The Four Sufi Gates of Speech

—is it honest?

—is it necessary?

—is it the right time?

—is it kind?

The “gates” are questions to consider before letting your words pass (or your letting your emails pass, I suppose!)—

They struck me as beautiful and useful: two of my favorite things — especially to end on the note of kindness.

Hope this note finds you well.

out the window

some things end regardless of whether you want them to

some things you choose to end

in either case, whatever the situation and whatever your level of control over it,

it’s possible to keep going right through the good-bye—

• you can do this by making light of it
• by not showing up on the last day
• or pretending you don’t care
• by being formal and keeping it short
• too busy for good-byes
• or so excited thinking about, moving toward what’s next

you can continue to hold on

inside yourself

in your mind’s eye

re-living it over and over because it was that good, but more often

you’re re-living it because you’re wanting something different

so you don’t say good-bye

you continue

in your heart

or just outside it—never fully feeling the pain

or the truth

joy mixed in it maybe

nothing is homogeneous

(when you don’t step all the way into the world of good-bye, you miss that)

you hold on, but not to the what-was, but to the what-could-have-been

or, you can stay to the end

you can decide to be fully part of ending it

to leave

to change things

to change your behavior

your beliefs

expectations

boundaries

willingness

you can open up more, shut down, turn away

become softer or harder

you can let yourself be marked by the experience

—that’s going to happen regardless. I’m saying be there for it, open-face.

….even when you decide to say good-bye

nothing is over—

by really saying good-bye, you might recognize what you received and who was part of it (even if it was hard, or they were hard, or you never wanted it to end).

you might be surprised by what was shared between you

how it changed you

how you changed them

and that we all move on.

thank you.

— originally posted at Re:Cycling, NOV 24, 2011.

Ever since I saw this uterus pillow, I have been thinking about what to tell the girl in my life about menstruation. She’s ten years old. This pillow is exactly something I would give her! It’s handmade, using strong colors of the kind I like, and about a subject most people don’t want to talk about. (I like to annoy her.) Also, it’s pretty.

uterus pillow by Wendy Caesar.

I’ve had it since the summer, and I still haven’t given it to her — because I want to say something with it.

But - what?

I have no idea what she knows or thinks or feels about her body in general, or about menstruation in particular.

Where do I start? 

[translate that to several months of procrastination]

Telling myself that it was research and preparation for a good talk, I started asking people what they think I should say to a ten-year old girl in my life. Most asked me if it wasn’t too early to start this topic? I mean if she isn’t menstruating yet…

why bring it up?

Her school will know when to start the conversation. Or maybe leave it up to her, to whenever she asks you…

She’ll ask her mother then probably.

Or maybe her mother has already started this conversation….

Wait! None of that matters —

I am totally ducking. I am afraid to get it wrong. 

How will she know that conversations are not tests, or competitions, if I keep acting like there’s a right way to do this— like I need training, expertise or approval to talk to the girl in my life about something that I have experienced myself for several of her lifetimes?

I want her to know that it’s ok to not know EVERYTHING about your body and what comes next, and that it’s ok to ask questions from a place of not-knowing.

Right. Decision made.

I will not become an expert before talking with her. I’ll make this about her and about me.

Here’s what I’ll do:

I’ll ask her what she’s heard so far:

• What do you know about menstruation?
• What did your mother tell you?
• School?
• Friends?
• Female relatives?
• Your father?

I’ll check in with her:

• What does it feel like? – What people told you —
• Is it: scary, embarrassing, no big deal, exciting…

I’ll tell her why I brought this up:

The menstrual cycle is not just about bleeding and whether you can get pregnant today — though, those two situations are reason enough to learn as much as you can about your cycle. You want to be prepared for, and satisfied with, both experiences.

The menstrual cycle is one of your body’s vital signs.

Its hormones and processes affect and interact with how you feel, how your bones grow, how your skin looks, your body temperature… From the inside out, of your body-your home, your cycle determines your quality of life in many ways.

Most of us know little about how our bodies work. And, unless we feel pain, have difficulty doing something we want to do, or are incapacitated, we don’t necessarily need to know any more than the little we know.

But — and this is why I bring it up — the more you do know about how it works, the more power you have over the quality of your body-life, which in turn feeds your mental-spiritual-emotional life. And back around again.

I bring up the menstrual cycle because its integral to the workings of a woman’s body and while there are ranges of normal — day to day, it’s a unique experience for each of us.

I want her to be aware of that, and to begin paying attention to her body because it’s her body. Not just when it raised an issue that needs a response, like what to do about the blood.

the same uterus pillow by Wendy Caesar.

