Rasa is Gone

“Death is as sure for that which is born, as birth is for that which is dead. Therefore grieve not for what is inevitable.”
--Bhagavad Gita

Rasa, Shine On You Diamond

from Bodhi's First Birthday party

24 Hour Headache

Wow. This headache has gone on since yesterday.

My shoulder and hip are covered in some sort of insect bites.

It's past midnight. Why am I up?

I finished it. I finished the goddamn writing project. I worked on that thing for weeks and weeks. It was like doing it the right way for a change. Of course I still raced to get to the post office on the very last day of the deadline and arrived at the very last moment, but still.

This Friday I'm planning to go to the Woodlands to play and practice with John and my yoga buddies.

Still intensely obsessed with the Pelvis.

I'm doing PT for my pelvis, though I'll miss it this week.

Myofascial release.

Took Bodhi to see Christmas Tree and lights in Zilker Park. It was too late when we got there; he was pretty tired, but got perky when we rode the Zilker Zephyr, the train. That was fun.

He's also getting into Tigger, of Winnie the Pooh fame. I let him watch a Pooh Christmas cartoon and he started marching around saying "Tigger!" and pointing to himself. It was very cute.

Rasa

My beautiful, amazing, luminous friend is probably going to die. She has cancer.

This is the 64 year old gorgeous spiritual singer, dancer, healer, lover, friend and angel who came into my life as a fellow student of our beloved yoga teacher Mary. Rasa. World traveler. Literate. Musical. Krishna devotee and spiritual mentor.

Rasa, it means "savor" or flavor, some aspect of life that charges it with meaning. Raaahsaaah. It has been an important word to me since I first studied Indian poetics in 1989. In fact, a book I have at times carried around with me all the time is called "Rasa," and it is a treatise on Indian poetry and music, a small volume written by poet Rene Daumal. I have contemplated the concept of "Rasa" for over 20 years.

It comforts me a little to think of my father hanging out with Rasa in the Great Beyond. I can imagine him waiting around for her so he can meet her.

But what I can't imagine is life on earth, here, for the next 40 years, without her in it.

Just like when my Dad died, I thought, "What do I have left of him? What will I have of him that will carry me through these next 40 years of life? What will I share with him?" That's why the notebooks he left scribbled in on his desk mean so much to me now. The recordings he made. The photographs. The little mystical miracles that happen from time to time to remind me he is still around.

Rasa is in just about every picture of Bodhi's first birthday party.

She is who came to massage me and do yoga with me while I was laboring for so long. I had a spasm in my back that morphine couldn't cut through. And when my husband started begging the doctors to give me something so I could rest, they gave me Ambien. Which sent me on a long, strange, harrowing and dark journey that was riddled with spasming back pain and the sense that it would never end, like a bad mushroom trip. I stood moaning in the shower, laboring, hot water pounding my spine, until I came out and my husband asked me, "Is there anyone I can call?" and I said, "Rasa." And before he could even pick up the phone, there was a knock at our door.

It was her.

I guess my aunt had called around and tried to get my friends to call and convince Andrew that something was going wrong and he needed to get me back to the hospital and he needed to get really demanding with them. I think she must have called Rasa, whose response was to show up on our front porch.

She massaged me and got me into yoga poses for an hour, and then finally, the pain was gone. I was in an Ambien haze, so I don't remember much. And we did go to the hospital after that. But she was part of my trip!

And then after the baby was born, and our house was such a messy shithole with dishes piling up, sheets on all our windows, papers and baby crap scattered all over the place (we had just moved in) and I was sunk in deep dark depression, Rasa would show up at our door. Massage me. Visit with me. Sympathize with me and my infected episiotomy. Bring us food.

Oh, the Rasa food.

She made an incredible spaghetti casserole with white sauce and sundried tomatoes that was out of this world. She'd just call and say, "I left some food on your back porch." She made kicharee, ladoos, amazing healthy Indian food. (Bodhi loves Indian food.) And she'd just leave it on our doorstep.

She was the person who told me, "You are a natural born, a true Bhakti." It was like God had given her the power to tell me the greatest secret about myself that I didn't know but needed to know. And truly, what moves me and my spirit the most is Love and Devotion to the Divine.

I want to write down all of my memories of Rasa, of how blue her eyes are, how gentle but strong her touch. We were, we are, so close. I never had a friend who was the same age as my mother, not like this. Though since I met Rasa, I have taken on a few more.

She has been my icon of health, of selfless service, of lifelong devotee and guru's student. Even in the hospital, when they were treating her for an infection post-kidney removal, she looked beautiful and radiant and stuck closely to her vegetarian diet, with no sugar and no bad foods. The kitchen had to search high and low to find a non-animal broth for her to eat. But that is Rasa. And even in the hospital she was sharing her food with me. Oh, Rasa.

I want you to live.

More on Fertility and How to Get Fertile

These women, Beth Heller and Tami Quinn, these yoginis and former fertility patients in Chicago, started a fertility series called Pulling Down the Moon.

They have opened a wellness center/yoga studio/acupuncture clinic that caters only to couples who are trying to conceive. Their website is here. Look at it for inspiration, and for their fabulous online store.

The program they offer is a comprehensive 12-week program that includes yoga, diet and nutrition, yoga, acupuncture, and relaxation techniques.

One day I would love to open such a center here in Austin.

Meanwhile, I have access to all of the above service and care providers and offer that as a resource to my bi-weekly fertility students.

You can do their program on your own. Get their book, "Fully Fertile." Check it out here. I think it should be required reading for anyone trying to conceive. Their success rate is that 75% of the women who go through their program end up pregnant within six months.

They even have it set up so that you can host a book group, to read the book, follow the program, and build your very own support group, which can be so helpful.

For those of you who are doing the "hardcore" route of in-vitro fertilization, let me say this: you are no less entitled to be a parent, and you are no less entitled to call yourself a holistic, yogic, alternative treatment kinda gal. All of us would "rather" go the "natural" route, but it is my firm belief that fertility drugs and fertility technology are God-given as gifts for us to use, so to speak, the same way insulin for diabetics is, the same way anti-depressants for true depressives are, the same way chemotherapy for cancer is. We human beings are consciousness itself, evolving. We have used our beautiful brains and our passions to develop pharmaceuticals and surgeries that can enhance our health or intervene when a disease is progressing.

I guess I'm not a Christian Scientist. Or a Scien...ugh, I hesitate to even finish that word.

Anyway, that was a tangent. Rarely can someone who hasn't gone through this understand it. I have some friends who tried and tried for many years to have a baby, really the best people in the world, and they tried everything. They had been trying to adopt as well, and after a few years of heartbreaking near-misses, they finally adopted their beautiful baby this summer.

So then the intention to become a parent grows into a protracted LONGING, a deep and primal NEED, and after all it is our longing with all our hearts that catches the ear of the Divine. And it is that longing that propels us forward, that moves us deeper, that causes us to explore worlds and feelings and depths we never imagined or, let's face it, ever wanted to have to explore. But there you are. Longing to be a parent, and finding a way to open the door for your child to enter into your life.

I remember when I was a child and we had the first "test-tube baby" in the news. It was Real News. Of course you had the fundamentalists freaking out, protesting, saying that we were "playing God," and all the ethicists questioning what this child's life would be like. Well, turns out she grew up just fine, and so have the many who have followed her. By the time someone has gone through the intensive procedures required to create a "test-tube baby" there is no question that this person, these people, these parents, are going to appreciate their baby (or babies) once they arrive. And I believe that goes for anyone who has struggled with infertility. I mean really, we got pregnant relatively easy--but it took a lot of conscious preparation and expense on every level to get there. I can still sympathize with those decade-long "unexplained infertility" diagnoses.

