Full moon, a Strawberry Moon, time to harvest wild strawberries. I’ve had a few but my plants have largely run their course.

I haven’t been posting because I’ve been pushing on with a new business with my brother called Book Driver. It’s a donation-based bookseller business in Denver and now Chicago, where I’m building up operations.

I was in Denver working on that, and figuring out what to do with the brick-and-mortar bookstore Coyote Ridge in Broomfield Colorado—to be or not to be. 

But before that, I was on retreat at Cochise Stronghold for 8 days. This beautiful canyon is situated in the flat expansive desert of southeastern Arizona, near the foothills of the Chiricahua mountains. 

I’ve been on a few retreats over the years, for yoga and meditation, but this one was self-guided. There was only one other student there, and I met with the meditation teacher just once. I had a few things in mind that I would focus on, things that had come to me in meditation practices leading up to this day.

They say if you are too busy to meditate then you really should meditate.

Well maybe this carries over for me in that I was so busy, I went to meditate for a week.

Still, even with a topic—defenses—I am not sure what I’m doing there at first. Okay, well it seemed the first defense is confusion.

I try to be playful about this, light-hearted. I have had enough of any sanctimony around meditation and yoga, and would rather feel very good about whatever I do, not just feel good because I think I’m doing what I should.  

So I persevere anyway, in the squirminess and discomfort of being alone with my thoughts, telling myself, it’s always tricky on the mount/dismount. This place is beautiful, and remote, infinitely explorable.

I start by organizing the day.

6 am meditate (I swear waking up early happens when you meditate a lot)

7 am qi gong with adorable 90-year-old neighbor/teacher

8 am food/service

9 am meditate/walk

10 am (tomorrow) meet with teacher

11 am meditate/walk.

12–2 afternoon snack, then snooze.

3–6 Late afternoon—reading and meditate. 

6–9 Evening eat, tea, 1 whiskey / 1 cig*, and sleep.

*Yes I’m a smokin’ yogi (tm?). Like Gwyneth Paltrow. The distraction for my distraction has arrived.

Defenses 

So while meditating, and hiking, and between other things, I looked at defenses and general protective strategies in the desert and in myself, and in my small dealings through the day.

Meditating will bring up old shit. I had memories of the indignities of school and the beginnings of a firm resistance to the rules and schedules. But I don’t sort through it, just experience the memory in real time.

Similarly, going hiking in the desert brings up bottom-line security issues right away. Sun, heat, lack of water, strange dangers. Deeper lurking defenses. 

Defenses literally everywhere! Pricks, leathery skin, dark-tanned bark, sharp points. Cacti, aloes, lizards, trees, birds. Vultures. A pair of the scavengers gave me a show of their aerial scanning technique one late afternoon as I was perched on a rock high in the canyon. You never really know if it’s you they’re watching, you move around to show them you’re not dead. 

I wonder when the first vulture decided to go for the carrion, the low-hanging fruit, rather than hunt like eagles. Over time their food source became habitual, and their heads grew  bare, to be able to thrust into the body cavities of dead animals without having to clean their feathers.

Adaptations. We all have defense strategies and adapt to our circumstances, over our lives, and over generations. The multiplicity of life is such that our individual defenses are beautiful, and unique to us (within a larger whole of possibilities).

So, after being bit a few times, I begin to respect these defenses, be not so quick to trample on others’ defenses or my own. They are sensitive places. Boundaries. Some of us guard our own but belittle others’, and some treat our own as porous and let others intrude. 

Blue jays keep a close watch from a nearby tree. Blue Jay symbolizes swallowing poison (blue) and turning it into nectar—transforming negative experiences into gold through a broadened awareness of the times of increase and recession, recognizing the whole. No up without down, dark without light, knowledge without ignorance.

Trials exist to show us what we want.

Do you really want that? Life throws an obstacle in the way to test our courage and commitment. And to grow firm defenses, limiting what’s really not important to us for what is.

Boundaries are great as they keep us safe, but if they keep us from courageous action, then they are possibly overdefined. Only we can tell for ourselves (and our close ones).

Some not so necessary, literally childish, fall away naturally, with a bit of shame. Less guarded as you feel safer, in a feedback loop. An accompanying softening of boundaries, is what it feels like, as others firm up. Safe in my own keeping. Ahhhh.

Beauty shines forth unperturbed.

There was this one thing I found very powerful for getting out of the mind and I call it “follow your feet around.” You don’t need a pic of my feet, but just in case.

