Community Sadhana Days 7-40 – Finding Grace in The Everday Moments

It’s day 40 and I can hardly believe how quickly time has flown by. Has it really been since day 7 that I wrote?

My trip to the ER revealed ovarian cysts and having that on top of Lyme’s Disease has made this Sadhana particularly challenging. I have found that the lesson of the last 40 days has been one of acceptance and openness to change and doing that with grace.

I began this Sadhana with three goals in mind. The first was to eliminate refined sugar from my diet, the second was to do a Venus Kriya mediation with my husband everyday and the third was to do some form of arts or crafts each day as well.

Each of these goals experienced some form of change that at first made me experience anger. Having to push though that I came to a place of acceptance.

Refined sugar is in so many, many things to eat. It lies hidden in items you wouldn’t have even dreamed it would be in. I found out all too late one evening after eating something that there had been sugar hidden in it. My Sadhana had been blown!!!!!!!!!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, that’s how I felt at first. The I took a deep breath and thought about my original goal. I knew I would begin again at day 1 the next day and decided to tweak my goal to this, “I allow myself to be more mindful and aware of refined sugar in my diet and will try my best to avoid it as much as possible.”

The key change here was to use the words ALLOW and AWARE. They opened myself up to be in a more comfortable space that worked for me in that moment without giving up on the pursuit of keeping refined sugar out of my diet. The change allowed me to be able to make a mistake if it was unintentional and opened me up to be more conscious of all the places sugar can be hiding. I have found that as I continue this particular Sadhana that my craving for sugary foods are way down and I read the labels of absolutely everything and have found many new ways to replace sugar with honey in recipes which has been exciting in the kitchen.

The second goal of practicing a meditation with my husband failed after only a week or so. We were really enjoying our Venus Kriya each night but even after my husband setting an alarm on his phone we still managed to forget about it. Instead of holding onto the anger of the situation every time we forgot I just let go. I can to a place where I realized that we just weren’t ready for this. What we needed at this point in our lives was to just be with each other at night with nothing that we HAD TO DO.

Allowing myself to accept the situation with grace and know that it didn’t mean that we would never do a Sadhana together but meant that it just wasn’t our time RIGHT NOW made all the difference.

My arts and crafts goal opened me up to making art anywhere and everywhere big or little, fast or slow and in every kind of form. I learned to be creative in a myriad of ways that best suited my physical well being.

I spent the last 40 days baking, crocheting, cooking using new recipes, making jewelry, drawing, helping my children with art projects, trying art projects on my computer, writing, singing, acting, taking photographs and even researching possible new projects to do in the future.

Some of my creative endeavors only took seconds to do, like you saw with my chalk heart in my last post. And for that day, that is what I was capable of. Other projects took hours and that was fine too. What the change was with this Sadhana was to find creativity in everyday life and everyday situations and make the best of it.

At first when the day came that I wasn’t feeling well enough to sit down and do a full fledged art project I once again felt angry about it. But once I did what I had to do and instead made a small quick project instead I felt much better. I saw that the adaptation better suited what I needed in that moment and I was still able to stay on track with my Sadhana. It has opened me up to viewing life as art and how nearly all the things we do can have a creative element to it.

My favorite creative project throughout the 40 days was working with my daughter to make cupcakes for her forth birthday. I found an excellent recipe using honey to make the cakes and honey to sweeten the frosting. It was all homemade and absolutely delicious! To decorate our “Thank You Honey Bees!” cakes I printed out ballerina bears and taped them on toothpicks to stick on top of each cupcake for her nursery school party and printed butterflies and the letter E with flowers and butterflies and taped them to toothpicks for her family and friends birthday party. It was such fun to bake with her and watch her and her brother looking through the oven window while the cupcakes baked and having her help me stick the toothpicks in. It’s moments like that that makes bonds even stronger and make lasting memories.

