Yoga

I made dinner for a woman in mom's club the other day. She just gave birth to a healthy baby girl at the age of 41. I wish I could be happy for her....but you know how that goes. She made my family dinner twice after Camille died, which I thought was incredibly kind. I figured I should return the favor. I told my husband that he had to drive with me over to their house, I didn't want to stay long and I wanted an excuse to leave quickly. She has a 3 year old son too, sigh. Talked to her briefly, asked her how she was feeling....tired of course. She asked me how I was and I don't even know what I said. I managed to ask what her daughters name was, she was holding her the whole time. I couldn't ask about the baby. I wished them a good night and left. My husband drove me to yoga class which I was getting to just in the nick of time. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to get to class that night. It was such a long day. I took Kai to a mom's club event strewn with babies and people who give less than a small shit about my loss. But I took Kai because he needed to get out. The president of the moms club is a very kind woman and just recently sent me a card telling me that she thinks of me all the time. I thought that was incredibly sweet. So between moms club and making dinner for my family and the other family, yoga was not a given.

 We always start class with 5 minutes of meditation. We did something different that night, we did 12 minutes of guided meditation led by Jon Cabat-Zinn. I cried for the first 12 minutes of class. I think between all the events of the day, making dinner for a family with a new baby girl and then pondering "the breath" and letting it all go. Not focusing on any thing other than the moment. Thinking of breath as rolling waves and our mind as a little boat riding those waves. It was impossible for me to focus on my breath but I was glad to have the guide bring me back to it. Yoga that night was so helpful. My teacher mostly teaches Ananda yoga but incorporates some flow and then on the first Monday of each month we do Yin yoga.  This night we did some Ananda practice and the teacher says that in Ananada there is an affirmation with each pose. She only used a couple affirmations but they were incredibly helpful:

Downward-Facing Dog Pose
"Calmness radiates from every fiber of my being."
Chandrasana - Moon Pose
"Strength and courage fill my body cells."
Garudasana - Eagle Pose
"At the center of life's storms I stand serene."
Balasana - Child Pose
"I relax from outer involvement into my inner haven of peace"
Savasana - Corpse Pose
"Bones, muscles, movement I surrender now; anxiety, elation and depression, churning thoughts-all these I give into the hands of peace."

These affirmations are so amazingly positive for me. They buoy me and strengthen my focus. The hard thing is that while I do yoga, I am thinking of Camille almost the entire time.

Every time I do yoga I always think it was made just for me and for my grief. It is such a good place for mental peace. Every time I do yoga I try and focus a warm white light surrounding my heart and around my uterus. I invite a new child to come to us and our family. I try to send my thoughts into the universe. The love our family has to give. How much we have given...please come to us. I invite love into my heart to soothe my sorrow. Durring my sun salutation there is a transitional pose that is odd but requires your bottom to be in the air while your chest is on the ground. I envision the warm wet earth reaching up and with a cooling hand covering my heart inside my chest with mud. The earths gift of love to me; My heart supported and then covered by baby's tear ferns. This is my vision.

Here are two songs that speak to my heart, funny they are both country songs, the last song I posted was country too. My husband listens to a lot of country and so I do by default. I've always been a beastie boys, Bob Marley and mazzy star kinda girl which I will post more of later...but for now two country songs.

The band Perry ~ If I Die Young: this is the only song I know of theirs: the lines that get me.... "Lord make me a raindbow, I'll shine down on my mother"...Oh and life ain't always what you think it ought to be, no ain't even grey but she burries her baby....The sharp knife of a short life"

Zac Brown Band ~Jolene: (The Ray LaMontagne version -it's his song- is equally lovely)
This second song is really about someone who has hit Rock Bottom...We who have lost their babies know that space...The line that really breaks my heart: "Lately my hands they don't feel like mine, My eyes been stung with dust and blind, held you in my arms one time and lost you just the same."

Namaste

I honor the place in you in which the entire universe dwells

I honor the place in you which is of love, of truth, of light and of peace

When you are in that place in you, and I am in that place in me, we are one.

Light and love to you all.