At first I’d do it in the meditation yurt, slowly and methodically. But my feet were happier walking quickly on the desert road. It was funny the turns I took. I was leaning over watching my feet at first, the mind telling the feet to go. Vamoose!

The eyes are the first line of defense, they are laser-focused on the surroundings, especially the more novel the surroundings. The eyes take you right into the thinking mind.

(This is why stilling and lowering the gaze calms down the nervous system.)

Being in the feet is like childhood in comparison. Eventually I could just look ahead but still mostly be in the feet. The eyes start to relax and not focus on anything in particular. 

Try it! I don’t know a better way to say it: follow your feet around. Known as kinhin in zen and chankramanam in yoga which means wandering, roaming about. Lemme know how it goes.

I was trying to post a video but I am still tackling very basic editing skills. Report back soon for You Tubarino!

Sign up here for the newsletter or to learn about classes online and in person. Mention Dharma Treasure and Cochise Stronghold if you’re interested in visiting!

In this newsletter:
Intro: Health and Wellness
Practice: 3-part breath, intro to relaxation as a baseline

Health and Wellness:
the hype and hypocrisy

The hype of modern medicine is largely encountered in the newspapers for most of us. The disconnect is in the level of care we receive, especially in this day and age when many have no regular doctor, one who knows us. The wise patient knows that no one could care about their health as much as they do. With so many other resources among books, grassroots education by nonprofit clinics, and just talking to other women, I’ve learned much more about reproductive health, for example, than from any doctor.

Not only that, but that general attitude among the medical community of pathologizing normal processes like menstruation, pregnancy, and menopause gives me great pause. What power are we relinquishing in that narrative?

So, putting the onus back on ourselves for our health is paramount.

And the first step of health is self-assessment.

Yes, the doctor can help you, but the doctor has no real agency over you. You alone can keep close contact with your physiological and emotional responses in order to know what’s going on with the body in order to articulate it.

Further, once armed with a broader awareness of self, subtle shifts and realignments are more perceptible, allowing us to release the root causes of pain.

Cultivating wellness is largely a case of getting rid of the obstacles to wellness.

Yoga, as a functional body alignment strategy, has its roots in the postures of animals, and of our own childhood posture, before the slings and arrows of life have taken their due. If as children we learned the fundamentals of alignment, we’d never have to un-learn the unhelpful habits of adulthood.

It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. (Frederick Douglass)

But it is not only bad habits we get into, but our resistance to feeling their consequences fully, and our frustration from not being able to stop our cul-de-sac behaviors, that leads us into hypocrisy.

It is our abandonment of our body, because it pains us, that we’re combatting here. Or more accurately, unlearning our abandoning, and find surrender instead.

Our brilliant minds, so sure they are capable of going off on their own so completely, do so abstractly. But we do not live in the abstract. Our bodies are left behind, so to speak, though the effect our state of our body has on our mind and emotions as well as our enjoyment of life, is second to none.

Our distancing from the body makes us figuratively “brain-dead,” for the fewer signals the brain recognizes from the body, the less the brain actually has to work with of reality.

In this concept is the key to yoga.

Yogis hold that it’s a fallacy even to speak of body and mind as separate, and represents a fundamental disconnect that must be healed, and in healing, strengthens the whole organism.

It makes common sense. But of course it is in practice that it really gets “down to the bone.”

The Daily Practice

Starting on Progressive Muscle Relaxation: train the muscles to come to a baseline of softness when not in use. This starts in the face in meditation. 

In the beginning of class, I do rely on somewhat of a routine to train the mind to do the same thing each time you sit. I repeat the same words to myself and others to induce light trace. If you do one thing daily, do this short centering.

If you proceed before centering to any kind of conscious body work, it will take twice as long and be half as effective. So don’t go off half-cocked. Center first. Inculcate it now so it’ll be there later.

3-part breath

Read through first, and listen below. It gets easier to do this on your own after some practice.

Sit in a neutral position on a chair or floor.
Get your last little wiggles out.
Let the body grow still.
Be aware of the breath.
Become aware of the whole field of awareness with the eyes open, but soft.
Notice what you hear, the feeling of air on skin.
Relax the jaw.
Soften the tongue away from the roof of the mouth, letting the air flow freely through the throat.
Soften the eyes and skin around the eyes.
Let the face grow slack and with your awareness “step back” from the front of your mind. Lean back.
Lift and rest back slightly through the torso, shoulders over hips.
The breath soft.
Soften the inner body so that the breath naturally deepens, all the way into the belly.
Take 3 to 5 deep belly breaths.
Let the following breath move into the belly and the back, for 3 to 5.
The following breaths express in the belly, back, and chest. 3 to 5.
3-part breath.

