Yoga on the Reservation

I am in Kyle South Dakota, having spent the day on the Pine Ridge Reservation teaching yoga with R.R. Shakti of Yoga World Reach. Storytime Yoga teacher Scottie Bruch, who is from Whitewood, South Dakota, also joined us with tons of wonderful donations she gathered from her community for the needy here.

We set off yesterday at about 3 p.m and ended up in another world around 11:30 p.m. when we reached our destination. It seems that landmarks and road signs disappear when you reach the reservation, and we had to back track several times and even got completely lost in the black darkness with no I-phone service (of which the GPS service on it had lead us astray), nor a gas station or car in sight to seek help if necessary! Luckily yoga has taught me to identify such fears of my mind and its endless of what ifs and not react to them but dissolve them, but mostly it was just so uncomfortable being in the car so long and I thought I would die if we didn’t find the Lakota Prairie Ranch Restaurant and Lodge finally.

This morning we were guest on the local radio station that is broadcast to 50,000 residents on the Lakota Native American Reservation. This is the place with the history of Wounded Knee, the massacre and everything really awful and still denied by our country. Our schools should be teaching what we did to Native Americans along with the Jewish experience in middle school so kids really understand it and get clear of its weight on our psyche. I remember really hating and bored with pioneers and Colorado history that we studied in the third grade. I considered the settlers and miners just a bunch of monsters pillaging and murdering the native peoples and land on a greed fest, and the women were really miserable back then too. I had read how pioneer women in Kansas  and Wyoming committed suicide because of the constant wind.

During the radio show the hosts mentioned how many residents are plagued by high rates of diabetes from poor diet, high suicide rates (there was a suicide run given by the families who have lost loved ones, as their biggest pow wow of the year was happening this weekend.) and high crime. There is also a high rate of ADHD among Native American children on the reservation. I talked about how important the rituals and rites of the Native American culture are, which is actually used as a therapeutic tool here. Children need to be grounded in their bodies and souls. They need these rites and myths as a road map into the inner world to create meaning and be present and connected to their environment by participating in it rather than consuming it. The amazing thing is that Lakota cosmology is very similar to yoga philosophy, as I wrote in the earlier blog. In their artwork there are circles everywhere, and they believe in the levels of spiritual, emotional, physical and mental well being. They believe that everything is related, and there is a depth that informs all of the reality on the surface from down below as the Great Mystery. This is what grounds children in their bodies. Those who have experienced trauma and abuse must be able to ground themselves in the safety of the body and their own beings. To have self-awareness of emotions, behaviors, and to be deeply relaxed so that one feels and knows the relationship one has to the external environment.
There is a Waldorf School on the reservation and I’m hoping to come back with YWR in another three months and establish some children’s programs when school is in session.

I taught mostly teenagers and a few adults as well as young children today, and I used story to set the theme. To help them see the inner life, and also to distinguish between their desires and fears I told the Sufi story from my book The Treasure in Your Heart: Yoga and Stories for Peaceful Children, about the heart that no longer moves. How can we be peaceful and non-attached in the face of fear and desire? Joyful and painful experiences? So that we may not suffer. How can we stay centered in our selves and identify within rather than with the mind’s wanderings and entanglements? The yoga practice and mindful of these questions reprogram the body. By the end one teenager was so relaxed during shavasana that she fell asleep.

Afterwards there was a snack and we all talked with some of the participants. We talked about yoga history and where it came from, and again people were really interested in improving their health. We also talked about storytelling. One woman with a 10-month-old baby said she remembers hearing the stories in high school of her people, but has not heard or told them since. But she remembered them as creation stories, where the animals came from and so forth. I encouraged her to find the old stories again and to tell them to her daughter. And then she was to tell them to me when I returned in the fall.

R.R. Shakti then taught an adult class at the community college. The people said they really felt better afterwards and wanted to take more classes, even possibly driving to Sturgis once a month where Scottie taught. Additionally, they really connected with the sense that their bodies and souls were wrung out, as if it released toxins and re-energized them and their chi, and life spirit.

Tomorrow we leave and will talk about bringing a yoga teacher training to the reservation. Then we will go hiking in the Badlands and pay our respects at Wounded Knee. The insanity of the white man drove the spirit of the Lakota underground, but I have a feeling that its soon return is what is going to bring life on the planet back in balance.

Mythic Yoga: Vishnu's Dream

I spent three hours suspending time and space this afternoon at Samadhi Yoga where I taught teacher trainees about Hindu myths, psychology and yoga. I spoke in images and found what kinds of responses the trainees had from experiencing those images, carried through the symbol of sound and words. It's the conveyance of and the reconnection to the mythic image, the imago dei, or that God within, that are the powers of the spoken word. And we can see that the outer image of our world is also a reflection of the image inside ourselves, and that Tat Vam Asi, thou art that, is really true.

