flip

The weather is changing here, winter giving up ground to spring, even though there's a fight for it, and everyone seems really tired this week. It felt that way in Aikido, at hockey, even in yoga where a majority, independent of one another, asked Julie if the vinyasa was going to be hard today.

Seems like the change of seasons is just taking it out of folks this year. Or maybe it was the winter that took it out of us, and now, with the promise of spring around the corner, we just finally feel safe enough to acknowledge it, safe enough to let the fatigue bubble up to the surface.

Me, I think it’s more like the way a lake will flip, the bottom water exchanging with the top as the temperature rises or falls, spring and fall. When it does, it dredges up all the silt, increasing turbidity for a week or two as the flip occurs. I have this theory that our bodies know better than we do. And the flip dredges up all the toxins to make space for the new season. If we’re listening, if we’re on it, it’s a chance to clean things up, wash the toxins out, let the current take away the silt.

The other thing the lake flip does? It re-oxygenates the water, bringing the life up to the surface again, just in time for the sun to reestablish dominance. Hello sun.

Equinox is in two weeks. Get out your shorts and flip flops, folks. Maybe grab a metaphorical broom too.

And...

rituals of grief

I mentioned on Saturday afternoon that Lylune, beloved kitty of my beloved, Gena, was very sick. In the space of a week she had shed a third of her body weight, stopped eating and drinking. Gena had her in to the Vet on Friday and they could only speculate – renal failure or cancer - probably, considering the rapidity and the symptoms - cancer. They hydrated her, filled her full of electrolytes and nutrients and drugs to try to get her kidneys working again, and that was about all they could do. 

“If she responds,” the Vet told Gena, “we’ll talk about treatment options on Monday."

But she didn’t respond. She was in less distress thanks to the IV, but she never got her groove back, not to mention her appetite, and she passed away quietly on Saturday evening.

the most delicate paw in the history of paws

yoga conundrums

I’ve been trying to figure out how to write something about yoga without sounding completely fucking pretentious. I’m hoping that being unnecessarily vulgar will help. Only that once though. Maybe.

Yoga’s one of those things that I’ve done for a while as a sideline, intermittently as it were, and as a means to an end. The “end” has been improved flexibility for climbing, hockey, Aikido. That’s served a purpose to date, I suppose, but I’ve never really had the kind of breakthrough with my bad hip that I’ve dreamed about. So I’m trying to go a bit deeper, make yoga a focus, and end in itself.

This is one of those risk and reward things.

renewing acquaintances

Three months. That’s kind of a long time for an unannounced hiatus. Although the writing was on the wall even back in November.

Mic check. Mic check. Anyone still out there?

What can I say? I’ve been busy. Some of the busy-ness has been good, some not so much. Most of it remains, but I cleared a bit of time for you and me.