Release all your efforts with the breath and return to a state of natural breathing again.

Breath as Optimal Tool for Self-Regulation

We are learning about the breath, because it is the optimal meditation tool, and because it is intimately connected with the nervous system.

One amazing and practical benefit of the breath is that it can be totally automatic, or consciously controlled.

Here we are learning to pay attention to the totally automatic movement of breath, in process to starting to work with the breath to change states of mind.

In deeper yogic and meditative states the breath will become an anchor that you can always come back to.

So we first see what is with active non-judgement. Reality tuning.

Then we introduce one small technique. Adjustment.

And see the result. Assessment.

Little by little, awareness grows and automatic patterns soften, supporting change.

Want to receive our emails? Have a question about yoga? You can subscribe and contact me here.

Context

Moon Phase: Waxing gibbous

Full Moon is March 2 AKA the Full Worm Moon as American Indians have it, for the time of year when the frozen earth begins to thaw, bringing earth worms to the surface.

I’m starting to think about planning the garden. This year is all about basic healing plants and herbs. I want to use the plants for making medicinal tinctures and salves. So, planting-wise, nothing fancy. Tomatoes of course, and greens.

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312-607-6563

Copyright ©  2018  Bija Works  All rights reserved. Contact me for reprint permission.

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To begin, begin

Moon: Waxing Crescent (new moon was the 15th)
Building up forces

In this newsletter: 

Introduction

First line of Yoga Sutra, the ur-text of yogic discipline:
 

Now we begin the process of yoga.

First, we enter the present moment, now. Yoga moves from the more superficial levels of awareness to the deeper in a steady, verifiable process. In yoga, functional awareness starts in the body, literally, with the breath. The asana or postures are among the early steps of yoga works, followed by longer meditative states.

It is sometimes called a spiritual technology because it gives a structure to follow, to move into various levels of our being. This turns out to be a useful tool for regulation and adaptation. Beginning any new routine is difficult, but in yoga we use small, incremental steps to achieve intermediate goals.

We cannot be really free and energetically pursue our goals when the body’s demands are pressing. Though we can and do ignore this fact. The abstraction of the body into an enemy is a fundamental error. Repairing this relationship is the first step towards health—cultivation of awareness leads to a state of wellness.

Often when I meet absolute beginners, especially those who are weakened in any way, from the average inflexibility, to impairments caused by injury and age, they are so worried about not being a yoga type. I remind them that yoga is for every body. In practice, yoga feels more like a physical training and way to get with yourself than an exercise. 

It is also a minimally invasive approach to attenuating many chronic concerns, at their roots.

Better than opiates, in other words.

The Daily Practice

“The mind should reach toward meditation, not avoid it.”

With yoga, start small, aim for shorter, consistent, daily or weekly practices at first. Don’t start with 20 minutes meditation on day one. (Not alone, anyway. It’s much easier when meditating with others.) Five minutes is great.

Centering (5 minutes) 

(I’ll add link to audio shortly, when the site goes live.)

Sit cross-legged, or any comfortable seated position. Use a chair if the hips don’t allow a comfortable floor position.

Breath through the nose at a natural rhythm, lightly closing the lips.

Release the jaw and let the tongue hang away from the roof of the mouth.

With the eyes open, lowered, and still, allow your focus to be diffuse, and notice the entire field of your awareness, in the senses and the body.

Be patient. As the dust settles, the body will become still and soft.

3-part breath (increases oxygen intake/use of lung capacity)

Inhalations bring light and space into the body, while exhalations soften and release tension. Breathe continuously, using light effort on inhalation, then letting the breath exit on its own.

Read through the next part first.

Close the eyes and let the eyes rest back and become still. Relax the jaw and tongue (again).
1. Let the breath move gently into the belly. 3-5 breaths.
2. Let the breath move smoothly from the belly into the mid-back. 3-5 breaths.
3. Let the breath move into the belly, then the mid-back, and lastly into the chest. 3-5 breaths.

Let the breath be continuous and soft, not too much effort (tension) in the breath. Become sensitive to the smallest movements in the inner body and build from there gradually. Relax into the body, enjoying any moments of pleasure you encounter, and breathing with awareness of more difficult sensations.

