Every time I take the bus, which is not very often mind you, I feel like I’m in a Dave Chapelle skit. My skin starts to itch and I feel insatiable- unsatisfied with my life options for the duration of the trip.

I could get down on myself for not being “in the moment” and “appreciating what is”. But then I realize I am in fact doing both, letting myself fully live the dark moments of my experiences on the bus!

Today is no different. I notice my bright yellow shirt as contrast to the gray and black clothing that seems to dominate the dress on this bus today.

For my teens, 20′s and 30′s I wore all black.  Maybe its par for the course as New Yorker, or perhaps it was pure rebellion from my mom making me return my black Gloria Vanderbilt jeans when I was ten.

It was my first time shopping on my own and I went to Gimbles in Brooklyn Heights and bought a pair of skin tight black jeans, and a comb to put in the back pocket. The entire walk home I planned my outfit for Monday, hair style included, only to have my fantasy shattered. Five minutes of looking through my purchases, mom said, “these you have to take back, Sherry. You are much too young for black”.

Today is Earth Day, and I’m desperate to get back to the island and get my hands in the dirt and my toes in the ocean. Wanting my inner earth to settle into the rhythm of the land i now call home.

But behold, on the bus I am, my ten year old son Miles sits next to me in skinny jeans and a black and grey T shirt. I know now what mom meant about being too young to wear black.

Those dark colors seem to strip away the playfulness of childhood.

So I wear yellow for us both and do my best to look at the sky and the trees through the window with out getting too bus-sick. And I take out some cocoa butter to slather my skin.

And I write this post.

And I breathe into the light and the dark of it all.

Today a friend posted on facebook that her daughter asked her what does free-spirit mean. She then wrote: “Aaaahhh, how do you answer that when you miss it so much?”

This post made me terribly sad– why have we not been taught to protect our free spirit?

Last year I went to a delicious lecture by the scholar Ravi Ravindra. He spoke of how our method of education and parenting has created a culture of “non-learners”. Through our system of reward and punishment, children have lost their natural curiosity to explore the things they have a intrinsic interest in. By being told what is important to learn, or how to behave, who they become is driven by adults, whom sadly, have also have forgotten what it means to be a “free-spirit”.

Although we have grown to be what we’ve been told to be, and we focus on what we are told is important (job, mortgage, blah blah), our souls know we are more than this, that at a deep level we stir and crave to be true to our natural curiosities. Our spirits yearn to be free to do what we love.

And ignoring this deep knowing has created the great divide between how we think we should live vs. how we want to live. So many of us feel “trapped”. Feeling free has become packaged into week-long all inclusive vacations and “girl’s night out”.

Bukowski addresses this divide in his poem The Laughing Heart:

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

So in response to my friend’s facebook post, I offer this:

Five Steps to protecting your “free-spirit”:

1- Rebel against the “to-do” list for at least a few minutes daily. Carve time for playdate with your soul. Meditate, breathe, sit at the ocean, take a walk in nature, take a bath. Practice free time for yourself.

2- Practice “not-minding” or deflecting what others think, say, or assume about you. Create your personal “force-field” of protection. (tip: when feeling judged by others, place one hand on your belly–to protect your core, the energy center of self-esteem and the other palm facing out)

3- surround yourself with others who are able to support your happiness. We all have great friends who come to the rescue when we are in need or down in the dumps. A true friend is one who can stand by you and support your joy and your successes.

4- Enjoy the abundance that already surrounds you-especially nature, children and the elderly.

5- Embrace the mystery. Do what delights you.  Make mistakes.  Follow your heart. Trust more in the natural order of things.

Unlike back in my day when Legos came in a big plastic box of mixed sizes and building was left to our own imaginations, nowadays Legos come packaged as mini scenes from movies and TV shows. On the outside of the boxes now, are colorful fantasy scenes from the latest Disney film, on the inside, miniscule pieces and a thick booklet with detailed instructions to build a Star Wars battleship, Spongebob Crusty Crab Shack or Harry Potter Hogwarts.

Trust me, I know. For five years, my son Miles was obsessed with Legos. Every birthday, Christmas, Easter. Tens of hours upon hours crouching on the floor looking for the tiny red light saver or Jack Sparrow’s hat. Hundreds of deep breaths dedicated to going from step 1-2-3-4-5, and so on. Thousands of tiny plastic pieces caught in my vacuum.

