The Flow

In case you haven't heard—I learned how to make friendship bracelets. Sort of.

Lucy, my daughter, began by saying. "You should begin with a four-strander."
"But I like the look of the eight -strander, " I said.
"OK," she shrugged, looking rather dubiously at my color choices which were tasteful shades of blue and gray.
And then she began very, very patiently to teach me though I was a painfully slow learner. She was kind, giving me little love pats now and again and assuring me that I "would get it in time."
Meanwhile she was knotting away a perfect little bracelet for her BFF.
"Lucy, mine doesn't look like yours," I said.
"Well, it is a little...um...bumpy. And it looks like you might have gotten mixed up here. And here. And here." She patted my arm lovingly.
"You'll get it Mama."

Off she skipped to a barbecue with her bracelet tied around her leg to work on and I sat there for FOUR STRAIGHT HOURS knotting and knotting and still no right pattern emerged. Every once in a while a little line would show up and there was hope. But then my hopes would be dashed several rows later as some kind of psychotic string episode would appear.
Eventually our neighbor Jo-Ann knocked on the door and asked why I didn't join the 4th of July bbq.
"Can't you see I'm friendship braceleting!" I shrieked at her. "And I can't get it. I just can't get it!" I shouted in her face.
"Do I need to take that from you?" she asked.
"No, no. I"ll be ok." I assured her. As soon as I was sure she was gone, I was straight back at it.

What has this got to do with yoga? Everything.
For starters while I was struggling with the difficulty of SIMPLE KNOTTING, I experienced pockets of total and complete effortlessness and mental peace. Then I would stop, look at my work and become critical, self-conscious, and riddled with fear at the failure of my friendship bracelet. Then I would knot some more and enter an unbelievable state of calm.

This is a state described in many yogic texts. It is called pratyahara—the removal one's senses from the world. And what disturbed my pratyahara was critical self-consciousness. This happens countless times in our week. We're going along just fine. Better than fine and then suddenly a word from a friend, spouse, a honk from a car or a disappointment will shatter our flow. Our work in yoga is to become aware of the state of flow without worrying about the lumps and bumps, but rather dedicating ourselves entirely to each and every task at the moment we're doing it. Surrender to the process—this is what the asana practice is hoping to develop in each and every practitioner.

I presented Lucy with her monstrosity of a friendship bracelet. She looked at it with real and true pity and held out her wrist for me to tie it on.
"It's beautiful Mama...but you really should have started with a four-strander."

Non-Attachment

My daughter Lucy is an entomologist, a great enthusiast of Mother Nature and all things creepy gooey and crawly. One of her BFF's from school said to her the other day, "Hey, you've got to come over to my house for a sleepover. We have tons of cockroaches you can catch! They're all over our kitchen!!"
And Lucy, ever the passionate scientist, replied,"I would love to! I will keep some as pets. I will name them Cocky and Roachy."
"Or, you could name them No. 1 and No. 2," David threw in.

Meanwhile, several thoughts raced though my head almost simultaneously: Should I call child services? Lucy probably won't be having a sleepover at her BFF's. Cockroaches make me want to puke. And then most importantly: Wow, both these kids found this truth of cockroaches in the kitchen (especially, according to the BFF, when the light is turned on at night) to be a delightful turn of events and potential for hours of play and imagination.

I was surprised at my own developed sense of judgment and limited potential. My distaste of cockroaches is an acquired experience, cultivated through many years of my mother's freak-out when any kind of insect entered our home and her immediate napalming of the kitchen, bathroom, bedroom when a single ant appeared. This combined with cultural forces that exclaim cockroaches are disgusting makes for a powerful aversion. But to Lucy and the BFF, Cocky and Roachy are wondrous creatures full of fun.

All the forms of Yoga, whether they are the active hatha forms, contemplative, devotional or service oriented, tell us that one of the most important features of the practice is vairagya, or detachment. This is of course one of the most difficult things for us to do because we seem to thrive on the pleasurable experiences of success, sweetness, fame, sex, comfort and all that other stuff. Yoga teaches us that we need not avoid all that, but to enjoy it with discretion and modesty. Yoga admonishes us to enjoy the sweetness of life in the moment and to offer the fruits of our labor up to a Source beyond us. It's the process of acting with intention that's important. The outcome is not up to us. The expectation of more, more, more, is according to yogic teaching, the root of all suffering. sadness, and misunderstanding (dukkha and avidya).

I suppose then what I must learn is to admire the cockroach's tenacity as a species and expression of God (if I must, I will TRY). And to also recognize that I don't have to live with No. 1 and No.2 or Cocky and Roachy inhabiting my kingdom. I can use discretion. I will try to practice ahimsa and avoid the use of napalm.
"What is that SMELL?" I asked Lucy upon entering her laboratory the other day.
"Oh, that's cat poop." She said as a matter of fact and pointed to a terrarium filled with leaves, dirt and a little pile of cat feces. " I collected some so that I could attract flies, because I wanted to study them and also feed them to my spider."
"Cool!" shouts David. "Great idea!"
I love them so much. I really do.

