Beautiful Mess

Whenever I come home from sitting with Asha I usually share with my wife, Michelle, the things that Asha said that struck me as meaningful or insightful, and the many lessons that I was learning. Michelle was intrigued by her and decided that she would like to sit with us one morning. Her only reservation was that she doesn’t practice seated meditation and, in her words, “An hour is a looooonnnggg time to sit still.” She wanted me to check with Asha to make sure that it wouldn’t be taken as rude or violating decorum if she got restless or anxious and needed to get up and leave. I emailed Asha, and this was her response:

sure. she can come and go as she likes and wiggle as much as she needs…..burp, cough, laugh or cry.

love.

The next morning Michelle and I met Asha down in her Tea House. They instantly connected with a natural organic ease. And Asha started teaching: “Michelle, if you feel like you have to move or get up, please feel free. You can try standing and swaying side to side. I find that often helps. You won’t be bothering us. You’re a part of nature just like the trees and birds.”

Michelle sat, very still, for an hour. It was amazing.

Forty-five minutes into the meditation something else amazing happened.  All was quiet and still, with just the sound of soft breath and the gentle trickle of the stream outside, when all of a sudden SMACK!, a large bird crashes into the glass window just in front of our faces, leaving a large splatter of what I assumed was brownish green bird poop smeared across the window. We all were startled and gasped with surprise.  Then Asha said two sentences with the same breath: First, “What a mess!” . . . and then, “How beautiful!”  She was fascinated by the design the splatter had left. She said it looked like two eagles soaring. I have to be honest – all I saw was a wild design of bird poop (which in reality ended up being mud from alongside the stream).

Asha is an artist and has an artist’ eyes. She is always pointing out remarkable subtleties of light and shadow and color. But it’s also much more than that, because I realized that those two sentences perfectly and succinctly express the quality in her that so many feel when we are around her: her ability to lovingly see, honor, and appreciate the totality of our human condition. What a mess! How beautiful!

(Art by Asha Greer, from her collection of Meditation Cards.)

(This story is part of an ongoing sharing of my experiences sitting with Asha Greer. For an introduction to Asha, please see the previous post titled The House that Zen Built.)

Cracks

The routine the first few months sitting with Asha was that I would call the evening before to make sure it was okay for me to come sit with her the following morning.  During one phone call she hesitated when I asked, started to say something, paused, and then just said, “Yes. Please come. I’ll see you then.”  I thought it was a little odd, but didn’t think too much about it.

The next morning we sat for an hour as usual, and then Asha served tea. Somewhere in our conversation I made the comment that often students turn to me when they are going through spiritual openings or are having intense experiences as someone who can help, and that I usually refer them to the healer with whom I work. I said that I didn’t feel like I had a lot to give, especially in the months leading up to my sabbatical. Asha looked at me fiercely, raised her voice, and said, “Yes, you do!” And then she teared up and became silent. I was stunned.

The conversation eventually resumed and took a different direction, but before we left she explained her reaction.  Two days prior she was in the hospital with a serious and potentially life-threatening condition. (That’s why she hesitated when I asked to sit with her.) When her family was notified, they passed the news on to other family members. When her 19 year old grandson heard that she was in the hospital, he wept inconsolably for a long, long time. Asha has always been the matriarch of her family and community, the one who people turn to for guidance and counsel, and in all honesty one of the most solid (and empty) people I know. She looked me in the eyes and said, “It’s not only your strength that opens people. Your weakness can too.”

Go into the experience of
feeling fractured or broken.

Make friends with it.

Like everything, it will pass.

(Art & words by Asha Greer, from her collection of Meditation Cards.)

First, I’d like to give you just a little background on Asha, who celebrated her 75^th birthday this year. She was born in California and became the state’s first female lifeguard, rescuing 19 people out of the ocean. In the late 1960’s she helped found the Lama Foundation, the spiritual community in New Mexico where Ram Dass wrote his famous Be Here Now. She is an artist who did some of the original artwork in Be Here Now, and continues to create many beautiful paintings. My favorites are the ones she assembled to create a series of 70 meditation cards. She is a mother of four and a grandmother. She is a senior teacher in the Sufi Rahiniat, a teacher of Japanese Tea Ceremony, and a nurse who helped found Virginia’s highly respected Hospice of the Piedmont. Meditation is her primary practice. She leads retreats and workshops around the world and teaches every week at a nearby maximum security prison. And although she doesn’t promote herself or advertise in any way, people somehow are just magically drawn to her. As Swami Satchidananda used to say: “Flowers don’t have to advertise.”

I first met Asha about 7 years ago when I first started teaching yoga. One of my friends was living with her at the time learning Japanese Tea Ceremony. Although I never saw or communicated with her in the years that followed, during my sabbatical this past winter she kept coming into my mind repeatedly, very, very strongly. I decided to follow up on that and write to her. I had heard that she meditates every morning in her Tea House/meditation hut, so in my letter I asked if I could join her. I am very grateful she said yes, because it became immediately clear that she has an enormous amount to teach, and that I have a lot to learn.