He’d beg at the table, “Mom, can I Lego after dinner?”

When did “Lego” become a verb?

I watched Miles’ pattern. He’d carefully remove the pieces from the box and right away organize them into categories (wheels in one pile, lights in another, etc). He’d smooth out the instructions page and read it through, carefully studying the steps. Then he’d take a sip of juice, or milk, or smoothie, as if to power up for the experience, and step by step methodically building the piece as instructed.

(It always turned out smaller than the picture on the box.)

But this was not where the fun ended…within minutes after Miles finished and admired his construction, he’d take it all apart. He used his hands, his teeth, my help– to quickly deconstruct the object and lay out all the pieces in a messy pile on the rug. Then he’d “go to town” building his own version of a rocket ship, or a tiny town for martians, a flying ambulance. The challenge- use every piece that came in the box for the new invention!

While he did this part, I remember how I could feel him vibrating with energy, the creativity moving through him like a lightening bolt as his imagination soared through our galaxy or back in time. He’d spend hours playing with these one of a kind masterpieces. Even save them on his dresser-top to show them off to his friends.

To Lego: to build, take apart, put back as new creation.

In yoga, we Lego every day: our bodies in the poses, our breath, our beliefs, our relationships, our habits, our responses, our capacity to love, to change, to be true to ourselves…

The individual pieces might stay the same, but when practiced we craft something new…

Maybe it’s time we lego this world.

I convince myself I
really don’t mind that the trees are still without leaves.
“I can see more sky through them”, I say
But inside I long for the lush green.
Bright pink cherry blossoms.
Plump citrus and slippery avocados.
to the land where I see my son extending towards man-
chopping firewood and whittling daggers from sticks.
I think of the many of us who live this way,
criss-crossing island life with other realities, love for other places, people. Parts of ourselves.
I wonder does anyone else feel this torn in two?
The wind up in Chilmark yells to me, “Go to the water!”
So I do.
I push through the thick beach grass
I catch a breathtaking view of red clay cliffs.
Rolling waves of the Eastern shoreline.
I close my eyes and start spinning around as fast as I can
begging for a sign.
when I open my eyes again will I be shown?
Which way is home.

Last year I was blessed to have met a “new” teacher (although felt like I’ve known him my entire life–his first words to me were “welcome home”) Miguel Angel, a Mayan scholar, high priest/shaman and heart master. I connected with him in Yucatan Mexico while on a sacred journey with my yoga/spiritual teacher Saul David Raye. Miguel’s teachings were so beautiful, that I continued ceremony and initiation with him in Guatemala this past December.

One of the more profound teachings he has shared with us is the most simple, and includes three instructions for living:

-Transmute
-Transform
-Share

Transmute: bite off from the bits and pieces within our lives, chew, swallow and digest. Keep the nutrients/vitamins, let go of the “waste”. Take the everyday life, pay attention to feelings, responses in the body, in the heart, have gratitude. Transmuting is the process of attentiveness, of churning, of openness, of discernment, of diligence within our practices, re-aligning our belief systems as we go. The art of living with awareness.

Transform: Notice that when you live with awareness how your perspective on your life starts to change? You recognize more details, small things. The in-between. What used to bring you down, stress you out, tug at you, suddenly does so a little less. From transmutation, your reserve well begins to build- more freshness, perspective, understanding about your life happenings. So the EVENTS or happenings of your life might not change, but your relationship to them does! This is transformation. The art of letting go to what we used to cling to, our conditioning, karmas and understanding our role and relationship to our life. Feeling, seeing, moving towards life differently.

Share: So what good is any of this unless we allow it to seep out of us and into the world! This will look differently to each of us. I might share by writing, or teaching yoga teacher training. You might share through your art or song. She might share by being an honest friend. While he might not even “do” anything, just radiate. The deal is to never of hoard your experiences. Share them! this takes courage, and a little bit of (as my sister Lisa would say in a thick Brooklyn accent) “get ovah ya-self” The art of taking risks and going into life deeper, not running away from it. And bringing others with you on the journey.

In my experience, when I go into nature, and into the nature of me,  I am shown the way to transmute, transform and share. This is deeply healing.

