Scientific Ink

Tag: Mind-body

  • A decade in my meditation community (gratitude #23)

    I just realized that this is my 10th year in the local Siddha Yoga Meditation community. At the time I first went, it was about a block and half from my apartment, but it took me several months to get there. I don’t know the date of my first visit, though it would have been around this time in 1998. That was a hard year for me: my father died at the end of April that year, and I was also pushing myself to finish a dissertation in biology but my passion for academics was depleted.

    I came with the hard questions in mind: how to be at peace with my father’s life and death (lived on his own terms, not in agreement with mine), how to be still, how to be present, how to let go of my expectations and be open to life as it really is.

    I had an intuition that meditation would help. But sitting in meditation was excruciating. Moments passed like hours, my body ached and my mind worried and fretted. I came to the Siddha Yoga Meditation Center of Ann Arbor at the invitation of a friend, after a frustrating meditation class elsewhere. I came with the intention of learning to meditate, but my heart got caught up in chanting. Good thing, too, because it took me several years of chanting to be able to sit well for meditation. I suppose I had to clear my system, or else get comfortable, or maybe just grow into it. Hard to say. But now, after 10 years, I can see all that I have received from Siddha Yoga.

    What a blessing the center, the community, the teachings, shared chanting, shared meditation, the friendships, and the grace of the guru have been for me.

    Over the last 10 years, I have become:

    • more gentle with myself,
    • more thoughtful and grateful,
    • more able to receive,
    • more connected to others and more open to connection,
    • more content.

    Some of this is, perhaps, the wisdom acquired through an additional decade of living, but much of it was gained through the inspiration and teachings of the Siddha Yoga tradition and through applying the practices of chanting, meditation, and self-inquiry modeled at the center.

    The Siddha Yoga Meditation Center in Ann Arbor is at 3017 Miller Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103. It’s just west of Ann Arbor, on the NW side of M-14. We have public programs Thursday evenings 7-8:30PM and Sunday mornings 9-10:30AM (often followed by breakfast/brunch). (edited to reflect new location in 2012).

  • Rope Yoga at Vie in Ann Arbor

    Rope yoga, or Russa yog, started here in Ann Arbor. I have seen the studio on S. State Street (between Washington and Liberty) and the Ann Arbor Observer recently profiled the studio/founders. For some reason I never made it to the State Street studio, it’s one of many Ann Arbor yoga studios I have on my list but never seem to visit. This week, Vie fitness studio on S. Ashley is starting to offer classes, and I went to a free class on Tuesday night.

    Now, when I was a kid, and we had the “climb the rope” activity in gym, I was always one of the earthbound kids, watching with a mixture of awe and jealousy as some tiny, wiry kid got to the ceiling and back on the rope. Maybe it is because I’m tall (and therefore heavy), maybe it is just because I’m weak, but pull-ups, chin-ups, and any kind of rope climbing have always been something to shun for fear of embarrassment or worse.

    Still, my yoga classes at the Ann Arbor YMCA often featured “rope work”. The old Y had all sorts of pegs in the wall, and we’d essentially tie ourselves to the pegs to get different stretches than normal. For instance, downward dog when the wall (or a partner) is pulling back on my hips is an altogether different stretch. I get a little less hamstrung and a little more stretch elsewhere. So, I knew ropes + yoga = good.

    I overcame my fear and signed up for a free course. All I had to lose was a little dignity and an hour of my evening. The yoga class got me into Vie’s upstairs studio (previously I’d been in the downstairs spinning studio). They have weights and other fitness equipment upstairs, and a glassed studio with about 8 ropes hanging from anchors below the ceiling.

    Fear snuck back in as I approached the rope. It was kind of rough, and I wished I’d brought my cycling gloves. But, I started the class by hanging from the rope and stretching my side closest to it in a gentle C-shape, nice. There were some moments where I struggled to pull myself up (or push myself up), but doing Virabhadrasana III (Warrior III) using the ropes was lovely. I got the same feeling of flight that I have achieved for a moment here and there in previous attempts, but the ropes stabilized it and let me absorb it. Power! Joy! Balance! Yoga!

    So, I think I still will try to make a class at the “mother” studio on State Street, but I’m happy I tried Rope Yoga at Vie and will probably try again, I have to keep working on my core and my upper body strength, after all.