In some ways, I think the world would be a much better place if all parents had to go through this initiation/process of fire. Can you imagine? What if the ONLY way to get pregnant was to go through extensive, careful research and preparation? Wow.

Oh, and P.S.: Sometimes after the long, grueling process of trying to conceive, people will decide that they're not meant to be parents after all, and this too is a wonderful conscious choice.

Fertility and REST

I started teaching my new Fertility Series last week.

It's going to be awesome. And the group is completely different from last time.

I also just found out that HALF of my students from the first group are now pregnant.

Now, this could be because of the series OR it could be because, well, they were trying to get pregnant. I like to think it's because of the series.

Witht he new group, most of our time together was spent talking, and sharing our stories. Then we did the Fertility Program written by John Friend. (Which I recommend doing every single day if nothing else can be done, while trying to conceive.) THEN I had to break the hard news right off the bat: if you're trying to conceive, you have to quit drinking coffee. (Doctors say one cup a day; I say kick it cold turkey and start drinking nettle tea instead.)

AND, the second bit of hard news I had to break to them: you have to start taking things OFF your plate. And you need to really reduce your exercising. If you're having a hard time getting pregnant, the idea is to reduce the heat in your body and the speed and overwhelm in your life. And in your asana practice.

Women who get an "unexplained infertility" diagnosis react with the same level of stress as someone who has been told they have cancer, or HIV.

That's a lot of stress.

I was told I needed to rest and relax more when I couldn't get pregnant after nine months of trying. That did not go over well with me. And I wanted to punch out every person who said "Just relax and forget about it, and you'll get pregnant!" But it turns out that, in a way, they were right.

So instead of doing what I usually did and do when I'm stressed, which is to kick up my asana practice and work REALLY hard, I went the other way. I rested. I restored. I gained ten pounds. (Fuck!) (Kate Moss has famously said, "Nothing tastes as good as being skinny feels," and I love that! But I say "Too much sweat and endorphins can't compare to how good holding my baby feels." Or something like that.) But I still rested, and I still restored. I tailored my asana practice to support the phases of my menstrual cycle, so that I was resting while bleeding, more active while ovulating, and working hard but more along the lines of endurance than repetition and sweat during the latter half of my cycle. And I would rest during the period of possible implantation.

I think the most important thing I did toward getting pregnant (aside from the obvious) was to take a month off from teaching. I mean, I have been teaching weekly classes pretty much year round since 1999, ranging from ten to two a week; so to go on hiatus from that was kind of a shock to my system. And it must have worked, because the following month I got knocked up.

So I tell my fertility students to learn how to rest. We all need it. We all live in one of two modes: ON or OFF.

I remember the last time my teacher Mary was here, and we were all practicing NOT to build our energy and excitement, we were moving more slowly and staying completely connected and rooted down, moving from our feet and legs and pelvis and not so much from our upper trapezius/shoulders ALL THE TIME (monitor this in yourself next time you're practicing, it is eye opening) and it was remarkable how slow and low and tired the energy in the room got. The intention of this work was to stay connected to our True Selves as we practiced, to stay rooted down, to go inward and stay plugged in to our Selves instead of letting the mind or the ego take the lead; and the truth was that we were all TIRED. SO VERY TIRED. I think it's profound.

I think most women do too much.

I think less is often more.

I think deeper is more accurate, softening more important than just about anything else in a practice or in a life. I think there is true strength there. And I think there are many, many ways to find it in oneself and in one's life and practice.

I loved something Desiree Rumbaugh said once, that we must learn to grow stronger and stronger on the inside, and softer and more supple on the outside.

In Chinese Medicine, they will talk about heat and cold in the body. At one point, my acupuncturist told me, 20 years ago, that I had waaay too much heat in my body, but that it was so buried it read as cold. I have pursued the course toward this core self, this core of heat beyond the cold, ever since. And the goal is to let the heat release so there can then, finally, be balance.

I want to say again how powerful acupuncture and inversions are in regulating my menstrual cycle and thus, my sanity.

I had a miscarriage in September. It is the first and only one I have ever had. It was a miracle, and it was an accident. I really want to have a second baby, but we're not actively "trying." Long story short, I miscarried. You never know why these things happen. But my period was late, then I bled a lot, then my next period was late too. I went to my doctor, who took a bloodtest for my hormone levels and immediately put me (back) on VITEX, which regulates the menstrual cycle. I started my period the next day. Normal period. Then I started bleeding again 18 days later. Went to my other doctor. She said if my next period came any sooner than Day 21 we'd have to biopsy my uterus. Never words you want to hear: "biopsy your uterus." So three trips to the acupuncturist later, and adding DiM supplementation to my Vitex, my period is here again, on Day 24, just like it always was before.

And I'm slightly less irritable, bitchy, thin-skinned and enraged than I was these past few weeks. Still crying at pictures of kittens, or when my son puts his little hand on my face and says, "Mommy." But not as much. And God intervened last week, kept me from attacking that poor bastard at Quizno's who was rough and mean to his teenage son while we were all standing in line.

I feel like I've caught and cured a potentially dangerous imbalance. And meanwhile, I've taken it slightly easier with my asana practice, meditated and chanted more, gone upside down with support more often, eaten a lot less, therapized, done about eight physical therapy treatments for my pelvis and pelvic floor (writing on that coming soon) and written a lot more of my own personal stuff.

So what I'm saying is that it is so worth it to observe and respect our cycles. All of them. While trying to conceive or otherwise.

I've found that the Truth I thought I was living turned out to be my ego, which is a fine and lovely part of me, it's just not the heart's deepest desire or even Reality.

I remember John saying during a teacher training once that not only did we have to work really hard and push ourselves (as needed) but we also had to learn how to really rest, and rest DEEPLY. And it's not even the quantity of time taken to rest, it's the quality. You can rest VERY deeply without falling asleep in savasana, or in yoga nidra. But I do think this is something we have to learn. And practice.

This is all relatively new for me; please don't think I know all the answers or that these musings or even my practices and what works and worked for me will work for you or for anyone else. I just know that I've heard these teachings in many other places, like in Deep Massage training with David Lauterstein. That there is a brain wave, a place of ease, that lies between two poles. That hardly anyone knows how to rest, and the body needs it, the mind needs it, the soul needs it. We're interested in being in the middle state, the space between ON FULL BLAST and OFF, ASLEEP. We're interested in Truth. In being awake. Full of peace.

And if you can get just a taste of that, you might want to go back again.

Thought on 24 Months

Yes, these first two years have been fun. In so many ways. Belly-laugh fun. Being completely surprised and delighted fun. The REAL fun.

But more than anything else, I think these first two years are about containment, and just keeping the child alive. And that requires vigilance on my part. Constant vigilance is tiring. But it has to be done, especially if mine are the only eyes, ears, and arms around to see, hear, and swoop in and arrest potentially dangerous act. It's like holding your body in a muscle or movement pattern that is not good for you for a really, really long time. Like hunching forward over your laptop, every day, for 12 hours a day, with your delicate wrists hitting the edge of the table and your chin in permanent lock down. Bad, bad, bad. And it's like the premise of that horrible movie that just came out with Cameron Diaz in it: you must protect the laptop and be vigilant about it, or somebody in the world gets it.

That is all.

Must go protect chihuahua from projectile racecar and truck.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Or so my neighbor said, today, as we were wheeling our tots out the door and over to the playground.

She was being slightly sarcastic.

I think it's a hard time of year for almost everyone, but I think it's especially hard for us recovering alcoholic co-dependent ACOA folk. It's hard for me because I actually kind of love the holidays, starting now with Bodhi's birthday, followed closely by Halloween, and now Thanksgiving and soon all the rest, up until New Year's, which I also love.

