Something Doesn't Always Have to Give

In the last week, I have probably danced at least ten hours. I have been recruited to Salsa Reno's Bachata Dance Troupe which entails weekly rehearsals leading up to the International Bachata Festival in January 2011. Considering that I have a full-time job, friends outside of dancing, and an endless stack of books, it is a lot of time away from other things in my life. There's ultimate frisbee and running that I have to add in to that mix. In the backburner, there's rock climbing (the most immediate one since I intend to rock climb in Koh Laoliang, Thailand in a month), GRE for Grad School, and a foreign language class before Europe next summer.

I was supposed to play frisbee at 10:30AM today, but I had to cave in to more time resuscitating and reenergizing. I was up until 3AM this morning and was dancing from pretty much 9PM onwards. My feet hate me right now. I am sorry, frisbee. My bed takes precedence. I think I might have to give you up for now.

I have been running like a madwoman at 100 miles per hour last week and my one constant fear is that I will lose time for probably one of the most important things in my life which is nurturing my spirit. I think I will absolutely loathe myself if I give that part of my life up. I checked my email today and I came across a series of lectures on "Art Sutra - Buddhism, Yoga and the Search for Selfless Expression". I missed kirtan last night, but I could still manage to go to "Art, Music and Spiritual Practice" if I so desired. And so I crawled out of bed telling myself if I can dance for 15 hours, I could do something meditative for 1.5 hours.

I walked in the room and I immediately felt embraced by the potent energy of the room, the people. I sat on the floor and dropped in. I got goosebumps. The collective energy of the room was wildly, palpably, overwhelming. I needed this.

The talk was given by Darin McFadyen, a lively person with his soul right in his laughing eyes, for everyone to take. He had long, thick hair in dreadlocks, I was curious what how they would feel like between my fingers. He had a very endearing English accent and I suspect he's from London. He sat in front of the room, on a cushion, cross-legged. He had a very lean body frame which tells me he could be at the very least vegetarian (if he's Buddhist, he very well must be), or a raw foodist, and maybe does Yoga. He had a white t-shirt on and jeans. He is a DJ. A regular guy. Nothing about him would say "spiritual" except if you picked up on the red string (is it a kalava?) tied on his right wrist.

I went to this place without any expectations. I didn't know what he was going to talk about. It turns out, it was about making your art (be it music, dance, visual) your Yoga. Making it your meditation. Making it your spiritual practice. How? Simple. By offering your art for the goodness of the world. Can you imagine this kind of loving consciousness? It's insanely radical.

I already see my dancing as a meditation. Outside of class, I get absorbed by the dance. It is a transcendental experience for me. I am lost. There is no dancer. There is no dance. One melts in the other. And I believe in the inspiring power of art in whatever shape or form. It can lift you up. It can take you to higher consciousness sometimes. It is a medium for people to come together and meet in the unitive space of the oneness. I remember a few weeks ago at a social dance party, someone approached me after I had finished dancing the merengue. She said, "It was so beautiful watching you dance." I have only been dancing a couple months then and I was so honored to touch something in a complete stranger without doing anything extra-special or world-churning. I just danced.

But to offer dancing for the love of humanity? That is just totally radical. I have never heard of such a thing. But I see the unseen in this DJ and I touch it. The genuineness. I intuitively see that this is what he does. This is his truth. This is reality. He believes in it with every strand of his wild dreadlocks. If he can do it, why in the world can't I?

I am deeply attached to my spiritual practice. I often say that it saved my life. And my belief is, all beings, at some point in their lives, have to find it. It is an inevitability. To even fathom that I could lose it because I am pouring myself into other things kills me. But today, I realized that something doesn't always have to give. There can be a merger of these two passions. They are not delineated. They are different expressions that can lead to the same place.

And it blows my mind that until noon today, I did not know that I would be meeting such a soul today with such a message. There are no accidents.

When the talk was over, Darrin and I chatted for a little bit. He grasped my hands and held me tight and we were crown-to-crown. We were not talking - it's not necessary. We held each other and was lost in the pure love of it.

True unconditional love, baby.

Unconditional love from me to you and Namaste,

Trish

The Moment of Truth

It did it! I have trained myself to run. And today's ultimate frisbee game was testament to that glorious achievement.

I caught up with Minnesota earlier in the week. It is rare that we find both ourselves in town for the weekend and we decided to meet at the Saturday morning pickup game. I haven't been back in the field since my first game. Schedules just haven't yet aligned until this morning.

I was so frustrated with myself on that first day that I vowed to myself that a game of disc will never kick my ass again. It only took four months of training of running about 4-5 miles a week, but the day of reckoning is here. I CAN RUN! Oh, the taste of sweet, hard-earned success...

I had a late night last night, which unabashedly consisted of hours of dancing on three inch heels and shamefully a couple of colorful alcoholic concoctions, and yeah, a shot of Petron. I had a splendid time, so no regrets.

I woke up to a bleak and cold morning (hangover-free, thank you very much) and blisters on the ball of my feet (one day, I will find the perfect dancing shoes that performs 10 on function and 10 on form - hard to find!). I dragged myself out of the covers and made it to pickup half an hour after it had started. To warm up, I decided to run a couple of laps and instantly, I felt my body punishing me for everything that transpired the night before. I had to keep going, I keep telling myself. The Colonel said there's something useful about training your body to perform under duress, so I kept my legs moving, pleading my lungs to please, please cooperate. At the second lap, my hands were getting clammy. My warm-up run didn't quite feel right. I feel out of breath and my foot hurts. Am I going to be a disappointment to myself again? Am I going to run like a freaking girl again today?

