I have only four months left to get the first draft of my next Writing Yoga Memoir done

September 8, 2013

September 1, 2013

Scan_Pic0018  I have only four months left to get the first draft of my next Writing Yoga Memoir done. If I could lock myself up in my writing hut and do nothing but write, and if someone delivered fresh vegan meals to my doorstep and a mysterious benefactor channelled a river of funds into my bank account—if all I had to do was walk my dogs at sunrise and sunset—that would give me ample time. For nothing has gone as planned. Real life hits me in the face the moment I wake up. I’m always scrambling to be somewhere on time and running out of cat food and clean towels. So I tell myself that these thousand excuses for why this book almost didn’t get written will only make the story more exciting. Imagine what a dud Cheryl Strayed’s memoir WILD would have been if her hike on the Pacific Crest Trail had been just a walk in the park!

* * *
August 9, 2013
The wheel of life keeps turning. There’s nothing I can do to stop it, but I’d like to jump off, disappear, take a nature writing break, and then jump back on . . . without dying.I don’t feel right unless I write. How many more days will it take before I fully admit this?
* * *
July 18, 2013
As life gets more expensive, it gets harder and harder to find time to write. Old cats cost more than young ones. Houses with yards for dogs cost more . . . everything costs more. But once I find a free morning, the writing gets easier and easier. . .
* * *
July 4, 2013
Writing is the road to independence–a long, strange, and bumpy road. I see myself still going ’round in circles and taking side trips. I’m tired. I want to lie down by the side of the road and rest. But then I pick myself up to clear away all the obstacles, all the road blocks — and set my writing spirit free!
* * *
May 14, 2013
Ten days till my 64th birthday. All I want for my birthday are free days to finish the first draft of my second Writing Yoga Memoir. So right now I’m setting the intention that May 20th is my last teaching day, and May 21, 22, 23, 24 (the full moon), 25 and 26 are all mine. . . .
* * *
January, 2013: The Year of Writing Yoga Memoir

On this cold tenth day of January, 2013, I am setting my intention to make this the year of Writing Yoga Memoirs.

I woke up at 3 a.m. and started writing about how sweet my life is now, and how in January, 1967, I was living in the Haight Ashbury. It was the winter before the Summer of Love, I was totally naive, and I had my whole life ahead of me. I had no idea there would be only four short seasons with only myself to take care of. I could not foresee the lessons Life had in store for me.

It’s a curious thing to sit very still, to meditate and watch how the mind works. The brain and all the cells of the body are like a computer that stores everything. You can try to delete and let it all go, but you cannot will yourself to have a clean slate, as it was on the day you were born. (Some people speculate it is not a clean slate even at birth.) Our memories travel with us until the physical body dissolves — and possibly beyond.

At 7 a.m. it is barely light out here in the river bottom. The sky is foggy white. The tall pine trees outside my window look black. It is a stark, cold winter landscape.

I don’t feel right unless I write. How many more years will it take before I fully admit this? The more I try to focus on work that pays and push aside the urge to write, the more the muse pesters me and pulls me by the hair out of bed. If I don’t grab an hour during the day, I lie awake at 2 a.m. and wonder if I should risk the lack of sleep to write. If I try to deny it and bury myself under the covers, sleep eludes me. I have no choice. I must surrender to my fate.

 

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Sunday Sunrise Over the Valley of the Moon

September 8, 2013
For just a few moments, the ashen clouds are on fire, surrounded by waves of gold. The sky is radiant in all directions. The Earth is alive with early morning coolness. The cactus blossoms, the white and yellow squash blossoms, all the flower blossoms are abuzz with bees—brown honey bees, and big, black, fuzzy bumble bees. With every breath the Earth is more illuminated. In these moments of happiness, the anger and outrage I feel over all the injustices in the world fades away. We all have to find a way to make the shock of life bearable—and this Church of Nature, with the celestial sky above, is there for those who have eyes to see.
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You don’t have to be flexible to create alignment

September 8, 2013

September 6, 2013

Yesterday, while walking along the Ventura beach promenade with my dogs, I watched a very fit, flexible young woman trying to teach her very fit, muscular, stiff boyfriend how to stretch. First he tried to follow along with her moves, and she would laughingly try to correct him. The poor guy was in a hopeless battle between his tight hamstrings, pelvis, and lower back! He kept unconsciously bending his knees, because his typically tight hamstrings made moving his pelvis and bending forward or stretching sideways from his hip hinge virtually impossible.

