Smart Feet

How cute are these piggies?

Yoga students are eager to move through poses that strengthen their limbs and core and lengthen their spines in back bends and twists. When it comes to balance poses, usually polite students barely suppress groans.

I get it. For years I dreaded balance poses. It's easier to look graceful and accomplished when cycling through a round of sun salutations or warrior poses than it is to balance, or more precisely, to fall in and out of, Tree pose.

I inherited a tendency for bunions. Wearing cute high heels when I worked book conferences on concrete convention center floors exacerbated the problem. I still remember with fondness the pair that did them in. The were floral print, square-taper pumps from Spain. They were so pretty and stylish, teenaged boys would compliment those shoes. The charm wore off when, after a twelve-hour day on my feet at a book fair in St. Louis, I swear my bunions swelled to twice their size. I've worn sensible shoes ever since.

During yoga teacher training, a stern acharya took one look at my feet and said, "You've got some work to do."  I discovered a gem of an article by Doug Keller that offers great and easy therapy for distressed feet. I did the exercises every day and found that not only were standing poses easier but so were the dreaded balances! Where I had once had "stupid feet,"Keller's exercises had helped intelligence move into my feet. It's a long way from the brain to the feet. Just as the spine lengthens and rejuvenates itself in virtually every yoga pose, messages from the brain to the feet extend their reach when you consciously work on it.

There are 28 bones in the foot. The harmony of the bones, muscles, tendons and ligaments holding this miraculous structure together can so easily be disrupted.

Foot work is not just for students who have bunions. The feet take a beating over the course of a lifetime, and we mistreat them with the shoes we wear. So I've incorporated what I call Smart Feet exercises into my teaching. My students' favorite--OK, it's my favorite--is toe raises. You practice lifting only the big toes while keeping the other toes on  the floor. Then you raise only the pinky toes while keeping the others pressed to the ground. The bonus round: simultaneously lifting the big toes and pinkies while keeping the middle toes on the floor! I worked on this last move for a month before I could finally do it.

When you try it, you'll find your fingers wanting to conduct what your feet are doing, and that's fine. The fingers are more flexible, more alive with intelligence, because we use them all the time, and they convey it to the feet. Anatomically, the big toe raise is strengthening the anterior muscles of the foot, and the pinky raises strengthen the lateral sides of the foot. All of it adds up to strengthening the feet and making them more flexible. Most people also pronate and supinate.Working with the feet yogically helps resolve these imbalances in weight dispersal, and thereby improves balance.

The shoes you choose to wear also determine how smart your feet are, as I learned the hard way. At the recommendation of teachers at the ashram, I got a pair of Vibram Five Fingers. They look like toe socks with a thin leather sole. Best $75 I ever spent. My feet sing when I wear them. I balance over my arches better, and utilize the soles of my feet more fully and efficiently. Some hardy souls I know use them to run in. But I've determined that my feet are too far gone to use the Five Fingers for running, despite the rehab I've done. I tried it once, and the left sole of my foot hurt for weeks afterward. I'll stick with my C-width Brooks running shoes.

Try the foot exercises and see for yourself how much more supple your feet are in standing poses and balances. Smart feet are always in fashion.

I may have bunions, but at least I don't have hobbit feet.

One

My Grandpa Shellenberger would have loved Rush Limbaugh. He was born on Lincoln's birthday in 1898, in Manhattan, Kansas. Nowadays Kansas State has a few people of color there, but back in my grandpa's day most everyone was white.

We were waiting for our food in a restaurant in Sunnyvale, California, where my grandfather lived. Some people at a table near us were speaking Chinese. At another table people were speaking Spanish. There was a family of African-Americans there. Typical day in the San Francisco Bay area. None of this was lost on my grandfather, who said, "Are we still in the United States of America?"

The day after President Obama's re-election, Rush said, "We're outnumbered." Basically, it's the same world view my grandpa was expressing some thirty years ago. What a bleak, uninspiring way of seeing the world.

These lines from George Harrison's song, "Isn't It a Pity," performed by Eric Clapton, sum it up. "Some things take so long/But how do I explain/When not too many people/Can see we're all the same/And because of all their tears/Their eyes can't hope to see/The beauty that surrounds them/Isn't it a pity." We are all the same. We want to be happy. Safe. Loved. Purposeful. The skin we live in, and its color, is insignificant.

Empirically, Grandpa and Rush are right. Whites in this country are going to be outnumbered by Mexican-Americans and other Latinos, African-Americans and other current minorities. But rather than seeing this as something bad, something we have to build literal and metaphorical walls against, I see it as a good thing. I'm glad I grew up in the multicultural San Francisco area. When I was in second grade, Shernmin Chow taught me to eat rice with chopsticks. To this day, I can pick up every grain, thanks to Shernmin. Also, none of my other friends' parents grew kumquats, loquats and Concord grapes in their back yards.

