The Slow and Gradual Path to Minor Fame as a Yoga Blogger

...time to say farewell to October, month o' major amounts of yoga...including the Philly yoga festival, trip to Kripalu, and only three days in which I didn’t attend at least one yoga class...including this past Saturday, when I went to the Rally to Restore Sanity...which, I think, was all about walking a line between humor and seriousness, accepting others, toning down the rage, and trying to be mindful rather than reacting out of instinctual fear...and, as such, kinda like a really big yoga class...

...but not requiring a mat...which is good since I've had a tendency to leave my mat at yoga studios lately...like yesterday...and last Tuesday....and the week before that, left my shorts...leaving little doubt that my subconscious mind wants yet more yoga...

...which it’s getting...as I ended up marking the first day of the relatively low-key yoga month of November feeling both mellow and energized...and, first and foremost, concerned with going to get my mat first thing in the morning and, though planning on my usual kundalini class in the evening (which I did end up going to, as well...work? what's that?), staying for a most excellent vinyasa class...in which, for the very first time, I dropped back from wild thing...camatkarasana...to wheel...urdhva dhanurasana...on both sides...even if I couldn’t manage to reverse it...(note to non-yogi readers: this is, like, really really impressive...)...(not that impressively performing advanced transitions between asanas is the point, or anything)...

...(...seriously, like, one thing I've come to realize is that, while a vigorous yoga practice while badly out of shape isn't much fun....trust me, I know...sometimes being in shape is even more of a problem...)...(like, a couple different teachers have told me they can tell runners and cyclists...that's me...by their inability to touch the floor with their heels in downward facing dog...)...(...and then there was the time I was struggling to get into a bind and the teacher explained that the trouble came from my arms and legs being so muscular...and I thought hmmmm...she's saying I'm just too buff and studly for this pose....that's gotta be the best reason not to be able to do something I've ever heard.....I think I can live with it...)...

...anyway, along with the practice, this yoga cynic's fame continues...slowly, very slowly...to grow...even as weird, existential stuff is fed to the masses....people meet me and then send really impressed e-mails saying stuff like whoa, dude! I can’t believe you’re the guy who writes yoga for cynics!!!...seriously...there’s talk of a Yoga for Cynics workshop some time in the new year (or, at least, there's been a brief chat after yoga class a couple weeks ago about meeting for coffee at some unspecified time in the future to talk about the possibility of a Yoga Cynics workshop maybe some time next year)...(...then, that's how democracy got its start, too...)...a couple weeks ago, got my latest blog award from the legendary Laura...and Brooks wrote an article at Elephant Journal featuring not only a picture of myself with herself and the uber-famous Seane Corn, but wrote such lovely stuff about me, I’m almost too embarrassed to link to it...but will...check it out...

...so, now, I sit contemplating possible layouts for the Yoga for Cynics ashram...thinkin’ recycled building materials, floppy-eared dogs roaming the grounds, inspiring inscriptions from the Tao Te Ching, Leaves of Grass, and Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols, and a totally laissez faire attitude toward sex...somewhere where the ocean meets the sea and dolphins frolic in the waves...and it occurs to me that I really oughtta be getting back to work...

Mindful Irritation, Graceful Wipe-Outs, and Yogardosing in the Crisp Autumn Air

...had this nasty rash all summer...(don’t worry...I’m not providing details)...(or pictures)...actually, longer than that...and still have it...but the high heat and humidity made it unbearable...(except that, obviously, I did bear it)...(and, as such, like most unbearable things, it really wasn’t)...(just really unpleasant)...which made concentration difficult...and uninterrupted sleep nearly impossible...making concentration even more difficult...causing me to write a lot less and find far less enthusiasm for the mindfulness meditation thing....since, y'know, being mindful of irritation gets old fast...

...yeah, yeah, I know what you hardcore yogis out there are thinking...this is exactly the kind of challenge I should welcome....at this very moment, you’re skimming to the bottom of the post to leave a comment about your guru who not only sat meditating on a fire ant nest for fifty years, but had acolytes continually pouring warm honey over his head....I ain’t him...

...as it is, I’ve gained a new appreciation for Autumn, though...the chill coming through windows I refuse to close, though any sane person would...

...the Wissahickon Creek and Schuylkill river bike paths both flooded Friday, leaving a good bit of mud on the pavement in places...cold rain still pitter-pattering along again on Monday, but I just had to get out on the bike...hit a muddy patch and, feeling the bike falling inexorably to the right, pulled my leg out and managed to sit perched on the left edge of the seat, riding gently to a halt....a passing jogger, once having ascertaining I was alright, complimented me on my graceful wipe-out...