His well-meaning girlfriend kept reminding him to straighten his legs, and then she would briefly hover over him, trying to get him to lengthen his spine. Then she would give up and go back to her own stretching. They noticed me smiling, and smiled back. I picked up that they had an accent, German or Russian (later they told me they spoke both languages). So finally, when I could bear his suffering no longer and I worried he might wake up with a backache, I stepped closer and suggested he try the same stretches with his hands on the nice, sturdy metal railing that faces the ocean.

Voila! In a matter of minutes, with his outstretched hands supported on the railing instead of dangling in mid air, the tug of war between his hamstrings, pelvis, and lower back was over. His spinal column was nicely lengthening instead of being increasingly distorted.

Moral of the story: You don’t have to be flexible to create healthy, healing alignment. If you look with X-ray eyes at this photo of a beginner in his seventies, you’ll see that his skeletal structure in the classic Extended Triangle Pose (Utthita Trikonasana) is beautifully aligned.

Photo credit: Jim Jacobs, from The New Yoga for Healthy Aging

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“Mom, you’ve got one foot in the grave. Don’t worry about the water bill!”

August 23, 2013

The world is going to pot but I’m here in The Nest, living my life. I was born questioning everything, and it looks like I’ll be headed in that direction till I’m in the grave. We don’t like to admit it, but, speaking at least for myself, our core essence seems to change very little.

Even when I was only about four or five years old, I felt a sense of outrage about the cruelty around me. I still remember coming upon a group of boys, back in Holland, who were probably a bit older than me, and the little idiots had gathered up some worms that they were impaling on the ends of a barbed wire fence, yelling with sadistic delight as they watched the worms squirm. I’d like to think I was brave enough to throw a clod of dirt at them, although this I’m not sure about. But the feeling of pity and of wanting to save those worms was there.

My father would have a different view of those worms. He’s told me many times how eating worms and grubs gave him the protein to be one of the few survivors in a concentration camp. He assures me that when Jesus returns we will all be vegetarians and the lion will lie down with the lamb, but in the meantime the buffalo burgers from the Deer Lodge give him strength.

* * *

Today, while babysitting my 92-year-old mom, I saw how little she’s changed. While we were sitting outside enjoying the late afternoon sun, I decided it was a good time to wash my dogs on their nice convenient lawn, surrounded by cement sidewalks and away from any dirt. She enjoyed watching me shampoo little Chico with the natural dog shampoo I’d brought along. But when I was midway through wetting and shampooing Honey, she decided I’d “wasted enough water” and, hanging on to the nearby railing with one hand, she managed to stoop low enough, without falling, to reach down and turn off the faucet!

So there I was, a good distance away from the faucet, with a fully soaked and shampooed Aussie dog and a dry hose.

It was actually very amusing, watching my feisty old mom assert herself. But back when I was a teenager, and would be taking a morning shower before school, my mom would turn the water heater off when she decided I’d been in the shower long enough, and getting sprayed by cold water when I wasn’t done washing my hair made me livid. We had the worst fights, yelling and screaming as I asserted my independence. I even remember once standing in front of the washing machine and slapping her face before I ran off to catch the bus.

But now it’s fifty years later. I laughingly beg her to turn the water back on, and she shows mercy. She turns the water on and off intermittently—just to be sure I know she’s still in charge. There’s no use telling her, “Mom, you’ve got one foot in the grave. Don’t worry about the water bill!”

* * *

buddy542212_685309024830274_335351423_n At the end of the day I do what I always do. I let it all go and rest in the Goddess Pose. Usually I cover my eyes with an eye bag, but the other day there was a surprise package in the mail from a far away friend. Inside was a sweet, soft brown bear—a lavender-scented cuddly buddy. The weight of the bear is perfect to rest across my eyes and forehead–to quiet the movement of my eyes so my mind can find stillness.

Thank you, Juanita Potwin and Hubiecat. The child in me loves my new buddy!

Photo Credit: Olivia Klein

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A Random Act of Pig Kindness

August 20, 2013

Every time I pass the dry, barren, dirt pig pen on the corner of Rice and Oso Road, I feel a pain in my solar plexus. Once you’ve had pet pigs, once you see their unique pig personality and intelligence, and have devoured books like The Pig Who Sang to the Moon: The Emotional World of Farm Animals by the great animal author Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, the whole world of expanded pig consciousness opens up and you begin to see the different breeds of pigs a bit like the different breeds of dogs.

