Rebellion is brewing...

So I had my surgery.  Here's me recovering

Here's me on day 3...

Here's my story.  I traveled to Bali to teach Yoga to a bunch of executives from E!  After I got my $3 million for the guest appearance during which I was worshipped and offered my own gig I went for a dip in the warm pool right off my bedroom.  Here I am meditating in gratitude for my great fortune.

Because I was buzzed from morning margaritas, I fell in by this lotus flower and a leech attached to my collarbone.  I'm home now and for the life of me I can't get it off.

I wish.

I will likely have a 'large, ropey' scar left from this round of skin cancer surgery since women make thicker more keloid scars on their trunks.  What the hell!?!?  Later I will have steroids injected into the scar to settle it down.  Does that make you squirm?  It does me.

AND

I have to have more surgery on my face.  That cute round bandaid in picture 1 is from a biopsy that came back positive for more deep skin cancer.  Hopefully, THIS IS IT.  And I can move on to the plastic surgery to repair the scars on my forehead.  I will look fabulous from the eyebrows up.  It's something.

All this said.  I am feeling very rebellious now.  Looking for a respectable, ethical, moral and legal way to live out loud.  So yesterday I was at home alone - which NEVER happens and I cranked up the tunes and danced around my house like I was 25 again winning a dance contest which DID happen (unlike the Bali fantasy).  Chicken.  I was alone.  Next I need an audience.

In the spirit of living in the moment and being a little crazy - I was thinking about getting my belly button pierced.  I have done away with the tattoo idea (too much commitment involved).  What's rebellious to you and would you do it?   

I do not have Munchausen's

However, I can't wait for my surgery.  In 2 days I am having this removed...

Not my collarbone but the quarter-sized pinkish blob of skin cancer.

(I wish I were having my neck trimmed and smoothed.)

I am also having a smaller area near my left eye excised for the same reason and a consult for scar revision from an earlier incident. 

This will involve an open wound, stitches and the smell of my own skin.  I can't wait.  Why?  BECAUSE FOR 2 DAYS NO ONE WILL EXPECT A THING FROM ME.  Yes!  I will have guiltless down-time.  This is not Munchhausen's but someone who needs to learn to sit still without a reason.  That it's actually beneficial to do nothing.    

 A person with Munchhausen's Syndrome  feigns disease, illness, or psychological trauma in order to draw attention or sympathy to themselves.  (Wikkipedia)

I don't want illness just stillness. 

For this opportunity to tune inward and check out for a number of hours, I am grateful.

I am also grateful for:

• catching this rascal before it got out of hand.
• my friends and family that have offered to help out.
• my exceptionally good health. (save this little snafu).
• the support of my husband and children to train to become a Yoga Teacher.
• the love of my family and friends.
• the world's best parents.  (Miss you, Mom and Dad)
• you, for reading this post and any others you may have perused. 

I'll let you know how it goes.

Keeping it real...

Today's little confession:  I returned home from day one of my anatomy workshop on Saturday evening.  After six hours of instruction on body parts my brain was fried.  My children were glad to see me which is a nice feeling.  My scrumptious 7-year old was especially excited dancing all about my person, swinging on the arm of the chair I was sitting in - chattering a mile a minute.  I say to her:  "Can't you just faint for a few minutes?"  I thought I was being funny.  Not so much.  I need this little rest coming my way.

What is your confession?

30-day wagon ride

I'm promoting clarity. Vibrancy, enthusiasm, peace and contentedness. 
How?  I am getting out of my own way.  Yoga is a major method to erasing the madness of cloudy living but other tricks toward clarity include:
Nasal cleansing.  Here's my very own Netti pot:

I am no longer a virgin.  Today I put the long end up one nostril and let water drip out of the other.  My breath is free and clear which is the point.  This practice is supposed to aid your Yoga practice making way for good, healthy big breaths.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Morning meditation without a hangover. 

As part of my YTT homework, I am to meditate every day.  I have found it so much more enjoyable without the leftovers from happy hour picking away at my eyelids.  I've never been a heavy drinker (1 to 2 glasses of wine a day) but I wine it out nearly everyday.  For thirty days I am on the wagon.  I am currently on day 10 and making it.  Again, clarity and vibrancy without anything in the way.  I'll let you know how my serpentine spine electrifies my very soul.  That's the plan.

Life is to be savored not withstood.  The only way to notice everything that's going on around us is to to experience it.  Having the senses unimpeded by anything in our control so we can  absorb the life within and around us.  Isn't the point of our humanity to stop and smell the fall foliage?

 What's in your way? 

Yeah, baby!!

Pranaaaahhh!
Prana (प्राण, prāṇa) is the Sanskrit for "vital life" (from the root prā "to fill", cognate to Latin plenus "full"). It is one of the five organs of vitality or sensation, viz.  In Vedantic philosophy, prana is the notion of a vital, life-sustaining force of living beings and vital energy, comparable to the Chinese notion of Qi.  (wikipedia)
In prana, a great big "Oh, baby!" sits in your throat ready to come out.
"Oh, baby!" just wants to come out.  It can happen when...
You are in perfect alignment during a Yoga pose.

You run a race

You set a perfect table for dinner with your favorite people

Maybe your hair  looks good today.  Or  your herbs are happy.

That counts.   Creating, writing, sailing, hugging, praying, dancing, looking in the eyes of a loved one all let prana flow.

It is accessible to all of us all the time, we just have to learn to cultivate and harvest it.  It makes us alive and as long as we have breath, we have prana.  Yeah, baby! 

