I am filled with a thousand moving streams of endless possibility, racing blood and sweat and unforgivable visions of excellence. I pray on homemade notebooks; I prey on lost boys...I run from something in the air that makes me, ahhhh exhale and let everything fall out of place, disheveled, de-mystified, re-wrinkled and pure.

I let a breath move me miles high, take me back and forth, sit me down and cry on its shoulder 'til I'm breathless again, and there's nothing left to breathe but all the drifting spirits here.

The way the moon looks through all the windows at once, i sneak through the in-betweens, to let the half light kiss me with its whispered knowing, and feel my skin unravel in its hands. It's blooming all around me, with a pale red readiness, a morning waiting to be born.

A Breath of Fresh Air

Oh, Sunday evening, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. Planning my week with a cup of chocolate yogi tea, flipping through art books because I can, and daydreaming about what I'd like to do for my month-long break from school. Yes, that's my version of contentment.

New years always brings a positive shift in my life, be it a result of the holiday or the sun shifting cycles, I don't know, but it makes a measurable impact on how I feel. Until January, a tension builds in the way I live-I do a lot, I do it quickly, and I don't really stop and smell the roses. Until suddenly we flip a digit into a new year and it's like I've plunged into a warm, deep hot tub-everything relaxes and I can't help but sigh every 2 and a half minutes about how simply nice everything is.

This year, my transition was aided by a spur-of-the-moment trip to Budapest for the Couchsurfing Winter Camp. I arrived just in time for the new years party at Citadella, the "capitol hill" of Buda. I met with old friends, a met a few new ones, and felt again that steady current of life in me that has been a little evasive this winter. New energy seeping up from my toes, aided by dancing, walking, talking, laughing. Those four seem to be my staples in life, and I'm glad to be enjoying them all again. Bring it on, 2010.

Unexpected Lessons

Cleaning out my blog, as it were, I found this old, unpublished post.  I like the message, so I thought I'd post it now.  enjoy!  
originally written february 19, 2009


Although we have been made to believe that if we let go we will end up with nothing, life itself reveals again and again the opposite: that letting go is the path to real freedom.
- Excerpt from The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying By Sogyal Rinpoche

That's what I wish I had read last week, mid-afternoon before yoga class. Maybe then I wouldn't be sitting in my house with a leg sticky from Tiger's Balm and a strong longing for nothing more than the ability to bend forward, suddenly very unrealistic. I've read again and again the yogic principle of "ahimsa" or "non-violence", and I claim to understand it. Yet for every time I've read it, I'm pretty sure there's a good example of how I have not applied it when I could have. That's ok, some things you've got to learn by doing (or not doing) but it's getting old to keep pushing myself just beyond my limits when I know deep down I shouldn't. This time it won't matter; I need to work harder, I tell myself, and that was exactly what was going through my head when I pulled a hamstring last week. Again.

The truly annoying part? I kept going to classes and didn't mention it to the teachers. Massochism? Maybe more like Daniela suggested a few weeks ago: victimization. Or at least, the need to feel like a saint for bearing my discomfort in silence. Ouch. Good ol' ego is kicking at that thought. Whatever the reason, I kept pushing myself and yesterday felt a resounding pop in standing split that brought on instant tears. Now, even walking hurts. It's a challenge not to let it piss me off. I would like to be seriously angry at the situation, and last night, walking very slowly to the tram stop with Daniel watching quietly and waiting for the explosion, I was. I felt like every bit of progress I've been making has been an illusion-I've been practicing so much better, so strongly and smoothly, and without feeling challenged horribly all the time. I thought I was really breaking into something new, and that's part of why I decided to go for my teacher's training this May. Suddenly, with a self-inflicted limp, I wondered out loud if I am just running into something I haven't even begun to understand.

