i am writing this in lieu of bingeing and purging

i weighed myself today for the first time in a long time.

mind you, weighing myself on a scale is a very dangerous activity.  it almost immediately triggers eating disordered thought patterns and behavior.  i was triggered way before i stepped onto that cold, digitally merciless metal square from Hell, however.

i went to Golden Gate Park to help my corporate yoga client, lucy Activewear, shoot photos for their website.  lucy makes clothing and accessories for yoga, running and cross training.  i was there as a consultant, to make sure the models were doing actual yoga poses, not just jutting their hips out and pointing long skinny limbs in all different directions.

these models weren't waifs, but only one really looked like she was athletic.  one of them actually admitted that she doesn't work out. (it was actually really entertaining watching them try to do pushups).  i'm disappointed that even activewear companies don't use "real" women to model their products.  but i didn't really expect anything different.

i don't have a classic "yoga body."  i'm not a dancer, i'm not super-lean.  even after 30 days or veganism, i still have meat on my bones.  i often feel like a yoga fraud because i'm not wiry and slender and able to bend into crazy poses.  it's tough for me to not compare myself to yoga "celebrities" and to want to have the yoga "look" that's advertised in the media.  i think classic "yoga-bodied" people do not comprise a wide percentage of the American population, but that is what is shown in magazines, on DVDs and in the movies.

i have to constantly remind myself why i practice and teach yoga.  the students i teach are not super-lean super athletes either.  they are stressed, overweight, underweight, injured, weak in places, stiff in others.  they are seeking a better quality of life.  they want to remove suffering and the only way to do that it to practice non attachment and compassion.  if a tight yoga butt is one of the byproducts of such a practice, great.  but for that to be the goal is not definitive of the heart of yoga.

i'm 5'7" and i weigh 160 pounds.  160!  i can't believe it.  it seems like a grotesque number.  it is the amount i weighed my senior year of high school, the year i fell into a deep depression and began my almost-lethal dance with my eating disorder.  is this full circle?  is the universe testing me?  will i choose the same path i did 12 years ago, or will I use what i've learned to break through self-destructive patterns and free myself from 12 more years of suffering?

i suppose only time will tell.

cheese/sentimentality/thinkin' about stuff

we carry so much baggage with us, the weight of our parents' stories and their parents' stories...traumas and past lives and expectations and pressures.  we change and shift and shrug.  we become stronger and we break open.

yes. ten years ago i was--not a different person--a different version of myself: the ghost of a stone sculpture not yet articulated in sensuous curves and sharp-edged hollows.  i was a dream and a spark of what i am now...and right now, i am a spark of what i will become.

do we ever really get to reach our highest form?  yes.  maybe not while we are alive, but we are born with this perfection, this blazing joyful soul that becomes veiled as we age and learn and become burdened with knowledge and avoidance--and we return to that state in death.  i suppose select few make that transition while in human form: these are the Buddhas and Jesus Christs and Mohammeds and Mother Theresas, the anonymous ones who drag dying brothers to safety and who spend their days feeding and bathing the sick.  But most of us are trying to flip the Rubix cube while we are half-blind and roaring for affection and recognition.

i am no expert in love, though i know that i crave it and need it as much as i need water to keep my body running smoothly, as i crave pieces of dark chocolate on a select few days out of every month.  i know that love has many masks...and that love unmasked is more powerful than the weapons our government spends billions on every week.  i know that i can convince myself that i have it, that i am in it--or that i don't have it and won't ever know it, not truly.

the truth is that i am looking for the freedom that comes from pairing with a person who can look me in the eye as i lay down my burden of stories.  i need a best friend who will cherish me and call me out on my shit.  someone who is imperfect and adept like a chameleon, shifting to fit a mood, a mode of communication, a moment when i am glorious and frightening.  i need a lover who can undress me, and a confidante who can hold me when my mother dies--a partner who will have my back when i'm faced with a gang of demons ready to bludgeon me to death with their stinking fear, and a companion who will play Twister with me while Tom Waits, followed by Radiohead, followed by BB King, followed by Mozart plays on and on and on...

