Tales from Goshen

Home Again

7:22 PM

A few hours ago, I made the solo trip home from Fayetteville. Praise God, Dorien slept almost the entire way because many times, he does not and car trips are therefore, MISERABLE!! This time, however, both he and August slept and Brooklyn watched Tangled and told me all about what was going on since I could only hear what was happening. She is a very good narrator, by the way.

Kyle and I drove up to Fayetteville together on Thursday for a couple of reasons: he had a business meeting on Friday and I had to go to my little sister's college graduation. Yes, I said that right. My baby sister just graduated from college! WHAT??!! I know.

Since Kyle was going up Thursday for work, we all got to stay in a hotel with him Thursday night! Super fun times for our family! We love hotels. Even Dorien who kept running around pointing to things and saying, WOW! That's his new exclamation.

Kyle's meeting was Friday morning and then he was driving back home with his bosses because he had a men's discipleship finale Saturday morning. This worked out fine with me because it gave me an opportunity to spend some very much over-due time with one of my longest and bestest friends, Becky. As crazy as it seemed to both of us, Becky had never met Dorien! The last time we'd seen each other, I was 6 weeks pregnant with Dorien and extremely nauseous. And even though we talk on the phone regularly enough (sort of), that is no substitute for face time.

So she and I spent the day together with my kids and her youngest, Kate, who is a week older than August. (Becky, I should mention to you that August told Kyle when we got home that he thought Kate was the prettiest of all the girls...) Anywhoo, Becky and I took the opportunity to drive to the Crystal Bridges Art Gallery. Wow. I'm so glad we did. It was not only architectural eye candy, but the art within made me giddy. I adore painting and, as you know, really really am obsessed with John Singer Sargent. After we were given the quick and dirty rules by a docent, I off-handedly asked if they had any Sargents. I was shocked when he said they did!!!! I practically squealed with delight and tore off in the general direction of them.

My kids are no strangers to art galleries and were pretty darn good. Dorien, in his stroller, kept pointing and yelling "WOW!!!" It made a momma proud. August stuck close by my side and told me which paintings he liked and why. Brooklyn and Kate held hands and played ring around the posy, accidentally touched a sculpture before being practically tackled by a docent, and acted like silly girls. They also kept begging Becky and I to let them take pictures of their favorite paintings with our iphones. It's actually interesting to see the things that attracted them. Budding art critics.

Although I am really glad Brooklyn and August were able to experience it with me, I look forward to going to Crystal Bridges again with no kids in tow and lots of time to study my favorite works. It was a place I could go over and over and spend hours in each section studying things. It's funny because while I have always loved art, I never took as much time to study technique until I began painting myself. I guess that's how it works, huh?

As 3:00 approached and Becky's older kids, Mia and Gavin, were let out of school, we headed back to her house and then spent an incredibly awesome, relaxing afternoon with our mutual dear friend, Kim, while our children played and played together. It was an afternoon of perfection. Open windows, the sound of children laughing and playing, plenty of time for us to open up the details of our lives to each other for discussion, advice and encouragement. It was everything that is great about being women, mothers and friends. I felt so deeply blessed to have that special time with them.

We later met Becky and Kim's husbands for dinner at a delicious, hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant and I ate way too much garlic bread (totally not on my nutritarian plan, but oh well!) and just enjoyed the moments. I missed my husband dearly, particularly because the long-standing connection between Becky, Greg, Kim and Chad and I so strongly includes my Kyle. But it was still a fabulous time spent very comfortably as you can only do with friends who have been an integral part of your life for many long years.

We spent the night with some other friends of ours who were so kind to open their home to us and then this afternoon, watched Rachel become a college graduate, ate pizza together at King Pizza to celebrate the final Dennis graduate. Or, as August said, a gradulate. (sort of a blend between graduate and congratulate - he may be on to something...)

And I sit here now, my back to my bedroom wall, listening to the sounds of Pepe Romero's classical guitar on 90.5FM flowing into my room from the nursery, content, relaxed and enjoying reliving the moments that made the past few days so special. Becky, Kim, I love you both so much.

My cup overflows.

Namaste

Yoga 8:38 PM

This past weekend, I did something I've never done before - attended a yoga workshop!

Above is a group picture of our Friday night class.

The workshop was given by two local yoga studios: Argenta Healing Arts and YogaYou (in Cabot).

The instructor was the guy pictured in the middle above, Adam Ballenger, who flew in from Salt Lake City!

I dragged along a friend of mine who regularly does yoga with me at our gym - Rachel - seated to my right in the picture. Thanks, Rachel!

I've been doing yoga for about 10 years now, and I love it. I love the quietness of it, the strength of it, the way you push your own body to new places, and how those places may be different every day. I love that it stretches out muscles and aligns your spine and makes you breathe deeply and steadily. I love that it gives you opportunities to discover what your body can do - whether that means twisting in a pose you've never done, holding a pose longer than you thought possible, and sometimes balancing in bizarre positions for several breath cycles. I love that something so different from running or lifting weights can so strengthen and shape your muscles. And when you do run and lift weights, there is nothing so good for your body as stretching it all back out. Mmmm!

I'm going to interject here and say that last night, when I pushed "publish" on this post, I had a lot more words than you see here. Lots more information. Somehow, it got wiped and I don't even remember what I said. Grr. So, this is now a much condensed version of what I intended to say!

