Monday, August 5, 2002
Putney, VT

PRACTICE:
Fluid Yoga with rocking: 60minutes

Journal
I am becoming more familiar with a changing environment now. I just close my eyes and begin. As I always have. But now it feels normal to be in a different space each day.

Here there is humid mountain air. Very sweet. A good sound system as Bill is a musician. He is at work and so I feel free to play the music loud and unfurl.

I have taken the back seat out of my mini-minivan and have just enough room to lay down fully. I can do Down Dog and most stretches (except standing ones) in there. Having a discreet, clean place to lie down and twist into pretzel will certainly solve the majority of my driving discomforts.

Nothing really new to report on the practice front. I feel physically stable now. Emotionally a roller coaster. Thankfully the practice calms me and allows me to keep moving through my terrors. Small human terrors. Just the questions of leisure - Why am I here? Is there any value to my existence? What constitutes a life of value? These actually resonate in me as sensations at this point. I feel in all my cells that I just don’t know…I crave a sense of renewed meaning and direction.

As I breathe and stretch I recall that these thoughts or contemplations or sensations are the top layer of a deep inner re-arrangement. As I work patiently, releasing my neck muscles and upper back, I remember that they are just thoughts - flotsam and jetsam of interior tides.

Tuesday, August 6, 2002
New York City (Chambers St.)

PRACTICE:
Open Movement: 120 minutes Side-by side with Stephanie and Jennifer. Wonderful to have advanced practitioners for company.

Journal
Late Tuesday evening. We are in Mohammed's loft surrounded by Moroccan carpets, tile tables and lanterns casting a low patterned light on ceiling and walls. The floor is painted a glossy white and is newly washed. We each have our yoga mats laid out in the alcove between hassocks. 'Costes' plays on the sound system.

A huge release! I found myself delving into very deep spaces. Cathartic. I needed to move to music, to thrash. And having good solid companions - people who can do their own work fully without interfering with mine was key. It amped up the concentration energy. I was solitary but accompanied - a very necessary space for me to inhabit physically and emotionally.

The movement started as Fluid Yoga but quickly transitioned into an eclectic sampling of all sorts of genres. A lot of rhythmic breathing emerged. I didn’t direct but watched it unfold. I felt safe. Could cry while moving, one of the most important spaces for me these days. I feel so loved when I can do that.

Thursday, July 8, 2002
Harrisburg, PA

PRACTICE:
Fluid Yoga: 30 minutes

Journal
Just a quick unwind. I was at Marybeth's house. She has a room dedicated to practice. Another ashram/sanctuary. It is scrupulously clean with a hushed feeling. We are actually in the middle of a condo world but her place is at the end of a cul de sac. This little room is curtained and removed from any influence.

The short practice set up my journey for today - time in my body and my eyes close. I didn’t go too deep.

I was able to get off the freeway yesterday and do a little in yoga in the back of Blanch [the minivan]. It helps.

And today I pass through I am on the PA Pike passing under Blue Mountain and Kittatiny Mountain and others. I buy vegetable from the farm venders set up at the rest plazas. Blue grass played on the radio but would phase in and out due to reception drops.

I feel grounded from connecting with Marybeth [my ex-husband's sister] after my divorce. I am able to remember more of why I loved Michael. Having her hear my frustrations with him without judgement was healing.

I am sitting at the Burger King at a Rest Plaza. AC. The smell of grease. Teenage American boys with zits chowing down on fries. The ceiling fans rotate lazily. Outside is a blue mountain sky.

I noticed another woman stretching the front of her thighs!!!

Monday, August 13, 2002
Belle Vernon, PA

PRACTICE (three days):
Dancemeditation, Fluid Yoga, Witness Dances. I teach two classes and participate in an open practice. No personal practice at this time.

Journal
At Sonodor Retreat Center outside of Pittsburgh. A brand new yoga studio perched on the side of a soft mountain overlooking rolling green pasture land, three elegant horses - An Andalusian stallion, a Mustang and an Arabian mare. Also assorted dogs. The studio is pristine with clean wood floors, mats and pale blue walls that make one feel as if sitting in the sky.

I give workshops. Much unfurling and correcting to do. I am beginning to get perspective on time spent with my family as well and recognize how much is moving inside of me, but as yet there is little comfort.

I am listless and barely able to engage. The materials I usually find so compelling are barely grasping me at all. At length I am able to get down to a bedrock of locked emotion and begin to get a somatic thawing.

Wednesday, August 15, 2002
Fairfield, Iowa

PRACTICE:
Fluid Yoga: 30 minutes

Journal
Am deep in the travel mode now. Simply being and taking in is full and rich.

I drove from Oberlin, Ohio to Fairfield, Iowa across Indiana, Illinois and much of Ohio in one go. 15 hours in the car due to a tangle of traffic in Chicago. But it still would have taken 13 hours. All the way I could feel internal issues rising and falling, growing dim and then rearing forth into resolution and release. My body seemed to get looser and looser as I drove. Not what I expected.

When I stopped at rest stops I looked in the mirror and my eyes were huge - an attribute I usually observe after deep meditation. I ate little, drank a lot of water, listened to music.

I arrived in Iowa late at night. The semis and city lights fell farther and farther behind. At the end there was almost nothing, No power lines, no towns, no civilization. The vivid black sky unfolded in a gargantuan canopy of faint stars and endless cool air. Weeks and months or angst had dropped from my bones.

Space.

Since being here I have rested. The town is populated by Transcendental Mediators so many are focused on health and well-being. There is a sweetness and kindness to most people I meet here. Many people my age and younger. All white. All radiant looking. An uncanny positivity to the general cast of faces and forms. I can feel how much work is done daily to clear and resolve and lift up the vibration of one's Being.

Today I will teach a class. It will be my physical practice.

Tuesday, August 19, 2002
Leon, Iowa

PRACTICE:
Fluid Yoga: 40minutes

Journal
At the Leon Motel. A brown shag rug with just enough space at the foot of a double and single bed to put the mat. No side to side room.

Am working carefully and patiently. Got inside the twist using isometric pulling to build some hip strength which is not as good now that I am sitting and driving a lot. Then of course the twist really released.

Spent far more time on the opening exercise, just deepening my connection to the breath and clearing my thoughts. I felt that I need to be emptier internally at this time. To actually push obsessive thoughts away. Gently of course. And then too I find that the details of the sensation are sharper. I was able to get quite a fix on the right side of my ribcage in the twist. How out of line it was.

It really doesn't matter where I am in space and time, the practice is the same. But I did enjoy the cool fresh air as I walked over the golf course afterwards before getting in the car.