Worry Wart

I was chatting with one of Don's colleagues at a holiday party. As many of the people at this party were employees at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, worry is a frequent topic as it relates to government funding of the work Don and his colleagues do.

"The funny thing about worry," Roger said, "is that it works. Most of the things we worry about never come to pass."

Roger is a funny guy, and we both laughed. He's speaking to the lure of worrying. From my own experience as a world-class worrier from a long line of worriers, worry is the primitive's belief we can inoculate us from the tough things in life. The experience of my own life leads me to believe that worry can actually make you sick.

Our oldest son, Geoff, was born when we lived in northeastern Vermont. He was home with us until he was seven months old, when I returned to classes at Lyndon State College, where Don worked, to earn my teaching certificate.We found a space for him in a home daycare. During the first week, he got his first-ever cold. It began a seven-month bout of one cold after another that plunged into bronchiolitis. A low point came a few months later, when his pediatrician, Dr. Karyn Patno, ordered a test for cystic fibrosis, "just to rule it out. He's not breaking any records in growth." The twelve-mile ride home was one of the worst times of my life. It was one of the many gray, snowy January days there. The poor little guy had just turned one, and he was miserable, all stuffed up crying in his car seat. Halfway home, I pulled into a parking lot, climbed into the back seat of the car and held him as we cried together.

Fortunately, the CF test was negative. Dr. Patno called a pediatric pulmonologist in Burlington, who recommended treating his condition as if it were asthma. That entailed administering Intal by nebulizing machine, three to four times a day. The first time Dr. Patno gave him a treatment, both of us had to hold him down as he strained and struggled to take off the nebulizing mask. The next time he fussed during the first minutes of the treatment, only to sit cooperatively as we read one of his favorite books. By the third treatment, he allowed me to put the mask with no fuss and even pressed the toggle switch with his tiny fingers to begin the treatment.

Don, Geoff and I at his last home game his senior year

He still got colds, and they were still hard on his system, but between the Intal and additional treatments of the classic anti-spasmodic asthma drug, albuterol, he didn't suffer as much. By the time he was three, he stopped needing his medication. He is 22 now, was a soccer player all through elementary and high school and still plays club and indoor in college. I predict he'll play well into adulthood. No nasty bout with infantile-onset asthma is gonna stop him.

In the meantime, I was so worried about his health I neglected mine. There were a lot of sleepless nights at Chez Murrayberger, and I pretty much worried day and night about Geoff's health. At my annual exam my GP noticed blood in my urine. After X-rays yielded nothing conclusive, she ordered a probe of my bladder which turned up an infection easily treated with antibiotics. At around the same time I developed what the doctor first thought was a sinus infection. She prescribed antibiotics which did nothing to budge the massive congestion. An ear, nose and throat specialists found that I had a large benign polyp in my left sinus that required surgery.

When you start growing sinus polyps, you know it's time to knock off the worrying.

I began to understand that worry isn't an inoculation against the hard things in life. Difficulties will come, and they will go. Anticipating them does nothing to prevent their arrival. Taking positive action during difficult times is the antidote to worry, or at least it shrinks worry.

My experiences with martial arts and yoga have taught me how soothing and healing proper breathing can be. I dedicate time in all the yoga classes I teach for students to breathe fully and powerfully in the present moment, with the goal of developing the capacity to allow the breath to kick in automatically whenever they find themselves in stressful situations. Finding and maintaining a reservoir of calm in the crazy situations we can't avoid is the true antidote to the ravages of stress.

Good music is also a healing resource. I leave you with the Beach Boys' "Don't Worry Baby."

New Venture

My husband and I have a new blog, Buddha and the Bees, that links his interest in beekeeping with mine in spirituality, particularly yogic spirituality.

The bees are doing amazing things for us. Let's return the favor.

suffer the little gerbil

Lucy the gerbil in her nest/cage

Lucy is the second gerbil we've cared for. Our first was Oreo, a boy gerbil who loved shelling sunflower seeds and biting our fingers every chance he got. Lucy is much gentler. She had never bitten me before a few days ago, and that's only because she's recently had an ordeal.

Lucy's nest (I prefer to call it a nest rather than a cage) is in our son Patrick's room. I was in there Saturday before last hand feeding her some seeds when I noticed she was moving funny. I immediately thought the worst, as Oreo had a cancerous tumor in his abdomen. I inspected Lucy the best I could, and though I didn't see a tumor, there was clearly something wrong with her back left leg.