I said it out loud, maybe hoping for an easy, verbal response. But there isn't one. There is no simple answer to a problem that goes to the center of who I am. Honestly, I believe that we are all capable of understanding and embracing yogic principles and lifestyles; practicing non-violence while practicing self-discipline and study; finding absolute joy in every moment without the constant buzz of self-gratification and affirmation. We can all just "be" and be fine with that. Admitting that it's something we may never reach is the part that puts me in my place every time. I think, "wow, yeah, I get it, peace and respect and resolve and release, all at the same time, I totally see that, I can do it." And if I meet a challenge, it crumples fairly easily into fear and self-doubt, showing all too clearly that I'm just setting up pretty pictures for myself of what I think I should be doing, not what I am doing. If I was really releasing, I would have no problem with never reaching perfection-or with doing half a standing split when my muscles are stiff.

The beautiful irony of the situation is that what I need is to slow down, and by ignoring that need initially, I have forced myself into a position where I have no other choice. Life teaches us lessons, and the one I thought i needed to learn (discipline; strength; something masculine and difficult) is only something I have imagined. I, and probably you too, live in a society which preaches hard-headed masculine strength as the cure-all for lifes problems. When I see a wall, I want to kick the fucker down, or jump over, or somehow prove I'm powerful enough to dominate it. Maybe next time I'll stop stubbing my toes and scraping my knuckles, and just enjoy the shade and shelter from the wind.

Enlightenment is the "quiet acceptance of what is". I believe the truly enlightened beings are those who refuse to allow themselves to be distressed over things that simply are the way they are.
- Wayne Dyer

Meditations on the “Moral Food” Conundrum

Today, biting into my adaptation of a classic Swiss apple-polenta dish (straight from Betty Bossi!), I paused to think about the culture that had inspired me to make it. The flavor was light and simple, yet satisfying and oh-so-homey. Still, apparently food for thought.

Let’s be honest; Switzerland is a land of agrarian fanatics. It’s not something to scoff at either. I have nothing but respect for anyone who devotes their life to producing good food-and Swiss farmers seem to have gotten that one to a T, even if they have a bit of a "short man complex" about their specialty. Yes, for some strange reason, Swiss people are usually either embarrassed about their country’s history of stubborn agricultural productivity (these would be, obviously, not the farmers), or suspiciously quick to point out how steadfast and impressive the Swiss agricultural system really is (yes, farmers talking here).

I can’t help but smile at anyone who is embarrassed in front of me about their country’s history. I am an American, which means a certain amount of humility when it comes to claiming my nationality, and I would never judge a country based on how it has been in the past. The point is what I am experiencing here right now. Learning about Swiss cultural history is easier here, now, in this small, mountainous country, filled with patchworks of grain fields, cow pastures, and milk production facilities, than any textbook could ever describe it.

One of the most tell-tale signs that farmers are a revered force in the Swiss population is the fairly close attention that even big supermarkets pay to stocking local food products. Well, part farmer-appreciation and part stolid nationalism, to be fair, but the result is still nice! Even massive corporate shopping centers often list the name of the farmer who grewthe vegetable you’re holding and the address where it was grown. Wow! When I stroll around the farmers markets it is an even more lovely spread of local fresh vegetables, and fruits, and fine, handmade vinegars, pickles, and jams; and there you get to look the grower in the eye, essentially, and see for yourself the life of work that went into your carrots.

Of course, Switzerland is most notoriously a cheese- and chocolate-loving nation, which can’t help me a lot as far as vegan-food-adventures go (yes, I tried anyway, with awful results, peer pressure still being a driving force in ‘adult’ life apparently!). Here is where history is again evident in the present: With about 2000 years of cheese-making under their belts, a lot of the Swiss I meet would be happy to live off bread and cheese for the next 15 years, easy. Well, and chocolate, clearly. That confuses me-that a people with the potential to grow amazing produce, who live in an ideal way for spreading it to everyone through the tight-knit networks of villages, small cities, and interspersed plots of land, already well-adapted to agricultural work, still devote most of their agricultural energies to the less resource-efficient dairy and meat industries.

