(un)Learning Anatomy

WHEW! okay, a quick game of catch-up!

Acupuncturists stick tiny needles into acupuncture points (xue), which lie on the meridians, through which Qi flows in order to influence an Organ in a person's body.

What follows is a brief discussion on the TCM anatomy: Qi, meridians, Organs.

No one English word can capture the meaning and nuances of the word Qi. Everything in the universe, organic and inorganic, past and present (and future), is both composed of and defined by its Qi. In his famous book, "The Web That Has No Weaver," Ted Kaptchuck writes, "Qi is not so much a force added to lifeless matter but the state of being of any phenomena... Qi is the pulsation of the cosmos itself." Here we see a difference between the general Darwinian belief that consciousness is the epitome of evolution; a recent development that is bestowed only to the highest evolved creatures; us. But in traditional perspectives; Indian and Chinese included, energy with intention or consciousness of some kind is the basis for the universe, the most elemental aspect in the world as we know it (rather than the atom).

One of the keys of understanding TCM is understanding that the most general interpretation of Qi is by no means the only use of the word. While everything is composed of Qi and everything is connected by Qi, it is also important to take the leap (that I dread) to separating and identifying the various Qis in order to apply the concept to the complex world of healing. The sun has its own Qi, the Earth its own, Water its own, and Wood and Metal their own Qi as well. And just as the universe is made up of these elements, the human body is composed also of these elements and so we, too, have these various Qis within us. In this context however, they are given slightly different names:

Heart Qi (Fire)

Spleen Qi (Earth)

Kidney Qi (Water)

Liver Qi (Wood)

Lung Qi (Metal)

Just as Qi refers not to an entity or a form but to an energy, so too the organ system in TCM is not so concerned with the physical anatomy, or form. This can be dumbfounding for someone grounded in a Newtonian reality, and understandably so. In TCM physiology, each organ (with capital letters) is associated with its meridian (the pathway of Qi), and so represents not just the organ but a whole aspect of human function. In contrast to the Western-scientific medical paradigm, TCM diagnoses and treats (pattern identification, or bian-zheng) based on the energy of symptoms. TCM doctors speak of deficient Spleen Qi, Excessive Kidney Yang, or Heart-Yang rising. These are diagnoses (really called patterns!). But they are also the key to treatment. If you know that your Spleen Qi is deficient, well from there, its easy, you just need to tonify your Spleen Qi, and there are acupuncture points and herbs that do just that. Contrast this with the diagnosis of "functional hypothalmic amennorhoea." I was given this diagnosis last spring, and thankfully, because I know a thing or two about the body, I could parse this out to mean "we (the men in the white coats) don't know why (the "functional" part) your hypothalmus (an endocrine gland of which we also know minuscule amounts) is not operating correctly, causing your menstruation to cease." I was told to take calcium supplements to keep from developing osteoporosis. "Gee... thanks!" Here we see how a diagnosis in the Western medical paradigm can indeed be a dead end (please excuse the pun).

This kind of diagnosis by renaming- diagnosis by translating your symptoms into a dead language (usually latin i.e. laryngitis: inflamed throat, arthritis inflamed joints, eczema; boils/eruptions), serves only to disempower the patient.

Rudolph Ballentine (it may be fair to call him my best friend at this point) writes:

"This re-labeling communicates to the patient not information or insight, but rather the message "you are not in charge of this situation." Renaming is, in effect a ritual use of words. It formalizes a specific kind of relationship between the doctor and the patient. In an almost magical way, it transforms the doctor into the knower and doer, and the patient into the more passive receiver. By pronouncing mysterious medical words, the doctor asserts his knowledge, power, and dominion. If the patient accepts the complementary role, a sort of hypnotism might ensure: "By virtue of this ritual, you are now in control, Doctor. I am a helpless and passive recipient of your powerful interventions. By using a term that is not of my world, you have removed this transaction from the realm of what is knowable to me. I will accept your recommendations unquestioningly. If I were to show doubt or reservations, you would be justified in being indignant for I would have violated this covenant that we are now agreeing upon.""

(can you see why Ballentine in my best friend?)