I got in the game and was matched up with a skinny 11-year old boy (it was a mismatch, I tell you - he was quick and quite a catcher). The first few sprints up and down the field felt... right. I was waiting for the big collapse from breathlessness which I got plenty of in my first game.. But it never came. It started hitting me -

Oh my God. I CAN FREAKING RUN.

We'll talk about the work I need to do on my throws and catches, but hey, I'm not where I was the first time and I'm beyond happy. I missed a couple of catches, but scored one (pity) goal, so I don't think I came out in the red in the end.

When I wasn't in the game, I was practicing throws and catches with Minnesota and/or the 11-year old. It was such a beautiful day to be out. The views of the mountains were beautiful. The sun came out for a little bit. The people are so easygoing and casual. Although it's a competitive sport, there's hardly any ego involved. The grass was green and Marley (a German Sheperd-pitbull mix) was running around engaging himself in the hippie energy of it all. I thought to myself - this is why I live here. This is why I'm not in a major metropolis right now. I had that pretty much all my life and that is not the lifestyle that appeals to me right now. The quality of my life right now is pretty up the charts and that is precisely the life I want to live. I don't have to deal with the unnecessary stress of long commutes, overpopulation, and all the excessives found in larger cities. I have time (which doesn't have to be a luxury, but sadly, for some people it is) for the more important, nourishing things in life than the rat race that I a

lways thought was the only life for me.

I am at a beautiful place in my life. This feels a lot like the way it did a year ago - with one major difference. A year ago, I was Superwoman. Today, I'm just human, no different from you. After my admission of my Personal Four Noble Truths, I found myself in an entirely more honest place. It might have been one of the most difficult things about myself to face and admit (publicly, no less!), but honest work IS meant to be difficult and painful sometimes. I am teaching myself not to deny my shadow, my ego, but instead integrate it into Me.

And although this place is a lot familiar, there is one staggering difference. I am feeling the tenderness. I am tasting the sweetness.

Namaste and Love to everyone.

Photo of downtown taken almost exactly a year ago

Losing Minds

One of the most profound things a Yoga asana practice has taught me and is still continuing to teach me is that the times you think you can't, you have never been more right. It's the same thing runners/marathoners attest to - you are only as good as you think. If you let the mind take control, you are limiting yourself in many ways because the mind, in its limited capacity, can only perceive, process, and comprehend what it can finitely hold. The mind cannot grasp infiniteness.

But who says it's up to the mind all the time? True presence is felt when the thinking mind with its judgments and expectations is not at the helm anymore and we just be. I think it's interesting how people refer to extraordinary and unforgettable life experiences as "mind-blowing". The intensity and aliveness of such experiences are incomprehensible that words fail to describe them. I remember having a conversation with a complete stranger about exactly this and he said, "Well, that's how we want the mind to be – blown." Could this be the secret of true presence?

But there is hope. Our minds are pliable once we take command of them. A year ago, I never would have imagined I would be doing sirsasanas (headstands). It just ain’t happenin’. It took guidance from a few teachers, letting go of a ton of fear, lots of practice, and mindful mindlessness. A couple of months from when I started, I did it – I stood on my head. Now I’m advancing to learning vrischikasana (scorpion/forearm stand) which I still cannot do without a wall, but I'm learning that perhaps, impossibility is a mental myth.

This weekend, I over-indulged on a mini-smorgasbord of pushing limits, doing the opposite of what my mind would typically direct me to do. It took two years for me to finally say yes to playing Ultimate Frisbee with a friend, Griz. I grew up restricted from playing intense sports because of asthma so although there is nothing I enjoy more than being outdoors on early summer mornings, the fear of running has kept me from playing. Well, I finally mustered chutzpah to play this weekend, ready to sprint or not. I survived a 12-mile hike with a 1500 ft. elevation gain before, so maybe I can do this, too.

I was feeling pretty good at the start of the game, but I imagine that’s how marathoners feel in the first few miles. I do not remember ever running so hard and furious in my life before. My legs actually loved the movement, but my lungs were letting out colorful expletives at me the entire time. They felt like they were going to burst. It’s hard battling with the mind because it’s so used to winning all the time. I caved to a couple of breaks, which meant that Amanda from the opposing team was allowed to run amuck and wide open, but those were the times when my own mental pep talks failed me. I scored one goal, though, made a few catches and some attempts at difficult ones, so overall, I think it wasn’t bad for a first time. It’s good that I will have a break from disc for a couple of weeks since that will buy me time to train myself to run and work on my endurance. I’m not signing up for league any time soon, but I don’t think it’s premature to invest in cleats.

Granted that I am suffering from soreness in places that I never thought I’d ever be sore (including the fleshy part of my right palm, between the thumb and index finger), I’m glad I did it because, well, there is nothing I enjoy more than being outdoors on early summer mornings. I had to let out a scream in the shower while I bent to shave my legs yesterday because of sharp hamstring and glute pain, and I woke up a few times to cramps last night. So I just keep telling myself, just as I did in the game, to suck it up and quit being a girl. I already run like one, and I should not do myself too much disservice by whining like one. Besides, I probably deserved that because when they advised hydration, I’m sure they didn’t mean with Chardonnay and Pinot Grigio (it was the Reno Wine Walk and I’ve never done that before either, so I said another yes, okay? Oh. And did I mention how this day ended at 2AM after watching a punk rock live act perform? At this point, I literally have already lost my mind. Seriously, punk rock?!?).

And while some people would have stayed home all lathered up in Bengay all day to recoup, I went out on a movie date with someone my mind would never have allowed me to consider going out with before. But I was already on a roll pushing my limits all weekend, so why not say yes again?

I hobbled through today but I seek refuge from the statement familiar to yogis, “I am not this body. I am not this mind.”

Okay, beautiful people. I’m off to the Reno Rodeo, another “Why not?”!!!

How I crack myself up sometimes.