These 40 days taught me to open my eyes to the world and see the art and creativity in everything. It taught me to become more aware of what I need in the now and adjust accordingly. It taught me to become mindful and aware of what I eat and to be kind to myself if I make a mistake. It taught me that grace is more powerful then anger.

What will my next Sadhana focus on?

I am thinking of continuing to be aware of refined sugar and adding being aware of anything genetically modified and attempting to avoid consuming either.  I am also thinking of continuing to work on my anger issues and doing what I can each day to take a moment before I react and breathe and think things through. Is it really necessary to get angry? Is what is going on really that important to expel so much energy by becoming angry? Can I say yes instead of no or no instead of yes? Will that help? Can I just remember to breathe? Will that help? The goal is to create more of an inner dialogue with myself and think and breathe before I react. I would also like to continue to be creative in some form each day.

These goals may be the basis of my next Sadhana, they might not. That’s what is so great about this process, you can do just about anything!

Community Sadhana Days 5, 6, & 7 – It’s a date at the ER

Both my husband and I forgot to do our meditation together the other night. I was feeling really poorly and we spent the evening wondering whether or not to hike on over to the emergency room. As lovely as practicing our meditation had been it wasn’t foremost on either of our minds.  By the time morning came around and we spoke with my doctor we were indeed off to the hospital.

After hours in the ER and a cat scan and ultrasound it was determined that I have ovarian cysts on both sides and would just have to basically grin and bear the pain until they go away. Being that they weren’t large enough to warrant any kind of surgical removal, aside from an Advil there wasn’t much to be done.

The hours at the ER were actually filled with much laughter which the staff probably doesn’t get to hear quite often from their patients. We had dropped our children off at my mothers house first and my husband said that we were on a date, just a date at the hospital. So we laughed together and watched some silly science fiction movies on the television and held hands.

By the time we left the hospital and went to pick up our children and take care of business we didn’t get home until it was dark outside. I knew that the meditation part of my Sadhana was kaput, but I was still going strong on the no sugar element and was determined to keep crafting or making art no matter how lousy I felt. So I dragged myself to the chalkboard and did this:

Know I know you are probably thinking, “Isn’t that cheating? Aren’t you stretching the crafty, artsy thing just a bit here?” The answer to that is NO! It indeed took me under five seconds to draw this heart but that was still five seconds that I took out of my day just for myself. Five seconds to make art, to draw a heart.

A Sadhana doesn’t have to be an all day affair. It can be if that is what you feel compelled to do but it is not necessary. What is important is not stopping, not giving up and if you do miss a day, like we did with our meditation, you just begin again. Like we did the next night.

I still feel incredibly drawn to crochet. I’m not surprised. Every year as soon as there is a nip in the air I feel drawn to my hooks and yarn. So yesterday right after breakfast I made my daughter another flower to wear in her hair, this time I crocheted a little daffodil.

My husband came up with the brilliant idea to put an alarm in his cell phone for every night at 8:00 pm so we don’t forget our meditation again. When it went off and we tuned in with the Adi Mantra, Ong Namo Guru Dev Namo and we got our mudras going and began to gaze into eachother’s eyes it felt so good. I realize that I really missed that one day. I am so happy that we are back on track.

This morning I decided to follow the same model I did yesterday and crochet again right after breakfast. My daughter had been asking me to make her a flower in another color besides using oranges or yellows so I decided to make her a red rose much to her delight.

I am officially in love with crocheting little tiny flowers! Now I need another crochet book so I can find more patterns! Making these little beauties has also been really beneficial for retraining me in the art of making the basic crochet stitches; slip stitch, single crochet, half double crochet, double crochet and treble crochet, which you have to be able to do in order to make these. Since I have been making them for a few days now I feel completely confident in my skills with those stitches and I feel good about that.