All I can figure out is that tradition has a strangle-hold on the food industry, including that of consumption. Much of Swiss life is rife with traditionalism like no Californian could have imagined. Food is certainly no exception. When I ask people here for their opinions, there are two main answers. First, the need for protein-rich foods. This is a straight-shot to the tradition issue. In tribal Switzerland, meat was probably what people had learned to ‘cultivate,’ and with it milk and methods for preserving it. Now that banking is a close runner-up for Swiss cultural value, something tells me that most people aren’t actually hand-milking cows every morning, and the choice is about where their Swiss francs are going, not which food they have the ability to produce. The second is a simple taste preference for dairy and meat products. I can’t really argue with what tastes better to one person or another, but I have a feeling that there’s more to good flavors in Switzerland than Lindt, Käse Fondue, and Würst. Otherwise I would’ve been outta here a long time ago!

But the simple fact is that when you eat some of one thing, you end up eating less of another (ok, modern standards of over-eating aside…). If your first thought for breakfast is a hunk of Gruyere and a slice of topf (like the challah of swiss bread), you’ve just passed up the ripe, juicy plums, apples, pears, and elderberries dripping with natural appeal. How about a bowl of nüsslisalat (corn lettuce), grated celeriac, and purple carrots, all native, seasonal veggies (yes, even in January!)?

Let’s think further, to the simple, rustic cuisine that everyone dreams of mom bringing to the table at Christmas; The standards include potatoes, meat, salad, cheese (raclette or fondue), bread, and lots of cookies and chocolate. The great part is, it’s all local. The drawback? Well, I can’t eat most of it, for one! But also, the focus on meat, cheese, milk products, and wheat means less focus on the amazing variety of heirloom vegetables and fruits in Switzerland, or the wide spread of grain crops that can easily be grown here but are replaced with wheat. about corn? It is evidently completely possible to grow it here, because in fact, quite a bit is. There’s just one catch-like most American corn, it is a variety to be used for cattle feed. One of the common imported items I see is whole corn on the cob, while the pig sliced into your sandwich could have easily been fattened on locally-grown corn! Funny how the world works…

On the other side, we can’t forget that just because something is local doesn’t mean that it is native, or easier to be grown. In the short-term, buying local is almost always better because you are cutting down on the costs, environmental and economical, of importing. But in the long-run, we are often just supporting the chosen monoculture of a given region. Wheat, spelt, and rye are NOT the only grains that grow in Switzerland. For whatever reason, cost, quantity, versatility, or demand, a few crops were chosen for Switzerland to produce on large scales, and that’s the way we’re taught to buy. It’s completely ludicrous to think that only a few kinds of plants are Switzerland-friendly. With major geographical differences from region to region, it’s a country supporting many vastly different microclimates in its small, mountainous confines. For example: Um, the Alps?

Changing something like the amount of agricultural biodiversity in a society isn’t something I know how to do. Do you? Then help me out. In the meantime I can try to cut down on both imported and local-monoculture foods, and eat…well, heirlooms! Lucky for me there is an almost guerilla-like movement of heirloom activists in Switzerland, who distribute the seeds for personal use and research the ‘lineage’ of plant species all the way back to texts from monastery’s of the Middle Ages.

Now, here I sit with a piece of Tender Elstar Apple Cake in front of me. The ingredients are the usual hodge-podge of what I had and what I wanted, and the result is a multi-cultural take on a Swiss tradition. Inside are little South American Amaranth grains, Italian polenta, and cashews from…it doesn’t actually say, and that’s eerie. Everything inside is organic, and some things were locally produced. Some came straight from the farm, like the apples and the elderberry blossom syrup. But how much better is it to enjoy this newly hyped gluten-free grain, fair trade and more well-traveled than most Americans my age, than to buy the Kellogs Corn Pops, which are also gluten-free, cheaper, and produced on the same continent? Well, I would still say it’s better, but it’s not as much of a perfect action as I would like to imagine.

