Triple-training Monday was interesting. Early morning Ashtanga Yoga felt brutal after a week of none. The afternoon Active Aging Yoga class was a godsend. I think I have the yoga professor’s Tennisball on Iliotibial tract (I.T. Band) exercise**** to thank. For an overall loosening of body bands. He did say that pain somewhere can be an indication of a problem somewhere else. It’s called referred pain in medicine/therapy. When you feel pain in an area other than where it originated as multiple primary sensory neurons converge on a single converging tract, according to the internet. Anyway, I’ve done two days of maximum chaturangas (30-40 on the first page) during Ashtanga with little bother of the right wrist and arm/shoulder situation. The last 10 or so getting sloppy though.
I had already noticed last week that the entire right side
was showing up in major joints. Like it was all strangely connected. The knee,
shoulder, wrist, and even hip and ankle sometimes hurt. Never the elbow though.
On Tuesday in ballet class, I was able to bend sideways all
the way over the right leg for the first time in years, since before my third
child. The leg being lifted onto the ballet bar, the other standing with a
tentative turn-out. Stretching the left side of the body from the standing leg to
the torso and arm over my bad left hip beyond ever before.
Monday night during Wing Chun practice, breath made my five
gates get a little out of hand. My partner said, “I know if I work with
Natascha, I’m going to get beat up.” Damn. I felt terrible. I don’t mean to
beat up nobody! I’m still such an incredibly naive practitioner. I like to
experiment with techniques and physical phenomena, like the breath’s impact on
movement. But I have near to no experience. Progress comes about slowly. Focus
drifts off. Forces can take over. I scare myself.
There’s no need for violence.
Birth is violent enough.
There’s no need for bloodshed.
Monthly female bleeding is enough.
I dreamt I was walking around in public, and my tit fell
out. Then a drop of milk came out of the nipple. Even though I haven’t breastfed
in years. Is this menopause? I wondered.
At my second philosopher’s club meeting last Saturday, metaphysics
was on the menu. The philosopher’s eyes were aglow. Mysterious depths shining
forth in a light and vibrant blue of an iceberg sunshine ocean hue. He seemed different
somehow. It was different people, too. A woman with a serious presence and voluptuous
breasts hidden beneath a loose white silky blouse with bright pink flowers.
Another woman, reared in an antique bookstore, an avid reader. A kid who found philosophy
in literature. An elder with an enchanting brightness about him, stoic, mostly
silent, radiating curiosity. And me, the lone Nexistentialist bringing up communal
species, biological bloodshed, and the violence of birth. All lovers of Perceptive
Arts, lovers of l’Art du Point-de-Vue. Where phenomena inter-are, opinions
abound.
By the time it was Tuesday afternoon, after five trainings
(yoga, yoga, Kungfu, yoga, ballet), I was too tired to argue with Geshe on X. Though
I may have loved to. I felt acid cranky from the muscle fatigue, and his
statement triggered me some.
“If our mind is filled with negative thoughts and delusions,
such as desirous attachment, anger and ignorance, we experience great harm and
suffering as a result. They prevent us from maintaining a peaceful mind, and
also destroy whatever happiness we may have gained.”
It’s true alright. And yes, I experience negative thoughts and
all that. But does it destroy whatever happiness I’ve ever gained? There’s so
much more to the complexity of mind. I felt a little shamed. Anyway, this is a
larger discussion for another time.
What can a male monk know about being a woman? Is
destructive force feminine? Is it human because of female biological
necessities? Except, cells are destroyed every instant everywhere.
Regeneration, continuation cannot subsist on creativity alone. Decay, disease
and destruction appear to be an inescapable part of life’s equation. Thus, they
must be known and handled with the utmost awareness and care.
 |
| about to get my period on vaca |
“Sparrow sitting on the edge of the fourth floor skilfully manoeuvring a big branch in its beak. Winter will come again. Cold, humid, and brutal around the Great Lake, which has inspired songs of death that are centuries old. An eerie body of water of mysterious powers full of life and skeletons. Flocks of seagulls and wild geese fly across the baby blue sky. I think of bygone days in a far away land. The old belief that aviary dances signified great reveries, prophecies. Fertil mental ground for philosophical spirits, poets, writers and kin. Words cannot be the only way artistic, passionate spirits manifest. But that chapter remains to be explored by this aging Nexistentialist. The world of pictures, lines, and paint. For now, the word will do.
I’m terribly cramping. Second day of bleeding period.
Symptoms intensify before the strongest letting of blood*****. Body in purge
mode. Am extremely moody. I’d best be left alone to avoid all the compulsive
bitching that comes out of my mouth. The sassy remarks and rude retorts. It’s
not me! It’s the pain, the discomfort, and the goddam social expectations to
keep on functioning productively, often overwhelming to a woman spouting the
bitter blood of death made to create life. Nothing can be created if nothing
else is ever destroyed. Fuck the chaos in the world! Not in the mood to be
happy today, damnit. I know exactly how this shit show is gonna go down. The
pain will only increase before the big bleeding begins. Sensations of my
vulvagina exploding. Like I was giving birth all over again. Only to drop
gelatinous chunks of body matter amidst fountains of blood for an excruciating approximately
forty-eight hours. Body doesn’t care what else is going on. It will sweep,
bleed, purge, and weep day and night. Mercilessly fulfilling the miraculous
mechanisms of life divine. Chaotically controlled by forces beyond individual
will.
Random man looked at me in a way that gave me the validation
a broken part inside of me appears to need. Making me wonder if it would ever
heal/end. Or would I be stuck craving broken-part-validation? Forcing me to
face grief, unfinished hurt, time and again. Into another lifetime?
