The McGregor Curse

1

She watches the gold slip out of the river in bands, as she sways in a rocking chair painted the color of lichens.

Invisible hands weave in stripes of pink that radiate toward her screened porch.

Hues on the far shore flatten to a thalo green wash of trees, bordering the glacier-blue blur of water.

The water pleats slightly near the dock, with a slight push of a breeze.

Activity. A skiff hurtles itself across the water halfway from the other shore; its sound carried over by the change of wind. The boat’s vivacious captain barks an enthusiastic tale upriver. Everything about the craft presses forward as if eager for his story—boat, listeners, black Labrador at the prow. Their ripples slap her rock pier moments later.

The craft disappears behind the cedar stand bordering her lawn. A closer rumble and thrum of the outboard. The motor percolates. Churns. Stills.

The river resumes its sleepy pace, showing no signs of either storytold travelers, or the hurricane that—just yesterday—surged its waters over the retaining wall and five feet onto the grass.

Except for a roll of seaweed and flotsam at the edge of the gray blades, there is very little indication that 75 mile an hour winds ripped through the town.

Ambling to the lawn’s edge, she toes the salted pile. Bristling with hooks, an orange plastic minnow stares up at her. Snaking up from the tangle a small length of purple rope sidles up to a 7-foot-long piling. Once a boat mooring, the salted gray tree stalk bears a loop of rusted iron at one end.

White hydrangea heads—scattered like a thrown bridal bouquet—are strewn over the front lawn. The bride, Irene, had a strong arm, as there are pieces in the back yard too. Or maybe the bouquet was thrown by her grandmother, whose spirit is very palpable at the cabin. For Erin’s “as if” wedding. “As if” Sean’s and her lives were simpler and they could just be like normal people and get married. As if they didn’t have the McGregor curse hanging over their heads.

2

It all started the night Uncle Farley drove his wagon home too fast, after visiting his lady friend Clara in Dingle. Rounding a particularly sharp curve, he was thinking not of the road ahead, but of his fair Clara’s abundant . . . virtues, when his cart collided with the local witch, who was out for an evening stroll.

As Uncle Farley bent over the unfortunate creature, her nose twitched. Peeling open one bloodshot eye, she gasped and said, “You’ve been with that wretched Clara McGuiness! Bane of my existence! In fifth grade, she stole the only love I ever had. So I say . . . five years, no more, will you enjoy her or any woman as your wife. Same goes for the other men in yer family!” With curse uttered, she lowered her head, exhaled deeply, and died.

Uncle Farley felt bad, but married Clara anyway. True to the witch’s curse, however, on the day of their fifth wedding anniversary, Clara mysteriously fell down the well and drowned.

Uncle Farley wasn’t a superstitious man, but after Clara’s untimely, yet predicted demise, he vowed to stay off the bridal path . . . and to remain alert on the bridle path.

Guilt stopped him from telling any other men in the family of the curse. But the following year, when his brother Earl’s wife mysteriously dropped dead into her potato leek soup on their five-year anniversary, he figured it was time to fess up.

Together, the brothers sought the advice of various priests, witches and Little People throughout the Dingle area, but with no luck. It would seem the curse was now the family legacy.

When Earl’s son, Sean turned 16, Earl broke the sorry news to him. Sean laughed and told his Dad to sod off. But when Uncle Marley’s bride of five years died under dubious circumstances, Sean vowed he’d never let this happen to his lady, and swore to remain a forever bachelor. Until he met Erin . . .

3

Erin McPhee wasn’t like the other art students at their university. A fairy-woman—a force of nature—she was dancing like Liquid Amber in an Autumn storm, when he first laid eyes on her. Her long legs describing sensuous lines as she flowed and held dramatic poses. Her red curls whipped as she whirled and swirled in pirouette after pirouette. She wore a white peasant blouse and a black vest, atop red tights. They were freshmen in college and the Art Department was hosting a Breugelfest on the campus lawn, in honor of the painter of peasants.

When Erin stopped to catch her breath, Sean’s knees trembled. This red-haloed angel was standing right beside him.