in return, i will offer every bit of who i am.  i will be lovely and sexy and honest and jealous.  i will cry and kiss and soothe with my fingertips.  i will complain and apologize and praise and bless.  i will be there, even when i am not.  i, too will be imperfect, and i will try so hard.  and i will back off and run away, but i will always come back.  and when our paths part, i will still love you.  and when we meet up again, i will not love you less. 

arcana

heavy blossoms fell last night with the rain. i tossed them into the compost pile this morning with hot, creamy cup of earl grey in hand, as i bid them make my soil rich.  there's another storm coming, and the air is pregnant with rain.

in tarot readings, there are a handful of cards that make you sit up straighter.  i drew Death, The Hanged Man, The High Priestess and Temperance.  these major arcana represent the forces of life over which i have no control. indeed, these specific cards represent, respectively:

transition. letting go of the past. returning to simplicity.  riding my Fate. moving from known to unknown.


sacrifice. emotional release.  relinquishing control.  taking time to be.  surrendering to experience.


waiting.  allowing.  withdrawing from involvement.  seeking inner guidance.  mystery.  intuition.


centering.  finding middle ground, equilibrium.  recovering.  healing.  flourishing.  synthesis.


i have put myself "out there."  now it's time to turn inward and wait.

i am horrible at waiting.  for all the patience i have as a yoga teacher and artist--waiting while my students drop into the space of relaxation, creating tiny beauty with my hands--when it comes to allowing my life to unfold as it is ready, i have all the patience of a sheepdog herding her flock.  which is silly, because i cannot rush myself into realizing my highest potential anymore than i can force flowers to rot.

ironically, the Priestess is my favorite card.  she is all that is unknown.  she is the lucid dreamer, the stargazer. she celebrates the moon in all its phases, preferring the dark and the shadow because they are the house of the soul.  she needs not wage war because destruction, death and rebirth are already occurring.  she recognizes that life is lived both forwards and backwards--that we are what we will ever become.

lying in savansana once i had a vision: the soul, in some cosmic waiting room looking out upon the entire Universe, gets to choose what human life it wants to live.  depending on its karmic level, it sees a summary of each possibility--with its black lows and jubilant highs--and makes its decision.  it forgets what it is, reminded by art, poetry, music, dancing, the heartbreaking resplendence of the sea--by the stars, by moments of hopeless despair, every time it falls in love.  all is decided because Fate is a thread: but the thread must be woven, seen through to the last warp. (this is a weaving term, yes?  come on, all you weavers!  challenge me if it is not!)

i am beginning to read James Hillman's The Soul's Code, because--as always--i am seeking.  he posits that there is a daimon in us all, a guardian that guides us to our highest selves at all costs.  the more we ignore, medicate, numb, oppose, repress the daimon, the more awake it becomes.  it is charged with our care because it loves us with a fierce love like blue fire.  it loves us more that we love ourselves.  when we are aligned with it, we feel whole and nourished.  but it takes courage to stay aligned.

so i will wait.  i will relinquish control and surrender to experience. i will be: with my close-set eyes and my petty insecurities...with my passionate voice and my depression...with my road rage and my tenderness.

i will be.

love, 2003, acrylic on canvas

"It's Not a Higher Calling...It's Just a Job"

my yoga teacher said this to me today and i was a little shocked and saddened.  i mean, i'm not the Buddha re-incarnate, but i'd like to think that yoga teachers--like any teacher, really--are special people.  not just anyone can teach individuals how to move and breathe, meditate and cultivate awareness.

i sometimes wonder if i will ever become jaded by life, or if i will remain an idealist as i am now.  i never want to work "just a job."  my time is precious, and i will not have it wasted on tasks that i do not love--or, at least, do not hate.  i don't mind hard work--not at all--but it better be fulfilling on some level.  i suppose it's all in my attitude.  sweeping a floor could potentially be fulfilling work, but i doubt it would fulfill me for long.  i must be challenged to be happy, and also to feel like i am using my talents and skills for a greater good.

may i never become entrenched in a career i hate because i'm too afraid to make a change.