Yoga. Even Mayo Clinic embraces it.

Yoga. Even Mayo Clinic embraces it.  Their current list of the top ten ways to beat stress (mayoclinc.org) places yoga squarely in the number six spot.  Meditation, a component of a true yoga practice is in the number two spot.  Traditional and alternative medical practitioners tout yoga as an excellent prescription for relaxation, lowering high blood pressure, building immunity, reducing chronic pain, lowering anxiety levels, maintaining range of movement and increasing overall health.  Let me explain this blog entry's title: When I grew up on the Canadian prairies, Mayo Clinic was considered the finest medical facility to go to when the local doctors in Saskatchewan or Alberta were stumped.  Probably Montreal or Toronto would have had the same expertise but Mayo Clinic was closer. You could say, and you'd be right, that I grew up with tremendous respect for Mayo Clinic.

Om...the yoga symbol in Sanskrit

The original purpose of yoga was to calm the mind, to relax the mind and to focus inward.  That is still the primary focus of any true yoga practice today.  There are some yoga practices that focus only on stretches and poses and might more accurately be called gym workouts with a yoga flavor. There are several varieties of yoga but I am only familiar with two types.  For one winter in Canada, I practiced Iyengar yoga.  Iyengar yoga encourages the use of props: wooden blocks, canvas belts, walls, chairs and the emphasis in on attaining a perfect pose.  An Iyengar instructor might use his/her hands to help you achieve perfection in the pose.  I appreciated the Iyengar class that I took, and while it was my introduction to yoga, and I love yoga, I did not fall 'in love' with the Iyengar version.

Integral yoga,a form of Hatha yoga, claims my heart and passion.  The focus of Hatha yoga is stretching and relaxation.  About five years ago here in Santa Cruz, I spotted an advertisement for an Integral yoga class being offered in my neighborhood.  It was called “Relax with Yoga” and was held at a nearby community center.  It sounded perfect so two friends and I signed up.

Om, the yoga symbol in Jain

The teacher, with thirty or more years of experience, began with the story of yoga and I am going to try to repeat it here in my words.  (All mistakes are mine, not hers!)  She told us that a very long time ago yoga was developed as a way of quieting the mind, of going inward, of finding mental peace.  The first yoga participants found that sitting very still and focusing on their breathing helped them achieve a state of mental peace that they were unable to attain any other way.  Unfortunately sitting very still for long periods of time in order to achieve this mental state can be very hard on the body.  Just when the mental comfort level was highest, the physical discomfort of sore buttocks, tired backs and cramped legs would begin to creep in.  It is difficult to stay focused when physical pain is insinuating itself into your mind.  The ancient yogis ( someone who practices yoga) created a series of stretches or poses (called asanas) that if practiced regularly, would help them to sit in meditation for longer and longer periods of time without pain.  As a bonus, these ancient yogis found that these poses also increased their energy and vitality.  It seems that today’s research proves them right!

A typical Hatha yoga class with my teacher always begins with us sitting comfortably, eyes shut and mind focused inward. We chant Om three times and then we begin our movements.  Salutation to the sun is a moving posture that is done three times and provides a nice warm-up for the more difficult poses to come.  Poses with names such as the cobra, the fish, the bow, the short boat, the warrior, and the shoulder-stand make up the repertoire of every session.  There are countless poses and we constantly try new ones.  After the smoothly flowing series of poses, we go into the relaxation portion of the class. In the corpse position, flat on our backs, arms away from the body with palms facing up and legs slightly spread, we are guided by our teacher through carefully choreographed relaxation exercises.  We tighten our fists and then release them, we clench our jaws and then release them, and in this way, we work our way through our whole bodies.  On and on this goes until we feel as if our bodies are melting into the mats beneath us.  Cautioning us to let our bodies sleep while we keep our minds awake, the teacher guides us into the “yogic sleep”.  After a period of time (five to fifteen minutes), she slowly helps us awaken our bodies.  Once we are all sitting up again (some of us are loathe to leave the wonderful pose!), we practice some controlled breathing. We close with a short chant in Sanskrit that translates as this prayer:  May all people everywhere experience sweetness in their lives.  The final step in our yoga practice is perhaps the most beautiful part of all to me. Each person puts his/her palms together at the chest, bows his/her head slightly and says “Namaste” to the group.  Namaste (pronounced naw-maw-stay) might best be translated today like this: the spirit (or divinity or God) in me recognizes the spirit (or divinity or God) in you. This part always moves me deeply because it addresses my own need to acknowledge that there is Something greater than us.

