How many times have you returned to something that makes you feel good and wondered why you left it or stopped doing it in the first place?

This seems to be a theme in my life – especially with yoga. On the one hand I chalk it up to my virgoian all-or-nothing personality, but it also makes me wonder if we aren’t just like flowers. We have times of winter and rest and times of spring and blooming. This is not a new metaphor to anyone and yet each time I return to my yoga mat, after not having been there it’s like a brand new revelation. I remember my body. I honor my body. I grieve for the truth that I have been ignoring my body. And I give thanks for being back – back to my body and back to the mat.

In the last three days I have been blessed to return to the mat and am grateful for the new and expanding presence of yoga on Cape Cod. Last night I began an Intro Series at Power Yoga of Cape Cod. I have always resisted Power Yoga in ignorance of what it truly is. This recent experience, has helped me realize that the name of the yoga class doesn’t matter to me anymore. All that matters is that I get back to the mat in a class that works for me in that moment. And like everything, what works in the moment is always changing. Just like us.

My first yoga class was in Northampton, MA in 1995 with Arden Pierce. The only reason I got to the yoga class was because I was living with Arden and there had always been this small voice in my head that said, hmmm, I should do yoga. I was blessed to be welcomed into this physical and mindful practice by someone with so much knowledge and compassion. That isn’t always the case. And as you journey out into the many yoga options we have today, remember to trust your own sense of what works for you. Arden has since expanded into yoga therapy and is still practicing in Northampton.

In 1997 I moved to New York and decided I had been “spoiled”. I couldn’t find a yoga class that didn’t make me tense. (the truth is I didn’t look that hard) And so believing that yoga was supposed to decrease my stress I stayed away – for about 10 years. Instead I found exercise at the YMCA and with trainers and running around Prospect Park – again not always staying consistent. Finally in January of 2007, I recomitted again to yoga and started practicing at a studio in Soho called Vira Yoga with a teacher named Julie Dohrman. Here I learned about anusara yoga which I experienced as a combination of “opening to grace” and demanding physical alignment. It was a perfect integration for me at the time.

After this powerful experience of Anusara, I again believed that this was the only yoga I would practice. Once again, I was “spoiled”. I left NYC in 2009, had a short stint on the Cape and then lived in the Middle East for a year and a half. In Cairo, there was very little yoga and it didn’t come close to what I was used to experiencing in NYC. In Beirut, there was a lot of yoga, but I was very attached to the way I was used to doing it, and so couldn’t get into a groove there. Of course, there was a lot about Beirut that didn’t groove with me. And that’s not all about Beirut.

My recent discovery of Jill Abraham and Power Yoga is what I need right now. Similiar to anusara, the practice can be demanding physically, but it still holds a space for grace – for internal and organic process.

Like anything we pursue in life, we are often given multiple times to grow and multiple teachers to learn from. Once we realize all teachers are only a reflection of our teacher within, we become much more open to the experience and trust the changes, not needing to hold on to our limited minds that tell us, “oh no I can’t do that kind of yoga” or “This is my favorite teacher and way to learn”. Sometimes just getting back on the mat is all we need to do to remember the power and importance of being in our bodies.

thank you to all my yoga teachers and yoga teachers all around the world. I promise myself to never stay away again for so long.

Namaste.

And if you live on Cape Cod, there are many many places to practice yoga.

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It’s been six weeks since I left Beirut and landed back on Cape Cod. Those six weeks have seen incredible change in our world (and within my own personal being). Whether it’s the earth or the economy, everybody has something to say about what’s happening. Some see these changes as a rebirth into a better world and way of being. Some see them as disastrous and painful filled with suffering and needless loss of human life and dignity. Some see them as a result of greed and environmental ignorance. Some see it as God’s plan unfolding perfectly as it should be. Some see it as a sign or call to action they can no longer ignore.

Are they not all true? And how do we hold all these perspectives while moving forward in love and peace and well-being?

