Category: Reflections

Chocorua Part 1: The Journey There #mtchocorua #nhhikes #sacredmountains

On By Alethea KehasIn Gaia & Elementals, Memoir, Reflections, Travel Adventures, yoga12 Comments
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Chocorua in early August

Sometimes the spirits of the land study you before you are allowed to study them. Their secrets held inside the membrane of earth and stone until you have proven yourself worthy of receiving.

Before we left that morning, I sealed acceptance into my aura. There was the knowing that I would be given what I needed to receive and perhaps not all that I yearned for. There is no rushing the land and its protectors, but a grateful, open-heart is always accepted.

I had met Chocorua over the winter, when I had turned a bend in the road and found myself faced with its head of stone, balded in patches of white from the snow, looming before me. It was one of those moments when the body defies words. My daughter looked at me, and I at her, with the same knowing. Someday, I would return. There was no discussion.

We drove the rest of the way to her ski meet immersed in our own thoughts, my eyes blinking away the moisture bought on by our encounter with Mt. Chocorua. Why, I wondered, have I not seen you before? 

I have lived in NH since I was nearly five years old. The mountain I had just passed, a mere 1.5 hours from my childhood home. I must have heard of it, even “seen” it in my travels.  I have learned, thought, that we do not truly see until the land is ready to be seen.

And, so I found myself traveling the roads to Chocorua six months later. Now mid-summer, there was no snow, but plenty of heat. We had just over twenty-four hours for our trip, and this would be our first night away without our children, ages 14 and 15, since they were born. A strange way to celebrate a slightly belated 20th wedding anniversary, perhaps, but my husband, like my daughter, understands my desires even if he doesn’t entirely comprehend them. When I found out he had booked us a night in North Conway so we could celebrate two decades of marriage by hiking the legendary mountain, I was deeply touched. My only reservation was that we would not have enough time.

Which was part of the letting go.

The morning began with tension after the release that yoga brings. I had a morning class to teach, and when I returned home, it was to find my husband nowhere near ready to go. I have a long history with time controlled by the minutes that tick by on the clock. I loathe being “late,” in whatever circumstance that involves. It’s not easy for me to let it go. I had breathed acceptance into my body at the start of the day, and it was not going to allow me to forget it.

When finally we got on the road, an hour after I had hoped we would leave, my husband and I found ourselves doing our individual best to release the threads of tension between us. That is until twenty-five minutes into our journey he realized he had forgotten his dress clothes, and, true to his nature, blamed it on my long-battle with time. Once more I found myself breathing into acceptance as we turned the car around.

It was a mostly wordless journey back home. When we arrived our daughter, just recently having woken, greeted us with some surprise as she smiled above the top of the couch. We had now lost about two hours of the day, by my calculations with the clock, but my body knew it was what we needed. This test of letting go of what we tend to hold onto, if we could.

And we did, gradually at first, as we settled back into an uneasy silence. My husband making the first offering of peace by placing his right hand on my thigh as he navigated the road back toward the mountain with his left. I felt the letting go as I met his offering with the wrap of my hand around his. Our journey now officially underway with all we needed packed in the car, even though later we would lament not having brought more. Not in terms of clothing, but in terms of supplies for the long walk ahead of us. In our determination to hike 3.5 thousand footer, we had not given much thought to the long, indirect path we had chosen to get to the top.  Chosen as though it was not a choice, because it was the path walked before the white man had landed on the shores of New England.

To be continued…

Slow Time #merrymeetinglake #nhlakes #waterhealing

On By Alethea KehasIn Reflections, Travel Adventures18 Comments

It’s been a week of slow time. Minutes unhurried as they spread languidly into hours that stretch the boundary of day into night. I find myself shedding worry easily. It falls like dead strands of hair ready to let go with the lightest tug. I do not miss its absence, but find myself welcoming the lift of its weight as it releases.

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I needed this week beside the lake, where my eyes can travel the surface of water to meet the rise of Earth before it gives way to sky. Clouds pass by winged travelers. Sea gulls catching gold on their wings, even though the ocean is miles away. They too care not for time or place. Blue dragonflies skim the horizon in search of mosquitos. A cormorant puffs out its chest on the raft we have just anchored as though we have brought it just for him. Another displaced traveler. Or, maybe not. I allow myself to believe I belong somewhere else most days. My home an hour away, holding a calendar of scheduled dates I choose not to think about while I am here. Trading it for this slow time beside the water.

