Spring Plunge – A weeklong celebration of Spring that includes daily Yoga Classes leading up to the Equinox & personalized Spring cleanse and lifestyle guidance. Like a week at a spa while staying at home…like having a wholistically-compassionate personal trainer…like breaking free from your cold Winter shell and experiencing a new Springtime You! View the 
This edition of Lovin’ the Light is dedicated to our furry guru, Wyliena, for the Light and Love she poured out onto all of us with her eyes, her warmth, her attention. Thank you for being our Teacher!
Read her farewell in Musings...
Non-Attachment – The Path of letting go again and again and again
"Arrange whatever pieces come your way." ~
Virginia WoolfAs an artist, I am attracted to re-creating the broken, the discarded, the imperfect, the old and has-been. In many ways I would rather work with a vessel that Jon threw on the wheel but then rejected because it fell or was off-center or blemished somehow…than to begin with a flawlessly fresh block of clay.
I love breathing new life into old cast-offs to use in my home furnishings and would much rather re-commission an old steamer trunk for a bar/kitchen island than purchase something from Lowes' or Home Depot’s kitchen department. Currently I am struggling with redoing my kitchen because I don’t want cabinets but open shelves instead—perhaps salvaged from an ancient school library! I love clothing from The Junior League Wearhouse, a high-quality second-hand clothing shop where I’ve rummaged for twenty-something years. I adore old linens and tools from estate sales, I get excited about rusted buckets and discarded bathroom sinks to plant flowers in, and I fancy the long-dead 1920s monitor-top refrigerator where we store our studio clay. Target’s wonderful, sure, but High Cotton Antiques in Clover is so much more of a delight to my senses! The holiday wreaths at the corner tree lot are nice but creating my own out of moss and nature’s-woodland-finds on my property is so much more satisfying! I crave renewal and reconstruction, re-working, redoing, and rebirth! Sounds like I should call myself re-artisan, huh?
Funny thing is, I get upset when something breaks. Too often while working on a clay piece it falls apart in my hands. I and the intended masterpiece both lie broken, devastated, and in now-undefinable pieces. Distraught at the initial shock of losing my creation, I stroll through the stages of grief. Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. I know that in my world of possibilities I will be turned on by its new life; but when my dream hits the floor, I still must cry over the loss of its original form and vision.
I get attached. As a Yogini who teaches and believes the freeing Path of Non-attachment, I am a living and breathing human who latches onto the things and beings of my life. Perhaps because I take such care to create my world just as I want it to be, just as I feel most comfortable and honored. Perhaps because I believe in the magic that flows from my heart and fingertips in a glorious swirl around me. Perhaps because I love deeply and sincerely commit to those who I love. Perhaps because my constitution is Kapha-Pitta and off-balanced Kapha (composed of Water and Earth) can be sticky and clingy like clay. Perhaps because my Depression-era parents taught me to value my possessions, to never squander the blessings of my life. Perhaps because of the energy I pour into my dreams and visions and the sudden loss of energy that comes at their endings. Perhaps because I simply don’t like to let go.
“Hold on loosely, but don’t let go. If you cling too tightly, you’re gonna lose control”
~ .38 Special
The Path slams us smack into that which we want/need to learn…again and again and again. I have found over my 49 years of this lifetime that there are two merry-go-round horses I am apparently supposed to ride for awhile: fear and attachment. Setting fear aside for now (And I’d so love to set it aside for good!!!), I’m currently sharing with you my issues with the great ugly of ATTACHMENT. Because I sometimes can be a cling-too-tightly kind of gal, My Path leads me into opportunities to practice non-attachment over and over again till I get it right…or, more importantly, till I “hold on loosely” with more frequency and comfort. When it’s time for another ride with the Attachment pony, I literally begin to drop and break things. It’s just how I am reminded it’s lesson time and honestly, it ain’t a pretty painted pony ride.
