BernieBirney

You Say Tomato, I Say Yoga

Surely, this is what we mean when we talk about the midline?
(That would be madhyama for the geeks.)

It's the place of potency and potential.
And of yoga, of course.

Sometimes poetry says it best.

The Decision
There is a moment before a shape
hardens, a color sets.
Before the fixative or heat of kiln.
The letter might still be taken
from the mailbox.
The hand held back by the elbow,
the word kept between the larynx pulse
and the amplifying drum-skin of the room's air.
The thorax of an ant is not as narrow.
The green coat on old copper weighs more.
Yet something slips through it--
looks around,
sets out in the new direction, for other lands.
Not into exile, not into hope. Simply changed.
As a sandy track-rut changes when called a Silk Road:
it cannot be after turned back from.

~Jane Hirshfield

Secret Gardens

So, apparently, I'd been holding the map upside down. "Trout Brook Valley" is not an address that my GPS recognizes and it's already been established that I'm navigationally challenged.

Thank god for Tim. Somehow, he always knows exactly where he is and how to get where he's going. He calmly points the car in the exact opposite direction I'm insisting we need to go, and five minutes later we arrive at our destination.

That's right. The shameful truth is that this is all happening five minutes from our house. Go right ahead and insert joke about paper bag at your convenience.

The jeep bumps along a wooded dirt road that ends abruptly in an open field. Ah, this must be the place. I recognize it by the utter lack of identifying signs. These beekeepers are tricky like that.

(This isn't a post about bees or beekeeping. Not for the most part, anyway. But about that bee thing? Have I mentioned that on my personal coolness factor scale it rates super ridiculously high? What's that, you say? I have mentioned it? Oh, um, okay. Right.)

It's a perfect day. We find ourselves standing in a meadow under the bluest sky imaginable. The grass is impossibly green and flecked with wildflowers. It rolls out to meet the horizon, climbing a gentle slope to touch the sky. It bows in the breeze, and in it I can see the unseen, that same invisible movement I feel against my cheek, the breath of the universe.

The trees rustle and toss their heads as I look up into the silvery undersides of their branches. They sound like the sea. To the left is a blueberry orchard. Did you know that blueberry flowers are fragrant and white? I didn't. A cheerful sign emblazoned with a potbellied blue pig gives a friendly admonishment not to pick more than 2 quarts of berries at a time. Up the hill lies a grove of mature apple trees, improbably graceful for their gnarled branches. The local beekeepers group have been asked to place hives here to support the orchards and this has become the home of their pet project, the rearing of heartier queens.

Astonished, I feel like I've tumbled out the other side of the wardrobe into Narnia. The earth beneath my feet is part of a thousand acre land trust. It's less than five minutes from my house, it's ginormous, and it's utterly concealed behind a busy road. I'd driven past it a thousand times without ever knowing it was there.

In the midst of this wide open space I begin to soften around the edges. My heart becomes a terrain that's as expansive as the one around me and, suddenly, I can really breathe.

Have I stepped inside The Secret Garden, a favorite childhood book? Do you remember that story? I read my copy until the pages fell out. Sullen and jaundiced, the newly orphaned Mary Lenox is sent from her home in India to England, to live in her widowed uncle's care. Inevitably, she finds her way past a locked gate and high walls into the garden, which is, or course, a metaphor for her own heart, which has been locked away since the death of her parents. Of course the process requires a community, or a kula, and along the way the whole coterie of maladjusted misfits learn to flourish in the garden of self-discovery.

What I find interesting is that the flowering of the heart requires each of the characters to see past the walls, past the limitations of their own construction. They must look outside themselves to see within themselves, they must venture beyond what is comfortable and familiar to regain entry into the inner chambers of the heart, a place one from which one could never truly be denied access at all. And, of course, the story reminds us that there are undiscovered territories without and within and that yoga is a process of discovery.

So, I ask you, what undetected realms might be no more than five minutes from your own front door? What domains lie unexplored within your own heart? And what the heck are you waiting for?

Utterly gratuitous bee photo is used with the express permission of photographer Tim.

