Yoga Teacher Training Journal: November 28

Mary and Half-Tortoise sittin' in a tree...

HALF-TORTOISE SAVED MY LIFE TONIGHT

Ardha-Kurmasana, you truly are a little wonder.

Last night I had one of those inexplicably crabby yoga classes. Things started off a bit off-kilter because some circuit breakers weren't working and the heat was kind of spotty... and I never quite recovered my equilibrium.

Which is to say, I was a consummate Poopy-Pants. "Why won't that cell phone stop buzzing? Why is that person's B.O. so unimaginably pungent? Who's farting, and why?! And why won't that cell phone stop buzzing?!!"

And on and on like that.

No amount of concentrating on my breathing--or chanting "Receive" and "Allow" on the inhales and exhales--could quiet my inner Eeyore. And then... a miracle happened.

A double set of Half-Tortoise on the half shell.

My thoughts slowed down. My forehead melted into the mat. And when I came up, even the light in the room appeared different. Softer, somehow. Rosier.

Perspective shift accomplished. Thank you, little tortoise.

Yoga Teacher Training Journal: November 27th

THE TERRIBLE TWOFER!

Well, I had to do a twofer today to meet my quota...

The first class was wondrous. I marvelled at how calm my mind was, especially since all day long my mind was chaotic, and remained so right up until the moment class began. Every pose and savasana felt luxurious, and I felt like a particularly contented cat.

The second class, I started to feel that twinge in my back again, right above my tailbone on the left side. My thighs felt like jelly. I was shaking. And my mind took the opportunity of my body's weakness to start picking on me. Like, hardcore and shit. It was a testament to the power of the breath that I was able to disengage from the self-critical mode fairly quickly, soon after I realized it had kicked in.

The self-critical demon is my primary demon. And it motivates a lot of the behaviors that create unhappiness in my world. Disengaging the self-critical demon is what my practice is devoted to--when I am having a joyful practice it is all about celebration, and I don't see what I can't do, or what I can, or whether my stomach is hanging out or whether I'm crazy to wear so little clothes when women with much more beautiful bodies have the decency to cover themselves up, etc. All I see is a joyful expression of health and plenitude, of gratitude for this body and this life, for this practice and this community (or these communities) and this PEACE which it can bring me when I'm in the right frame of mind.

And once I have access to this peace and this joy, I can spread it around to others. Which is an amazing and beautiful thing.

Yoga Teacher Training Journal: November 21

THANKSGIVING PRACTICE (OR RATHER, THE DAY BEFORE)

The theme of today's practice was gratitude. Gratitude for my morning coaching call that got the day started off right and brought me peace after an anxiety-plagued, sleepless night. Gratitude for the surprise 2 PM dismissal which made it possible for me to pack AND hit a 5 PM yoga class tonight before heading to Roanoke. Gratitude for this yoga, for the healthy body that it helps maintain, my family and my amazing friends, and all the blessings in this life too numerous to count.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, and may everyone find something in their lives to feel thankful for!

Yoga Teacher Training Journal: November 20

If it's cool with y'all, I'mma start wearing my tie-dyed bloomers to class. And maybe kinda sorta all the time.

STEP AWAY FROM THE DESK

I'd like to start this journal entry off with a shout-out to my kick-ass Accountability Partners, the awesome Jane and June. I like to think I would have gotten out of work on time to go to yoga without their encouraging texts to STEP AWAY FROM THE DESK and get to class, but recent history has proven otherwise.

The fact of the matter is, I was waylaid enough times on the way out the door that by the time I got in my car and on my way, all signs pointed to FAIL. But the universe showed me a route to get to Riverflow that was ten minutes shorter than any I'd taken thus far. And though the roads were dark and winding, no deer bolted forth from the woods to ruin both of our days.

I got there and got to practice next to Alex (yay!) while Alyssa led the class with her patented mellow ebullience.

As for revelations/A-HA moments, I had an epiphany that is no less an epiphany for the fact that I feel like I've been told this thing I had a revelation about a hundred times: Full locust is actually FUN and GRACEFUL when you are aware of your breathing throughout.

Seriously! Fun and graceful--not a struggle--no lie! No grunting! No collapsing at the end! You can smile and feel like you're flying.

Now I just need to work on getting me some tie-dyed bloomers and I'll be all set...

