Thanksgivingasana

Right now.

Right now - at this very moment

(Thanks to internets and technology and the ability to schedule posts.)

I am face down starting a vinyasa practice that will be followed with an Earth Peace meditation.

More than anything, I just wanted to let you know that you are with me today.

All day.

If you have the time, enjoy.



With every step you take today,

think

"Peace is Every Step"

every time your foot hits the ground silently breathe,

"Thank You."

This is my Thanksgiving for you.

My thanks for you today.

It is funny to me how this holiday has a unique way of boiling you down to a moment-by-moment existence. Maybe it is the visiting family, or the cooking, or the laughing and sharing - but is a unique opportunity of celebration to have a day that in each moment we are celebrating all moments (past, present and future).


I love Thanksgivingasana.


"Our true home is in the present moment. To live in the present moment is a miracle."

- Thich Nhat Hanh

Namaste.

Not So Shocking

Well.

In case you have been living in a hole this week, a report was issued Monday that included a preliminary recommendation against "against routine screening mammography in women aged 40 to 49 years. The decision to start regular, biennial screening mammography before the age of 50 years should be an individual one and take into account patient context, including the patient's values regarding specific benefits and harms."

and not shockingly this is now happening.

Despite the fact that co-author of the study has stated that she feels the findings have been "misinterpreted."

Perhaps the only thing "shocking" is that it took 4 days for this report to become anti-reform fodder.

Also, can we now all slowly swing our heads side-to-side in sadness that they would issue this report the month following the National Breast Cancer Awareness Month (that would be October for those of you again living in said hole - or were blissfully unaware of the fact that pink was being shoved in your sight more than usual for 31 days) and during an intense and prolonged debate over health care delivery models in the United States?

Now we have numbers as well. Lots of numbers. Numbers about cost of reform, rising premiums, uninsured, underinsured, unemployed, percentage of increases to taxes, mortality, public health indexes...numbers.

But - I ask you - who said this?


"While Americans today enjoy the finest health care and medical technology in our history, the cost of that care is constantly increasing. Our present system of health care insurance does not meet the costs of providing adequate care. It must be improved. Twenty-five million Americans have no health care insurance at all, and millions of others have inadequate protection.

Preventive services, mental health care, outpatient services, and medication are often excluded from coverage. Many other essential services are not adequately covered.

And finally, to further burden our already inadequate health insurance system, wage-price controls have expired, and there is no brake on further increases in health costs. The failure of the Congress to adopt my legislative request to continue authority for mandatory cost controls for the health industry has left the country unprotected against the very real possibility of an unbridled increase in those costs.

We must have legislation to insure that every American has financial access to high quality health care."

Do you remember this debate? This discussion...

Here is another hint.

This President was attempting to reconcile legislation that would provide for universal coverage, enable voluntary employer participation and would have established a separate program for working poor and unemployed.

Do you know who it was now?

Here. Last hint.

"Nineteen seventy-four can and should be the year in which we move decisively to protect every American against the rising and often prohibitive costs of health care.

Nineteen seventy-four can and should be the year in which we create new incentives to make the health care system of the United States even better and more efficient than it is.

And 1974 can and should be the year in which firm, fair steps are taken to hold down the rate of inflation that has continually driven the cost of medical care higher and higher during the past 20 years."

Now you know! Right?





It was Nixon of course!


Before you go running open-armed into the current GOP legislative proposal for health care reform, I would like to point out that 15 days ago they just received a startling reality check from the CBO. In other words, "the only thing worse than releasing no health-reform plan, is releasing a bad one."





I close with a quote that quite possible best describes the importance of this discussion right now. A sentiment that I am starting to better understand more and more every day.


"Neither course of action, or inaction, is acceptable. What we must have is a creative relationship between government and our private health care system which provides the best possible care for all at a price that all can afford."

- Nixon

Shocking;

or is it really

Not So Shocking.

Get involved.

Contact your representatives.

Be the Change.

(See my liberal sensitivities couldn't close with a Nixon quote - my apologies.)

Be Change

Be Change


"Be the change you want to see in the world."

- Gandhi

Chakra'ly Incorrect

Well.

Well, well...well.

I don't know if this is a woman thing, or a crazy person thing or a me thing...but apparently I have inexplicably "lost it" again.

(Whatever the hell "it" is.)

I am hoping that maybe - just maybe - if I kind of outline it all right here then I will feel slightly less mad and start trending towards general feelings of peace and happiness towards myself again.

Work has been insane, bizarre, stressful, trying, infuriating, disgusting, challenging, and stressful...did I mention stressful?

Last Tuesday all of the crap of work somehow materialized into this intense and piercing pain in my left neck and shoulder. I tried to calm down and work it out...and then Wednesday morning my left side felt fine - but the pain shifted to my right side with a vengeance. Wednesday and Thursday were miserable with pain. Friday it was still bothering me...