So next time you go to your doctor with a sore throat and he says you have pharyngitis (or laryngitis), you can tell him/her: "I know, I just told you that

Let's look back at the TCM version of diagnosis-treatment, or pattern identification. As we said, TCM doctors don't spend much time externalizing; that is, they don't try to point a finger at a single causal entity, rather they embrace the whole picture of a person, find the pattern that fits and, follow the map drawn by that pattern back into harmony. This is sort of a glimmer of the yin-yang notion that within the yang is the seed of the yin, within the yin is the seed of the yang: within illness is the seed of health. Thus, "the lines of causality are bent into circles." (Kaptchuck, 144) Chinese medicine "never leaves the realm of signs and symptoms," to seek an externalized disease entity beyond reach not only to patients but also to many physicians ("you have syndrome x, there's nothing we can do.") "During the course of [examination], the physician simultaneously collects, interprets, and organizes signs- a complex, subtle perception that leads to an understanding of the physiological (and energetic) events taking place in the patient's body." Here, however, the physiology that the Chinese physician is examining is a bit different from the physiology of the Western medical system, and the outcome is drastically different. While the Western diagnosis may or may not lead to a treatment, the TCM approach to diagnosis is inseparable from the treatment- it is the roadmap from imbalance to harmony.

Kaptchuck writes, "The "cause" ... is not treated. Instead, the physician treats the approximate pattern generated at the moment by the particular configuration of manifesting signs. There is no "diagnosis," only the patient-physician encounter and therapeutic response."

This is how "functional hypothalmic amennorhoea" becomes "Deficient Spleen Qi." But even here we lose things in translation, as what is normally translated as Spleen, encompasses digestive capacity, blood production, thoughtfulness and ability to concentrate, transformation and transportation, muscle tone, and the root of Qi. You can see how "Spleen" (even with a capital S) doesn't quite communicate that to the Western-newtonian mind, especially considering the fact that Western medicine doesn't actually give much attention to the spleen (little s). Pattern thinking also helps to connect symptoms that in Western medicine would each receive their own diagnoses, and probably their own pills to boot: we can look at my own pattern where "functional hypothalmic amennorhoea," insomnia, history of anorexia nervosa and continuing poor appetite- is included in "Deficient Spleen Qi." And all of a sudden, I can breathe, it seems manageable, and not  only that, but I am gaining tools and understanding to heal myself. What is even cooler than all of this, is the fact that at the clinic where I am shadowing a TCM doctor and acupuncturist (another post on this later because it is WAY cool) they sell acupuncture needles. They sell acupuncture needles to the patients. This means that they are essentially encouraging patients to treat themselves (and they're cheap!). This is an empowering (self-)healing paradigm with the language of diagnosis and treatment methodology to match.

(oh yeah, and after two weeks on Chinese herbs to "tonify my Spleen Qi," I am sleeping better, and have resolved my amennorhoea.)

Happy New Year (to all of you who celebrate the circumcision of Christ)!

**Look out for a post sometime soon on resonance and the acupuncture clinic!

"Wei?" and Yin-Yang Theory

I am on a massage table, face down in the little hole of the table, staring at the floor, thinking, "how in the world did all of this tension get into my body?!" At the moment when I think the massage therapist's fingers have turned into big, strong needles, I hear a vibration from his pant pocket, and the force behind those needles lessens, he pulls one hand away, and, with his phone to his ear, says, "wei?" all the while, the other hand still digging into my muscles. I am reminded of the number of times in India when my yoga instructors answered their phones during asana class, and then I am reminded of the scolding I received in the States from the owner of the yoga studio I was teaching at at the time who received a complaint from one of my students about my texting during the final relaxation portion of the asana class.

Oh, Perspective, you're so funny.
When the student who was so frustrated by the little button-pushing sounds from my phone approached me with his complaint, I tried my best to gracefully accept the criticism, apologize for the disruption it had caused in his relaxation time, and recognize my responsibility for creating the safe space to practice. Then as politely as I could I tried to articulate that the purpose of both the asana and relaxation/meditation practice is, in essence, a kind of rehearsal, cultivating the equanimity to face the challenges and distractions in the real world. Your practice is nothing if it does not help to keep you grounded and equanimous in the face of less than ideal circumstances. (This is not to excuse my rudeness in neglecting that responsibility of creating a peaceful setting for practice- though it was kind of setting the stage for the rehearsal...). I once participated in a Summer Solstice celebration in Times Square, New York, where yoga asana classes were being held throughout the day. 300 -600 yoga mats spread out in the middle of Times Square, attempting to find that inner peace and equanimity amidst all of the horn-honking, neon advertisements several stories high and the general chaos of a city. mantra, so to speak, of the event was, "anyone can find enlightenment at the top of a mountain, can you do it in the middle of Times Square?"