But it can't help but bring up feelings and memories of loved ones who are no longer with us. Particularly my dad, since Christmas at my house was the one and only time he ever got to meet his grandson. And he was visibly quite sick; how sick, we didn't know then. That horror was to make itself known to us a few months later.

And what's up with me right now, anyway? Well, I am facing a lot of loss. The kind of loss I've managed to avoid my whole life, all coming toward me at once at the ripe old age of 45. Death is all around right now. I don't mind it, I'm not afraid, it just makes ordinary conversations and interactions seem hollow to me. "How are you?" Uh, I'm okay, considering one of my very closest and most beloved friends is possibly dying of bladder cancer. I've been trying to minister to this person, because they have ministered to me so often in my darkest hours. And in a way it's effortless to do so, because I love this person so damn much and don't want to imagine my life without them, but it's also been so damn hard, considering I'm still grieving losing my dad, and this friend's illness has opened up some not-so-old wounds.

Considering some deeply personal losses I've been struggling with but am not yet comfortable to share with the whole world.

I remember when I first moved back to Texas, to nurse my mom through her treatment after breast cancer surgery, I was reading a lot of Trungpa. And in Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, he said, more or less, that our greatest purpose in life is to be there to comfort one another as we face our own deaths. That we're all afraid of dying, but that we can actually be there to relieve that fear for one another.

I've even promised another close friend I would sit vigil at their deathbed and read them the Tibetan Book of the Dead, if they wanted. That I would talk to their soul to let it know that it was moving on and that everything was gonna be okay.

And now that I've typed that, I remember it to be true.

Contemplating this somewhat further, I realize that it is wholly appropriate to deeply consider dear Death (and with that, of course, sweet Life) at this time of year. Everything is folding up and going within. The prana is moving from the periphery, the leaves of the trees, the plants, our bodies, everything, and drawing back into the core source. Animals are hibernating. If we could just sloooooow down and go with the natural flow, the holy days would probably go a little more smoothly for those of us who struggle or get stressed with them.

So here I go, allowing myself to rest a little. To work on less and to daydream more. I'm hoping and planning for a great 2010. It's gonna be big. But for now...

It's all pretty damn hard.

And it's all pretty much Love.

Refine(d)

Here is my five minute non-edited piece about Refine(ment). You yogis will catch the connections between mamahood and yogic philo-s0-fay:



Refinement, so sweet. Like sugar. Like understanding light. Waves, patterns, the sacred trembling of the universe. The sound of my son's voice, ringing out around the house. The sound of life in the mornings, low-humming radio, oven buzzing, laughing baby, whimpering dog, the freeway in the not-too-distant distance. The lightwaves and the frequency.

How often do I stop to smell the rose? We go for walks down the street, takes an eternity, since we stop at every flower garden to count every butterfly and bee. I am so grateful for the bees, who are in danger of disappearing from our planet. I love how they take nectar from the morning glories or the lantana or the marigolds, and refine it into an even thicker substance, into honey. Like the light moving from the eyes down into the core of the pelvis. The place where he grew from one into eight. And then some. How orderly the division, how echoing the green, how narrow the hallway the birth canal the chance we take, to get to be born human, to be born at all, to count all the perfect fingers and toes and breathe, the deep relief I feel when I do not brace, the perfect symmetry of it all in hindsight, how much deeper. How much sweeter. How much denser, darker, lighter the unfolding. And the unfolded.

I want to tune him like my guitar, be consistent with my words, patient with my hands, loving with my eyes, firm with my voice, soft outside but strong inside. Every day it gets better. More refined. Even me, burnished by the strife and the fire and the constant grating of my will vs his. Burnished dross, turned to gold. The tiny speck of gravel turned into the pearl by the nacre. My words for him. My sense of my self. It's getting better all the time.

My Secret

Dear blog readers,

I'm announcing to you that I am going to enter a writing contest under a pseudonym. Wish me luck. And now that I've announced it to the world (well, to my world, anyway) I have to do it, right?

I'm sorry to say that I won't be able to announce whether I win or not. It's a really transgressive piece and I don't want to be able to be traced to it. So shhhhh. Keep it to yourselves.

Meanwhile, a Halloween costume picture or two:

Some cute stuff I just gotta share

Cute stuff #1

I have a fairly gnarly (not cute) sinus infection. Today Bodhi was going wild, running around the house without any pants on, not letting me take off his pajama top, giggling hysterically and in general just being maddeningly adorable. We were both in the bathroom, he of course drawing with his non toxic bathtub crayons (best investment in a toy so far) and getting ready to throw everything from the bathtub onto the floor when....he saw me do the neti pot. I wasn't even thinking about the impact it would have on him. But it certainly did impact him; he stopped cold, mid-throw. The rubber duckie fell to the porcelain with a squeak. "Mama?" It seemed to blow his mind. He was quiet for a full five minutes after that. He even let me help him put on his pants and shoes.

Then it was back to running and biting the backs of my legs. Ouch!

Cute stuff #2

Videos on my iPhone. He loves to use my iPhone to watch movies of himself. He watches them over and over. He says "That's you, that's you," each time, looking at himself and repeating what we always say when we point out the movies we've made of him.

Cute stuff #3

File under: you probably had to be there, but what the hell, I'll try to relate this to you anyway.

I dragged out last year's paltry Halloween decoration collection (purchased at the very last minute at Hobby Lobby, which had been picked clean) with the intention of putting some of the stuff up. Then I left, and came back later, to find that my husband had in fact taped the silly cardboard Dracula to our front window. Bodhi couldn't wait to show it to me when I got home. But not because it excited or amused him. No. Because it was freaking him out. I so recognized that unsure and WTF expression on his face. It was the face of a little kid being scared by a weird and kinda scary (in spite of the smiling bat on his head) vampire. He kept pointing to it and saying "Up!" as in, "Look at that crazy fanged man, pick me up NOW!" I explained to him how Bram Stoker wrote a novel around the turn of the century based on a power mad, greedy and cruel man, and how vampires were the physical expression or cariacturization of certain psychological qualities of human beings; also how there are certain people in the world who seem to suck the life energy right out of us, and vampires represent some of THAT. But he wasn't buying it. Nor the symbolism of dealing with death and being afraid yet safe while the seasons changed and the plants died and the animals hibernated. "Up!" he said after I finished my explanation. And then he learned what the word "scary" meant.

So my husband took that goofy grinning bloodsucker down. Good riddance, Bela!

New Pics

Bath time!














B and Daddy, so happy



















Quintessential summer pic

Clock

This is a piece I wrote but didn't read for my Mothers Writing Group "Spilled Ink" reading at Bookwoman.


Liz: CLOCK

All my life I've been perfectly content with whatever age I am. I never yearned to be older than I was, I never wanted to wear more makeup so that I would fit in with the older kids, or so that the older boys would want to date me. Although when I was 16 I had a thing for the 23 year old waiter, who would come over to my parent's house and visit me in the afternoons, after school and before his shift started. His name was Tom and he looked exactly like Tom Peterson from Cheap Trick. And his little brother was in my Spanish class. I was an aching, terrified virgin. He must have been stoned out of his mind, because he would just come over, lie down on my bed, look up at my Styx and Aerosmith posters and ask me to bring him something to eat. What was going on in Tom's mind? He never touched me, as bad as I wanted it. It was some sort of twisted Jane Eyre teen angst situation. Later I learned he'd been fucking Julie, from my English class. She was even more insecure than I was, wore braces on her teeth and sold drugs. Wanting to be old. All the teenage girls I knew who were having sex. Not me.

