In loving memory of Jenna, Yogamama

Many of you have read this tragic news on the front page of the newspaper or on TV headlines about the cyclist killed in the West End of Toronto on Monday.  Jenna was my friend.

In August of 2009 my family moved to Canada, and wanting to establish roots quickly for my son, we enrolled him at a parent run playschool co-operative in the Annex, called Huron Playschool. At the first parent meeting at the start of term, I made my way into the basement of the St Thomas Church, met a few parents and looked around to see who I wanted to sit next to. I was attracted to a bright smiling woman who had a luminous moonstone around her neck. I squeezed myself into the toddler sized chair around the kids craft table next to her and introduced myself. She told me her name was Jenna. Her son was the same age as my son Tai. She was a yoga teacher. I loved her immediately, and saw every complex facet of myself reflected in her. That evening she was elected chairperson of the Board, and I was elected Registrar. We had a good laugh after the meeting, thinking how great it was that two mad Yoga Mamas were now in charge of running the entire playschool.

Jenna was the glue that held the playschool together. Jenna had an endless supply of energy to co-ordinate and nurture most of the projects at the school. She initiated the Halloween, end of year, and Christmas parties, and began introducing all the kids to yoga. As the chairperson of the board, she created community and momentum and empowered us to begin projects that may not have happened without her enthusiasm. As a parent run co-op school, it was an incredibly special place. We co-designed and helped implement the curriculum, and assisted the teacher one day a week in the classroom. Without Jennas commitment to fun, creative, playbased learning, the school not have been the same special place that it is.

Jenna and her husband Flo were instrumental in getting so many little things done around the playschool, like painting and repairing the baseboards to help pass health and safety inspections.  It may seem like such a small insignificant detail, but it sticks in my mind, because it was a job no-one else wanted to do.  The school blossomed and doubled in size in the three years that Flo, Lucas and Jenna have been a part of it.   They also helped to create the beautiful mural that we painted on the wall outside.   There are so many things.

I learned of her tragic death on Tuesday morning at work, through my connections in the Toronto yoga community. I don’t remember what happened at work for the next few hours, but do vaguely remember speaking with a few people on the phone. I don’t remember crying, but as I left, caught my reflection in the mirror and quickly went to the bathroom to wipe the black mascara which had run down my cheeks all the way to my chin.

From 889 I jumped in a cab and drove to Huron Playschool in the Annex just south of Bloor Street. I sat on a wet park bench and watched chartreuse hued leaves falling from the trees. I looked up at the sky. I ate fudge to stop the nausea, shaking and shock. I remembered chatting with Jenna in the park, as we watched our sons on the swings and slides. I saw her riding up Huron Street with Lucas on the back of her bike. I remembered standing outside St Thomas church with her after mid winter board meetings chatting, hugging, laughing and busting out yoga moves to stay warm. As it got colder that afternoon I entered the church where our Playschool is. It was so warm, and silent and felt like a womb. I could hear the clock on the wall ticking like a heartbeat, and could hear the muffled sound of the kids laughing from the basement below. I sat in the church hall where Jenna used to teach the kids yoga and literally saw her dancing around with my son, picking him up, singing to him, teaching them downward dog in her purple skirt that she wore for Halloween. Tears were just streaming down my face. I could not stop them. They have not stopped since.

I had to break the news of Jenna’s death to the entire Playschool community. Unbelievably to me, no one at that stage knew of the tragic news. I wish I was not the person who had to deliver this news to her close friends who saw Jenna on a daily basis, whose kids play with Lucas, and who were sharing the joy and radiance of her pregnancy as only other Mothers can. We held our kids close and stumbled back to my friends house and sat stunned around the kitchen table drinking tea. Some of us were sobbing. Mostly we were quiet and just holding each other and working out how to tell our kids what had happened to Jenna.

On Tuesday night I attended Jenna’s vigil at Renaissance Yoga and Ayurveda. Matthew and Scott hugged me and then hugged me some more. I sat on the sofa staring at her photo, wrapped lovingly in Tibetan silk scarves, illuminated by candles. I caught the loving glance of strangers across the room whom were in deep recollection of Jenna also. I spoke to a few people, students, colleagues, and friends and shared stories. I met her midwife whom had delivered Lucas, and was supporting Jenna through her current pregnancy. We all ate a lot of cake. There were some tears, but many more moments of laughter and then poignant moist eyed silences.