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Most days, I slip inside the fluid molecules to swim. The build of heat releases and the body cools as it finds the memory of origin. I realize how much I need its enfolding.  When I return to land it is to feel the soft, sticky floor of pine needles beneath my bare feet. My soles will be blackened by the end of the week. Tattooed by the reminder of slow time that will inevitably speed up again.

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This week I have found myself thinking, when thoughts slip through the moments, of how much we carry and do no need. How even when we are meant to be relaxing and letting go, we pull out the phone to snap and share. To preserve and even boast, as though we must believe that our time is better than someone else’s. Forgetting that the less we carry, the freer we are. Forgetting that when we let go of all these attachments, there is no separation.

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When I open the artificial screen, I feel its drain. The body constricts. And, so I close it in favor of the easy breath outside doors and windows. Here, where light arrives from sources beyond our grasp, and I can soak in the vast expanse of being. Just being. Present sometimes with just the self, and sometimes with my beloveds and their companions. I find that it is not so challenging, here in this slow lake time, to be a parent to teenagers. To be wife. To be a woman in this stage of life called middle age. I find that it doesn’t matter what I do so much as how I present. That mostly, it’s this letting go. This slowing down, that matters most. This living in time and not through time.

Finding Home in the Body #Yoga #PastLives #Healing

On By Alethea KehasIn Dreams, Energy Healing, Memoir, Reflections, yoga3 Comments

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I am finding my way home through the body. Again, perhaps, but the path always changes as we circle into untouched avenues of the labyrinth of self. There has been the lingering question of home as a physical landscape calling me back. I have labeled it Albion, or what once was Albion, but I have been lying to myself. It is not a mere physical place that draws the deep longing out of me, it is the pure, boundless joy of being.

It is true I find home in the stones that hold the memories of long ago. They speak to me of a time when the stars touched Earth without dimension. I have called it magic, because that is what it feels like inside of cells that have learned to forget. Yet, it is simply the true state of the boundless self that knows that the one self is home only when there is no self defined by matter, space, or time.

We can live attached to concepts of structure as we walk a linear path to a false destination that can never be reached, and I have found this path to be lonely. I have struggled to free the desire to gather the lives around me into my arms and dance us all awake before Earth destroys us in her need to heal the wounds we have inflicted upon her.

The ancient stones remember what we have forgotten and that is why they draw me home to where the hearth fire inside is kindled in a landscape that does not judge or reject. There is only the embrace, welcoming the return.

It is not enough to return, temporarily, to sites that hold the memories of truth. These places are not outside my physical doorstep where I find myself tethered to a life that feels artificial in more ways than I can count. There are thousands of footsteps between me and the stones that call me home. I go to them to return, then turn back again to this physical place I must call home as I search to define it in a language long lost to our tongues. Too often I feel the structure of  nailed together wood painted on the outside to keep the self contained behind walls as though the boundless needs protection.

At night I find the freedom I seek in the daylight, flying through the glass that looks inward and outward. I soar easily to the ceiling and will myself back to the knowing that this too is false until the molecules of division give way and rejoin in the opening. Why, I ask, am I allowed to fly boundless only in the dimension of dreams? Why do a live in a time that has chosen to forget?

Days stretch false minutes and I find myself speaking the rote words of the mundane least others think me insane. Sometimes, I ask out loud, “When will this nightmare end?” Because, I must admit, there are days that feel like nightmares. The computer screen pulls me into the vacuum of humanity’s created chaos and I become entrenched in the darkness until I pull myself back to present surrounding me. The living, breathing pulse of the now where chaos becomes a complicated dance of cause and effect; of shadow and light; of the endless cycle of life. Each moment passing into the next, asking only to be let go.

Yet, sometimes we must circle backwards to go forwards. I have found myself once again traveling through lives passed to feel the chain around the black man’s neck before it can release the body’s constricted voice. My womb aches with the rape of the priestess, and so many more that I am surprised that it bore life. I breathe in love to release constriction as I look at the fence of bodies stretching back further than the eyes can see. How long will it take, I wonder, to free them all? Until I remember this pain that becomes a memory for cells constantly renewing themselves need not find a home in my body that wants to remember only joy.