This is the kind of practical, or applied spirituality that really draws me in- it's a kind of challenge that expects you to remain in this world, active in a meaningful way in the chaos of interpersonal relationships, business, politics, and conflict. This kind of practice inherently places value on the physical world of form, as opposed to the ascetic renunciation of all things material, this is a practice that expects one to continue to engage in the material world, despite how challenging it might be. 

But from my experience, this perspective on yoga IS much more of a Western twist on the ancient tradition.

I've now been to six Tai-chi classes at the old zoo in Kunming with Yang laoshi (teacher). Initially, and to a great extent the class still consists much of me watching Mr. Yang and trying my best to reproduce his movements. However, every now and then, when I'm practicing the form, Yang laoshi will stop me in a particular sequence of movements, place his hands on my arms or ask me to place my hands on his arms and tell me to push while he pushes against my force. This force-to force is not exactly "against," though, it's more like redirecting my force and he and I usually end up moving in a circular motion where I am then in a position that allows Yang laoshi to either bend my arm behind my back, chop his hand into my neck or simply push me away to the side (all quite gently). Given the fact that my Chinese language skills are still super minimal, these "push-hand" experiences, as they are called, allow Yang laoshi and I to communicate in a meaningful way with very little spoken language- in fact, our bodies are communicating more directly than our minds. After being punched in the stomach or pushed to the side in push-hand, I have a much more concrete sense in my body of the applicability of these movements; WHY I'm supposed to move my arms in a figure-eight, or WHY my hips should move this way in relation to my shoulders: BECAUSE if I'm being attacked, this is the most efficient way to use my energy either in avoiding a punch, or in executing a counterattack. This energetic/spiritual movement practice is (arguably more than yoga asana is) grounded in physical reality.

The practice mostly stems from Taoism, as does Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and acupuncture; a lineage that is fairly evident in the circular and continuous motions of the Tai-chi form and in the diagnostic and treatment "protocols" (though that's not the best word for it, since it will vary according to each TCM/acupuncture practitioner and each patient). The best way I can articulate the applied Taoism is the phrase, "the dual within the non-dual," which I had heard and read prior to this experience in China, but it only really made intuitive sense to me then (as in, I had a mental inclination toward understanding the phrase) but I can now FEEL the meaning expressed within my body. When practicing the push-hand technique with Yang laoshi or the other students, the need to relax ("fansom," in Chinese) is emphasized greatly. Yang laoshi demonstrates regularly that when a body is tense, it is impossible to move in the fluid way required for the efficiency and circuitousness of the motions- in other words, unless you relax, you're going to be punched in the stomach. This is only sort of counter-intuitive. When you're faced with a situation where you may be attacked, the body's evolved response is the engagement of the autonomic nervous system- Fight or Flight (in this case, but this system is also responsible for the Feast or F**k drives, which, for this reason, can seem just as overwhelming as Fight or Flight), but practicing Tai-chi teaches the body that the best way to handle such a situation (in many cases) is by relaxing that instinct and deliberately responding as opposed to reacting (a distinction made in Buddhist practice as well as some schools of clinical psychology).

Yin-Yang theory (not YAYng, but sort of a cross between young and yawn) is a really beautiful example of how to think about this dual-whithin-the-non-dual-thing. We all know the symbol, right? 

So lets break it down, shall we? Black and white, from the perspective of the color spectrum represent the opposition of fullness and emptiness as black is the absorption of all wavelengths and white is the absence of absorption. However, you could also flip it by saying that black is the absence of reflection white is the reflection of all wavelengths. This is how Lao Tzu, the earliest Taoist sage got away with saying:
   "To be bent is to become straight.
    To be empty is to be full.
    To be worn out is to be renewed.
    To have little is to possess."
(the word "shunyata" expresses the same basic concept in the Buddhist tradition. I think it's a Sanskrit word, but I honestly can't remember. See David L. Loy's "Money, Sex, War, Karma")

This is directly at odds with the cornerstone of most the Western philosophy with Aristotle on one of it's highest pedestals. One of Aristotle's most basic rules about the nature of the universe declares, "the same thing cannot at one and the same time be and not be, or admit any other similar pair of opposites," in other words, A cannot be Not-A. Tai-chi practice flies in the face of Aristotle's "rule." The one allows the other to come into being because they are relative to each other. This is also displayed in the yin-yang symbol with the curved line separating the black and the white. The fact that it is not a straight or rigid division imparts the idea that the two are constantly in flux: always relating to, creating and consuming the other (relaxing when under attack IS the strength needed to defend or counter-attack).

