what I learned at Vipanssana

oh just found this draft.. publishing it without reading it again, so it maybe full of typos etc.   :) 

Not long ago I went on a Vipanssana meditation retreat.  This is a 11 day retreat in which one is silent for 10 days and sits in meditation for most of the day.  There are Vipanssana centers all over the world. The retreat center I went to is in Northern Illinios on a beautiful piece of land with wild grasses and trees and water with tracks of all sorts of other little critters surrounded by farms and fields.  There were volunteers cooking and serving wonderful food, ready to help meet all my meet basic needs.
 and includes a simple walk through  so you have nothing to do but focus on meditation

It was amazing sitting in stillness and silence for so long.  One of the hardest and riches part of the process was the pain.  After a number of days they suggest that you not only practice meditating for an hour strait but that you are completely still for that hour.  This leads to... yes pain and discomfort.  
and so valuable to experience it and to know it will pass, to just experience the pan and not fear or judge it.  It leads to maybe the single most valuable lesson i think I have been learning over the years... Trust.  Trust in knowing I really am part of the circle of life and I don't need to worry about being caught if I fall, I know in my bones and blood that I will return to my circle, always. This connects a lot to pain and "violence," losing fear in it, change hurts and yet is so part of life. I saw/felt the life-birth cycle as never before, so beautiful, so painful so amazing and perfect. And then taking all this and being able to apply it to any discomfort in any moment, any situation.   I have found deep lessons in facing the pain and discomfort in my mind and body and learning to trust that pain is not only ok, it is necessary, it is part of life, part of birth.  I felt while meditate my body starting my monthly period and the cells in in my uterus rejecting each other, this lead to pain.  Pain and sadness are relationship changing.   Just as it is painful for me to change a relationship with someone I am close to so is it for the cells in my body.  Through mediation I have come to greater peace with the cycles of life and death and my fear of it.  I have come to be more comfortable with my own pain and that of others.

I have been writing more poems this spring...

It is all a matter of life and death

The light bulb

The water in the faucet

The cells sloughing off the inside of my uterus

The tiniest scratch

Buying a t-shirt

Picking up a bottle of whiskey

The drugs, the asphalt, the road, the potholes

The cars rolling

The sheets of metal

The mountains

that have left this world

to give us coal.

And the rabbit,

the squirrel and snail who were not born because there is no home for them.

It is all a matter of life and death.

Every weapon made or skirt sown

Every word you utter

Dish you wash

Every prayer or curse

Lick of ice cream

Red dye number one

Or 5 or 7

Photos in frame or memory

or story of poison mushrooms

beware, watch out

it all matters

It is all real

It is all as important as the president elect

as the baby being born

and the body shattered by the force of impact.

It all matters.

It all melts away,

and into

it all ripples on. 

grammar bullying

                   Recently I have been seeing posts on the internet about grammar and spelling that both educate and pock fun at common mistakes.  Here I am posting my reaction to one;   I see these kinds of posts often. Some people can not even read, some peoples minds work differently than yours. I see spelling and grammar pet peeves as a form of bulling. live and let live, write like s**t for all I care but let your hearts out! make mistakes, be real, be yourself and lets all stop living in fear of how we look, how we talk, or even how we write. People are fragile, we just want to be accepted and loved, some depressed teenagers kill themselves before instead of admitting what is going on for them. Do you really want to send a message out to the world that this is what matters to you? I bet when you look in your heart it really doesn't. blessings to all.

Lucky for the cold.

I heard someone call a friend who was away, in some tropical spot, for the cold blast we just had "lucky" and I was thinking I feel lucky to be here, to experience it with my community. Its like a snow day, harsh weather brings people together. But now I am beyond that, I pity the people that were away, they don't get to feel the rush, the thrill of 15 degrees F. The glorious feeling of rebirth contentment and freedom that comes after the cold. The joy of going outside NOT bundled to the hilt, of taking your hat off and not having your ears instantly freeze! Need to get out change to put in a parking meter? It's easy now, no danger of fingers freezing at all! the wonder of just taking a deep breath of "warm" air. Love to the cold and the sun and to all. 

The trees love us...

I had a really beautiful moment yesterday in yoga when I remembered a tree I stepped over almost every day last year and I realized I loved that tree. I owe my life to trees... I sit here in my house with wood under my feet, wood supporting the whole structure of my shelter. I am a creature of the trees, without them I would not be here. Blessings to all, may you know and love a tree.

A practice of letting go, giving and receiving.

            Yesterday I wrote about sitting on the floor, emphasizing how it is healthy for our bodies.  With an attack pending on Syria and the reality of our economy and environment it is important to also realize that anytime we choose to live with less it is not only healthier for us but for the rest of the world.   The more we are in the practice in letting go of things, clutter and even what we think of as “useful” objects the more we will experience that true health and happiness come not from these things but from inside ourselves and from living in connect with a healthy community.  So let go of you chair today, you couch tomorrow,   Who know what will be next, juice boxes? your morning coffee? your car?    We don’t need to be consumers, we can be givers.  Changing our lifestyle in our homes is a wonderful step towards living a life that is more in tune with our own needs and the rest of the worlds inhabitants.  