I’ll end with:

Many of us were raised not to think about, or talk about, or bodies, to keep it clean down there and move on. It was as if your body was this separate thing you control. That is not what I want for you.

I want you to actively take care of yourself, to pursue information, the help and know-how of others whenever you need it, and to evaluate for yourself how “true” or relevant what they have to say is for you. And, I think that if I start this conversation with you now, rather than once it happens, the seed will be planted in terms of your body-life, not just within the scope of bleeding and pregnancy, neither of which mean much to you before you’re crossing that threshold.

It’s your body. 

You will know it better than anyone just by paying attention to your experience.

Is there anything you want to ask or tell me?

Fine. I think I am ready now. I’ve stopped wondering how it will go. I’ve let go (somewhat) of wanting to get this right.

What I want for her, for every girl is:

• that she have confidence in herself, her ideas, questions, preferences, fears and desires
• that she appreciate and value her own experience as her primary source of information
• that she hold a sense of sovereignty over her body and life

because then she’ll be poised to create — discover — advocate for her life’s happiness and fulfillment.

Living

is a full-body experience,

whether you want to talk about it or not.

… So, what did I tell her?  — posted at Re:Cycling, DEC 22, 2011.

• What do I use regularly?
• What did I forget I had? or why I have it
• What am I keeping, and why?

clocktable where my pallet goes & some (a very few) of my boxes

excluding seasonal clothing and gear from this –

What would happen if I tossed every container of everything that I had not touched in six months?

What would happen?

I mean —

What would that feel like?

to do it

What would be left behind?

What would this place look like without all the six-months-since-I-used-it [my] stuff?

What does how it feels to be even thinking about this tell me about me & my home?

What if I got started?

knowing that I don’t have to go through with it, but acting it out like I will*:

1. label everything – with either a best guess of last opened date, or “daily”, “monthly”, “weekly” – like that. (I do love signs!)
2. make a list of criteria for saving stuff — like:
• financial docs are saved for seven years (is that the rule?), then tossed. Put the toss date on the calendar now. O and start minimizing the accumulation going forward – Are there any docs that can’t be recreated later, or saved on your computer instead of in a box?
• clothes must be worn once a year to get closet-space
• photo albums of my kids are saved forever
• so are my daily drawings sketchbooks
• etc. — There are no right answers here. It’s my stuff – my space – my life – what do I want to do with it? and/or it to do for me?
3. notice if there’s anything here that I am not using that someone else might actually use, or just LOVE, or need
4. take note of of what going through #s 1-3 is revealing—get specific:
• what can I toss?
• what can I donate, sell, regift?
• what am I so glad I found and touched again?
• how do I want to go forward? —on what basis will I fill my home, my life, with which things? for how long will I use and take care of them?
5. What does all this of mine mean to me?
• really ask the question. Really go through steps 1-4—and then, having taken some time to pay attention to this stuff, what it gives me, what I do/don’t do with it, and how I feel about all that: does how I live currently embody what I want my home life to be about?

Must admit—even after taking the time to roll out this idea/question (scroll back to the top), it feels like such a LOT of homework and I totally don’t want to have to do it. BUT – it’s my home, right? It deserves some attention (even if I’m in love with laziness today).

What do you think about your home?

What are your guiding principles for what goes into it; what gets long-term space in it?

What is it all is meant to give you back?

supposedly invisible space-maker

* because you never know until you try and: you might like where it leads

supposedly invisible space-maker

yep, lots of ducks

It usually goes like this —

Something goes wrong (could be a work project, or personal communication, subway delays, anything) and I start working on the problem with:

• If only that hadn’t happened, then I would have been able to…
• If s/he had done it the right way (or at least had given it a little thought before jumping in, or whatever)…
• I can’t believe that’s what s/he did/said/thought…
• S/he always makes it so damn hard to just…
• I should have known better than to…

When I do this, I sincerely think I’m getting started dealing with the problem.
But I’m not.

The problem is expectations. They’re always wrong.

You can’t help having them. We have experiences and remember things. Using what happened last time and invoking other related information is what we do. It’s useful, time-saving, efficiency-producing, success-seeking, pain-avoiding and fun-creating activity. It’s what we do and it makes perfect sense – because, much as I like the idea of it, every moment can’t really be totally new.

The thing is, expectations, they’re always wrong. They can be close enough to not bother measuring the difference between what you thought would happen and what did, but that difference is real and it matters more than your expectations.

So, let them go.

What matters is what is happening right now and what I/you CAN do about it, with it or for it.

Who cares what I thought, any of us thought would happen? Who cares about the things we could have done to avoid this, or who gets the award for sabotage or failure to meet expectations?

Right now: what matters?