Another principle of yin-yang theory is the lack of absoluteness. You cannot say that anything is absolutely yin or absolutely yang because neither one exist without the other. Something is only yin in relation to something yang. Furthermore, something that would be considered yin also has yang qualities within it. This is seen in the symbol as the little dot of white in the black section and the black dot in the white section. Within the one is the seed of the other (and within the seed of the other is the one, ad infinitum). Again using the same example: the act of relaxing, which would be considered of more yin essence, gives rise to the quick motion of evading a punch or throwing one, an action of more yang essence. Though even the yang movement of evading a punch has the aspect of self protection, which is a more yin property. Get the idea?

Now, to be fair, many of these same principles are found in yogic theory as well. The difference is in the way the principles are applied, but I certainly don't have enough experience with the Tai-chi practice to make a clearcut distinction. And so the journey keeps on keepin' on.

More soon on acupuncture and other Chinese things!

Speaking in Metaphors

Sitting on a bench across from mine in a small park outside of my apartment building is an old man. I say "hello," and "the weather is nice today," in my best Chinese, fresh from my first language lesson. He smiles, and gives me a thumbs-up.

Kunming is the largest city I've ever lived in, a hustling-bustling 4-million person population on bicycles, in buses, taxis, cars, and on foot; they share the road with seemingly equal senses of owning the pavement- I suppose that's communism in action, though the pedestrians are, granted, a bit more submissive. The buildings are tall and new, there are garbage cans and trucks that collect them, and I have both a washing machine in my apartment and a shower-head in my bathroom, not just a bucket. If you were to "dub" the city, like a movie, it would look like any stereotypical urban metropolis in the States. But the city isn't dubbed. The city speaks it's own language, the way it always has (almost), and although the scenery gives me a sort of false sense of being at home, I am really a fish out of water.

In some ways, coming to China from India was a step toward the "Western World," being a much more industrialized country, and having just bought the US's debt, China is ever-eager to do whatever it can to join the Big Boys' club of the modern, the first-world: the Western. India felt more foreign in many ways, but when I needed to communicate, I usually could, even considering how limited my Hindi is, English is more or less widespread in the situations I needed it most. This makes some sense seeing as English is one of the national languages in India, but as I was reminded recently, that's because it was a British colony. Oh, yeah- the "Western world."

China, on the other hand, had been one of the most powerful military forces among the ancient empires and has thus been one of the most enduring cultures. Yes, I could argue that that has a lot to do with how much it has integrated with other cultures through trade and conquest, and I recognize that China is chock-full of ethnic minorities, each with their own stories, who have been mostly swallowed into the generalization of "Chinese;" Tibet is the most current such story. BUT, my point is that this empire is not English-speaking, or at least not English-thinking- a contrast to what seems a prerequisite of being considered a "first world," "modern," "western" country. (Yes, even in Europe, English is hugely prevalent.) Many times when I was in India and would try to communicate in Hindi, I would get responses in English, when I would ask how to say something I was often told just to use the English word. I also noticed on a number of occasions when English was the spoken medium for communication that I was the ONLY native English speaker in the room- the only person who THINKS in English; it felt as though English was being used for my benefit and that made me uncomfortable. Why weren't we speaking in Italian, French, German, or Hindi? English was the default, and my being a native speaker and an English-thinker was a huge privilege (...or maybe a disadvantage..)- I didn't have to try so hard to understand. This frustrated me. I clung to the saying, "when in Rome, do as the Romans," and I was determined not to contribute to the colonization of the mind of which the prevalence of English is such a powerful example.

Words engraved on a plate here in Kunming. Go figure.

Here, its a whole other story. I have about a pinky-fingernail's worth of Chinese, and when I need to explain something in the market, beyond my pointing and saying "I want this," I use English. Hoping that the tone of my voice and facial expressions will be enough to communicate, the words are really just filler so that it is a more socially acceptable version of charades. The game soon becomes an unrelenting spitfire; each of us unable to understand the other, but if you can imagine this conversation as happening between the two languages themselves and the frame of mind they create and represent, instead of two individuals who speak those languages, it gets interesting.

