Weekend lessons: Breathing, Snowboarding, Hot Tubs, and Hangovers

Why do you have to be so responsible? 

 

We are responsible for taking the lessons given us and living them in this moment. Only for our thoughts, our heart, our energy that we emit into this world. 

 

 

Lesson #1: Friday night, midnight pacific time. 

The darkness does not surround me but lives inside of me again.  Alone, I want to call her, or someone, but for what?  There is nothing to be said or done.   I breathe, for me and for her; the tears begin, as I think of her in that unfamiliar bed, not knowing anymore the purifying comfort of the fullness of lungs pumping oxygen to each cell.  She starves for this.  In that breath, I know that she is with me, the darkness dissipates and I know she is always there, in me, her love, her wisdom, her guidance.  I turn from the phone, no longer needing to draw anyone else in, and sleep in peace.

 

 

Lesson #2:  Mt. Baldy, CA

The second time is always a bit more difficult, having to learn to be open to what you still don't know, to revise what you think you know.   I know the heelside turn, mastering it ahead of my classmates.  I must have faith that a toeside turn is possible as I unlearn my misunderstandings and fears.   Look ahead, not down.   Use my awareness, but not my habits from yoga.  I deepen my stance, which is not warrior two.   I learn to float like a leaf.  Fast and direct is not always the best choice. Sometimes it is best to meander right and left, to keep control through a altering of surrender and resistance.  Don't the bumps in the snow, but to see them and then move with them.  Always be ready to fall, but never expect to fall.  Quickly get back up; the longer I wait to continue, the harder it is.  Moving without the pull of gravity is difficult. Trust and Balance.   Finally, there must be the time to sit, to totally surrender, to rest and meditate and watch the beauty of the mountain, after which me must practice humility and be willing to start again, often without gracefulness, but not letting that keep you from spiraling upward again. 

 

Lesson #3:  The Desert and the Oscars

The universe sends us the souls we need to support us in this life, and thus, I will never be alone.  A day in the snow is perfected by a night in the desert, under a moon as white and reflective as the snow, here melted and massaging the muscles that worked so hard over the ice.  Good food, good wine, and good friends bring us back to and out of ourselves.   One's ability to guess the winners is not dependent on actually seeing the movies.  Laughter is the best medicine.  Champagne and raspberry sauce and whipped cream are a delicious but destructive combination that time in the hot tub cures only temporarily, but that cannot ruin the soul expanding desert experience.

 

Lesson#4:  Mt. Baldy, revisited (Lychee's cure for a champagne and sugar hangover)

 

 

If the journey places a mountain in your path, you should worship its beauty, even if it results in a few bumps.   "A bad day on the mountain is better than a good day anywhere else," rings the voice of my instructor from two days ago as I disembark from the lift onto the empty mountain stepping off onto icy slush.    Despite the clouds below, here the sun beams its warmth onto the snow, the mountain workers, the five visitors and the empty lodge.  The beauty of Southern California, where sun and snow exist in unison,  the snow resists melting.  I have the mountain to myself.  I am eager to practice my lessons from Saturday, to work my muscles and build the memory of strength and control and agility, to move my mind into a space clear and pure as the mountain air.   Sitting, I strap my feet to the slick wood and plastic, digging the razor edge into the snow.   The first time is slow going,  allowing my body and mind to drift into the moment, into the place.  Then, I start again and make my first run all the way down the hill without falling.  No witnesses and no one waiting for me to share this small feat.   I sing a little chant to myself as I swing over the treetops back to the top of the slope.   The fog begins to roll as if to say my work is done here today.   Rows of empty chairs pass ahead and behind, I am slowly lowered through the fog, the cloud, the ground below and the trees around me appear miles away, the thing, white air seems endless.   A shiver runs up my spine and then I take out my headphone to listen to the music of the mountain:  crackling ice and a whispering wind hums in sync with a song in my soul.   A coldness sets into my damp body.  I sing OM with the wind, the trees, the snow, the rocks, creating heat from my belly to my toes.   It works enough.   Some families play in the parking lot, here to see the snow only.  I start back down the winding roads of the mountain, back on track on the highway, back to my life, my apartment, no longer a prison, but a home, a blessing, the resulting creation of all that I am and have been up until this moment.