So let’s take information and make it knowledge. Take knowledge and make it wisdom. Take wisdom and make it awareness. Take awareness and make it consciousness. Take consciousness and make it light (enlightenment). Take light and make it love. Take love and HEAL ourselves, others and our earth.

In the words of Ram Dass, ”We’re all just walking each other home.”

I am in childs pose. Knees and seat spread. Belly and breath surrendered to earth. I chant an open Ooooooommmmmmm.  I wrap the guttural sound around my low back and pelvis. An offering to all the people and all the experiences that have come before this moment.

I hike the mountains and listen to Mos Def (lyrics below). I have the urge to walk this hairpin path backwards so I turn and stumble over rocks and roots. I see the road I’ve traveled so far and am surprised at how winding it is. Surprised to see I’ve already moved so quickly from where I began.

I stand in the cold Pacific facing the shore. The water is rough and I feel uncertain as the waves creep up on me. My legs are numb and I want to run out of the water. I barter with my fear, promising to stand with my back to the incoming waves for at least seven waves. An offering of letting the unknown in. I realize I’d have to travel backwards around the entire globe to get to my roots in Brooklyn.

I’m in Target trying on a bathing suit in a three way mirror. I had forgotten all about that eagle tattooed on my back. I realize it sits over the one herniated disc I have on my spine that has brought me much pain over these years. The eagle image came from a ring that used to belong to my grandfather that had been stolen from me. To my 23 year old self at the tattoo shop in Miami, it represented freedom. Ironic, now it reminds me of the place where I get stuck.

I sit on my shins in vajdrasana and practice a meditation technique called chaotic breathing. Is as it sounds, no rhyme nor reason in my breathing pattern as I move my body chaotically. A few minutes in I feel my low spine release and with it the image of my 6 year old self running through the woods with a swarm of bees following me. I feel my dad’s hands, warm and wide covering my little back with lotion. I feel it, he loves me.

Not all memories of him sting.

My spinning teacher ends each class by having us pedal backwards for a few minutes. We do this to unwind. To release.

Today I do this as practice–moving towards my past stronger, with gratitude and humility.

I tell my students not to try so hard to sit upright during seated meditation. I say, “relax into your body. you don’t have to fight to hold up your spine. Trust that your spine is holding you up. Like the poles of a tent, let bones support you. Allow your skin and muscles and organs to drape like fabric. Know you are supported”,

“I’ve got your back”.

some lyrics to “My Life” by Mos Def

“My whole life is real, my whole life is ill
A fantastic, a beautiful mess…
Well do this: MOVE!
Back, forward, move
Life is real, let’s move on…
Life goin in every direction but rewind…
So real, too real, news real–edited
The close up block out the rest of it
True evident, false measurement…
Scribe lively, so timely,that is timeless
And is lovely, and is ugly, as it must be”

Today I’m thinking about dead leaves, Kali and inner warrior spirit. Possibly because it’s Sunday and I created a gospel-inspired devotional playlist for this morning’s yoga class,

or because this month I’m living in a yurt in Ojai California and I get to fall asleep to the chanting coming from the ashram down the road,

or because 2012, the end of the Kali era as the yogis call it, is asking me fully commit to what will remain in my life, and what will go.

Like the dead leaves being blown off the tree after last evenings’ wind storm, many things that lack “juice” in my life seem to be falling dead to the ground. And it’s time to stop raking them into lofty piles only to be scattered around the yard again.

Oh soul, light the match! Set fire to the fallen. Like a slow, controlled burn. Clear space.

“Be like the warrior”, I hear an older version of my voice say in my head, “devote yourself to what is worth fighting for”

Love. Peace. Spirit. Truth. Relationship. Health. Family. Love.

“and know when to surrender”.

Even if doing so makes me afraid. Even if it makes me question all that is my life.  Even if I’m unsure of what any of it means. Even if.

From the yurt, I chant with the comrades down the road,  “Kali-Durge Namo Namah” . I call the name of the Goddess Kali.

Kali means “the black one” and is the goddess of time and change. She is presented as dark and violent-she strips us from all the ego illusions of our lives- the many mundane aspects of life we allow in, but slowly dry us up. When Kali energy comes to us, it’s usually in the form of raw change, as she’s not one to “candy-coat”. She requires us to remove the masks and the armor. To wake up from the sleep of unexamined habit. Burn baby burn.

