Big Time

I am on the other side of my most recent rite of passage, giving birth to my spritely twin boys, who are now two months old. I would say "already" two months old, or "just" two months old, but those descriptors imply that I understand the meaning of the time that has passed. (Mary Oliver: Meanwhile, the world goes on…) Time has become relative. Or maybe it isn't time that's changed. Maybe I have changed. Or maybe there's more to time than I thought. My teacher describes four different kinds of time: linear, cyclic, punctiliar and recursive.


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Huh?

Linear was the only time I knew before yoga.
"When I was little…"
"When the boys are bigger…"
"Before I die I want to…"
"I can't wait to…"
"That's in the past…"

Life moving forward. Can't go back in time and change how things went. This, too, shall pass.

Which lends itself well to:

Cyclical Time 
This is what I have come to describe to students as "geologic time." The earth settling and folding into itself and erupting over and over again, in a pattern so vast we can only study it in theory, or see it in remnants of proof of all that time passing. Epochs.

Or, as my sweetie loves to say as a catch phrase meaning, order of magnitude: BigTime. (As in, "I love you. BigTime." Or, "That class kicked my ass; BigTime.")

But Peter Pan says it best: 

This has all happened before and it will all happen again.

I have joined the ranks of the billions of people who have endeavored to make more people, and those people will make more people. 

Then there's Punctiliar time.
Think "punctual." As Douglas Brooks says, these are the be here now kind of people. Full disclosure: I suck at that. I think it's because I have a vivid imagination and an active dream life. I don't think this moment, as it is, is all there is. That's somebody else's yoga.

Finally, Recursive Time,
A record on repeat. No, the same record, starting over again before it's completed its cycle. Like a round. No, the same record playing on five different record players… Or?

Row Row Row your Boat,
Row Row Row Your
Row Row Row
 
Not skipping but layering on itself. Oh boy. Hard to explain and even harder to understand.

It's like changing a diaper:
it has to happen every couple of hours, and for us, that's x2. Sometimes the shit comes in the middle of a change and it starts again before its finished.  Kind of like life.

Okay: it's the reason I like practicing the same poses, or chanting the same mantra over and again. It's the same practice, over and over again. Except it's not. It's why one pose can teach you everything you know--because it keeps unfolding and enfolding into a bazillion other experiences. It's one moment that opens into a bazillion (yes, a bazillion) other moments, other possibilities of exploration, a beginning now and now and now and now. 

It's like the first Yoga Sutra:

Atha yoganushasanam
Atha: Now. We begin the practice of yoga.
But each time you read it, the sutras says now. and now and now.
That's recursive time. It starts anew within itself.

Uf! The. point. (punctuation.) I'm. getting. to. is this: 

The time I have been given to be home, still, in the chaos of babies, is completely in thanks to the generous support of the yoga community and the greater community at large. This pause, this be-here-now-time, has enabled me to engage a new perspective on how and when I would like to re-enter the world, on what kinds of classes, workshops, retreats and trainings I would like to offer, and on how I can best be of service to the greater community. I know better how I want to spend my yoga time.

Schedule
On a Recursive note: I am delighted to step back into my tried and true role as a public class instructor in August. Stay tuned for my regular teaching schedule.

I am thrilled to re-engage my role as a teacher trainer this fall at Yoga Yoga, and eventually with Global Yoga Shala (think 2015).

I'm also looking forward to new adventures. 

Some upcoming & new offerings are below, including another collaboration with Laura Forsyth and One Yoga Collective. Contact me if you'd like to register. I look forward to our time together.

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