Yoga Teacher Training Journal: November 18

Seriously? This happens?

A LOVE LETTER TO... HALF LOCUST?

I know I'm not supposed to admit stuff like this, but if you'd asked me three years ago what my LEAST favorite pose was, I would have had a ready answer for you: you, Mr. Double-Leg Lift in Half Locust.

(I'm sorry, Standing Head to Knee. I know you thought you were my one and only. But there was a first.)

Oh, how I used to dread you. Strategize about how to avoid you. Barely acknowledge your existence except to despise you.

And then tonight, I realized that I WAS LOOKING FORWARD TO DOING YOU. And realized that I HAD BEEN LOOKING FORWARD TO DOING YOU WITHOUT REALIZING IT FOR A LONG TIME.

(I know that seems kind of forward, but I'm just being honest.)

And there's more. I don't just look forward to seeing you. I miss you when you're gone. When I'm typing (which is often) and my hands start to feel numb, my wrists twinge-y, I miss the insane pressure that only you seem to be able to provide.

Once I learned how to breathe in you, I saw that you weren't so bad. In the yoga pose world, you're the bad-ass with a heart of gold. My greaser-in-a-hot-rod pose. The one my parents don't want me hanging out with.

You're the best, oh Third Phase of Half Locust.

I love you.

Wild Style: Street Art

OUTLAWS & VIGILANTES

In chapter three of The Tipping Point (2002), Malcolm Gladwell postulates a theory about the "Subway Vigilante" case--the incident in which Bernie Goetz shot four alleged muggers on the subway on December 22, 1984. He does not condone Goetz's actions, nor sympathize with them, but he does interpret this incident as the inevitable culmination of an urban crime wave that had been in formation for over a decade.

Gladwell suggests that the solution to the crime epidemic lay in altering context--in other words, in trying to make changes in spaces as opposed to trying to make them in people. A healthy chunk of the chapter, in fact, is devoted to examing the results of the NYPD's strategy of cracking down on graffiti. According to a corollary of the "Tipping Point" theory, the "Broken Windows" theory, graffiti telegraphs a message to people that no one cares about the environment so graffitoed--that if people have been allowed to deface the property and no one has cleaned it up, then anything goes. The analogy at play: imagine an abandoned house with lots of windows. Once one kid throws a rock through the window, others will quickly follow suit--because the broken window communicates neglect. And once you've got one abandoned house with broken windows... there goes the neighborhood.

Or something to that effect.

So if you consistently punish the train painters, say, and routinely repaint trains that have been tagged, it functions as a means of illustrating that someone is on the lookout, someone is always watching. Someone cares about the little things and therefore cares exponentially about the big things.

SUBWAYS CAN BE SCARY--BUT GRAFFITI AIN'T WHY

I'll admit that I found the subways in the era Gladwell examines ABSOLUTELY TERRIFYING, and will only reluctantly ride the subway to this day (ask anyone--I'll gladly walk three miles in the rain to avoid it). For this irrational fear, I blame a subway scene from the movie The Wiz (the glorious 1978 adaptation of The Wizard of Oz starring Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, and a comically inept Toto) in which the fearsome foursome is variously imperiled by giant puppets, hungry trash cans, and dislodged columns.

Here--some stills from the film, submitted for your edification:

Traumatizing? Absolutely. And surely the filmmakers are playing with the idea that subway stations can be menacing, even terrifying places. But man, at least in these shots, these subways are clean. You could practically eat off the Yellow Brick Floor.

Of course, pictures I've seen of the subways in the 1980's certainly lend credence to Gladwell's theory that context contributes far more meaningfully to human behavior, be it bad or good, than we have previously understood. And he provides some pretty compelling evidence to support a very tidy theory about how crime rates plummeted as subways and stations got cleaner.

Nevertheless, there's something unappealing about Gladwell's conclusion--something vaguely fascistic. Perhaps it would be instructive to pair a reading of The Tipping Point--or at least this chapter of it--with  the 1983 film Wild Style. which importantly documents the subversive street culture movement that was already fully underway that fateful night in December when Goetz pulled out his gun in a dispute over (allegedly) five dollars. This artistic explosion is itself an expression of discontent and a cry for change--but a life-giving, life-affirming one. Por ejemplo:

ART FOR THE PEOPLE

As the photos below make clear,  real street art can enhance a space, even redefine it---it says that someone cares enough about it to beautify it, to take ownership of it, even when those who inhabit that space may be politically and economically marginalized. And yet even as it beautifies, it protests the very conditions it transforms.

