Bringing Awareness
Our teacher, Tias Little, is in town this weekend. Obviously, I’m very excited about practicing with Tias again – I haven’t studied with him since earlier in the year due to my pregnancy. I consider him to be a key teacher in my practicing and my teaching. After studying with Tias and his wife Surya, I always feel like my inner compass has been reset. There is a clarity of mind and an ease of body that is cultivated during my study time; it is like a balm for the soul. I have greatly missed being a student in a classroom setting during my maternity leave and am eager to resume that role.
Over the summer and into the early fall, my traditional classroom studies have been limited due to two major life shifts happening at once – the birth of my son, Beckett, and the illness and death of my grandfather, Joseph. As such, my practice shifted its intensity rocketed up a notch. Caring for an infant and a sick relative in today’s day and age could cause the Buddha himself to get crow’s feet and grey hair. I’m sure there are many who can wax philosophical and be more eloquent about being so intimately acquainted with the ends of the birth/death cycle and maybe that will be me one day.
However, I’m not there yet. As I reflect on the transition to parenthood and the loss my grandpa, I keep thinking about the importance of really and truly showing up. This goes beyond physically showing up, but really being present for who and what I say I’m going to be present for and with. How to be present for Grandpa Joe, as he bounced back and forth being consciousness and unconscious during his last days in the human form? Did it mean watching the Yankee game and giving him a play by play? Did it mean holding his hand and encouraging him to breathe? How to be present for Beckett whether or not he was in cute baby form or was shrieking like a banshee? How to be present in the chambers of the heart and with the full throttle of the mind, no matter how tired my marrow was?
Elisa Commerce shepherded the meditation portion of Tias’s teacher trainings. In our first session with her, she said it didn’t matter how long you could sit in meditation. Could we be present for who and what we said we were there for? Tias underscored that point by encouraging us to bring the tapas of awareness to our asana practice so we could continually sharpen that sword and cut through the lethargy of “whatever” culture. Yes, I learned to be aware to where my back heel is in triangle pose. But could I bring that same awareness to a crying baby at three o’clock in the morning, to a sick relative who was in physical pain and scared to leave the human form? And could that awareness cultivate the roots of compassion, of patience, of unconditional love?
As the mettle of my practice was tested again and again, I wondered did I just practice stretching with a nap when I rolled out my yoga mat. Sometimes it felt that way, as I plopped on the couch to feed Beckett and watch yet another episode of “What Not to Wear.” Or I got short tempered when Grandpa asked me the same question for what seemed like the hundredth time in a visit. But then I’d be aware of what I was doing and come back. Hit that big red “reset me” button and start over again. As humans, we have the capacity to be aware as well as to look at that awareness. The tools we learn to skillfully employ on the yoga mat – such as where that back heel is in triangle pose, then figuring how the foot affects the knee and so on – we can choose to wield them as we muddle our way through relationships, work, our daily commute. Or not. But it is that awareness that is key and how lucky for me that I get to figure out where my back foot is in space time and time again. Building that awareness muscle countless times was the best training ground for my summer practice.