It’s so easy to fall into the traps of advertising and wind up wreaking havoc on our supposed ‘environmentalist’ morals. Where does our soymilk come from, dairy-free eaters? If you make your own, where are the beans grown? Rice milk? Almond milk? How far have the ingredients for your perfect curry traveled? How much plastic should really be involved in buying organic peppers? I just have to think that if what we need is a change in the way we shop and eat, what we need is less mindless extremism and more conscientious decision-making. “I shop all organic” is not enough to make me living well in relation to the environment, the economy, and other individuals. Neither is “I shop local.” It is a complicated, messy state our food has sprouted into, and the answers are similarly messy.

Don’t underestimate your actions! Think!

There is no codified method for ‘good’ actions-the answer always lies in the moment, and to face this is the most honest expression of humanity. When you enter the grocery store, whether you choose the farmer’s market, the local organic shop, the Tesco, the Walmart, or the garden, what you have to work with is always the next choice. Organic and imported, local and sprayed; fair trade from South America or grown next door by underpaid immigrants; packaged or bulk; paper or plastic; savored or snacked; spoiled or saved…Think about it. Enjoy the process. This is living. It is our gift and our eternal possibility to do it with as much awareness as possible. Two bites into my Elstar Cake, I’ve got a smile on my face as I think about exactly what it means to eat “Swiss”.

Femininity

Last Sunday I attended a womens' workshop at B. Yoga. The theme was "womens' power through yoga" and I didn't know exactly what to expect. To attend was awkward from the beginning, as I realized getting dressed Sunday morning. I have always imagined events with titles like "womens' power through yoga" to be the stomping grounds of amazonian feminists and a few emotionally inept wusses. That's a pretty ballsey judgement, coming from a person who has barely stepped into adulthood biologically...Admitting my initial contempt for the workshop seemed like the first step of something changing in my view of women, myself, or something, and I left for the workshop excited to explore more.

The first thing we did was sit in a circle, holding hands and recieving energy from the left while passing it to the right. To my surprise, I wasn't judgemental of it at all, and felt very comfortable. We talked a little about our concepts of femininity and masculinity and then began to practice yoga together, about 25 of us. We did the entire asana practice, an hour and a half, and returned to our circle. When D. asked us questions about our own very personal responses to issues, and to the mediation we all took part in for 5 minutes, I was shocked at how many identical phrases there were. For example, we practiced entering our masculine half (the right side of the body) with our breathing and awareness and then compared it to our left half, the feminine. In myself I could feel a serious difference, and I haven't been in the past a person who admits to the possibility of anything less than scientific. Still, many of the women said they felt a perfect balance, and this really seems to be either simplification or denial; who is perfectly balanced??

As we continued discussing the subjects that arose-mostly self-consciousness, self-doubt, and the constant, subtle struggle of all women stuck in a male-oriented society-I felt a weird conflict with my emotions and responses. A lot of the things the women said made me a little angry, annoyed. When I spoke, no one looked me in the eye, and as the youngest person present I felt resented by the other women just for the fact of my age. I am not sure at all if that was my own insecurity about it creeping into the situation or if there was really something being directed at me. Something in between i guess, but I couldn't relax and my voice was shaking when I finally said simply that it was very hard for me to be in just a group of women, discussing women. "And that discomfort," I stuttered, "really freaks me out. Why am I so uncomfortable facing my gender and myself? Why is it that I am more comfortable practicing yoga in a group of men and women than just women? I feel there is a connection to femininity in my life that is really lacking, andI am a little surprised that I never noticed it..." Still, no one responded, and I finished the workshop confused and withdrawn.