Need proof? See the images below. Just a smattering picked up from the interwebs.

 

As with many things I love, I know the boat on street art sailed long ago. It's far from the politically subversive force it was even ten years ago. Space Invader gets commissioned to create installations for people's homes. Shepard Ferry is now on the museum circuit. Exit Through the Gift Shop was a huge hit (and awesome!).

But no matter how mainstream it's become, it still functions as voice of discontent. An expression of the will to adorn in circumstances that demand adornment as a principle of survival. And as a means of expressing urgent messages that need to be heard, and are often heard too late.

Yoga Teacher Training Journal: November 14

My cold and cough had gotten so bad by the end of today, I thought there was no way I could go to yoga. But I had made plans to meet a friend and I didn't want to let her down. So I dragged my achy carcass to Riverflow.

And guess what? Surprise music class!!!

I LOVED IT!

There was something so incredibly relaxing about it. I found it easier to meditate in the absence of the dialogue and the class was over before I knew it--it just flowed by. Plus there was something positively blissful about being able to practice to songs I deeply love, like "And She Was" by the Talking Heads, or Simon and Garfunkel's tour de force, "Only Living Boy in New York."

My experience got me thinking that I should try not to tune in quite so much to the dialogue all the time--that maybe there's an unconscious communication that happens between you and your teacher if you let yourself slip away from the words into your poses.

It also made me want to teach a music class as soon as is humanly possible. For a deejay/audiophile/yoga nut, it's like a dream come true. Already on the set list: Radiohead's "Separator," above.

Yoga Teacher Training Journal: November 12

Last night, I took an evening class at one of the more crowded and chaotic of the many places I practice.

To be more precise, it was a 6 PM class. Which means it was--and always is, except on Fridays--the most crowded and chaotic weekday class.

In the moments before class, chaos and confusion stress me out more than they should. Especially if the class starts late, which it often does at this studio because the instructors know how insane the traffic can be on Route 1 and take pity on those caught in the worst of it.

So last night, I decided to try something new. Instead of getting to class twenty minutes early and putting my mat in the perfect spot and lying there while the room filled up, I showed up with three minutes to spare and put my mat cheerfully in whatever spot was available.

I can't believe the change this made in my attitude and level of calmness in a packed, loud and--let's face it--very late-starting class... Maybe the change resulted from relinquishing control, and along with it, certain limiting expectations?

Tough to say for sure, but I'm definitely trying this again!

Yoga Teacher Training Journal: November 10

Last night's class looked nothing like this. And I was glad.

Last night's class was just spectacular. Only four people and a teacher whose energy I love.

I have to say, a small class feels like such a special treat. Sometimes when the room is kind of empty, you don't get the same amount of energy flowing through the room as you do with a big class, but that was not the case this evening. Everyone was focused and strong, and that energy buoyed me from the moment class began. Such a joyful experience! Plus, I still (unfortunately) can easily get distracted in a full room--working on it!!!

And to think--I was up so late on Thursday night writing, and was consequently so tired on the way to the 7:15 PM class, that I almost talked myself out of it.

Lesson learned: When you're on the fence, go. You will NEVER be sorry you did.

Yoga Teacher Training Journal: November 8

Baby, it's cold outside!

WHOO! It was good to be back with all my favorite hotties at Riverflow Yoga in Lambertville tonight! The sense of community, even more than the warmth, was just what I needed after a crazy ten days. A hurricane! An election! A nor'easter!

Today was about exuberance. The joy of being back in a place you love, among people you love (even though some of them are literally complete strangers). Doing something you love.

Work has been crazy lately, and life responsibilities have been on overdrive--I've been feeling overwhelmed, and so have been less rigorous about prioritizing yoga again, convincing myself it's a luxury and that as long as I meet my 3-days-a-week requirement, then I'm doing just fine. But that's an entirely self-defeating attitude. Because nothing converts "overwhelmed" to "optimistic," even "eager," like a hot yoga class.

It's not a luxury. It's a necessity. Like food. Like water. Like air.

Three Oddest Words

THE THREE ODDEST WORDS

Wislawa Szymborska

When I pronounce the word Future,
the first syllable already belongs to the past.

