Truth and The Walls That Help Us with Kim at Yoga Loka: Reno, Nevada: August 12, 2018
These 1974 Highland Park High School cheerleaders were role models, in particular Caroline, with her long blonde hair held back with a little white bow. And would you just look at all those hunky football players. I knew I'd have to be able to do the splits to be one of this crowd.
I have more flexibility in my hamstrings than most people. Partly because its the way my body naturally moves, but also likely a result of early ballet lessons and my year as a high school cheerleader. Both of these activities were early forms of body awareness. Both of these, for me, were about conforming to a certain image, right down to even looking like everybody else with uniforms of pink tutus and white tights, to gold pleated skirts and long white socks.
I spent hours in my youth lamenting I couldn't do the splits like Caroline Shannon. She was my idealized version of an "it" girl. Pretty, popular, and perky. Twenty years later in a yoga class lead by Jimmy Barkan when I finally, yes finally, dropped the idea that Caroline, or anybody else for that matter, had it all, the two inches of space between my pelvis and the floor that had been there forever, dropped and I found myself, after all these years, on the ground, and in full splits. It happened in an instant, and it shook my whole body into a new realm of consciousness. Splits have been as easy as pie ever since.
The Rig Veda says there is one Truth, but there are many paths. (Rg Veda 1.164.146 Ekam Sat Vipra Bahudha Vadanti) There is one hanumanasana but many ways to get there. Dropping my grip that splits equals a perfect life, is, I'm pretty sure, a unique way to get into the pose. What holds more fascination for me lately isn't so much the classic mechanics of getting into splits, but rather the courage to dive in deeper waters and see the mental blocks holding me back. The real work is then opening my mind to bigger possibilities, and my heart more clear in such a way that old holding patterns can change into usefulness.
In the last year I've been noticing my splits weren't really the splits at all. I'm resting into my natural flexibility and my alignment is a little off. From the outside looking in you wouldn't know it; flexibility looks a lot like Truth because its a big piece of the path, but its not the whole story. I've put off finding the discipline and strength to square my hips because what I've been doing has been good enough. But today good enough isn't enough. Aligning with deeper Truth, even if its a slight roll of my right sit bone forward, must happen. Not because the way it looks, but because the way it feels. Deep down I know I'm grinding the head of my femur bone against my pelvis. Today I chose to align with Truth because I love my right femur bone more than the splits which is a big huge deal because I'm aligning with the Truth of who I am over a cherished image of what I think I should look like. I knew I've been chasing Caroline Shannon all over again by trying to be an idealized picture of Love, Beauty, and Success.
Hanumanasana is named after the monkey god Hanuman who took such a big leap of faith into the bigger Truth that he stepped in to new lands in a single bound. "The priveledge of a lifetime is being who you are" said Joseph Campbell. Today as I'm taking steps to just be myself. To answer the call of my own heart, to open and to express myself as a yoga teacher, writer, and music professional. It is a 'road less traveled' to borrow a phrase from Scott Peck, who didn't say it would be so scary at times, by the way. I'm continually learning how to teach and write, to travel and to be at home anywhere. Like using walls to align my hips in hanumanasana, life is aligning my heart in a stance of stepping into my own Truth.
Meet Hanuman. He shows us that the opening of your heart to the love alignment of Truth takes practice and can be a messy.
Hanuman is said to have tore his chest open to reveal Krishna, the very incarnation of Love, seated in his heart. Like Haunman I feel my heart exposed, having been ripped open, blood spattering everywhere, revealing Truth and Love. Living in alignment with your own heart can be messy because she knows things are going to change. Small hearted and small minded are no longer options. Disentangling old belief systems doesn't mean much unless there's a follow through with new behaviors. The walls of Yoga Loka are holding me steady in my endeavor to align with a higher Truth. I've leaned into her hard, and she's held me strong enough to pick up writing my book, to teaching yoga again and afresh, and to commune with fellow soujourners in the practice. I know i must be on the Path because today my hips aligned just so, and for the first time ever I dropped into a truer version of hanumanasana. And of me.
Health, Love, and Rock N Roll