Yoga Binge

Two significant things happened yesterday. First, I went to three 90 minute yoga classes, or 4.5 hours of yoga. I went to Kira's Sweet Vinyasa in the morning, and then in the evening I attended Alana's Basics, then Kira's Yin. I'm so glad they went in order of highest difficulty to lowest. The second significant thing? I bought some Jelly Belly's. I'll get to that in a minute.

Yesterday was one of those days when I never quite wake up from my dreams; my brain remained half-hidden in the fog of a strange residual mood from dreams I couldn't quite remember. The mood and the fact that it was Monday morning made it almost insurmountably difficult to get out of bed and go to the morning class, but once I was out the door I was fine. I was so glad I went because we did some fun partner work, and got in a lot of good laughs.

The focus was on urdhva dhanurasana (wheel). It was useful to break wheel down into its many, many component parts, including the inner rotation of the thighs, the tucking of the tailbone, the "halleluiah" shoulders, the lengthening of the upper spine, and as always what to do with the head/neck/face. Suddenly, a pose that I have gotten a little complacent about contains endless areas for tweaking and further expression.

Later in the afternoon, I found myself in the local gift shop/hallmark store looking for supplies for my new project of learning to draw. I also snuck in a purchase of an adorable single-serving size box of Jelly Belly jelly beans. I am obsessed with these things, mostly because they are at every single Trader Joe's checkout counter tempting me, and I have never given in out of moral objection to the ingredients. Feeling about 5 years old with my art supplies and candy, I started walking in a jelly belly trance down the bike trail towards town and noticed that it was almost time for Alana's Yoga Basics. How could I not go? The Yellow Brick Ojai Bike Trail was practically carrying me to yoga again. I LOVE Yoga Basics! How appropriate that later that night Alana joked that I must have felt like I was going back to kindergarten. Little did she know, I was!

Yin (feminine, moon, darkness, yielding, unconscious, passive, soft, tranquil) yoga follows immediately after Basics. The mysterious, deep, quiet practice of yin yoga has been helping me feel balanced and accepting. Laying there in a pose like swan (yin name for pigeon) and mustering all my powers of acceptance to surround the intense feeling in my hip is excellent practice for accepting other, bigger difficulties that arise in my mind and in life.

I was hoping all that yoga would sow the seeds for some deep dreams but I was so physically exhausted that I just passed completely out beyond the reach of even my dreams.