My Yoga Beginnings

Namaste. For the past year and a half I've been training under the inspired mentorship of Syl Carson, founder of Bodhi Yoga (http://www.gobodhiyoga.com/) here in Provo. I'm literally a handful of hours away from completing my certification as a yoga instructor. And once I have that lovely little certificate in my hands, do you know what that will mean? That I'm an official student and lover of yoga! Seriously, I may be a "teacher" by title, but I'm first and foremost a student, eager to learn what you know and eager to share with you what I've learned so far.

Many things led to the decision for me to pursue yoga more in depth. I won't deny that the over-arching reason boils down to self-interest--I simply wanted to be immersed in it for my own personal benefit. I craved it. I needed it. I've dabbled in yoga off and on since I was young, first exposed to it while working out alongside my mom to some of her yoga tapes. Literally, tapes...not DVD's. It was a very Western approach to yoga, where the goal is burning calories more than raising kundalini (though I daresay you can't do one without doing the other), but it was a good place to start.  I also have fond memories of watching my uncle Dave and aunt Shanti meditate or practice yoga in the woods or on the sandy beaches of Lake Tahoe where we often vacationed with extended family. They were the official "yogis" of the family, if my aunt's name isn't a dead giveaway, who studied under Baba Hari Dass, the founder of the Mt. Madonna Center. But it wasn't until I was in college that I felt driven to seek out my very first yoga class with live instruction, having no idea what to really expect. Would you believe it that the quiet, sleepy town of Cedar City, Utah sported their very own Kundalini yoga studio? I couldn't even pronounce the name let alone knew what it meant. I just saw the word "yoga" and walked through the doors...and then continued to walk through the doors over and over and over for months to come. I had never done anything like it before, all of the repetitious kriyas, the meditations, the chanting, the pranayama--breath of fire, especially--the crystal bowls, the gong, the mudras, the mantras...I could go on. Where was downward facing dog? Warrior pose? Triangle? The wide, wide world of yoga was opening up to me, or rather, yoga was opening me. I couldn't get enough of it. I probably only attended classes there for a few months before I moved away (some handsome massage therapist had swept me off my feet and lured me up to Provo) but it made a lasting impression on my life.

Fast forward a few years and I suddenly found myself 7 or 8 months pregnant with my first child (see pic below). I was working full-time in a very physically demanding job. That was a tough combination for my body to handle--big belly + big stress = unhappy mama. Nic's massages were truly my salvation. But as my pregnancy advanced it started to become increasingly clear how tight I was, how stiff my muscles and joints felt. I would feel really good for a day or two after a deep massage but then it would seem my muscles would lock right back in place. Inexperienced with childbirth though I was, I sensed that tightness and stiffness were not simpatico with "easy delivery". I also sensed that it was as much an emotional tightness as it was a physical one. That's when the inspiration came to seek out yoga. Both Nic and I soon found ourselves inside the lovely, peaceful Bodhi Yoga studio.

That rekindled the flame. I won't say I had the "easy delivery" every mom yearns for, but I knew my body was responding to the work I had begun a little late in the game. I shuddered to think how much longer or harder the delivery could have been without regular massage and yoga and tried not to dwell on how much easier it could have been if I had started yoga earlier.

Truly, here I am writing this with not just one, not just two, but three little kiddos tucked into bed. My body's changed a lot since those early pregnancy days, and I don't mean for the worse, actually. Each delivery was progressively easier and faster. My first delivery with our daughter, Saidie--19 hours, major tearing, lots of sutures, painful recovery. My second delivery with our son, Avery--12 hours, no tearing, took a full year to drop the baby-weight. Then little Leif, our youngest, was born in a record-breaking 2 hours and 15 minutes, from start to finish and the weight was gone within the week. Is it a coincidence that I was in my yoga immersion courses all throughout that last pregnancy? That I practiced gentle kundalini twice a week his entire gestation? Don't I know, it's all very anecdotal. Who's to say how things would have been different or why they turned out the way they did. There are many factors, simple muscle-memory being a big one. But I feel comfortable giving a good portion of that credit to my increasing commitment to regular massage and yoga practice.

All of that explains just the first reason for my delving into yoga professionally, for my own self-interest as it were, yet from only one perspective, of how it aided me in pregnancy. Perhaps in future posts I'll explore some of the other physical and emotional benefits yoga brings to my life. The other major reason that I'll conclude with today is that I couldn't deny just how well massage therapy and yoga interplay with one another. Wouldn't it be a dream to work side by side with my husband guiding people in their journey to health and well-being?

