The World Which is Made of Our Love for Emptiness

Today's class was hard. Really hard. I almost threw up. I almost passed out. There is always a point in a hot yoga class when I think to myself, "This is insane. Why am I doing this?" I always walk out of the studio with a smile on my face though. The good news is that I definitely sweated the loneliness right on out of my body. I feel better. Today's class was taught by my friend, Liz Workman. She's awesome. She always has some great/interesting theme or focus or story that strings throughout her classes. This time it was whirling dervishes and Rumi. She read this poem at the end of class:


This World Which Is Made of Our Love for Emptiness

Praise to the emptiness that blanks out existence. Existence:
This place made from our love for that emptiness!

Yet somehow comes emptiness,
this existence goes.

Praise to that happening, over and over!
For years I pulled my own existence out of emptiness.

Then one swoop, one swing of the arm,
that work is over.

Free of who I was, free of presence, free of dangerous fear, hope,
free of mountainous wanting.

The here-and-now mountain is a tiny piece of a piece of straw
blown off into emptiness.

These words I'm saying so much begin to lose meaning:
Existence, emptiness, mountain, straw:

Words and what they try to say swept
out the window, down the slant of the roof.

-Rumi

On a less serious note....Liz suggested that we drink coconut water after class. She explained that we had just sweat so much that we needed to drink something more than just plain water. I went to the Turnip Truck and got a coconut water. People rave about the stuff all the time. This was my second time trying it, and I had the same reaction. I just plain don't like the taste of it. I drank it anyway, but it was not easy. Is there anything else besides coconut water that has the same health benefits?

Thirth of July Funk

This is a photo I took the morning of my 27th birthday. I had just moved back to Nashville a few weeks before, and I was struggling to find a location and the funding to open The Green Wagon. I had returned to a familiar place, but I had changed, and the city just didn't seem to fit me the same way anymore. Several close friends had moved away while I was in Arizona, so I was surrounded by locations and people I knew, but hadn't yet established a strong friendship with anyone in the general vicinity of Davidson County. I remember feeling pretty lonely that morning and pretty unsure of what my future was going to look like....a lot like this morning. Hmmmm. If I could jump into the photo, sit down at that table, there are so many things I wish I could tell this version of myself.

Last night I just sat through the uncomfortable loneliness. I thought I might wake up and feel better, but it is still there. I think I'm going to head over to a hot yoga class at Kali Yuga. The class I took on Friday was a restorative yoga class, and I loved it. I'm not the biggest fan of hot yoga, but I feel like I need to do something, and that is the class they are offering this morning, so maybe that is the class I need today. I'm okay letting myself feel sad and in a funk for part of a day. I think it is an important part of healing, but I'm not about to let this last multiple days. I'm going to go sweat it out!

Currency

I promised I would be really honest and open in this blog...there isn't much of a point in writing it if I'm not. While driving to work today, I was thinking about how there are only a few things that really hold value....honesty and forgiveness are right at the top of the list. I think love is an obvious choice, but people call a lot of different things "love," so I'm not sure it is all that hard to find or give or exchange some version or form of it. I'm almost thinking of these abstract words as concrete currencies. True honesty and forgiveness are much harder to come by & are valuable currency that can be exchanged, given and received. I've always made it a point to be a very honest person, but I've had a lot of deception pass through in my life in the past 5 years or so....in some cases in extreme forms. I'm trying to figure out what that is all about, why those patterns exist & how I might change them and start receiving more honesty without becoming distrusting or skeptical.

Of course, I'd like for every post to be only empowering, uplifting, positive, but that would only be about 9/10ths of the truth. Most days I'm really happy and positive about life. Today I got home from work, took a nap, and woke up feeling really really lonely. At the same time, I don't feel motivated to go out and spend time with people either. I think there is something to be said for not avoiding nights like this....sometimes you have to just sit through them and be uncomfortable. Maybe it is in those moments when real growth is taking place? I don't know. I'm just trying to be gentle with myself.

(Image above is a photo I took on my friend's boat about a month ago.)

Heck Yes!

Go here to see more awesome prints by this artist.

There is nothing that cannot happen....

As of January, the pace of my life drastically changed. I sold the East Nashville Green Wagon as a franchise. After a minor detour, due to an unhappy appendix in January, I started thinking about what direction I wanted to take the business in next. I have been working with several people in other states on opening their own Green Wagon locations in their communities, but I've also been feeling this pull towards a more global project. I've spent the past four years helping educate, empower, and provide opportunities for individuals to make environmentally-responsible choices in their daily lives in Tucson and then Nashville. The little decisions people make really do add up. I know that, and I don't ever want to downplay that, but guess I started feeling like I've been so focused on the micro-level....talking to people about what goes in their recycling bin, water conservation, the benefits of using an all natural laundry detergent, the benefits of buying in bulk, buying local, driving a car that runs on alternative fuels....that it had been too long since I had zoomed out and looked at the bigger picture.