I look forward to a day when a white woman who voted for Obama twice is unremarkable. I'd vote for him again. Or that I voted for Cory Booker or Julian Castro for president. And not because I'm a child, as Rush insultingly said, who likes Santa Claus because he's a giver of gifts I haven't earned, because I'm one of those "takers" ultraconservatives keep complaining about. I voted for Obama because he's proven over the last four years that he is a man of impeccably good character, who has righted the ship of state at a time when it badly listed in storms of war and financial and institutional malfeasance. He cares about people who can't do anything to help him, and he cares about the people who can. President Obama is a leader. Rush and his ilk are flame throwers, who divides the country into percentage points, takers vs. makers, white vs. black, American vs. immigrant. The reason Romney and the Republicans lost the presidency is not because the people who re-elected the president are greedy little children. They lost because they are more interested in enforcing difference than in finding common ground.

Sacred Privilege

Twice this week I talked to voters as a volunteer for the Obama for America campaign. The first day I canvassed in a neighborhood I had never been to. A lot of people weren't at home because they were working to pay their rents. I left get-out-to-vote flyers. Many of the people were home, and about half who were home opened their doors. I reminded them how much their vote really matters and gave them information about when and where to vote. The other half ignored my knock, probably worried that I was a bill collector or an attorney's agent, or worse. Two sent their preschool-age children to the door. One of the neighbors I met on the street, the only person I spoke with who had already voted by mail, told me there'd been a drug bust a block over the week before.

I wonder how many of the people who live in that neighborhood are actually going to follow through and vote.

Yesterday I knocked on doors in a neighborhood where several acquaintances live. Lots of people were at work, but like the previous day, many of the residents were at home, too. Only one of the voters I spoke with had not voted for President Obama yet, though his wife had. He apparently wanted to wait until the high holy day itself to make his vote for the president official.

Yesterday's canvassing was much more pleasant, but Monday's was way more important. I thought of what our sons' middle school social studies teacher once said: working with students who don't have the tools and support for success was more rewarding for him as an educator.

I didn't say this to anyone I met the last two days, but I'll say it here: Voting is a sacred privilege, even if so many of the candidates go out of their way to cheapen it. It's still a great way to make your voice heard.

Make a Joyful Noise

For years my yoga teachers have recommended chanting. I own some kirtan CDs, I've attended kirtan sessions at the ashram where I received my yoga training, and I have gone to hear Bhakti Shakti at Studio Be in Boulder. I've always found kirtan enjoyable and beneficial, but my participation has been inconsistent. Chanting alone at home felt dry, and I didn't enjoy hearing the longely sound of my voice.

My family gave me an IPad for my birthday and an ITunes gift card I used to download music for my yoga classes. I've taken to bringing my IPad into my meditation room and chanting along with some of the kirtan.

The effects have been immediate. Hours after I've chanted, the rhythms are still going through my head, and sometimes I burst spontaneously into song as I go about my work! My silent meditations have become deeper and more peaceful. I like to think that's because the kirtan has softened me up that much more.

I especially love Jai Uttal's "Ganesha Sharanam." A small child begins the chant, and I smile every time I hear his sweet little voice. Even a grinch would hear that voice and smile and sing and feel her heart growing nine sizes too big.

Besides Jai Uttal, I also like Deva Premal and Krishna Das. Don't be intimidated by the Sanskrit. If you buy kirtan CDs, the lyrics are printed phonetically on the sleeve. If you use ITunes, there are online kirtan lyrics.

Being Green

This dashing devil is my great-Uncle Gilbert Arts. This pick-up might well have been one he and his brothers kept around for parts.

On the ranch where my grandmother's family settled in the early 1920s, there were several storage sheds near the barnyard where her brothers parked old tractors and pick-ups. To the untrained eye the vehicles were no good to anyone or anything. Out to vehicle pasture.

It was true the guys couldn't bear to throw out anything. After all, they'd lost both parents when they were teenagers during the Depression. It was hard enough scraping enough money together to buy clothes and pay taxes on the place, never mind buying new equipment. They were reducing, recycling and reusing long before it became a slogan. Keeping those old clunkers around served a purpose--they scavenged them for parts. Repair, and re-repair. What made them successful ranchers was their ability to do a lot of things well, maintenance being primary. Their dad had taught them how to work, how things worked and how to fix stuff when it stopped working.

Fifty years later, two of the brothers, Gilbert and Ted, had long since left the ranch. Good old habits die hard. The instinct to fix stuff was just as strong. They went around picking up old lawn mowers people had never tried to fix. They'd haul them back to Gilbert's shop for reconditioning, and they'd sell them or give them away. They'd picked up a cold case from a meat shop that had closed, and Gilbert set about turning it into a greenhouse.

I didn't inherit their mechanical genius, but I did inherit their conservation instincts. I have reinterpreted the instinct to repair, and repair again, as using only what I need.

In August my family and I attended a rally for President Obama at the University of Colorado. As we waited for him to arrive, I struck up a conversation with two students. They were lovely young women whose enthusiasm about their futures in the health care field inspired me and gave me hope.