You will no doubt during the 40 days of a Sadhana that includes some form of arts or crafts have one day where you would have to improvise in terms of art. It could be a day like mine where you spent the entire day in an emergency room and felt awful. It could be that it was just a really hectic day and you’ve run out of time to make something big or paint a painting or crochet a flower. On those days don’t give up. Remember that even five seconds counts, it was five seconds just for you! A five second gift for yourself!

Community Sadhana Day 4 – Taking a breather when you need to breathe

It’s a gloomy day today and my Lyme’s Disease is acting up even more then usual.

I was still feeling the crochet bug so I took out my hook and decided to make a flower that I could attach to a clip so my daughter could wear it in her hair. She loves stuff like that. I picked out my colors and got going but found myself stumbling in regards of the directions for the pattern and I was becoming more and more unhappy with how it was coming out. I considered quite a few times to keep going knowing full well that my body was screaming for me to take a break. But I thought that with my children napping and only having to deal with my dog sitting on my head again that this was going to be my only opportunity to get it done. Following that silly logic led to more and more mistakes, pain in my body, the inability to concentrate and increasing anger.

I finally took a deep breath, put everything down and decided to take some time to relax.

When I was able to get back to my project it was as if the crochet fairy had whispered the trick to overcoming the obstacle in the pattern and I blew through it like a breeze. I was back in the state I had intended to get into, one of relaxation and meditation while engaging in this aspect of my Sadhana. My body and mind felt refreshed and when my daughter came in and saw what I was making and I told her it was going to be for her the look of delight on her face just added to the bliss and was the last piece of today’s puzzle.

Had I not listened to and honored my body by taking a break and resting the project would have become work instead of play and the lesson I would have learned from it would not have been sweet. I wouldn’t have learned about taking your time, enjoying what you are doing, breathing when you need to breath and enjoying the process but would rather have been taught a lesson in pain, aggravation and unhappiness with the finished piece and the attitude I carried throughout making it.

I speak often to my students of honoring their bodies and taking a break when they need to while practicing yoga. The TRUE key to honoring your body though is to take that mindset and apply it to your everyday life.

Community Sadhana Day 3 – Making a meditation out of the mundane

I woke up feeling happy this morning, light and bright. Wednesday’s are usually like that for me. I get recharged by teaching on Tuesday nights. I was talking with some of my students last night after class about how my husband and I sometimes miss being Christians as active Christians get to go to church each week and get that beautiful spiritual recharge in the company of others. In the Pagan community, well, it is usually difficult to find an organized group, at least where I am. I know many solitary practitioners and even those few who do get together do so usually only twice a month for the new and full moons and at important times of the year like Yule and Samhain. But a weekly dose of Pagan love and spirituality isn’t to be found unless you do it yourself. I told them that teaching was like church for me. Not that I am feeling like I am playing the part of the priestess but that I am soaking in the love and energy of our practicing together. I am renewed each Tuesday night and that it helps to carry me on some level through the rest of the week.

I am grateful for that and for my students and those that I taught in the past and those I will teach in the future.

Today I got to finish the bandana that I am going to gift the little girl who is now taking my class with her mother. I unwound one round from the earring as the leaf was too large set next to the bird and enjoyed the free form crocheting of crafting the branch. I didn’t play any mantra music in the background today and both of my children were napping. I enjoyed the tick tock of my cuckoo clock and the sound of my wind chime making its sweet symphony with the wind.  I was meditating, meditating through crocheting. And it can be just that simple  and easy sometimes.

Meditation can take the form of many practices from the ones found in the Kundalini or Buddhist traditions to the act of washing dishes or gazing into the flame of a candle or in my case today, crocheting. For a mother it can take form in gazing at her baby while she is breastfeeding. For a father it can take the form of holding his sleeping child in his arms.

Meditation can be what you make of it from the mystical to the mundane.