I want to see more of this planet that I'm so passionate about helping preserve. I want to find out what other individuals are doing on a grassroots level in other communities all over the world & tell their stories, struggles, triumphs. I want to spend time volunteering beside them for their causes, and really learn about the environmental issues their countries are facing. I'd love to write a book and film a lot of the project/interviews as well. Maybe the film could be used for a documentary at some point? I'm actually a fairly shy person, but not when it comes to reaching towards something I want to achieve. No one is going to knock on my front door & say, "Here is a list of environmentalists to go talk to and good quality video equipment. Oh, and here is a paid plane ticket around the world and money for food. Have fun!" I think amazing opportunities definitely involve luck and grace, but it is mainly about putting yourself in the path of an opportunity.

Even though being able to take a trip around the world to work on this project sounds like the most logistically and financially impossible thing to have happen in my life right now, it definitely isn't going to happen if I don't try. So, about a week ago, I started digging online and finding websites that had links to different environmental groups around the world. I started sending out dozens of emails, asking people if they would be interested in allowing me into their lives and communities as a part of the project. I didn't know if I would hear anything back at all. Days passed & nothing. Then the emails started slowly filtering in. So far, I have some very excited new friends in the UK, South Africa & Sri Lanka who are asking how quickly can I get there to document their efforts. I have NO idea how I will come up with the money to make any of this happen, but I feel like it has at least been set in motion now. It isn't just a thought in my brain anymore. It is taking form.

(Image above is from this etsy shop. I'm kind of obsessed with several of their prints: http://www.etsy.com/listing/59974146/print-there-is-nothing-that-cannot)

Time management issues-ish...

I grew up in a house where we were always late to everything. I try really hard to not be late. I don't always leave myself enough time to get somewhere. It isn't THAT bad...I've known people who get in the shower at the time they are supposed to be arriving somewhere. If I'm not right on time, I'm usually running an average of 5-10 min late. It still stresses me out beyond a healthy point though, and is something I would like to work on.

Yesterday, I got ready to leave for yoga class and one of my rescue dogs, Sophia, had gotten sick on the floor. She got spayed yesterday, and is recovering from surgery. I cleaned that up, made sure she was okay, and hopped in my car. Instantly, I started worrying I wouldn't make it to the yoga studio in time. Of course, I hit every single red light on the way. Every one.

I caught myself clenching my teeth, gripping the steering wheel, anxiously scanning the radio stations. That simple drive across town became a challenging exercise in controlling my stress levels. Finally, I pulled up at the yoga studio ten minutes after class was supposed to start. I grabbed the door knob, and it was locked, but a woman inside was walking from the bathroom back into the yoga room and saw me. She walked over and unlocked the door for me!

I slipped into the room and quickly jumped into the pose they were in at that point. There were only three other people there. After the first pose, I realized I needed a blanket and some blocks from the prop shelves across the room. On my way back to my mat, I looked over and noticed that on the mat next to me was a poet I haven't seen in a while, who has been studying in Vanderbilt's MFA program!

The whole 90 minutes, I was just so grateful to be there and to have made it to the class. The instructor said several things that I felt like I really needed to hear....mostly, she talked about the three steps of yoga:

1. set up a form/pose

2. fill it with breath/energy

3. witness what happens without ego

The third step is a challenge for me right now....to not look down in a pose and be mad at myself for the shape of my body or frustrated that there are certain poses I can't do as well as I used to. It was good to have her there to remind me to release self judgement in that room, but I realized I need to carry those three steps into pretty much everything that happens outside of that room also.

(The image above is a sign I saw while walking with a friend in Tucson one night. I didn't know what it meant at the time. I took this picture so I could look it up later. It is the Latin phrase of "Dare to know.")

Unexpected call...

Right in the middle of writing the first post for this blog yesterday, my house phone rang. It wasn't a number I recognized. The credit card companies have been calling me more than anyone else lately, so I normally don't answer if I don't know the number. I did answer though, and on the other end of the line was a sweet woman I don't know, but I'm pretty sure we're going to end up being great friends. We have a mutual friend, and this mutual friend knew we were going through similar things right now, and decided to connect us. The fact that she took the time out of her busy day and her own life struggles...she owns TWO small businesses in town (I can't even imagine)...well, that was just amazing. Within the first 30 seconds, I found myself being more open with her than I have probably ever been with a complete stranger....heck, with some friends I've known for years. From what I can tell so far, we're very similar, and it feels good to have a strong, positive female friend who is gracefully (in the midst of a very ungraceful situation) moving forward in her life. We're going to get together for coffee or lunch soon. I just felt like sitting down to start writing opened the door for goodness to start flooding in.

(The image above is a photo I took of the sidewalk in my neighborhood in Tucson. I walked past it daily on my dog walking loop.)