Day 1
It's 5:44. I was out of bed by 5:10, which will be cutting it close in a few days. Today is Ellen Heed's anatomy workshop, which starts at 8. I'll find out of my roommate wants to do the 40-minute walk, or if she wants to walk alone.
I left my house at about 2:30 Sunday. I was traveling with my friend Peter, a poet, and two of his poet friends who were going to do a reading at Pilot Books, an unbelievable heaven-on-earth of a small press bookstore, owned by a rad 25 year old woman entrepreneur! On our way to pick up Emily we encountered all manner of people hanging out of honking cars waving Canadian flags, by which we gathered Canada won the hockey game. We boycotted honking just like we'd boycotted the rest of the Olympics. We were late getting out, so it was a real bummer when the border guards took issue with my "status" (yoga teacher training) and took us all in to talk to us. I guess I was pretty niave about this border business. I didn't have any documentation proving I'd only be staying a month -- granted, nobody sent me any documentation that would prove such a thing. All of my correspondence was through email, and I hadn't printed it. They let us through begrudgingly after about a half hour. Everyone else in the car was really kind about it and commented on the fascinating semiotic politics of the experience, and called it educational. We thought we'd make up time on the not-too-busy highway until we ran into collision warnings. Halfway through a crawling detour we found out that someone had apparently been hit by a Greyhound. Our journey so far had been late, hassled, and brushed with tragedy, so there was a small air of foreboding. I blame the full moon.
We finally got to Seattle about ten minutes after the reading was supposed to begin. There were only four people at the bookstore, including the owner, the event organizer, and I think some staff. Emily and Chris launched into their wicked collaborative feminist poem series, and after they presented their poetics all of us participated in a long and involved and passionate debate about feminism and language. Everyone was about to leave for dinner when Peter said he'd like to propose that I read. Flustered and unprepared (and dehydrated), I managed to pronounce 5 poems, and then he read about 5. I haven't read at a poetry reading in it seems years, and usually only friends and teachers see my poems, so I was astounded and thrilled when the owner of Pilot (her name is Summer) said she really enjoyed my work and that she'd like to have me read there again! We'll see . . . .
After dinner I finally got around to trying to figure out my sleeping arrangements: no dice. I couldn't get through to my backup and it was too late to try the place I'm renting. I ended up sleeping on Summer's floor, which I feel no end of embarrassed about -- irresponsible! But I suppose it was pleasantly bohemian of me to roll in, throw down a few last-minute poems and trust the universe to provide me with a place to sleep.
I conquered the bus and arrived at the place I'm staying, which is a beautiful large old house. I have a bigger, comfier bed than I've ever had, and there were fresh flowers waiting for me when I arrived. The owner of the house is friendly and helpful, and I discovered this morning that she gets up before 6am, too. I met my roommate, Fatima -- another Forrest trainee -- who is stylish and personable, and we ventured off to see if we could find the studio where we'll be practicing.
I feel like I'm on the right path when my journey to Forrest training brings me smack, first thing, into artistic opportunity: my intention for this summer is to concentrate on art and become involved in artistic communities. I have found that I need both artistic expression and yoga practice in my life to maintain my peace of mind. In the first week here I'll have found both.
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
Monday, March 01, 2010
This poem, one of my mom's favourites, was on my fridge for a long time when I was a kid. She'd ripped it out of an outdated university textbook anthology of hers. On the side of the page facing it, was an image of autumn birch trees with blue sky peeking between them. I read it every day, and it is one of two poems I can still dictate on command.
A Vagabond Song (Bliss Carman)
There is something in the autumn that is native to my blood --
Touch of manner, hint of mood;
And my heart is like a rhyme,
With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time.
The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry
Of bugles going by.
And my lonely spirit thrills
To see the frosty asters like a smoke upon the hills.
There is something in October sets the gypsy blood astir;
We must rise and follow her,
When from every hill of flame
She calls and calls each vagabond by name.
(Obviously) I took my blog name from this poem. I often feel vagabondish. I don't like to stay in one place; I feel pulled by seasons. Not necessarily to go somewhere new -- though sometimes to go somewhere new -- but always emotionally. Seasons pull me back to previous selves, or into new phases where I do or do not want a partner, or I do or do not want to be an academic, or I want to throw away all my posessions or I want to gather new ones and decorate myself differently.
Autumn gives me spiritual stir. Asters are flowers, but that line gives me images of the grey branchy trees on Mount McKay driving out to Vanderwees farm to pick a pumpkin near the end of October. They look like smoke upon the hills (and I feel more spiritually moved by trees than flowers). The deep quiet and day-brightness, night-blueness, and metallic smell of winter stir me. Especially the quiet. The process of spring-into-summer winds me up like a spring, cranking my smile wide, and puts me into adventure mode. I think it's supposed to be passe in poetry to be overly moved by nature (it's a projected romantic construct etc. etc.) but that doesn't bother me. I think it's real and amazing that the body moves in tandem with the seasons, feeling them, and that the seasons can massage the mind and body in such ways as to effect growth and change. I like the idea of being called by October.
