The very first day...

I have loved Yoga since the first day I was introduced to it by an aerobics instructor in Chattanooga, Tennessee, who had apparently studied Kundalini Yoga, as taught by Yogi Bhajan. That was more than 25 years ago, and now I have studied many different forms of yoga, and become certified to teach it at the 200-hour level with Yoga Alliance. Unfortunately I have had to swear off inversions, particularly headstand (my favorite) due to a severe compression injury to my spine. This trauma came within two hours of the decision I made on November 1st, All Soul's Day, to begin a 1,000 day practice of "Bound Lotus" on November 2nd, All Saint's Day and also Dias de Los Muertos. Apparently, my ego got in the way and did not want to begin this practice. I could have almost died from the compression injury, had I not caught myself with one hand and attempted a back walkover to exctricate myself from the dangerous position of falling onto my head while balancing on a friend's feet in a backbend. Like an idiot, I talked my acrobatically naive friend into doing this genius move without a spotter. I think I may have had a death wish. I fell from a height of 1 foot, directly onto my head! The head is the symbol of the ego, and I fell on it. The practice I intended to do seemed to be out of the question.

However, I began it today, November 3rd. Interestingly, eight years ago today I became very ill with strep and mononucleosis. I was so ill I was hospitalized for several days. I could barely move for months. I was told I would never regain all of my strength back. I have and more. But as a result of this 'accident', I now have a compression injury at C7 and T1, which has humbled me considerably and also been a blessing in disguise, as I have been told by my chiropractor that I already had a reversed cervical curve due to a serious, near-fatal injury to my spine in 1986, 23 years ago. While undergoing treatment to get back my cervical curve, I will be doing a modified version of "Bound Lotus" pose from Yogi Bhajan's Kundalini Yoga tradition. Today was the first day...

It was difficult to get myself to begin to say the least, but I did! At 11 a.m. I sat down with my hips resting on a light blanket, my legs in half-bound lotus, and clasping my opposite elbows, I bowed my head to the Divine while resting on two pillows. Before this spinal injury, I would have been able to sit in full lotus with one arm bound. Now, I do what I am able. While listening to Snatam Kaur's 31- minute version of the Ray Man Shabd, a mantra that Mahan Kirn Kaur Khalsa found useful when she began her practice of Bound Lotus in 2001, I sat in my version of Bound Lotus for the prescribed time. Midway through, I switched legs, as instructed to do. At about 29 minutes through the pose, every fiber of my being was screaming to get out of the pose, though it was not that painful. I listened more attentively to the Ray Man Shabd and persevered. As I lifted up out of the pose on the last sounds of the mantra playing in the background, tears streamed down my face, and I was overcome with joy, and a feeling as if my spine had lengthened considerably. I continued to cry, as I found myself sitting up straighter than before the injury.

I made my way to the chiropractor, who proceeded to show me the x-rays of my neck, and inform me that considering the trauma from 23 years ago, and the new trauma, it was amazing I that I have any cervical disk space, and that I had been able to be as mobile as I have been for all these years and now. I feel deeply blessed, and very, very, very grateful.