"I only wish we were leaving things in better shape for you," I said, my eyes filling with tears.

They touched my arm and said, "It's OK. You're doing the best you could."

Maybe I have done the best I could. But it's not OK, and it's certainly not good enough for them, and for my own sons, and all the other young people who are inheriting this scarred, ravaged planet.

Next week I'm attending an Environmental Justice Training sponsored by my denomination, the United Church of Christ. Here's hoping that goodwill and love, though perhaps not enough, is at least something.

Praying for Rain

Gorgeous shot at Dead Horse State Park, Utah

On our way to a family reunion in Yosemite, my husband, kids and I camped at Dead Horse Point near Moab, Utah. Despite the beauty of the painted rock and the gravity-defying geological formations, it’s still in the desert. It’s still a monument to deprivation.

When we arrived at the campground late that afternoon, it was 102 degrees under a cloudless sky. Everywhere we looked, there was more rock than vegetation. The sun had bleached what little grass there was. The only shade available was inside the visitors’ center and the outhouse, or beneath the tarp my husband strung up against the sun.

After we set up camp, we joined a ranger and other campers for a short hiking tour of the area. The temperature had dropped into the low 90s. The ranger reminded us we needed to drink a gallon of water every day to keep adequately hydrated. With an annual average precipitation of less than three inches—compared to Longmont, Colorado, which can expect about fifteen—it’s a wonder there’s enough water for everyone who visits.

Yet in this apparent scarcity, there is grace. I had camped in the desert before, but this time I began to understand why so many holy people retreat to the desert. The desert is always at prayer, because it is always in need of relief. Praying is more natural there.

And the prayers are being answered. A species of mouse has adapted so that it never needs to drink water. It gets all the moisture it needs from the food it eats, also in short, but sufficient, supply. The slick rock is pockmarked with tiny depressions that become oases for the animals when it does rain. As the ranger described them, I thought of angel hands cupped expectantly, waiting to be filled with whatever goodness comes their way.

That night we didn’t bother to put the rainflies on the tents. We needed every whisper of air we could get. As my body worked hard to keep cool, I slept restlessly and worried I wouldn’t be fit for hiking the next day. Around four that morning, a cloud moved over the campground, loosing a fine mist of raindrops. I rolled onto my back to expose my skin to its cool blessing before falling into a deep, grateful sleep. A raven’s fractious call woke me a couple of hours later. Back home I would find it hard to function on so little sleep. Under the desert’s spell, it was enough.

Growing up in the land of plenty, I’m accustomed to a certain amount of excess. I doubt I would ever choose to live in the desert. But I do like to visit. Camping there reminds me that I can stand the discomfort of a little want.

Romney's "Macaca" Moment

Don't  they both take a lovely photo?

Forget about the Duchess of Cambridge's topless photos. Presidential candidate Mitt Romney's remarks about how the U.S. is composed of 47 percent freeloader/victims have taken front and center.This is Romney's "Macaca" moment. Get ready for the Obama campaign to play these tapes over and over again until Election Day.

Listening to him speak at a May fundraiser in Boca Raton, Florida, I hear a Romney who is fluent and at ease. He appears to believe in what he is saying. Usually when I listen to him speak, I hear the halting sound of someone who is beholden to donors who are basically paying him to stay on script.

As sick to my stomach as the ignorant and contemptuous remarks captured on video make me, I'm glad they're out there. Now they can be debated.

Here's the antidote to the ignorance about what the working poor actually make, courtesy of reported wage statistics and Franci Tartaglino, who compiled them:

A list of workers (who pay 0% in Federal income tax because of the standard deduction on form 1040) and what they make per hour:
Waitress - federal food service minimum wage - $2.13/hr, plus whatever tips people offer
EMT - who scrapes your bloody carcass off the highway - $14.50/hr
Nurses' aides - who keep your grandmother's diaper changed - $9.91/hr
Teenage cashier - subminimum federal wage allowed - $4.25/hr
Food packagers - keeping you E.coli free everyday - $6.37/hr
Lifeguard/ski patrol - watching your kids - $9.09/hr
Garbage Collectors - $15.57/hr
You know who else pays 0% federal income taxes? A large portion of our enlisted military! Starting pay for an enlistee is $18,000/year! 

I wish I could be part of Romney's middle class, who make $200,000 to $250,000. My husband and I are both college educated. He has a masters degree, and I did some postgraduate work. We make less than $200,000, and we pay income taxes and other taxes. I am proud of what we earn and the fact that we're raising two sons on it. I don't feel victimized because I don't meet Mr. Romney's standards for middle-class status, and I don't feel victimized because we pay income taxes and other taxes. We, like many other Americans, believes that's the price of living in a the United States of America, where people believe building a great country is about way more than making sure the wealthiest stay that way and waging wars against enemies. It's about investing in education, health care and ensuring that people can pursue happiness.