Stravaigin Yoga

A few minutes past midnight on October tenth 2010, I, Jenni Anne took James as my exquisite partner.  I wasn't sure of what would follow, but I knew that I wanted to experience a lot of it with this fascinating, adorable guy.   So we made some promises to each other, the best we could at that point in our lives, suspecting that there would be some follow-up conversations as we moved on.  After the wedding, Jim and I found our lives rapidly shifting  into a routine that we didn't like.  Jim took a new job with irregular hours and on-call duties, and I started building my new yoga teaching career on top of my full time job.  Often we would have only one evening free each week, a few hours before sleep to dine together or go to a show.  On top of that, the house became a  money pit with first one thing and then the next going wrong.  It was a relic from Jim's first marriage, full of emotional landmines and piles of undiscarded refuse, but in any case far too big for us, expensive and time consuming to maintain.  The house anchored us to lives we didn't want and like in the David Byrne song we looked up and said "this is not my life!"

Referencing my blog post about Bali, a strong part of our conversation with the Aussies in the Ubud coffee bar concerned the need to make a definite break with old routines before really dedicating ourselves to a new life.  That is, a strong break with ALL routine was something we all thought invaluable.  Two of our new friends had just finished internships in Jakarta which had nothing to do with their future career paths. Thay just wanted a chance to get away from home and family and their daily lives, an experience of elsewhere to rattle their thinking and dreaming about the life they really wanted to live.  A dramatic caesura, time to regroup. 

Growing up, our family shared a little joke called the "marriage encounter."  A marriage encounter was a weekend retreat for couples at our church.  Under spiritual guidance, husbands and wives could get away from their responsibilities of home and family and dedicate some time to nurturing their relationships.  The joke was my mom wanted badly to attend and my dad, being a "regular type guy" certainly did not.  Periodically our church bulletin would announce the upcoming marriage encounter, Mom would vocalize the opportunity, and Dad would tell her to forget it.  Us kids in the back seat smirked.  Mama, I am on one heck of a marriage encounter!

As I write this, we are on day 103 of our five month project.  Jim and I have been together almost every minute of all those days.  We have shared every meal, every cafe break, every performance, museum and tourist site visit, every plunge into the ocean, every hike, and even for awhile we read the same book.  (I had about a seven hundred page head start.)  We have had a lot of conversation- some serious, some light-hearted, some tough.  Jim and I travelled a bit together before getting married, and I have taken long sojourns several times alone, but such a lengthy trip shared with another person, all those days, all those hours, this was another level of togetherness entirely.

In everyday life, or on a long sabbatical, we buffer ourselves in some routine. Our conscious decisions are like mountain peaks that poke up through the cloud cover of our habitual lives. We have a chance to try things out, to spread our mistakes out along a long line, and of course to repeat successes. With this kind of trip, there is no such luxury. Every moment is telescoped with choice. Stay here, go there, eat this now, eat that later, pause and look, ask questions, keep going, get up early, sleep a little longer, see this exhibit, walk through slow, linger under this tree, hurry to the next castle, splurge on that, keep to the budget, etc. There is no chance to find the best way to get from the train station to our hostel, because we're only doing it once. There is little chance to settle on our favorite cafe or restaurant because after a meal or two we leave town. This means pecentage-wise that we make more mistakes. We should have taken that road instead of this one and now have to backtrack. We shouldn't have spent so much on that service, but we should have spent more on that meal, things get forgotten or lost, we continue to lug around things that should have been discarded. We even seek advice from people that don't know us and our proclivities, and so get led astray by well intentioned strangers whose opinions we shouldn't have used. With solo travel this all happens as an internal soliloquy. With a partner, every single waking moment needs to be negotiated. The shared successes are great, but how we deal with mistakes has become a really salient challenge in our lives.

Our darkest hour occurred on February 14th. We had completed an euphoric tour of southwesten Australia and were driving back to Perth to return our rental car. Jim driving, me navigating, clock ticking, small print map, unfamiliar place names, gasoline and blood sugar meters on low, bladders full, heavy metro expressway traffic - I think you get the picture. We were both vibrating at low frequencies, and both on downward-spiral trajectories. As mistakes, blame, regret and apprehension layered on frustration, stress, defensiveness and self-pity, the day became less romantic and loving with every breath. My vision of the two of us hand in hand, hearts and minds in PLAYFUL communion with the world seemed an unobtainable dream. How to realign with that vision?