Friday I had a work meeting thing that ended up with actually learning about 2 other job opportunities that are going to be posted in about 7 or 8 months and they wanted to know my interest. I found this interesting - and unexpected. Since I wasn't looking at this as a possible job for the future kind of meeting, I think I was a little off balance and silly with my responses. Plus, one of the positions would be doing something that I swore I would never do (plus it would be highly political and stressful - very stressful - very powerful people would be pissed off with me on a fairly regular basis) and the other is in an area that I always found fascinating but wonder if I would be the best candidate (it seems like there are others with way more technical training that would be a better fit than me - and like an idiot I actually communicated this...something like "I would love that, but my learning curve would be pretty steep...").

However, this could be very cool. This would mean moving closer to the coast. Closer to the area that I keep wanting to live...I think. I don't know. It was all just very unexpected.

Plus, it was one of those meetings where people seem to find you "impressive" which always unnerves me afterwards because I feel fundamentally unimpressive at my core so I feel odd when I leave those kind of moments. Again - off balance...just off balance...

By Friday night I wasn't able to sleep...the pain in my shoulder and neck was throbbing and I was very confused about life and opportunities or lack of opportunities and new choices and [sigh] life.

Saturday morning - woke up, out of town, and the studio where I wanted to go for yoga this weekend was closed for teacher training. Boo. As a result, I ended up at the local community center for yoga. God love the local community center yoga classes - they are always such a mixed bag!

This Saturday the instructor decided to lead a flow focusing on relieving stress and tension in the upper back and shoulders. Thank you, Universe! I say, "namaste" to the fabric of time and space for that little intervention.

The closing meditation was amazing. She borrowed a visualisation from An Imaginary Life that still when I think back to those moments touch me profoundly.

I felt better.

Then as the day goes forward my neck and shoulder just start to freeze up again. Bad.

By 7 that evening, I made an emergency appointment at the spa down the street with the massage therapist because the pain is just too much.

The good news: the tension and pain in my shoulder and neck was relieved.

The bad news: I had this horrible overwhelming awareness that my fundamental issue is this deep aching pain of a sense that I/my body/my mind betrayed me - and I am real pissed off about that - real pissy indeed!

Somewhere during the night while I slept the initial emotional high of "yeah! my neck is not killing me" became replaced with deep dark anger...and I am guessing that because turning really ugly anger on yourself triggers some type of emotional stop-gap measure that results in said anger going outwards instead of inwards.

So Sunday - I was bitchy. But trying or maybe "trying" (depending on who you ask) to not be anger towards the very people I hold the closest to me, but it was just fucking sitting there...and I was snap, snap, snappy, cranky girl.

Awesome.

I would try to pull out of it...then nose dive right back into it.

Ultimately, alienating my husband who was tired of me being mean...which just made the whole angry doom spiral even worse because then I felt isolated and alone and alone and alone and alone in more and more anger.

I wish I could say that I slept off the anger. But - nope. Woke up with it.

Still pissed off and broken hearted.

This just sucks.

I should not be upset. I should be happy. I should be positive. I should be motivated.

Yet, I feel like the fattest man in the entire world has sat on my chest, deflated all possible air out of my lungs and rudely farted in my face.

See - how dramatic.

This sucks.

Because it is truly nothing - and it feels like everything...

and I am trying to figure out how to be a better person at a time when all I really want to do is dive into a deep cave and never speak to another living soul again...

because that would be substantially less embarrassing than being me.

See - unimpressive.

So this is life...or at least my life.

I drag my ass into a shower and come into work to deal with the trials and tribulations of the work day.

I skate on the surface of every moment and interaction just thinking "oh god, I just want to go back to freaking bed!"

See - unimpressive.

I know that you are not supposed to talk about these things. That it is alienating to be the nut job blogger and I should be more careful about it...

but, fuck, fuck, fuck.

So, in my desperation I plan on doing the only thing that might possibly pull me the hell out of this...although I must confess I am feeling quite fundamentally broken right now. (Could I be more annoying? - for the love!)

N.V. Raghuram says,

"Everyone comes to yoga because of some kind of suffering."

So I will take my self-inflicted suffering self to yoga in about 30 minutes - I will be face down on a mat and alone with myself again...fuck...[sigh].

When I went in for my massage, the guy asked me what I thought was the problem, and I looked at him all stiff-necked and glassy-eyed and whispered,

"you might think I am crazy or silly, but I think it is my heart chakra..."

Little did I know that this guy was also a Reiki practitioner.

So he did a combination of Reiki and massage to fix my shoulder...and now my stomach is all a flip-flop.

All a flip-flop.

Damn you, belly!



Off I go to the Monday evening beginner yoga class tonight

and I need to change.

(Literally and Metaphorically)



Maybe this will be the path out of this today...

but what if this just continues because there is something here that I am not dealing with appropriately and I never figure it out and I am just a queen bitch on Sundays because I am stressed and pissy; and I never resolve this inner anger thing and end up hurting all the people I want to lift up!

What if I just always end up being this asshole who is simply aware of being an asshole!

That is not much of an enlightenment.


Okay, so off I go to the yoga class...

and in my mind I am thinking about Reiki teachings and wondering if the world is big and expansive enough to fix all this and fix me:


The secret method of inviting good fortune.
The marvelous medicine for all sickness

Just for today:
Do not be angry
Do not worry
Be grateful
Work with integrity
Be kind to others and to yourself.