What were you trying to do in the first place and what you can do/create/salvage with the current set of factors, materials and people available?

That’s thinking about the problem.

The rest is enacting the only problem that any of us ever really have, which is not-dealing with what is happening right now. It’s letting ourselves get fixated on how we got here and where we’d rather be.

you win

A friend of mine died this week.
A friend.

That word stops me, problematic, guilty.

Am I entitled to say that about him? Us.

How often did we see each other?
spend time together.

He was young, by the way, and apparently healthy. Something stopped his heart and he died.
on vacation.

Death changes everything.

And, not because it’s sudden, unexpected loss

and you should hold onto what and who you have because you can lose it, him, her, in an instant,

it’s because:
really:

being here is 99% of it.

Because — we could also not be here.

So, whatever is troubling you today, really — is it worse than not being here at all?

I don’t mean to minimize your troubles. Pain is real.
Just —

• How much time do you spend at your job, waiting for someone to stop talking, looking forward to going out later, to taking your shoes off, to whatever you’d rather be doing?
• On life-maintenance stuff, and wishing someone else would handle it for you?
• Waiting for trains or doors, or for something to happen to you, for you?
• Longing for something that was, for it to be like that again?
• Or fixated on something that hurt, that sucked, that shouldn’t have happened?

How much time do you spend on what isn’t happening right now, on judging what is and should not be, focused on what you’d rather?

And, how much time do you spend right here, right now?
regardless. With who you are and how it is and who’s in it with you.

I don’t mean settle.

I mean show up, for yourself. For your friends, family, neighbors, strangers around you, for where you are right now.

Stand in,

be in,

appreciate,

downright revel in that 99% —

you’re here.
You win.

it may be that I am most at home near, or in, water

Registration has opened for the yoga teacher training program I took last summer at Yoga to the People.

To those considering it — here’s my take on it:

It’s ten weeks of school. Teachers will guide you and give you their know-how. (See my take on the curriculum below.) But, really — it’s about the homework.

You’ll absorb what you can while you listen and try things out in class (it’s hands-on!). But — if you want to deepen your practice, or to teach yoga to others, the learning is going happen in you, between you and you.

You: the student, and you: the teacher.

Plan to do lots of homework. And, by that I mean to be challenged, where you live. Learning is an active process. Work hard. It’s totally worth it.

A year-ish later, here’s what I think the curriculum is/was:

yoga history and its evolution —

Around 3000 B.C., yoga as a word appeared, meaning union between body & mind. There are many kinds of yoga. Like anything that carries on in time, it grows in different directions, at different rates, meanings change. There is, and has been, more going on in the name of, and against, yoga than I will ever be able to recite. You’ll get a book list, several of them. History is not my forté; fortunately, the teachers held that part for me. I am slow to read, but I enjoyed listening and I know where to go to enrich my knowledge of yoga history. And, no one ever asked me to recite; they required me to consider and to ask questions.

the postures —

• As training and medicine to invigorate, heal and align the body. You’ll learn about our parts— bones, ligaments, cartilage, joints, fascia, muscles — their intended purpose and how they work together enabling us to move into, out of and to be stable in, the shapes of the postures. You’ll explore this in great detail. When you get to fascia, you’ll understand the allure of med-school.
• The challenges in practicing the postures over time — what goes into developing strength, flexibility and stamina, as well as finding softness, ease, openness and release (even when it’s hard).
• Discovering specificity — in each pose, in each part of your body forming the pose: its classical expression AND the endless variations of the endlessly unique bodies in unique moments forming these shapes: How will you help each of them do what they can do?
• Underlying concept(s) — experiencing how your body works and what it can do, and can’t, and how working to your edges changes you, opens you, makes more of you available to yourself and to others.

yoga philosophy —

Of the 196 Yoga Sutras (aphorisms) only one is about the postures. And, you see how far and wide that sutra has expanded! (Many people would be surprised that there is any more to yoga than making prezel-shapes with your body. When really, that’s just one aspect of it). You’ll explore the eight branches of yoga, the yamas, niyamas, koshas, chakras…

breath —

If you’re not breathing, you’re not living. It’s not something I’d ever considered before: that continual movement of air-energy in and out of my body, what it’s doing while it’s inside me and what it does when it makes its way out — and, that I can control it. That, via practice and exercises, I can learn to manipulate it, to use it to change the quality of my experience (like from too-hard!-stop-now! to doable — just by slowing-down and deepening my breath).

sovereignty —

Question everything! Ask Why?—What’s behind this? The program began and ended on this note, and everything in between held it, too. There was a lot of information. I was overwhelmed more than once by body-details, history, philosophy, the other students, what spoke to me and what felt like a sledgehammer, and always, it all came back to me. I’m my teacher. I can hold it all and not-know everything and go from point A to point B, one step at time, safely and openly. I can do that with integrity, standing on the shoulders of what I’ve learned in class and on the mat, and off. Because, like me, my students will only be able to learn one moment at a time. It’s a practice, not a perfection. What I/you bring is enough. And, it will change over time. The questions and the answers.