  • The value of downtime: a restorative meditation retreat (gratitude, week 10)

    My meditation center had a 1-day meditation retreat on Saturday. This is probably the most private thing I do, and in the past I’ve hesitated sharing about it. For instance, several acquaintances and colleagues asked me what I was doing this weekend, and I replied “not much” to most of them. I’m not sure where the urge to secrecy comes from. I suppose by many definitions, going into a quiet room and sitting still with several other folks for with the same intention might sound like “not much”, but I knew “not much” was such an understatement as to be an outright lie.

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  • Breathing well (gratitude, week 9)

    neti pot demo 2, originally uploaded by mybloodyself.

    A few years ago, I had a subscription to a yoga magazine which included articles about yoga asanas, living your yoga off the mat, explanations of yoga scriptures like Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, and recipes. I liked the magazine. Interspersed with stuff I liked were a few ads and stories about neti pots. They featured beautiful pictures of little ceramic pots, shaped like teapots, that they recommended we use to pour water through our nostrils to clean out the sinuses. I thought they were completely and totally nuts.

    I’m someone who “never” gets sick. I might get some sniffles now and then, or feel a bit achey, but I almost never miss work for illness. Not this year.  In the past 2 months, I’ve missed 4 days of work in 3 different weeks due to illness. This last bout was first a very sore throat, followed by several days of getting better, and then I got knocked over by a sinus infection that also wanted the skin on my face.

    I called the doctor on Monday, and got an appointment for Thursday morning. I imagined I’d be better by then, and anticipated cancelling it. While I was back at work on Wednesday, I wasn’t better enough. I was constantly and unproductively honking into mountains of tissues. The right side of my face seemed completely stuffed with something that didn’t budge. At the advice of my sister, I’d taken to snorting warm saltwater. It was kind of gross drawing it through my nose and spitting it out, but I was desperate. The warmth and the moisture gave me at least a temporary relief. I didn’t want to go anywhere without my bowl, container of salt, and towel.

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  • Mad because I was sick? Or sick because I was mad?

    So, last week I hit the wall. After standup on Thursday, I paced around the office, feeling my face get red, feeling angry, frustrated, and near tears. I didn’t want anyone to notice this, so I grabbed my coat and stormed around the streets of downtown Ann Arbor until the cold air, the exercise, and the distance braced me enough I could face my colleagues.

    While I was stomping around, I wondered what the heck had killed my composure. Sure there was stuff going on, but there’s always stuff going on. I was cranky at standup, and feeling slightly embarrassed for having been snappy, and mostly feeling overwhelmed. The only answer I could come up with was to buckle down and get stuff done. So, I worked hard that day, late in part to make up for my 1/2 hour stomp around town, but also to complete the set of “urgent” tasks. I had lots scheduled for Friday, and I squeezed in a breakfast meeting with a former colleague, knowing I was pushing it, but trying anyway. Friday was more fun than Thursday, but then on Saturday I was a complete dial tone.

    After a pretty relaxing weekend, I woke up today (Monday) actually sick, as opposed to wrung out, headachey, and cranky. Now I think I have an idea of why I was so brittle last week, just didn’t have the energy to maintain my equilibrium. Of course, there’s the alternate explanation, that my emotional state invited in the illness. I’m thinking that since I had to work to figure out why I was so mad, that it is the former. But who knows.

    So, trying to learn something from this:

    • when stressed, prioritize and underschedule! Yes, I could fit in that last minute breakfast meeting, but that doesn’t mean it was a good idea.
    • better to take care of myself by listening to my mood and my body, rather than soldiering on, bullying myself through whatever it is.

  • Mind-eraser

    Sometimes my body, especially my left knee, which I injured in college playing rugby, feels as if someone took me apart at the joints and put me back together wrong, twisted. Sometimes a massage therapist puts me back together perfectly. And sometimes a massage sends me to another planet.

    I had one of those mind-eraser massages tonight, the kind where I’m out cold on the table, and when it ends I have to work to recall how to use my body to get up and dress, and when conversation is even more of a strain than usual, and when I’m glad I’ve pre-written the check so I don’t have to remember how to use a pen or how to spell my name, and when it takes some extra concentration to walk out of the room and to find my way home. When I feel absolutely still and quiet and gentle and I want to make the stillness last.

    Kelly Clark – Two Hands for Massage
    Ann Arbor, MI 48103
    tel: 734.623.8551