As a primary force of socialization, language has a reciprocal relationship with the mind; having a word for something gives us the capacity to understand it, think, and talk about it, just as is often the case both in academia and in spirituality, once we have an insight into an idea, we have an irresistible urge to name it (thus the increasing popularity of many Western spiritual-seekers using terms from Indian cosmology or the vocabulary of Chinese spirituality). Each language, in this case, English and Chinese, have their own subtle and not-so-subtle political, spiritual, cosmological, and social implications imbedded within. The experience of the spitfire of English-Chinese-English-Chinese, while frustrating and partly due to the educational level of both of us, it is also a representation of the unrelenting power of both the English and the Chinese LanguageMinds- meaning everything included in the English-thinking mind and the Chinese-thinking mind. It could almost be seen as the power struggle occurring economically/politically between the US and China. All of sudden, I have the most intense desire to learn to speak and understand Chinese well- I do NOT want to be the representation of the English-mind monoculture. BU HAO. (not good)

So, as I embark on yet another spoken language journey, my body is also in for some more learning. While many principles in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and the Yoga/Ayurveda school are very similar, the body is viewed slightly differently. I will write more about this in a later post, but for now, suffice it to say that my Yogasana-trained muscles have some adjustments to make for Taichi. Here's a rough outline of my schedule while I'm in Kunming for the next few months:

9:30-12: 2-3x/week Taichi in a park with Yang laoshi (teacher). I usually start waiting for the bus around 9 because the first one that comes is either empty or completely full, in the latter case, I wait for the next bus around 9:15.
The other 2-3x/week this is Acupuncture class- learning the meridians and the specific points, their functions and clinical application.
12-2ish: lunch break
2ish-4ish: TCM class- general theory, including Yin/Yang theory and the Five Elements, and the organ systems. 1-2x/week I have Chinese language lessons.

After the first month, I will begin going to the acupuncture clinic for observation and experiential practical application of diagnostic skills, and treatment.

That's all for now! Zaijian!

Within Community Without

"I know that you are there, and I am very happy."
--

One of the major themes I've been exploring this fall is the role of community in relation to healing. One of the first ways I engaged with this topic was through language, but community is more than communication (though that is a big part of it). A sangha is a community of people practicing together (yoga, meditation, mindfulness, nonviolent communication, anything). In Buddhism, it is said that one must take refuge in the sangha. Especially in the fast paced, tunnel-vision world in which most of us live, to feel a part of a community of like-minded individuals sharing your journey, is a true blessing. Your community; the net into which you are woven is your context, your support structure and the space within which you exchange energy (lighting torches and healing). Sitting in a cybercafe in Delhi, listening to the honking horns and the anklets of begging women, I am particularly grateful for my community, though they may not be physically present with me here.

As part of my ILC proposal, I've been trying to engage with "superficial sanghas," or internet based communities of mindfulness, healing, and alternative/revolutionary educational paradigms. However, due to my unpredictable internet access, as well as the slowness of getting the online community I had proposed to develop up and running, I have been feeling a bit of a lack of support/engagement with the work I've been doing. I've been missing the conversations and stimuli that result from an academic community and though I've had the support for my practice, I've been connecting the academic mind to the embodied mind alone- which is a tiresome process. When I approached my TESC sponsor about this issue of community, she said this, "What if this is an opportunity for you to go inwards and have your communty be the silent voices we don't normally have the opportunity to hear? What if this is a chance to write from the meditative mind?"
Well, let me tell you a story:

