blessings

One of my ex boyfriends once told me I could move to a leper colony and become president. What he really meant to say was that I was lucky that I could make the best of any situation and this entire week and specifically today being case in point. I have been in North Carolina visiting my former step mother and I feel very blessed to have 3 mother figures in my life. All very different and all who really see me and inspire me with their lives. So I was coming back and ended up delayed and missing my connection in DC. So instead of sitting around the airport I decided to call up friends and family and get myself to a yoga class and one of my favorite restaurants with one of my favorite DC friends. All of this is an exercise in optimism and gratitude. I realize how thankful I am for all of my friend and family members who love me and are able to help out in my lemonade making experiences. What this teaches me is that life is really about relationship---about honesty, connection, love, and gratitude. It is these values that I hope to uphold in my experiences and to offer everyone I meet.

I have already made a new friend on the flight who also got waylaid here and I am grateful to Jane and her upcoming adventure to study Shakespeare for a month and look forward to going to yoga with her while she is in town. Go figure, on a full flight, we'd be next to each other. The universe continues to inspire and offer us such abundance. And it was her Biltmore tin that inspired me to strike up a conversation. All the while, I could have been unaware.

So here's to awakening and uncovering. Jai jai Albany!

Taking Things Less Seriously Such as Bacon in Ice Cream

One of the things this experiment has taught me is to take things less seriously and to find joy in what is, and not will something to be more than what it is or wish for something to be otherwise.

I'm finding much more perfection in moments and not perfectionism but more of a sense of a sublime now---going back to the words of a poem I wrote: as if I could back to before when my world was innocent and open.

And what I am learning is that I can go back there. As long as I get out of my way and out of my mind. And that feeling is so empowering. One I have spent years trying to get to.

I'm practicing saying yes and no. Maple Bacon ice cream is a yes.

NPR Debut

Wow, if this isn't dharma, I don't know what is!

http://www.selectedshorts.org/onair/

Lately I have been thinking what is it that I need to THRIVE...

Writing and making writing my profession is what I need. Now the question is how---maybe I will make a dream board about that....

Literary

A few days ago, a question was posed to me, what do you need to do in order to thrive. What I realized about my life in the city before I moved to Kripalu is that I wasn't doing hardly anything literary except every now and again. Or at least not in community. But this weekend after seeing the Alcott House and Walden Pond and teaching the fiction workshop and spending time with a community of writers in Bedford, MA, I realize how important words are to me and how in a way, they are the bread, a way of taking in sustenance. I have felt that as I have been rehearsing my slam poem and anticipating listening to my own writing on NPR on Selected Shorts. I do miss my DC literary community.

One of the rituals I have created for myself is either reading a little first thing in the morning or last thing before bed and I realize how much that feeds my soul.

And I want to return to working on my work and committing to poems and fiction. And committing to connecting to more of that kind of creating.

Alcott House

Today one of my all time dreams came true---I walked in the rooms of the Alcott House. It really was like walking into the dream world of a book. I remember writing the imaginary writers' museum notes when I was living in DC of what it would be like to walk into an author's room. There is so much sacred about seeing the ordinary things that infused the breathing of life onto pages...

I really feel so blessed to be in Concord, MA. Walking into worlds---Walden Pond and the cemetery where great literary heros and heroines rest. I think I know what the yogis talk about when we talk about energy and how a person's energy can be felt even when they are no longer physically present.

And tomorrow I get to teach my first day long fiction workshop...

Creating Clarity and Consitency

Some things that have been coming up for me as I let go of some habits are how easily am I looking for something to replace them or can I be in the void/space of uncertainty and emptiness. Not necessarily a lonely empty but maybe more of a pause. Can I pause and not think of the next move. Can I be comfortable without a plan. We certainly talk a lot about that here, but I am finding the practice of it to be much more challenging. I have deviated from much practice this week due to shutdown and taking on new practices of preparing for my first poetry slam. Much of this exploration is about voice and being able to first listen to what is truly authentic and then to convey it. But I miss the part of me that is changing or allowing these changes. I miss more deeply wearing flowers and have realized how much that has translated into jewelry or tights or fashion in some way. I miss having a regular writing practice and preparing for the slam and the fiction workshop I am about to teach has me craving working with words. I miss the late nights of writing in the dark and feeling a sense of connection to night, to stillness, and the connection of feeling awake when everyone else was asleep. I think what I mean to say is I miss the spark of creating and creation. The origin and not the practice, the spark but not the fire...I think I am love with beginnings, pregnant with possibility. I think this is the duality, how can i find the balance between that which is disciplined practice and beginner's mind.