And after practicing the Heart Lotus Venus Kriya with my husband for only two days (we will do day three tonight) I must say I love partner meditation! The first time we practiced the meditation we laughed and giggled through the first part when we stare into one another’s eyes to gaze into our souls. It was light and fun. Last night felt deeper and sweeter and there was no giggling until our dog decided to go to her water bowl and loudly lap up water throughout the second part of our meditation when we place our hands over one another’s heart centers and close our eyes and feel the energy there. Her slurping and the clinking of the tags on her collar against the dog dish made us unable to hold it together. It was great! And knowing that we will be able to have a few minutes just for the two of us again tonight no matter what the mood, is the best part.

See you tomorrow for day 4!

Community Sadhana Day 2 – Ah, that’s why it worked out that way……

Today was a busy day just like every Tuesday is for me. After being awake for most of the night nursing my son I wake up in the morning and get both he and his sister dressed, get myself dressed, make all of us breakfast, let our dog out, feed her and then let her out again. Then we all hop into the car and I get my daughter off to nursery school and make my way back home to spend some time with my son and take care of some business online. Then before I know it it’s back to the school to pick up my daughter, get everyone back home and make lunch then attempt to get them both off for a nap, and while napping take care of more online business, then get them both up, get my daughter in her tutu and we all get back in the car again and head to ballet class. After class we drive back home and it’s time to cook supper, get everyone fed and then get myself ready to go teach my evening yoga class.

Tuesday’s are busy.

Now throw into the mix an art or craft activity, a meditation and no sugar to keep me going. Gee whiz. I  felt the call of a large cup of flavored coffee with whipped cream and various toppings involved. It was tempting me, beckoning me. Yummy pick me up in a cup. But I didn’t do it! The sweetest thing I had today was an apple. Unfortunately I cannot say the same thing for my husband. Feeling tired himself, today at work where they have a huge counter of free genetically modified crap masquerading as food he lost it and dove mouth first into cookies and coffee, light and sweet with cream.

I had intended to finish my earrings today but remembered that I had promised one of my students a special gift. I have a mother that I teach and she had asked me if she could bring her nine year old daughter to class. I was absolutely thrilled with the idea as I love it when children have the opportunity to experience yoga. So she brought her daughter and she had such a great time that she asked if she could come back. I of course invited her to come as often as she likes. My little buddy is so into Kundalini Yoga now that she came in and wanted me to wrap her head so she could be like me and she wrote me the most beautiful note about her experiences which I keep with me and look at each time I teach. I told her that I would give her a white bandana so she could wear it each time she came to class. White is the color of all colors and one that expands your aura. It is the color of choice to wear while practicing Kundalini Yoga. I took a look at the bandana today and decided it needed a little something to make it extra special for my young friend. She loves the color purple so I decided to crochet a small purple bird that would sit just on top of her third eye point while she wears her bandana. I liked the symbolism of a bird cause it is through Kundalini Yoga and mediation that we can fly freely through the conscious and subconscious mind and the universe itself.

So I crocheted the bird while my children napped, no dog sitting on my head this time and sewed it onto the bandana after supper. I looked at it and felt something was missing but didn’t know what and had run out of time to add anything anyway. I thought of leaving it at home, I thought of the fact that I hadn’t finished those earrings like I had wanted to. I thought and then I realized that I was falling again into the old habit pattern I had experienced yesterday. So I once again stopped, stepped back, let go and allowed the universe to lead me.

I put the bandana in my bag and headed to teach my class. It turned out that my little friend and her mother were unable to make it to class at the last minute and while driving home it struck me. I only made one leaf shaped earring because it wasn’t meant for an earring after all. It was meant to be added to the purple bird I made today along with a branch I will make. The little bird needed a tree branch to sit on, that is what was missing and that’s why things worked out the way they did yesterday.

Another reminder to let go, step back and let the universe lead me. I’m going to add that to my daily practice. I’m going to do that at least once everyday.

Community Sadhana Day 1 – Baubles and Bread

What’s this Siri Chand you say, a community Sadhana and you are starting all over AGAIN?!