There are so many stories about Jenna, most of them I want to keep to myself and share in whispers with my girlfriends who knew her.  The past few days have been long and painful, and I have just been trying to ride the waves of grief.   Yesterday I practiced 108 sun salutations for her.  Some of them felt soft and joyful, there were many that felt angry and filled with rage.  In some I saw her above me as I reached my arms into a prayer overhead.  In the middle, there were 8 – 10 namaskars which left a puddle of tears on my mat.  I collapsed into a still Savasana at the end.  I couldn’t stay there too long.  To mimic a corpse was too painful.

I remember you as a radiant and glowing mama Jenna. I remember you as a woman who had so much love for kids, that it overflowed to all the children around you. I remember you as a person I loved from the minute I sat beside you. I remember you on your bike, and dancing. I am heartbroken, and am grieving for your family and close friends.

Assato ma sad gamaya

Tammaso ma jyotir gamaya

Mrityor ma amritam gamaya

Lead me from the unreal to the real

Lead me from the darkness to the light

Lead me from death to immortality

(Brhadaranyaka Upanishad — I.iii.28)

Left and Right Brain + Ida and Pingala Nadi

I came across this amazing image the other day.  For a bigger view and more in this incredible series click here.  It is an ad for Mercedez Benz (how totally random!), but what really struck me was how clearly it depicted the science of tantra, or swara yoga.  More specifically this beautiful image shows how each nostril is connected to very specific types of energy, and how this energy connects to a certain hemisphere of the brain.  I discuss this all the time in class, so if you have received this little teaching from me, here is a wonderful little diagram to explain it all!

Yogis believe that each nostril is connected to a Nadi, which in Sanskrit literally translates to the word river, or flow.   These channels are not nerves as we may imagine them in a gross sense, but far more subtle conduits of pranic energy that intersect at the chakras which lie along the length of the spine. Each nostril corresponds to a dominant activity that takes place in the opposite hemisphere of the brain.  The right brain-left brain theory grew out of the work of Roger W. Sperry, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1981.  What fascinates me, is that this very concept was first explained in ancient texts such as the Upanishads, ancient texts composed thousands of years ago, which set the foundations of the basis of our understanding of yoga today. Here we have yet another scientific finding, bought to our attention by Western scientists in the 21st century that the yogis knew about though direct experience and practice of breathing and meditation techniques, centuries before.  This is the beauty of the art and science of yoga.

Left Nostril : Ida Nadi, Left side of the body, Right Brain dominance, the feminine and creative principle.

The breath that is drawn in through the left nostril is known as Ida, the lunar channel.  It runs energetically down the left side of the spinal cord, and impacts the right hemisphere of the brain.  It is symbolically represented by the moon, and by the feminine aspect of energy known as Shakti.  Left nostril dominant breathing activates the Parasympathetic nervous system, the state that you enter during a great relaxing savasana or restorative portion of your yoga practice, or any activites where you find yourself in an effortless state of creative flow.

Here is the text on the right hemisphere of the brain from the advertisement above:

I am the right brain.  I am creativity, a free spirit.  I am passion. Yearning, sensuality.  I am the sound of roaring laughter.  I am taste, the feeling of sand beneath bare feet.  I am movement. I am vivid colour, the urge to paint on an empty canvas. I am boundless imagination. Art, poetry.  I sense.  I feel.  I am everything I wanted to be.

Right Nostril: Pingala Nadi, Right side of the body, Left Brain dominance, the masculine and analytical principle.

The right nostril breath is known as Pingala, and is the solar channel.  Not surprisingly this breath is heating in nature, and is associated with masculine energy through the archetype of Shiva.  When we draw breath in the through the right nostril, or more accurately when the breath is dominant through this channel it activates our left hemisphere of our brain.  This is the part of our brain which is associated with our Sympathetic Nervous System  – that elevated state of stress, or the ‘fight or flight response’ – a throwback from our primitive ancestors as a way of keeping us alive, and out of immediate danger.  The left hemisphere of the brain is more analytical in nature.

Here is the text on the left brain from the picture above:

I am the left brain.  I am a scientist, a mathematician.  I love the familiar.  I categorize.  I am accurate, linear, analytical.  Strategic, practical, I am always in control.  A master of words and language.  Realistic, I calculate equations and play with numbers.  Order, logic.  I know exactly who I am.