Outside the structured walls of my physical home, I am drawn each day to the weeds beneath the blooms. Digging these hands of mine into the body of Earth to release the tangles of life that suffocate growth. I am not immune to the knowing that life must be taken to feed new life. It is equally cruel and beautiful. This surrender of death to birth.

I find a harmony in the cycle I help to create. Sometimes active participation is required to free the ties that bind, and so I move this body I also call home. I listen to its urgings, feel the lick of its flames as they rise through the belly. Summer allows the shedding of shoes, and I walk barefoot on the body of Earth to feel her heartbeat and the knowing that I am her child too. My cells are made from her elements. Pieces broken to be reformed. I cannot neglect this vital part of me.

Chaos lures the mind to disorder and the body to dance free. Yoga has become a necessity for balance. If a day passes without the body stretching the mind free as it heeds the call of release, I feel the fires inside smolder for lack of air. It is not easy for light to creep through dense layers. Cracks must open. Air must be let in. Prana follows the breath into the labyrinth as the body becomes the dragon raising its wings.  And that is when the soul soars home to itself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Box of Fear & Why I Believe We All Must Find Our Own “Religion” #religion #spirituality #findyourownpath

On By Alethea KehasIn Memoir, Reflections, yoga9 Comments

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I  have recently received an email from a friend I met years ago at a metaphysical class. We were both searching and seeking a deeper understanding of life, like all who are drawn to unravel the mysteries. Now, she has turned to religion, following the urgings of a man she loves. I am not surprised, but there is a sadness to her desperation to be loved and accepted into a secure form of life.

In her email, my friend urged me, and the rest of the group of friends to which she sent the email, to follow her path as a born-again Christian so that our souls, like hers, could be saved. She has labeled us as “New Age,” a label I have never tried to own.

I don’t care for labels, and this one I find offensive and incorrect. Although I cannot speak for the others in the group, I consider myself a spiritual being who seeks, in each moment, to heed the inner voice of truth that aligns with the core Truths of being. I do not follow one guru, or worship within the confines of one sect. I simply try my best to live a life in alignment with love.

If that makes me a sinner in some eyes, so be it. Yet, it troubles me that is should be so. Perhaps, in some ways, I am fortunate to have not been raised in what feels like the confines of a particular set of beliefs. As the child of agnostic parents who leaned toward atheism, I had to find my own spirituality in my search for inner peace and wellbeing.

I can recall many sleepless nights lying in bed wondering if my last breath would lead to my oblivion. I would wonder if my life was meaningless as a mere conglomeration of cells adhered into a body with an intelligent brain that allowed me to think both rational and irrational thoughts.

It was only when I started to think beyond the confines of my brain, and stepped into the realm of the heart, that I found a home that stretched beyond walls into the vast expanse of being. My path has lead me to explore many teachings, which all possess the same core of truths. The yoga sutras, which predate all religions, echo the words of the oldest Egyptian texts. The furthest back you go, the more threads of common truths you find. This, to me, feels like home.

Yet, it is not my place to judge another’s beliefs, nor to where they feel most at home. We are, in essence, all searching for belonging. But, do we have a right to label others as incorrect and ask them to follow the way we have chosen? This troubles me. It reminds me that we are still fighting wars and killing each other because of our spiritual beliefs, the color of our skin, and the sexual physiology and orientation of our bodies. This is not okay.

The need to destroy and convert are premised upon fear, not love. At the core of all religions and spiritual teachings, from what I have found, is Love. That is all. Love. It is a calling to find home in the knowing that we are all born from and a part of Love, which unites all life. When I breath into the stillness of being that is what I find. It fills me with a connection not only to myself, but to all life. It reminds me that I am not above or below anyone else, I am simply a part of all life. That, to me, is enough. It is a coming home.

