Shapes

And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, well it’s a hard, and it’s a hard. It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall. ~ A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall, Leon Russell

I love the rain. I love any kind of rain.

In fact, the other day after practice, the skies opened up in what I can only describe as a deluge. All the yogis hovered inside the door, waiting for the rain to let up. I wished everybody a good night and flowed right through them like a river into the ocean, eagerly heading out.

I was drenched by the time I reached my car and had to wrap myself in yoga towels for the ride home!

So when I saw that a fellow blogger had written a post titled, The Rain , I clicked on it in the same eager way as I had stepped out into that storm. I was anxious to see what she had to say about the rain.

Her piece was written during Hurricane Joaquin, an early October event that I had totally missed. I was out of town helping my son move. He was only moving 10 blocks, but I was allowed to help! This was a far cry from his earlier days in high school and college when I was relegated to his bedroom doorway whenever he was packing, where he’d be safe from any motherly interference. Only Bubbies, or grandmothers, were allowed in the room at such times, and I’d patiently watch as he and my mother would fold up his life for yet another adventure.

My son’s doorway is where I learned the art of observation. It’s where I learned to listen, a skill that I’d need to hone as he grew older. I’m a talker, and when your child is old enough to be living in another city, it’s imperative to be a good listener in order to keep in good touch.

The most I experienced of Hurricane Joaquin was a single, rainy day, when I happily ran errands around the city in a lovely light drizzle to pick up a few things for my son’s new apartment. I stopped at the street corner and lifted my face to the rain.

My son called from work to check on me. It’s raining! he exclaimed, when I told him I what I was doing. You don’t have to do that, Ma! At least use my umbrella!

My fellow blogger wrote about how it had been raining for so many days that she had lost count. She wondered how it was that people could still practice in such darkness, not just in the darkness that she said was the hurricane, but also in the darkness that she said was sometimes ourselves.

I wonder, she wrote, what does it mean to practice yoga amidst all this, not only on a global or meteorological level, but also amidst the darkness we find sometimes written on our own hearts, be it injury, illness, or any myriad way that loss, dissonance, or hardship can move through us?

I suppose the rain is different for everyone. For her, the unending rain seemed to conjure darker feelings that often take courage to contemplate. But maybe she is the wiser for letting them wash over her, as water is wont to do. Maybe this is how she bravely turns her own face to the rain.

I’ve heard it said that yoga can ruin your life, and I think this might be true! But maybe it’s better said that the practice is like a thunderstorm. It comes barreling into our lives but waters us well. It’s an energetic force that clears away blockages. It can get dark, but there are flashes of light. And while there might be turbulence on the mat, there is always stillness and peace at its end.

The other night, I didn’t know it was going to rain. I arrived at yoga, laid out my mat and practiced as the sun fell and the sky darkened. And as I moved through the poses I watched as the windows blinked, again and again, to the point where I wondered whether the outside lights needed new bulbs.

On my drive home I realized that it was lightning that I had seen from the windows. In fact, it hadn’t stopped! This kind of blinking brightness is called heat lightning. It flashes without any rain, like an S.O.S. from the heavens. When I finally arrived home, I saw that my neighborhood streets were wet. As with the hurricane, I had missed the rain again.

In her article about the rain, my fellow blogger writes about facing darkness with faith and belief. In so many words she says that we move through life on a daily basis, and so it only makes sense that we move through our practice on a daily basis, too. I think she is saying that life matters, no matter the darkness, and so continuing to practice has to matter, too.

She writes, … every time we move our bodies through these shapes, it is so much more than the shapes themselves … when we breathe in [and] lift our arms, it is imbued with all that we rise for, [and] when we breathe out [and] fold, [it] contains all that we bow to.

This makes sense to me, and I like how hopeful it sounds. If I listen carefully enough to what she is saying, I hear that just moving our bodies through the shapes is often all that’s needed to help ourselves take care.

I think rainy days are a lot like sitting in the doorway of my son’s room. They are good for making us more observant. They are good for making us better listeners. And that’s all good for figuring out what really matters. And if we find it to be dark, then maybe all that matters is simply moving our bodies through the shapes of the practice.

So for this reason I practice almost every day, rain or shine. And I say to myself what my fellow blogger says in her article: Yes to moving through the shapes and standing on my hands and opening up my hips, because that’s how I participate in my life, no matter what the weather.

Fierce

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. ~Romeo & Juliet, William Shakespeare

I met a man named Adeoye.

I’d met him before. He works in a store I frequent when I arrive at yoga too early and need a place to go before class.

I didn’t know his name then. He is a beautiful man, with a beautiful voice and smile to match, who serves as the greeter for the store.

And he does a good job greeting. I even remember what he said the first time he greeted me. He paid me a compliment. He told me I looked fierce.

I smiled back and thanked him. It was early on a weekend morning, and I was feeling far from fierce. I was dressed in a hodgepodge outfit with my hair half done. I had blown out my bangs but left the rest to dry in every direction. Wearing barely any makeup, I had on my yoga gear and what I call my supersonic socks, the rugby socks my son had bought while backpacking abroad. Emblazoned with the words, All Blacks, the socks pay tribute to the New Zealand men’s rugby team, the nickname earned more than 100 years ago for wearing all black while on tour.

I didn’t think I’d ever before been called fierce. I figured it must be the socks, or maybe it was just one of the many words the greeter conjured as he spent his day saying hello. But the compliment worked. I was happy to be called fierce!

