I took my first yoga class tonight and faced the question of what intention will guide my personal practice this year. I decided that I would have two: The first one is discovery because I want to explore the boundaries of my body, mind and spirits. The second one is to use my practice as a cosmic empowerment for my brother, Richard, who is still fighting cancer. Although he made what seemed to be a promising recovery from his initial diagnosis of lung cancer, he recently had a small tumor removed from his brain and, then a few weeks ago, his doctors detected that the lung cancer has come back. Last year, I shaved my head in solidarity with my brother. Apparently that modest gesture was not enough so I am throwing in sweat and energy from my yoga practice this time around.
Last year, my intention was self-acceptance while two years ago it was awareness. I have an annual intention to avoid the uncertainty of picking one at the start of a yoga class.
I started the week thinking that I would have time to practice yoga and pranayama, meditate, and blog now that I am back at home, safe in the structure and security of my daily routine. Fat chance!
I have made it to the studio once, on Sunday evening. I have meditated twice late in the evening. I got to run on the Mall on Tuesday, 4.5 miles. A clipper weather front has blown through Washington, giving us our first blast of cold and has caused my car battery to go belly up, leaving me stranded at the Metro when I wanted to rush over to Thrive for an evening class. My mother-in-law has arrived from Peru to spend the holidays with us and disrupted household routine. My brother in Dallas, Richard, was hospitalized with what looked like a heart attach, throwing in family deliberations about his health.
I will have a full weekend to compensate because I am taking the Beryl Bender Birch workshop at Thrive Yoga -- 10 hours over three days.
While shaving (beard and scalp) this morning, I realized that it had not always been so easy. For the past 10 years, at least, I have cut my own hair, basically buzz-cutting my hair to the smallest setting on the electric hair clipper. This year, I have gone even further and applied an electric razor to give me the billiard ball look. It used to be that I could never get my right hand to reach the left side of my head; I'd have to switch the clipper or razor to my left hand. I noticed this morning that I don't have to make the switch anymore, unless my right arm becomes fatigued from the awkward position. I attribute this improved range to my yoga practice -- what else could it be. All my time spent in downward-facing dog has served a purpose.
I went for the shaved head look as a gesture in support of my brother, Richard, who was undergoing treatment for lung cancer and losing his hair involuntarily. After an operation, chemotherapy and radiation treatment, his doctors have declared the cancer in remission, allowing him to look forward to some semblance of normalcy in his life. I don't know if I am going to stop shaving my head. I kinda like it -- a Buddha look that goes with my increased emphasis on mindfulness.
I've shaved off all my head hair. It was a minor piece of hair styling since I've been wearing my hair as a buzz cut for the past six years, but it was for a big cause, at least for my family.
My younger brother, Richard, was diagnosed with lung cancer in December. This came as a shock since he has never smoked and always had a healthy life style. He got married in October 2005, and cancer is not a good way to start of a marriage. Fortunately, Susan, a neonatal nurse, took the news in stride and has been a tremendous support for Richard throughout the whole process. He underwent surgery to remove about a quarter of his left lung and is now receiving chemotherapy (now getting over his second treatment, which sent him to the hospital for a day because of an adverse reaction). His hair has started falling out and he's shaved it all off. I told him that I would keep my head shaved until he had recovered completely.
More importantly, I believe, I reminded him about the value of meditation in getting through pain and suffering. As a Christmas gift him, I sent him a copy of Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness by Jon Kabat-Zinn. He had done a research project on biofeedback and was familiar with the idea. He even had some meditation tapes, which he dug out of the boxes remaining from his move to a new home. He says that the meditation has helped him a lot when he's feeling the worst side effects of the therapy.
I hope my karma is not reduced by my liking my new Kojak/Michael Jordan look, which I may keep for good. And it also begs the question of whether it means anything if most of your hair has already turned gray and fallen out.
