My body leans to the left

In yoga, our bodies tell a story, sometimes one which we are unaware of and disconnected from.

In class yesterday, we were talking about how we block the memory of pain. Not only does the mind have a mechanism to deal with extreme pain of the body, but the whole point of anesthesiology is to help us to forget the ordeal. Still, the residue remains.

It has come to my attention how I favor one side of my body over another. I lean my head slightly to the left, my chin does not hang center but to the left ( I found this laying on a bench in a supported bridge pose with my head hanging off; I'm loving Iyengar yoga.), I lean my weight to the left and jut the left hip out. All of these things are my body speaking, and I think they speak of protecting the left side, which has been injured repeatedly.

When I was about eleven, I was riding my bike in our neighborhood. We lived in a condo neighborhood on the Dickinson Bayou. There was a circle that the housing was arranged around and a rode that came off of the circle that led to the bayou where there was a boat ramp. I liked to ride my bike down the hill toward the boat ramp. It felt like I was flying and could take off over the water. At the last minute, I would turn to the left and take the road that ran behind the condo building.

On this particular day, there was a car coming from the left. My bicycle collided with the Jeep and it ran over my left arm crushing the joint. The pain must have been excrutiating. I don't know. I passed out. I came to fleetingly when my mom showed up. I remember how scared she was that my arm had been over my head. They hadn't moved me yet. It must have been a mess. The people who were in the Jeep were our next door neighbors. They would have known where to find her quickly.

I vaguely remember the emergency room. They put me in surgery. This one blurs with another that came soon after. Another bicycle accident, another trauma. They slide together. In the second case, I knocked my front teeth out, had a head trauma, and surgery on my nose that was broken. I remember going to the bathroom and seeing a monster in the mirror; that monster was me.

When I woke up my arm was in sling over my head, and I was flat on my back. They had put my elbow back together and held the pieces together with a pin. I was to be in traction for at least a month. I went from freedom to immobilization and isolation.

I spent almost 6 weeks like that. My father spent every night sleeping on a cot in my room. He kept on lawyering and spent his nights with me.

They finally took me down and released me. The pin had been a corkscrew that came in from the bottom of the elbow; what would have been the top when attached to the traction pulley. When they took it out, it hung over my head dripping blood like a scene from a horror movie.

The real horror was that another surgery was necessary. Another pin was put in from side-to-side and my arm was hoisted over my head again. I had several hours of release and freedom to move from the bed and it was right back where I was. I remember being devastated.

I healed. I went to physical therapy. I don't remember the pain so much.

I do remember the feeling of being trapped, immobilized, helpless.

And my body has been affected ever since, partly by the sense memory and partly by the adjustments it had to make to the injury. My arm still does not straighten and won't really support me. Handstand evades me as a pose; in fact it terrifies me.

That's why hanging from the wall yesterday was so blissful. I was able to experience the feeling of inversion without stress and fear.

I felt that freedom that I used to feel when I rode my bike down the hill.

I've had other attacks to the left: When I was pregnant with Sarah, I was T-boned by a car coming from my left. My lower back bears that scar in a vertebrate that gets inflamed periodically. A man caught me with a right hook to the left side of my face, causing me to lose another tooth. And most recently, the car accident a little over a year ago where a car took out the left side of my little red car from behind. http://ruthiengelke.blogspot.com/2013/12/car-wreck-gratitude.html

These traumas to my body have done something to me. I have tried to push them under and ignore them. It seems the natural thing to do. But the cost is a lack of awareness. The fear comes out somehow. The examined life is no picnic, but the cost of not examining is high. We lose other things.

I don't want to run on fear anymore. I have for quite some time. I had a reason to look for safety.

If I do not dare to fly (because I am afraid of being hit by a small truck), I cannot fall.

I think it is important to note that the left side of the body is traditionally seen as the female and emotional side of the body. So it is significant to me that my injuries are on this side. I have felt attacked and vulnerable on my feminine side and have learned to protect it.

Another story.

