Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Quirks & Quarks

Here are the rules: 1. link the person who tagged you, NoR. 2. mention the rules in your blog… 3. tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours 4. tag 6 following bloggers by linking them. leave a comment on each of the tagged blogger’s blogs letting them know they’ve been tagged

(I don't think I'm going to tag anyone else, but here are a handful of my unspectacular quirks; btw NoR, #4 on your list isn't something I'd call unspectacular.)

1. I listen to CBC Ottawa pretty much every morning (as I'm doing now); despite the fact that I don't live in Ottawa. I don't even live in Canada.
2. I've been telecommuting (not just once or twice a week; exclusively) for the past seven years.
3. There are two degrees of separation between me and Bruce Campbell.
4. I carry a cotton hanky wherever I go so that I don't have to use paper tissues.
5. I can't walk past a sink full of dirty dishes without rolling my sleeves up and washing them. My brother and sister are aware of this and use it to their advantage when I visit them.
6. I like taking naps in my car, sometimes.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Qapla'!

Did my first (of three) assistant teachings last night. It went okay, I guess. Some of my touch corrections could have been a bit less tentative. I found it really, really hard to triage who to give touch corrections to, but I guess this is something all yoga teachers experience. I know that I didn't put a whole lot of "me" into the teaching; partly, this was because I was nervous; partly, it was because it wasn't my class; I was just assisting another teacher.

Next up: assisting an all levels class on Sunday morning. I think that will be easier; I'll be less nervous, already having assisted once, also because no one I know will be in the class! It's surprising how big a difference this makes. By way of analogy, two people can be sitting next to each other in a bar having completely different experiences, because one has been there a thousand times before and has all sorts of memories and expectations associated with it, and the other is there for the first time. I'm finding the same thing is true with teaching. Last night's class? I've been to that bar before, kind of a lot. I know the patrons, and pulling pints for them was a totally different experience than sitting there getting sauced myself.

Yes, I may have taken that analogy a bit too far.

And yes, the title of this blog entry is in Klingon.

Friday, April 18, 2008

"How many nights I prayed for this, to let my work begin"

At last, the inspiration for the title of this blog is coming into fruition. (I have discovered that almost everything I write eventually comes true in one form or another, if I write it well enough. I choose to see this as a blessing, though it has its downside.) My yoga teacher training is two months shy of completion, and we have now entered into the student teaching portion of the course. I'll be giving classes to some of my friends this coming week, and will probably be assistant teaching a class of real live yogis on Wednesday (unless someone else signs up to assist that class before I do).

I was nervous when I learned that the next portion of the course would include student teaching. I knew it was coming, of course, or at least I should have known, but I guess I just didn't think much about it. Two things occurred to me which have mitigated my fears, at least mostly:

  1. This is the whole point of the training. Now is not the time to question myself.

  2. Samskara is a Sanskrit word; briefly, it means a sort of emotional scar or pattern which effects our interactions with the world (and the conditions of our eventual rebirth, if you buy into that sort of thing). I realized that worrying about teaching was creating a new samskara for me to deal with, and frankly, I don't need any more samskaras to deal with. Not if I can avoid them.


Still, I'm somewhat nervous. I am about to leap feet first into the crucible, and I'm not certain what will happen. Probably best not to think about it too much.

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Dreams, borrowed poetry

I keep dreaming about zombies eating my brain, or other sorts of B-horror monsters sneaking up on me and terrifying me. I've been waking up in a dead panic, heart racing. Usually, I can tell pretty quickly what my dreams are about, or if they are just random neural firings. These do not have the feel of random neural firings. I think there's a message here, but I can't see it. Which means I get to sit with it, stir this cauldron of images and memories, and hope that the meaning percolates to the surface.

Seemingly (but not really) unrelated, part of Mary Oliver's "Wild Geese:"


You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.