i rock! so there!

by L. Valdez Karl

No one ever nominated me for the Rockin’ Girl Blogger Award that I’ve seen on many blogs by women, so I’m giving the award to myself. I liberated the badge from another blog, so there! Why? Because I most definitely rock! As it says in the side bar, I bow to Buddha but rock with Kali, jai ma!

My regular readers know what happened at the yoga studio that I left back in September, and that I dealt with lots of rage about the lies and deceptions the studio is built upon. As it turned out, tonight I start teaching at another studio where the vibe is the polar opposite of the old studio. In fact, the owner asked me to take over one of her classes. All things happen for a reason.

One of the styles of yoga that I teach is yin yoga so to introduce this new yoga community to it and to me, we planned two workshops. The first one was this past Saturday. To my amazement, 23 people signed up for the workshop. The studio was jammed. The next workshop is two weeks from now on a Sunday morning and 18 people have already signed up for that one, 11 before the first workshop was even given.

The studio is a beautiful, peaceful space with a number of Buddha statues, and at one end there is an altar with a large Buddha head surrounded by candles. As I was setting up the space before the workshop, listening to and chanting along with Krishna Das as he chanted Om Namah Shivaya Gurave, I was overcome with gratitude. Gratitude for the gift of yoga, gratitude for everything in my life, gratitude for life itself despite my physical afflictions.

No one was in the studio and I knelt down in front of the altar and began to cry. Chanting always does that to me. Sometimes I can’t even finish a chant because I am overcome. I asked my chant teacher in India why I cry so much when I hear vedic chants and she said that chanting cracks open the heart, that chanting brings old, painful samskaras to the surface to be released, that chanting opens the throat chakra to unite the mind with the heart.

I placed my hands in anjali mudra and chanted Buddham Saranam Gachhami Dhammam Saranam Gachhami Sangham Saranam Gachhami over and over again — grateful for Buddha, the dharma, and the sangha. I told myself that if my life ended just then or if something untoward should happen to me, whether in my travels or a disease, I would gladly accept whatever comes because I have had a good life despite everything I have ever been through, in this life and in any past life. I know that no one can cause my suffering. My suffering and my liberation are my own.

I got up and opened the door and the students began to slowly fill the studio. I began to teach, ending the workshop by leading them in the First Foundation of Mindfulness.

I rocked. And I was grateful.

“Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision of tomorrow.” Melody Beattie

the colors spoke to me

by L. Valdez Karl

I keep drifting back to stare at this picture I took in September 2005 during my first trip to India.

It was taken on the grounds of the Park Guesthouse in Pondicherry. The guesthouse is right on the Bay of Bengal and I woke up at dawn one day to do yoga outside, facing the rising sun. Surya namaskar on the Bay of Bengal at dawn is a good thing.

This is an amazing display of Bonsai Frangipani, which are trees in India.

Looking at the thickness of the stems the plants must be quite old, and would surely be several feet high if growing normally.

I tweaked the photo a bit to make the colors pop, but what you see is what you get in person.

I will not visit Pondicherry on this trip, I’ve already been there twice, but that’s where I’m sending my yoga student when I hit the road.

My India.

enjoy.

feel good friday

by L. Valdez Karl

One of my all time favorite bands, The Band, with one of my all time favorite singers, Mr. Blue Eyed Soul himself, Van Morrison, in one of my all time favorite movies, The Last Waltz. And Robbie Robertson ain’t too shabby either…..

I have The Last Waltz DVD and I never get tired of watching it. When you see Van The Man’s performance, it’s incredible to realize that this was a time in his life when he had severe stage fright. I went to one of his concerts in the early ’70s at the great Auditorium Theater in Chicago and he did the entire concert with his back turned to the audience. A great performance just the same.

So kick into your weekend like Van The Man kicks it out at the end of Caravan.

and tell someone you love them.

peace

women helping women

by L. Valdez Karl

I have recently learned about the organization Women for Women International. Women for Women International “provides women survivors of war, civil strife and other conflicts with the tools and resources to move from crisis and poverty to stability and self-sufficiency, thereby promoting viable civil societies.” It is a Four Star Charity as rated by Charity Navigator. From their website:

“From Victim to Survivor…to Active Citizen

Women for Women International mobilizes women to change their lives by bringing a holistic approach to addressing the unique needs of women in conflict and post-conflict environments.