Anyway, I arrived in Seattle yesterday, after almost a whole year of living in the same city, which hasn't happened for the last 5 years. I remember why I like to move around so much. This is the call of vagabondism, the tactile experience of expansion of self: I am feeling boundless gratitude for the thousand small challenges of a new city, many fears. Because everything is new and uncomfortable, every step is an expansion out of fear and unknowing into knowing and triumph. About to go into training, I feel that I am about to spend a whole month in a perpetual state of high (performance) anxiety. This is my vagabond song.
A Vagabond Song (Bliss Carman)
There is something in the autumn that is native to my blood --
Touch of manner, hint of mood;
And my heart is like a rhyme,
With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time.
The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry
Of bugles going by.
And my lonely spirit thrills
To see the frosty asters like a smoke upon the hills.
There is something in October sets the gypsy blood astir;
We must rise and follow her,
When from every hill of flame
She calls and calls each vagabond by name.
(Obviously) I took my blog name from this poem. I often feel vagabondish. I don't like to stay in one place; I feel pulled by seasons. Not necessarily to go somewhere new -- though sometimes to go somewhere new -- but always emotionally. Seasons pull me back to previous selves, or into new phases where I do or do not want a partner, or I do or do not want to be an academic, or I want to throw away all my posessions or I want to gather new ones and decorate myself differently.
Autumn gives me spiritual stir. Asters are flowers, but that line gives me images of the grey branchy trees on Mount McKay driving out to Vanderwees farm to pick a pumpkin near the end of October. They look like smoke upon the hills (and I feel more spiritually moved by trees than flowers). The deep quiet and day-brightness, night-blueness, and metallic smell of winter stir me. Especially the quiet. The process of spring-into-summer winds me up like a spring, cranking my smile wide, and puts me into adventure mode. I think it's supposed to be passe in poetry to be overly moved by nature (it's a projected romantic construct etc. etc.) but that doesn't bother me. I think it's real and amazing that the body moves in tandem with the seasons, feeling them, and that the seasons can massage the mind and body in such ways as to effect growth and change. I like the idea of being called by October.
Anyway, I arrived in Seattle yesterday, after almost a whole year of living in the same city, which hasn't happened for the last 5 years. I remember why I like to move around so much. This is the call of vagabondism, the tactile experience of expansion of self: I am feeling boundless gratitude for the thousand small challenges of a new city, many fears. Because everything is new and uncomfortable, every step is an expansion out of fear and unknowing into knowing and triumph. About to go into training, I feel that I am about to spend a whole month in a perpetual state of high (performance) anxiety. This is my vagabond song.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Hello, internet.
In one week to the day I set out to Seattle to do the amazing Ana Forrest's 200-hour yoga teacher training. This blog is about sharing that journey with YOU.
I learned about Ana Forrest only this summer. I began the summer with a 10-day Vipassana meditation retreat, in Merrit, BC, and the intention of making it a summer of spiritual growth. I have found that summer is a fruitful time to dedicate to a personal intention, probably partly because I've been a student for so long that my rest-of-the-year is always swamped, and my summers correspondingly empty -- but I think also that summer is in and of itself a season with an obvious beginning and end, and abundant energy, in which experiences can be felt perhaps more concretely over time than at other times of year. I expected that after the retreat I would find a job slinging coffee and spend a lot of time in sitting meditation. Instead, the recession hit, and I found Unity Yoga. Though Vancouver is full of wonderful studios, each with their own best features, I haven't found anywhere that more effectively fosters community among its practitioners and teachers than Unity. Practicing asana with others is an emotionally, spiritually, and physically intimate act, and every time I leave a class at Unity, I feel like I know and love the people I have just practiced with in a deeper and more special way than I have felt anywhere else. Especially since there is always tea to share while chatting (and embracing) in the tea room after. Some of the most important and influential friendships in my life right now have started there.
Once I had resigned myself to funemployment and dedicated myself to taking every one of Reno's classes I could, our mutual friend and One Love yogi Joe invited me to come share a personal practice, along with, Reno, Charlie, and Andria and Tyler, (who cannot be captured by a mere web page, and must be experienced in real life only). It was a style I'd never heard of: Forrest. Soon we were charging into a 40-day sunrise sadhana, and I experienced any and all of unreal blissed-outedness, exhaustion, superhuman strength (or it felt like it anyway), surprising leaps and bounds in the development of my practice, injury when I got sloppy with my Ashtanga, always-educational confrontations with ego, and a lot of emotional turmoil. Summer of spiritual growth, indeed. Charlie signed up for Ana's October training in Denver, and then I heard about the Seattle training.