The Chalice & The Sun #yearning #writephoto #queenofcups

On By Alethea KehasIn A New Earth, Gaia & Elementals, Reflections, Warriors of Light15 Comments

I had been intending to write a blog post about some recent explorations I’ve had with the chalice as a symbol when I opened Sue Vincent’s Thursday Photo Prompt this morning. There before me was a photograph of water in the shape of a chalice illuminated by the light of the sun. The title, “yearning.” I realized that perhaps I had just been provided with the image I needed to explore this ancient symbol in the way it has come to me recently…

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Photo Credit: Sue Vincent

Years ago, when I first began exploring Tarot, I bought myself the Rider-Wait deck. I  often shuffled the cards to find guidance for my life and writing journey. As frequently happens with Tarot, a card will repeatedly show itself. The Queen of Cups was that card for me.

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The Queen of Cups in the Rider-Waite Tarot Deck

The archetype of The Queen sat before me on her throne contemplating a capped golden chalice in her hands bearing a cross at its top. The card is filled with archetypal symbolism, which is up to the individual to explore in relation to his or her own inner journey.

 

 

 

Trading the high price of hedonism for hope #hedonism #ercolano #vatican #pompeii #colosseum #rome #italy

On By Alethea KehasIn A New Earth, Reflections, Travel Adventures19 Comments

Since my recent visit to Italy, I have been thinking about the trap of hedonism. From a yogic perspective, hedonism is a concentration of energy in the sacral and solar plexus chakras, or areas of the body. Here is where individual lust, when it is allowed to, takes over the bloom of ever-lasting life. The mind-body forgets that life is not individual, but a collective and infinite rebirthing.

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Ercolano sits unearthed in the middle of a crowded Naples

I keep thinking about Vesuvius covering civilizations at their peak of hedonism in layers of ashes and dirt. Over and over again. We unearth the remains. Stare at the walls still painted in lust, and forget.

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Hedonism on the walls of Pompeii

We forget that we are still here. Captured in our lust. We are not doomed to repeat history, we simply choose to do so.

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This photo was taken in Rome, near the Vatican. If you look closely you will see a bride being photographed in her white gown near underpass where the tents of the homeless are huddled. 

Today, Naples sits piled in apartments filled with crowded life whose waste litters the streets. Plastic discarded after a single use blows amongst piles of dog poop and cigarette butts. In the cracks of pavement, green life stretches to find air and water before it is snuffed out by passersby who are thinking of yesterdays and tomorrows filled with want.

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Live blooming in the cracks of Pompeii 

Three hours away by car, Rome’s streets pave over more lost civilizations. What is left reminds us of the individual ego’s striving for power. Huge monuments raised to its mighty hand stand erect, guarded by machine guns slung over shoulders. Reminders of wars waged, battles for life lost and “won,” and the many, many spoils of victory.

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What was once Egypt’s is now Rome’s

A vast city inside a city houses the spoils of wealth stolen in the name of God.

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Vatican City crowded with visitors

Gold halls lined with painted angels watch over a vast fortune robbed from distant and not so distant lands. Lesser gods trapped in a fortress that has room for only one ruler. Yet, we walk the halls in awe. We  cannot help it. The splendor overwhelms and consumes us.

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A feast for the eyes, even the ceilings of the Vatican are lined in gold opulence.

Below, the echo of the goddess can only be heard when the feet are still and the many voices clamoring to be heard, mute. The want for air is nearly unbearable. Yet we hold onto our crowds, striving, always striving, to get ahead.

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Crowds outside the Colosseum 

I keep thinking we are one fiery breath away from annihilation. Again. We have thinned the air with our crowds and choked it with the pollution of our breath. We have chosen to guard the pillars of our mighty past and erect more as we overlook the goddess who sustains us.

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Mother Earth birthing and supporting life

Instead of honoring the Mother who brings forth new life, feeds, and provides for all our many wants, we trample her to near death in our quest to strive ever higher in dominion.

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A memorial to war in Rome is carefully guarded by men with guns.

It is difficult not to be cynical in this world so focused on the outer it has largely forgotten what sustains it. A world that fears so much what unites it, it would rather destroy itself, over and over again, for want of division. For want of lust to feed the false self. A temporary pleasure of the body that has forgotten the soul housed in light who choose not to see.