Every morning and every night, sit in the Gassho position [hands held palm-to-palm] and speak these words out loud in your heart.

For the evolution of body and soul, Usui Reiki Ryoho"

— Mikao Usui


[long deep sigh - again]

Ahem - BL Fans - Shay Update

Let The Drummer Kick

Relations

(Apollo had to break 'em)

Creation

(It's a gift, a blessing)

Incarceration

(What keeps you down)

Determination

(What gets you out)

Equation

(When they said you could make it)

Humiliation

(What you feel when they say it)

Reincarnation

(Say N-A-V)

Situation

(Why we've got to sing)

Elation

(So many in need)

Identification

(Gives you the right to shoot)

Retaliation

(What would it do)

Education

(Gives you the right to do)

Inspiration

(What pulls you through)

No substitution

(No substitute)

Non-inclusion

(Just got to bust through)

Drug infusion

(For the chosen few)

Mass confusion

(When they say that they died for you)

Delusion

(Say that the dreams don't come true)

Solution

(It can take a hold of you)

Conclusion

Inspiration

(Is what pulls you through)

For Young Journeys

Somewhere between here and here,

this song flew by me,

and I acknowledged it much like

one appreciates a sunset while quickly driving home from work.

You know - those fleeting moments of appreciation of majesty

but without any real "a-ha" or depth or change,

more just, "oh so pretty - yes, nature, world, big, awesome..."

and then my thoughts speed quickly through the Universe's red light

to notice something

and I bounce house bounce along with the random fluctuations of my mind

to think about dinner, tv, work, stress, money, time...

crap.


Then September,

why, September, it just quite simply

bitch-slapped me!


I thought this has been a

[lip pout, indulgent arms crossed]

hard year.


Oy vey, Filoli!


Then September...which actually requires a flashback to April.

(stay with me)


April was a hard month with Eva's surgery and the adoption issues

and I was not to pleased to go to a friend's baby shower.

The baby shower that was exactly a year from her previous baby shower for her twins.

Yes, you read that right - twins and now another surprise baby.

I wasn't bitter - but disengaged, reluctant, sullen, emotional,

let's just some it all up as shitty.

(okay, maybe bitter)


Back to September -

where I am walking across a green lawn,

sprinkled with headstones,

every step moving closer to a black tent,

arcing over the tiniest blue casket,

with baby blue balloons gently rocking in the wind.



In this moment,

In this time,

I fell to my knees and promised

I will never again be an asshole about attending another baby shower.

I will never miss this mystery, this grace, this blessing

of community and hope - again.

I never want to be this knotted-soul again.


And I heard Joan singing,

"

Compassion is the fire
That burns the hurt
That pains the soul
And though my eyes are so polluted
By the sight of lost desires
I can see you standing by.

"


Then Alpha...and the CT Scan...

and this song became less of a meditation

and more of a battle cry.




Then now,

(yesterday, today and tomorrow)

known today, right now

and this song is a rhythm

that reflects all moments -

big and small.


Sometimes the tragedy is small and silly,

sometimes it is vast and encompassing.

But in all times,


it is

"good to have you in these times."


So, now sometimes when I practice yoga, I practice with music.

And this song is usually - almost always - my 2nd to last song.

And last night and today and tomorrow,

I will sing it for you,

for us,

for all of us,

because it is us.

(in my humble opinion)



So, ahem,

[throat clearing],

I serenade you,

and hopefully others will join in as well...

(because it is for them too)






These are the times
Tears fill the back of your eyes
These are the times
The birds migrate
Across the skies

These are the times
What hope you had you forget
These wicked times
You're bound to feel
All sanity is lost

In these times everyone needs love
In these times do you pray to God

In these times everyone needs comfort
And would welcome a hand to hold
Compassion is the fire
That burns the hurt
That pains the soul

And though my eyes are so polluted
By the sight of lost desires
I can see you standing by

This is my fear
That distance will come between us
And it could mean nothing
Nothing
To get from here to there

We own the world
And everything that's in it
Let our love shine
Like glistening raindrops
Resting on a rose

In these times celebrate our love
In these times let's be thankful of
All the days we can spend together
And I'm happy to hold your hand
Your passion is the food
That feeds the hunger in my heart

And now my eyes are clearly open
No more longing for the past

Now I have you in these times

In these times everyone needs love
In these times do you pray to God

In these times everyone needs comfort
And would welcome a hand to hold
Your passion is the fire
That burns the hurt
That pains the soul

And though my eyes are so polluted
By the sight of lost desires
Good to have you in these times

All The Above

Question Number One

Life is _________________.

a) Blessed
b) Challenging
c) Overwhelming
d) Frustrating
e) Frightening
f) Fulfilling

or

All The Above




So much and nothing really at all has happened...

It is possible that everything could change this weekend...

or nothing at all could occur.

If I weren't so painfully busy right now, I would tell you so much more.

Right now, all I have is this little Zen koen

(is that right?, you know saying):

Butterfly takes off
to cross the Lake
I come back to myself.


Aw yes...a little Zen, a little hip hop...
how can all not be well in the world in this very moment.