and the beat goes on…

it’s been so long since i last posted! to tell the truth, i have been both distracted and disabled. the distraction… life. the disability…. life.
to make a long, long story short:
two weeks ago i pulled my back out and set a vertebra in my spine slightly askew. sounds fun? no. it was painful and dibilitating… but profound.
see, last year i broke both of my ankles in a rock climbing fall and i never really slowed down to heal. my mother kidnapped me for 2 weeks and took me to her house in florida to heal but truth-be-told it didn’t do any good. i should’ve known better – hell, i did know better – but i just kept truckin’ like nothing happened. i drove a car with a cast on my right foot and my left one severely sprained. i hobbled around on my crutches and taught a full schedule (sometimes i even demonstrated postures!). and the whole time i thought i was being “strong”. i was being STUBBORN. and more important, i was putting others ahead of myself. i felt the pressure of my students “missing me” and “needing their yoga” and i felt scared to sit still that long – scared they’d move on somehow.
and so this time, after putting others before my own health and well-being as a general routine and putting a student’s body ahead of my own, the lesson was offered up to me once again.
and so i lay. flat on my back on my hardwood floor. crying and moaning and wishing it would all just go away. and i began to meditate……
in the quiet of my empty house and in the dark of my dining room, i closed my eyes and listened. and after i while i began to figure it all out – the fear and the pain were something more than muscles and something more than spine. i was afraid that if i didn’t live up to everyone’s expectations (as a teacher, as a girlfriend, as a daughter, as a sister, as a friend, as a wiser, smarter, more YOGIC being) then i would let them down. it never occurred to me that my students actually really did miss me – that they really did look up to me and that if i was going to serve them (and everyone else) in the way i seek to serve others always, i had to be better to myself. i had to value my own body and my own time just like i encouraged them to do.
and it’s all so simple and it’s all so damn blatant and obvious and sickeningly EASY – but it’s the hardest thing in the world to practice sometimes!
and then i listened a little more… and i meditated alot more…. and i realized that part of my now valuing myself properly was not speaking up and giving a voice to some of my deepest needs. *** this became gloriously clear when i went to the chiropractor and had x-rays done and the one vertebra that was out was only visible in the x-ray taken with my mouth WIDE OPEN!!! read anatomy of the spirit by caroline myss immediately if you have not already ***
so after many more hours meditating, and many hours of self-induced therapy, i managed to heal myself and am mobile once again. a huge feat considering when my love came home wednesday night i told him that if i couldn’t walk the next day then i’d just have to wait another and was totally prepared to do that – walking wasn’t the goal – healing was/is.
and so i am practicing a whole new yoga. and it is difficult and wonderful.

all day today i’ve had that enlightened, euphoric feeling. the deepest appreciation for this life. and it’s been awesome.
i am reading a great book after the ecstacy, the laundry by jack kornfield – i haven’t read very much just yet but it is so inspiring and reassuring.

i especially love this quote from suzuki roshi:
strictly speaking, there are no enlightened people, there is only enlightened activity

be well.