Category: Words in Sentences

I am currently sitting at our kitchen table, with End Game on the Google Home, a pot pie from scratch in the oven and one glass of wine done. I have nowhere to be tonight, no classes until 5:30p tomorrow night making Thursday nights (like Tuesday nights) sacred.

My body has gotten tired for the first time since I have been teaching 7+ classes a week. Like – so tired. I am not sure if it is related to COVID comeback (was sick on Thanksgiving) or just a late night watching my oldest daughter’s performance on repeat, but it all just hurts.

I have learned in teaching that the way to keep teaching yoga fluid to life (avoiding it feeling “like work”) is to teach completely 100% from where you are authentically. It might mean a more meditative / slower practice. Which is fine.

I have been thinking so much about my schedule. Many pieces of paper exist in my journal and planner with sketches of my week: how many hours at studio A, how many hours at my new study at studio B, when I design class, when I will invite friends up to the new studio to experiment with my new line of business: therapeutic restorative yoga, a non class class, where you order what your body needs and I guide you into a deep, supported rest.

And then there are kids – dogs – bathrooms to clean and a husband to love and support. At some point? I study. I read scripture. I pray. I lay in a dark room, breathing, waiting for words – for what’s next – and that is work. I wake up and I take time to align my intuitive voice – a literal 10 minutes of “yes”, “no”, “yes”, “no”, “no”, “no” as I go through my life. Making sure I emerge from my bed activated and ready to live this one life I have to the fullest.

In a way, this simple night at home – <breaks to check pie> feels like old times. Like 2020 when I “retired from corporate life” and binged Netflix and learned new cooking techniques from Samin’s Fat Salt Acid Heat. It actually feels even more throw back than that – like this simplicity of being me in my life without the push of living. Yet, it is just a present as connecting with others, direct eye contact, making a plan and leading a retreat.

I read in scripture this past week that it is because we are loved that we have been designed to produce good works. (I can’t remember the book / chapter / verse) but I felt this shift of perspective. I think I would have thought about that as “I am loved so I am designed special” a year ago.

Which makes sense – when you make something, you love it, it is special because of the time you spend on it. <crosses fingers the pot pie is special>

But, I think that scripture is also pointing us to the fact that it is because we are all loved that we are designed to produce good works. Like you can produce good works because I am loved. I can produce good works because you are loved. Because that is a way divine love comes to this world: through our works. We are able to make and create good in the world because God loves the world. God loves the person you are going to see tomorrow. God loves the partner you’ll meet and do business with in ten years. God loves my future book agent. And God will love these people through us.

I think thinking of it like this should feel empowering. Take you less out of the storyline of your life and more into an awareness of all the storylines going on at any given point in time. There’s power in that. For sure.

Okay – the Hulk is about to get an infinity stone and I need to rotate the pie.

Goodnight!

Blogs are honestly hard to write these days. Do I tell a story? Do I go stream of consciousness? Do I overshare for funsies?

A couple of weeks ago, I learned that if one started seeing turtles everywhere, Native Americans would refer you to “Turtle Medicine” the lesson you are to learn from the ways of the turtle. This seemed really cool and I hadn’t thought of it before. Like there was one morning I randomly woke up at 4 in the morning, made a mug of hot tea and went and sat on my front porch steps. I kid you not within minutes *minutes* a deer came walking *down the street* that runs alongside the west side of my house before turning right and going up the next road.

I woke up. At 4am. Felt the urge to be outside. Did so. Saw a deer.

Now, I don’t live in a wooded area. We are the largest lot in our neighborhood and it’s .25 acre. A deer walking down the street is truly so random.

<pausing to consider whether to delete all of this or just keep going with it>

So, that happens months ago with the deer. A couple of weeks ago, I learn about “Turtle Medicine”. And now I am writing a blog titled Woodpecker Medicine, and – really – I think it’s just to maybe break some ground here on Frozen Spaghetti before life flashes before my eyes, I’m 80 y/o and wondering why I stopped blogging these little side notes about the progress of my life.

When I was writing today, like I do on Fridays, I was interrupted by short rhythmic drills of a woodpecker. And not like the incessant rolling drilling of woodpeckers. These were little bursts of patterns.

I stopped what I was doing and Googled “Woodpecker Medicine”. Remembering how I wish I remembered what was going on in my life when I saw that deer and that I knew to search for “Deer Medicine”, I went ahead and asked the internet to show me what was the Woodpecker in Native American myth & lore. How it was perceived as providing guidance. What it meant to have a Spirit Animal as a Woodpecker.

And – it was about diligence staying after what you are hungry for…

It was about finding rhythm.

I read that some Native American drumming would start from repeating the rolls of a woodpecker and apparently carry them to meditative states. I started to record a memo on my phone and later, when designing my Friday Night Restorative Class, I listened to it – tapping my chest in echo to the woodpecker until I found a bit that stuck. My body relaxed. Interesting.

In Psalm A Day, we read Psalm 123 today, “I look up” – “I raise my head” to the Lord… where does my help come from… And it wasn’t lost on me that I received this reminder to stay focused on my mission (to spread the love of God through the spirituality of self care) when I looked up from what I was doing.

The more I have been studying and observing, the more obvious it is than ever to me that we are being communicated with all the time. I recently told my therapist that I am starting to get the whole “we are always dreaming” thing mentioned in the Four Agreements and that it feels really super awesome, but can also make you feel like “what’s the point”. She corrected me and said, “well, it can make you wonder what is real”.

When we choose to live with our eyes and ears open –

when we choose to live in a way that sees what our subconscious mind is dictating… what our limited or outdated beliefs are driving…

it seems to me we stumble like fully, deeply into our truth. The undeniable truths of who we have always been. Our purpose. Our humor.

I guess, maybe I have started to grow sensitive to when I hear people talk about how hard life is, how much bs they have on their plates, how exhausted they are, etc. Why? Not because I am not compassionate but because – let me be transparent – my life has been challenging and really pushed me to new understandings. But what I have learned that gives me peace (like way mucho peace) is that there is always so much to know.

There is always so much to experience and learn.

From my body, from the world around me, from woodpeckers and deer…

I think there is a lot of freedom that comes in the gift of observation and, from that freedom comes a lot of joy.

I don’t have any scripture to back that up yet. But it will come. I’m sure of it.

Ok. I gotta go to bed.

PS: More on how the retreat went another time…