I was at a service yesterday on Cape Cod and the speaker quoted Deepak Chopra (can’t remember the exact quote) that explored how the need to “be right” creates much suffering. And how our tendency to worry about others – whether in Japan or living in our own house can actually create the very fear we are worrying about. We did a small mindful exercise of surrounding the worry or the one we are worried about with light and holding the highest truth that everyone and everything is WELL RIGHT NOW. This is how miracles happen. When we focus our hearts and mind in love. Taking responsibility for the way fear is running in our OWN BEING is the most powerful service right now. See how it works for you and if you need to, invite yourself to change.

When someone says (in person or on-line), “Oh can you believe all this crazy stuff?” Smile, connect to your heart, and trust all is well. Don’t buy into the drama. Focus on your limitless power that exists within you – a miraculous and beautiful light that can shine with a simple smile. Open to what is happening in your own community and in your own mind. Though there may be no earthquake or tsunami, people are experiencing emotional and physical tidal waves all the time – especially now. How can you serve? What do you have to offer those right in front of you? What do you need right now in your life to be well?

We are in the middle of a massive awakening to Humanity and this is experienced in dramatic external events like we see in Japan and the Middle East and it is experienced in the hearts and minds of people all over the world who no longer can support their families the way they are used to and may be feeling isolated, separated, and like a failure. If you are in a place of wellness, then SERVE others. If you are in a place of need, then SERVE yourself and ask for help. Now is the time to help and ask for help. There must be a balance.

The best way to begin this process of self-awareness is simply by BEING. notice your own breath. notice your own life. Are you kind? Are you playing with your kids and being present? Are you sharing your financial and emotional wealth? Do you need to ask for help? Does someone around you need your help? How do you feel? YES, HOW DO YOU FEEL?

If you don’t know how to be still and become aware of your own thoughts or become overwhelmed by this process, find a community, or a friend, or a book, or a healer to help guide you. If this is all brand new, just begin by spending 5 minutes each day in stillness. let yourself be quiet. let yourself be grateful. trust in what YOU feel and sense and come into the service of who you truly are: A Divine Being here to serve.

We are creating our own reality – personally and collectively. How do you want to participate? With fear or with love?

God bless the USA!

I don’t think you can really type that and mean it until you live outside the US for a while and feel every part of your self challenged in every way. Living abroad is for some people. I have learned it is not for me, at least not right now.

I am grateful for every single experience I had and more importantly every person, colleague and student I met. The Egyptian people, as many all over the world are seeing now, are a passionate, loving, intelligent, and creative people that are so ready to allow change to happen they took to the streets demanding freedom. rock on Cairo.

And in Lebanon, I met so many people who have touched my life forever in many ways I have yet to understand. thank you for your generosity and passion for living.

At the end of the day, I realized I am a a little too progressive for the middle east – influenced by so many different cultures over my life – lesbian/queer, new age spiritual, NY artistic – what the hell was I thinking? the truth is I wasn’t. I was following my heart – or at least I thought I was. Honestly I still think I was, but then around Nov. my heart changed and it changed very quickly. It said LEAVE NOW. at first I didn’t listen, because that was crazy. I had a a 2 year contract and the school was fine and I couldn’t just leave. Then I grew uncomfortable emotionally and physically. I started to pray about it – because that’s what I do now.

And so I said, dear God, make it clear. If I am supposed to leave make it really clear. And then I grew even more uncomfortable -experiencing deep sadness and lack of sleep. this seemed pretty clear. So, I resigned and headed back to Cape Cod.

Now, on paper, this is not so good. back in MA. no job. no income. no plan. empty.

Thank God for quotes like these:

If we are not empty, we become a block of matter.
We cannot breathe, we cannot think.
To be empty means to be alive, to breathe in and to breathe out.
We cannot be alive if we are not empty.
Emptiness is impermanence, it is change.
We should not complain about impermanence,
because without impermanence, nothing is possible

-Thich Nhat Hanh

Since leaving Beirut, I can feel the balance returning to my being. a sense of stillness, freedom, hope, peace and even of possibility.

