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Sarvangasana - Shoulder Stand

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Recently, I returned from Indonesia, where I spent 2 weeks traveling solo and another 3 weeks studying yoga. It was incredibly challenging. * Indonesia is a third-world country. A 3-star hotel in Indonesia included stained sheets, roaches, and other people's hair on the bed. Even a top-rated homestay contained so much mold that if you suffer from asthma -- which apparently I now do -- breathing is labored and scary. Imagine not sleeping well for 5 weeks.  * There are strays everywhere because Balinese Hinduism is so connected to the earth, animals, and plants. None of the animals are spayed or neutered. I love animals, and it was difficult seeing so many starving, maimed ones. One of the women in my hostel heard a pack of wild dogs eating a weaker dog in the middle of the night. I got compassion fatigue and was just sad all the time . Also, 6 dogs chased me down a hill one morning. * There are no sidewalks, no trashcans, and few discernible road rules. This means that Bali is not w
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Saurya - Courage

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I haven't been sleeping well lately. I've been so anxiety-ridden that I literally made a Google Doc to keep track of all of the things I am anxious about. This includes everything from remembering to get medicine for my altitude sickness, to needing to return luggage before its expiration date, to buying enough cat food, disposable litter boxes, and litter for Poppy while I'm gone. It's possible that my brain is seizing upon these fears because it cannot, it cannot  seize upon the bigger fears, like, "What if I get lost somewhere in Indonesia and literally cannot communicate with anyone?" I had my whole trip planned and then my friend Tiago blew it all to hell when he said, "If Tumpak Sewu has been on your bucket list for years, you can't get THAT CLOSE to it and not find a way to see it." It felt like Venice all over again, like something I would regret forever if I didn't at least try. So I threw my ENTIRE plan -- my pretty calendars and li
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Tulā - Balance

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One thing I really resent about yoga is that it highlights all the ways I lack balance. There are the really obvious ways, like the fact that I can't stand on one foot without falling over (looking at you, Natarajasana). There are the subtler ways, like how the left side of my body flexes so much more deeply than the right, making all correctly-aligned poses feel completely lopsided. And there are the stupid ways, such as my inability to do anything in moderation. This last one is what I'm most concerned with right now. I decided a year or two ago that if I were to ever pursue advanced yoga training, it would be a "go big or go home" situation. Mostly I decided this because it had not occured to me when I was 18 that I could apply to Oxford for university and go big or go home that way. It would have been a magnificent opportunity, and yet I could not think bigger than Chicago, USA.  I would not make the same mistake twice! So if I were going to enroll in a 300-hr pro
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Anyāya - Injustice

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The world has been unbelievably cruel lately. Nothing makes sense. Birdie and all her children were killed earlier this week. That was horrific enough. She was such an amazing, incredible person.  And now investigators have determined that my friend killed herself  and her 4 children in a murder-suicide... and that's why none of them got out of that house fire. Birdie was a good person. Now the story will be that she murdered her children. That's not it. She was completely trapped by a system she couldn't escape and men who were determined to destroy her. What do you do with this much evil and horror? How do you bear up under it? I don't know. I'm not strong enough. I was thinking recently about how much I hate vulnerability. It hurts when you take a new job and fail at it, or speak honestly and lose someone's friendship, or open your heart a bit and get rejected. Those things are painful, particularly when they happen all at once. But what do you do in a world
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Vaṃśam - Lineage

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In 2019, Netflix released a  documentary on Bikram Choudhury , founder and guru of Bikram Yoga (in the wake of the scandal, this style is now known primarily as 26-2 or simply "hot yoga.") Beginning in 2013, former students of Bikram -- all women -- began coming forward to file lawsuits against him for everything from sexual assault to rape. Ultimately, the only case to go to trial was the one by his former legal adviser. When she insisted on investigating the rape and assault allegations, he forced her to resign.  Despite being ordered to pay $7.4 million in damages (reports vary), Bikram declared bankruptcy, fled the country, and still continues to teach his enormously popular style of yoga to those students who are willing to pay $10,000 each.  Bikram was famous for wearing only his Speedo  and a Rolex during classes. For many women, the most astounding piece of the Bikram scandal was the complicity of his ex-wife, Rajashree. Although she refused to publicly comment, Rajas
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Abhyasa - Practice

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                              Last summer on my travels, the best location I visited was Lake Bled in the Julien Alps of Slovenia. What a wild place! Slovenia hadn't even been on my radar, but then I stumbled upon an opportunity to visit what appeared to be the most beautiful place on earth and I was all, yes, sign me up! And, I kid you not, it was absolutely as intense and beautiful and surreal a place as you can imagine. BUT (of course there was a but  because this is The Budding  Optimist) there were independent artists set up in a small lot near the lake. I was thrilled at the opportunity to buy a Christmas ornament to commemorate my adventure. That's when the OCD kicked in and -- I kid you not -- I spent MOST of my trip to Lake Bled maniacally changing my mind on which Christmas ornament I should get. I think the lady selling them finally got to the point where she thought I was truly insane. I eventually bought 3 and thought my monkey-mind would let up, but it was not mea
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Häni—loss

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I rarely re-read books, but I'm re-reading The Midnight Library. It's about a woman who tries to kill herself after her cat dies and her job goes south (did I mention that's in trouble, too?) and she realizes she's alone. She winds up in the in-between, not quite alive, not quite dead, in a place called the Midnight Library, where all the decisions she's ever made are housed in a multiverse that looks like a library. By choosing to rescind any given choice, she can open a book and be transported to another universe to see how her life would be different there. I wish I could do that. I'm not doing very well. In the first week of November, Mocha died. In the second week, I gave Graysee to a neighbor and didn't even get to tell her goodbye. I tried texting the neighbor, asking if I could keep her for a few more weeks until I settled from Mocha's death, but didn't get a response. Yesterday, I had to leave school because I wasn't functioning well fro
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