Two days ago, after missing a few classes, I had a really fantastic silent class with D. and another woman whose name I spaced. After I asked D. if she had something I could read following the subjects we'd discussed in the workshop. She immediately gave me Yogini: the Power of Women in Yoga. The past few days I have almost finished it, and last night I woke up suddenly after falling asleep late reading a chapter about a woman who abandoned traditional yoga to find her own feminine practice. I sat straight up with words already running through my head, and I started writing and writing in my journal the whole series of my life based on my ideas about my gender. I couldn't even verbalize, I just let eveything come out in one long jumbled chain starting with "My earliest memories about gender were of wanting to be a boy," and ending with the most recent, "I was pissed at all the women at the womens' workshop and I felt like they were pissed at me. I don't like that women are ever critical of other women."
In between, a bulleted list appearedthat seemed more clearly informed of my feelings than I have ever felt. All my fluctuations, from ardent tomboy to cantankerous feminist, and all the things I've never admitted I felt.

I felt a little weird at 4 in the morning with a scrawled list of emotions in my hand, but I know that something like it is inside probably every woman (and man). Where are we as a culture (and what culture am I claiming? Is america to blame or is the western world altogether?) if women are so confused about being women that they can't comfortably open up to each other in the saftely of an environment they share almost every day (i.e. B.Yoga)? After thinking about it all day, I am so foggy in my convictions I can't exactly write what I want to about it, but tomorrow I want to give you the whole spiel.

Living off my hike.

(pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/31736054@N04/ )

I really am, too. a couple of weeks ago (is it 2 now? Wow, that was fast) 6 of us made our way to Andeer, a village high in the Alps. Daniel's grandmother lives there in a house that was in her husbands family for generations. The village could easily be one from one or two hundred years ago, minus a few electric signs in shop windows-the buildings lean and slope towards each other, and a few are covered in the traditional art of the region; frescoes, mostly black and white, in a style I might have mistaken for Italian if I hadn't known better than to step on Swiss culture's toes. We spent all of Saturday seeing the village-the river, the old covered bridge and attached forwarning (going faster than a walking pace over this bridge will result in a 5 franc fine), the church with it's steeply tiered garden-and the small bakery, butcher shop, and dairy store, for food.

As I couldn't eat the bread or the cheese, the fondue was out for me, but I sauteed some veggies and stuck my tongue out as everyone slurped hot cheese. I was the first to go to sleep, followed by Maya, too sick to hike with us the next day, and it felt like being a little kid to sleep in the quiet, dark wooden guest house, which reminded me so much of my first home.

Sunday morning we were cold and red-eyed, out in the autumn air before the sun and on our way up. And up. It was 3 hours before we reached the first plateau, the site of a little lake filled with bugs of all kinds and surrounded by eerie, huge rocks. We continued to a meadow further on, where 2 of us (michael and Kati) went down and Freddy, Daniel and I contemplated our route.

"I'm just going to be honest you guys," I said, "I don't know if I can make it UP that thing." The thing in question was the massive rise behind us, a near-vertical rocky, tree-studded climb. Freddy, a friend I met through couchsurfing a few weeks ago, shrugged,
"Well, I don't really care, it's been gorgeous just to here, so I'm content." Dainel nodded,
"Yeah, either way. It would be nice to see the top, but..." And it was so obviously a "but nothing" that I grinned and interjected.
"Ok fine, we're going." and we did. We started by descending for a moment to a lower lake, then retracing our path halfway back and cutting onto a steeper trail headed for the peak. I led, the designated pace-keeper as the only one with doubts. Minutes into the trail I was beathing heavily, but feeling just as heavily stubborn, and I pushed myself to envision my legs as something apart from the rest of me; ideally something I couldn't feel, as my muscles were starting to burn and twitch more with every heave up the rocks. I finally stopped to rest and lifted my eyes from my feet. Woah! We were already a good portion of the way up, and even tired, it was heartening to see the view open behind us with new clarity of the facing mountains.