In Yoga, we are taught to notice Pranic moments and let them  imprint.  We are trained not to react but let it be.  Soon it will be woven within us and we may feel the urge to "Yeah, baby" much often.  I like that prognosis. 

I must go feed my dogs who are circling me like they've never seen food.  If they could, they bark out a big "Yeah, baby" whenever they see their full bowls.

What fills your bowl?

Old School

 Jam on it.
If you don't admit you remember this song you are WEAK and a LIAR.
Three words to the whack, step yourself back
Just gettin' down, and you then you're givin' no slack
Like a Burger King with a sack of Big Macs
We're throwin' down with the radical sacks
On time, in your mind you see
You gotta boogie to your best ability
You gotta funk it up until it knocks you down
And when you're funkin' up, be sure to pass it around
Come on, let's go to work
We got what'll make your body jerk
Make you throw your hands up in the air
Shake your booty and scream, "Oh, yeah"
?Cause we are the Jam On Crew
And jammin' on it is how we do the do
We'll funk you up until you boogie down
So come people check out the sound
Check out the sound, check out the sound, check out the sound, check out the sound
Check out the sound, check out the sound, check out the sound, check out the sound
Check out the sound

Newcleus

This is not my Yoga Teacher Training class, but it could be. 
WE ARE ALL OLD SCHOOL. 

We are old and WE  HAVE HOMEWORK.

Like the student I used to be I started right away.

Only this time I'm not distracted by $5.00 pitchers of watery stale beer at JM's.  I actually want to do it.

Our YTT homework includes 5 minutes of mandatory meditating.  That's right.  Sitting still, visualizing, breathing and thinking about NOTHING.  It's much harder than it seems.  With the meditating comes chanting and I haven't brought myself to do it out loud yet since I get up early for this little solo party (no, not THAT kind). My family just may wonder even more deeply what up wit her?  Plus if they interrupted my flow I'd just say...

Wikki-wikki-wikki-wikki

(Shut up)
Wikki-wikki-wikki-wikki

And they'd KNOW I was old school. 

Come on.  You know you SO remember this song even if you've grown up be the head of six corporations, a doctor, a lawyer, a priest, a teacher, a writer, a mother, lover, a friend, a social worker, a soul mate or a rapper.  You all have newcleus and you'll all be yogis and yoginis when I get done with you.  Word.

i say hip hop
 hippy to the hippity hip hip hop,
You don't stop rockin
to the bang, bang, boogie
say upchuck the boogie
to the rhythm, to the boogie the beat
say we are the jam on crew and jammin it on is the best we do.

 That was my chant in the early 80's.  What did you chant then?

Pull me, stretch me, heal me

So I can do the same to you.  As of Friday, I am a Yoga teacher in the making.  I started a YTT program through Yogaworks at a studio in Carytown.  Yogaworks blends Iyengar, Ashtanga, and Vingyasa styles of Hatha Yoga.  There's a strong meditative component to the curriculum too.  I am excited, overwhelmed, happy, filled, teary, nervous, vulnerable, thrilled over this journey.   I have 19 new friends and I think I love them all.  Doctors, cancer survivors, nurses, moms, grandmoms, dads, belly dancers comprise the group.  The process promises to be transformative. 

Alas, as indispensable as I think I am - my family survived just fine without me all weekend.  My 7 year-old daughter attended a wedding in the Outer Banks of North Carolina thanks to the kindness of our dear friends, Larry and Megan.

Mary Anne Kennelly Tysinger with Bibby, Maggie, and (my) Jane

Kathleen spent the weekend with my sister and her family and when I picked her up she didn't want to leave.  Love it!  Nicholas went hunting with Mike and watched college football (go JMU).  So you see, all that bending over backwards for them is not critical to any one's survival.  Except mine.   I'm up to 16 a day.

Finally, my hamstring is healed.  My Yoga teacher trainer, Jeanmarie Paolillo plugged my hip into it's socket with wild abandon and I have been pain-free ever since.  She is a saint and inspiring and beautiful and talented and funny and cool and so very good at what she does.  She is of service to her students.  I promise you, I will be too.  Let the healing begin!

What did you do this weekend?

Alicia Keys

Septemer 11, 2010
 I am not eloquent enough to bring us to a moment of remembrance on this day. I have been crying a lot lately though.  Time of year.  Time of the month.  Or it could be this.

Alicia Keys and Jay-Z

Empire State of Mind

Yankess vs. Phillies

Go to itunes and listen to Alicia Keys' solo version of this song.  It made me so sad for New York, you know - the person.  We all know The City never sleeps, has character, is vibrant and scary and overpopulated and nine years ago it got a heartbeat.  I want to wrap my arms around her and hold on.  I've been to Ground Zero where the sidewalks and streets are rich with the life lost, life present, and life to come.  I didn't know anyone personally who died in or around the Twin Towers or The Pentagon or the field in Pennsylvania.  With six degress of separation, we all knew someone.  I am sad for everyone's someone. 

 In Virginia, like in many places there was at moment of silence at 9:39 the minute the plane crashed into the target in our state.  My older two children were too young to remember it and my third wasn't on the planet yet.  I said they should just sit still and think about their freedom.  I thought I might pray specifically in words since I am never at a loss for them.  Instead, only Todd Beemer came to mind.  Everytime I say "Let's Roll" let it be a tribute to my friends New York, Virgnia and Pennsylvannia. 

Listen to Alicia Keys, she might make you cry too.  Today's the day for it. 

Donate to your local foodbank!