Bleeding like a pig in the slaughterhouse is exhausting.
Horrible night. Another month, another cycle. Another period-rich family
vacation. Lucky fucking me!”
There is something beautifully humbling about being
exhausted. It becomes easier to let go. And to keep going despite the hardship,
full of faith in an ancient process. Elaborated by the greatest minds humanity
has known. Wise minds. Old minds. Ancient. Contemplation. Sewn together with threads
of breath. Words. And between breaths. Silence. From asana to asana. From place
to place. Riding thought waves. Focusing the mind onto every extent of the
body. No matter how subtle the sensation. Or how strong, loud or numb. Observing
all that is occurring within and without. Noticing an expansive mentality. Approaching
a more subtle mind. Channelling raw consciousness. Or, at least, trying.
Training blindly if must be. But never unaware. Of what is in the moment. No
matter what it is. Watch it come and go. Observe and continue to seek. To catapult
perception onto a net. Of threads of wisdom. I trust it is so. I feel it within
the body, as its ancient scribes begin to reveal themselves. Thanks to ancient
traditions. Consciousness can reveal itself as it bites its own tail. Dressed
up as humanity, adorned in Philosophy.
Shout out to all the yogis and yoginis! To all physical
scholars (athletes, martial artists, dancers, acrobats, scientists, walkers, farmers,
physical laborers, et cetera). Physical study and development are hard. Only
technique makes mastery possible, and art. If practiced. If studied. If
observed. Repetition creates patterns. Awareness opens up choices. Conscious
considerations ensue. Resulting in realizations.
Un-patterning and re-patterning require great effort. As
does the cultivation of good ancient patterns. Despite internal (i.e. idiosyncratic
mind, social inheritance (Psyquis)) and external (i.e. environmental, elemental
(Physis)) resistance-patterns (hindrances).
Lately, I’ve been thinking about tits. How they hang. Gravity
and all. And about the human drive to keep them from hanging. The question of
tits, to let them hang or not to let them hang? To bounce or not to bounce? To
swing?
Friday after returning from vacation, I finished the book
club book, “Demon Copperhead” by Barbara Kingsolver. By obsessively reading for
several, several hours. Suddenly it was 4 p.m. Hadn’t I just had breakfast? The
book makes me think about what makes a good writer. Someone who knows just
enough to see through, not enough to be certain. Thus, imagination is key;
compassionate, empathetic imagination. Fearless. Courageous in portraying life
and all its controversies. “Reality.”
Apheida: Reality is relative.
Ruphus: Relative to what?
Apheida: Relative to perception.
Ruphus: Whose?
Apheida: I don’t know. Maybe yours?
Ruphus: Your perception.
Apheida: And my perception.
Ruphus: Yours and mine perceptions combined.
A good writer, like Ms. Kingsolver, can portray life’s controversies
(suffering, strife, et cetera) with love, care, compassion, understanding,
wisdom and calm. Seeking to understand what is experienced and why. What is
true in a world full of suffering and strife? Evidently it is also full of
wonder, communion, and love.
An uncooperative life is a lie. Nature ALWAYS surrounds us. In
Samkhya philosophy existence is summarized by two phenomena: Perusha and
Prakriti. A silent witness, a sheer observer non-force, pure consciousness,
Perusha. And the force of nature, everything in the universe, all that is,
Prakriti. An observing phenomenon and all that can observed.
Does Perusha LIKE watching Prakriti? I bet they love it.
Bound by loving curiosity. Seeking equilibrium, EQUANIMITY amidst the pushes
and pulls of blessings and strife.
So, Kingsolver’s novel made me think of the Bodhisattva******
Phenomenon, an alternative to complete liberation from reincarnation. Keep
coming back to help lost souls who suffer.
Is it even biologically feasible never to be born again?
Unlikely. Life, nature (planetary or cosmic), Prakrti keeps on going. Death
being but a part of it all. Of the biological cosmic cycle. And who is witness
to it all so that it may occur? Because if there’s no witness, what’s the
point? Otherwise, why perception? Why creativity? Why expression, techniques?
Why art?
A witness cannot be without anything to witness. Thus,
Goddess must dance, move, speak, sparkle, whatever. “It” must bubble over with
life and evolve. It must twist, turn, and explode. Be full and empty. Just to
be witnessed? Or is there more?
2. Place a tennis ball (or the like), first closer to the knee then up the leg, on the band draping over/flowing between the hamstring muscle Biceps Femoris Longhead (back) and the quad muscle Vastus Lateralis (front). Basically the side of the leg, but towards the back. Feel around and find a harder surface line with a drop-off into the flesh. This according to my current understanding.
***** About 48 hour non-stop bleeding. Constant flow. Large expulsions of blood
variations. Quantity. Worse case scenario it is (usually within the first 24
hours) accompanied by excruciating pelvic, vulvaginal, and even anal pain. I
call it, exploding vagina or exploding asshole (explodierende Scheide,
explodierendes Arschloch). Like a giant is going to explode out of there. Which
it did three times. Countless times. Physical awareness of birth.
Embedded in the body (informational net of memory), more ancient than any other
evolutionary trait characteristic of humankind.
****** In Mahāyāna Buddhism, a bodhisattva refers to anyone who has generated
bodhicitta, a spontaneous wish and compassionate mind to attain Buddhahood for
the benefit of all sentient beings.[3] Mahayana bodhisattvas are spiritually
heroic persons that work to attain awakening and are driven by a great
compassion (mahākaruṇā).
(Wikipedia)
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