I spent the rest of the day and a miserable sleepless night contemplating this conundrum. The point, I thought, was for us to enjoy being together. I had learned a valuable lesson with my "second family" in Finland, living for three months with children. It is more imortant to do things together than to do them "right." That is why the kitchen is always covered in flour and recipes for six dozen cookies only ever make four when you bake with someone you really love. I wanted very much to get back into this spirit. Things might go wrong, but hey, we were having a great adventure traveling around the world together, as exquisite partners! We really had to become skillful in dealing with mistakes, keeping our frustration and disappointment from escalating into blame or self-righteous gloating, keeping our embarrassment and regret from turning to self defeating apprehension. In other words, we had to keep "I told you so," "you always," and "you never" out of our thoughts and hearts.

I shared these thoughts with Jim the next morning (after he'd had his coffee) and he agreed, but our emotions were still a little too agitated. What we needed was a miracle. Handily, we orchestrated one. While exploring Western Australia, we had found an advertisement for Philip Glass performing in Perth the weekend that we would be in town. Of course, searching for tickets online indicated that the show was sold out. To be a good sport, I'd said we could go to the concert hall on that evening, and just see if someone didn't show up and we could buy their spots at the last minute. Um, it COULD happen. Instead, still grouchy from the previous day, Jim wanted to go to the box office two mornings before the show and ask. Internally rolling my eyes, I agreed, even though I thought it would be a waste of time, and possibly embarrassing. I needed to put into practice my ruminations inspired by our terrible Valentine's Day. I was ready to be soothing when he would still be frustrated, not to say or even think any of those things that would exacerbate the situation and prevent us from living in trust. Long story short, they had just released more tickets, and we bought two in the exact center of the sixth row, right in front of the piano keyboard. Yes, we did. It was so much a miracle, that I actually got teary eyed. Our vibrations shifted stars!

Jim is an exquisite partner. He persists when I give up, has excellent intuition when my direction gets muddled, and remembers exactly what I just forgot. He is whimsical and outrageously clever with language, and pretty handy with a map. I don't believe anyone out there can make an armoury museum half as interesting as he does. Moreover, we have built these layes of trust, that despite the liklihood of making mistakes as we go through our travels and go through life, it will be ok. We wil not resent each other for them. We will buy tickets for a lame performance, spend too much on mediocre sushi, go the wrong way, make a wasteful purchase, and make worse mistakes than these. We will not always do things "right" but we will do them together. Despite other difficulties, some really challenging situations, we have never again sunk into those mental and verbal ruts that dragged us down on Valentine's Day. I teach my students to practice cultivating awareness without judgement. Not only good for asana and meditation, this is an excellent way to travel. Not only good for travel, this is an excellent approach to partnership. The essence of this practice is forgiveness, forgiveness even before something has offended us. The essence of this deep knowledge without judgement is love.

Pick a simple asana - or one that looks simple.  Imagine practicing that one asana for the rest of your life.  Imagine dedicating yourself to that one physical expression of all that you celebrate.  Imagine living a disciplined life, studying scripture, developing ethical attitudes and practices and performing just one pose that encompassed your spiritual experience and ambitions.  That is my yogic impression of whirling dervishes.  Jim and I were lucky enough to attend an Islamic Sufi Sema in Istanbul at the Silivrikapi Mevlana Cultural Center.  I apologize in advance for the details I may get wrong here, please take this as a traveller's impression, not an expert account.

We were careful to arrange for a real service, avoiding the "cabaret dervishes" that perform in clubs and restaurants just for tourists, and that meant sitting patiently through a prayer service before the Sema ceremony started.  It was the first Muslim gathering either of us had attended, so much of it we simply didn't understand.   We had visited a Sufi Tekke (lodge) museum earlier in the week, so had some understanding of the dervish lifestyle, but we were still pretty uninformed.  The community was gathered in one room, with devout men and women sitting separately, some on cushions, some on chairs on the periphery of the room.  Leaders of the community all sat on the floor. Visitors were all given chairs, and not segregated by sex.

