Finding Grace

That is what I need. To find a way to be with grace where I am now. To accept where my life has taken me. To embrace it instead of dwelling on "woulda coulda shoulda been if only". To feel like now is enough in itself, without a grander plan for the future.

Ah, the trap of the SAHM.

Deep sigh.

Continue working on giving myself moments of stillness...physically, mentally, emotionally hard but getting better.

Talk about regression...

OK, starting at the way, wee start is apparently going to be necessary.

I wasn't even this far gone when I first landed in Helena's class at the Y 6 years ago...of course that was also 3 kids and 3 c-sections ago too.

Yoga is hard now. It's a chore. It hurts.

My body feels like a lump.

There's nothing, nada going on at ajna when I focus on my 3rd eye.

The monkey mind is rampaging.

So, that's where I'm starting. Sitting quietly, focus at the brow, still the mind.

Can you say "twitchy"? That's me.

The Ultimate Kick in the Pants

OK.

Sometimes life gets weird, and this is one of them.

I have been sooooooo avoiding the inner conflict of picking up my yoga practice. Obvious to anyone that knows me. But yesterday I sorted through the piling up mags and made a nifty little stack of languishing, unread Aquarian Times to stick on the bookshelf next to my collecting-dust Bound Lotus manual and various other yoga tomes I haven't cracked in almost GASP a year and a half.

And for some reason flipped through one and for some other reason stopped to read the White Tantric ad....only that...(OK, I did say this was weird, right?)

...and I literally felt a foot connect to my backside.

White Tantric is coming HERE, to Minneapolis, in November 2008.

The marathon of meditation.

The workshop I was soooooooo set to HATE when I had to take it to get my certification, approaching the mandated attendance with total resentment for the not-at-all-in-the-budget expense of a trip to Chicago....

...and found myself wishing I could run rogue and caravan around the globe doing nothing else by the end of the day.

It will be here, in my back yard, in 16 months.

And I am going to be ready.

Oh poor, languishing blog!

...how very sorely I have neglected thee!

But there are times when the universe gives you a kick in the pants, and one shooting across the street and one friend's brush with bike-car mortality later, and here I am. Once again contemplating the fact that life is way too fleeting to wallow in a funk.

And that, my dear invisible, possibly made up readers, is what I have been doing.

Wallowing.

Funk.

Funk.

Funk.

For waaaaaaaaaay too long I've allowed myself the lazy luxury of indifference.

But bound lotus is calling, and I'm following...I think.

Returning from the Depths of January

There was jury duty.

And there was sickness. Way, way, way too much sickness for all.

My gratitude for the day be the fact that I myself have to this point personally escaped unscathed. Yeah for health!

And now I'm thinking of Bound Lotus. Am I nuts? Perhaps the lack of sleep serially sick kids brings is twisting my mind. I couldn't handle a tiny little few minute daily practice, but I'm newly obsessed with a 31 minute practice my body is so very much not in any way ready for. Nothing like starting at the top, heh?

Upping the Energy

I suffer from chronic beginning-of-the-year-itis.

Finally stepping out of the holiday season leaves me feeling DRAINED. I think it has something to do with the void left after the constant go, go, go, go mental list thrashing through my brain that is December. It's kind of like an emotional taking down of the of teh ornaments, which my children won't let me do yet. That I'm lokoing forward to. Everything feels clean and clear and so zen. At least for a bit.

I'm seriously resisting the urge to "over-resolve", which I tend to do each and every year. Leaves me plenty of opportunity to let myself down over and over and over again and again and again. The pressure!

This january I'm just not letting myself go anywhere near there. Trenches have been dug, walls have been errected around all things lending themselves even remotely to list making. (except of thegrocery variety...need that.) I'm endeavoring to appreciate the prospects of a beginning and the opportunity to see what makes itself manifest. Let things go in their own direction. Capice?

It's about holding the potential of the year open instead of stuffing it full of free weights, new spending plans, and attempts to single-handedly save the world by switching to compact fluorescents and biking my errands. Maybe what I really need isn't even on my radar and *gasp* doesn't involve detailed schedules and constant vigilance. So, literally I sit in my few sporadic seconds of peace and silence and hold the space of this year open before me. Connecting out. Connecting in. Breathe.

The not-so-silent times I'm filling with mojo. I'm shifting the energy of our days by playing "Mantras of Prayer" all the time. Soft guitar. Ardas. Siri Mantra. Guru Mantra. SIGH. So nice. It's helping. So is more tea. Any kind, any flavor, just a nice warm cup to sip from here and there.

It's open, and it's shifting. Here we go...not where I thought I was when I started this, but we're moving none-the-less.

snips and snails and puppy dog tails

...that's what my practice is made of. Or at least it feels like it.

With #2 on break all month and #3 simply being everything that comes with being 10 months old, bits and pieces are all I've managed to cobble together. A few minutes of Sa Ta Na Ma here, a bit of bowing there. Tuning in when I feel like pulling my hair out, sunshine songing when I need to remember how much I absolutely crazy LOVE the small people I'm currently dedicating my existence to. Like I said, snips and snaps.

And I'm OK with that. I'm aiming for some brand of consistency, and a formal 40 day may just be too much.

Along with that, I'm aiming to blog even just a wee bit daily. I haven't been (obviously...AGHHHHHH how can it possibly be that I haven't written here since the 4th!?!??!?! Time doesn't fly, it travels at warp speed!) since my intent was until recently to resume the 40 day...which started to feel like pressure, like something looming. Which it shouldn't. Which made me think that what I'm doing is OK.

Acceptance.

Hard for those who suffer from never-enough-itis.