The yellow rose meditation.

The rose. From class today.

So this morning went well. Took J's class….and it took some pressure off.  When she was doing weird things like forgetting sequences from one side to the next, or saying that crescent lunge was a lower back stretch (Wha?) ….I felt okay about myself. I'm going to do okay. I think. For sure! Then I have a panic attack. Its so much fun to be a Gemini. No it isn't.

The one message that came through loud and clear in my practicum critiques was that people actually learned things about their anatomy in my class. They liked knowing what they were stretching or strengthening and why and how. (ALL SUE). I realized that the deeply buried 1200 hour RMT Seattle Massage School background was not all for naught. The one thing that Pam had mentioned was to make sure to not get too technical (IE use back of thigh for hamstrings)……..I don't know if its from being at athlete all of my life or from being a massage therapist or what, but the idea that people don't understand where their hamstrings or quadriceps are is a little unnerving to me? Shouldn't people have some basic understanding of their own bodies and where their bigger parts are located? Am I way off? Its not like I was saying, "Thats it, now pull up through your levator scapulae". Hamstring?

So moving on. I was introduced to the class at the end. It was nice. The class was way smaller today (maybe 12 versus 23 or so last time?) ~ probably a combination of the rotating teaching schedule they have been doing combined with post St. Pats hangovers. As we were out in WC last night I can attest to the levels of revelry going on around us.

I know I'm terrible at names, so I had brought a 4X6 card. As soon as everyone left, I wrote their names down, at their mat positions, along with things that I noticed about them or their practice (Glasses, Knee brace, overachiever, newby).  People are funny as they tend to choose the same mat positions. Do you? I do. I do, to the point of potential OCD. I like to be in the back corner, far right side of any given room I'm practicing yoga in.

I got to school about a half hour late, and we were doing the niyama of something. About your clan, about worship or prayer or ritual. It made me feel old as I'm old enough to realize how much my clan, my community,  has changed: from high school, to college,  dropping out and inpatient treatment, to drum circles and selling grilled cheese and handmade batiked shirts at Dead shows in the Pac NW, (still sickish but playing it off as not)  to massage school, to doula groups, to…..travelers…to  becoming a grown up and getting a career… to slightly obsessive and completely driven career woman, to homeowner, to falling in love with Nate in France, to my golf obsession, to fiancee. to …wife, to mother, to the breastfeeding groups, to playgroups, to book club, to yoga, to golf again, to all of it. We find our people on the micro level, our soul sisters ~ our best friends, our kindred spirits…and we are so blessed that they stay with us along the entire journey…...and we find them on the macro levels. Some make it all the way up I'm blessed to have known Nate since I was 18 and my best friend since I was 12 ~ some fall away, but all are remembered with gratitude for each stage of the journey, for their importance and significance at that time, in that place. And in being healthy…….I have forgotten about how sick I was. I have forgotten about what it was to hate myself.

So we did this meditation on this rose today. A single rose. (I don't like long silent meditations, especially in a large group with the lights on seriously staring at a rose ~ ).  But it threw me. My first instinct was to pick off the leaves around the outside that were slightly battered. This reminded me of all of the work I did at a florist in high school. Then it threw me back to being 19. In Seattle. Working at a place called Beales Roses. Right in one of the tallest buildings in center city……I lived on Phinney Ridge at the time. For some reason this physical memory came back to me and I was suddenly thinking about a time in my life that I hadn't thought about in so so long. I could remember it so vividly ~ and it was so strange having this super vivid memory about something that you truly haven't thought about in about 15 years. I could remember the clothes I used to have, the long dresses, down to individual items. Then I started to remember how on Fridays I was in charge of closing up. Because the shop was only open M-F, on friday evenings I was in charge of throwing away the roses that weren't going to make the weekend. I suddenly had this aching memory of how I used to not be able to stand it  ~ these beautiful, long stemmed Colombian roses, velvety and strong ~ being thrown away. So I used to wrap them up in bunches of a dozen and carry them with me when I left. On my way to the bus or on the bus I would  give away a dozen to a person here or there, just because. I remembered how it used to make me feel so good.  And suddenly, from that memory, all of these memories of that time came flooding back to me. And it made me super emotional. It feels like I'm telling a story about a different person, like I did that, I lived that, that was me, but it doesn't actually feel like it was ME. Is that just because it was so long ago, or is it because I wasn't well yet? Is it because that time isn't necessarily a happy one because I wasn't well? On the surface I was finally doing exactly what I wanted, living (my, then) dream of traveling, hiking the NW, going to shows, meeting people, living right around the corner from a PCC, setting up my first apartment (s), friends coming out to stay, to visit, etc. …..but inside I was still fresh out of inpatient treatment, and while I was really really trying to be well, I wasn't "well" yet. Especially not in the head department. I didn't like myself and second guessed everything I did. I hated my body. I was so sad.

So ~! for someone who hates "Those stupid meditations"……this one sure rocked my world. It was like a gut punch. I was off balance for the entire rest of the day. Literally and figuratively.