We made it up so quickly I was laughing at myself for having doubted anything, and when we rounded to the other side, it was a wholly different landscape-we were on a kind of plateau overlooking a deep blue lake and one of the old summer-farm-houses-turned-rented-chateau, where farmers once stayed while their cows grazed on the lush alp plants. To the right, a rise of boulders swept away the view of meadows beyond, and only some plants clung to the side of the mountain. It was stunning. The grass across the valley was a rainbow of greens, yellows, and even some browns, the autumn colors just starting to touch the sharp green tones of summer. Here and there, patches of early snow twinkled under the sun.

Ahhhhh, the Alps...It was suddenly easy to realize where I was on the globe and how bits of impressions I have had throughout my life have shaped the experience into something spectacular. A mountain is a mountain, but an alp is something magical and legendary, steeper than California's mountains, and mythical in it's hosting of such old, visible culture. Undoubtedly, the tribes that formed into what is now Switzerland walked along the same path that we just had, and brought animals and supplies to build homes at the spot we looked down on. For that matter, Daniel's ancestors probably did too. The fact that I come from a very 'young' (regarding my culture's influence there) country is so obvious when I am in an 'old' one!

We started down the opposite side with the sun hitting our shoulders in a pale yellow light, and by the time we had crossed the far meadow to find our trail, its last orange glow warmed our backs. We were giggly with exhaustion (ok, I speak for myself here) and reayd to eat again. My sweat was drying but the wind felt colder as it blew my damp shirt against my skin.

For a moment, at the top, I had imagined living here-I knew that you can work, like people have for centuries, as a summer caretaker and maintain the herds of all the farmer's cows on one alp. I had imagined this lifestyle with its difficulties and it's long, quiet pride, and felt so envious of the people who do it. the thought of Returning to Basel for work was distant and dull, and it became even moreso as we neared the alp house built by Daniel's ancestors, a rock-roofed shack with a barn triple its size, overlooking the deep blue gulf the valley had faded into.

Looking over the valley, I thought of my dad, and his way of looking at nature with a very light, calm energy. I had to smile as I pictured him there with me, standing and quietly grinning at the pure fantasy of how gorgeous the natural world can be-I gave myself an internal reminder that such beauty is everywhere, and not to downplay the importance of little beautiful things just because they are not as overwhelming.

We sat, talked, and split the last of the chocolate, savoring the evening and drawing it out as long as possible. When we finally started the last climb down, I realized I wasn't envious of the lifestyle after all, just glad to share a little of a feeling that all the people who have ever climbed a mountain have felt. It was such a breath of fresh, living air into a cyclical schedule of week and weekend, work and rest. And, as every time I have hiked until sunset, I was ready to descend and find my week.

For the past two weeks I've nursed along all my little sensations of the hike to remind me that the possibility to feel that freedom is always there. With the seasons changing, days shortening, and the undeniable approach of winter visible everywhere, I often find myself in conflict iwth my surroundings, wishing for a warmer day, a brighter sun, a longer evening. Somehow it's easier to see the changes for what they are from on top of an alp: part of a cycle that I am deeply connected to. A system of exchange between life and death that is as necessary as breathing in and out, and as gratifying. It is was sustains us, this exchange, and what makes my week worth returning to. Because at the end of any season, there is another, and at the end of any work week there is a mountain to be climbed :)

As always, I am left cheesily in love with being outside. Speaking of which, gotta get out there now!

And Then the Coffee Hit.

It was like a massive, brown tornado had swept through the creamy tiled landscape. The 3 survivors of the disaster were sitting, like shell-shocked soldiers of war, in a, wide-eyed, ground-encrusted stupor, and I hesitated before venturing a soft, "Oh. My. god." Maya turned and responded first;
"Dani forgot to put the second filter in the percolater." Sure enough, the red flush of fear was enhanced by the certain sheen of embarrassment on Daniel's grimacing face. Best homecoming ever.