Summer Solstice Gathering

Sun Salutations begin at 3 pm
Potluck begins at around 5 pm
Music starts around 6 pm
$10 donation for musicians

Thorny Issues

photo by Charles Macnamara

Recently I attended a workshop, where during an extended restorative pose, the young gentleman next to me moaned and groaned and sighed and made a strange whistling noise several times before taking several more really super loud, "Ahhhhhhhhoooooooooohhhhhhhhaaaaaaa's!"

Now speaking from a stunted spiritual place, I was sincerely distracted and quite honestly wanted to give him a firm little shove. He was interfering with my practice. He was interfering with my thoughts. His noise pollution was dusting my mat. I was shocked and ashamed at the limited and ungenerous quality of my feelings, but, there they were.

I hesitate to even write this, but I think (I hope) some of you can relate to this experience. Say, for example, you've just had a wonderfully uplifting yoga class (one where everyone keeps their pleasurable moans to themselves) and you hop in you car and drive down the road a bit. Then someone cuts you off. Or goes before you at a 4 way stop sign even though it was clearly your turn, and you say under your breath, or even out loud "Fudge!" Or something equally ferocious. The bliss of yoga has been instantly replaced by a brief but encompassing road rage. Does this undo all the good work of yoga? NO WAY! The awareness of your explective, your feeling of injustice or upset is guided more and more by awareness. And in your awareness you are taking the seeds of unconscious behaviors (samskaras) and as described in the Yoga Sutras, placing them like seeds in the sun. Soon, with the brilliant and consistent light of awareness they will burn up and lose all power to grow and flower.

Now clearly, I am a garden full of samskaras that can still bloom into full-flowered feelings of resentment or judgment. But we're all working on weeding the garden when we practice.

When I first opened Loka, I worried that the paper thin walls allowed every squeak and poot from my neighbors to trickle into the sacred space. What would I do? How would I shield you all from these NOISES? Finally, I realized, 'Hey that's life, man. And yoga is about life. Merging with life, accepting life, rolling with the loud sound of life." The voices are welcome sound of a neighborhood thriving all around this sacred space. The sounds became the sacred space. It is the sound of the neighborhood, Oakland, the planet, the stars singing by. All the sounds of LIFE! Even the sound of the guy going "Ahhhhhhhhooooooooooohhhh!"

Children Rule!

Childcare at Loka is Expanding!

Beginning Monday, June 15th
there will be childcare on
Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays
9:30 - 11 am
From June 15th forward childcare cost will be:
$8 per child
ages 1-3 happily welcomed

Compulsion to Repeat

As some of you know, I began yoga as a way to try and quit smoking. I immediately loved the yoga almost as much as I loved my cigarettes. Not wanting to hurt the tobacco industries' feelings I continued my passionate relationship with them despite the conflicting affair that sprung up between me and yoga. Years later I would often make "jokes" about ending teaching a class quickly so I could go out to my car and have a delicious taste of that dark goddess, Nicotine. ("Hahaha!" students would laugh! And I would say "Hahaha!" right back at them as I fished for my matches in my yoga bag.)
As I continued to explore forms of yoga, I discovered Ashtanga Vinyasa a method which in its traditional form is a repetition of over 70 poses meant to be practiced 6 mornings a week. I did this practice as faithfully as I smoked for many, many years. I discovered through my commitment, the power and grace in repeating the same poses day after day. It occurred to me that this wasn't the first time I had discovered the power of repetition.
Of course there was the repetition of the Lord's Prayer in church. Then the learned repetition of the many prayers for Confirmation where during our catechism classes my friend Kelly Blaine and I would lob adolescent questions at the long-suffering priest—questions we thought to be spiritually catastrophic and would possibly make him renounce his calling. "Oh yeah?"We'd say, "What about evolution?" The priest would smile and say, "Now the Nicene Creed. Again."


After some years of practicing Ashtanga, I went though a phase of doubt regarding the repetition of the same poses over and over and I was reminded of a book I read in high school—Franny and Zooey by JD Salinger. It deeply and hilariously addresses a young girls misguided attempts at finding God through the repetition of the Jesus Prayer. And though I was only capable of a single repetition in high school—"Is there any more beer?"— the book moved something in me that lay nascent until I began practicing yoga.

Repetition finds its way into all spiritual inquiry.












It is an act of faith to show up and repeat, and in this exercise one can find the movement and change of ones own spirit as it is reflected in the stability of the practice. So a triangle pose remains the same each time, but you are different each breath you are in it. Your relationship to the boat pose may be loving one day and not so much the next. The practice provides a stable point from which we move to the deeper more hidden parts of our Selves.










Now I am a practitioner of different kinds of repetition.
"Can I watch TV?" Lucy says. "Nope." I say.
"Can I have pink jelly beans for breakfast?" Misha says. "Nope." I say.
"Can I put this string around the cat's neck and walk her down the street?"
"Nope."
"Can I wear your underwear on my head to school"
"Nope"
"Can we go camping in Alaska?"
"Nope"
"Does Santa come in summertime too?"
"Nope"
"If I eat my blankie, will I poop it out?"
"Nope"

Welcome Adeline Sylvia

Sweet Adeline Sylvia is here.
Born May 12
10:06 PM
Mama Dari and Papa Scott and Brother Henry are all happy and healthy.
Welcome darling little Yogibhuini to the world.
Loka welcomes you with a heart full of love and blessings.