The prayer service involved speeches by several men, chanting from the Koran accompanied by extremly simple flute and drum music, and then lengthy call and response sessions between another man and the congregation.  This was ritualistic, repetitive, on the edge of mesmerizing.  Most members rocked, at least their heads but many their whole bodies. Some wept openly.  Waiting for the devishes to take the stage, we enjoyed this precursor to rhythm and heightened emotion.  My own body, and those of many other visitors' were also gently responding to the vibrations in the room.  And then without any discernible finale, it was over.  The lights became brighter, and dinner was served.

The dinner was unexpected.  Like passenges on a transcontinental flight, we were each given a fork and napkin, a hot aluminum dish of mixed grains and lamb, and ayran- a drinkable salted yogurt.  Everyone in the room ate quickly,and our young flight attendants came around to collect up the trash.  In a gallery above and behind the main space, musicians gathered, started tuning thier instruments and donned capes and caps. The space where people had been sitting on the floor was cleared, visitors were reminded not to use the flash on cameras, and the room settled into silence.

A group of twelve dervishes, including their sheik, poised at the back of the room.  Sufi beliefs are centered on love and tolerance, as taught by Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi. Dervishes are Sufis who have completed an incredibly dedicated training process.  Their initial training is 1001 days.  You yogis who have taken the 40 day challenge, think about that!  Among other things, they learn absolute obediance to their master, immerse themselves in scriptural study and practice charitable service. They practice whirling as well, and develop the skill of effacing their egos so that God can shine through them.  Until recently only men could participate in this Sema ceremony.  As a representative of the community related the story to us, a group of women approached the sheik and asked why they are still excluded.  The sheik gave them three months to practice and show him what they could do.  At the end of that time, they came and peformed the ceremony and the sheik was so impressed with the ego-less spinning that they offered he exclaimed that they were even better than the men!  I will add that the six women involved with this group completely held our attention.

All twelve wore an earth-colored tall hat - a sikke- which symbolizes the tombstone of the ego, a black robe - a hirka - representing the ego's tomb, and a full skirted white gown - a tennure- representing the ego's shroud.  The sheik walked to the front of the room across a carefully selected equatorial line to a red carpet which was his place.  As the ceremony continued, the other eleven semazens discarded their hirkas and bowed to pay respect to the sheik and each other.  They started with their arms crossed over their chests, hands resting on their own shoulders to demonstrate the unity of God, the oneness of all creation.  As they circled the room and then started to turn, they let their hands float up, shedding their egos, and extended their rights hands upturned to God in a gesture of receiving, and their left hands out and down in a gesture of generosity to all humankind.  In between, they keep nothing for themselves.

With admirable precision, the semazens began whirling in place, with one foot fixed and the other launching the body around and then touching again the same place on the floor to push off for the next turn. With each spin, their heads hung at a blissful angle between outstretched hands, they whisper in their hearts the name of Allah. I tried to match their rhythm and that whispering in myself, but they spun so fast, and my habit is to match my movements, even a silent mantra, to my breath. Distracted in my attempt to keep up, I let it go after awhile. Over and over in exact circles, perfect and perfect and sweetly perfect they whirled. This continued on and on, the music simple, melodyless and yet easy to settle into. The whirling went for quite some minutes, interrupted three times to shift the meaning of the practice, and repeat the respectful bow. During these short transitions, the dervishes's faces stayed placid, though their chests lifted with the fullness of deep breathing. They seemed to have found that yogic target of balance between effort and ease. The angle of their arms and hands and heads never change. Their eyes stay closed, or nearly so. As a vinyasa student, I sat enraptured by this moving meditation. The effect is visually stunning and marvelously photogenic as the white skirts lift and ripple in exquisite waves. The simultaneity of all the dervishes moving together with gentle joy and complete presence of mind was something I could have sat and watched for hours, like water spilling over a steep cliff into a welcoming pool.