Namaste' y'all!

Opening up the Throat

This is my first post this year.

My last post was on December 30, 2014. It's a reaction to some poetry that revealed some difficult truths. The one before that only acknowledges my move from the apartment in Pearland to the Love Shack in Buda.

I haven't been writing.

I haven't been speaking much either.

This past week I started feeling congested in my neck and shoulders. It felt blocked and cramped up mostly in that triangle where the neck meets the shoulders on the upper back. It hurt to raise my head. Then, I started feeling foggy in the back of the head and sensed fluid behind and below my ears, running down the back sides of my neck.

The neck and throat carry our mechanism for communication. I had some kind of a traffic jam going on. In fact, it is still clearing out. Traffic is slow, but it is moving.

I have been attending a few classes at an Iyengar studio in Austin. This blog began when I went to a workshop in Albuquerque that was at an Iyengar studio. I seem to be called back. My teacher was leading a workshop on the throat and neck this weekend,so I spontaneously jumped in.

I am so glad that I did. The work we did really helped me to begin to unclog the channel in my neck and throat where there is this traffic jam. One of the things we did was to create a sling to hang upside down from the wall. It was tremendous. I have difficulty going upside down because of my crushed left elbow. I have never been able to support myself comfortably. The ropes were able to support me and allow me to hang free. We did several poses at the wall where we trussed ourselves up in different ways to use the support of the ropes to free our poses. It was nice just to relax into them. I loved it.

The area that I have described as being congested is also part of the yoke that binds the arms to the torso. The arms reach out to the outside world and draw it in. We use our arms to encircle loved ones, to hug them to our hearts.

This is also the area where the head joins the torso and the rational and intuitive join the earth body. Input from our visual and auditory senses integrate with the tactile receptors in our hands and feet. It's a real crossroads here.

My blockage seems to come from my tendency to get stuck not being able to speak.

I can feel it, and I can draw on my senses, but I have not been able to use my voice. Thus, the blockage occurs. So much has gone in and not much has come out.

So, here I go. I am taking it slow, but I am loosening up my voice. I have been listening and watching and absorbing and processing. It is time to start to make sounds and be heard. I feel I have been holding back and protecting, choking back my complete expression.

I'm making a commitment to write every day. I haven't even been writing in my hand notebook. I've got to set aside some time to do this every day.

I think I need to do some singing too, make some beautiful noise.

I also need to talk to people. I have not been reaching out and talking to friends enough.

Namaste' y'all!

wounded Doberman pinscher

from Citizen by Claudia Rankine

The new therapist specializes in trauma counseling. You have only ever spoken on the phone. Her house has a side gate that leads to a back entrance she uses for patients. You walk down a path bordered on both sides with deer grass and rosemary to the gate, which turns out to be locked.

At the front door the bell is a small round disc that you press firmly. When the door finally opens, the woman standing there yells, at the top of her lungs, Get away from my house. What are you doing in my yard?

It’s as if a wounded Doberman pinscher or a German shepherd has gained the power of speech. And though you back up a few steps, you manage to tell her you have an appointment. You have an appointment? she spits back. Then she pauses. Everything pauses. Oh, she says, followed by, oh, yes, that’s right. I am sorry.

I am so sorry, so, so sorry.

I am so moved by this poem that I can hardly write.

I see Mic or Shamako or my god, Dione walking up to this house and it breaks my heart. 

I see any of my students from my many years of teaching.

 And I see that I have been the woman inside the house.

Fear runs through this poem on both sides.

There is the newness and the vulnerability of the patient and the therapist. We know that the speaker has had trauma in his or her life that was severe enough to seek counseling. The bond is tenuous, forged only by voice. They have not seen each other. We can also assume that the speaker “sound’s white” on the phone, which to the lady would only appear “normal.” In her world, everyone is light skinned. People with darker hues are deemed the “other.” It may be subtle. Sometimes it is just what is seen on a day to day basis.

I understand. I don’t like that I do, but I do.