I've been practicing a mindfullness mantra from one of Thich Naht Hanh's books. Thay says that the ability to be fully present in the moment and recognize another is a miracle. Whether the other is a flower, the moon, or a lover is irrelevant; the key is bring your whole Self into the present moment and simultaneously, recognize your shared energy with another. The mantra is, "I know that you are here, and I am very happy." I found this mantra particularly helpful during the yogasana classes with yogiji in Bhagsu, when I found myself bubbling with anger, or frustration; I would reel myself back to my Self and find something, a bird, a bug, a cloud, the other student, anything, and recognize my shared energy with that being. Sometimes I tried to do it with yogiji, if I was feeling particularly ambitious. I found myself practicing the mantra at night along with my prayers for my family and friends, and when I was feeling homesick, I practiced with the moon.
One morning, as I sat in the small Shiva Temple (it became a sanctuary in the true sense of the word) outside of the yoga hall, I closed my eyes and practiced the mantra outloud. As I did so, I began to lose the sense of who exactly I was. Let me rephrase. I couldn't quite tell if I (Sophie) was recognizing that Shiva was there, or if Shiva was recognizing that I was there. Let me try to explain. I lost a bit of the sense of being separate from Shiva, and I couldn't tell who was saying the mantra. This was cool. So I continued with declarations: "I am Shiva, I am Shakti, I am Yin, and I am Yang, I am my mother and my father, I am my sister, and I am my lover. I am my grandparents and their grandparents. I am my children and my children's children. I am Shiva. I am Shakti. I an Yin. I am Yang. I am this body." (that last one, just to bring me back down...)

And just the icing on the cake:
After talking with my sister over Thanksgiving (which I completely forgot about), I started to feel a bit homesick for my family. I posted on facebook that I missed my community from home, and I got this response from one of my favorite high school teachers, "We miss you too. But know that there are a lot of people on this side of the world enjoying your travels vicariously ... So you actually have lots of people from home with you all the time ... You just can't see them."

Oh, hey, community- there you are... within me. Right.

:-D

Please Excuse Me While I Have a Conversation with my Piriformis

"The human being is a continuum- there are no tangible frontiers between the... body, mind, and soul."
--

My first yogasana teacher, Denise, used to say, "you may come to yoga class for the yoga-booty, but you come back for something else." There are, undoubtedly, physical benefits from the practice of yogasana, and pranyama (breath control), but what has been glossed over in the States, is the fundamental principles and original intention of these practices. Yoga is, at its core, preparation for meditation; a means for paving the way for introspection and spiritual connection. It is an assumption in the yogic tradition that physical health will be attained along the way to spiritual elevation- they are different stops along the same path, but stopping at the physical benefits is cutting yourself short of the possibility of greater awareness.

--
In his book, Light on Life, B.K.S. Iyengar talks about developing "body intelligence," the capacity for sensitivity, for being aware of both the internal processes of the body and the mind. Every pore of the skin, and every cell in the body becomes an eye looking inward, a way to see yourself as you truly are. Developing this kind of inner awareness is quite contrary to our habitual way of being. People move numbly through the world, going "from bed to car to desk to car to couch to bed, but there is no awareness in their movement, no intelligence. There is no action. Action is movement with intelligence." Learning to live in this way, to be in the world and move with intelligence, we create the momentum of energy for transformation; and not just to transform your body into a stronger, or a leaner body, but to transform your mind from chaos to peace, and to transform our world from destruction and carelessness to deliberate and creative change for the better. This is how yoga can change your mind, and change the world. It is unfortunate that the larger context of a yoga practice (beyond the asanas and the breathing) has been largely ignored in the US and the physical form has taken undue importance. Yoga emphasizes the value of balance, "if you say you are your body, you are wrong. If you say you are not your body, you are also wrong. The truth is that although body is born, lives and dies, you cannot catch a glimpse of the divine except through the body." Both Buddhism and Yogic philosophy have a precept of non-attachment at their core. So we must honor the body, respect it, nourish it and listen to it (limits, and flaws and all), but not become so overly indulgent in the senses, and remain connected to the larger context of which we are a part (community, universe, spirit) so as to create a small distance from the dramas of our everyday lives that threaten to sweep us away and off the path of transformation and radical healing.

Using all the inner eyes of the cells and pores of the skin, we begin to develop a deeply accurate sense of where the body is in space even with the eyes closed (close your eyes and touch your nose with one finger, see how accurate you are). We use the internal sense of self to guide us (connected to the intrinsic muscles of the spine), not only physically, but also through the decisions we make in daily life (do you go for second helpings of the delicious meal you just ate despite being satisfyingly full, or do you respect your body?) Instead of looking at the person next to you in the hatha yoga class to see what the pose "is supposed to look like," you can develop a sense of how to move in your body, into your expression of the pose. You work to deepen the posture to push your limits, and expand your mind's horizons, not to make the pose or the body more beautiful. Though, those are nice perks. I hesitate to call someone a yogi if they do not recognize the importance of this internal looking.
--