Voice Training

This morning I essentially had private acting coaching or voice training as I am getting ready to perform my first spoken word piece for the Kripalu community next week at our holiday party and talent show. What I learned is how much my voice has come from higher places in my body, such as chest and shoulders and that makes my voice higher pitched and more nasal. However, when I breathe and release words on the exhale, they come from the rooted place of belly and pelvis. I also worked on isolating quality of voice eliminating facial expression and bodily ticks such as turning my head and moving neck and shoulders.

For the longest time I have not loved the quality of my voice and for the first time I wonder if I have heard my authentic voice and wonder if my natural voice was a performance or a mask of some sort. I'm beginning to make connections about developments and how certain aspects of my life have woven their way into my body producing habits, masks, patterns, and expressions.

Often times I feel like there is something locked inside me. I'm not sure who or what that is and why it is locked or what it will take to unlock it, but there was a sense of release and discovery this morning. My favorite exercise was holding weights in my hands, balancing a basket of books on my belly and squeezing an exercise ball with my legs as I spoke my poem. The voice is a muscle, one that I am looking forward to flexing much more.

How The Lotus Grows

Eating meat is actually one of the most liberating acts and it's something that is contributing to me letting go of being the scorekeeper of my life. What I have realized is how much I am attached to following rules and giving myself "points" for being good. I think I have actually softened and given myself permission to make mistakes. And to be compassionate when I do so and then own up, apologize, or make it right. In letting go of score keeping, I feel more freedom. I stop letting the tally weigh heavy on my heart and I find that I rise to the present moment. I show up. I allow that to be all. I am practicing what I teach, the learning happens from the falling. That is where the ground is fertile for growth. If I don't fall, I don't grow.

And I look to inspiration from those around me---all of us growing from the muck, the darkness, and blooming in the light, like my cousins Meredith and Brian---I still well up when I watch this video about how Meredith's passing inspired Brian's living. May we all continue to unfurl from our challenges and show others our beauty.

What Do I Want To Feel Today

One of my teachers opens each class with the question: What do I need to know today? I am so grateful to Jillian for opening up the path to my question---what do I want to feel today? I've spent about a decade of my life avoiding feeling through doing and thinking. I'm going to be teaching YTT sadhana for the other group in my old room and every time I walk into the Sunset Room here, the feelings of my first meditation in motion experience flood my body. It's electric and tingly and unnerving and unravelling. I feel the glow of candles and streetlight and remember the dark and how my body twisted and turned in the beam of light in my spot by the far window.

From that moment, my physical body was transforming but it couldn't feel it in my body. I remember shopping for clothes and telling the sales person what size I was and even when they would tell me that I was a 4 and then a 2 and not a 6, I didn't believe them. Even when I tried on the 6, it seemed right to me---I would compromise and buy the 4 even though it was the 2 that fit best. That's how much I was living in my mind.

Now I am asking, what do I feel I need, not what should I need. The answer is based on a feeling instead of a schedule or a set of rules or practices. It was easy to fall into the patterns of vegetarianism and vigorous yoga. They were nourishing my body, yet, the changes that I was experiencing were skin deep. Now the questions are what is going to support me today in this moment. It may be a nap or a gentle class or writing or dance or a breath practice or a vigorous question. But first I tap into my heart. I close my eyes and get quiet. I put my hands on my heart and I breathe and I practice listening.

What I want to feel is safe and open and grateful and inspired.

Staff Manager/Life Manager Training

I am learning to be a better listener---not only just to myself but to everyone around me and to hear the symphony of life, to hear the big picture and to widen my lens. I'm also learning to be less attached and to not make everything so personal.

When I do that, I am less critical with myself and others. I am less judgemental and more forward looking towards solutions and what would feel right. Not what would be right. I think it is more meditation, pranayama and gratitude that is getting me here. The more I can appreciate the tiny moments of yoga in my day, the more my practice becomes my life instead of something that I do for an hour and a half of my life each day.