Above, Erin, one of the instructors at the Argenta studio, demonstrates an arm balance posture. This posture was made extra tricky because we were all dripping sweat and our legs kept slipping off our arms. I was pushing against my arm so hard, my foot sheared my skin on the back of my arm. Ouch.

Here, Adam used me to demonstrate one way to work into a hand stand. You start out in Downward-Facing Dog (aka Down Dog) and then walk your legs up the wall. One main difference is that you shift your body weight over your arms, aligning your shoulders up with your wrists and supporting your spine. You squeeze the muscles a little below your shoulder blades while softening up your neck. And then you hold that with your back arched. I had to hold that pose FOREVER while he talked everyone through it. My arms were ready to collapse!

A different view of the demonstration.

If you don't know much about yoga, it's basically a series of poses, called asanas, that flow into each other and become vinyasas. There is nothing loose or floppy about the asanas. They are all precise movements in which you concentrate on stretching muscles away from each other, towards each other, lengthening, broadening, scooping, pulling in of your core...it often looks so serene and even sounds serene as everyone is working very hard to breathe easily...but your mind is often racing through a mental checklist to make sure your body is aligned safely and strongly.

In the above picture, everyone is preparing to move from Down Dog into another asana. Yoga is all about balance...not just balancing on one arm or leg, but also doing the same movements to the left and right side. So you move slowly through the different poses one side at a time. Usually you incorporate a series of poses (vinyasas) beginning and ending with Sun Salutations - a very common vinyasa that lets your body recover between positions. So what you see above is Adam calling out "lift your right leg and then swing it through into a low lunge". That usually leads to Warrior 1, Warrior 2 or some other lunge posture. Yoga is GREAT for your legs simply because you always come back to a lunge of some sort.

Actually, yoga is great for all parts of your body!

In the picture above, Erin is hanging out in a hand stand. I have yet to attempt to do this with both my legs off the wall. It requires a significant degree of concentration!

Another interesting thing about yoga is that you have to warm up your muscles thoroughly before attempting some of the more demanding poses. And just when you're good and loose, then your muscles are all worn out! Catch 22. I love seeing people who can do things like Erin is doing because it challenges me. I love to see what my body is capable of doing.

I have one yoga instructor who always reminds us - "This is not a competition. Not with your neighbor or even with yourself." I know it isn't, but I often make it one whether I mean to or not.

Because there is a lot of movement in your spine in yoga, both with backbends, flexions and twists, you continually pay attention to what your spine is doing - how it's being held, strengthened, supported. That's one reason that the Sun Salutation is a vinyasa you return to - no matter what you've just done, a good Sun Salutation, which incorporates both flexion and extension of the spine, calms your muscles and allows for plenty of restoration of your spine, both the bones and muscles. Above, we reached for the sky, making ourselves as tall as possible immediately before we swooped over in a swan dive to a forward fold. So you extend, then flex your spine.

Although so many yoga terms (in sanskrit), seem weird, they become familiar and almost automatic. When our instructor says, move through the vinyasa and find your way to Down Dog, you somehow just...do!

And before long, you know without having to be told that Uktasana is Chair Pose (I don't know if I'm spelling those right..), Tadasana is Mountain Pose, Bujangasana is Upward Facing Dog or UpDog.

Here we work on a hip opener/balance posture. You cross over your knees, then bend over, sitting back.

Another pose to stretch your hips and hamstrings.

A balancing twist. We did lots of those and my body FELT them the next day. From my bum to my spine to my hands! (I'm in the light blue tank top in the foreground above)

My yoga instructor, Lupe, from our gym, watches Adam demonstrate the possibilities of an arm balancing pose. He was showing us how it was possible to maintain upward mobility by lifting your core and back up...it seems like you should be collapsing forward onto your nose, but you can fight that and actually manage some pretty seriously awesome poses! Again, I am not quite up to that level.

Let me also say this about yoga: I would be lying if I said there was not a spiritual component to yoga. By its very definition, yoga is a mind/body thing. And you can study the famous yogis and get into some very new-age, very strange stuff. That's all out there.

That is not what I take from yoga or seek out in yoga. Nor do I seek out instructors who are too spiritual about it, in that sense. I realize Satan is continually looking for ways to deceive people and I believe many people are deceived by the types of messages taught in yoga studios by yoga teachers around the country and world. When I began to do yoga years ago, I gave all this a great deal of thought.

As a Christ-follower, He is my fulfillment. He is my enlightenment. I know that I will not find myself by holding a pose. I'm not lost. I'm surrendered to Christ. I know that it is good for my body to be strengthened, to be silent and to breathe. I know that there are many moments when I'm in yoga that I am actually praying and sorting through the different events of my day.

There are numerous benefits to yoga as a workout. I can testify to that whole-heartedly, both mentally and physically. It's rewarding and stress-relieving. But don't let anyone convince you that you will find the happy core of all humanity through it. That's ridiculous and a lie of Satan's. There is no happy core of all humanity. No positive energy flow we all share. We're all born sinners...that's the only constant energy source we share: sin. The only salvation lies in Jesus Christ. If you're searching for meaning in your life, don't do so through yoga. There is ONE truth and his name is God.

So, enjoy yoga for its physical challenges and the crazy things you can do when you gain flexibility and strength, but if you're looking for answers to life through a yoga practice, you're going to be disappointed.

There is only one true source of fulfillment and it's through Jesus Christ.