Results May Vary
“Wow!!!, it seems hotter than usual”, I said to myself as we stood and did the “magically keep your legs twisted around you like a strangler fig – while also twisting your arms like a caduceus in front of your face pose (Eagle Pose). Sweat was streaming out of me, with the faucet turned all the way to ON and I was getting more lightheaded by the second. “OK, Change” the teacher spoke in her mouth piece. “Ugh, OK”, I said to myself as I did my best to “change” and breathe into the impossibility of the reverse of the pose. Day #7, Bikram Yoga and I can feel the changes already. “Hey !!” , I thought to myself. “Yesterday you could only stretch “this far”….”but today you are going to” …”ugh…,ugh….,BREATHE…..”HERE”………………..I coached myself while Breathing out to grasp just a tad lower that the day before. No pain, No gain.
During the initial orientation of 2 minutes of the 1st day of Bikram they tell you that the goal is to simply not leave the 104 degree room for the 90 minute session. As you learn the poses you will start to feel different parts of your body react in different ways and emotions may be released from the poses as your body’s defense structures unlock the cellular memories held in certain parts of the body.
My 1st experience with this type of “body memory” occurred during the retreat I took to France where I met Edy. The gent who still runs the program saved me for last during the “Men’s Intensive” evening because (I thought at the time) I was the most well adjusted, open, and un-fettered of the bunch. He didn’t get that memo and soon began a series of questions and answers with a certain knuckle to the sternum kind of prodding which unlocked in a Rube Goldberg fashion a big ol’ trunk of “stuff” that once cracked, has been emerging now for almost a decade. That evening was like a fog but I remember it all like a slow motion movie. It was the “trailer” for the epic, currently in progress.
I awoke this morning to thunder in the distance. The light out the transom window of our bedroom was soft grey/yellow. I dreamt again of another past project that had been transformed into dual Butler Buildings. All the custom mahogany and wenge was replaced with fiberglass glass and vinyl panels and the owner was trying to figure out how to fit all of his staff into the way too small spaces he had created. Ugh.
I invited Edy out to the balcony to drink our coffee and watch the storm roll through. We stood close together and watched as the heavenly paparazzi assaulted us with their flashes. The storm cell was right over us and the rain was falling in sheets with the wind swirling and the temperature dropping as the precipitation increased. Rain would hit a wall of a nearby building split apart and then slam into the next one with a thunk, splash….thunk, splash. The oak trees below us were jubilant and waived their branches in glee at the onslaught. I held Edy a bit closer because I felt too much to ruin it with words.
More ghosts from the past were on my emails this morning and also in the press.
It’s hard to believe that opening up one thing could lead to opening up so many other things but it has sure been my experience. I was going to say that it is kind of like getting a small “dink” on your windshield that grows and spiders out to cover the entire thing until you can’t see any more, but as I feel more deeply into that visual I am becoming more certain that at some point I came to accept looking past the spiderwebs as normal and the opening in France started a healing process that makes the clear views feel unnatural. What lies up ahead has never changed, just the effort to see has.
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