When I pronounce the word Silence,
I destroy it.

When I pronounce the word Nothing,
I make something no non-being can hold.

*********************
 I don't have much to say about this. I just came across it by accident and thought it was neat.

I have to admit, the last line confuses me a little--it was translated from Polish to English so I wonder if a little something isn't translating (decalage, for all you Brent Hayes Edwards fans out there--you know who you are!). Regardless, "no non-being" is one of the trippiest double-negatives I've ever come across.

We're all in agreement that double-negatives are arranged along a spectrum of trippiness, right?

Good, I'm glad we got that cleared up.

More on Beautiful Words

In keeping with the spirit of this blog's name...

Phil Cousineau chooses nine beautiful words from his second book of word origins, The Painted Word, for a slide show on HuffPo. Worth checking out the article as well as the book, which looks like a treasure trove for people who love words, especially evocative words with stories. A Christmas present for the bibliophile in your life, perhaps?

Below is the illustration that accompanies one my favorite words, flaneur--"an urban wanderer," one who strolls to "savor the city." Beautiful picture. Beautiful word. Beautiful book.

Battered and Shiny Like the Moon

Somebody asked me recently what my favorite poem was. 

Generally, I hate questions like this. "What's your favorite movie?" "What's your favorite song?" "What's your favorite band?" "What's your favorite book?"

I could give you a Top 20, if you'd like, or a smattering from among various genres, but pick out a single one? From all the amazing movies, songs, bands, and books out there? Is that even possible? 

The way I see it, there are basically two types of people in the world. Those who can answer the "favorite" question, and those who can't. The ones who can take great pride in being able to answer, have put much thought into their answers and feel confident in the unassailable wisdom of their judgment. They don't understand people like me, and I don't understand people like them.

Because the moment someone asks me the "favorite" question, my mind immediately goes blank. Like white-hot-nothing blank. Then I grope around in the nothing until I find one thing I love, which then generates thoughts of another thing I love JUST AS MUCH IF NOT MORE!! And then suddenly I am awash in a frenzy of associations. 

How is one supposed to differentiate from among the awesome things in this world? How does one structure these highly personal hierarchies? Where does one find the stones to say, "This one. It's the one. My favorite."

I don't think I could even do that with ice cream flavors.

That's a bald-ass lie. It's mint chocolate chip.

Huh. What do you know? I guess it is possible.

And in fact, returning to the question that sparked this post, I do think I have a favorite poem. Revisiting Elizabeth Bishop--and the teaching of Elizabeth Bishop--in yesterday's post dredged up a distant memory of a poem I once had memorized, not because I had to but just because I loved hearing it in my head.

It's called "The Shampoo."

The first time I read it, I cried. It was such a visceral, cerebral love poem. About romantic love, sure, but also about any kind of love where the passing of years only strengthens appreciation and devotion. The line, "For Time is/ nothing if not amenable"--so oddly pragmatic, yet so achingly beautiful, it breaks my heart.

Plus describing encroaching grey hairs as "shooting stars" imbues them with the glamor and astrophysical significance they so richly deserve, but which largely eludes them.

Anyway, here it is. For posterity.

And so that the next time someone asks me what my favorite poem is, I'll have an answer.

THE SHAMPOO

Elizabeth Bishop

The still explosions on the rocks,

the lichens, grow
by spreading, gray, concentric shocks.
They have arranged
to meet the rings around the moon, although
within our memories they have not changed.

And since the heavens will attend
as long on us,
you've been, dear friend,
precipitate and pragmatical;
and look what happens. For Time is
nothing if not amenable.

The shooting stars in your black hair
in bright formation
are flocking where,
so straight, so soon?
-- Come, let me wash it in this big tin basin,
battered and shiny like the moon.

Somebody Loves Us All

FILLING STATION
Elizabeth Bishop

Oh, but it is dirty!
--this little filling station, 
oil-soaked, oil-permeated 
to a disturbing, over-all 
black translucency. 
Be careful with that match!

Father wears a dirty, 
oil-soaked monkey suit 
that cuts him under the arms, 
and several quick and saucy 
and greasy sons assist him 
(it's a family filling station), 
all quite thoroughly dirty.

