Mysore Workshop in Canmore #3

The workshop in Canmore was really grounding for me. It was amazing to share some of what I learned with Richard Freeman and have instant feedback from all the students on new ways to see the practice. Sarah still receives the Most-Generous-and-Supportive-Best-Friend Award from me. Sonnie and I stayed in her place all week, albeit on the kitchen floor, it was incredible to have a place to relax in.
It turns out another good friend, Jesse Huey, has offered us a place for two more weeks here in Canmore. We are feeling the gratitude to have such amazing and gracious friends. We (Sonnie and I) are both really looking forward to having a place of our own someday to return the favor of being warm and welcoming hosts to all the good people we know. We love you all!
Being as flaky as dandruff lately and moving around so much has brought to light many things to be thankful for. One being that time takes on a new sense of bodilessness. It moves from being mechanical to being a miracle that unfolds new experiences. Eating when hungry. Cuddling at 3 in the afternoon. Climbing till the sun crests the west and you can almost hear it saying goodnight.
Even though the pocket book looks slim theses days and the bed keeps moving and changing forms, life is beautiful in it's metamorphoses, and it's magnitude tells us that there is much more than having a condo somewhere.

Although having a condo somewhere would REALLY be brilliant.

Living in a Box

Well, we've been living in a van for a few days now and checking out our new hometown: Squamish, British Columbia. We are both (Sonnie and I) really happy to be in BC and enjoy the thick and magical forest, the sticky granite climbing and the smell of the sea.
We are getting really excited to have a place to call our own. I think the true test of a relationship may be to live in a small box with the other, smelling like camp fire, cooking where you sleep, not having a warm place to practice yoga (that means me), and dealing with how dirty feet can really get. haha.
We are still waking up and hugging, with big smiles, so I think we are going to make it... whatever that means.
Sarah and Scott came out to visit and we had a memorable time. We climbed a trademark multi- pitch called Angel's Crest, bouldered in the forest (with Sonnie as our personal guide), practiced in the warm sun in the grass, and sat around a fire.
I am really excited to delve into the yoga community here and have a new figurative family.

Interestingly, I find it really helpful to take a few days off of the physical practice of yoga to see if it is actually working. To see if I have learned to just listen- to the sounds of my body, to the mother earth, and the visceral sensations of my intuition. I am curious to see if the practice of yoga has helped me observe with pure amazement as each moment unfolds into the next new one. The flicker of a flame, the sight of someone I love smile, the sun dancing on the water, a squirrel gathering nuts.

"The rain surrounded the cabin... with a whole world of meaning, of secrecy, of rumor. Think of it: all that speech pouring down, selling nothing, judging nobody, drenching the thick mulch of dead leaves, soaking the trees, filling the gullies and crannies of the wood with water, washing out the places where men have stripped the hillside.... Nobody started it, nobody is going to stop it. It will talk as long as it wants, the rain. As long as it talks I am going to listen."
Thomas Merton

The climbing festival is coming up and then we are back to Canmore for a week of Mysore at the Yoga Lounge. See you there.

Not knowing... with Richard Freeman

After years of contemplating and experimenting with rooting my sitting bones into the floor, I finally reached a new stage of this process yesterday. I understood something about the action a little more lucidly. I really felt it and something inside my body went "ah hah!" My spine went up without strain and my pelvis went down effortlessly. Just like a tree, growing down to grow up. I felt spacious and light and, like, huge!
It only took me about a month of Richard reiterating this for me to actually feel it... not only that, but I'm sure I will reach more understanding of it in the years to come and maybe I will never know it.
There is a subtle magnificent unfolding of infinite possibilities and unimaginable beauty as I see the whole world in the intricate movement of my skeleton in seated, the juice from a watermelon... the sight of Sonnie's hand gripping rock.
I think part of the journey of a yoga practice is to understand that there may be no finite answers to the questions that we have and if there are some answers, at any given time they may change.
Makes me laugh at myself for getting mildly annoyed with Sonnie's ever changing plans... of course if I counted on them always changing I would never be bothered! He's just helping me keep it real. haha.


After a month with Richard I am quite content in not knowing. In not even asking questions, but allowing things to unfold for me by just contemplating and experiencing the world patiently, and maybe the median point of my sitting bones will one day actually touch the floor in the continual process of me becoming myself.
It is sad to leave Boulder and a little scary to face the changes of moving to a new town (Squamish, British Columbia). The unknown ... living in a van for part of the summer... making up new work...
I just got a new pair of climbing shoes and looking at the clean black edge on the sole of the shoe makes me smile with excitement.
I guess not knowing is being completely aware and anticipating the wonder of the world. Richard Freeman's last words of the teacher training (or more like student training!) were, "as soon as you think you know... you don't know at all."

I am completely overwhelmed with gratitude for spending time with Richard over this last month. He has an amazing ability to shift thinking and feeling to grander proportions. He will be missed.

I have a few more precious classes to take here and a quick trip out rock climbing and then Sonnie and I are heading back to Canmore to organize the move.
Hope to see all the classy people in Canmore.
xxoo