stillness – Frozen Spaghetti

Have you seen Ellen lately? This is her back in June – perfectly packed – at ease on our BART commute to Union Square for a 46 hour stint in San Francisco.

This picture is so rich to me. And perhaps I am reflecting on her because I have been in her room doing some deep “have you really been dusting” cleaning. Her room got to the point last week that it was just time to be rearranged, re-thought, evolved.

I sit (absolutely covered in dust) with a Starburst wrapper stuck on the bottom of my bare left foot and am in awe of how I am more in love with my oldest child than ever.

As I prepare to bring a bin up to start gathering up her nursery items, her kid room items, and leave it minimal – cool – updated, I realize the extent to which she and I have a decade behind us. For the most part, I know when and where she got things. I know the sentimental value behind the items in her room from her mom: items I made her because I love the little things like her sense of time and her feet.

For example, I printed this picture of her feet (one arch folded over the other, the way they still end up when she sleeps curled up on her belly) which were soles up at me while I was driving her and her sister across the country. It was taken in our van, she was dozing in the front seat in such a way that her perfect feet were nestled next to the road atlas. I decoupaged the picture onto a little box that now stores her guitar picks.

Ellen and travel just go together. (Along with her need for sleep.)

As I round out my thirties, I realize just how much the hard parts of my life are more easily navigated when I use what comes easy to me or how they are more fun and enriching when I incorporate what I love; what “just goes with” who I am.

Likewise, I recognize the effort in the ease. I hope she learns this relationship between easy and hard things early. How the surrender and the edge work together. Yet sometimes I think she already knows on a deeper level how to let go and be in the still moments that come.

Still moments like when you are waiting for when the BART will finally take off through the painted neighborhoods, to the heart of San Francisco. A city that provides a shared pulse for me and Ellen.

San Fran gets her the same way it gets me. It is a pure kind of connection that puts a person at ease before ever having arrived.

That’s it for now. #backtocleaning #sanfrancisco

Last week, I left my little annex apartment in a South Californian valley town at dusk with a blanket and a hoodie, a flashlight and my iPhone. I hiked to a clearing in front of the garden and spread out to watch the end of the sunset.

I had gone inside to prepare some dinner right when it started, but the amber behind the dark scale of the hillside would not leave my mind and I had to go see it some more.

The moon!

Of course I was nudged and so convinced to go back out! Somewhere in me knew I didn’t want me to miss the moon.

(I feel I could paint this sunset into a picture because of how it felt.

I have never been a painter… this is new.)

Then, I noticed a star. And then another star. And then another star.

Star. Star.

Star. Star. Star.

And I didn’t leave. Hungry as I was, I laid there watching every star come out as the sun made it’s final tuck low past the horizon, dunked behind the ocean that was on the other side of my sight.

Never in my life have I watched all the stars come out. Every time I thought of my dinner, I still stayed. So patiently.

I was mesmerized – absolutely mesmerized and entertained.

And still. I was STILL.

Some constellations I knew, but I had this deep sense of desire that my mind would just open and I could understand the stars, see all the patterns, know the stories. A language I knew in my bones but wanted words. I felt this sensation rise to the top of my brain. But I didn’t pull out a constellation map, I didn’t Google anything. I just looked and was open, calm.

Needless to say, I slept well that night.

The process of staying still when your mind thinks of the next things to do is a very important part of yoga; a very important part of life. Guiding the self in a manner which is still – not busy – I have found offers deeper release of tension in the physical body.

Now that I am back home, I am committed to maintaining this posture of freedom and calm. By finding something to engage me that requires me to do nothing but sit and look. I think it is easy to want to develop thought in these moments. To think you can understand something about yourself in these moments. Or receive revelation. Truly, I think it is likely that you can make connections and evolve through a practice like this.

However, emptying the mind and clearing the thought – these are the things of value in stillness. This is an established theme in my life and that I am taking to all my practice – as a student and as a teacher.

Have a great holiday weekend :) Find something to stare at and settle into … erin