...was gonna try to go to yoga class every day in October...ended up making it all the way through October 1st before one thing after another came up on the 2nd...but plan on serious yogardosing* from here on out, including Philadelphia’s first yoga festival, Do Yoga Philly! this weekend, and, two weeks later, a weekend workshop at Kripalu with yoga legends Brooks Hall and Seane Corn (I’m sooooo unworthy...)...and then might be heading down to D.C. for the Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert Rally to Restore Sanity/March to Keep Fear Alive...which might be yogic in its own way...a meeting at the crossroads of idealism and sarcasm...what could be more appropriate?


* defined...in section 11,266 of the Sacred and Venerable 3,197th Commentary on Ancient and Revered Yoga Cynic Sutra 312:474...as: like overdosing, but good for you...

* also just put up a revised version of an older autumn post "Falling" at Elephant Journal

Bridges to Somewhere...

...been grumpy and miserable...and experiencing moments of peculiar contentment and clarity...

...ran into a friend last week who told me she was going to this weekend yoga thing...with this major yoga celebrity...an hour north of Philly in the post-hippie mecca of New Hope....no, I’m not gonna make some cute inspirational pun about that geographical designation and how appropriate it is for a transformational blah blah blah...did I mention I’ve been grumpy?...

...anyway, decided to go for part of it, friday night...which gave me some focus...woke that morning from dreams of incessant conflict...remembering before and after coffee the so many things I somehow got the idea life was supposed to be, but isn’t right now...so what could be more appropriate than a journey toward new hope?...bleah...got some stuff done, but, still sluggish by late afternoon, could’ve just as easily gone nowhere...had I not already paid fifty bucks for the thing...so went...straight into rush hour and descending dark....scanning the ipod for something mellow and yogic to get me in the mood...before deciding the last thing I wanted to hear was anything mellow or yogic...cranked the Clash...let fury have the hour...which actually had me feeling pretty good for most of the drive...

...'til I missed the exit, crossed the bridge into New Jersey...got off at the first off-ramp, hoping for a corresponding on-ramp...which wasn’t there...so thought I’d stop and ask somebody directions...before realizing, quickly, that I was in a part of Trenton where stopping and asking anybody anything was most likely a really bad idea...

...anyway, after a bunch of turns, made it back across the bridge...bridges...another lameass obvious metaphor...crossing from anger and pain to new hope for...meh...and, with somewhat aggressive driving on two-lane country roads, made it to the thing not quite on time but close enough...

...so...to provide a snidely mocking review of Seane Corn would fit neatly within this grouchy idiom....fulfilling the sacred office of the yoga cynic...going back through the mists of antiquity to the ancient and revered cynical sages...to poke fun of yoga megastars with magazine smiles and near-halos of golden ringlets....but, really, she was cool...and basically welcomed any negative thoughts anybody might be having into the room...which kinda takes the fun outta mockery...and, by the end, though nearly wiped out, I admit to basking in that very un-cynical trippy glowy feeling that comes as misery melts at least momentarily into the floorboards....all the best yoga studios use Karmic Cleanser™ to clean clinging misery out of their floorboards....and, chatting briefly afterwards about working with crack addicts, found her strikingly friendly and unpretentious...able to be refreshingly light and intense at the same time, with little apparent effort...

...which is something I strive for...diverse aspects of personality that can mingle casually over cocktails rather than glaring at one another from opposite sides of the swollen, churning river...finding it generally easier to be like a Lyle Lovett album...or, at least, the one Lyle Lovett album I have...half the songs lighthearted, absurd, about one-eyed girlfriends and cowboy hats...the others deep and intense, about longing, loneliness, and pain...but never both at the same time....which can be kind of a social problem...people who enjoy the irreverent humor and devil-may-care attitude say let’s get coffee, only to find themselves sitting across a table from this intense dude rambling on about the apparent limitlessness of human suffering and how Anne Frank is proof that a positive attitude doesn't guarantee anything....while those impressed by the deep and sensitive monologues don’t know what to think when, after a couple beers, they start hearing jokes about televangelists and sheep...


...much that’s valuable can be lost in the smoothing away of rough edges...bridging gaps effectively can be tricky...the essential difference between a middle way and mediocrity difficult to find...lines between completeness, communion, and confusion rippling like water and light below...but, on bridges worth crossing, the other side is rarely easy to see...