The soul speaks in an image, Aristotle said. God speaks in an image as our souls and we have all but lost that connection to the deep inner psyche and soul that keeps us in balance and harmony with our selves, with our world. We are Vishnu dreaming our daily world into existence, but where is our attention? Is it firmly rooted in the bulb and source of the transcendent, or is it the flower and the fruit on the surface, duality playing picture games and making poetry out of metaphors. Our society is presently very attached to the exterior world and has really lost its way in a labyrinth of economics and politics. Gone are the arts and letter, those links to the soul, and what we have is yet a wasteland and a disintegrating society. But we can blaze a path again into our darkest parts, and just like Persephone, create a ritual to regularly connect with this other half of ourselves and live in balance.

Listening to myths and creating images and symbols within our realm of the body makes us present to the imaginary, mythic and intuitive world. In favor of the intellect, we have rejected important functions of our psyches, intuiting and sensing. Myths, images and symbols connect us once again to this intuiting side that connects us to the unconscious, where the wild, undifferentiated soup of consciousness boils and from which forms arise.

Stories and myths allow us to self reflect in that we see everything as a reflection and examine it. We can view it externally, and then look at what remains - recognition of the Self and ineffable experience that is also bliss and joy of the moksha, release, when one is truly identified with the Self. We see that we are beyond the image, that our divine nature is eternal and untouchable, undifferentiated consciousness. We become rooted in that being and as in the Yoga Sutra 1.3 the mind's cessation allows the true being come forth, as if a light coming out from a cave, or as in the Maha Mritunjaya, like a gourd released from its vine. The true Self awakens because the symbols and forms pointed him to it.

I told the myth from the Vishnu Puranas about Vishnu's Dream. We are all like Vishnu, and we are creating our reality with our minds like Brahma each day, infused with the Shakti of Lakshmi and Saraswati, doing battle with the demons of fear and desire who threaten to make us identify with their false Self. But we remember Vishnu down there and we realize that nothing is happening. There is no Self. It's just everything as Vishnu. Contemplate this and the myth becomes a psychological guide to point you to your own experience of the truth. This knowing, jnana, is a body experience of feeling, which grounds and relaxes you, knowing that there is nothing to fear, as all things are of the Self.

Additionally I told Durga and Kali, examining the mother aspect of life and the reality of death and violence, which is what life is made up of. In Eastern mythology, demons are not to be cast out, like in Western mythology. They are just playing their part of duality, the negative energies in nature and the three gunas. Because we deny life and its reality of death and violence, its suppression is projected onto television screens and newspapers, instead, yet still unconscious in a never ending wheel. Unless a myth, story or symbol can reconnect you to eternal time, give you an experience and pitch you out of this profane realm and into the sacred.

We use Durga's weapons, such as yoga, mantra and devotion, to defeat the obstacles of the mind and the causes of suffering, or kleshas. By constantly examining ourselves we can overcome behaviors that cause suffering. When hearing a story we are able to also identify with the characters and when combined with hatha yoga, the insights or obstacles bubble up to the surface to be clearly made aware of and integrated or removed. Then the true self is unobstructed by the mind, allowed to come forth and moksha and bliss ensue.

Related to death, I told the story of how Ganesha got his head, and how Shiva, hanging out on the cremation grounds, reminds us that among death and destruction is also where life begins. Embracing the dark side of ourselves, making ourselves whole and loving our demons puts us in contact with the serpentine powers of the universe, of which we are identical. The mystical relationship and participation with the cosmos is complete as we create our own heaven on earth, the marriage of Shiva, consciousness, and Parvati, the Shakti and form. And we are so very conscious and aware of it, and that awareness is sheer joy and bliss, which is infused with love and gratitude, as all of life explodes in its reality.

From Telluride to Opa's House

I spent the week in Telluride with the kids thanks to a dear friend. The kids and I do a lot of road trips, and I set out excited and adventurous and by the time I come back I swear I will never do it again. And this just may be the last tie but we really had a lot of fun. It was just a long drive. Eight hours there from Boulder and I floored it at 90 mph coming back and made it just under 6 1/2.
We stayed at the lovely Mountain Lodge in Mountain Village. The kids did not want to do much more than ride the gondola, swim and hang out. But we did manage to have a lot of nice walks in town and at the shops and parks. But my daughter is a fish (and she bought a mermaid book) so it was a lot of pool time.
The children missed being at Opa's house, so they asked to spend the night. We picked up Quizno's and again I got in the car to drive. It was great to see Dad. I love him so. I appreciated that moment because he is here and alive with me. I never know when my last moments with dear old Dad will be, even though I was angry and blaming him for my life problems while driving back. And I got clear of that too. While driving I looked at my daughter and with all my pressing financial fears I just get present and be in the moment no matter what. Yoga reminds me that nothing is happening, yet love pierces everything. This reflection on the surface that I adore participating in, I revel in it and also let it go. Although I was quite negative in thinking all the way driving back, and I had to work with my mind extensively to think positive and let things go. That I do create the universe with my mind so I had better get thinking positive.
Dad's house has a strange smell to it. Like the mold or whatever in the basement is creeping up into the main floor. And the kids sat on the love seat and Dad sat on his couch that is filled with piles and piles of mail and odds and ends and there is really no place to sit anywhere else, not even in the kitchen because it is so covered with crap. I sat in the only other available place to sit; my favorite spot to sit, on the hearth and ate the sandwich on my lap.
It's always about working with the mind. All its obstacles like in the yoga sutras.
So I had a nice time alone with the kids at Opa's. Practicing yoga, reviewing for my Hindu Deities and Myth workshop tomorrow. Indulging in reviewing Jung, mythology. I even got to read up on Greek mythology while in Telluride. Amazing. Dionysian rites, using mushrooms. They all connected to that wild divine that we muster up once again in Mythic Yoga. A new cycle is beginning. It's going to be wonderful. The world has renewed itself.

