A Head Cold, an Adventure Story, Some Envy and Yoga #365Yoga

Freya Hoffmeister (Photo credit: eriksjos)

I tried to ignore my second head cold in less than a month, but couldn't really deny the heaviness in my head and finally slid back under the covers for an afternoon of napping and reading. My bedside book pile consists of books about yoga and books about adventure, most of the latter being monthly reads of the Women's Adventure Magazine Book Club group on Facebook, in which I lurk for the reading suggestions. I passed up the heavy-thinking-required yoga reading and picked up Fearless by Joe Glickman, the story of Freya Hoffmeister's record-setting circumnavigation of Australia in a sea kayak.

Freya's year-long paddle included encounters with sharks, crocodiles and stinging jellyfish, crazy currents and surf, fatigue, seasickness and unpleasant rashes. It was an impressive journey by a woman who never doubted she would be able to complete it. While I admired her tenacity, I had trouble, and I believe the author did too, with Freya's lack of humility. But, when it comes to people who have both the physical strength to accomplish amazing feats and the organizational skills to make them happen, I tend towards a bit of un-yogini-like envy.

My adventurous heart tends to reach further than my body wants to go. When I announced my latest battle with germs on Facebook, one of my friends was quick to comment, "Why are you always sick?!? Between your diet and physical exercise, you should be the healthiest person on Charley Hill!!" That, unfortunately, has been my life-long question and one that, despite years of work towards wellness, remains unanswered. What makes me so susceptible to upper-respiratory-system-attacking viruses is a mystery. So is the extreme fatigue and depression that comes every time I ramp up my physical activity beyond "easy," which, while allowing me to build endurance, means I will never run as fast as I'd like to, or faster than a turtle.

During her year of extreme kayaking, Freya Hoffmeister never had to spend a few days in her tent on the beach nursing a head cold. It's possible that the author decided not to mention it, but I find it hard to believe he would leave out an illness when he was so careful to mention every time she puked from seasickness and how she managed bowel movements without leaving her boat. While my heart longs for an adventure as amazing as Freya's (although I'd be happy without the crocodiles), I have to resign myself to knowing my body my may never be up for it.

So what do I do? I get back on my yoga mat. It was yoga that taught me to accept my body as it is. It was my asana practice that got me to the place where I could start running and not stop for 13.1 miles, which is pretty darn good even if I never break out of the back of the pack. It is yoga that reminds me to rest when I need to, that it's okay to drop into Balasana or take a nap. And it's yoga that pulls the rug out from under my ego and shows me the way to be humble and grateful.

Perhaps I will have to experience the grandest of adventures in the pages of a book, and perhaps my practice includes sitting with the envy I feel on the way to self-acceptance. Perhaps that inner exploration is the greatest adventure of all.

Transforming and transforming...

If there is a list of the top ten words most overused by the yoga community, "transformation" would have to be on it. The transformational power of yoga is touted repeatedly by publications and yoga teachers as a reason to unroll your mat and get yourself into Downward-facing Dog. There is an endless stream of testimonials by those whose lives changed as a result of their yoga practices. There are records of physical, mental and spiritual transformations.

Which makes what I have to say redundant. Sort of.

I can't deny that yoga has changed my life. It was a big change, too. I won't bore you with the details, because they're all here in older blog posts, but let me highlight the quitting my job, moving to the mountains and opening a yoga studio thing. That's the sort of stuff that happens when yoga gets under your skin.

But there's a catch. The transformational power of yoga does not come with brakes. Once it gets rolling, it doesn't stop. Unlike most vehicles, obstacles like bridge abutments and large trees may slow it down, but as long as you keep breathing that power will work it's way through whatever gets in the way. Which means you might be in for a very long ride.

It's nice to roll down the road of change with the wind in your hair, but eventually the big question has to come up. "What am I transforming into?"

My asana practice makes me feel strong, so I seek opportunities to challenge my body (with compassion and awareness, of course), especially in ways that get me outdoors experiencing nature at the same time -because my meditation practice makes me feel more interconnected with the natural world - which makes me look for ways to advocate for the environment. Since I can't push environmental awareness without setting an example, I seek ways to make my home and the yoga studio greener.