Our kittehs, Bear and Yoda, love each other in between fights

I took her to Long's Peak Animal Hospital where we take our cats, where I met Dr. Andrew Boal for the first time. He palpated her leg, and she didn't as much as squeak, leading him to believe she was experiencing little to no pain. He X-rayed her leg--don't ask me how you get a gerbil to sit still long enough for that--and returned with the image on his laptop. A clean break of her leg. He offered me several options, one of which involved taking her to the Colorado State University Veterinary School for possible orthopedic intervention. That's too rich, even for my blood. We love the little rodent and all, but really?

"To be honest," Dr. Boal told me, "I'm going to have to do some reading on this." He'd never seen a gerbil with an injury like this. After doing some reading and consulting with CSU he decided to try to splint the leg. I immediately imagined Stuart Little wearing a cast. Unfortunately, it didn't work. Like all rodents, she's got Houdini-like powers. She simply slipped out of her tiny cast.

E.B. White is still one of my favorite authors.

Since there was no way to stabilize the joints above and below the break, Dr. Boal offered the best case scenario--amputation. Otherwise the limb would become gangrenous. Though we didn't discuss it, euthanasia was an option.

Meanwhile, I did some reading on my own. It turns out that her nest/cage, with its narrow wire mesh floors and running wheel, were probably the cause of her injury. She probably caught her foot, and when she couldn't free it, she yanked it and it broke her leg. We removed her wheel and the multi-level flooring as she recuperates and will replace it.

The morning of her surgery, Dr. Boal reiterated what a learning experience this had been for him. "It's really great that you're doing this," he told me. "It gives her a chance at a couple more years." The fee wasn't as much as I was expecting. Well, OK, it was about $285 for everything. When I volunteered at Greenwood Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, I had especially enjoyed caring for the squirrels there, who really aren't so very different from Lucy.

Mother squirrel with a newborn, affectionately known as "pinkies." I fed many a pinkie squirrel with the smallest gauge syringes, very much like the ones we're using to administer pain reliever and antibiotics to Lucy.

Dr. Boal removed the leg and simply stitched the site. Any bandage would meet the same fate as the splint. Originally the vet tech had fashioned a miniature cone of shame so that she couldn't play around with the stitches, but she immediately wriggled out of that. Next they stitched it to her neck, and she got out of it, too. I regret not having a photo of her in her tiny cone of shame.

Four days after the surgery she seems to be doing well. She's not thrilled about me washing her amputation site with the pink baby washcloths I bought just for this, nor does she care for the tiny drop of pink antibiotic I give her once a day. She does like the pain reliever--maybe it's like Vicodin for gerbils--and she enjoys chewing on the tip of the syringes afterward. I see no signs that she's chewing on the amputation site, and it appears to be healing well. She's two and a half, middle-aged for a gerbil, so I'm hoping she has a couple of more good years, eating sunflower seeds from my hand and running on her new, safe wheel.

"Dick Cheney Is My Spirit Guide"

An amiable photo of the vice president

Football fans may recall Denver Broncos and Philadelphia Eagles linebacker Bill Romanowski. He was one of the most aggressive players in the NFL, fined numerous times for illegal hits and unsportsmanlike conduct. Romanowski was universally known as a dirty player. He was the guy you wanted on your team, not a guy you wanted to play against--except that being his teammate didn't exempt you from his brand of mayhem. In training camp, he broke his teammate Marcus Williams' orbital eye socket during a fight. Romanowski played dirty off the field, too. He was implicated in the BALCO steroid scandal, although he and his wife managed to wriggle out of any legal consequences. Romanowski did admit later to having used steroids throughout his career.

The week after 9/11, a friend who had recently received a peacemaker of the year award from the United Church of Christ told me he was glad Dick Cheney was in office. "We need someone really mean to fight these people."

Mr. Cheney is the guy some want on Team America. I'm not going to turn this post into a Cheney-bashing session. Critics far better equipped to skewer his record have already done so.

A few months ago, I attended a meditation intensive at the ashram where I receive my yoga training. In discussion group, one of the teachers said, "Dick Cheney is my spirit guide." Everyone burst into laughter.

"No, I'm serious," she said. "He is always teaching me things about myself."

Vajrama is one of the most benevolent people I know, obviously devoted to spiritual practice, and also a medical doctor who heals peoples' bodies. I could not imagine that this spiritual master would have anything at all in common with Mr. Cheney. There wasn't much discussion beyond that, which is the teaching style there. Teachers will frequently make provocative statements with very little explanation, leaving students free to puzzle over them.