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The imposing remains of the Roman Colosseum 

And so I find myself sitting in my comfortable home in America, looking around at all that I have and all that I am in danger of losing. I find myself thinking about my individual choices and if they serve only me, or something greater than my individual self. I live in a town that has recently decided that recycling is not worth the monetary expense, and has chosen to override the planetary expense of not doing so. I live in a nation ruled by a man whose lust for power strives to over-ride all that is of the common good. It is easy to be consumed by the ugliness and despair of what feels like an impending doom. I would not blame our Mother if she  decided it was time, again, to swallow us up.

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Vesuvius in stasis 

But, there is little good to come of wallowing in despair, and much to be gained when one reaches beyond the darkness to grow the light. There is an empowerment of the inner that can be awakened when one looks beyond the myopic lens of the individual wants and sees that choices can be made to grow this light that we all share and that feeds all life.

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A male hummingbird in my garden drinking nectar from peach blossoms

I know that the old ways are not enough. That for me living in my small town in New Hampshire, it is not enough to simply rinse cans and separate paper and food waste anymore. That I must search for ways that are more sustainable, such as growing vegetables and joining a local CSA. I know that I can move beyond not just buying nontoxic and organic products, to making more of my own as I search for those that I must buy in biodegradable and reduced packaging. And, I know that I can search for more innovative ways to reduce and reuse and share ideas that I find with others. There is that realization that “more” can always be done to nurture the good of all, and not just the one. And, that in doing so, one can find not only hope, but joy.

 

Yoga with Kids Week 2: Finding My Rhythm with Frogs #KidsYoga #kidyoga #yoga #mindfulness #yogagames

On By Alethea KehasIn Memoir, Reflections, yoga4 Comments

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Image Credit: Pixabay. The frog that became a sticker.

I spent the bulk of the past five days in a worried funk. Pretty much all I could think about was yoga with kids. Although I only wrote about experiences with the younger preschool and kindergarten classes in my last post, the next day brought two new classes. One filled with middle schoolers. Let me first say the high school class that followed it was simply lovely. I had three polite and eager young ladies who were attentive and respectful. It was a huge and welcome breath of fresh air.

The middle school class, on the other hand, proved to be just as challenging as my classes with the younger kids. It consisted of a large group of girls who all knew each other, and a trio of boys who didn’t know the girls, but knew one another. The girls gathered in a crowded group in the back of the classroom, while the boys queued up in front of me. The giggling intermixed with bold commentary began from the group in the back of the room as soon as I introduced the “Cat & Cow” warm up poses. “Downward Dog” proved to be even worse.

“I’m not doing that.” “I don’t want anyone to see my butt.”

The wall-to-wall mirror behind me became an unavoidable source of distraction, and our hour together felt much longer than it should have.

Seasoned yoga teachers will know that teaching yoga to kids is nothing like teaching yoga to adults. It’s an entirely different game. Actually it’s a series of entirely different games. Each age group has its separate rules and obstacles.

I’m still learning the games.

By the end of the week I was more than doubtful that I would grow to love teaching yoga to kids, and whether I would discover a magical formula to do so well.

The next class I had ahead of me was another preschool class. A fresh opportunity with ten new and eager faces who had never met me.

I just needed to convince myself that I could have a different experience than I had with my first two classes.

I did some more research and started to listen to that inner voice that rarely leads us astray.

I asked for help, and got some really good advice. Especially the tip about using sitting circles or mats, which serve as a magical anchor to keep restless bodies in place.

I ordered the mats knowing they would not arrive in time. I worried, but I need not have. The inner voice spoke louder, offering me alternatives my logical brain refused to find.

One day, I went to the library and found myself drawn to books about frogs and toads, even though I was there to find any and all books on yoga with kids they had available. I took both sets of books home.

Another evening, I found myself walking the dogs at dusk, so enthralled by the chorus of frogs at our favorite pond, I impulsively took my phone out to record nature’s symphony.

A theme was developing for me.

Another day, still in my fog of stress, I went to the dollar store and mulled over the arrays of cheap toys. I thought maybe I should get some stickers, so I bought a sheet of colored stars and a blow-up globe.

After I took my purchases home, I began obsessing about how I would use them. I thought about giving stars for good behavior, but it didn’t feel yoga-ish. The globe, well, I thought maybe I could use it in some sort-of game, but visions of kids throwing the nearly weightless ball at each other caused me to leave it on the kitchen counter as I readied my bag.