Letting go of chairs can also be looked as a spiritual practice, embracing the work of supporting our own weight.  Our great gift is this life we are living, this magical experience, and these bodies are our homes while we experience this wild ride.  The gift of using our bodies is to be appreciated not avoided.  We can embrace the work of sitting up tall, of getting up and down of supporting our own weight.  We can embrace the work of moving ourselves around, walking, running, biking, carrying groceries, growing food, building homes, helping each other.  In our past most of our ancestors often did need to conserve energy but right now many of us are at a different point. Physical work is a gift that many of us fail to value these day and many of us need.     As we recreate our economy we can go back to giving through our bodies.   We don’t need gyms to get in shape we can give our lives, our time and energy back to the world and in return we will be given the gift of health.   

Why we are living near the floor.

   For most of my life I have been a dancer, blessed with a mainly strong and healthy body but still I have had pain, tightness and recurring body ailments.  Mostly I have had lower back pain, sometimes extremely painful and even debilitating.   I have come to believe that most of that pain started from tightness, imbalances and poor movement patterns caused by my life style, the lifestyle I share with most of the rest of America.  According to the Mayo Clinic "Most people in the United States will experience low back pain at least once during their lives.  Back pain is one of the most common reasons people go to the doctor or miss work."    Studies show that the back pain we experience in developed western countries is not experienced in most "less" developed countries.   This is great to think about, if most of the pain is caused by lifestyle than that means if we are willing to change we can live healthier, happier and more productive lives!  

         Shortly after of high school I got my first of many jobs of being a waitress and started experiencing body pain for the first time in my life.  The next year I started training as a dancer.  Soon after I started a yoga practice that I kept on and off for the rest of my adult life,  but still I began a struggle with tight hips and lower back pain.  I never seemed to have the discipline in yoga to get beyond it or when I did push myself often the pain would act up and I would have to back off.  I tried the doctor, chiropractor and rolfing.  What seemed to help the most was not worrying to much about the pain when it came and going on with me life, and staying active but not pushing to hard.  The episodes of extreme back pain were aggravated with pregnancy but other wise lessened but never went away.  Shortly after my second son I realized I was getting stiffer and stiffer.  I was not dancing much or going to yoga and had little free time.   I used to play cards and board games sitting on the floor with my older son but with the new baby I realized the only time I ever sat down was to eat!  To help my hips, back and legs get at least some passive stretching by sitting on the floor everyday I decided to take the legs off our kitchen table and make new short legs for it.  (I saved the legs and still use them for holidays when the whole family comes over.)  This helped but still I had stiffness in my lower back and hips.  I wasn't getting stiffer but I was not getting looser either.  Then I went to an outdoor wilderness school and lived in the woods for 11 months with NO chairs (or cars or bikes or couches!)  Sitting on the ground was not always comfortable, sometimes it was very challenging. for most of the first 3/4 of the year I often used something under my but for elevation but by the end of the program I realized... It was gone! Whatever that stiffness that was in my back and hips was it was gone!  Now it is easy to sit on the ground and not have to hunch over.  I can sit up strait and tall with ease and even when I worked hard I don't have pain. Now I can go to a yoga class, really push myself and the next day I just feel good!

I still believe in yoga, pilates, going to the chiropractor and other alternatives but I see them as mostly reactive therapies that support us as we recover from the unhealthy life style modern western culture taught us.  To maintain healthy bodies we need to look at the rest of our lives too, but focusing on how we live in our homes is a great starting place.  Living on the floor (or ground) is the simplest, cheapest and easiest.  It works with our human nature.  you can be as lazy as you want to but if you want to sit down you are going to have to bend and stretch.  

         So now that I am back home living in a "civilized" home again I have moved beyond just having the kitchen table on the floor.  I got rid of our futon frame and put the futon on the floor.  I got rid of almost all the rest of our chairs.  I still have a standard desk for myself but I put a VERY large wood chair in front of it so I can sit cross legged on it as if I am on the floor. To support my husband, who has extremely tight hips and a long history of knee pain, we have a whole stack of blankets that can be arranged as he needs them when he sits.  I have extra pillows as well as folding chairs and a table that I can use for guests.  Sure our house looks like a hippy house. I have to sweep a lot.  Sometimes I miss the aesthetic of a couch and the cute chairs I collected, but it is worth it.  I am going to be able to keep my flexible body into my older years instead of losing it,  Our children can keep theirs and my husband is gaining flexibility.  Our home is wealthy in health and we are happy.