Now I wonder "Am I old?" I'm 45. It doesn't seem real. This is the time when bodies start to give out. Eyes fail. Heart attacks happen in the middle of the day for no reason. Someone dies at my age and everyone says, "So young!" but really, it's not totally unexpected. It's not tragically young, like 17 or 27.

I know that Time heals. That in terms of the entirety of creation, my bright shining moment here is already gone. That there is something to Eternity. It's like having a baby, who lingers over almost everything. Who is either distracted so easily, or is so completely absorbed. It's that childhood we're all trying so hard to recover, where all that we do is imbued with the sense of play. Where work ceases to be punching a clock. Where work is assembling the clock itself, with such care and love you lose all track of time.

My son is obsessed with clocks. We can't figure it out. And he knows digital as well as analog, roman numeral or numbers. All round objects with hands are clocks. Temperature gauge? Clock. Odometer? Clock. DVR readout? Clock. What does he pick out to notice at the library? Clocks. All of them. Thousands of books and DVDs and even computer terminals at his fingertips and his fascination, the first couple of times we've gone, is with the clocks on the wall. In a moment of weakness, I forgot (or rather, ignored) my vow to myself to never Google symptoms plus the word "toddler" ever again. My parenting guru suggests that when I do this, when I take myself down that rabbit hole, it's a sign to myself that I am overwhelmed, exhausted, depleted, in need of self-care. And she's right. So when I googled "obsessed with clocks + toddler" and one of the many search results listed it among symptoms of Aspberger's Syndrome, I felt my body go cold and my stomach drop. My husband's nephews, my nephews, his sister's sons, have Aspberger's. My own sister is profoundly retarded and lives in a state school. There is epilepsy, suicide, depression, bipolar depression, post partum depression, alcoholism, drug addiction, mental illness of all stripes and just plain crazy in my and my husband's family histories. When we met with a "Genetic Counselor" during the first trimester of my pregnancy, almost every box on the list was checked. Most of them from my side of the family.

So I've watched my son from before he was born, worrying, wondering about his neurological development. Terrified that there would be something Wrong with him. That he would be too slow. Too fast. Not right. He was, after all, delivered by forceps and a scalpel to my perineum after a 67-hour back labor. My acupuncturist Sarai, whose name is spelled S.A.R.A.I. -- exactly the same as the Sarai in the Bible who had a baby at 90 -- and who helped deliver my son and saw me through that tremendous labor and delivery with her amazing acupuncture tools, said she was not surprised he is obsessed with clocks. His conception, and his birth, was all about time and timing.

There is an acronym for women like me. For women who have been told they have "unexplained infertility." And it's TTC. Trying To Conceive. After a year a half of TTC, most of it the old-fashioned way but enhanced with herbs and acupuncture needles, I did conceive, for what I think was the first time in my long, storied, sexually active life. And frankly, it didn't take this 45-year old first time mom all that long. A year and a half. I don't know what the secret is. "Relax, stop trying," those people with children will tell you. "Cough syrup." "Quit caffeine." "Start the adoption process." I think it really had something to do with dedicating myself to taking care of myself, for real. Treating myself to the kind of care I helpfully suggest everyone else does. I don't have a high stress job, but I made it stressful. So I took off for a month. I had my uterus massaged. I did acupuncture and Chinese herbs. Nettle and Red herbal teas. I also did several months of pills, injections, turkey bastings and surgery. The surgery was the last straw. Meawhile, while TTC, I was clocking every minute of every day, marking my time not by the changing colors and temperatures of the seasons or the fund drives on public radio, but by the changing colors on chemically treated sticks and temperature readings on thermometers. I had long passed Advanced Maternal Age. But as I said before, I've always been happy to be the age I am. So I liked that designation, "Advanced." In yoga, this would imply mastery over complicated postures or philosophical principles. And so I was, and I am, certainly Advanced when it comes to being Maternal.

I Think I Gave Birth to a Comedian, Folks

Bodhi's favorite phrase these days?

"That's funny."

Usually in reference to some mischievous act (or another) involving water, hair pulling, or the dog squealing.

Take for instance the gleam in his eye in this photo we took last night:



















Enjoying himself, even though his parents posed him in giant wax vampire lips.

"I'm Bodhi Lucchesi"

New Kind of Lonely

There is a great loneliness that comes with being a mother, for me.

The sudden and not-so-sudden dropping away of friends.

The phone, lying quiet, for days at a time.

The not having a soul to call when the anger has me in its grip, is squeezing me tight like paper wadded into a fist. For really, in the moment, who can you tell about the rage boiling up inside, the petty annoyances that have accumulated and become grounds for committing some form of crime? The reflections on a life not fully lived? Who can you tell about the fear that literally makes your body break into a cold sweat as you read search results from google, contemplate the future, or have bad dreams?

I feel so broken sometimes, like I have no skin at all, not even thinned skin. Every slight becomes another disappointment for me to stuff down, to tell myself it doesn't matter.

The things I wish I didn't know far outnumber the things I do.

I want to write a song with this loneliness, or a poem, or make a photograph the way I used to. I want to make something meaningful of it, for me, and for all the mothers who were never able to put this feeling down on paper. To speak it out loud, to finish it as a thought, to somehow redeem and bring my soul/her soul/your soul back toward the light. Where we can stay. All alone and together.

This is the grown up middle-aged version of the teen angst poem. "Alone," she cried. "All alone in the world, surrounded by people, unable to connect, wishing to connect, not knowing how, not asking, just sitting and staring out a vacant window, soul aching, writing down Journey lyrics and sobbing for the lonely, lonely, bitterness of it all."

Eating cherries and drinking cooled-down coffee, typing at the counter in my living room, sitting on a barstool, listening to the radio. The truth is, I will go pick up my son in an hour and remember that I actually never have to feel lonely again. But for this minute, this blog entry, I commune with my teenage self again and cradle her angst-ridden, tear-wracked body in my newly acquired mommy arms.

In Motherwords Writing Group

So I'm halfway done with leading my Mothers Writing Group, and I have to say it is one of the best things ever!

We are a small group; there are five of us. But we are a really deep, funny, intense collection of mothers with hellaciously interesting stories and, if I say so myself, some truly badass writing chops. My writing chops have gotten so rusty. Rusted shut, pretty much. But part of our agreement together has been a commitment to write at least three pages a day, just for ourselves. And I manage to do this almost every day. It has cleared out a layer of muck and shit I knew was there, but didn't remember how to get rid of.

Oh, write it out.

So the format , as it were, for each session is

Centering
Write/Read: 3 minute writing on what happened last week, and where you are "at" tonight

...and then I have a list of writing prompts, which we have rarely used because we've tended to talk a lot and the prompts tend to come out of the conversation. My rough idea for the first four classes was to loosely follow some themes: the body, the sisterhood of motherhood, our own parents, our own children. And it has roughly followed this trajectory, though we've been writing about our mothers a whole lot. At first it was all about the fathers, and I thought we'd stay there for a while, but we moved on to our mothers. Our children have now managed to appear here and there. Some really terrific pieces are taking form in the midst of all this.

I plan to continue the Mothers Writing Group. I don't want to lose the ground or the momentum I've gained. So we will see.

We are keeping a secret blog. We will be doing a public reading, Sunday August 30 at Bookwoman, 430-6 pm.

Let me know if you're interested in the prompts, mamas.

Trot Ol' Joe

Bodhi has been in music classes since he was four months old. He has started to sing the songs, all on his own! It's sooo cute. He runs and grabs his music books, and picks out the songs from the books and everything. But it is only recently that he has been putting the words and the melodies together. It is so cool!