And puzzle over it I have. I thought a spirit guide was supposed to be helpful and kind, like a fairy godmother getting you ready to meet your beloved. Definitely not Dick Cheney's MO. I think of him as a spirit guide of the underworld, leading to the heart of darkness.I am painfully aware that this says more about me than it does about him. In rejecting him as a fellow human being, I am denying my own capacity for inhumanity.

My favorite photo of Rudi. I pray to be so relaxed and joyful.

Swami Rudrananda, the root guru of the ashram, wrote, "The expression of hate, negativity, or any unhappy thought, feeling or state results when you reach a level of resistance and do not work through it. Any tool that is effective cuts through the material it contacts. Any hesitation in cutting through negative material, any verbalizing or other indulgence in negative feelings, takes force from your work."

I'm embarrassed to admit how much time and energy I've wasted in enumerating Mr. Cheney's sins.(And not just his. I'm often so busy removing the speck from the other guy's eye I barely notice the log in my own.) I do so to forget about my own troubles for a while. It's my resistance to Mr. Cheney that needs amending. None of my bitching has made any difference whatsoever in Mr. Cheney's conduct, nor, for that matter, in mine. He is nothing if not irritatingly consistent. In fact, he seems like he's just fine with the way he is. That is, I hasten to say, exactly like me. It's not that I actually think I'm OK the way I am now, but as soon as someone complains about one of my personality quirks or something I've done, I defend my right to stay the same.

Now I'm beginning to see one of the things Vajrama was pointing to. Dick Cheney has a brilliant talent for self-justification. Just like me. How many times does conscience, the ability to know right from wrong, fail me? I know when others are wrong, but I have little to no insight into my own wrongdoing. I work from a premise that my decisions are correct and justifiable, even if a decision was ill-considered and hurt others. I show no sign of wavering, as if that were a solid declaration of strength, when it is only the worst kind of stubbornness. Apology and other expressions of conscience weaken me. At the root of self-justification is a fear of appearing weak.

The tool I take to my egotistical fear of appearing weak is courage--the courage to admit when I'm wrong and to take corrective action. It's not just a mental exercise. I meditate and pray and put myself in the presence of people like Vajrama and Baba, who have been crafting their lives with tools that cut through negative material for far longer and more effectively than I have.Being in the presence of masters is the most important piece of my practice. I have received numerous graces from each of my teachers there.  

Our beloved Baba

While I stop short of claiming Dick Cheney as my spirit guide, I feel more kindly toward him. I'm glad he got a new heart and a new lease on life. May he use it well.

What is Essential?

"You know what they call a group of non-essential employees that get together on Sunday? The New York Giants."--Jay Leno

Oxford English Dictionary definition of non-essential: not absolutely necessary. Non-essential is the adjective some are using to describe my husband's employment as a research scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Actually "exempt" is the term used to describe his employment status. Non-essential is a name some commentators have long attached to government employees. This wouldn't be so insulting and scary if the definition of non-essential extended to paying our mortgage, buying groceries and paying our son's college tuition.  

Commentators like libertarian writer Nick Gillespie are pouncing on the furloughs of some 800,000 government employees as evidence of what they've long suspected: "DUH! I've been saying that government workers are non-essential for years!" This is a lame argument. Just repeat something often enough, and it becomes fact. Schoolkids throughout the generations have created similar epidemics of certainty as they almost universally complain about their teachers and going to school in the first place. Yet they learn valuable lessons and meet and learn to work with people from diverse backgrounds with diverse viewpoints. School's a great gig. So is gainful employment.

If the non-essential government shutdown goes on for much longer, my husband and others might be forced to look for other employment. That would be a a good plan, if the overall job market weren't so measly. Many of the so-called replacement jobs are part-time in the service industry, offering low pay and no benefits.String two or even three part-time jobs together and maybe you can scrape together an existence, if not a living. Going on unemployment and food stamps would be cheaper for the government than my husband's salary, but then Mr. Gillespie and others like him, who have so much insight and knowledge into what my husband and other government employees do or do not do and do or do not deserve, would be calling us freeloaders. No win-win in this scenario.

A non-essential pet rock. More than one million sold in six months in 1976.

All this talk of non-essential is confusing. We Americans practically invented the non-essential. Shopping malls are filled with tape stores and redundant boutiques and restaurants, and there is no pretense of a line between need and want. Much of our economy runs on making things that are nonessential, things that are nice to have, but expendable. But these are products, objects of choice and desire, not people and their life's work and livelihood.