None of this makes sense in my head – at least not yet. When I drop into my heart, though, all is well.

thank God for my heart. May it continue to lead me and may I learn to balance and serve myself with gentle truth and compassion, so that I may be in better service of all of Humanity.

creation. and non-creation.

I wrote this on the verge of 2011.

When I wrote this I had no idea that I would be back in the US as of Jan 31.

2011 is a wonderfully expansive year – for me and the whole world.

I am on my way out of Beirut via Paris to Boston. I am grateful.

yesterday, the day before I was leaving I managed to “lose” my wallet on the way home from a restaurant. I didn’t notice until the next morning when I was heading to school. Once I noticed I could not find my wallet, I immediately knew it had fallen from my pocket somewhere between paying for my meal at Olio in Hamra and my apartment at the bottom of the hill.

My first response was: thank you. thank you universe for showing me something. I assessed that I had my passport, I had cash and everything in my wallet could be cancelled and/or replaced. so yes even though it was a drag, especially the day before I head back to the states for two weeks and Christmas, it was not the end of the world.

I also then thought, whoever found my wallet needs the money more than I do. thank you again I said for showing me nothing is permanent.

I then went about my hectic morning and did not panic about my wallet. I told a few people and my middle school principal agreed to check Olio when he had to go up to the bank. About mid-morning I got an email from Kaline, my friend and HR rep at school: “did you lose something? I got a strange phone call.”. I responded immediately, “Yes do you have my wallet?”. she replied, “no, but a nice man does.”

I came to find out that a man who spoke and read no english and was not native to Lebanon (he was probably from Syria) had found it and could not sleep all night feeling he had to get it back to the owner. He found a Fidelity insurance card in the wallet and went to the Fidelty office asking for help to find the owner. They called Kaline and she used the fidelty number to recognize that it was my wallet. I met this man up in Hamra and he returned the wallet to me complete with everything including about $150. This is what we call Grace or good karma.

Sometimes the universe or you or God gives you these experiences to remind you of how blessed you are and how good humanity wants to be. My little personal piece of it was that it reminded me of my mom and the many, many times I lost my wallet between the ages of 16 and 28 and how crazy it would make her. I always got it back and I never really worried about it, but it used to make her crazy.

I felt like she was giving me a little message saying, yes Alicia even though the world will beat the shit out of you sometimes, don’t lose hope.

It’s been too long since I blogged.

Six weeks.

It’s been a hell of a six weeks. not outside, but inside. Outside, life has been about the same. Yes, I live in Beirut, Lebanon, but that all seems surprisingly normal. Mostly I teach at a private American school with the typical pressures of report cards, committed but complaining teachers, and kids who find education mostly boring and way behind the way their brains and all the technology they own works.

So as I go about my daily responsibilities and be in service the best I can, I ask all the same questions I have always asked: Is this really where I am supposed to be? Am I happy? Am I making the most of my life? How do I acknowledge the reality I see around me and yet hold a higher reality of Oneness and Wellness? Will I ever know what I want to be when I grow up?

Last night I went to my weekly meditation group, which is one of my favorite parts of my life and community here in Beirut and we ended by sitting in a circle and each sharing what we are grateful for. In hindsight it reminds me a little of my mom and when we used to sit around our kitchen table and she would make us all say one thing we were grateful for. Inside (down deep) I loved it, but I often acted like it was dumb or annoying because I thought that made me cool and like everyone else. Not unlike the 8th grade students I teach, I suppose.

but I digress.

let’s get back to gratitude. The meditation group.

In this circle of gratitude, there was so much love and peace and power and stillness.

In this circle of gratitude, I had no more questions. I was fully present. in Gratitude.

What did I say I was grateful for?

my breath. and each day I wake up still breathing on this dimension

my family – grandparents, parents, siblings, cousins, nieces, nephews

the Teachers and Teachings I have been blessed to experience in this lifetime

Derek and Linda and the sacred home of SQ and Ireland that I am on my way to right now

Sound – the sounds we make, the sounds we hear, the never ending sounds that heal. the gifts I have to share this sound. The silence that only sound can make.