While I'm outside pushing my body, experiencing nature, practicing asana and trying to be green, I meet other people who introduce me to new activities and many of them end up on my list of things to try. To be honest, I can't even get through an Athleta catalog without seeing something I'd love to be doing. So I start thinking of ways to try them.

Then there's the Bhakti yoga, the devotional singing and chanting which made it okay for my slightly tone-deaf voice to sing out. Which restored a love of music that I'd abandoned to those with more talent. With the music came the desire to dance, especially in a skirt that jingles when I move.

"That's great!" you may be thinking. "She is trying all kinds of new things." If I was applying to college (again) my application would be in the "well-rounded" pile.

The truth is, change is starting to feel less like I'm following a path with a few twists and turns and more like I'm caught in a transformational whirlwind. It's as if I'm in a constant state of flux, never settling down to just "being" anything.

The ultimate goal of yoga is to settle the mind into silence. How can my mind be silent if it's constantly trying to figure out how to make a hula hoop, where I can set up a slackline, when I'm going to have time to run, practice belly dancing and learn to play the bongos, and remember all the stuff I've studied for the personal trainer exam?

Perhaps my life's journey wasn't meant to meander on a foot path, but rather rip through this existence like a tornado, sucking up everything I encounter. Perhaps I am paying for lifetimes of stagnation, needing to do everything I'd missed during previous incarnations so I can finally get to the really deep stuff. Perhaps this life's lesson is supposed to be non-attachment to the cravings for new adventures and I'm failing miserably.

Maybe one day I'll find stillness in the center of the storm and discover what it is that I have become. Right after I try ice climbing.

Adventures in the Kitchen

Image via WikipediaEvery now and then I get a bit daring with dinner. It usually happens when I get a hankering for something but don't have all the ingredients to make it. That's what happened tonight.

An hour before dinner, while the salmon steaks I was going to cook defrosted, I was pedaling my bike (it's set up inside on a bike trainer), reading The Two Towers (the second book from the Lord of the Rings trilogy, just in case there's someone who managed to not hear about Lord of the Rings anytime in the last decade), when suddenly I thought "grapefruit salsa". Don't ask me where the idea came from. The inner workings of my mind are a mystery even to me.

When the bike ride was over the adventure began. A quick web search yielded a number of grapefruit salsa recipes. I lacked some ingredients from every recipe. After getting a sense of what went into grapefruit salsa, I decided to wing it with what I had around.

At this point my husband checked the freezer to make sure we had frozen pizzas. I would have been insulted if I thought I actually had any culinary skills, but I know myself. People who can cook don't use the smoke detector as a kitchen timer.

Most of the recipes called for grapefruit (duh), green onions, jalapeno peppers, and either mint or cilantro. I had grapefruit. I had yellow onions, but no green ones. I had half a green pepper left over from breakfast and a can of chipolte peppers in adobo sauce that was on hand because I finally found them in the store months after I'd needed them for a recipe and bought a can out of spite.

It all went in the bowl except for most of the can of chipolte peppers (because they're hot, which I discovered by tasting them) with some red wine vinegar, black pepper, agave nectar and olive oil. And it came out...

edible.

Not great. The flavor of the yellow onions dominated everything else, but it went okay with the fish. The frozen pizzas were not needed, this time.

I could have played it safe in the kitchen tonight, but being adventurous is much more fun. By taking risks, within limits, we learn and grow. Life always gives us chances to reach farther, climb higher, or just wing it. By taking the little risks that present themselves regularly, we learn how to face the big ones that show up in every life eventually.

Our yoga mats are a wonderful place to take small risks. Trying an asana that you've assumed was too challenging for you, experimenting with the limits of your stamina and balance, or just allowing emotions to flow are little risks we can take every day. Grapefruit salsa is nothing compared to Ardha Chandrasana, after all.

Have yourself a little adventure today - in your kitchen, on your mat, in your backyard - wherever you find one.

But stock up on frozen pizzas first.