A little seed of an idea kept popping up, but I didn't feel physically ready, or like I had enough yoga street cred, you could call it, to teach; I expected to be finished school and back in my hometown by March, where Seattle would not be a feasible distance away. I also, still funemployed, didn't think I'd be able to afford it. I asked Shakti to let me know when registration opened, and I watched the date come and go. I went back to school, Charlie went to training, Joe moved all over the world, Reno moved to Whistler (but then he came back, lucky for me!), Andria went traveling. I didn't finish my thesis. It took until the end of January for me to answer the nag at the back of my head and make a coffee date with Charlie to talk about how his training was, but one day things fell into place. We had coffee, I asked about training, and when I said "I ask because I was thinking about taking the March training . . ." Charlie said something that can be roughly paraphrased as, "YES! I'M SO EXCITED! DO IT! HOW CAN I MAKE IT HAPPEN! WHAT DO YOU NEED TO KNOW! ASK ME ANYTHING! I'LL DRIVE YOU THERE! DO YOU NEED MONEY? HERE'S FIVE BUCKS!" He said as soon as the words left my mouth he could see it unfolding in front of him -- most importantly, he gave me his sincere vote of assurance that, yes, I could do it. It was a weird day. A lot of things that has been out of focus sharpened up quick. Within ten days I had applied, registered, paid, informed my thesis advisor that I was going to finish by March, found a second reader, and written a draft. My life came into focus, and I found focus. I'm still working on the paper, and I might not be able to defend before I leave, but here I am, a week from training, and my second draft nearly done. In the spirit of focus... I'm going to get back to it, justifying this blog entry as a good way of getting today's writing flow going and pumping up my motivation, and hand it in tomorrow. This is the beginning!
XO
MM
In one week to the day I set out to Seattle to do the amazing Ana Forrest's 200-hour yoga teacher training. This blog is about sharing that journey with YOU.
I learned about Ana Forrest only this summer. I began the summer with a 10-day Vipassana meditation retreat, in Merrit, BC, and the intention of making it a summer of spiritual growth. I have found that summer is a fruitful time to dedicate to a personal intention, probably partly because I've been a student for so long that my rest-of-the-year is always swamped, and my summers correspondingly empty -- but I think also that summer is in and of itself a season with an obvious beginning and end, and abundant energy, in which experiences can be felt perhaps more concretely over time than at other times of year. I expected that after the retreat I would find a job slinging coffee and spend a lot of time in sitting meditation. Instead, the recession hit, and I found Unity Yoga. Though Vancouver is full of wonderful studios, each with their own best features, I haven't found anywhere that more effectively fosters community among its practitioners and teachers than Unity. Practicing asana with others is an emotionally, spiritually, and physically intimate act, and every time I leave a class at Unity, I feel like I know and love the people I have just practiced with in a deeper and more special way than I have felt anywhere else. Especially since there is always tea to share while chatting (and embracing) in the tea room after. Some of the most important and influential friendships in my life right now have started there.
Once I had resigned myself to funemployment and dedicated myself to taking every one of Reno's classes I could, our mutual friend and One Love yogi Joe invited me to come share a personal practice, along with, Reno, Charlie, and Andria and Tyler, (who cannot be captured by a mere web page, and must be experienced in real life only). It was a style I'd never heard of: Forrest. Soon we were charging into a 40-day sunrise sadhana, and I experienced any and all of unreal blissed-outedness, exhaustion, superhuman strength (or it felt like it anyway), surprising leaps and bounds in the development of my practice, injury when I got sloppy with my Ashtanga, always-educational confrontations with ego, and a lot of emotional turmoil. Summer of spiritual growth, indeed. Charlie signed up for Ana's October training in Denver, and then I heard about the Seattle training.
A little seed of an idea kept popping up, but I didn't feel physically ready, or like I had enough yoga street cred, you could call it, to teach; I expected to be finished school and back in my hometown by March, where Seattle would not be a feasible distance away. I also, still funemployed, didn't think I'd be able to afford it. I asked Shakti to let me know when registration opened, and I watched the date come and go. I went back to school, Charlie went to training, Joe moved all over the world, Reno moved to Whistler (but then he came back, lucky for me!), Andria went traveling. I didn't finish my thesis. It took until the end of January for me to answer the nag at the back of my head and make a coffee date with Charlie to talk about how his training was, but one day things fell into place. We had coffee, I asked about training, and when I said "I ask because I was thinking about taking the March training . . ." Charlie said something that can be roughly paraphrased as, "YES! I'M SO EXCITED! DO IT! HOW CAN I MAKE IT HAPPEN! WHAT DO YOU NEED TO KNOW! ASK ME ANYTHING! I'LL DRIVE YOU THERE! DO YOU NEED MONEY? HERE'S FIVE BUCKS!" He said as soon as the words left my mouth he could see it unfolding in front of him -- most importantly, he gave me his sincere vote of assurance that, yes, I could do it. It was a weird day. A lot of things that has been out of focus sharpened up quick. Within ten days I had applied, registered, paid, informed my thesis advisor that I was going to finish by March, found a second reader, and written a draft. My life came into focus, and I found focus. I'm still working on the paper, and I might not be able to defend before I leave, but here I am, a week from training, and my second draft nearly done. In the spirit of focus... I'm going to get back to it, justifying this blog entry as a good way of getting today's writing flow going and pumping up my motivation, and hand it in tomorrow. This is the beginning!
XO
MM