Orlaya Grandiflora

Freedom hurts; it’s why we avoid it. I cannot prevent the release of my ovary each month; it is an event that occurs regardless of my conscious control. It's interesting how I can tell my fingers to type a terrible poem yet cannot say to my eggs to stay put in my body. Why save them? Spend what you have while you are here.

Salvia Officinalis

After three days, the room shrunk to a size more suitable for someone leaving the premises. I've had to pull out the duvet despite not knowing who slept beneath the feathers before me. I do not like this home, this single studio room that receives too little breeze. When my neighbor showers, it sounds like it's raining in my living room. There are no windows in the kitchen, and a horrible smell from the pipes under the sink. A rotten egg smell. It is not gas; I checked.

I sweep the apartment morning and night because of the little black hairs I spy on the floor in the yoga studio. I worry about carrying them home with me, on the soles of my bare feet that I wash in the sink when I arrive at the apartment. The studio floors are filthy. If it is swept, it is rare. As we practice, I blow the hair away from my mat, wondering how no one else sees the debris but me. It does not bother the other participants, at least not that I've noticed.

Do I wish I could plead ignorance as easily? Denial is like that first sip of Nespresso coffee: it seems like a good idea. The first sip is great, though as my being wakes up to the caffeine, the blandness of the latte is imposed through each mouthful.

Nespresso is never a good idea. Neither is denial.

I will not lie to myself. I am not enjoying this training for various reasons, and none of them has to do with the description of what is offered. The outline of the event matches the experience based on what I read on the website. My criticism concerns how facilitators hold and create the space for students to engage and appear. In my experience, traveling and taking training and workshops in various countries, many leaders make the experience about themselves. It is ego, not an offering.

A good leader steps back and out of the way for the audience to come forward and meet them in a dialogue. There must be a conversation; otherwise, it's one of Shakespeare's famous soliloquies onstage. Only we don't need that comic relief. We have YouTube. If I wanted a monologue, I'd stay home and go on social media. I'd read a book. I am frustrated by my fastidiousness, yet I understand that the precision and plucking of information quantifies the experience. We receive too much about too many things. Does it mean we should take it all just because we have it all?

I wish I could stay home and write for the day, though I've committed myself to this forty-day Sadhana that includes eleven days with Ana Forrest and twenty-four days with Gurmuhk. The final five are focused on myself, for I will create my own system from this story I've been living for nearly two years.

India and Canada are in a dispute over a Canadian Sikh being assassinated, so the Indian visas are on hold for all Canadian citizens. Four of my friends from my hometown texted me to check-in. I appreciate the consideration. I purchased my permit three months ago, which is good for one year. Plus points for planning!

How will I summarize the first seven days of the training? There are roughly forty of us, mostly women (there is one man), and many participants are from the USA. I am in the intensive, the final two weeks of their 200-hour YTT program. So, the group had bonded before my arrival.

We are given the option to perform during the morning ceremony. This is a one-hour episode of the male facilitator playing music and preaching. I do not enjoy this gambit; he soaks up a lot of attention. He needs to be validated, and it makes me feel a bit sick, so I keep my distance. I don't understand why Ana feeds it. I do; she is lonely. I do understand, and this makes me sad.

Stand on your own! I want to stand up and shout.

I don't, of course. For who am I to control the narrative?

Yesterday, I read five of my poems at the morning ceremony. I was told I had three minutes - four max - to present something. Many participants sang songs.

It felt good to perform. It was a rare luxury to have so many people watching me, focusing all their energy and awareness on me for that three-minute interval. My hands shook. My breath rattled around my heart. I swayed from side to side to keep the electric current from gripping my throat. I've learned that if there is pain or pressure in one area, to keep moving things in the opposite direction. Focus elsewhere: look to where you are going, not where you have been.

I read the five poems I composed for the Yamas: Aparigraha, Asteya, Brahmacharya, Satya, and Ahimsa. I work with these tenants daily: greedlessness, non-stealing, chastity, truth, and radical self-love.

I wrote these poems four years ago; the editing process is ongoing as long as they are unpublished. It is fascinating to look back at the place and purpose of my life when the poems were composed. I was thirty-two, living on the sailboat, teaching yoga, and babysitting my friend's children. I rode my bike everywhere. My hair was much darker. I had been attending UC Berkeley and read a lot of poetry.

The context informs the product, of course.

I respect people who have undergone an experience more than those who attend formal education. In a perfect world, we would have both intellect and embodied experience.

It is all about perception.

Ophrys Lutea

The halfway point is always the hardest: day six of twelve or day seven of fourteen. I track things so I can say that I completed the task. I trace the line from there to here to see how far I've wandered. Collecting bracelets like pennies. Remember those spare bits of copper? What had meaning yesterday may be irrelevant today. And it hurts to know that you are also a compost material. One, two, three pieces of string wound tight to my left wrist. One for him, one for me, one for the girls. I cut the fourth away. A gold shell that reminds me of my childhood. It was too tight and I needed to sacrifice something. There are four points to a square and no end to the circle. The triangle must stand on its head. Where is the halfway point in heartache? I measure madness in spirals.

Photo source.