It's true I am a sucker for physical peformance, especially at such a skill level. I get teary-eyed watching the Olympics - of seeing an athlete at the top of their game who has practiced and trained and practiced until they distill all their concentration and muscular control into the most brilliant moment of their athletic life. The same happens watching dancers or solo musicians, the highlights of sports news, a male bellydancer in Istanbul, Rajasthani women carrying loads of bricks on their heads with such grace. All these things interrupt my breath and widen my eyes. But these dervishes enacted this skillful physical control in a way that wasn't just physical. Their ease and simplicity brought to my mind a monk mindfully closing a door, or of a loving hand fondling another's head. Erich Schiffman has written of yogic stillness that it is movement centered and focused so perfectly that it resembles a spinning top that can move with such speed that it appears to be absent of movement. This whirling had that quality of stillness in the heart of movement. It was obvious watching these people that they do embody the tolerant loving faith they espouse, that in fact they hold nothing in reseve for themselves. This was a gorgeous example of mind/body/spirit actualizing God.

One asana, one pose, one twirl. Without tottering, without dizzyness, without the smallest imprecision or even the sense of exertion. Could I ever enact one motion so lovingly, so efficiently, so skillfully that another person would be inspired or enriched by witnessing it? I suppose to some extent, this is an egoist ambition. As I practice the physical limb of yoga, I try to remember that physical control is nothing if not an outward sign of my spiritual experience, of love and light. As a teacher, I hope to invite my students to the same. Namaste.

"India really pushes at you," Danielle said. We were walking down the side of a busy road in Ubud after finishing a cooking class focused on Balinese ceremonial (holiday) foods. Danielle and two of her friends from Melbourne were showing us their favorite coffee house in town. Bali pushed at us gently. This trip was the first time in our travels when the very color of our skin broadcast the fact that we were foreigners, and further cues easily underscored the case that we were tourists. "Taxi? Transport? Where you going? From what country, ma'am? Have a look! More sarong? Another batik? Massage? What size? More colors inside! Yes? Yes? Yes?" As we walked down the street, we negotiated a gauntlet of men and women eager for our comerce. "No taxi, thank you," was quickly rejoined with "what about tomorrow? Where you go? What's your program?" They were incredibly persistent and the hotel staff were in on the game. A casual conversation about who we were, and what we' d like to see quickly threatened to become organized for us faster than we could blink. The tiniest crack in our facade would give them a way into our wallets -their personal ATM- spewing money through a stuck-open sphincter. Of course things were delightfully cheap, but the incessant offers and inquiries were maddening. As they pushed gently, how not to push back rudely with irritation?

The saving grace here was that they DID take no for an answer, were happy to give directions, information and help, even for free. After the pattern was realized, we could relax and concentrate instead on the beautiful smiling faces and sweet manners of so many people. Imagine walking down the street in Chicago, Wheaton or Naperville and making smiling eye contact and a soft bow with namaste hands to everyone you pass! Their offers and our repeated refusals became after a few days a private joke we all shared. One taxi driver held a sign in front of his chest, as did many of the men, which read "TAXI." When we said "no thank you," he flipped the sign around and it read "how about tomorrow?" We all three laughed. The Balinese believe that their forthcoming reincarnation is partly dependent on their attitude and reactions to their present circumstances and so they practice smiling inside and out, no matter what. Usually we said "no," sometimes we said "yes", to transport, to an article of clothing, and with neither obsequiousness nor casual off-handedness, they provided what they had offered skillfully, efficiently, and at a comfortably low price. On both sides we expressed sincere gratitude.

At the coffee house in Ubud, Jo, Danielle and Steven shared their stories and we realized that all five of us were at a place in our lives rethinking our priorities. We noted it is the Year of the Snake, a year for shedding old skin. All of us were changing careers or reorganizing the allotments of our time and resources to allow opportunities for the things that truly enrich us. We want to nurture the parts of our lives and relationships that make us vibrant, healthy and creative. The biggest focus of our convesation was letting go of the things that we really don't need, especially the attitude that pemeates our corporate, consumer cultures of constant material and financial increase. Steven reminded us that excessive and uninhibited growth is the mark of cancer. When we focus instead on identifying what is most important, we can separate out the extra trappings that we thought were unavoidable and yet drain the energy of our lives. It was a marvelous, supportive, energizing afternoon. As we broke up our group, we simply wished each other an amazing life!

