intellectual properties

yoga lessons: balancing tensions

the worst thing you can do for your own karma is to judge someone or an action as right or wrong.  while we may judge things as good or bad, karma doesn’t. It’s a simple case of like gets like, the ultimate balancing act, nothing more, nothing less.

 .::.

the bow and arrow analogy: you need the right amount of tension in the bow for the arrow to hit the mark. not too light. not too hard. find that balance.

 .::.

i generally don’t do hot yoga.  tonight i went to yoga with my friend Faern and sweat more than i have since new york in july. at first i hated it, being all slippery.  but after a while i started to enjoy it. maybe not the slippery, but the feeling of sweat. out of every pore.  in the final savasana, thinking of these two ideas above, i decided to try to change thinking on a few things for myself, things i’ve maybe been holding onto or feeling attached to, tense over, and i left feeling lighter, and not just from all the lost water weight.

You know her life was saved by rock and roll

things have been….interesting.

here is my bitch list:

–rainy season has begun. as a bike commuter, this makes my days way less fun.

–it took 9 days to get my smartphone replaced after NYE (long boring customer service story) and the new one keeps doing all kinds of weird things that i hate

–my fitbit broke. again. there is a warranty but i might as well upgrade.  so far fitbit is costing me $99/a year in replacement costs, but i’m addicted to it so i still recommend it.

–work things i can’t talk about publicly are at maximum stress

–life thing with a deadline i haven’t finished is suffering major procrastination and mind-blankage and ∴ stress

–stress is causing unfavorable physical conditions

–blahblahblah whole foods parking lot

don’t get me wrong. my life is wonderful and full of wonderful things, like redwood hikes and purring cats and good wine and yoga and amazing love.  that doesn’t mean it’s perfect. but yeah, #1stworldproblems and i do try to keep perspective but i can’t even tell what news isn’t real any more so it’s pretty hard.

ANYWAY, i was driving to work this morning cuz it’s raining and it’s friday and at home i’d been listening to this great DJ The Count on KALX who reminds me a lot of my friend Finnius and plays David Bowie but whatever he was playing when i first got in the car  was a bit too something for the rainy I-80 east moment and so i switched it over to  107.7, as um….7 times out of 10? they are playing some some rock and roll i really like. (I HATE VAN HALEN, ALL FORMS.) i didn’t know the song playing but it jammed on for 2 or 3 minutes (of my 7 minute drive) and i got really into it, and started thinking about how much better i suddenly felt.  like, rock and roll in the morning really does make me feel so much better. A LOT. AURAL MEDICINE.  and then i was like this is GOOD and seems like something i should know.  what song is this? and then the vocals kicked in and i realized it was Working Man (Rush, 1974, definitive). (i used to hate Rush almost as much as Van Halen but i’ve come around.) do they play that every Friday morning? because they should.

epinephrine.

the emotional spectrum between frantic anxiety and welcome anticipation is interesting.

look mom no hands

today is almost t-shirt weather, except that the air off the pacific is cold.

do you ever have those moments where you see yourself, unexpectedly, from 20 feet away, like watching a few split seconds of scene from the movie of your actual life?

do you ever feel unsafe with yourself? do you look up sometimes and realize how vulnerable you are? through either the reality of mortal life, or because you’ve lead yourself into a specific situation that is maybe not ok?

people are on guard here, a strange distrust in the fact that we are all only human. it should be safe to be outside in broad daylight on a sunny afternoon. but it’s not. we’re not safe from each other if we are not safe from ourselves.

as i say this i ride down city streets with no hands, my fingers laced behind my back.

snippets

i finally opened my suitcase last night, filled with a mix of sandy bathing suits and smokey winter layers, because i figured i should find my own toothbrush and stop using jay’s. it was thursday. january 5th. taking bets on how long all that laundry sits there. this morning i also took a full shower with all the soaps and stuff for the first time this year.  and after i toweled off  i noticed that my skin was DRY.  like, it looks like i’m molting dry.  this is why i don’t like to shower unless necessary.  it’s not good for the hair and skin.

.::.

later i had a long chat with an old dear friend, and then took a walk through these slanted january sunrays. as i walked and thought of him i imagined having the power to conjure a certain subset of dearly beloved humans to appear around a campfire late one warm summer night with bottles of whiskey and wine, where slowly they would recognize their reflections in one another and melt like pools of multicolored wax into eachothers lives, and i would sit and bask in the warm glow of unbelievable good fortune and love.

snippets

i think the second best thing that happened all weekend was that Rocket Queen –>Devil Inside segue on the iPod yesterday.  man, that was really what i needed right then.

the first best thing that happened was this.

why yes, i am wearing a black turtleneck under a black turtleneck. it’s November. i’m cold.

now that there’s the first new season of Beavis and Butthead in 14 years (and they barely changed a THING, god i love it), i keep laughing like Butthead to myself in my head. heh heh.  <—dork

and i think you might be astonished at how many dollars worth of organic fuyu persimmons i’ve eaten so far this season. as soon as they go away i’ll be saving a lot of money.

carry on.

it’s loud

i shared this on gReader a while ago but i think it deserves more press.
.::.explodingdog.::.

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QOTD

“Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing.”

–Sylvia Plath

 

.(related).

losing my religion

i said to myself:

“if what you are looking for is release, why are you holding on so tightly?”

and now: disintegration.

slip

there are some things i wonder if i should write about here and this is one of them.

i think one of the hardest things about falling in love with someone and committing yourself to them is that depending on your disposition, your internal balance of optimism vs pessimism, silently, you also simultaneously know, can see coming, what one of the worst days of your life is going to be. the day that they are gone. they day they don’t come home. whether by choice or by fate.

perhaps this is symptomatic of a latent fear of abandonment, but i think about this more than is probably healthy.

and then i think about how i will get on with out him. and if i will be ok. and it’s hard to see myself as being ok. i am almost 35 years old but i do not know how well i can take care of myself, alone. i see myself on certain days, days when he is away, days when no one is paying attention, days when i have no where to go/no one to be, and sometimes i don’t even bother to get out of bed. like i don’t even exist. and that if left alone too long, i would disappear. dissipate. without meaning.

others days are stronger, and i realize how alive i am.  ramona puts into words something i have been feeling a lot lately:

It’s weird when you realize you’re actually doing okay. Living your life, everyday, not visibly breaking down, or even invisibly breaking down more than once a week. You’re not perfect. And I don’t mean not perfect in that faux self-deprecating way of people who didn’t make the frosting from scratch. You’re really not perfect. You’ve made some mistakes, and there was that one time. But you’re moving past that now, and by moving I mean time is moving by without any help from you whatsoever. There’s nothing you have to do to make your life go by, because that’s what it does. Go by…

…And you feel good basically, which is no small feat, but feels pretty small when you’re feeling good and realizing you need to get another hobby besides making yourself feel good.

it’s hard to balance – impossible some days – this helpless feeling of time going by and the desire to make something of yourself so you can feel good about it.