What are you grateful for?

Happy October!

I finally got internet access at home this last week – yay! It feels so strange in a way now to have 24 hour access to the internet, something many of us just take for granted. As a result I am enjoying a lazy Sat morning with my coffee and the NYTimes online.

I just ran across this article that is about my neighborhood, Hamra, in Beirut. It’s funny to read it in the NYTimes and reflect on how I don’t really absorb information unless I experience it first-hand. I think I have always been like that. And so, living here and reading about Hamra or Hezbollah or Syria (all of which are written about in the Times today) resonates so much more because I am here. I am able to synthesize and process the information on so many levels because I am walking the streets and meeting people from all over the region. It’s an amazing privledge and one I hope will lead to service I can’t even yet imagine.

Enjoy the article and ask me any questions you want. peace out! oh and, come visit and experience it for yourself! 🙂

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/02/arts/02iht-scbeirut.html

Things Are Happening in Hamra

Bryan Denton for The International Herald Tribune
One word embodies all that is most dynamic, inspiring and authentic about Beirut: Hamra.
By SETH SHERWOOD
Published: October 1, 2010

BEIRUT — Take one of Beirut’s battered 1970s Mercedes taxis through the city center and you’ll chance across plenty of gold-plated names these days. Here, splayed across one of the plywood walls that surround proliferating construction sites is the logo for Norman Foster’s architectural firm, announcing a trio of residential towers. There, on a billboard down the street from the glitzy Buddha Bar is the signature bald head of the French architect Jean Nouvel, who’s creating a complex called, modestly, The Landmark.

Thanks to a couple of years of relative stability, this Middle Eastern capital is building like the Pharaohs. But the boom has come at a cost. Older buildings, full of wonderful Arabian details, have been demolished. People on five-figure incomes have been priced out.

Fortunately, there is an antidote. When the personality of the city starts to feel stifled by steel and glass, I often catch a taxi and tell the driver the one word that embodies all that is most dynamic, inspiring and authentic about Beirut: Hamra.

Long the center of intellectual life and leftist politics before the 1975-1990 civil war, this neighborhood of venerable six-story apartment buildings, leafy university campuses and teeming street life has been undergoing a renaissance of its own. A spate of new book-lined Wi-Fi cafes, contemporary art spaces, cozy bars, and eclectic music clubs are helping re-establish Hamra as the city’s most progressive, happening corner.

Keep reading at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/02/arts/02iht-scbeirut.html

Well I’ve been in Beirut for about 5 weeks and all is well. I could tell you about the day to day here, but with the Equinox and full moon tomorrow I am in a bit more of a universal and expansive space.

The truth is, the longer I walk this path, I realize that it doesn’t matter where I am in the physical, my greatest experiences now lie within. So, no matter where I am, I experience my inner thoughts and these inner thoughts are with me wherever I am. Some days my thoughts are easy and graceful, like a loving ocean or kind mother, while other days my thoughts seem to be spinning in self-doubt, questioning, judgement, and child-like fear.

If I am conscious, I begin to notice that the people around me (including my students and colleagues) only reflect my inner thoughts that are always there. This truth is becoming clearer and clearer to me and though I am not always sure how to work with this truth in my day to day life, my clear experience of it is powerful and is changing me.

In this change and uncertainty, I choose to get back to basics. I focus on my breath. This is something I learned when I first became an athlete, something I practice as a singer, and something I re-learn all the time in the yoga classes I take. I focus on my breath. notice it. follow it. honor it. breath deeper. breath slower. breath. life is this basic, if we let it be.