Here's a little movie:

The Many Faces of Ma

My son is talking more and more every day. The other day, the first thing he said to me, fresh out of bed, was "Good Morning Mommy!" Plain as day, perfectly enunciated, clear as a bell. If I hadn't already been horizontal, you could have knocked me over with a feather. His first
complete sentence!

Also, everywhere he looks he points and calls everyone and everything even remotely feminine "Mama."

He refers to many images as "Mama," though. I think you should know that.


Beautiful cover models on Yoga Journal. Krishna, on my Krishna lunchbox. Mr. Black in Hop on Pop.

Baby, It's the Fourth of July

It's been a while since I've written a post about Bodhi, the most amazing, delicious, adorable person ever born. He turned TWENTY MONTHS OLD in June.


What if I just told you about today? The day we had. Which started with me up early, hitting the ground running, for no real reason. Andrew was wrangling Bodhi while I flew around the house, picking up dirty clothes, dirty dishes, random pieces of paper, dust bunnies, several thousand small trucks, cars, and puzzle pieces...managed to multi-task toothbrushing, peeing, changing clothes, laundry, checking email, texting friends and family, letting the dog out, searching for a birthing ball cover, creating a new station on Pandora, and God knows what else. It was almost as though I could observe myself from above; I watched as I executed one menial task after the other. I watched, amused, understanding that I was going too fast. Stop and breathe.

Bodhi's Language Explosion has become Ulysses, non-stop streaming words and inflections, with occasional surprise words we had no idea he knew: "circle," "tiger," "alligator." He is absolutely thrilled that he can name objects around him -- "grass," "pool," "shoes" -- and that he can respond to a request, or get something he wants.

Communication is a beautiful thing. It is a privilege to see it in its formative stages.

So he went to the park and played in the fountain plaza with his Dad and Dad's Houston friends, which included another 20-month old, born a week before Bodhi. Dad's other friends, who live here in town, just adopted a baby who is now 3 weeks old. The plan was to play in the fountains then go visit the newborn. Apparently much splashing and fun was had. With triple-digit heat it's pretty important to get the munchkins out of the sun before noon, sometimes before 10 am.

I was at my friend Jennifer's house, helping her pal Maggy to do Jen's bellycast for her coming birth. Jennifer is such a lovely human being. I'm so grateful for her friendship. I officiated her wedding last year, which was an absolutely thrilling and wonderful experience. She's a strong, active, independent woman. She's going to make a fantastic mama. We were listening to crazy classic rock the whole time we did the plastering. Blue Oyster Cult bellycast.

So I was plastering a pregnant belly while Bodhi frolicked in the fountains.

My dear aunt, cousin, and friend all came over to pay us a special visit, and took Bodhi and I to eat a late lunch at the Eastside Cafe. They grow their own food there, and everything they make is delicious. Bodhi was so charming it was ridiculous. He was rocking the highchair. He was wiggling his hips to my aunt's cellphone ring, to the low jangly guitar music they were playing over the speakers, to the music in his own head. It was incredibly cute. He ate an entire plate of fruit that I brought for him, and proceeded to eat most of my salad and cousin Amy's salad, too. I wonder how many toddlers out there in the world enjoy salad? We had an eggplant pomodoro with herb goat cheese, hibiscus tea -- another Bodhi favorite! -- aforementioned salad with raspberry vinigiarette, wild mushroom crepes, mashed potatoes...hungry yet?

After lunch we stopped off at our neighbor's house to visit the newborn angel IAN. Bodhi went for a stroller ride a week ago or so with Ian and his mommy and has not stopped asking about him since. I imagine him growing up with Ian, who will surely be blond and freckled, catching frogs and riding bikes. They could be friends. I hope there's still nature and a reasonable summer by the time Bodhi is hitting his stride in childhood. I can't recall it ever being this hot outside when I was a kid. I spent my summers in Kerrville and slept in cabins that had no air conditioning. All we had was the cooling breeze off the Guadalupe River. I wonder if that's still even possible now.

Bodhi has three obsessions: Trucks, Clocks, and The Moon.

I bought him this nifty toy called "Moon In My Room." It's a battery powered realistic moon light that you hang on the wall and can be controlled by remote, and cycles through the phases of the moon. You can also cycle through them manually. Bodhi LOVES it. It comes with a CD that talks about the moon, and we listened to it the other night while we watched the moon light go through its cycles and got sleepy.

Okay, so back to the Fourth of July.

It ended without fireworks, and that's okay.

The love I have for my little family is unspeakably sweet. I can't even believe what a JOY it is to hang out with my guys on a blanket in the backyard, doing yoga, wrestling with Bodhi and singing songs where we get to toss each other around. The simplest, most basic activities bring sooo much pleasure. Lying on the scratchy pink Mexican blanket, the thick grass beneath us a mattress, the warm air blowing over us, our dog stinking up our laps and playing with Bodhi, gazing up at the highest branches in the pecan trees. This is all at 730 pm, while it's still light out.

Then Papa went to a party while I got to bathe the little man, get him to brush his teeth, put on his jammies, and read In the Night Kitchen for the 100th time. And then he fell asleep on my chest while I sang him the song that is both a lullaby and the story of our day.

And so there it is, Independence Day.

Actually, for once in my life I'm happy to be an American.

Yoga for Fertility

This is John Friend's program for increasing fertility. I did it almost every day while trying to conceive, which I did after 9 months of relaxing, resting, changing my diet (no caffeine, easy on the salt, no cold foods, no sugar) taking guafinesin, acupuncture and herbs and giving up hope.

Yoga Program for Increasing a Woman’s Fertility

The key to create a healthy energetic environment in a woman’s body in order to enhance fertility is opening the pelvic floor and increasing pranic pulsation down through the pelvis and legs.

The breath should be able to pulsate freely in the pelvic area and legs. A natural pulsation for the pelvic floor is reflected by an expansion of the lower pelvic area on inhalation and a soft contraction or exhalation. When this natural pulsation occurs, sensitivity to the pelvic floor increases and prana easily streams down into the pelvis and legs.

Basic Exercises:

Come onto all fours – hands and knees separated slightly wider, the width of the outer hips. Bend forward from the hips and place and turn your head, placing your cheek on the floor. Comfortably in position your arms slightly out in front of you, allow your belly and chest to deeply relax so the back gently arches. Relax your buttocks and pelvic floor. With each deep, slow inhalation allow the pelvic floor to expand. Feel the anus and genitals dilate with the inhalation. Relax deeply the entire pelvic area with each exhalation. Breathe deeply in this manner for 3-5 minutes.

Come back onto your hands and knees. Continue the same breathing pattern as in #1 as you focus on the movement of your pelvis. With each inhalation, arch the lower back, and lift and separate your sitting bones. With each exhalation, tuck your tailbone and round your lower back. To make bigger movements with your body, you can loop up and draw your chest forward when inhaling, and look down and puff your upper back when exhaling. Breathe slowly and deeply for a couple of minutes as you focus on increasing movement and sensitivity in your pelvic area.

Adjust your hands and feet on all fours so you have the right stance for Downward-facing Dog pose. Inhale and lift the knees up off the floor as you move into Downward-facing Dog. In Dog pose, keep the knees slightly bent with the feet parallel. Inner Spiral the legs
and open the pelvic floor with each inhalation. Keep the knees as wide apart as the ankles. The sitting bones should lift and separate with each inhalation. Simply relax the pelvic area with each exhalation. Breathe deep and slow, and perform this pose for a couple of minutes.
Perform Uttanasana – Standing forward bend with the feet parallel and separated hip-width apart. Bend the knees slightly and touch the floor with your fingertips. Inner Spiral the legs and open the pelvic floor with each inhalation. Keep the knees as wide apart as the ankles. The sitting bones should lift and separate with each inhalation. Simply relax the pelvic area with each exhalation. Breathe deep and slow, and perform this pose for a couple of minutes.