I continue to sit with her every week when she’s not traveling or teaching elsewhere. Usually when I get there she has already finished an early morning swim in her pond and some time on an old Nordic Trak that sits under a tree beside her house. We walk down a path through the woods to her Tea House, which is nestled against a hillside beneath tall Poplar trees and in front of a stream. It is one small room, 9×9, with woven grass floor mats and glass windows on two sides. The only thing to break up the thick green forest through the front window is a small elephant statue, painted fire engine red, standing in the river grass alongside the stream.

We sit for an hour in silence, from 8:30-9:30, and then she turns on a small water boiler and serves a cup of bitter, green, pungent tea. After that we talk about life, the nature of reality, or just enjoy the silence and each other’s company. Then I leave, making sure when I get to my car to write down all the little precious gems from the morning so that I won’t forget them.  Here is the first in a series of those.

The House Where Zen Lives

The first morning after we sat and were having tea, she mentioned how much she’s grown to love that room. Having meditated in that space every day for so many years, it’s almost become like a part of her. Even when she’s travelling and sits other places, she often begins by picturing herself right back there. I agreed that the room was nice, adding that the trickling stream was lovely too. She looked at me with a quizzical, perplexed expression for a few moments, and finally said, “I don’t exclude the stream from the room.”

Find a Mentor
Two weeks before my sabbatical began, I visited a healer that I work with and told him of my plan to take some time off. He said “Great! And it’s important that you choose someone to have at least a phone conversation with every week to make sure you are staying true to your intention.”  I soon found out why. My “sabbatical” started December 1, and December was by far the busiest month that I had all year! Even though I wasn’t teaching, I continued to accept other projects and engage in habitual “time filling”.  Energy Lesson #1: If you aren’t consciously staying true to your intention and life path, it can quickly manifest as increased stress, irritability, fatigue, and negative thought patterns. I needed help! Lots of it. And it is all around us.

The first thing I did was to take my healer’s advice and set up weekly phone conversations with a mentor that I trust and respect. Good qualities for a mentor include practical wisdom and a healthy mix of compassion and brutal honesty. We don’t want someone to stroke our egos and let us get away with less than what we truly want. A good mentor will hold us accountable, encourage us, and offer practical, implementable actions. My first action plan was to start small and carve out weekly “Sabbatical Days”.

Sabbatical Days
Most of us have job and family responsibilities that don’t allow us to take 2 months or more off with nothing to do other than to follow our bliss. But most of us do have at least one day a week that we can set aside for only those things which feed and nourish us. Here’s where it gets fun. The day is your blank canvas, and your oyster. Enjoy planning it!  If you could do anything, what would it be? Meet a close friend for lunch. Get a massage. Go to an art museum. Go hiking. Take a dance or cooking class. Spend the day reading in a hammock. Soak in a hot tub. The choices are endless.

Three additional tips related to sabbatical days:

1. Keep them holy. Don’t let other things creep in. They will try. Get good at saying no. Almost everything can be done or rescheduled for the day before or after.
2. Watch your habits. This is a day about conscious decisions. Be careful not to find yourself turning on the TV or checking your email every few minutes. If you don’t like your own company, then you especially need this time to heal the connection to yourself.
3. Don’t restrict these carved out spots to just one day. Spread them throughout the week.  For example, on Tuesdays I spend the morning meditating with a teacher, on Wednesdays I take a yoga class, on Fridays my wife and I spend the day together, on Saturdays I ride dirtbikes with my son, on Sunday mornings a friend comes over to do yoga together, and I spend the afternoons exploring the mountain trails by myself. Life is too short not to spend it with the people and doing the things that you enjoy.

Weekend Retreats
There is immense value in stepping away from our daily routines to gain a new perspective on where we are at, the work we need to do on ourselves, and how we can better serve and be a loving presence to those around us. Does this feel long overdue? Then what are you waiting for?!

No matter where you live, I guarantee that within a couple hours drive there is a retreat center where you can go to get away from your normal daily life to re-examine your life direction and get clear on your hearts deepest impulses. Get out your calendar and find a weekend that’s free and go for it! Do it now! There are places inside of you that will thank you.

I will be teaching two yoga classes a day: a slow, blissful, feel-your-way-into-the-new-day class in the mornings and a sweaty, soulful vinyasa class in the evenings. There will also be group meditations, meditation instruction, yoga nidra (guided deep relaxation), partner yoga, and many other opportunities to nurture your body and spirit.