Five years later, I continue to attend the same yoga class along with one of the friends that joined with me originally.  Why am I so committed to this activity?  Yoga came to me in a period of my life when I was extremely overweight, hitting my fifties, hurting with sciatica and suffering my fair share of stress and anxiety (or not so fair share, who knows?).  I was desperately in need of the benefits of yoga.  The blessing was that even when I was at my fattest, I could still do yoga.  I couldn’t do the poses perfectly but it didn’t matter.  Yoga is not competitive.  Anyone with any body shape or body condition can do yoga. Yoga is about doing the best you can with your body at any given time.  Our teacher says to imagine in our minds that we are doing the poses perfectly.  Truly liberating to me is that our teacher has us all close our eyes during class.  She explained that if we close our eyes, we are concentrating on our own bodies and as a result, we pay closer attention to what WE can do, and we end up with fewer injuries.  If I thought that everyone could have seen me in those first few sessions, I would have been too embarrassed to continue.  I could not do what my thin and trim friends could do, nor could I do what the twenty-year-old Gumby next to me could do! Still can't and don't care. As long as no one else could see how my rolls and bulges prevented me from bending more compactly (strap a couch cushion to your middle and try bending over and you will know what I felt like!), I was happy to keep trying.  An excellent teacher, my yoga instructor was always positive and encouraging and patient with her very fat student.  I found that with yoga, my anxiety and stress levels went down.  The night of the week that I always sleep the best is the night I have yoga class.  The sciatica pain only appears now when I miss two consecutive yoga sessions.  I found that the simple and spiritual (but non-religious) components of yoga contained in the meditation, chants and the beautiful Namaste ending are truly satisfying to me at this stage of my life.

Yoga for who?  From baby yoga that is parent-facilitated (ask my daughter what her 6-month-old son’s favorite pose is) to chair yoga for those physically not able to get up and down off the floor (cancer clinics, cardio rehab clinics, assisted living facilities, etc.), there is a yoga practice for every age and ability level. 


Trust in the Mayo Clinic.  We  Saskatchewanites (residents of Saskatchewan) of the Canadian prairies surely did!

NAMASTE

 

"It takes a long time to grow young." ~ Pablo Picasso

1st Birthday

So today is my birthday.  Whoop-de-doo.  Surely seemed like a much bigger deal when I was a kid.  I remember the excitement, the anticipation of the party and the cake and the presents!

There were basically three possibilities for my actual birthday party: a picnic at Eyre Park, a gathering at home of family or of my classmates. Each of these variations had its own appeal. Eyre Park was a tiny oasis of trees, water and sand in between my parents’ farm and my maternal grandparents’ farm, about six or seven miles from each farm. Oh we kids thought it was great to get to Eyre. We could swim (in a big slough), climb trees (and get a million mosquito bites) cook food outdoors (burned dropped wieners and scorched smoking marshmallows) jump off the big sand dunes (and bite clean through our tongues upon landing as one poor unfortunate cousin did) and generally forget for the hours that we were there that we lived on the dry dusty and hot Prairies. We kids really thought it an oasis, a little piece of magic where we could pretend that we were really on a vacation. Fifty years later, I marvel at what Eyre Park really looks like. Was it always that small, that bare, with a dried up slough and surrounded by stunted prairie wind-blown trees? Oh through the eyes of a child!

Most birthdays were celebrated at home mainly with family. It was hard to organize a birthday party with one’s classmates when it was summer holidays. My mom always made me a wonderful angel food cake for my birthday.  That was standard in our house. Mom made the highest and fluffiest angel food cakes in our neighborhood. I know the secret (thanks Mom) and no, I am not sharing it here. Usually the cake had the cooked egg whites and white sugar frosting that was known as “Seven Minute Frosting” in our neck of the woods.  I loved that cake and that frosting so much that I made the same cake and frosting for my five children’s birthdays. I am not sure if they appreciated it like I did.  Maybe I should have asked?  That cake and frosting became a tradition for my children whether they liked it or not!.



Looks like four candles!



Usually just before or just after the birthday meal, Mom would line us up in a straight line outdoors for the customary birthday ‘snaps’. Those pictures are treasures today even if I cannot singlehandedly identify all of the faces.



My birthday at Eyre Park (double click for more detail)



The birthday I remember most vividly was my 16^th.  I asked for and got a truly adult- type dinner party for about eight friends.  It was a sit-down dinner, no burned wieners or scorched marshmallows.  My mom outdid herself in the kitchen that day- fried chicken, mashed potatoes, fresh vegetables, and salads galore crowned with an English trifle dessert.  Let me tell you that trifle was tres exotic in my opinion!  I had tasted English trifle at my Aunt Bett’s house (she married a real Englishman you know) and I asked for it as the dessert. Why my mom even put up with me asking for this dinner party, let alone cooking it, serving it and cleaning up after it is truly beyond me. It is not like the end of July is a slow time on the farm and she had nothing better to do. She was a busy farm wife. Where she stashed my three siblings for the party, I don’t know, maybe  in the basement eating peanut butter sandwiches. I know my dad would have been in the field until dark.  I remember that birthday party so well. Maybe someday I will get the chance to host a special birthday party for her and her friends.  I think I prepare ‘sit-down adult-type dinner parties’ fairly well now, and I would love to do one for her.

