Spring is Here!

Yesterday I did 108 Sun Salutations. Spring is here!

It’s not the first time I’ve done 108 Sun Salutations, 108 Vinyasas or 108 prostrations, but it was the first time I haven’t counted. Yesterday I let go, and had faith in my teacher to do the counting for me. I tried to breathe through each salute as if it was the first, or the last, and let go of my need for control. It sort of worked.

Doing 108 Sun Salutations is as much an exercise of the mind as it is of your physical body and your breath, and boy did my mind try to play games with me. In the past I’ve done them in sets of 12, so you know that there are nine sets and you get a break after every 12. Yesterday, I just breathed. Without my glasses on, I counted even see the 108 flowers on the mirror, one of which was taken down after each flow, no way of knowing how far I’d come, or how far I had to go.

It’s interesting to observe where my mind goes, when my body is pushed, there’s sweat pouring from me, and I’m in a room with forty two other dripping people. I thought about work, I thought about my past, I thought about my future, I let the thoughts come, and I let the thoughts go, trying to come back to my breath, and only my breath.

There was also a constant battle going on between my mind and my body, as I worked to find the balance between pushing myself, and killing myself. After five years of yoga I usually know the difference. 

It started with my feet, they hurt, they felt crampy, “maybe you should just take a break”, said a part of my mind. Then it was my calves, and my hamstrings, aching, and a part of my mind saying “maybe you should just give up”. Other parts of my mind fought back, I knew I could do this, I’d done it before, I deepened my breath, deepened my resolve, and my teacher put on the Spice Girls. Definitely not the most reverent or bliss inducing choice, but the absolute perfect thing to give me the energy to keep going.

I danced my way through the next three songs.

Then it got hotter, or it felt like it was. I began to modify my Sun Salutations, proud of myself for getting through so many, as I’ve always modified all of them in the past.

My body is amazing.

I started to shiver despite how hot I was, and started wondering if this was a symptom of heat stroke, even though I know it isn’t, and besides, I was still dripping away. And all of a sudden in amongst the aches, the shivers, the sweat, and the back and forth in my mind, we were down to our last 12. Deep breaths. Jump Backs. Counting out loud. Rihanna. Gaga.

It was over.

I lay in savasana and decided not to move. I was overwhelmed with the heat, and the physical effort and the emotional battle. But, there was a smile on my face, and there is now as I write this. We do this all so that we can come back to savasana. How amazing does savasana feel after a practice like this.

The final mind battle was the urge to flee from the room. In the wise part of my mind I know that the longer the savasana the better, after all that exertion and all that breathing. Other parts of me though just wanted out, to be cool, to have salt, to have sugar, to have anything that wasn’t savasana in a hot room. And I breathed, and I waited, until  I slowly left the room and joined some of my Sangha as we sat and shared our joy.

Warehousing the homeless

I've decided, that our shelter, is not an emergency shelter at all, it's a warehouse. And it's starting to make me mad. I'm quite outspoken about my madness too, because it really is bothering me.

See here's the thing. To me, an emergency shelter is a place where people stay when they're down on their luck, when they've exhausted all options, when they need a place to revamp and get back on their feet. It's not a place where people live for 10+ years. That to me is something different. We need a place for that as well, but an emergency shelter isn't it.

I feel that we are in fact enabling people. Because we allow people in various states of intoxication into our shelter, they are able to use as much as they want and know they always have a safe place to come "home" to. This is good in theory. It's an accepting place, keeps people off the streets, out of traffic, and from freezing to death. In reality though, it means that people can spend all their welfare money on drugs and alcohol and not having to worry about food and housing.

That being said, in our shelter there are some people whose minds have been so destroyed by substances that I'm not sure they really understand the possibility of change. My heart aches that they have to sleep on a mat on the floor each night - if they make it that far. There are also people not that much older than me, who see no reason to change, and they are definitely capable of changing. It would be HARD work, and no doubt there would be slips, but they could do it. I'm always surprised that they don't see this, or see any reason to change "well all my friends are doing it". I get it, and I don't.

So my thought is, maybe we need housing for some of these people - particularly the old ones. Housing where they had a room, but meals provided, as well as some cleaning and stuff (while teaching life skills). Housing it was hard to get kicked out of, but didn't allow drugs and stuff on the premises (but did allow non violent intoxication). Get them out of the shelter, give them a place to call their own etc... But is that then enabling? Is what we do now just as enabling though? And less dignified?

This is just my first post about this, there will be more, it's an issue that's constantly on my mind as I look out at the shelter night after night.

walking in the light

As we were out on van patrol yesterday I saw lots of people walking around the streets of the North End. Now this practice, is considered to be unsafe. I would be petrified to walk around the streets of the North End at 3AM. But, I also wouldn't do that anywhere.

My pondering led me to wonder about whether people walking around at all hours of the night is a sign of a healthy or unhealthy community. Ideally, we would have a city in which it was safe to walk alone at 3Am... but is it a good idea regardless of whether or not it is safe? I'm just not sure...

What is a safe community anyway. Is a safe community simply somewhere in which you don't have to worry about getting mugged for that pair of Nikes you're wearing or is it something deeper. I'm a firm believer in emotionally safe communities. Place in which people are free to be who they are and share and express their believes without fear of persecution. Communities need to be spiritually safe. Communities need to be a place of education; education which is holistic and well rounded. Communities need to be loving and supportive and friendly. Is there really such a place?