My yoga instructor tells me that my breathing has been good today. It’s been said that if you’re in a posture but not aligned with your breath, you’re not doing yoga, you’re just stretching. Today I conjured Vader. Tomorrow’s practice, who knows? Every day is different.
Every day is a yoga practice of sorts. Metaphors abound on and off the mat.
I’ve been given new postures to practice. A completely new and unexplored realm, the dynamic inverse world of shoulder stands. Ee gads! Hesitant, I told my instructor that I was nervous. Not sure I could get my legs up in the air properly.
“After everything else you’re doing in your practice…this is easy,” he says.
He was right. It wasn’t that bad. Just new and unfamiliar. New positionings for me to attune to.
Speaking of positioning. Besides being blessed with the addition of new postures in my yoga practice, it seems my feathered friends would also like to bestow their gifts upon me.
Post shoulder stands and beach time, I rolled up to a stop sign with my window down to the tropical air. Suddenly, it felt as if someone had thrown a fistful of wet sand at me. A damp and grainy splat had hit my bare leg and smattered the inside of the car door. With a closer look, I realized that this was not sand, but rather a large deposit of fresh bird poo. What are the odds?
courtesy of labasta
Bewildered, I stuck my head out the window and looked up, seeing nothing, of course. My bird friend was swift in flight and long gone. Amazed at the angle needed to achieve this perfect aim to reach me, I took the droppings as a sign of good luck. They say bird poop is a blessing and that offering seemed destined for me.
Someone taught Jeb the Italian slang for feces. For the rest of our car ride home – me with drying bird doo on my leg, Jeb in the backseat – he goes bilingual. In some allegorical call and response, he delightfully announces “turd'”with a rolling ‘r’ and an Italian accent. Then follows it with “stronzo!”
There we are, driving home. Shoulder stands and bird shit. Me, I’m still breathing. Deep in the excrement and smiling. Somehow feeling blessed.
The water pipes are still dry
so you go for tequila
bring a bowl and band aids
to your friend’s house
where you’ll soak the screw wound
in your sole
and sip a cocktail at sunset
you finally are ready to bring those boots outside
you’ll pat your soaked foot dry
apply the ointment
adhere the bandage
slip on a sock
and zip up that foot
into the leather boots
that have been sitting
waiting
by your travel books
now these boots are climbing
stairs to the top of the Ficus
a treehouse in the clouds
you clink glasses with friends
in pinkening skies
eat beans and beets just picked from the garden
get swooped by a flock of 30 dainty birds
all one mind
in speedy flight
used to tree tops
but not to humans in them
you don’t want serenity prayers
or downward dog poses
but you’ll try
to accept
to embrace your Dark Side
to breathe like Darth Vader
and after an hour
ok
you do feel better
And through some alignment with the Force
when you return home
the pump is primed
water is flowing
and you are in love with liquid
singing praises
and committing
life-long devotion to the element of water
by nightfall it’s time for poetry
courtesy of wanathan101
last night you were in treetop branches
with sunset clouds
tonight you are flush with the grass
poets circle a fire in starlight
and you stretch
beneath the Gardenias
soles warmed by flames
smoke circling to sky
sparks catch air in quick bursts
punctuating poetry
that spills from the mouths of your neighbors
words and flickers
stars and flowers
the smell of smoke in your hair
upon this earthen body
you and the poets spiral through space
resting on the surface
just above the treasure
layers and deep veins
hold the seeping springs of liquid love
the elemental elixir
you are prostrate
a devotee
giving thanks at the well
quenched
by the flow
of words
and water
It is quiet here but for the ocean waves at the cliffs nearby. Rain drops trickle in the water lilies outside the window.
Yesterday I came home from work imagining the luxury of a 20 minute afternoon cat nap. Instead my street was flooded with water and I learned that my house had none. There’s a fear the water in my neighborhood may be contaminated. No one should drink from the tap.
Oh, the things we rely upon and often take for granted. Like clean, running water! Instead of slumber, I spent my afternoon packing. I was grateful that my friends had an empty house, as they were on a rare, one-night camping trip. I focused on my thankfulness that I had a haven available with hot running water, just down the road.
I packed light with hopes that all would be back to normal at my place within 24 hours. The mental list of all requirements flooding my mind in a muck.
Bring food for breakfast and a school lunch. Oh, I’m supposed to supply produce for Jeb’s contribution to the school’s farmer’s market. What are we bringing? He’s got that sleep over on Saturday…I’m supposed to call them back with a time. That cough of his isn’t going away. Do I make a doctor’s appointment? Ah, and the dentist. I’m supposed to call to reschedule teeth cleaning for both of us. That’s $100 each…when will we fit those into our schedule? Can I afford that right now? Teeth are important…gosh, I’m afraid he doesn’t floss enough…I’ll call them back…And that meeting I have with that potential new client…ok, that’s tomorrow. But now my timing’s all off because I’m not going to be home…should I cancel? What if the water is not back on by tomorrow? You know that neighbor said that he thinks the situation could take weeks to resolve. Where would we stay? And did I take that flower essence enough times today? It’s supposed to calm me and heal my ovary. Am I calm? I think I’m pretty calm despite these circumstances. I’m supposed to be practicing that Inner Smile meditation for my womb. Can I really dissolve this cyst? What’s it all about anyway? I can’t think about it now. But then when will I give it attention? Am I giving it enough focus? Too much? Can I handle all of this flux and still maintain the Archives? Can I still make it to yoga practice tomorrow? Ok, what time is it? I have to go pick up Jeb.
All of these thoughts pool and eddy into this mother head of mine as I unload gear from the car and walk it into my friends’ empty house. I am barefoot, moving through grass, when suddenly a sharp pain jolts all mental chatter. I lift my foot to see a metal screw dangling from my sole. Fairly bright and new – not rusty – I pull it from my foot and give thanks I’m near hot water. I doctor my injury (try to remember the last time I had a tetanus shot – I think 10 years ago before India. That’s pushing it, I know) and take a deep breath. I ponder this misstep. I rarely hurt myself. What’s going on? Maybe I’m just displaced and ruffled.
Well, that was yesterday. Now, it is a new day. Morning in low light with pen and paper. My foot is clean, dry and protected. I’m still here at the Archives. My friends’ house is so rural, there is no internet. I know at some point today I’ll find a way to get this post online. These rambling words sourced from the dark time before sunlight in a different house. A new locale.
Soon, I’ll be bagging lychee for the farmer’s market. Cleaning up traces of our overnight reprieve. Readying myself for another morning of practice at the yoga studio. Yes, I think I’ll make it.
I see that I can move through life with so many assumptions. Like something as elemental as access to running water. Then, suddenly, circumstance can turn things upside down. Nothing is guaranteed. In that free fall, I’m left to seek what’s most fundamental. Appreciation seeps for things like a bed to sleep in. The gift of a hot shower.
My little life curveball here, is temporary. I’ll have water again. This shut down can offer opportunity. A new way to start my day.
Pen and ink and different shadows. Distant waves sounding. Roosters crowing in the quiet. The trickle of water droplets falling from the roof.
Jessica Dofflemyer ~ all rights reserved
Soaking in this magic hour, I do not know what this day will reveal. But I’m trusting that I can move through it – one breath at a time.
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