We begin by working with women who may have lost everything in conflict and often have nowhere else to turn. Participation in our one-year program launches women on a journey from victim to survivor to active citizen. We identify services to support graduates of the program as they continue to strive for greater social, economic and political participation in their communities.

As each woman engages in a multi-phase process of recovery and rehabilitation, she opens a window of opportunity presented by the end of conflict to help improve the rights, freedoms and status of women in her country. As women who go through our program assume leadership positions in their villages, actively participate in the reconstruction of their communities, build civil society, start businesses, train other women and serve as role models, they become active citizens who can help to establish lasting peace and stability.

Women begin in our Sponsorship Program where direct financial aid from a sponsor helps them deal with the immediate effects of war and conflict such as lack of food, water, medicine and other necessities. Exchanging letters with sponsors provides women with an emotional lifeline and a chance to tell their stories —maybe for the first time. As their situations begin to stabilize, women in our program begin building a foundation for their lives as survivors.

While continuing to receive sponsorship support, women embark on the next leg of the journey and participate in the Renewing Women’s Life Skills Program that provides them with rights awareness, leadership education and vocational and technical skills training. Women build upon existing skills and learn new ones in order to regain their strength, stability and stature on the path to becoming active citizens.

Women for Women International believes that establishing a means to earn a sustainable living is critical to being fully active in the life of a family, community and country. To help women transform their new skills into financial independence and sustainability, we offer job skills trainings to strengthen women’s existing skills and to introduce new skills in traditional and non-traditional fields so women can access future employment opportunities.

Building on the skills training program, we offer comprehensive business services designed to help women start and manage their own micro-enterprises. We give them access to capital and operate microcredit programs in Afghanistan and Bosnia and Herzegovina with an overall repayment rate of 98 percent. We give women access to markets by facilitating product sales through outside retailers and our online Virtual Bazaar. We provide expertise such as product design, production assistance and business development workshops. We also help women form micro-enterprises such as production facilities and cooperative stores to sell the goods women produce.”

Helping the women of a country helps the children. Saving a woman saves everyone.

I learned about Women for Women International through my teacher, Sarah Powers. She and two other yoginis have started Metta Journeys and their inaugural trip to Rwanda will benefit Women for Women International.

I already sponsor a Sri Lankan girl through my Theravadan teacher’s organization, but when I return from India in January I will sign up to sponsor an Iraqi woman through Women for Women International. I encourage every woman who reads this blog who is outraged by the war in Iraq, and every woman blogger who has written about their outrage, to sign up to sponsor an Iraqi woman. I would also encourage you to pass along the WFWI link to all interested parties. Sisterhood is powerful, ladies.

Listen to Alice Walker’s powerful and moving words in the video and check out WFWI’s website. It is another example of thinking globally, believing in the collective human consciousness, and seva.

peace
shanti
salaam aleikum
so shall it be

Seva Cafe: love all, serve all

by L. Valdez Karl

From YouTube:

Volunteer Anjali Desai explains the vision behind Seva Cafe, a pay-it-forward restaurant in Ahmedabad, India, where each patron makes a donation toward the next person’s meal. Devoted to the principle of “think globally, act locally,” Anjali describes how this communal experiment in giving reminds us that every individual act of goodwill resounds in the collective human consciousness.

I love this idea. “Think globally, act locally” has been my mantra for years and I think it’s a very easy thing to forget as we rush around in our crazy lives. It’s all about mindfulness, being in the present moment and knowing that our actions, however inconsequential, affect someone or something else. Interbeing, as Thich Nhat Hanh believes.

Would the world be in the shape that it’s in if we truly believed in a collective human consciousness? I don’t know about anyone else, but I feel a paradigm shift coming on.

my teacher with his guru

by L. Valdez Karl


My Studies with Sri Krishnamacharya by Srivatsa Ramaswami

a fascinating story of a yoga student and his teacher

losing myself

by L. Valdez Karl

namaste, namaste, namaste!

It has been a while since I’ve posted — the closer it gets to blowing this American pop stand at the end of December, the more I have felt the need to take a break from blogging.