Taking Stock While Making Stock

It was a rude awakening. Living in Brooklyn, we ate takeout from a different restaurant every night. Then four years ago, we moved to a woodsy suburb in Ct. After a marathon december day we finally watched the taillights of the moving truck pull away, leaving us, for the first time, alone in our new home. I can't remember the exact details of that evening but it was probably me who said, "I'm wiped. Let's just order a pizza." We finally located a puny yellow pages, it was nowhere near the size of the brooklyn behemoth I was accustomed to, and found listings for a couple of local pizzerias.

"I'd like to place an order for delivery. . ." I started.

"Where do you live?"

Smiling at my husband, I spoke my brand new address into the telephone for the first time. A milestone!

"That's too far. We don't deliver out there."

Click.

I couldn't believe my ears. We repeated the experience a few more times as we ran through every pizzeria in the phone book. Panic began to set in. Had we moved to the hub of nowhere? Apparently, the brave new world had never heard of delivery. If we couldn't get a pizza delivered then what were the odds of ordering in Chinese? Indian? Thai? For the love of god, what were we going to EAT?

For the first few months we subsisted meagerly out of the freezer section at Trader Joe's but, ultimately, resistance was futile. I learned to cook. Not only did I learn to cook, I learned to love to cook. I became almost as enthusiastic about cooking as I am about yoga, which is saying a lot. In fact, I found my two loves shared a lot in common.

Today, finally, my schedule offers the quiet day at home I've been longing for. In my bathrobe, sipping morning tea, I putter between the counter and the fridge, pulling out the makings of stock. I'll often use the boxed stuff for a shortcut, it's not like I'm Martha-frigging-Stewart or anything, but when there's time, homemade is just so much better. Carrots, celery, onion. Anything lingering in the vegetable drawer. Woodsy stems and remnants of fresh herbs I've stashed in the freezer for just this purpose.

Vegetarians, here's your chance to avert your eyes.

Next, I add the bones, which I've also saved in the freezer. This is a yoga blog, so, I'm going to address this taboo, okay? I'm not a vegetarian. I spent nine years veg, which is a quarter of my life. Do the math, if you like. I spent a good portion of those nine years run down and sickly. Today, I feel so much better. I think it's entirely possible for some people to be happy and healthy vegetarians, and I commend them. It just wasn't possible for me. I'm generally reluctant to discuss my choices on this issue with students. Not because I'm ashamed, because I'm not ashamed of taking care of myself, and I do so without apology. I simply consider it to be a personal choice. I have full understanding that the seat of the teacher can be weighty and I don't want anyone to be confused between my choice and some imaginary "right choice." I don't think there's one right choice that can be indiscriminately applied.

I don't aspire to be anybody's role model. I do, however, aspire to make conscious choices about the food I eat. For what it's worth, I buy exclusively grass fed, organic free-range meat, often from a farm about an hour north, where the animals have hundreds of acres to roam freely. I've seen it with my own eyes. It works for me.

If you're vegetarian and come to my house for dinner, I will enthusiastically prepare for you the most delicious meat-free dish within my capability. If you invite me to your home for a meal, I will eat what you put down in front of me, without asking if it's organic, where it comes from, or whether it was gathered by the light of the full moon on the third thursday of the month. I think it's polite. Do I sound defensive? Maybe I am, a little. I've seen many conversations around this topic grow heated. I hope that if we disagree on this topic that we can do so without animosity.

Okay, back to the issue at hand. Put everything into the stockpot, cover with water and add just a little salt. Not too much, you can always add more later. Bring it to a boil, then immediately reduce the heat to a simmer. Skim anything off the top that looks unappealing. Walk away for at least 8 hours.

With the simmering pot perfuming the kitchen, the phrase "yoga kshema" runs through my mind. It appears as early as the Rg Veda, which is early indeed, and, in fact, is the very first recorded usage of the word 'yoga.' It means, "yoga cooks." It occurs to me how very much yoga is like making stock. Both endeavors are a process of distilling down to essence. Both require us to throw the metaphorical bones of our experience into the stockpot, to pare down to the marrow of our being, to be cooked in the transformative fire. In the yogic endeavor, you are not simply the ingredients in the pot, you're the pot, the fire and the chef, as well as the diner who ultimately sups the experience.