As you can well imagine, we have an incredible opportunity to develop an awareness of this in our yoga practice.  One of the most simple ways to start to become accustomed to this is to close one nostril, and check to see which one is dominant at varying times of the day.  When we are involved in activities such as art, dancing, and relaxation, it is almost certain that our left nostril is drawing in more oxygen than our right, thus activating our right hemisphere of our brain.  When we are crunching numbers, making strategic business decisions, or in times of elevated stress, our right nostrils will be dominant, thus activating our left hemisphere of our brains.  The yogis observed that the dominance of each nostril fluctuates often during the day according to the activities that we are undertaking.  Too much prana in the right nostril, may well be responsible for a noticeable decline in your creativity, and too much prana in the left nostril, may be the cause of a lack of concentration for more analytical tasks.

Nadi Shodhana PranayamTry it!  I received this teaching many, many years ago and it is a practical tool that I use many times a day to see where my energy is concentrated, and what sorts of tasks best fit my most current mood.    In classes over the next few weeks I will be continuing to teach Nadi Shodhana Pranayama, an alternate nostril breathing technique which balances the energy in the body to achieve a greater sense of equanimity and harmony.   I would love to hear your questions, comments and experience with this. Come and find me after class, or around 889 to chat!

Evolutionary Yoga and the Spine

Nature uses many consistent principles that allow life forms to thrive.  The embryo in-utero undergoes mirroring of the macro process of biological evolution.  For example, the human foetus continues to exhibit features that we have knowingly evolved away from such as gills and flippers. Many millions of years ago when single celled organisms were swimming around in the priomordial oceans, these organisms began to develop responsiveness to their environments.  Their shape began to change to make it easier for them to move and to find nutrients. These little creatures were called Pseudopods.  Later, these organisms developed a central nervous system and we began to see the beginning of brains.  These structures required a structure of armour to protect the spinal cord, but also needed to be able to articulate from side to side to enable movement.  The spine is one of natures most beautiful creations, and perfectly balances two of yoga philosphy’s most important concepts: sthira (stablility) and sukha (good space).

The first sea creatures had spines which undulated laterally to enable movement.  As we moved out of the water to land, amphibians still moved their spines laterally (just think of the way that snakes move).  As limbs evolved out of the sides of the body they enabled more effective slithering but didn’t really offer the body a great deal of support.  The major evolutionary step happened when limbs became more important to offer the body support.  From a survival standpoint,  animals can see better as quadrupeds, and spot food and prey from greater distances.  We began to see the respiratory system descend into the protective casing of the ribcage, and the head and sensory apparatus moved upwards creating the cervical curve of the neck.  As creatures began to jump up onto hind legs, the rear legs became the main apparatus for locomotion, and the forelimbs developed into skilled tools for manipulation.  As animals began to walk on hind legs the lumbar curve became necessary as a means of distributing the weight more evenly along the spinal column.

Interestingly, chimpanzees do not have a lumbar (lower back) curve as they are primarily quadrupeds, who can only spend a limited amount of time upright.   The human spine is unique amongst mammals as it exhibits both primary and secondary curves in order to evenly distribute weight when standing.  However, as the only true bipeds on the planet, we are not very mechanically stable creatures.  We have the highest centre of gravity, the smallest base of support, and the biggest and heaviest brains.  It’s quite remarkable that we can walk at all!  In fact, he only way we are able to work out how to make all of this work to our advantage is the fact that we have a big brain!

Our primary curve in the womb is the the C shaped kyphotic curve that runs through down the back of the rib cage, behind the lungs.  This remains our primary curve once we are born.  We have postures in our yoga vocabulary which mimic this primal movement patterns.  Childs Pose (Balasana) mimics this C shaped curve of the spine, as does Embryo in the Womb Pose (Garbha Pindasana seen here on the right).  Practicing these postures with awareness and intelligence of where they comes from helps us to connect with our embryonic wisdom.

 The cervical curvature of the neck only becomes apparent only as we tilt our heads backwards to make our way through the birth canal and take our first breath.    Our first postural task as human beings comes from learning to stabilise the weight of our heads.  This is assisted by infants first intuitive responses to life outside the womb. Co-ordinating the muscles required for sucking, and enabling the movement of the lungs as we breathe and cry, all assist to strengthen the muscles of the neck.  When we make it to an upright position (around the age of one) we still have no lumbar curve, hence our unsteadiness on our feet.  In fact it takes us almost 10 years to fully develop our lumbar curve at the base of our spine.

I remember observing this process with utter fascination.  In just one short year my children evolved from helpless little blobs who couldn’t hold up their heads, to sitting alone, to crawling and slithering on the floor all the way to that first triumphant unsupported step.  This for me was such a huge lesson in yoga and evolution, as the macrocosmic process of evolution was replayed in fast forward right before my eyes.