Nowadays birthdays come and go with a minimum of fuss and that is how I like it.  I used to enjoy my birthdays.  I proudly stated my age publicly until I hit the 50 year mark.  Yikes!  That 50^th birthday nearly did me in.  I kept thinking that 50 marked the end of my dreams, hopes, and aspiration.  I assumed 50 marked the beginning of my physical and mental decline.  Thanks goodness I got over that. Well sort of.  No longer do I share my age except to say I am in my fifties. I realize that most of my work colleagues are much younger than me and I don’t want to stress them out by admitting my exact age. It might be more than they can take.  They might tell their friends that they work with a seriously old person (me) because 50 is outside their comfort zone. I remember thinking along those lines in my faraway past!  Also helping me get over the 50th birthday was the realization that the mental and physical declines were well-established before I hit 50, I simply had been in denial. That is another topic for another day entirely. J

So today I say to myself: Happy Birthday Old Girl! Remember Picasso's words about how long it takes to get 'young' and enjoy the minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years on your way there. Life is good. Birthdays are one way to celebrate life.

Who is Cindy Anderson Deetz and why is she writing a blog?

   As a woman in my fifties, I count myself to be really lucky because I have had two completely diverse periods in my life: in fact, I often refer to these parts as my ‘two lives’.  These ‘lives’ have given me very different experiences and skills.  Both lives have been very challenging and educational in their own ways, and each life has given me unique knowledge and distinctive perspectives on the world.

Flaxcombe Saskatchewan

Life number one started in Saskatchewan, Canada.  First, I lived in the world’s greatest durum-growing area and then in the dairy-farm-studded woodlands area of the province.  In life number one I was the daughter of grain farmers on the family homestead.  I then went on to become a dairy farmer for twenty-three years with my former husband.  Life number one also included five wonderful children born in a short seven years.  These wonderful offspring certainly added to the workload of our mom-and-pop dairy farm.  

Capitola California

 Life number two finds me situated on the coast of the Pacific Ocean living in the eclectic culture of Santa Cruz, California.  I drive over the coastal mountains daily to teach high school in San Jose.  If someone had told me fifteen years ago that I would live on the coast of California, teach high school students with learning disabilities, earn a Master’s degree all the while championing the cause of marginalized persons and their accessibility to education and employment, I would have laughed out loud. If they had continued by predicting that I would crave raw fish (as in sushi), pick up little warm dog poops in plastic bags and love rap music, I would have roared in laughter!

I have thoroughly enjoyed both of my ‘lives’.  Both lives have given me so many opportunities to learn.  During my first life I raised five successful children (two teachers, one farmer/agricultural services salesman, one firefighter, and a psychiatric nurse-in-training) all while being tied to the regime of the dairy farm. I milked cows, delivered calves, gave needles to cows, dehorned calves and cut extra teats off heifers. I learned how to dodge lightning quick kicks and manure-crusted cow tails, to tail-jack cows to make them stand still, to halter-break calves, to identify the cows that were in heat and needed to be artificially inseminated and to bring them in and out of their specific stalls for milking. I was the surgical assistant at several Cesarean sections, gastric repairs and embryo retrieval and implantation procedures. I shoveled manure, washed milking equipment, had a huge garden, raised and butchered chickens (200 one summer) and kept laying hens to supply our own eggs and to sell in town. Once my youngest child was in kindergarten, I began to work off the farm as well. This first life also included many community and educational activities such as a 4-H club, serving on the board of a non-profit dairy association, working as a teacher’s aide in my children’s school, involvement with the provincial Spina Bifida Association, working at a sheltered workshop with developmentally delayed and mentally ill adults, working  in a group home, working as an addictions counselor, working as an employment counselor and acquiring my undergraduate degree in psychology.  It was a time when I gathered much knowledge and discovered the direction of my future endeavors.

In my second life I began working as a full-time high school Special Education teacher in Santa Cruz, California.  I completed two teaching credentials, one in Special Education, and one in English while working full time.  I followed up with a Masters of Arts in Education degree including a human research project and thesis.  Over the past nine years, I have worked with many types of disadvantaged students: emotionally disturbed, those on probation and parole, students that are parents, those fighting addictions,  students that are Autistic or have Aspergers’ syndrome, gang-affiliated students, second language learners, students with learning disabilities including cognitive delays, physical limitations such as ADD/ADHD, and students with processing disorders.  I enjoy the challenge of these populations. I think "normal" students would be boring!   

  Seldom content with the status quo, I am driven to pursue knowledge and progress, to try new things, to find new solutions to problems through diligent research.  I will always be a student! As a forty-year-old, I completed the undergraduate degree I began as a seventeen-year-old.  I found the biggest difference between my two sessions of university was that instead of wanting to know ‘just enough’ as a teenager, as an adult learner, I wanted to know it all! In my fifties, I completed my Masters in Education.

I love to take photographs, learn something new, read voraciously, write short pieces and dream of writing BIG pieces. In this blog, I intend to share some of my writing and photographs from the multiple perspectives of my life: farmer, former Prairie dweller, teacher, mother,grandmother,  perpetual student, current California resident, dual citizen of Canada and the USA just to name a few. I love to write but I also love to be read. I welcome any and all feedback. In fact, I crave it so that I can improve..

And now let the journey begin...................