But, while a good stock is a thing of beauty in its own right, its true magic lies in its potency, right? It becomes the foundation of whatever you decide to do with it. What will you create? A risotto? A soup? A delicate sauce? A robust one? Ultimately, your stock, like your yoga, means to be expansive. You're limited only by your imagination and your skill in the kitchen, metaphorical or otherwise.

So often, yoga is viewed as the paring down to Self, with a capital S. And that's certainly a key feature of the yoga that I practice. I'd go so far as to say it's imperative. To touch the quintessential, I believe, we must cook in the fire of our own awareness and look deeply inward to the place where we're all, essentially, more similar than different. But to stop there would be reductive. So my aspiration is to touch the core, again and again, and then to expand ecstatically from that place. To create myself as imaginatively, as whimsically and fantastically, as possible. Look for this pulsation of distillation and proliferation in your asana practice, in meditation and in the joyful preparation of a meal. Look for it wherever you go and in your every endeavor.

And, whether you're serving it up on your mat or in the kitchen, don’t forget to have fun when you get cooking.

Ten Days

Usually, when I travel, it's yoga related. I've heard John Friend say that studentship, often referred to as adhikara in sanskrit, is like chili peppers. Some students are mild in their motivation and some are of the medium variety. Me, after close to ten years with my teachers, my curiosity is still scorchingly hot and my sadhana has led me far afield. I've followed teachers through snowbanks in blizzardy Rochester, NY, and sweltering jungles on the Osa Peninsula. My travels have led me to India and back. The majority of stamps on my passport signify a deep thirst for the teachings that are so close to my heart.

But the last ten days in St. Barth? Just a plain old vacation with my husband, thank you very much. Sorely needed, my aspirations for this trip were no loftier than lazing on the beach and drinking something fruity and ridiculous that came served up in a coconut shell. I would award myself extra points if it had an umbrella in it, or was a vile color, like blue. "A real vacation," I told my friends before we left, with wonder in my voice, "just like normal people." Instead of packing notebooks and yoga props, I packed flipflops and paperback novels. (And if one was about The Mahabharata, India's famous epic poem, well, I'd never tell.)

The island was everything you'd expect it to be and more. Pristine Caribbean beaches nestled into sheltered coves. White sand. Benevolent ocean breezes and aquamarine seas alive with sunlight . The whole nine yards. There were the obligatory palm trees but in addition was a landscape more vivid and flamboyant than I'd yet seen in my travels. My whole being began to exhale, even as my skin and heart opened to breathe in the soft salty air.

Thumbing through a magazine provided by the hotel, I discovered that St. Barth is a volcanic island and was amazed to learn that there is no source of freshwater on the island. On an island where rain is collected in cisterns and saltwater is evaporated, one drop of water is a drop of gold. But how could such an arid terrain support this extravagant array of flora? It seemed impossible but I was seeing it with my own eyes.

Because it found it astounding, I began to pay close attention, and so bore witness to a peculiar phenomenon. I found myself participating in a process of discovery in which every day I saw more than I'd seen the day before. I noticed a gaudy palm reminiscent of a Vegas showgirl's headdress. Halfway through the trip, I paused outside the reception office of the hotel to startle at succulent magenta flowers, half concealed but enormous, and hanging heavy from laden branches. I'd walked this route at least ten times daily for the last week. It amazed me that I hadn't noticed sooner.

The next day I observed that the thornbushes at the beach, the ones I'd been wary of, with the cheery yellow flowers and the two inch barbs, had tiny nests in their branches. They were ingeniously lined with wild cotton. Again, I marveled. What teensy birds made such a cozy home and found protection in such a thorny place?

Once I opened my eyes, each day was full of revelation. I began to ask myself, obsessively, how many days would I have to spend, how long would I have to be here, before the wonder wore off? How long would it take until my eyes glazed over and I forgot to be amazed by this unlikely landscape? That led me to query, how much do I miss at home? At what point, collectively, do we fall asleep? How often are we so preoccupied that the miraculous passes unseen before us? How much of our lives do we miss and how much bigger might the world be with a bit more awareness?

Returning home, everything is familiar but a bit different too. The house doesn't fit in the precise way it did before. Our suburban backyard is greener and everything is just a bit sharper, like getting fitted with a new pair of eyeglasses. I'm heartened to think that if we sleepwalk through our lives, then yoga is the process of waking up, slowly but inevitably. It seems I can't take a vacation from yoga after all. Not even for ten days. Turns out, it's not so bad.

