All Kinds of Weather in Everyday Ramblings

The planting next to the track across the big street yesterday in between rain squalls. Still, it was lovely to be out in the fresh air. And I was fully geared up getting ready for our trip to the beach at the end of this week, where we are expecting rain every day. This is fine. We need the rain so much and as I mentioned above, I have gear.

I will record my Friday mat class early and am skipping weightlifting on Thursday afternoon, but I am going to try to have the morning warm up practice broadcast from the beach as a treat for us all on Friday morning.

This means my inner pony will need to practice delayed gratification in terms of getting out on the beach a tad bit before sunrise that day, which is getting so late these days, as our time change isn’t until the 7th.

We are so profoundly influenced by the weather and the seasonal cycles. It is being weird as our more extreme seasons get longer with climate change. It makes Autumn and Spring even more precious than they already are.

I am trying to decide if I need to hire a speech therapist or a vocal coach. My voice gets raspy, and I have, sadly, vocal fry, as well as the register still being very high. And my enunciation often leaves quite a bit to be desired.

In my mid-thirties I worked with a fabulous vocal coach in San Francisco. In was this brief period where professionally I was doing a fair amount of radio and television appearances. With the coach I worked mostly on bringing my voice down and enunciating better.

Besides having to look at myself when I teach on Zoom, I also need to listen to myself, and it is almost as torturous as looking at my body.

The defining problem is that I am a mouth breather. We, as a family, were born with less-than-ideal sinuses (as well as hearing) and it is hard, as hard as doing a handstand or a pull up, maybe more challenging, to breathe regularly through my nose.

This will take consistent regular practice. The payoffs are enormous though. I will sleep better (and I sleep well anyway because I am so active) and have more energy to do all the things I am procrastinating on. Plus, in every way imaginable it will make me a better, more effective yoga teacher.

You can kind of think of it as professional development.

This seems to be shaping up to be my winter project. It would be nice if I could take back some of that time and energy I was focusing on food and turn it towards this, but it is what it is.

This last week I was listening to a Dharma talk by Sylvia Boorstein who is in her 80’s now, talking about something she heard from a friend. The friend was talking about someone she knew, who as she was dying said, “Thank You, I have no complaints.”

That is something to ponder, isn’t it? Getting to that point. Is it possible?

Mrs. Sherlock and I participated in a League event a few days ago on solutions in supportive housing. The speaker from our tri-county regional oversight organization was so upbeat and full of good graphs and numbers and goals and plans. It was all so positive.

And in sharp contrast with what is happening out there right now in the rain.

Mrs. Sherlock made a heartfelt emotional plea for this organization to communicate more broadly what is being done to the rest of out here who are feeling hopeless. Because right now there is a lot of antagonism between property owners and city dwellers who are housed against those who are not.

Then an amazing woman who is now retired from running our biggest transitional housing program locally expressed a great deal of frustration and wariness that this money we are now starting to collect from a new tax we all passed almost two years ago be spent wisely and well.

It was a good thing to have participated in. Just knowing that there are thoughtful and smart people out there as affected by what is going on here is somewhat comforting.

One can’t help but think though that, like with climate, it is going to worse before it gets better. If it gets better.

We need to be strong to face the unfolding storm.

Last updated October 24, 2021