Like all Shivanautical epiphanies – rather stoopid on the surface.

In my processing of the 40 day Shiva Nata Expedition (1 more day! I’ve hit a 90% daily practice rate – and a 100% daily thinking-about-practicing rate!), I was noticing that in order to step into the life we want, we are most certainly stepping OUT of the pieces of life that don’t serve us, that won’t and can’t and shouldn’t follow us into the new life we have planned.

Except of course we can’t just discard pieces of ourselves – we created, we have been these people on purpose.

One of my favorite parts of being a yoga and shiva nata teacher is the chance to create an invocation – whether short or long, an opening and way to leave the non-practice world behind. I’m not as eloquent in personal practice, often forgetting to set the buffer between life and space. “Lala back in with the trash new trash bag unroll yoga mat yay child’s pose” is efficient, but not terribly intention-ful.

So I recorded this invocation. It works perfectly for any activity you are doing to involve your body, mind, and spirit in a safe space – meditation, yoga, shiva nata, creative times, journaling or writing. It is an opening and a closing, about 8 minutes total. I would make a playlist with these on either side of a track or tracks you enjoy using for practice – not interrupting practice with technology is nice.

The focus is stepping out – gently shedding layers of identity that block us from experiencing the depth of practice – and gently and mindfully re-acquiring those layers on the exit.

Feel free to download, if you like these please share, use, enjoy!

Happily, I made a full video to follow along with this time! All starting positions (level 2-style). Feel free to just flail and see if the pattern jumps out at you – otherwise, an explanation follows… (also, no words – it’s a feature! just watching and naming the positions is a mind-buzzy practice, or finding the number-words for yourself as you’re following)

To construct this level, you start with level 2 transquarters – using each level 2 starting position and, instead of travelling forwards or backwards, skipping a step. 1 to 3 (and 3 to 1), 2 to 4 (and 4 to 2) – 5 to 7 (7 to 5) or  6 to 8 (or 8 to 6).

The extra step in these transquarters (that preps you for level 6) is that instead of moving each hand to its transquarter – you move it to your other hand’s transquarter destination. So 2-7 would normally transquarter to 4-5 – but instead, 2 grabs the 5, and 7 grabs the 4.

Another way to think of this is inserting a mirror-move in between the start and the transquarter. Start at 1-5, normal transquarter would be 3-7, the mirror is 7-3.

Let me know what you think, and have fun flailing!

Mmm, spinning around is fun! And visual-arm position correlation – oh wait, that just sounds geeky. Hopefully geeky sounds fun too.

Anyway, this is easiest to figure out if you just DO it – rotate a quarter turn towards your leading arm with each arm position in levels 1, 2, 4, or 5 – and pay attention to the arm position and the view you see/direction you are turned. Turn the opposite direction after one full revolution = four arm movements = one cycle back to the starting position. Repeat the rotation and anti-rotation for the forward/back, back/forward sections as well!

If you’re feeling confined to the computer, perhaps this graphic will make the repetition a bit more clear – hopefully.

Have fun, try it out!

Storytime, storytime!

I haven’t been pursuing yoga for endless years yet – that day will come. For now, I’m coming up on my 5th year anniversary of my first time rolling out a mat (at that point, a ridged foam camping pad that left super-interesting dents after savasana!).

And this is the story of my first yoga (full mind-body, present-moment, fully-conscious) learning experience. And I may have just scared the dog realizing that this was over 10 years ago. It seriously feels like yesterday.

Yoga can be present in every moment – every moment you are mindful and working with your body and thoughts. I first learned this… in shop class.

Enjoy!

And many thanks to John Kriegshauser, the wonderful teacher I mention. As far as I know, he’s still teaching the intro materials course at IIT, whipping ditzy freshman into fairly reputable woodworkers and modelmakers… ie, performing miracles.

This post was inspired by the fantastic TeachNOW course. Thinking about my teaching lineage was very instructive – helpful to think of the very full range of past teachers to help support me in my teaching.

Doors:

This is a month of doorways, of saying “Hello, door between the old and the new me! Thank you for marking so clearly a pathway of change.”

Some doors will be covered with blooming flowers, welcoming me from a gloomy space I’ve been in to a bright and exciting field of where-I’m-supposed to be. These doors will make the decision to pass to the other side easy.
Other doors may be murky and shadowy, with cobwebs – due to a monster fear of letting me cross, of what might be in the new room.

My task with these doors is to turn up the lights on the other side. Maybe by sneaking my hand in to turn on the lights. Maybe by acknowledging that there is night on both sides of the door, and giving it permission to turn to day on thte other side, and seeing more of what’s involved.

