Geeta's Spirit and Viparita Dandasana

You know all hell has broken loose when I start eating wheat chocolate chip cookies for dinner while waiting for my evening dahl to cook. Oh how I miss my clay cooker. Oh for the days when I came home from class and the dahl was cooked to perfection waiting for me warm. Though I seriously ask myself with all the yogic sincerity I can muster “is it wrong to be attached to such a blatantly material device?” Call it raga (attachment to pleasure), call it dvesa (aversion to pain…or in this case, stovetop cooking), call it avidya (lack of knowledge of God), call it whatever you like. I don’t care one bit: I miss that darn cooker. It seems like I should bury it or cremate it or do something to honor the poor darn thing, which is currently listlessly sitting broken under the kitchen counter. A skeleton of the best laid plan.

Geeta’s class was a humdinger tonight: it’s backbend week here at the Institute. Somehow what you think is impossible not only becomes possible, and plausible, but you don’t really have time or the courage to consider NOT doing whatever she’s asking. Little old Indian men and women amazingly lift themselves into Viparita Dandasana with bent legs. Not once, but 10, 15, even 20 times! It’s inspirational. It’s amazing. We are so blessed to have such teachers-- even if poor Geeta constantly reminds us “why am I teaching? You don’t listen anyway.” In all honesty, she’s probably right. We keep our habits. We quit before we have a chance at success. We are attached to our physical pain. We practice incorrectly. We say some really dumb stuff (unfortunately to her every once in while which will inevitably unleash a tirade of not-so-blissful observations).

Yet just as I thought to myself that I wasn’t sure I could do one more Viparita Dandasana, I found that I could. I’m not saying that there was any kind of miraculous healing here or anything, but I did them when my mind would have normally rationalized itself into “Oh, its okay. You’ve been sick for a week. You can quit now” or “Oh this is not a good class for post menstruation” or well, both those and probably a few more like “hmm, I wonder if I’ll ever be able to walk again.” Then your up and grunting along with the rest of the class. Then class is over, we all feel great as we stumble out onto the sidewalk nearly mobbing the coconut man. Boy, lemme tell you, coconut water never tasted so good. I drank two! And now, thank god, that dahl is finally done! God bless and good night.