“My kingdom for a beer,” she panted.

“Would this do, m’lady?” He produced a can of Guinness out of his backpack.

“I’m afraid I lied to you about the kingdom.” Her dazzling smile was making him weak in the knees again, but he rallied.

“No worries, he said. “If you join me at Saturday’s Morris Dance, I’ll consider myself a member of your royal court.”

“Give me your hand.” She wrote her number on his skin, handed him the empty, and spun off; back into the fray.

For once in his life he’d said the right thing.

4

The fog had distance and dimension. That’s why she liked it, Erin decided. No nebulous immersion in the usual gray miasma. Today she wasn’t returning home to the usual desolate urban expanse, but, perhaps to a warmer, kinder city. Her Honda Civic hurtled over the Bay Bridge.

Low on the skyline, playing limbo under the Golden Gate Bridge, the distinctly delineated white cloud kept to itself. Minding its own business for a change. Instead of greeting her with its habitually cold, clammy embrace; like a creepy guy in an alley. She was tired of feeling constantly molested.

Although she wouldn’t mind being molested by Sean, she thought. . . .

A car’s horn blared by her side, and she swerved sharply back into her lane; heart racing like a rabbit’s.

Why did I think of Sean? It’s been years since I moved here with him. Years since he left.

She exited at Treasure Island. Found an abandoned parking lot behind an old military building. And had a good cry.

Shadow Heart -- Chapter 1 -- Hurricane Irene

She watches the gold slipping out of the river in bands, like the unweaving of a loom. Replaced by invisible hands with stripes of pink. They radiate toward her. The colors on the far shore flatten to a thalo green wash of trees, bordering the glacier-blue blur.

The water pleats slightly near the dock, with a slight push of a breeze.

Activity. A skiff hurtles itself across the water halfway from the other shore; its sound carried by the change of wind. The boat's vivacious captain barks an enthusiastic tale upriver. Everything about the craft presses forward as if eager for his story--boat, listeners, chocolate Labrador at the prow. Their ripples slap her rock pier moments later.

The craft disappears behind the cedar stand bordering her lawn. A closer rumble and thrum of the outboard. The motor percolates. Churns. Stills.

The river resumes its sleepy pace; showing no signs of either storytold travelers, or the hurricane that, just yesterday, surged its waters over the retaining wall and five feet onto the grass.

Except for a roll of seaweed and flotsam at the edge of the gray blades, there is very little indication that 75 mile and hour winds ripped through the town.

Bristling with hooks, an otherwise passive plastic minnow stares up at her when she toes the pile. Snaking up from the tangy tangle is a small length of purple rope. Arrested serpentine motion next to the fluorescent orange fish. A 7-foot-long piling lies there too. Once a boat mooring, the salted gray tree stalk bears a loop of rusted iron at one end.

White hydrangea heads--scattered like a thrown bridal bouquet--are strewn over the front lawn. The bride, Irene, had a strong arm, as there are pieces in the back yard too. Or maybe the bouquet was thrown by her grandmother; whose spirit is very palpable in the cabin. For Erin's "as if" wedding. "As if" Sean's and her lives were simpler and they could just be like normal people and get married.

All because of the McGregor curse.

Ecstasy and Modern Life

I just can't get over Amy Winehouse's death. She's a part of me. She's a part of all of us that is splintered off from connection with the Divine. Distanced from the Divine by addictions. It points to a fundamental hole in many of us. I'm talking about something so basic, so intrinsic, it goes beyond culture, religious belief, Muggleness, Atheism, and modern living. Any one of us can become addicted. Forget our connection to the Divine. And die. A slow or fast death.

I"m feeling this one with a familar pain. This girl's death . . . she's a part of me. And you. There's a reason for her death. Awareness. On the part of all of us.

How alive do we want to be.

How dead.

The Wonder Palms Series - LA, Summer 2010

I moved to the land of Wonder Palms. To seek the Mystery there. Four months later, all I can say is I really like my hair.