Heart opening also helps. I get out of that mind space where the critic lives and I move into a place of joy and play.

The Meat Blog

I am really thinking this may really be just a place for me to write about eating meat. Today Kripalu had chicken. Chicken that really went beyond the cuttlery---butter knife, not the right tool for the task at hand :)

So at the suggestion of everyone else at the table, I got in there with my hands. There is something so visceral about that. Almost animalistic and raw. And I was in it--slimy and juicy and loving it. There is something about meat that is so present moment for me. Something so NOW.

I'm actually a little surprised how easy the transition is---I don't feel any remorse or guilt about food and I am starting to see that take flight in my life. I feel as if I question myself less and I listen better to what my body feels. I eat what feels appealing---I move how my body wants to move. Slow, fast, dancing, shoes on or off, resting. I feel more in my body. I hold less tightly to structure, schedules, and beliefs.

The shoulds are evolving into coulds, or rather, what would you (body) like. Maybe b/c I am eating more things with ears, my inner listening is getting an extra dose of hearing.

The Answer is Yes

Today Dory asked me if I liked chocolate covered cherries. I thought of my grandfather, the liquid neon red cherries in some gelatinous liquid. I remembered how much I hated the texture, the gush of mushy something in my mouth. So I said no. But then I thought about how I have just recently started eating meat and how quick I was to make a judgement based on a past experience. And the more we practice saying no, the more no becomes the default and I know that's not how I want to live. The whole point of every day anew is to find new inspiration and expansiveness in each day. And as soon as the no came out I said, wait a minute. I don't know if I like that or not, let's find out. Turns out, she had cherries in dark chocolate and not the neon red bar cherries, but real dried cherries. I savored them and the moment of inquiry.

The word yes when spoken or shouted makes the mouth curl up and smile. My heart lifts when I say yes. And the more I say yes, the more I learn. I know this from taking new teaching endeavors or saying yes to help other people out. It's much harder for me to yes myself and that's really what this experience is, saying yes to the limitlessness of my own heart.

No More Training Bra for the Mind

Today some of "little girl Carly" disappeared. About 15 minutes before having to teach YTT sadhana, a glass bottle broke and I got tiny shards in my heel and finger. They were so small I didn't even feel that I was bleeding. All the other assistants rushed to help, to clear glass and to bandage me up. I felt calm and still. I felt trust and support. I was trusting and allowing them to take care of what needed to be done in terms of myself and in terms of the room to prepare. Never once did the thought of flee, or bail or poor me cross my mind. I didn't even mention it in the centering. I didn't want the attention to be on the idea of heroic me coming through some wound and presto chango, super yoga teacher. Hardly. I am tired of playing the role of the role of myself. I knew I had it in my heart of what I wanted to radiate towards these students and I wasn't going to give in to fear or let that voice be clouded over by some smaller, whinier me. And so grown up calm professional Carly put on the Madonna mic and told the story of how yoga made her boobs smaller.

Beginner's Mind

Lately I have been thinking about patterns that become habits and when is the point when something stops serving or nourishing me in the way that it used to. And would that be a lull or a sign that change is needed and is it a physical or mental shift or both?

I am now assisting my 5th YTT and for the first time it feels new. Even just going over the program agreements yesterday brought new wisdom about how to approach a new experience.

This is really the first time in my life I'm watching my yoga practice shift from a very physical external practice to a more internal and slower practice.

I'm really excited to teach sadhana today---to talk about where I was in my practice and how then the shift was the anamayakosha but now transformation is happening in more subtle layers of the body. Even with breaking habitual patterns I feel the newness. Today's newness of turkey burger and the white lights strung on the trees outside the classroom window. And my joy and excitement in the lunch line and when I noticed the lights as if hearing a secret or private joke and instead of whispering to tell someone about the lights, I just let my heart smile.

Bramacharya

One of the things that I don't feel I do is take my time. My father has this saying about our family. We leap before we look. In some ways, this is a great way to live---I jump into situations that I may not normally. However, it also means that many of my decisions come from the outside in instead of the inside out. I let things land but not absorb.

So I am continuing my practice of walking slowly, in nature, barefoot when I can, practicing analoma viloma and now will add using sesame oil and nasaya oil to bring in more ways of connecting to my body through aruyveda.