Lie on your back with your knees bent, feet on the floor separated a little wider than your hips. Do not have your feet too close to your hips. With each inhalation arch your lower back and move your sitting bones and tailbone down toward the floor. Keep the weight on all four corners of the feet as you keep the knees as wide apart as the ankles. With each inhalation open the pelvic floor wide, and keep the throat open by slightly lifting your chin. With each exhalation tuck the buttocks under and bring the lower back to the floor. With the exhalation let the back of the head extend away from the tailbone. Repeat this movement of the pelvis and head for 3-4 minutes with deep, slow breathing.

In Motherwords: A Writing Workshop for Mothers

Time to explore those OTHER creative juices, Ma!

	Liz (Belile) Shri
Network:	Global

Start Time:	Wednesday, July 15, 2009 at 7:00pm
End Time:	Wednesday, August 19, 2009 at 9:00pm
Location:	Genuine Joe's Coffeehouse, the Cellar
Street:	2001 W. Anderson Lane
City/Town:	Austin, TX

Phone:	6589400
Email:	gynomite2000@yahoo.com

Description

This is a 6-week writing workshop for mamas who want and need to reconnect to their core creativity in a safe, supportive environment, write some beautiful and awful truths about themselves and about motherhood, and have fun while doing it!

Mothers of all levels are welcome; brand new mamas like your fearless workshop leader are especially encouraged to attend, but senior and advanced moms who just need a last hurrah before school starts in August are MORE than welcome.

Cost is $150 for 6 weeks.

There will be a performance of the work created during Motherwords, to be held at Bookwoman, exact date TBD. (This is not mandatory, but will be encouraged and will be a focal point for some of the workshop.)

The series is led by seasoned writing and performance teacher Liz Belile, whose decade of "Breaking the Cherry" erotica writing and peformance workshops for women were life-changing for her, her students, and audience members alike.

Call to reserve your spot today. Space is limited.

658-9400

Yoga and Fertility

I'm writing this blog entry only so that I will be beholden to myself and to YOU, dear reader, who are interested in learning more about the practice of yoga as a tool for enhancing fertility.

I have some great information and some suggestions about that, but I am exhausted and will have to keep looking at this blog entry until I finally just write itall out for you.

I'm scheming to start up a series for women who are TTC; also women who are preparing for IVF or more fertility treatments.

Here is a tidbit that I can't resist writing, even in my zombie-like state:

If you are trying to conceive and it has been challenging, my prescription for you is to REST. I would recommend a practice that is 75% restorative, and only about 25% more rigorous or cardiovascular.

I believe this is the best way to prepare our bodies for conception and pregnancy.

More on this soon.

Oh, and yes. That means quitting caffeine so you can REALLY rest.

Tribute to my Dad on Father's Day

Here it is, the piece that appeared in the Houston Chronicle on Father's Day about my Dad.

Post Partum Recession Blues

Houston, we have a juicer.

I finally broke out the magna-juicer we got AS A WEDDING PRESENT (November, 2005) and put it to use. And it rocks.

I was holding off on using it because the baby (now a toddler) was afraid of loud sounds, like the blender and the vacuum cleaner.

So yes, I have held off on vacuuming as much as I would like for that very same reason. I've been living a life without fresh juice and many dust bunnies. Still a sweet life, but missing something...

But maybe now I'm back. Almost.

I've had a LOT less asana practice this week, and even skipped my massage, since Bodhi was out of school and music class all week, and I've been helping a friend organize her mama blessing, and also reaching out to a newborn mama who has been teetering on the edge since she gave birth a couple weeks ago. It really takes me back to those first few weeks after B was born...shudder. So devastated by my hospital birth. My extended labor. Trying to recover from surgery, exhaustion, and so many challenges in breastfeeding.

So. Damn. Hard. As wonderful as it is now, it was shit on a stick for a long time there.

But the good news is that I spent an entire day this week with an old colleague and friend of mine who writes for the Houston Chronicle --- she read an update I posted on facebook a year ago about my Dad -- it said something to the effect of how listening to the mixes (mixtapes) that he made was like looking into the window of his soul -- how listening to anyone's mixtape is like looking into the window of their soul. And anyway it struck her as a great lead-in for a story, for her column, about remembering my Dad, or any Dad, on Father's Day.

The anniversary of his death, 060708, came and went with little fanfare, and that made me sad.

I meant to do something special to celebrate him, and didn't have the time. But a few days later I got to talk about him and play his mixes and his radio shows for my friend, and tell stories about him and cry and it was, after all, a fitting and fulfilling way to pay tribute to him. I have no idea what her story will be like, but it should appear in the Chron on Father's Day. There are so many secret parts to my Dad's life that he would never have wanted to be made public, secret parts that are agonizingly poignant. Luckily there are also plenty of wide-open parts that can and should be made public, which are also poignant and compelling. Like what a true pioneer and leading light he was in his field, and how he so loved his job, and how rare and special that actually is. What a tremendous talent he was. So hopefully that is what will come across. We'll see!

Andrew and I are talking about remodeling the closets in our living room so that they can be expanded and have shelving installed that will house Dad's vinyl collection, which is vast.

The CD mix that has mesmerized me has a bunch of songs that I have never heard -- and I am something of a musical encyclopedia -- mostly old R&B sax and sort of Cajun swing-y stuff, regional to SW Louisiana I imagine, since that is the gumbo-swampland-morass-source of my father's very soul and where his tastes were formed and fed. The Golden Triangle of Lake Charles, Beaumont, and Port Arthur. Along with Johnny Winter and Janis Joplin and Barbara Lynn and so many others, he played "race" music to mixed crowds, and stayed up late listening to "race" music on the radio, the only time it was played. So this CD haunts me, and I'm particularly obsessed with trying to find out who sang the version of "Let it Be Me" that is on there. In tracing the history of that song, I feel I will find clues to what made my father want to put it on a mix CD. And he wrote on the disc in Sharpie: "track 14: recognize those horns?" and "a few old faves and some new that I like" -- with no other labeling.

This fascinates me for so many reasons.

"Let it Be Me" is like the glinting ruby in the landfill, the next clue in the game that will take me to deeper levels of understanding. Tracking the rest of the songs and artists has also been fun; my Dad had huge collection of Bobby Blue Bland records, and there's a great BBB song, as well as Earl Hines and of course his favorite, Etta James. To be honest, listening to this mix has rekindled my deep love for the Blues.

While I was at Naropa, Allen Ginsberg taught a class on the Blues as Poetic Form. He said it was the first American poetic form. And we listened to a lot of blues that he played for us, like Blind Lemon Jefferson, Leadbelly, Bessie Smith, and many others I loved, then he had us write blues songs and play them or sing them for the class. I wrote a song called "Other Woman Blues" that I still think is quite kickass.

Lock up all your menfolk ladies, Lizbeth's come to town
I said lock up all your menfolk ladies, Lizbeth's come to town
and there ain't nobody safe when
Lizbeth comes around

I like my peaches sweet now honey
love to shake to your tree
Said I like my peaches sweet now honey
love to shake to your tree
but the fruit that's growin' in the other yard
looks so much sweeter to me

Got them blues
Got them blues
Got them Other Woman Blues

It's not the life I choose to lead
but if your man is missing, girl, you know that he's with me

I used to be real loyal to the sisterhood
I used to be real loyal to the sisterhood
Then some evil woman burned me
tooke my man and left for good

Ah but he did not get away scot free
no, he did not get away scot free

I told him I was reading a book of voodoo spells
told him I was reading a book of voodoo spells (and I am from Louisiana, child)
my Cajun blood was boiling and the black cat started to wail

Got them blues
Got them blues
Got them Other
Woman
Blues

Etc


I wrote this song quite tongue-in-cheek, as I am a very loyal woman-loving "sister." Someone had warned me to stay away from her boyfriend, a nice guy I worked with but had no interest in, so I wrote the song. Someday I'll add extra media to this blog and maybe you'll hear it.