Why yes, and what a long and slightly strange trip it’s been.

I had forgotten once again one day to do my meditation and with the holidays and all I decided to give myself a break. I felt that I was looking at the Sadhana process as more of a hindrance then a help and that wasn’t good. I had intended to begin again on January 1st but life got in the way mostly in the form of Lyme’s Disease which has been wreaking havoc on my body so I made the decision that when the time to begin again felt right I would start over.

Then a colleague of mine proposed a 40 day Sadhana at The Yoga Co-op where we both teach. She thought we could do it community style and people from anywhere could join us via our Facebook page

https://www.facebook.com/pages/40-Day-Community-Sadhana-at-The-Yoga-Co-op/343152615695572

or through email for guidance and inspiration and a place to share the ups and downs of the journey. Well there was the universe telling me that today was when I was meant to begin again. And how nice to know that I wouldn’t be doing it alone but with many people from all walks of life!

So the start date was set but what to do for my daily practice this time around? I initially thought of revisiting my last Sadhana attempt which was to paint a painting and meditate each day. When I took the time to take that thought in it didn’t feel right this time however.

I have a small handcrafted business on the side making all natural soaps and bath salts, tub fizzies, salt scrubs, sugar rubs, soy candles, jewelry and crochet toys and wears. Over the holidays I did extremely well selling locally and when I thought of this what I found really resonated with me was the idea of doing anything art or craft related each day along with a meditation. I want to keep things loose this time in the form of creativity and allow my artistic side to flow in any direction.

So today it flew in the direction of two of my favorite activities, crocheting and baking and yes, baking to me is a form of art as well, a tasty one.

I decided to try something I hadn’t tried before which was to make homemade pita bread. I had made homemade lemon and garlic hummus the night before and some falafels today and what’s a falafel without the pita bread?!

It all started with a tiny ball of dough….

which made beautiful popping sounds while I rolled it out……

and then the joy of baking it in a hot oven for two minutes on each side, ah what bliss….

and wha-la pita bread for all!

It was soooo good!

But I wasn’t done there! I had a hankering to keep going so I pulled out a crochet pattern that I hadn’t used for quite some time and decided to begin making some dainty earrings to match a cute top I had recently picked up at a local thrift store.

The pita bread proved much easier to make. While attempting to crochet I literally had my daughter twirling my hair sitting on one side of me, my son wanting to hold my hand while sitting on the other side of me and our dog sitting on my shoulder, half way on my head. Making earrings is no simple task mind you. You are working with a teeny tiny crochet hook and very thin string. It requires patience and mine was running short.

I felt myself going right back into an old habit pattern, one where I wanted to just hurry and get the earrings done so I could say I did them and the project was behind me and finished. That approach was the polar opposite of the purpose of the project as part of my Sadhana. So I let go, walked away from crocheting, enjoyed getting supper ready for my family and enjoyed even more all of us sitting down to a nice meal at the table. And once the children went down to sleep I went back and finished one earring and allowed myself to stop there for the day.

I CAN finish the other earring tomorrow, I have not failed, it is alright.

Now what was left for me was the meditation. I had been helping people find an appropriate meditation for their Sadhana’s for the last few weeks and hadn’t taken the time to find one for myself. So I pulled out some of my books and opened to Venus Kriya’s. Venus Kriya’s are advanced Kundalini Yoga practices that are meditations done with a partner, one man and one woman. My husband had decided that he wanted to be part of the Community Sadhana but also had not decided on a meditation. We had both made the commitment to omit refined sugar from our diets for 40 days and only enjoy anything sweet in the form of honey or fruit. The Heart Lotus Venus Kriya seemed like just the thing for us to do together as well. To take three minutes to meditate together looking into each others souls and experiencing our heart centers. I mean how nice is that?!

So I’m off to go do that now and tomorrow we’ll see where I’m taken next!

Sat Nam! I’m back to living life 40 days at a time!