As I start writing this, I am on a train from Delhi to Agra (and the Taj Mahal)! The first two days in India, as Danielle predicted, have pushed us hard. We are too powerless here to push back rudely, even if we would want to, so our psyches instead pull us inward. Instead of looking out with curiosity and excitement, we are frustrated, tired, nervous. Anticipating even before our arrival the logistical challenges that faced us, we signed up for a 15 day tour with a small group. This is quite uncharacteistic of our do-it-yourself, freedom-in-the-moment mode of travel. After one day in New Delhi we were glad we had. We made abortive attempts to leave our hotel on our own, at first just to wander and get a feel for the neighborhod, and later to visit a prominant site. The map our hotel manager gave us was useless, and in any case pulling it out for a look drew an instant and constantly cycling barage of touts. In every other place I've travelled, the "kindness of strangers" as Blanche DuBois put it, has been something to rely on. Unfortunately those first two days, "the kindness of strangers" in every case was someone telling us that wherever we wanted to go was closed, too far, or not very interesting. Instead, they would be happy to take us to a shop that had a good discount! Every single person who approached to help us had the same scam. Unlike in Bali, we couldn't relax here. Even a private driver arranged by our hotel to show us some sites not on our tour had to be repeatedly and insistently refused the chance to take us shopping.

Knowledge that both historically and contemporaneously our cultures co-create the disparity between us that leads to these behaviors and interactions does nothing to help us cope in the moment. Jim and I started speaking brokenly in French when we were on the street so no one would believe we understood their English. We were advised to absolutely avoid eye contact, or any sign of comprehension or notice whatsoever. How dismaying to travel somewhere and deliberately refuse to engage the local inhabitants just as a survival method! A woman who has come to India three times says she loves it "visually, not personally." Yet traveling in a group, often with private transport, without navigational worries isn't really enough in itself to deliver peace of mind either. For starters, there is the traffic. (For a video of that, go to Jim's facebook page). The congestive assault of motors and horns is both fascinating and brutal to body and soul. As well, the human drama on display in public is disconcerting as often as wonderful.

Nonetheless, India is filled with places of sublime serenity. Pocket after pocket of clean green surrounds ancient structures layered with sacred meaning and the accumulated spiritual treasure of daily reverance. In every way, India has a complexity and density defying rational digestion. This place shifts under our feet and arround my heart, refusing cursory summarization or even description. I recall an old impression of Hindu mythology and folktales which challenge a simple understanding of good and evil, of hero and monster. The stories here are long and convoluted, and it's hard to tell if there is a moral or model to teach at all.

Of course, as Jim noticed, India can be chopped up into beautiful images - into photos cropped in such a way to accent bright colors, exotic clothing, tools and accessories, livestock in charmingly unlikely places, fruit and wares stylistically arranged, smiling women and children, ascetic holy men. But widen the lens and you also see endless piles of trash, waste from human and beast, dust, beggars and touts. The same is true for all the senses. The smell of spices and mouth-watering food intermingles with sewage, urine, brackish water, gasoline and smoke from burning trash. The sound of chanting, of music, of children and birds is drowned out frequently by vehicular horns that shatter the eardrums. We have tried to keep our hands to ourselves and away from bacterial hazards, so I cannot even comment on the textures available to us. Places of serenity, holiness and historical import are surrounded by congestion and stress, or at the vey best by "extreme livliness." Combinations and contrasts of India are delivered like fractals - you know there is reason, a mathematical computation at its core, that there is predictability involved somewhere, but the end result is a display that seems random, ephemeral, perplexing and irresolute.