In the great Book of Liz, Blues play a big role. The first American poetic form.

But back to the mix.

The mysterious Track 14. Is it Gene Terry and the Downbeats? A small yet legendary R&B band for whom my dad played sax? If so, they recorded on Goldband Records, and he is uncredited on the track. The lyrics of the song go "There ain't no season for squeezin'," as in, LOVIN' is okay any time of year, baby!

There's also a great version of "The Honey Dripper," which apparently has some history with Cab Calloway. Listening to it made me see the connection between Louisiana swing/swamp and R&B and big band swing. Maybe the connection between big band and blues.

Anyway. I need to ask my mom if she knows that song, and if it is my dad playing "recognize those horns?" Then the next question, which may forever remain unanswered, is: WHO did you make this for?

Sundara...which means "Beautiful"

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Postcards from the Edge, and Mother's Day

So much has been going on.

I'm feeling overwhelmed again, swallowed whole again.

My mother visited for a week; it always has its ups and downs. She inevitably gets sick and has to go to the emergency room for a prescription of antibiotics at some point. And then starts taking them and feels better. This visit was no different. She sprained her knee last week, and it was swollen and had a nice flowering of bruises all around it. So I gave her some arnica gel, which she put on "just to shut you up," and what a miracle: the bruising almost went away overnight!

A couple nights ago I dreamed I was on a train with extended family and friends, and was freaking out looking for Bodhi, only to look up and see that my father was holding him. I woke up sore, thinking how he never got to hold him in real life. It seems fitting that he gets to do it in my dreams.

I keep thinking how this blog should be more bloggy, upbeat, more chronicle and less erratic posting. And with more pics and videos. I mean, I have the technology.

I read a friend's facebook update one day and it said "I read her blog today and I realized that I really don't care." I immediately assumed she meant ME. Because that's where my mind goes. Feeling dropped off the edge of the earth without a line.

So in my darkness today I let mom watch Bodhi for an hour while I did almost nothing but backbends. I came out on the other side, I am happy to report. I think mamas should backbend intensively every single day.

So I went to teach the "moms" portion of the "moms and tots" yoga class today, at the new studio where I now teach, Sundara Yoga Therapy. (I taught my first class there Tuesday night and it was awesome! Several of my regular students, Kelly, Nikki, Natalya, and Jeaneane all showed up -- my heart burst with joy -- and a new student, Alison, was there. Alison was excited to take an Anusara class, since her most influential yoga teacher, Becky Klett, is an Anusara certified instructor in Denton. And also a good friend of mine. So cool!)

I brought Bodhi with me. We had no idea what to expect, and we still don't. Only one mama showed up, my friend and longtime student Miriam, with her son Daniel. What a cutie pie! Both of them. While our kids were being entertained in the room next door, Miriam and I worked on some stuff...backbends, if you must know. Toward the end, Daniel came in and joined us. Poor little guy, so tired and so ready to go home! But he hung in there, and afterward we all talked about how to proceed with the class. It's all a big experiment, with the idea that moms can get an actual yoga class in while their children are cared for next door. I could tell that Bodhi and Daniel exhausted the 3-person crew who were there to teach the kids. But we think we may open it up a little, let the munchkins come in toward the end of mama's class and watch or participate some, with help from assistants. We'll see. I hope the class grows; it is so exciting for me to work with moms and all of our efforts to rebuild ourselves!

The other day at Christina's 40th birthday celebration/practice she came over and made a small adjustment to my right forearm while I was in urdhva danurasana, and lo and behold the pain in my right shoulder went away. Finally! I really do need a teacher on the outside, in spite of all my extolling the virtues of the teacher within. I had forgotten the hard work of the forearms. So today I worked on hugging my forearms to the midline to free up my shoulders in every pose, backbending at the wall with blocks so I could scrub my forearms along the blocks toward one another, and yes. It was good.

Also breakthroughs in wrist strengthening with pincha mayurasana/sirsasana arms. I could balance like that forever.

I woke up with intense neck pain today, which I alleviated through 5 minutes of sirsasana pressing mostly into forehead to strengthen neck curve, pincha with sirsasana arms/feet up the wall pushups; at least 10 urdhva dhanurasana, half performed with feet on edge of bed/pushups; bound triangle, parsvakonasana, uttanasana; attempting eka pada dhanurasana; ustrasana with heels up; emphasis on keeping upper chest lifted from underneath; all vinyasa performed on fingertips -- plank, chaturanga, up dog.

Oh yeah, so for Mother's Day I was awakened by a smiling baby and husband and tray full of delicious breakfast foods and coffee, as well as a sprig of jasmine from my jasmine tree out back. Even Tito was on the bed with us. It was all sexy (daddy) and cute and wonderful and joyous (Bodhi), rolled into one big wad of happy family time. As we all sat up around my breakfast tray, Bodhi looked at Tito and said, in a tiny high voice, "Hi!" We howled with laughter at that one. Later I went and got a massage at Texas Healing Arts, and it was really good. You all know about my bowels, right? So I farted on the massage table. Yes. The therapist and I laughed about it. What else could we do? It was a pleasant fart, I might add. It was one of those small poofs of air, no big flappy whoosh that would indicate some heinous sewer-like seepage of deep intestinal gas. My fart obviously didn't even have a scent. I told her about the time, during my massage internship, when someone actually pooped on the massage table. "My goodness! That is so relaxed!" she said. Fortunately it wasn't my client.

I do love poop and farts and I'm not ashamed.

So then I made a delicious dinner for everyone, a stir-fry with potato, carrot, broccoli, onion and tomato, along with stewed tomatoes and okra and fake meat barbecue. It was kind of a vegetarian soul food/asian spice affair.

Wait, was my scatological reference followed too quickly by something somewhat gastronomical? Sorry 'bout that!

Oh yeah, so the day before Mother's Day, I taught a free class at Soma Vida, on the east side. What a gorgeous cool place that is! What a vision they have. It's basically a wellness center/coworking space. I know, right? Life balance with children, yoga, bodywork, therapy, and a true holistic approach to everything. I only had an hour, and I was totally unfamiliar with the space, so I got there early to explore. It's an old house with high ceilings and wood floors, beautifully appointed. For the class, I opted for a Mother's Day theme, lots of standing poses with lunges, leading up to anjaneyasana, the mother. There were 4 women there I didn't know, and then Charlie, dear Charlie, and the amazing Brienne showed up with her amazing mother, Jean. At some point, I could feel the air almost leave the room. We had worked up a sweat, and one of the students says, "I feel like I need a release! Like I need to howl or something!" As luck would have it, we were in downward facing dog, so I said, "Let it rip, babies!" And we all started howling, which totally broke the heat trip and was fun. We opened windows and doors. I wanted to give them a juicy savasana, well-earned. While they were all lying stretched out, smiles playing across their lips, the largest mutant cockroach I have ever seen made her appearance in the room, crawling stealthily across my yoga mat toward the feet of my blissed out, stretched out students. In ten years of teaching, this was actually a first. I headed her off quietly with a yoga block, detouring her toward the wall, which she fortunately agreed to do, then I woke my students up gently, and discovered that one of them was an expert roach wrangler, who was able to scoot miss savasana roach out the door with nary a mishap of skin on roach contact.

