practicing :: it's a process

today at yoga, the instructor talked about letting go of the tension in our bodies and minds without necessarily solving anything. just releasing it. without needing to solve the underlying cause. just to get a moment of relief. and with my now bordering on chronic jaw problem and all of the unsolvable issues that have caused it (the cheeto who will soon be our president and my mother's decline), the notion of releasing the tension without a solution was a freeing one, even as i also feared that letting it go might just collapse the whole structure that is me. but i was able to do it there, for a brief moment, in class. and it felt pretty great. and i hoping that knowing it's possible, if only for a moment at a time, will help me to do it again. 

i was further reminded at yoga of how much i live my life inside my head and not in my body. like my back problem a year ago, my recent jaw pain, was a sharp wakeup call to me to live more fully in awareness of my body. to find a better balance. my clumsy efforts at knitting help. and i find myself wanting to sew something as well, as that is a good activity for mind-body interaction. from what i've been reading about alzheimer's, it can be very important, that hand-brain connection, in helping yourself avoid getting it. that and a healthy diet. a healthier diet is something that the jaw issue has forced upon me as well and here, more than a week into healthier eating (making lots of juices these days, since i still have trouble opening my mouth very wide), i'm feeling much clearer in my thinking and my clothes fit better as well! so there is some silver lining to the jaw issue. 

yoga also reminds me that i'm practicing. and that it takes time to get good at something. i spend brief moments truly in my body while i'm in class. and i need to work on carrying those moments into the rest of the time - like when i'm trying to fall asleep. or when i feel stressed in a meeting. i want to get better at grounding myself in my body, through breathing and listening to what it's telling me. so weird that it has taken this long for me to realize this. 

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i liked the 2017 goals that tracy clayton (of another round podcast/buzzfeed fame) posted on twitter.

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i envy this guy's knitting skills.

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this woman lives without modern amenities.
but you'll never go without a cup of tea when you visit her.
"miss gallagher believes a period of silence or solitude should be encouraged in the house to help cope with the pressures of life."
maybe she's right.

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if you want to be a better person, find something outside of work.

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is america just a bit backward?
and is it going to get worse?

practicing :: a beginning

i went to a restorative yoga class today. my very first one. the physiotherapist cleared me last friday to begin yoga, which i've not really tried before, but which feels like the right thing to build up my weakened core muscles. he told me to take it easy in the beginning, hence the restorative class. it was super low key, lots of stretching and breathing and holding positions for what at times seemed interminable stretches of time. i discovered that my muscles are super stiff and quite sore after half a year of back pain and living in fear of new back pain. i had an inkling of that fact last week when i got a massage and it made me feel downright ill (nauseated and light-headed) for about four hours afterwards. it was better tonight with the yoga class. holding the various poses gave my muscles time to pass through the stiffness and pain and open up, softening and somehow filling with light, even tho' the room was dark and warm and quiet. or maybe because it was. it felt centering to be there, to be beginning a practice, to be taking the first step on what i hope is a new path.

the instructor talked about the full moon and how in it the sun has exposed the shadow side of moon. she said that our practice this evening, in sync with the full moon, could very well expose our own shadows, clearing them out, shedding light upon them.

lying there in the dark, stretching my stiff, too-long-unused muscles, breathing, listening to the music and the gentle guidance of the instructor, colors flitted across my closed eyelids...deep dark purples, peaches, rich glowing green, rosy pink and warm amber. i hated to open my eyes when it was all over, so soothing were my own personal northern lights. and i realized afterwards that yesterday i had painted something a bit like what i saw.

on wednesday, my new practice will continue with chandra hot yoga.

glass distortion

although artist mette colberg was very nervous and it seemed like she cut her TED talk abruptly short (probably due to her nervousness), my interest in her work with glass, especially her filter project, was piqued. she works in glass and has made some blown-glass "lenses" to fit onto a camera, in order to explore the way which glass transforms the objects which we look at through it.

always keen to do something new with my daily photo project, i came home and started looking at the glass around the house in terms of how it might give me a new view on the everyday scenes around me. last night, at the dinner table, i noticed the orangey sunset light coming through the big jar of stones on the windowsill and decided to snap a few photos through the thick glass of the jar. the double layer of thick glass rendered the sunset scene almost watery and wavy, despite the clear skies. the tree branch sticking up outside the window ended up looking a bit like one of the big steampunk electrical pylons that are visible in the distance when you look at it through the much clearer lenses of your own eyes.

it's interesting how glass both clarifies and distorts. if i didn't have my glasses or contact lenses i'd practically need a dog to guide me around, so some glass makes things clearer. but other glass, even the glass on our windows, can distort the things we see, transforming them into something strange and unfamiliar.  to do this intentionally is an interesting notion.

this is the sort of thing i hoped TEDx Copenhagen would do for me - inspire me to look at the world around me in new ways. so, although i thought mette become overwhelmed onstage and exited much before she had intended to, she did inspire me to see the world just a bit differently.

more on TEDx Copenhagen as i continue to ponder the experience.