I’ve posted a map of the Indian state where I will be waking up less than two months from now, and believe me, it can’t come soon enough.

I’m going to a wedding in Chennai, and although it won’t be a Hindu wedding, I’ll still wear a sari. It is the wedding of my friend’s son and she said I can borrow one of her saris. She has already told my usual rickshaw driver that I am returning and she said he is happy I am coming back. He has three young daughters, and I want to bring them silly presents. They will be a big hit in their neighborhood when they walk around blowing bubbles from those soap-in-bottles I’m going to bring them. Maybe it’s time silly string hits Chennai.

My friend calls me “akka” which is “older sister” in Tamil. I call her “thankachi” which is “younger sister”. My thankachi told me she can not wait to see me, she has much to tell her sister. She loves birds and listening to them, so I am bringing her a DVD of Midwestern birds.

Then I spend five days at my yoga school in private classes — asana, pranayama, meditation, and a Sutras class. One of my students is meeting me, he is bringing his girlfriend, and they have never been to India before. I told him a long time ago that I don’t mind him meeting me as long as he doesn’t cramp my style. We will all take the classes together at the school and I will do things with them everyday until I feel stifled and encumbered by them, then it will be time for me to be alone. I have found a Buddhist temple in Chennai that I want to visit everyday, along with a Kali temple, jai ma!

After 10 days of Chennai (Madras on the map), I will tell my student what bus to take to Pondicherry and I will tell my driver to take him there, then I hop a 10:30 pm train that takes me off the beaten path in Tamil Nadu so I can explore temple towns. Not before I get mehendi on my feet though. My student and his gal will have to make it back to Chennai on their own, because I will be long gone. But he’s a big boy, I went to India the first time all by my lonesome and this woman of a certain age was fine. More than fine.

If you click on the map, you can see a route that meanders down to Madurai, where I will hop on another train to take me Kerala, on the other side of South India on the Arabian Sea, where I have never been. I plan on lots of yoga and ayurvedic massage. And being alone. Another new experience for me will be flying domestically in India — I’m flying back to Chennai from Kerala. A 90 minute flight costs $75.

As my gal pal in India, Sirensongs, says “Why do people go to India to find themselves? India is where you go to LOSE yourself.”

45 more days and I step into my freedom. India nourishes me and I need to visit Ma India as much as I need air to breathe. Mike says it all for me: “…if I don’t follow my Heart, I will lose a piece of my aliveness. It doesn’t take too many compromises to become a walking dead person…”

I do not belong here. Ma India, I’m coming home.

feel good friday

by L. Valdez Karl

It’s good to feel the rage dissipate…and the healing begin….

so I give you blues great John Lee Hooker and the always fabulous Carlos Santana. give a listen.

my Buddhist teacher told me rage is a good thing because you have to face it, accept it, kick through it, and let it go. it’s all good.

support
true friends
good music
sway
dance
move
mmmmmmm…….
feel it
intuit
joy
healing….

tell someone you love them, y’all.

shanti
jai bhagwan

another kick in the yoga butt

by L. Valdez Karl

“Actually, Sama, if you understood the extraordinary gifts every single challenge in your life makes possible, even inevitable, you’d celebrate your challenges, new and old alike, as the omens that they are of new beginnings, spectacular change, and enhanced super-powers.

Perfect for where you are, huh?
The Universe

I get daily emails from the Universe…yes, really, THE Universe. You can get your own, too, just visit the Universe’s website! The one above is what I received today and I consider it serendipitous considering what I’ve been experiencing lately.

My regular readers know that before I left for my retreat I left the yoga studio where I was teaching. I got tired of the owner walking into my classes drunk. I was going to blog about the whole situation but decided against it. I wrote about her alcoholism earlier this year after she walked in 20 minutes late to a workshop I was teaching, drunk and disturbing everyone with her loud sighs and sobs. I wrote how two other teachers and I attempted an intervention with her the next day, showing up at the end of her last class — which she had taught, once again, drunk. Needless to say, the intervention failed miserably. However, I deleted that post. She had a few links to this blog and I felt that if she chanced upon that post (although of course no names were mentioned) it would hurt her terribly and I did not want to do that.