Let it be. I have been teaching my students that song for the past couple weeks. Let it be. Great song and if you sing it, it reminds you to breath. The elementary school principal here asked me to sing something at our first assembly – a total surprise to me – and without even thinking I sang a little of Let it be. People keep coming up to me saying – I love that song. thank you. I love your voice. It wasn’t only me or my voice that resonated with them – I believe they are responding to my ability to breath and be present in a spontaneous moment. My confidence in this spontaneous moment gave me joy and therefore others joy. this is what we are all doing all the time. Being our true selves and inspiring others to be in their truth.

Some days I am more conscious then others. some days I go to the gym. some days I drink a beer. some days I go to the gym AND drink a beer. some days I facilitate a healing. some days I go home and have a good cry. some days I have a great music class and feel I am truly touching students. some days I feel like I don’t know how to teach at all and wonder if someone I work for will notice. Some days I am so happy to have my own apartment, no partner and no kids, like it’s the greatest gift the universe gave me. Some days I am lonely and wonder why am I alone in a foreign country with no family. Some days I think I am here serving humanity. Some days I think I am here to heal my left-over middle school pain (of which there is a bit). Some days I think there is no real reason I am here at all. it just is.

These are my thoughts and I am getting better and better at watching them vs. attaching to which one is true or judging myself for even having them. The big theme over the last 5 weeks amidst all these thoughts has been: Your breath is everything. breath deeper. breath slower. learn how to breath and teach others. And so, this is what I do – here in Beirut and wherever I am.

I am teaching my music students how to breath so they can sing. I go to a meditation class here in Beirut and breath with other people. Everywhere I am I ask people, “are you breathing?”. They often smile, say “no”, and then take a breath. So ask yourself right now: are you breathing?

If everything is in our breath, imagine what we could create if we were consciously breathing deeply all the time.

And if not, don’t worry. go to the gym. drink a beer. meditate. do yoga. laugh at a new episode of Glee. whatever works. it’s all God. Enjoy the New England (if you live there) fall season. I am still using AC over here.

love love love
Alicia

Hello Friends!

I have been in Beirut for just a week and so far all is well – and I really mean it. 🙂 My apt. is great – it’s big, clean and has lots of AC. August by the mediterrean is hot and humid! so the AC is very important. I have been welcomed with lots of love – both in attitude and practicallity, which after my Cairo experience is greatly appreciated. It’s amazing to be picked up at the airport, taken to your new apt. and already have a few items in your fridge. that kind of hospitality goes a long way. And let me tell you – the Lebanese are ALL ABOUT hospitality – and FOOD.

I was blessed to spend by 39th birthday with my dear friend Mariam from childhood. she drove me up the mountain to a beautiful Italian restaurant that felt far more like Europe than any middle eastern country. That’s what Beirut is like – international and highly influenced by Europe. If it weren’t for the political instability, I have no doubt Lebanon would be one of the hottest tourist spots in the world – with fine dining, live music, mountain hikes and skiiing as well as time by the sea. Truly beautiful.

On the school front, I am officially a middle school teacher. I will be teaching Grade 5-8 but my “home” will really be the middle school and I will also be an advisor to about 9 kids. What this exactly entails I am not sure, but I am imagining it will give me lots of opportunities to reflect back on my won middle school experience – a thought that brings me both excitement and trepidation.

There is so much to share already and school hasn’t even started yet, but stay tuned. I may update the blog more than once a month, but will only send out monthly reminders via email as to not over email anyone. If you want to read it everytime I Blog, you can always just bookmark me and check when you feel like it. 🙂 I can’t figure out yet how one subscribes, but will pass that info on once I learn it.

One highlight so far was my visit to the Kahil Gibran museum in the mountains of Lebanon. I have always loved his writing and his paintings were wonderful to see right in his place of birth. I have posted a couple pics of that trip.

I hope everyone is enjoying the last few lazy days of August and celebrating all that has changed for them over the last year. some changes may feel difficult but celebrate anyways because change is the one thing we can count on and no matter how unsettling or exciting, it is always an opportunity to discover more about ourselves and the truth of who we are.

smile. it makes life better.
love love love
Alicia