Month: September 2019

Weeds and Seeds

Cancer has been a summer weed for me, but I’m happy to report that the doctors plucked it out by the roots. My breast cancer was stage 1, no node involvement and I do not need additional treatment. Only a 5% chance that it returns somewhere else in my body. So I’m cancer free, and I feel so very fortunate and blessed. I will always keep a huge space in my heart for women and the people that love them who have not had this kind of prognosis.

As I return to the ordinary ways of my life (I start teaching at YogaWorks again tomorrow), I have some resolutions I’d like to plant in cancer’s place. One is to practice keeping my heart open at all times, not just special times. To remember the wounds every being I encounter has and perhaps hides. To be part of the healing rather than the hurting. (This is a big order for someone who can leave a yoga class completely blissed out and then be in a snit about a driver who refuses to use a blinker when turning.)

The second resolution I am making is to set aside time for intentional creativity. I was so happy teaching 12 classes a week — 3 of them were art classes for older adults through Iona. Each lesson was a flowering of my own creativity but it had an extrinsic purpose. I had to have the right materials, make sure that I could teach this lesson in an hour and a half and think through modifications for those with physical challenges so they had the resources they needed to create. The paintings I did these past four weeks were intrinsic — done just for the love of doing it — and in this way they were healing. Though I’ve shared some with you here, there are others I’ll never share.  They are just for me.

So: two resolutions grown during the summer of breast cancer.  As I’ve gotten better and I’m getting used to new limitations and new body parts (!), I’ve been aware of the healing energy that has shone down on me every step of the way. I’ve soaked up all this love and warmth and I’m ready to give back now. Thank you for helping me get to this place of harvest.

I’ll continue to post about how the practice of yoga can heal, sharing the way my practice as a yogi, teacher and creative shows up for me.  But for now, thank God, no more about cancer.

 

 

Heart Dagger

 

Sternum

Consistently walking is the best thing for my healing. (10,000 steps a day most days this past week!) Another important practice for me right now is living on our screened-in porch from breakfast to past dinner — eating, reading, art-making, and doing sudoku puzzles. The weather this past week has been another amazing gift.

Planting myself in the green has allowed my energy to flow up and around my heart center. I feel joy and gratitude which flows out in my “hellos” and “good mornings” to people I encounter on my walk. Surprisingly, a few have frowned and turned their gaze down after my interaction. And I think, how crusty does a heart have to be impenetrable to this day, this velvet green? Then I remember something my teacher Todd said as I was just beginning my yoga practice. As he cued a heart opener he made an observation that these particular asanas place us in a vulnerable place — where  we aren’t protecting our heart. I try to remember to open, to give, to practice gratitude and compassion, regardless of what I encounter along the way.

Happy girl and her sternumThis is a picture of me when I was in the recovery room. I don’t remember a thing about this part of my surgery, but Tom has told me about it. First, that I insisted that he take this picture (!) Also that I told him that I could feel my sternum so many times it made him and some of the nurses chuckle. Each time the nurses would explain something to me about this feeling I was having. But after hearing this story, I think it was a habit of my mind.

Anyone who has been in my class, knows that I like to cue heart-openers with  an awareness to the sternum. Lots of us with a bit more give in our backs will focus on the curling (and usually dumping) in the spine. But if in preparation, we instead bring our awareness to the strength of the abdominals and the lift of the sternum, we lengthen the back body and our heart lifts up and out rather than down or in.

The sternum protects the heart and the lungs. It is shaped like a dagger. Its three parts– the manubrium, gladiolus and xiphoid process — are Latin words for handle, sword and “sword shaped.”  When we are young, the low tip, the xiphoid process, is soft cartilage.  By the time we are 40, this part of the sternum has ossified into bone.  Perhaps this process is a reason why someone would frown when a stranger smiles and says “morning!”  It is hard to unsheathe the dagger to expose and offer the soft heart underneath.

As I heal from bilateral mastectomy and get ready for the final phase of my reconstruction, I can’t place my body in shapes that open the heart for a while. But no matter. I can place my attention and awareness on my heart and how it shows up in the world. I can choose to remove the dagger. And so on my walks I look at someone, smile, say good morning and mean it.