As I finish writing this piece, we have been in India eight days and Delhi is far behind us. "The real India is in the villages," our guide told us. Certainly our experience in the small towns and villages of Rajasthan has been much more to our liking. We have come back to people whose faces we can look into with curiosity and shared joy. Children wave eagerly as we walk or ride by. They insist we take their photos, and whole families pose for us. We've had the chance to enjoy local temples and sit alongside people during their daily spiritual practice. How easily we slip into the common greeting here of hands pressed together as we say "namaste." Accepting a hot cup of chai from a roadside purveyor has an element of trust difficult to convey. The chai was boiling but how well did his son wash those cups? Absolute strangers in the market offer their hands for us to shake, and it sometimes seems like such a bridge to cross just to take it. We are fanatical about the hand sanitizer, and hope we don't seem offensively fastidious. But what a joy to feel that pressure, that touch from someone who lives in this place so different from mine, and who calls this place home.

Maybe you've heard or read the encouragement to do something really frightening everyday. The image of giddy shrieking followed by cathartic relief is a powerful one. Unfortunately for me it falls into the same category as the encouragement to do ab-work everyday - a great idea but one I don't quite manage. Lots of people think quitting my job, selling our house and heading off around the world with a carry-on bag is fightening, but truly for me it was not at all. Learning to drive in Chicago at age 37, with a job offer hanging on the results of the driving test was terrifying, and although my marriage ceremony itself was relaxed, dancing the Argentine Tango with Jim as our first dance in front of everyone was also one of the scarier moments of my adult life. Count them though - two frightening things in six years - hardly the once a day standard that seems so cool. And yet, here in SouthWestern Australia I've managed the leap of faith in myself to accomplish two frightening things in three days.

Before breakfast on Sunday Jim and I got up with the birds. Not the delicately melodic tweeties we're used to in Illinois. These birds sound like cats hanging upside-down from trees by their tails, or like whining toddlers. Goaded out of bed by this ruckus, we made the short drive to Porungorup National Park for the Castlerock Granite Skywalk. On a rising path of about two kilometers, we came across two groups of wallabies that allowed us quite close before hopping just out of range and continuing their breakfast. The path got rockier as we climbed, and we came to a gorgeous lookout scattered with enormous menolithic formations generated as bubbles millions of years ago in molton rock. These are some of the oldest rocks on the planet. The surrounding stone had been worn away over time until these "bubbles" balanced precariously on and around each other like a group of asana students lifted on their toes in chair pose.

We paused for some photos and became aware of the gusting wind as we got higher. At 7am, it was already 35 degrees Celcius, but the wind sent a chill through our sweat-filmed torsos. Around a bend in the path, things got even more challenging. The climb was steeper and I had to tighten the straps of my Barmah hat tight bitingly under my chin. Our way now was over giant granite boulders, the remnants of shattered "bubbles" that had become unbalanced and cracked apart against each other. Jim went ahead and occasionally gave some advice on footing. It's pretty frequent that I'm grateful to have married a tactical genius, and this was just another instance.

At a particularly rough spot I thought to myself "Oh, just let Jim go ahead. He can get some photos and I'll just wait here." Two weeks ago in Fiji we'd had the opportunity to climb out to the end of the bowsprite of a schooner we were swimming around, and dive into the beautiful water. Jim of course engaged eagerly, but I stayed in the water, congratulating him both times he dove in. But this morning I did not give up so easily. "At least wait until you fall! You haven't so much as stumbled yet," I told myself. As the way became more difficult, the park rangers had installed a few handles in strategic spots, but friends, I'm telling you their model hikers were taller than six feet, and leggy, because both of us had to overreach and lunge to move along.

Meeting up together at the next pausing point, I again nearly lost my nerve. Rising up six or seven meters high in front of us was a ladder. I know the idea of a ladder probably sounds easy, but I was just not keen on that ascent. The wind here was intense, and would have knocked me down without a firm hold. There was no one else around, and unlike in the U.S. where we would have signed waivers and been suited up, strapped in and helmetted, in Australia they continue to allow people unsupervised experiences, and here I was wrestling with mine. "I could just stay here at the bottom, " I rationalized. "It's pretty amazing RIGHT HERE!" It's true it was, but yet I went on.

One of the most influential yoga teachers in my training has been Toni Gilroy. With Toni, I very gradually worked on the asana ardhachandrasana - half moon pose. Balancing sideways on one foot with the other lifted in line with the torso, one hand lifted to the sky and the other either grounded forward of the foundation foot or maybe hovering just off the ground, this was a monster of a pose for me, and one that still eludes me some days. Toni always taught it with this fantastic preparation cue: start with three points of contact: two feet in a shallow warrior-two stance, and the bottom hand placed so it will be directly under the shoulders when you lift that back leg up and roll the hips open.

