Turning on a Dime

The deep tissue massages I'm getting on my back, neck and right arm leave me feeling refreshed for several hours, but each time, within a few hours the relief turns into intensified pain. I know this is because the muscles are trying to tighten the way they were before and having difficulty, as well as a release of lactic acid and toxins, but it's painful! I'm in pain half the time anyway, so I will undergo this treatment to ultimately realign my cervical curve, but had I not fallen on my head I think I'd be hard-pressed to talk myself into these adjustments. I miss the flexibilty that allowed me hold Eka Pada Rajakapotasana with my head almost to my foot as well. Getting back to that and headstand is what I think of as I breathe through the pain. That and that I could have died or shattered my spine and been paralyzed like someone whom I used to work with who fell on her head at a pool party. I can't even imagine. She only lived another ten years after that, and here I am bitching about a little pain.

This morning I laughed when I got up. Saul told us to do that every day. Then I went into my meditation room to spread the rose petals from last Friday's Vaishnodevi Puja, and as I walked away from the windowsill I stepped on a dime. I didn't see it before, and the room is small with a Persian rug in the center and only an altar and a few bookcases filled with crystals. I would have seen the dime, I think, if it had been there. I was filled with an inexplicable calm, remembering how my Dad said he'll find lots of dimes whenever he is missing my mom, and how some people say that is how the dead communicate with their loved ones who are alive. I miss her so much 13 years later, and it is my baptismal anniversary: November 19th. Once, many years ago, I used a Ouija board to contact her, and I asked her if she was ever near me... She spelled out the words with a planchette my friends were able to see: "I am with you in your Yoga." Though I'd never use a Ouija board again, I wish that she were with me now. I guess I'll have to do more Yoga. I know my mother would have loved Saul David Raye's workshop.

My practice of Bound Lotus today was easy because I did my practice of Saul's Kriyas first. My neck feels much better than yesterday when it spasmed up while watching Faouzi Bensaidi's "What a Wonderful World". This work seems like Rolfing. It hurts to get my spine adjusted and manipulated, and the practice of Bound Lotus eases it. Saul's style of Yoga eases it.

When I taught this evening I taught his style, and everyone loved it except for the dancing. Oh well. I like it, so I'll do it myself. I taught a student how to come into headstand without physically demonstrating. It's the first time I've taught the pose since I can no longer do it, and was amazed to find that I didn't mind and I wasn't jealous. I only wanted her to find the beauty of the pose herself. Before the head injury, before Bound Lotus, before Saul's workshop I would have wanted to show off. I'm much more humble and concerned for my students. Yoga works....if you do it.