I might be imagining things, but the only thing that counts any more are emergencies, real or manufactured, like the way this government shutdown has been manufactured. Only when the house is on fire, or the house under water, are we considered "essential." But as I said, I might be imagining things. There are many representatives in Congress who voted to deny aid to those caught up in the floods and destruction of Hurricane Sandy, including Rep.Cory Gardner, who represents the district in Colorado where Don and I live and have raised our family. Notice his website, still spiffy even during the government shutdown, as opposed to the NOAA website above. Of course, during the recent floods in Boulder Country, Gardner graciously accepted government aid for his constituents, just not for those folks out there in New York City.

The Flatirons in Boulder, frosted in show and swaddled in cloud and mystery, taken last Friday by my friend Andrew Nicholson

I turn away from the rage and the sadness at a government shutdown that has accomplished as little as the 113th Congress is accomplishing, to return to the subject at hand--what is essential? So often it's not the things we buy. It's what we give, what we enjoy, and what we're grateful for. These are essential to me: My family's happiness. Sunlight. Reasonable amounts of rain. Good food prepared with love and shared with people we love. Something to share, a smile, an encouraging word, a caress. A yoga mat. A good pair of walking shoes. Good books. Kindness. Natural beauty revealed, as in Andrew's photo. A giant pumpkin.

Honey and Meditation

Don's beehive earlier this summer, as Buddha looks on

I finished reading "Meditation and the Art of Beekeeping" by Mark Magill. While it was gracefully written and helped me understand beekeeping a little more, I was hoping it would focus more on meditation, and specifically his own meditation practice. For instance, he listed what the great teachers say are the stages of meditation. Never helpful. I find myself trying to fit into one of the stages and can't, so I conclude I'm not making progress at all.

I am always grateful for what others meditators share, because many don't share much. I'm not sure why. Maybe they think it's unseemly to speak of something so personal and so individual. Maybe they thinks the Wisdom Source is so vast that everyone connects to it uniquely, and therefore it's unhelpful to talk about experiences others are not likely to have

In my experience, the early years of meditation are a lot like watching paint dry. Thirty years ago my tai chi teacher Sherry Seidman (now Shoshanna Katzman) addressed the topic of commitment to the practice this way. "It takes a long time to progress in the forms. We Americans are not accustomed to waiting for things. We want them now. When we don't get them we move on to something else that promises more immediate rewards." She went on to say that all good things are worth waiting for, and that after ten years of consistent practice my life would be change in unpredictably wonderful ways. To a twenty-one-year-old, there was little that was consistent in my life, so my practice fell by the wayside more than once over the next ten, and even twenty years. But I always remembered her promise, and it is turning out to be true.

The progress in meditation is so slow, so gradual, our nervous systems so delicate, that I can understand why so many people give up and move on to other things.Yet this is precisely the reason why it takes so long to make progress. We want it, but we are not ready for it on so many levels. I started meditating because I wanted to have transcendent, mystical experiences, where I would be transported from my mundane existence to, I don't know, the Meditation Hall of Fame.

It was not to be.

I have, however, begun to transcend my limited, mundane self through meditation. All I've ever consistently done is put my butt on a cushion for a half hour every morning. It's been like putting half pennies in a piggy bank. The change (please pardon the pun) has been so small you hardly think anything has accrued, until one fine day I noticed I felt calmer, more stable, more present in situations that usually freaked me out. Meditation had gradually become a haven for me, a place I can return to, whether I am harried by life or celebrating it.

Most people are dealing with huge amounts of stress. Stress is in the air, yes, but most of it is self-generated. Martha Graham used to tell her students, "The body does not lie." Neither does the way people drive or push shopping carts or move through amusement park crowds. They may be perfectly lovely people who care for their families, but the way they move betrays the hurry sickness that plagues so many. Power of Now author Eckhart Tolle writes, "Most people treat the present moment as if it were an obstacle that they need to overcome. Since the present moment is Life itself, it is an insane way to live."

When people find out I teach yoga and meditation, they often tell me they've tried to meditate but it doesn't work for them.Perhaps they're right. Perhaps their long-held tensions are different and more intractable than mine. I'm also willing to bet they're not. It seems to me that we hold on to our stress because it differentiates us from others. I'm here to tell you your stress isn't special. It's killing you, just like it's killing everyone else.

When I find myself getting edgy in traffic, my investment in a meditation practice has helped me develop ways to soothe myself. Deep belly breaths are a great way to tame stress. At least ten of them in a row are said to reduce the amount of cortisol in your system. One of the most effective ways is to repeat loving kindness meditation to the driver in Friday afternoon traffic who is weaving in and out of lanes. When I catch myself thinking, What a jerk, who does he think he is anyway? I remind myself that he is trying to be free of the traffic jam, just like the rest of us. So I begin repeating loving kindness, "May he be safe. May he be happy. May he be healthy. May he live with ease." I repeat until I begin to believe that he really needed to be somewhere five minutes ago. Better yet, his compulsion to be first doesn't even enter my mind.anymore.

