Visuddha - The Throat Chakra

The throat chakra just came into my attention during the past few weeks – it told me to pay attention to it. My throat and voice have been “off” lately. It’s like I my voice was coming from a place three centimetres above the place that it should really come from (the vocal chords). And when I spoke, my words seemed of a higher pitch, a lesser power, and hard to force out – that’s totally it! it seems I was forcing my speech. I tried to lower the pitch of my voice, forcefully, but it didn't work. It’s like I could only speak in one manner and it inherently didn't feel right. But at the same time, I couldn't seem to change it to what would feel right (which is the deep, slow, open, honest, loud and vibrant yet soft and smooth voice that I get when I’m in a yoga retreat for more than a few days). I’ve experienced the normal speech that I know I want to have, and so realized that my current speech was tilted and altered in some way. I thought about this for about a week or more, trying to figure out why my speech was like this. It finally came to me – I’m not speaking my truth. There was something bothering me and I wasn’t voicing it: I have been wanting to talk to my current employer about the date I want to leave my job this summer, but also ask for a raise for the remainder of my time employed with him. I have never, ever asked for a raise because all of my jobs have been four months or less in duration, and at that time I never really thought about asking. For some reason, at this job I feel like I deserve more for the work that I do because I’m doing it full-hearted, with good intentions and I’m basically working really hard. So, after chickening out for a full week because it didn’t feel like the right time to ask (which is also, coincidentally, the time I started having more mucous and scratchiness in my throat area), I finally said to myself that I have to do this because it will honour myself. It will honour the good work that I feel I am doing. So, I walked into my employer’s office and informed him when I expected to leave Nelson after our wedding, and that I knew it was an odd request seeing as I’m leaving in a few months, but that I would like to have a raise. The best part of all this is that I don’t even care if I get a monetary raise or not; the fact that I honoured myself and asked for it is so rewarding for me. And, now that a week has passed since talking to my employer, my voice is a little lighter, a little softer, a little more together, and a hell of a lot less scratchy. I think there is much, much more to this adventure, and that further honesty to myself and honesty in speech can be my road to a lower, easy voice that says what I truly desire to say, and not small chit-chat just for the sake of making noise and filling in space.

The Beautiful Breath

I'm reading "The Breathing Book" by Donna Farhi, and I have to tell you that if you have any interest in your breath and how you breathe, where you hold or resist your breathing, or what muscles and body areas move with natural breath, you should read this book. It's beautiful. The first chapter has a description of breath that is so wonderful, so clear and calm that I want to write it on the wall opposite my yoga mat using colourful jiffy markers: "The inhalation is born out of the stillness of the pause and the exhalation dissolves into it." Simple, but elegant and significant for me. Breathing is something that we all take for granted. Breathing just happens all the time automatically, sure, but our postures, emotional states, external environments and more all have an affect on how we breathe. I'm a rapid, shallow breather. I've known this for years, so I've been working on it with breathing exercises (there are some tremendous inquiries in Donna's book) and also by simply being aware of my breath, my posture, my stress during moments of my day. Take right now, for example. What's your breath like? Mine is a bit laboured and restricted because I've adopted an easier way to sit at my desk on my exercise ball (yep, the ones supposed to help you sit taller and get better core strength). My body is as smart as my brain, me thinks, because I've been finding myself stabilizing my body and therefore the ball with my heels jammed between the edge of the ball and the floor. I can then easily repeat the nasty pattern of hunching over the keyboard with my shoulders approaching my ears. It's funny how such a bad posture can be comfortable - for a while until your upper back feels like it needs to be peeled back like a banana. So, back to the breath. Hunched and crunched doesn't allow my breath to venture in and out very well or very deep. [Release heels from ball, sit up tall using my abdominal muscles, lower shoulders down]. What's the breath like now? Hmmm... funny how it comes and goes much smoother, and it is easy to breath in more air. I feel refreshed. I also feel like doing yoga instead of sitting here at the computer. "Hello yoga mat. I love you."

I think banana bread is my favourite

My mom used to make banana bread when I was a kid, and it was always so moist, so chocolatey, and so super delicious that the entire loaf disintegrated within minutes of coming out of the oven. I've made banana bread more than any other loaf my entire life thus far, and I can't see that changing anytime soon, especially after consuming the ravishingly wonderful banana bread Brian just made this afternoon. Add some pecans, a little cinnamon, some all spice, a little love and there you have it: a perfect loaf of bad bananas gone ooooh-soooo-gooood. With all the baking going on in our kitchen today, you'd think it was a chilly winter Saturday. Alas, it is not. Even though white fluffy stuff fell from the cold skies mere weeks ago (two to be exact), I think I can officially declare it Spring! Yes, that's Spring with a capital 'S'! The cherry blossoms are finally out, I spotted tulips under the "Welcome to Nelson" sign today, and all our little seedlings have escaped the warmth and safety of their dirt cubicles and have ventured growth into the warm air in a gesture resembling an energetic and sweet yawn after a restful sleep. The cheering crowd ('crowd' meaning Brian and Dee) in the background can be heard softly yelling, "GO, SPINACH, GO!!! SO WE CAN EAT YOU!!!" At first, young spinach must have a level of understanding like a young puppy, where as long as you say it in a friendly, fun tone, they'll think it's nothin' but a good thing. Or maybe their lifelong, albeit short lifelong, desire is to be nourishment for the greater good, kind of like what people sometimes say about Christmas trees: it's their dream or destiny to get chopped down, stuffed in a small room, decorated like the village idiot, and then tossed out or burned within two weeks. I think I'd rather be reincarnated as a sprig of spinach....

San Fran to Van Recap, written in Brian's words

Brian's been submitting articles to Edmonton's Vue Weekly for a while now, and his latest is about our cycling trip from San Francisco to Vancouver last fall. Two of the photos in the article are of me and more plainly, my backside. "Um, Brian, can you check with me first next time?" Here's the link to the article - it's a great read! http://www.vueweekly.com/article.php?id=8388