Jon still hasn’t learned not to talk to me for the first 10 minutes after he hears something hit the floor of our concrete house. Don’t ask me if I’m ok. Don’t ask what just happened. Just wait and let me move through at least the first couple of Elisabeth K-R’s stages. Let me get through the Denial and Anger at least and then I can begin to process what just happened. Surprise!! I am not always Her Lady of Perfect Peace. As a passionate Pitta, that means I have FIRE that can ignite under just the right conditions. Sometimes it’s an unimportant jar of jelly splintered across the kitchen floor. And oh, please don’t let it be an irreplaceable clay vessel thrown by my mother or a bowl of great sentimental relationship!
It may take a few weeks and multiple losses to get my attention but I eventually tune into the call of Consciousness. So here I am again. And I am all ears! Over the last several months, I have been in the loss phase of my re-learning about the great and terrible values of non-attachment. I found myself dropping and breaking so many things that my broken pottery barrel overflowed. (I really must get started on that mosaic!)
Then the hammer dropped…major losses: my best friend Wyliena … and the freedom and flexibility in my body. I live now in a tender mixture of Depression and Acceptance having said good-bye to my beloved girl and I know that her loss has much time for healing ahead. As for my body, I want to say I’m done with the Anger but I’m not sure that’s honestly accurate. Yet still I am mostly in a stage of Acceptance and readiness for what kind of transitions I need to make. My left shoulder will not rotate and it means I cannot do much of what I have loved on the Yoga Mat. All resources indicate this will change my life possibly for up to two years. Its frozenness is leading me on a re-creative journey for my life, for my health, for my profession, for my playtime. I can’t spoon with my man!, I fumble around now trying to lead a Yoga class, I do not lift certain things in certain ways.
In a Yoga class years ago, my teacher had us interlace our fingers and look at how we did that, at which thumb was on top. She then asked us to interlace them with the alternate thumb on top and see how it felt to do something that was not our routine normal. The lesson then went on to remind us that The Path is about examining our life under a microscope and seeing if we are just going about routines and patterns or if we are actively alive and aware. Now that my left shoulder won’t allow me to reach behind my back, I have had to re-learn how to put on a jacket or sweater using my left arm first. Jon laughed and laughed at my initial attempts to clothe myself and how I would immediately go to the right arm first out of a lifetime of habit. I had no idea how I put on my clothes. Now I am microscopically aware!
My days at the end of Wyliena’s days were spent in utter simplification. When we knew she was closing out her time here, I shut down my life. It was the week before Christmas and I had planned a thank you dinner for my Mama’s caregivers and a carol sing-along for Mama and friends. I was to be with family on Christmas Day and help my Mama through the week when I could. I had shopped for baking supplies and was set to spend a couple days in the kitchen creating special cakes for gifts. I had people I wanted to see and tons and tons of things to do but I made phone calls and sent emails and then completely stopped what I was DOing to Be with Wyliena.
I decided that those who didn’t get the message would have to forgive me and that those who didn’t understand why I was unavailable were not who I needed to be concerned about. I honored the life of Wyliena, I honored myself. I sat with her, sang to her, nursed her, carried her, breathed with her. It was perfect. “The best holiday week I ever remember” I told several people. It was THE BEST because I was so completely present, I was intimate with those dearest to me, I lived at the deepest place of Being that brought to me a sweet relaxed peace despite the sharp pain in the losing. Those 6 days were so beautiful! I made a commitment to myself to re-examine my life and simplify.
And simplifying life was already what I had lived throughout oh-nine! I thought I was on that mission and doing pretty well with it when I was hit with the reminder that there was still more to do…or less to do actually! Jon and I began a new life last year, one fed by varied income streams and much down-sizing. We gave up the overindulgent plastic spending of the past and appreciated the smaller lifestyle while working harder to build from our own talents and gifts. While our mental and physical energies have been taxed, our homegrown businesses have brought us renewal. Simple. Keeping it simple. It’s been grand. And so the message of Wyliena Week – “simplify in how you spend your time like you have simplified how you spend money.”