It was quite an adventure, and I have to say, I love that Brienne lady. And her mama is intense. A nurse, who was telling us about building her clinic for low income patients out in lonely west Texas.

We also celebrated the birth of Eila, my beloved friend Jenn's daughter. It was 99 degrees out, but my mom, Bodhi and I all headed for Eastwoods park to fete Eila. Bodhi has zero interest in cakes, but plenty of interest in things with wheels, so he spent most of our short time there rolling Eila's new baby stroller across the grass. They were filming some sort of chick bike documentary a few feet away from us, all whoopin' and hollerin' and being tattooed and tough and shit, but that Jenn knows how to make a party happen! We had party hats, barbecue, beverages, and lots of great people and babies. I love her friends, and met her mom Ann too, who seemed like really cool and someone I want to spend more time with. Eila gets more...defined...every time I see her. Blond curls, a cleft chin, a tiny gap between her teeth. The word "willowy" floats around in my head when I see her or think of her. Like her mother, willowy, strong like a willow, but very flexible.

Sigh. Even if I never get to have an actual conversation with my mama friends, even if our sentences are never completed or sometimes even started, I feel so lucky to have such amazing women in my life.

So there you have it, lots of mother Ma power all around.

I love Mother's Day. I love my mother. And I'm glad to be here, on earth.

Easter Pics!

I know, Jesus has already died and risen AGAIN, but we've had a lot of turmoil in our household this month. Churning, the way the ocean churned and brought us pranayama.

Mama Merit Badges

Thanks, Lanell, for this.

I definitely deserve one for taking care of a restless toddler while vomiting and having an all over ache and fever these past 24 hours.

Just planted daisies, zinnias, petunias in the back yard. Sweating. Weak. Hungry. Mama.

God and the Soul are One

Is it so wrong....

To feel like I was not even fully alive before I gave birth to my son?

I had a rich, full, active and accomplished life pre-Bodhi.

I do not miss it.

Is it the medication I'm on? The medication, which I am currently in the process of weaning off of? The medication which makes me feel flatlined, ambivalent about the economy, not even worried that I'm paralyzed with fear, too paralyzed to dream or achieve my ambitions?

We'll see. Or it could just be that I'm sooooo tired. I have to battle the tamasic me. Here I am again. Arjuna again. On the battlefield of Life again.

Like I'm never not Arjuna.

I so enjoyed my own childhood. I am really delighted to share everything I can with him. I can't wait for him to know what a bluejay is. I was showing him the bees drinking nectar from the camellias yesterday. He has no idea what Star Wars is, who Jack Kerouac was, what it's like to ride on an airplane, what snow is like, how to draw a shark, how to make a whistle out of a blade of grass, how to give mouth to mouth to a gerbil, the pleasure of swimming in a clear lake, the thrill of riding a bucking, galloping horse, how awesome it is to do flips on a trampoline, the fact of the dinosaurs, the constellations, and so on and so on.

I always thought those moms who waxed rhapsodic about having children were pitiful and full of shit. Smarmy and smug. Phony. Sell outs. And now I'm one of them.

What do the Buddhists say? "We become what we resist."

Good thing I resisted this for so long. It is so much the sweeter for it, I think.

In the Bhagavad Gita it says to fully live your OWN dharma, and no one else's. I can see the temptation in wanting to compare and contrast the unfolding of my own life to another's, and I can also see the utter futility in that.

Learning to be a mother has shown me, more than any yoga practice or scripture ever could, how essential it is to release judgment. To know that everyone has their own unique path. That I am not privy to the details of the inner and outer lives of every person I meet, their special histories, family karma, past and present life triumphs and tragedies. So who do I think I am, anyway? I have been training my mind not to "go there;" it is incredibly easy to judge another's parenting style -- good or bad -- which of course points toward how much easier it thus must be to judge my own.

If we want peace for the planet, and I assume most of us do, we must begin by examining the battlefield of our own souls first. How many times a day will I look down at my belly and think I'm a piece of shit because it's fat? How many times a day will I choose to check my email instead of write my insights? How often will I have just a flicker of self-loathing, followed quickly by either a downward spiralling list of my failures or an ego flareup of how good I am at yoga despite an inconsistent practice at the moment, or how awesome I am when Bodhi behaves well for an hour at a restaurant?

I recently started up my meditation practice again. That is to say, my formal meditation practice. I've been practicing the meditation of karma yoga since my son was born, offering all that I do up in devotion. It's the only way I can make it through another pile of dirty dishes. But the sitting down in front of an altar, lighting the nag champa, closing the eyes, chanting and going within? That was my daily sadhana for many, many years. I think it served me well, all that chi and prana in storage that I'd socked away, during these months of having to grab a minute here, a moment there, practicing open-eyed and breastfeeding meditation.

As the Gita says, IT ALL COUNTS. No gain is ever reversed.

But you can build up an awful lot of bad habits that soon outstrip the good ones. So my return to meditation is a triumph, albeit a quiet one. If you 've felt the earth changing recently, it is because I've started up again with a kind of sweet vengeance.

And I don't mean to meditate in private; I think my son benefits from being present while I am trying to be present, and meditate, but the silence of an empty room, the high wind of the eternal self when I take that familiar posture and just close my eyes...it is necessary.

I was trained to meditate by Tibetan Buddhists, a tradition I revere. In that meditation, one gazes softly ahead, in honor of the notion that we must remain and seek to remain awake, even while in deep contemplation of the self. I was never able to fully immerse in this practice, though I attempted it for about ten years. Then, one day, about ten years ago, I sat to meditate with my yoga teacher. He told me to close my eyes, and focus, one-pointed, at the space between my brows. A miracle occurred! I went so, so deeply within, that I never wanted to come out. It was a sensation I will never forget, and it is just about immediately accessible every time I sit and close my eyes. And yes, I do think I would label it as "bliss."

I had a revelation that first time I closed my eyes to meditate, as well. A voice sprang up inside me, gentle but loud and clear. It said: "God and the Soul are One." I could even see all the caps in that sentence, in my mind's eye. It repeated. And again. When I came out of the meditation, I leapt up and I said, "I've had a revelation!" My teacher asked what it was. "God and the Soul are One!" I shouted. He shouted it back. We shouted it together. We began dancing around the room, singing, a la James Brown: "God and the Soul are One...unnnh! Hit me!"

So my experience of "God" or of "Soul" seems very direct to me. I wasn't asking for this information, though I'm sure I'd heard the concept before. Probably a million times. But on that day it came true for me, and has remained true for me ever since.

So when people tell me they are "bad" at meditation, I have to ask them what their techniques are, and if they've tried opening or closing their eyes.

My thoughts on how I was never fully alive until Bodhi was born parallel my experience with having an awakening on that day when I closed my eyes to meditate. My life was beautiful. I'd read poetry to hundreds of thousands of people. I'd traveled, been paid to travel abroad and recite my work, done just about every thing and tried just about every thing I ever wanted, loved and lost, lived in many different places, succeeded and failed in many endeavors. Even knew myself a little.

It was living with my eyes open.

Then, torn open and apart in every possible way on October 22, 2007, I closed my eyes, I went deep inside, and I saw that me, Elisabeth Anne, Liz, Lisa, Mrs. L, Miss B, Ms B, had finally, truly, become alive.

Total Recall

Okay, so I subscribe to the government's consumer protection safety news, and it seems like every day there's a recall on children's hooded sweatshirts with drawstrings. Seriously. The moral to this story? Don't buy your child a hooded sweatshirt with a drawstring. Ever. In fact, I hate drawstrings in general. I can't tell you how many times I've grown excited about a pair of potential yoga pants on a rack only to find...a drawstring.

Disgusting.