Do they live in the station? 
It has a cement porch 
behind the pumps, and on it 
a set of crushed and grease-
impregnated wickerwork; 
on the wicker sofa 
a dirty dog, quite comfy.

Some comic books provide 
the only note of color--
of certain color. They lie 
upon a big dim doily 
draping a taboret 
(part of the set), beside 
a big hirsute begonia.

Why the extraneous plant? 
Why the taboret? 
Why, oh why, the doily? 
(Embroidered in daisy stitch 
with marguerites, I think, 
and heavy with gray crochet.)

Somebody embroidered the doily. 
Somebody waters the plant, 
or oils it, maybe. Somebody 
arranges the rows of cans 
so that they softly say:
ESSO--SO--SO--SO

to high-strung automobiles. 
Somebody loves us all.

For some reason, I was thinking about Elizabeth Bishop today. Or, to be more specific, for some reason I was thinking about this poem by Elizabeth Bishop. Maybe it's the temporary gas crisis here in New Jersey that's got me thinking in terms of filling stations, I don't know.

I don't claim to know much of anything about Elizabeth Bishop, though I probably should because she is obviously amazing, and I’m struck by the way manages to communicate profundities with an unerringly light touch. She wrote a lot of love poems, evidently, but I'm not overly familiar with those. A project for another day.

I do know that she can do incredible things within constraints that make writing poetry akin to differential calculus. Like "Sestina," or her widely anthologized villanelle, "One Art." There are others, also widely anthologized, that I should be more familiar with than I am, like "At the Fish Houses." What can I say? I was a late convert to poetry. And that title--Snoozeville, am I right?

But you see, I like "Filling Station," and what I like about it is what I like about Elizabeth Bishop, and what might in fact make her the de facto poet laureate of this blog. Look at the way she shifts our focus from the grease and the oil and the potential for conflagration to the grimy domestic details--homey, comforting, if filthy details. And as she observes more closely, she can detect the beauty in what initially seemed, at best, prosaic, and at worst, a symbol of the degradations of modernity.

It's not that the doily, the plant, the taboret are in and of themselves beautiful. It's that someone thought to put them there. Someone cares enough to convert the filling station into something resembling a home. While she is still a bit skeptical as to the efficacy of the efforts—the begonia is hairy, the plant looks oiled—knowing that someone is making the effort somehow soothes the high-strung speaker who, in the beginning of the poem, was so (Esso--so--so--so) easily alarmed.

Moral of the story?

When the world looks like a dingy or a dangerous place, it helps to remember that somebody loves us all.

Yoga Teacher Training Journal: November 5

Today I learned that sometimes, being able to tune out the dialogue is a good thing.

Our instructor didn't speak for the second set of Standing Bow, and no one in the entire class fell out.

Afterward she said, "I find it so interesting that when I shut up, you all do better." Of course, that's not true for all postures--I think she knew that we were a fairly experienced class and that's one posture that rewards sustained concentration.

I don 't think "ignoring" the dialogue is a good idea, of course, but I've reached a point in my practice where I may need to selectively focus on my body so that I can "feel," vs. push, myself into deeper expressions of the postures. As a "good" student and an obedient sort of person, I tend to attend so carefully to the letter of the dialogue that I actually don't listen to my body.

And the body really wants to be heard.

In Defense of Lifestyle Algorithms

So I know I'm a little late to the party on this one, but I just discovered StumbleUpon.com while trying to dig up some meaty 11th and 12th readings for work.

For the twelve people in the world who haven't encountered this website yet (perhaps one of which is among the three people who will ever look at this blog), it's kind of like playing craps, but with websites and blogs. And you don't lose money. And there's no guy with one of those cool sticks to scoop your life's savings away. And so you see, it's actually nothing like craps at all.

What it is, though, is a site where you put in your interests--say, cooking and science, or travel and nature--you can put in as many as you want--and it strategically generates a little magazine page for you based on these interests. Then you click on whatever among those, let's call them, say, "interest nuggets," that look most interesting to you, et voila! Fun is born!

Within minutes StumbleUpon enticed me to another fairly awesome website, The Cool Hunter, which, as its name perhaps suggests, hunts up all the cool so that you don't have to. And from among those categories of cool, I chose to check out "Amazing Places," a 5-part series featuring gobsmackingly beautiful pictures of spots that you should visit before you shuffle off this mortal coil.