Dreams come true.

Abounding in Apricots

I've always known, deep down, that fruit trees rocked. Apple, apricot, cherry, pear, plum...I'm just warming up here. What's not to like? My mom has a choke cherry tree. That one gives me pause. I just don't have enough imagination I guess to get all that hog-wild-excited about those. So how do I know that fruit trees, yes, that's right, rock? Well, let me think. Allow me to conjure up some examples: I remember visiting my friend Eirene each summer and ravaging her current bush for hours at a time. My fingers would be stained red and my intestines would cramp--oh joy like nothing I'd ever known! But this won't do, I know, for bushes never were trees.

Well, there was the time I saw my very first pomegranate tree. It was in Beijing, China. I felt so elite and sophisticated, living in a courtyard where exotic pomegranates grew right out of the ground! How was I to know they did that in California, too?

The most memorable dessert I've ever eaten was in Florence, Italy which happened to be followed by the most memorable slice of pizza margherita I've ever eaten. After clearing our plates the waiter stepped up onto a stool, reached his hands high into the leafy branches and plucked a handful of oranges from one of several orange trees that shaded us on the patio while we ate. Then without a word he laid them on the table for our enjoyment. Mmmm. At least I knew this time that oranges did in fact grow in California right along with those exotic pomegranates, so I wasn't so much caught up in the exoticism, just the fresh factor.

Then there was the time, when we lived in southern Utah, our neighbors invited us to come harvest all the potatoes we wanted from their field one day...yeah, okay, I'm out of fruit tree examples. So though I know I saw my share of fruit trees growing up I clearly didn't have much interaction with them. And until you're responsible for a fruit tree, for better and worse, it's easy to see them through rose colored glasses. What would it be like to have free-flowing fruit right outside my door? I know--it must rock!

This deep-seeded enthusiasm was put to the test when, upon moving into our new home this past June we discovered that the giant shade tree in the backyard was none other than an apricot tree. It was probably as old as the house by the look and size of it, pushing 60 years or more. But what really blew my mind were all of the bundles of green, golf-ball sized fruit that filled every viable branch as far up as my eye could see. There had to be thousands of them.

The "thunk-thunk" on the tin lean-to shed that, well, leans underneath the apricot tree was the grand announcement that apricot harvest was upon us. For about three full weeks of July it was apricot madness. Because this tree is so big, and perhaps not properly pruned, I had no notion how to properly harvest the fruit. Our friend's twelve-foot ladder got us to the lowest branches. Another time, my husband and his buddy climbed it and shook whatever branches they could, whilst, down below clenching a tarp, I wore a make-shift metal colander helmet to protect myself from the hailstorm of a lifetime. And while that did fill up buckets worth of apricots, it hardly dented the mother-load. So we eventually resigned ourselves to laying out a tarp underneath the tree and letting the fruit fall and then gathering up whatever wasn't terribly bruised. Because we used this method, I threw out probably every other apricot.

I scrubbed and pitted bowl after bowl full, filling dozens of baggies and freezing them for smoothies. I dehydrated. I fruit-leathered. I apricot-syruped. I jam-med. (My English is suffering more with every sentence) I had my neighbors come gather at will. I took bags full to friends. And, of course, I stuffed endless amounts directly into my mouth. All this, I say, for about three weeks straight. And that was just the half of it. Like, literally, just half of the harvest. Please recall that I threw out about every other apricot because they were too smashed, bruised, or inhabited. My mind couldn't conceive of how I would have stayed on top of it if every apricot had made the cut. I was exhausted and by the time the last apricot fell, my fairy-tale fruit tree fantasy had been laid to rest.

Time heals all wounds, fortunately, or at least hazes our memory. Once I recovered from the low-back pain from endless gathering and sorting, and once the water bath pot was back in the storage room and my shelves lined with pretty, filled glass jars, I thought, "maybe it was worth it". And now, only a month or two later, pouring my apricot syrup over hot waffles on a chilly autumn morning--I know it was worth it! I'll be benefiting from my three-week internment for the rest of the year.

All of this is to say that, man, do fruit trees know how to supply or what? They are the quintessence of abundance. I was in my friend Malea's backyard just a few days ago and was floored at how many pears her little baby pear tree is producing--enough for a day of canning for sure. It's caused me to really ponder what this overused and often abused term "abundance" is all about.

Where there's abundance...