Fast forward to a month ago. She walked into another class, drunk, when my students were in savasana. I told the three other instructors who were involved in the original intervention, telling them in no uncertain terms how I felt, that I had had enough. I went to the studio two days later to talk to her about it after one of her classes when students are gone. I was met with more lies, accusations, and denials. That was it for me. Gone. Finished. Locked out.

Since that time I’ve been dealing with lots of rage about the situation. Not rage about her alcoholism, but about the lies, deceptions, and manipulations that the studio is built upon. Rage about being abandoned for telling the truth. Rage that out of all the teachers — most of whom knew about her addiction before I did — only one supported me and defended me to her. All the others kept their mouths shut, even two who were involved in the intervention. The phrase “yoga community” makes me gag right now. As all our emotions manifest themselves in our bodies, I felt my rage settle into my body.

I went to the retreat feeling as if my body was a toxic landfill. Thank goodness we meditated for hours every day because the meditation began to chip away at the sludge. Thank goodness we did metta — loving-kindness — meditation. But after my return I still felt as if I had been abused. And those of you who live with an addict in your life know what I’m talking about. Until they own their addiction, they have to protect at all costs their right to drink.

I AM feeling the rage less and less, bits and pieces are falling away every day, a pebble here, a boulder there. It is still there, but the fire is slowly dying out. And then I got this email from a friend, who is also one of my students:

“I received (a quote) in my email that made me think of you:

‘I always say that there’s a kind of implicit mindfulness and wisdom in metta practice. The very process of letting go of a distraction implies in some way seeing its transparency, not freaking out over it, not being angry about it, not getting involved with it, not identifying with it. You may not consciously say to yourself, “Oh, look, this moment is changing,” but you can’t let go of the distraction unless you are actually seeing that. You would be trying to push it away from anger rather than actually letting go. So to do the metta practice, you actually bring forth that level of wisdom.’ — Sharon Salzberg, in Spirit Rock Meditation Center Newsletter, 1997 from Everyday Mind.

It was no irony that the quote came from Spirit Rock, where I had just been.

He continued:

“I know that you are angry & not yourself…. please look at it as an opportunity. not to be trite, but from my outside position I feel like it happened for a reason. don’t close down, don’t push people away, don’t let hubris take over, and don’t dwell on it.

you were obviously meant to teach somewhere else. focus & figure it out. you have a lot to teach & my joints are not so juicy. and please keep on writing about your retreat – like the buddha who chose to stay & teach after attaining enlightenment. the worst thing that you could do is not share it & not help guide the rest of us.”

As it has turned out, I will begin doing workshops (and maybe teach) at another studio. I already teach out of my house on Saturday mornings but I am adding one more night for the students who supported me and who don’t want to return to the studio. As for writing about the retreat, my next post will be about the asana aspect.

Through all this I also found out who my true friends are for which I am eternally grateful. You know who you are.

the official transportation of this blog

by L. Valdez Karl

I always give credit where credit is due so I will admit that I stole this post from Fran.

She’s right when she says that in the talk shows’ credits they always have “transportation for guests provided by Fast Eddie’s Limo Service…” or someone like that.

So I decided the official transportation of Linda’s Yoga Journey is the always lovely AUTORICKSHAW!

Exactly two months from today I will be back home in Ma India in Chennai which is in Tamil Nadu in South India. One of the things I love about Chennai is the traffic — yes, really! — because I’ve realized that it operates on Chaos Theory. It took me about two days during my first trip to figure out how the chicken crosses an Indian road — basically you walk into it, because if you hesitate, you’ll really screw things up. Or you sneak into a crowd of people on a street corner and walk with them in relative safety in one fast moving glob of humanity, the idea being that if you’re surrounded by people, chances are someone else will get hit by a bus. And if you are a really lucky, the bus will stop. Hopefully not on top of you.

The video below was shot in Hyderabad, but it’s close enough to show you what Chennai’s traffic is like. Actually it has less traffic than on a typical Chennai street. Watch it and you’ll see lots of ‘ricks…THE OFFICIAL TRANSPORT OF LINDA’S YOGA JOURNEY!

I’ve only been in one minor accident while riding in a ‘rick, have run out of petrol once, and have only seen a few roll over, so don’t worry — we’ll get you where you want to go…eventually. Just sit back and relax!


view from an autorickshaw, Chennai, 2005