The Bee Guru

It's a rainy Saturday. My husband and I are driving through Wilton, Ct. Well, he's driving. I'm looking out the window at an enchanted landscape of gentle hills and mist pooled dells.

There's no sign and we drive right past. "I think that was it." We turn around. Wait; there is a sign, after all. A small black and white picture of a bee, worked on metal, hammered to a tree at the head of a driveway. It's maybe five by six inches. You'd never find it unless you looked. You could go looking and miss it anyway. You could see it and drive right past, miss its invitation entirely. He is hiding in plain sight. Rooted in the yoga tradition that I'm rooted in, this feels like home. Already, I begin to like him.

We've come for a hive. Make that, I've come for a hive. Tim's come to humor and indulge me, bless his heart.

I spied it last year in the local paper. Beekeeping for beginners. I've been fascinated with bees since I grew lavender chives on my fire escape in Brooklyn. All summer fat bumblebees visited us. I'd sit by the window, lulled, listening for hours to the secrets in their buzzing. Secrets I couldn't make out. (Eventually my landlady forbade plants on the fire escape. They dripped down on her laundry line when I watered them.) So, six years later, I emailed on the spot, requesting to be registered. But last year was a bad year, one sadness after the next, and I never made it to class. This, however, is a year of fresh starts. So when the Weston Forum once again announces the class, I decide, this is the year in which nothing is stopping me.

"Really? Bees?" I get that a lot these days, odd looks in the middle of dorky rhapsodies. Yeah, um, I seem to be bringing my usual level of OCD enthusiasm to this endeavor. Bees are like yogis. In the outer world, they gather pollen and nectar from the blooms of experience. In the unseen interior world of the hive, they draw that pollen inside, transforming it into sweetness that may once again be offered outwardly. Outer to inner. Inner to outer. Experience transformed into honey. Bees. Yoga. The nature of everything is found in everything. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to look more variously, to gather experience further afield, to find nectar closer to home, to offer more honey.

Also, the honeybee has long been a symbol of the sacred feminine, at the heart of various mystical and shamanistic traditions. What can I say; I'm not a goddess-loving tantrika for nothing. I groove on that kind of stuff.

All that, and a cool veiled hat, too.

We intend to simply pick up the hive but we wind up staying for close to two hours. For over forty years, he's been with the bees. The shop is narrow, occupying what clearly used to be the garage. An enormous overhead florescent light hums down on my head as I suck honey-candy from a glass jar labeled, "Help Yourself." Small and enclosed, I might well be inside the hive. On the walls, yellowed newspaper articles announce that I have stumbled upon the bee guru.

"What's this for," I ask him, eyeing an interesting wooden contraption. He responds the way my teacher does when I ask about the various objects of puja, or yogic ritual. "Oh, you don't need that yet." Or, "later," he tells me. "Later. In time." He doesn't try to sell me anything. He doesn't try to sign me up for his hypothetical teacher training. I like that. It's a sweet relief. A deep sense of recognition ripples over me like a wave. The hairs on my neck prickle into awareness. Loma harshana, or happy hair, my teacher calls them. There is something here for me.

The door opens again. Out of the rain, bustles in the woman teaching my class. It seems she's his apprentice. Quick and capable, and quite obviously knowledgeable herself, she treats him with visible affection and respectful deference. I like her too.

As I look back over thirty-six years, I realize that I have been extraordinarily blessed, peculiarly blessed, in having sat at the feet of great teachers, great beings. Now, it seems I've been dropped into the lap of the bee guru, into this community that was there all along, practically in my own backyard.

It's all new. It's deeply familiar.

I'm grateful.

Tasmai sri gurave namah.

Working Theory

Ever stop to wonder if advanced asana may have actually been invented by frat boys?

Allow me to set the scene for you: "Dude, I bet you can't, like, stick your foot behind your head or sumpthin."

Yep, totally.

The Art of Remembrance and Reinvention

I have a confession. My relationship had gone, well, stale.

I'm not talking about my relationship with my husband. I'm happy to report that things at home are fine. Better than fine, actually. Just last night, we celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary. I won't go on and on but I will reveal that there was pizza involved and, as far as I'm concerned, where there is pizza, there is connubial bliss.