Instead, I begin to realize I have all I might need. I have my frog, well actually toad, book in verse, and I’ve found that the first page has a wonderful poem about them singing in spring. I’ve got my live recording  of an amphibian chorus from the pond ready to go on my phone. Instead of obsessing about my lack of sitting circles, I realize I can might be able to make lily pads to go along with my theme. In fact, I know I have at least a few pieces of study green paper. Ten minutes later, I have ten lily pads bearing the names of my new students. I also have ten new stickers. Not the stars, but frogs, which I’ve made myself thanks to Pixabay and a stack of printable labels in the same drawer that held the green paper. Frogs on lily pads. Perfect.

I pack all of these up, along with my chime, portable speaker, water, roster, animal yoga pose cards, and my pink rose quartz frog that sits near the water fountain in my home yoga studio.

Still, I think I may need more props. I don’t want to be under-prepared. I eye the bin of Beanie Babies. Nope. Not going there again. Instead, I open it and pull out one dog to use as a mascot, just in case. I eye the globe one more time and put my magic chakra ball in the bag instead. It slings easily on my shoulder. Light and manageable.

I arrive early. There’s amble time to set up. I’m greeted by the director, a friend of mine, who shows me around and allows me to select a space that feels right. I tell her about the sitting circles I’ve ordered but have not arrived, and she shows me a stack of quilted mats. Perfect.

I select five and arrange them around the square rug. The lily pads are placed atop, alternating as best as I can guess, boy, then girl, around the rug. Next, I take  the yoga pose cards out I’ve prearranged, and set them in back of the sit mats. Finally, I sit at the front of the rug with my phone, roster, quartz frog and homemade stickers set beside me.

Small voices begin to mingle from the front of the room, and I know my students have returned from their outdoor recess.  I am lucky today the rain has held off and these young bodies have had a chance to run outside and play.

“Can you find your name on the mats?” I ask them as they line up before me. They are all so darn cute, but I know better than to let down my guard. Instead, I smile and welcome them with the warmth of a teacher. Hey, I think, maybe, just maybe I can do this.

And, I do. Ten little bottoms find their lily pads and look at me with anticipation. No one gets up until I ask them to, and barely a voice talks out of turn. We have fun together. We learn and we play. When one child unexpectedly cries during our game of musical mats, she finds her way to my side, nestles in for a hug, and clutches the magical pink frog I place into  her hands until all is well. Soon she is smiling again. We all are.

Even though it’s not a perfect class, to me it’s a near-glorious half-hour, which is over too soon. Stickers are left for the end ,and find their way on faces, lily pads, and clothes. Tiny frogs thank me as they dance out the door. I can hardly wait for the week to pass.

 

I Begin my Adventures Practicing Yoga with Kids… #KidsYoga #kidyoga #yoga #yogagames

On By Alethea KehasIn Memoir, Reflections, yoga26 Comments

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Photo Credit: Pixabay

I thought I would be writing another post about my recent travels to Italy, but instead my mind is filled with yoga. In particular, yoga with kids. Two Februarys ago, I felt a calling to move from my long  comfortable role as a yoga student, to that of a teacher. Although I could sometimes see myself standing in front of a classroom of students teaching yoga, I had never really given teaching serious thought. That is until the relentless  inner voice called without ceasing…

And so here I am, more than two years later. A certified yoga teacher, who, as of last week, has taught (or has attempted to teach) yoga to students from the ages of 3 to 80+. Just when teaching yoga was beginning to feel as comforting and familiar as preparing and drinking a warm cup of tea each morning, I have now leapt, once again, off the cliff of The Fool into the rocky terrain of the unfamiliar.

And, it’s okay. It’s what I signed up for. But, oh how much I have to learn as I stumble my way along. My week of full immersion into the spectrum of younger ages has left me feeling tired, hoarse, and a bit bewildered. What do I do know? I keep asking myself.

Let me see if I can attempt to explain why.

I’ll begin with my first non-adult class of the week.

It’s Thursday. Another rainy day in a long string of rainy days. The school day is just finishing at the Montessori nearby where I live, and I am lugging my bucket filled with Beanie Babies, animal yoga cards, a Bluetooth speaker, roster sheets and a chime that would prove to be woefully useless. Eleven preschoolers await me.