The patient follows a path around the woman’s house to the back entrance but finding it barred by a locked gate, approaches the front door of the home. As a new patient arriving for counseling it is already disconcerting to find the entrance locked, but this image evokes Jim Crow, as well. The patient dares to approach the front door and surprises the woman.

We do not know why the woman answers the door in the manner that she does, but we feel her fear and anger. She is “a wounded Doberman pinscher or a German shepherd” guarding her domain.

She does not see the human being in front of her; she sees someone to be afraid of. This is not someone who reflects her own image of herself. The woman immediately changes gears when she realizes the mistake she has made.

“I am so sorry, so, so sorry.”

At least she stops. At least she realizes that her fear is not only misplaced, but hurtful. In this second excerpt, the pain is not even acknowledged.

A man knocked over her son in the subway. You feel your own body wince. He’s okay, but the son of a bitch kept walking. She says she grabbed the stranger’s arm and told him to apologize: I told him to look at the boy and apologize. And yes, you want it to stop, you want the black child pushed to the ground to be seen, to be helped to his feet and be brushed off, not brushed off  by the person that did not see him, has never seen him, has perhaps never seen anyone who is not a reflection of himself.

The beautiful thing is that a group of men began to stand behind me like a fleet of  bodyguards, she says, like newly found uncles and brothers.

Solidarity and hope comes through at the end through the wall of “newly found uncles and brothers.”

There is hope in these poems. Hope and truth. We just don’t realize the small ways we touch each other’s lives.

I’m still struggling to fight past and “see” clearly. What I see is pain and fear and lack of understanding.

But I also see hope and beauty.

Onward to a better world.

Namaste’ ya’ll.

Moving Day

I am packing my stuff up again and moving it down the road.

I only lived in this apartment six months, but it has been my sanctuary.

So much has happened in those six months.

I came back from California in April not sure of what I was going to do beyond be closer to my kids. I mostly rested in this apartment, cocooned in its walls.

 It has served its purpose. It held me in, gave me some space, a safe place where there was very little outside interference.

In this container, I have been able to evolve into my next being. In doing so, relationships have had to be readjusted and reconfigured. It has been bumpy but fruitful.

There isn't much to move, but I need to get to it.

Namaste' ya'll!

November is a Dangerous Month

I’m attracted to the number 11.

Whenever I see the number on a clock, I pause.

My daughter was born on 11-1.

My father was born in November too.

We get our first cold, dreary days in November.

It’s the official start of the holidays. We get warmed up at Halloween and Day of the Dead. People start their Thankfulness practices. It gets colder and drearier. We need to remember what we are thankful for because life literally begins to get darker every day. We are going into the night, the end of the year.

It is no surprise that this month marks both the official and un-official end dates of my marriage. My divorce was final one year ago, and I began this blog. That marked the end of the year after my ex-husband announced his desire to end our marriage. The anniversary seems to call for some reflection but not too much.

We have a choice whether to accept the darkness or to fight against it. In this case, the weapon is love and a different outlook. Things have changed quite a lot in a year. I am very thankful. Not everything is exactly the way I would like it to be. That’s ok. I have to learn to accept these things that I cannot change. I am no longer angry.

I end this year of transitions in yet another transition. I am finally making a move back to the Texas Hill Country. It feels that I have come full circle. It will be a place to rest and build a foundation. I have been tying down my kite string in Buda for the past year. It is time for me to secure that attachment.

A year ago, I spent my first Thanksgiving holiday not with my children and husband. My friends Jim and Val generously invited me to spend it with their kids and grandkids. It was a nice time. It is the support and love of friends like these that has strengthened me. I am thankful for them.

Namaste’ ya’ll.

Kairos

The ancient Greeks had two words for time: Chronos which refers to standard chronological time and Kairos which refers to a period when something special happens. Most of us relate to time in a chronological fashion, but there is a second level of time without determining borders--a time that cannot be measured by the clock or the turning of the calendar. Kairos lives in the cocooning of  a butterfly, in the time that is needed to heal and emerge as new.