Wishing for his safety, happiness, health and ease is the very least I can do for him. These are what every person needs. What kind of ogre would I be if I can't offer others these basic goods? If you're not convinced, consider how you hurt yourself when you persist in withholding safety, happiness, health and ease from others, or worse, allow your anger and resentment to wish the worst for them. You know the truth of this as surely as you know that certain foods and habits are bad for you.You know that bowl of grapes is better for you than the bowl of potato chips, and sometimes you just want the chips anyway. Don't beat yourself up, whether you eat the chips or catch yourself hating on that guy in traffic. Just don't let that choice be the last word. I mean, really. Isn't that guy always in traffic? Why are you letting him and his trip yank your chain? This is where a meditation practice comes in to slow you down and keep you in contact with what's best and most real in your life. Start intoning loving kindness, even directing it at yourself. May I be safe. May I be happy. May I be healthy. May I live with ease.

I mentioned earlier how I wanted to have transcendent, mystical experiences in meditation. I'm still waiting, though what I'm receiving is already really good. Occasionally I experience the sweet taste of the Wisdom Source's limitless love and appreciation. Maybe this is a subtext of Mark Magill's book, that the sweetness of honey and of meditation are one and the same. It is enough to keep me coming back for more.

Prepare to Waver

Several times I've started to write about the George Zimmerman case, but I realized I had nothing to add to the conversation, except to say that I do not think justice was served. A 17-year-old boy lies dead, and he is not only accused of using concrete pavement as a weapon, of being a pothead, but of causing his own death. If only he hadn't tried to defend himself against a guy who was following him because he was stranger and he was black. I'll leave it to essayists who have more considered opinions, like Ta-Nehisi Coates and Jelani Cobb.

An excellent demonstration of Salamba Sirsasana, Headstand

Every writing teacher I've ever had has advised me to stick to writing about what I know. Who'd a thunk I'd  ever be more qualified to talk about standing on my head than about criminal justice? For years I've been tentative about headstand, known as the king of the yoga postures. Headstand has wonderful benefits: clearing and calming the mind and strengthening the arms, shoulders, neck, spine and abdominals. In yoga we balance on our feet, sometimes on only one, on our sitting bones, our hands and knees, our forearms, and the backs of our shoulders. All of these seem very doable. I might not be great in arm balances, but I knew if I got stronger through my arms and abs I'd be able to do them.

But balancing on my head? I had the idea that only people who had attained some kind of physical empowerment could do it. My teacher Shar Lee teaches headstand between two chairs. Below is a very good demo of the technique, similar to Shar's.

I've done it this way many times because it puts no strain on the neck and head. But then another teacher pointed out you don't get the crown chakra stimulation that only Headstand and Rabbit provide. Sirsasana was one of the poses I learned in teacher training. There I learned it without props. To my amazement I was able to get into the posture, under my teacher's careful direction and observation. She correctly pointed out that success in Headstand is predicated on pressing the forearms into the floor so that the crown of the head is only very lightly touching. Stabilizing the shoulders and engaging the abdominals is also part of the formula. Put them all together, and you have lift-off.

I haven't felt comfortable doing it in my practice until recently. It kept calling to me. Primarily I've had to work on overcoming my fear. I was afraid of falling and breaking my neck. That is a legitimate, material fear. My underlying fear was more subtle. I discovered I just can't stand instability, and headstand is all about finding equilibrium within instability.

I don't know anyone who loves instability. I'm not alone in wanting to know where my next meal is coming from, where my next kiss is coming from. I like knowing where I stand with the people I care for most. I like knowing that the Earth is spinning on its axis, and the earth is solid beneath my feet.

What I'm discovering in my current explorations of headstand is that stability is at best a wavering presence. Stability can't last, though it is a field we can play in.When I'm in Sirsasana, it's a constant interplay between swaying and stabilizing. Just as your mind never completely stills in meditation or at any other time, your body never stops moving. In the posture, I'm continually reminding myself to press my foreams more firmly into the floor. As soon as I do that, the structure stabilizes. But then I have a slight form break somewhere else, either in my side waists or in my shoulder blades. Then it's back to lengthening through my sides, and sending my shoulder blades toward my sacrum. Some days I can't stabilize at all.

Achieving stability, in Sirsasana or in life, is not a market to corner or a deal to nail down. It's very much about practicing skills and making adjustments that support your being, whether you're upside down and balancing on your head, or right side up and giving your children their independence.