Om Namah Shivaya
Yesterday I happened to hear someone quote Virginia Woolf: “Arrange whatever pieces come your way” and it reminded me of my broken pottery, of my love of re-creation. And it hit me that it is not just my art projects that can benefit from my gift for making something beautiful out of the broken; that perhaps it’s all about how I can help myself put my own shattered self back together in a new way. So here I am in pieces on the floor. I am broken and splintered, sharp edged and hurting. I am not the same as I was. I never will be. The vision is cloudy and awaiting Creative Energy to bring it all back into focus again. But I am beginning to see parts and pieces of how to take my fractured dream and create something magical, beautiful, and true to who I am now. Om Namah Shivaya. I Honor the Transformative Power of Creative Energy.
“And so it is”
~
Louise Hay
It is time to simplify and teach simplicity. Now I must return to The Roots of The Essence of my Path, of my Yoga. I hear a new call and while it may not please all whose lives are touched, it is for them and for me that I must follow what is true. I see some shifts in how my classes will be offered, some alteration of the current schedule and flow of what has been. It is necessary to examine what have become routine givens, to cross fingers another way and not take for granted what is in front of me. I lay myself at the feet of The Creative Spirit for re-creation of myself and all I touch and teach. It is The Path. And, as Louise Hay so beautifully reminds us at the end of all her affirmations, AND SO IT IS.
Laugh now and get it all over your face
This column will appear each month…with “a funny”… Sometimes silly, sometimes intelligent, sometimes downright corny. The title of it comes from one of my many “adopted” grandmothers. My blood grands weren’t much a part of my life. My mother’s mother, Maggie, passed away when Mama was 9 months old and my father’s mother, a formal stoic “Grandmother Jenkins” passed on when I was about 8 years old and she wasn’t much for warmth or closeness.
But Vida Best—now, she qualified as a grand woman in my life! She was big and loud and wore lots of jewelry and reddened her lips and her witchy long nails. Her sturdy working-woman’s pumps, gypsy bangles, and joyfilled laugh announced her visits to our home. A single woman, a friend from church with no living family, my family “adopted” her and she us. One of a social slew of individuals my parents brought home for a meal or a lifetime of meals, I loved her dearly. She had a parrot named Polly, ran a dry cleaners on Selwyn Avenue, and celebrated her birthday (Feb. 13) with me (Jan. 26) at the IHOP across from the original Charlotte Coliseum where I’d generally order chocolate chip pancakes with chocolate syrup and whipped cream. Imagine that!! Anywho, Vida would see you laughing at something or other and with a giggle in her deep dark eyes say, “Go on then, laugh now and get it all over your face!” Vida Best…Vida, pronounced Vi-duh for her but Vee-duh in Spanish means life! And, as far as I could tell from my Vida’s sense of humor and general jolliness, she lived the Best of Life!
Laughter is such a good practice! Feel how your core is massaged when you let go a good belly giggle. Notice that you are breathing and making sounds that help you release deeply held tensions. More importantly, don’t think too much about it and just give into the LIGHT of Laughter!
A couple just plain silly “Funnies” for February …
- Courtesy of my beloved friend Stephanie who works in the office of a landscaping company in Wilmington, NC. She emailed me: “I just had a telephone blooper, thought I’d share. I had to put a guy on hold and I asked him if he could hold me a minute. Good lord! And I didn't have anybody in here to laugh with!” For those of you who know Steph, you can hear her laughing at herself! And can you imagine the retorts that could’ve come from the other end of the line?!
- From David – I am honored to guide him and his wife Pam in personal Yoga sessions. David has a quick wit to my serious answers. When he asked me what a Yogi was I gave him the full philosophical definition way beyond where he was going with it. And when I finally slowed down my sermon that included me telling him that he himself is a Yogi and that his wife is a Yogini he asked “well then, if I am a Yogi, what would I be called if I did Yoga ‘nekid?” Then he quickly let me know that he then would be called Yogi Bare! (and if you ain’t from around here, that word up there is neh-kid…you might say naked!) Thanks for keeping it LIGHT, David!