They’re adorable, as all children are at that age. Almost irresistibly cute. A near equal mix of boys and  girls with glowing faces perched atop restless bodies. Wholly mine for 30 minutes. Thirty minutes that I have tasked myself to teach them yoga, in some form. My mind swirls with ideas. Over the past few months I have watched videos and read books. I have dug out my notes from teacher training and know games and props are essentials for this age group. What I can’t recall learning, as I spin through the whirlwind thirty minutes, is that a loud, assertive voice is also important, or that the power to choose should not be an option…Or maybe I just forgot, because it’s not in my nature to place restrictions and to shout.

Nor is it in my nature to sing in tune, which is also a great gift to have for kids’ yoga, but I thought playing the voice of the lovely Kira Willey would be an adequate compensation.

I soon discover no one really cares about the music coming from my speaker. They care more about the props I have brought.

I’m pretty sure I read to only bring one…

We begin in a circle that defies all definition of a circle, but it’s good enough. All eyes are turned to me as I introduce myself, then roll my magical color ball to the child next to me and ask him his name and if he’d like to tell me one thing that makes him happy. We move smoothly along, at first, passing the ball down the line until our circle is 2/3 complete. A girl with vast blue eyes stares at me and tells me her name and then goes silent. She cannot come up with something that makes her happy, even though I can tell by her outer appearance that she is likely well-loved and cared for. Instead, she appears to be caught off-guard and stumped. Rendered mute in a way that makes us both feel uncomfortable and searching for reprieve.

I give her space to think. Distracting chatter begins to erupt within the circle, and the blue eyes continue to stare back at me. “Would you like to think about it some more? It’s okay if you don’t want to answer.”

I can tell she is torn. That she wants to find an answer for me, but somehow she can’t retrieve it. Perhaps it’s contagious, because the next child is also unable to come up with one thing that makes her happy.

And so I begin to question my choice of a mindfulness introduction. I thought perhaps some children would struggle a bit, but with gentle suggestions and listening to the words of their peers, they might easily slip into that space of joy.

And, I realize how desperately, perhaps, that I want to bring them all to that state of joy. To make them realize how fun yoga can be in its myriad forms. That it can be both individual and shared. But not something that takes striving and competition…

So we begin to play our games. Soon tiny bodies are hoping about and vying for my attention in their efforts to show me how much yoga they already know. When the illustrated pose cards come out, there is a scramble to have just the right one.

There is even some arguing.

“I don’t want this one.”

“That’s not how you do flower. That’s butterfly.”

Oh my, I have much to learn.

Follow the leader with the chime goes smoothly until someone decides to skip the line.

Then the chime is rendered useless. The noise of voices too high. My own is already growing hoarse and unheard, and I am at least grateful I have brought along my water. I have another class waiting for me after. And, it’s 45 minutes long…

When I open the tub filled with stuffed animals, five million hands reach inside. Suddenly I’m feeling the weight of my 45 years of life and I count the minutes left.

Do not leave room for choice. Of any kind. I file the lesson inside my tired brain.

I think perhaps I should have brought along a gong. You know, one of those enormous ones that you can’t hold and need a mallet to bang?

And a miracle.

I’m not Kira Willey. Not even close. Nor am I the beloved and talented Jamie of Cosmic Kids who knows how to keep the overstimulated minds of young kids engaged while practicing yoga through her wonderful videos.

I am also not a drill sergeant. Nor do I want to be.

I’m simply Alethea, searching for her own magic cards to bring to the circle of young eager faces.

And I think, perhaps, I need to stop looking in the bags of others, and dig inside my own…

Walking with Timeless Ghosts #Pompeii #Ercolano #italy #travel

On By Alethea KehasIn Reflections, Travel Adventures6 Comments

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A modern centaur sculpture evokes the powerful Roman presence layered into Pompeii

I didn’t know what to expect, except for what I had heard. Vast cities unearthed after centuries of stasis preserving the moment where life bowed down to death. A death of searing heat and suffocating ashes poured forth from the might mountain god Vesuvius.

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The casts of the dead are preserved behind glass and bars in Pompeii

I had thought I would see more bodies preserved in the moment of futility. A sensationalized warning for all to see in the middle of cobbled and broken streets. It’s funny how the mind works.  What I found instead were the many textures of life woven into a timeless tapestry.