I remember a conversation with my father (an electrical engineer, firmly grounded in the Newtonian physical reality) where he challenged me with the question, "if you pass a flame from one torch to the next, is the first flame present in the 100th?" I stood my ground with a positive response, despite his pessimistic statistics claiming that there is only one in such-and-such a chance that any particle from the first flame will be found in the last. I couldn't argue with him in his language of Newtonian physics and math and resorted, unproductively, to my language of energy. The conversation ended with both of us significantly frustrated with the others' lack of insight.
I came across, recently, some writing by Tich Naht Hanh, a fairly well known Vietnamese Buddhist monk and author, and he used a similar metaphor to make the point that without the first flame, none of the other torches would be lit. In Ayurveda, the principle element of fire is responsible for our thoughts (think of the electrical impulses from one neuron to the  next, if you have trouble with thinking of the nature elements inside the body). If you think of lighting a torch as illuminating the mind, and passing the flame as transmitting knowledge, the way a good teacher does, you see how without your teacher's first teacher's first teacher, you could not have the flame of knowledge present in your mind. Take a breath, I know this seems convoluted, but it is actually quite simple. You are inseparable from the net of people around you, your environment, and your past. You are the culmination of all of your experiences, everyone you've known, loved and hated, and all of their experiences. I find that the best teachers, of yoga or otherwise, are the ones who recognize the importance of their context, but these are also the teachers who refuse to call themselves teachers because they have the humility and humbleness to know that their knowledge is only as good as all of their teachers and their teachers' teachers.

So, despite his best efforts to convince me to call him Swamiji, I am now off to China. Maybe I will have better luck in finding a "master," but for the meantime, I will humbly go forth, my Yoga Teacher certification in my back pocket; to continue to learn from my body, a student at heart.

The Priest has Scoliosis

**(First of all, let me apologize for my lack of writing; I have no excuse other than being overwhelmed by inner movement and the incredible book that I just finished.)**
--
As you know, I am engaging in non-traditional higher education by means of Independent Contract work with my professor, much of the lessons I am learning are more of what the traditional higher education folks would call "experiential learning," (as if there is any other way to learn something, than by experiencing it). So, I'd like to introduce this blog post by asking you to do the same.
--
Please, without looking, get a sense of how you are sitting, standing, or lying down. Please do not attempt to change it, just notice. Are your feet on the floor? Do you have more weight on one hip? Are you twisting, even a little? Is your neck at ease? Or are your shoulders reaching for your ears? Do you feel that your chest is open or collapsed? Are you furrowing your eyebrows? (I will admit that I just adjusted my own position while writing these questions) Try not to use your visual cues to judge the symmetry of your position: symmetry is not the ideal- comfort is. Now, wherever you are reading this, relax every muscle as much as you can from the top of your head to each toe. Focus on easy and complete breathing will be helpful here. Take your time, and let yourself just melt for a minute or two. I'll wait.

-
Okay. Now, again without visual cues, sit yourself comfortably, with your spine lengthened up toward the sky without leaning on the back of your chair, chest open, shoulders relaxed. Breath deeply in to your ribcage- let it expand slightly, and exhale fully. Again get a sense of the tension in your body. Are your hip flexors tight (muscles at the top and front of your thighs, near the pelvis) to keep yourself sitting straight? Or are you using your superficial abdominal muscles? Can you tell where in your body the action of "sit straight" originated? Again, breathe steadily, and let go of your efforts to sit perfectly straight. Just be.

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 The human spine, the basis of our "axial skeleton" evolved from our ancestors to fill the demands of providing a central supportive structure for the individual body, while the upper extremities (i.e. shoulder girdle) originated in structures that were useful in dealing defensively with the outside environment: shoulder "blade." Rudolf Ballentine M.D. says in his (phenomenal) book Radical Healing, "you might say that this axial skeleton is for orienting you in relation to yourself, while the appendicular skeleton is for moving in relation to the world." Often implicated in the metaphors of our everyday lives, the spine, or "backbone," is held in place by the core muscles; the intrinsic muscles of the spine, and is directly connected to the diaphragm (the one we use to breathe). While we, in the US, tend to think of the "core muscles" as being those in the trunk region: the abdominal muscles and maybe the superficial muscles of the back. Those muscles are precisely not what I am referring to, though. Core muscles, in the case of relating most strongly to the spine, are those deep muscles that connect one vertebrae to the next (and the next). This is important because those intrinsic muscles of the spine are much less likely to be influenced by external tension cues than the superficial muscles are. As we said, these internal structures are geared most preferably to relate the body (bodies, really- but we'll get into that in a moment) to itself, while the external muscles handle the outside world. This is why I asked you if you could tell where the action of "sitting straight" originated from: from the external cue, or from your internal sense of being strong and steady and all of the associations we have with the"backbone."

