I am my shadow self

Scott from Scott's Thott's posted this Seane Corn video and I wondered what your thoughts were about it.

A long time ago I did a workshop with Corn where she said almost exactly the same thing. When she mentioned the junkies and the whores I looked around the room and saw more than a few eyebrows go up and eyes go down. While the asana practice was good, I loved what she had to say even more.

Corn says that the teachers she is most attracted to are the most human, the realists who are honest about their history and path. In my last workshop with Sarah Powers she said the same thing: that her favorite teachers are the ones whose "humaness" shines through. I agree.

Last weekend I became 55, a fit, fabulous, "woman of a certain age." While I have my aches and pains I don't allow my body or my thoughts to define me -- I am not this body, I am not my thoughts. And on my birthday I realized: I should be dead. There was a time when I and others thought I would not live to see 21. I tried to kill myself when I was 16. Ask me if I care who knows that.

And now I'm planning my 4th trip to India. I've come a long way, baby.

I teach at a domestic violence shelter and the ladies told me that they appreciate me so much more because I've been where they are now, that I am not a "white suburban do-gooder" (their words) trying to tell them how to be.

I question how some show biz yogis can teach me because I wonder if they've been where I've been -- abuse, rape, addiction, and domestic violence. I usually do not trust the om namah shivaya types with the ethereal smiles and the wispy, breathy voices. I am a survivor, so what can they teach me? I'd rather get down and dirty.

I loved Scott's comment:

"A friend and I joke about the "Om Shanti" and "Namaste" crowd. These people who say Yoga is all about love and light, peace and happiness are deluding themselves. It's so pretentious - just say hello, how are you, have a good day... whatever. I would no more say Namaste to someone (outside north India) than I would say bonjour or auf wiedersehen.

If Yoga isn't pushing you outside your comfort zone, it ain't really Yoga. Leave the frills off for me, mama, and gimme an extra dose of darkness."

"If Yoga isn't pushing you outside your comfort zone, it ain't really Yoga."

Why do you yoga? Not "do yoga" because yoga is about undoing, not doing. Yoga does us. I've always thought that the reason more people don't yoga is because stepping into yoga takes courage and many of us (most?) are afraid to see what might come up, we're afraid of our shadow selves. It's so much easier to push that shit down and resist our truths.

Roll around with your demons and become uncomfortable until it hurts. Set yourself on fire because that fire will either kill you or transform you.

musical monday

My regular readers may have noticed that I haven't written much lately about yoga, Buddhism, Tibet, or social action, the subjects that are near and dear to my heart. For whatever reason as 2007 draws to a close, I find myself pre-occupied with other things: my impending trip to India, a medical procedure I will have next week, and teaching at a new yoga studio. but the drama never ends at the studio where I used to teach.

Another teacher quit last week for the same reason I left -- the alcoholic dysfunction of the owner. It so happens that the teacher who quit was the only teacher who supported me when I had my confrontation with the owner in September. it had come to her attention that the owner yet again had taught her class in, shall we say, a less than functional state, and my friend decided, enough is enough, that she could not continue teaching at a studio that is based on lies and delusions and the denial and complicity of the other teachers.

as the saying goes, all things happen for a reason. I am enjoying teaching at the new yoga studio. I live in a suburban area about 45 miles outside of Chicago -- think of the stereotypes about "white bread suburbia" and that pretty much sums up where I live. But all I have to do is drive 15 minutes and I'm in the middle of corn and soybean fields, and in another 20 minutes the landscape is dotted with farms and stables and farm tractor companies. I prefer that environment much more but we live where we do so The Husband can have a quasi-sane drive to his office.

The location of the new yoga studio can be called rural small town which happens to be right next door to a small university town. So the vibe and the mindsets of the students are immediately different. For one, they are appreciative of whatever style of yoga is taught at the studio, it's yoga for the sake of yoga. There is no yoga snobbery. There is no sense of entitlement as the students had in white bread suburbia where Tyler and Tiffany are bought a brand new Hummer for their 16th birthdays. The students don't come in the latest yoga clothes with the hand-painted chakras, endorsed by Seane Corn, don't cha know -- many come in sweat pants and baggy T-shirts.

So I am grateful to teach in this environment and am humbled by the response to my teaching. I did a second yin yoga workshop yesterday that had over 20 students and because the first two workshops were so popular, the owner asked me to do another one in two weeks. Twelve students signed up for it immediately after yesterday's workshop.

Maybe humbled is too mild a word -- blown away would be more accurate. One of my students who studied with me at the other studio lives in this town and has just gotten a job with the local paper as a free-lance writer on fitness. She gets paid $20 an article -- I told you it was small town -- but she is happy for it because as she says, it pays for a yoga class. She wrote a story about my first workshop that was entitled "Local Yoga Enthusiasts Thrilled as Popular Instructor Comes to Town." She gave me a copy of the article yesterday and I got all choked up. really. wow. I felt like Shiva Rea. But you'll never see a picture of me with my hair blowing in the wind.

Yup, all things happen for a reason.