But despite her ferocity, Kali is a loving mother, and in the end, she always helps us do what we gotta do to set our souls free.

Hmmm, freedom.

Virginia Woolf once wrote, “I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out, and then I thought how it is worse, perhaps, to be locked in”.

Locked in.

The film The Dhamma Brothers, about inmates on death row in an Alabama prison who do a one-month silent meditation program called Vipassana, teaches us much about being locked in. Vipassana technique does not offer guidance in meditation, nor specific teachings, but simply the space and quiet for the inner teacher of intuition and self knowing to emerge. One inmate shares his experience–growing up with poor role models and a lack of tools to rightfully navigate daily life– he ended up on death row after murdering a man. Meditating, he shares, connects him with a sense of inner peace of his penalty, as he realizes mourning his actions, and meeting them with forgiveness is what gives him a stronger sense of freedom than when he was out in the streets as a “free man”.

Ironic, during his incarceration, he finds liberation.

Peaceful warrior.

Are we teaching our children to grow up numb to the mystery found within ourselves? from such a young age, we show children to not trust the knowledge of their own body. We tell them when to eat, when to sleep. We force them to hug or kiss relatives even when that child’s body is saying, “no thank you”. We hover over them and watch their every move in the name of “protection”, strapping them in car seats–literally cutting off their peripheral vision and preventing them from seeing the full picture of the moment, framing trampolines with netting–so they learn no sense of self within space; stuffing their bodies in helmets, knee, elbow and wrist pads– so that falling down has little to no consequence,  losing the lesson of cause and effect. We tell them to “cheer up”, to “stop crying”, and to “calm down” when they are in moments of free expression. We respond to their love and learning with stickers on a chart, grades, rewards and punishment. In the child’s desperate need to please and be accepted by the adult in charge, he loses his intrinsic curiosity and wild sense of Self.

I think about all the freedoms I live with-  yet how I sometimes too feel locked in, imprisoned. Less now than before but it still creeps up on me. All the energy it takes to uphold importance. All that caring.

So I take time and space for myself and for my son. To untie the knots of status quo and tap back into nature- on the outside, and on the in. And when I do I can enter each day as my yoga.

It’s pitch dark outside the yurt. I let my 9 year old go outside without a flashlight to pee. He asks me to go with him, but I don’t. “Go on”, I whisper. “You’ll be fine”. He’s mad at me because he has poison oak and he misses his friends and his dad and cats and the comforts of our home back on Martha’s Vineyard. My work here is to know this too is okay.

Today I stand in the mountains with my feet wide apart, firmly rooting my heals into the earth, breathing bravely. One knee is bent deeply, as that same foot points forward towards the rising sun. My chest is open, arms spread across out from my shoulders, and my eyes are closed as I breathe deeply and feel into my inner warrior. As I inhale and lift my heart towards the sun, I clasp my hands behind my back and bow my upper body on the inside of the bent knee. I let my head drape towards the earth, as if all thoughts could spill out of the crown of my head.

Humble warrior.

After my yoga practice, I grab a bucketful of dead leaves and take them into the yurt. I open the wood stove and throw them into the fire. I do this so that I remember.

I will follow my inner spirit faithfully. This is the utmost form of worship. This is the warrior. Kali. This is devotion.

Today is my prayer.

Dear Martha’s Vineyard Yoga Student,
While I deeply appreciate your loyalty by coming to my classes all these years,  I’ve wanted to write you for some time to remind you that it’s okay to leave me.

No longer do you need to explain to me in Cronigs Market why you missed class last Thursday and felt guilty all week for skipping a day from yoga and how you ended up stretching at home to the new DVD that your sister gave you for Christmas.

I actually think it’s healthy to take days off… I encourage it!

And when you see me at outside our kid’s school at pick-up time, please don’t feel the need to explain that your younger child is now in daycare and the older one has tennis and the morning class time slot no longer fits your schedule on wednesday mornings so you’ve decided to run instead outside and then go to kickboxing on fridays when the babysitter can come every other week on the days that your husband is not in town.

I’m simply thrilled for you that you are able to move your body when you can!

And really, when I lay my mat next to yours at the other teacher’s class at the other studio, you do not need to whisper across the room how much you still love my classes but because you hurt your knee you had to start taking this class because the heat works well for your body during the colder months but as soon as spring rolls around you’ll be ready to take classes with me again.

