Heart Full

Video of the Global Mala Project, with glimpses of the unattached one.

This past week I participated in the Global Mala Project – Yoga for Peace. The first time I particpated was the year before last, with my then yoga teacher and now friend, Mia Baer. It was in Central Park, and it started at around 8am in the morning, far earlier then what I was use to waking up on the weekends. I remember the excitement of it, and the challenge, could I really do 108 Sun Salutations? I also didn’t really know what the event was all about, having just learned about it a couple days ago during Mia’s class. It was grueling. My practice, was still in it’s beginnings, and after about 20 sequences, I could feel my wrists giving under the weight.

I remember catching glimpses of the yogis around me, wondering how they managed it so effortlessly. And looking admirably at Mia, as she gracefully interspersed her sequences with a bakasana (crow) here, and a down dog split there. I discovered 40 sequences later where my mis-alignments lay — it was inevitable, those areas WILL begin to tire, and correcting them. I had begun to cultivate a deeper body awareness, knowing where I was needlessly “wasting” energy with unnecessary (e.g. wrist) flourishes, and instead began to look where I placing my feet, and how I was rising to Warrior I.
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There’s almost nothing I look forward to more, than planning a vacation. I consider it another kind of yoga. Seriously, at its best it’s an extended svasana (corpse pose), my personal mini daily vacation.

That this experience was shared amongst 4 of my closest friends made this experience that much more memorable. We couldn’t have predicted how well the vacation went. I had been to Miami before, and as a self proclaimed beach snob, I forewarned my friends (also beach snobs) that south beach was “nothing to write home about”, but the atmosphere was party-ish and fun. Besides, as long as it was sunny, it would be fine.

As it turns out, I was wrong in the best way possible. The beach is jaw dropping. More so believe it or not than the many beautiful bikini-clad girls. We had to walk at least a few hundred yards of clear blue water, and soft sand to get to water deep enough to wade in, it was exhilarating.
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Once the word gets out that you practice yoga, and that you practice regularly, people approach you with a myriad of reactions and questions. I tell people that I practice yoga, but I try to build a balanced practice, and make a concerted effort to not just practice asanas.  To my surprise, I’ve found that most people react negatively to that. One of my closest friends Deb who I’ve been going to some yoga classes recently, remarked she didn’t  want to do any meditation, instead she emphasized, “I like this kind of yoga” — referring to the class we had just done at Laughing Lotus, a class marked by it’s refreshing sequencing, and creativity, but also by it’s vigorous Vinayas Flow (level 2/3). And I wondered how many other yogis felt the same way as my friend, not really interested in exploring the subtle practices, more into the workout.

Interestingly enough, I ran into several others later that week. People who believed that yoga was pretty much only asanas, or a kind of aerobics. Some were yoga practitioners, many were people who just knew of yoga from a friend, or even a friend of a friend. It was an enlightening realization, though not entirely surprising. My vision of yoga until my first class was what I saw on Sesame Street, and the strange contortionists from India. I feel badly now, of my gross misconceptions, but I also feel like there should be a media of some kind that shows yoga’s wide spectrum of practices. After all, isn’t it more important to practice yoga off-the-mat? Frankly, not too many people care about how I do my downdog, they do notice how I treat them, and they’ll notice even more if suddenly take my broomstick out of its’ semi-retirement, and it is itching to get back to work.
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My teacher slyly told us, that as long as we practice yoga, it’s teachings “get in there”. I wasn’t entirely sure what she meant. Did she mean the guilt, that I don’t do more volunteer work, or that I’m often judgmental and snippy and I should know better. I figured all of the above.

But I think she meant a lot more than just the slow re-adjustment in attitude that happened so gradually for me, it was a shock. One day, I couldn’t deny it, I was morphing into the dreaded “granola girl”, the smelly hippie. I would soon be “one of those oddities” people like my friends wrinkle their noses at. We’ve all seen them, vegans who somehow always find a convenient guitar in a park and/or campsite and sing about mother earth.  But here I am, trying to eat less red meat, looking at labels, whining to my husband about organic food, and that we *really* need to go miles out of our way, to spend more money and get less food at WholeFoods. I am a truly blessed that he relented (under the condition we never buy anything NOT on sale).
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