main route facing a left hand turn across multiple lanes of traffic.  That's enough to keep me from using it regularly - I wonder if there's a preference setting that would avoid that.)

In the end, I made it home without mishap.  On both legs of the round trip, facing a lot of uncertainty and, on the way back, very treacherous conditions, I was, with just a couple of short lapses, calm.  Not impatient, not anxious, just calm.  When the traffic was must unsettled, my first instinct was "be calm, make space."  This is a remarkably different reaction than I would have had a few years ago.  While I likely wouldn't have completely freaked out in these circumstances, I certainly would have been frustrated, anxious and agitated.  

I believe that my mindfulness practices have had a significant effect on my state of mind - how I see things, how I react to events, and what choices I make.  All for the better.  

Brrrrr!

Monday night I taught two yoga classes at the Takoma Park studio.   The room is on the ground floor and one long side is all windows, and little, if any, insulation.  When I arrived the temperature on the thermostat said 67 degrees, but in most of the room it was significantly colder.  Outside, it was in the teens and the wind was blowing.  During the three hours I was there, with the heater working full blast the whole time, the room gradually got cooler and cooler.  I taught active classes, but even so everyone felt the effects of the arctic yoga.

The bedroom was chilly all night, and when I arrived at work after a brisk morning walk I realized I hadn't felt warmed up since the day before.  Perhaps a warm shower would help, or sleeping in the upstairs bedroom that is directly above the furnace and perhaps the warmest room in the house.  Something needs to be done to warm these bones up!

Juggling

Today was a challenging day to find the flow and stay in it.  I was processing video from a concert - editing individual pieces out from a larger file and uploading them to YouTube.  Each video takes several steps, and most of them take from a few minutes to perhaps 20-30 minutes to do.  There's too much downtime to simply wait, so I'd find other things to do to fill in the waiting times, my attention moving from one thing to another like a juggler.  It's hard to stay focused with so much switching from one thing to another, but I stuck with it, and finished half the concert as well as the other things I wanted to.  It helped to be deliberate and patient, and to keep in mind what was essential to get done and what was less pressing.

Three Aspects of Practice

This week, my yoga teaching theme has three parts.  They work well together, around the principle of nonjudgmental acceptance.

• Cultivate your observing mind - the nonjudgmental mind that sees things as they happen.  Turn down the volume of your thinking mind, and learn how to pull back from it - it is an invaluable tool, but should not be in control.
• Always start where you are.  In whatever you do, see with clarity the reality of the situation, accept things as they are, and then move on.
• Be kind to yourself.  

As helpful and applicable as these ideas are in yoga practice, they also apply to life in all the variety of situations it presents to us.

Some Things I've Learned

I've learned that anxiety and stress are not inevitable, but result from choices I make.  I've learned that anxiety is a sign that I'm not being present, and that engaging in an action, however small, with full attention will quickly take me out of the anxious state.  Eventually I connected the dots and realized that this works because the act of "doing" occurs in the present moment, and when I bring my mind to what I'm doing, my mind becomes present, and anxiety fades away.

I've learned to recognize when my mind wants to take a tangent, follow a distraction, and how to say "no," I'm staying here with what I'm doing.

I've learned that getting things done feels good, and that working on lots of things but not finishing them leads to stress piling up.  After years of doing crossword puzzles and thinking that I liked doing them, I realized that what I most liked was the feeling of finishing them.  I decided I might feel better about work if I changed how I approached it so I would get more done, and I was right.

I've learned that it's important to create space in life, and not fill every instant with effort.  I've learned to take a pause and relax, so that tension doesn't carry forward from on thing to the next.

I've learned to back away from urgency, and allow things to happen in their own time.  I've learned to find the flow, and be content.

Soothing Rain

Light rain started falling as I left work.  I felt the first drop as I walked down the sidewalk, that first drop that I imagine might not be a harbinger - or is perhaps imagination itself.  Then there's another, and another, and they start coming closer together, and I realize - yes, it's raining - and then wonder if it will stay light and easy for the next 25 minutes, or if it will continue to build and end up soaking me before I get home.

Today, the rain settled in to a light patter, and I arrived home just a little damp.  After I ate, the sound of the rain on the roof was so soothing that I laid down on the floor for a while just to be quiet and listen to it.

Calm

Focus creates time.  Since implementing "the fewer things I try to do, the more I get done" less than two weeks ago, my work days have opened up.  As I left work today, my inbox was empty, and I had checked a couple of long overdue file cleanup projects off the list.  Instead of accumulating piles of partially finished projects, the list of accomplishments has grown steadily and my desk is clear.  I know the people who work for me appreciate it, because they aren't waiting for my review and approval.

The key change I made is to stick with tasks until they're done, choosing not to chase the frequent opportunities for distraction that, in the past, would have led me off into the swamp, and left the project unfinished.

I feel calm.  I don't have the accumulating stress from feeling there was more work than I could do, and from tasks that got buried and then resurfaced as last minute crises, and spending energy worrying about which thing I should work on while other things grew even more stale.  I arrive in the morning without a burden, and leave in the evening, satisfied with the day's work done.

Planet Report

A little over a month ago, December 10, 2015, my topic was the pre-dawn sky and the planets Venus, Mars, and Jupiter.  I'd been watching for several weeks, beginning when they were quite close in the sky, as they gradually spread apart.

This week, on both Monday morning and today, the mornings were clear, the sky dark.  Venus is still hanging out low in the eastern sky, but Jupiter is high overhead toward the south, and roughly in the center, but shaded a bit to Jupiter's direction, is the fainter, reddish Mars.

There's a slow-motion feeling to this planet watching - checking in once a week - or less often if clouds are in the sky - and seeing the change in position unfold over a period of several months.  There's also a feeling of order, as I can trust that if the sky is clear, the planets will be up there, waiting for me in the early morning.