Here in the land of Wonder Palms, at the edge of the crashing Pacific, I stare at a cloud, and marvel out loud, that life is pretty terrific. Shimmering in the breeze, with magnetic tape fronds, the palm trees rattle and sway. Making me feel, that in this new home, there's always time to play.

News from the land of Wonder Palms, where life was feeling abundant: this Seeker went to work today. And found she'd been made redundant!

I traveled to the land of my childhood; not sure if I was quite ready. Spago is great, but I craved a plate that could only be found at Back Eddy.

Water on the Brain

The day the tsunami from the Japanese earthquake reached San Francisco, I found myself running in Golden Gate Park thinking about my relationship with water. Sadly, at times, my relationship with my family is better than my relationship with water (and my family and I aren’t exactly close).

After absorbing the headlines about the devastating earthquake, I drove toward Ocean Beach, engulfed by sadness. I knew some endorphins would help me feel better. To my chagrin, however, Highway 1, which runs the length of California and beyond, was blocked at every approach by circling police cars. More and more, it felt like my run on September 11^th, when I’d watched the horror on TV and then similarly sought the familiar refuge of my practice. Back then, I worried about a military attack on Ocean Beach.

This day, perhaps a little late, I began wondering about the wisdom of being near a tsunami zone, even though a part of me said, “Don’t worry. It won’t reach us here.” I became irritated when my parking attempts were thwarted at every turn by police cars. Finally, at the edge of their cordon, I ditched the car on Lincoln Ave. Grumbling as I tottered toward Beach Chalet, I noted with a wry smile that while cars were forbidden near the beach, there were plenty of people there, looking out to sea. I entered the park and wondered if the air raid siren went off, whether I’d be able to get back to my car. Foolishly, I‘d left my cell phone in the trunk. Again, I shook off the worry as being unneccesary, and plodded on.

Deeper in the park, I saw more and more runners, and felt safer and safer from the impending tidal wave that could travel . . . how far inland? A mile? No. I raced downhill by the little waterway that appears to flow uphill, and thought about my relationship with water. At first glance, it wasn’t a very successful one. During most of my adult life, I’ve been angry at possessing too much of it in my body, with my system’s heroic ability to retain water.

When I moved to California in 1992, the locals were paranoid about water shortages, earthquakes, and other seemingly ridiculous worries. In my home state of Massachusetts, water was always plentiful, and the only thing that shook us regularly was the occasional hurricane; usually gasping its last after ravaging some Caribbean island.

I’ve always been afraid of deep water. Not deep water as in trouble, but me, deep in the drink.I attribute this to a past life where my current life mother drowned me. (Yes, really. We were both priestesses in an Egyptian temple and in love with the same priest. She was the more powerful one, and as I was undergoing my “swimming with the crocodiles” initiation, she blocked my exit. This led to an untimely demise.) That’s my story and I’m sticking with it . . .

I do love sailing, however, and skimming across a glassy surface on water skis. Snorkeling is up there among my favorite things too. In college, my initial major was Marine Biology, although, had I stayed with it, my deep-water fear would have placed me on the career path of an intertidal/littoral zone biologist, instead of the pelagic, tank-wearing type.

I’ve connected with Mother Ocean, Tiamat, Mama Qocha—name your goddess—in many rituals, and have been gifted with her dance to perform when aspecting her. I’ve cleaned my energy field with her assistance regularly, for years now.

In my hometown, Westport, I’ve slipped into her rivery embrace and felt her womblike peace, as I drifted in her brackish bliss. In my late twenties, I sat by her shores at Horseneck Beach one moonlit night, gazing at her incoming waves, and fell into an inner vastness I never knew I possessed. One of my first numinous experiences.

In Peru, I journeyed with the spirit of the Urubamba River. She took me on a wild ride; flying above the Sacred Valley, Machu Picchu, and other amazing sights.

In Hawaii, I was thrilled to arrive at the end of a hurricane, where her moist gusts blew in and out of my room at the Kalanai all night, as if I were on a boat. I loved to run at the start of hurricanes in Boston, where the pelting rain felt like little shards of glass, and I’d entrain with the power of the churning wind, riding the big blowy high.