Since yogasanas (the postures) were designed originally as a preparation for meditation, they place particular emphasis on strengthening these core muscles relating to the spine. So what does the spine have to do with meditation? Despite daily reminders from Yogiji about the importance of keeping my spine straight during the hour of morning meditation, he's never given an actual reason for it. However, from what I know about energy work and from my recent readings in Ballentine's book as well as David Frawley's Yoga & Ayurveda and Dr. Vasant Lad's Introduction to Ayurveda, I can tell you this: the ancient yogis identified three nadis (both Hindi and Sanskrit for "river"), or energy channels in the body. One runs up from the base of the spine, along the left side of the spine to the ajna chakra, or the "third eye." Another runs up from the same origin, along the right side of the spine, and meets at ajna as well. The third nadi, representing and manifesting balance and optimal consciousness, runs directly along the spine, meeting the other two at the base of the spine and at ajna. In yogic philosophy, proper meditation allows the energy held at each chakra center (often referred to as Kundalini energy, and depicted as a serpent) to rise up along shushumna nadi (the central energy channel), and raise one's consciousness to eventually merge with Brahman, all-encompassing universal bliss.

Leaving aside the juxtaposition of the image of a serpent for this cosmic energy force with the Judeo-Christian image of a serpent as the representation of evil, you can see the connection between using the muscles most closely related to your internal sense of self and personal perspective aligned with the energy channels and flow of breath through diaphragmatic breathing results in a deep sense of relaxation and inner strength. What's more, is the practical application of integrating those intrinsic core muscles into your daily life. Ballentine says, "A sense of operating from this inner point also prompts you to look at the world from your own perspective, rather than relying on the opinions and suggestions of those around you," essentially, you develop your "backbone."

Furthermore, when thinking about the ability to assume a particular posture, whether that is to touch your toes, or to sit in meditation, or to stand on your head; what may seem like the extent of your body's capabilities may actually be a potent reflection of your emotional and mental states. Bear with me for a second, I know that sounded crazy. You, I'm sure, are familiar with the experience of standing a bit taller, straightening your spine when you needed a boost of courage- well, it's a two-way street. Imagine, if you can, a thin sweater covering each muscle, however small: creating a sort of honeycomb of sheaths with muscle tissue where the honey would be. This connective tissue is called fascia, and acts to provide stability: allowing a limited range of movement outside of habitual or customary positions of your muscles. However, because this system of support only supports habitual movements, it also therefore limits you by de facto to the positions you habitually enter, and thus acts to support only the mental and emotional states that those physical postures support. It's pretty hard to cry when you stand tall with your chest open, no?

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According to one of my college anatomy professors, 90% of cases of scoliosis is muscular, not structural (meaning- due to habitual movement and thought patterns, or even crooked/disconnected flow of energy along the chakras through the nadis). So when I see that both the priest, who does both the morning and evening puja, and Yogiji have scoliosis, I wonder what is going internally: mentally, energetically, and physically. What has been pulled out of alignment so drastically as to cause sciatic pain in Yogiji (the sciatic nerve is the largest in the body and runs from the sacrum down to the foot; impingement can cause terrible pain down the whole leg; often termed sciatica)? If I were to venture a guess, I might say the the incongruency of being a devoted meditation student of his Guruji and attempting to live the principles of yogic life while simultaneously smoking what I would consider excessive marijuana beyond the purpose of meditation, overeating, neglecting his asana practice and still preaching the precepts in his white yogi clothes has created such a disturbance in his energy flow that his spine has been pulled out of alignment and pinched his sciatic nerve- a sort of wake up call, to which he's been thus far deaf. But that's just my perspective. (It could also be attributed to some of the more physical traumas he's suffered- but this is a two way street and one could easily give rise to the other.)
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A poem by Brian Andreas:
Impossible yoga position but she likes to have goals that no one else
can imagine
so they'll shut up about how they understand
exactly what she's going through.
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Okay. that's it for now. I'll be posting again very soon. That's a promise.