Like the Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival pictured above.

And this ice cavern in Skaftafell, Iceland:

And the Petra in Jordan, seen here at night:

And the city of Riomaggiore in Italy, part of the Cinque Terre (full disclosure--I'm pretty sure I've been here, but them's was heady times, so it's a little fuzzy):

And last but not least, the ultimate in in-cave dining experiences, the restaurant in the Sanyou cave in Yichang, China:

For all my talk of loving to travel, I've not spent much time outside the US. Which is a shame, because there's a vast, wide and beautiful world out there to explore. These places--hell, every place on this "Amazing Places" list--can and should serve as inspiration to put on those traveling shoes and figure out what all this world has to offer. 

Make it happen. 

Sandy Aftermath: Some Musings and Impressions

Wake of the flood.

Losing power and heat and hot water made me feel disconnected from the flow of life for awhile--it was hard to differentiate days and time seemed to take a different form.

Then walking outside and seeing so many people's things destroyed, lives lumped into molding, rotting piles on the streets--seeing people dazed, shocked, traumatized--hard to remain unaffected by that.

And realizing the power of wind and water, and how routinely we disregard the forces of nature by which we're surrounded--it's awe-inspiring if not downright terrifying.

I know there is good in all of this, and with a slight shift in perspective, it is easy to see the miracles unfolding around me in the wake of this storm, of this flood. But I was thinking of posting in "The Universe in Action" thread on my Hot Yoga Teacher Training website about how my power and internet were restored just before our coaching call, and all of a sudden I felt selfish and misguided.

Because no one invited this storm into their lives, no one opened themselves up for this destruction by putting vibrations out into the universe. And so it felt wrong to celebrate or even comment on my personal good fortune in the face of that.

Maybe my misgivings make no sense. But there were some questions I'd wanted to ask when I first started Ask and It Is Given, thought I wasn't (and still am not) sure they were appropriate.

Chiefly, I didn't know how to reconcile certain aspects of the philosophy at the core of Ask with certain extreme events outside my own experience. For example, living in a war-torn country where bombings destroy innocent civilians. Or cases of child abuse, rape, etc.

I know that people have control over how they respond to tragedy, but I can't wrap my mind around the idea that they somehow invite it into their lives. I know I'm quibbling, and likely missing the point. I know that so far, changing my perspective little by little through the activities in Ask has been enormously beneficial for me. It's just that this catastrophe has brought up some questions I had about it early on, and that I'm wrestling with now.

Things are returning to something like normalcy now. People on NPR are complaining about how those who lost everything in the flood weren't careful to separate out recyclables, were too quick to discard things. There are riots over gas. Anger is a more empowering emotion than despair or confusion, so I suppose this is progress.

And the sun came out for a little while today, to warm the chilly earth ever so slightly.

As always, the Dead capture this turning the corner toward optimism better than I ever could: "Line up a long shot,/ Maybe try it two times, maybe more,/Good to know you got shoes to wear when you find the floor,/Why hold out for more?" ("Here Comes Sunshine," 12/19/73).

Yoga Teacher Training Journal: November 3

One thing I've noticed as I've been practicing hot yoga more and more is that it's been easier to see the positive in all sorts of situations--even post-hurricane situations. So I thought I'd share Bikram's insights into this phenomenon from his book, Bikram Yoga:

"I said that your practice will cause doors and windows to open and that through them, you will perceive things differently. Some call this the opening of your third eye, or Lord Shiva's eye, a cosmic energy center that sits invisibly between the eyebrows. Through these new ways of looking, you only see the good things in the universe. The two eyes you use most often have been taught to focus on the bad things first. Because of the negative power those attachments have, the force of negative attraction is nine times stronger than the attraction we feel to good things. But now with the third eye of consciousness, you can see the real nature of things and people, which is essentially good. Remember, God is love and God is within you. Always."

With each passing day, I'm more inclined to believe this.

Yoga Teacher Training Journal: November 2

Today I decided to recite a mantra internally as I went into each posture, something to repeat with each inhale and exhale: "You are open. You can receive."

And something clicked during Camel. I realized that I am not as receptive as I could be to the love that people wish to extend to me. And that in order to be receptive to love--to give as well as receive it--you have to love yourself.

It was a realization that came with clarity, in a still voice from within. A first step along the road to receptiveness that leads to realization.