In general, we humans don’t have a very good relationship with water. We dump and drain, siphon and dam, leach and leak. We’re growing in awareness, but perhaps not fast enough. And like all the other geological forces of an angry Earth, Water is saying “enough”. Enough of the sirens and blasting by the Navy; disrupting the whales’ migratory paths. Driving them to suicide. Enough of the mercury fouling all the fish, so that soon, nothing from the ocean will be edible. That gets our attention. The dwindling supply of my favorite protein in Trader Joes, and the increase of disclaimers over every bin of tuna, swordfish and salmon. Would you prefer memory loss or mackerel?

Here in San Francisco, right now she’s being madly driven by Wind and Storm; coldly pelting the doors to the deck. This Perfect Storm that she’s played a starring role in quite a bit lately is not my favorites. I long for balmy Balinese showers, her thunderous heralding in the summer storms of August in Massachusetts . . . I really want to love her again, as something other than the maker of mud.

And I will. Perhaps an offering is due? Perhaps a little more gratitude, that this year we all will have enough drinking water in California, thanks to this year’s ginormous snowpack. Too soon the shamrock-green hills of Marin will bald and bake in the summer’s dry season. The newts that you can find in abundance on a walk to Tennessee Valley Beach today will be hidden and desiccated again. The heady pollen that is just starting to be released will be a memory. So I am grateful for the flowering, slithering, greening life that is fed by stormy showers. Tlaloc, Aztec god of water and rain . . . Welcome! Ometeotl. (And so it is!)

Santosa

“Contentment is a dynamic and constructive attitude that brings us to look at things in a new way.” – Bouchard

“A woman needs to feel good to do good.” –Anonymous

Over the seven years they have been in my care, my cats have been my gurus. One of their primary teachings is santosa or contentment. They gaze at me with blinky, half-closed eyes, trusting that I won’t step on a tail or accidently kick them during my mad morning dash through the kitchen and out to work. In spite of myself, I am calmed by their implicit faith in a kind and loving universe.

Of course they have a stable home, save for the sporadic kibble-munching, muddy lunching raccoon. Their job is to be well fed, frequently stroked, worshipped, and carried from room to room in mostly-tolerated snuggles. All of this results in a generally cheerful temperament, contrasting with that of their mother, as she hurtles about her life, usually seeking santosa outside herself. Glimpsing it for a nanosecond on the mat. Grasping at it. Grieving its loss.

My opinion has always been that I need my life to be like my cats’ in order to be happy—no worries about money, no need to dash off to a job that seals me into a fluorescent-klieged, germ-riddled environment for 40 hours a week.

Much to my surprise, my life hasn’t turned out to be that of a lady of leisure. Which brings up this other concept of sourcing santosa within oneself, and then living it in your life. Sort of like being solar powered from within.

I am having a particularly difficult time with that concept this winter, as I arrive at the not-so-blessed place of midlife. Having just experienced reverse-puberty, characterized by extreme teenage behavior, my hormones are now just crabby and wonky. My body wants to rest and recover from the strangeness roiling within.

I always want to take time out and contemplate each winter, but the urge for hibernation or just plain doing my own thing is striking particularly strong right now. My screenplay screams to be worked on. My novel niggles for attention. All the craft projects I have done with my hands over the years—and long to do again—languor; their materials tucked away and stored out of sight, mind, and inspiration, in our cramped starter home. Paint is packed. Fabric is stacked. I am making money. Money that flows in slowly and gets sucked out of my bank account so quickly, it always feels like low tide in the Bay of Fundy.

Yet all is not so bleak . . . shortly I’ll be taking a pilgrimage to Mexico for Toltec inspiration, shamanic training, and even sacred Aztec yoga with some of that money, so the glass isn’t really half empty. I just have a lot on my plate.

~

We live in a culture of complaint. From an early age, we’re taught the squeaky wheel wins. It is often only when I travel that I realize just how fortunate I am. Travel takes me out of my chitta vrittis.