"Three points of contact" was my cue as I climbed that ladder. One hand at a time released and grabbed a higher rung and then clenching tightly with both hands, I lifted one foot at a time and slowly, breathing steadily, up I went. "Three points of contact" went through my head with at least every fourth breath. I alternated that sage cue with "OMG the wind is gonna knock me off this rock!" , "look straight ahead not down," and "just keep going." When I reached the platform above, I found to my relief that the walkway that led out to a further lookout point was lined waist high with plexiglass. I crounched down out of the wind and waited for Jim to join me and my heartbeat to slow down. This was the giddy part.

We stood together, walked out to the furthest point, and were rewarded with three hundred and sixty degrees of the whole world spread below us as far as we could imagine. Nothing even came close to being as high as us. The canopy of trees below us was a mottled carpet ( something from the early eighties maybe) and the view was magnificent. One more granite bubble was tantalizingly close to the walkway and I fantasized about sitting on top of it. The indigenous people who lived here before Europeans believed that a spiritual being occupied this site, and I wondered what sort of being it was. One very brave I think, to sit up in the wind on top of bubbled rocks that sometimes lose their balance.

Realizing that photos could never convey the view we had, nor the sense of accomplishment in attaining it, we lingered some time more and agree we'd earned our brekkie. The first part of the return was nearly as challenging as the way in, but when our feet again hit simple soil and the angle of descent softened, we moved fast and easy, sure-footed and confident. Back at the parking lot we marveled at how little time had passed. "Well, I've done my scary thing for today," I thought. "Heck, I might have done my scary thing for all of Australia!"

Two days later I was looking up at another ladder. This one wrapped around Gloucester Tree, one of the highest trees in Australia and one of the few available for climbing. The treehouse landing at the top is 72 meters off the ground. "Ok, three points of contact," I muttered as I faked some bravado and started climbing first. Up I went, pausing a few times to catch my breath and enjoy the view. About half-way up, I really did relax. Again it was early morning and the intense sun was sifting sideways through the trees and heavy underbrush. It was peaceful and sweet and as I re-initiated the climb without thinking, that hand that will sometimes hover in ardhachandrasana lifted up with the same foot and I climbed for awhile with only TWO points of contact. Rhythmic and efficient, I went up and up, round and round that enormous trunk, above the crowns of other trees and looked down at last on the entire karri forest.

The next day, walking out on Busselton Jetty, the longest wooden jetty in the southern hemisphere, I copied down this poem posted by Lucy Dougan because it spoke so pefectly to my experience with these challenges.

The Pact

This pact between Solid land and shifting water
Sings a simple pledge
That we can venture out
Into a more capricious element
And survive
Without wings
Without gills or fins. . . .

Something calls our names
As surely as the moon bids tides
And we answer
One foot in front of the other
Shape-shifting into an inter-element
Where all is still and still all moves.

She wrote about the jetty, but her words spoke to me about those ladders. They were my pact between feeling solid and venturing out into capricious experiences. Answering the call out of our comfort zone is scary, but answering the call with frequency lets our skills build upon each other. The reward for our exertions and leaps of faith may be a breakthrough in vision, as I enjoyed above the forest - a prize of changed perspective, playful communion with the world.

There's a vision of myself that I treasure: a memory from one of the first hot Vinyasa classes that I took with that bursting bubble Grace Boland. We'd been hard at it for about 45 minutes and as she'd promised, things had gotten sweaty, things had gotten loud. She put on Paul Simon singing "Cecelia" - not necessarily a yoga song, but one that really digs deep and lifts you up, espcially at assertive volume. From down dog to a three-legged dog, we lifted our bent knees to the ceiling, stacking one hip over the other, and Grace invited us to "flip our dogs" bringing that lifted foot back down to the earth behind us, spinning our torsos up and releasing instead that same hand. It's this vision of myself that I cherish. In this twisting backbend, heart open, throat open, grinning chin lifted to the ceiling and my free hand reaching for the horizon, I was in joyous expansion, yet anchored firmly on three points with a solid foundation underneath me. The vision was solidified by Kathy Koenig, who had walked by the studio window at that same moment and said to me after class "Wow Jenni, you looked like you were having the time of your life!" I absolutely had. This vision of myself and its emotional and spiritual components encapsulates what I love about my asana practice, and is an apt icon for my life these past few months.