Julio The Pool Boy

My late husband always said that if he should die and I would get a lot of insurance money I would end up marrying Julio the Pool Boy. Well, I met him today. I humbly took my daughter and a friend to the Eldorado Springs pool because I had free passes for signing up for Eldorado Springs home water delivery at the Wednesday Farmer's Market downtown. I swam a little bit in the pristine water, and my daughter, enraptured by makeup and shaving her legs, swam with her friend who had an equally large amount of red lipstick on. Afterwards I sat out and read the yoga sutras, quietly contemplating space and time as I watched the humanity at the pool. Heavy men with beards and tattoos. Women with body shapes of all sizes that I analyzed and then watched my mind analyzing before I returned to meditation and just looking. We saw kids we knew from school and who knew me and my son and asked where he was. In Yellowstone with his compadres, I replied. I've been having a lot of mother/daughter time without my son, because you know as a single, widowed mother there ain't enough of you to go around, let alone spend one on one time.
My daughter and I went to my friend's cabin overnight and did some art. We got lavender wall paint for her room, although I am waiting for the hovering landlady to make up her mind about the paint swatch. So annoying. I own three houses and must put up with this!
But there he was, talking to me. Little old me with my heavy forehead wrinkles and wrinkle straight down the middle of my 42-year-old forehead. And I'm now hovering around 150 in weight from a strange ravenous appetite that has hit lately. I thought he was Indian or Tibetan at first from his accent, but later he said he was from Mexico City. He was young; in his twenties. He was going to school studying CAD and was a cabinet maker. He came back again and again to make small talk with me in my seat in the shade. We spoke in Spanish for a while. I knew what he was getting at. Here is Julio, only his name was Edgar or Oscar as somebody called him. Who knows. He said he's here all the time. Is this something out of The Graduate? He said my eyes and smile were lovely and asked what I was reading about. I thought, really, he's too late. All the funds are gone. All I have is myself to make money, and things are actually looking up since I just got booked at the Omega Institute. But not wanting to get messy with intimate relationships, and with my daughter and her friend nearby I chose to shake his hand and say nice to meet you.
Was Frank right? Did he know me so well? How trusting and silly I am? To predict, or even , self fulfill, in my wreck of a marriage with Justin and all his real estate shennanigans! He was going to make up trust funds for the kids, because he swore that I would marry Julio the Pool Boy, he's get me mixed up in some house, and then the kids would get nothing. So his words came true. Only in a little bit different drama. Yet the Sutras teach me such peace. It's such a drama. I can see clearer and clearer each day the reality of the mind. I know deeper and see myself as true reality. There is a great peace in all this drama. Failure is the price of success. I know all will work out, and I swear by my morning daily yoga and meditation practice. This makes all this coming and going such a surprise on the surface of the water from which the depths I emerge every morning to take a breath, and then bow back down to the deeps by night fall. And then it all ends up so lovely as words on a page.

The Artemis Club

I pulled Paloma down the hill on her skateboard as she walked Pepe on a leash toward Bear Creek Elementary. I had been thinking how wonderful this age of eight and a half that my daughter is. I feel so much more closer to her, as we relate to feminine things like clothes and grooming. Alejandro will go to the rifle club and he is off with his friend and his father. He needs that. And Paloma needs me.

I feel this joy in working with this young feminine. La Sirena appeared in Parabola magazine this quarter. Water so fitting, the divine feminine, half fish, half bird, half woman, half snake, from those watery, imaginative depths of creation. So continues Mythic Yoga, as we groom young girls to be sacred warriors who grow into their sex and power. To have the chains of modern woman's soul broken from the bonds of a contorted cultural view of woman to that of one of wholeness and life.

The mermaid, or rusalki in the Russian and Ukranian tradition, was the spiritual world of women and the bringer of the new life. Every spring they came in water to clean out the heaviness of winter. She is the primal goddess, in which as water all life, cleansing and restoration comes from. She is the whole body of creation yet balanced as the opposite of death and extinguishment, a perfect paradox.

Artemis was the goddess of children from age nine until adulthood. She protected the young girls and brought them to her temple to experience one last time the joys of childhood before growing up and assuming responsibilities in adulthood and marriage.

My daughter and I ran with Pepe once we reached the field. Running - a perfect meditation on the body. My mind dips in every cell in the body with all its twitches and kinks and stuck energy I root it out with my breath and attention.

I watched her as the did the athletic course, and thought of this modern Artemis Club for girls. To really nourish my daughter and regenerate the feminine on the planet. Making little mermaids in the Artemis Club.