Early this morning, on my way to yoga as usual, I vowed to later on check on the condition of a pig I had begun to notice in a pen near the horse corrals. I could see from the road that it had no shade except for a board propped up on one side of the fence to block the afternoon sun. I told myself that this pig has a better life than factory farm pigs stuck in steel crates, and that maybe I’d better just mind my own business. But, today, I could no longer suppress the urge to have a closer look.

So after yoga I parked nearby, grabbed a ripe banana, and tried to make myself invisible as I walked around the pen. I could tell from her nipples that this was a girl pig. She was lying in a tiny patch of shade. Her water bowls were dry. I tossed a couple of pieces of banana through the fence. She got up to investigate—not a potbellied pig, just your standard “farm pig.” My guess is that they’re fattening her up for slaughter. (If her owners read this and I’m wrong, please set me straight.)

She had no shelter, no straw or alfalfa hay bedding, no igloo (my pigs all loved their own igloo). It was hot, and I didn’t want to get in trouble for trespassing, so I didn’t stay long. I watched her eat the banana and then went home.

The afternoon grew hotter. I felt compelled to check on her again. I first thought her pen was empty—no pig in sight. But then I realized she was pressed against the fence where the shade-providing board stood—the only shady spot there was. Her water bowls were still dry, so I walked back to the car to get a gallon of water. I distributed the water in the two bowls. With the first splash of water she immediately scrambled to her feet and started drinking and scooting the bowls with her snout.

I remembered how, when I had pigs, we put rocks in the bowls to weigh them down to keep the water from spilling. After she drank, she went over to a box-like contraption. I saw then that this was some kind of automatic feeder. Maybe the water stimulated her appetite for pig pellets. I observed a few moments longer, then went up the hill to help my dad with paperwork (another story). From there I drove to The Farmer and the Cook and scored a stash of small, pig-sized apples.

Much to my relief, when I returned two hours later in the hottest part of the afternoon, her pen had been watered. There was mud, glorious cool mud! And I could see that her sunburnt pink skin had been hosed off. As soon as she heard me approaching she started grunting—that sweet, familiar sound that my pigs always made when they heard me coming. She started pushing and pressing against the fence—just like my Rosie used to do before I opened her pen every morning.

I reached through the pen and scratched her bristly wet back. My brain went into a swirl . . . I didn’t want to give her too much hope. I couldn’t set her free to wander, to root and explore. I put two apples in her pen; what more could I do? This is a world of pig-eating carnivores . . . She has a date with destiny, just like you and I. Do you suppose if she learns “The Secret” that she can alter her fate and visualize a new future for herself?

About the photos: This lucky potbellied pig lives in a private Ojai pig sanctuary.

Related stories:  A Visit to an Ojai Pig Sanctuary

 

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Her cousins on the factory farm are not so lucky.

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Centuries have gone by, and still people are running in the streets, killing each other

August 16, 2013

Centuries have gone by, and still people are running in the streets, killing each other. You have to wonder, if life is a “school,” if there is such a thing as reincarnation—or even if there isn’t—why we haven’t learned our lessons and graduated into a more evolved condition by now.

Maybe my old dad, a survivor of the atomic bomb who is ready to fly away and meet his maker anytime now, is so right when he tells me, “Suzanne, civilization is just a veneer. Two days without food, and it’s all gone . . . the devil is real, Suzanne. People shed blood over a piece of bread.”

Some years ago when I worked as a yoga therapist at a health center, I found myself in a huge hotel ballroom filled with chiropractors and other practitioners, all getting some kind of emotional-stress-relief body work. Multiple massage tables had been set up, the lights were dimmed, and soon the room was filled with people moaning, groaning, and sobbing–noisier than the Pentecostal revival meetings I used to attend. The collective sound was like a scene from a funeral.

I vividly recall saying, “My God, listen to all these people crying! And these are the lucky ones! These are not starving refugees, or survivors of prison camps or other traumatic ordeals!”

But later, as life went on, I began see that even these “lucky ones” had been through the shocks of life.

I learned that the successful doctor I fell in love with and put on a pedestal had had an abusive, alcoholic father. He grew up in foster homes where his head was pushed face down into the toilet, to make sure he understood he was a worthless piece of shit.

Combine that with the trauma of the Vietnam war, and no wonder he was wailing on the massage table along with the rest of them.

While the world is burning, we who live in relative peace have the luxury of reflection and healing. As I write this, I laugh at the full-page ad in a yoga magazine showing a bearded, white-robed, “self-realized” Himalayan yoga master who shamelessly promises the moon. The ad says:

“Rejuvenate Body, Mind, and Soul.” “Eliminate Emotional Suffering.” “Burn Negative Karma.” “Achieve Expanded Consciousness.”