Other doors might be hard to find – I can search for them.
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Mirrors:

The other metaphor for meeting future me is stepping into the image I see in the mirror and becoming that person I’ve imagined. A doorway to myself as well as a doorway to other areas and levels of life. Still rich in visual metaphors, I will imagine the costumery required, the mood, the smile, the attitudes of the girl in the mirror. And I can become her… by stepping in.
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A sidenote, and arguing with Narnia:

Whenever I think of mirrors, I think of the last metaphor in the last book of The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis (which I have read at least double-digit times). Their old world has basically ended, and the god-leader-lion takes them… through a door (hey I didn’t realize that part of the metaphor was there until I started typing this) into a better-Narnia, the “true” Narnia, of which the Narnia they played in was just a pale shadow. The metaphor for how much more alive this new world was: Seeing a city out of an upper-floor window, and it looks fine and all – but then you turn around, and see a glimpse of that city in a mirror pointed out that window, and the image is incredibly much richer and deeper and more meaningful then your first glance of the city.

It actually used to make little-Beth kind of mad – she wanted the real life view to be deeper and richer – it made more sense to her that you’d see the view in the mirror first and it was eh, but then you turn around and the view out the window was the real and meaningful one. But maybe that sense of barrier was important – something has to happen to make the rich-and-true real.
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Thanks to now, I’m ready for then.

Regardless, I am ready to step into the deeper richer me, with the patterns and habits I want and need to move forward. With huge love to the place I am now, and the places I’ve been – obviously I’ve gotten close enough to the door to be able to step through, and that’s huge – I’m willing to step through the door now and feel how things are different now.

Good luck to me!

What slightly-future yous can you claim and work towards stepping in to?

(oh, and the Shiva Nata practice for day 1? Working through Level 3 more, figuring out new stuff I hadn’t realized before. For example: I knew you could rearrange the order of the movements.

Doing Shiva Nata in bed: good idea or bad?

Occasionally, doing Shiva Nata at night (whatever level sounds hard, in my head, no visualizing arm movements at all) will put me to sleep. I forgot those caveats last night… and was up for hours with racing excited brain. Oops…

The upside of that foolery? Figuring out a mini-level hiding right under level 3. Level 3 is a tough one – I find 4 and 5 much easier – and discouraging for me to practice without aides. And I like being off aides! (there’s a pun hiding somewhere).

Variation 1:

Starting position (same as Level 2, with one arm vertical, one arm horizontal) ::

Forward-forward :: mirror image :: forward-backward ::
Forward-forward :: mirror image :: backward-forward = starting position

(the tricky and unlike-level 3 part is the switching of the forward/backward move to get back to the starting position)

Variation 2:

Starting position ::

Forward-forward :: transquarter :: forward-backward
Forward-forward :: transquarter :: forward-backward = starting position

Enjoy!

I know you’ve hardly even conceptualized of a you that’s 27, that the idea of me is as weird and strange as the idea of being old old old. And to be honest, to me, the idea of being in junior and senior high school is becoming strange and abstract, too.

I don’t want or need to change anything about you – you were exactly perfect as the me-that-got-me-to-here. But it could have been easier – I wish I could have whispered things in your ear, reassurance and confidence and limitless love (I’m still saying these things to myself today. They are truths.):

You are adorable, dearest. No need to stand with uncertainty.

First off: Holy crap, does future-you love you! So does your family, extended and close. If you only knew how much love I send back to past-Beth. To you. As you feel alone, as you feel unworthy, as you feel numb to everything… I wish you could feel how much I’d love to give you a hug. You are fantastic.

I’d tell you that you are ok. That there’s nothing wrong with your scattershot friendships. That you seem to be designed for one friend at a time. That you are allowed to gain from friendships too. That you are doing well by being yourself.

You have no idea how beautiful you are. I teach in high schools occasionally now (surprise!) – I wish you could be in my head as I walk through the hall. Everyone glows! With promise and potential and yearning and straight-up youthful beauty. Yes, they are still clique-y and sometimes silly and sometimes cruel – but each one still has so many chances to change. So much to learn, so many good times ahead of them. And beautiful. Really.

Even though you mostly don’t care – I know you do a little… so I tell you again. You are attractive, just as you are. Even when you can’t believe it of your body, or your face, or your hair… please never not believe it of your smile, your enthusiasm, your music, your thoughts. Also, because I’m future-you and I’ve seen it happen… your face and body changes physically in your 20s. A lot. Baby fat is not a myth – and you couldn’t have dieted it off. Thank you for never trying. You can relax – and know that I would have loved you heavy or thin… and right now I love myself, heavier or thinner.

You don’t need to be numb. Letting out your feelings in your hours of playing piano is gorgeous. Stifling your feelings in your hours of reading books, a bit escapist (you have great taste in books, by the way! I still reread your favorites often). I wish I remembered my feelings a little more, from when I was you. I wish I had taken the time to really feel them, understand them – and started to figure out, earlier, who exactly this being that rattles around in this body is, exactly. I sometimes look back and remember greyness – but I know you! You are vivid!