...there is generosity (If I tired to hoard all of the apricots for myself they would have rotted before I could have dented them)
...there is forethought (how can I make these last year-round?)
...there is joy (oh sweet succulent ripe fruit in my mouth!)
...there is responsibility (I couldn't bear to see the fruit go to waste)
...there is preparedness (thinking of those pretty jars again...)
...there is gratitude (I didn't have to do anything except accept. Just accept the gift. And accepting the gift means sharing the gift)
...there is a season (thank you, God, for only allowing me three weeks of blessed insanity instead of year-round madness)

What would you add to the list?

Rain Ramblings

One of the best parts about living in the desert is the summer rainstorm. I'm sure Karen Carpenter wasn't singing about the rain when she sang, "there's a kind of hush all over the world tonight", but it sure does paint a nice picture. A hush really does fall over the whole world, it would seem, and far off in the distance the compelling roar of thunder beckons me out to my front porch every time. It's the moment right before your lips meet his, the aroma of the baking bread in the oven, the agony of trying to fall asleep on Christmas Eve--it's all about the anticipation. Well, maybe not just that, because something magical also happens at the moment the first raindrops fall. I mean the actual kiss, the slice of bread and the opened Christmas presents are all pretty great, too, right? But the moment my radar detects a storm--the dark clouds rolling in, the hushed silence, the first roar of thunder--I squeal, run back inside, open all the windows, turn on the tea kettle, grab a quilt and then I'm hugging my legs into my chest sitting on the easy chair that looks out over the ensuing storm.

As a kid I was no less enamored by rainstorms. I once attempted to sleep in our old jeep cherokee parked in our driveway during an awesome storm just so I could fall asleep to the sound of rain on the quasi-tin roof. But the rain stopped around midnight and truth be told, I was relieved. I was miserably uncomfortable in my sleeping bag contorted on the backseat. It had been a noble effort.

I remember confiding to one of my guy friends when I was a freshman in highschool that my ultimate fantasy was to have my first kiss happen in the rain. So of course when I became a girlfriend for the first time he took it upon himself to inform my new boyfriend of this erotic (at least for a sheltered 15 year old girl) fantasy of mine. Well, don't you know, I lived in a desert back then, too, and we were hard pressed to find a rainstorm. Despite the climate facts, my boyfriend took this information very seriously unbeknownst to me. I just noticed that he seemed well-apprised of the weather forecast day to day. It wasn't until I went to watch one of his soccer games one afternoon and I was out on the sidelines talking to him while he packed up his gear that everything was illuminated. Suddenly one of his teammates yelled across the field, "Hey! It looks like rain!" Of course I knew what that was all about. My secret was out! There was of course no rain that night, or the next day, or the day after that, but would you believe it that at the first hint of rain one day shortly thereafter my boyfriend showed up on my front porch, rang the doorbell, and when I opened the door said, "It's raining..." with a special little sparkle in his eye. And don't you know that I slammed the door in his face and imagined myself all kinds of jilted, telling myself he was a sex-crazed menace. Hindsight is 20/20...I should have kissed him.

I'm conditioning my children to respond to the advent of rain the same way I do...with lots of squealing and excitement and dashing about. Rain just makes us want to sing! So naturally, I sing the first song that comes to mind: "It's raining, it's pouring, the old man is snoring!"....blah, I'm snoring singing this meaningless tune. So then I switch to: "Rain, rain, go away! Come again another day!"...but that's a bunch of drivel. Why would I tell the rain to go away? But one day I discovered the lovely little ditty called "Rain is Falling All Around". Ah yes, finally, a rain song that I could with a clear conscience teach to my children. So, psssst! Pass it on--this song is WAY better then those other rain songs:

1. Rain is falling* all around,
   On the housetops, on the ground.
   Rain is falling on my nose,
   On my head and hands and toes.
2. *Alternate phrases: Sun is shining
   Wind is blowing
   Leaves are falling
   Snow is falling

Not to mention, it's good for all seasons! We now have a trusty go-to song for all occasions that are in one way or another affected by any kind of weather (I'm sure you could add a verse for sleet, hail, hurricanes or fireballs). It's every man's dream. By the way, this is found in the LDS primary children's songbook.

Apparently there's a word for people like me. We're called pluviophiles. By definition: (n) a lover of rain; someone who finds joy and peace of mind during rainy days. There's something profound in just having the proper diagnosis, isn't there? Are you a fellow pluvi?

p.s. I did finally get that kiss in the rain. It was pretty good. 
p.p.s. Go listen to Chopin's Prelude: Op. 28, No. 15 in D Flat Major, otherwise known as Raindrop Prelude. It's almost as good as listening to the rain itself.