In addition to yoga, there will be time to explore the beautiful gardens or neighboring coffee plantations, soak in the sun beside the pool, nap in a hammock, hike through rainforests, and relax in the mountainside hot tub. The Wellness Center offers a wide range of healing treatments from massage to Watsu. You can also join one of the daily Eco-Adventure Tours which include whitewater rafting, excursions to volcanoes, waterfall gardens, and exotic beaches, and ziplining through the rainforest canopy.

Prices start at just $1265 and include accommodations for 7 nights, 3 delicious gourmet meals per day, all yoga classes & workshops with me, and airport transfers within Costa Rica.

You can find more information, including prices, rooming options, travel information, and registration form, on my website.

Early bird discount of $100 off if you register by May 1st!
Bring a friend, spouse, sibling, parent/child and get $100 off!
(limit 1 discount)

Feel free to email me if you have any questions! It’s going to be another awesome experience!

Ramana’s Garden is home to about 60 kids between the ages of 3-17. All “Untouchables”, many orphaned or abandoned. Many of these kids came from horrific backgrounds: prostitution, physical and sexual abuse, homelessness, malnutrition. And somehow these were the most responsible, caring, well-adjusted kids we had ever seen! Ever! There was very limited adult supervision, and yet these kids played together wonderfully, looked after each other. They washed their own clothes. They took turns cooking their own meals. They got up very early each morning on their own volition to study, and then studied late into the night. Every evening after supper they gathered in a small room and chanted to God, eyes shut tight, swaying back and forth unselfconsciously. And then said goodnight to each other before returning to their rooms.

All I kept thinking was: “You don’t have to visit Babas. You don’t have to visit temples. God is right here, before your very eyes. Wanting to sit on your lap. Playing with your kids. Teaching you that it takes so little to be happy. Food, shelter, hope, love.

Ramana’s Garden
Friends of Ramana’s Garden

You can view the pictures from our India trip in Michelle’s Photo Gallery.

During that spring semester I taught two courses in Research Writing, and incorporated into the curriculum a service learning component. Students would pick an issue and then go about their research in the usual ways, going to the library and searching the internet. Then they were required to volunteer with non-profit organizations whose mission was to address that issue. This approach balanced the information gained through traditional research with their insights from personal experience, and challenged many of their stereotypes and preconceived notions with real lives and real situations.

I volunteered as well, at the local Food Bank. Every Friday I would drive down to the small warehouse and work alongside an older gentleman and his rotating crew of one or two teenagers performing their court appointed community service. We spent our time together sorting food that had been donated.

Four things stick out in my mind from my work there. The first is that most of the “juvenile delinquents” I worked with were really good kids; they had just had poor parenting and had made some bad decisions. The second is the disgusting amount of the donated “food” that was candy! (“Kids, your breakfast is ready.” “Aww, Moooommmm, Twizzlers again!”) The third was learning that most people who come to food pantries and soup kitchens are not alcoholic, homeless old men, but women with children. And the last is that the proposed federal budget for that year called for a reduction in almost every federal food assistance and welfare program.

President Bush came to town that year to give a speech, and I stood at an intersection with a sign as one SUV after another left the stadium, filled with white folks who either scowled or rolled down their window to shout some obscenity at me. I remember looking down at my sign that read, “Budget 2000: Make Hunger a Priority,” and being very confused as to the cause of their anger. And then this old lady with white hair stops her car across the intersection, calls me to her and says, “Thank you. I’ve been working with the hungry all my life.” I said, “No ma’am, thank you.”

There is so much we can all do to make a difference in the health of our planet, and it’s often easy to be overwhelmed, so the main thing is just to start somewhere. One small thing that collectively can make a huge impact is switching from standard light bulbs to compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). Here are a few facts about CFLs that should inspire you:

* CFLs use 75% less energy than a standard light bulb.
* If you change 6 bulbs, you will save about $270 in energy costs.
* If you change 12 bulbs, you will reduce as much greenhouse gas pollution as an acre of forest absorbs in one year.
* If you change 18 bulbs, you do as much good as if you’d completely stopped driving for a year.

(facts taken from the Piedmont Environmental Council’s Enlighten campaign)

Namaste!

Your line of men’s yoga pants has been recommended to me by a dear friend and yoga instructor. My problem is, I am 6′5″ tall with a 35″ inseam. I always struggle with finding yoga pants that will fit such that I am not wearing capri pants! By any chance, do you have any pants that will be at least 34 inches in the inseam or can you recommend any? Thanks for your time and consideration.

This was their response:

Hi. I’ll tell you what. If you promise to sing our praises to your fellow yogis and yoginis we would be happy to finish some pants for you at 35”. Just order off the website and I will flag it when it comes in to make the special length.
Regards,
Larry
Swadeshi Village

Now how cool is that! I don’t know of many companies that would do that. Good karma points to Swadeshi! A company a great story, high-quality products at excellent prices, AND personalized customer service! These are the people that we want to stay in business and can feel good about giving our money to. If you’re looking for some new yoga clothes, check them out.