Back in the late eighties,
BKS Iyengar came to America. He was to teach for two weeks in San Diego, California. I was teaching several Yoga classes a week and used his book Light on Yoga as the source for my class material. So, to go, and learn from the man who had been declared Master at the age of 24! Was a must!
Yoga was a profound tool I discovered through my first dance teacher in High School. Back in those days I did Yoga daily. Sometimes several times a day. I also practiced regular Chi kung and I still had some Ballet classes. But teaching was who I was. I had a great joy for what I did and a beautiful circle of friends.
In those days, I worked in a Nursing Home through the night and taught my classes daytime and evening. On the walk home from work, I would go through a golf course. Now I stuck to the edges, because I know those of you out there who love your golf would hate to hear that someone was hugging trees there!I taught most of my classes in a studio that I shared with a man who taught Pa Kua chuan and Tai chi chuan. I had been studying Tai Chi chuan with Mr Utt for more than 5 years. My Instructor had just started teaching us the 5 Animal Frolic. This was considered a Chi Kung exercise and had a series of motions based on each animal [Bear, Tiger, Deer, Monkey & Crane] and then a chi kung form that lasted about 30 minutes. From doing this I discovered that I felt aligned with a deer spirit. So, on those precious quiet mornings, I would prance along the edge of the golf course imitating a deer.
To be honest, it was kinda fun! I loved the movements and there was that little thrill of, what if someone sees me? How would I explain it?
Going to the San Diego Iyengar Yoga conference seemed quite an impossible task, but I had a joy filled and hopeful heart. I had to save up money to fly to California and pay for the course, I also needed to request the time off work. I had to inform my students that I wouldn't be available to teach for a week, too. But, even with all these very adult things I had to arrange for myself, it all fell in place. I flew out to San Diego, I took the bus to the city and found the Youth Hostile and got my room. I loved California. The Sun was up before six in the morning, my room had a window that opened out over the roof of the building. So I went out a did a little warm up before seeking the conference center where the seminar was taking place. I was so excited, I could have floated on air!
In those days, I practiced daily meditation. I discovered a man who recorded meditation series and mystical lectures on tapes and I owned several of his programs. Meditation was a great window into a world I believed was more important the one I walk through.
I remember his discussion on spirits and ghosts. He said that Earthbound spirits could often be found at Bars. They would often wait for the opening when one unsuspecting soul would lose enough control for them to take over! {I had often thought the alcoholic's excuse, of amnesia quite lame, but there might be something more to it}
I also remember a meditation that took you through the veil of life and death. The first time I listened to this tape, I had one of those visions, that was crystal clear. It was set in the 1800's and a man was saddling and mounting his horse to leave for war. There were three characters, the man, the horse and his wife. I wasn't totally clear on if I was the man, the horse, or the wife! However, the clarity of it was so sharp and strong that I have never forgotten it. Not all meditation was like that for me. Mostly I am aware that I am controlling what I see and create in my mind.
Are you getting a picture of how I liked to always be learning and growing, as a Yogini and as a spiritual being? I was always curious about what is beyond our comprehension, spiritual studies and our purpose in this existence.
Once a week I treated myself to a Taco Salad from Taco Bell. I would rent videos from the Library and didn't watch regular TV, or read newspapers. I started collecting crystals back then. I would just love the color or shape and buy them. I had a little table, it was only 14" in length and width. Also, I would hang my prisms in the window so they would create rainbows. It was be nearly two decades before I would find out that there were ways to use crystals to facilitate healing.
During one of my daily meditation practices, I felt the presence of my Grandmother. We always called her Granny. I was in that lovely between full consciousness and light sleep state and I could just feel her. When I was very young she was really more like a mother to me. We had been very close for a great number of years. After my parents separated, she came one Saturday to take me for our day out together. As we headed off, she started talking about when she died.
Actually, she was trying to inform me that I would have some money when she passed. I started to cry really hard, I didn't want her money, I loved her. I am sure she knows now, but the last six months before she passed I visited her briefly. I was there with my then steady boyfriend, you know as Symbol. I remember he had nothing nice to say about my Granny. I don't remember really taking it in, I also didn't tell him off for talking about the woman who was there for me when no one else could be. {Which now, I wish I had told him, she meant everything to me and if he couldn't say anything nice, he could walk back to the college!} I wonder if she was worried about me then. Because it couldn't have been the way she would have hoped I turn out. I think that might have been the summer Symbol convinced me to shave my head. {That didn't go over well anywhere!}
I remember the week after she passed, I received a letter from her, she had sent me a $10 bill in the post. Just because she wanted to help me make ends meet. I think the last time we spoke I was shockingly rude to her. So, there was something I wanted to make sure she knew . . .
So this afternoon was a good year after she had passed. Although I didn't see her face I just felt her love and I felt as if she was saying good bye. I also felt as if I got the chance to hug her one last time and say I love you. I know she had really wanted to see me get married. I am so glad that it was never on the cards that she see me marry Symbol!
At that time, a normal day for me would be to get up and exercise. I had a cat in those days which I would take care of. I would read or make something. I used to love these Liquid Vinyl tubes, you could make t-shirts with and sometimes a Christmas sweatshirt. If I was working on a project like that it would take up the entire front room. These projects could keep me up until the wee hours of the night.
If I didn't have a project, I would often put on music and dance. That was pretty typical routine for me.
These were the years between Symbol and my X Husband. During this time my Father often expressed his concern that I was anorexic. As if! I was never that skinny! But, more to the point, was my mental state after that relationship. I often made these self depreciating remarks about my size that were probably learned. I am sure, some of these put downs were truly mine:- some were learned from my mother & sister, some from my dancer friends and some from that relationship. But I was in that category that all fitness coaches and trainers should watch out for, that being the person in the gym all the time. So, I can own the fact that I get quite obsessed about finishing a job. But I also know, that if one wants to achieve exceptionable skills, you have to be willing to put in the effort.
I have had many profound realizations in these six years since I left my Husband.
1) that by accepting his abuse I also became party to some lies he told.
2) that by not speaking up or standing up for myself, I allowed a wedge to be built between myself and those that I held dear.
3) that in the years since I left him, I have rediscovered the woman I was when we met. I am recognizing that he shamed who I was, and yet that woman, was who he was attracted too!
I have had to accept, that perhaps my believing in deer spirits and angels are considered thoughts of a teenage girl. But I prefer them to the perspective he tried to teach me. That being a world of fear, deception and punishment.
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