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Much of the lasting art of the lost cities depict hedonistic scenes 

In these ancient cities, which began to form in the years before Christ, the endless tale of time is told. The struggle for the basic elements of life are encased within the mortared rock walls of crowded settlements only footsteps removed from vast halls revealing pillared windows to outer glories of wealth.

The themes of life remain unaltered; the patterns only woven with different threads.

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There is a pathos that pervades these spaces, which extends beyond the death of the body. One cannot help but feel the struggle of man with the god-self.

It is nothing short of exhausting to walk the ruined roads of Pompeii. It’s a feat impossible to do in its entirety in one day. After awhile the step feels monotonous and insignificant, despite the many who tread with you. There is a feeling of isolation. Voids that will never be filled. Wonders only partially discovered and mysteries that will never be fully unveiled.

The five of us walked without a map or guide, yet it I was not surprised to find our path leading us to the Villa of Mysteries. Here the the gods overlap through time, and Roman influence is layered with Greek and Egyptian. Although I took just a few photos, many more can be found online. Instead, I found myself wrapped in the arms of the familiar for the short time we explored the villa, which sits quite removed from the central city of Pompeii. It is where I would have lingered, had I been alone. Instead, hunger called to all of us and we sought out a late lunch before we continued on.

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The Roman Amphitheater of Pompeii predates the Colosseum in Rome by 100 years

 

 

I roam some of the hills of Italy #italy #MountVesuvius #amalficoast #pompeii

On By Alethea KehasIn Memoir, Reflections, Travel Adventures2 Comments

“There are so many hills,” my husband remarked as he drove our jet-legged bodies down the highway from Rome towards Sorrento. There was the face turned outward, as though in warning. Harshly cut with chiseled lines furrowing brows guarding a pyramidal peak. The impulse to leap through the veil tangibly irresistible. We all saw them, even my mother-in-law, which surprised me a bit.  Perhaps it should not have. We are not so crazy as we may seem, even to ourselves. We have just forgotten.

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A view from the car. This mountain face looks tranquil lifted to the sky. 

Everywhere I looked the earth rose in sometimes sharp, and sometimes gentle undulations, leading a pathway to the magnificent turquoise sea.

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The roads of man wrap the body of the rocky Amalfi coast, but the breath-taking beauty belongs to the land and the sea.

In my sleep-deprived state, I found myself slipping beyond the familiar and into the hazy space of that magical realm too rarely ventured my our modern day minds. The hills called to me, and I followed their faces as our vehicle wizzed along. History records itself in these beings of slow time. And, more than anything else I read power. I was, after all, in the land of the Romans.

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The magnificent remains of the Colosseum standing for nearly 2,000 years.

The mountains, though, hold a power that belongs not to man, but to Earth. We have been here long before you and will be long after…

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The volcanic mountain, Vesuvius, watches over the crowded city of Naples which is built over cities buried by its fiery blood.

In the year 79 AD, more than 1,000 people, and countless animals, died from the eruption of Vesuvius, yet it is believe that the serpentine mountain whose mouth spouts forth deadly fire a  few times each century, was greatly revered by those that fell to its mighty flames. A god of protection, perhaps, not so much of the people, but of the land. Now, below its summit, which last erupted in 1944, 2 million people live in its shadow as though they have forgotten the thousands of lives that it has taken during its reign of power.

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The ghosts of Pompeii haunt the remains of their lost city. “We tried to hide here among the already dead” they whispered to me. The futility of their hold pulled my limbs through their layered graveyards.

I was surprised later in our trip, when we climbed its sides by car, then walked out to take in its vast energy, by how tranquil I felt. Almost as though I was being held in the arms of a lover.

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Birds hover in the foreground of Vesuvius. Below, spring’s growth waves with the wind.

Yet eyes watched my trespassing footsteps, and those of the hundreds who joined us that day on the body of the mountain. Eyes belonging to inhuman forms beyond the grasp of our naive minds.  Reminding me that I walked the body of a god, or perhaps more aptly put, goddess…

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Baby serpents, spawn from Vesuvius’s last eruption, watch its many visitors.