As our plans for this trip came together (lightening our load of possessions, selling the house, disengaging from the inessential roots we'd put down), that feeling of confidence and exaltation grew and grew. By the time Jim and I delivered the news to our employers and our game could be quite open, those positive feelings began to build exponentially. The well-wishes from friends, family and most powerfully from fellow yogis left me incredibly inspired by the time we took off. The last few classes I taught were some of the best I've done, and my own practices were deeply satisfying. Time spent with our families was warm, supportive, productive (as the final knots got tied off) and relaxing. Arriving in Fiji my heart was swelling still. The place is so beautiful, and yet very real. (We didn't stay in a resort.) People here are gently courteous and exuberantly friendly and helpful. We've been traveling up and down the coast in open-sided buses, shaded from the intense sun, squashed up against Fijians in beautifully colored island prints, listening to reggae versions of rock songs and fun international pop music with lyrics like "I just want to feel this moment." We've snorkled on a coral reef, treaded water in possibly the most exquisite marine-island situation on the planet, lived pretty cleanly and slept well. My meditation has been consistently easeful, and though my asana practice some days means adjusting my posture, the stress of my retail job has mostly sifted out of my back and hips. We've comfortably divided our time between activity and relaxation with our books and journals beside the pool. In effect, we've been disarmed. In that metaphorical flipped dog pose, I became quite giddy, floating so high I lost that firm contact with the mat underneath me.

In a situation with too many red flags fluttering in our face to be believed, we were fraudulently fleeced of about $30. In that twisting backbend, I was far more excited about reaching out and making a connection with a nice family from the other side of the world. My willingness to extend myself pulled me beyond the bounds of safety. I lost connection with awareness, lost my skills of "travelling 101," and lost one large bill. After figuring out what had just happened, I asked myself what my practice should be. How did I react? At first with sadness, and a few minutes of feeling humiliated in front of my husband, dismayed that I had been that gullible. Really! But as Jim said when he also settled himself, it was a pretty harmless and inexpensive shot across our bow. It didn't harden our hearts, but it did bring me back to earth. The practice in that moment was to regain stability and reset, to be able to open up and reach out again, grinning chin and all.

There are many styles of yoga that I enjoy, each offering something valuable and different, but Vinyasa is my favorite. It offers intense pleasure in the body, the grossest part of our selves, but an entryway nonetheless into other theatres of our experience. The joy of sure and rhythmic movement, (the regaining of steadiness when that surety is bobbled!), the application of just the right amount of exertion to allow the salience of subtelty, sweet trembling fatigue after an offering of energy, strength and grace, and that precious, precious skill of prioritizing stabilty over extension- all these things reward me richly. At some point in my early 30s, my grandmother was expressing her disapproval of my life. I was unmarried, childless and even worse, lived far from my parents and extended family. "I like my life, Grandma," I said. "I'm happy." "Hmmph! " she replied, "Life is not about being happy." I adore her, and value every memory of her I can hang onto, but I think she got this one wrong. When we are truly happy, anything on the spectrum from quiet contentment to supernova explosions of glee, we are aligned with the Divine. That IS what life is about. Wayne Dyer encourages us to "vibrate at a high frequency," a phrase I embrace and repeat with gusto. When our energy is directed outward in creative and generous love and beauty, when we offer and accept that energy with practiced strength and skill, even when we stumble, our motions are grace-full. That flipped dog pose is still one of my favorites. It makes my heart and soul unleash nearly ecstatically! From now on though, I'll be practicing with a much deeper appreciation of being grounded first, aware of my situation, seeing truly. I'll move through the world open to kindness and friendship, reaching out with a smile, but less vulnerable to being pulled off my feet.

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