I journeyed to Bali in 2008, with a group of spiritual friends, to immerse myself in the nuance of ritual at Hindu temples, the grace and beauty of legong dance, the clang and clatter of gamelon, the wonder and complexity of a two-years-in-the-making ikat textile, and the pervading peace of a gentle culture. We’d arranged for a stopover/sleepover in Tokyo en route, to break up the otherwise insanely long flight. Festively attired for a tropical climate, many of the ladies wore bright, thin cotton sarongs and flip flops on the plane, and didn’t bring a change of clothes in their carry on.

A freak snow storm hit Tokyo prior to our arrival. For some reason, the airport didn’t have de-icing equipment or snow plows. We emerged from the airport in summer garb, marveling at the drifting, unplowed whiteness, and boarded the bus to our hotel. Once there, we were informed that our rooms had been given away, because we were late. Some were told to take a voucher to redeem for a room at another, local hotel. This piece of information never reached me. I exited the hotel, voucherless, with my dejected group. At the second hotel, we were told there were only a couple rooms for those with vouchers. The alpha gals in our group began to seize entire rooms just for themselves until they turned around and remembered that we were indeed a spiritual community, and would have to double up. My turn came and the attendant told me there was no room for me without a voucher. Period. With a sinking feeling, I gazed out at the swirling flakes. I felt like crying.

A woman behind me from our group started yelling at the desk clerk in English, in a very unsettling and racist way. I intervened, as this was going nowhere, and luckily, my roommate-to-be in Bali offered to share her closet-sized room with me. By then it was 2 a.m.

The walls of the room were metal, with cheesy steel closets that reminded me of a military bunker. Susan and I slept briefly, spooning each other, out of necessity, on the twin bed.

In the morning, grumbling and cold, we returned to the airport, and only then realized just how lucky we had been. All the vast, terminal floor space was covered with blanketed bodies. Those who had been unable to get a room, and who had delayed or cancelled flights, had spent the night right here where we now stepped over and past them.

Griping changed to gratitude. Reframed, the incident created a sense of santosa. Contentment with what I did have. I’d worn warm traveling clothes. I’d slept in a relatively proper bed the previous night.

We take our everyday luxuries so for granted in our first world culture. It’s good to be reminded of our abundance from time to time.

Is santosa an attitude we bring to our activities, or is it an effect of our actions? It can obviously be both. And of course, proactive, rather than reactive or retroactive santosa would seem to contribute to a more peaceful life. In general, I’ve often practiced the reactive kind, as evidenced in my second quote at the start of this piece—or at least that’s how I’ve always understood that saying.

I’m awakening to the empowerment a temporal shift in serenity might bring. And I intend to practice more proactive santosa in my life. After all, a woman needs to feel good to do good.

Toward a Sattvic Life - How the Gunas and Kleshas affect my Asana Practice

I love elegant words and ideas. It delights me to find a new language that, in just a word or two, encapsulates a concept that would take many in English.

Words like yanantin in Quechua—harmony between two different things (a man and a woman, for example). Or l’esprit de l’escalier in French (thinking of a clever comeback too late). Or kleshas and gunas in Sanskrit.

Kleshas, as Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra 2.3 tells us, are obstacles to growth (ignorance, fear of death, ego, attachment, and aversion). Gunas (Sutra 2.15) are qualities of nature or mind: rajas (fire), tamas (sluggishness), and sattva (balance).

With each discovery, a door opens in my mind at the depth, the cleverness, and the opportunity to explore, reflect, and practice svadhyaya (self-study) with each new wisdom stream.

For example, ignorance of a deeper understanding of yoga kept me repeating a very simple hatha yoga sequence for 18 years; never venturing to discover more. I prided myself at the time on all the money I was saving. From this little set of asanas, I had all I needed to know to take care of my scoliosis and remain pain-free in my home practice. Or so I thought.

Then, propelled by a mid-life crisis, I moved to LA and began taking yoga classes again. How much yoga had changed! It couldn’t possibly be me who had changed. Could it? Apparently I was ready for transformation.

I opened to new teachings. To new ways of seeing and doing things, because my life had become a tamasic quagmire prior to my move.