I witnessed Kairos in action this past weekend in a group of over 70 women. Some of us were ministering to our 26 guests for the weekend at a retreat center near Belton, Texas, but all of us experienced the power of unity and healing.

All of our guests and many of the servants share the experience of having a loved one who is or has been incarcerated. There were grandmothers, mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, nieces, aunts, friends--all strong, loving women who have suffered and endured.

The women came in on Friday night scared, ashamed, and alone for the most part. They left Sunday evening humming and singing with their heads held high, buoyed by the love of their sisters and the time that they had taken to express their grief and find their joy again.

I was a table leader, which meant that I and another woman were responsible for holding space and gently guiding a group of four guests. We led the discussions after the talks, sat with them and took care of them during dinner, stood with them and supported them throughout the weekend. The six of us became a small family, sharing meals, sharing stories, and sharing our journeys.

Kairos is a prison ministry with three branches: Kairos Inside, which goes into the prisons to serve adult inmates, Kairos Torch, which serves juveniles and offenders under 25, and Kairos Outside, which serves the family members.

The Kairos Outside logo shows the image of a woman looking through the bars and a man looking out. The weekend is focused on growing a community of support, acceptance, and love.  It is based on the Cursillo movement and Walk to Emmaus, which are three day short courses on Christianity. I attended a Cursillo weekend through the Episcopal church several months ago.

As in the Cursillo weekend,  a series of talks and meditations are given by women who open themselves up to share their journey through life. I had the privilege of giving the talk on Anger, in which I shared my path through anger to forgiveness. The talks are a springboard for the conversations around the table where the women have the opportunity to express their own feelings on the topic.

One of the most moving and educational talks for me was the one on Isolation and Rejection. There is so much shame around incarceration. Some of these women went through public trials. Some of them have never spoken to anyone outside of immediate family about their ordeal. Some of them have been rejected by friends and family because of their association with their loved one behind bars. These women bear the shame and responsibility of having a child, grand-child, parent, brother, or husband who is in prison. Many of them are caring for children left behind. These women desperately need love and support. They deserve to be respected, not denigrated. They have been pushed aside for too long. A grandmother raising six children whose parents were both incarcerated spoke of her fears in being able to care for these babies: "How could she do right by them when her own child broke the law and went to prison?"

Many of the stories I heard were about children and grand-children who went to prison at an early age due to the influence of drugs. One mother revealed at the closing that her son went in at 17 and was 39 now: "He is still there, and NO ONE DIED." The sentences are overwhelmingly long. The faces are overwhelmingly black and brown. All the women are poor; many live in poverty. Opportunities to feel worthy are so few for them.

But I watched them bloom and grow over the weekend. Seemingly small gestures of love and kindness were accepted with such gratitude.

Listen, listen, love, love.

Namaste' ya'll!

Anger: The First Sunday in November

This is a transcript of a talk I gave yesterday at Kairos Outside. Namaste' ya'll.

I think the angriest that I have ever been was when my ex-husband told me that he didn’t love me anymore and wanted a divorce. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me…but it did. I was furious with him for lying to me for so long and for giving up on our marriage without giving us a chance to work on it, but I was even angrier at myself for letting it happen. Looking back now, I realize that it was for the best. We were both unhappy and lashing out at each other in unhealthy ways. I really didn’t realize the burden of that anger until I let it go. I had been carrying the weight of anger over the direction my life had taken for years. I didn’t know how to express it, so I attacked everything I loved, including myself. My weight had gone up to over 200 pounds and I just felt irritated all the time. I was not only living with a man that didn’t love me, but I also hated my job. I was a high school teacher, a job that requires one to see the potential and best in students that don’t always make that easy. I had lost that capability. I trusted no one. I felt trapped; I think I would have chewed off my own arm to get away. Even my youngest son, when informed of our separation, was unsurprised and said that he didn’t even think we liked each other. That’s pretty serious when your fifteen year old son knows your marriage isn’t working. I think that awareness is what made him the one child that did not suffer from our dissolution.