No, I'm talking about my other long-term relationship. My relationship with my practice. More specifically, with the practice of teaching yoga.

Teaching yoga has been one of the most fulfilling things I've ever done. I've long considered a beautifully taught class to be a work of art. As an Anusara teacher, I work with a theme and, in its highest expression, a beautifully woven theme is pure poetry. To be effective, the teacher must touch the wellspring of her own inspiration and transform her authentic experience in such a way that it becomes an offering to students. The class is as luminous and ephemeral as a soap bubble. No record remains other than what students choose to remember. Like an intricate mandala that's painted in sand, then deliberately blown away, the class is an offering as fleeting as a breath, yet as eternal as what we carry in our hearts. I've aspired to teach classes like that, and of course, some days fare better than others.

And yet, in a year that's brought its share of hard knocks (hey, we all take 'em, right?) and disenchantment with the business-end of yoga, that wellspring of inspiration has been harder to find. So, what to do?

What do we do when relationships go stagnant? Because they will. Count on it. Stay in one long enough and you'll find that every long-term relationship invariably gets a little stinky. To expect otherwise would be folly. It could be your relationship with your beloved, a sibling, a friend. Maybe it's your practice. Maybe your job.

The first thing I needed to do was to affirm my freedom. I needed to remember that I could walk away at any time. I'm not stuck. At least, I don't have to be. Neither, by the way, do you.

Affirming that I can walk away leads me to ask the next question--do I want to? Does enough value remain in this relationship to salvage it? What might be the cost of leaving? What will surely be the cost of staying?

When I went searching for the value that remained in teaching, ironically, I found it in relationship. The bonds between my students, my friends, my teacher, are ones I would not untie lightly. They're real. They run deep. They are the heartstrings.

By remembering that I could leave, I also remembered that I choose to stay. Turns out, I neither want to walk away nor to continue on as I've been. I believe the answer I'm seeking is twofold, that it lies both in remembrance and imagination. A relationship gone stale is an opportunity to remember what initially drew us toward it. It's also a chance to re-imagine that it could be more than it has previously been. Opportunity arises, not in spite of the stagnancy but because of it. Creativity is the flip side of memory. When we can't go backward, we must go forward. When we can't remember, we must re-invent. To step forward is to step into our essentially creative nature. Thus, imagination draws us back to essence. The more our hearts remember, the more visionary we become. And so it goes.

Yes, we all know that, at times, long-term relationships are hard. That's hardly a newsflash, right? However, the challenges they offer are more than mere obstacles to get past, or get over. They're more than the invariable downs that must accompany ups. They are, in fact, portals, gateways into transformation. They offer, in their fire, the opportunity to forge ourselves anew, to remember that our nature is, essentially, creative.

So, don't beat yourself up if you're not that excited, today, about getting onto your mat, going to work, or coming home to your sweetheart. It doesn't mean you're not a good yogi. And tomorrow? Tomorrow will be everything you can imagine.

Literally.

Because We, Like, Totally Hang Out With Chemical Engineers All the Time

So, we had a really fun dinner out with friends. The other couple who came were both chemical engineers. Both of them! I think my I.Q. shot up a few points just via sheer proximity.

Sadly, although these friends of mine are experienced world class divers, they are shockingly and perilously uninformed as to the predatory nature of sharks and other monsters of the deep. For their own safety, I did my best to edify them upon the subject. Hopefully, they'll take this information to heart. Seeing as I watch a lot of Discovery Channel, I consider myself something of an authority on the subject.

Next time I see them I'll have to be sure to educate them about leopard seals.

I wonder why we don't receive more invitations.

What do Ram, Hanuman and Britney Spears Have in Common?

a) All three are endlessly harassed by the paparazzi.
b) None of them have had much luck in love.
c) Oops! All three ignored official summons and failed to appear for their court dates.

Dear Santa,

This year, please bring one baby coyote.
(Tim thinks we don't need one but I'm quite certain he will learn to love it. You'll see.)

Also, please take care of my Dad's heart.

In return, I will try to be much less evil in 2008.
Thank you for your attention on this matter.
Namaste,
BB

PS: um, about that thing we talked about last year? Maybe you could get going on that?
PPS: peace on earth too, okay?