Well, practice was very cool today. Nothing really new yet. An additional shoulder raise on each side after the rolls. A few little transition changes. Otherwise, the same old Balakrama we all know and love (I can feel Kate shudder). He said Bala is the most difficult prelude physically, and if you can do Bala the rest will come. Yeah, right. Tell that to the Circling Form! Anyway, we did 16 counts of Vahni, 8 Virasthanas, 9+Chakris, like that. My quads definitely felt it, but it also came easier after all that Balakrama the injury forced on me. See how things work out??
Some interesting Zhander info came out of my question to him this AM. Yesterday, I missed class because I felt pretty awful after a night of struggling with sleep (like that's going to work!). But later in the day, something started to shift. Things that Zhander had told me in Nov., things Matt has said, things Andy pointed in the Vedic reading he gave me, all started to percolate after two days of Zhander talking. Those two nights before, in the midst of all the tossing and turning, I had insights bubbling up one after the other. Now I found myself to putting them into practice. Nothing I can really describe yet, but it's about a different way of being in the world. It's new and just barely open, but it's there and I feel it. I realized last night, during another round not sleeping, that I'd found the 'key.' Didn't take very long. It translated to my being awake in a different way. I was up again for three hours in the middle of the night, but I didn't struggle with it or fight it or hate it, as I had before. I just lay with it, watched what happened, what came up, where I felt things physically, energetically. Noticed some pretty interesting things! Had visual experiences. Just went with it all. Gently and with intention.
So in class I asked Zhander about the not sleeping and his answer is one I could not have heard yesterday morning, before the 'shift.' He talked about the 'time of life' that I am in right now. About what happens to a woman at this time, when the creative force goes inward after flowing outward for so long. He said it is an advantage women have, and if the woman is observant and sharp and works with it, it can lead her back to the source, back home. He talked about kundalini and tantric images, an image in particular I can use to work with this energy.
And then he talked about the term 'yoga,' how we get it wrong when we talk about 'yoking' or 'union.' First off, he said only slaves or oxen are yoked. Then about how there is no union because we are never separate in the first place. The creative energies arise directly out of the Source and we are always connected with it. We only start to think we are separate when the Ahamkara arises, the ego. But in reality, there is no separation. This was all part of what he was saying to me about this time, when this knowledge can really come to fruition and be lived in a whole new way. That is how I took it, anyway.
Okay, so here was my egoic reaction, which was relatively small. I look in the mirror and I'm seeing my freakin' grandmother, for crying out loud. Who IS that woman with a face that is supposed to be mine! So now I'm thinking, 'shit, I really DO look old. I mean Zhander is talking to me about freakin' MENOPAUSE and that is something only old ladies get.' Hahaha. So funny. I'm cracking myself up. But it's true!
But another part of me, by far the bigger reaction, felt everything inside relax and I smiled and nodded my head and said (to myself) 'yes, this is truth.' It confirmed so much and affirmed so much. I see a path clearly, of living the truth I've always known but never knew how to live. Perhaps to finally know how to live in this body, and how so much light can fit into what seems to be a dense, binding, gross container filled with excrement and hate and suffering and pain that has, for so long, felt like a prison.
They say the right teacher appears when you need him/her. I definitely believe that. And I get to return to Portland to further my journey with Matt and Andy and my wonderful Shala community that I love so much!
Okay, enough of me talking for today! I promise more prelude stuff when it appears. We may really know the 'revised' preludes already, since he was here so recently. But I'll bring back whatever new stuff there is...
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