One of the passages that I really liked in the Mahabarta was the one in which one of the Pandavas brothers decides not to fight a battle because he wants things to be safe and peaceful and his other brother says to him: My dear brother, any great undertaking will seem difficult in the beginning. This should not dampen our spirits and enthusiasm. What cannot be achieved by might can be achieved through wisdom.

It is my hope that I am on the path of wisdom.

Meat and Meditation

Since eating meat I have felt much more grounded. I feel my quads more. I think my voice may even be deepening. I remember writing in a poem once: Red Meat makes you a war-monger. So far it's been only the white meat for me so I can't yet say how the beef will flow in my body, but breakfast today was chicken sausage and lunch was a turkey bacon sandwich. I feel more powerful, though I can't say it's just the meat. I have been walking outside more and practicing a midday pranayama practice of analoma viloma and have to say both of those things make me feel more grounded and connected to nature. So today it is about how new foods feel in my body and committing to a regular walking and pranayama practice. My head feels clearer after analoma viloma. My body feels slower. My gaze seems more even. I feel less of a need to speak.

Earthing

I am the woman who came to Kripalu with 18 pairs of shoes. So when Randal suggested that we take off our shoes off for the hike today, my first thought was no way. But after he explained the benefits of walking barefoot, I reconsidered in my mind. He explained that the toes are like roots and walking barefoot helps with back pain. It also is an anti-oxident and anti-inflammatory to have feet connect to earth.

I looked around. I was one of the people sheepishly taking off shoes. This kind of hiking is called earthing and essentially we are made up of all the elements in the earth and we our separation from nature is what creates dis-ease. What I thought would be hard on the soles of my feet turned out to be soft. I let my feet stand on rocks and dipped my toes in water. I relished the new sensations. Walking barefoot slowed me down and allowed me to breathe more freely.

After the hike I practiced analoma viloma---20 rounds takes about 15 minutes and I plan on these being grounding practices to become part of my regular routines.

~

And today's new thing: Chicken Apple Sausage!

Getting Quiet

For those who know me, they know that I can be a bit of a loud-mouth and my voice can go up octaves and get shrill. So part of this experiement is to find ways to practice bramacharya, energy management. And for me this is not simply an exercise in discipline---I'm pretty good at restraining myself by creating "rules" and "limits" for myself. So today is about getting quiet. So far I have taken a break to read in the office and lay down for a bit and just breathe, signed up for a 10 day Vipassana retreat and will be going on a meditation walk in nature from 2-3pm.

Every Day Anew

I've been a vegetarian on and off since 6th grade when I first learned about what it was to be a vegetarian from my new friend from Cleveland. When I first tried it, it sounded exotic and it was a way to be different and to express something new than how my family had been eating. After a week of making spaghetti with tofu and Ragu sauce, I caved and went back to being a carnivore. In that week that I learned so much (and had lots more to learn, like how to properly prepare tofu, which didn't happen until in my 30's, but no matter...). I learned how not to be a vegetarian, I learned how to articulate a voice contrary to what my family was doing, and I learned how to cook (if boiling water and heating jarred sauce counts...but at least it was a step in the right directing). But somewhere a seed was planted and it was one that I revisited later in life to explore keeping kosher and to live a more healthy life. Through being a vegetarian, I learned the yogic principle of tapas, discipline. I've been a practicing vegetarian for 7 years now, until tonight. I was sitting down at Thanksgiving dinner with a bunch of meat-eaters (some who have also been vegetarian) and I began to wonder what was the point. Was I a vegetarian to prove something to myself or the world and how much of my yogic identity was wrapped up in the idea of not eating meat. What if the meat was local but the kale was shipped in from California? Which would be more harmful? Essentially the decision boils down to an issue of paradigm. When does a belief system become a samskara or habitual pattern that limits a process of inquiry? When do patterns that are healthful become ruts that are guised in diligent and serious practice? And when does what was designed to create more freedom build more walls. And hence, I realized, I wasn't allowing myself to taste all life has to offer and so begins the idea of Ever Day Anew. Every day I will do something new and write about it with the idea of creating a more expansive and limitless life from this day until my birthday, February 15th.