But on that November night I fought against the idea that ending my marriage of seventeen years was the way to do it.  I was so devastated and angry that I wanted to die. I had cleared the counter in the kitchen in a desperate swoop of my arm and cut my wrist on a piece of glass. As I watched the blood begin to ooze, I thought about how easy it would be to open that vein even more and let the life drain out of me. I wanted to punish him, but I also wanted to punish myself. How could I have let this happen? I was so ashamed that I didn’t even think that I deserved to live. I screamed, I cried, I hit my head on the ground, and I even tried to lash out at him. I wanted to hurt someone. Someone needed to pay for the hurt and anguish I was feeling, even if that person was me.

For over a year afterwards, I was still blaming myself and punishing myself for the shame I felt over my failed marriage. I started out blaming him for everything, He was distant, emotionally withdrawn, and cruel. He had lied to me, allowed me to feel unworthy, cheated me out of happiness, taken away my stability, and left me unable to cope. He had pulled the rug out from under me and thrown me out to sea without a life preserver. I thought I no longer had a future. He put a wedge between me and my kids, especially my daughter. I felt like I was floating in this sea of not knowing what to do. I felt like a victim… and that was the worst part. As long as I blamed him for doing this to me and myself for allowing it, I could not heal and move on. As soon as I decided to stop, everything got easier and the anger started to go away. I’m not going to say it is gone, but I have stopped trying to hurt myself and stopped trying to get back at him. I realized that all I was doing was hurting myself.

That’s why anger is such poison. I’d like to read you a poem by William Blake.

The Poison Tree

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears,
Night and morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine.
And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

The speaker in the poem shows two sides to anger:

“I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.”

Notice the difference: when he lets his anger out, it dies. But, when he feeds it, when he waters it and allows it to grow it becomes a tree that bears poison fruit. In this case, the poison not only kills his friend but makes him a murderer. The speaker here does not yet see the havoc he has caused. He does not mourn the death of his friend but celebrates. We can see what he has become: a murderer. Instead of looking for foes to blame for our anger, we need to look for friends. It is all about forgiveness. That was my problem: I could not forgive. I could not forgive my husband and I certainly could not forgive myself.

Cesar Chavez said, “You are never strong enough that you do not need help.”  When I started to talk about my anger with friends, with family, with a counselor, in my prayers, the poison began to dissipate, to leave me. I began to see my ex-husband as a friend instead of a foe. I no longer wanted him to eat the poison apple and I stopped feeding it to myself as well.

Anger is an emotional response related to one's psychological interpretation of having been threatened. Often it indicates when one's basic boundaries are violated. My boundaries had been violated. In fact, they had been trampled. I felt out of control. Working on my anger helped me to re-establish those boundaries for myself and create the life I want to lead.

I am not going to say it was easy. In fact, it was the most difficult thing that I have ever done. I not only had to look at the anger that I was feeling in the present but also all the anger that had built up over the years. Little by little, as it came out in talks with my friends, in my journal writing, in my meditations, the anger turned to realization that all the people that hurt me were also hurt themselves. Anger begets anger. But love and forgiveness also begets more love and forgiveness.

MLK said:

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

We need to shine a light on our anger. It’s scary. I know. It hides in the deepest, darkest recesses of our souls. It is difficult to look at, especially for us women. We are not supposed to get angry. We are supposed to endure, but that endurance can lead to pain for ourselves and those around us. I did not realize how much pain I was causing myself and others with my closely held anger. It was so big and so bad that I thought it was best if I hid it. But when I finally looked at the anger, it was more like a dirty, raggedy child. The part of me that was angry was really more hurt. When I showered that anger with love, it bloomed into a beautiful flower instead of a poison tree.

I will leave you with a quote from Maya Angelou:

“You can't forgive without loving. And I don't mean sentimentality. I don't mean mush. I mean having enough courage to stand up and say, 'I forgive. I'm finished with it.'”