Here are my friends Charlie and Anja to demonstrate! Don’t judge, they work for free!

WARM-UP (10–15 minutes daily)

Still seated, press the hands down at the sides and draw up and back with the sides of the waist, straightening the arms.

Bring both arms out to the side and rotate open from the shoulder joint.

As you inhale, lift your arms so palms face inwards. The arms can be in a vee, but keep them straight. Let the muscles of the upper arms draw toward the ears. Keep the arms lifted but let the shoulder joint release down to the back. 3 breaths.

Release arms down to the sides on exhalation, rotating them internally as you lower.

Bring the arms just behind the hips and out to the sides, fingers facing forward.

Bend the elbows back, then lift forward through the chest, coming into a backbend. Let the inner edges of the shoulder blades shift down and onto the back.

Remove any extra tension in the upper shoulders/traps (breathe there).

Release back to neutral on in-breath.
 

Cat/Cow

Can be performed seated or move into hands and knees posture. Seated in easy pose (cross-legged), with hands on lap or grasping the shins, let the back round upon an exhale.

On an inhale, lift the chest forward and up for a back bend. Exhalation rounds the back. Moving with the breath, keeping it slowly going for 6-8 rounds.

Side Bend

With the arms back at the sides, feel the pelvis root down into the ground through the sitting bones. Upon inhalation, lengthen the sides of the waist towards the armpits and let the shoulders move slightly to the sides.

With left arm (soft elbow) down at the side as a kickstand, take the right arm off the ground, turn it palm-facing out, and lift with an inhale. Feel the spine lengthen on the in-breath. Keep the length in the left side of the waist as you exhale, bending to the left.  2-3 breaths. Up again with an inhale, release arm down with exhale.

Repeat OS.
 

Seated Spinal Twist

ROOT down through the sitting bones.

If your pelvis is too far back, you’ll feel a strain in the low back. Too far forward, strain in the mid-back.

Feel the natural movements of the spine as you breathe. It expands and contracts like an accordion. Keep the breath gentle, steady, and even in the back and front of the torso.

The principle: on in-breaths, the spine lengthens, on out-breaths, twist.

Start the turn by bringing the right arm onto the ground behind and slightly away from the hips. Bring the left arm across the body and place the hand on the outside of the right upper thigh. Inhale and lengthen the torso; exhale and turn the belly to the right.

Turn from the belly, back, then chest. Neck and head turn last of all.

Go almost to your edge, then hold and let the breath do the rest. Steady continuous breathing, with space in the inner belly, and especially focusing on the back and sides of the spine.

Do NOT overdo the twist. Try instead to keep integrity in the twist. Meaning, the spine is twisting evenly along its length, moving from the ground up. The sides of the chest open, too, and the shoulders remain level and away from the ears.

Let the spine still move in its accordion-like fashion, even in the twist.

Tuck the lower front ribs in the body, and breathe into the mid-back.

3-5 breaths. Release from the top down on an INHALATION.

Relax and soften for a couple of breaths before repeating to the left.

Take a few moments to relax again in a neutral seated pose, internalizing the practice. If you have time, lay down for a few minutes. Then slowly come back to your senses, bringing some of the feeling you have now into the rest of your day.
 

THAT’S IT!!

If you do this much even thrice weekly, you’ll be on your way to a healthier spine and stronger back, and releasing energy-draining habit formations.

You’re as young as your spine is flexible. (Yogi maxim)

If any of this isn’t computing, I do in-person and tele-sessions. A few sessions can get you on the right track, help support other physical movement practices, and give you personal feedback.

I charge in micro increments (15 minutes), to make yoga accessible for any level of need. And so that our time is used efficiently. If you need any kind of sponsorship, ask me about options. 

Subscribe below the jump.

Love, Emily and Bija Works

FAQs for yoga students

What interests you about yoga? Flexibility, de-stressing, something else?

What is your physical condition, and do you have underlying pains or injuries?

Have you been to a class? If not, would you be interested in practicing introductory hatha yoga with a small group?

Have you tried online classes?

Have you tried  meditation on your own or with others? 

It’s important to have a community, to ask and answer questions and share resources. If you have any answers, contact us here: 

I’ll post free yoga content here about once a week, building up and organizing lessons in yoga for students and new teachers. I want this to be a resource as well as a place to find local classes and other resources.
 
Developing this space month by month, there will surely be many changes over the year. Fail sooner, fail better, fall upwards. May it serve as a prod for some project of your own. 
 

Shanti.