I’m so happy you have found a teacher who serves your needs at this time in your life!

Sutras 2:39: APARIGRAHA STHAIRYE JANMAKATHAMTA SAMBODHAH.

Translation: One who is not greedy is secure. He/She has time to think deeply. His/Her understanding of himself/herself is complete.

Better Translation: as yoga teachers it is our job to practice Aparigraha, or non-attachment to possessions, circumstances, conditions of life and most of all, within our relationships to our students!

So, I’m here to tell you to please leave me!  Oh, my dear student, Skip Class! Find a new exercise routine! Love another teacher!

You are helping me be a better teacher and yoga practitioner when you do!

And at the end of the day, always remember, your greatest teacher has been with you all along–because she’s within you.

With Love,
Sherry

PS- For the record, that time in Cronigs I too was wearing pajamas under my coat…and outside the school that day I was late getting my son to basketball practice for the third week in a row…and at that other teacher’s yoga class, I was playing hooky from teaching my own class that day.

(We are all spirits having a human experience!)

“Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind… I’m not worried about anything, I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” — the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Today we honor Rev King by standing firm and strong in mountain pose.

Under and inside every great architectural structure is both the pyramid and the arc–most of all in the human body.

Next time you stand, feel for this:

• the great pyramid on the bottom of your feet: the points on the ball of the foot under the little toe and the big toe, and the center of your heel. Press those three points firmly into the earth. Make sure your two feet are parallel, and either together or hip distance apart.
• lift the arches of your feet while pressing down into the pyramid points and feel how even if your feet are apart, the two 1/2 arches form a great arc. As you lift the arches of your feet, continue to draw up through the inner thighs, “zipping up”, like a zipper closing through the inner seam of your body towards the core and up. All the while continuing to press into the pyramid points into the ground.
• stack the arc of your pelvis (where one thigh bone attaches into the hip socket all the way around to the other) over the feet arch. In order to do this you must keep your two sit-bones (& butt cheeks) wide and not clenched (no butt wrinkles!), while you also slightly draw your tailbone down as if it could travel through the center of the heels of your feet (imagine a little light beam). These three bones- the two sit bones and one tailbone, create a pyramid, albeit short and wide, similar to a three-pronged plug, which draws down and “plugs in” to the earth. all the while the feet ground and the arches rise.
• stack the arc formed by the bottom of the rib cage over the pelvis and feet arcs. In order to do this, you must draw your lower ribs into the body and relax the areas of the kidneys in the back body (vs. letting ribs jut forward and stressing your adrenals), which will ask you to activate your core muscles.Take the ribs wide instead of forward to keep the breathe expansive (think wide panoramic landscape).
• feel for the reverse pyramid formed by the tips of the collar bones, or shoulder points, and the sternum, or center of the chest.Widen this pyramid with each breath.
• draw the arc of the upper pallet of your mouth over the bottom three arcs, which will take your head slightly back and re-align the cervical spine from the “staring at the computer screen head”, activating what’s called jalandara bandha (energy lock in the throat- which contains strength and allows for better breath and energy flow)
• finally, feel the arc of the top of the inner skull travel over the lower arcs, allowing the head to become light, like a helium balloon.
• breathe into and as the great pyramid you’ve now become- bottom points are your two feel, top point is the crown of your skull.
• Feel your stability and lightness at once as you stack your arches. The inner space of the arches start to connect, like a tube or vessel, a straw for energy to be sipped through.
• You expand beyond the borders of your skin and into the world with inhale, and you contract back to your inner center on exhale.
• breathe into your heart. breathe out from your the heart.

steady as she goes,

now Go Tell It On the Mountain…

The most difficult but shortest phase of a birth is called “Transition”.

During transition, the birthing woman is unable to relax or to get comfortable. Her body trembles.  She may feel helpless, lost and unsure of what to do. Perhaps she even forgets the reason why she feels so intensely. She sometimes screams, but silence is what she needs. So to support her we ask the others to leave the room and offer her some silent space.

Transition occurs directly before she is ready to push out her baby. It’s when the midwives and support team secretly look at each other and whisper, ‘hurray!”.

To help her through, we remind her, ‘keep going sister. You are birthing NEW LIFE.”

Birthing new life.

Aho!