I think I could have been fiercer before. I think it would have served me well. I was always fierce in my convictions but not always in my actions. Somehow, I let happen things I thought would never, and it’s hard to excuse myself for not having taken better care.

Maybe, now, that’s why I’m so thrilled to be called some names I’ve never before been called. Names create beliefs, and they can stick like the All Blacks for 100 years to come.

When I started yoga, I was surrounded by lots of strong people. I was determined to get strong, too, and with regular practice, I started to get more powerful. I didn’t know it then, but what I wanted to be was fierce, and that apparently starts with a little insanity.

The class was at play in inversions, and I had my mat against the wall with the others. I was in a Scorpion handstand, my feet doing their best to meet the top of my head while upside down. And from across the room, I heard the instructor pointing out those who practiced regularly in an effort to get another yogi to build her practice, too.

That’s Anne, he said, pointing at me. She’s insane!

Hearing this, I could feel my feet get that much closer to my head. I was proud to be insane!

It wouldn’t be the last time I’d be introduced as such, but it was the first time, and from then on, I knew that things could be different, that I could be different. With this practice, I believed something for me could change, and I could be stronger than I ever was.

The other day, Adeoye was dressed as Santa Claus. Bare-chested, he wore only pants and a red cape with white fur. I walked into the store, and he wrapped his arms around me for a great, big greeting.
 

What are we going to do about all this after Christmas? I asked, pointing out his outfit from head to toe. I wanted to know who he’d be after the holidays.

And that’s when he told me his name.

Adeoye, he answered. And when I repeated it so I could get it right and remember it, he sang it to me as a song, and his smile was so big that I wondered if he had invented his own name. And then the song stuck, and I found myself singing it in the days that followed.

I remember when my son earned himself another name. When he was young, he was small for his age in the sports he played. But he always knew that he was fierce; his fighting spirit was more than big enough. And one day his coach stepped aside to exclaim to me about my son’s tenacity.

Samit is a beast! he said.

And to this day, the name has stuck. He is a beast, and I tell him so whenever he accomplishes anything.
 

Adeoye did not make up his name. With pride, he told me its meaning. Crown of God, he said. And in the way that he said this, and in the way that he didn’t say more, I saw that this man in the Santa outfit was indeed Divine. He believed it, and so he was.

Shortly after I met Adeoye, I forgot the meaning of his name. I researched it and somehow landed on a new meaning, A vision of mercy. I checked in with him to confirm, and was surprised to hear that I had it wrong. But, he made it okay, saying that he loved my invention. He told me that he would hold on to it as his spiritual name and then he thanked me for christening him.

The other day, I was at yoga, and I can’t even remember on what we were working. I recall the music playing, the class flowing, and the instructor suddenly calling me out. I think it was the jump backs. I’ve been trying to jump back without hitting the ground, pushing myself up and swinging my legs under and through to land in Chaturanga, or low push-up.

With the instructor’s encouragement, I hoisted myself up and back with the barest of pit stops. And in this effort, I earned myself another name. Out loud and from across the room, the instructor called me a beast, and that was better than any jump back I could have done.

I felt fierce like my son!

And I want to believe it, so I will be. I want to walk around in my supersonic socks as the most insane beast for 100 years to come.

And so these days, I’m taking better care, so I can serve myself well.

And now it makes sense why, ever since Adeoye told me his name, it’s been on repeat in my head. It’s because in order to be fierce, I have to know that I am Divine, too. And there needs to be a vision of mercy for all the times that came before, when I forgot.

Half Moon

I am not sure how this connection came to be, but the  only way for me to balance in the yoga pose of Half Moon is to visualize my son standing at the far end of the studio.

Sometimes, he is in his tennis whites like he was in middle and high school. Sometimes, he is in a suit, like he is now in at his job.

Somehow, seeing him enables me to maintain my footing in the pose.

Seeing my son has always seemed to ground me.

He is almost 24 years old and has now lived away for the past several years in college and now at his job in the finance industry.

These days, I only get to see him for brief stints, but those short times seem to set me right, even when nothing is wrong.
 
I find Half Moon to be one of the most challenging yoga poses, and I have spent months and months trying to perfect it.
 
I am still not there yet.

I have to make every effort to ground myself in order to balance and keep the pose.

It involves tilting the body forward on one leg and lifting the other so that it is parallel to the ground. Hips and heart are open so they face the side with arms wide open, one to the floor and one to the sky.
 
Most difficult of all is shifting my vision upward.

It is almost like taking the shape of a plane, tilted completely sideways.

Energy is supposed to spark in every direction, and only one foot serves as grounding.

 

In order to help raise my vision while in the pose, I was told to look at a far point in the studio.

This helps me look to the side that my body is facing, rather than down to the floor, although I am still not at the point where I can look to the hand raised to the ceiling.

The most amazing thing, though, is that when I look to that distant point, an image of my son appears in my mind. I automatically relax, feeling that sense of grounding.

I become still, and a strong current of energy flows down my standing leg.

And I balance!

 

So, now I call my son and say, I saw you this morning! Today, you were in your grey suit with your briefcase over your shoulder.

He takes this in stride, knowing his mother as he does. Oh yeah? he says, and goes on with whatever other topic he wants to discuss.

Most recently, I got to see him when I helped him move, just from one apartment to another.

On the early evening flight home, I looked out the plane’s window and saw the half moon.

The sight made me think of him and, even though I was up in the air, the ground did not feel so very far away.