On our way home from lunch today, we passed a church being built. My four-year-old-sage-of-life son asked, “Mom, God’s in there, right?” As I opened my mouth to tackle this question, he followed up with a quick, ” ‘Cause He’s there and in the other one, too, so He’s in two places at once, and how does that happen?”
Ok. Where’s my mom when I need her?
My response: “Well, He’s so big that He can be in all of the churches all at once.”
A few nights ago as I rifled through the bathroom cabinet looking for the “good” toothpaste (not the baking-soda-blech one, but Tom’s of Maine cinnamon-clove. Oh yeah.), I spied my electric toothbrush. Dare I say that we had a moment?
I hadn’t used it in a couple of weeks in favor of my new dentist-provided old school toothbrush. Since I was feeling pretty feisty, I pulled out the electric one and fired it up.
Oh man. It barely spun. Oh no!
my son, saying a resounding "YES!"
About two years ago, our then near three-year-old had this hilarious habit of asking
questions and then immediately asking, “Yes? Or nope?” And we could really get him going with it. If he forgot to ask yes-or-nope, we would ask “yes?” and he would say yes-or-nope over and over and over and over and over and, yeah, you get it. It sent us, as well as innocent bystanders, into fits of giggles nearly every time.
I’m reading, well re-reading actually, a trilogy about three sisters from Ireland. The stories are by no means a literary work of genius: they are simple works of fiction and stories of being found by love. (Go figure, my favorite movies are chick flicks as well. Sue me.)
But even though the stories are fluffy and everything works out in the end, there’s a thread of something so precious, so fulfilling there. It’s the essence of community.
Why is it that when the idea of community comes up, it brings a sense of obligation? “Community service” is oftentimes a sentence, a punishment in order to restore to our society what we’ve taken.
I am always amazed at how lessons in life happen. While they seem like subtle nudges if I look at each of them individually, I get a lot of nudges in a short period of time. Something way bigger than me is making sure that I don’t miss the signs.
This week’s nudge/shove was all about time. And it is…about time.
Douglas Brooks, a professional scholar and teacher of the Rajanaka Yoga tradition, recently blogged that “yoga…makes roots in revelation.”
Yes!
Quite a few years back now, pretty soon after we moved to Colorado in fact, I really opened up to yoga. It was during a tremendously painful and emotional time in my life; one during which my old ways of coping betrayed me. In those vulnerable moments on my mat, I began to heal. Prayer finally made sense to me through meditation. The frightened and protective fist around my heart began to let go, revealing a bruised yet hopeful soul. I was astonished at the depth of teaching and receiving that yoga gave and the insight unveiled by moving through the physical to get to the emotional. It was a revealing experience in what I have dubbed, my “revelation revolution.”
One of the most eloquent, honest, soul-baring words in the English language is, in my opinion, the word “authentic:”
To live in authenticity, then, is why I share with you my dilemma of the powerful panties. When we are able to share our fears, our misguided moments, our hilarious capers in trying to fit into yoga clothes after having babies, we realize that our kula, our community, goes both deep and wide. As I listened to other moms around me talk about fearing their return to yoga asana practice because they had to bend over in their ill-fitting clothes and wonder aloud about how long it will take to return to shape, I couldn’t help but lament with and confess to them that I had worn Spanx (see previous post) to teach a class recently. It is just so hard to embrace and love our bodies in this state at times.
Well, this looks cool! I was just sent an email from a friend about Yoga Rocks Mountain Fest ‘09 in Lyons. Check it out – and I hope to see you there!
One of my friends recently posted a quote on my Facebook page by Dr. Nils Bergman: “The mother is the baby’s habitat.” That, dear readers, has encouraged quite the pause in my life.
Imagine this with me: unmasked adoration on my baby’s chubster face when he sees me (especially when he’s hungry); seriously sweet hugs when I pick him up and he buries his precious, Burt’s Bees-scented fuzzy head into my neck; terribly loud toots when he pulls his feet toward his slobbery mouth; quiet little sighs as he nurses during those dark and tender midnight hours. I smell of a mixture of milk, lavender soap, buttermilk lotion, and you-don’t-want-to-know-what-else.
Often the hands will solve a mystery
that the intellect has struggled with in vain.
Carl G. Jung
I have an obsession. It’s not a secret to those who know me or have been around me for any period of time. It’s something about which I read, practice, and luxuriate.
I love touch.