I turned a page of my life, chucked 18 years of living in the Bay Area, a partner of 15 years, and all else that was suddenly suffocating. A new self beckoned . . . one I could sustain, be proud of, and reenergized by as I entered my second 50 years.

And so I rebirthed a new me. If I was going to flash hot with my new rajasic hormonal superpowers, then I wanted my outer self to reflect the freshly forged 50-year-old I was capable of being. I had taken workshops with 70 and 80-year-old yogis and dancers. I knew it was possible to remain alive and inspired for a very long time. I wanted that future for myself.

I embarked on a sampling of the various yoga studios on LA’s West Side. I became attached to one teacher’s sweet, candlelit classes at YogaCo on the Promenade in Santa Monica, where—at the end of a gentle evening sequence—he serenaded us in savasana with his guitar.

Ego grew proud of mastering the choreography without mastering the inner workings of the poses. In my rajasic LA state, I became attached to power yoga classes. Digging the entrained ride of 75 lithe, 30-something bodies (plus me!) soldiering through Surya Namaskara B, mats ½” apart. Denying the growing aggravation I felt in my lower back. My ignorance of how to take care of my body in a yoga class, possible careless instruction, externally rotated poses not being introduced before neutrals . . . all this contributed to the aggravation of my scoliosis and the cultivation of a chronic SI joint injury.

~

I learned proper hand alignment for headstand. I’d been a gymnast as a pre-teen, blithely performing back handsprings, walkovers, and somersaults. But with age and office work, I found the occasional adult attempt to revisit my limber past resulting in pain and injury.

Still, muscle memory kept reminding me of the exhilaration of a backlfip. An exuberant, spontaneous cartwheel at thirty, however, taught me a good lesson in humility, as I hobbled away from my attempt holding my aching lower back.

This fantastic, gymnastic realm still beckoned whenever I saw Cirque du Soleil or contact improv dance. Sadly, even by the time I was 30, it remained the realm of others—the young and flexible. A mindset of fragility was threatening me; and was reinforced by my peers. At my 30-year high school reunion I was shocked to find most of my former classmates stiff, decrepit, and gray—having already suffered cancer, major surgery to correct lifelong eating and drinking disorders, or worse—dead, from alcoholism, cancer, anorexia and a host of other modern ailments. What if I did a flip or a headstand at my age? I might break my neck. Or die.

With the headstand advice I nonetheless felt more reconnected to the joy I’d felt as a young flipper. The thrill of possessing a body that was a magnificent instrument, of being a “fine animal” (in the words of late runner/author George Sheehan) called to me. I wanted that feeling and confidence back.

I tried contact improv dance. At the invitation of a patient, strong partner, who was also my age, I rediscovered freedom in movement from all the protection I’d practiced for years because of my scoliosis. Flow and trust in my body’s inner wisdom returned.

My year in LA ended. I’d learned much about sadhana, screenplay writing, and love. Spirit called me back to the Bay Area to regroup and reconsider.

At first happily settling in, I soon found myself rattled by an odd and repetitive energetic occurrence. My hackles rose regularly upon encountering a certain person in a yoga class I take frequently. One morning, when this phenomenon began again, I decided to plant in my mind an idea I’ve been working with quite a bit lately. Sometimes what we resent most in someone else is something we have marginalized and need to look at in ourselves. An hour or so later, while in an inversion, point of view askew, my gaze rested on this puzzling person. I had an “aha” moment, where I realized exactly what part of myself I’d been pushing away upon my return to the Bay Area, and which this stranger personified. Aversion became a teacher. And transformed into gratitude toward this completely oblivious stranger who had taught me so much about myself without consciously doing anything on their part. The power of projection, guided with redirection, became insight.

I’d like to say that moving back “home” created sattva. At best, and perhaps this is true for most seekers—it is a state I visit from time to time. I wish to bask on the sattvic shores of life more often. With intention, renewed devotion, and discipline, the many aspects of my life—what I ingest, who I spend my time with, what I turn my attention to at the end of the day—will continue to evolve to embrace this balance. And not only will rajas and tamas become my lifelong friends, as they are beginning to, but so will my sattvic self.