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.

i didn't take any photos, but this might be better

there are only a few people out, not enough to be annoying, so i let my armor dissolve.

it is warm enough that i don't need gloves.  in fact, after walking up the steep hill to the trail, i want to strip down to my underwear and soak my skin.  the forest drips with diamonds, raindrops collecting around blossoms and at leaf tips.  the lake is a still mirror for the sky and the trees.  mist--rogue wisps of clouds--dances across hilltops and settles in tiny valleys.

the shades of green are myriad, like lush quilts of textured emerald hues, from the black-green of old oaks to the bright new sprouts at the trail sides--leaves shaped like moths, wings flat and round-tipped.  i want to graze on that green, taste the moisture on my tongue and feel juicy fibers crunch between my molars.  vines of ivy climb down the sides of the ravine to my right, tangling with slender switches and reaching towards the fuzzy moss that blankets nearly everything that sits out of the sunlight's reach on brighter days.

the smell is like coming home: decaying leaves, wet earth, native herbs.

if i can't take off my shirt, i'll roll up my sleeves.  the rain is soft, tiny kisses by the millions.  every nerve ending in my epidermis gets a massage.  a strand of wet hair points to the corner of my mouth and i let it stay.

the rain begins to come down faster, and the thick hush of the forest is interrupted with soft, sweet percussion.

the walnut trees, skinny, multiple trunks growing out of one base, arc up and over the trail, reaching to the water's edge.  i stop there, too, feet in the wet sand and eyes skimming the surface to find the geese i can hear, honking in approval or in disapproval, i can never tell.  veils of rain descend, bringing water and landscape closer to the same colorless color.

there is a flickering in my periphery and i look up to see a falcon slicing across the sky.  i know she is not a vulture, her movements are quicker and her tail long and slender.  the buzzards are out, too, a few of them, their wings lovingly caress the sky when they move, sensuous and slow.  they are enormous birds, so regal, but their ugly, bare heads betray the bad karma bestowed upon them, perhaps from an earlier life.  they seem to accept their fate with grace, and i quickly say a prayer that i might do the same when i begin to get ugly.

i lift my arms up to stretch, arching back in a bend that opens my ribs and reverses the heaviness of my shoulders.  it's amazing how, when i make a conscious effort at awareness, i can feel the electric current running up from the earth into my feet and up my spinal column, dispersing like little lightning bolts through the conduits of my nervous system.  even in this cool rain, i am sparked, hot, outward-reaching.  time is obliterated and there is only here and now, though i'll have to return to a place of clocks eventually. it isn't doing that nourishes the human soul...it is being.

10 of wands

my "Harsh Truths" reading this morning looked something like this:

WHAT I WANT TO SEE/BELIEVE:
ace of wands: passion, optimism, enthusiasm, drive, beginnings, the source.

i want to believe that i have the drive, the wellspring of energy, the optimism to support my own passions and recovery--to realize my full potential and come to a place of wholeness.  i also want to support the people i love as well: to encourage, to help with the processing of events and experiences, to nurture and provide safety for them.


WHAT I DON'T WANT TO SEE/BELIEVE:
xv the devil: temptation, obsession, addiction, unbridled desires, wild behavior, a lust for life.

i get obsessive about things; i fixate on a challenge or a task until it obliterates the balance in my life.  i restrict my existence--food, sex, emotions, money--until the buildup of "being good" erupts into the wildness of a binge.  by the time i realize what has happened, i am left panting and exhausted...and alone.


WHAT IS TRUE:
iv the emperor: ambition, courage, motivation, rational thought, conquest, legacy

i am the king: i am in control of my environment, my body, my temper, my instincts, my love life.  this is not the time to give in to the needs/wants of others.  if my kingdom is unpleasant and wretched to oversee, then it is by my own doing.


WHAT I WANT TO HAPPEN:
8 of wands: excitement, bliss, euphoria, rapture, ecstasy, nirvana, pleasure

i want to have no fear, no obstacles to my bliss.  i want to live, love, laugh in joy--without stress, without worry.  i want to look my demons in the face and laugh until i cry.  i want to be wildly happy and experience transcendent pleasure...and i deserve it.


WHAT I DON'T WANT TO HAPPEN:
9 of swords: despair, worry, pressure, guilt, depression, hopelessness, melancholy

i've been here before, and it is a brutal country.  i don't care to return.  as it is, i am worried about slipping into that dark hole, the place where my strength and stubbornness is what keeps me from catapulting out.  it's just a bad dream--WAKE UP.


WHAT WILL HAPPEN:
10 of wands: declaration, warning, advice, guidance, dissuasion, caution

fitting that i begin at the ace and end at the 10.  i have taken up the burden in order to gain some illusion of control.  i cannot save anyone, nor do i have the energy.  the advice is to put down that which is unnecessary, that which is sapping my strength.  what is it that i am putting more into than i get out of?  let it go.  i am done.  time to restore my energy.

i hate television, but a phrase i heard last night stuck with me through some pretty intense dreams into the morning:  "Sometimes you just have to accept that you can't save everyone."

i am not Florence Nightingale.  I am Melanie Tormos, and my whole life is ahead of me.