“Half a minute of Kriya Meditation brings about a year of Natural Spiritual Unfoldment.”

Even spiritual magazines need paid advertising to survive.

When you’re young, “The Lightening Path to Self-Realization” to “restore each of us to the glory of life” sounds entirely possible. If I were twenty years old again, I might have gone with my boyfriend to check out this amazing great yogi master at one of the free satsangs. God knows we went to see plenty of lesser ones!

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This town is so small

August 14, 2013

This town is so small I’m thinking of calling my Ojai memoir, “No Place to Hide.” As we float through life in this beautiful fish bowl, we have to remember that what we think we know about each other is just the tip of the iceberg and no one is as they seem. I have no answers but I’ve finally learned that you have to let the story unfold—no jumping to conclusions till the last page is written—and even then there may be surprises at the funeral!

 

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‘Why did you let her out?!’

August 13, 2013

933918_677807262247117_285741664_n It’s Monday morning, the garbage truck is here, and it feels like the stories of my rushed-right-now life are slipping through my fingers. I have only twenty minutes before I’d better jump in the shower, don my yoga garb, jump in my luxury Oldsmobile Regency Elite, 1991 edition “boat,” pick up Olivia, put on my teacher hat, and unlock the door for my wonderful, eager, early-bird students.

My account of Part Three of the trip to L.A. for the yoga and scoliosis workshop is on hold (Parts One and Two are saved on my Suzaji blog) as I wait for the teacher, Elise Miller, to send the photos.

But just now, as I was sitting outside looking up at the pine trees, listening to the nearby chickens, and sharing my spelt toast and WildWood sprouted veggie burger with Honey and Chico, I was remembering how last Sunday, around this time, after two days of being inside buildings and hardly getting any fresh air or natural light, I decided once again to leave the sleeping beauty, Olivia, and sneak out for an early-morning walk. But, just to be on the safe side, I gently nudged her awake and told her I’d be back in about an hour.

On Saturday morning we had checked out of the Marriott. On Saturday evening, in order to attend the Sunday session without the long round trip from Ojai, we stayed with Olivia’s brother (my nephew) and his wife, who live about an hour away from the L.A. Iyengar Yoga Institute.

When we arrived, I had taken careful note of the lay of the land, the parking garage underneath the apartment complex, the lobby, the long hallway leading up to the apartment, etc. Everyone was still asleep as I exited through the living room into the long hallway—and it never occurred to my country bumpkin mind that I might need a key to get back in.

So I retraced my steps down the hallway, into the lobby, and found the front door. I walked down the steps, and since it was early Sunday morning there was virtually no traffic. The first thing I noticed as I headed in the direction that I thought might lead to a coffee shop was a series of signs planted on the tiny green lawn islands in front of the rows of apartment complexes:

“CAUTION – This Lawn Has Been Chemically Treated and May Be Hazardous to Your Pets and Feet.”

“Please Keep Pets Off Lawn: Chemically Treated”

I can’t find the page in my notebook where I copied the signs with the ordinances stating that dog owners are responsible for picking up dog poo, but the message was loud and clear that if you don’t pick up after your pooch you are breaking the law. At the same time, I noticed a growing parade of people exiting the buildings with mostly little foo foo dogs but a few lovely pit bulls and other larger breeds, too.

After about a mile in one direction I gave up on finding a coffee shop, turned around, and retraced my steps. I knew I was at the right apartment building because I remembered there was a giant empty plastic slurpee cup on the ground nearby.

I was feeling very proud of myself for not getting lost. I walked up the steps leading to the entrance and turned the door knob. It was locked tight.

“No problem,” I thought. “I’ll just sit on the steps and call Olivia to let me in.” But, alas, I reached a recording saying her message system wasn’t on yet—and Olivia didn’t pick up. OK. As I was thinking what to do, I noticed the door opening as a pleasant, plump older woman and her dog came out. “Aha,” I thought. “I’ll just wait, and next time the door opens I’ll explain my plight, and before the door closes I’ll get back in.”

So I did a few seated twists, tried calling Olivia again (I didn’t have my nephew’s number), and waited. Sure enough, after about ten minutes the door swung open and an elderly lady with her darling little dog stood in the wide-open doorway. Here was my chance. “Wait a moment,” I said, smiling at her. “I’m a guest here and I don’t have a key to get back in . . . so don’t close the door. . .”