Why do it?

I did the teacher training because it made me nervous, the idea of standing in front of a room and being responsible for it, for all in it.  After a couple of years of hearing teachers announce that another training program was starting, it finally became time to face that fear — which had less to do with yoga, or teaching, than it did long-held ideas about what I can and cannot do.

I was drawn to it because practicing yoga among the teachers and students in this particular community already meant something to me: changed me in ways that I wanted and could not achieve on my own. It had become home for me and, with that, my appreciation for homework was growing.

Yes, I know.

Just because I sound like I know what I’m talking about – doesn’t mean that I do.

I could be:

1. sure that I do, but totally wrong
2. excited about it and steeped in the bit I’ve figured out so far
3. nervous about it & afraid there will be more to it than this that I have understood so far
4. nervous about something else and that’s seeping in, so it sounds like I’ve got it, but really I’m elsewhere

Don’t be satisfied with my apparent knowing or emotion about a thing, get yours for you — check my facts, feel out my interpretations, leave some space for what I don’t know that I don’t know, before you buy into my take on it.

Also:  please ask me to look at, or listen to, what you’ve learned about this.

I would so appreciate that!

Even if I SOUND LIKE I have everything I need:

I will always need your point of view, too.

through this door is the Brooklyn Urban Sanctuary, where I'll be exhibiting vagina vérité® on May 1, 2011 as part of a cool body education event

you can light a match.

you can insult the darkness, or you can light a match.

Michel said that in class this week. He says many pithy and provocative things like that. I’m a month into attending what one student dubbed the yoga of a little more, and beginning to be able to remember some of what he said and what we did in class afterward.

Maybe that sounds small: remembering. But, you try to learn something new, to truly change a habit or belief in you, to open a new space, and maybe it’ll be like it is for me: the old you, the all of what you take for granted and tired and busy, it all just seeps into the blank space of new you barely discovered. You forget to keep going.

Anyway, I remembered this and LOVE that he said that. It is just that simple. Yes, YES, there is a lot of thoughtlessness, harming, bad customer service and hating in our world. And, noticing it, the act of noticing anything not-working, is step one to doing something about it. I just don’t seem to hear much of step two lately.

Only us insulting the darkness.

I get it.

(sigh) I just did it.

It’s not easy to change—yourself, your people or your environment. The usual, tired and busy just seep back in.

So, the yoga of a little more—you try something (a pose, a breathing exercise, an idea) and you go into it until you find your limit (the moment, the place where something tells you to stop: muscle, bone, fear, fascia, habit, beliefs, pain).

It’s compelling.

You stop there.

But then: stay a little.

Ask questions: what is causing you to stop? Specifically. And, is that all there is to it?

Could you change position a little? Take a slower breath? And then stay longer?

Feel the discomfort, and see what that’s like for a bit?

Could you go a little more?

My friend diagnosed it (she’s had this condition and recognized the signs) weeks ago. I borrowed her Foot & Ankle Sourcebook, (mainly hoping to prove her wrong) which confirmed her diagnosis. But I only saw the foot-doc on Saturday.

It just didn’t seem right. I mean – no impact? and this kind of searing pain? Doesn’t add up.
So, I did nothing.

I do this all the time.
I Wait.

Why?

You know what—I don’t care why so much. I just want to stop that. To learn from this time.

I have ankle instability. The way I walk —after my history of injuries, compensating gait, and avoiding dealing with it— the way I walk brought on the inflammation. My foot continually wobbles from side to side, endlessly seeking stability it never finds. The plantar fascia find this annoying. (See the model of annoyed plantar fascia there on the right.)

bottom of foot: that's the fascia from the toes into the heel.

So do I. pffffffhhhhh

I’ll call the physical therapist later this morning.

Most problems have easy solutions.

Most of the time, you either know exactly what you need to do, or who to ask for help. And things work out more often than not. Problems get solved.

Still—over and over, inertia and gravity get in the way. They become more appealing than a solution. Noticing what isn’t working (Hey, my heel hurts!), and all the ways to avoid taking action (almost three months’ worth of ducking this time), are somehow more compelling than just solving the problem.

Foot pain isn’t the only thing I avoid solving.

How about you?

Most problems have easy solutions. If you don’t know what to do, someone nearby does.