You worry about why you don’t seem to be liking boys much, and why you don’t care much about makeup or fashion. You are not broken. You are just beautifully you. You have your own schedule, and that one delivers lovely boyfriends to you, right about on schedule. Hopefully that doesn’t ruin the surprise.

Treasure your family. Empathize with them, too. You know you might be leaving after high school, so treasure them now while they’re close.

Love yourself more.
Love others more – no need to get into the trap of judging others and making yourself more insecure.
Give yourself what you want.
Ask yourself what you want.
Treat yourself as lovingly as you can stand.

You are beautiful.
You are enough.
Your future is in good hands.
You are in good hands.

Love love love Love LOVE love love,

27-year old Beth

Still love hiking - but so much more me!

PS – Don’t worry about losing your glasses. Your eyes grow healthy and strong without them. You grow healthy and strong not hiding behind them.

PPS – Seriously. No, Seriously. You are loved. And you are safe.

Head over to Medical Marzipan for more encouraging letters to teenagers (and we all have our teenage selves buried somewhere inside!) as part of her fabulous Teen Week movement.

I actually just had a rather stunning Shiva Nata session based on changing my gaze.

One of my favorite pieces of yoga is to become aware of my eyes. Do I have soft eyes, seeing everything in the field, and holding onto nothing in particular? Have I found a drishti, a point of focus, an adhesion of my eyes to the wall that can help me balance as fully as properly stacked hips? Am I burning a hole through the wall, the window, mighty super-hero lazergaze?

I noticed today that I was quite definitely and unconsciously trying to ignite the innocent lilac bush out the window with my eyes while concentrating intensely on following Shiva Nata audios and expressing different attitudes (and that’s fun too, I don’t know if I’m brave enough to post a video… maybe an audio?). As I most certainly wish the lilacs only the best, and have been squee-ing over the process of the adorable tiny leaves, I softened my gaze.

The soft gaze by itself is an amazing addition to your Shiva Nata practice – I usually find after a few movements my eyes have snapped back to the unconscious focus of concentration – and fun to try to stay in that less-grasping state.

This particular time, I borrowed from my yoga practice the “more advanced” move for Tree Poses – sliding my eyes smoothly up the wall and to the ceiling.

Ceiling-gazing Shiva Nata!

Actually, I don’t want to say too much about it, except it felt astonishingly different. A little physically, especially with legs  - and a little mentally, seeing the hand positions so much differently.

Have fun with this one!

And as I sat, prepping myself for the class (force fields, plans, unhelpful parts of me to bed, helping friendly caring kind parts fully awake), I realized that I  needed something more then just tension-release breath to start out the class. Just letting out the muck didn’t feel like enough – I needed to welcome in something better.

My spontaneous (i.e. inspired by an exercise I’d done this week from Jen Louden, but slightly tweaked, nothing is new under the sun) new opening breathing exercise was this:

Inhale Safety
Exhale Ease

Which maybe-possibly you might like to try right now. Connecting to these qualities, saying hello to everything that comes up when you try to receive Safety along with your breath. And what does it feel like to give Ease back to your world? To yourself?

And this lays the basis for the next set of mantras/qualities:

Inhale Love
Exhale Play

For me, safety and ease are prerequisites, the foundations for accepting love and exuding play. Getting into the groove of safety and ease is an amazing place to be; love and play require going deeper for me right now.

And I carried the love/play breath with me the rest of the night… throughout the lesson, where the base of Safety and breathing in Love allowed me to be unusually silly and playful (and appreciated!), through a night of dancing through the muck accumulated this week into “everything is right”, and back to my quiet home and bed… inhale love, exhale play.

It’s so easy to feel the smile tugging at your lips as you exhale play… the warmth and assurance as you inhale play… the sparkling new possibilities of play… the stable bedrock of love… This one is going to stick with me for awhile.

Inhale Love.

Exhale Play.

Absorb Love.

Radiate Play.

Feel Love

BE Play.

(play with me! what qualities seem like natural candidates for in/out breathing to you? did you try this? what did you find?)

AND – I really like finger Shiva Nata, because it uncoils the spirals and makes you deal with the patterns, forward/back, in a very different way. I personally find it quite a bit more challenging the purely-mental Shiva Nata – therein lies the fun. And it’s even more secretive then wrist spirals… barely a twitch, and you’ll know which finger you’re thinking about.

Here’s the video:

Here are the picture of my finger set-up for the horizontals.
Haha, yes that’s just my hand mirrored across – I’m home by myself and wasn’t quite talented enough to get both in the picture…

And the verticals are palms-up.

Usually I don’t graffiti on my hands for Shiva Nata – but that would have made for a dreadful video.

I hope you have fun with this! Does anyone else have a different solution for using the verticals on finger nata? The horizontal 1-4 comes pretty easily it seems – I’ve heard others describe it like this – but the verticals were difficult to translate.