Trying to play catch up with time

CATHARINE COOPER

February! The calendar screams at me as I turn the last page of

January and wonder ... what in the world happened to the first month

of the year? Granted, the first week I was kayaking on a beach in

Baja, embracing resolutions, and the last week, I was communing with

whales and whale babies in a different Baja lagoon. I guess what

happened to January was sandwiched between Mexican bookends. Lucky

me.

The middle two weeks of the month were focused on balancing my

client’s marketing needs with the search for a new president for

Laguna College of Art and Design (that’s right ... the jewel of a

four-year degree-granting college right here in our fair city), and

figuring out how to turn the City’s Open Space Committee into an

Environmental Committee. Add a last minute flurry of letter writing

and consensus-building to lobby the National Park Service for

continued public access to the river corridor in the Grand Canyon,

and yes, it was quite a month.

To balance the pace of activities was a constant goal, supported

by the foundation of meditation and yoga. And, since the first of the

New Year, the practice of yoga has expanded meaning for me and

several Lagunaites. Jason and Melissa, owners of Bikram’s Yoga Studio

in the Pavilion’s shopping center, started the year with a

“challenge” -- 32 classes in 30 days. I’ve never seen so many sweaty

bodies -- people doing doubles and triples (two and three classes in

one day) -- all in a quest to meet the 32/30 goal. What a joy it has

been to be present to everyone’s devotion and progress.

There is something about yoga that just can’t be matched by other

forms of exercise. Properly sequenced, all parts of the body are

worked, both inside and out. Balance, concentration and focus are

increased, and the mind is refreshed in the process. Since I

recommitted to my practice, I’ve become quite “pretzely,” somehow

longer and better balanced.

Several yoga postures are known as “heart opening” poses -- those

that stretch the body in such a way as to open the chest. This is not

something that we do easily in our worldly lives. We tend to cross

our arms, slouch our bodies, and generally fold into ourselves.

Yoga has many ways of opening the heart. Twists, side stretches

and back bends massage the muscles that constrict the rib cage, the

back and the spine. It is not uncommon for these poses to cause a

welling of emotion, as the ties and locks we’ve programmed into

ourselves begin to let loose.

The heart is profound. In its job as a major muscle it pumps the

blood, circulates oxygen and moves the lymphatic fluids. It sends

nourishment to every cell in the body. It also serves as the center

of our emotional well-being. As we open new areas of our body, we are

able to increase our awareness. Judith Lasiter calls this being

“radically present.”

To be radically present is to experience each and every moment

with crystalline clarity. This means that I can look at the world

with new consciousness and perception. I can muster new solutions to

old problems because I can see and understand them differently.

Sandwiched between my two Mexican sojourns have been untold hours

spent in camel, bow, standing head-to-knee and spinal twisting poses.

Their effect has been transformational, both internally and

externally. My sensitivities have been heightened.

A small black-headed phoebe flutters onto the rail at my studio.

His dark feathers shimmer in the afternoon sun, and we stand close

and quiet, simply being “radically present,” one to the other. I

watch the rise and fall of his chest with his breath, and match it

with my own. For a few seconds, there is no fear, just the moment,

and the beating of our hearts.

* Catharine Cooper loves wild places ... and the yoga studio. She

can be reached at [email protected].