Well, this wasn’t Ojai. The lady looked at me like I might be an ax murderer. She stood her ground, planting herself between me and the still slightly open door. “I don’t think so,” she said.

“Oh, please, I can tell you the name of the people I’m staying with. They’re still asleep and I don’t have their number.”

But she pulled her little dog through the door and explained that this would be “against apartment regulations.” I could easily have shoved her aside and made a mad dash into the building before the door closed, but I thought better of it.

“Now what should I do?” I asked her.

As she was walking away she pointed to the row of mailboxes by the door. I hadn’t noticed that there was a call box. I didn’t know how to operate it and had to practically pull her back to show me how. A few minutes later my nephew, still in his pajamas, rescued me.

When I got inside and told Olivia what had happened, she said, “This is so weird. I had a dream that Joel (her brother) was standing over the bed, asking me, ‘Where is Suza?’ The dream was so real. I told him you’d gone on a walk. And then he got mad and yelled at me, ‘Why did you let her out?!’

Truly, I felt like an escapee from a nursing home. All that was missing was my wrist I.D. band.

Photo credit: Olivia Klein

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Tonight, as the soft summer dusk fell

August 10, 2013

Tonight, as the soft summer dusk fell, I walked the dry brown landscape, surrounded by black mountains sharply outlined against the sky. I was struck once again by how the streams of light and darkness in this world flow simultaneously, seemingly without rhyme, reason, or mercy.

What is it that gives life to that stream of unceasing atrocities and horror that flows through every segment of society? After so many centuries, so many lifetimes, so much suffering, why has this stream of cruelty not dried up?

Tonight, with Venus and the crescent moon shining high above and crickets singing away, buoyed by the boundless love of my dogs and the magic of an Ojai orange margarita made by my daughter—out there in the boonies, out in the open, out in nature—I cast all my worries to the wind, stepped into the stream of light, and quietly watched as day turned into night.

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What turns the wheel of life?

August 9, 2013

Scan_Pic0018August 9, 2013
The wheel of life keeps turning. There’s nothing I can do to stop it, but I’d like to jump off, disappear, take a nature writing break, and then jump back on . . . without dying.

I don’t feel right unless I write. How many more years will it take before I fully admit this?
July 18, 2013
As life gets more expensive, it gets harder and harder to find time to write. Old cats cost more than young ones. Houses with yards for dogs cost more . . . everything costs more. But once I find a free morning, the writing gets easier and easier. . .

July 4, 2013
Writing is the road to independence–a long, strange, and bumpy road. I see myself still going ’round in circles and taking side trips. I’m tired. I want to lie down by the side of the road and rest. But then I pick myself up to clear away all the obstacles, all the road blocks — and set my writing spirit free!

May 14, 2013

Ten days till my 64th birthday. All I want for my birthday are free days to finish the first draft of my second Writing Yoga Memoir. So right now I’m setting the intention that May 20th is my last teaching day, and May 21, 22, 23, 24 (the full moon), 25 and 26 are all mine. . . .

***
January, 2013: The Year of Writing Yoga Memoir

On this cold tenth day of January, 2013, I am setting my intention to make this the year of Writing Yoga Memoirs.

I woke up at 3 a.m. and started writing about how sweet my life is now, and how in January, 1967, I was living in the Haight Ashbury. It was the winter before the Summer of Love, I was totally naive, and I had my whole life ahead of me. I had no idea there would be only four short seasons with only myself to take care of. I could not foresee the lessons Life had in store for me.

It’s a curious thing to sit very still, to meditate and watch how the mind works. The brain and all the cells of the body are like a computer that stores everything. You can try to delete and let it all go, but you cannot will yourself to have a clean slate, as it was on the day you were born. (Some people speculate it is not a clean slate even at birth.) Our memories travel with us until the physical body dissolves — and possibly beyond.

At 7 a.m. it is barely light out here in the river bottom. The sky is foggy white. The tall pine trees outside my window look black. It is a stark, cold winter landscape.

I don’t feel right unless I write. How many more years will it take before I fully admit this? The more I try to focus on work that pays and push aside the urge to write, the more the muse pesters me and pulls me by the hair out of bed. If I don’t grab an hour during the day, I lie awake at 2 a.m. and wonder if I should risk the lack of sleep to write. If I try to deny it and bury myself under the covers, sleep eludes me. I have no choice. I must surrender to my fate.

What turns the wheel of life?

My favorite Writing Yoga Pose: Seated Wide Angle Pose (Upavistha Konasana)

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